“ And solar was the fastest-growing electricity source for the 20th year in a row.
It now provides 7% of the world's electricity”
replies(6):
It now provides 7% of the world's electricity”
Now, their prices have gone down, their generation per unit has gone up, and much more is known about how they behave long-term.
The world has a LOT of power generation. It will take time to replace. But with every time that some existing power generation source shuts down due to age, or expansion occurs somewhere, it will inevitably be done with solar/wind. It's just more cost effective now.
In the end it is not environmental concerns that will cause solar and wind to become commonplace. It's just economics. Slapping down something that generates power for 20-30 years with no input fuel is just way more economically feasible than anything that requires fuel. They still have maintenance costs, but it's nothing by comparison. They can completely undercut other sources of power.
But, storage is already growing at a pace similar to solar because it's cheaper than the alternatives.
It's absorbing a third of California's generation at solar peak and then delivering a third of demand in the evening.
The future is here, just not everywhere yet.
Covering the incremental evening demand peak is one thing. Converting fuel oil and natural gas-based heating to electric and then covering the nighttime winter heating load in northern latitudes is something else entirely.
Gas boilers are now the leading source of NOx pollution in London since they've made so much progress on traffic sources.
Whereas heat pumps powered by nuclear reactors work pretty well, if you could get the cost of nuclear reactors under control by getting mass production going.
Yes, there are going to be places like Nuorgam in Finland where a population of 200 may turn out to be non-economical to put on the same suitably upgraded HVDC grid as everyone else, but they're also not getting e.g. a dedicated nuclear reactor any time soon.
Yes, that does still leave oil and gas in such places. Or would, if the oil and gas remained economical to supply internationally when the majority of users worldwide stop using it. Biofuels (e.g. wood in a fireplace) is still a thing, even if not fantastic for either health or environment. I have no idea if we're going to see other long-term chemistry-based solutions, people keep talking about ammonia but it's too far out of my knowledge to argue for or against.
[0] I'm 52° north and for the last 6 months was wearing T-shirts indoors for an average of 17 kWh per day (for everything: heating, hot water, appliances, tech) even though there were a few times I accidentally left a huge window open for hours. It's very well insulated and has a heat pump.
[1] Longer days closer to the equator. North tip of Lapland has 52 days without sunrise in winter[2], but it's just a question of "how much money and what's the cheaper alternative" for a grid connection that ultimately ends up in the Sahara where the winter solstice day length is 10 hours[3].
[2] https://www.finavia.fi/en/newsroom/2023/what-polar-night-exp...
[3] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=Tataouine+sunrise+21+De...
On 21 December, the day is about 77 minutes longer in Miami than in NYC, and panels in Miami aren't going to be covered in snow.
> Can you create a long distance transmission line from New York to Brazil?
Yes. $$$.
Spend enough (production is high enough for this, yes I have checked, it's just how much money you want to spend) and it could be from NYC to Perth Australia.
> Even if you could in theory, probably not in practice, and even regardless of the technical factors nobody is going to want that kind of cross-border dependency for something as important as heating.
Also true. Unfortunately.