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Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

(www.newyorker.com)
353 points dmazin | 2 comments | 09 Jul 25 12:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.458s | source
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ryukoposting ◴[09 Jul 25 13:34 UTC] No.44509883[source]▶
> offering a plausible check to not only the climate crisis but to autocracy. Instead of relying on scattered deposits of fossil fuel—the control of which has largely defined geopolitics for more than a century—we are moving rapidly toward a reliance on diffuse but ubiquitous sources of supply.

A lot of this article was clearly written with rose-colored glasses on, but this might be the silliest line of all. The author just finished talking about how a single country makes up the overwhelming share of solar panel and battery production, but hey, look how much more "diffuse and ubiquitous" it is!

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1. bryanlarsen ◴[09 Jul 25 13:46 UTC] No.44509996[source]▶
Once you build a solar plant, you no longer have a dependence on the country that made those solar panels. That solar plant will function for 50 years with very little maintenance. China is basically a single point of failure for future power expansion, but they can't take away solar plants already built.
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2. throwaway2037 ◴[10 Jul 25 09:54 UTC] No.44519223[source]▶

    > China is basically a single point of failure for future power expansion
Not really. There used to be many more competitors, but Chinese govt support for their industry crushed competition elsewhere. It will a little bit more expensive to buy panels made outside China. That's it.