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

(www.newyorker.com)
353 points dmazin | 3 comments | 09 Jul 25 12:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.639s | source
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jonplackett ◴[10 Jul 25 08:19 UTC] No.44518605[source]▶
> 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. The sun and the wind are available everywhere

I’m all for solar - but does it really solve the geographical / geopolitical issues of oil, as it’s currently rolling out?

China produces pretty much all the solar panels - That’s quite a big concentration of power, even more so than oil.

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1. adrianN ◴[10 Jul 25 11:19 UTC] No.44519718[source]▶
Solar panels are not that hard to produce. China just does it cheaper than other countries. Any industrialized country can easily set up the necessary infrastructure if they choose to do so for strategic reasons.
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2. jonplackett ◴[10 Jul 25 23:54 UTC] No.44526998[source]▶
They’re not hard to produce but they are hard to produce really cheap as in as cheap as China. For lots of reasons (state aid being one, extreme competition being another).

It’s hard in a capitalist country to do things that don’t make business sense - eg long term thinking. So I don’t see any reasonable route where China isn’t still making all the panels any time soon.

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3. adrianN ◴[11 Jul 25 03:48 UTC] No.44528222[source]▶
As long as China keeps making the panels and selling them for cheap there is no problem at all with that. When they decide to stop doing that other countries can pick up after a short ramp up time, for a little more money.