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

(www.newyorker.com)
353 points dmazin | 1 comments | 09 Jul 25 12:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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rel_ic ◴[10 Jul 25 13:39 UTC] No.44520938[source]▶
Renewable energy is great, but we're not replacing fossil fuels with it, we're just adding more energy usage. And our energy usage is destroying the environment.

Don't let these advancements in solar make you think things are getting better. We need to reduce fossil fuel usage, not just increase solar usage.

https://pocketcasts.com/podcasts/b3b696c0-226d-0137-f265-1d2...

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amarait ◴[10 Jul 25 13:44 UTC] No.44521010[source]▶
What replaces fossil fuels is some kind of breakthrough in batteries. At the moment its getting better every year were currently at less than $100 per KWh which is crazy but needs to be improved for allowing more off the grid energy consumption
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1. pjc50 ◴[10 Jul 25 13:59 UTC] No.44521191[source]▶
The lesson from solar is that it won't be "a breakthrough" but the gradual accumulation of a thousand different efforts at cost-shaving across the whole supply chain making batteries gradually but inexorably cheaper.

There won't be fanfare when fixed batteries start using sodium chemistry rather than lithium, for example, but that will start happening across the next few years.