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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: 0.212s | 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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bena ◴[10 Jul 25 14:05 UTC] No.44521257[source]▶
I think the overall point is that we will never get there.

Renewables will never be cheap enough to fully replace fossil fuels, batteries will never be good enough.

No matter what, as long as the cost of extracting and burning fossil fuels is less than the result of what gets produced by the consumption, someone will be doing it.

It’s why crypto will never solve the energy issue. Why AI/GPT/LLM won’t either. Especially when the cost of that output is pegged to the cost of generating the above.

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1. toomuchtodo ◴[10 Jul 25 14:23 UTC] No.44521458[source]▶
The price of LFP batteries in China is $35/kWh for cells, $52/kWh for fully integrated systems [1]. Roughly 1TW of solar is being deployed globally every year. We’re already there, it’s just a matter of pushing the pedal down harder. China destroys half a million barrels a day of global oil demand every year they build EVs at current output levels, which are still increasing.

Fossil fuels are already dead, it’s just time horizon. How fast we want to go is a function of how much fiat we want to shovel into PV solar and battery manufacturing.

[1] https://reneweconomy.com.au/watershed-moment-big-battery-sto...