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

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353 points dmazin | 1 comments | 09 Jul 25 12:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.247s | 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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kragen ◴[10 Jul 25 08:39 UTC] No.44518740[source]▶
I’m all for solar - but does it really solve the geographical / geopolitical issues of oil, as it’s currently rolling out?

Yes, because if the US blockades you so you can't import oil, your trucks and power plants stop running in six weeks. If the US blockades you so you can't import Chinese solar panels, your power grid stops running in 20 years. Actually, that's just the end of the warranty period, so more like 30. Or 40. The US is gonna have to keep up that blockade for a long time before it starts causing you any pain. Probably after the President For Life dies.

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roenxi ◴[10 Jul 25 08:54 UTC] No.44518832[source]▶
Not to mention that 20 years is enough time to develop a native industry of solar panel manufacturers. The issue with oil is it requires a constant flow of resources from specific locations in the world that are blessed by geography. Solar power has much less of that going on.
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kragen ◴[10 Jul 25 09:08 UTC] No.44518926[source]▶
It's possible, but you may have noticed that out of the ≈200 countries in the world, over the last 20 years, about 180 of them have completely failed to develop a native industry of solar panel manufacturers, and about 100 of them have completely failed to develop a native industry of anything, continuing their agrarian and resource-extraction economies more or less as they have been for centuries, just with imported Chinese cellphones. People in those countries often blame the rich countries for keeping them down, for example by selling them goods at lower prices than their domestic production of those goods, and they're not completely wrong, but in many cases the dynamics preventing them from escaping that equilibrium are mostly internal.

Hypothetically, yes, such a blockaded country could develop a native industry of solar panel manufacturers in 20 years, and that industry would have an easier time traveling up the learning curve on the domestic market without having to match the prices of the Chinese hyperscalers. But in about 90% of cases they would fail to do so, for the same reasons the US still doesn't have any high-speed trains 60 years after the Shinkansen entered service and still doesn't have a moon base 56 years after Neil Armstrong.

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HappMacDonald ◴[10 Jul 25 10:44 UTC] No.44519486[source]▶
> for the same reasons the US still doesn't have any high-speed trains 60 years after the Shinkansen entered service and still doesn't have a moon base 56 years after Neil Armstrong.

So.. lack of demand and ROI?

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1. maigret ◴[11 Jul 25 12:38 UTC] No.44531435[source]▶
Transport is heavily dependent on infrastructure. If you have a train between city A and city B but you can get to and from the train station without a car, this is not going to work.

But markets are far from the only mover here. Regulation, lobbying, habits... Also I guess the US would feel ashamed for not building their trains themselves in the first place, they would probably have to buy them abroad... So "proudness" is probably a factor here too.

High speed trains in the part of Europe I know are very well utilized and even a bit too crowded to my taste (still way better than planes - allow working easily with table, walking, no absurd wait times waiting in line at the airports, arrive much nearer to my actual goals...).