The Economist: Solar Power An energy-rich future is within reach
The next ten-fold increase will be equivalent to multiplying the world’s entire fleet of nuclear reactors by eight in less than the time it typically takes to build just a single one of them.
To call solar power’s rise exponential is not hyperbole, but a statement of fact.
Installed solar capacity doubles roughly every three years, and so grows ten-fold each decade.
Such sustained growth is seldom seen in anything that matters. That makes it hard for people to get their heads round what is going on.
When it was a tenth of its current size ten years ago, solar power was still seen as marginal even by experts who knew how fast it had grown.
Solar cells will in all likelihood be the single biggest source of electrical power on the planet by the mid 2030s.
By the 2040s they may be the largest source not just of electricity but of all energy.
On current trends, the all-in cost of the electricity they produce promises to be less than half as expensive as the cheapest available today.
The Economist 22 June 2024
“A global, irreversible, solar tipping point may have passed where solar energy gradually comes to dominate global electricity markets, without any further climate policies,” concluded a recent paper by the World Bank and Europe’s leading universities.
The “technological learning rate” of solar, wind, and now batteries is so relentless that a 24/7 mix is already cheaper than new coal in most of the world, and will become massively cheaper almost everywhere over time.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Telegraph 5 December 2023
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2023/12/we-no-longer-need-cop-circus-technology.html
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