Radical Energy Abundance

Their wordsPer doubling of production, costs have fallen a consistent 30-40% since 1970, but it’s only in the last few years that this price has become competitive with legacy electricity generation

Their wordsA number of commentators have consistently predicted that solar cost improvements will level out “this year” since about 1990, and yet if anything deployment, cost decline, and the learning rate have only improved.

Their wordsThe logical end state of this displacement is not some hybrid grid with around 20% solar backed up by spinning generation, but a much more dynamic, versatile grid with around 200% solar generation and hours to days or weeks of battery storage, fully decoupling time of generation and consumption.

Their wordsThe default climate discourse in recent years has been congruent to an acceptance that curtailing CO2 emissions would require the regrettable but ultimately impersonal de-industrialization and re-impoverishment of most of the world, which is both morally repugnant and politically impossible to achieve without first use of nuclear weapons.

Their wordsCheap solar is the unlock that brings human progress and climate action from the realm of fundamental incompatibility to complimentary inevitability.

Their wordsFollowing current trends to second order, >95% of humanity’s energy needs will be downstream of solar panels by 2042, just 19 years away, and alongside enormous expansion in direct use of electricity, fuel consumption will grow to more than $25T/year in equivalent dollars.

Their wordsWe expect growth to at least double to 6%/year, for a cumulative tripling of the global economy by 2042.