korrents

What Casey Handmer thinks about solar

@casey-handmer · 76 positions · 2 changes of mind

Physicist, formerly at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and founder of Terraform Industries, which is building plant to make synthetic natural gas from sunlight and air. Writes about energy, space and manufacturing at caseyhandmer.wordpress.com.

Everything they publish, on ppll ↗

Casey Handmer did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

26 dated positions, 2019 to 2025, in their own words. Our reading of what Casey Handmer has said — not written or endorsed by them.

Our readingThe through-line is a learning curve that has not stopped: every doubling of production takes another third off the price. What follows from it, again and again, is that overbuilding beats storing, and that power this cheap should be spent rather than conserved.

Their wordsInert glass rectangles that, placed on the ground, print out wealth, at roughly 100x the rate of the best farm land.

A solar panel is a manufactured object that produces wealth rather than consuming it, at a hundred times the rate of the best farmland.

  1. Our readingData centres will end up net suppliers of power to their communities, because a solar plant big enough to keep the machines running spills most of what it makes.

    Their wordsOn the flip side, these captive solar power plants will be curtailing approximately 75% of their generated power and will be able to provide net power on all but a few days per year.

    ↗Energy Predictions 2025caseyhandmer.wordpress.com 2nd of 6 in this piece

    data centers

    Interesting

  3. Our readingThe United Kingdom is the one rich industrial country that cannot run on solar alone, and it has to build wind at scale instead.

    Their wordsThe only highly populated industrial country unable to trivially meet its electricity and synthetic fuel needs with solar alone is the United Kingdom, due primarily to a high population density and high latitude. The Nordic and Baltic countries are tiny by comparison. Among other problems, the UK needs to decide if it wants the future where energy is cheap and it is rich, or the future where energy is expensive and it is poor. If the former, it is time to get serious about large scale deployment of wind power, using home-grown vertically integrated technology at prices as low as $10/MWh.

    ↗Energy Predictions 2025caseyhandmer.wordpress.com 6th of 6 in this piece

    energy

    Interesting
  4. 5 weeks earlier

  5. Our readingOrion was designed without reference to any mission it could actually fly.

    Their wordsIt’s also a capsule to nowhere, designed without reference to any mission architecture that resembles our actual solar system.

    ↗NASA’s Orion Space Capsule Is Flaming Garbagecaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 3rd of 4 in this piece

    Interesting
  6. 3 months earlier

  7. Our readingChina's advantage in solar manufacturing is neither cheap labour nor a friendlier business environment: the first is gone and the second was never true.

    Their wordsso the mainstream view would say, well, China has cheaper labor, which is no longer true, uh, say compared to Mexico, and it's got lower environmental regulations, uh, which is true, and that it is more businessfriendly, which is absolutely crazy.

    ↗China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmeryoutube.com 4th of 24 in this recording

    China

    Interesting

  9. Our readingThe United States could localise the entire solar supply chain, from dirt to finished module, in two years or less if it started today.

    Their wordsAnd I think the United States could probably do that in 2 years or less if you started today. Like it's currently 11:00, so like we're going to start cutting checks by noon.

    ↗China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmeryoutube.com 5th of 24 in this recording

    America

    Interesting

  11. Our readingThe binding constraint on the AI build-out is chips, not power, which is why not having a solar panel factory will never be on the critical path.

    Their wordsThey're focused on the chips, right? Because they understand like the key bottleneck is the chips, not the solar power, right?

    ↗China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmeryoutube.com 6th of 24 in this recording

    Interesting

  13. Our readingSolar's growth is not merely continuing but accelerating, and the rate of that acceleration is itself still rising.

    Their wordsIt is not only the case that solar adoption, production, price decreases are continuing. They're accelerating. And the rate that they're accelerating is still accelerating.

    ↗China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmeryoutube.com 10th of 24 in this recording

    Interesting

  15. Our readingNobody will finance new gas turbine factories, because paying one off takes twenty years of a market that solar and batteries will already have taken.

    Their wordsYou you also don't know like in order to make that money back, you have to then operate that plant at that capacity for 20 years, right? And if I was looking at the same charts as they're looking at right now, I'd say what are the odds that in 25 years time we can produce gas turbines at a price that is relevant in a world where solar is already at its current price and batteries at a price where they're already like you cannot win.

    ↗China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmeryoutube.com 11th of 24 in this recording

    batteries

    Interesting

  17. Our readingWithin a few years, the majority of newly broken-ground data centres will be mostly solar-powered.

    Their wordsSo I think within a few years we'll probably see that like the majority of new DCs that are going in will be mostly solar

    ↗China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmeryoutube.com 12th of 24 in this recording

    data centers

    Interesting

  19. Our readingA solar-powered data centre can cut its power draw a great deal while giving up very little compute, which is how it survives a run of bad weather.

    Their wordsactually it turns out that you can significantly decrease power consumption with a very small reduction in overall compute. So if you if you've got like three really bad days in a row or something, you can actually just like you can dial back your power usage quite a lot without compromising your inference or or um or training.

    ↗China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmeryoutube.com 14th of 24 in this recording

    data centers

    Interesting

  21. Our readingCovering desert in solar panels is good for the desert: it shades the ground, holds moisture, and would pay for reversing desertification.

    Their wordsAnd the impact of solar array on desert is arguably positive because it shades the ground and improves like soil moisture retention. Um there like if you wanted to reverse desertification, you would basically just deploy solar panels on it and that would pay for the process.

    ↗China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmeryoutube.com 17th of 24 in this recording

    Interesting

  23. Our readingWith nearly free solar power, industrial processes optimised for efficiency should be redesigned to use far more power and run faster and cheaper instead.

    Their wordsYou can revisit a bunch of legacy industrial processes that are have been optimized for efficiency and say, well, what if we just like use twice as much power and we just want to do them faster and cheaper, right? Like less capex, less lead time, more power, right?

    ↗China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmeryoutube.com 24th of 24 in this recording

    Interesting
  24. 9 months earlier

  25. Our readingA solar panel is a manufactured object that produces wealth rather than consuming it, at a hundred times the rate of the best farmland.

    Their wordsInert glass rectangles that, placed on the ground, print out wealth, at roughly 100x the rate of the best farm land.

    ↗Solar and batteries for generic use casescaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 1st of 3 in this piece

    Interesting

  27. Our readingBelow about a thousand dollars a kilowatt of capital cost, the right way to run a plant is intermittently on raw solar with no batteries at all.

    Their wordsFor loads below $1000/kW, intermittent operation with some modest solar array oversizing is the winning strategy. Above $1000/kW, we charge and discharge batteries daily to run them.

    ↗Solar and batteries for generic use casescaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 2nd of 3 in this piece

    batteries

    Interesting

  29. Our readingPast a point it is cheaper to overbuild solar than to add batteries, because a battery kept for the rare bad day is barely used.

    Their wordsA battery that’s discharging every day gets great utilization, but one that’s only there in case the sun doesn’t come up for two days in a row, barely gets used.

    ↗Solar and batteries for generic use casescaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 3rd of 3 in this piece

    batteries

    Interesting
  30. 12 months earlier

  31. Our readingThere is almost no lower-impact use of low-value land than covering it with solar panels.

    Their wordsIn summary, it is hard to imagine a lower impact use of low-value land than solar development.

    ↗Permitting Reform Or Deathcaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 1st of 4 in this piece

    Interesting

  33. Our readingThe binding constraint on building anything in America is permitting and litigation, not money.

    Their wordsYet solar development is hopelessly snarled by dozens of different development regulations which begin with the assumption that it will permanently and severely harm the environment unless proven otherwise, at exhaustive length.

    ↗Permitting Reform Or Deathcaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 1st of 4 in this piece

    Americapermitting

    Interesting
  34. 4 weeks earlier

  35. Our readingEvery doubling of the solar built worldwide has cut its price by 30 to 40 per cent, and that learning rate is why the price keeps falling.

    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

    ↗Radical Energy Abundancecaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 1st of 7 in this piece

    energy

    Interesting

  37. Our readingSolar has got cheaper faster than even its most optimistic forecasters expected.

    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.

    ↗Radical Energy Abundancecaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 2nd of 7 in this piece

    Interesting

  39. Our readingThe end state of the grid is not a fifth solar backed by spinning generation, but twice the demand in solar with days of storage behind it.

    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.

    ↗Radical Energy Abundancecaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 3rd of 7 in this piece

    energybatteries

    Interesting

  41. Our readingCheap clean energy has broken the old trade-off between raising living standards and cutting environmental harm.

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

    ↗Radical Energy Abundancecaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 6th of 7 in this piece

    energy

    Interesting

  43. Our readingMore than 95% of the energy humanity uses will come from solar panels by 2042.

    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.

    ↗Radical Energy Abundancecaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 7th of 7 in this piece

    energy

    Interesting
  44. 8 weeks earlier

  45. Our readingGreen hydrogen gets cheap by building cheaper, less efficient electrolysers that run only when the sun shines.

    Their wordswe have to follow the cheapest solar wherever it leads – in this case away from 100% utilization and high electrical efficiency.

    ↗How to Produce Green Hydrogen for $1/kgcaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 2nd of 3 in this piece

    Interesting

  47. Our readingHydrogen made directly from raw solar power will be the cheapest chemical energy available anywhere by the end of this decade.

    Their wordsI am 100% confident that by the time we are mass producing this system at these prices later this decade, not only will this be the cheapest hydrogen available anywhere, it will also be the cheapest chemical energy and by far the most scalable

    ↗How to Produce Green Hydrogen for $1/kgcaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 3rd of 3 in this piece

    energy

    Interesting
  48. 4 years earlier

  49. Our readingSpace-based solar power will never supply electricity to Earth, because it is thousands of times too expensive.

    Their wordsMy view is that space-based solar power is impossibly expensive and will never be used on Earth.

    ↗Space-based solar power is not a thingcaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 1st of 3 in this piece

    energy

    Interesting

  51. Our readingEven at Starship's promised prices, the cost of launching a power station dwarfs everything else about it.

    Their wordsEven if all of Elon Musk’s wildest Starship dreams come true, transport costs will dominate the total capex of any space-based solar system, by many orders of magnitude.

    ↗Space-based solar power is not a thingcaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 2nd of 3 in this piece

    Interesting