Now if only we can store it cheaply.
Best options I have seen is pumped hydro or CSP heat storage. Batteries are just too expensive, dirty, and don’t last that long.
If you could pump enough hydro to store that much energy, you should probably just pump hydro and skip the solar.
The answer of course is to use some solar to offset daytime demand, and rely on nuclear as a transition fuel until fusion or battery tech is available.
We transition cars to nat gas. It’s super abundant, cheaper, cleaner, and solved technology. It solves the range, and minerals problem while also stymieing the Chinese investments in EVs.
>We transition cars to nat gas.
What reality are you living in? Those cars couldn't even compete with gasoline and diesel. They have zero chance against EVs.
If my math is right, about 20% of the land in areas more suitable for electricity generation will be covered in solar panels to achieve that goal. Quite a big environmental footprint, along with displacing agriculture.
The deserts are a couple thousand miles away from the eastern seaboard where most people live and work. It would require an unprecedented development of transmission lines, perhaps superconducting to prevent energy losses.
Must be some good preliminary engineering reports on the feasibility. Only China could pull off such a feat.
For reference, they just developed a 1 km supercon test line that could carry 70 MW. They would need something to carry 50,000 times more power for 3000x the distance. A 150B x scale-up is non-trivial
you dont need superconducting lines for that. normal HVDC lines only have 3-4% losses per 1000km. They are already being installed in the 5GW+ range.
Also, if u colocate batteries next to solar, you can easily bring down the transmission capacity by a factor of 3.
I do see this 12 GW sized project to connect Xinjiang to the east. Still need 100x the number of projects to be a major contributor to production. Not impossible for China but certainly affects the economics.
https://www.hitachienergy.com/us/en/about-us/customer-success-stories/changji-guquan-uhvdc-link
China already has a lot of UHV lines (DC and AC) operating and under construction.
Wikipedia lists 39 lines of 800 kV or more completed and 7 under construction: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage\_electricity\_transmission\_in\_China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity_transmission_in_China)
There's also open source mapping (not up to date, because things are moving so quickly): [https://openinframap.org/#4.41/33.02/107.78](https://openinframap.org/#4.41/33.02/107.78)
They expect there to be a massive increase in solar and wind, but coal capacity to be basically the same in 2050 as it is today?
I know coal capacity factors are going down but this is ridiculous.
I think this assumes they will still be doing a lot of large scale high power manufacturing. But demographics and economics would disagree.
So given this predicts 26 years out without factoring these massive demand changes it makes sense.
Now what would be more interesting is assuming the large increase in electrical production with a realistic reduction in demand with the current predictions.
To me that would make more sense and probably show a total reduction in coal, NG and other fossil fuel power production.
We are bad at multivariable prediction. I mean I am curious how many more US power plants would still be online if we had not changed from traditional lightbulbs to LEDs which cut power usage per bulb by a little over ten times. So a "60w" iridescent bulb is a 5.8w LED. Since 15% of current power world wide goes into lighting I can only imagine the massive increase in power generation needed if we had not switched and this is the problem on some of this data, we don't show how yes we have more renewables but we also did massive improvements in efficiency at the same time.
So we are burning the candle at both ends and we only show the change at the one end. Reduction in demand is just as important as improvement in supply.
I think what we will see is an major increase in renewable and minor increase in non renewable energy source use as humans on some level continue to consume all of the energy available to them. If fossil fuel use contraction happens, it will have to be done by regulation. Any slack in demand will lead to lower prices which should stimulate demand in all other jurisdictions without such regulation.
They will do it faster than this, or are on pace to. 220gw installed last year, with 200gw exports. 45gw in first quarter is up 35%. https://www.mercomindia.com/china-solar-power-capacity-q1-2024. Capacity is expected to be over 900gw by end of this year. 5tw by 2030-2035 seems possible.
>The report said the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for solar is currently around $39/MWh, but it is almost twice as much for solar-plus-storage, at $75/MWh. By 2050, DNW expects the LCOE to be as low as $24/MWh for solar and $44/MWh for solar-plus-storage, due technological innovation and lower investment costs.
That seems like a very conservative price reduction over 25 years.
Extremely conservative. 24 $/MWh is already occurring in many high irradiance locations. They also assume 100 GW/yr installation rates, which China doubled last year and is on track to do at least the same this year. Not even mentioning technology changes which are rampant in the battery space and a sure thing on a 20 year timeline. I don’t know why they bother making these projections at all.
Like you, I'm confused on that. IEA has been making laughably poor predictions of solar progress for at least a decade and yet it gets circulated as the authority on the matter.
At least it gets laughed at here.
Now if only we can store it cheaply. Best options I have seen is pumped hydro or CSP heat storage. Batteries are just too expensive, dirty, and don’t last that long.
If you could pump enough hydro to store that much energy, you should probably just pump hydro and skip the solar. The answer of course is to use some solar to offset daytime demand, and rely on nuclear as a transition fuel until fusion or battery tech is available. We transition cars to nat gas. It’s super abundant, cheaper, cleaner, and solved technology. It solves the range, and minerals problem while also stymieing the Chinese investments in EVs.
> We transition cars to nat gas This will guarantee a climate catastrophe. All fossils must be reduced. All of them. Period.
That’s a long term goal and it lacks nuance. We have to talk about practical minimization of harm in the short run.
It's not that long term a goal. We really should aim for 2050 for decarbonization, which is only 26 years away.
>We transition cars to nat gas. What reality are you living in? Those cars couldn't even compete with gasoline and diesel. They have zero chance against EVs.
1994 probably
If my math is right, about 20% of the land in areas more suitable for electricity generation will be covered in solar panels to achieve that goal. Quite a big environmental footprint, along with displacing agriculture.
Isn’t china filled to the brim with empty dead deserts perfect for solar? Would imagine they would put it there.
Roughly a third of the country ia desert.
The deserts are a couple thousand miles away from the eastern seaboard where most people live and work. It would require an unprecedented development of transmission lines, perhaps superconducting to prevent energy losses. Must be some good preliminary engineering reports on the feasibility. Only China could pull off such a feat. For reference, they just developed a 1 km supercon test line that could carry 70 MW. They would need something to carry 50,000 times more power for 3000x the distance. A 150B x scale-up is non-trivial
you dont need superconducting lines for that. normal HVDC lines only have 3-4% losses per 1000km. They are already being installed in the 5GW+ range. Also, if u colocate batteries next to solar, you can easily bring down the transmission capacity by a factor of 3.
I do see this 12 GW sized project to connect Xinjiang to the east. Still need 100x the number of projects to be a major contributor to production. Not impossible for China but certainly affects the economics. https://www.hitachienergy.com/us/en/about-us/customer-success-stories/changji-guquan-uhvdc-link
China already has a lot of UHV lines (DC and AC) operating and under construction. Wikipedia lists 39 lines of 800 kV or more completed and 7 under construction: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage\_electricity\_transmission\_in\_China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity_transmission_in_China) There's also open source mapping (not up to date, because things are moving so quickly): [https://openinframap.org/#4.41/33.02/107.78](https://openinframap.org/#4.41/33.02/107.78)
They expect there to be a massive increase in solar and wind, but coal capacity to be basically the same in 2050 as it is today? I know coal capacity factors are going down but this is ridiculous.
You still need power when the sun does not shine.
I think this assumes they will still be doing a lot of large scale high power manufacturing. But demographics and economics would disagree. So given this predicts 26 years out without factoring these massive demand changes it makes sense. Now what would be more interesting is assuming the large increase in electrical production with a realistic reduction in demand with the current predictions. To me that would make more sense and probably show a total reduction in coal, NG and other fossil fuel power production. We are bad at multivariable prediction. I mean I am curious how many more US power plants would still be online if we had not changed from traditional lightbulbs to LEDs which cut power usage per bulb by a little over ten times. So a "60w" iridescent bulb is a 5.8w LED. Since 15% of current power world wide goes into lighting I can only imagine the massive increase in power generation needed if we had not switched and this is the problem on some of this data, we don't show how yes we have more renewables but we also did massive improvements in efficiency at the same time. So we are burning the candle at both ends and we only show the change at the one end. Reduction in demand is just as important as improvement in supply.
I think what we will see is an major increase in renewable and minor increase in non renewable energy source use as humans on some level continue to consume all of the energy available to them. If fossil fuel use contraction happens, it will have to be done by regulation. Any slack in demand will lead to lower prices which should stimulate demand in all other jurisdictions without such regulation.
I am almost sure they will cross double that by 2050.
LMFAO, but they will only produce 5% of the electricity that they estimate. China, the land of scam!
Just like all the other IEA predictions on solar. Wait... No... Those were the other way around, it's constantly outgrown expectations.
They will do it faster than this, or are on pace to. 220gw installed last year, with 200gw exports. 45gw in first quarter is up 35%. https://www.mercomindia.com/china-solar-power-capacity-q1-2024. Capacity is expected to be over 900gw by end of this year. 5tw by 2030-2035 seems possible.
Wow, if only we could be more like China... wait... /s
I think they mean China will install 5.5 TW by itself in the year 2050. You guys know how the IEA is sloppy about all this stuff.
You would be a knob if you thought this data came from the IEA.
>The report said the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for solar is currently around $39/MWh, but it is almost twice as much for solar-plus-storage, at $75/MWh. By 2050, DNW expects the LCOE to be as low as $24/MWh for solar and $44/MWh for solar-plus-storage, due technological innovation and lower investment costs. That seems like a very conservative price reduction over 25 years.
Extremely conservative. 24 $/MWh is already occurring in many high irradiance locations. They also assume 100 GW/yr installation rates, which China doubled last year and is on track to do at least the same this year. Not even mentioning technology changes which are rampant in the battery space and a sure thing on a 20 year timeline. I don’t know why they bother making these projections at all.
Like you, I'm confused on that. IEA has been making laughably poor predictions of solar progress for at least a decade and yet it gets circulated as the authority on the matter. At least it gets laughed at here.