I don't disagree but it is a bit more complex. But first, allow me to dispell the myth that solar cells don't generate power when it is overcast, they do. My panels typically run at 52 - 58% of rated power when the sky is wall to wall clouds. Granted that is a big drop in production it isn't 0 and can be planned around.
The "discussion inside the discussion" here is money. As inverter and management technology has gotten better, it becomes possible for a single family home, in the lower 48 states, to locally generate perhaps 95% of its annual power requirements, and to supplement that last 5% with onsite generated power using propane or methane.
In such a configuration, the consumer's on going payments are either lease payments or a maintenance contract on the gear to keep it running. Not some utility company. And that means that you cannot distribute the cost of "big" energy projects across a wide base of payers (as a utility, you can still do that with taxes). And that leads us too ... Commercial power.
While you and I might be able to live off grid, your typical multi-story office building or apartment can not. They don't have the square footage available for panels, and they generally don't have the space for back up power equipment. So they still need generators and transmission lines and a "grid." And because the cost of that grid is distributed across fewer people, their costs are significantly (I've seen estimates of 10x) higher. That raises rents, and the cost of goods, and generally puts a real crimp in any economy. Not to mention the power utility is now just another botique supplier to these guys and so loses a lot of scale it had before.
The shifting balance of power (pun intended) is going to cause a lot of disruptions and cost shifting. At the end of the day it could be the thing that puts a lot of brick and mortar stores out of business.
Yes of course solar cells generate (less) power on overcast days.
Here's the issue: If solar is already on track to replace fossil fuels by 2030, everyone can stop working on energy. Bill Gates can apologize and shutdown his new fund. Sam Altman can stop meeting with energy companies.
But I'm skeptical. I expect there remain needed technologies. Storage? Transmission? Baseload? Such an analysis would tell us.
I'm asking, where can I find an analysis of this? All these articles are lite advocacy pieces that border on marketing.
Agreed but the emotional hurdle is huge. A 50 - 100MW travelling wave reactor (TWR) to provide baseline for a city would be straight forward bury the reactor, set up what is essentially a geothermal plant on top of it, safe, clean, and it disposes left over waste!
Completely technologically sound, safer than any other power alternative, and impossible to fund, license, and deploy due to primarily emotional fear of the words 'nuclear reactor'.
China is already deploying nuclear reactors, while their population may be emotionally afraid of them, they have a system whereby they can deploy by fiat. That isn't true in the US and much of Europe.
And how many of those are the travelling wave reactors that you think could be rolled out today if tree-huggers weren't preventing it? The answer is zero I believe which means it's likely not the environmentalists that are holding things up but more likely fundamental issues with the technology not being ready yet.
It seems China is at the very, very early stages of thinking about maybe investigating building one of these.
The "discussion inside the discussion" here is money. As inverter and management technology has gotten better, it becomes possible for a single family home, in the lower 48 states, to locally generate perhaps 95% of its annual power requirements, and to supplement that last 5% with onsite generated power using propane or methane.
In such a configuration, the consumer's on going payments are either lease payments or a maintenance contract on the gear to keep it running. Not some utility company. And that means that you cannot distribute the cost of "big" energy projects across a wide base of payers (as a utility, you can still do that with taxes). And that leads us too ... Commercial power.
While you and I might be able to live off grid, your typical multi-story office building or apartment can not. They don't have the square footage available for panels, and they generally don't have the space for back up power equipment. So they still need generators and transmission lines and a "grid." And because the cost of that grid is distributed across fewer people, their costs are significantly (I've seen estimates of 10x) higher. That raises rents, and the cost of goods, and generally puts a real crimp in any economy. Not to mention the power utility is now just another botique supplier to these guys and so loses a lot of scale it had before.
The shifting balance of power (pun intended) is going to cause a lot of disruptions and cost shifting. At the end of the day it could be the thing that puts a lot of brick and mortar stores out of business.