Comment by decimalenough
9 hours ago
Very misleading title: it should be "Solar leads global energy growth for the first time".
Still good news, but a long, long way from solar becoming the world's primary source of energy.
9 hours ago
Very misleading title: it should be "Solar leads global energy growth for the first time".
Still good news, but a long, long way from solar becoming the world's primary source of energy.
Yes, from the source report, for total generation capacity, solar is in a distant sixth:
Coal: 10858 TWh
Natural Gas: 6822 TWh
Hydro: 4470 TWh
Nuclear: 2859 TWh
Wind: 2723 TWh
Solar: 2653 TWh
Decent growth, but still a long way to go.
The energy system has investment cycles counted in decades.
Looking at TWh of renewables added each year we will have grids entirely dominated by them in 10-15 years. That is lightning speed for the energy system, and we’re still speeding up.
> solar becoming the world's primary source of energy
Solar has always been the primary source of energy, Something like 99.95%, with geothermal taking 90% of the rest and tidal being basically zero
You can look at coal, oil, gas as form of compressed solar energy, because all of them have biological source, stored millions of year ago. It's just burning coal, oil, gas has nasty side effects.
" Volcanic coal-burning in Siberia led to climate change 252 million years ago.
Extensive burning in Siberia was a cause of the Permo-Triassic extinction " https://www.nsf.gov/news/volcanic-coal-burning-siberia-led-c...
You can.
Oil consumption is about 4,000 TWh per year, or about 10^19 Joules.
The Earth receives about 170,000 TWh per year of Solar energy.
What about nuclear?
Uranium is only naturally formed by the r-process (rapid neutron capture) in supernovae and neutron star mergers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium#Origin
Fuel was created by the explosion of supernovae, still solar but not our sun.
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tiny insignificant amounts
Should it be ‘solar leading energy subsidy growth’.
No chance, fossil fuels are subsidized more. A large share of solar growth is from countries like Pakistan who have had some subsidies but total dollar amount of them is trivial.
Got source?
China only ended solar panel export subsidy this month.
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Solar subsidies still pale in comparison to oil and gas subsidies worldwide
Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies Reached $7 Trillion in 2022, an All-Time High: https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuel-subsidies-2022
Plus, add the entire defense budget of US + western countries, which only exists to protect oil interests.
In the "unpaid cost of climate change and air pollution as a result of burning fossil fuels" etc. sense, not in a cash given to fossil fuel folk sense.