The share of solar power in global electricity generation rose to 6.9% in 2024, up from 5.6% in 2023, according to a new report by energy think tank Ember.
Coals been around for around 200 years, gas for 100+. Solar just got inexpensive 10yrs ago. We have to give it time, even if we don’t have it.
This is overall great news. It’s surprisingly even better when you consider that renewables don’t need to be a 1 to 1 replacement of fossil fuel due to their massive energy efficiency and not having to transport fossil fuels around. Just moving coal and gas around, not even burning it, is a huge factor in climate change.
To TL;DR the video, fossil fuels are amazingly inefficient, meaning you need a lot of them to produce the same amount of power as renewables. If you move heating to electric, cars and trains to electric, and home appliances to electric, due to the power efficiency of renewables and not needing to move fossil fuels across the earth, you need way, way less total generation of power, to the tune of just 40-50% as much.
I like your optimism & reasoning! Will check out the video, I’ve not heard that take before & it sounds like it makes a lot of sense, maybe we are closer to the ‘right’ side of all this than the media often makes out.
Coals been around for around 200 years, gas for 100+. Solar just got inexpensive 10yrs ago. We have to give it time, even if we don’t have it.
This is overall great news. It’s surprisingly even better when you consider that renewables don’t need to be a 1 to 1 replacement of fossil fuel due to their massive energy efficiency and not having to transport fossil fuels around. Just moving coal and gas around, not even burning it, is a huge factor in climate change.
This video goes into it deeper in a fascinating way way.
To TL;DR the video, fossil fuels are amazingly inefficient, meaning you need a lot of them to produce the same amount of power as renewables. If you move heating to electric, cars and trains to electric, and home appliances to electric, due to the power efficiency of renewables and not needing to move fossil fuels across the earth, you need way, way less total generation of power, to the tune of just 40-50% as much.
I like your optimism & reasoning! Will check out the video, I’ve not heard that take before & it sounds like it makes a lot of sense, maybe we are closer to the ‘right’ side of all this than the media often makes out.