Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap (2020)
14 May, 2020
This is part 1 of a series where I’ll look at the future costs of clean energy and mobility technologies. This is a refresh of and expansion of my 2015 series on the future of solar, wind, batteries, and electric vehicles. Tune back in for…
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The Third Phase of Clean Energy Will Be the Most Disruptive Yet
2 Apr, 2019
Building new solar, wind, and storage is about to be cheaper than operating existing coal and gas power plants. That will change everything. When the history of how humanity turned the corner on climate change is written, we’ll look back and see that clean energy –…
R e a d M o r eClean Technology is Disrupting Fossil Fuels Faster Than Ever
18 Sep, 2018
The best news in the global fight against climate change is the pace at which clean technology is advancing. That technology is on a path to disrupt fossil fuel electricity, oil, the automotive industry as solar and wind power, batteries, self-driving cars used by the…
R e a d M o r eYes, Blockchain Can Help Us Solve Climate Change – Why I Joined Nori
10 Sep, 2018
Over the last two years, as both an angel investor and a public speaker on energy and climate, I’ve looked at least a few dozen startups and proposals on how to use blockchain or new crypto coins in energy or climate. I’ve passed on all of…
R e a d M o r eSolar doesn’t need a “breakthrough”. It’s a breakthrough on it’s own.
4 Jan, 2018
Yesterday, Tyler Cowan, who I’m a major fan of, wrote a piece for Bloomberg View arguing that solar needs more R&D for a true green energy breakthrough. This logic mirrors that of Bill Gates, the Breakthrough Institute, and others who, over the years, have argued…
R e a d M o r eClean Energy Disruption – Video from South Africa
13 Nov, 2017
I spoke at the SingularityU South Africa Summit earlier this year, about the way that solar, wind, storage, and electric vehicles are disrupting the $6 Trillion a year energy industry worldwide, and the opportunities for South Africa and the whole of the African continent. It was…
R e a d M o r eTo Fight Climate Change in the Trump Era, Focus on the States
20 Nov, 2016
Summary: Focus on the states. Advocate for clean energy. (This is a follow-up to my post on pushing for progress at the state level.) Short Version If you read nothing else in this post, follow these three steps: Note: Say “Clean Energy” instead of “Climate Change“…
R e a d M o r eWe Can Push For Progress at the State Level
10 Nov, 2016
Donald Trump won. The GOP has the Senate and the House. They’re likely to retain the Senate in 2018. Trump will get to appoint at least one, and probably multiple Supreme Court justices, with a (presumably) friendly Senate. Yet we live in a republic. And…
R e a d M o r eNew Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi – Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected
21 Sep, 2016
The price of solar power – in the very sunniest locations in particular – is plunging faster than I expected. I’ve been talking for years now about the exponential decline of solar power prices. I’ve often been called a wide-eyed optimist. Here’s what those projections…
R e a d M o r eWind Power Blowing More Reliably Than Ever
17 Aug, 2016
New wind turbines produce power more steadily – with less up and down intermittency – than ever before. As I wrote in August of last year, NREL believes that next-generation wind turbines can reach a capacity factor of 60%. That is up from a capacity…
R e a d M o r eHow Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?
12 Apr, 2016
This is part 5 of a series looking at the economic trends of new energy technologies. Part 1 looked at how cheap solar can get (very cheap indeed). Part 2 looked at the declining cost and rising reliability of wind power. Part 3 looked at…
R e a d M o r eWhy I’m Starting the First AngelList Cleantech Syndicate
22 Feb, 2016
I’ve been writing and speaking about the incredible pace of solar, wind, and storage for years. I’ve been quietly investing in startups in that space as well. Today I’m taking a new step: I’m launching an AngelList Syndicate specifically focused on investing in clean energy…
R e a d M o r eMy Carbon Price Presentation to the Washington Legislature
21 Feb, 2016
On Friday Feb 19th I testified before the Washington House Environment Committee on the topic of carbon pricing, both from the point of view of a member of the executive committee of CarbonWA (I-732) and as a concerned citizen. You can watch the full testimony (including…
R e a d M o r eRenewables are Disruptive to Fossil Fuels
18 Feb, 2016
A shorter version of this post first appeared at the Marginal Revolution blog. Cleantech, and specifically renewables like solar and wind (and their fellow traveler energy storage) are disruptive to fossil fuels. Over the last 5 years, the price of new wind power in the US…
R e a d M o r eHow Far Can Renewables Go? Pretty Darn Far
31 Jan, 2016
This is part 4 of a series looking at the economic trends of new energy technologies. Part 1 looked at how cheap solar can get (very cheap indeed). Part 2 looked at the declining cost and rising reliability of wind power. Part 3 looked at…
R e a d M o r eHow Cheap Can Energy Storage Get? Pretty Darn Cheap
14 Oct, 2015
This is part 3 of a series looking at the economic trends of new energy technologies. Part 1 looked at how cheap solar can get (very cheap indeed). Part 2 looked at the declining cost and rising reliability of wind power. Part 3, below, talks…
R e a d M o r eHow Steady Can Wind Power Blow?
30 Aug, 2015
This is part 2 of a series looking at the economic trends of new energy technologies. Part 1 looked at how cheap solar can get (very cheap indeed). Part 3 looks at how cheap energy storage can get (pretty darn cheap). Part 4 looks at…
R e a d M o r eHow Cheap Can Solar Get? Very Cheap Indeed
10 Aug, 2015
This is part 1 of a series looking at the economic trends of new energy technologies. Part 2 looks at the dropping price and increasing reliability of wind power. Part 3 looks at how cheap energy storage can get (pretty darn cheap). Part 4 looks…
R e a d M o r eNew Solar Capacity Factor in the US is Now ~30%
9 Aug, 2015
The capacity factor of new utility scale solar deployed in the US in 2010 was 24%. By 2012 it had risen to roughly 30%. The rising capacity factor of new solar projects is part of why the cost of electricity from new solar is dropping…
R e a d M o r eCitizens Led on Gay Marriage and Pot. We Can on Climate Change Too.
15 Jul, 2015
A decade ago, it was nearly inconceivable that in 2015, gay marriage would be legal across the US and marijuana fully legal in four states plus the District of Columbia. Yet it happened. It happened because citizens who wanted change led, from the bottom up,…
R e a d M o r eSolar Cost Less than Half of What EIA Projected
30 Jun, 2015
Skeptics of renewables sometimes cite data from EIA (The US Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration) or from the IEA (the OECD’s International Energy Agency). The IEA has a long history of underestimating solar and wind that I think is starting to be understood. The US…
R e a d M o r eSolar: The First 1% Was the Hardest
18 Jun, 2015
Solar power now provides roughly 1% of the world’s electricity. It took 40 years to reach that milestone. But, as they say in tech, the first 1% is the hardest. You can see why in this chart below. As solar prices drop, installation rate rises.…
R e a d M o r eWhat’s the EROI of Solar?
4 Jun, 2015
There’s a graph making rounds lately showing the comparative EROIs of different electricity production methods. (EROI is Energy Return On Investment – how much energy we get back if we spend 1 unit of energy. For solar this means – how much more energy does…
R e a d M o r eTesla Battery Economics: On the Path to Disruption
30 Apr, 2015
Update: The Tesla battery is better than I thought for homes. And at utility scale, it’s deeply disruptive. Elon Musk announced Tesla’s home / business battery today. tl;dr: It’ll get enthusiastic early adopters to buy. The economics are almost there to make it cost effective for a wide market.…
R e a d M o r eChina Isn’t the Reason Solar is Cheap. Innovation Is.
28 Apr, 2015
“The only reason solar is so cheap is because China is dumping cells.” I hear this a lot. So let me correct it. Here is the price, as of February 2015, of solar modules, per watt sold in Europe. SE Asia (Malaysia, mostly) is cheapest.…
R e a d M o r eSolar + Wind, More Than the Sum of Their Parts
28 Apr, 2015
David Roberts has an amazing first post in his new job at Vox, on why a solar future is inevitable. Clearly I’m bullish on solar. My own reasons are that: 1. Solar is plunging in price far faster than any other energy source. 2. Solar…
R e a d M o r eWhy Energy Storage is About to Get Big – and Cheap
14 Apr, 2015
tl;dr: Storage of electricity in large quantities is reaching an inflection point, poised to give a big boost to renewables, to disrupt business models across the electrical industry, and to tap into a market that will eventually top many of tens of billions of dollars…
R e a d M o r eHow Much Land Would it Take to Power the US via Solar?
8 Apr, 2015
I’ve seen some pieces in the media lately questioning this, so allow me to point to some facts based on real-world data. tl;dr: We’ll probably never power the world entirely on solar, but if we did, it would take a rather small fraction of the…
R e a d M o r e2014 Was a Good Year: Better Than You Remember
21 Dec, 2014
Eric Garner. Michael Brown. The Sony hack and surrender to fear. 2014 seems to be ending on a crappy note. My twitter feed is full of people expressing good riddance to the year. 2014 was better than that. I want to take a moment to…
R e a d M o r eThe Learning Curve for Energy Storage
30 Sep, 2014
Energy storage prices are dropping fast. If you follow me, you’ve seen me write about this before. Energy storage prices have in fact been dropping exponentially for at least 25 years. Here’s a new piece of analysis – a model that uses a 20% learning…
R e a d M o r eThe Renewable Energy Revolution
29 Sep, 2014
Transforming the world’s energy supply will take decades. It is a very tall order. But it’s starting. The price of renewables – and energy storage – continues to plunge, putting them on a path to being cheaper than any other form of energy within the…
R e a d M o r eCarbon Prices Drive Clean Energy Innovation
11 Mar, 2014
I want to point out something I see commonly missed. Carbon prices accelerate innovation that brings down the price of green energy. So do renewable energy portfolio standards, green energy subsidies, and a whole swath of other climate policies. They do this by increasing the scale of…
R e a d M o r eLess Water, Less Oil
14 Nov, 2013
Here in the US, we consume less oil per person and less water per person than we have in decades. Oil consumption per person per year, from the IEA. (The last bullet point is their projection for 2030): Water withdrawals per person, from the Pacific…
R e a d M o r eDo We Eat Oil? Farms Are More Energy Efficient Than Ever
14 Nov, 2013
A common refrain one hears about modern farming in the US is that it's too energy intensive. However, data from the USDA shows that US farms use only half as much energy per unit of farm output as they did in 1950. That includes energy…
R e a d M o r eSolar Power Prices Dropping Faster Than Ever
14 Nov, 2013
In 2011, I wrote a piece for Scientific American on the exponential price decline in solar power. I haven't had a chance to fully update that piece, but two quick notes. First, the price decline in solar cost per watt has, if anything, accelerated since then.…
R e a d M o r eIncome, Energy Use, and Life Expectancy
14 Nov, 2013
One of the best indicators of human well-being is life expectancy. High life expectancy often means low infant mortality and typically correlates with ample access to food, medicine, shelter, and education, as well as low levels of disease and violence. Interestingly, during an economic development…
R e a d M o r eEnergy Storage Gets Exponentially Cheaper Too
25 Sep, 2013
At MIT Technology Review today was an article on Sun Catalytix’s new flow battery intended for grid-scale storage, which Sun Catalytix believes will drop grid-scale storage prices in half. As the article notes, several other storage technology companies are also working on driving down the…
R e a d M o r ePieces I’ve Written Around the Web
8 Sep, 2013
Over the last few months (and a bit over the past few years) I wrote a number of pieces around the web, primarily on energy, sustainability, genetically modified foods, and economic growth. I did a poor job of linking to them on my own site.…
R e a d M o r ePricing Nature to Save the Planet
27 Jun, 2012
New Scientist, covering Rio+20, talks about putting a price on the natural world: Green economics, the theory goes, will work by quantifying nature and giving it a cash value. As Steiner put it: “Factoring natural capital into the bottom line will bring the real wealth…
R e a d M o r eCombining Current Tech Could Make Solar Cheaper than Coal
22 Feb, 2012
By the end of the decade, manufacturers in the United States could make solar panels that are less than half as expensive as the ones they make now. That would be cheap enough for solar power to compete with electricity from fossil fuels, according to…
R e a d M o r eInnovation as the Infinite Resource: My Talk at Chicago Ideas Week
31 Jan, 2012
Innovation as the Infinite Resource: Ramez Naam at Chicago Ideas Week
R e a d M o r eCarbon Nanotubes Could Replace Rare Earth Indium in Solar Cells
27 Sep, 2011
A frequently voiced concern about solar energy is the dependence of solar cells on rare earth elements such as indium. While rare earth elements are actually far more plentiful than their name suggests, it’s also encouraging to see studies showing that components made from abundant…
R e a d M o r eA roadmap for growing prosperity while saving the planet
3 Aug, 2011
Chris Jablonski at ZDnet interviewed me recently about my next book, The Infinite Resource. Here’s a short excerpt. Click at the link at the bottom to read the whole interview. In your upcoming book, The Infinite Resource – Growing Prosperity While Reducing Impact on…
R e a d M o r eMy WFS2011 Talk: The Infinite Resource: Growing Prosperity While Reducing Impact on the Earth
9 Jul, 2011
I gave at talk this morning at the World Future Society 2011 Conference in Vancouver. The talk was entitled The Infinite Resource: Growing Prosperity While Reducing Impact on the Earth, and it looks at what the ultimate limits of growth and prosperity on this planet…
R e a d M o r eSolar Cheaper than Coal in 3-5 Years? GE and First Solar Think So
9 Jun, 2011
The news is carrying two stories in the last two weeks pitching solar as potentially cheaper than current electrical rates in the next 3-5 years. First, in an interview with Bloomberg, GE’s global research director Mark M. Little said that their thin film solar PV…
R e a d M o r eGenetically Tweaked Microbes on 0.6% of Earth’s Land Could Replace Oil
18 May, 2011
New Scientist has an article on biotech firm Joule’s upcoming ethanol production biofuel plant. Joule already has a pilot plant covering 0.8 hectares in Leander, Texas. On 5 May, the firm announced that it had secured 486 hectares in Lea County, New Mexico, for a…
R e a d M o r eCan We Capture All the World’s Carbon?
16 May, 2011
I originally posted this at Scientific American. Reposting here with permission. In 2011, the world will emit more than 35 billion tons of carbon dioxide. Every day of the year, almost a hundred million tons will be released into the atmosphere. Every second more than…
R e a d M o r eMore Efficient Aircraft Designs
30 Mar, 2011
The Economist has an article on aircraft designs that could cut fuel use by 50-70%, while still working with today’s airports (a challenge for flying wing designs). From the article: Two groups working on the future of aircraft have come up with designs that could…
R e a d M o r eKey Trends of the Next 25 Years
21 Mar, 2011
Michell Zappa has a fascinating infographic attempting to lay out timelines for future technologies over the next 25 years. It’s an impressive job of collecting data and laying it out in a way that someone can explore. It’s worth playing with. Click through on the…
R e a d M o r eIs Moore’s Law Really a Fair Comparison for Solar?
17 Mar, 2011
[This is an update of a post I first wrote in March of 2011, responding to criticism of the analogy of Moore’s Law for solar power. Updating in April 2015, on the 50th Anniversary of Moore’s Law, in light of renewed conversation on this topic.…
R e a d M o r eThe Exponential Gains in Solar Power per Dollar
17 Mar, 2011
My post on the Moore’s Law-like exponential gains in solar power per dollar went up at Scientific American yesterday. Reprinting here with permission. The sun strikes every square meter of our planet with more than 1,360 watts of power. Half of that energy is absorbed…
R e a d M o r eSingularity Summit Talk: The Digital Biome – Re-Engineering Life on Earth to Survive and Thrive in the 21st Century
17 Aug, 2010
This weekend I was at the Singularity Summit in San Francisco. On Sunday I gave a talk called The Digital Biome – Re-Engineering Life on Earth to Survive and Thrive in the 21st Century. (Follow the link to see the slides on SlideShare.) The…
R e a d M o r eSolar Prices Drop Exponentially for 30 Years
3 Jan, 2008
>FuturePundit blogs about projections for $2 a watt photovoltaics by 2010, which would be a reduction in cost of about half from today’s prices. The interesting thing in this post for me is a link to an Earth Policy Institute page which shows an exponential…
R e a d M o r eA Solar Grand Plan
3 Jan, 2008
>The cover story of this month’s Scientific American is a proposal to build out solar power in the US to supply 70% of the country’s electrical needs by 2050. It looks like a pretty doable plan, actually, requiring no technological advances in solar power beyond…
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