Submitted by manual_tranny t3_ztplap in Futurology
JefferyTheQuaxly t1_j1f48bk wrote
Reply to comment by dontpet in All I want for Christmas is 400 GW of solar installed in 2023 by manual_tranny
Generally I heard there’s a rule that says the cost of solar panels is cut in half every 7ish years or so.
Human_Anybody7743 t1_j1grg8t wrote
This is true historically, but costs are starting to be dominated by "picking up a big rectangle twice and screwing it down" or "finding someone with a flat surface that wants power and putting some stakes in the ground".
These will also come down. For example Fraunhofer is trialling a system where the panels come hinged and connected out of the factory and you just drag them out in a straight line onto the ground right out of the container. Also increasing panel efficiency means less handling per watt.
I'd expect the top end of the S curve to start becoming apparent at about 30c/watt for utility or $1/W for rooftop.
dontpet t1_j1fg63k wrote
I think it has been decking in cost per MWh historically faster than that but expect we would eventually plateau at some ridiculously low price.
Tree-farmer2 t1_j1h3u8k wrote
Moore's law doesn't apply to solar panels like that
JefferyTheQuaxly t1_j1hdlgw wrote
I know there’s another law similar to moores law specifically for solar panels.
Tree-farmer2 t1_j1hvd73 wrote
Thanks! That's what I was getting at.
Solar fell in cost over the last 10-15 because of technological advances and because of falling commodity prices. As the cost of manufacturing falls, the cost of material inputs make up a larger portion of the cost.
There are physical limits and commodity prices are now rising, so I'm skeptical of such "laws".
prodoosh t1_j1irwf3 wrote
Aren’t those the exact same things people said about moores law though
Human_Anybody7743 t1_j1uilyd wrote
This wildly incorrect but somehow draws an accurate conclusion. The largest commodity is polysilicon, which is basically just energy and is increasingly made with solar because it's cheapest, so that limit is precisely the closed loop feedback that leads to exponential improvement. The rest is mostly glass (energy again). Both are made with silica sand as a raw material which is not limiting in the quantities the solar industry uses (and its shape is less important so if conventional supply chains become limiting, about a third of the world's deserts can be used). Silver is a significant cost, but is more limited by potentially hitting production limits (and thus changing prices) rather than the cost of the quantity involved.
Material consumption is also falling. Wafers are getting thinner, metal traces are getting thinner. Silver fraction in pastes is falling. Steel and concrete content of mounting systems is falling.
As a result, BOS is starting to dominate costs (handling panels, earthworks, permitting, sales). So the main channel for decreasing costs in the next few years is increasing efficiency (and thus power per area/weight), and increasing plant size + colocation with wind and batteries. Single junction silicon is almost tapped out in the first, so continued cost decreases hinge on tandem cells of some kind working out (odds for perovskite look pretty good).
Tree-farmer2 t1_j1uq0rg wrote
>The largest commodity is polysilicon, which is basically just energy and is increasingly made with solar because it's cheapest
More than 80% of the world's polysilicon comes from Xinjiang, made with coal power and slave labour. They literally built coal plants next door. If solar is so cheap, why would they do that? Using LCOE to compare 24/7 coal power with intermittent solar is a fallacy.
Human_Anybody7743 t1_j1utuas wrote
Ohhh, I thought you were making a good faith mistake. My apologies, I didn't realise you were trying to concern troll.
The reason is because it wasn't cheaper when they were built. That feedback loop is only just closing now. But by a shocking coincidence that couldn't possibly be related, that's also where the good solar and wind resource in the country is.
As of a few years ago 5 of the 5 largest solar parks in the world were in the same region.
Now there are a fair few bigger ones in some other areas.
...which are all also building multi GW polysilicon facilities nearby.
Tree-farmer2 t1_j1v3a9s wrote
>Ohhh, I thought you were making a good faith mistake. My apologies, I didn't realise you were trying to concern troll.
Well that's condescending...
Human_Anybody7743 t1_j1x2tew wrote
If you don't want to be condescended to, then don't copy-paste frossil fuel propaganda from shellenberger.org and pretend you've contributed something original or positive.
Tree-farmer2 t1_j1xyycp wrote
A lot of the world's polysilicon is made with coal by slaves in Xinjiang. It's not propaganda and kind of weird you deny it.
Human_Anybody7743 t1_j1y0gua wrote
Your pathetic slimy tactics of trying to shift the narrative are completely transparent. If it's a problem then buy some of the 50% of panels available outside China that have no silicon from xinjiang. Or support the 10s of GW of plant being built everywhere on the planet rather than fighting to keep coal relevant.
Go work in Yining uranium mine until you die of lung cancer.
Tree-farmer2 t1_j1z2ni1 wrote
Your life must be pretty sad.
Human_Anybody7743 t1_j1z2xto wrote
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre
Tree-farmer2 t1_j1zjuh7 wrote
You lack self-awareness. You brush off concerns about enslaved Uyghers and then compare me to a racist to try to claim some moral high ground. Sure.
Human_Anybody7743 t1_j1zlj8i wrote
I called out your slimy tactics of poiting out a political issue as if it were a technical issue and that you're pretending that the majority of uranium mining doesn't have the exact same problems (except that there is a long documented history of intentionally misleading native people and putting them into uranium mines with no PPE and poisoning their land rather than just being in an area where exploitation is happening and is putting no effort into stopping it) and you followed the pattern to a tee.
Tree-farmer2 t1_j1zok7i wrote
>you're pretending that the majority of uranium mining doesn't have the exact same problems
I don't recall uranium being part of the discussion but slavery? There's none I know of but maybe it exists somewhere.
And there were problems with uranium mining but this was at the dawn of the Cold War and mostly for weapons production.
Today there are still problems with China's uranium mining in Namibia. This is <10% of global production and a symptom of a bigger problem with China and not representative of the rest of the industry.
Human_Anybody7743 t1_j1zqw23 wrote
> I don't recall uranium being part of the discussion but slavery? There's none I know of but maybe it exists somewhere.
Oh I just assumed seeing as you were running the standard fossil fuel wE nEeD NuClEaR grift that you'd said it already. If you were just concern trolling with nothing positive to contribute then you're just skipping that step and going straight for keeping the oh so slavery free fossil fuel industry around without the pretense.
There's the exact same level of evidence for Uranium miningnslavery as polysilicon. Coal and oil powered regions with high slavery index exporting the product. Applies to Uzbekistan, Niger, and Turkmenistan at least. And then there's the nice men from Rio Tinto that hold on to your passport for you if you're a migrant laborer in Australia and give you a place to stay for only 80% of your wage, and basic services for 30% of your wage and will only fly you home if you pay the debt off. If your proposed alternative is fossil fuels then there's plenty worse than that in the world.
> And there were problems with uranium mining but this was at the dawn of the Cold War and mostly for weapons production.
> Today there are still problems with China's uranium mining in Namibia. This is <10% of global production and a symptom of a bigger problem with China and not representative of the rest of the industry.
Huh. So you're saying political problems aren't an inherent part of a technology and can be addressed? Almost exactly like the EU and US are doing right now? Almost like this topic only came up as a reactionary attempt at a Gish Gallop immediately after your other lie was refuted in spite of you knowing this.
Funny how that goes the exact same way every time.
Tree-farmer2 t1_j243pay wrote
>There's the exact same level of evidence for Uranium miningnslavery as polysilicon.
Evidence?
>And then there's the nice men from Rio Tinto that hold on to your passport for you if you're a migrant laborer in Australia and give you a place to stay for only 80% of your wage, and basic services for 30% of your wage and will only fly you home if you pay the debt off.
This is a criticism of mining in general. Solar is actually the most mining-intensive way to make a kWh.
I'm not opposed to solar, though I'd prefer see it on rooftops rather than encroaching on nature. I understand some portion of the world's energy will come from solar but it bothers me when people extrapolate it to 100% with no concern about reliability or land and materials use. Nuclear needs to be included and even the IEA says:
>Nuclear power should play a significant role in helping meet net-zero goals globally, and building clean energy systems will be harder, riskier and more expensive without nuclear >https://www.power-eng.com/nuclear/iea-build-more-nuclear-to-meet-net-zero-goals/
Human_Anybody7743 t1_j246vk1 wrote
> This is a criticism of mining in general. Solar is actually the most mining-intensive way to make a kWh.
Anything to back that up that isn't an LCA of a decade old system of a completely different chemistry with 1/4 of the efficiency on a heavy 2 axis tracking rig?
> I'm not opposed to solar, though I'd prefer see it on rooftops rather than encroaching on nature. I understand some portion of the world's energy will come from solar but it bothers me when people extrapolate it to 100% with no concern about reliability or land and materials use.
Solar is the least materials heavy and least land consuming energy source other than gas. 20-50t of silver and 40-80t of lead per net GW are the only mining intensive materials, and both are dropping rapidly.
https://www.vdma.org/international-technology-roadmap-photovoltaic
> Nuclear needs to be included and even the IEA says:
Needing a few GW of nuclear in a handful of countries wouldn't support any of your arguments even if the IEA hadn't been consistently wrong about the role of renewables for the last 15 years to the point where at times they've "projected" 2050 costs and deployment rates to be lower than the rates when their projections were published.
UniversalMomentum t1_j1ho3bb wrote
Moore's law is every 18 months, so that's obviously not what they mean.
Tree-farmer2 t1_j1hsw8c wrote
It's the same idea, doubling over x time.
But something like 40% of a panel is material inputs whose price has been rising for 2 years.
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments