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Solar power is the fastest growing energy technology in history, and wind is not far behind (twitter.com)

submitted 1 year ago by keepthepace to c/energy

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I have been pro-nuclear for more than a decade, but it is clear that it has lost politically at this point. I used to say that we needed a 40 years nuclear transition so that the solar tech could catch up. We are almost there. We sadly relied on oil and coal instead to develop these tech but we finally are here and it will soon start to make sense to advocate for a direct transition from fossil fuels to renewables.

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[–] MrMakabar 13 points 1 year ago

The wind and solar plants we built between 2012 and 2022 produce more electricity then all the nuclear power plants in the world combined in 2022. The speed we built them is accelerating like crazy. Price for solar panels dropped by 72% in the same period and there is little sign of it slowing down. Similar story for wind especially offshore, but not as fast.

Take India for example. A poor country so financing is difficult, but they add 26GW of solar in the last year up from 12GW in the year before that. If this continues all new electricity demand of India will be meet by new solar in 2025. After that India will propably start to shut down coal power plants. The Chinese add them even faster. Wind is competitive without subsidies in all developed countries. In Europe countries get paid for permitting offshore windparks in their exclusive maritime zone.

There is a reason every pro nuclear argument uses numbers from about 2017. That was basicly the last time lobbying for nuclear made some sense. At this point nuclear is too slow to built and too expensive. If it is available it is smart to keep, but to built new ones they need government backing and a decade to built and well 72% price reduction in solar panels within a deade, with lower prices the nuclear today, make it a hard sell.