@talexb and the imbecile running Ontario is all in on imaginary nuclear technology (SMRs)

@infobeautiful A basic trend curve would have given a better prediction.

@infobeautiful how big is a medium sized city, in population terms?

@infobeautiful why were people predicting a /downslope/ for so long, seems like a bizarre forecast. “Oh, solar rates have been climbing modestly for the last few years but I’m sure it’s just a passing fad…”

@infobeautiful the IEA is famous for denying what cannot be denied until the very last minute.

@infobeautiful This might explain why I'm reading about prices of PV electricity sold to the grid plummeting (as there is barely any storage capacity).

@martin ??? Solar plus wind plus batteries provide power for free, reducing need for fossil fuel dependence by 80% or 100% in some places, what's not to like?

@aanee @infobeautiful while I'm 100% on board with you directionally, I suppose the counter argument would be that exponential growth has to tap out eventually, is just a question of when it turns into an S-curve.

@tartley @infobeautiful True enough, but I still think the expectations in the graph are extremely pessimistic.

@tartley @aanee @infobeautiful that's what the predictions assumed. But nobody expected the Chinese inquisition.

@aanee @infobeautiful oh yes, you are absolutely right! Extremely well funded and insidious thumbs on the scales from the fossil fuel lobby.

@infobeautiful

Soon this will need a log scale…

@tartley @aanee @infobeautiful It will turn into an S-curve sometime after the full electrification of Africa, South and South-East Asia and Latin America.

@dzwiedziu @infobeautiful storage capacity is artifically restrained. We have the tech to store electricity cheap and with a one-time low investment and minimal maintenance sosts, we have the millenia old tech to store heat, yet more and more legislatures are -lobbied- bribed to make cheap perpetual solutions illegal.

@ohir
[citation needed]

@infobeautiful

@dzwiedziu @infobeautiful are you asking about "lobbying" efforts (this would be R 2023/1542 and Digital Battery Passport kicking in next year). The whole regulations only skim non-patentable technologies, like lead-acid batteries. These can be operational for millenia, due to their simple chemistry. The only maintenance that must be done is on-site processing of sulfated battery plates. Something that once upon a time (1950-1990) was being done on the massive scale in Central/East Europe countries. Then lobbied country's legislative can bar mid-sized installations as unable to met the EU demands (tried recently in Poland afair).

@infobeautiful The opposite of

@tartley @aanee @infobeautiful Well, what would be a limitting factors that would make it more expensive/more difficult to keep expanding solar?

=> running out of physical space to build panels on:
Yes but this isn't happening anytime soon and we would have beaten current world energy production well before that point is reached

=> running out or raw materials:
Plenty of time until then too, and recycling older panels could help too.