We're finally having a moment in the sun!
It’s been a good couple of weeks for the sun. Not just because it produced the aurora that swept the internet but because it became even clearer that the remarkable escalation of solar power is starting to put a real dent in the prospects for fossil fuel.
Over under the big top, solar power is in the center ring, and wind and batteries are in the other two, and what an act they’re putting on!
Here’s how the European think tank Carbon Brief put it this week in their analysis of the latest numbers from the International Energy Agency
Global electricity generation from solar will quadruple by 2030 and help to push coal power into reverse, according to Carbon Brief analysis of data from the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The IEA’s latest World Energy Outlook 2024 shows solar overtaking nuclear, wind, hydro, gas and, finally, coal, to become the world’s single-largest source of electricity by 2033.
This solar surge will help kickstart the “age of electricity”, the agency says, where rapidly expanding clean electricity and “inherently” greater efficiency will push fossil fuels into decline.
As a result, the world’s energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will reach a peak “imminently”, the IEA says, with its data indicating a turning point in 2025.
Is this fast enough to catch up with climate change?
It is not
Despite these changes, the world is on track to cut CO2 emissions to just 4% below 2023 levels by 2030, the agency warns, resulting in warming of 2.4C above pre-industrial temperatures.
It says there is an “increasingly narrow, but still achievable” path to staying below 1.5C, which would need more clean electricity, faster electrification and a 33% cut in emissions by 2030.
But it is by far the most hopeful thing happening on our planet at the moment—finally, finally, we’re in the race. And if we push we could speed it up.
The numbers are already remarkable, and as far as I can tell almost no one knows them. The world is installing more than a gigawatt of solar power every day, and has been for more than a year—the number continues to steadily increase. A gigawatt is about the size of a nuclear plant—an old-style nuclear power plant. People are building—every day—the solar equivalent of a nuclear reactor, at a tiny fraction of the cost.
To give just one example of this pell-mell trend, in California the state just passed a law that should allow farmers on land that’s turned droughty because of climate change to generate 20 gigawatts of solar power.
“What AB 2661 does is it provides us the ability to be the master planner for this solar development, which we’re excited about, because it allows us to be more thoughtful about how the solar goes in and how it’s integrated with the surrounding land use and incorporated into the district,” said Jeff Payne, the other assistant general manager of Westlands.
The plan allows for flexibility with land use and some of the land that is transitioned to solar may end up going back to agricultural use years later, said Payne. That flexibility has been key for Westlands’ growers who want to maintain their agricultural heritage, said Payne.
According to SJVWater, the website covering water issues in the San Joaquin Valley, this one region could provide a sixth of California’s electricity by 2035. And California is, remember, the fifth largest economy on earth.
The solar story gets better and better and better: this week one manufacturer announced that their new panels—guranteeded for 40 years!—will produce one hundred times as much energy as it takes to make them.
I’m not telling you this is going to save the earth. The earth is balanced pretty perilously, as this month’s State of the Climate Report from a passel of leading researchers put it.
We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.
But I am telling you that the numbers coming out of the solar revolution are suddenly big, dwarfing everything else.
And we need big numbers.
Text by Bill McKibben The Crucial Years Substack.
https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/stare-at-the-sun
Over under the big top, solar power is in the center ring, and wind and batteries are in the other two, and what an act they’re putting on!
Here’s how the European think tank Carbon Brief put it this week in their analysis of the latest numbers from the International Energy Agency
Global electricity generation from solar will quadruple by 2030 and help to push coal power into reverse, according to Carbon Brief analysis of data from the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The IEA’s latest World Energy Outlook 2024 shows solar overtaking nuclear, wind, hydro, gas and, finally, coal, to become the world’s single-largest source of electricity by 2033.
This solar surge will help kickstart the “age of electricity”, the agency says, where rapidly expanding clean electricity and “inherently” greater efficiency will push fossil fuels into decline.
As a result, the world’s energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will reach a peak “imminently”, the IEA says, with its data indicating a turning point in 2025.
Is this fast enough to catch up with climate change?
It is not
Despite these changes, the world is on track to cut CO2 emissions to just 4% below 2023 levels by 2030, the agency warns, resulting in warming of 2.4C above pre-industrial temperatures.
It says there is an “increasingly narrow, but still achievable” path to staying below 1.5C, which would need more clean electricity, faster electrification and a 33% cut in emissions by 2030.
But it is by far the most hopeful thing happening on our planet at the moment—finally, finally, we’re in the race. And if we push we could speed it up.
The numbers are already remarkable, and as far as I can tell almost no one knows them. The world is installing more than a gigawatt of solar power every day, and has been for more than a year—the number continues to steadily increase. A gigawatt is about the size of a nuclear plant—an old-style nuclear power plant. People are building—every day—the solar equivalent of a nuclear reactor, at a tiny fraction of the cost.
To give just one example of this pell-mell trend, in California the state just passed a law that should allow farmers on land that’s turned droughty because of climate change to generate 20 gigawatts of solar power.
“What AB 2661 does is it provides us the ability to be the master planner for this solar development, which we’re excited about, because it allows us to be more thoughtful about how the solar goes in and how it’s integrated with the surrounding land use and incorporated into the district,” said Jeff Payne, the other assistant general manager of Westlands.
The plan allows for flexibility with land use and some of the land that is transitioned to solar may end up going back to agricultural use years later, said Payne. That flexibility has been key for Westlands’ growers who want to maintain their agricultural heritage, said Payne.
According to SJVWater, the website covering water issues in the San Joaquin Valley, this one region could provide a sixth of California’s electricity by 2035. And California is, remember, the fifth largest economy on earth.
The solar story gets better and better and better: this week one manufacturer announced that their new panels—guranteeded for 40 years!—will produce one hundred times as much energy as it takes to make them.
I’m not telling you this is going to save the earth. The earth is balanced pretty perilously, as this month’s State of the Climate Report from a passel of leading researchers put it.
We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.
But I am telling you that the numbers coming out of the solar revolution are suddenly big, dwarfing everything else.
And we need big numbers.
Text by Bill McKibben The Crucial Years Substack.
https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/stare-at-the-sun
