Sorry to be boring and tenacious. My point is that $500 billion for just 3 recent climate events in the US, or, as is happening where I live (NSW Australia) at this moment, we are coming out of a 1 in 500 year flood event with massive damage to property and livelihoods ...... and funny this, but this 1 in 500 year event is not a lot different to the flooding event in 2022 ... maybe that was just a 1 in 100 year event???
My point is that there is a lot of climate damage built in and we seem quite passive about making it worse. I agree with you that China and India, Asia, Africa understand what is going on and I fully expect that soon China and India at least will actively pull ICE vehicles out and replace them with BEVs.
Perhaps the US will try to ignore this, but the rest of the world isn't going to let it when (soon) all coral reefs are gone etc etc etc. Somehow we need to convince markets, investors etc that essentially all burning of fossil fuels must stop long before the use-by date of the existing technologies.
Not boring - but I put these posts out to hopefully give data to folks globally to use in debates and elsewhere- I have a platform in eg Ember to try and amplify that the new tech is not - now - a moral position but a pragmatic one for better wealth - that seems more neutral and scalable rather than 1-1 debates with skeptics- go you !
Just one thing that seems to get overlooked in these kinds of considerations is the need to address the climate issues. Your commentary is largely about technology competition, efficiency and cost reductions.
I look at the climate stuff closely. Three climate-enhanced events in the US recently (hurricanes Helene & Milton, and LA fires) cost ~$500 billion overall. This is happening everywhere. My take is that we are going to have to accelerate the exit from fossil fuels because the costs become impossible if we don't.
Take transport for example, I know complete electrification is daunting, but it is quite feasible. My take is that China is going to start to swap out ICE vehicles for BEVs quite soon. There has to be 100% BEV by 2050, not still 50% ICE.
BYD is on the way to providing the capacity to do this globally.
I live in the Aussie bush. I've been astonished how easy it is to essentially exit fossil fuel use, thanks to cheap Chinese solar panels and high quality cheap BEV (thank you BYD for your Atto 3). Our transport costs are now essentially $0 through charging from our rooftop solar.
Thanks - I think we have entered a period now where the tech is now so cheap and good that the emissions impact is a free benefit - I do not mention it explicitly though- see my Laplace comment at the very end - because sadly it is now counterproductive with incumbents and certain political factions deliberately noting the cheap and high quality products are just climate science subsidised etc - I think we will therefore see ( are seeing ?) a stratified EV and clean tech economy ahead with China / Asia Africa leading, EU second tier and the US a laggard till at least 2040 or beyond - the perils of ideology over physics - again …
Solar panels are becoming cheaper and so are batteries. However, the systems cost (dealing with variability and reliability) become larger and not smaller as renewables come to dominate the grid. Simple extrapolation doesn't account for this.
I think China will be the biggest beneficiary- lots of land lots of tech know-how - the first modern electrostate of the energy era - with all that skill and cheap electrons they will develop electric use for many sectors and dominate EVs - it will be an uneven roll out - we have a century ahead of exponential growth so who knows how cheap this gets or how clever - 1.2 billion folks in China hell of a start though - BYD selling family EVs now at $ 7.000- what will that cost in 2030 ….
EVs now $7,000 for new models - you can think this in depth or look at 30 years of data unfolding - anyway - sticking with simple models avoids the complexity of so many variables that often contradict - at least as a benchmark- if you have a better forward model than the past growth - please use that
Agreed - hence I suggested to use lower growth rates when looking beyond eg 2035 - but so far solar rates have been sticky and in the 15-20% range for over 20 years now
I also Wonder how much further the cost curve on solar is going to decline. For example, prime spots near populations are increasingly filled up, while so many production costs have already been squeezed out that I'm not sure there's much left.
Reminds me of replacing the boiler in my house. The boiler was 25% the total cost.
No different re: solar - the cost of the panels, inverters, etc. has come down significantly. Micro inverters, normed connectors, etc make aspects of the installation process less expensive too. But a lot of the total cost is labor and that is unlikely to decrease much.
Another aspect is where these panels will be sited vs. where the power is needed. The “useless” open spaces in my home state are already populated with solar panels. (Ie landfills). Plus we get a lot of cloud cover.
T Boone Pickens was willing to put up solar and wind throughout Texas provided that someone else would provide transport and interconnects. That’s where the battle will be at.
Germany just spent bazillions of euros laying interconnects to the remote areas where wind and solar were welcome. But even they are rethinking the decision to exit the nuclear power field in the light of elusive cost savings, lack of network stability, and long term security.
No one has yet solved the grid scale storage problem with batteries other than on a arbitrage basis, no?
Insightful. Thanks!
Sorry to be boring and tenacious. My point is that $500 billion for just 3 recent climate events in the US, or, as is happening where I live (NSW Australia) at this moment, we are coming out of a 1 in 500 year flood event with massive damage to property and livelihoods ...... and funny this, but this 1 in 500 year event is not a lot different to the flooding event in 2022 ... maybe that was just a 1 in 100 year event???
My point is that there is a lot of climate damage built in and we seem quite passive about making it worse. I agree with you that China and India, Asia, Africa understand what is going on and I fully expect that soon China and India at least will actively pull ICE vehicles out and replace them with BEVs.
Perhaps the US will try to ignore this, but the rest of the world isn't going to let it when (soon) all coral reefs are gone etc etc etc. Somehow we need to convince markets, investors etc that essentially all burning of fossil fuels must stop long before the use-by date of the existing technologies.
Not boring - but I put these posts out to hopefully give data to folks globally to use in debates and elsewhere- I have a platform in eg Ember to try and amplify that the new tech is not - now - a moral position but a pragmatic one for better wealth - that seems more neutral and scalable rather than 1-1 debates with skeptics- go you !
Really valuable commentary!! Thank you.
Just one thing that seems to get overlooked in these kinds of considerations is the need to address the climate issues. Your commentary is largely about technology competition, efficiency and cost reductions.
I look at the climate stuff closely. Three climate-enhanced events in the US recently (hurricanes Helene & Milton, and LA fires) cost ~$500 billion overall. This is happening everywhere. My take is that we are going to have to accelerate the exit from fossil fuels because the costs become impossible if we don't.
Take transport for example, I know complete electrification is daunting, but it is quite feasible. My take is that China is going to start to swap out ICE vehicles for BEVs quite soon. There has to be 100% BEV by 2050, not still 50% ICE.
BYD is on the way to providing the capacity to do this globally.
I live in the Aussie bush. I've been astonished how easy it is to essentially exit fossil fuel use, thanks to cheap Chinese solar panels and high quality cheap BEV (thank you BYD for your Atto 3). Our transport costs are now essentially $0 through charging from our rooftop solar.
Thanks - I think we have entered a period now where the tech is now so cheap and good that the emissions impact is a free benefit - I do not mention it explicitly though- see my Laplace comment at the very end - because sadly it is now counterproductive with incumbents and certain political factions deliberately noting the cheap and high quality products are just climate science subsidised etc - I think we will therefore see ( are seeing ?) a stratified EV and clean tech economy ahead with China / Asia Africa leading, EU second tier and the US a laggard till at least 2040 or beyond - the perils of ideology over physics - again …
Solar panels are becoming cheaper and so are batteries. However, the systems cost (dealing with variability and reliability) become larger and not smaller as renewables come to dominate the grid. Simple extrapolation doesn't account for this.
I think China will be the biggest beneficiary- lots of land lots of tech know-how - the first modern electrostate of the energy era - with all that skill and cheap electrons they will develop electric use for many sectors and dominate EVs - it will be an uneven roll out - we have a century ahead of exponential growth so who knows how cheap this gets or how clever - 1.2 billion folks in China hell of a start though - BYD selling family EVs now at $ 7.000- what will that cost in 2030 ….
I think the cost declines and new tech will continue - the past 20 years are the main guide - if growth rates of 15-20 % were used in 2000 we’d be far more accurate than the IEA,s terrible forecasts - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/simon-evans-53091614_wowthe-iea-has-boosted-its-latest-renewable-activity-7249784611529011200-8VtR?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAABJeXeIB0DjDYsjn9M0lT7dEnNXPtPh7X7s
note also - likely all current installations ofPV for example could be reinstalled with newer panel la meaning 50% generation improvement with current footprints - re BEVs see here https://thedriven.io/2025/05/27/byd-intensifies-ev-price-war-in-home-market-slashing-up-to-30-off-some-models/
EVs now $7,000 for new models - you can think this in depth or look at 30 years of data unfolding - anyway - sticking with simple models avoids the complexity of so many variables that often contradict - at least as a benchmark- if you have a better forward model than the past growth - please use that
Agreed - hence I suggested to use lower growth rates when looking beyond eg 2035 - but so far solar rates have been sticky and in the 15-20% range for over 20 years now
I also Wonder how much further the cost curve on solar is going to decline. For example, prime spots near populations are increasingly filled up, while so many production costs have already been squeezed out that I'm not sure there's much left.
In fact, in your model how much are you relying on further cost decline?
Reminds me of replacing the boiler in my house. The boiler was 25% the total cost.
No different re: solar - the cost of the panels, inverters, etc. has come down significantly. Micro inverters, normed connectors, etc make aspects of the installation process less expensive too. But a lot of the total cost is labor and that is unlikely to decrease much.
Another aspect is where these panels will be sited vs. where the power is needed. The “useless” open spaces in my home state are already populated with solar panels. (Ie landfills). Plus we get a lot of cloud cover.
T Boone Pickens was willing to put up solar and wind throughout Texas provided that someone else would provide transport and interconnects. That’s where the battle will be at.
Germany just spent bazillions of euros laying interconnects to the remote areas where wind and solar were welcome. But even they are rethinking the decision to exit the nuclear power field in the light of elusive cost savings, lack of network stability, and long term security.
No one has yet solved the grid scale storage problem with batteries other than on a arbitrage basis, no?