The Future of Energy: Solar Power Is Coming

The amount of energy the earth receives from the sun each year is more than 10,000 times the total energy needs of all humans on earth. We cannot effectively harness even such a paltry fraction of the sun’s energy yet. In 2008, less than 0.02% of the global energy supply came from solar energy. In most parts of the world, solar energy is simply too expensive. Carbon-based energy such as oil and coal still provide a cheaper alternative, even while harming our environment. Solar energy currently costs about 38 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared with only 5 cents per kWh for oil and less than 1 cent per kWh for coal. Government taxes and subsidies typically reduce this cost disparity slightly, but not enough to make solar energy viable for most people.

Fortunately, this will soon change. Photovoltaic solar cells are typically made of silicon: the same material in computer chips. Engineers cannot shrink the solar panels in the same way that they can shrink transistors, because solar panels need to have a large surface area to absorb as much sunlight as possible. However, they can make the panels themselves more efficient and shrink the thickness of the panels. As a result, solar energy appears to be on a Moore’s Law-like trajectory of its own. Approximately every 18 months, the total solar capacity doubles and the cost falls by 20%. Up until now, this hasn’t been noticeable because it is such a small portion of our overall energy supply. Doubling a small number is still a small number.

However, if this trend continues, solar energy will be able to supply virtually 100% of the earth’s energy needs by 2035. Some observers are even more optimistic, predicting that solar energy will cost about the same as carbon-based energy by 2015. They theorize that after 2015, the capacity of solar energy could increase much more quickly, as consumer demand for solar energy makes it very lucrative and the industry explodes. Other observers are more skeptical; some question whether solar energy is really on Moore’s Law-like pattern of exponential growth at all, suggesting that this recent trend could be caused by other factors.

I think it’s quite clear that solar power will continue to grow at an exponential rate, since manufacturing solar panels requires many of the same techniques that drive the reduction in cost of computer chips. But I wouldn’t count on the industry suddenly exploding in popularity as soon as solar energy becomes slightly cheaper than oil and coal. It’s important to remember that solar energy is not a commodity like oil that can be traded globally. The costs will be much lower in deserts and other sunny areas. By the end of this decade, we may see the American Southwest and Southern Europe starting to switch to solar power, while other regions lag behind, using oil and coal for much longer.

Moving away from fossil fuels will be the single most important step we can take to stop making climate change worse (although much of the damage will already be done, and will continue to accumulate for decades after the switch). An international economy that was not reliant on oil would be much more stable for global security. Many of the biggest potential threats to international stability come from oil-rich regimes, where money from oil exports often funds extremist groups or large militaries that destabilize the region. Furthermore, solar energy prices would be much more predictable than oil. Unlike oil, there would be no maximum amount of energy available; new solar panels could always be added and older panels could be improved, ensuring that the price continued to drop. They would drop at a roughly consistent rate, rather than fluctuating wildly from one year to the next as oil does. Eventually, the energy cost in nearly all products will be virtually eliminated, as solar energy becomes cheaper and cheaper.

Most people look back over recent history and find it difficult to imagine that energy prices will ever go down - just look at gas prices today compared to a decade ago! But in reality, the past decade is an exception, caused by the rapid development of China and India just as we reached peak oil production. In the long term, the broad trend has been for energy costs to decline. Solar energy will ensure that that trend continues for decades to come.

PREDICTIONS:
By 2025 – In the United States, solar energy is cheaper than oil on average, on a per kilowatt-hour basis.
By 2035 – The global oil trade is less than 25% the size that it is in 2010 (approximately $2.1 trillion), adjusted for inflation.

Climate Change Solutions and Non-Solutions

The climate change debate in the United States seems to perpetually focus on the wrong questions. Some deny that climate change even exists, while others claim climate change may reach a “tipping point” which would permanently cause a drastic shift in the earth’s climate. The economic aspects of the debate are usually drowned out entirely, but they are important to consider when formulating public policy. How much will it cost to fight climate change? Will our efforts to combat climate change actually be effective? And would it be better to simply wait a few years for better technology?

Climate change is, of course, a real danger to our planet, but our ability to reduce our impact at the present time is very limited. First, there is the economic problem. Even if the developed world unilaterally limited its carbon emissions, the developing world almost certainly would not follow suit, thus negating any carbon reductions in the West. From the perspective of developing nations, the economic imperatives of developing as quickly as possible simply outweigh the environmental risks of global warming. China and India have successfully lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty through economic development; it is highly unlikely that they will be willing to acquiesce to Western demands to limit their carbon emissions (and thus limit their economic growth). With such a strong economic incentive to continue polluting, finding the political will to limit emissions will be almost impossible for these nations.

Second, there is the technological problem. Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for 70 years. If the entire world suddenly reverted to the amount of carbon emissions they produced in 1990, the net impact on our climate would be almost negligible by the end of the 21st century. Programs like cap-and-trade are doomed to failure, due to both the political difficulty of implementing them and their lack of effectiveness at actually halting climate change. Therefore, any feasible solution must come from technology, not politics.

We need not accept the punishment Mother Nature will dole out for our meddling with the environment. On the contrary, I am optimistic about technological solutions on the horizon. Solar energy is following a Moore’s Law-like trajectory, with the cost falling by half every 2-3 years. Within 10 to 15 years, solar energy will be cheaper than oil. Switching from fossil fuels to clean energy will be the single biggest way to end our carbon pollution.

Additionally, many geoengineering solutions have been proposed to scrub the existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. One of the most feasible ideas is called iron fertilization, in which we would seed the oceans with small flakes of iron to encourage plankton to grow, which would in turn “eat” carbon dioxide. Geoengineering solutions like this could be implemented today, and are very cheap. However, they carry environmental dangers of their own, and it remains to be seen if the good would outweigh the bad. Environmental scientists are studying the side effects of these solutions, and it should be clearer within a few years if the consequences of these solutions will be acceptable.

In the very near future, it is likely that we will have some cost-effective, feasible solutions for effectively limiting our carbon pollution, without the economic downsides of cap-and-trade or international treaties. However, they are not available quite yet, and we should not pretend that they are by wasting money on anti-global warming initiatives instead of spending the money on something that can actually help the world today. While I realize this suggestion does not fulfill our emotional need to pretend that we are doing something to solve the problem, doing nothing is the only rational course of action...for now.

50 Years of Questions

This is a video I made a couple months ago, entitled "50 Years of Questions." It's my vision for what the world might look like in the future, as well as a look back at how far we've come in the last decade.

Note that I just think these are QUESTIONS people might be asking themselves around this time. I'm not necessarily suggesting that we'll know the answers to all of them by the dates I listed.