The war is on, and so is the global energy crisis. In fact, I believe that oil futures prices are always very low based on what the spot prices will be. need to wake up solving the shortage will come once the oil supplies that were shipped before the Strait of Hormuz was closed are finished.
But a better future is coming, despite Donald Trump’s attack on renewable energy as he tries to drag us back to the fossil fuel past. Despite Trump’s chest beating, America is not the world. We account for only 15 percent of global energy consumption, compared to China’s 28 percent. And the rest of the world is moving rapidly to renewables, thanks to the revolution in solar power, wind power, and invisible batteries.
So let me take a leap of faith and talk about why batteries can save the world.
The drop in battery prices has been a surprise. It is like nothing anyone has ever seen before. Big, strong men with tears in their eyes came to me and said, “Sir, have you seen the progress of the batteries?”:
Why is this important?
First, cheap electric battery storage greatly reduces the problem of running out of time – the sun doesn’t always shine, the wind doesn’t always blow. This was a major problem at the beginning of the renewed revolution. Some economists chided me for being pessimistic when I first started wrote about solar technology back in 2011. But solar + batteries provide intermittent power.
Here’s a graph of California’s electricity supply generated by renewables and batteries during the 24 hours on April 1st that illustrates my point:
In the middle of the day, California generates a lot of electricity from the sun. Most of it is fed into batteries, which provide electricity when the sun goes down. Californians don’t notice the switch.
Second, battery performance has gone up while prices have come down. Unfortunately, there has been a significant increase in batteries’ volumetric energy density: the amount of electricity that can be stored in a given area. Until a few years ago, gasoline power provided the most potential for internal combustion in electric vehicles. But that’s not the case anymore. Outside of US power generation, the transition away from petroleum and toward electricity — especially electricity from green land — continues:
Third, we should expect rapid development of renewable energy. That’s because advances in batteries come from general education rather than scientific advances. In fact, lithium-ion batteries are a decades-old technology. However, costs have dropped significantly and energy efficiency has increased due to a continuous learning process, which shows no sign of ending.
In addition, we have seen rapid progress in all aspects of the green energy transition, although their fundamentals are not very similar. Solar panels, wind turbines and batteries are very different, yet all have seen revolutionary improvements. This strongly suggests that the entire renewable energy mix has a virtuous circle: increasing consumption leads to decreasing costs and decreasing costs lead to increasing consumption.
If we ask where this virtuous circle takes place, the answer is, mainly in China with help from Europe. And the result is “not America.” The United States has allowed itself to be largely overtaken by China and is now a disruptive player in the renewed revolution. Fortunately for the rest of the world, this means that the Trump administration’s hostility to renewable energy, its efforts to destroy progress, will not stop that revolution or even slow its pace. Of course, Trump’s anti-green leanings, curbing pollution will help leave America even further behind, but progress in fighting climate change and reducing the dangers of the world’s dependence on oil will continue.
So even though we are in the midst of a severe energy crisis that may continue for months, this too shall pass. A better, cheaper, cleaner energy future is on the way, and not even Trump can stop it.
MINOPE KODA
#Batteries #Trust