this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2024
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Adding on to what GreyEyedGhost said, since the year 2000 the price of solar power (per watt) has fallen by more than 50x. Because of this huge drop in price the installed solar capacity has been doubling every 3 years. That means that in the time since 2020 we've built more solar capacity than we did in the previous 20 years combined.
If that's not good enough then idk. Imagine holding any other technology to that standard. The model T came out almost 100 years ago for an inflation adjusted price of $27,000 and with an MPG of 7.5. ICE cars today are better in a lot of other ways but they are not 50x cheaper and they are not 50x more fuel efficient than that.
You guys really seem to have a hard time to understand my point, so that's on me. Clearly I didn't explain it very well. First, look at my reply to GreyEyedGhost. Let me reemphasize from that post: I have never said or intended to imply that there were no advances made in the last 20 or 30 years. I have no idea why you keep bringing up long term (price) developments at all. It wasn't even about price at all, please go back and read my comment again.
Let's address your points: Of course stuff has gotten cheaper, as that's how "scale of production" works. That's how the price AND the "doubling of installed capacity every 3 years" were achieved. Nothing about that is a technological breakthrough, it's just production capacity you need for this.
Of course there were improvements in technology (solar efficiency, battery density and others, wind "stuff", ...). But none of those were anywhere near those claims that you read in these pseudo-news. It's a percent here or there. Look at the nice graph on Wikipedia. See how those lines go up very very little per year? Yet in the article that sparked this thread, it's a whopping 10%! Unfortunately, the cells fall apart when they get warm. No idea how a solar panel would ever get warm. But hey, let's make another headline claiming amazing gains, can't ever have enough of those!
That's pretty definite by any measure.
But I get it. 99% of the announcements go nowhere. And it's worse if an announcement is just hype or hyperbole. However, in science we have to do the 99% to find the 1% of true advancements.
So ~~of~~ if your point is just that you don't like the hyperbole, then using hyperbole yourself is not doing yourself any favour. Of course people are going to be more measured and realistic in reply to your blatant over-statements and denials.
Not really, sorry. The complaint still is that the announcements are of some magical huge improvement that is just not real. They might work in a prototype, maybe in a laboratory, or the thing just disintegrates after being exposed to water or something. Of course the results influence existing or future products, that's how the real world improvements come about.
By the time you modify the prototype (or whatever) into something that is actually real world production viable, with a reasonable lifespan and production costs, there's barely anything left in common with the hyperbolic announcement about fantasy stuff.
I stand by that statement you highlighted. And the fact that it isn't hyperbole. With all of these achievements being released as clickbait news articles, somehow when something exciting it's actually everything the market, it's crickets. Like solid state or "salt" batteries are starting to become products, seen any articles on those posted here recently? Or in news outlets in general? I haven't, but I honestly could've just missed them, or they didn't gain as much traction.
We must read very different sources. For example, I've seen plenty of articles and videos just this week for Samsung's 1,000 km EV battery with its 20 year life span, and 9-minute charging. If you consider those combined features incremental, then I can see why you're frustrated. It's already in production, and has been delivered to "customers. Samsung are even gearing up for out-sourced mass manufacturing. That's well beyond some theoretical lab experiment that has no chance of seeing the light of day.
I don't disagree with you about the 99% over-hype being a PITA. But to adamantly state you're seeing nothing reported on, while admitting you "could've just missed them" doesn't sound convincing. Besides, it only takes a single article for you to be wrong about it being "never."