This performance indicates that solar energy is different from other energy sources. History shows the same. From 1800 to 2020, energy produced from coal increased about 400 times, but the cost of coal, adjusted for inflation, remained stable. The same can be said for oil and, more recently, natural gas. The use of these fuels has supported economic growth, but their real costs have not changed.
Since the 1960s, the levelized cost of solar energy—the cost required to recoup an investment—has fallen by a factor of more than 1,000, and the trend continues. Now that solar represents buy phone number list a significant portion of the world’s energy, falling costs will continue to drive down the price of energy in many applications. This will lead to innovations that will change entire industries and create new ones.
Boulton and Watt’s early steam engines were not entirely made in-house: the cylinders were cast in John Wilkinson’s foundry, while Boulton’s factory supplied fittings and supervised assembly. Today, silicon smelters in China offer something similar, supplying the world with the material it needs to generate power. They heat quartz sand to 1,900°C in electric arc furnaces with a little carbon, creating molten “polysilicon” ready for use in solar panels, all with far less complex technology than other energy sources.
which initiated large subsidies to stimulate demand in the early 2000s, appreciated the decentralization that solar power offered; the Social Democrats, on the other hand, saw it as an opportunity to develop a new manufacturing industry. Both sides saw solar panels as a tool for decarbonizing the economy, but they didn’t necessarily see them as a particularly powerful solution. The panels offered a sustainable form of energy that would only work if people radically reduced their consumption.