this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026
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Futurology

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Renewables (especially solar) & batteries are on an unstoppable path to global domination. The simple reason? Cost. Thanks to economies of scale, they are now the cheapest source of energy - and they still have far to go in getting even cheaper. By the early 2030's, they will be vastly cheaper than the alternatives.

The electrification of the economy that this is driving in China is on the scale of the 19th Industrial Revolution in Europe. What today is China, will tomorrow be the world. Many in the rest of the world seem caught in the tailspin. In particular, clinging to outdated narratives courtesy of the Fossil Fuel industry.

But that's a big mistake. From now on, the only way to credibly plan for and model the future is to talk about it as what it really will be - a place where renewables and batteries will provide almost all energy.

Peak Oil Is Coming: And petrostates are not ready for it

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[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 1 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

"The share of all world energy coming from fossil fuels is shrinking" -- no, the statistics show it is effectively unchanged. Meaningless nominal capacity even without capacity factors, need for dispatchable power not mentioned -- typical garbage tier blogger posting.

[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Title is wrong by several orders of magnitude. Global energy capacity is not 10TWh. Global energy capacity increased by 1000TWh last year. Total capacity is in the hundreds of thousands at least.

[–] Lugh@futurology.today 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

No, the headline is correct. You're confusing TW & TWh.

An analogy here is how much energy a car engine produces to run the car at any given moment, and the entire energy the car produces over the course of a whole year (which is the figure you quote).

As there are an average of 1,000 - 3,000 hours of sunshine (depending on location), if the solar panels were at maximum efficiency - they would produce 10,000 - 30,000 TWh.

That upper figure is about the world's annual output in TWh.

[–] scintilla@crust.piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Latest I can find in a quick Google search is 2024 at about 190000 Twh.

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 1 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

What's happening here is the all too common confusion that I also am prone to making between power (given in Watts) and energy consumption/generation (given in Watt-hours).

To make an approachable comparison, for our purposes, power is like your internet speed, while energy consumption is how much data you spent.

It's specially confusing cause the title says they're producing 1 TW of panels, and 'producing' immediately makes me think of energy. It would be better if it said something like 'producing panels capable of generating 1TW', which is also more truthful since you're not getting their full generation capacity all the time.

PS: I even confused the two while writing this post lmao

[–] PointyFluff@lemmy.ml -1 points 1 day ago

The fuck is this shit?
Who gave this chart to Trump?
Fucking Magic-Sharpie BS.