History is firmly on the side of renewable energy sources. As they get "exponentially more affordable," it's only a matter of time before they become ascendent.
So goes the argument of complex systems scientist, economist, and entrepreneur J. Doyne Farmer in a September L.A. Times opinion piece.
Farmer delves into history to back up his argument that clean energy sources like wind and solar will continue to get cheaper and easier to produce. The example Farmer cites is "Moore's Law," which can teach us lessons about the rate of technological development.
Almost 60 years ago, Gordon Moore predicted the regular doubling of microchip density — and in 1975 he settled on an estimate of this doubling occurring every two years. The prediction by Moore, the future co-founder of Intel, proved remarkably prescient.
As the production of chips has exponentially grown, so has their speed, while their relative cost and energy requirement has sharply fallen, as Farmer notes. Consequently, he writes that computers are "about a billion times more powerful" than when Moore made his first prediction in 1965.
So, how does that connect to clean energy?
In an encouraging trend, both solar panels and lithium batteries have been dropping in cost at a consistent 10% rate for years. Wind turbines are steadily decreasing in cost, though not quite as fast, according to Farmer.
This decidedly isn't the case for competitors like nuclear power or dirty energy sources like oil, gas, and coal. Farmer points out their relative costs have stayed around the same or slightly increased when adjusting for inflation.
Another positive historical trend that Farmer introduces is the S curve, which Farmer says can be seen in the growth of areas as disparate as canals and the internet. The S curve predicts the global deployment of technologies will increase exponentially at first before leveling out.
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What that means for renewable energy sources is truly exciting. The pattern projects that green energy sources likely will experience extreme growth over the next 20 years, per Farmer, steadily taking over electrification before spreading to carbon-dominant industries like aviation. Farmer also foresees major growth in the fledgling hydrogen economy.
Early evidence backing Farmer's argument abounds. Whether it's Great Britain experiencing its greenest summer ever, astounding technological advancements in wind energy, or promising developments in the hydrogen economy. That progress will be critical to staving off the dire consequences of the warming of the planet.
Farmer cites Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter's prediction of "creative destruction" in uncertain environments as a feature of the world's energy transition. Some parties will resist, like stakeholders in dirty energy sources, or policymakers who don't want to take on the up-front costs.
"The future savings more than offset present investments to the extent that the transition would make sense from a purely economic standpoint even if we weren't worried about climate change," counters Farmer.
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