Solar set to be world's biggest power source

[Caribbeans]

UK Telegraph | Adam Vaughan | Tuesday April 11 2023

Solar power has reached a pivotal point after the world experienced a “sun rush” last year, with the amount of electricity generated from solar up by 24 per cent.

The International Energy Agency expects solar energy to become the world’s biggest source of electricity by the middle of the century, helping to tackle climate change and reducing air pollution. Last year appears to have marked an important step toward that.

The extra generation from new solar panels around the world last year provided enough electricity to power South Africa. Globally, solar produced 1,284 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity last year, about 4.5 per cent of all power generation, up from 3.7 per cent in 2021.

China provided almost 80 per cent of the extra 245 TWh of generation last year, followed by the US and EU.

“When we look at the evidence, we know 2022 will be remembered as a turning point,” said Dave Jones, an electricity analyst at Ember, the think tank behind the new figures. Many governments were forced to rethink their reliance on fossil fuels because of the war in Ukraine, he added. However, solar power’s growth in the UK was slow compared with the global average. The UK generated 13.5TWh from solar last year, up just 1TWh...more
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/83f6234a-d8aa-11ed-80bc-e358583c5d62

How's that for "useless" and "worthless"??

The next question is how to store energy. Will there be MORE Excess Renewable Energy in the future - or LESS?? Batteries or Hydrogen or Flywheels? How about ALL of those and more. Unless you sell batteries, of course.

[Blues Heron]

1. Dont those poor fools know about ... night???

tHoSe PaNeLs ArE sO UgLy!

[gay texan]

3. And OMG

It gets cloudy!!!

[GenXer47]

2. thirst quenching!

Thanks for this sprinkle of optimism in such a hopeless time!

[Duppers]

4. Strangely, China has been leading

The West in this pursuit for yrs.

[NickB79]

5. "by the middle of the century". The title conveniently left that out

So, 30 years from now.

Only about 20 years after the Thwaites Glacier collapses and raises sea levels by FEET.

Also about when the Antarctic Conveyor System will shut down, short-circuiting the Southern Hemisphere oceanic carbon cycle.

The only way we prevent this future is by building massive carbon removal systems to scrub and sequester carbon from air and sea. If we do that, there won't be any excess electricity, because every watt will be needed to run those plants.

That's the conundrum we're in. To prevent catastrophic climate change, which we will see at 420 ppm today, we need many times more energy than we currently generate to scrub out carbon. It's NEVER budgeted into any renewable scale-up plans, however.

[Delphinus]

6. Serious question

Here in this group, yesterday there was a post about The New York Times article on Bitcoin mining.

[link:https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127161046|

Will solar panels and the electricity they generate be enough to keep up with the use these Bitcoin miners are using per what the article states?