|
Every five days, the Sun provides the
Earth with as much energy as all proven supplies of oil, coal and natural
gas.
If humanity could capture just one part of
6,000 in available solar energy, we’d be able to meet 100 percent of our
energy needs.
We’re about to enter an age of energy
abundance.
This year, Peter brought Ramez Naam
to Abundance 360 to explore how converging exponential technologies will
reshape the energy industry in the years and decades ahead.
Naam spent 13 years as a Microsoft
executive, and now heads the Energy track at Singularity University. He is
a brilliant speaker, an acclaimed science fiction writer and one of Peter’s
dear friends.
Before we dive in, here is some context:
As the video notes, the poorest
countries in the world are also the sunniest, which means that the entire
planet will benefit from the coming energy revolution.
Plummeting Solar Costs
Energy is a $6 trillion per year
industry, and it’s ripe for disruption.
In his A360 remarks, Naam explained
how the price of solar will further plummet while efficiency and
accessibility will dramatically improve.
Some evidence of disruption Naam
highlighted:
Peabody, the largest
private sector coal company on Earth, went bankrupt in 2014, about three
years after its peak.
In 2017, China canceled
plans for 151 coal power plants -- some $80 billion of planned projects
that will no longer happen.
India canceled almost $9
billion of coal plants in a single month (June 2017).
Shell Oil predicts that
peak oil demand will arrive sometime between 2021 and 2029.
Over the past 40 years, the cost of
solar panel materials has dropped 250x
as a result of innovations in materials science.
Naam noted some major price
milestones over the past year:
Where:
Tucson, Arizona. Cost:
4.3 cents/kWh.
Where:
Chile. Cost:
2.91 cents/kWh.
Where:
Mexico. Cost:
2.7 cents/kWh.
Where:
Abu Dhabi.
Cost: 2.42 cents/kWh.
The 2.42 cents/kWh deal
signed in Abu Dhabi is the lowest unsubsidized cost per kWh ever signed
anywhere in the world.
And with the anticipated convergences
of machine learning, quantum computing and materials science, exponential
improvements in solar panel materials will only accelerate.
“It's like a digital shift in price,
but in the most important physical infrastructure piece we have, which is
energy,” explained Naam. “So now we're hitting crossover, the point at
which, in the sunniest parts of the world, solar is simply the cheapest
energy you can buy, period, unsubsidized.”
The digitization of solar technology
improvements is clear. The materials science of solar is a close cousin to
that of computation: both rely on semiconductor and thin film technologies
at their core.
With an exponential price decline in
solar material cost, what other innovations must happen to truly approach dematerialized
solar?
Currently, the amount of solar
installed each year increases by 35 to 40 percent.
Considering this growth, we’ll see
secondary and tertiary accelerants to the already exponential nature of
solar.
Two-thirds of the cost of solar comes
from soft costs -- land, panel framing, solar trackers, maintenance, and so
on. (Effectively everything besides the panels themselves.)
While robotic and automated solar
trackers have been part of solar construction for some time, robotic labor
and maintenance are about to disrupt the industry.
One megawatt of solar power is
estimated to require 8 acres of land. U.S. solar capacity is on the order
of 3,000 megawatts (only 0.65 percent of U.S. power produced), about 24,000
acres of solar-covered land. Extrapolating the 8-acre-per-megawatt estimate
to a time when solar dominates 10 percent of U.S. energy, and we’ll need
over 1.6 million acres of solar installations.
1.6 million acres is a lot of land to
cover and maintain -- for humans.
Solar farm robots will range from
autonomous solar-panel-installing trucks to robotic solar panel technicians
and surveillance drones and sensors detecting broken panels.
Removing the added cost of labor
associated with laying acres of solar panels will be a secondary accelerant
to lowering the cost of solar.
A tertiary accelerant happens when we
can use renewable energy overnight and during inclement weather.
Energy Storage Shakeup
The utility of renewable energy
generators is ultimately linked to our ability to store the harnessed
energy.
Exponential advances in renewable
technologies will converge with exponential advances in storage technology.
We’re in the middle of an energy storage shakeup.
“Storage is the new solar,” says
Naam. “This is where we’re seeing the rapid price plunge that’s now
changing everything.”
To contextualize how rapidly storage
technologies are improving, lithium-ion battery costs have dropped 5x over
the past eight years.
Battery prices are decreasing at
nearly the same rate as solar prices decreased, but a decade later.
Taking Action
Naam described four ways that
entrepreneurs can take action:
Watch the exposure of
your supply chain to fossil fuel disruption
Get efficient and cut
your energy costs in production (for example, by tapping into services like
Sparkfund)
Get flexible and think
about energy-intensive investments
Invest in the future.
Peter often says that we are living
in the most opportunity-filled time in human history.
An abundance of energy enables an
entirely new era of innovation, with untold implications on everyday life
and the global standard of living.
As a leader, how will you prepare for
this change?
Last year, I ran a
competition to find my next “Strike Force” interns. Max Goldberg and Claire
Adair won the competition, and joined me at Abundance 360 as special
correspondents. This blog featured key insights from A360 on the energy
revolution, as written by Max and edited by Marissa Brassfield.
Join Me
1. A360 Executive
Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive
Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for
360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B
companies). If you’d like to be considered, apply
here.
Share this with your friends,
especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.
2. Abundance-Digital
Online Community: I’ve also created a Digital/Online
community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance-Digital.
Abundance-Digital is my ‘onramp’ for
exponential entrepreneurs – those who want to get involved and play at a
higher level. Click
here to learn more.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment