# Radical Energy Abundance  ## Metadata - Author: [[Casey Handmer's blog]] - Full Title: Radical Energy Abundance - Category: #articles - Summary: We are currently in the midst of a fundamental transformation in our economic civilization-scale industrial energy metabolism. The key to this radical energy transformation is cheap solar power, which has been steadily declining in cost over the past few decades. Solar deployment is leading to increased production, process improvements, and manufacturing efficiencies, resulting in lower costs and increased competitiveness within existing energy markets. The demand for cheap solar power is insatiable, and as solar costs continue to decrease, it is expected to lead to a dynamic and versatile grid with a high percentage of solar generation and battery storage. Synthetic carbon-neutral fuels made from solar energy and CO2 capture could replace the need for drilling and refining fossil fuels, leading to reduced poverty and a closed carbon cycle. Cheap solar energy will also drive economic growth, expand energy consumption, and lead to advancements in various industries, including transportation and heat-intensive pro... - URL: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2023/10/11/radical-energy-abundance/ ## Highlights - A number of commentators have consistently predicted that solar cost improvements will level out “this year” since about 1990, and yet if anything deployment, cost decline, and the learning rate have only improved ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hn53etkv2ws796rmm85et09a)) - More recently, solar photovoltaic (PV) power got cheaper than coal, and in advanced markets it is already cheaper to build and operate solar than to continue operating a legacy thermal power plant. This seems crazy but it’s true – the operating costs of even a brand new coal or gas power plant are higher than the construction *and* operating costs of a new solar plant. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hn53p3a1377a2zkcp8ypnmsv)) - If it’s cheaper to make heat electrically than burn rocks, what is the next transition after that? The mission of my company Terraform Industries, which is making synthetic carbon neutral natural gas from sunlight and air. Very soon it will be cheaper to make rocks to burn from solar energy than to find rocks to burn in the Earth’s crust. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hn53s7p4y6kytfg5ekfh3aj2)) - Since 1973, energy scarcity has driven a general stagnation on many key axes of progress, while our civilization found growth in the less energy-intensive industries of computation and services. In 2023, the exponentially expanding growth of solar is putting our civilization permanently back on track to increased productivity, longevity, prosperity, and happiness. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hn53vn87njtweqw9t17n1v3a)) - But cheap fuel is equivalent to reduced poverty. The default climate discourse in recent years has been congruent to an acceptance that curtailing CO2 emissions would require the regrettable but ultimately impersonal de-industrialization and re-impoverishment of most of the world, which is both morally repugnant and politically impossible to achieve without first use of nuclear weapons. My controversial position is: *We shouldn’t do this*.  Instead, we should find a way to capture atmospheric CO2 and turn it back into fuel, closing the carbon cycle in the atmosphere, self-funding the scaled deployment of 50 GT/year of direct air capture (DAC) capacity, and aligning aggressive poverty reduction with aggressive industrial expansion. Cheap solar is the unlock that brings human progress and climate action from the realm of fundamental incompatibility to complimentary inevitability. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hn54qhmevcakp0bnmhzgv9ff)) - The oil and gas industry turned over $6.4T/year in 2022. This is roughly $1b/hour, but it will expand several times over as it is freed from the constraints of geology and scarcity. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hn54x7ggkee2bp8t7hve06sg))