Wind and solar heading for 100%

 From Bloomberg Green:

Three decades ago, the U.S. passed an infinitesimal milestone: solar and wind power generated one-tenth of one percent of the country’s electricity. It took 18 years, until 2008, for solar and wind to reach 1% of U.S. electricity. It took 12 years for solar and wind to increase by another factor of 10. In 2020, wind and solar generated 10.5% of U.S. electricity.

If this sounds a bit like a math exercise, that’s because it is. Anything growing at a compounded rate of nearly 18%, as U.S. wind and solar have done for the past three decades, will double in four years, then double again four years after that, then again four years after that, and so on.

It gets confusing to think in so many successive doublings, especially when they occur more than twice a decade. Better, then, to think in orders of magnitude—10ˣ.

[Read more here]

The annual compound growth rate since the percentage reached 1% has been 21%.  And if that growth rate continues, wind and solar will make up 100% of electricity generation by 2031.  There is no reason for growth to slow, and every reason for it to remain high, because wind and solar are much cheaper than new-build coal, and about the same as ts operating cost, and they are getting even cheaper, while at the same time, a new administration is intent on moving towards zero carbon. Of course, the growth rate will slow as the percentage approaches 100%, because that's how S-curves work.  And there will still be hydro as part of the mix.  Hydro accounts for  ~7% of electricity supply now.  But for the next few years, the transition will be very fast.

I remember arguing with someone 10 years ago.  He said that wind and solar were a tiny proportion of world electricity generation, and therefore it was irrelevant.  My thesis, for him, and anyone who would listen, is simple.  Exponential growth would lead to very rapid jumps in the penetration of renewables.  Which is what's happened, and will continue to happen.  And that same very rapid increase is happening in electric cars too.  What this implies is that coal and oil are both in decline, and that their decline will accelerate.