Solar PV, Wind, Tidal & Geothermal Energy 2023
The latest developments in clean non-nuclear energy
[TL;DR Breakthroughs are bringing us better cheaper clean energy]
What is encouraging is that coal consumption is trending down steadily, but natural gas consumption is rising. Natural gas doesn’t release soot like burning coal, nevertheless we have a limited supply of it and it produces emissions. Hydro power production remains relatively stable as there only so many dams that can be built. We can see the start of exponential growth in solar and wind. Hopefully more innovations can accelerate this!
This chart gives you can idea of the difference between solar and wind. Wind has a much larger upfront cost, but you will see an innovation down below that has enabled low cost wind. Solar efficiency is a big area of research in an effort to bring the cost per kWh down, hopefully enabling faster wider adoption.
LCOE
What matters is Levelized Cost of Electricity.
Solar Photovoltaic Innovation
Microinverters
Synergistic PV Applicability
Conventional Wind Power Innovation
Low Impact Wind Power
Low Cost Wind Power
Experimental Wind Power
Alternative Energy Sources
Tidal and geothermal energy is generally underutilized across the world, but facilities do exist. There are limiting co-related factors such as the difficulty of drilling, upfront costs, power efficiency and scale, as well as geographic availability. We are starting to see some impactful innovations that can bring about wider adoption.
Low Impact Tidal Power
Conventional Geothermal
Typically geothermal plants are done where there is volcanic heat readily available.
Plasma Drilling Geothermal
Much cheaper and faster way of drilling very deep down into the Earth. At depths of 10km there is a significant temperature increase in the crust whether or not you are near volcanic activity. This method can be combined with conventional bore drilling to significantly bring down drilling costs: the soft ground could be conventionally drilled and then the bedrock could be plasma drilled.
