is a “distraction” from solar, which is about to tip into exponential growth that will sweep aside all other energy sources, say
Solar, though, “is going to take over energy it is in a way that will be utterly astonishing for most people”, Professor Blakers said. “They are going to have a few prototypes up by 2030, but it really needs the economy of volume to get the prices down to where they’re projecting,” he said. “So you need to be selling hundreds of these things, not just a few sample ones.”
“Solar has been growing at 20 per cent a year for a long time. If it continues to grow at this level, we will completely decarbonise the world by the early 2040s. This is how fast it’s happening. It’s so cheap compared with anything else.”Nuclear, meanwhile, had not increased its capacity in the past 13 years, he said, adding no more than a gigawatt a year.
“Basically, you need a lot of new transmission to bring the new solar and wind into cities. And we’re not building it,” Professor Blakers said.“Transmission only becomes important once you get up to 30, 40 per cent solar-wind. We’re currently 33 per cent solar-wind, and we will be 75 per cent by 2030. We don’t have a transmission problem yet. But in two years’ time, we’ll have a major one, and everyone can see that.