I recently subscribed to Scientific American and read a great article about the long slow rise of "modern" renewables like solar and wind power. The author used the term modern renewables to exclude hydroelectricity, which has already been widely adopted and now faces limited growth (all the low hanging fruit has been snagged). The figure below shows the adoption curves of different primary energy sources. I added some data (source 1, source 2 and source 3) from IEA to fill out the curve for modern renewables. The take-away from the figure below is that each subsequent transition from primary energy sources takes a long time and that adoption rates are slowing due to the entrenchment of incumbents and the expanding energy consumption. The authors argue that the adoption rate of modern renewables can be increased by certain policies such as R&D funding, removal of subsidies and inclusion of economic externalities (include the price of environmental degradation). The authors also envision a shift in energy infrastructure such that the
current practice of placing a relatively small number of very large
power plants "to a much greater number of small, distributed wind and
solar systems."
Most of my professional career I have been in an industry that either burns oil (Jet A) or natural gas. I have recently had a few ideas that could help improve the efficiency of both wind turbines and solar panels. Perhaps it is time to switch curves and help ratchet that last curve to a higher slope.
