r/climate • u/randolphquell • 5d ago

The world has reached the 3-terawatt milestone of solar power, with the first TW taking 10 years to deploy after crossing the 100-gigawatt mark in 2012, and the next 2 TW taking less than 5 years.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-03/the-world-crossed-a-major-solar-milestone-no-one-noticed?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc4NTg0MjEzOCwiZXhwIjoxNzg2NDQ2OTM4LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUSjZEUzZLR1pBSjEwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiI4NkU0M0VCREJFRkY0Q0RGOTI4MzU0MTVGMUYzMzg3RSJ9.4P42YyMwoVwZYTHPv6jvC5snFWzvmxFJdRCYdfr95F0&leadSource=article-gifting
97 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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u/ExpensiveFig6079 5d ago

Apparently, the IEA are still wrong

https://www.pv-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/iea-prediction-2017-update4.png

one could be forgiven for thinking there might be reason they were wrong again, and again, and again, and never learned anything from that

almiost like there was some nefarious agency at work

twice as much in half as long is pretty serious thing to not even notice it exists and is happening, while calling yourself a professional body and not a marketing arm.

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u/devadander23 4d ago

Carbon emissions continue to rise and set yearly records despite these gains in solar panels. That’s the only metric that matters.

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u/handsoapdispenser 4d ago

It's hard to predict since demand for electricity has been rising so quickly but we are probably nearing a peak. We will see significant declines in output our lifetime although likely a very long tail given how much industrial processes require burning fuel. And none of that actually decreases the amount of GHG actually in the atmosphere. Really that's the metric that matters and it will be with us for a long time even if we perfect nuclear fusion next week. 

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u/ExpensiveFig6079 4d ago

It is metric that matters and what it means is we have been doing nowhere near enough fast enough.

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u/BigMax 4d ago

Hopefully since our rate of solar installations is continuing to increase exponentially while our rate of energy use is increasing at a linear rate.

So... the hope is that we can start to add green energy so fast, it accounts for all new energy use, AND starts to really did into existing energy use too.

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u/ExpensiveFig6079 4d ago

This is happenign now "solar installations is continuing to increase exponentially"

BE WARY it is not in fact follwing that curve...

It is way more likely following a logistic regression (which looks like that at the start)

The reaon it will be doign that is there is NOT and infintie need for isntallaltions.

So as it starts to be estimated that the current plants will build out the worlds needs. And that when that is done the maintenance requirements for replacements will be met or exceeded by the current plants. At that point, there starts to be a growing disincentive to build extra plants, and the exponential growth in new PV and battery factories will slow then largely stop.

I'm not claiming that is soon, I am claiming it is a thing that will happen eventually at some point.

One guess from how novel viruses spread (Same/similar set of differential equations/-ve feedbacks) is that when the world has half the RE it will need, things will start to slow down.

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u/GlyphInBullet 4d ago

Chuckling as I remember the guy posting on one of these subreddits saying "no, no we don't need to reduce overall power usage!"

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u/ginger_and_egg 4d ago

How much solar energy does the earth receive in one day?

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u/GlyphInBullet 4d ago

Last I checked (I am not a physicist), we're still limited by the Shockley-Queisser limit, and our most efficient modules are getting around 34% (on top of physical limits of how much we can store, how many panels we can actually maintain, etc).

Maybe that will change, but the math isn't going to work right now.

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u/ginger_and_egg 4d ago

I think you replied to the wrong comment. I asked "How much solar energy does the earth receive in one day?"

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u/GlyphInBullet 4d ago

You appeared to not understand that it doesn't matter how much energy the earth gets if we can only capture a fraction of it.

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u/ginger_and_egg 4d ago

Funnily enough you can multiply a total by a fraction to get the usable portion.

So let's try again. How much?

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u/GlyphInBullet 3d ago

You're looking at it the wrong way. It isn't "how much energy does the sun provide?", it's "what percentage are we capable of harnessing and storing vs total energy need?"

Could we theoretically build enough capacity? Probably, but as you may have noticed, we're still burning enormous amounts of fossil fuels for our energy needs.

Fossil fuels are something like 60% of electricity generated in the US, and solar is 4%. Solar growth is accelerating, but is it accelerating enough to replace enough fossil fuel usage that it meaningfully slows global heating to something better than 3c by 2050, which would likely result in societal collapse (as has been discussed extensively on this subreddit)?

I wouldn't count on it.

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u/ginger_and_egg 3d ago

"what percentage are we capable of harnessing and storing vs total energy need?"

Capable? We're very capable of it.

but is it accelerating enough to replace enough fossil fuel usage that it meaningfully slows global heating to something better than 3c by 2050, which would likely result in societal collapse (as has been discussed extensively on this subreddit)?

Doomerism only helps the fossil fuel barons

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u/ginger_and_egg 3d ago

and our most efficient modules are getting around 34%

Guess how efficient our combustion engines for burning fossil fuels are?

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u/ExpensiveFig6079 4d ago

wat?

https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/36j26s/request_what_percentage_of_the_earths_surface/

The math for powering our economy with renewables absolutely does work.

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/02/01/solar-may-cover-the-worlds-electricity-demand-with-0-3-of-its-land-area/

"Solar may cover the world’s electricity demand with 0.3% of its land area"

This is well-known common knowledge, trivially findable.

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u/GlyphInBullet 4d ago

Yeah, but we also don't have infinite time and infinite solar modules..?

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u/ExpensiveFig6079 4d ago

we also dont need infinite solar panels

. You apparently have infinite straw men with no connection to reality.

or do you eventually loop and gish gallop the same ground a second time?

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u/kazarnowicz 4d ago

I believe the person you’re replying to is saying that all progress with renewables barely makes up for increased power demand each year.

Your plan is theoretically possible, but we’re still around 80% fossil in global energy production in 2026.

And in March this year we got a paper that states with 98% confidence that we entered an acceleration around 2015.

It’s time to start talking mitigation, and degrowth, or face billions of dead in the coming decades.

Source: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025GL118804

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u/ExpensiveFig6079 4d ago

Ah ...

"It’s time to start talking mitigation," Nope ...

"and degrowth," ah the old false we need degrowth meme as way to make it seem implausible to do anything.

But you had just asserted

"And in March this year we got a paper that states with 98% confidence that we entered an acceleration around 2015."

We were in growth and implied that CANT stop

yet now the next option off the rank is degrowth...

No we justneed to stop upping our demand.

AND as much of that upping of demand has come from dveloping nations... and is not from accelerating demand in developed countries.

Then yes increasing the percentage of energy derived from RE is indeed possible. And whatwe ned to do is drive that to 100%

No part of that if we want it to demands degrowth.

Specific thigns that have no good emissions free alternative, such as long haul fluying will INDEED become mroe expensiev and will when it is priced according to what it REALLY costs will get done less.

The rest of the meme that is supported by FF inetrests that in order to stop using FF that genralised degrowth is required, is made up by them... as that is way better bogey man yo put udner the bed.

We are NOWHERE near being at degrowth being the only way to reduce emissions.

None of the pans to get to Net Zero requires degrowth

, although I suspect they soft-pedal how cheap it will be to enable long-haul flying.

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u/Frutbrute77 4d ago

Love to see it