The race is about new energy. An old gas plant is still cheap to operate. But when faced with the decision of building new capacity, solar is cheaper and its not close. New gas energy is grinding to a halt.
Old plants aren’t cheap enough to operate. The cost of gas and coal is expensive and ongoing. The plants are old and need increasing maintenance and costs are rising. Unless they can charge a premium they are money pits. Solar beats them hands down as once the capex is paid then the opex is trivial by comparison. It’s the preferred financial model.
And as oil reserves are shrinking, extraction becomes ever more expensive. This will turn into a negative feedback loop.
At some point, fossil power will not generate any more enough money to sustain itself. Especially since the oil economy has truly horrendous costs in terms of economic development, political independence, military expenses, wars, aircraft carriers threathening whole regions, human rights, authoritarianism, denied democracy, and so on. It could collapse just like Stalinism in 1989.
The race is about new energy. An old gas plant is still cheap to operate. But when faced with the decision of building new capacity, solar is cheaper and its not close. New gas energy is grinding to a halt.
Old plants aren’t cheap enough to operate. The cost of gas and coal is expensive and ongoing. The plants are old and need increasing maintenance and costs are rising. Unless they can charge a premium they are money pits. Solar beats them hands down as once the capex is paid then the opex is trivial by comparison. It’s the preferred financial model.
And as oil reserves are shrinking, extraction becomes ever more expensive. This will turn into a negative feedback loop.
At some point, fossil power will not generate any more enough money to sustain itself. Especially since the oil economy has truly horrendous costs in terms of economic development, political independence, military expenses, wars, aircraft carriers threathening whole regions, human rights, authoritarianism, denied democracy, and so on. It could collapse just like Stalinism in 1989.