ASW wrote, yesterday: "Bill McKibben has a concise (online) article about recent and future growth of renewable energy sources, how China is in the driver's seat to dominate the space, and how our (America's) energy policies are both backwards and self-defeating, in The New Yorker. It's called '4.6 Billion Years On, the Sun Is Having a Moment.' It's well worth a few minutes of your time if you have access."
I read this last night. If you've been feeling pessimistic or defeated about the state of the World and the weather, you're about to get a significant mood-enhancer. This is the most uplifting, positive, optimistic, encouraging article on any subject I've read in a long while.
The New Yorker allows four free articles a month to non-subscribers, so you should be able to access it if you are not a subscriber and haven't used up all your freebies. And if you have, August is a new month.
It appears that we are at the tipping point—it's just that America is neither leading the way nor really participating any more. But it's happening globally. America is now firmly on the wrong side of history, as well as on the wrong side of economic development and future prosperity. We've gone from world leader to actively obstructing the future.
But that doesn't mean the news is not good.
Really the most hopeful thing I've encountered recently. Thanks to ASW. And for others, coolly recommended (that's a joke. Not "warmly" recommended, yageddit? As Craig Ferguson used to say, "amused myself, and that's half the battle").
Here's the book the article is drawn from.
Mike
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Featured Comments from:
Dean Johnston [no relation to Mike]: "After reading that, and in the context of thinking about the world, I feel better than I have in ages."
I do think we need to distinguish between the US federal government and just about anyone else in the US. With Texas being the leading US state in solar power, I've not given up hope that most of the US 'gets it,' despite the carbon lobbyists and the orange fellow in a White House.
Posted by: John | Monday, 14 July 2025 at 02:50 PM
I was unable to access The New Yorker article on solar energy, despite not having used any freebies. I was able to view the amazing photos in The Atlantic, showing solar panels stretching almost to the horizon in China (3 miles distant at ground level).
https://shorturl.at/XXOr7
Those vast arrays each produce 1000 megawatts, the size of a large conventional gas-fuel power station. The blot on the landscape and its effect on life in the soil could be a fatal flaw for this solution.
Posted by: Allan Ostling | Monday, 14 July 2025 at 03:11 PM
If you are in the UK you can access the New Yorker for free anytime. You have to be a member of a public library then you can use the Libby App to view it and many other magazines included a few photo ones (e.g Amateur Photographer).
Posted by: Ritchie Thomson | Monday, 14 July 2025 at 03:27 PM
Out here in Iowa you will encounter a lot of wind energy being generated (collected?).
The great majority of these wind mills are operated by Mid American Energy which is a Berkshire Hathaway company. I figured if Warren Buffet sees a viable business in wind we should pay attention.
We may be behind the curve on solar but if we do decide to catch up, which I believe we will, at least we won't have to invade anyone for their sunlight.
Posted by: Mike Plews | Monday, 14 July 2025 at 03:29 PM
Hi.
Mike, thank you. After reading that, and in the context of thinking about the world, I feel better than I have in ages.
Peace & all that,
Dean
Posted by: Dean Johnston | Monday, 14 July 2025 at 05:12 PM
After 60 years in science and technology, I've learned there is more to everything than meets the eye and humans often forget or ignore that their actions may have consequences.
Much of the need for additional power comes from the massive growth in data centers. Many areas are turning them down because not enough power exists and citizens are revolting because they re being charged for the building of new power sources. All this for AI, and that's another big problem.
Solar and wind power are great but not without problems. Solar, as one reader notes, takes a lot of space, but that could be helped if we used the roofs of buildings more efficiently. Wind needs to be where the wind blows and solar where the sun shines. that means we need more transmission lines to get power where it's needed. Both have big impacts on the environment where they are built, e.g. the photos of installations in China.
Both solar and wind are not dependable 24/7, so utilities are installing large battery warehouses to store the energy until it's needed.
Batteries are a really big problem. They are environmentally bad to manufacture, often cause massive fires (2 utility systems burned here in CA recently) and we are not prepared to recycle batteries.
The data center owners have made some lubricous claims and decisions. Fusion power will be used by 2030, small nuclear reactors will power data centers, one has contracted to restart the sister reactor of the one at Three Mile Island that melted down. The X data center where they host Grok runs on gas generators and is poisoning the air of a black suburb of Memphis.
Human population is beginning to decline is most areas; the few remaining growth areas will change in the near future and the population will begin a rapid decline. See https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/18/opinion/human-population-global-growth.html?unlocked_article_code=1.WU8.dkjD.hKJmwOalCXC1&smid=url-share (should be free) This will create economic chaos but will reduce the majority of energy consumption.
Earth will eventually repair itself - it has numerous times in the past - see the PBS Nova series Ancient Earth https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/series/ancient-earth/
The problem is the Earth will survive, but will humans?
Posted by: JH | Monday, 14 July 2025 at 07:52 PM
It is really hard to explain to people that hydrocarbons are an energy storage format not an energy source! Invariably solar radiation and gravity are the only energy sources on the earth.
Over a long period of time, those sources stored some of their energy in the form of hydrocarbons. When we talk about hydrocarbons you really need to compare it to batteries.
Our biggest problem is the lack of an "environmentally friendly" battery technology that can store energy at a competitive weight and/or volume density as hydrocarbons.
Under the best circumstances:
- oil stores 45 megajoules per kilogram
- coal stores 35 megajoules per kilogram
- lithium batteries store 1.3 megajoules per kilogram.
- natural gas stores 56 megajoules per kilogram but it has low storage density by volume.
Posted by: Jeffrey K Hartge | Monday, 14 July 2025 at 09:22 PM
I'm not a subscriber to the New Yorker. They only gave me 'teaser'segment. I am familiar with Bill McKibben's writings though. I hope he's right.
Posted by: James Bullard | Monday, 14 July 2025 at 10:58 PM
Reader JH and Jeffrey Hartge (I assume they are the same) [they're not —Ed.] are good to remind us that "green energy" isn't necessarily green. Neither, of course, are fossil fuels. I do hope the overall population will be self-limiting. Would that the AI behemoths were as well. Let me recommend a marvelous article on the Aperture website featuring Richard Misrach's glorious "Cargo" pictures and Rebecca Solnit's essay, for those interested in these topics.
Posted by: Gary | Tuesday, 15 July 2025 at 03:56 AM
After the LA Wildfire: Lithium Batteries, Ash, and a Messy Rebuild
In Los Angeles, a second disaster started with the cleanup. Between exploding EV batteries, asbestos dumping, and a bureaucratic tug-of-war over six inches of soil, rebuilding has become its own kind of wildfire — slow, costly, and smoldering with frustration.
https://www.acsh.org/news/2025/07/14/after-la-wildfire-lithium-batteries-ash-and-messy-rebuild-49606
One might say that there are "knock-on effects" from any new technology. Some anticipated and many not.
Posted by: Speed | Tuesday, 15 July 2025 at 07:51 AM