Energy costs are THE driving force of prices. The cost of materials is essentially the energy it takes to squire/process/ship them. If energy was free, we would just dig up random patches of dirt and sift it for every material we wanted even in trace amounts. But its not because unfortunately, we are still primarily a fossil fuel economy for many reasons (legacy, price, chemical properties) and their cheap price relative to labour is acting as a subsidie to renewables pricing. So if the availability of fossil fuels deminishes it seemed logical that the price of inputs goes up and so too would renewable manufacturing. We would then see an inverted bell shaped curve on pricing over time. I have long suspected we would see this trend of lowering prices revert around the 2020s. So far I have been pleasantly wrong.
But fossil fuels like almost all minerals is fighting an uphill battle on availability and ore quality as we used the best stuff first. The US isnt fracking at the pace it is because they just wanted a laugh. It is due to the primary "conventional" stuff couldnt keep up. But that is a whole different issue.
If renewables were offsetting fossil fuel usage, this wouldnt be a problem but it is merely being added on top of it. Thus Jevons paradox in full swing. If we can over come that then this whole idea can be thrown in the recyling bin.
When we can make a solar panel with the outputs of a solar panel, then that is the escape velocity moment. And I don't just mean counting the joules and ignoring the energy fungability.
I am much more optimistic about this in the last few years but im not sure we are there yet. It is looking reasonable now.
Maybe 20 years ago I had the thought that ever never was enough supply of fossil fuels to lift the remaining 2/3rds of humanity out of poverty[1]. But there is enough solar and wind to give people a low energy middle class life. And the cost reduction since I think can do better than that.
[1] China I think burned half it's coal reserves in last 40 years. Modern China is basically built on coal. And much of the world doesn't have anything like that.
As a point of nomenclature isn't that always the case for any resource?
Given that "reserves" are drill tested known quantities that are tested, proven, modelled, and queued up for mining .. most reserves having been taken past "economic feasibility".
Hasn't the usual pattern in mining for some three thousand years since the oiriginal Rio Tinto Gold Mine been that reserves are mined and as they are exhausted, an exploration phase ramps up to prove inferred resources and raise them to reserve status?
eg: https://www.ga.gov.au/digital-publication/aimr2021/australia...
> At the core of Scott's vision was "an energy theory of value". Since the basic measure common to the production of all goods and services was energy, he reasoned "that the sole scientific foundation for the monetary system was also energy", and that by using an energy metric instead of a monetary metric (energy certificates or 'energy accounting') a more efficient design of society could be made
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_movement
If nothing else it's a fascinating lens to view modernity through.
However panels age which costs ~1% of capacity per year even before they need to be replaced, and global electricity demand tends to increase 2+%/year. So the more solar you install the more you need to install every year just to keep providing the same percentage of total electricity.
On top of this lower prices mean you it's still worthwhile even if a larger percentage of output gets wasted. Similarly, as storage gets cheaper (inflation adjusted) there's going to be more demand to cheaply charge it thus raising the demand for panels.
A 410W solar panel at 29€? I really doubt that honestly. Cheaper than plywood.
Comely divorced from the real world materials and ecology.
470W + even cheaper inverters seems likely.
It's an industry that's been driving down prices at an absolutely bonkers rate the entire time it's existed, and any time a company falls behind on that they're immediately in very deep trouble. I think it's basically impossible to make predictions about what an industry like that will be in 8-10 years.
