MOORE’S LAW AND NEW ENERGY

Here Comes the Sun
Paul Krugman, November 6, 2011 (NY Times)

"…Moore’s Law — in which the price of computing power falls roughly 50 percent every 18 months — has powered an ever-expanding range of applications, from faxes to Facebook…The sources of energy, the way we move stuff around, are much the same as they were a generation ago. But…We are, or at least we should be, on the cusp of an energy transformation, driven by the rapidly falling cost of solar power…

"…[Drilling for natural gas via] hydrofracturing a k a fracking…produces toxic (and radioactive) wastewater that contaminates drinking water…[and] inflicts major damage…Fracking might still be worth doing given those costs. But no industry should be held harmless from its impacts…Yet what the industry and its defenders demand is, of course, precisely that it be let off the hook for the damage it causes…Because we need that energy…Pro-fracking politicians claim to be against subsidies, yet letting an industry impose costs without paying compensation is in effect a huge subsidy…"

(from Wikipedia - click to enlarge)

"[M]ention solar power and you’ll probably hear cries of “Solyndra!”…But Solyndra’s failure was actually caused by technological success: the price of solar panels is dropping fast, and Solyndra couldn’t keep up with the competition…[A] ‘Moore’s law’ in solar energy…[has] prices adjusted for inflation falling around 7 percent a year…[and] rapid growth in solar installations…If the downward trend continues…[and] it seems to be accelerating…electricity from solar panels [will in a few years become] cheaper than electricity generated by burning coal…

"…But will our political system delay the energy transformation now within reach? …[A] large part of our political class, including essentially the entire G.O.P., is deeply invested in an energy sector dominated by fossil fuels, and actively hostile to alternatives. This political class will do everything it can to ensure subsidies for the extraction and use of fossil fuels, directly with taxpayers’ money and indirectly by letting the industry off the hook for environmental costs, while ridiculing technologies like solar…Fracking is not a dream come true; solar is now cost-effective. Here comes the sun, if we’re willing to let it in."