The undeniable fact is that humans are very electricity hungry. Cheap electricity opens up tons of downstream benefits.
I am envisioning something like an international market for clean electricity. Something like an internet for power. This would enable developing countries to leapfrog dirty methods like coal, similar to how many countries leapfrogged over credit cards and cheques we still have in the US. Of course the UHVDC technology may not be ready for it yet.
Coal has excellent politics, especially in India & China.
It’s mineable almost everywhere people live, is burdened by little international regulation (at least compared to nuclear), and is labour intensive enough to create powerful local advocates.
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China is building a lot of coal power plants.
https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/chinas-new-coal-po...
And industrializaing vast swaths of land by covering it with solar panels.
https://www.facebook.com/XinhuaSciTech/videos/solar-panels-o...
The undeniable fact is that humans are very electricity hungry. Cheap electricity opens up tons of downstream benefits.
I am envisioning something like an international market for clean electricity. Something like an internet for power. This would enable developing countries to leapfrog dirty methods like coal, similar to how many countries leapfrogged over credit cards and cheques we still have in the US. Of course the UHVDC technology may not be ready for it yet.
Solar panels approximate an international market for clean electricity (there's just quite some lag).
Coal has excellent politics, especially in India & China.
It’s mineable almost everywhere people live, is burdened by little international regulation (at least compared to nuclear), and is labour intensive enough to create powerful local advocates.