2024 is expected to be even hotter than 2023 as per major international data monitoring organisations in the world. At the same time number of installed solar panels around the world in 2024 will also break the records as it did in 2023.
Presently world gets 6% of its electricity from the solar panels, equivalent to all the electricity consumed by USA in 1954. And it is just a beginning. Just about 70 years back in 1950, when Sun was considered only as source of heat and light , it was demonstrated that sunlight can be turned into power.
Installed solar capacity is doubling doubles every three years and grows ten-fold each decade. That is simply never thought, and heads of the economists and the predictors of the future are going spinning.
'The next ten-fold increase will be equivalent to multiplying the world's entire fleet of nuclear reactors by eight in less than the time it typically takes to build just a single one of them', stated The Economist in its latest issue of June 2024. Solar would be the single largest source of electricity globally by the mid 2030s. The cost of the electricity is expected to be less than half as expensive as the cheapest available today.
Much of the world including Africa where 600m people still do not have the access to the electricity may start becoming energy rich. As the costs of energy go down, people would afford the facilities like Acs and cars that they could never afford before Cheap energy can purify water, and even desalinate it at much lower and affordable cost. Even make application of artificial intelligence at lower cost All thses may sound like arrival of 'just transition'away from the fossil fuel as expected by the decision of COP28.
Solar electricity is unlimited business! It is up to the humans how it is to be deployed, improved and made into circular economy by treating the waste of solar panels or make it recyclable.
That's where the role of universities come in the picture. The Net Zero University campus not only makes campus net-zero but builds the capacity of the youth to accelerate Net Zero without causing damage to the eco system. Visit sccnhub.com END