In Chile, solar power is the wave of the future.
“On the solar farms of the Atacama Desert, the workers dress like astronauts. They wear bodysuits and wraparound sunglasses, with thick canvas headscarves to shield them from the radiation.
“The sun is so intense and the air so dry that seemingly nothing survives. Across vast, rocky wastes blanched of color, there are no cactuses or other visible signs of life. It’s Mars, with better cellphone reception.
“It is also the world’s best place to produce solar energy, with the most potent sun power on the planet.
“So powerful, in fact, that something extraordinary happened last year when the Chilean government invited utility companies to bid on public contracts. Solar producers dominated the auction, offering to supply electricity at about half the cost of coal-fired plants.
“It wasn’t because of a government subsidy for alternative energy. In Chile and a growing list of nations, the price of solar energy has fallen so much that it is increasingly beating out conventional sources of power. Industry experts and government regulators hail this moment as a turning point in the history of human electricity-making.
“This is the beginning of a trend that will only accelerate,” said Chilean Energy Minister Andrés Rebolledo. “We’re talking about an infinite fuel source.”
“President Trump ordered U.S. regulators this week to reverse Obama-era policies aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions, and he has promised to “bring back” the U.S. coal industry. But construction of coal-fired power plants dropped 62 percent over the past year worldwide, according to a survey by the Sierra Club and other activist groups. In China last year, the number of new permits for coal-fired plants fell by 85 percent.
“More worldwide generating capacity is now being added from clean sources than coal and natural gas combined, according to a December report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which closely tracks investment in renewables.
“An investor in Chile wanting to build a hydroelectric dam or coal-fired plant potentially faces years of costly political battles and fierce resistance from nearby communities. In contrast, a solar company can lay out acres of automated sun-tracking panels across an isolated stretch of desert and have them firing quiet, clean electricity in less than a year, with no worries about fluctuating fuel prices or droughts. The sunlight is free and shows up for work on time, every morning.
“Long dependent on energy imports, Chilean officials now envision their country turning into a “solar Saudi Arabia.” Chile’s solar energy production has increased sixfold since 2014, and last year it was the top-scoring clean-energy producer in the Americas, and second in the world to China, according to the Bloomberg rankings. (China is the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases but also the leading investor in renewable energy.)
“Driving the global shift to cheap sun power is a dramatic decline in the cost of the photovoltaic (PV) panels that can be used to create giant desert solar farms or rooftop home installations. China produces more than two-thirds of the world’s PV panels, and their price has fallen more than 80 percent since 2008.”
Meanwhile, Trump is heading in the opposite direction, trying to fulfill his promise to revive the coal industry. He has ceded world leadership in developing renewable energy to China as he seeks to bring back the polluted world of a century ago.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I live near an old air force field whose runways are too short for modern aircraft. Thanks to President Obama, this field will soon have 1.5 million solar panels on it. He wanted to reduce the military’s carbon footprint, but changes like this can only happen if leaders have some understanding building a better future, and they accept the realities of climate change.
Diane, I love your blog posts every day. Hard to keep up but I try. I think one of the things that people are missing in the whole coal debate is the extent to which “coal mining” is a metaphor or code for a sense of the lost “masculine” that is experienced by a large segment of the population who not only perceives work to be definitional of both gender and social role but who identifies work with productivity. I remember the first time I heard an insurance executive talking about the “products” they were working on and I was genuinely confused. I thought they had branched out! An excellent review of this history of the de-masculinization of work can be found in Susan Faludi’s excellent work “Stiffed” a “sequel” to her other excellent work on feminism called “Backlash”. I think a lot of the phenomenon can be explained by the social currents in the post-World War II world of work she describes.
The U.S. military (especially the Navy thanks to a very competent former secretary, Ray Mabus) is way ahead on renewable energy. And they are planning future operations on the certainty of climate change. Too bad our exalted leader and the puppet masters around him want to spend more money on the last war instead of spending wisely on averting the next possible one or more.
Reblogged this on Lloyd Lofthouse and commented:
While Trump brings back the polluted world of a century ago, the rest of the world, even China is moving in the opposite direction.
The Trump plan is simple, mine the Coal and ship it overseas, for use in Third World developing countries . Of course it wont provide many jobs when you rip off the mountain and dump the slag in a nearby river. Coal miners don’t want these jobs ,besides nobody gives a crap about them, the mine owners want it.
Coal jobs left when the Mountains were destroyed using strip mining . We produce more coal with less labor. Blair Mountain a Historical landmark, the site of the largest battle since the civil war, The coal Wars of WV., was about to be strip mined . The DC circuit overturned a lower court order that favored the mine owners this past summer. .
The only problem I have with solar here in NY, is that I actually may wind up getting an electric bill this month, only thing drearier than this past month is that the ass is still in the White House .
You took the words right out of my mouth: “…only thing drearier than this past month is that the ass is still in the White House.”
(I am an electrical engineer). I am 100% in favor of solar/renewable energy. The USA is the “Saudi Arabia” of wind. The wind that blows across the great plains is mighty.
But, we need to keep this in perspective. It would take a wind farm, the size of the state of Connecticut, just to power New York City. The amount of kilowatt/hours per windmill is just not that high.
And solar power is only one kilowatt per square meter.
The good news, is that the cost of solar/renewables continue to decline (on a per kilowatt/hour basis), and the costs of fossil fuels continue to increase, soon there will be a “breakeven” point, and fossil fuel (at least for power generation) will diminish.
The biggest reason for the decline of coal production, is the very low cost of natural gas, which is used for power production in large quantities.
This is a demonstration of “creative destruction”.
Creative destruction works for inanimate objects, Charles. Not for children. If you had children, you would know that.
Creative destruction is an established economic principle. In a dynamic economy, new technologies replace old technologies. Slide rules are gone, people use calculators. Roof-top TV antennas have been replaced by cable TV and home satellite dish antennas. Deep-mine coal industry jobs have been displaced by strip mining.
As the education system goes through changes, older technologies will go away, as new technologies replace them. At the college TV station, where I worked, we brought in distance learning. The instructor was in Bowling Green KY, and the classroom was in Glasgow, KY (35 miles away). This enabled people who could not commute 70 miles each day, to obtain a college education.
Long-distance learning will enable students in small rural communities to obtain the same instruction, as children in more affluent and populated communities.
The future is a frightening place. We do not know what kind of new technology is coming down the road for us.
I am reminded of the old maps, which had written out at the edges “Unknown seas, here be dragons”.
Creative destruction is an established economic principle. It is all around us. Slide rules, and computer punch-cards, are long gone, and not coming back. Livery stables, buggy-whips, and horse-drawn carriages, will only be seen in the western movies.
Whether on not I have children, has nothing to do with economic realities. When school choice and vouchers expand, and more parents begin to exercise school choice, the number of public schools, will decline. I am NOT saying that public schools will disappear.
Charles
What are the other associated cost with those fossil fuels. Like climate change and the associated cost of infrastructure spending to prepare for those changes. A few small examples. Almost every building in Lower Manhattan where critical Wall street operations occur has relocated its electrical service equipment and machine rooms to the second or third floor forget the costs of the retrofit , try selling office space in the third sub basement. . The tunnels connecting Manhattan to the world are all being retrofitted to make them less vulnerable to flooding. Home owners up and down the coast are elevating their houses for similar reasons… Add to that the costs of healthcare associated with fossil fuel pollutants. Try and calculate the cost of a Fukushima event Indian point. Of course our interests in the mid east have never had anything to do with oil have they. what is the cost in life and dollars of our Mideast policy. I suspect we would be as familiar with the Gulf states as we are with Sub Saharan Africa, if not for oil. The subsidies in the form of tax deductions for oil industry exploration are how much.
. The break even point was reached long ago, when the hidden subsidies are included. You could put a windmill and a solar roof on every house in America for less. No need for a trade war with anybody, with the number of good paying jobs that could be created in updating our energy grid for a sustainable future.
The last electricity bill that I paid for was in April of last year, of course that is because the utility credits me for my excess generation . Not an insurmountable barrier with the addition of multiple technologies like batteries and tidal generation.