I never used to listen to very many podcasts. But lately I've started doing it while heading to/from meetings, either in the car or on the train. This past week I listened to a Bankless podcast talking about crypto and AI, and one of the arguments that was made was that it's probably a safe bet to assume that we're going to need dramatically more compute and electricity in the future.

This seems obvious enough. If you recall, there's no such thing as a wealthy, low-energy nation. If you're a wealthy country, you consume a lot of energy. And that's why Build Canada recently argued that we need a kind of energy revolution. By 2050, it's likely Canada will have 2-3x the electricity demand that we have today. So today I thought I would share a few related charts.

Here's electricity production by source across the world. Coal dominates.

Looking at renewables more closely, we again see that wind and solar are making a run for it. And if you consider that solar is one of the fastest growing energy sources, it's not inconceivable that it will start to become a more dominant source in the near term. In the US, solar PV projects make up the largest share of new planned generation capacity.

But the US is not winning this race today. Right now it's China. (Chart below sourced from here.) They have the largest cumulative solar capacity, followed by the EU, and then the US. That said, coal still forms a dominant part of China's energy mix, and the country continues to construct coal-fired power plants to meet its short-term energy needs.

It's unfortunate that Canada is not on this list. That needs to change.

Cover photo by Benjamin Jopen on Unsplash

Solar energy's share of total US electricity generation was only about 3.9% as of 2023. So it's not powering all that much today. However, the cost of PV modules continue to come down and installed capacity is growing very quickly. Here's an excerpt from a recent post by Brian Potter about solar energy:

By some metrics, solar PV has been deployed faster than any other energy source in history, going from 100 terawatt-hours of generation to 1,000 terawatt-hours in just 8 years, compared to 12 years for wind and nuclear, 28 for natural gas, and 32 for coal. In the US, solar PV projects are by far the largest share of planned new electrical generation capacity.

And here's a chart:

It's also interesting to look at which US states have the highest "capacity factors." The average for the entire US is 23%, which means that, on average, solar panels produce 23% of what they would if the sun were shining 24 hours a day. You might also think that the "sunshine state" would be one of the highest. But in fact, the top states are Utah and Arizona:

I'm highly interested in solar and we want to deploy it as much as we can on our projects going forward. If you're also interested in solar and want to learn more, Brian's post is an excellent place to start.

Images: Construction Physics

Here's an interesting presentation by Albert Wenger, who is a partner at Union Square Ventures. He starts by showing a logarithmic chart comparing per capita energy consumption and GDP per capita. Then, by way of a clear empty area in the chart's data points, he makes the argument that there's no such thing as a wealthy, low-energy nation. If you're a wealthy country, you consume a lot of energy. That's just how it works. He then goes through a number of historical energy breakthroughs, landing on the point that, today, we are in need of much more energy. In other words, we need another energy breakthrough. We need it because we're still burning fossil fuels and putting too much carbon into the atmosphere, and because we have really big energy needs: everything from data centers to the full electrification of our homes, buildings, and cars. One piece of good news is that we are seeing exponential growth in solar energy. Today, our global install base is still relatively small, but the thing about exponential growth is that it can creep up on you fast.

It's an interesting presentation. And if you'd prefer to read his talk instead, which is/was my preference, you can do that here.