Ramez Naam, Planetary VC founder, argues autonomous robots show solar deployment soft costs can experience exponential declines

@EVCurveFuturist This is the future. We in Ethiopia should learn fast and combine solar expansion with automation and local skill development.

Across the Gobi Desert, autonomous tracked robots are transporting & installing solar panels with minimal human intervention, doubling installation efficiency. The energy transition isn't just about building more solar. It's about automating the infrastructure itself. #LFP #SWB

Rooftops and car parks first wherever practical — use the built environment before covering new land. Then use deserts for truly massive utility-scale projects. And farmland too, where it makes sense: agrivoltaics can provide shade for livestock, reduce water loss, and generate both electricity and agricultural income from the same land.

@Abay_Terara Absolutely. Countries that combine electrification, automation and workforce development early will end up with a significant competitive advantage in the decades ahead.

@central01000011 The key point is the reported doubling of installation efficiency. Even if crew sizes remain the same, doubling the amount of solar installed per team per day is a huge productivity gain.

@EVCurveFuturist Where mass solar really belongs, in the desert, as long as it's close enough for cost-effective transmission.

@ramez Have you talked with @cosmic_robotics? Fantastic team building autonomous robots to install PV panels.

@ramez Good take alert!

@ramez @ModeledBehavior Land costs will start to go up, not down!!

@EVCurveFuturist Now it is evident why China is able to deploy a lot of solar generation within a very short period of time!

@EVCurveFuturist Takes the effort out of lifting, but isn't fewer people. Standard installed team is 3, two carrying and one fixing.

@happydays00769 @EVCurveFuturist Wind works at night and through winter especially well. What don’t you, ahem, like about it? Personally I hate the health damage which burning fossil fuels causes. Even fossil fuels need storage. Fossil power plants literally won’t work without fuel storage.

@central01000011 @EVCurveFuturist No, but they wouldn’t do it if it cost more. Not everyone is stupid.

@EVCurveFuturist I actually love solar; it has a place on the grid as long as it has storage and the scale to match the low capacity factor. It will also be intermittent, though. Wind is horrible, and we need to back away from more of it or look to replace it at the end of its life.

@ramez I don't think it's that useful to conflate remote locations with urban / near-urban installation costs (that are near where the demand is). The availability of the former becomes quite constraining. Makes the resource value far more like wind, and highly heterogeneous.

@EVCurveFuturist Putting aside the likely reduction in injuries, it's hard to tell from this sped up video if this team of six is indeed 4 times faster than a traditional 3 man team.

@JimHigham @EVCurveFuturist I'm not a fan of fossil fuels. The scale and size of wind turbines given their low capacity factor is sort of ridiculous. They don't look good on the skyline. Plus, susceptible to extreme weather. One goes down, they have to close the whole farm for engineering quality control.

@EVCurveFuturist Limitless cheap power will continue to transform China.

@EVCurveFuturist Genau das wird oft übersehen: Die Energiewende ist längst kein reines Physik-Thema mehr, sondern ein Logistik- und Automatisierungsproblem. Wenn Roboter die Installation übernehmen, fallen die Kosten noch schneller, als es jede Lernkurve für Panels allein hergibt.

@EVCurveFuturist Minimum human intervention as the video shows some 10 men fastening and connecting the panels that a human operated robotic arm places.