Energy Posts

"But what about road trips?"

There's a graph that energy analysts return to again and again. It shows the cost of solar electricity over time—a line that starts in the upper left corner and plunges toward the lower right. In 1976, solar panels cost over $100 per watt. Today, they cost around $0.20 per watt. That's a 99.8% decline.¹

In 1908, filling a Model T's ten-gallon tank took about five minutes. A century later, filling a modern car still takes about five minutes. The fueling experience improved—credit cards instead of cash, pay-at-the-pump instead of walking inside—but the basic time equation stayed constant.

The sun is a fusion reactor. Hydrogen atoms, crushed together by gravitational pressure, fuse into helium, releasing energy that warms the Earth 93 million miles away. This process has powered the sun for 4.6 billion years and will continue for another 5 billion.

You flip a switch, and the light comes on. You plug in your phone, and it charges. You turn a dial, and the stove heats up. These acts are so ordinary that they're invisible—until the power goes out and suddenly everything stops.