Tony Seba’s Vision of “Super Power” // Analysis

Welcome back everyone, I'm Jordan Geisigee and this is The Limiting Factor. Tony Siba of Rethink X has projected that by 2030, it'll be possible to move the existing grid to 100% solar, wind, and batteries. And as a side benefit, that system would produce hundreds of terawatt hours of low-cost surplus power or superpower. A number of people have asked me to give my thoughts on superpower, so today that's exactly what I'm going to do. In short, my view is that although we are headed for a future that looks similar to what Tony's predicting and that future is possible by 2030, I don't think it'll actually happen by 2030. And it may take another 10 years or so.

欢迎回来，大家好，我是乔丹·盖西吉，这是《极限因素》。Rethink X的托尼·塞巴预计，到2030年，我们将有可能将现有电网转变为100%依靠太阳能、风能和电池的系统。而作为一个副作用，这个系统会产生数百太瓦时的低成本过剩电力，或称为超级电力。有不少人请我谈谈对超级电力的看法，所以今天我就来说说这个话题。简而言之，我的观点是，尽管我们正朝着托尼所预测的未来发展，并且到2030年这个未来是有可能实现的，但我认为实际上不会在2030年实现。这可能还需要再多花十年左右的时间。

Before we begin, a special thanks to my Patreon supporters, YouTube members and Twitter subscribers, as well as Rebellionair.com. They specialize in helping investors manage concentrated positions. Rebellionair can help with covered calls, risk management, and creating a money master plan from your financial first principles. First, it's worth noting that I attempted to contact Rethink X and Tony Siba before releasing this video to make sure I represented their work accurately, but I was unsuccessful. That is, the information in this video is my best attempt at interpreting the documents and videos they've published for the general public. If I've made any errors, hopefully they'll respond in the comments or with their own video.

在开始之前，特别感谢我的Patreon支持者、YouTube会员和Twitter订阅者，以及Rebellionair.com。他们专门帮助投资者管理集中持仓。Rebellionair可以帮助进行备兑期权、风险管理，并根据您的财务基本原则制定一个理财大师计划。 首先，需要说明的是，我在发布这个视频之前曾试图联系Rethink X和Tony Siba，以确保我准确地代表了他们的工作，但未能成功。也就是说，本视频中的信息是我对他们为公众发布的文档和视频所做的最佳解读。如果我有任何错误，希望他们能在评论中或通过视频回应。

To kick things off, what exactly does Rethink X mean by superpower? To understand that, let's start with some context. One of the primary arguments leveled against renewable energy generation like solar and wind is that because they're both intermittent, they can't fully replace non-renewable energy generation like gas and nuclear for when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining. While that's true, there are several potential solutions to the intermittency challenge. Let's look at just two. First, as Elon Musk presented in Tesla's Master Plan Part 3, it's possible to use a combination of technologies like electrochemical batteries, thermal batteries, and hydrogen storage to buffer the intermittent energy generation from solar and wind. I'd consider this the conventional and conservative way of thinking about the intermittency challenge, because it doesn't build in aggressive assumptions about how much cheaper battery technology will get in the next 10 to 20 years. The second potential solution to intermittency comes from Tony Siba's Think Tank, Rethink X. In 2020, they published a report titled, Rethinking Energy 2020-2030, and the assumptions are more aggressive. The report points out that solar, wind, and battery prices are already so low that they're often the cheapest source of energy generation.

首先，Rethink X所说的“超级力量”到底是什么意思呢？为了理解这一点，让我们先从一些背景开始讨论。针对太阳能和风能等可再生能源发电的主要批评之一是，因为它们都是间歇性的，所以无法在风不吹、太阳不晒的时候完全取代天然气和核能等不可再生能源发电。虽然这种观点有一定道理，但是解决能源间歇性问题的潜在方案有很多。我们来看其中的两个。 首先，根据Elon Musk在特斯拉的《宏图第三部分》中所提出的方案，可以结合使用电化学电池、热能电池和氢能储存等技术来缓冲太阳能和风能发电的间歇性问题。我认为这是考虑间歇性问题的一种传统且保守的方式，因为它没有对未来10到20年内电池技术变得多么便宜预测太多。 解决间歇性的第二种潜在方案来自Tony Siba的智库Rethink X。2020年，他们发布了一份名为《重新思考能源2020-2030》的报告，假设更为激进。报告指出，太阳能、风能和电池的价格已经如此之低，以至于它们往往是最便宜的发电来源。

But if we look at the trend of how they've reduced in cost over time and project forward based on Wright's law, by 2030, each of those technologies will cost a fraction of what they do today. Next, using those cost assumptions, Rethink X modeled thousands of potential mixes of solar, wind, and batteries to find the lowest cost path to shift the current grid to 100% renewable energy. And the result is this U-curve. The X-axis shows how many times more generation capacity would be installed than in the average current electrical grid, and on the Y-axis is the cost of 100% solar, wind, and battery system. The area shaded in green shows the portion of the total system costs its batteries, and the area shaded in blue is the portion of the total system cost that's solar and wind. Since batteries are more expensive, the most expensive system uses a huge amount of batteries and very little solar and wind. But if excess solar and wind generation is built, which has a much lower cost, then less battery capacity is required. The sweet spot for total system cost is where, depending on the region, there's about 3-5 times more generation capacity than the grid currently has, and is backed up by 35-90 hours of battery storage. That is, what Rethink X is saying here is that the cost of solar, wind, and batteries will get so low that they can be massively overbuilt to make up for the fact that they produce power intermittently.

但是，如果我们观察这些技术随时间推移而降低成本的趋势，并根据赖特法则进行预测，到2030年，这些技术的成本将只占今天的一小部分。接下来，使用这些成本假设，Rethink X 模拟了数千种太阳能、风能和电池的组合，以找到将当前电网转换为100%可再生能源的最低成本路径。结果显示一条U形曲线。横轴（X轴）显示的是比当前平均电网安装的发电容量多几倍，而纵轴（Y轴）则是100%太阳能、风能和电池系统的成本。绿色阴影区域表示电池在总系统成本中的部分，蓝色阴影区域表示太阳能和风能在总系统成本中的部分。由于电池更昂贵，因此最昂贵的系统使用了大量电池和很少的太阳能和风能。但如果建造了过量的太阳能和风能发电设施，这些发电设施成本较低，那么所需的电池容量就会减少。覆盖总系统成本的最佳位置是，根据地区不同，大约需要3-5倍于当前电网的发电容量，并配备35-90小时的电池储能。换句话说，Rethink X 在这里所指出的是，太阳能、风能和电池的成本将低到可以大量建设，以弥补它们间歇性发电的不足。

There are two implications to that. First, energy generation from technologies like nuclear and gas will not only no longer be needed, but will be completely pushed out of the market by the energy produced more cheaply by renewables. Second, the 100% solar, wind, and battery system is overbuilt so that it can cover the worst-case scenarios that only happen a few weeks or months out of the year. That means for most of the rest of the year, when there's an excess of wind and solar energy being provided at no marginal cost, thanks to the natural action of sunshine and wind, there would be an abundance of low cost power, which Rethink X calls superpower. At a high level, superpower makes perfect sense. Energy advancements make things cheaper, and energy generation is no different. However, things get more complicated when we look into the details.

这意味着两个方面。首先，像核能和天然气这样的技术产生的能源不再需要，因为可再生能源生产的能源更便宜，会完全挤出这些技术的市场。其次，100%的太阳能、风能和电池系统是过度建设的，目的是应对一年中仅发生几周或几个月的最坏情况。这意味着在一年的大部分时间里，当太阳能和风能提供的能源过剩时，几乎没有边际成本，得益于阳光和风的自然作用，会有大量低成本的电力供应，Rethink X 将其称为"超级电力"。从宏观上看，超级电力是完全合理的。能源的进步使成本降低，发电也不例外。然而，当我们深入细节时，事情就变得更加复杂了。

To be clear, the points I'm about to make here aren't meant to devalue the work Rethink X did with this report. That's because the report was designed to paint a vision of what's possible as the cost of renewable energy generation plummets. It excels at that. That's as opposed to the purpose of this video, which is to look at the report through a more pragmatic lens. With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Rethink X's vision of superpower. The first thing that jumps out at me is that Rethink X calculated the ideal grid mix in terms of what it would cost to replace the entire electric power sector by 2030, as if it would be centrally planned. In reality, the grid in most countries is maintained by hundreds or even thousands of companies that each have their own profit motives. That means the grid emerges naturally over time as a result of free market forces and interventions by regulators and legislation. That has a number of implications.

为了清楚起见，我接下来的观点并不是为了贬低Rethink X这份报告的工作。该报告旨在描绘随着可再生能源发电成本急剧下降所可能实现的愿景，并且在这方面表现出色。而这段视频的目的是从一个更务实的角度来审视这份报告。因此，让我们仔细看看Rethink X关于“超级电力”的愿景。首先让我注意到的是，Rethink X计算了在2030年之前用理想的电网结构替代整个电力部门的成本，仿佛这将是集中计划的。然而，实际上，大多数国家的电网是由数百甚至数千家公司维护的，它们各自都有自己的盈利动机。这意味着电网是随着时间的推移，通过自由市场力量及监管和立法的干预自然形成的。这带来了一些重要的影响。

First, although the cost of new installations of solar and wind are now often cheaper than new installations of gas and nuclear power, the cost of continuing to operate existing gas and nuclear power plants is still competitive. That means existing generation facilities won't be replaced by solar and wind until the cost of new generation is significantly below the cost of continuing to operate gas and nuclear facilities. Furthermore, second, building new generation is capital intensive and involves risk. That means it takes time to assess each new project over the course of its potential multi-decade life and then build each project. Third, the fact that it's a competitive market means existing utility companies will attempt to slow down competition from cheaper renewable energy generation by influencing regulators, legislators and transmission system operators.

首先，尽管新建太阳能和风能的成本现在往往比新建天然气和核能的成本更低，但继续运营现有的天然气和核能电厂的成本仍具有竞争力。这意味着，只有当新建发电的成本显著低于继续运营天然气和核能设施的成本时，现有的发电设备才会被太阳能和风能取代。 此外，建设新发电设施需要大量资金投入，而且存在风险。这意味着，在评估每个新项目的潜在多年代价并逐步建设之前，需要耗费大量时间。 第三，由于市场具有竞争性，现有的公用事业公司会试图通过影响监管机构、立法者和输电系统运营商来减缓来自成本较低的可再生能源发电的竞争。

That could result in queues for new energy projects to connect to the grid, also called interconnect queues. That is, even if renewable energy generation has better economics, it's going to take time for generation capacity to be built, let alone to displace all other forms of energy generation by 2030. Next, beyond the market forces that'll make it difficult to rebuild the grid by 2030, there are also limits to how quickly solar, wind and batteries can ram. Let's use rethink X's modeling data for Texas as an example. They show that just for the state of Texas, 2,325 gigawatt hours of battery capacity is needed by 2030 to switch to 100% solar, wind and batteries.

这可能导致新能源项目连接到电网时出现排队现象，也就是所谓的互联排队。也就是说，即使可再生能源发电在经济效益上更好，建立发电能力仍然需要时间，更不用说到2030年完全取代其他所有形式的能源发电了。此外，除了市场力量会使到2030年重新构建电网变得困难之外，太阳能、风能和电池的扩展速度也有限。让我们以Rethink X对德克萨斯州的建模数据为例。他们的数据显示，仅在德克萨斯州，到2030年需要2,325吉瓦时的电池容量才能实现100%的太阳能、风能和电池发电。

At a global level, this year, 167 gigawatt hours of battery storage is expected to be deployed and the average growth rate over the past two years has been over 100%. However, that growth rate will moderate over time because the larger an industry becomes, the more difficult it is to continue scaling at 100% per year. With that in mind, let's say that the grid storage market continues to scale at 50% per year on average for the rest of the decade. at that growth rate in 2030, 1,900 gigawatt hours of grid storage would be deployed at a global level. That is, the amount of grid storage we can reasonably expect to be deployed for the entire world in 2030 isn't enough to cover what rethink X is forecasting for Texas alone in 2030.

在全球范围内，今年预计将部署167吉瓦时的电池储能，过去两年的平均增长率超过了100%。然而，随着时间的推移，这一增长率将会放缓，因为行业规模越大，每年继续以100%的速度扩展就越难。考虑到这一点，假设电网储能市场在本十年剩余时间内每年平均增长50%。按这种增长率，到2030年，全球将部署1,900吉瓦时的电网储能。也就是说，2030年全球合理预期可部署的电网储能量，还不足以满足Rethink X预测的当年德克萨斯州的需求。

The next thing worth noting about the rethink X report is that it was built around shifting the existing electrical grid to renewable energy rather than full decarbonization. As a result, the analysis becomes clumsy when it looks at how to decarbonize the transport, residential, commercial and industrial sectors. For example, the 100% solar, wind and battery system that they modeled for Texas for 2030 is enough to cover the current electric power sector and then has surplus superpower that could be used for the transport, residential and commercial sectors. However, there's two issues with that. First, superpower will often be intermittent because it would be generated from solar and wind. As far as I can tell, that means people would have to shift their habits to take advantage of superpower.

RethinkX 报告值得注意的下一点是，该报告基于将现有电网转向可再生能源，而不是全面实现去碳化。因此，在分析如何为交通、住宅、商业和工业部门去碳化时，显得比较笨拙。例如，他们为德克萨斯州2030年建模的100%太阳能、风能和电池系统足以覆盖当前的电力部门，并有多余的“超级电力”可以用于交通、住宅和商业部门。然而，这存在两个问题。首先，由于“超级电力”来自太阳能和风能，它往往是不稳定的。这意味着人们必须改变习惯，才能利用“超级电力”。

Such as by charging their vehicle batteries at peak solar output in the afternoon. Even then, superpower wouldn't be reliable and would be catch as catch can. The second issue is that, as far as I can tell, when rethink X refers to the transport, residential, commercial and industrial sectors, they're strictly referring to energy from sources like gasoline and natural gas. That means in order to take advantage of superpower by 2030, the entire vehicle fleet would have to be converted to EVs and households would have to swap their gas water heaters and furnaces to electric water heaters and heat pumps. That's unlikely to happen in six years by 2030.

比如下午通过在太阳能输出高峰时给汽车电池充电。即便如此，“超能”也不会可靠，依旧是碰运气。第二个问题是，据我所知，当Rethink X提到运输、住宅、商业和工业部门时，他们严格指的是像汽油和天然气这样的能源来源。这意味着想要在2030年前利用“超能”，就必须将整个车辆队伍转换为电动车，家庭也要将燃气热水器和加热炉换成电热水器和热泵。在六年内、即到2030年完成这一切是不太可能的事情。

Next, moving on to re-powering the industrial sector with renewable energy by 2030, the analysis starts to fray further. Re-think X shows that by increasing the investment in a solar, wind and battery system by 10% in 2030, it increases the amount of superpower by 310 terawatt-hours. And then, increasing the investment by another 10%, only adds another 169 terawatt-hours. That's because superpower operates on a U-curve, which means there's diminishing returns for each dollar invested as total system cost goes exponential. That means in order to reach full decarbonization in Texas by 2030 with solar, wind and batteries, it wouldn't take 10% or 20% more investment, but rather hundreds of percent more investment.

接下来，关于到2030年用可再生能源为工业部门重新供电，分析变得更加复杂。Re-think X 的数据显示，到2030年如果将太阳能、风能和电池系统的投资增加10%，可以多产生310太瓦时的超强电力。而再增加10%的投资，却只能增加169太瓦时的电力。这是因为超强电力的运作遵循一个U型曲线，即每增加一美元投资的收益会越来越少，而系统总成本呈指数增加。这意味着，要在2030年前实现德克萨斯州的完全脱碳，依靠太阳能、风能和电池的话，不是增加10%或20%的投资就能达到目标，而是需要增加数百个百分点的投资。

Re-think X ignores the exponential cost dynamic and instead focuses on how much extra power 10% to 20% more investment provides. In my view, that was a missed opportunity to drive home the point about the power of decreasing technology costs over time. Why spend an extra 20% in 2030 to buy more superpower when you could, for example, just wait 2-3 years for the prices to drop by 20%. The result would still be the same amount of superpower, but for no additional cost. Or even better, it might be possible to show that if the cost reductions continued for another decade, for example, that full decarbonization would be possible in 2040 for the same cost as it would have to just replace the electrical grid in 2030.

Re-think X忽略了指数成本动态，而是着重于额外投资10%到20%能带来多少额外的电力。在我看来，这是一个错失的机会，没有强调逐渐降低的技术成本的重要性。为什么要在2030年多花20%的钱购买更多的电力呢？例如，你可以选择等待2-3年，等价格下降20%。这样追求同样数量的电力，就不用支付额外的费用了。或者，更好的是，可以展示如果成本继续降低，比如再过十年，到2040年完全实现脱碳，只需要2030年替换电网的相同成本。

That is, why not just take re-think X's point about the rapid and continuous reduction in the cost of solar, wind and batteries to its ultimate conclusion, a fully decarbonized economy with low cost power. Furthermore, by focusing on full decarbonization, other benefits emerge in the analysis. For example, an economy based on electricity is more efficient than an economy powered by fossil fuels. That reduces the total amount of energy required to fully decarbonize, making the overall task of full decarbonization less daunting. As a side note, pushing the analysis out for another 5-10 years would also make the report more realistic.

也就是说，为什么不重新思考一下 X 关于太阳能、风能和电池成本迅速且持续下降的观点，并将其推向最终结论，即实现低成本能源的全面脱碳经济。此外，通过专注于全面脱碳，还会出现其他好处。例如，基于电力的经济比基于化石燃料的经济更高效。这减少了全面脱碳所需的总能量，使得全面脱碳的任务看起来不那么艰巨。顺便提一句，将分析时间延长5到10年也会让报告更加现实。

That's because it would allow for more time to ramp the production of solar, wind and battery production. As I said a moment ago, it's highly unlikely that there will be enough production in place to decarbonize the electrical grid within the next 6 years. But in 16 years, with compound growth, production capacity for renewable energy technologies will no longer be an issue. So why did the report by re-think X focus on 2030 and 10-20% greater investment rather than as I'm suggesting here, letting the cost reductions play out and focusing on a later date like 2040? My guess is that they considered it, but it wouldn't have blown people's minds as much or brought as much attention to their work.

这是因为这将允许更多时间来提高太阳能、风能和电池的生产。正如我刚才所说的那样，在未来六年内，不太可能有足够的生产来使电网脱碳。但是在十六年之后，随着复合增长，新能源技术的生产能力将不再是问题。那么，为什么重新思考X的报告聚焦于2030年和增加10-20%的投资，而不是像我这里建议的那样，让成本下降自主发展并关注2040年这样的后期时间呢？我猜他们是考虑过的，但那样就没有那么震撼，也不会吸引到那么多的关注。

That's because converting just the electric power sector to renewable generation by 2030 has more immediacy and is more comprehensible than converting all generation and consumption for all sectors by 2040 or 2050. But as I said, that's just my guess. Let me know what you think in the comments below. In summary, re-think X paints an exciting vision for what's possible by 2030, and I expect in many ways they'll be proven correct. But in my view, possible is the operative word.

这主要是因为到2030年只将电力部门转为可再生能源发电相比于到2040年或2050年将所有部门的发电和消费全部转为可再生能源更为紧迫也更容易理解。不过，这只是我的猜测。请在下面的评论中告诉我你的看法。总结来说，Re-think X为2030年可能实现的目标描绘了一幅令人激动的愿景，我认为在很多方面他们的预测会被证明是正确的。但在我看来，“可能”是关键字。

Although the economics for superpower work out by 2030, globally, most grids aren't going to be rebuilt to the point where they can provide superpower for most of the year until more like 2040. That's because the cost of renewable energy generation has to drop significantly below the operational costs of existing generation. The time, money, and planning it takes to develop new grid projects, existing utilities that'll attempt to slow down the competition from renewable energy, and the simple fact that it'll take time to scale solar, wind, and batteries to deliver the amount of hardware that re-think X is calling for.

尽管到2030年超级电力的经济效益能够实现，但在全球范围内，大多数电网不会被重建到能够在一年中的大部分时间提供超级电力的程度，直到接近2040年。这是因为可再生能源的发电成本必须显著低于现有发电的运营成本。此外，开发新电网项目所需的时间、资金和计划，以及现有电力公司试图减缓可再生能源竞争的事实，也会延缓这一过程。同时，将太阳能、风能和电池扩大到能提供Re-think X所需的硬件数量也需要时间。

There will of course be some pockets of the world that shift their grid mix to solar, wind, and batteries much earlier than 2030, and as a result, see a surplus of low-cost power earlier, but it won't be the norm. Lastly, re-think X's vision for the future stopped short of full decarbonization, which in my view is a missed opportunity. It leaves open questions, such as, are solar, wind, and batteries enough to transition the world to sustainable energy, and if not, what other technologies will be required?

当然，世界上有些地方会在2030年之前就将电网转向太阳能、风能和电池储能，这些地方会因此提早享受到低成本电力的过剩优势，但这种情况不会成为普遍现象。最后，重新考虑X对未来的愿景时，完全实现碳中和的目标未能达成，这在我看来是个遗憾。这也引出了一些问题，例如，太阳能、风能和电池储能是否足以让世界过渡到可持续能源？如果不够，还需要哪些其他技术？

Or what's the point of pursuing fusion power if it's likely that technology won't be cost-competitive with intermittent renewable energy? I'll be doing at least one more video in the grid storage series to explore those ideas. If you enjoyed this video, please consider supporting the channel by using the links in the description. Also consider following me on X. I often use X as a testbed for sharing ideas, and X subscribers like my Patreon supporters generally get access to my videos a week early.

或者，如果核聚变能源可能在成本上无法与间歇性可再生能源竞争，那么追求核聚变能源的意义何在呢？在电网储能系列中，我至少还会再做一个视频来探讨这些问题。如果你喜欢这个视频，请考虑通过描述中的链接支持我的频道。同时，请考虑关注我的X账号。我经常使用X作为分享想法的试验场，X的订阅者和我的Patreon支持者一样，通常能提前一周观看我的视频。

On that note, a special thanks to my YouTube members, X subscribers, and all the other patrons listed in the credits. I appreciate all of your support, and thanks for tuning in.

说到这个，特别感谢我的YouTube会员、X订阅者以及所有在片尾字幕中列出的赞助者。我非常感激你们的支持，谢谢你们的观看。