Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles - By 2021, solar is gonna be cheaper than coal, a new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance suggests. The new report shows that the price of solar is dropping rapidly, much faster than originally anticipated. The lead author, Seb Henbest, said, "Costs of new energy technologies are falling "in a way that is more a matter of when than if." If their report is correct, then we could see a decline in global CO2 levels as early as 2026, which is much sooner than the International Energy Agency forecast. China and India are the biggest markets for these new solar farms and account for $4 trillion of investment, which is about 39% of the overall industry. Now, these two countries are still spinning up coal plants really fast, but I think once the price of solar gets below where it is for the other types of energy, we're gonna see a big shift really quickly. In fact, China aims to spend at least 360 billion with a B on renewable energy by 2020 to fight climate change. This is of course to help them deal with the severe pollution in their cities. Now, China is also incentivizing their consumers, their citizens, to buy electric vehicles, and in fact last year they had over 350,000 electric vehicles sold, which is far and away the most out of any country in the world. In one way, you could say that they're the world leaders in shifting us into more renewable forms of energy and forms of transportation such as electric vehicles. In the US, besides Donald Trump saying, "We're gonna bring back the coal industry, "save the coal industry," we're gonna see prices for solar continue to drop. The report predicts that in the US, solar costs will drop by 67% in 2040 and 63% in Canada. That's huge but still doesn't hold a candle to the 85% price drop predicted in Japan. In fact, they're looking at a 70% price drop by 2022. That's only five years from now. Now, I have to pause here for a second and talk a little bit about why I focus on the price so much. You see, in the US, we've politicized the argument over climate change, whereas most of the rest of the world really doesn't see it as an argument anymore, as more a fact and something that we need to act upon. That's why literally every country in the world signed onto the Paris Accord. So, when you have something that is objectively cheaper and better in every way, no one is gonna stop this from happening. No one's gonna stand in the way and say, "Let's pay more for the same thing "that we could get cheaper and better and easier over here." It just doesn't work that way. In fact, the reason oil and things like plastic have been with us for so many centuries now is because of how cheap and efficient they are. If we found a better way to do this earlier, then we would've already made the switch, but we haven't, and until we started to realize the impact that this industry is having on our environment, we really didn't open our eyes to even looking because we didn't realize why we would want that. Don't think for a second, though, that this will spell doom and gloom for big oil or Opec or any of those folks. Companies like BP are making their first investment into renewables in half a decade. Even Opec's top producer, Saudi Arabia, a country synonymous with big oil, is planning to develop 30 solar and wind projects over the next 10 years. This is part of the kingdom's $50 billion program to boost power generation and reduce oil consumption. Their goal is to produce 10% of their power from renewables by 2023. That's only six years from now. In the EU, things are headed this way, also and the report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance projects that by 2040, the desire or demand for oil will drop by about 87% due to the increased cost put in place by the laws that they've enacted to help fight climate change. So all together, we're looking at zero emission tech like Teslas, other electric vehicles, and home batteries skyrocketing as the source of energy for those products becomes more renewable, as well, and all of this adds up to a cleaner, brighter future for us and for our children and our children's children, and this is where today's sponsor comes into play. In 2016, 39% of new generation capacity brought online was solar, which is leading to the boom in residential and commercial solar projects. This is why they're offering you as an investor up to eight and a half percent annually to help fund the transition to solar for small and medium sized businesses. You see, banks don't understand how to finance these things and this is where Wunder Capital comes in. They help small and medium sized businesses convert their business over to solar by providing them the financial tools necessary to do so. As an investor, it helps you because you get to diversify your portfolio, earn up to eight and a half percent returns, and fight climate change all at the same time. In 2017, Wunder Capital is looking to five X the size of their fund, meaning there's a lot of opportunity for you to get involved. They take no fees from you and you can get started with as little as $1,000 today. So if you wanna support small businesses in the US, earn up to eight and a half percent annually, and fight climate change all at the same time, you can learn more at teslanomics.co/wunder, and thanks for watching this episode and I'll see you back here next time.
B1 US solar coal energy climate change climate report Solar Cheaper Than Coal By 2021 69 1 Ntiana posted on 2017/12/14 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary