I see your comment, and I know that the same error was made several times. There are numerous articles from the last couple of decades, where people point out that the exponential growth of Solar is unsustainable. Here we are in 2025, and the growth still is exponential (and has been since 1992). You have to bring up really good arguments why it should be slowing down anytime soon.

And no, I don't require every city to plaster its roofs with Solar. I just want to point out how much people underestimate the potential of Solar, because they totally underestimate the amount of energy the Sun actually provides.

Lets say, we are able to capture 20% of the Sunlight reaching the ground (actual numbers are more closely to 25%, and research solar cells reach 45%). About 70% of the Sun light is reflected by the Sun's atmosphere. In the temperate climate zone, Sun light hits the ground on average at an angle of about 45. Lets consider rainy days, and about 10% of the Sunlight will be ready for capture, of which we then capture 10%. With the Solar constant being about 1.4 kW, that means that each square meter Solar can capture 14 Watts. A person living in a city needs about 2000 kWh per year (which not only covers domestic use, but also powering the infrastructure), and with a square meter able to catch about 140 Wh per day, each person needs about 20 square meters of Solar to fully cover their energy needs. A city like Houston has a population density of 1600 inhabitants per square kilometer, which means that for each person, there are about 600 square meters of land area in Houston. Only 20 of them are needed to power the city.

The estimates are very rough indeed. If you do the math for any city, you will find out that just the roofs in that city provide enough space for Solar to power the city. It's not that we will run out of space for Solar very soon.

And then, you are projecting linear growth for Solar and Wind, but the actual growth rates are exponential. Roughly every three years, the amount of Solar and Wind installed is doubling - doing so for the last 15 years. In 2027, the World will install 1400 GWp, in 2030, it will be 2800 GWp. Taking your 25% estimate (it's actually more like 17%, but that moves it just into the next year), we will install as much Solar in 2045 year as the total fossil energy output today.

I don't listen to music, when I can avoid it. I even play all my games on "Sound: off" mode.

Back in my day we called 'em shills.

There is quite a difference between Visa and MasterCard (one type), and Amex and Discover (other type). Both Amex and Discover are essentially one-issuer-cards, either backed by American Express or by Discover Financial Services. Visa and MasterCard can be issued by any institution which has a contract with Visa or MasterCard. Visa and MasterCard are Clearing Houses, companies tasked with processing inter-bank-transfers.

Something which makes it easier and more convenient for people to file taxes cannot be tolerated.

Whatever it takes, you will pay. That is their goal.

You guys get that 4.3% is low unemployment, right? Something like 90% of the last 30 years have had higher unemployment rate than that. It's the participation rate that's dropping, and that's almost entirely a demographic issue... there are more people retiring every year than graduating. The labor pool, as a percentage of the total population, is falling. This was all known well in advance and has been talked about to death. Those lower 4.3% of the population... the vast majority of them are really difficult to employ. A small percentage of people show up work late, or get drunk before they come to work, or whatever, and it's that group that finds it hard to stay employed.

Yes. Watt peak. And it does, at least for me. Let's say I can get 120 Watts on average over 8 hrs at 300 days/year, this means that I can get 300 kWh a year. If I pay 20 ct/kWh, it will pay back my initial investment of $300 within 5 years.

There is nothing that forbids me to install more than one of those $300/800 Wp systems in general. But I am no longer allowed to just plug them into the next wall socket according to local regulations, and inform my utility after the fact. If I want more than 800 Wp, I have to apply for a larger system, and I have to get it approved. If for instance, I want 10 kWp, I buy 12 of them, costing me $3600, a power management system for maybe $1500, and I need a board certified engineer to approve the setup. At the end, I'll pay maybe $8000 for the whole 10 kW setup, but not $50,000.

If you're referring to the chargers, I agree. They have a bad reputation currently. But I think a lot of the effort and resources has to go into more generation and distribution infrastructure, which tends to be robust, but expensive and it takes a while. I do think the AI boom is going to leave us with a lot of unused electrical capacity, and I think that's a good think for EVs.

That's not what I claim. But for $300, I can halve my energy bill.

No, but it's not about being off-grid. It's about generating about 50% of the electricity you need over a year yourself - for $300.

...I can see this could be useful for preventing reviews that claim I can't spell or do grammar.

It needs to be opt-in, not opt-out - not only for fear of butchering an author's beautiful sentences, but also because some authors who self-publish in English are successful enough that publishers of books in other languages sometimes pay for the right to publish a translation. Those contracts are usually exclusive, meaning that the author agrees not to let anyone else publish a translation of that book in that language. If Amazon's AI generates one without the author's knowledge, the author could get hit with a breach of contract lawsuit.

Naw. Somehow, this will be Obama or Hillary's fault.

I work in the automotive industry. Two years ago the attitude across the automotive industry was that whole industry was switching to EVs and it was all expected to happen at a completely unrealistic pace. There was still a ton of charging infrastructure to build out, but the industry was expecting high double-digit growth and a rapid phasing out of gas vehicles within a few years. It was absurd at the time. Then a couple years later and the whole industry has flipped (yes, this has a lot to do with government subsidies and Trump winning the election) and now everyone thinks EVs are "dead". This is, of course, just as silly as the continual proclamations that the PC market is dead. In reality, the EV market will continue to exist and mature, and with a number of really promising battery technologies in the pipeline, not to mention a massive build-out of electrical generation capacity to support an AI future that's primed to burst for a few years, there's actually a bright future for EVs. Just not on the ridiculous timeline that everyone was thinking two years ago.

There's another detail that often gets missed. I don't know the details myself, but the way it's been described to me, mid-size pickup trucks fall into a category under the EPA or something which requires them to meet much more stringent environmental and other regulations that full-size pickups are exempt from, and at the end of the day it means that the price difference between a mid-size and a full-size truck was much smaller than it should be based on the amount of materials and extra functionality you get from a full-size truck, so that caused the auto-makers to discontinue most (all?) of their mid-size lineups. You really couldn't buy a smaller truck for about a decade or so. I think the last one was the Colorado.