Hacker News Reader

500 billion can move whole country to renewable energy

Not even close. The US spends roughly $2trillion/year on energy. If you assume 10% return on solar, that's $20trillion of solar to move the country to renewable. That doesn't calculate the cost of batteries which probably will be another $20trillion.

Edit: asked Deepseek about it. I was kinda spot on =)

Cost Breakdown

Solar Panels $13.4–20.1 trillion (13,400 GW × $1–1.5M/GW)

Battery Storage $16–24 trillion (80 TWh × $200–300/kWh)

Grid/Transmission $1–2 trillion

Land, Installation, Misc. $1–3 trillion

Total $30–50 trillion

The common estimates for total switch to net-zero are 100-200% of GDP which for the US is 27-54 trillion.

The most common idea is to spend 3-5% of GDP per year for the transition (750-1250 bn USD per year for the US) over the next 30 years. Certainly a significant sum, but also not too much to shoulder.

It’s also cheaper than dealing with the exponentially increasing costs of climate adaptation.

If Targeted spending of 500 Billion ( per year may be ? ) should give enough automation to reduce panel cost to ~100M/GW = 1340 Billion. Skip battery, let other mode of energy generation/storage take care of the augmentations, as we are any way investing in grid. Possible with innovation.

Really? How? That's very interesting

Reply on news.ycombinator.com