alt Hacker NewsIt's interesting to try to work out what the civ-style "dependency tree" of viable electric cars has been. It requires at the bare minimum high energy density light batteries, which were a spinoff of the cellphone revolution. As well as high efficiency digital power control, which while not impossible in 1970 would have been larger and heavier without modern SiC semiconductors.
Solar panels are an even more remarkable example of compounding a thousand different 1% improvements.
>Solar panels are an even more remarkable example of compounding a thousand different 1% improvements.
But they aren't really. In terms of efficiency, a 2x increase is a lot yes but the thing that has finally made them really viable is simply the cost dropping like a rock.
I don't care if I have to buy 2x as many solar panels when they cost as much as a fence post.
That cost reduction was entirely investment into production capacity. None of that couldn't have been accomplished decades ago.
That's the saddest part. If we had been adults in the 70s, we could already be done the green revolution basically. We could have seriously prevented global warming.
But a bunch of idiots rejected that and instead voted for people who doubled down on fucking up the middle east and burning liquids.