Nijsse and colleagues find that due to technological trajectories set in motion by past policy, a global irreversible solar tipping point may have passed where solar energy gradually comes to dominate global electricity markets, without any further climate policies. Uncertainties arise, however, ove...
Uncertainties arise, however, over grid stability in a renewables-dominated power system, the availability of sufficient finance in underdeveloped economies, the capacity of supply chains and political resistance from regions that lose employment.
Indeed that's strange, and the flat slope in 2060 seems inconsistent with declared net-zero policies of China and even India.
Russia has no such policy, but still strange to assume continuation of current government concepts there until 2060.
(you can see the regional breakdown in supplem Fig 1. )
Regarding the map - an annual average cost is not so meaningful - in higher latitudes solar is not enough in winter - especially where it’s mostly cloudy during the first half of winter. Wind helps the balance but not everywhere, always. Of course, the sophisticated models behind the article know all that, the issue is simplistic presentation. I note "we assume hydrogen is used for seasonal storage" - this may be rather optimistic - how many dark months can that cover?
By levelized cost of just the energy. Taking into account energy storage at different renewable mixes makes it a little worse for intermittent source. All that to say, nuclear can still be useful and cheaper in some situations.