"My colleague, [[Max Roser]], estimated that one solar panel in 1956 would have cost at least $596,800 in today’s prices. **Despite being wildly expensive, the solar panel didn’t die out, because we needed it in outer space**. In the 1950s, it was being used as the electricity source for satellites. Year by year, the technology developed. By the 1970s, it made it down from space and onto land. But still **only in expensive settings where there was no electricity grid to tap into**: lighthouses, remote crossings and the refrigeration of vaccines. ([Location 1509](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C3X6X695&location=1509))" --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[solar-energy]], [[technology]], [[growth]], [[climate-change]], **Source** -- [[260103133118 - B - Not the End of the World]]