Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
So we're putting your subscription up to $110 for an electricity capacity charge.
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
And then they could go out and buy turbines for prices that would make your eyes water.
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
Yeah, I do.
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
The learning rate for natural gas is nowhere near as steep as solar, which just tells you that it's easy to make solar panels, much easier to make solar panels.
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
There are actually very few manufactured products which are easier to make.
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
Like the learning, the right solar coefficient is 43%.
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
So every time we double communal production, we get a 43% reduction in cost.
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
Well, I mean, roughly speaking, there's like 10,000 manufacturing process engineers working on this full-time.
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
Yeah, so in order to sustain this over a long period of time, you obviously need to have demand elasticity that exceeds your learning rate.
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
So otherwise, after a couple of booms, you would saturate your market at the current price and you'd have no additional growth.
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
But in this case, roughly every two years, we're doubling production, two and a half years doubling production.
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
The price is coming down by a factor of 40-odd percent, so roughly 15-20% per year.
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
And then just as a result of that price reduction,
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
demand skyrockets by probably six times more than that additional marginal production capacity increase.
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
And this is one point where I'll say, actually, the so-called pros are definitely wrong.
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
Conventional wisdom is like, oh, solar demand is going to saturate this week.
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
It's going to saturate.
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
We've got a graph here somewhere that's like, this year is it.
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
It's never going to grow anymore.
Dwarkesh Podcast
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer
And instead, it's just like blasting out the top of the graph.