First, scale-up means learning by doing, which takes time in the energy industry. Where energy technology relies on conversion processes — as with next-generation nuclear energy, biofuels or carbon capture and storage (CCS) — historically it has taken three years to build a demonstration plant, one year to start it up and two to five years to overcome setbacks and reach satisfactory operability. So it can take a decade to reach the point where one is confident enough to build the first full-scale commercial plant. It can take another decade to build a dozen.
Leverage existing infrastructure: After reaching materiality, growth curves have historically levelled off (Fig. 1). This is our second law. Unlike consumer goods that may become obsolete in a few years, the capital goods of the energy system have a lifetime of 25–50 years. That means only 2–4% of existing technology needs replacing in a given year. These replacement rates are hard to increase because the economic barrier to replacing old technology is extremely high: industry will only consider early retirement of the existing capital stock if the total cost of the new technology (capital and operating costs) falls below the operating cost of the old.
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