The more you make, the cheaper it gets

How did Moore get all the glory?

When you look back at how new technology develops, the same pattern is often visible.

It gets cheaper over time. And because it’s cheaper, demand goes up.

Gordon Moore got his own Law because he saw that computer chips had been improving year after year. Therefore, “there is no reason to believe it will not remain nearly constant for at least 10 years".

He was right. But Theodore Wright was more right.

A new book by Doyne Farmer, Making Sense of Chaos, A Better Economics for a Better World adds to the story. Wright saw the same kind of trend in aeroplane technology in the 1930s. But he did more than observe it. He identified the mechanism. Wright’s Law says that mass production is what drives costs down.

We’re living through a surge in clean tech production. Nat Bullard’s chart shows how solar PV and lithium battery capacity are growing. It applies to heat pumps too. Wright’s Law means that the falling costs we've seen have much further to go.

The more you make, the cheaper it gets.