Has anybody made a world map where distance is proportional to the energy required to move a given mass of cargo between two points?
It's hard to get across to people just how energy efficient container and bulk carrier ships are. Energetically every port is kind of right next door to every other port, even if physically they're on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean.
So far "How Solar Energy Became Cheap" and "Solar Power Finance Without the Jargon" by @solar_chase both kind of remind me of The Box, a history of how containerized shipping took over the world.
Solar PV and containerization have both been weirdly capitalist triumphs and investor catastrophes. Ultimately brutally competitive, low-margin industries littered with bankruptcies, even as they transform the world and enable other kinds of economic development.