Sounds to me like there is an emerging kind of import/export players lining up to import goods from the emerging markets with high tariffs into the lower tariff markets and then export them from there to the US...

@blkahn.bsky.social does this article exist? Khan, B. (2023, July 15). Ammonia’s hydrogen potential faces serious efficiency and safety challenges. Bloomberg Green.

Sad news. FiveThirtyEight was a much appreciated site for tracking how opinions evolved.

Geological (natural, white or whatever other name you call it) hydrogen remains one of the potential game changers in the energy transition story. It could turn out to be as impactful as natural gas is/was, or it could turn into a disappointment. For now, activity is increasing.

Much cleaner to have a CO2 price on fuels than to subsidize EOR. The CO2 price would push dirtier fuel out of the system (The EOR-fuels would move down the marginal cost stack merit of all others moving up), whereas an EOR subsidy reduces the cost of fuel to consumers (thus increasing fuel demand).

A real pity. Eviation was ahead of the times with its attempt at commercialising a battery electric aircraft of this class. Higher specific energy batteries will be coming too late for these pioneers it seems.

A step in the right direction. When wind and solar supply enough power, biomass shouldn't be burned. Instead, biomass should serve as naturally stored solar energy for what can't directly be supplied from intermittent sources (buffered with batteries).

Biomass is renewable. But it is only sustainable within narrow limits. If corporate bottom lines depend on it, and the regulatory limits are not strict enough, the sustainable limits will keep getting ignored to the detriment of the overall objective.

If you tell me you want nuclear in a place that lacks renewable resources, I have sone understanding for your position. In Australia it makes no sense.

I expect Terrawatt per year installation rates. When I first said that more than a few thought I had lost the plot.

H2 in aviation is hard pressed from SAF and possibly DAC being lower hanging fruits to deal with near term requirements.

Starlink offers a fantastic service off grid. However, if there are unintended consequences those costs will be socialized. Since this affects all, beyond jurisdictional borders, there should be global governance and accountability.

More shipping decarbonization news today. 70% capture rate doesn't knock me off my rocker. Though the move goes in the right direction.

That is spectacular! I worked in the Middle East when the UAE first signed a solar PPA under 6c/kWh. Some of my then bosses didn't believe the price was real and rubbished solar for not being reliable. If really this solar baseload contract is in the 6c/kWh ballpark, I wonder what they say now.

Flicking through @nathanielbullard.com 's yearly deck, many graphs strike a chord. Asking myself, which I believe to be the most important going forward, I settled on slide 90 (and 91). The market quickly has to come to grips with the electric price decay when renewables produce.

Reviving the tradewind routes. Ocean shipping is considered one of the hard to abate sectors. It is also one we had prior to fossil fuels, when sailors linked the world. Time for the merchant mariners to earn the name properly again.

In China EVs are reportedly cheaper than ICE vehicles now according to the Volta Foundation (not on Bluesky yet?). volta.foundation/battery-repo... This is bound to drive the Chinese EV market even faster, with the rest of the world risking to fall even further behind.

Ripping down is easy. Building something good is hard. Before you bring the house down you should build something better.

Woodmac predicts solar sales stagnating in 25 and higher prices. But lower demand doesn't give manufacturers leverage to raise prices. It results in harsh price competition instead. So I have strong doubts about Woodmac's prediction panning out. www.woodmac.com/news/opinion...

It looks like Electricitymap has expanded coverage to most countries in the world.

I am not convinced trying to re-establish a sector by investing in the legacy technology will pay off. Silicon is approaching its physical potential and therefore risks obsolescence in the medium term as next generation technology takes over.

A good reminder not to trust everything on the internet.

Good luck to all: Declares an "energy emergency" <--> opposes domestic wind power. Puts drug gangs on the list of terrorist organizations <--> Pardons Ross Ulbricht who enabled illegal drug dealing. Threatens those aiming to bypass the Dollar <--> is pro crypto

This should appeal even to Trump

I am one of those saying we should study geoengineering by global dimming. Opponents say unknown consequences are too risky. But, India is already doing it, inadvertently, badly, but evidently effectively! And society shrugs it off. So why avoid discussions on how to do it well?

It looks like the Moss Landing fire were NMC batteries, contrary to an early article that indicated LFP. NMC causing a fire is less surprising. It's more surprising anyone thought this was a good setup for such a large system.

China is so close to turning the corner on the electric sector emissions. I feel like the kid in the back of the car impatiently asking "are we there yet?"

Ground source heat pumps are not geothermal: Geothermal originates from inside the planet. Ground source heat pumps rely instead on near surface ground buffering the seasonal🌡️swings. A few meters down the 🌡️ is steady year round at the average surface 🌡️. Ground source is ☀️ energy, seasonally stored.

This is just another example of how a sector is not made to pay for externalities. There should be a cost to excluding others from being somewhere or doing something.

Moss Landing battery fire, one of the world's largest such installations. If as reported this is the phase 1 section, it would appear to be LFP batteries, which are considered a low fire risk. Insurance statistics on batteries have been sobering. Clearly improvements are needed on battery safety.

Low efficiency is a disadvantage, not a show stopper: Plants growth is low efficiency. Still chosen by evolution. Fossil fuels were/are low efficiency for most motors. Powered industrialization. Now folks say hydrogen is stupid because low efficiency. That's not a sufficient argument to rubbish it.

Radiative cooling (RC) is intriguing. It allows surfaces to cool below ambient without energy use. However, practical advantages are harder to find. Integrated RC PV is reminiscent of PV with solar thermal (PVT) but harder and PVT never caught on.

This study argues that direct air capture (DAC) should be done but that it should be used for efuels to minimize non-CO2 effects of aviation. Whether efuels or DAC+fossil is the cheaper aporoach to GHG neutral aviation has occupied me for a while. I agree, DAC shoukd be rolked out. But (see below)

Turing test passed uncomfortably: A voice bot on a hotline was so realistic this week that I had to ask the following operator whether it was a bot or a person. It is an uncomfortable notion not to know whether one interacts with a person or an AI.

We have all the needed energy transition technology, some of it old, like CAES. New and improved solutions will lower the transition cost but there is no technology holdup to reaching net zero.

2024 was the warmest year on record with an average global temperature 1.6°C above pre-industrial level. It's the first year to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial level, with every month but one since July 23 surpassing this threshold. Full Global Climate Highlights 2024: https://bit.ly/40kQpcz

There is so much to come in batteries. It's a tough market for producers with fast generational turnover. But it is great for consumers who profit from ever better batteries. Charging practically as quickly as refuelling is increasingly realistic.

With 350Tbps deployed and the next gen satellites at 1Tbps each, what telecoms network segments are at risk from orbital solutions? Spreading today's capacity evenly is 0.7Mbps/km2. At 10x that it's 1 user/km2 anywhere watching videos. Regions with single digit population density won't need fiber.

A $137billion price tag (before the likely cost overruns) is jaw dropping. But with a planned 300TWh/y output, it is cents/kWh of green power. Is it therefore a good idea? For a central planner, most likely yes. But such projects come with significant side effects and risks.

LNG as transport fuel is a waste of resources. It's GHG emission reduction potential (if any) is inconsequential hence not justifying the investment. At this point, any technology change needs to be a net zero tech, not a tech locking in a marginal improvement for yet another generation.

Contrarian opinion: The present market does not seem to grasp yet that electricity prices during sunny/windy weather are headed to levels (way) below the levelized cost of energy (LCoE) that PPAs need. So at what point will CFOs lose their appetite for PPAs?

"China’s incremental technical progress in silicon solar cell efficiency eroded SunPower’s competitive edge [...]" Reality has caught up with my 10y old prediction. SunPower had a great product commanding a premium then but it also produced at premium cost, while its efficiency advantage eroded.

Will a €4/kg subsidy cap be sufficient? Green H2 production is likely in the >€7/kg region and grey H2 plus CO2 certificates are likely in the <€3/kg region. So this cap still seems economically unattractive. But the upcoming 42% green H2 mandate in industry may mean there will be takers.

I wish we replaced them with renewables but as long as we burn that much coal, we need to push CCS in parallel.

The days of being out of reach are coming to an end with big impact for search and rescue and likely marking the slow demise of broadcasting radios in most niches.

Little by little, geological hydrogen starts getting a bit of attention. It's an energy transition wildcard I hope gets traction. Greens and drillers transitioning away from fossil could be equally pleased with this prospect.

Banning solar geoengineering is the equivalent of banning pain killers. They don't treat the symptoms. But they make getting well bearable. We have all the engineering means for solving climate change. But we will need time. Are you really willing to let nature suffer in the meanwhile?