I can't help but feel like Jigar Shah was a bit slimy. Forgive me if I don't take the word of the guy who said we won't remember Trump when we look back on this time. His rosy view of AI and tech in general doesn't seem to apply to clean energy which is baffling.
So a scenario of energy abundance where renewables just continue to get cheaper and we invest in them seems far-fetched but some kind of artificial general intelligence doesn't? If I worked in the clean energy transition I wouldn't be in a rush to change my career trajectory based on his prognostications.
This discussion just seems really out of touch with the actual economics of car ownership.
60% of cars in the US are fully paid off. There is no monthly payment.
That’s probably because the average age of a car on the road is currently over 12 years old.
For someone living outside the largest cities who keeps their car until it dies, owning a car is a pretty modest expense that is almost certainly cheaper than Waymo.
This was a pretty dense discussion---not much opportunity to push back or dissect Shah's pronouncements. There are definitely a few points that deserve further unpacking:
1)We should just accept that we need to slog through the next 56 years to recover the ground lost to MAGA since 2016?
2)The IRA technology stuff that we just spend several years refining and rolling out was not the best strategy and financing is more impactful?
3)Green steel, green hydrogen and carbon capture never made any sense (totally agree).
3)EV's have been too successful, and the grid can't keep up?
4)Our lives are about to be taken over by Waymo and AI?
5)We will only have 60% variable renewables on the grid by 2050. Like, I can see us failing that badly, but I question whether that should be the choice and, if it is, what is the other 40%?
6)Lots of talk about financing that was just...could maybe use its own pod?
7)The big question: has anyone ever powered their house off an EV, or is that still something we just talk about doing?
"Smart finance is the real key to scaling the energy transition for everyone."
Shah is a committed capitalist, so his statement is no surprise. The real key to scaling the energy transition for everyone is to regain small-d democratic control of the levers of power, and commit to large-scale state spending.
Good discussion about our being at a threshold of ending a period of “more and more generation” by project developers and beginning a new era of system management. We’ll look back at simple our world has been and how complex it’s about to become.
Always good to hear Jigar Shah's thoughts. Covering lots of ground here. First, yeah, there were lots of inflation and affordability issues ignored by the "Inflation Reduction Act." To the extent it was focused on energy, the USA has cheap energy but expensive other stuff. From transit to healthcare to education to housing. Lots of work to do.
We'll see if/how cheap solar and batteries yield more abundant/cheap energy than he expects. He's correct that some balancing expenses can be ignored, but a lot is location dependent.
Yes, these lawyers & lobbyists, etc., need to find more productive things to do than harass energy developers. He didn't say it explicitly but part of what seems to have happened is the FF biz through the reactionary and tech bro right managed to demonize wind and solar and efficiency and electrification and a bunch of other stuff, to folks for whom it really should not be demonic.
IMHO, these biznesses and the enviro/climate community need YUGE "info ecosystem" attack to counter this. It can't just be "lobbying." So Jigar may need to make way for some really cool spokespersons, like Samuel Jackson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bunG-GGqzQc
Thanks David!
I can't help but feel like Jigar Shah was a bit slimy. Forgive me if I don't take the word of the guy who said we won't remember Trump when we look back on this time. His rosy view of AI and tech in general doesn't seem to apply to clean energy which is baffling.
So a scenario of energy abundance where renewables just continue to get cheaper and we invest in them seems far-fetched but some kind of artificial general intelligence doesn't? If I worked in the clean energy transition I wouldn't be in a rush to change my career trajectory based on his prognostications.
This discussion just seems really out of touch with the actual economics of car ownership.
60% of cars in the US are fully paid off. There is no monthly payment.
That’s probably because the average age of a car on the road is currently over 12 years old.
For someone living outside the largest cities who keeps their car until it dies, owning a car is a pretty modest expense that is almost certainly cheaper than Waymo.
This was a pretty dense discussion---not much opportunity to push back or dissect Shah's pronouncements. There are definitely a few points that deserve further unpacking:
1)We should just accept that we need to slog through the next 56 years to recover the ground lost to MAGA since 2016?
2)The IRA technology stuff that we just spend several years refining and rolling out was not the best strategy and financing is more impactful?
3)Green steel, green hydrogen and carbon capture never made any sense (totally agree).
3)EV's have been too successful, and the grid can't keep up?
4)Our lives are about to be taken over by Waymo and AI?
5)We will only have 60% variable renewables on the grid by 2050. Like, I can see us failing that badly, but I question whether that should be the choice and, if it is, what is the other 40%?
6)Lots of talk about financing that was just...could maybe use its own pod?
7)The big question: has anyone ever powered their house off an EV, or is that still something we just talk about doing?
"Smart finance is the real key to scaling the energy transition for everyone."
Shah is a committed capitalist, so his statement is no surprise. The real key to scaling the energy transition for everyone is to regain small-d democratic control of the levers of power, and commit to large-scale state spending.
Good discussion about our being at a threshold of ending a period of “more and more generation” by project developers and beginning a new era of system management. We’ll look back at simple our world has been and how complex it’s about to become.
Mike
Awesome rhetoric throughout. (IMO, Jigar should be cloned.)
Always good to hear Jigar Shah's thoughts. Covering lots of ground here. First, yeah, there were lots of inflation and affordability issues ignored by the "Inflation Reduction Act." To the extent it was focused on energy, the USA has cheap energy but expensive other stuff. From transit to healthcare to education to housing. Lots of work to do.
We'll see if/how cheap solar and batteries yield more abundant/cheap energy than he expects. He's correct that some balancing expenses can be ignored, but a lot is location dependent.
Yes, these lawyers & lobbyists, etc., need to find more productive things to do than harass energy developers. He didn't say it explicitly but part of what seems to have happened is the FF biz through the reactionary and tech bro right managed to demonize wind and solar and efficiency and electrification and a bunch of other stuff, to folks for whom it really should not be demonic.
IMHO, these biznesses and the enviro/climate community need YUGE "info ecosystem" attack to counter this. It can't just be "lobbying." So Jigar may need to make way for some really cool spokespersons, like Samuel Jackson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bunG-GGqzQc