Relative to business-as-usual projections from 2005, US electricity sector emissions are down 52%. What can we learn from the successes of the last 15 years about the challenges of the next 15? (If you don't want to read, you can listen!)
This is great stuff, Dave. It's even more dramatic to compare emissions decline to GDP increase. This dramatic reduction in emissions from 2005 to 2019 (forget 2020 -- we took that year off) was accompanied by a 30% increase in real GDP -- from 14T to 18T. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD?locations=US
Yes, there is hope at the end of the tunnel. But there are many side-channels in the tunnel where we can become lost.
It feels like we often spend way too much time worrying about that last 10-20%. The 80-20 rule would suggest that it'll take 80% of the effort and it seems like we'd get a heck of a lot more purchase by working with other countries to do all the things that got us 80% of the way there and just sort of waiting a bit til the tech catches up to make the last 10-20% easier (or CCS or something else comes that does negative emissions of some sort). So anyway, I'm glad that was just a throwaway here. Not sure if you already have a piece explaining what the 80% solution on climate change is, ie, the things that get us 80% of the way there at the lowest cost today, cause investing in those and making that happen ASAP seems like it should be a huge priority.
Does the NREL analysis account for methane emissions from fracking operations and natural gas pipelines? If it does not, we're likely seriously overestimating our progress (though we could spend years debating the estimates).
Tony Seba says we can get to 100% with SWB, especially as Batteries become cheaper. The formula he uses is 3x or more of total load supplied by SW backed up by batteries. As especially solar declines in cost and batteries enjoy another amazing price decline, the amount of storage required varies from 29 hours to approximately 60 hours based on modeling for California and New England. Guess who needs 29 hours.
the old assumption was always that electricity demand (and emissions) would grow at the same rate as the economy (or at least at the same rate as GDP), so it's an important rebuttal to the "we'll hurt our economy if we focus on reducing emissions" objection
This is great stuff, Dave. It's even more dramatic to compare emissions decline to GDP increase. This dramatic reduction in emissions from 2005 to 2019 (forget 2020 -- we took that year off) was accompanied by a 30% increase in real GDP -- from 14T to 18T. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD?locations=US
Yes, there is hope at the end of the tunnel. But there are many side-channels in the tunnel where we can become lost.
It feels like we often spend way too much time worrying about that last 10-20%. The 80-20 rule would suggest that it'll take 80% of the effort and it seems like we'd get a heck of a lot more purchase by working with other countries to do all the things that got us 80% of the way there and just sort of waiting a bit til the tech catches up to make the last 10-20% easier (or CCS or something else comes that does negative emissions of some sort). So anyway, I'm glad that was just a throwaway here. Not sure if you already have a piece explaining what the 80% solution on climate change is, ie, the things that get us 80% of the way there at the lowest cost today, cause investing in those and making that happen ASAP seems like it should be a huge priority.
Does the NREL analysis account for methane emissions from fracking operations and natural gas pipelines? If it does not, we're likely seriously overestimating our progress (though we could spend years debating the estimates).
Tony Seba says we can get to 100% with SWB, especially as Batteries become cheaper. The formula he uses is 3x or more of total load supplied by SW backed up by batteries. As especially solar declines in cost and batteries enjoy another amazing price decline, the amount of storage required varies from 29 hours to approximately 60 hours based on modeling for California and New England. Guess who needs 29 hours.
let me know when you want to discuss the dirty truth about the other half? --> sc.org/UtilityPledges
I think another important trend in line with the reduction in emissions & electricity demand is that it's happened while GDP has increased (see slide 13 here: https://www.synapse-energy.com/sites/default/files/Synapse_Electricity_Snapshot_2021.pdf)
the old assumption was always that electricity demand (and emissions) would grow at the same rate as the economy (or at least at the same rate as GDP), so it's an important rebuttal to the "we'll hurt our economy if we focus on reducing emissions" objection