The energy transition's 5 supervillains and 5 superheroes
www.volts.wtf
At long last, one of clean energy's OGs, Michael Liebreich, has come to Volts. He and I discuss his recent essays on five causes for pessimism about the net-zero transition, alongside five causes for optimism.

The take that struck me the most came towards the end. And it’s that when you electrify, not only are you not burning fossil fuels to work your stove, but you’re also not burning fossil fuels to power the drilling equipment, to ship the crude oil, to refine it, to pump it to your stove.

A large portion of our critical energy demand is just getting fossil fuel energy to its point of use, so small amounts of electrification and efficiency improvements at point of use have large impacts on the upstream emissions

  • föderal umdrehen@feddit.de
    1·
    6 months ago

    Pretty good conversation! And you’re right, his mentioning that 40% of ships simply transport fossil fuels was kind of a revelation.

    I also found the bit about financing in the developing world interesting.

    One aspect where he came really short though was “agriculture? Oh yeah, I haven’t looked into that”. Then going on about ruminants. Actually, it’s the same thing as with primary energy — much like the demand is for lighting rather than coal, there is demand for healthy food rather than for animal parts.