The Sower’s Way: the Path for the Future
Our paper on "The Sower’s Way" has been published in the IOP Environmental Research Letters journal. It is an attempt to quantify the physical limits of the energy transition from fossils to renewables.
Renewable Energy
Just 16,000 Catenary Trucks Would Use All of California’s Electricity with only 2400 to 8300 Miles of Overhead Wires
It makes sense to electrify trucks since fuel from oil, coal, and natural gas is finite and biomass doesn’t scale up. Trucks make electricity possible.
The Energy-Water Nexus
Energy and water are inextricably linked: It takes energy to supply water, and it takes water to supply energy.
In the UK’s Scramble to “Keep the Lights On”, the New Government Should Listen to its Favourite Newspaper
Given that energy is the essential bedrock of a healthy economy, it is both frustrating and bewildering to watch a protracted national debate like the one accompanying the Brexit referendum and its aftermath and see how little time and attention is allotted to energy policy.
Tailwinds for Clean Energy and the Paris Agreement, Deepening Doldrums for the Incumbency
It was vaguely wonderful watching Presidents Obama and Xi cement their bids for a place in history, via climate change, by announcing American and Chinese ratification of the Paris Agreement on 3rd September 2016.
The Renewable Energy Future is Here – it’s Just Unevenly Distributed
Nation-wide, renewables (including distributed solar but not hydro) accounted for 10.2% of electricity sales, up from 8.4% the first half of 2015.
Intermittent Renewables Can’t Favorably Transform Grid Electricity
Many people are hoping for wind and solar PV to transform grid electricity in a favorable way. Is this really possible?
The Challenges & Opportunities in the Transition to 100% Renewable Energy
Post Carbon Institute Fellows Richard Heinberg and David Fridley gave a joint presentation to the Security & Sustainability Forum—to share the key findings and takeaways that emerged from the analysis they conducted to co-author Our Renewable Future.
Starting Over
What if we didn’t have to work around the grid we have today, with all of its inertia and incumbents and inflexibility?
Five Billion Years of Energy Supply: the “Stereosphere” and the Upcoming Photovoltaic Revolution
Both the biosphere and the stereosphere use solar light as the energy potential necessary to keep the metabolic cycle going and they build-up metabolic structures using nutrients taken from the earth’s surface environment.
Facts and Falsehoods in Energy Transition
We…try to separate fact from falsehoods in this wide-ranging interview. It might even change your mind about a few things.
State of The Transition, July 2016: Might the fossil fuel industries implode faster than the clean energy industries can grow to replace them?
Might it be that the ongoing implosion of fossil fuel industries will happen much faster than the necessarily explosive transition to solutions?