david robertsA new brief from @[email protected] arguing: "It is increasingly clear that global fossil fuel demand reached a peak in 2019 and we are now bumping along a plateau before the inevitable decline sets in." https://www.dropbox.com/s/gf1oq793mps8l5r/Global%20peak%20fossil%20fuel%20demand%20final%2011.pdf?dl=0
Renewables supplied 85% of growth in primary energy demand in 2019; soon it will be 100%. "Annual supply growth of solar & wind is 5 EJ, rising to around 16 EJ by 2030; annual total energy demand growth will average around 6 EJ this decade before falling back in the next decade."
Meanwhile, the basic tech building blocks of a clean-energy grid are all on S-curves, rapidly declining in price, as I covered on a recent pod. https://www.volts.wtf/p/learning-curves-will-lead-to-extremely#details
Learning curves will lead to extremely cheap clean energy
A newly published research paper out of Oxford suggests that a rapid energy transition will not "cost" anything -- it will save nearly a trillion dollars relative to the no-transition case. And the faster we move, the more money we save. I talk with complex-systems scientist and co-author Doyne Farmer about his optimistic projections.
The forces of growth & decline are currently closely matched, but "by the second half of the decade, it will be obvious that fossil fuels are in terminal decline." More from the "ff are peaking" series here: https://rmi.org/insight/peaking-why-fossil-fuel-demand-peaked-in-2019/
Final note: something @[email protected] has impressed upon me is that the financial health of the FF industry depends on growth. A plateau followed by decline, even if a small change in absolute terms, is HUGE for market dynamics. It triggers a self-reinforcing cascade of changes.
Hard to exaggerate what a fundamental, historic change it will be to see global FF tip into decline. Completely new territory for industrialized society.
Denial đ Shown@drvolts i suspect it's harder for most folks to imagine the world changing implications, regardless of how big the language to describe the shifts that are underway.
Zach Flanders@drvolts What do you have against the Foo Fighters?
Sebastian Peitsch@drvolts ist kind of funny because in the 80s when I was in primary school they told us by now we'd have run out of room for people to stand on because of overpopulation and we'd run out of fossil fuels because nobody could even contemplate how we'd be operating deepwater horizon style rigs that dig miles into the ground 2 miles over the ocean floor
Maximus Clarke@drvolts My sense is that the more forward-looking FF majors are rushing to invest in hydrogen and carbon capture to try to find ways to make continued use of their assets and expertise. It'll be interesting to see if this works out for them â or if wind, solar, batteries, a better grid, and simpler forms of carbon sequestration (like agriculture-based methods) make these efforts futile.
rgmerk@bookofsand @drvolts I could be wrong but my sense there wasnât nearly enough scope for agricultural carbon sequestration to meet our long term need to get the atmosphere back to something closer to its pre-industrial state in a reasonable time frame. It would be deeply ironic if the FF industryâs future revenue stream was repairing its own damage, but I wouldnât completely rule it out.
@rgmerk @drvolts Agriculture by itself may not be enough, but there are other promising low-tech ideas in the mix also, like using crushed rock to suck CO2 down via chemical weathering. It could be spread on farm fields, but also other places (forests, oceans, etc.): https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2022/01/enhanced-rock-weathering/
abenomicon@drvolts fwiw this episode changed the way I think about using trends to understand change
Athanasius@drvolts glad to learn of your podcast, David. Just subbed in Apple Podcasts.
Music is the Answer@drvolts into my veins đ