Ferg's Finds
This is a short weekly email that covers a few things I’ve found interesting during the week.
Article
When we look back at the mistakes we made with renewables in a few years, two fallacies will stick out: Using LCOE to compare renewables to baseload and the “learning curve”, i.e. the extrapolating the annual rate of cost reduction.
This paper does a good job of highlighting some of the issues. A critical assessment of learning curves for solar and wind power technologies
Particularly this section:
Podcast/Video
With the uranium market seeming to get a bit of traction here, I was interested to hear what Mike had to say: Mike Alkin of Sachem Cove Discusses Uranium Supply & Demand
Quote
“An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.”
- Arthur Miller
Tweet
My latest rant on EU energy policy.
What is crazier is they intend to double capacity again when prices have already gone negative in summer and barely register in the middle of winter.
Charts
Kind of amazing that without Haber-Bosch half of us won’t be here.
Something I'm Pondering
I’m pondering just how little EVs will offset oil demand in even the most bullish scenario over the next few years.
Consider EVs only make up ~1.8% of the global fleet currently (26m EVS / 1.44B ICE), and passenger vehicles, in turn, only make up 27% of oil demand.
EVs hit 10% of global sales last year, meaning 90% of passenger vehicles sold are still ICEs with a minimum life expectancy of 15 years. Even if you assume 100% of cars sold from now on are EVs, it doesn’t move the needle for a long, long time.
I hope you’re all having a great week.
Cheers,
Ferg
When you apply the learning curve to the word sustainable.