Piero Bosio Social Web Site Personale

49. The game isn't over by far. But make no mistake: we are winning. That's something to be proud of. It's something to accelerate. It's nothing to take for granted. And it's certainly no time to take Yglesias' advice and fumble the ball so the other team won't feel so sad. /fin

48. That exception of course is the fossil fuel producer. They are hostile to energy productivity for the same reason John Henry didn't like the steam shovel. They can't compete with it. Wins for consumers come at their expense. Wins for the climate come at their expense.

47. As Amory Lovins has said for years, no one wants a lump of coal, or a barrel of oil. All we want is a hot shower and a cold beer. And if we can get that heat and light and chilling without paying for (or burning) fuel, we're all happier... with one notable exception.

46. We are, in a word, investing in energy productivity, getting more economic value out of less input. That is great news, for the same reason that higher returns on capital are good or increases in labor productivity good. Make more useful stuff with less input and we all get richer.

45. Specifically, we've decoupled economic growth from fossil energy consumption. Coal demand has collapsed. Oil use is flat. Natural gas use is growing but < GDP, even as standards of living have gone up. That's happened because of higher efficiency and decarbonization.

44. I've spent my entire adult career in the energy industry. As a consultant, as a manufacturer, as a power plant developer/owner/operator and now as a legislator. There is something really optimistic about the moment we're in that pundits like Yglesias said was impossible 20 yrs ago.

43. If you're still reading at #43... thanks, I guess? But also this. :) Anyway, a final thought to wrap up. https://youtu.be/QbJelY1kZNU?si=h7B3Upg3Y2h9qfGQ

42. Point is, markets and existing regulatory structures also know that no source is available 24/7/365 and manage the grid accordingly. They don't learn anything from Yglesias insight about nighttime and you didn't either.

41. Not shown here, but also a big deal is transmission to connect different parts of the system so that the wind in Iowa can power Chicago, or the sun in Florida, or the geothermal in Nevada, or the hydro in Oregon, etc.

40. So yes, we have a grid with lots of stuff. The most reliable backup in that PJM analysis was nuclear and load sited demand reduction. Diesel gen sets. Pumped hydro. Battery storage is a big deal and a bigger one as costs fall and longer durations are available. Gas peakers too.

39. Moreover, wholesale power markets include variable time of use rates and in some cases capacity payments to pay a premium to sources that can ramp up on a moments notice. Here is a list of what PJM used last year (% is the likelihood that the given source would be there when called.)

38. Every utility manager and operator knows this. NERC standards explicitly require that in any given utility control area you cannot have a coincident failure mode that affects more than 10% of your load. The scary scenario (night time blackouts!) doesn't happen and won't.

37. I will concede. Night is real. Some days I can't fly a kite. It is also true that sometimes coal trains are stuck, gas pipelines fail, warm weather derates thermal power plants and unplanned outages happen.

36. Finally this. The mark of the fossil fuel shill who never loses the arrogance to walk into a room, say "the sun doesn't shine at night and its not always windy", drop the mic and leave, confident that no one else knows what they just discovered.

35. Source for that graph if you want to get into the details: https://www.research.howarthlab.org/publications/Howarth_LNG_assessment_preprint_in_press.pdf

34. And of course you also need to fuel the ship that carries the LNG to another country - which means that environmental impact of exported natural gas is primarily driven by methane leaks and liquefaction / distribution. The burner tip comparison is just a vapid industry talking point.

33. That's even more true for exported natural gas which also has to be liquefied since the liquefaction process is so energy intensive. Roughly speaking, you need nearly 120 units of gas to make 100 units of LNG. So more CO2 and magnified impacts of upstream leaks.

32. That's of course not the norm. And because methane is such a potent greenhouse gas (>80x as bad as CO2 for the first 20 years after release) even a minor leakage rate in the collection and distribution makes natural gas worse than coal from a global warming perspective.

31. On natural gas, his arguments are just as bad. Yes, it is true that at the burner tip a unit of natural gas emits less CO2 than a unit of coal. And if you have a coal mine and a gas well in your back yard, both of which are hooked up to your furnace that is a relevant comparison.

30. Which means that if you're making the argument that US oil production is cleaner, you have to be honest about where the marginal production is happening. And in OH, PA and those other swing states he describes, it ain't from conventional drilling.