Is burning natural gas ideal? Absolutely not. But it's much better than burning oil or coal for electricity, and using heightened financial and generation figures for natural gas to imply that hydrocarbons as a whole aren't successfully being replaced is deeply misleading.
(A cursory scan of this author's other posts indicates that this is a general theme of theirs.)
The main takeaway for me is that nuclear isn’t getting enough press time because the prevailing view is that renewables are so successful, which he is arguing is essentially propaganda not supported by the numbers.
I agree that nuclear power needs to be a larger part of the story. But the author should motivate that without relying on misleading categorizations.
The only real benefit of gas, IMO, is that it's easy to switch on and off quickly and has the low fixed-costs desirable for a peaker plant (unlike nuclear).
But natural gas is a hydrocarbon? Replacing coal with gas isn't a replacement of hydrocarbons.
Just coincidentally, that period includes all of the boom in "unconventional" gas (i.e. fracking) which turned the US into a net gas exporter -- while only catching the tail end of the (roughly exponential?) renewable growth curve.
Sorry, the author appears to be cherry picking here. Ask yourself, "why 2004"?
1) post - 2000 makes it look 'fresh', two decades of lookback diminishes the recent changes which look bad for the pro hydrocarbon camp.
2) Rob Bryce is now and always has been a Texas PR voice for the Texas oil baron crowd.
He comes to substack via the Institute for Energy Research ( a successor to the Institute for Humane Studies and another jewel in the Koch anti climate pro burn oil PR thinky tanks ) and the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (aka Centre of Conservative Turd Gilding and Polishing ).
His job is literally to spin data to make oil look good.
As for including the fracking boom, so what? Isn't that a rephrasing of his point? Hydrocarbon usage has gone up a lot. How is it cherry picking to use nearly 20 years of data?
We used to see articles all the time about “paperless office? but everyone prints out their emails” and that was true until it suddenly wasn’t.
But not investing that would have left the world in an even worse position. If anything it's just not enough but it will have to be.
This is an interesting stat, but I think it's misleading - the vast majority of cost for solar/wind is upfront, so it will naturally appear more expensive in the short term even if it's cheaper overall. Also, obviously, there was far more invested into solar in 2019 than there was in 2006.
I agree that the energy transition isn't (and obviously the Biden administration wants to pretend otherwise, because "we're solving climate change" is just great politics), but I want to attack some of the implicit assumptions why:
First up, the problem isn't renewables being too expensive, it's that they're too cheap and competitive. If you expect the price of future goods in a market to drop like a rock, why on earth would you want to enter that market, let alone commit significant investment into today's goods? Companies care about being profitable, not about being cheap. And as a quick aside, of course more is invested into the tech that currently holds 90% of the market.
Second up, reliability doesn't matter yet - if your electricity sources are 50% gas and 50% renewables, then you're just fine. Yes, when we get to the finish line this will be a big problem, but our deadline is not dictated by time, but by emissions. If we emit 100N emissions per year today and we reduce that down to 10N next year, then we have 10x longer before man-made emissions push us past whatever our goal is. As such, focusing on the last 10% is a terrible idea if it even slightly hinders our adoption for even the first 50%.
Third up, energy vs electricity is a double-bind. For example, switching to renewables alone won't stop ICE car emissions, but a very common criticism of electric cars is "why bother, the electricity is just coming from coal anyway". These two criticisms demand mutually exclusive sets of priorities, and if you pick one then people will hit you with the other.
The energy transition isn't, but we desperately need to discuss why instead of making assumptions.
You can make huge profits on small margins if your market is huge. This profit vs cheap isn't an adequate explanation of corporate entry to the market (whatever it actually is).
Very good point!
Notably, the banner fact that 2022 was the first year - ever - where global investment in renewables equalled investment in fossil fuels[1]. This was primarily championed by China, which produced one of the most astonishing graphs I've seen in recent times[2]. It entirely upended how I view leadership on this issue and what countries are taking it remotely seriously. Canada isn't even in the top 10!
Anyway, given that - again - this is the first time ever that investment in renewables has matched investment in fossil fuels, it is not surprising that fossil fuel usage has continued to grow.
He advocates increased fracking on public lands and a curtailing of environmental reviews.
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/renewable-energy/wi...
“Energy-source politics” often reminds me of the Condorcet voters paradox. That paradox is where Voter 1 prefers A>B>C, Voter 2 prefers B>C>A, and Voter 3 prefers C>A>B. If A were to be declared the winner, one can point out two voters have “C>A” in their preference and only one voter has “A>C”, so C should be elected - but two voters have “B>C” and only one has “C>B”, so B should be elected - but two voters have “A>B” and only one has “B>A”, so A should be elected…
It’s important to note this paradox is stronger than just “it’s a tie”. The meat of the paradox is that for any chosen winner, the majority actively prefers a different winner.
The three candidates are fossil fuels, renewables, and nuclear. Alice prefers fossil fuels > renewables > nuclear (she wants airconditioning at night and watched Chernobyl recently). Bob prefers renewables > nuclear > fossil fuels (he has a live feed of IPCC predictions and updates). Chuck prefers nuclear > fossil fuels > renewables (he is a techno-optimist who runs a Bitcoin mining farm 24/7).
In this situation, if Georgia the governor announces a billion dollar subsidy for fossil fuels, Bob and Chuck (a majority of her constituents) will write her complaint letters suggesting nuclear instead; if she puts that billion towards renewables, Alice and Chuck (again, a majority) oppose her and demand she support fossil fuels instead; if she allocates it to nuclear, Alice and Bob (a majority) vote her out of office in favor of her opponent who will subsidize renewables.
Into this dynamic you put Larry the lobbyist (a stand-in for Robert Bryce, the author of the article). Larry’s motivation is simple: he gets paid for every dollar of government funding he directs to the industry he is employed to lobby for. If he is employed by fossil fuel companies, his best tactic is simply to criticize renewables (as this will activate a majority support for fossil fuels).
