Thread by @daveg

Why the whole environmental narrative of reducing energy consumption is false. Zero consumption and the temperature rises for 40 years, then levels off, the ice melts, we die, the planet survives. theconversation.com/what-would-hap…

So we need to geoengineer (sadly) which requires progress, which has always correlated with increased energy consumption (probably has to, due to laws of physics), so we need to massively onboard renewables, so this energy consumption doesn't make things worse.

But bringing on renewables will take time so we probably need to ramp up nuclear as a stopgap. And we possibly need to turn the flywheel of battery use and electric car demands on the grid to bootstrap a different economic and structural model for the electricity grid.

So that we create an Internet of energy which will massively align incentives and accelerate innovation, just as the Internet model did for communication.

This Internet of energy needs to be a network of networks with packets. In this case the grid would be fractal, a mesh of grids with free pricing and no set feed-in tariff or hierarchy. Anyone could setup a microgrid and connect to another. And batteries would become the packets.

This requires a complete mental shift, moving away from the passive, neo-luddite view of reducing consumption (which is attractive and nostalgic but on balance, dangerous) to one of action, progress and forward thinking.