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Okay, energy twitter. Solar costs are coming down faster than just about anyone, including me, forecast. So I'm committing to publishing an update of my solar cost forecast this coming week. Spoiler: It shows a rather stunning pace of solar decline. Many won't believe it. 1/4
In addition, I'm going to publish an analysis of why my previous forecasts (while being perhaps the most optimistic out there) were still too conservative.

A single conceptual issue explains about 2/3 of the forecast miss from 2015. 2/4
I did that analysis because I needed to understand for myself the reason for the forecasting error. And because I think forecasters have an ethical obligation to assess the accuracy of their previous forecasts, and to improve their methods using that data. 3/4
Finally, after the solar forecast, I plan to come back to wind (mostly done, and also shows a stunning, unprecedented pace), stationary storage, & EVs. Putting this here to create social pressure on myself to get this done. :) Thanks. /fin
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Ramez Naam
@ramez
How will coronavirus affect clean energy? One point I haven't seen made: By lowering interest rates (and probably keeping them low for years to come), coronavirus will help the competitiveness of clean energy. Brief thread. 1/7
Low interest rates are a blessing to renewables and storage. Why? Because fossil electricity costs are a mix of capital cost (building the powerplant) and fuel costs (the coal or gas going into the plant).

Renewables, with no fuel, are almost entirely capital cost. 2/7
Fuel costs are something you pay as you operate the plant.

But to build a powerplant, you have to borrow the capital to construct it. Interest rates matter.

Thus, the cost of solar, wind, & storage (all capital, no fuel) are much more sensitive to borrowing costs. 3/7
Read 7 tweets
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Ramez Naam
@ramez
Yesterday, oil and gas giant BP announced they would be carbon neutral by 2050. They aren't going to succeed, unless the landscape of global energy demand changes. A brief THREAD on why. nytimes.com/2020/02/12/cli… 1/n
First, I think BP's announcement is a sign of two clear trends:

A) Oil & gas companies feel increasing social and investor pressure to decarbonize.

B) They see slowing oil demand, and an eventual decline in oil demand, as inevitable.

This is especially true in Europe. 2/n
Second, I've spoken to enough executives of European oil & gas companies (though not at BP) to see that there is a real acceptance that climate change is real and serious, and that a transition to clean energy is inevitable (though views on timing differ greatly). 3/n
Read 16 tweets
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Ramez Naam
@ramez
Okay. Here's a THREAD about divestment (and why it's driven mostly by economics, not good citizenship), theories of change in climate / energy, and the power of tapping into self-interested economic motivations among corporates, banks, and investers. Ready? Here we go.
Last year I gave a talk for a sovereign wealth fund in Asia. In addition to their CEO and leadership team, they were also hosting the CEO and top executives of a bank with hundreds of billions under management - a bank that was, at the time, lending to coal projects. (1/n)
This talk, to be clear, was a very big deal by my standards. I frequently talk to groups of CEOs, corporate execs, bankers, and investors. But the money under management in the room was pretty staggering - and I viewed it as a huge opportunity to have an impact. (2/n)
Read 19 tweets

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