Share this page!

Jonathan Koomey Profile picture
Twitter logo
6 Oct, 6 tweets, 2 min read
I had some fun digging back into our archives. The existence of a huge offshore wind potential in UK has been known for many years. The recent technology cost improvements are spectacular and impressive, and they've enabled more rapid tapping of that resource than anticipated.
In our technical potential analysis for the EC5 (Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, and the UK) back in 1995 (!) we found that about 40% of total wind potential for those countries combined was in the UK offshore wind/coastal resource.
That was for 50 M hub height, and obviously the turbines have gotten much bigger, with much higher hub heights, bigger swept area, and higher capacity factors than anticipated back then.
In any case, if you want to dig back into the history, we have good discussion of wind's (and other renewables') tech status in Europe in our 1995 book.
Krause, Florentin, Jonathan G. Koomey, and David Olivier. 1995. Renewable Power: The Cost and Potential of Low-Carbon Resource Options in Western Europe. El Cerrito, CA: International Project for Sustainable Energy Paths. [mediafire.com/file/0a9pqe498…]
@threadreaderapp unroll

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Jonathan Koomey

Jonathan Koomey Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @jgkoomey

Jonathan Koomey Profile picture
5 Oct
We need a balance between corporate and government power, but the scale has been tipped in favor of corporate power in the US for a very long time.
We need an honest debate about the role of government in a modern society. Anyone who says that government needs to be "small enough to be drowned in a bathtub" must be excluded from that conversation. They are not good faith participants.
In a modern capitalist society, well-functioning government is a necessity. Otherwise we get lead in children's toys, poisoned rivers, salmonella in our chicken, workers hurt in unsafe factories, and an unstable climate. We know this from history and from the present.
Read 5 tweets
Jonathan Koomey Profile picture
4 Oct
Yesterday I wrote a thread about why even small carbon dioxide charges can be useful for reducing emissions in certain sectors (but not others).
One of my colleagues rightly asked that I lay out my data and calculations, so this thread does that. If you find any issues with the calcs or data, please let me know.
The main claim (ignoring the peripheral questions about jet fuel) is that a carbon dioxide price of comparable size to those we've actually seen in real emissions trading systems is large enough to substantially affect both dispatch and shutdown decisions for existing coal plants
Read 20 tweets
Jonathan Koomey Profile picture
3 Oct
This is a useful thread. I wanted to add a comment about the notion that "small prices don't work", to help people understand why even a modest carbon price will help drive change.
The key for determining what effect a price change will have on demand is the percentage change represented by that price change. This % is a function of the price of fuel and the carbon content of the fuel, to first order.
For industrial and utility applications (and also perhaps jet fuel) the fuel price per unit of energy content is relatively low and the carbon content relatively high (for coal especially) compared to consumer applications.
Read 7 tweets
Jonathan Koomey Profile picture
29 Sep
This is a nice example of how speed of computation is a function of ALGORITHMS. More efficient algorithms make computation faster. It's not just about hardware (e.g. Moore's law) and in fact we will come to rely more on algorithms to speed things up as we approach physical limits
Leiserson, C E., N C. Thompson, J S. Emer, B C. Kuszmaul, B W. Lampson, D Sanchez, and T B. Schardl. 2020. "There’s plenty of room at the Top: What will drive computer performance after Moore’s law?" Science. vol. 368, no. 6495. pp. eaam9744. [science.sciencemag.org/content/368/64…]
There's a field called "codesign", in which software and hardware are optimized together to make certain calculations faster.
Read 14 tweets
Jonathan Koomey Profile picture
28 Sep
Very important effort here. Some relevant sources for oil and gas follow.
For upstream oil emissions, our Science article and associated supplemental information contains data for most global oil fields (98% of 2015 production), though it may not have the precise data on ownership required for your effort.
Masnadi, et al. 2018. "Global carbon intensity of crude oil production." Science. vol. 361, no. 6405. pp. 851. [science.sciencemag.org/content/361/64…]
Read 11 tweets
Jonathan Koomey Profile picture
27 Sep
This is a key insight. Keeping gas plants around for emergencies but ONLY running them for emergencies allows us to run high renewables systems reliably NOW. No new tech breakthroughs needed, but we will need to change incentives and business models.
Ahem.
Aha, in 2017!
Read 7 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get email notifications when new thread is out from this Author!

Check out other threads from this Author!

Read all threads by @jgkoomey