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Seaver Wang Profile picture
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14 Dec, 9 tweets, 3 min read
Versus New Zealand, Taiwan has experienced less than 1/2 the COVID-19 cases, and less than 1/2 the deaths.

Taiwan also gets less than 1/2 the news coverage, while having 5x the NZ population and 14x the pop density.

Taiwan is also woman-led: President Tsai Ing-Wen, PhD. (1)
This spring, a reporter exclaimed "We had to go all the way to New Zealand to find leaders seemingly doing everything right to keep people safe from the spread of Covid19"

Well okay, if Asian success stories are invisible to you, I guess. (2)

Thanks to swift early action, Taiwan has not had to implement a lockdown since the pandemic began. Taiwan does plan to keep its strict screening and quarantining of travelers in place, however. (3)

bbc.com/news/world-asi…
Mongolia still has yet to have a single person within its borders die from COVID-19. (4)

Vietnam marked a 99-day streak without community COVID-19 transmission earlier this year, then went on to deliver an 89-day streak starting just weeks after the first streak. (5)

reuters.com/article/us-hea…
Even allowing for underreported cases and deaths, it's a tremendous achievement given the scale of the Vietnamese population and society. (6)

And while policymakers in S. Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong are confronting a serious new wave of cases, they have nevertheless achieved considerable success to date containing the pandemic within among the most densely-populated urban centers on earth. (7)

nytimes.com/2020/11/27/wor…
This is why I'm bewildered at why New Zealand is apparently the example to contrast Europe, the US, etc... against.

Many Asian nations successful at containing COVID have much more in common with the US + Europe in terms of shared challenges.

Except skin color I guess. (8)
Culture, too.

Citizens + politicians in Europe + US are protesting their governments for what they see as overly-restrictive policies.

Whereas slipping public support for leaders in S. Korea, HK + Japan is because of perceptions that governments are being too lax! (END)

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More from @wang_seaver

Seaver Wang Profile picture
11 Nov
This 2019 paper, to me, brings up a key under-appreciated climate equity aspect to nuclear phaseouts in Europe.

Even assuming shut-down nuclear is replaced with renewables (it isn’t) this passes enviro, climate, health costs onto other countries. (1)

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Beylot et al. analyze the carbon emissions associated with mining and processing four raw materials (steel, concrete, copper, aluminum) needed for a French power sector transition over the next few decades under a plan where French nuclear is cut to 50% of the overall mix. (2)
Their findings:

“the cradle-to-gate climate change impacts... required as a response to the energy transition, are assessed to amount between 57 and 650 million tonnes of CO2-eq (≥ 95% probability), and most likely between 150 and 375 million tonnes of CO2-eq” (3)
Read 14 tweets
Seaver Wang Profile picture
22 Oct
We must reduce mining impacts, but at the same time we’re gonna need copper for net zero. LOTS OF IT. (THREAD)

Current global pop w/o electricity: 1 billion
Current pop w/o clean cooking fuel: 3 billion (think electric stoves w clean power)
Global pop by 2050: 10 billion

(1/7)
Copper intensity of electric gen by type, in tons/GW capacity:

Onshore wind: 1700-6700
Offshore wind: 1650-10000, likely on higher end
Solar: 4900-7000
Nuclear: 726-2000
(to compare: fossil fuels are around 450-600, not that that's remotely a reason to keep em around) (2/7)
By my preliminary calcs for an academic paper I'm working on with @hausfath, @SteveDavisUCI, @erikolsonn, @jamesonmcb + others, assuming a MESSAGE 1.5C decarbonization pathway, we will consume around this much copper per year by 2050: (3/7)
Read 8 tweets
Seaver Wang Profile picture
21 Oct
A certain new big explainer piece on geothermal is rightly getting a lot of attention!

But imo, the really important theme to @drvox 's #energytwitter activity today is the importance of really selling the clean energy transition to oil/gas workers + communities. (1/5)
For the geothermal piece in question:

vox.com/energy-and-env…

Can clean geothermal absorb all current oil + gas jobs? Likely not. But it offers those working in the industry a clear path forwards. (2/5)
I've written on how geothermal's just one way for oil/gas folks to transition to the clean energy economy.

We'll still need pipelines, chemicals (think ammonia, H2) Drilling could help sequester CO2. Offshore wind can leverage oil rig expertise. (3/5)

thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/…
Read 5 tweets
Seaver Wang Profile picture
21 Oct
This piece in @ForeignPolicy by @adam_tooze is useful perspective, placing China's recent net-zero commitment in the context of where the world's major economies are on climate, how rising economies impact the climate picture, and where we go next. (1)

foreignpolicy.com/2020/10/17/gre…
Lots of good perspective here, most importantly the emphasis that a Western-focused framing for tackling climate change is increasingly inadequate and outdated. This is an ever more global issue, which will require leadership from all corners of the world. (2)
As this global picture becomes clearer, so too does the realization that effective climate mitigation hinges upon managing emissions from non-Western corporations and state-owned enterprises just as much as it does upon private Western companies. (3)
Read 6 tweets
Seaver Wang Profile picture
20 Oct
Since my colleagues @hausfath and @atrembath’s piece in @politico on reasons to question the utility of a US public lands fracking ban has been generating a lot of buzz, I thought I’d highlight aspects of #energytwitter discussion so far. (THREAD)

First, worth noting upfront that @politico’s editorial choice of title is extreme - far from @hausfath + @atrembath’s original title.

Their original title was: "Why Biden and Harris Are Right to Be Skeptical of a Fracking Ban”

That acknowledged, the discussion so far: (1)
Important point: Only 1/3 of US gas production goes to electric gen. 1/3 is used for industrial (fertilizer production, chemicals, etc), rest is mostly residential/commercial use. So most gas use is harder to substitute with clean tech than is the case for electricity. (2)
Read 13 tweets
Seaver Wang Profile picture
22 Sep
This study is generating buzz + looked fascinating, so I read the press release, media briefing + full report yesterday.

Key findings are probably approximately correct, but these results were guaranteed given the methodology used. (THREAD)
The authors use a top-down approach to assign a country’s total emissions (private + govt) to each household based on a monotonic relationship proportional to household income, using the national income distribution and Global Carbon Proj carbon emissions data for each year. (1)
In other words, the study is virtually hard-coded to allocate more emissions to households with higher incomes, irregardless of actual consumption patterns. To be fair, relationship btwn income + emissions is generally borne out by consumer habit surveys, but… (2)
Read 14 tweets

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