The US is headed toward energy suicide, in large part because smart people are completely misrepresenting the capabilities of solar and wind energy. To counter this, I held a contest to answer some recent distortions by @elonmusk. Here are the winners. 🧵
https://twitter.com/AlexEpstein/status/1387054792439074817
Winners, DM me to collect your prize--a signed copy of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels now or a signed copy of Fossil Future when it comes out.
I'll share my full response to Musk's claim next week. Here's the high level. For all-solar to work you need many days of storage. 3 days of world energy use stored at hypothetical $100/kWH is $133 trillion. Realistic real-world cost is 5X that, so $665 trillion. For batteries.
So yes, @elonmusk, "all we need to power the whole Earth" is "some batteries" that cost between 1.5X and 6.5X global GDP.
Please stop deceiving people this way. You're using your deserved reputation as a brilliant person and innovator to make the world stupid about energy.
Please stop deceiving people this way. You're using your deserved reputation as a brilliant person and innovator to make the world stupid about energy.
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