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Ramez Naam Profile picture
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16 Sep, 4 tweets, 1 min read
I'm pleased to announce that I've taken a new role, as Chief Futurist and Partner at @PrimeMoversLab.

Prime Movers Lab has the mission to fund breakthrough innovation that improves the lives of billions. primemoverslab.com 1/
I'll remain heavily focused on climate, energy, and transportation, but also spend more of my time taking a broad look at the key technology trends in the world today, how they'll impact humanity, and how to better outcomes for everyone. 2/
I'll also continue to speak and write publicly about these topics. In fact, I hope to write much more. 3/
If you're part of a deep technology company working to improve the world, please reach out! 4/

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More from @ramez

Ramez Naam Profile picture
15 Jul
Thread: Joe Manchin is disturbed by the climate provisions in the budget bill that would phase out fossil fuels. He's wrong to be disturbed. Nevertheless, Dems should try to win him over by allowing coal and gas powerplants, IF they're fitted with CCS, to participate in a CES 1/N
Why would I say this?
1. Manchin's support is absolutely required in order to pass a Clean Electricity Standard, or to pass any reconciliation bill at all.

2. Coal is already increasingly uncompetitive. Adding CCS will make it even more expensive. Coal is dead, either way. 2/N
3. Natural gas + CCS, on the other hand, may actually work. And it may be a useful tool for providing seasonal and multi-day generation to complement renewables and hourly storage. 3/N
Read 6 tweets
Ramez Naam Profile picture
7 May
Today's a big day for long-duration (12 hour+) energy storage. ESS Inc (@ESS_info) - which makes a low-cost, iron-sodium flow battery with unlimited cycle life - is going public via a SPAC merger, with $465m of fresh capital to help them scale. essinc.com/2021/05/07/ess… 1/n
I'm personally very excited. One of the very first angel investments in clean energy I made was to ESS, at the time a tiny company in Oregon, who had technology that showed promise to bring the cost of 12 hour storage down to pennies per kwh. 2/n
Based on what they showed me in 2015, I believed that ESS could make grid energy storage cheap enough to solve the day/night cycle - that some combination of solar, wind, and ESS's flow batteries would be cheaper than coal or gas almost everywhere. 3/n
Read 4 tweets
Ramez Naam Profile picture
26 Mar
The US Department of Energy has new solar cost targets: 2 cents / kwh in average locations (Kansas City, MO) by 2030. This is a phenomenal goal, welcome additional investment in advanced solar R&D, and also very plausible. A short thread. 1/n
Achieving DOE's target of 60% cost reduction of solar by 2030 would make solar the cheapest source of electricity over most of the US. 2/n
Hitting DOE's 2030 solar cost target would also mean that new solar electricity would cheaper than the operating cost of *existing* coal and natural gas plants (at least during daylight hours). I talked about this as the 3rd Phase of Clean Energy: rameznaam.com/2019/04/02/the… 3/n
Read 8 tweets
Ramez Naam Profile picture
16 Aug 20
@WiedenhoferD @jasonhickel @DrSimEvans That's a very good & important question.

I'm concerned about & oppose telling people that solving climate change requires them to reduce their consumption because the evidence is that it alienates people & generates political blowback, making it *harder* to get climate action.
@WiedenhoferD @jasonhickel @DrSimEvans There is evidence from numerous studies & the real world that messages that tie climate action to a requirement to reduce consumption have the effect of:
1. Reducing belief that climate change is human-caused and/or serious.
2. Pushing moderates and "less concerned" away. 2/n
@WiedenhoferD @jasonhickel @DrSimEvans On the flip side, messages *and* policies that focus on scaling clean solutions and on innovation to make clean technologies better:
1. Test far better in lab studies.
2. On the policy side, have been far more likely to be passed. 3/n
Read 7 tweets
Ramez Naam Profile picture
8 Aug 20
@chrisnelder @gnievchenko @JustinHGillis @SEANC @Gimon @cody_a_hill @leahstokes @cleantechsonia Here's how I see it. There are three categories for green hydrogen economically:
1. Already cost competitive w fossil.
2. On path to be cost competitive with fossil w/o subsidies.
3. Might never be cost competitive w/o subsidies, but might be cheapest clean option w policy. 1/n
@chrisnelder @gnievchenko @JustinHGillis @SEANC @Gimon @cody_a_hill @leahstokes @cleantechsonia Green hydrogen category 1: Already cheaper than fossil or brown hydrogen.

Very little here. Yet.

2/n
@chrisnelder @gnievchenko @JustinHGillis @SEANC @Gimon @cody_a_hill @leahstokes @cleantechsonia Green hydrogen category 2: On path to be eventually be cheaper than fossil or brown h2 w/o subsidies:

Quite a bit here. Basically everything we use brown h2 for. $140B market. Ammonia for fertilizer. Refineries (ironic). Semiconductor plants.

Gniewomir's work here.

3/n
Read 5 tweets
Ramez Naam Profile picture
14 May 20
THREAD: Solar is plunging in cost faster than anyone, including me, predicted. Today I'm publishing an update of my solar cost forecasts from 2015, with more data & improved methods. Tl;dr: Solar is on path to become insanely, world-changingly cheap. rameznaam.com/2020/05/14/sol… 1/20
Over the last decade, from 2010 - 2020, the unsubsidized cost of solar electricity from utility scale projects has dropped by a factor of 5 or more. That's consistent in global average data, and in the US, India, & China. Solar is now often competitive with new coal or gas. 2/20
Solar has dropped in cost far faster than any forecaster expected. Solar prices in 2020 are half of what I projected in 2011. They're a quarter of what the IEA projected in 2010. 3/20
Read 20 tweets

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