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Bjorn Lomborg Profile picture
@BjornLomborg
Jan 21, 2022 • 10 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X
Scrolly
We're told solar and wind future

But when wind is not blowing and sun not shining?

Batteries!

Yet

The world uses 51GWh/minute and has 64GWh of battery storage: enough for 1m:15s

2030: 10m:24s

After that, need 100% backup, mostly fossil fuels

woodmac.com/reports/power-… Image
Batteries won't save the US

The US has batteries able to supply 3:24 of average electricity consumption now and about 10 minutes in 2030

Image
Batteries won't save Asia

Asia has batteries able to supply just 31 seconds of average electricity consumption now and about 10 minutes in 2030

Image
Batteries won't save Europe

Europe has batteries able to supply a little more than 1 minute of average electricity consumption now and about 12 minutes in 2030

Image
Lots of people suggesting we can fix this

Yes, but it makes 𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘄𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗿 because we need to pay for backup

More realistic solar costs are 4-7x higher

from cheap but very unreliable
to very expensive (and only less unreliable)

lazard.com/perspective/le… Image
Most people don't appreciate that

most renewables (RE) to date are only possible because they are backed up by modern fossil (MF) fuel tech

(such as Combined Heat and Power and Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle)

sciencedirect.com/science/articl… Image
People suggest that "it is always windy somewhere", but

1) not sufficient throughput between regions

2) European 2021 wind drought showed us it can be less windy almost everywhere

depleting other sources of energy and end up costing us a fortune

ft.com/content/d53b58…
How much are 3-10 minutes of electricity storage?

Not much

Every year in Germany, there are more than 5 days (7,320 minutes) with almost no wind, and every 10 years almost 8 days without wind (11,160minutes)

iopscience.iop.org/article/10.108… Image
Perhaps not surprisingly, most people like power 24/7

Yet, most climate policy seems to be driven by crossing our fingers:

just build lots of wind and solar
& hope to fix intermittency later

But not enough batteries

And leads to much higher prices

reuters.com/markets/commod… Image
The first slide says 10.6 minutes, but it should be 10.4 minutes or 10m:24s Image

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More from @BjornLomborg

Bjorn Lomborg Profile picture
Jul 17
Another environmental scare debunked:

Acid rain killing all forests was the main environmental scare in the 1980s

A new half-century study shows acid rain doesn't kill trees

— actually, trees grow more with acid rain!

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…Image
Acid rain scare in the 1980s delivered full-on panic

No more so than in Germany, where papers claimed "the forest is dying," called it an "ecological Hiroshima" and claimed ‘‘the dying of the forests will have a greater impact on our country than World War II’’

All falseImage
The 1980s Acid Rain scare we know now was mostly false

New study: acid rain actually makes trees grow faster

Yet, a majority of Germans in 1985 believed "all forests will be dead by 2000" because of acid rain

We were misled


bibliothek.wzb.eu/pdf/1986/iiug-…
sauerlaender-verlag.com/CMS/uploads/me…Image
Read 7 tweets
Bjorn Lomborg Profile picture
Jul 6
Today, the Great Barrier Reef is better than ever

But 12 years ago, we were told about the "Great Reef Catastrophe"

and how the reef would be almost gone today

Moral of the story: Don't always believe the scare stories

Refs in🧵
Here is the official data

apps.aims.gov.au/reef-monitorin…
Here is the 2012 article telling us about the terrible state of the Great Barrier Reef

and about how it will almost halve again by 2022 to 5-10%

pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…

Image
Image
Read 4 tweets
Bjorn Lomborg Profile picture
Jul 2
Doesn't fit the narrative, but

2024 record coral cover for Great Barrier Reef

Based on official data for all 11 sectors of GBR,

Last three years, 2022-2024, have been unprecedented

Data: apps.aims.gov.au/reef-monitorin…Image
Official, reef-wide average widely published as the Great Barrier Reef got worse

But when it got better, official average stopped

Here is the optimal average (least-square) based on their 11 published sectors,

Last official reef-wide average: apps.aims.gov.au/reef-monitorin…
aims.gov.au/reef-monitorin…Image
In 2014, the eco-worried Guardian wrote the obituary of the Great Barrier Reef

Last three years, the Great Barrier Reef has been better than ever since records started in 1986

Moral: Don't believe all scare stories theguardian.com/environment/ng…Image
Read 4 tweets
Bjorn Lomborg Profile picture
Jun 26
Misinformation:

New York Times tells you that heat is “the deadliest of all extreme weather events”

But NYTimes simply ignore their own data, which shows

Cold is 9x deadlier

But, of course, this doesn't fit the climate narrative

NYTimes:
WMO:
Data from Lancet: nytimes.com/2024/06/21/cli…
library.wmo.int/viewer/68500/d…
thelancet.com/journals/lanpl…Image
Not just the New York Times misinforming on heat deaths:

The Guardian misinforms and misdirects, trying to avoid telling you that cold deaths vastly outweigh heat deaths


Image
Not just the New York Times misinforming on heat deaths:

Bloomberg tosses and turns to avoid telling you that cold deaths vastly outweigh heat deaths


Image
Read 6 tweets
Bjorn Lomborg Profile picture
Feb 20
Climate alarmists are annoyed that global climate-related disaster deaths have declined dramatically

Then they discovered how to cherry-pick deaths to look like they’re increasing

— just (indefensibly) remove the top 50 most deadly mega-disasters and rig the scales

🧵+refsImage
After manipulating their stats, they have the temerity to claim “Misinterpreting statistics could be harmful if it supports a discourse minimizing the importance of climate action”

I’m pretty sure misinterpreting statistics is wrong no matter what

, p7cred.be/sites/default/…Image
They show low death numbers from 1900s and 1910s, but these are likely wrong ()

They have left out at least two major catastrophes, likely missing at least 20-25 million deaths from the Chinese flood in 1906, leading to famine in 1906-07, and at least 2-10 million deaths from the Persian drought leading to famine in 1917-19


sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_f…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_f…Image
Read 8 tweets
Bjorn Lomborg Profile picture
Feb 4
CO₂ and climate make the world greener

Over 2001-20 the world added so many new leaves

the additional leaf area is equivalent to 1.4x the area of the Contiguous US

Climate net problem

but breathless reporting ignores an ever-greening world

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…Image
CO₂ makes world greener

Every two seconds global leaf area grows by 5 soccer pitches

Every year, the world adds almost three Great Britains of additional leaf area

Climate net problem, but breathless reporting ignores an ever-greening world

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…Image
Global greening happens over most of the world, but especially in China, India, Europe, African Sahel (the greening of the Sahel), Southern Brazil and across US/Canada

Much of this is from forests and increased cropping in croplands

nature.com/articles/s4189…
Image
Read 10 tweets

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