The energy revolution is unfolding live, much faster than most people realize. A thread based on the insurgent view of the energy transition of @RockyMtnInst and @KingsmillBond

In short: The fight against climate change is accelerating - look at the data and do the math

🧵
First, the building blocks of the energy revolution

>Solar as a primary energy source is 250% more efficient than coal
>A heat pump is 300% more efficient than a gas boiler
>An electric vehicle is 400% more efficient than an ICE

2/n
The "debate" has moved a long way and is not where most people think: right now it's about how fast we're dumping fossil fuels (hint: much faster than most realize)

3/n
We've done this many times before: exponential growth of wind, solar and batteries will continue

4/n
All major economic sectors will experience tipping points this decade and move inexorably towards being 100% electric

That moment has already come for electricity, which is 35% of fossil fuel usage - and for light vehicles

5/n
Meanwhile: a) renewables have all the growth through 2030
>Rystad: solar PV capacity will increase eightfold from 0.8 TW today to 6 TW in 2030
>BNEF: EVs can grow 20-fold from 16M to 360M
>Forecasts of electrolyzer capacity are of up to 100 GW, up from 0.3 GW today

6/n
b) Renewables are 100 times bigger than fossil fuels: the world has annual renewable flows of over 100 times fossil fuel supply and solar rooftops alone could supply us with all our electricity needs

7/n
c) dramatic policy shifts are everywhere around us

>Over 90% of the world by GDP has net zero targets, up from 6% in 2017
>50 countries and regions are planning to ban petrol cars
>The share of emissions covered by tax has increased fourfold in a decade to 25%

8/n
d) Tectonic shifts in the USA solidify and amplify the energy revolution

Three new bills invest throughout the technology adoption S-curve, encourage innovation, back multiple technological solutions, and embrace risk

9/n
Result: Fossil fuel demand will shortly collapse

That's not wishful thinking: look at OPEC's recent move to cut oil output in defiance of US wishes. They (OPEC) know the good times are almost over and it's their dash for their last cash
Must read source report and analysis, with thanks to @RockyMtnInst and @KingsmillBond for a very impressive and extensive piece of work : rmi.org/insight/the-en… #climate

• • •

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

Keep Current with Assaad Razzouk

Assaad Razzouk 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 @AssaadRazzouk

Oct 3
Alarming "Landscape of Climate Finance in Africa" published by @climatepolicy

In short: Africa is being nearly completely ignored in terms of climate finance, yet it's at the front lines of suffering from climate change and hardly contributes to global carbon emissions

🧵
Africa will need USD 2.8 trillion between 2020-2030 to implement its Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement

It's not even on track for 11% of that amount: annual climate finance flows are $29b v $277b needed

2/n Image
There are no exceptions: All parts of Africa receive significantly less finance than they need, with the Southern African region bearing the largest financing gap in absolute terms

3/n Image
Read 8 tweets
Sep 20
I've been following the development of the "Global Registry of Fossil Fuels" (1st database of emissions from production and reserves)

It's now here and it's awesome: we can transparently hold fossil fuel powers accountable for their contribution to fueling the #ClimateCrisis

🧵
It shows that Big Oil want to fry us all: their oil & gas reserves - all of which they want to extract and sell- would yield 3.5 trillion tons of emissions, over 7 times the remaining carbon budget for 1.5C and more than all emissions produced since the industrial revolution

2/n
The Registry is innovative and trailblazing. Did you know for example that the Paris Agreement does not even mention fossil fuel production, despite the fact that such fuels account for over 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions?

3/n
Read 7 tweets
Sep 19
US congressional hearing released 226 pages of e-mails and documents from Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP - and deserves so much more airtime: they are full of gems showing how they're pretending they're in an energy transition while in fact they want to sell more & gas forever

🧵
BP's internal documents show how carbon capture and storage (CCS) is, for them, a PR tool to “enable the full use of fossil fuels across the energy transition and beyond”

2/n
Shell is at it too: internal email discussing carbon capture and storage warns executives "to be careful to not talk about CCUS as prolonging the life of oil, gas or fossil fuels writ large”

Because "prolonging" is exactly what it's about, it's best not to talk about it

3/n
Read 12 tweets
Sep 18
Just finished reading "Speed & Scale: A Global Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now" by @johndoerr

I think you should read it too: it provides a framework to guide and calibrate individual or corporate action on climate through 10 objectives and 55 specific results

🧵 Image
Objective 1: Electrify transport (=reduce 8 gigatons of transportation emissions to 2Gt) is broken down into 6 key results

Objective 2: Decarbonize grid (=reduce 24 gigatons of global electricity and heating emissions to 3Gt) is broken down into 7 results

2/n
Objective 3: Fix Food (=reduce 9 gigatons of agricultural emissions to 2Gt) is broken down into 5 key results

Objective 4: Protect Nature (=go from 6 gigatons of emissions to -1Gt) is broken down into 3 key results

3/n
Read 9 tweets
Sep 14
Ground-breaking Oxford University paper (which had a soft launch earlier but now is in scientific journal Joule) deserves enormous air time

It overturns the common thinking that decarbonizing will be hugely expensive. It’s not – in fact it saves us $5-15 TRILLION

THREAD
To quote from its conclusion: "A greener, healthier, and safer global energy system is also likely to be cheaper. Updating expectations to better align with historical evidence could dramatically accelerate progress to decarbonize energy systems around the world"

2/4
here's a link to my thread last year summarizing an earlier version



3/4
Read 4 tweets
Sep 7
Yet another new study says Carbon capture and storage is not new, does not work as a climate solution and is a tool used by oil & gas companies to deceive and obfuscate: 72% of the (little) CO2 captured is anyway reinjected into oil fields to push more oil out of the ground

🧵
Fundamental problem: IEA Net Zero 2050 report clearly says that there must be no new oil & gas to reach net zero by 2050 and avert the catastrophic consequences of climate change

Therefore, any new oil and gas development should not get a green light, with or without CCS

2/n
In any case, CCS does not work: The power sector has not had a single successful carbon capture and storage project: Lots announced, 2 failed, and 1 was mothballed

3/n
Read 6 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

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

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

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(