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AukeHoekstra Profile picture
AukeHoekstra
@AukeHoekstra
@aukehoekstra.bsky.social Debunking scare stories about electric vehicles and renewable energy. Director https://t.co/Xl5y2HfgHW @TUeindhoven. Founder https://t.co/2cYr8kuLMq.
22 subscribers
Aug 13 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
Great to see more and more attention for flexible grid pricing.

We must say goodbye to the "copper plate" that offers free power everywhere and every time. It's hideously expensive and outdated.

What we need is smart flexibility.
🧵 The underlying reason is that the costs of different components of the energy system changed:

Some remained high (e.g. pylons, fossil & nuclear)

Some plummeted (e.g. solar, wind, batteries, EVs & inverters)

Some became possible at all (e.g. measuring & steering in real time)
Jul 28 • 24 tweets • 9 min read
Some are angry about the "anti-Christian depiction of the last supper" at the Olympic Opening ceremony. (@elonmusk and @realDonaldTrump among others)

A Dutch art historian explains it's not the last supper but a Dutch painting of the Olympic gods.
And I explain what I loved.
🧵
Image
Image Original Dutch thread here. I just translated it.


@WSchoonenberg shows that the "tableau vivant" (living painting) is depicting "The Feast of the Gods" by Jan van Bijlert, from 1635.
Image
Jul 9 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
With new batteries solar and wind are not only faster and cleaner, but also cheaper.

I'm estimating:
$0.08/kWh for PV+batteries
$0.07/kWh for wind+batteries

@skorusARK gives a good overview of current wisdom, but strongly declining battery prices change EVERYTHING
Image I've recently written about how I was surprised I missed the enormous consequences of price reductions in batteries.

LFP cells are now $50/kWh and last 10 000 cycles.
That's $0.005 per kWh.

Say we double that to pack the cells and you are at $0.01/kWh.aukehoekstra.substack.com/p/batteries-ho…
Jun 20 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
Cheap stationary batteries will pave the way for wind and solar in cheap and resilient energy grids. Unfortunately the @IEA is mispredicting it (again).

Thread based on a free substack article I just wrote.
aukehoekstra.substack.com/p/batteries-li…
Image Many of my followers know this picture: it visualizes how the IEA underestimates solar. Now I see basically the same problem in their new battery report.

Image
Jun 16 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
Batteries: how cheap can they get?

I used the Sunday afternoot to describe how I think that dirt cheap batteries will completely transform our electricity grid, paving the way for solar and wind and replacing grid reinforcements with grid buffers
aukehoekstra.substack.com/p/batteries-ho… This is something I'm working on for different government and grid operator projects, but I never realized just how cheap sodium batteries could become and how much of a game changer that will be.

So I used my Sunday evening to write this and would love your feedback!
Jun 5 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Aaaand we have another winner of the "EVs and renewables can never happen because of material scarcety" sweepstake. I thought @pwrhungry was more serious. Let me explain why this is misleading bollox. First of all, notice how his argument is mainly that Vaclav Smil says this and HE is an authority.

Why bother to write a substack that basically parrots someone else?

Because you don't really understand it yourself and needed to write another substack maybe?
Jun 1 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
I wholeheartedly agree with @MazzucatoM that we should better evaluate tech companies contributions.

But the focus on energy use makes a mountain out of a molehill while we have bigger fish to fry.

I see computing as both a huge opportunity and an existential threat.
🧵 For me the focus on *how much electricity* an industry uses usually indicates an outdated focus.

We have to get rid of fossil fuels and the mantra is "electrify everything". Because electricity is the form of energy that is usually more efficient and that is greening rapidly.
May 25 • 18 tweets • 4 min read
California is entering phase 2 of something we will see worldwide:

Phase 1)
Solar+wind replace up to ~70% of fossil electricity

Phase 2)
Solar+wind+batteries replace up to ~90% of fossil electricity

Phase 3)
Solar+wind+batteries+eFuels replace 100% of fossil electricity

🧵 Phase 1)
Solar+wind can replace up to ~70% of fossil electricity

It depends on the solar/wind mix, proximity to the equator, grid interconnections, and demand but we are simplifying here.

This is the simple part: just turn off coal+gas when there is enough wind or solar.
May 24 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Cheap batteries are a GAME CHANGER for
GRID CONGESTION and for SOLAR and WIND

We are now moving towards $60 on the cell level for LFP and $40/kWh for sodium ion. $100 for stationary systems in Chine. Using them for demand response will turn the energy system upside down.
🧵 You might know that grid congestion is now the biggest problem facing the transition to renewables.

At the same time the grid is used 30% on average.
If you include all the safety buffers on different levels it might decrease to 15%.
May 11 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Well meaning but misguided EV activists like this make me very tired sometimes:

The German Tesla factory is attacked because it's not perfect.

No, nothing is!

But you should make a COMPARISON with combustion cars or other EV factories. Very quickly:

1) "It makes no sense to charge EVs in coal heavy Germany".

This is nonsense: 4x less emissions over lifetime. See my pinned thread. And many cars of a factory are for export.

2) "They kill the forest!" It's low quality production forest compensated elsewhere.
May 6 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
Someone just alerted me to this @guardian article from January about a *big 5 yearly UN report!* on material extraction.

The @guardian singles out cobalt and electric vehicles.
But look at this graph from the report!
WTF is going on here?

I must do a 🧵
theguardian.com/environment/20…
Image I have a love-hate relationship with the @guardian.
😍
I recently contributed to an impeccably researched series.
😡
Last year they did a hit piece on EVs, again using the material use angle, that cited figures a 1000x too large!
Apr 30 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Solar PV is growing exponentially at the fastest rate of any energy source in history.

BUT we should stop comparing it to other energy technologies using WATT. (So the picture below from @renew_economy is doing it wrong!)

We should compare in WATT-HOUR!
reneweconomy.com.au/solar-is-now-b…
Image Put differently: we should take the CAPACITY FACTOR into account.

For example: imagine we install 1 kilowatt-peak of solar (that's 2 or 3 solar panels).

How much kWh per hour will that produce on average?

If 1 kW produces 0.25 kWh/h on average,
the capacity factor is 25%.
Apr 14 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Five of the Fossil Fuel Industry's Biggest Disinformation Tactics

@guardian article by @WesterveltAmy and @kylepope

Very recognizable for me too, so allow me to summarize the five points and add some observations/examples.
theguardian.com/us-news/2024/a… 1 "FF provides Energy Security"

In reality FF cause(d)(s) many INsecurities.

From the climate crisis, to "Dutch disease", to the end of democracy in Iran, to the war in Ukraine. [My examples]

Renewables are not scarce and last forever.
That sounds more secure to me. Image
Apr 13 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
The European Union just came out with an official report:
REAL-WORLD emissions versus the new WLTP cycle.

The results are
*UNBELIEVABLE!!*

PHEVs emit on average
THREE AND A HALF TIMES MORE
than the official test claims!
climate-energy.eea.europa.eu/topics/transpo…
Image Remember my complaints about @Toyota's misinformation claiming PHEV's are better than full EV's because they need smaller batteries?

Well, @Toyota actually scores WORSE than average with a gap of OVER FOUR TIMES the official value.

(Although their cars are more frugal.) Image
Apr 12 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
GEOTHERMAL
Just saw a fascinating webinar and you should too if geothermal interests you.


It explains how techniques from fracking are creating a game-changer in the last few years that can reduce the cost of energy systems without fossil fuels.

🧵
Image The webinar by prof. Roland Horne from @Stanford is about Enhanced Geothermal Systems or EGS that he defines as using fracking to make the area between the infusion and extraction well permeable for water. Image
Apr 5 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
OVERsupply for lithium batteries is looming!

It will bring battery prices down, helping the transition to EVs and clean energy, but create headaches for the lithium industry

Let me give some perspective, showing the long term trend is clear and e.g. @Toyota should be ashamed
🧵 This eviscerates the last credibility of @Toyota regarding EVs.

They (esp. Gill Pratt) have been pushing the story we should buy their hybrids instead of full EVs because lithium batteries are and will stay the bottleneck

BNEF shows that's simply untrue
Mar 23 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
How to look at our impact on life on earth in 3 graphs:

1) Humans are just 0.01% of all biomass. (The graph is gorgeous!)

2) Humans + domesticated animals have almost completely displaced wild mammals.

3) We use 45% of habitable land for agriculture. I *love* how well this graph was designed and how well it shows how small we are in the grand scheme of things.

Fun facts:
- Life is 0.00001% of the earth by weight
- Earth is 0.0003% of the weight of the sun

So we are insignificant right?
Well...
weforum.org/agenda/2021/08…
Mar 16 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
Grid congestion is THE bottleneck for economic growth and sustainability in the Netherlands.

But it doesn't have to be!

When we combine Dynamic Line Rating with Peak Shaving we could move three times more electricity with the current grid!
🧵 Image What is Peak Shaving?

Peak shaving means that you take measures to lower the peaks in electricity usage. Peaks are what limits use of a power line. In the example graph below you can see the demand is too high a few yours per week. But there is more than enough capacity overall Image
Feb 28 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
CEO of Dutch grid operator @Stedin: shut off charge points between 16:00 and 21:00.


Let me quickly explain why this is an astonishingly dumb idea that MAKES PEAKS WORSE, and why the CEO should know better.

TL;DR: the real solution is "smart charging".nos.nl/artikel/251053… It IS true that EVs charging without any guidance will increase the evening peak. But if you just shut charge points off from 16:00 to 21:00, you get a HUGE peak at 21:00. Because at that moment everyone who arrived between 16:00 and 21:00 will start charging.
Feb 22 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
I LOVE this new post by my friend (and sometimes foe ;-) @MLiebreich on the five superheroes that might keep climate change below 2C while making us more affluent.


My main take-aways in a short thread.about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich… Superhero 1: Exponential Growth

I think this is the biggest superhero of all. Michael rightly points out that "saturation theory" (saying the market for e.g. wind, solar, batteries and EVs will be saturated soon) is abused to make the consequences of exponential growth go away.
Dec 19, 2023 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
Two things are true about German electricity:

1) They temporarily increased its CO2 intensity by closing nuclear power and keeping brown coal open.

2) They are exponentially replacing coal by wind and solar as this graph shows.
And they dragged the whole world forward this way. Politics is messy. Anti-war and anti-nuclear sentiments after the second world war made Germany strongly opposed to nuclear but eager to do good. Which favored renewables. And they had Herman Scheer.

The different experience in the US might be why nuclear is more popular there. Image