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Michael Liebreich Profile picture
Michael Liebreich
@MLiebreich
Host @CleaningUpPod. CEO Liebreich Associates. Managing Partner Ecopragma Capital. Founder, Contributor @BloombergNEF. Olympian. Can also be found on 🦋
12 subscribers
Jul 17 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
European Court of Auditors @EUauditors says "The EU’s industrial policy on renewable hydrogen needs a reality check" because its targets "were not based on a robust analysis". We know the targets came from @H2Europe becuase @JorgoChatzimarkakis said so. Would he care to comment? Image For those interested in the detail, here is my @CleaningUpPod conversation with @Chatzimarkakis, in which he explains how Hydrogen Europe's 2x 40 targets were inserted into the EU Hydrogen Strategy.
cleaningup.live/ep115-jorgo-ch…
Feb 22, 2023 • 18 tweets • 6 min read
It will take until 2030 to reign in the current bout of hydrogen mania, embark on a real plan to eliminate the 2.3% of emissions currently caused by 94 Mt/year of grey & black hydrogen, and target its use on a few otherwise hard-to-decarbonise sectors. We are in the foothills. 1/ Let me be quite clear - we will need clean hydrogen. But fantasies of a hydrogen economy, hydrogen society and globally traded hydrogen market need to be abandoned. There will be a global market in ammonia, but mainly for fertilisers, chemicals, shipping fuel and some storage. 2/
Feb 11, 2023 • 9 tweets • 5 min read
Looking for something to read or listen to this weekend? I've been busy, released a whole load of stuff you won't want to miss. So much, in fact, that I've listed it all in a🧵. So pour yourself that cup of 🫖 or a glass of 🍷🍺🍸 and let's get started... First up, my piece for @TheEconomist. It's a response to Vinod Khosla, who believes we should stop deploying wind and solar because they can't deliver "baseload" (🤣), and in a few decades something better might come along. We need research AND deployment. economist.com/by-invitation/…
Dec 10, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
What bollox. Which other "heating alternatives" require you to change your oven, hob, gas meter and fireplaces, bring all old pipework up to standard, repair all micro-leaks, add Excess Flow Valves and ventilation, and still leave you buying more expensive fuel and breathing NOx? If you really want to know what safety measures are required to make hydrogen as safe as gas in your home (though still less safe than eliminating gas altogether), read the report by @Arup on behalf of the government. Particularly section 14 on p101.
hy4heat.info/s/conclusions-…
Nov 28, 2022 • 4 tweets • 4 min read
Only Secretary of State for @beisgovuk, explaining how to turn down boiler flow temperatures. Nothing to see. Congrats @betateach @heatpolicyrich @theheatinghub @_heatgeek @GreenAlbionLtd @AbigailDombey @janrosenow @mikefosterEUA @ClemCowton @nesta_uk @EarthOrgUK and many more! How it started (at least for me: lots of others had already been trying to address the UK heating industry's scandalous mis-selling, mis-installing and mis-maintanance of condensing boilers for years).
Nov 26, 2022 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
A thread for those who think we're going to be importing lots of hydrogen over vast distances.

1. Shipping liquid hydrogen is not going to be a thing. To understand why, you need to understand that hydrogen is basically liquid, -253C escapey, explodey expanded polystyrene. Image 2. What this means is that any comparison with LNG is, ahem, bollox. We cracked LNG shipping, but it's the most expensive gas on the market. And shipping the same BTUs as liquid hydrogen would require 3-4 times as many ships. Because of physics, not lack of learning, scale, etc. Image
Oct 30, 2022 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
Confused by "Hydrogen Ready" or "Hydrogen Blend Ready" boilers? Then @HelloHydrogen #HelloHydrogen is working!

Facts: There is no H2/gas blend today and may never be; no boilers are ready for 100% H2. 57% of UK power is renewable or nuclear; heat pumps multiply its impact by ~3 Now #HelloHydrogen are lobbying for blending, which would require £ tens of billions investment in electrolysis or CCS.

Facts: 20% H2 by volume would reduce emissions by 7%, less the impact of pumping load, H2 leaks and, if it's blue H2, methane leaks and incomplete CO2 capture.
Aug 24, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Hilarious. Any engineer can tell you hydrogen is not like LNG. 30% energy lost in liquefaction; 38% of the volumetric energy density; 6x the boil-off; embrittles; -253C; etc. Transport cost 2-3x production cost? No more than homeopathic quantities of H2 will ever move by ship. And if it's ammonia, then they should just call it fertiliser, not hydrogen. There will only ever be homeopathic volumes of ammonia shipped for power generation because power->H2->ammonia->liquid->shipping->power currently has a round trip efficiency of ~15% vs ~85% for HVDC.
Jul 3, 2022 • 8 tweets • 6 min read
How messed up is this? "Thousands of studies use RCP8.5 as business as usual, and the scenario that is used as policy success is RCP4.5. But today much of the literature considers RCP4.5 as an *upper bound* based on current policies." #RCP85isBollox
youtube.com/clip/Ugkx78bVv… Here I give a concrete example of RCP8.5 being used as BAU, and RCP4.5 as what success looks like - even though we are now on RCP4.5 or better. From the US National Climate Assessment 2018, which spawned climate porn headlines in NYT and CNN and others.
youtube.com/clip/UgkxAswnF…
Jun 30, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
So @RogerPielkeJr says he represents IPCC orthodoxy. Does the IPCC say climate change is causing extreme weather? Yes and no. First, we need to know how the IPCC identifies climate change: detection of changes in weather over 30 years, plus attribution.
youtube.com/clip/UgkxTLIgn… The IPCC has both detected and attributed the signal of human-caused climate change in some phenomena: heatwaves, extreme precipitation and fire weather; but for floods, droughts, and tornadoes there is "no attribution and little detection." From here:
Jun 2, 2022 • 11 tweets • 7 min read
This week's guest on @MLCleaningUp was my friend @P_Graichen, Mr #Energiewende, Secretary of State for Economy and Climate Action in Germany. We talked nuclear, renewables, hydrogen and German's response to Ukraine. I pushed him pretty hard, don't miss it!
cleaningup.live/ep88-patrick-g… It's an incredibly deep interview, and quite explosive in parts. For instance here @P_Graichen explains that the German heating industry needs to increase installations by 4-5 times in 18 months, from 130,000 to 800,000 or 900,000 installations per year. youtube.com/clip/Ugkx7d956…
May 12, 2022 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
"Crypto Billionaires’ Vast Fortunes Are Destroyed in Weeks" - colour me #Schadenfreude! They got rich pumping a technology that has consumed vast material and human resources, and produced no services of value to humanity so far other than entertainment. bloomberg.com/news/articles/… Re entertainment: if you see #crypto as mainly a branch of the gambling industry, it all makes sense. Remember the vast poker craze a few years back? People like to gamble - and if they can tell themselves they are changing the world at the same time, expect a big bubble.
May 1, 2022 • 21 tweets • 13 min read
So, this Mayday we're still on break between Season 5 and Season 6 of @MLCleaningUp. My guest for Episode 1 of Season 6 is an immense figure in climate finance - find out who it is at the end of this thread. Meanwhile, let's recap the top 12 most popular episodes so far... 1/14 In 12th place it's "Green Trade or Green Tradeoff", with former Australian PM Tony Abbott. Not known for supporting climate action, his is an important voice nevertheless. And we agree that trade is essential to reduce the cost of clean solutions. 2/14
cleaningup.live/ep52-tony-abbo…
Apr 16, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Another day, another 24,200 vertical feet of off-piste with @bertrandpiccard & friends in @LesDiablerets. All conditions - blue ice, fabulous spring snow, waterlogged slush - successfully negotiated. Such a privilege to spend time up here doing this with great friends. This was fast and fun. Note to self: do more of this.
Apr 15, 2022 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
Episode 83 of @MLiebreich - Alex Honnold "Free Solar" - was such an extraordinary conversation. One of the topics @AlexHonnold and I dived deeply into in was risk, something he has thought deeply about (for obvious reasons!). Listen up...
youtube.com/clip/Ugkx-nwSa… Alex does what he does by drawing a crystal clear distinction between "risk" - which he defines as the probability of him falling while free soloing and which he sees as negligibly small - and "consequence" - the certainty of death if he does fall. youtube.com/clip/Ugkx-Cdxz…
Mar 24, 2022 • 6 tweets • 5 min read
This is fantastic news: today, at its 2022 Ministerial Meeting, @FBirol announced that the @IEA would be making its energy data freely available "in the interest of supporting data transparency and supporting good decision-making."
youtube.com/clip/Ugkx-15FS… This is a major milestone in the campaign that @MBazilian, @afromusing and I - and quite a few others - helped kick off a decade ago with this paper:
econpapers.repec.org/article/eeeene…
Mar 2, 2022 • 25 tweets • 8 min read
My latest piece for @BloombergNEF is a deep dive into the concept of resilience. What are the risks against which we need to protect ourselves? How much money should we spend? And are there trade-offs between resilience to climate and other types of risks?about.bnef.com/blog/the-quest… In January 2022, the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report identified the top three “most severe risks on a global scale over the next 10 years” as biodiversity loss, extreme weather and, in top place, “climate action failure”. Seriously?
weforum.org/reports/global…
Feb 26, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
To all those who say the Russian invasion of #Ukraine is the wake-up call that will get the EU to reduce its gas use, I offer you this news story from 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/… If we really want to help #Ukraine right now - in addition to weapons, targeted sanctions and cutting Russia out of the banking system - we need to stop buying Russian gas. Turn down the thermostats and boiler flow temperatures, stop heating empty offices, use the log burners.
Feb 4, 2022 • 19 tweets • 7 min read
On the day of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, a short thread. 30 years ago in 1992, I was very proud to be walking in the opening ceremony of the Albertville Olympics. No, that's not me carrying the flag, I was only a mid-ranked moguls skier. OK, since you asked...
Jan 7, 2022 • 18 tweets • 8 min read
My discussion with Ban Ki Moon on @MLCleaningUp, covered a lot of ground - lessons from the pandemic, energy access, climate change, human rights, the Olympics - and it contained some real bombshells. IN this thread, just some of the highlights... 1/17
cleaningup.live/p/ep70-eh/ "We are suffering this pandemic because the world's leaders have forgotten past experiences. I sincerely hope that when we get over this pandemic, political leaders remember what we have been suffering, and don’t repeat the same foolish mistakes." 2/17
Sep 18, 2021 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
If you really want to know about blue hydrogen, whether it is inevitably incompatible with net zero or whether it is within the laws of physics and engineering - and the wit of humans - to do it right, here's a new paper, written by 16 researchers. 1/4
chemrxiv.org/engage/api-gat… It says "our main conclusion is that, if the above requirements [limits on CO2 and methane emissions] are met, blue hydrogen can be close to green hydrogen in terms of impacts on climate change and can thus play an important and complementary role" on the road to net zero. 2/4