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Ramez Naam Profile picture
Ramez Naam
@ramez
Climate and clean energy investor. Author of 5 books. Energy & Environment co-chair @SingularityU. Trying to build a better world.
14 subscribers
Feb 1, 2023 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
1. A short thread on a fundamental trend in economics of physical stuff that's highly relevant to the conversation about nuclear & renewables:
A. Manufacturing things gets cheaper with scale.
B. Constructing things in the field gets more expensive with time. 2. The learning rate / Wright's Law is now a widely understood phenomenon in clean energy. Every doubling of scale of simple (low part count), factory-manufactured goods leads to a fairly constant rate of cost decline. E.g., in solar: rameznaam.com/2020/05/14/sol…
Sep 11, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
With the James Webb Space Telescope we can now detect the composition of the atmospheres of exoplanets. I believe there's a very real possibility that by the end of this decade we'll detect atmospheres that we can only explain by the presence of life. 1/3
forbes.com/sites/jamiecar… The life we'll detect signs of on other worlds is most likely to be primitive, single celled life (that's what has existed on Earth for the longest). I did the math here: 2/3
Sep 7, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
1. We've entered the third phase of clean energy, where prices are so disruptively low that we get a new acceleration of deployment, particularly for solar and storage. The primary bottlenecks now are permitting, transmission (also permitting) & monopoly utility business models. 2. I talked about this impending and most disruptive third phase of renewables in this twitter thread and the linked article, from 2019. Twitter thread:
Jun 19, 2022 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Lithium prices have skyrocketed recently, due to soaring demand for electric cars and trucks. This is temporary, but could last a number of years. A brief thread. /1 2. There's ~850g of lithium carbonate / kwh of li-ion battery. At $62k / ton of LCE, that's ~$50/kwh of cost at the cell level. A cell used to cost $100/kwh. This run up in LCE costs has increased cell costs by as much as 40%. Though other factors are still driving cost down.
Jun 1, 2022 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
1/ On infighting in the climate world: I'd rather spend my time building and advocating for climate solutions, and cheering on those doing the same (even if they're making different bets than I am) than bashing people working towards solutions with a different theory of change. 2/ I'm not perfect. I get impatient and aggravated with certain voices and arguments, especially when they've been refuted repeatedly and have not updated based on data or counterarguments.
May 23, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
1/7 Short thread regarding Tesla, Exxon, and ESG.

For those who missed it, Tesla was dropped from S&P's ESG Index, while Exxon remains. While this is consistent with ESG rules, It's contrary to perception of what ESG means, and is badly broken. cleantechnica.com/2022/05/21/in-… 2/7 What I've come to understand (and didn't before) is that ESG definitions have nothing to do with impact, and everything to do with risk to investors. While many investors understand this, I'd warrant that the majority (and the general public) do not. tribeimpactcapital.com/the-difference…
May 19, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
1. I'm very disappointed to hear Elon saying that he'll likely vote Republican in the future. It comes across (to me) as a decision driven by perceived slights and personal interests rather than what's best for the world. (Always vote the universal interest, not your own.) 2. That said, I think Democrats and the Biden admin have fumbled badly in their approach to Elon and Tesla. It remains ridiculous that Biden has never mentioned Tesla in his electric vehicle push. Nor has Pete Buttigieg ever met with Elon or Tesla.
May 18, 2022 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
1. Can the US produce enough lithium to meet rising battery demand? A few thoughts on lithium and other battery minerals, riffing off of this great, detailed analysis by @CarlyAnde medium.com/prime-movers-l… 2. Good news: The US lithium resource is vast, and could support sufficient EV battery production to meet all forecasted US EV demand.
May 11, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Seattle tech CEO @DanPriceSeattle charged with assault, accused by multiple women of violence, sexual assault, and rape. Brief thread. /1

king5.com/article/news/c… 2/ There are multiple allegations of violence, sexual assault, and rape against Seattle tech CEO @DanPriceSeattle. More details in this investigative piece here. I'm told that yet more allegations are forthcoming. hundredeightydegrees.com/dan-price-more…
May 8, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Happy Mother's Day to my amazing immigrant mom, Dr. Elene Awad. A brief thread.

Our whole family is only in the US because mom came here from Egypt on a scholarship to finish her PhD. She was incredibly brave to do so, bringing along my dad and my then 3 year old self. ❤ 1/ My parents decided quickly that the US was a better place to raise a kid than Egypt. Somehow, against the odds, they managed to navigate the labyrinthine maze of immigration restrictions and after a decade of legal struggle, become permanent residents (the "green card"). 2/
Apr 13, 2022 • 18 tweets • 5 min read
1. A thread on climate hope: There is an extremely important and hope-filled climate paper out in Nature today. It finds that, if all the countries of the world fulfilled their climate commitments, the world would most likely limit climate change to just under 2 degrees C. 2. This is the latest of more than a dozen studies over the last 3 years that have found that we've bent the curve of future warming down significantly. Here's a summary of those papers, from @hausfath and @ClimateFran
Mar 17, 2022 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
1/15 The Biden admin has done far better in supporting Ukraine than I expected. That said, what Cruz is asserting here rings true: It is not at all clear that Biden is aiming for Ukraine to actually win this war. And that is a profound mistake. 2/15 The core tests of any plan for US support of Ukraine need to be:
A) Does this give Ukraine what it needs in order to outright win the war, and destroy Putin's invading army.
B) While avoiding nuclear confrontation, now and in the future.
Mar 13, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The Battle of Aleppo, a city of 4.6 million people (1.5x the population of Kyiv) lasted 4 years. 1/
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of… Aleppo is one of the oldest cities in the world, with evidence of people living there since 5,000 BCE. It sounds amazing. I want to visit it. One day, when Syria is free (let's hope) I intend to. 2/
Mar 13, 2022 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
This is an incredible analysis of how Putin's invasion of the world will re-order the global world, largely for the better. By a leading Chinese policy thinker, in Shanghai, originally written in Chinese. Brief thread, but read the whole thing. uscnpm.org/2022/03/12/hu-… 1/ Hu Wei is the vice-chairman of the Public Policy Research Center of the Counselor’s Office of the State Council, the chairman of Shanghai Public Policy Research Association, the chairman of the Academic Committee of the Chahar Institute, a professor, and a doctoral supervisor. 2/
Feb 28, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Thread of threads on how the US and Europe can advance energy policy to weaken Putin and reduce his leverage over Europe and the US. First, here's the US policy response we could have now. (1/n) This energy bill to weaken Putin and reduce his leverage on the US and Europe can be passed through reconciliation and be filibuster-proof, if necessary. (2/n)
Feb 28, 2022 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Thread. Two large, sophisticated, data-driven analysis of the genetics and location of early Covid cases in Wuhan find that it's extremely likely that Covid crossed over from animals at the market. At least twice. 1/n
nyti.ms/3vkjo15 "“When you look at all of the evidence together, it’s an extraordinarily clear picture that the pandemic started at the Huanan market,” said Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona and a co-author of both new studies." 2/n
Feb 13, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
I think there's a high risk that what Putin is doing by threatening Ukraine will backfire on him. Short thread.

1. Putin bet that NATO wouldn't come together. But Biden has done a remarkable job pulling the alliance back together. 1/5 2. Putin believes he has a gas weapon against Europe, but his threats - let alone an invasion - will only accelerate Europe finding alternatives to Russian gas.

2/5
Feb 7, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Of all the ecological impacts of climate change, the one that scares me the most is the loss of coral reefs. New research suggests this could happen much earlier than we thought (at 1.5C of warming, or ~20 years from now, rather than at 2C of warming). phys.org/news/2022-02-c… /1 Coral reef systems are the "rainforests of the sea", hosting an estimated 25% of the biodiversity in the oceans. They also provide the protein (fish) that roughly 500 million people depend on. Theyn protect coastal areas from storms and erosion. And they're beautiful. 2/
Jan 7, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Ketan is correct here. For all the optimism in the slides I shared yesterday, we are not moving at the speed required to stay below 1.5C of warming. Staying below 2C of warming is still doable, but requires concerted action. I would place our current path as 2-2.5C. 1/n As @Peters_Glen pointed out yesterday, 1.5C is, if not mathematically impossible, certainly extremely implausible from a policy standpoint. 2/n
Sep 30, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
What excites me the most about iron flow batteries is just how cheap they can make 12 hour electricity storage.

At scale, they should achieve an LCOS (cost of storage) of around 2 cents / kwh. That's staggeringly cheap. 1/n For context, the cost of power from a gas or coal plant (in normal times) is around 5-6 cents / kwh. 2/n
Sep 16, 2021 • 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/