Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 5h

Good wine probably. But nothing as good as you’ll find in Madrid. Have a great time!!!

Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 11h

I like to post positive, inspiring stories about cleantech and how people are deploying solutions to climate because desire for a better world can be a stronger political motivator than fear of apocalypse.

But it’s important to remind ourselves of the stakes and how limited is our time for action.

David Roberts @volts.wtf · 11h

A new Nature study on the four horsemen of the climate-tipping-points apocalypse: "the Greenland Ice Sheet, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the South American monsoon system and the Amazon rainforest."

Destabilization of Earth system tipping elements - Nature Geoscience

A review of observation-based evidence suggests that four interconnected Earth system tipping elements have moved towards their critical thresholds, highlighting the need for better monitoring and increased mitigation efforts.

www.nature.com

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 16h

Ethanol subsidies are counterproductive because they are an environmentally damaging land use when you could make the same energy from solar. They do improve local air quality but the vast distorting externalized costs to the environment and food system are unnecessary to accomplish the same result.

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 16h

This is the trend we must accelerate. If we do this every year with the gap ever widening (the fossil number falling), we will successfully transition our global energy system. Let's pick up the pace and save our own asses.

Sean Casten @seancasten.bsky.social · 17h

This is remarkable. The world added more solar and wind capacity in 2024 than we added demand. 100% of demand growth PLUS 9% to retire dirtier sources. Cheap energy keeps winning. ember-energy.org/latest-insig...

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 17h

Then paying a premium would also make sense.

Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 17h

If transit vans of mining hardware could help decarbonize the transportation sector. I think it’s a good idea to overbuild the clean electricity grid with DER and centralized redundancies, HVDC to everywhere, and massive storage capacity. Current market design is a barrier to that future of course.

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 17h

Yes. I’d still subsidize L3 for a target that’s about double that. Right now it is 3x plus.

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 17h

In a growth model economy the guiding principle of policy should be to encourage domestic private spending which requires higher wages. Curious how the U.S. takes the opposite approach through tariffs and prioritizing shareholder profits.

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 18h

L3 chargers are also time of use and if they are always more per Kw than residential, it keeps residential as the lowest price option while still keeping L3 preferable to gas? Knowing the cost of a road trip is less for EV is critically important to the transition.

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 18h

I’m coming at this from the perspective of accelerating the decline of ICE vehicles in the fleet. Somehow the design of our clean ⚡️ system needs to make it significantly cheaper to own an EV. Maybe the answer is more DER and storage. We could also tax gasoline properly, but we know how that goes.

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 19h

A good set of energy policies would IMO result in off-peak home charging as the least expensive option by far (still incentivizing DR), with fast charging slightly cheaper than gasoline, and on-peak home charging about on par or even slightly higher than gasoline.

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 19h

If we ever come back to our senses and elect a thoughtful Congress we should subsidize fast charging so that it gets closer to home charging in cost per mile.

For now, home charging with an EV is the best option. We’ll see how that goes with data centers + slow interconnections driving rates up.

How Much It Costs to Drive an E.V. and a Gas Car in Every State

www.nytimes.com

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 1d

Sad to see Sammy Roth leaving the LA Times. He was the best thing they had going there. I can’t wait to see what his next project will bring.
In the meantime here’s his latest on LA quitting coal for good and setting an example for using green H2 as long duration energy storage.

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 1d

GOTV !!!

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 1d

I also hope you will continue to interview people. I really enjoyed your moderated debate style Boiling Point episodes on the contentious issues. You are such a kind and generous moderator.

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 1d

I’m not sure it will keep a ton of CO2 in the ground though. I think oil companies will continue to extract the same amount from NM and other reservoirs regardless. I assume it just will just pile on while wasting clean GWhs and allowing even more extraction from easy access depleted wells.

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 1d

I’ve been wondering since your comment on the last Boiling Point podcast. Can’t wait for your next chapter. You are hands down doing some of the best and most insightful climate journalism. Thank you.

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Reposted by Robert Ferry

Jesse D. Jenkins @jessedjenkins.com · 1d

Worldwide solar and wind power generation has outpaced electricity demand this year, and for the first time on record, renewable energies combined generated more power than coal, according to a new analysis.
share.google/FrLUSBkG5xrX... 🔌💡 #Upshift

Solar and wind power has grown faster than electricity demand this year, report says

A new analysis of solar and wind power shows its generation worldwide has outpaced electricity demand this year.

share.google

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 1d

That activity is still going to go on whether or not Oxy or Project Cypress become operational. Any DAC-based CO2 is only additive to the reservoir-based EOR system. And DAC takes massive quantities of clean energy away from everyone else to add it.

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 1d

For every ton of CO2 we are spending gigawatt-hours of clean electricity to painstakingly pull from the atmosphere at least a ton of CO2 and likely much more will be brought up and burned. That oil is out of reach without the EOR and that clean electricity would be better used by people on the grid.

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 1d

Leaving aside the bad precedent this kind of extralegal funding freeze sets, this is fine because the CO2 from Oxy and Project Cypress was mostly going to go towards enhanced oil recovery in old, unproductive near shore wells.

Oxy's $1.3B Texas carbon capture facility on track to launch this year

Houston-based Occidental Petroleum is gearing up to start removing CO2 from the atmosphere at its $1.3 billion direct air capture (DAC) project in the Midland-Odessa area.

houston.innovationmap.com

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 1d

They can lean on stare decisis this time. 🫠

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 1d

It's a 303 Creative sequel!

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 1d

The article doesn’t mention it but I wonder if they could they be used to coat the cooling elements of computer processors and radiator fins to improve performance.

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 1d

The entire idea of "offsetting" was always flawed. The only way to draw down emissions is to require emitters to emit less. There were well-intentioned people who mistakenly thought offsets were useful. Then there are others who still know it's worthless, but make money off selling them anyway.

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 1d

News that shocks no one: Carbon offsets do nothing for climate.

Carbon offsets fail to cut global heating due to ‘intractable’ systemic problems, study says

Analysis of 25 years of evidence shows most schemes are poor quality and fail to lower emissions

www.theguardian.com

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