3 ms·

David MacKay’s work was for me very important. It showed how one should do a systems analysis for a country to understand how one can achieve the change require

David MacKay’s work was for me very important. It showed how one should do a systems analysis for a country to understand how one can achieve the change required. I was astonished when I talked to several of the leading people responsible for energy policy in several political parties in my country, to find they really had no clue about what they where doing on a systems level. I think that updating this book is not pointless, but more importantly doing the same for more countries is really important.

phreeza 5y ago
It would be fantastic to turn the chapters into Templates where one has to plug in the relevant parameters for a country and see the calculations for that country.
- algo_trader 5y ago
  And multiple PhD students have done so! For example, the Stanford/Jacobson study on powering the world with wind/solar/water. Some results were famously silly, such as filing Finland with solar panels, or adding the cost of nuclear war to nuclear reactors. Jacobson sued other academics then backed down. The point is, 5-10 years on, these models turned out to be over pessimistic! Australia doesn't need fancy modelling - simple roof top solar there is on target to meet full day time demand in 2-3 years. Conversely we still dont really know how to meet the last 5% of outlier energy demand scenarios.
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    Has Jacobson stopped suing people though
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    > Some results were famously silly, such as ... adding the cost of nuclear war to nuclear reactors. Is that really silly? The incremental increase in the risk of nuclear war for each gigawatt of civilian nuclear power generation might be small, but the costs of a nuclear war could be quadrillions of dollars (for example if it set the world back by 100 years). Obviously measuring that risk is difficult, but to give an example, imagine that civilian nuclear power were limited to just the countries which currently have nuclear weapons. That would greatly reduce the proliferation risk and the chance of nuclear breakout in countries like Iran. The urgency of addressing climate change may take precedence over these concerns in the short term, but if we do manage to reach net zero with a mixture of renewables and nuclear energy, then it's not inconceivable that over-provisioning renewables might allow us to phase out nuclear energy later on. Suppose it would take 50 years to build up that renewable energy capacity, and 10 years to build a new nuclear power station. That would mean the nuclear power station would only be useful for 40 years, which limits the amount of time they'd have to recoup their costs over.
  - pfdietz 5y ago
    > Conversely we still dont really know how to meet the last 5% of outlier energy demand scenarios. Hydrogen w. combustion turbines. When a simple cycle turbine power plant is 5% of the cost of a nuclear plant of the same output, we can back up the entire grid and not have it be too expensive.
rufuspollock 5y ago
> It showed how one should do a systems analysis for a country to understand how one can achieve the change required. I was astonished when I talked to several of the leading people responsible for energy policy in several political parties in my country, to find they really had no clue about what they where doing on a systems level. Massive +1. And i agree that perhaps "reusing" the book would be useful. E.g. take the key factual approach and update analyses for particular technologies and then plug those together - which to some extent is what the pathway calculator did which is why it is worth trying to get the source for that https://github.com/life-itself/climate/issues/2 https://github.com/life-itself/climate/issues/2
epistasis 5y ago
> I think that updating this book is not pointless, but more importantly doing the same for more countries is really important. While MacKay's work is excellent for a general lay audience to understand general scales of the issue, there are now far more advanced models for this that do things like replay historical weather and demand, down to 15 minute scales, to more least cost systems for zero carbon grids. They are also so advanced as to take into current grid structure and generation resources, and the cheapest way to transition to zero carbon from our current resources. Christopher Clack's models are probably the most advanced. The latest iteration has the very surprising finding that deploying lots of grid-edge solar and storage right now will save us a ton of money because it will use current transmission and distribution assets more effectively and reduce the need for future investment in these assets (T&D is the majority of our electricity bills, not generation!)
- redisman 5y ago
  Are there any books or journals you’d recommend that are more up to date? I’m trying to find something more worthwhile to read during downtime
  - bjelkeman-again 5y ago
    Maybe something like this. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/apme/56/1/jamc-d-16-0175.1.xml https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/apme/56/1/jamc-d-... But it isn’t particularly helpful when trying to explain policy imho.

phreeza 5y ago

It would be fantastic to turn the chapters into Templates where one has to plug in the relevant parameters for a country and see the calculations for that country.

algo_trader 5y ago
And multiple PhD students have done so! For example, the Stanford/Jacobson study on powering the world with wind/solar/water. Some results were famously silly, such as filing Finland with solar panels, or adding the cost of nuclear war to nuclear reactors. Jacobson sued other academics then backed down. The point is, 5-10 years on, these models turned out to be over pessimistic! Australia doesn't need fancy modelling - simple roof top solar there is on target to meet full day time demand in 2-3 years. Conversely we still dont really know how to meet the last 5% of outlier energy demand scenarios.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  Has Jacobson stopped suing people though
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  > Some results were famously silly, such as ... adding the cost of nuclear war to nuclear reactors. Is that really silly? The incremental increase in the risk of nuclear war for each gigawatt of civilian nuclear power generation might be small, but the costs of a nuclear war could be quadrillions of dollars (for example if it set the world back by 100 years). Obviously measuring that risk is difficult, but to give an example, imagine that civilian nuclear power were limited to just the countries which currently have nuclear weapons. That would greatly reduce the proliferation risk and the chance of nuclear breakout in countries like Iran. The urgency of addressing climate change may take precedence over these concerns in the short term, but if we do manage to reach net zero with a mixture of renewables and nuclear energy, then it's not inconceivable that over-provisioning renewables might allow us to phase out nuclear energy later on. Suppose it would take 50 years to build up that renewable energy capacity, and 10 years to build a new nuclear power station. That would mean the nuclear power station would only be useful for 40 years, which limits the amount of time they'd have to recoup their costs over.
- pfdietz 5y ago
  > Conversely we still dont really know how to meet the last 5% of outlier energy demand scenarios. Hydrogen w. combustion turbines. When a simple cycle turbine power plant is 5% of the cost of a nuclear plant of the same output, we can back up the entire grid and not have it be too expensive.

rufuspollock 5y ago

> It showed how one should do a systems analysis for a country to understand how one can achieve the change required. I was astonished when I talked to several of the leading people responsible for energy policy in several political parties in my country, to find they really had no clue about what they where doing on a systems level. Massive +1. And i agree that perhaps "reusing" the book would be useful. E.g. take the key factual approach and update analyses for particular technologies and then plug those together - which to some extent is what the pathway calculator did which is why it is worth trying to get the source for that https://github.com/life-itself/climate/issues/2 https://github.com/life-itself/climate/issues/2

epistasis 5y ago

> I think that updating this book is not pointless, but more importantly doing the same for more countries is really important. While MacKay's work is excellent for a general lay audience to understand general scales of the issue, there are now far more advanced models for this that do things like replay historical weather and demand, down to 15 minute scales, to more least cost systems for zero carbon grids. They are also so advanced as to take into current grid structure and generation resources, and the cheapest way to transition to zero carbon from our current resources. Christopher Clack's models are probably the most advanced. The latest iteration has the very surprising finding that deploying lots of grid-edge solar and storage right now will save us a ton of money because it will use current transmission and distribution assets more effectively and reduce the need for future investment in these assets (T&D is the majority of our electricity bills, not generation!)

redisman 5y ago
Are there any books or journals you’d recommend that are more up to date? I’m trying to find something more worthwhile to read during downtime
- bjelkeman-again 5y ago
  Maybe something like this. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/apme/56/1/jamc-d-16-0175.1.xml https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/apme/56/1/jamc-d-... But it isn’t particularly helpful when trying to explain policy imho.