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As OP mentions, David MacKay’s Sustainable Energy: Without the Hot Air is available for free online: https://www.withouthotair.com/ https://www.withouthotair.c

As OP mentions, David MacKay’s Sustainable Energy: Without the Hot Air is available for free online: https://www.withouthotair.com/ https://www.withouthotair.com/ The book provides an excellent overview of how different forms of energy production and consumption add up and which energy solutions could make a real impact. I strongly recommend reading it as context for these updated numbers.

cycomanic 3y ago
I haven't read the book, but my impression from reading this Blog post is very poor. He seems to have written a book dismissing renewables by assuming fixed technology/costs from 2008 for projection into the future (if everybody did this companies would not invest in anything). On top of that he even hand waved the rest away by saying their installations would not be accepted by the public. That seems to me that he was set out to dismiss solar and wind and just looked for numbers to confirm this. Generally I believe if you want to show the feasibility of a technology you should be conservative in your estimates, and if you want to dismiss it you should be optimistic in your estimates. Ideally you show both conservative and optimistic projections.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  > He seems to have written a book dismissing renewables by assuming fixed technology/costs from 2008 for projection into the future Your impression is incorrect. As the blog post notes, the problem is that two changes in particular - the reduction in demand, and the absolutely crazy drop in the cost of PV - were far larger than anything mckay was able to reasonable foresee in 2008. > That seems to me that he was set out to dismiss solar and wind and just looked for numbers to confirm this. Almost the opposite, in fact.
  - cycomanic 3y ago
    Ok thanks for the correction, as I said the impression was really only based on my interpretation of the numbers in the Blog post. I will have a look at the book then.

cycomanic 3y ago

I haven't read the book, but my impression from reading this Blog post is very poor. He seems to have written a book dismissing renewables by assuming fixed technology/costs from 2008 for projection into the future (if everybody did this companies would not invest in anything). On top of that he even hand waved the rest away by saying their installations would not be accepted by the public. That seems to me that he was set out to dismiss solar and wind and just looked for numbers to confirm this. Generally I believe if you want to show the feasibility of a technology you should be conservative in your estimates, and if you want to dismiss it you should be optimistic in your estimates. Ideally you show both conservative and optimistic projections.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
> He seems to have written a book dismissing renewables by assuming fixed technology/costs from 2008 for projection into the future Your impression is incorrect. As the blog post notes, the problem is that two changes in particular - the reduction in demand, and the absolutely crazy drop in the cost of PV - were far larger than anything mckay was able to reasonable foresee in 2008. > That seems to me that he was set out to dismiss solar and wind and just looked for numbers to confirm this. Almost the opposite, in fact.
- cycomanic 3y ago
  Ok thanks for the correction, as I said the impression was really only based on my interpretation of the numbers in the Blog post. I will have a look at the book then.