All Episodes

[Episode #101] – What We Don’t Know About Energy Transition

In this live conversation recorded at Stanford Energy Week in January 2019, Chris Nelder hosts a freewheeling chat with Jonathan Koomey about some of the things we think we know, and a lot of the things we don’t know about energy transition. They talked about:

  • the vogue concept in energy transition to “electrify everything,” sometimes also called “deep decarbonization”
  • energy efficiency
  • conservation
  • electrification
  • low-carbon fuels
  • how to reduce greenhouse gases that are not the products of combustion
  • the fast-changing trends in electric vehicles, and how we’re going to accommodate the loads of EVs on the power grid
  • the ways to move space heating and other thermal loads over to the power grid, and how we might be able to meet those needs without combustion or electrification
  • how much electricity storage we’ll really need in a deeply decarbonized future
  • how much seasonal storage we’ll need, and what kinds
  • differences between economic optimizations made today for a future 20-30 years off and technical optimizations made along the way
  • what the options might look like in 20-30 years, particularly if we are at the beginning of a vigorous and deliberate energy transition
  • whether space heating, transportation, and other loads might find themselves in competition for economic carrying capacity on the grid as they become electrified.

So join us for this wide-ranging romp through some of the more interesting questions in energy transition!

Guest:

Dr. Jonathan Koomey has been studying energy and climate solutions for more than 30 years. He’s a world-class researcher on the environmental effects of information technology, the economics of climate solutions, and exploring the future through computer modeling, among other topics. His latest book is Solving Climate Change—A Guide for Learners and Leaders, a comprehensive textbook on climate solutions for university undergraduate and graduate level classes.

On Mastodon: @jgkoomey@mastodon.energy

On Twitter: @jgkoomey

On the Web: www.koomey.com

Recording date: January 25, 2019

Air date: August 7, 2019

Geek rating: 9