In climate and energy policy, certain well-intentioned ideas gain outsized popularity despite persistent evidence against them. One such appealing but deeply problematic approach is the “fabric first” philosophy — the notion that building decarbonization must begin by aggressively insulating and sealing structures, only later electrifying their heating systems. On the … [continued]
President Trump revoked support for heat pumps under the Defense Production Act last week, but new cold climate heat pumps are already happening.
What began as a concern for the planet is now becoming a smart financial move for many Australians: the electric home. The trend is even being promoted by Bunnings — “Australia and New Zealand’s leading retailer of home improvement and lifestyle products, and a major supplier to project builders, commercial … [continued]
Having grown up in Canada’s north and spent far too many winters trudging through snowy downtown streets in Toronto, Ottawa, and Edmonton, I know firsthand just how brutal Canadian winters can be—and how urgently our cities need practical, scalable, low-carbon heating solutions. Even if you haven’t spent months navigating icy … [continued]
We all know the buzzword of the day — AI. AI is going to solve countless problems at it gets infinitely smarter and more useful. We just need to build bigger and bigger datacenters. Hence the reason companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Tesla are building or buying nuclear, natural … [continued]
Simon Michaux has built a reputation on painting an apocalyptic vision of the energy transition, but his work consistently collapses under scrutiny. I’ve personally taken apart his comically bad lithium supply projections and his metal demand doomsday scenarios, and each time, the pattern is the same — wild extrapolations that … [continued]
In recent months I’ve assembled a long, long list of hydrogen bus trials that ended up with the transit agencies realizing what should have been obvious before they started: hydrogen buses are a lot more expensive and battery electric buses are much cheaper and more reliable. More come out of … [continued]
The Texas-based startup Utility Global is offering a reactor-based, non-electric, hydrogen-producing blast furnace waste gas conversion system to the global clean steel movement.
Hydrogen for energy has been the subject of extravagant claims for decades, and they keep being repeated. When you run into a hydrogen for energy enthusiast and they start saying things that make it seem as if hydrogen for energy is a slam dunk, have a look through this. Some … [continued]
Artificial intelligence is often criticized for its energy intensity, with large-scale models like GPT-4 consuming tens of gigawatt-hours during training. However, it’s important to place this within the broader context of energy consumption and AI use case trends. I published a couple of times on demand to provide context, and … [continued]
