19 ms·

Energy economics and rocket science with Casey Handmer

63 points by vikrum 2y ago

wesleyd 2y ago
Listened to this yesterday. Super enjoyable. Made the point that electricity in the future will be consumed much closer geographically to where it is generated than today - and so we probably don’t need huge interconnects - but much less close in time (because batteries).
- pfdietz 2y ago
  This has considerable geopolitical implications. Fossil fuels are very mobile, so one can be flexible in siting energy-intensive industries. But in a solar world, heavy industry will be at those places with the best solar resource. If you live in a renewable energy armpit, like say the eastern parts of Europe, your heavy industry is out of luck.
  - ragebol 2y ago
    > renewable energy armpit armpit? What is that supposed to mean exactly? (I consider myself a near native English speaker...) A bad place to be in I suppose, but never heard this phasing.
    - __Joker 2y ago
      I assume least desirable place in this context. Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/armpit https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/armpit
      - pfdietz 2y ago
        That's right. It's one of the worst areas in the world for renewable energy. The solar resource is relatively bad, and away from coasts wind isn't great either.
    - TSP00N3 2y ago
      I think usually it is “X is the armpit of Y”, for example NJ is the armpit of America: https://knowswhy.com/why-is-nj-called-the-armpit-of-america/ https://knowswhy.com/why-is-nj-called-the-armpit-of-america/
guender 2y ago
[dead]
aesch 2y ago
Casey Handmer's company is creating synthetic hydrocarbons from renewable energy. Here is a good video where he gives a tour of the company and talks about its goals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NngCHTImH1g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NngCHTImH1g. Curious what people think about the idea of synthetic hydrocarbons? It is a seemingly obvious idea that I hadn't heard about until recently, as long as you can use energy efficiently to create the synthetic hydrocarbons.
- churchill 2y ago
  Synthetic hydrocarbons will likely fail, simply because of the same reasons vertical farming failed. Once you're spending money on infrastructure to capture solar energy, losing 80% to inefficiency, before piping into your vertical farm via LEDs (losing another 50% to 80%), a farmer who draws free sunshine will outcompete you because he's using free energy while you're spending millions to power a small factory sized farm; energy isn't free. Likewise, Casey's idea (Terraform Industries) requires solar energy to convert air and water to natural gas. It'll cost 10x the price of the gas Qatar & Saudi Arabia pump out of the ground essentially for free. These technologies won't be viable until humanity is pressed harder and prices (for food or fuel) climb.
  - schiffern 2y ago
    Inevitably the solution to the anti-profitability of running (essentially) a gas power plant in reverse is government subsidies. Amazing how otherwise "efficient market" folks can forget market wisdom the moment big change is needed in big industries. The touted advantage is that instead of market-driven electrification of multiple sectors you only need one big silver bullet technology, however these are futile systems that actually reduce the total amount of energy available to society (vs electrification which does the opposite). And since the pricing signals are messed up by subsidies you can't invest in the economically optimal amount of energy efficiency. This is precisely the opposite of the sort of activity we might want to subsidize. Handmer has some great writing on space subjects, but on this we're going to disagree.
  - d_burfoot 2y ago
mataslauzadis 2y ago
Casey is awesome!!!
dredmorbius 2y ago
For those prefering a direct audio link: <https://chrt.fm/track/993DGA/media.transistor.fm/bec9beab/c9694126.mp3 https://chrt.fm/track/993DGA/media.transistor.fm/bec9beab/c9...> (MP3)
yobbo 2y ago
Around 10 minutes in, they discuss why the price/unit of aircraft fell between "kitty hawk and WW2", whereas it has increased exponentially since then. The actual answer to this is "target" monetary inflation. That is, increasing the money supply at a slightly faster rate than the increase in productivity makes prices rise at a fixed pace.

63 points by vikrum 2y ago

Listened to this yesterday. Super enjoyable. Made the point that electricity in the future will be consumed much closer geographically to where it is generated than today - and so we probably don’t need huge interconnects - but much less close in time (because batteries).

pfdietz 2y ago
This has considerable geopolitical implications. Fossil fuels are very mobile, so one can be flexible in siting energy-intensive industries. But in a solar world, heavy industry will be at those places with the best solar resource. If you live in a renewable energy armpit, like say the eastern parts of Europe, your heavy industry is out of luck.
- ragebol 2y ago
  > renewable energy armpit armpit? What is that supposed to mean exactly? (I consider myself a near native English speaker...) A bad place to be in I suppose, but never heard this phasing.
  - __Joker 2y ago
    I assume least desirable place in this context. Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/armpit https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/armpit
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      That's right. It's one of the worst areas in the world for renewable energy. The solar resource is relatively bad, and away from coasts wind isn't great either.
  - TSP00N3 2y ago
    I think usually it is “X is the armpit of Y”, for example NJ is the armpit of America: https://knowswhy.com/why-is-nj-called-the-armpit-of-america/ https://knowswhy.com/why-is-nj-called-the-armpit-of-america/

guender 2y ago

[dead]

aesch 2y ago

Casey Handmer's company is creating synthetic hydrocarbons from renewable energy. Here is a good video where he gives a tour of the company and talks about its goals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NngCHTImH1g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NngCHTImH1g. Curious what people think about the idea of synthetic hydrocarbons? It is a seemingly obvious idea that I hadn't heard about until recently, as long as you can use energy efficiently to create the synthetic hydrocarbons.

churchill 2y ago
Synthetic hydrocarbons will likely fail, simply because of the same reasons vertical farming failed. Once you're spending money on infrastructure to capture solar energy, losing 80% to inefficiency, before piping into your vertical farm via LEDs (losing another 50% to 80%), a farmer who draws free sunshine will outcompete you because he's using free energy while you're spending millions to power a small factory sized farm; energy isn't free. Likewise, Casey's idea (Terraform Industries) requires solar energy to convert air and water to natural gas. It'll cost 10x the price of the gas Qatar & Saudi Arabia pump out of the ground essentially for free. These technologies won't be viable until humanity is pressed harder and prices (for food or fuel) climb.
- schiffern 2y ago
  Inevitably the solution to the anti-profitability of running (essentially) a gas power plant in reverse is government subsidies. Amazing how otherwise "efficient market" folks can forget market wisdom the moment big change is needed in big industries. The touted advantage is that instead of market-driven electrification of multiple sectors you only need one big silver bullet technology, however these are futile systems that actually reduce the total amount of energy available to society (vs electrification which does the opposite). And since the pricing signals are messed up by subsidies you can't invest in the economically optimal amount of energy efficiency. This is precisely the opposite of the sort of activity we might want to subsidize. Handmer has some great writing on space subjects, but on this we're going to disagree.
- d_burfoot 2y ago

mataslauzadis 2y ago

Casey is awesome!!!

dredmorbius 2y ago

For those prefering a direct audio link: <https://chrt.fm/track/993DGA/media.transistor.fm/bec9beab/c9694126.mp3 https://chrt.fm/track/993DGA/media.transistor.fm/bec9beab/c9...> (MP3)

yobbo 2y ago

Around 10 minutes in, they discuss why the price/unit of aircraft fell between "kitty hawk and WW2", whereas it has increased exponentially since then. The actual answer to this is "target" monetary inflation. That is, increasing the money supply at a slightly faster rate than the increase in productivity makes prices rise at a fixed pace.