good for her
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The decrease in total primary energy supply required due to electrification, even as there are more total users, is a bit strange.
This report suggests that it is because renewables are fundamentally more efficient than fossil-fuels (both for electricity generation and locomotion) but I don't think that's the entire story.
I think they are counting the energy input into a system strangely. For fossil fuels, they use the inherent energy of combustion of the fuel, even though power plants are only about 40% efficient.
For photovoltaic solar they count the energy out of the solar panel, not the radiant energy received from the sun. This means solar panels appear to be "100% efficient" even though in truth they are only about 25% efficient.
I suppose their argument is that the light would have hit the earth anyway.
@artemist the funny thing is that photovoltaic panels are also cooler while they generate power, compared to sitting idle.
I wonder if large enough deployments have noticeable climate effects through this. Don’t know how albedo compares against grasslands tho, my guess is that the PV is also more reflective & emissive in IR.
the executive summary of this report is 17 page long, i don't think executives are even capable of reading that much.