Capricious beauties.

Inspired by my son who is eight, I'm parsing the global energy transition because, as he says, #electricityiscomplicated.

First question: what's the difference between decarbonization and electrification? Apparently we need both, and they are not the same.

Turns out there are some tightly linked energy-sector megatrends, namely decarbonization, electrification, and grid modernization. They're sort of locked in a three-way prisoners' dilemma. They need to cooperate for optimal payoff.

Decarbonization means reducing fossil fuel usage thus atmospheric CO2, whereas electrification means converting things you don't plug-in into things that you do—like cars or stovetops.

There are loads more things that could be plugged-in beyond residential, especially in the semi-invisible world of transportation and manufacturing. Maybe an industrial belt-drive powered by steam could be powered by an electric motor instead. Plug it in! Basically, everything becomes a toaster.

Isn't that decarbonizing?

Not really, no.

Because the electricity flowing into the side of your car or toaster or belt-drive might've been (probably was) generated by fossil fuels. It would be better if that electricity could be generated by sources that (unlike dead dinosaurs) renew endlessly, which is why we call them renewables.*

*N.B. It helps that most renewables are clean, physically and morally—clean air, clean conscience! But not always. For instance, some geothermal-energy can be dirty, and some biofuels are controversial because they're grown on land that could've otherwise grown food (or, say, fifty-million-year-old forests 🌳).

Back to plugging things in: if doing that isn't decarbonizing, then why do it? Well, electrical things are generally more energy efficient than their fossil-fuel counterparts. For example, only 20–30% of the fuel energy in a typical gasoline car is delivered to the wheels as power. The remaining energy is basically lost as heat from the engine. Meanwhile, an electric car transfers 75% of its energy to the wheels as power. Yeah—even an electric car charged on a fossil-fuel grid has far lower greenhouse-gas emissions than an '09 Camry.

So why not just focus on plugging everything in? Because apparently in order to meet the needs of a high-electrification world where everything is a toaster, power generation needs to, um, ~double between now and 2050.

So why not just load up the grid with renewables like solar, wind, and run-of-river hydro, which when the going is good, come right out of nature's bounty for free? Well because they don't always show up for work. Maybe they didn't want to shine / blow / flow that day. They're gorgeous when you can get 'em, but a bit finicky, and grids don't like that. Grids have a heart attack.

So why not just modernize the grid so it can handle these capricious beauties?

Well yeah. People are doing that. People are doing all three. Together. All at once. ⚡🌐🔌

Challenge: say all this more pithily.