American writer and long-term traveller. Blogs at tynan.com about travel, owning few possessions, habits and the gear he carries; author of Superhuman by Habit and Make It Big.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Watchmakers today would build GPS-synced, solar-charged smartwatches, just as watchmakers in the 1800s used the best technology available to them.

  solar

  Their words

  I believe this is the watch great watchmakers would make today, given that back in the 1800s they were using all available technology.

  Gear Post 2026tynan.com

Founder of Terraform Industries and formerly a physicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory; writes about energy, space and manufacturing.

From one piece Energy Predictions 2025 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Data centres will end up net suppliers of power to their communities, because a solar plant big enough to keep the machines running spills most of what it makes.

  solardata centers

  Their words

  On the flip side, these captive solar power plants will be curtailing approximately 75% of their generated power and will be able to provide net power on all but a few days per year.

  Energy Predictions 2025caseyhandmer.wordpress.com

• Our readingkorrents.com

  The United Kingdom is the one rich industrial country that cannot run on solar alone, and it has to build wind at scale instead.

  solarenergy

  Their words

  The only highly populated industrial country unable to trivially meet its electricity and synthetic fuel needs with solar alone is the United Kingdom, due primarily to a high population density and high latitude. The Nordic and Baltic countries are tiny by comparison. Among other problems, the UK needs to decide if it wants the future where energy is cheap and it is rich, or the future where energy is expensive and it is poor. If the former, it is time to get serious about large scale deployment of wind power, using home-grown vertically integrated technology at prices as low as $10/MWh.

  Energy Predictions 2025caseyhandmer.wordpress.com

Founder of Terraform Industries and formerly a physicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory; writes about energy, space and manufacturing.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Orion was designed without reference to any mission it could actually fly.

  solar

  Their words

  It’s also a capsule to nowhere, designed without reference to any mission architecture that resembles our actual solar system.

  NASA’s Orion Space Capsule Is Flaming Garbagecaseyhandmer.wordpress.com

Founder of Terraform Industries and formerly a physicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory; writes about energy, space and manufacturing.

From one piece China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

• Our readingkorrents.com

  China's advantage in solar manufacturing is neither cheap labour nor a friendlier business environment: the first is gone and the second was never true.

  solarChina

  Their words

  so the mainstream view would say, well, China has cheaper labor, which is no longer true, uh, say compared to Mexico, and it's got lower environmental regulations, uh, which is true, and that it is more businessfriendly, which is absolutely crazy.

  youtube.com

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Solar's growth is not merely continuing but accelerating, and the rate of that acceleration is itself still rising.

  solar

  Their words

  It is not only the case that solar adoption, production, price decreases are continuing. They're accelerating. And the rate that they're accelerating is still accelerating.

  youtube.com

Co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, and a 2024 Nobel laureate in Chemistry for the protein-structure work behind AlphaFold.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Fusion and solar are the two energy sources worth betting on, and solar's limiting problem is batteries and transmission.

  solarenergy

  Their words

  I think fusion and solar are the two that I would bet on. Solar, I mean it's the fusion reactor in the sky of course, and I think really the problem there is batteries and transmission.

  youtube.com

Energy and decarbonisation analyst; publishes an annual chart deck on the state of the transition, and was chief content officer at BloombergNEF.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Late-summer solar generation typically takes a larger share of global electricity demand than the prior spring's peak share.

  solarenergy

  Their words

  Shoulder generation (in late summer) of any given year is generally a higher share of global electricity demand than the peak generation (spring) of the year prior.

  Growth Measurementsnathanielbullard.com

Founder of what became Bloomberg New Energy Finance; writes and speaks on clean energy, hydrogen and the economics of the transition, and hosts the Cleaning Up podcast.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  The failure of wind or solar power to show up has never been the primary cause of a major grid blackout.

  solarenergy

  Their words

  While renewables are almost always blamed in the aftermath of major power cuts or grid disruption - and the way they have been integrated into the grid has certainly been found to compound problems - the simple failure of wind or solar power to show up has never yet been found to be the primary cause.

  Lessons from Spainliebreich.com

Data scientist at Our World in Data and author of Not the End of the World. Writes By the Numbers, working through energy and climate questions with the numbers in front of them, and revising in public when they say something unexpected.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Chinese solar panels and batteries are cheap because of automation and a honed supply chain, not because of cheap labour.

  solarChina

  Their words

  But, China mainly dominates these markets because it has produced a long-term industrial strategy for these technologies and has honed an optimised, modern supply chain as a result.

  sustainabilitybynumbers.com

Energy and decarbonisation analyst; publishes an annual chart deck on the state of the transition, and was chief content officer at BloombergNEF.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Solar power now adds more new capacity to the global grid each year than any technology ever has, and will soon lead in annual electricity added too.

  solarenergy

  Their words

  this technology, consistently underestimated, now adds more capacity to the global grid than anything ever and will soon add more power in any given year than anything ever as well.

  Traveler’s Talesnathanielbullard.com

Astrophysicist at Barnard College; wrote Black Hole Blues and How the Universe Got Its Spots, and directs sciences at Pioneer Works.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  With more planets than stars in the Milky Way, it has become impossible to believe life was not sparked somewhere else, possibly within a few hundred light years of us.

  solar

  Their words

  It becomes impossible to imagine that life was not sparked somewhere else, in our Milky Way galaxy, and maybe even in our local neighborhood of the Milky Way galaxy, maybe within a few hundred light years of our solar system.

  youtube.com

Theoretical physicist and philosopher, Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins and fractal faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. Writes the Preposterous Universe blog and hosts the Mindscape podcast.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Listening for alien radio is the wrong search: a probe that sits and waits beats a signal that passes you by, so an artifact in our solar system is likelier than a message.

  solar

  Their words

  This is the 2001 monolith hypothesis. I would be less surprised to find a quiescent alien artifact in our solar system than I would to catch a radio signal from an intelligent civilization.

  youtube.com

Engineer writing about the physical economy — oil and gas, manufacturing, batteries, drones and what it costs to build things.

From one piece How to Make Off Grid Data Centers Affordable 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Letting generators cover one per cent of the year is what makes an off-grid solar data centre affordable, because the last few gloomy days set the whole array size.

  solardata centersenergy

  Their words

  The optimal scenario is typically when the generators supply 1% of yearly electricity (shown below).

  How to Make Off Grid Data Centers Affordableaustinvernon.site

• Our readingkorrents.com

  A data centre powered by solar and batteries alone needs an array so oversized that the design is not worth building.

  solardata centers

  Their words

  The solar array sizes under these assumptions are prohibitively large.

  How to Make Off Grid Data Centers Affordableaustinvernon.site

Independent policy analyst on space and national security, formerly of the RAND Corporation, who writes on counterspace weapons and rules for keeping satellites safe.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  A spacecraft built to service satellites is also a weapon, because the same robotic arm that refuels one can disable one.

  solarChina

  Their words

  If a Chinese spacecraft can dock with a friendly satellite to refuel, repair, or transport it, the same robotic arm can also disable a US satellite’s solar panels and antennas. Alternatively, China can use these spacecraft to tow satellites into locations where they can, at best, only sub-optimally perform intended duties such as early warning, surveillance, or geolocation.

  thespacereview.com

Founder of Amazon in 1994 and of the space company Blue Origin in 2000.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  A solar system holding a trillion humans is the right thing to aim at, because a population that size would have a thousand Mozarts and a thousand Einsteins alive at once.

  solarenergy

  Their words

  I would love to see a trillion humans living in the solar system. If we had a trillion humans, we would have, at any given time, 1,000 Mozarts and 1,000 Einsteins. That our solar system would be full of life and intelligence and energy.

  youtube.com

Data scientist at Our World in Data and author of Not the End of the World. Writes By the Numbers, working through energy and climate questions with the numbers in front of them, and revising in public when they say something unexpected.

From one piece Biofuels: the US could switch to electric cars and solar power on just a fraction of the land 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

• Our readingkorrents.com

  An acre of solar panels powering electric cars carries you orders of magnitude further than an acre of crops grown for fuel.

  solar

  Their words

  You can drive about 150 times as far from a solar-powered electric car compared to using corn bioethanol.

  hannahritchie.substack.com

• Our readingkorrents.com

  We worry about the land solar needs while ignoring how wastefully the world already uses its farmland.

  solar

  Their words

  While we fret over the amount of land needed for solar, we are often blind to how inefficiently we have used the world’s farmland.

  hannahritchie.substack.com

Journalist; wrote We Are Eating the Earth on food and climate, and writes the newsletter Emissions.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  An acre of solar panels powering electric cars carries you orders of magnitude further than an acre of crops grown for fuel.

  solarenergy

  Their words

  an acre of solar panels generates as much energy as 100 acres of corn grown for ethanol.

  A Climate Killer Disguised as a Climate Solutionmichaelgrunwald.substack.com

Writer and researcher on China, technology and industry; author of Breakneck, research fellow at Stanford, known for a widely read annual letter.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Doing the science first does not win the industry: America laid the scientific groundwork for solar and Chinese firms ended up making the cells.

  solarChinaAmerica

  Their words

  Consider the solar industry, for which the US laid the scientific groundwork, only for Chinese firms to make all the photovoltaic cells.

  2022 letterdanwang.co

Author and clean-energy analyst who writes on solar cost curves.

• Our reading nowkorrents.com

  After four more doublings of installed solar capacity, solar electricity will cost about 3 cents per kwh in the sunniest areas and 4.5 cents per kwh in moderately sunny areas.

  solarenergy

  Their words, before

  And beyond that, by the time solar scale has doubled 4 more times, to the equivalent of 16% of today’s electricity demand (and somewhat less of future demand), we should see solar at 3 cents per kwh in the sunniest areas, and 4.5 cents per kwh in moderately sunny areas.

  Their words now

  Both of those forecasts were wrong. Solar has plunged in price faster than anyone – including me – predicted.

Author and clean-energy analyst who writes on solar cost curves.

From one piece Solar's Future is Insanely Cheap (2020) 5 beliefs · rameznaam.com

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  Solar's future price should be predicted from how much has been built, not from how much time has passed.

  solar

  Their words

  We can use the last decade to predict the future prices of solar power. Not by looking at the cost of solar as a function of time, but by looking at the cost of solar as a function of cumulative scale of the solar industry.

  Solar's Future is Insanely Cheap (2020)rameznaam.com

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Solar has got cheaper faster than even its most optimistic forecasters expected.

  solar

  Their words

  In short solar prices have dropped faster and lower than almost anyone has expected.

  Solar's Future is Insanely Cheap (2020)rameznaam.com

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Demand for electricity will rise to absorb far more solar than is currently considered feasible.

  solarenergy

  Their words

  Add these up, and it’s plausible that solar’s contribution to the energy system could double or triple the amount currently considered feasible for solar to provide.

  Solar's Future is Insanely Cheap (2020)rameznaam.com