Written Research
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Power plant cooling: adapting for water scarcity?
Water is needed to condense steam, downstream of the steam turbines, in nuclear, coal and CCGT power plants. But thermal power demands and fresh water scarcity are both structurally rising. Hence this 16-page report explores how the energy industry might adapt, trends in power plant cooling, and who benefits.
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Wind energy: beyond good and evil?
Wind economics are not good or bad in absolute terms. They depend on capacity factors, which average 26% globally, but can range from 10% to 60%. In the best locations, levelized costs are below 4c/kWh. Hence this 16-page note explores global wind capacity factors and updates our wind outlook by region throgh 2050.
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European energy: the burial of the dead?
Europe’s energy ambitions are now intractable: It is just not feasible to satisfy former climate goals, new geopolitical realities, and also power future AI data centers. Hence this 18-page report evaluates Europe’s energy options; predicts how policies are going to change; and re-forecasts Europe’s gas and power balances, both to 2030 and to 2050.
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Drone deployment: vertical take-off?
Drones cost just $1k-100k each. They may use 95-99% less energy than traditional vehicles. Their ascent is being helped by battery technology and AI. Hence this 14-page report reviews recent progress from 40 leading drone companies. What stood out most was a re-shaping of the defense industry, plus helpful deflation across power grids, renewables, agriculture,…
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Global trade: balance or darkness?
Global trade has been growing more adversarial. US foreign relations are also shifting. Hence this 16-page note maps 20 trade categories, across energy, materials and capital goods; in each case, breaking down global imports by source, and global exports by destination. Our top ten conclusions follow.
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Battery swapping: off to the races?
Battery swapping has seen a sudden surge of interest, especially for cars in China, some heavy vehicles, and two-wheelers throughout emerging markets. Can the theme re-accelerate EVs? This 19-page report finds many advantages, controversies over costs, and profiles leading companies.
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Energy and national security: network risk?
National security risks are rising in developed world energy systems, as geopolitics grow more adversarial, and cyber-attacks are at new highs. This 16-page report finds that electrification is on balance making energy systems more vulnerable, then outlines mitigation measures, and opportunities?
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Computer memory: aide memoire?
Three types of computer memory dominate modern information processing: Flash, DRAM and SRAM. This 5-page note simply covers each one, how it works, what it costs, advantages, disadvantages, market sizes and leading companies. AI likely boosts all three, but can more SRAM unlock big efficiency gains?
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Perovskite solar: beyond silicon?
Will the next chapter of solar’s ascent come from perovskite-tandem cells, followed by perovskite-on-perovskites? This 18-page report finds more momentum than we expected. There is potential for 30% cost deflation, new solar applications (in buildings/vehicles), and a disruption of PV silicon?
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AI energy: industrial demand and the Jevons effect?
Increasingly efficient AI should unlock ever more widespread and more sophisticated uses of AI. This is shown by reviewing 40,000 patents from 200 industrial companies. This 15-page report summarizes notable companies, patent filings, and updates our 2030 forecasts for AI energy.
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