Search results for: “energy density”
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All the coal in China: our top ten charts?
Chinese coal provides 15% of the world’s energy, equivalent to 4 Saudi Arabia’s worth of oil. Global energy markets may become 10% under-supplied if this output plateaus per our ‘net zero’ scenario. Alternatively, might China ramp its coal, especially as Europe bids harder for renewables and LNG post-Russia? This note presents our ‘top ten’ charts.
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TerraPower: nuclear breakthrough?
TerraPower is one of the most active next-generation nuclear companies, with funding from Bill Gates, and 600 engineers working towards the first, 345MWe Natrium reactor before 2030. We could not entirely de-risk a “breakthrough” due to the breadth and novelty of its patents.
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Silver demand: upside and substitution?
This data-file is a simple demand outlook for silver in the energy transition. Demand could rise 2.5x from 30kTpa to 85kTpa in 2050, driven by solar and electrification. Although in practice, we think a price spike will displace silver with copper.
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Crop production: how much does nitrogen fertilizer increase yields?
How much does fertilizer increase crop yields? Aggregating all of the global data, a good rule of thumb is that up to 200kg of nitrogen can be applied per acre, increasing corn crop yields from 60 bushels per acre (with no fertilizer) to 160 bushels per acre (at 200 kg/acre). But the relationship is logarithmic,…
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Costs of hydrogen from coal gasification?
What are the costs of hydrogen from coal gasification? This model looks line-by-line, across different plant configurations, aggregating data from technical papers. Black hydrogen costs $1-2/kg. But CO2 intensity is very high, as much as 25 tons/ton. It can possibly be decarbonized resulting in semi-clean hydrogen costing c$2.5/kg.
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Nuclear capacity: forecasts, construction times, operating lives?
How much nuclear capacity would need to be constructed in our roadmap to net zero? This breakdown of global nuclear capacity forecasts that 30 GW of new reactors must be brought online each year through 2050, if the nuclear industry was to ramp up to 7,000 TWH of generation by 2050, which would be 6%…
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Silica producers: screen of leading companies?
Highly pure silica sand, with well over 95% SiO2 content and less than 0.6% iron oxide, is an important resource used in making glass, metal foundries, “proppant” for hydraulic fracturing in the oil and gas industry and making high-grade silicon (for chips and PV silicon). The market is 350MTpa. This data-file is a screen of…
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DC-DC power converters: efficiency calculations?
DC-DC power converters are used to alter the voltage in DC circuits, such as in wind turbines, solar MPPT, batteries and digital/computing devices. This data-file is a breakdown of DC-DC power converters’ electrical efficiency, which will typically be around 95%. Losses are higher at low loads. We think there will be upside for increasingly high-quality…
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US electric utilities: leading companies in transmission and distribution?
The average US electric utility has 25 GW of generation, 15,000-miles of power transmission, 100,000 miles of distribution, 8M customers, 3.5% dividend yields and 6.5% long-term target growth. We wonder if there is upside on expanding power grids? A dozen companies are in our screen.
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Magnets and permanent magnets: company screen?
The global magnet industry is fragmented across hundreds of suppliers, including 800 in Asia-Pacific. The total market is worth $20bn pa. The purpose of this data-file is to highlight a dozen leading magnet companies, including producers of permanent magnets, Rare Earth magnets (e.g., NdFeB), ferrites and other magnetic components.
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