Thunder Said Energy is a research firm, focused on economic opportunities in the energy transition. Our work spans new energies, conventional energies and decarbonizing industries. You can search for keywords below. Or view our research by category, across Wind, Solar, Batteries, Vehicles, Biofuels, CCS, Coal, CO2 Intensity, Digital, Downstream, Energy Demand, Energy Efficiency, Hydrogen, LNG, Metals, Materials, Natural Gas, Nature-based solutions, Nuclear, Oil, Plastics, Power Grids, Shale and Novel Technologies.
Written Insights
Gas turbines should be considered a key workhorse for a cleaner and more efficient global energy system. Installations will double to 100GW pa in 2024-30, and reach 140GW in 2030, surpassing their prior peak from 2003. This 16-page report outlines four key drivers in our gas turbine outlook, and their implications.
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Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are a game-changer for industrial separation, which consumes c10% of global energy. Activity is surging. This 18-page report reviews MOFs’ recent progress and future promise. As a case study, CALF-20 can deflate CCS costs by c50%, per Svante’s TSA process.
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Modeling US gas supply and demand can be nightmarishly complex. Yet we have evaluated both, through 2035. This 13-page report outlines the largest drivers of demand, requires a +3% pa CAGR from the key US shale gas basins, and argues the balance of probability lies to the upside.
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Greater digitization of gas networks looks increasingly important, as gas, biogas, hydrogen and CCS all aim to shore up their futures. This 15-page note started as a deep-dive into the true leakage rates in downstream gas; and ended up finding opportunities in sensors and pipeline monitoring.
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Can GDP decouple from energy demand? Wealthier countries’ energy use has historically plateaued after reaching $40k of GDP per capita. Hence could global energy demand disappoint? This 15-page report argues it is unlikely. Adjust for the energy intensity of manufacturing and imports, and energy use continues rising with incomes.
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Who is impacted if vehicle sales, EVs or ICE volumes surprise? Autos are a $2.7 trn pa global market, a vast 2.5% of global GDP. 15% is gross margin for OEMs. The other 85% is spread across vehicle value chains, encompassing metals, materials and capital goods. Hence this 14-page note highlights 200 companies from our database of 1,500 companies. Some are geared to ICEs. Some to EVs. And some to both.
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LFP batteries are fundamentally different from incumbent NMC cells: 2x more stable, 2x longer-lasting, $15/kWh cheaper reagents, $5/kWh cheaper manufacturing, and $25/kWh cheaper again when made in China. This 15-page report argues LFP will dominate future batteries, explores their costs, and draws implications for EVs and renewables.
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Could PGMs experience another up-cycle through 2030, on more muted EV sales growth in 2025-30, and rising catalyst loadings per ICE vehicle? This 16-page note explores global supply chains for platinum and palladium, the long-term demand drivers for PGMs in energy transition, and profiles leading PGM producers.
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Could electric vehicles deflate towards cost parity with ICEs in 2025-30, helping to re-accelerate EV adoption? This 13-page report contains a granular sum-of-the-parts cost breakdown for EVs vs ICEs. Then we consider battery deflation, power train deflation, small urban EVs, tax incentives, and the representativeness of low-cost Chinese EVs.
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Energy transition technologies are often envisaged to follow S-curves: rapidly inflecting, then reaching 100% market adoption. However, this 17-page report argues electric vehicles will more likely saturate at 15-30% of sales in 2025-30. EVs were already at 15% of sales in 2023. So what would the more limited EV upside mean for energy and materials?
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There has never been more controversy over the fair values of power generation assets, which hinge on their remaining life, utilization, flexibility, power prices, rising grid volatility and CO2 credentials. This 16-page guide covers the fair value of generation assets, hidden opportunities and potential pitfalls.
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What does it take to move global oil demand by 1Mbpd? This 22-page note ranks fifteen themes, based on their costs and possible impacts, to show where risks lie for oil markets, and where opportunities are greatest to drive decarbonization. We still think oil demand plateaus around 105Mbpd mid-late in the 2020s, before declining to 85Mbpd by 2050. But the risks now lie to the upside?
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Vast quantities of hydrogen are produced in the Earth’s subsurface, via the serpentinization of iron-containing Peridotite rocks. Gold, white and orange hydrogen variations aim to harness this hydrogen. This 19-page note explores opportunities, costs and challenges for harvesting H2 out of natural seeps, hydrogen reservoirs or fraccing/flooding Peridotites.
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Today’s power grids fire up peaker plants to meet peak demand. But the grid is changing rapidly. Hence this 17-page report outlines the economics of gas peaker plants. Rising volatility will increase earnings and returns by 40-50%, before grid-scale batteries come into the money for peaking?
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Sugar cane is an amazing energy crop, yielding 70 tons per hectare per year, of which 10-15% is sugar and 20-25% is bagasse. Crushing facilities create value from sugar, ethanol and cogenerated power. This 11-page note argues that more volatile electricity prices could halve ethanol costs or raise cash margins by 2-4x.
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The average major economy produces 70% of its own energy and imports the other 30%. This 12-page note explores energy security by country. We draw three key conclusions: into US isolationism; Europe’s survival; and the pace of EV adoption, both in China and in LNG-importing nations.
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This 17-page note outlines how capacity markets work, in order to stabilize global power grids. We argue reserve margins in the US grid are not as healthy as they look (in the chart above). Data centers are like wolves at the door. Capacity prices must rise. This boosts gas plants, grid-scale batteries and non-regulated utilities?
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Energy transition is the largest construction project in history, with capex costs ultimately ramping up to $9trn per year. Overall, 40% of capex costs accrue to construction firms. Hence this 10-page note evaluates energy infrastructure construction companies, their EBIT margin drivers, and who benefits from expanding power grids?
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This 12-page note studies the generation profiles at 10 of the largest gas plants in Australia, at 5-minute intervals, as renewables gained share from 2014 to 2024. Ramping renewables to c30% of Australia’s electricity mix has not only entrenched gas-fired back-up generation, but actually increased the need for peakers?
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This 13-page note summarizes the key conclusions across all of our research from 1H24, concisely, for busy decison-makers. We highlight 101 companies, which have come up in our recent work, to enable the rise of AI, and debottleneck its electricity supplies, out of 1,500 companies that have now crossed our screens overall.
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Solar ramps from 6% of global electricity in 2023, to 35% in 2050. But could any regions become Solar Superpowers and reach 50% solar in their grids? And which regions will deploy most solar? This 15-page note proposes ten criteria and ranks 30 countries. The biggest surprises will be due to capital costs, grid bottlenecks and pragmatic backups.
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Could renewables increase hydrocarbon realizations? Or possibly even double the value in flexible LNG portfolios? Our reasoning includes rising regional arbitrages, and growing volatility amidst lognormal price distributions (i.e., prices deviate more to the upside than the downside). This 14-page note explores the upside for energy trading in the energy transition. What implications and who benefits?
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High temperature superconductors (HTSs) carry 20,000x more current than copper, with almost no electrical resistance. They must be cooled to -200ºC. So costs have been moderately high at 35 past projects. Yet this 16-page report explores whether HTS cables will now accelerate to defray power grid bottlenecks? And who benefits within the supply chain?
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This 16-page report appraises 30 different options for low-carbon, round-the-clock power generation. Their costs range from 6-60 c/kWh. We also consider true CO2 intensity, time-to-market, land use, scalability and power quality. Seven insights follow for powering new grid loads, especially AI data centers.
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New AI data-centers are facing bottlenecked power grids. Hence this 15-page note compares the costs of constructing new power lines, gas pipelines or fiber optic links for GW-scale computing. The latter is best. Latency is a non-issue. This work suggests the best locations for AI data-centers and impacts US shale, midstream and fiber-optics?
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Transformers are needed every time voltage steps up or down in the power grid. But lead times have now risen from 12-24 weeks to 1-3 years. And prices have risen 70%. Will these shortages structurally slow new energies and AI? Or improve transformer margins? Or is it just another boom-bust cycle? Answers are in this 15-page report.
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Reconductoring today’s 7M circuit kilometers of transmission lines may help relieve power grid bottlenecks, while avoiding the 10-year ordeal of permitting new lines? Raising voltage may have hidden challenges. But Advanced Conductors stand out in this 18-page report. And the theme could double carbon fiber demand?
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Does defence displace decarbonization as the developed world’s #1 policy goal through 2030, re-allocating $1trn pa of funds? Perhaps, but this 10-page note also finds a surprisingly large overlap between the two themes. European capital goods re-accelerate most? Some clean-tech does risk deprioritization?
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Chips must usually be kept below 27ºC, hence 10-20% of both the capex and energy consumption of a typical data-center is cooling, as explored in this 14-page report. How much does climate matter? What changes lie ahead? And which companies sell into this soon-to-double market for cooling equipment?
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Rising energy demands of AI are now the biggest uncertainty in all of global energy. To understand why, this 17-page note explains AI computing from first principles, across transistors, DRAM, GPUs and deep learning. GPU efficiency will inevitably increase, but compute increases faster. AI most likely uses 300-2,500 TWH in 2030, with a base case of 1,000 TWH.
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FERC regulations are surprisingly interesting!! In theory, gas pipelines are not allowed to have market power. But increasingly, they do have it: gas use is rising, on grid bottlenecks, volatile renewables and AI; while new pipeline investments are being hindered. So who benefits here? Answers are explored in this report.
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The power demands of AI will contribute to the largest growth of new generation capacity in history. This 18-page note evaluates the power implications of AI data-centers. Reliability is crucial. Gas demand grows. Annual sales of CCGTs and back-up gensets in the US both rise by 2.5x? This is our most detailed AI report to date.
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This 11-page note summarizes the key conclusions from our energy transition research in 1Q24 and across 1,400 companies that have crossed our screens since 2019. Volatility is rising. Power grids are bottlenecked. Hence what stands out in capital goods, clean-tech, solar, gas value chains and materials? And what is most overlooked?
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What if large quantities of power could be transmitted via the 2-6 GHz microwave spectrum, rather than across bottlenecked cables and wires? This 12-page note explores the technology, advantages, opportunities, challenges, efficiencies and costs. We still fear power grid bottlenecks.
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What if the world is entering an era of persistent power grid bottlenecks, with long delays to interconnect new loads? Everything changes. Hence this 16-page report looks across the energy and industrial landscape, to rank the implications across different sectors and companies.
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Power grids will be the biggest bottleneck in the energy transition, according to this 18-page report. Tensions have been building for a decade. They are invisible unless you are looking. And the tightness could last a decade. Further acceleration of renewables may be thwarted. And we are re-thinking grid back-ups.
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Energy transition is the largest construction project in human history. But building in boom times is associated with 2-3x cost inflation. This 10-page note reviews five case studies of prior capex booms, and argues for accelerating FIDs, even in 2024. The outlook for project developers depends on their timing? And who benefits across the supply chain?
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Solar semiconductors have changed the world, converting light into clean electricity. Hence can thermoelectric semiconductors follow the same path, converting heat into electricity with no moving parts? This 14-page report reviews the opportunity for thermoelectric generation in the energy transition, challenges, efficiency, costs and companies.
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We have attempted a detailed breakdown of global energy demand across 50 categories, to identify emerging opportunities in the energy transition, and suggesting upside to our energy demand forecasts? This 12-page note sets out our conclusions and is intended a useful reference.
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How much new solar can the world absorb in a given year? And are core markets such as the US now maturing? This 15-page note refines our solar forecasts using a new methodology. Annual solar adds will likely plateau at 50-100% of total electricity demand growth in most regions. What implications and adaptation strategies?
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Energy Market Models
Global gas turbine additions averaged 50 GW pa over the decade from 2015-2024, of which the US was 20%, Europe was 10%, Asia was 50%, LatAm was 10% and Africa was 10%. Yet global gas turbine additions could double to 100 GW pa in 2025-30. This data-file estimates global gas turbine capacity by region and over time.
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This global energy supply-demand model combines our supply outlooks for coal, oil, gas, LNG, wind and solar, nuclear and hydro, into a build-up of useful global energy balances in 2022-30. We fear chronic under-supply. This is masked by economic weakness in 2023, rises to 3% shortages in 2025, and 5% shortages in 2030. Numbers can be stress-tested in the model.
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Global plastic is estimated at 470MTpa in 2022, rising to at least 800MTpa by 2050. This data-file is a breakdown of global plastic demand, by product, by region and by end use, with historical data back to 1990 and our forecasts out to 2050. Our top conclusions for plastic in the energy transition are summarized.
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Our roadmap to 'Net Zero' requires doubling global gas production from 400bcfd to 800bcfd, as a complement to wind, solar, nuclear and other low-carbon energy. Reserve replacement must exceed 100% and the global RP ratio halves to 25-years. What do you have to believe?
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Our models of the energy transition ease coal production back from a new all-time peak of 8.3GTpa in 2022 to 0.5GTpa by 2050. This is sheer fantasy without a vast scale-up of wind, solar, gas and nuclear. This model breaks down coal production by country.
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This model sets out our US shale production forecasts by basin. It covers the Permian, Bakken and Eagle Ford, as a function of the rig count, drilling productivity, completion rates, well productivity and type curves. US shale likely adds +1Mbpd/year of production growth from 2023-2030, albeit flatlining in 2024, then re-accelerating on higher oil prices?
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Our global uranium supply-demand model sees the market 5% under-supplied through 2030, including 7% market deficits at peak in 2025, as demand ramps from 165M lbs pa to 230M lbs pa in 2030. This is even after generous risking and no room for disruptions. What implications for broader power markets, decarbonization ambitions, and uranium prices?
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The lithium ion battery market reached 900GWH in 2023, representing 7x growth in the past half-decade since 2018, and 20x growth in the past decade since 2013. Volumes treble again by 2030. This data-file breaks down global ithium ion battery volumes by chemistry and be end use. A remarkable shift to LFP is underway, and NMC sales may even have peaked.
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Over 400 CCS projects are tracked in our global CCS projects database. The average project is 2MTpa in size, with capex of $600/Tpa, underpinning over 400MTpa of risked global CCS by 2035, up 10x from 2019 levels. The largest CO2 sources are hubs, gas processing, blue hydrogen, gas power and coal power. The most active countries are the US, UK, Canada and Europe.
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Core global PGM demand ran at 565 tons in 2023, which remains c6% lower than the all-time peak demand of 600Tpa in 2019. We model a recovery to 700 Tpa of demand for platinum, palladium and rhodium in 2030, then a long run decline to 350Tpa if EVs ultimately reach 90% of vehicle sales by 2050. Numbers can be stress-tested in this model.
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This data-file tabulates energy self-sufficiency, by country, over time, across 30 of the largest economies in the world. Among this sample, the median country generates 70% of its energy domestically, and is reliant on imports for 30% of the remainder. Energy self-sufficiency varies vastly by country.
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Japan's gas and power markets are broken down by end use, traced back to 1990, and forecast forwards to 2030 in this model. Japan's electricity demand now grows at 0.3% pa. Ramping renewables, nuclear and gas back-ups could halve Japan's total grid CO2 intensity to below 0.25 kg/kWh by 2030.
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Global population and GDP are broken down in this data-file, across 10 key regions, with data back to 1960 and projections to 2050, as an input to all of our supply-demand models. Population rises at 0.7% pa from 8.0bn in 2023 to 9.7bn in 2050. Real global GDP rises at 2.5% from $105trn in 2023 to $200trn by 2050. Mega-trends are underway in demographics, manufacturing and defence.
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This data-file forecasts the energy consumption of the internet, rising from 800 TWH in 2022 to 2,000 TWH in 2030 and 3,750 TWH by 2050. The main driver is the energy consumption of AI, plus blockchains, rising traffic, and offset by rising efficiency. Input assumptions to the model can be flexed. Underlying data are from technical papers.
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Global biogas production has risen at a 10-year CAGR of 3% to reach 4.3bcfed in 2023, equivalent to 1.1% of global gas consumption. Europe accounts for half of global biogas, helped by $4-40/mcfe subsidies. This data-file aggregates global biogas production by country, plus notes into feedstock sources, uses of biogas and biomethane.
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Global oil production by country by month is aggregated across 35 countries that produce 80kbpd of crude, NGLs and condensate, explaining >96% of the global oil market. Production has grown by +1Mbpd/year in the past two-decades, led by the US, Iraq, Russia, Canada. Oil market volatility is usually low, at +/- 1.5% per year, of which two-thirds is down to conscious decisions.
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Global steel supply-demand runs at 2GTpa in 2023, having doubled since 2003. Our best estimate is that steel demand rises another 80%, to 3.6GTpa by 2050, including due to the energy transition. Global steel production by country is now dominated by China, whose output exceeds 1GTpa, which is 8x the #2 producer, India, at 125MTpa.
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Global tin demand stands at 400kTpa in 2023 and rises by 2.5x to 1MTpa in 2050 as part of the energy transition. 50% of today's tin market is for solder, which sees growing application in the rise of the internet, rise of EVs and rise of solar. Global tin supply and demand can be stress-tested in the model.
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Global production of hydrogen is around 110MTpa in 2023, of which c30% is for ammonia, 25% is for refining, c20% for methanol and c25% for other metals and materials. This data-file estimates global hydrogen supply and demand, by use, by region, and over time, with projections through 2050.
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Polysilicon is a highly pure, crystalline silicon material, used predominantly for photovoltaic solar, and also for 'chips' in the electronics industry. Global polysilicon capacity is estimated to reach 1.65MTpa in 2023, and global polysilicon production surpasses 1MTpa in 2023. China now dominates the industry, approaching 90% of all global capacity.
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Global offshore wind capacity stood at 60GW at the end of 2022, rising at 8GW pa in the past half decade, comprising 7% of all global wind capacity, and led by China, the UK and Germany. Our forecasts see 220GW of global offshore wind capacity by 2030 and 850GW by 2050, which in turn requires a 15x expansion of this market.
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European gas and power markets will look better-supplied than they truly are in 2023-24. A dozen key input variables can be stress-tested in the data-file. Overall, we think Europe will need to source over 15bcfd of LNG through 2030, especially US LNG.
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We have modeled the global light vehicle fleet, light vehicle sales by region, and the world's shift from internal combustion engines (ICEs) towards electric vehicles (EVs) through 2050. Our base case model sees almost 200M EV sales by 2050, and a c40% decline to around 1bn combustion vehicles in the world's fleet by 2050.
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This data-file breaks down global oil demand, country-by-country, product-by-product, month-by-month, across 2017-2022. The goal is to summarize the effects of COVID, and the subsequent recovery in oil markets. Global oil demand is hitting new highs, even though several product categories are still not fully recovered.
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This model forecasts long-run oil demand to 2050, by end use, by year, and by region; across the US, the OECD and the non-OECD. We see demand gently rising through the 2020s, peaking at 105Mbpd in 2026-28, then gently falling to 85Mbpd by 2050 in the energy transition.
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This model captures global energy demand by region through 2050, rising from 70,000 TWH in 2019-22 to 120,000 MWH in 2050. Demand rises c2% pa. Energy use per global person rises at 1% pa from 9.3 MWH pp pa to 12.6 MWH pp pa. Meeting human civilization's energy needs is crucial to the energy transition.
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This data-file summarizes our latest thesis on ten commodities with upside in the energy transition. The average one will see demand rise by 3x and price/cost appreciate or re-inflate by 100%. The data-file contains a 6-10 line summary of our work into each commodity.
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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% of total global energy. There is a precedent. Delaying shutdowns helps too.
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Global investment into power networks averaged $280bn per annum in 2015-20, of which two-thirds was for distribution and one-third was for transmission. Amazingly, these numbers step up to $600bn in 2030, >$1trn in the 2040s and can be as large as all primary energy investment.
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The US consumes 25,000 TWH of primary energy per year, which equates to 13,000 TWH of useful energy, and emits 6GTpa of CO2. This model captures our best estimates for what a pragmatic and economical decarbonization of the US will look like, reaching net zero in 2050, with forecasts for wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, oil, gas and coal consumption.
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We describe c15 problems incurred by industrial and commercial power consumers. Many will require additional investment as renewables replace the large rotating generators of traditional power grids. Hence we see the market for commercial and industrial power electronics trebling from $360bn pa in 2021 to $1trn pa by 2035.
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This data-file quantifies global wood production, country-by-country, back to 1960, across energy, pulp and longer-lasting materials. Overall, wood energy has declined from 11% of the world's primary energy mix in 1960 to c4% today, but it remains stubbornly high in less-developed countries, amplifying deforestation.
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This model aims to calculate global wind and solar capacity additions. How many GW of new capacity would be needed for renewables to reach c25% of the global energy mix by 2050, up from 4% in 2021? In total energy terms, this means a 10x scale up, to 30,000 TWH of useful wind+solar energy in 2050. Gross global wind and solar capacity additions will surpass +1,000 GW by 2040.
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Global LNG output ran at 400MTpa in 2023. This model estimates global LNG production by facility across 140 LNG facilities. Our latest forecasts are that global LNG demand will rise at an 8% CAGR, to reach 670MTpa by 2030, for an absolute growth rate of +40MTpa per year, but the growth is back-end loaded.
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This model breaks down 2050 and 2100's global energy market, based on a dozen input assumptions. You can 'flex' these, to see how it will affect future oil, coal and gas demand, as well as global CO2 emissions. We reach 'net zero' by 2050. Even as fossil fuel demand rises 18%, gas demand trebles and renewables also reach c16%.
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This data-file estimates global copper demand as part of the energy transition, rising from 28MTpa in 2022 to 70MTpa in our base case scenario. The largest contributor is the electrification of transport. You can stress test half-a-dozen key input variables in the model.
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This data-file estimates global demand for lithium as part of the energy transition. The market has already trebled from 23kTpa in 2010 to 65kTpa in 2020, while we see the ascent continuing to 500kTpa in 2030 and almost 2MTpa in 2050. 90% is driven by transport. Global reserves suffice to cover the demand.
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Jet fuel demand ran at 8Mbpd in 2019, the last year before COVID, and could rise to 18Mbpd by 2050, as global population rises 25%, jet fuel demand per capita doubles and fuel economy per aviation mile rises by 20%. This data file breaks down jet fuel demand by region, including our forecasts through 2050, which can be stress-tested, and feed into our global oil demand models.
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This data-file is our China Energy Model and China CO2 Model, disaggregating China's energy demand by industry, across coal, oil, gas, wind, solar, hydro and nuclear, across c200 lines, from 2000-2060, with 20-input variables that can be stress-tested. There are routes to reach Net Zero in China by 2060, but it requires some heroic assumptions.
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This data-file contains energy transition market sizing analysis, for hydrocarbons, new energies, capital goods and materials in $bn pa, integrating over 1,000 items of energy transition research and our latest roadmap to net zero. In aggregate, energy, materials and transition-related markets double from $25 trn pa to $50 trn pa.
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Economic Models
This data-file provides an overview of energy economics, across 175 different economic models constructed by Thunder Said Energy, in order to put numbers in context. This helps to compare marginal costs, capex costs, energy intensity, interest rate sensitivity, and other key parameters that matter in the energy transition.
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Phosphoric acid production costs are $500-900/ton, for a 10% IRR on a new facility, with $1,000-2,000/Tpa of capex. This is using the 'wet process', where phosphate ores are reacted with sulfuric acid. CO2 intensity is 0.6 tons/ton. However, the numbers depend on product purity. There is also a 10x higher carbon, yet potentially lower-cost process, using coke in China. These variations are captured in our model.
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Costs of biogas upgrading into biomethane are estimated at $7/mcf off of capex cost of $400/ton, in this data-file. The largest contributor to total costs is carbon filtering, to remove siloxanes, VOCs and H2S, which we have modelled from first principles, at $2/mcfe. Underlying data into biogas compositions and impurities are also tabulated for reference.
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Plastic recycling requires a $500/ton product price, to earn a 10% IRR off of c$1,000/Tpa of up-front capex, at a mechanical recycling facility with 0.3 tons/ton of CO2 intensity (up to 80-90% below virgin plastics, more than we expected). This data-file captures the economics and the costs of plastic recycling, especially for the mechanical recycling of PET.
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Natural hydrogen could be recovered from the Earth's subsurface, with costs ranging from $0.3-10/kg, and CO2 intensities of 0.2-5.0 kg/kg. This data-file models the economic costs of gold hydrogen, and its sub-variants such as white hydrogen and orange hydrogen.
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Gas peaker plants run at low utilizations of 2-20%, during times of peak demand in power grids. A typical peaker costing $950/kW and running at 10% utilization has a levelized cost of electricity around 20c/kWh, to generate a 10% IRR with 0.5 kg/kWh of CO2 intensity. This data-file shows the economic sensitivities to volatility and utilization.
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This data-file summarizes the levelized cost of electricity, across 35 different generation sources, covering 20 different data-fields for each source. Costs of generating electricity can vary from 2-200 c/kWh. The is more variability within categories than between them. Numbers can readily be stress-tested in the data-file.
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The costs of fiber optic data transmission run at $0.25/TB per 1,000km in order to earn a 10% IRR on constructing a link with $120 per meter capex costs. Capex is 85% of the total cost. This data fiber breaks down the costs of fiber optic data transmission from first principles, across capex, utilization, electricity and maintenance.
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Power distribution costs to residential, commercial and industrial consumers are estimated at 3.5 c/kWh in this model, to generate a 10% levered return, in a 5km x 10MW distribution line, at 17kV, rated up to 400A, with a capex cost of $150/kW-km, a 5% line loss and 40% annualized utilization. All of these inputs can be stress-tested in the data-file.
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This data-file captures the costs of AC power transmission, requiring a 1.5c/kWh spread to earn a 10% levered IRR on a new 100km and 1,000MW transmission line, with capex costs of $1.5/kW-km. These numbers are supported by backup tabs, tabulating the costs of recent projects and a full granular breakdown for the capex costs of transmission lines.
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A typical road costs $3M/lane-km to construct, with an effective cost of $0.25 per vehicle-km subsequently travelled. The range varies with utilization and road complexity. Around 10% of the costs are materials, mainly aggregates, while the remainder of the capex is spent on construction and engineering.
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This data-file captures the costs of industrial cooling, especially liquid cooling using commercial HVAC equipment, across heat-exchangers, cooling tower evaporators and chillers. Our base case is that removing 100MW-th of heat has capex costs of $1,000/ton, equivalent to c$300/kW-th, expending 0.12 kWh-e of electricity per kWh-th, with a total cost of 7 c/ton-hour.
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The capex costs of data centers are typically $10M/MW, with opex costs dominated by maintenance (c40%), electricity (c15-25%), labor, water, G&A and other. A 30MW data-center must generate $100M of revenues for a 10% IRR, while an AI data center in 2024 may need to charge $3M/EFLOP of compute.
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This data-file captures the economics of ethanol production, as a biofuel derived from sugar. A 10% IRR requires $1-4/gallon ethanol, equivalent to $0.25-1/liter, or $60-250/boe. Economics are most sensitive to input sugar prices. Net CO2 intensity is at least 50% lower than hydrocarbons.
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The costs of sugar production are estimated at $260/ton for a 10% IRR at a world-scale sugar refinery, in a major sugar-producing region. Higher returns are achievable at recent world sugar prices, and by valorizing waste streams such as molasses for ethanol and bagasse for cogenerated electricity.
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Woody biomass can be converted into clean hydrogen via gasification. If the resultant CO2 is sequestered, each ton of hydrogen may be associated with -20 tons of CO2 disposal. The economies of hydrogen from biomass gasification require $11/kg-e revenues for a 10% IRR on capex of $3,000/Tpa of biomass, or lower, with CO2 disposal incentives.
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Our base case estimates for Compressed Air Energy Storage costs require a 26c/kWh storage spread to generate a 10% IRR at a $1,350/kW CAES facility, with 63% round-trip efficiency, charging and discharging 365 days per year. Our numbers are based on top-down project data and bottom up calculations, both for CAES capex (in $/kW) and CAES efficiency (in %) and can be stress-tested in the model. What opportunities?
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The economic cost of copper production is build up from first princples in this model, from mine, to concentrator, to smelter to 99.99% pure copper cathodes. Our base case is $7.5/kg copper cathode, with 4 tons/ton CO2 intensity, after starting from an 0.57% ore grade. Numbers vary sharply and can be stress-tested in the data-file.
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Total pump costs can be ballparked at $600/kW/year of power, of which 70% is electricity, 20% operations and maintenance, 10% capex/capital costs. But the numbers vary. Hence this data-file breaks down the capex costs of pumps, other pump costs, pump energy consumption and the efficiency of pumps from first principles.
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This data-file captures the costs of thermal energy storage, buying renewable electricity, heating up a storage media, then releasing the heat for industrial, commercial or residential use. Our base case requires 13.5 c/kWh-th for a 10% IRR, however 5-10 c/kWh-th heat could be achieved with lower capex costs.
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Hot potassium carbonate is a post-combustion CCS technology that bypasses the degradation issues of amines, and can help to decarbonize power, BECCS and cement plants. We think costs are around $100/ton and energy penalties are 30-50%. Potassium carbonate CCS can be stress-tested in this data-file, across 50 inputs.
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Redox flow battery costs are built up in this data-file, especially for Vanadium redox flow. In our base case, a 6-hour battery that charges and discharges daily needs a storage spread of 20c/kWh to earn a 10% IRR on $3,000/kW of up-front capex. Longer-duration redox flow batteries start to out-compete lithium ion batteries for grid-scale storage.
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Gas dehydration costs might run to $0.02/mcf, with an energy penalty of 0.03%, to remove around 90% of the water from a wellhead gas stream using a TEG absorption unit, and satisfy downstream requirements for 4-7lb/mmcf maximum water content. This data-file captures the economics of gas dehydration, to earn a 10% IRR off $25,000/mmcfd capex.
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Fans and blowers comprise a $7bn pa market, moving low-pressure gases through industrial and commercial facilities. Typical costs might run at $0.025/ton of air flow to earn a return on $200/kW equipment costs and 0.3kWh/ton of energy consumption. 3,000 tons of air flow may be required per ton of CO2 in a direct air capture plant.
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Gas fractionation separates out methane from NGLs such as ethane, propane and butane. A full separation uses up almost 1% of the input gas energy and 4% of the NGL energy. The costs of gas fractionation require a gas processing spread of $0.7/mcf for a 10% IRR off $2/mcf input gas, or in turn, an average NGL sales price of $350/ton. Costs of gas fractionation vary and can be stress tested in this model.
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Hydrogen peroxide production costs run at $1,000/Tpa, to generate a 10% IRR at a greenfield production facility, with c$2,000/Tpa capex costs. Today's market is 5MTpa, worth c$5bn pa. CO2 intensity runs to 3 kg of CO2 per kg of H2O2. But lower-carbon hydrogen could be transformational for clean chemicals?
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This model estimates the levelized cost of offshore wind at 13c/kWh, to generate a 7% IRR off of capex costs of $4,000/kW and a utilization factor of 40-45%. Each $400/kW on capex adds 1c/kWh and each 1% on WACC adds 1.3 c/kWh to offshore wind levelized costs.
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Propylene oxide production costs average $2,000/ton ($2/kg) in order to derive a 10% IRR at a newbuild chemicals plant with $1,500/Tpa in capex. 80% of the costs are propylene and hydrogen peroxide inputs. 60-70% of this $25bn pa market is processed into polyurethanes. CO2 intensity is 2 tons of CO2 per ton of PO today, but there are pathways to absorb CO2 by reaction with PO and possibly even create carbon negative polymers.
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Naphtha cracking costs $1,300/ton for high value products, such as ethylene, propylene, butadiene and BTX aromatics, to derive a 10% IRR constructing a greenfield naphtha cracker, with $1,600/Tpa capex. CO2 intensity averages 1 ton of CO2 per ton of high value products. This data-file captures the economics for naphtha cracking, a cornerstone of the modern materials industry.
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Acetylene production costs are broken down in this data-file, estimated at $1,425/ton for a 10% IRR on a petrochemical facility that partially oxidizes the methane molecule. CO2 intensity is over 3 kg/kg. Up to 12MTpa of acetylene is produced globally for welding and as a petrochemical building block.
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A PTA price of $800-850/ton is needed to earn a 10% IRR on a new, integrated petrochemical facility, catalytically reforming naphtha into paraxylene, then oxidizing the paraxylene into purified terephthalic acid, with upfront capex cost of $1,300/Tpa. Feedstock costs, energy prices and CO2 prices matter too.
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Pressure swing adsorption purifies gases according to their differing tendencies to adsorb onto adsorbents under pressure. Pressure swing adsorption costs $0.1/kg when separating pure hydrogen from reformers, and $2-3/mcf when separating bio-methane from biogas. Our cost breakdowns include capex, opex, maintenance, zeolite replacement, compression power and CO2 costs.
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This data-file captures cement costs, based on inputs, capex and energy economics. A typical cement plant requires a cement price of $130/ton for a 10% IRR, on capex costs of $200/Tpa, energy intensity of 1,000 kWh/ton and CO2 intensity of 0.9 tons/ton. Cement costs can be stress tested in the data-file.
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Electrostatic precipitator costs can add 0.5 c/kWh onto coal or biomass-fired electricity prices, in order to remove over 99% of the dusts and particulates from exhaust gases. Electrostatic precipitators cost $50/kWe of up-front capex to install. Energy penalties average 0.2%. These systems are also important upstream of CCS plants.
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Direct reduced iron (DRI) is produced by reacting iron ore with H2-CO syngas, fueled by natural gas, in over 150 facilities worldwide. Direct reduction iron costs $300/ton, consuming 3,000kWh/ton of energy and CO2 intensity of 0.6 tons/ton. The process can be decarbonized via low-carbon hydrogen in the syngas, as the world strives towards decarbonized steel.
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Biogas costs are broken down in this economic model, generating a 10% IRR off $180M/kboed capex, via a mixture of $16/mcfe gas sales, $60/ton waste disposal fees and $50/ton CO2 prices. High gas prices and landfill taxes can make biogas economical in select geographies. Although diseconomies of scale reward smaller projects?
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Bulk carriers move 5GTpa of commodities around the world, explaining half of all seaborne global trade. This model is a breakdown of bulk shipping cost. We estimate a cost of $2.5 per ton per 1,000-miles, and a CO2 intensity of 5kg per ton per 1,000-miles. Marine scrubbers increasingly earn their keep and uplift IRRs from 10% to 12% via fuel savings.
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This data-file captures selective catalytic reduction costs to remove NOx from the exhaust gas of combustion boilers and burners. Our base case estimate is 0.25 c/kWh at a combined cycle gas plant, which equates to $4,000/ton of NOx removed. Capex costs, operating costs, coal plants and marine fuels can be stress-tested in the model.
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This data-file captures the costs of producing different grades of silicon carbide: from materials grade SiC ($1,500/ton marginal cost, 5 tons/ton CO2 intensity) through to SiC wafers that are used in the electronics industry ($30M/ton, 200 tons/ton?). SiC semiconductor remains opaque.
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A multi-MW scale diesel generator requires an effective power price of 20c/kWh, in order to earn a 10% IRR, on c$700/kW capex, assuming $70 oil prices and c150km trucking of oil products to the facility. Economics can be stress-tested in the Model-Base tab.
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Technology Screens and Company Screens
This database contains a record of every company that has ever been mentioned across Thunder Said Energy's energy transition research, as a useful reference for TSE's clients. The database summarizes over 3,000 mentions of 1,400 energy transition companies, their size, focus and a summary of our key conclusions, plus links to further research.
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What is the market concentration by industry in energy, mining, materials, semiconductors, capital goods and other sectors that matter in the energy transition? The top five firms tend to control 45% of their respective markets, yielding a ‘Herfindahl Hirschman Index’ (HHI) of 700.
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Biofuels are currently displacing 3.5Mboed of oil and gas. But they are not carbon-free, and their weighted average CO2 emissions are only c50% lower. This data-file breaks down the biofuels market across seven key feedstocks, to help identify which opportunities can scale for the lowest costs and CO2, versus others that require further technical progress.
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Vehicles transport people and freight around the world, explaining 70% of global oil demand, 30% of global energy use, 20% of global CO2e emissions. This overview summarizes all of our research into vehicles, and key conclusions for the energy transition.
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Carbon capture and storage (CCS) prevents CO2 from entering the atmosphere. Options include the amine process, blue hydrogen, novel combustion technologies and cutting edge sorbents and membranes. Total CCS costs range from $80-130/ton, while blue value chains seem to be accelerating rapidly in the US. This article summarizes the top conclusions from our carbon capture and storage research.
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Global vehicle sales by manufacturer are broken down in this screen. 20 companies produce 85% of the world's vehicles, led by Toyota, VW, Stellantis, GM and Ford. The data-file contains key numbers and notes on each company, including each company's sales of BEVs, PHEVs, general EV strategy, and how it has been evolving in 2024.
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Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are an exciting class of materials, which could reduce the energy penalties of CO2-separation by c80%, and reduce the cost of carbon capture to $20-40. This data-file screens companies developing metal organic frameworks, where activity has been accelerating rapidly, especially for CCS applications.
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This data-file is a screen of leading PGM producers and recyclers. Eight companies control 90% of global production. Most are mid-caps. Four have primary listings in South Africa. Three are listed in Europe and the UK. Ore grades average 4 grams/ton, and recovery requires 60GWH/ton of energy, emitting 40kT/ton of CO2. But do recent company disclosures suggest that the gloom over PGMs is lifting?
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Six leading companies in turbochargers control two-thirds of the $15-20bn pa global turbochargers market. 55% of ICE vehicles now have turbochargers, which can improve fuel economy my as much as 10%, by enabling smaller and better utilized engines to achieve higher peak power ratings. What opportunities ahead, to adapt for vehicle electrification, or even if EV sales accelerate less than expected in 2025-30?
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40% of total installed project costs tend to accrue to construction companies, as screened in this data-file. The average of 25 large engineering and construction companies has 100 years of operating history, 35,000 employees, generated $13bn pa of revenues in 2023, and at a c4% EBIT margins.
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This superconductor screen summarizes all of our work into superconductors, screening past projects, active companies, superconductor materials and the properties of commercial HTS tapes. Five listed companies in Europe, Japan and the US are particularly important for superconducting cable projects to relieve grid bottlenecks?
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Advanced conductors have 2x higher amperage capacities and temperature limits than standard Aluminium Conductor Steel Reinforced (ACSR) used in AC transmission lines. This data-file screens Advanced conductors versus ACSR on dimensions such as tensile strength, performance and costs, and also screens leading companies.
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This data-file evaluates transmission and distribution costs, averaging 7c/kWh in 2024, based on granular disclosures for 200 regulated US electric utilities, which sell 65% of the US's total electricity to 110M residential and commercial customers. Costs have doubled since 2005. Which utilities have rising rate bases and efficiently low opex?
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This data-file is a screen of leading companies in vapor deposition, manufacturing the key equipment for making PV silicon, solar, AI chips and LED lighting solutions. The market for vapor deposition equipment is worth $50bn pa and growing at 8% per year. Who stands out?
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Thermoelectric devices convert heat directly into electricity, or conversely provide localized cooling/heating by absorbing electricity. This data-file screens leading companies in thermoelectrics, their product specifications, applications and underlying calculations for thermoelectric efficiency.
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50 companies make conductive silver pastes to form the electrical contacts in solar modules. This data-file tabulates the compositions of silver pastes based on patents, averaging 85% silver, 4% glass frit and 11% organic chemicals. Ten companies stood out, including a Korean small-cap specialist.
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The world produced over 400GW of solar modules in 2023, which is up 10x from a decade ago. This data-file breaks down solar module production by company and over time, comparing the companies by solar module selling prices ($/kW), margins (%), efficiency (%), transparency, and technology development.
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This data-file aggregates granular data into US gas transmission, by company and by pipeline, for 40 major US gas pipelines which transport 45TCF of gas per annum across 185,000 miles; and for 3,200 compressors at 640 related compressor stations.
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This data-file tracks some of the leading solar inverter companies and inverter costs, efficiency and power electronic properties. As China now supplies 85% of all global inverters, at 30-50% lower $/W pricing than Western companies, a key question explored in the data-file is around price versus quality.
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This data-file screens 20 leading companies in harmonic filters, tabulating their size, geography, ownership details, patent filings and a description of their offering. Active harmonic filters reduce total harmonic distortion below 5%, with 97% efficiency, within 5 ms. Half a dozen companies stood out in our screen, including one large, listed Western capital goods company.
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This data-file is a screen of thermal energy storage companies, developing systems that can absorb excess renewable electricity, heat up a storage medium, and then re-release the heat later, for example as high-grade steam or electricity. The space is fast-evolving and competitive, with 17 leading companies progressing different solutions.
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Leading direct air capture companies (DAC companies) are assessed in this data-file, aggregating company disclosures, project disclosures and other data from patents and technical papers. The landscape is evolving particularly rapidly, trebling in the past half-decade, especially towards novel DAC solutions.
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20 leading companies in LED lighting are compared in this data-file, mostly mid-caps with $2-10bn market cap and $1-8bn of lighting revenues, listed in the US, Europe, Japan, Taiwan. Operating margins averaged 8% in 2022, due to high competition, fragmentation and inorganic activity. The value chain ranges from LED semiconductor dyes to service providers installing increasingly efficient lighting systems as part of the energy transition.
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35 indium producers are screened in this data-file, as our energy transition outlook sees primary demand rising 4x from 900 tons in 2022 to over 3.5ktons in 2050, for uses in HJT solar cells and digital devices. 60% of global supply is produced by 20 Chinese companies. But five listed materials companies in Europe, Canada, Japan and Korea also stand out.
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This data-file is a screen of leading companies in polyurethane production, capturing 80% of the world's 25MTpa market, across 20 listed companies and 3 private companies. We see growing demand for polyurethanes -- especially for insulation, electric vehicles and consumer products -- while there is also an exciting prospect that EVs displace reformates from the gasoline pool, helping to deflate feedstock costs. So who benefits?
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Demand shifting flexes electrical loads in a power grid, to smooth volatility and absorb more renewables. This database scores technical potential and economical potential of different electricity-consuming processes to shift demand, across materials, manufacturing, industrial heat, transportation, utilities, residential HVAC and commercial loads.
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10MTpa of hydrogen is produced in the US, of which 40% is sold by industrial gas companies, 20-25% is generated on site at refineries, 20% at ammonia plants and 15-20% in chemicals/methanol. This datafile breaks down US hydrogen production by facility. Owners of existing steam methane reforming units may readily be able to capture CO2 and benefit from CO2 disposal credits under the US Inflation Reduction Act?
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The global market for vacuum pumps is worth $15bn per year, with growing importance for making semiconductors, solar panels and AI chips. This data-file reviews ten leading companies in vacuum pumps, including one European-listed capital goods leader, a European pure-play and a Japanese-listed pure-play.
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Leading aluminium producers are reviewed in this data-file, across ten companies, producing half of the world's global output. Scale ranges 1MTpa to 7MTpa. CO2 intensity of primary aluminium production ranges from 3 tons/ton to 17 tons/ton, in aggregate across these companies.
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Over $100bn pa of industrial gases and $5-6bn pa of cryogenic air separation plants are produced each year. This data-file is a screen of leading industrial gas companies and cryogenic air separation companies, breaking down their market share (number of ASUs constructed) history, geography, sales and headcounts.
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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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This data-file captures a sample of 30MTpa of blue ammonia projects from 1980 to 2030, including their location, companies, timings (year of FID, year of start-up), their sizes (in MTpa), their CO2 reductions (in %), their capex costs (in $M, where disclosed) and the implied capex costs ($/Tpa). We have also summarized each project with 3-10 lines of text.
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This data-file is a screen of leading companies in super-alloys, covering US pure-plays, mega-caps in industrials and defence, and emerging world producers of Rare Earth metals. In each case, we have included our notes and observations.
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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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Which stocks are most considered to be energy transition stocks? To answer this question, we have aggregated the holdings of ten well-known energy transition ETFs and clean tech ETFs, in early 2023.
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This data-file is a screen of companies that can reduce routine flaring and reduce the ESG impacts of unavoidable residual flaring. The landscape is broad, ranging from large, listed and diversified oil service companies with $30bn market cap to small private analytics companies with
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This data-file is a screen of LNG shipping companies, quantifying who has the largest fleet of LNG carriers and the cleanest fleet of LNG carriers (i.e., low CO2 intensity). Many private companies are increasingly backed by private equity. Many public companies have dividend yields of 4-9%.
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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 the world's largest silica sand producers.
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This data-file is a screen of companies in the fluorinated polymer value chain. It captures ten large Western companies, with exposure to producing fluorspar, refining fluorspar into hydrofluoric acid (HF) and/or further processing into fluorinated polymers, which matter increasingly in the energy transition.
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High-quality building automation typically saves 30-40% of the energy needed for lighting, heating and cooling a building. This matters amidst energy shortages, and reduces payback times on $100-500k up-front capex. This data-file aggregates case studies of KNX energy savings, and screens 70 companies, from Capital Goods giants to private pure-plays.
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Breakthrough Technologies
This data-file aggregates all of our patent assessments into a single reference file, so different companies' scores can be compared and contrasted. Our average score is 3.5 out of 5.0. Skew is to the downside. Intelligibility is the biggest challenge. Scores correlate with TRL and revenues.
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Bi-Directional Bipolar Junction Transistors are an emerging category of semiconductor-based switching device, that can achieve lower on-state voltage drops than MOSFETs and softer, faster switching than IGBTs, to improve efficiency and lower component count in bi-directional power converters. This data-file screens B-TRAN patents from Ideal Power.
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Can we de-risk Air Products's ammonia cracking technology in our roadmaps to net zero, which is crucial to recovering green hydrogen in regions that import green ammonia from projects such as Saudi Arabia's NEOM. We find strong IP in Air Products's patents. However, we still see 15-35% energy penalties and $2-3/kg of costs in ammonia cracking.
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This patent screen reviews Eastman's molecular recycling technology. Specifically, Eastman is spending over $2bn, to construct 3 plants, with 380kTpa of capacity, to break down hard-to-recycle polyesters back into component monomers, with 20-80% lower CO2 intensity than virgin product. We find evidence for 30-years of fine-tuning, and can bridge to 10% IRRs if buyers pay sufficient premia for the recycled outputs.
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Prysmian E3X technology is a ceramic coating that can be added onto new and pre-existing power transmission cables, improving their thermal emissivity,so they heat up 30% less, have 25% lower resistive losses, and/or can carry 25% increased currents. This data-file locates the patents underpinning E3X technology, identifies the materials used, and finds a strong moat.
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Cemvita is a private biotech company, based in Houston, founded in 2017. It has isolated and/or engineered more than 150 microbial strains, aiming to valorize waste, convert CO2 to useful feedstocks, mine scarce metals (e.g., direct lithium extraction) and "brew" a variant of gold hydrogen from depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs. This data-file is our Cemvita Factory technology review, based on exploring its patents.
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Oklo is a next-generation nuclear company, based in California, recently going public via SPAC at a $850M valuation, backed by Sam Altman, of Y-Combinator and OpenAI fame. Oklo's fast reactor technology absorbs high energy neutrons in liquid metal and targets ultimate costs of 4c/kWh. What details can we infer from assessing Oklo's patents, and can we de-risk the technology in our roadmap to net zero?
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Cummins is a power technology company, listed in the US, specializing in diesel engines, underlying components, exhaust gas after-treatment, diesel power generation and pivoting towards hydrogen. We reviewed 80 patents from 2023-24. What outlook for Cummins technology and verticals in the energy transition?
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Is Babcock and Wilcox's BrightLoop technology a game-changer for producing low-carbon hydrogen from solid fuels, while also releasing a pure stream of CO2 for CCS? Conclusions and deep-dive details are covered in this data-file, allowing us to guess at BrightLoop's energy efficiency and a moat around Babcock's reactor designs?
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This data-file is our LONGi technology review, based on recent patent filings. The work helps us to de-risk increasingly efficient solar modules, a growing focus on perovskite-tandem cells, and low-cost solar modules, with simple manufacturing techniques that may ultimately displace bottlenecked silver from electrical contacts. Key conclusions in the data-file.
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Origen Carbon Solutions is developing a novel DAC technology, producing CaO sorbent via the oxy-fuelled calcining of limestone with no net CO2 emissions. It is similar to the NET Power cycle, but adapted for a limestone kiln. The concept is very interesting. Our base case costs are $200-300/ton of CO2. This data-file contains our Origen DAC technology review.
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Solar encapsulants are 300-500μm thick films, protecting solar cells from moisture, dirt and degradation; electrically insulating them at 4 x 10^15 Ωcm resistivity; and yet allowing 90% light transmittance. The industry is moving away from commoditized EVA towards specialized blends of co-polymers and additives. Is there a growing moat around Mitsui Chemicals' solar encapsulants?
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This data-file reviews Verdox DAC technology, optimizing polyanthraquinones and polynaphthoquinones, then depositing them on porous carbon nano-tube scaffolds. These quinones are shown to selectively adsorb CO2 when a voltage is applied, then desorb them when a reverse voltage is applied, unlocking 70% lower energy penalties than incumbent DAC?
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Solvay is a chemicals company with growing exposure to battery materials, especially the PVDF binders that hold together active materials in the electrodes. But also increasingly in electrolyte solvents, salts and additives. Interestingly, our patent review finds optimizations of this overall system can improve the longevity and energy density of batteries, which may also lead to consolidation across the battery supply chain?
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Pressure exchangers transfer energy from a high-pressure fluid stream to a low-pressure fluid stream, and can save up to 60% input energy. Energy Recovery Inc is a leading provider of pressure exchangers, especially for the desalination industry, and increasingly for refrigeration, air conditioners, heat pump and industrial applications. Our technology review finds a moat.
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Our Plug Power technology review is drawn from the company's recent patent filings, which offer some of the most detailed disclosures we have ever seen into the manufacturing of PEM electrolysers and fuel cells, underlying catalyst materials, membranes and their manufacturing. One patent seems like a breakthrough. Other patents candidly presented challenges.
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MIRALON is an advanced material, being commercialized by Huntsman, purifying carbon nanotubes from the pyrolysis of methane and also yielding turquoise hydrogen. This data-file reviews MIRALON technology, patents, and a strong moat. Our model sees 15% IRRs if Huntsman reaches a medium-term cost target of $10/kg MIRALON and $1/kg H2.
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This data-file reviews Bloom Energy's solid oxide fuel cell technology. What surprised us most was a candid overview of degradation pathways of solid oxide fuel cells, a focus on improving the longevity of fuel cells, albeit this sometimes seems to be via heavy uses of Rare Earth metals, and increasing complexity. The patents do suggest a moat around Bloom Energy fuel cell technology.
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Newlight is converting (bio-)methane and air into polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), a type of polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA), a biodegradable bioplastic which it markets as AirCarbon. The product is 'carbon negative', biodegradable, strong, 'never soggy', dishwasher safe. Our AirCarbon technology review found some good underlying innovations, but was unable to de-risk cost and capex aspirations.
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Montana Technologies is developing AirJoule, an HVAC technology that uses metal organic frameworks, to lower the energy costs of air conditioning by 50-75%. The company is going public via SPAC and targeting first revenues in 2024. Our AirJoule technology review finds strong rationale, technical details and challenges.
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Alterra Energy has steadily been refining its plastic recycling technology since 2017. The company recently signed license agreements with Neste and Freepoint. The technology is a continuous reactor, with seven discrete stages, using scavengers to remove contaminants, and patented hardware to minimize fouling and devolatilize chars.
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Advantage is a Montney gas producer, which recently sourced a $300M investment from Brookfield to scale up its Entropy23 amine blend for natural-gas CCS. Entropy has captured 90-93% of the CO2 at the first pilot plant at Glacier, Alberta, with 2.4 GJ/ton reboiler duty, 40% below MEA. This 7-page report confirms a moat around the technology and raises three challenges.
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Topsoe autothermal reforming technology aims to maximize the uptime and reliability of blue hydrogen production, despite ultra-high combustion temperatures from the partial oxidation reaction, while achieving high energy efficiency, 90-97% CO2 capture and
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Electra is developing an electrochemical refining process, to convert iron ore into high purity iron, and ultimately into steel, using only renewable electricity. It has raised c$100M, gained high-profile backers, and is working towards a test plant. This 9-page note reviews an exceptionally detailed patent, finds clear innovations, but also some remaining risks and cost question marks.
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Aker Carbon Capture is a public company, listed in Norway, with c120 permanent employees. It has developed novel solvents for post-combustion carbon capture, modular CCS plants (JustCatch, at 40-100kTpa, and BigCatch at >400kTpa). The company aims to secure contracts for 10MTpa of CCS by 2025. This technology review looks for a moat in the patents.
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Membrane Technology and Research Inc. (MTR) is a private company, specializing in membrane separations, for the energy industry, chemicals and increasingly, CCS. Its Gen 2-3 Polaris membranes have 50x CO2:N2 selectivity, 2,000-3,000 GPU permeabilities, and are at TRL 6-7. Is there a moat?
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Boston Metal aims to decarbonize steel, using molten oxide electrolysis, absorbing 4MWH/ton of steel. This data-file is a Boston Metal technology review, based on assessing 55 patents across 3 families. We were unable to de-risk the technology. A key challenge is conveying current into the cell, as it operates around 1,600C, which is above the melting point of most feasible conductor materials.
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Amprius is commercializing a lithium-ion battery with a near-100% silicon anode, yielding 80% higher energy density. It can achieve 80% charge within 6-minutes. The company is listed on NYSE. We have reviewed Amprius' silicon anode technology. The patent library is excellent, goes back to 2009 and has locked upon a specific design. This allows us to guess at costs, degradation and longevity.
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NEL is a green hydrogen technology company, headquartered in Oslo, listed on the Oslo Børs since 2014, and employing 575 people. It has manufactured 3,500 electrolyser units, going back to 1927, historically weighted to alkaline electrolysers, and increasingly focused on PEMs and hydrogen fuelling stations. This NEL technology review explores its patents.
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Verbio is a bio-energy company, founded in 2006, listed in Germany, producing bio-diesel, bioethanol, biogas, glycerin and fertilizers. The company has stated "we want to be in a position to convert anything that agriculture can deliver to energy". Our Verbio technology review is based on its patents. We find some fascinating innovations in cold mash ethanol, integrated with biogas production, and making biogas from lignocellulosic feedstock.
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Hillcrest Energy Technologies is developing an ultra-efficient SiC inverter, which has 30-70% lower switching losses, up to 15% lower system cost, weight, size, and thus interesting applications in electric vehicles. How does it work and can we de-risk the technology?
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Our NET Power technology review shows over ten years of progress, refining the design of efficient power generation cycles using CO2 as the working fluid. The patents show a moat around several aspects of the technology. And six challenges at varying stages of de-risking.
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Goldwind is one of the largest wind turbine manufacturers in the world, headquartered in Beijing, and shares are publicly listed. The wind industry is increasingly aiming to mimic the inertia and frequency responses of synchronous power generators. Goldwind has published some interesting case studies. Hence we have reviewed its patents to see if we can find an edge?
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Jetti Resources has developed a breakthrough technology to recover copper from low-grade sulfide ores, by leaching with sulphuric acid, thiocarbonyls, ferric iron (III) sulphates and oxidizing bacteria. The patents lock up the technology, with detailed experimental data. But what are the costs of copper production, what CO2 intensity and what technical challenges remain?
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Tigercat is a private company, founded in 1992, headquartered in Ontario, Canada, with c2,000 employees. The company produces specialized machinery for forestry, logging, materials processing and off-road equipment. Our patent review has found a moat around reliable, easy-to-maintain, mobile and efficient forestry equipment.
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This data-file is a review of Agilyx's plastic recycling technology, after assessing the company's patents on our usual framework. We conclude that Agilyx has developed a novel and data-driven process, to remove challenging contaminants from feedstocks. Although it may involve higher complexity, higher reagent opex, and some challenges cannot entirely be de-risked from the patents.
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This data-file is a technology review for Sentient Energy, assessing innovations in smart grids. Its technology can achieve energy savings via a combination of "Conservation Voltage Reduction" and "Volt-VAR optimization at the grid edge". This also helps to integrate more solar and EV charging into power grids. We explain the technology.
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Powin commercializes energy storage hardware and software. Its LFP battery system is 30% more compact than peers, at 200 MWH/acre, and modular, meaning it may be 50% faster to install. Our patent review finds a moat around specific process improvements, to help back up the short-term volatility of solar and wind.
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X-Energy is a next-generation nuclear company, progressing a demonstration project in Washington State, due to start up in 2027. The key innovation is using TRISO fuels, whose manufacturing is locked up with a concentrated patent library. Long-term costs are suggested at 6c/kWh.
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Prysmian scores well on our patent assessment framework. We conclude an array of incremental improvements and industry specializations confer a partial moat and helps to de-risk future installation work.
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CO2 Intensity and Energy Intensity
This data-file tabulates the energy intensity and CO2 intensity of materials, in tons/ton of CO2, kWh/ton of electricity and kWh/ton of total energy use per ton of material. The build-ups are based on 160 economic models that we have constructed to date, and simply intended as a helpful summary reference. Our key conclusions on CO2 intensity of materials are below.
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The energy intensity of plastic products and the CO2 intensity of plastics are built up from first principles in this data-file. Virgin plastic typically embeds 3-4 kg/kg of CO2e. But compared against glass, PET bottles embed 60% less energy and 80% less CO2. Compared against virgin PET, recycled PET embeds 70% less energy and 45% less CO2. Aluminium packaging is also highly efficient.
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This data-file aggregates granular data into US gas transmission, by company and by pipeline, for 40 major US gas pipelines which transport 45TCF of gas per annum across 185,000 miles; and for 3,200 compressors at 640 related compressor stations.
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MOSFETs are fast-acting digital switches, used to transform electricity, across new energies and digital devices. MOSFET power losses are built up from first principles in this data-file, averaging 2% per MOSFET, with a range of 1-10% depending on voltage, switching, on resistance, operating temperature and reverse recovery charge.
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Lithium ion batteries famously have cathodes containing lithium, nickel, manganese, cobalt, aluminium and/or iron phosphate. But how are these cathode active materials manufactured? This data-file gathers specific details from technical papers and patents by leading companies such as BASF, LG, CATL, Panasonic, Solvay and Arkema.
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What is the energy intensity of fiber optic cables? Our best estimate is that moving each GB of internet traffic through the fixed network requires 40Wh/GB of energy, across 20 hops, spanning 800km and requiring an average of 0.05 Wh/GB/km. Generally, long-distance transmission is 1-2 orders of magnitude more energy efficient than short-distance.
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The CO2 intensity of oil and gas production is tabulated for 425 distinct company positions across 12 distinct US onshore basins in this data-file. Using the data, we can aggregate the total upstream CO2 intensity in (kg/boe), methane leakage rates (%) and flaring intensity (in mcf/boe), by company, by basin and across the US Lower 48.
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This US refinery database covers 125 US refining facilities, with an average capacity of 150kbpd, and an average CO2 intensity of 33 kg/bbl. Upper quartile performers emitted less than 20 kg/bbl, while lower quartile performers emitted over 40 kg/bbl. The goal of this refinery database is to disaggregate US refining CO2 intensity by company and by facility.
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This data-file is a breakdown of c1MTpa of refrigerants used in the recent past for cooling, across refrigerators, air conditioners, in vehicles, industrial chillers, and increasingly, heat pumps. The market is shifting rapidly towards lower-carbon products, including HFOs, propane, iso-butane and even CO2 itself. We still see fluorinated chemicals markets tightening.
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What is the energy payback and embedded energy of solar? We have aggregated the consumption of 10 different materials (in kg/kW) and around 10 other energy-consuming line-items (in kWh/kW). Our base case estimate is 2.5 MWH/kWe of solar and an energy payback of 1.5-years. Numbers and sensitivities can be stress-tested in the data-file.
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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, with diminishing returns.
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The CO2 intensity of coal is estimated at 0.37kg/kWh of thermal energy, at a typical coal grade comprising 63% carbon and 6,250 kWh/ton of energy content. This is the average across 25 samples in our data-file, while moisture, ash and sulphur are also appraised. Coal is 2x more CO2 intensive than natural gas.
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The CO2 intensity of producing corn averages 0.23 tons/ton, or 75kg/boe. 50% is from N2O emissions, a powerful greenhouse gas, from the breakdown of nitrogen fertilizer. Producing 1 kWh of food energy requires 9 kWh of fossil energy.
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Scope 4 CO2 emissions capture the CO2 that is avoided by use of a product. Many energy investments with positive Scope 1-3 emissions have deeply negative Scope 1-4 emissions. Numbers are quantified and may offer a more constructive approach to decarbonization investments.
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Global palm oil production runs at 80MTpa, for food, HPC and bio-fuels. Carbon intensity is 1.2 tons CO2e per ton of crude palm oil, excluding land use impacts, and 8.0 tons/ton on a global basis including land use impacts. This means once a bio-fuel has more than c35% palm oil in its feedstock, it is likely to be higher carbon than conventional diesel.
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This data-file calculates the CO2 intensity of wood in the energy transition. Context matters, and can sway the net climate impacts from -2 tons of emissions reductions per ton of wood through to +2 tons of incremental emissions per ton of wood. Calculations can be stress-tested in the data-file.
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Methane leaks from 1M pneumatic devices across the US onshore oil and gas industry comprise 50% of all US upstream methane leaks and 20% of upstream CO2. This file aggregates the data. Rankings reveal operators with a pressing priority to replace >100,000 medium and high bleed devices, and other best-in-class companies.
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630 companies have now pledged to reach some variant of net zero by early-2022. The average year for this ambition is 2044. Although it varies by sector. 50% of companies are including some Scope 3 emissions in their definitions. This data-file presents our conclusions by sector.
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There are 1,500 industrial furnaces in the US manufacturing sector, with average capacity of 60MWth, c90% powered by natural gas, and thus explaining over 3.5 bcfd of US gas demand (4-5% of total). This is an unbelievably complex landscape, but we have captured as much facility-by-facility data as possible.
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This data-file summarizes the costs of capturing CO2. The lowest-cost options are to access pure CO2 streams that are simply being vented at present. Next are blue hydrogen, steel and cement, which could each have GTpa scale. Power stations place next, at $60-100/ton. DAC is carbon negative but expensive.
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The most important determinant of cooking's CO2 intensity is consumer behaviour. At today's energy costs and grid mix, gas-fired cooking yields the lowest costs. Sometimes electrification of cooking will decrease CO2 and sometimes not. Electric induction is most efficient, but 2-3x more expensive than gas and electric hobs.
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This data-file summarizes over a dozen industrial heating technologies, including their temperatures, efficiency, advantages and challenges. Generally 90% of incoming energy can be converted to industrial process heat and c40% achieves useful exergetic output. But ranges very broadly from 10-90%.
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This data-file calculates the costs, the embedded energy and the embedded CO2 of different construction materials, both during their production and for ongoing heating and cooling. Insulated wood and cross-laminated timber have the lowest CO2 intensities and can be extremely cost competitive.
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This data-file illustrates the outsized contribution of blue carbon ecosystems in the carbon cycle, looking across mangroves, tidal marshes, sea grasses and peat bogs. Degradation of blue carbon ecosystems continues with vast CO2 consequences, comparable to the entire global cement industry.
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The aim of this data-file is to compile CO2 concentrations in industrial exhaust streams, as a molar percentage of flue gas. This matters for the costs of CO2 separation. Most promising CCS candidates are bio-ethanol plants, industrial hydrogen production and some gas processing, followed by cement and steel plants.
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The average American consumes 36MWH of energy each year, emits 20 tons of CO2, spends $2,000 directly on energy (6% of income) and $4,500 including the energy embedded in goods and services (15% of income). A CO2 price of $75/ton may fully decarbonize the US but would absorb another 5% of average income.
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Manufacturing metal components can be extremely energy intensive, as 60-95% of original materials are often machined away. Additive manufacturing is thus able to deliver c65% CO2 savings per kg of materials in our base case. This data-file quantifies the CO2 savings based on input variables and technical papers.
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CO2-cured concrete has c60% lower emissions than traditional concrete, which is the most widely used construction material on the planet, comprising 4bn tons of annual CO2 emissions, or 8% of the global total. This data-file profiles the CO2 and economic costs of Solidia versus traditional cement, to size the opportunity.
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US bioethanol plants produce 1Mbpd of liquid fuels, with an average CO2 intensity of 85kg/boe. Overall, corn-based bioethanol has c40% lower CO2 than oil products. We screened the leaders and laggards by CO2-intensity, covering Poet, Valero, Great Plains, Koch, Marathon and White Energy.
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Producing a ton of coal typically emits 0.19T of CO2, equivalent to 50kg/boe. The numbers comprise mining, methane leaks and transportation. Hence domestic coal production will tend to emit 2x more CO2 than gas production, plus c2x more CO2 in combustion. However, numbers vary widely based on input assumptions, such as methane lakage rates, btu content and transportation distances, which can be flexed in the model.
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This data-file calculates the contribution of Platform Supply Vessels (PSVs) to an oil and gas asset's emissions. Our base case estimate is 0.1kg/boe for a productive asset in a well-developed basin. Numbers rise 4x in a remote basin, and by another c4x for smaller fields. 1kg/boe is possible. These emissions can be lowered by 10-20% through by LNG-fuelling or battery-hybridization.
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This data-file quantifies the CO2 intensity of oil sands mining and SAGD, line by line, based on real-world data. We also derive a CO2 curve ranking c2.5Mbpd of production across Alberta, to compare different operators. Steam-oil-ratios explain c60% of the variance in SAGD assets' emissions.
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Methane leakages average 0.2% when distributing natural gas to end-customers, across the US's 160 retail gas networks. Leakages are most correlated with the share of sales to smaller customers. 80 distinct gas companies are ranked in this data-file. State-owned utilities appear to have 2x higher leakage rates versus public companies.
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This model disaggregates the CO2 emissions of producing shale oil, across 14 different contributors: such as materials, drilling, fracturing, supply chain, lifting, processing, methane leaks and flaring. CO2 intensity can be flexed by changing the input assumptions. Our 'idealized shale' scenario follows in a separate tab, showing how Permian shale production could become 'carbon neutral'.
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With methane emissions fully controlled, burning gas is c60% lower-CO2 than burning coal. However, taking natural gas to cause 120x more warming than CO2 over a short timeframe, the crossover (where coal emissions and gas emissions are equivalent) is 4% methane intensity. The gas industry must work to mitigate methane.
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Gas gathering and gas processing are 50% less CO2 intensive than oil refining. Nevertheless, these processes emitted 18kg of CO2e per boe in 2018. Methane matters most, explaining 1-7kg/boe of gas industry CO2-equivalents. This data-file assesses 850 US gas gathering and processing facilities, to screen for leaders and laggards, by geography and by operator.
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What is more CO2-intensive: the c4,000 truck trips needed to complete a shale well, or giant offshore service vessels (OSVs), which each consume >100bpd of fuel? This data-file quantifies the CO2 intensity of supply-chains, for 10 different resource types, as a function of 30 input variables.
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This data-file tabulates Permian CO2 intensity, based on regulatory disclosures from 20 of the leading producers to the EPA. The data are disaggregated by company, across 18 different categories, such as combustion, flaring, venting, pneumatics, storage tanks and methane leaks. There are opportunities to lower emissions.
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This data-file estimates the CO2 intensity of drilling oil wells, based on the fuel consumption of different rig types. Drilling wells is not the largest portion of the oil industry's total CO2 intensity. Nevertheless there is a 50x spread between the best barrels at prolific onshore fields and the worst barrels at mature deepwater assets.
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CO2 intensity of oil refineries could rise by 20% due to IMO 2020 sulphur regulations, if all high-sulphur fuel oil is upgraded into low-sulphur diesel, we estimate. The drivers are an extra stage of cracking, plus higher-temperature hydrotreating, which will also increase hydrogen demands. This one change could undo 30-years of efficiency gains.
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Industry Data
An all-time record of 180GW of new power generation is currently under development in the US in 4Q24, enough to expand the US's 1.3TW power grid by almost 15%. This data-file tracks US power generation under development, as a leading indicator for gas turbine, wind, solar and battery demand. Gas turbines and battery co-deployments are accelerating in 2024, while wind and solar initiations are slowing on grid bottlenecks?
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Annual commodity prices are tabulated in this database for 70 materials commodities; covering steel prices, other metal prices, chemicals prices, polymer prices, all with data going back to 2012. 2022 was a record year for commodities. The average material commodity traded 25% above its 10-year average and 60% of all material commodities made ten-year highs.
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Vehicle taxes by country are tabulated in this data-file, based on vehicles' pre-tax prices, tailpipe emissions, weight, engine size and power. They range from sub-10% of the cost of the underlying vehicle in the US, through to 150% in Norway, and above 100% in Netherlands, Denmark and France. What implications for EV adoption?
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Solar+battery co-deployments allow a large and volatile solar asset to produce a moderate-sized and non-volatile power output, during 40-50% of all the hours throughout a calendar year. The smooth output is easier to integrate with power grids, including with a smaller grid connection. The battery will realistically cycle 100-300 times per year.
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1-4% of all the gas that flows into downstream gas distribution networks may fail to be metered and monetized. Stated leakage rates are usually around 0.5%, but could be higher. This data-file aggregates data from Eurostat and the UK's Joint Office of Gas Transporters.
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Power generation asset lives average c70-years for large hydro, 55-years for new nuclear, 45-years for coal, 33-years for gas, 20-25 years for wind/solar and 15-years for batteries. This flows through to LCOE models. However, each asset type follows a distribution of possible asset lives, as tabulated and contrasted in this data-file. Asset lives of power … Continue reading "Power generation: asset lives?"
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There has been a remarkable reduction in the negative air quality impacts of combustion vehicles since 1970, as quantified in this data-file and over time. Vehicle emissions of CO, NOx and HCs have all fallen by 20-60x over the past 50-years, to 5 grams/mile, 0.2 grams/mile and 0.3 grams per mile, respectively. This data-file quantifies … Continue reading "Vehicle emissions of CO, NOx and HCs?"
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Global heat pump sales by country are tabulated in this data-file, for 14 countries/regions. Developed world heat pump sales rose at an 11% CAGR over the decade since 2012, reaching 7M units sold in 2022, but then unexpectedly fell by -10% in 2023, including YoY declines in 7 out of the 14 countries we are tracking.
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This data-file quantifies the cost per mile of vehicle ownership across different categories by correlating second hand car prices with their accumulated mileage. Hybrids and regular passenger cars are most economical. SUVs and EVs are 2x more expensive. Hydrogen vehicles depreciate fastest and will have lost over 90% of their value after 100,000 miles.
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This data-file disaggregates the $30k total cost of a typical new ICE and the c$45k total cost of a typical new EV, as a sum-of-the-parts, across 25 cost lines. Drivetrain costs are similar at $8-9k each. The key challenge for the EV is the battery. The electric vehicle cost breakdown shows promise for improving power electronics and smaller batteries.
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Global electricity demand for electric vehicles will rise from 120TWH in 2024 to 500 TWH in 2030 and 3,300 TWH in 2050, ultimately adding 11% upside to today's global electricity demand, as part of our roadmap to net zero. This data-file quantifies electricity demand for EVs by region and over time, including data into the real-world fuel economy of EVs.
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Transaction prices for power generation assets are tabulated in this data-file, capturing 65 deals for gas plants, wind, solar, hydro and nuclear, globally and over time. Median prices are c$1,000/kW, but range from $2,500 in the upper decile.
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The volatility of power grids has trebled over the past decade from 2013-2023. This data-file tracks the percentile-by-percentile distributions of power prices, each year, in six major grid regions (Texas, California, US MidWest, Australia, the UK and Spain), as a way of tracking increases in global power price volatility. The growing volatility of power grids … Continue reading "Global power price volatility tracker?"
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US gas pipeline capex ran at $12bn pa in 2023, but likely needs to treble to reach net zero by 2050, mainly to support 1GTpa of CCS. Midstream capex for natural gas, CO2 transportation and hydrogen production are forecast out to 2050 in this data-file. Numbers can be stress-tested in the model.
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Japan’s oil demand peaked at 5.8Mbpd in 1996, and has since declined at -2.0% per year to 3.4Mbpd in 2023. To some, this trajectory may be a harbinger of events to come in broader global oil markets? While to others, Japan has unique features that do not generalize globally? Hence this report and data-file...
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Electric vehicles' total cost of ownership remains 40% higher than ICE vehicles, at $7,000 per year, versus $5,000 per year, all based on the latest 2024 data, for 50 vehicles. Electric vehicle up-front prices are 55% higher, insurance costs are 30% higher, while energy costs are 60% lower. 20 different pricing metrics are compared and contrasted in this data-file.
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Pumped hydro facilities can provide long-duration storage, but the utilization rate is low, and thus the costs are high, according to today's case study within the Snowy hydro complex in Australia. Tumut-3 can store energy for weeks-months, then generate 1.8 GW for 40+ hours, but it is only charging/dischaging at 12% of its nameplate capacity.
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Coal power generation is aggregated in this data-file, at the largest single-unit coal power plant in Australia, across five-minute intervals, for the whole of 2023. The Kogan Creek coal plant produces stable baseload power, with average utilization rate of 85%. But it exhibits lower flexibility to backstop renewables than gas-fired generation.
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Reserve margins across major ISOs in the US power grid average 29% in 2024, are seen declining to 21% in the next decade by NERC, but could decline further, and below their recommended floors of at least 15%. Reasons include higher demand and controversies over the capacity contributions of renewables. This data-file tabulates reserve margin forecasts, by ISO region, and over time.
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Grid-scale batteries are not simply operated to store up excess renewables and move them to non-windy and non-sunny moments, in order to increase reneawble penetration rates. Their key practical rationale is providing short-term grid stability to increasingly volatile grids that need 'synthetic inertia'. Their key economic rationale is arbitrage. Numbers are borne out by our case study into battery operations.
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The volatility of wind generation is illustrated in this data-file, by aggregating the data for a large wind project in Australia, every five minutes, across an entire calendar year. Intra-day and inter-day volatility is 30-60% higher than for solar. 2-6 day feasts and famines are hard to backstop with batteries. Solar also cannibalizes wind?
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The volatility of solar generation is evaluated in this case study, by tracking the output from a 275MW solar project, at 5-minute intervals, throughout an entire calendar year. Output is -65% lower in winter than summer, varies +/-10% each day, and +/- 5% every 5-minutes, including steep power drops that in turn require back-ups.
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Power generation data are aggregated for ten of the largest CCGTs and gas peaker plants in Australia, across five-minute intervals, May-2024 and May-2014. This makes for a fascinating case study into how gas turbines are used to stabilize power grids, backstop renewables, and how this has changed over time.
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Commodity price volatility tends to be lognormally distributed, based on the data from ten commodities, over the past 50-years. Means are 20% higher than medians. Skew factors average +1.5x. Standard errors average 50%, while more volatile prices have more upside skew.
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This data-file summarizes the levelized cost of electricity, across 35 different generation sources, covering 20 different data-fields for each source. Costs of generating electricity can vary from 2-200 c/kWh. The is more variability within categories than between them. Numbers can readily be stress-tested in the data-file.
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Solar insolation varies from 600-2,500 kWh/m2/year at different locations on Earth, depending on their latitude, altitude, cloudiness, panel tilt and panel azimuth. This means the economics of solar can also vary by a factor of 4x. Seasonality is a key challenge at higher latitudes. Active strategies are emerging for orienting solar modules.
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The US has >400GW of large gas-fired power plants running at 40% average annual utilization. Could they help power new loads, e.g., 60GW of AI data-centers by 2030? This 5-page note shows why low utilization does not entail spare capacity, and in turn, estimates the true spare capacity for loads such as data-centers.
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Electronic devices are changing the world, from portable electronics to AI data centers. Hence what materials are used in electronic devices, as percentage of mass, and in kg/kW terms? This data-file tabualates the bill of materials, for different devices, across different studies.
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Electromagentic radiation is a form of energy, exemplified by light, infrared, ultraviolet, microwaves and radiowaves. What is the energy content of light? How much of it can be captured in a solar module? And what implications? We answer these questions by explaining the Planck Equation and Shockley-Queisser limit from first principles.
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Generac is a US-specialist in residential- and commercial-scale power generation solutions, founded in 1959, headquartered in Wisconsin, with 8,800 employees and $7bn of market cap. What outlook amidst power grid bottlenecks? To answer this question, we have tabulated data on 250 Generac products.
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What are the typical sizes of grid connections at different residential, commercial and industrial facilities? This data-file derives aggregates estimates, from the 10kW grid connections of smaller homes to the GW-scale grid connections of large data-centers, proposed green hydrogen projects and aluminium plants.
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More and more renewables plus batteries projects are being developed as grids face bottlenecks? On average, projects in 2022-24 supplemented each MW of renewables capacity with 0.5MW of battery capacity, which in turn offered 3.5 hours of energy storage per MW of battery capacity, for 1.7 MWH of energy storage per MW of renewables.
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Across 130 offshore oil fields in Norway, going back ato 1975, real development capex per flowing barrel of production has averaged $33M/kboed. Average costs have been 2x higher when building during a boom, when one-third of projects blew out to around $100M/kboed or higher. The data support countercyclical investment strategies in energy.
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This data-file is a breakdown of global energy demand by end use, drawing across our entire research library, to disaggregate the global energy system across almost 50 applications, across transportation, heat, electricity, materials and manufacturing. Numbers, calculations, efficiencies and heating temperatures are in the data-file.
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The minimum CO2 purity for CCS starts at 90%, while a typical CO2 disposal site requires 95%, CO2-EOR requires 96%, CO2 pipelines require 97% and CO2 liquefaction or shipping requires >99%. This data-file aggregates numbers from technical papers and seeks to explain CO2 purity for transport and disposal.
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Perfluorinated sulfonate (PFSA) membranes, such as Nafion, are the crucial enabler for PEM electrolyzers, fuel cells and other industrial processes. The market is worth $750M pa. The key challenges are costs, longevity and hydrogen crossover, which are tabulated in this data-file.
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India's electricity demand is growing by 6-8% (+100-140 TWH) per year, but 75% of the total still comes from coal, which has itself grown at a 5% CAGR over the past half-decade. Wind and solar would need to grow 4x faster than 2023 levels for thermal generation just to flatline. What implications and opportunities for global energy markets?
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Electric vehicle battery life will realistically need to reach 1,500 cycles for the average passenger vehicle, 2,000-3,000 cycles after reflecting a margin of safety for real-world statistical distributions, and 3,000-6,000 cycles for higher-use commercial vehicles. This means lithium ion batteries may be harder to displace with novel chemistries?
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Hydro power generation by facility is tabulated in this data-file for the 20 largest hydro-electric plants in the US. The average facility achieves 43% availability, varying from 39% in hot-dry years to 51% in wet years; and from 33% at the seasonal trough in September-October to 53% at the seasonal peak in May-June. What implications for energy markets and renewables?
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Wind and solar curtailments average around 5% across different grids that we have evaluated in 2022, and have generally been rising over time, especially in the last half-decade. The key reason is grid bottlenecks. Grid expansions are crucial for wind and solar to continue expanding.
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Shorter Insights
The commodity intensity of global GDP has fallen at -1.2% over the past half-century, as incremental GDP is more services-oriented. So is this effect adequately reflected in our commodity outlooks? This 4-page report plots past, present and forecasted GDP intensity factors, for 30 commodities, from 1973->2050. Oil is anomalous. And several commodities show rising GDP intensity.
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This 9-page study finds unexpectedly strong support for co-deploying grid-scale batteries together with solar. The resultant output is stable, has synthetic inertia, is easier to interconnect in bottlenecked grids, and can be economically justified. What upside for grid-scale batteries?
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The CO2 credentials of long-duration batteries may be as bad as 0.35-2.0 kg/kWh, which is worse than gas peakers, or even than coal power. Grid-scale batteries are best deployed in high-frequency applications, to maximize power quality, downstream of renewables. But we were surprised to find that there is almost no net climate benefit from turning off gas peakers in favor of long-duration, low-utilization batteries.
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How will AI change the research and investment worlds? Our view is that large language models (LLMs) will soon surpass human analysts in assimilating and summarizing information. Hence this video explores three areas where human analysts can continue to earn their keep, and possibly even help decision-makers beat the 'consensus engines'.
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LNG trucking is more expensive than diesel trucking in the developed world. But Asian trucking markets are different, especially China, where exponentially accelerating LNG trucks will displace 150kbpd of oil demand in 2024. This 8-page note explores the costs of LNG trucking and sees 45MTpa of LNG displacing 1Mbpd of diesel?
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Can solar reach 45% of a power grid? This has been one of the biggest pushbacks we received on a recent research note, scoring solar potential by country, where we argued that the best regions - California, Australia - would reach 45% solar by 2050. Hence today's short article explores what a 45% solar grid might look like, using data from our solar insolation model.
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The number one topic in energy this year has been the rise of AI. Which might not seem like an energy topic. Yet it is inextricably linked with power grid bottlenecks, the single biggest issue for energy markets in the mid-late 2020s. The goal of today’s video is to recap our key conclusions. There is an accompanying presentation for TSE clients, plus links to our underlying work.
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Methane leakage rates in the gas industry vary by source and use. Across our build-ups, the best-placed value chains are using Marcellus gas in CCGTs (0.2% methane leakage, equivalent to 6kg/boe, 1kg/mcfe, or +2% on Scope 3 emissions) and/or Permian gas in LNG or blue hydrogen value chains (0.3%). Residential gas use is likely closer to 0.8-1.2%, which is 4-6kg/mcfe, or higher as this is where leaks are most likely under-reported.
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Computation, the internet and AI are inextricably linked to energy. Information processing literally is an energy flow. This note explains the physics, from Maxwell's demon, to the entropy of information, to the efficiency of computers.
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It is a rite of passage for every energy analyst to rent an electric vehicle for an EV road trip, then document their observations and experiences. Our conclusions are that range anxiety is real, chargers benefit retailers, economics are debatable, power grids will be the biggest bottleneck and our EV growth forecasts are not overly optimistic.
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Europe suffered a full-blown energy crisis in 2022, hence what happened to gas demand, as prices rose 5x from 2019 levels? European gas demand in 2022 fell -13% overall, including -13% for heating, -6% for electricity and -17% for industry. The data suggest upside to for European gas, global LNG and gas as the leading backup to renewables.
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What are the typical ramp-rates of LNG plants, and how volatile are these ramp-ups? We have monthly data on serveral facilities in our LNG models, implying 4-5MTpa LNG trains ramp at +0.7MTpa/month, with a +/- 35% monthly volatility around this trajectory. Thus do LNG ramps create upside for energy traders?
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This video explains email mailing lists, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, lessons learned over 15-years, and an unfortunate issue from December that prevented 4,000 subscribers from receiving our research. We're sorry. We've fixed it! And some comments follow below to make sure important research reaches you.
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Our top three questions in the energy transition are depicted above. Hence we have become somewhat obsessed with analyzing the energy transition from first principles, to help our clients understand the global energy system, understand new energy technologies and understand key industries.
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In October-2022, we wrote that high interest rates could create an 'unbridled disaster' for new energies in 2023. So where could we have done better in helping our clients to navigate this challenging year? Our new year's resolutions are clearer conclusions, predictions over moralizations, and looking through macro noise to keep long-term mega-trends in mind.
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A highlight of 2023 has been going back to first principles, to explain the underpinnings of prime movers in the global energy system. If you understand the thermodynamics of prime movers, you will inevitably conclude that the world is evolving towards solar, semi-conductors, electro-magnetic motors, lithium batteries and high-grade gas turbines.
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Grid-scale battery costs can be measured in $/kW or $/kWh terms. Thinking in kW terms is more helpful for modelling grid resiliency. A good rule of thumb is that grid-scale lithium ion batteries will have 4-hours of storage duration, as this minimizes per kW costs and maximizes the revenue potential from power price arbitrage.
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After five years researching the energy transition, we believe it favors active managers. Within the energy transition, active managers can add value by ranging across this vast mega-trend, balancing risk factors in a portfolio, timing volatility, understanding complexity, unearthing specific opportunities and benchmarking ESG leaders and laggards.
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Real levelized costs can be a misleading metric. The purpose of today's short note is simply to inform decision-makers who care about levelized costs. Our own modelling preference is to compare costs, on a flat pricing basis, using apples-to-apples assumptions across our economic models.
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Blue hydrogen value chains are starting to boom in the US, as they are technically ready, low cost, and are now receiving enormous economic support from the Inflation Reduction Act. But will this divert gas away from expanding US LNG, raise global LNG prices above $20/mcf and impact global energy markets more than expected?
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The thermodynamic efficiency of materials production averages 20%, within an interquartile range of 5% to 50%. There is most room for improvement in complex value chains. And very different energy costs for blue vs green H2.
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Many questions that matter in the energy transition are engineering questions, which flow through to energy economics: which technologies work, what do they cost, what energy penalties they have, and which materials do they use? We see an intersection for economics and engineering in our energy transition research.
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Investing involves being paid to take risk. And we think energy transition investing involves being paid to take ten distinct risks, which determine justified returns. This note argues that investors should consider these risk premia, which ones they will seek out, and which ones they will avoid.
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This note spells out the top ten differences between alkaline and PEM electrolysers. The lowest cost green hydrogen will likely come from alkaline electrolysers in nuclear/hydro-heavy grids. If hydrogen is to back up wind/solar, it would likely require PEMs.
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One of TSE's clients asked if Rob would present to their team on the topic of “what makes great research?”. We do not have any delusions of grandeur on this front. But this video nevertheless makes for a nice summary. (1) Ask simple questions, (2) Make complex issues simpler (3) Earn trust (aka be wrong for the right reasons).
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How does methane increase global temperature? This article outlines the theory. The formulae suggest 0.7 W/m2 of radiative forcing and 0.35ºC of warming has occurred due to methane leaks, which is 20-30% of the total. There are controversies and uncertainties. But ramping gas is still heavily justified in a practical roadmap to net zero.
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The purpose of this short article is to explain mathematical formulas linking global temperature to the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. In other words, our goal is to settle upon a simple equation, explaining how CO2 causes global warming. In turn, this is why our roadmap to net zero aims to reach 'net zero' by 2050, stabilize atmospheric CO2 below 450ppm, and we believe this scenario is compatible with 2ºC of warming.
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“It provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance.” That is the porter’s view of alcohol in Act II Scene III of Macbeth. It is also our view of 2022’s impact on the energy transition. Our resultant outlook is captured in six concise pages, published in the Walter Scott Journal in Summer-2022.
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This video covers our top five reflections after 3.5 years, running a research firm focused on energy transition. The greatest value is found in low-cost decarbonization technologies, resource bottlenecks and hidden nuances and bottom-up opportunities.
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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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Who will ‘win’ the intensifying competition for finite lithium ion batteries, in a world that is hindered by shortages of lithium, graphite, nickel and cobalt in 2022-25? Today’s note argues EVs should outcompete grid-scale storage by a factor of 2-4x.
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Energy shortages are gripping the world in 2022. The 1970s are one analogy. But the 14th century was truly medieval. Today’s note reviews its top ten features. This is not a romantic portrayal of pre-industrial civilization, some simpler time “before fossil fuels”. It is a horror show of deficiencies. Avoiding energy shortages should be a core ESG goal.
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Helion is developing a linear fusion reactor, which has entirely re-thought the technology (like the 'Tesla of nuclear fusion'). It could have costs of 1-6c/kWh, be deployed at 50-200MWe modular scale and overcome many challenges of tokamaks. Progress so far includes 100MºC and a $2.2bn fund-raise, the largest of any private fusion company to-date. This note sets out its 'top ten' features.
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The second world war was decided by oil. Each country's war-time strategy was dictated by its availability, quality and attempts to secure more of it, including by rationing non-critical uses of it. Ultimately, halting the oil meant halting the war. Today's short note outlines out top ten conclusions from reviewing the history.
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This 13-page note presents 10 hypotheses on Russia's horrific conflict. Energy supplies will very likely get disrupted, as Putin no longer needs to break the will of Ukraine, but also the West. Results include energy rationing and economic pain. Climate goals get shelved in this war-time scramble. Pragmatism, nuclear and LNG emerge from the ashes.
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This gloomy video explores growing fears that the energy transition could 'fall apart' in the mid-late 2020s, due to energy shortages and geopolitical discord. Constructive solutions will include debottlenecking resource-bottlenecks, efficiency technologies and natural gas pragmatism.
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Sitka spruce is a fast-growing conifer, which now dominates UK forestry, and sequesters net CO2 up to 2x faster than mixed broadleaves. It can absorb 6-10 tons of CO2 per acre per year, at Yield Classes 16-30+, on 40 year rotations. This short note lays out our top ten conclusions, including benefits, drawbacks and implications.
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Coal and gas both provide c25% of all primary global energy. But gas's CO2 intensity is 50% less than coal's. This short note explains the different carbon intensities from first principles, including bond enthalpies, production processes and efficiency factors.
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"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, first you must invent the universe". This captures the challenge of decarbonizing complex global supply chains. This note argues for each company in a supply chain to drive its own Scope 1&2 CO2 emissions towards zero on a net basis. Resulting products can be described as "clear", "transparent" or "translucent".
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Energy transition is like a game of chess: impossible to get right, unless you are looking at the entire board. Rigid coverage models do not work. This video explores the emergence of energy strategist roles at firms that care about energy transition, and how to become a 'grand master' in 2022.
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The Top Technologies in Energy
What are the top technologies to transform the global energy industry and the world? This data-file ties all our work together, summarising where we have a differentiated viewpoint, across all of our energy transition research to-date. For each technology, we summarise the opportunity, then we score its Economic Impact and Technology Readiness Level (TRL). The output is a “ranking” of the top technologies in energy, available here. All of the companies mentioned in our research are screened here.
Energy Transition Research — Notes and Background
Our energy transition research aims to help decision-makers find opportunities that can drive decarbonization of the world’s energy and industrial system. This page presents all of our recent research, in chronological order, in an array of different carousels. Our latest research is also sent out daily to subscribers on our distribution list.
Written Insights. Every Monday, we publish a 10-20 page, thematic research report. Each report tackles a specific technology or controversy, usually with the same concise structure: what is it? why does it matter? what does it cost? what are the technical challenges? which companies are leading in this theme, both public and private. We are not trying to write ‘war and peace’ in our research. Just to help decision-makers get to helpful, interesting answers, in a way that maximizes their ‘return on time’ spent reading.
Energy market models. All of our work links together into a mega-model for decarbonizing the world. In other words, we need to grasp how it will be possible to satisfy 100,000 TWH pa of human energy demand in 2050, while emitting no net CO2. Our different energy market models capture how much of each commodity and component we would need along the way, from wind/solar capacity installations, conventional energy sources such as oil and natural gas (combined with carbon capture and carbon removals), to long-distance power transmission, to all metals and materials. These are simple and useful models which can be flexed, in order to ballpark numbers and identify bottlenecks.
Economic models. What are the costs of different technologies in the energy transition? We construct economic models in order to capture costs, compare costs, and stress-test sensitivities. All of our models are in the same format. They calculate the marginal cost of product needed to achieve a 10% IRR, underlying capex, operating costs, energy costs (kWh/ton) and CO2 intensity (ton/ton).
Technology Screens and Company Screens. These screens aim to give a summary of the different companies in a particular supply chain, with useful data and summaries. This will either be based on breaking down the market by size, or by facility, or by screening patents.
Breakthrough Technologies. We have developed a five-point framework, for assessing the patents of different companies in the energy transition. The purpose of the framework is to assess which companies/technologies can more readily be de-risked in our roadmap to net zero, and which technologies may still have more risk attached to them (for more on the development of this framework, please see our video on evaluating risks in patents).
CO2 Intensity and Energy Intensity. Our carbon intensity research quantifies how much CO2e is released per unit of production, across materials, transportation, manufactured goods and energy itself. To do this, we aggregate data from technical papers, public data sources. In some cases, we have been able to build up industry “CO2 curves”, using publicly available data from sources such as EPA FLIGHT.
Industry Data. Some of our data-files simply contain useful industrial data, which we have spent time aggregating, cleaning and evaluating. We publish all the data behind our research, to help decision-makers save time, and to subtantiate our published conclusions. Every exhibit or chart in a Thunder Said Energy research report will contain a link to an underlying data-file, which is published somewhere on our website.
If we can help you, or answer any questions on any aspects of our research, or our research philosophy, then please do contact us any time.