I'm not sure if their modelling informed the National Strategy, but the Strategy cites the study "Canada’s Energy Future 2026" by the Canada Energy Regulator: www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-anal... which models up to a doubling of electricity demand by 2050 with a separate model PyPSA-Can.

Wer tiefer einsteigen möchte: Lest dazu auch das Paper von Philipp Glaum, @fneum.bsky.social, @millinger.bsky.social und mir: doi.org/10.1016/j.jo... Interview mit pv magazine Deutschland: www.pv-magazine.de/2026/05/15/e... Frequently Asked Questions: nworbmot.org/blog/methano...

Here is Fritz Haber’s old institute and 60th birthday tree.

What a legend. And she worked right here in Berlin! Until the f**king Nazis forced her out.

📢 New pod alert! On: importance of hourly matching for corporates, genesis of open energy modelling tool @pypsa-org.bsky.social, how solar and batteries will eat global power generation...lots of fun with @mrchrisadams.net from the Green Web Foundation. Sound: shows.acast.com/environment-...

Proprietary capacity expansion model from 1957 Used for modelling the Finnish transmission grid and extensions to it until the late 1970s; from Helsinki Museum of Technology. #freethemodels

Finally, what might be the killer argument: resilience. Nothing is more resilient than a power generator next to a tank of liquid fuel. It can generate come rain or shine, it doesn’t depend on a pipeline network that might fail in a blackout, and it can run for weeks in the worst case.

iii) Methanol can also replace the final use of gas: backup power generation for days of low wind and solar. The extra cost of this simplifying step, switching from gases to liquids for backup, is just 2.4% of system costs with our default settings.

ii) All of the carbonaceous demand can be met by (e-)biomethanol, synthesised from biomass and green hydrogen. Methanol is an extremely versatile basic chemical; it can be used in ships, to make kerosene, and for plastics.

A world without gas infrastructure? If we aggressively electrify the economy, green methanol could cover most of the remaining non-electric demand - without needing large-scale hydrogen or methane networks. New paper in Joule: "A Minimal Methanol Backstop for High Electrification Scenarios"

The story of how I was written into Ian McEwan's 2010 novel Solar as an annoying know-it-all (perish the thought), only to be strangled a few pages later. Some light Sunday reading for anyone with time on their hands. nworbmot.org/blog/mcewan-...

Ich teile die Sorgen, aber lass uns quantitativ bleiben. Die Datenquellen berücksichtigen natürlich den Wettbewerb mit anderer Nutzung. Hier ein Ausschnitt: nworbmot.org/blog/biomass...

Open grid data - threat or opportunity? I lay out the case for why there is a huge public benefit, and why security concerns, at least about some types of data, are overblown. nworbmot.org/blog/open-gr...

More precisely: solar and batteries can supply 90% of electricity for 80% of the world's population at less than 80 €/MWh (including a fuel backup) with 2030 assumptions. Add some wind, existing hydro, or wait a few more years for costs to decline, and the equation just gets better.

In 1964 Stanislav Lem anticipated how machine intelligence would be evolved, rather than designed, and that it might be intensely alien to us. His "Summa Technologiae" deserves to be more widely read in the English-speaking world. Here are some highlights: nworbmot.org/blog/lem-mac...

Thanks Christoph! Yeah, that might work, but would be harder to read the costs then. @martavictoria.bsky.social had a version with the ratio of winter over summer versus population in her paper doi.org/10.1016/j.jo... which I show elsewhere in the post:

Der Weg ist klar: heimische erneuerbare Energien im europäischen Verbund, Elektrifizierung überall dort, wo sie möglich ist – und der gezielte Einsatz knapper grüner Moleküle (bzw. CDR) für die verbleibenden Anwendungen.

Nachhaltige Biomasse aus Abfällen und Reststoffen ist weltweit fundamental begrenzt. Statt ihre Nutzung im Gebäudesektor weiter anzureizen, sollte sie landen, wo kohlenstoffhaltige Moleküle unverzichtbar sind: in der Chemie sowie im Schiffs- und Flugverkehr. Mehr hier: nworbmot.org/blog/biomass...

I've added new results to this post on solar and batteries taking over the world, include system cost breakdowns in components (solar, battery, fuel), simulations with much lower battery costs in 2050 (e.g. 50 €/kWh, also 20 €/kWh), curtailment, etc., as well as making data files available. Enjoy!

Wind is also very helpful. The rest can be covered by existing hydro, longer duration storage or even e-biofuels (that we need for other sectors anyway). Here are the equivalent graphs with wind, which really helps in the North.

Full details on assumptions and more results can be found in the blog post: nworbmot.org/blog/solar-b... Please check it out first if you have questions. To get you started, here's a snapshot of the main assumptions.

If we add wind in the case of 2030, this helps reduce costs particularly in high northern latitudes, where the wind tends to blow more strongly in the winter.

With projected cost reductions for solar and batteries in 2050, 80% of the population are below 60 €/MWh for 90% solar-battery supply, and 93% are below 80 €/MWh for 95% solar-battery supply.

The graph shows the results for 90%, 95% and 99% solar-battery supply. The high-latitude regions in particular have difficulty with the last 1-5% because of low winter sunshine.

I want to make a few comments and highlight slide 6 in my deck. Sometimes in the discussion around open energy modelling it's suggested that if everyone just switched from PLEXOS to an open source framework, or put their model data online, then we're done. That's not how I see it.

PyPSA v1.0 is officially here - 10 years and 2 days since the first git commit. This milestone release brings major new features, completely new documentation, and a fresh landing page - congratulations to all the PyPSA team! 🎉 🔗 New Documentation: docs.pypsa.org 🔗 New Landing Page: pypsa.org

I would expect this to change as the long-term costs equalise: doi.org/10.1016/j.ap...

Thanks! I'm not an expert on those CDR options, but if the experts say they lead to permanent removals (500+ years) then I'm on board with whatever works. Yes, methanol is used for seasonal backup, like gas is today (although it's mostly stored underground as a gas, not LNG), see here:

A minimal methanol economy - I have so many questions! Then this Frequently Asked Questions post is for you. All your questions about using methanol for gaps in highly-electrified scenarios are answered here: nworbmot.org/blog/methano...

The strategy is 250 Mtpa storage, 450 Mtpa is total CC (CCU+ CCS) as I understand it. But yes, good to have the nuance on feasibility.