Eric Walters
@ericwalters
Democracy. Climate. Food. Wine. Art. 🇫🇷 No DMs please unless we know each other IRL
That’s true, but the trends that have made EV Semis competitive were already well documented by then (example below from 2021) But the « clean energy world » has a hard time fully appreciating the double whammy of rapidly falling prices at the same time batteries become lighter + longer lasting
Maybe most striking: 80% of the most highly educated Republicans lack even a basic understanding of climate change science Versus only 10% of Democrats with similar education level It’s a cult
Half of Americans — and ~80% of Republicans — are so brainwashed by fossil fuel propaganda and an extreme right cult they lack the most basic knowledge of climate change
Meh At the end of the day WSJ continues to enthusiastically support the party of dictatorship over democrats They’re just upset he’s so bad at his job he’s weakening his party and, god forbid, more Democrats — large and small D — might be in power and the oligarchs won’t get everything they want
This 👆is an excellent example of what the paper called a “nuclear imaginary” — a vision of future nuclear abundance that never seems to be realized While renewable growth has repeatedly proven wrong mainstream analysts (not to mention skeptics) and far exceeded expectations👇
In 2025 solar+wind generation worldwide increased by 841 TWh, 24X higher than nuclear’s 35 TWh per Ember Even if China continues to expand its nuclear production (+27 TWh in 2025) it will likely continue to barely make a dent compared to solar, wind and batteries, which are growing much faster
Unpopular take— Nuclear advocates get away with playing “the adult in the room” (not like those wild-eyed renewable energy people) while in fact living in an imaginary world divorced from reality
Or as Steve Jobs said when he decided to crush Apple’s breadwinner (the iPod) by introducing the iPhone — « if you don’t cannibalize yourself someone else will. »
I love Ember but their chart understates the potential Lumping stagnant nuc, hydro and “other” for an average 7.6% rate dilutes the growth potential for the coming years which will be driven primarily by solar’s impressive growth — 30% YoY and 75% of 2025 demand growth Nuc+hydro are ~irrelevant
Underappreciated point from @ember-energy.org’s annual electricity review — New solar generation in 2025 was, by itself, sufficient to displace 100% of the electricity that could have been generated by 100% of the LNG exports through the Strait of Hormuz last year
It’s been clear from the get go that Elon Musk structured X as a vehicle to amplify the views of Elon Musk That core purpose has never changed and is borne out by the data now more than ever
Thank you!! AP didn’t just bury the lede — that Trump threatened genocide — they completely ignored it. Le Monde — in contrast — had it front and center
Hit the nail on the head with this headline The Monkey Wrench Gang could have never dreamed of wreaking the havoc on fossil fuel infrastructure the Trump gang has unleashed
One unfortunate dynamic is that people have short memories and tend to lose their sense of urgency as soon as the crisis dies down (for example, slowing European solar growth by 2024 👇) We still see progress, but nowhere near as fast as it could and should be for climate and energy independence
There is something fundamentally broken in the US when the majority of Americans not only don’t consider this level of insanity completely disqualifying from office but trust Trump’s Republicans more than Dems on foreign policy and national security🙃
Gallup says the >20 point gap between younger women and men is the largest it has recorded in any country
40% of women aged 15-44 say they would like to leave the US permanently It’s not great when almost half of young women want to flee the country By contrast: 8% of men 45+ 14% of women 45+ 19% of men 15-44 and 20% adults overall Have the same desire
The IEA is doing that thing again where they predict growth in renewable energy additions will quickly grind to a halt The fact that anyone pays attention to these clowns after such a long and illustrious reign of error is remarkable
Another example of rooftop solar and batteries accelerating adoption of renewables — 100K Australians install a massive 2GWh of 🔋 in only 7 weeks, with a large backlog ☀️+🔋 system sizes are growing rapidly as prices fall
And here’s a screenshot for posterity — in case they delete the post
Trump is working hard to try to kill some of the largest and fastest growing jobs in the US e360.yale.edu/digest/us-cl...
The economics, along with political support in some states will help renewables continue to grow but there is little doubt that growth will be slowed by Trump’s policies (especially offshore wind)
Explosive growth in the battery storage market in China In the last 12 months China more than doubled its TOTAL installed base of « new energy storage » — primarily lithium ion batteries — reaching 101 GW as of June 2025 (110% increase YoY)
Consistent with my experience (and one of the reasons I deleted my X account long ago)