alt Hacker NewsWhen looking at hat kind of graphs, it's good to keep in mind that burning hydrocarbons is relatively inefficient: only ~20-30% of the energy in the fuel turns into useful work, while electricity is much, much more efficient. So, we need much less of it.
Still a long ways to go regardless, but much less bleak. And also, exponentially growing deployments of wind and solar are harder to spot on this 2-year old graph which goes only up to 2024.
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Indeed. That exponential has renewables being ~100% of electricity in the early to mid 2030s, and approximately ~100% of all power in the late 2030s to early 2040s even without the efficiency improvement from direct electricity use.
> only ~20-30% of the energy in the fuel turns into useful work, while electricity is much, much more efficient. So, we need much less of it.
Isn't a lot of energy used for heating, not work?
They account for this.
> Primary energy is based on the substitution method and measured in terawatt-hours.
That is very much a it depends. The best combined cycle power plants get around 60% efficient. The gas engine in your car is in the ideal case around 45% efficient - but the way you drive in the real world is only about 20-30% efficient.