Just quietly I’m pretty sure we had transmission lines before net zero

“Ethanol is just comically inefficient solar energy.” - Tom Philpott

Gas Boilers are the New Typewriter (says IEA data): >US: Heat pumps have now outsold gas boilers for 4 years straight >Germany: Despite a massive disinformation campaign, heat pump sales up 55% in 1st half of the year. And for 1st time ever, heat pumps outsold gas boilers > Japan: Heat pump water heaters now systematically taking market share away from gas water heaters > Norway: 97% of the space-heating market now electric/heat pump > Finland: 75% of all new single-family homes choose heat pumps Heat pumps, solar PV, wind, nuclear, and electric cars collectively avoided over 260 billion cubic metres of natural gas demand in 2025, equivalent to about half of the global liquefied natural gas market

Huge news from CATL, which has signed a 60 GWh sodium-ion battery deal with HyperStrong. This is the largest sodium-ion order ever placed and equal to half of all energy storage batteries CATL delivered in 2025. CATL claims sodium-ion mass production is solved. (More details electrek.co/catl-sodium-ion-…)

Clean power is enabling fossil-free growth beyond the power sector, as seen with transport. In 2025, EV sales surpassed A QUARTER of the global car market 🚗⚡ The global EV fleet is already displacing 1.8 million barrels of oil demand per day 🛢️ ember-energy.org/latest-insi…

Texas is forecasting up to 367 GW of demand by 2032. That’s 4.3× today’s ~85 GW peak. Pause on that for a second. We’re not talking about incremental growth here, this is a step-change in how the grid behaves. This isn’t population growth or gradual electrification. This is AI, data centres, and large industrial loads hitting the system all at once. 24/7 demand. No off switch. No “wait until peak pricing drops.” Just constant load. And that breaks the old playbook. You can’t meet that kind of vertical demand with coal. You’re not spinning up hundreds of coal plants in under a decade. Nuclear? Even slower. By the time a wave of reactors comes online, the demand has already moved. Gas will still play a role, sure. But it can’t lead this build. It’s too slow to scale at this speed, too dependent on fuel, and too exposed to volatility. So the question becomes simple: What can actually scale fast enough? Only one system fits the constraints. Solar can be deployed in months, not decades. Wind delivers bulk energy at scale. Batteries are now stitching it together into something that starts to look like 24/7 supply. Modular, distributed, and relentless. This is why Texas matters. It already leads the US in wind. It’s leading in solar growth. Battery deployments are accelerating fast. Not because of policy ideology, but because the system is being pulled in that direction by physics. When demand goes vertical, the energy system has to respond horizontally. Fast builds. Modular capacity. No fuel bottlenecks. That’s renewables plus storage. This isn’t about “going green.” It’s about what can actually be built in time. The fossil age doesn’t end when we run out of fuel. It ends when something else can scale faster than demand can rise. And right now, that something is electrons. ⚡ #Bettrification rtoinsider.com/130364-ercot-…

Spain is crushing it ⚡🇪🇸 Solar is delivering the equivalent of 27 nuclear plants during the day. Pumped hydro stores ~3 nuclear plants worth. Batteries already stepping in. This isn’t a generation problem anymore. It’s storage scale. Energy scarcity → energy timing. #BESS

They know they can put Solar panels on rooftops, motorways & roadsides but they choose to put them on farmland in order to stop farmers growing crops. This is a well organised scam. Stop the farming & starve the people 2030 Agenda in full swing

In Australia right now, a diesel prime mover sits at A$200k–$250k. The Windrose BEV E700 lands at A$450k–$500k. “Twice the price.” That’s the headline. That’s where most people stop. Layer in Tesla. The Semi is arriving at US$260k–$300k (~A$400k–$460k). And BYD? In a different league entirely—scaling heavy-duty electrics in China at aggressive prices through full vertical integration. Yes, electric still carries the upfront premium. But that’s the wrong comparison. You’re not choosing between A$250k and A$450k. You’re choosing between: • Diesel: A$250k ~A$2 million in volatile fuel over 10 years • Electric: higher capex, then structurally far cheaper to run The Windrose isn’t a compromise. ~700 km loaded range. ~700 kWh LFP pack. ~1,400 hp. ~870 kW charging. ~68-tonne capability. That’s diesel performance—without the fuel dependency. Tesla’s Semi is already proving materially lower real-world cost per kilometre in fleet deployments. BYD is industrialising faster, quieter, and cheaper. Here’s what actually matters. The visible gap (purchase price) is shrinking fast. The invisible gap (operating cost) is widening faster. Those two curves are converging hard. That’s the squeeze. Once they cross, adoption doesn’t crawl—it flips. Freight doesn’t care about narratives. It cares about cost per kilometre. And the loop is now running in electric’s favour. Oil shocks used to reinforce oil. Now they accelerate its replacement. Every diesel price spike forces fleets to run the numbers. Every electric truck on the road kills future diesel demand. That weakens supply investment. Which makes the next spike worse. We’re sitting in diesel’s last comfort zone on sticker price. The real shift isn’t happening on the invoice. It’s happening in the system underneath. And when that system flips? Diesel doesn’t compete. It gets exposed. ⚡🔋 #Bettrification

I have never seen a transition to BEV close to this fast. Indonesia is on an entirely different level. Every time I add more recent data I think to myself "this can't go on this month, can it?", but it does go on. Indonesia has ~600k registrations per year, so they are even a decent size.