renewables

David MacKay's TEDxWarwick talk uses basic arithmetic to show how much land and energy renewables would need to power a country like the UK. It explains the limits of sustainable options and why they should still be pursued.

Michael Shellenberger argues in a TEDx talk that solar and wind need huge amounts of land and mining, and says nuclear power is a better path to protecting both the climate and nature.

Associate Professor Simon Michaux presents estimates of the metals needed to build one generation of renewable technology to replace fossil fuels. He argues current production and reserves fall far short, with copper a key shortfall.

Planet of the Humans, a full documentary by Jeff Gibbs presented by Michael Moore, arguing that the green movement has been co-opted by corporate and wealthy interests and that techno-fixes are not enough.

Practical Engineering explains why connecting solar and other inverter-based generation to the grid is hard. It covers grid stability, load balancing and the behind-the-scenes engineering challenges of renewables.

Bill Gates at Stanford's Global Energy Forum argues that cheaper solar, wind and storage are not nearly enough to stop climate change. He discusses natural gas, a carbon tax, nuclear, battery costs and the responsibilities of developing versus developed economies.

Real Engineering looks at the numbers for running California on renewables, focusing on the large energy storage needed. It argues about the cost of batteries and the role of other sources.

A short Vox explainer on the duck curve, the shape electricity demand takes in California as solar output grows. It explains why grid operators struggle to balance supply and demand with lots of solar.

Real Engineering looks at why Africa's abundant solar potential is hard to turn into usable power, especially for Europe. It covers the transmission, infrastructure and economic obstacles, and the pivot from concentrated solar to photovoltaics.

Energy scholar Vaclav Smil argues that global energy transitions are slow and that renewable targets should not rest on wishful thinking. He appraises how energy dependencies are likely to change and asks for using much less.

Fully Charged's first of three reports from the Orkney Islands, covering the Surf 'n' Turf project that uses surplus wind and tidal power for hydrogen and electric vehicles.

Fully Charged host Robert Llewellyn visits Orkney, where wind, tidal, wave and solar generation plus community energy schemes power the islands. It presents the archipelago as a model for future energy systems.

David MacKay, scientific advisor to the UK energy department, gives a Harvard talk on sustainable energy at macro and micro scale, drawn from his book Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air. It stresses the land area renewables require.

RethinkX summarizes its report arguing that mainstream LCOE estimates are inflating a bubble in coal, gas, nuclear and hydro assets. It claims solar, wind and batteries will strand conventional energy investments.

Tony Seba of RethinkX presents the case that solar, wind and batteries are on a cost-decline path that makes a fully renewable grid achievable. It was made for the Global 100% RE Strategy Group's joint declaration.

Andreas Antonopoulos answers a Bitcoin Q&A question about energy consumption in mining. He argues that mining is arbitrage for the cheapest electricity, drives investment in renewables, and that the traditional financial system has hidden externalities.

Vaclav Smil's talk on historic energy transitions and what they imply for climate investment. He argues that transitions are slow, technology improves gradually, and only absolute cuts in energy use would truly work.

Technology Connections explains why heat pumps matter right now, covering their efficiency, how they hold up in cold weather and the energy savings over burning fuel. It follows his earlier explainer on how they work.

A Technology Connections video on how ground-source (geothermal) heat pumps work and why they hold efficiency in winter. It also covers related heat pump information, and the description notes air-source heat pumps have since improved.

A long Technology Connections video arguing that public understanding of renewable energy is distorted. It covers solar economics, land use compared with ethanol corn, and battery myths such as cobalt.

A feature-length film by the Makani team chronicling their thirteen-year effort to build energy kites that harvest wind power, with footage from test sites in Hawaii, California and Norway. It shows the engineering, the team and the eventual shutdown.

Technology Connections' long closing video in his heat pump series, arguing that adopting heat pumps is well within reach. It explains how they work and what it takes to start using them.

Utah State plant scientist Bruce Bugbee presents his analysis of the energy and environmental costs of vertical and indoor farming. He argues artificial lighting cannot compete with sunlight in fields or greenhouses.

Engineering Explained works through whether electric cars are really worse for the environment than gasoline cars. It covers battery production emissions, the electricity mix used to charge, and how long an EV takes to break even on lifetime emissions.

Tech Ingredients shows how to make a homemade radiative cooling paint, with a custom liquid panel that cools below ambient temperature outdoors. The video covers the materials and how to apply the paint.

Real Engineering examines the efficiency of hydrogen as an energy carrier. It follows production, storage and fuel cell conversion losses and compares hydrogen cars with battery electric vehicles.

Practical Engineering explains pumped storage hydropower, which makes up most grid-scale electricity storage. It covers how it works and why it fits only certain geographies.

Aging Wheels compares a road trip in a Polestar 2 with an identical drive in a Tesla, showing the charging problems of non-Tesla EVs. It argues that outside Tesla's network, EV road trips have become frustrating.

Engineering Explained examines Toyota's hydrogen-burning V8 engine built with Yamaha and explains the practical problems of hydrogen combustion vehicles. It covers efficiency, storage and distribution issues.

Dr. Bruce Bugbee walks through the calculations for crop yield potential when light is the limiting factor, from photosynthetic quantum yield through respiration efficiency and harvest index, using the Energy Cascade Model.

Kirk Sorensen's Google Tech Talk on liquid-fluoride thorium reactors, a design that could burn nuclear waste and use thorium as fuel. It draws on Oak Ridge National Laboratory work from the 1950s and 60s.

Real Engineering analyzes whether electric planes are feasible, focusing on battery energy density limits compared with jet fuel. It concludes electric flight works mainly for short ranges.

Tesla's 2020 Battery Day event, with a company update and a keynote on new cell design, manufacturing, vertical integration and cheaper lithium and materials. It ends with the Plaid Model S and a Q&A.

Afrotechmods plays with 2600F ultracapacitors that can dump hundreds of amps, shorting them to vaporize bits of metal. Along the way he explains the three most important capacitor equations. The uploader warns that the capacitors are not designed to be shorted.

Technology Connections' hour-long guide to electric vehicles, covering costs, trade-offs and especially how little home charging power most drivers need.

Tony Seba's 2016 keynote argues that batteries, electric vehicles, self-driving cars and solar will converge to disrupt energy and transportation. He predicts by 2030 all new vehicles will be electric and autonomous and that oil and other fossil fuels will be obsolete.

MIT's Donald Sadoway presents the liquid metal battery as a design for grid-scale stationary electricity storage, at an Imperial College London event in 2018. He covers the grid benefits of massive-scale storage.

A 20-minute S3 episode touring Terraform Industries, a startup making synthetic natural gas from air and solar power. It walks through the reactor, injection system, direct air capture and electrolyzer, plus the company's cost goals and next milestone.

A documentary from Swan Bitcoin exploring Bitcoin's relationship with energy, featuring Lyn Alden and others, and arguing that mining is a net positive for the environment and not wasteful.

Kirsten Dirksen tours new Earthships, homes built from tires, bottles and cans that generate their own energy, collect water and grow food. The video covers the newer, cheaper Encounter model and its passive systems.