Juggling Dynamite

Another worthwhile discussion.

Robert talks with Mark Z. Jacobson all about the impact a 100% renewable world would bring. Is this really viable, if so, how will we adjust to it?  Here is a direct video link.

The mainstream financial analysis ignores the last decade of average capacity data trends and has helped to drive over-valuation and malinvestment in traditional energy sources and infrastructure worldwide.  The 18-minute clip below explains the ramifications.

A large and rapidly-expanding global financial bubble now exists around conventional coal, gas, nuclear, and hydropower energy assets. This bubble has in part been created by mainstream energy analyses that have, for the last decade, significantly underestimated the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) from conventional power plants because they assume these plants will be able to successfully sell the same quantity of electricity each year from now through 2040 and beyond. This assumption has been false for at least ten years. The rates at which conventional power plants are utilized will continue to decrease as competitive pressure from near-zero marginal cost solar photovoltaic and onshore wind power, and battery energy storage continues to grow exponentially worldwide. Since 2010, the LCOE figures published in mainstream analyses and used by policymakers, regulators, civic leaders, utilities, asset owners, and investors have significantly underestimated the actual cost of electricity generated by prospective coal, gas, nuclear, and hydro power plants. This in turn means that conventional energy asset valuations are heavily overstated…

This video is a synopsis of our new research report “The Great Stranding: How Inaccurate Mainstream LCOE Estimates are Creating a Trillion-Dollar Bubble in Conventional Energy Assets” that was published on March 11th, 2021 and is available for download free of charge from our RethinkX website (https://www.rethinkx.com​).  Here is a direct video link.

Twenty-one years ago this month…March 2000, what a time to be in stocks, I remember like it was yesterday.  The world had gotten through Y2K without any issues, technology was changing everything (again), the much-loved NASDAQ had doubled in just the prior 12 months, Greenspan’s Fed was deemed all-powerful, and market optimism felt boundless.  There was nowhere to go but down.  Tech stocks peaked that month.

The CRB commodity index also doubled in less than a year but did not peak until 8 months later in November.  Commodities, banks and Nortel (before it collapsed in fraud) held Canada’s TSX up until July, then gravity overcame it too.

Commodities surging then too: CRB doubled from Jan 1999 to Nov 2000, TSX peaked in July 2000, 4 months after NASDAQ. We’d made it through the dreaded Y2K, optimism was boundless and then… https://t.co/2hcB4dMtb2

— Danielle Park (@kdaniellepark) March 10, 2021

There are many parallels between 2000 and our present cycle.  One big added negative this time:  home prices then were not caught up in the market exuberance in 2000.  Property prices had been pretty flat for a decade after their ’88-’90 decline and homeowners were nowhere near as indebted.  No such luck today.

At this point, the next few months will be breathtaking no matter what happens next.