CCF Special Mini-post: Response to Twitter, Article by David MacKay

If you’re not following me already on social media, I hope that changes now (Facebook, twitter). I tweet about my new posts, and share some great articles that I come across. I also pay attention to messages from my followers. I recently got a tweet directed my way from Dadiva Netter – @sidnets, asking me to comment on a paper by David MacKay (Former Chief Scientific Advisor, DECC, and Regius Professor of Engineering at Cambridge, who is also on twitter) that was submitted to the Royal Society.

Since I’m still not completely used to condensing complex thoughts into 140 characters, I’m including my full response here, and linking to it through twitter:

Thank you Dadiva for directing my attention to this important article. It is a significant quantitative contribution to the requirements necessary for a global energy transition to decarbonized energy sources based on solar energy conversion in all its forms. It makes the key point that although globally there is plenty of energy coming in, locally there are imbalances that require separating energy production from consumption. The emphasis in the paper is on sovereign states (with Britain as a focal point), but in-state disparities – especially between dense populations of urban consumers and equally dense rural production areas – require extensive investments in storage and smart grids capable of covering a large area. In my downloaded copy, I started highlighting important paragraphs for later reference, and ended up yellowing the entire article. I will also use the article in my class on climate change.

I’d be delighted to address the article in more detail – either on my own or in response to you joining me as a guest blogger (how about it?).

I’d also love to invite David MacKay on to Climate Change Fork to talk about his article. Please let me know what you think at michatom (at) brooklyn (dot) cuny (dot) edu.

Thanks everyone, and have a great weekend!

About climatechangefork

Micha Tomkiewicz, Ph.D., is a professor of physics in the Department of Physics, Brooklyn College, the City University of New York. He is also a professor of physics and chemistry in the School for Graduate Studies of the City University of New York. In addition, he is the founding-director of the Environmental Studies Program at Brooklyn College as well as director of the Electrochemistry Institute at that same institution.
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