logoalt Hacker News

perennialreport • today at 1:40 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

Worth reading even with the dated numbers. MacKay's lasting contribution isn't any specific forecast - it's the discipline of expressing everything in the same units (kWh per day per person), which makes energy arguments commensurable instead of vibes-based. Once you've internalized that, most energy coverage in the media starts reading like category errors. The specific figures have moved - solar costs, EV adoption, heat pump uptake - but the arithmetic habit hasn't aged at all.


Replies

bryanlarsen • today at 2:25 PM

kWh of work and kWh of primary energy are two different measurements with the same unit. Mixing the two is invalid.

➕ show 1 reply