buying hydro at 2% because it's currently 2.3% and the supply can only go up while total energy use probably goes down with efficiency improvements

@JonathanRay You expect US power consumption to go down by 2050?

What odds? I'd love to make a big bet (maybe roughly specified as "Will more electricity be utilized by intelligent agents in the current boundaries of the United States by 2050?").

post-singularity there would be a lot more fission or fusion so that's priced in here

@JonathanRay absent a singularity though, US energy consumption has been flat since 2003 and will probably remain flat or slightly decline due to efficiency improvements / population decline.

@JonathanRay https://www.e-education.psu.edu/ebf301/node/457

@RobertCousineau https://manifold.markets/JonathanRay/will-primary-energy-consumption-in

Coal is used not just for the electric grid, but also for industrial process heat and as a reducing agent in metal refining. There isn't any good alternative to metallurgical coal, but that's only 3% of US coal consumption https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/coal/use-of-coal.php

@JonathanRay in some cases, an electric arc furnace can substitute for coke

@JonathanRay electric arc furnaces are substantially (roughly ~10x) more efficient than blast furnaces on an energy-per-carbon atom basis (scope 1 emissions only, i.e. not accounting for grid mix emissions) but they actually still use sacrificial carbon electrodes (graphite or coal tar) that are consumed by the electric arc and produce CO2. Coal tar ultimately comes from coal and about ~50% of graphite is produced by graphitization (also from coal) -- the other ~50% of graphite is mined directly

@JonathanRay The title specifies "energy production" -- can you clarify if you're referring to primary energy production, US electric grid mix, or something else? Specifically, I'm curious how you intend to account for the ~60% of non-electric energy consumption from direct use of fuels -- e.g., would gas-powered internal combustion engine cars on the road count as "petroleum"? Would biomass-derived sustainable aviation fuel count as "biomass"?

I'm asking because, based on the preliminary investments, it seems very much to me like people are buying shares based on their understanding of the electric grid mix, which is only about a third of overall energy production.

@pyrylium Primary energy production. Yes. Yes.

folks really sleeping on how much of our renewable mix is hydropower

fun fact: for the last century+, the single largest power plant in the world (by nameplate capacity) has ALWAYS been a hydroelectric dam

(are we gonna build more dams in the US? unclear. but pumped hydro energy storage is pretty great... and 98% of US dams aren't electrified, according to the Water Power Technologies Office)

@RutgerDeMaeyer

LOL

@Joshua I moved the market a bit it seems.