Is Engineering the Easy Part of the Energy Transition?

What do you think is harder: achieving a breakthrough discovery for a new energy technology or the engineering that comes after that, to make it affordable and scalable?

I think most people think engineering is the easy part of clean energy – if they even think about engineering at all - but what if I told you that it’s actually the hardest part to get right?

We’re flooded with headlines about scientific breakthroughs—solar panels that generate electricity at night, nuclear fusion around the corner, and even radioactive diamond batteries that never need to be recharged. You’ve probably seen YouTube videos on all of these, and perhaps wondered if all these amazing energy technologies exist, why aren’t we using them?

In this video we’re going to find out how knowing a couple of basic engineering principles can help you discern which innovations have a chance at real-world impact, and which don’t. We will learn about thermodynamics, Wright’s law and how technologies scale, and why understanding these engineering concepts is vital for policy makers and financiers to make smarter investments and strategic decisions in the energy sector.

If you would like to help develop the Engineering with Rosie channel, you could consider joining the Patreon community, where there is a chat community (and Patreon-only Discord server) about topics covered in the videos and suggestions for future videos and production quality improvements.   / engineeringwithrosie  

Or for a one-off contribution you can support by buying a coffee ☕️ here —
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/engwithr...
The Engineering with Rosie team is:
Rosemary Barnes: presenter, producer, writer
Javi Diez: editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/javierdie...

Bookmarks:
00:00 Intro
01:03 Science vs. Engineering in the Energy Transition
01:56 It's not hard to pick technology losers
03:00 The laws of thermodynamics
04:52 Wright's Law
07:18 Scaling up: Bigger Isn’t Always Better
10:49 Supporting the Right Technologies to Accelerate the Transition
13:16 Outro

Sources:
https://ourworldindata.org/images/pub...
https://ourworldindata.org/learning-c...
https://ourworldindata.org/battery-pr...
https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-rene...