Prof. Peter Strachan✓

@ProfStrachan

This is a personal account. Posts on energy, climate and policy. All opinions are my own.

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459 Seguiti24.2K Follower65.2K Post
  1. Prof. Peter Strachan✓@ProfStrachan
    Prof. Peter Strachan
    RT @mzjacobson: New 2026 world ranking of publication impact of the top 2% of ~11.5 million scientists publishing since 1788. Grateful to see my research is ranked #1,528 (top 0.013%) of 11.5 million scientists among all fields since 1788. In the field of Meteorology & Atmospheric Science, it is ranked #2 among scientists first publishing since 1985 and #10 among all scientists since 1788. In the field of Energy, it is ranked #9 among scientists first publishing since 1985 and #19 among all scientists since 1788. @cee_stanford @Stanford @StanfordWoods @StanfordEnergy @stanforddoerr @StanfordSTC
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  2. Prof. Peter Strachan✓@ProfStrachan
    Prof. Peter Strachan
    RT @mzjacobson: WindWaterSolar meets a peak of 161.5% of demand and solar alone meets 132.5% of demand on Sat 10/25/26 on the @California_ISO grid. WWS has met >100% of demand for 213 of 297 days (71.7%) now, or 17% of all hours in 2026. WWS has met 55% of all demand in '26 vs 46% in '23. Solar up 50% in '26 v '23 Wind up 24% Batteries up 297% Gas down 43.2%
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  3. Prof. Peter Strachan✓@ProfStrachan
    Prof. Peter Strachan
    RT @mzjacobson: The claim nuclear is more reliable than renewables is a myth. WindWaterSolar has not only met a higher percent (12.8%) of demand during its worst 5 minutes in all of 2026 than nuclear during its best 5 minutes (12.0%), but has also met seasonal & daily demand better than nuclear from 2023-26 on the @CaliforniaISO grid. WWS output (left) is predictably consistent all year, peaking in early summer close to demand (late summer) Nuclear output is flat most of the year (not following demand). The rest of the year (1-2 months), it decreases by 50%. P.S., WWS' peak 5-minute output in 2026 is 165% of demand, or 13.75 times that of nuclear's peak output vs demand (12.0%).
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  4. Prof. Peter Strachan✓@ProfStrachan
    Prof. Peter Strachan
    RT @dorfman_p: #Climate scientists and campaigners round on English Greens over #nuclear U-turn. Zac Polanski’s English and Welsh Greens have been sharply criticised by a raft of leading climate campaigners and scientists for ditching their blanket opposition to nuclear power. An open letter signed by 39 top activists and eminent environmental experts warned the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) that “nuclear reduces and delays climate action”. The party voted to ditch its default opposition to atomic energy at its recent conference in Brighton. Instead, the GPEW “accepts this power source is here to stay for now” and will examine any future proposals for new nuclear power plants on a case-by-case basis. The letter, signed by Mike Childs, head of science, policy and research at Friends of the Earth, Dr Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist and Jonathon Porritt, a former Green Party co-chair, said: “The very long nuclear development and build times means much longer fossil fuel burn. Nuclear is just too slow, too hazardous, and too costly for the climate and energy crises. The Green Party of England and Wales have taken a wrong turn on nuclear.” It also raised security concerns, with the signatories pointing to recent events in Ukraine and the Middle East which they said showed “civil nuclear infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable to military attack and AI cyber threat”. The letter, which was also signed by Prof Susan Roaf, Emeritus Professor of architectural engineering at Heriot-Watt University, Pete Roche of the Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace and Prof Peter Strachan of Robert Gordon University, said: “As we’ve seen in Ukraine and the Gulf, civil nuclear infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable to military attack and AI cyber threat. Crucially, both coastal and inland nuclear will be at significant risk from ramping climate impact.
    018041
  5. Prof. Peter Strachan✓@ProfStrachan
    Prof. Peter Strachan
    RT @dorfman_p: SNP demand #Scotland oil revenues don't fund English #nuclear power. The SNP have demanded the UK Labour Government rule out the use of revenue from Scotland’s oil and gas industry on English nuclear energy. The national party’s depute leader Keith Brown said that “every single penny” from the UK Government’s new energy wealth fund “should be spent on Scotland’s #renewables future”. The new fund was announced alongside the approval of the Jackdaw gas field near Aberdeen earlier this week.
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  6. Prof. Peter Strachan✓@ProfStrachan
    Prof. Peter Strachan
    RT @dorfman_p: Australia gas generation drops to lowest since 2000 as batteries boom
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  7. Prof. Peter Strachan✓@ProfStrachan
    Prof. Peter Strachan
    RT @mzjacobson: Pleased to be testifying as an expert witness on behalf of @youthvgov in a climate case against the government of Canada in La Rose v His Majesty the King, the first federal youth-led climate trial in Canada's history. The case is about Canada's emissions violating Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees every person in Canada the right to life, liberty, and security of the person. @cee_stanford @StanfordEnergy @StanfordEng @stanforddoerr
    022028
  8. Prof. Peter Strachan✓@ProfStrachan
    Prof. Peter Strachan
    RT @fionaharvey: Well put by @ProfBillMcGuire - exceeding 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is “going through a set of one-way doors to another world”
    Bill McGuire @ProfBillMcGuire
    #FOTW Daily Post 19 1.5C equates to key tipping points such as the loss of the Greenland Ice Sheet that, once crossed, won't reverse on any human timescale. 1.5C isn't a slogan. It's a set of one-way doors to another world Now shut behind us Pls share + tag 2 #FateOfTheWorld
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  9. Bill McGuire@ProfBillMcGuire
    #FOTW Daily Post 19 1.5C equates to key tipping points such as the loss of the Greenland Ice Sheet that, once crossed, won't reverse on any human timescale. 1.5C isn't a slogan. It's a set of one-way doors to another world Now shut behind us Pls share + tag 2 #FateOfTheWorld
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  10. Prof. Peter Strachan✓@ProfStrachan
    Prof. Peter Strachan
    RT @ProfStrachan: Nuclear power. The costs are staggering. Absolutely staggering. Read this and prepare to weep: 'From HS2 to Hinkley, Britain's most staggeringly expensive construction projects rated'. "Somerset’s Hinkley Point C...is overdue and over budget, but may come online by 2030 at a cost of £31–34bn." "Meanwhile, Suffolk’s Sizewell C is due to set the UK back at least £40bn." "Contracts entered into by previous governments mean the power stations will produce electricity that is much more expensive than from wind or solar." Too slow. Too costly. #EnergyTransition #Boondoggle #WhiteElephant @ScotNational
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  11. Prof. Peter Strachan✓@ProfStrachan
    Prof. Peter Strachan
    RT @mzjacobson: With 6 more straight days of 100% WindWaterSolar for part of the day, CAISO has now reached 100% WWS on 210 of 289 (72.7%) days in 2026, which compares with 51 days in 2023. WWS has met 55.2% of all demand in 2026, vs 46.6% in '23. 17.2% of all hours in 2026 have had >100% WWS, vs 3.1% in '23
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  12. Prof. Peter Strachan✓@ProfStrachan
    Prof. Peter Strachan
    RT @ProfStrachan: 'Scientists detect a sharp acceleration in global warming'. "How quickly the Earth continues to warm ultimately depends on how rapidly we reduce global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels to zero." Stefan Rahmstorf #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis
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  13. Prof. Peter Strachan✓@ProfStrachan
    Prof. Peter Strachan
    RT @fionaharvey: Scrapping UK green home regulations would mean higher bills for homeowners, but would be cheaper for developers (many of which historically donate to right-wing political parties)
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  14. Prof. Peter Strachan✓@ProfStrachan
    Prof. Peter Strachan
    RT @MichaelEMann: The opposite of anything Trump says is true
    Daniel Dale @ddale8
    Trump in his rally speech tonight: "China makes the windmills, but try finding a wind farm in China. There is no such." Here's a map of wind farms in China, which has by far the most wind capacity in the world and continues to install far more than any other country:
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  15. Daniel Dale✓@ddale8
    Trump in his rally speech tonight: "China makes the windmills, but try finding a wind farm in China. There is no such." Here's a map of wind farms in China, which has by far the most wind capacity in the world and continues to install far more than any other country:
    Scarica
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  16. Prof. Peter Strachan✓@ProfStrachan
    Prof. Peter Strachan
    RT @ProfBillMcGuire: As the glaciers continue to melt and meltwater lakes continue to breach, this will become an ever more common sight in the Himalayas and other high mountain regions
    Everest Today @EverestToday
    A debris-laden flood has surged through the Budhi Gandaki River at Salleri in Gorkha, carrying mud, sediment and rocks downstream. The sudden flood has affected parts of the Manaslu region, Nepal, while authorities continue assessing the situation and possible damage. Video Courtesy: Sovit Shrestha.
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  17. Everest Today✓@EverestToday
    A debris-laden flood has surged through the Budhi Gandaki River at Salleri in Gorkha, carrying mud, sediment and rocks downstream. The sudden flood has affected parts of the Manaslu region, Nepal, while authorities continue assessing the situation and possible damage. Video Courtesy: Sovit Shrestha.
    Scarica
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  18. Prof. Peter Strachan✓@ProfStrachan
    Prof. Peter Strachan
    RT @AoifeMFoley: Great article but Ireland’s energy transition: the wolf in sheep’s clothing 🧵 1/ Wind and solar are essential, but weather-dependent. Nuclear can provide firm, low-carbon power. A resilient grid needs a balanced mix of renewables, dependable generation, storage and interconnection—not just more installed capacity. 2/ Data centres need reliable 24/7 electricity. Like other large industrial users. Keeping them online requires firm energy, balancing, frequency control, inertia, voltage support and grid reinforcement. These are real costs, not accounting details. 3/ Enter the cap-and-floor model. Revenue floors can reduce interconnector investment risk; caps limit retained revenues under the scheme’s rules. But who ultimately bears the downside, and who benefits from the upside? And they like to whiff of renewables and it’s proved a good business model. 4/ Merchant development fragments the system into privately financed assets: interconnectors, batteries, LDES and grid services. Each pursues its own revenue streams, while the electricity system must coordinate the whole. Revenue stacking can be efficient—but overlapping subsidies and socialised costs need scrutiny. 5/ Here’s the danger: private investors secure regulatory support, data centres secure the power they need, and households and SMEs may absorb part of the wider network and system costs through electricity prices and regulated charges. The actual allocation must be demonstrated, not assumed. 6/ Nuclear, wind, solar, storage and interconnection should be planned as one integrated system. Firm low-carbon generation can complement renewables; storage shifts energy through time; interconnectors share resources across borders. None replaces the need for proper grid engineering. 7/ If large energy users drive new infrastructure demand, they should bear an appropriate share of the costs. If the public helps de-risk private investment, consumers should receive transparent, measurable benefits in return. The wolf in sheep’s clothing isn’t clean energy. It’s a fragmented development model that can privatise returns while spreading risks and costs across the public. Ireland needs a dependable, low-carbon electricity system—not a blank cheque for investors or an assumption that households will pick up the tab. 🧵👇🧐 Just a few thoughts and observations.
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