Who is this for anyways?

Maybe you, but the odds aren't great!

I was reviewing last year's Lazard LCOE report (as one does), when I was surprised to find a pretty obvious arithmetic error (rows 2 and 3 of slide 17 in the 2023 LCOE+, for what it’s worth).

A quick check finds that the backup math in the appendix is right, likely just some slip in the creation of this specific table. I know the folks at Lazard work hard though so it's a surprise that an obvious error hung out for more than a year, implying that no one else flagged it either.

To my knowledge, people are reading these reports. The conclusion is that either 1) of those that read it, no one noticed; or 2) people noticed but didn't find it worth flagging, because anyone relying on the data would be running their own calculations anyway.

To my mind, this illustrates one of the big challenges in public-facing writing on climate and clean energy: there is a huge possible range of expertise and intent in a potential audience. Between something like a 1,000 page IPCC report and popular explainers from even climate-focused outlets like Canary Media or the BEV-support Cipher, there is an equally gaping range in detail on offer.

In the past, this has paralyzed my own efforts to write on the topic. What do I have to add to the cacophany? Shouting and flailing, that's what!

In that spirit, I'm going to be using this space as an forum to air out / arrange my own thinking on primarily energy-related topics.

In particular, rather than 'innovate' on topic I hope to focus on a few key questions that I see as less covered by otheres:

• Under what conditions is [assertion] true? What do you need to believe for this to be true?

• How often do those conditions occur? To what extent does this matter?

• How might this change in the future (e.g., through new technology, changing regulations)?

To my mind, this grounding often underpins the best reporting and thinking on energy (or any other) topics, but is not often surfaced as plainly as one might like.

I aim to focus on making this explicit, if only as a way to clarify my own thinking on these areas.