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⏳ 10-Second Climate
The world is full of dark corners, but also stars / Woolf
Max Aitken
December 07, 2025
Climate & energy are changing everything.
A new age of cheap, abundant energy beckons. Yet we’re not cutting emissions fast enough to avoid serious consequences.
A new world is coming - one way or another.
This is the fastest way to keep up.
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What mattered this week
Batteries: Again, staggering. Up 38% this year and accelerating 🥳
Massive? Massive - 38% year-on-year. For solar to work round the clock, you need batteries. With drops in prices - it’s on.
How big? 156GWh of installations so far.
Read more: RhoMotion
UK’s largest battery installation in Thurrock. Expect a lot more. (Statera)
Saudi: Again, staggering. Single solar deal signed on one day: equal to 75% of UK solar 🤯
Saudi again? One deal: $8.2B, 15GWe, 25m solar panels, 21 banks. 😱😱😱
Why does it matter? This train ain’t stopping.
Read more: Renewables Now
Western Governments vs EVs: Again, pointless. And means the Chinese will win
What happened? Germany wrote to Brussels complaining about the combustion engine ban in 2035. Trump has gone further and is overturning Biden-era fuel efficiency legislation.
Why does it matter? Clears the way for China to conquer all the western manufacturers. Volvo and Polestar pleaded “The Chinese will not pause“.
Read more: CarNewsChina: ‘Exports to hit 6.8m cars this year’.
One thing to worry about
Plastic production (and thus, waste) will soon hit one dumper truck every second (Pew Foundation ‘Breaking the Plastic Wave’).
Production to hit 280m tonnes by 2040. Despite evidence that microplastics are polluting everything (WEF). Recycling? About 9%.
One thing to be optimistic about
Shredded batteries ready for recycling
New battery recycling recovers 99% of nickel and cobalt, without needing strong acids (Interesting Engineering).
If you’ve got more time…
Fancy 5-Hour Climate?
Professor Dieter Helm has you covered, with a lecture series on Climate Realism.
He covers the flip side of the progress noted above. There’s also an interview with UnHerd, at a sprightly 45 minutes.
Helm is a clear speaker, opinionated and not always wrong (though others might disagree).
Climate realism starts with the facts. Fossil fuels are still over 80% global energy supply and the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere keeps going up. 30 COPs and all the policies and costs have not made a dent. There is no “transition”. Renewables and nuclear aren’t keeping up with economic growth and energy demand. There is no such thing as “clean” energy and “zero emissions” – at best, renewables and nuclear are cleaner. There are no quick fixes, and the system costs of renewables are not cheap.
Climate realism tells us that if we carry on along the current path it is going to end badly.
Climate realism explains why we are not making progress and what we have to do if we really want to tackle climate change. What is needed is something altogether more radical and demanding polluters (ultimately us) have to pay.
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