Toni Seba's "S Curves", solar and wind growth, and phasing out fossil fuels

[br...@chesdata.com]

The graph below shows the growth in solar and wind electricity production for various compound annual growth rates (CAGR). (The current CAGR for solar and wind idn 12%.) The various “curves” are not actual “S curves”, but they are reasonably close (note that the growth slows suddenly when the fossil fuel use is almost completely replaced by solar and wind.   Solar and wind have the potential to replace fossil fuels in the next 10-20 years as meeting the needed solar and wind capacity increases is not likely going to be a problem.  The main issues will likely be how fast “utility commissions” will be willing to implement solar and wind, how quickly they can be sited and added to the grid, how quickly the “intermittency/baseload” problem can be solved, etc.

 

 

[Benoit Lambert]

> Le 18 nov. 2025 à 19:43, br...@chesdata.com a écrit :
>
> The graph below shows the growth in solar and wind electricity production for various compound annual growth rates (CAGR). (The current CAGR for solar and wind idn 12%.) The various “curves” are not actual “S curves”, but they are reasonably close (note that the growth slows suddenly when the fossil fuel use is almost completely replaced by solar and wind. Solar and wind have the potential to replace fossil fuels in the next 10-20 years as meeting the needed solar and wind capacity increases is not likely going to be a problem. The main issues will likely be how fast “utility commissions” will be willing to implement solar and wind, how quickly they can be sited and added to the grid, how quickly the “intermittency/baseload” problem can be solved, etc.

> <image001.png>
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[Michael MacCracken]

A real key to the expansion will be upgrades of transmission grids around the world. This was just recognized as a key need in a COP-30 release today. See https://globalrenewablesalliance.org/news/cop30-grids-storage-package-major-global-funding-boost/

Best, mike

On 11/18/25 7:43 PM, br...@chesdata.com wrote:

The graph below shows the growth in solar and wind electricity production for various compound annual growth rates (CAGR). (The current CAGR for solar and wind idn 12%.) The various “curves” are not actual “S curves”, but they are reasonably close (note that the growth slows suddenly when the fossil fuel use is almost completely replaced by solar and wind.   Solar and wind have the potential to replace fossil fuels in the next 10-20 years as meeting the needed solar and wind capacity increases is not likely going to be a problem.  The main issues will likely be how fast “utility commissions” will be willing to implement solar and wind, how quickly they can be sited and added to the grid, how quickly the “intermittency/baseload” problem can be solved, etc.

 

 

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[Benoit Lambert]

Thank you Robert for the comment, Dear all,

I have been an activist all my life: in Geneva with Greenpeace 5 years, from 2000 to 2010 with the (rather optimistic) US Worldwatch Institute—I was their editor in French. I do not deny the grave consequences of human actions. But when you realize many commentators do not even know what a trophic chain is, you become more perplex about their views—the green movement is full of them.  

I have heard so many crazy things about the future… In one banks/investors meeting in Geneva, an EPFL teacher told us, « tout de go » (with no nuances), in 2008: « If we go all solar, silicon prices will explose ». Since the price has gone down 95% and solar has been multiplied hundreds of times… The teachers I worked for, Jacques Grinevald and Ivo Rens, invented "de-growth", based on Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen books and articles associating the economy with entropy. « La décroissance » (1979) translated by de-growth became a movement, a magazine (35 000 copies a month in France), and, even, a political party. The entropy law is certainly true for fossil fuels (the energy is lost for good), but, how does it apply to SWB… ?? It is much less obvious. Seba’s predictions are, for most of them, confirmed by Ember. I am sure you can find errors at the margin, but, broadly speaking, he seems to be right. We are going to witness SWB energy take the IT road. Solar-wind-batteries will replace current energies—including hydro we are so proud of in Québec…

[Greg Rau]

Guys, as important as RE is to the climate problem, this Google group is about CDR. So unless there’s a tie-in to CDR, please post elsewhere (and save some electrons, C emissions and everyone’s mailbox).

Thanks,

Greg

CDR Moderator

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 19, 2025, at 7:11 AM, Benoit Lambert <benoit....@gmail.com> wrote:

Thank you Robert for the comment, Dear all,

I have been an activist all my life: in Geneva with Greenpeace 5 years, from 2000 to 2010 with the (rather optimistic) US Worldwatch Institute—I was their editor in French. I do not deny the grave consequences of human actions. But when you realize many commentators do not even know what a trophic chain is, you become more perplex about their views—the green movement is full of them.  

I have heard so many crazy things about the future… In one banks/investors meeting in Geneva, an EPFL teacher told us, « tout de go » (with no nuances), in 2008: « If we go all solar, silicon prices will explose ». Since the price has gone down 95% and solar has been multiplied hundreds of times… The teachers I worked for, Jacques Grinevald and Ivo Rens, invented "de-growth", based on Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen books and articles associating the economy with entropy. « La décroissance » (1979) translated by de-growth became a movement, a magazine (35 000 copies a month in France), and, even, a political party. The entropy law is certainly true for fossil fuels (the energy is lost for good), but, how does it apply to SWB… ?? It is much less obvious. Seba’s predictions are, for most of them, confirmed by Ember. I am sure you can find errors at the margin, but, broadly speaking, he seems to be right. We are going to witness SWB energy take the IT road. Solar-wind-batteries will replace current energies—including hydro we are so proud of in Québec…

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<World | Ember.pdf>

Le 19 nov. 2025 à 08:43, Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com> a écrit :

Interesting, all this futurology stuff.
I've just been looking at Seba's Rethinkng Climate Change report from 2021.  He was claiming that by 2035 we could have reduced emissions by 90%.  No doubt this was true - we could have.  But in the event, it now looks increasingly unlikely.  His analysis had emissions peaking in 2020 and already beginning their decline by 2025.  That didn't happen.
We'll see if his expectations get back on course.  My guess is that they'll get further off course because I think he's made a serious category error.  He's assumed that the extraordinary S-curve growth of certain consumer driven products (e.g. mobile phone, electric cars)  also applies to industrial scale infrastructure investment.
In 2021 he said:
More than three quarters of global GHG emissions can be mitigated by just eight key technologies that are either already at market and able to scale immediately, or ready to begin deploying to market.
He also makes the unjustified leap from 'can' to 'will'.  Human history is replete with things that were possible but never happened.
I haven't done enough to deliver an authoritative critique of Seba's expectations, but I have done enough to satisfy myself that his prognostications are far from being reliable prophecies.
As Bruce P and I both know from our recent labours with climate models, along with millions of others who use models to help understand how best we can position ourselves for the future, whether in regard to climate or family planning or a new business venture or whatever, the models are right by pure chance.  They're not capable of telling us the truth and more than a newspaper astrologer, what they can do is give us insights into the plausible range of possible futures so that we can decide what to do today to make a desirable future more probable and an undesirable one less so.   But whatever today's models tell us, we can be sure that tomorrow's will tell us something different, and we'll then choose, or not, to adjust our course accordingly.
Tony Seba is not God.  His value is that he sets out the limits of optimism.  He's telling us what we might achieve if we get everything right.  We're back to Dr. Pangloss.  Why does he keep turning up?  There is a reason but it's one, I suspect, we'd rather deny.
Regards
RobertCFrom: carbondiox...@googlegroups.com <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Benoit Lambert <benoit....@gmail.com>
Sent: 19 November 2025 01:01
To: br...@chesdata.com <br...@chesdata.com>
Cc: Carbon Dioxide Removal <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [CDR] Toni Seba's "S Curves", solar and wind growth, and phasing out fossil fuels

 



> Le 18 nov. 2025 à 19:43, br...@chesdata.com a écrit :
> 

> The graph below shows the growth in solar and wind electricity production for various compound annual growth rates (CAGR). (The current CAGR for solar and wind idn 12%.) The various “curves” are not actual “S curves”, but they are reasonably close (note that the growth slows suddenly when the fossil fuel use is almost completely replaced by solar and wind.   Solar and wind have the potential to replace fossil fuels in the next 10-20 years as meeting the needed solar and wind capacity increases is not likely going to be a problem.  The main issues will likely be how fast “utility commissions” will be willing to implement solar and wind, how quickly they can be sited and added to the grid, how quickly the “intermittency/baseload” problem can be solved, etc.

>   <image001.png>
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Carbon Dioxide Removal" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to CarbonDioxideRem...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/CarbonDioxideRemoval/070101dc58ed%2485febd30%2491fc3790%24%40chesdata.com.


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[Robert Chris]

Hi Greg

Here's the link to CDR.  After you've read the extract below from 2021, tell us to what extent you think we're on course to fulfil Seba's confident prediction.

Having stopped new emissions from entering the atmosphere [he claimed that '10% of 2020 emissions remain by 2035'], we must further address the concentration of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere, returning it to a safe level. Today the scope and cost of carbon removal seem overwhelming. But the same SWB [solar, wind and batteries] and A-EV [autonomous electric vehicle] technologies that will disrupt the energy and transportation sectors will also drastically reduce the cost of carbon withdrawal. Active reforestation, ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE), direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS), and other carbon withdrawal methods are all costly because of their energy, vehicle (machinery), and labor requirements. These will become much more affordable thanks to SWB super power, electric vehicles and machinery that run on clean electricity, and automated vehicles and machinery that do not require human operators.

We estimate that the cost of carbon withdrawal through both active reforestation and technology-based approaches can fall to under $10 per ton by 2040, which will make it affordable to go below zero emissions, restore carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere to safe levels, and achieve a full solution to climate change 

Regards

Robert

---

From: Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>
Sent: 19 November 2025 17:14
To: Benoit Lambert <benoit....@gmail.com>
Cc: Chris Robert <robert...@gmail.com>; br...@chesdata.com <br...@chesdata.com>; Dioxide Removal Carbon <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>

[Robert Chris]

Apologies, I should have provided a link to the Seba report I was referencing.  It's here.

Regards

Robert

---

From: Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com>
Sent: 19 November 2025 18:44
To: Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>; Benoit Lambert <benoit....@gmail.com>
Cc: br...@chesdata.com <br...@chesdata.com>; Dioxide Removal Carbon <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>

[Benoit Lambert]

Thanks Robert, 

I tend to agree with you, CDR prices can go down wildly—therefore the parallel with RE. 

Biogeotherapy, nature-based approches to CDRs are numerous—a few hundreds in fact—and soils, forests, mangroves, corals, are not just about carbon, but, also, about health for all life on Earth. 

 

Le 19 nov. 2025 à 14:01, Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com> a écrit :

Apologies, I should have provided a link to the Seba report I was referencing.  It's here.

Regards

RobertFrom: Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com>

Sent: 19 November 2025 18:44
To: Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>; Benoit Lambert <benoit....@gmail.com>
Cc: br...@chesdata.com <br...@chesdata.com>; Dioxide Removal Carbon <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [CDR] Toni Seba's "S Curves", solar and wind growth, and phasing out fossil fuels
 Hi Greg
Here's the link to CDR.  After you've read the extract below from 2021, tell us to what extent you think we're on course to fulfil Seba's confident prediction.
Having stopped new emissions from entering the atmosphere [he claimed that '10% of 2020 emissions remain by 2035'], we must further address the concentration of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere, returning it to a safe level. Today the scope and cost of carbon removal seem overwhelming. But the same SWB [solar, wind and batteries] and A-EV [autonomous electric vehicle] technologies that will disrupt the energy and transportation sectors will also drastically reduce the cost of carbon withdrawal. Active reforestation, ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE), direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS), and other carbon withdrawal methods are all costly because of their energy, vehicle (machinery), and labor requirements. These will become much more affordable thanks to SWB super power, electric vehicles and machinery that run on clean electricity, and automated vehicles and machinery that do not require human operators.
We estimate that the cost of carbon withdrawal through both active reforestation and technology-based approaches can fall to under $10 per ton by 2040, which will make it affordable to go below zero emissions, restore carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere to safe levels, and achieve a full solution to climate change 

Regards

RobertFrom: Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>

Sent: 19 November 2025 17:14
To: Benoit Lambert <benoit....@gmail.com>
Cc: Chris Robert <robert...@gmail.com>; br...@chesdata.com <br...@chesdata.com>; Dioxide Removal Carbon <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [CDR] Toni Seba's "S Curves", solar and wind growth, and phasing out fossil fuels
 Guys, as important as RE is to the climate problem, this Google group is about CDR. So unless there’s a tie-in to CDR, please post elsewhere (and save some electrons, C emissions and everyone’s mailbox).
Thanks,
Greg
CDR Moderator
Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 19, 2025, at 7:11 AM, Benoit Lambert <benoit....@gmail.com> wrote:

Thank you Robert for the comment, Dear all,

I have been an activist all my life: in Geneva with Greenpeace 5 years, from 2000 to 2010 with the (rather optimistic) US Worldwatch Institute—I was their editor in French. I do not deny the grave consequences of human actions. But when you realize many commentators do not even know what a trophic chain is, you become more perplex about their views—the green movement is full of them.  

I have heard so many crazy things about the future… In one banks/investors meeting in Geneva, an EPFL teacher told us, « tout de go » (with no nuances), in 2008: « If we go all solar, silicon prices will explose ». Since the price has gone down 95% and solar has been multiplied hundreds of times… The teachers I worked for, Jacques Grinevald and Ivo Rens, invented "de-growth", based on Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen books and articles associating the economy with entropy. « La décroissance » (1979) translated by de-growth became a movement, a magazine (35 000 copies a month in France), and, even, a political party. The entropy law is certainly true for fossil fuels (the energy is lost for good), but, how does it apply to SWB… ?? It is much less obvious. Seba’s predictions are, for most of them, confirmed by Ember. I am sure you can find errors at the margin, but, broadly speaking, he seems to be right. We are going to witness SWB energy take the IT road. Solar-wind-batteries will replace current energies—including hydro we are so proud of in Québec…

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[Robert Chris]

Hi Benoit

I didn't say that.  I think it most unlikely that CDR prices will come down significantly.  I think Seba has it all wrong!

To the extent that CDR requires renewable energy it will be competing with all the parallel claims on that new resource.  Jevons Paradox will reign supreme.  Cheap renewable energy will drive growth in consumption long before it makes any significant dent in fossil fuels.  

Regards

Robert

---

From: Benoit Lambert <benoit....@gmail.com>
Sent: 19 November 2025 21:06
To: Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com>
Cc: Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>; br...@chesdata.com <br...@chesdata.com>; Dioxide Removal Carbon <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>

[Dan Galpern]

I didn't at all read the normally- steady Robert Chris to accept the Tony Seba optimistic projection --  "under $10 per ton by 2040" -- concerning rapidly dropping technological CDR costs. 

Meanwhile, analysts at the IEA recently opined that "[a]dvances in capture materials and scale effects could bring costs down to around USD 300 per tonne by mid-century, while some next-generation designs are targeting the USD 100 per tonne mark." 

Dan

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/CarbonDioxideRemoval/3F15AE5A-1119-48DE-B4AC-C3783F80A38F%40gmail.com.

[br...@chesdata.com]

Toni Seba’s 2021 report is “Rethinking Climate Change How Humanity Can Choose to Reduce Emissions 90% by 2035 through the Disruption of Energy, Transportation, and Food with Existing Technologies” and can be downloaded from https://www.rethinkx.com/publications/rethinkingclimatechange2021.en

“The baseline year for the data is 2016, and our analysis timeframe begins in 2020”

 

Using the “S Curve” for carbon dioxide removal costs is likely not realistic as CDR is not a “consumer product” and hence there is no “normal”  ROI.

 

His methodology produced results that do not come close to predicting what actually happened.  For instance, he forecast a 6 percent decline in GHG emissions from 2020 to 2025 when they actually went up four percent (see graph below)

 

He is also  “big” on “precision fermentation” – but ChatGPT says “However: it is not a silver bullet — the scale, timelines, economics, regulatory/consumer acceptance, and downstream land-ecosystem transitions remain uncertain. As such, for 2030-2035 it is a promising emerging lever, but one which must be paired with strong policy, investment and social transition design.”

 

20% of his annual reductions in GHG emissions (10GT) in 2035 is supposed to come from “passive reforestation” (see chart below)

“Reforestation plays a significant role in our scenarios. We estimate that the disruption of food by precision fermentation and cellular agriculture (PFCA) technologies will free up 80% of the 3.3 billion hectares of total land area currently devoted to animal agriculture, or a total of 2.7 billion hectares – an area the size of the United States, China, and Australia combined. Even if no active measures were taken to reforest this land, its natural recovery would still result in substantial carbon sequestration in above ground and below ground biomass. And if active measures are taken, the rate of carbon sequestration can be significantly greater. We refer to these as passive reforestation and active reforestation, respectively.”

 

 

Cheers!

Bruce

 

 

 

 

 

 

From: carbondiox...@googlegroups.com <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Benoit Lambert

Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2025 4:07 PM
To: Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com>

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