The Hackers's Guide to Energy Transition

What drives global energy growth?

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

What will be the sources of more energy needs in the next, say, 10-20 years? Depending on which newspaper you read it seems it’s either EVs, or data centers, or industrial electrification, or A/C and cooking heat in the global south.. which is it?

Zero carbon residences

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Mostly for myself, trying to organize thinking about what comes next: What are the paths and roadblocks to zero-carbon residences?

2024 Family Carbon Audit

Sun, 14 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Building understanding of per-capita emissions by tracking our own. Family carbon audit for 2024.

Sending electricity prices to devices is not sufficient

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Network protocols for distributed energy resources - OpenADR, Matter, Energy Protocol, EEBus etc - want to send prices to devices. That’s not good enough.

2023 Family Carbon Audit

Sun, 16 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Building understanding of per-capita emissions by tracking our own. Family carbon audit for 2023.

2022 Family Carbon Audit

Sat, 15 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Building understanding of per-capita emissions by tracking our own. Family carbon audit for 2022.

2021 Family Carbon Audit

Thu, 07 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Building understanding of per-capita emissions by tracking our own. Family carbon audit for 2021.

2020 Family Carbon Audit

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

What gets measured gets done, particularly if you make it public. Family carbon audit for 2020.

A 90% clean grid

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The corner stone for reaching climate targets is building a clean grid.

What is the path to that grid?

Energy Transition for Hackers: A Big Picture

Sun, 25 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The tech space brims with people keen to act on global warming. However, some efforts seem misaligned with where people in the energy transition space say to focus.

Our timeline is short. We need to target, as much as we can, where software will have the most impact on CO2 emission reduction.

This post gives a forest-for-the-trees view of the energy transition in 2020. It is serves as a starting point for understanding where software can help move the needle. It will cover three topics:

What are the elephant-in-the-room emissions sources?
What is the broad plan for transition?
What is the timeline?

2019 Family Carbon Audit

Wed, 27 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

What gets measured gets done; particularly if you make it public. Family carbon audit for 2019.

2018 Family Carbon Audit

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

What gets measured gets done; particularly if you make it public. Family carbon audit for 2018.

Project drawdown categories

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

To help orient ourselves; what are the broad categories Project Drawdown uses?

About

Thu, 28 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I’m Jacob Davis-Hansson. I have a background in software specializing in connected data and, before that, as an entrepreneur. Today I work in cloud infrastructure orchestration and build zero-emission buildings.

This is a blog about the energy transition, and how the tech industry seems to fit within it. It’s a system of record for my journey trying to understand global warming and how I can be useful in mitigating it.