Ways for possible cooperation in nuclear commerce under the framework of the India-US nuclear agreement of 2008 figured prominently in the talks US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources Geoffrey R Pyatt had with his Indian interlocutors in Delhi on February 16 and 17.

Pyatt described India as a “very crucial” partner for the US in ensuring global energy security in view of serious disruptions in supplies of fossil fuel resulting from Russia’s “brutal” invasion of Ukraine.

“I am very focused on how we can develop opportunities for future civil nuclear cooperation, recognizing that if we are stuck at issues, we have to work them through, the famous liability question,” he said.

“The business model of the civil nuclear industry is changing. In the US, we made a huge commitment to small and marginal reactors which could be particularly suitable to the Indian environment as well,” he said without elaborating further.

The senior Biden administration official also said the US supports Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “incredibly ambitious” energy transition goal of having 500 GW (gigawatt) of energy from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030.

Pyatt served at the US Embassy in New Delhi as Political Counselor from 2002 to 2006 and as Deputy Chief of Mission from 2006 to 2007, a period that saw intense negotiations between the two sides on the civil nuclear pact.

The actual cooperation in the civil nuclear energy sector eluded in the last over 14 years primarily due to differences between the two sides over India’s liability rules relating to seeking damages from suppliers in the event of an accident.

“It was the first big thing that our two governments did together. It was so powerful for the rest of the world,” Pyatt said about the 2008 pact.

The US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy said the “civil nuclear renaissance” that the people were talking about got derailed to some considerable degree following the accident at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011.

However, he said Japan is now reconsidering the importance of nuclear power as part of its overall response to the “incredible disruptions of the global energy markets that (Russian President) Vladimir Putin has caused with his invasion of Ukraine,” he said, adding the climate crisis is another reason for preferring clean energy.

Pyatt suggested that New Delhi is very keen to take forward civil nuclear energy cooperation as part of the overall bilateral energy ties.

“The US-India energy and climate agenda is one of the most important that we have anywhere in the world,” he said.

In 2016, US energy firm Westinghouse and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCI) broadly agreed on terms for setting up of six nuclear reactors in India.

However, the negotiations were derailed after the American company declared bankruptcy in 2017. There has been renewed focus globally on nuclear energy after the Ukraine war resulted a fossil fuel crisis.

The US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy said overall energy cooperation between India and the US will form a major part of the strategic ties between the two sides.

“When I look at where our strategic relationship is going, I see the issues that I am now responsible for as being right at the centre of the picture because there is so much potential to build on the strong foundation to do even more,” he said.

Pyatt said the US is keen on forging strong cooperation with India in areas of green hydrogen energy as well.

India on January 4 approved the National Green Hydrogen Mission with an outlay of Rs 19,744 crore to develop a green hydrogen production capacity of five million tonnes a year by 2030. “The US investment in hydrogen complements the Indian investment in hydrogen and what I am interested in right now is to build bridges between our respective efforts so that we can leverage each other’s expertise,” he said. To a question, Pyatt said there is significant scope for joint projects between the companies of the two countries in the area.

Source: PTI

The Tennessee Valley Authority touted plans for the study with the University of Tennessee’s Baker Center for Public Policy during its board meeting in Florence, Alabama. The study will look at the electric power supply, in addition to other areas of the economy, for ways to reduce carbon pollution that spurs climate change. TVA expects the review to last 18 months.

“Simply put, this initiative will accelerate a clean energy economy and support the economic competitiveness of the region, and it will deeply inform TVA about what challenge actually sits in front of us,” TVA President and CEO Jeff Lyash told board members.

Environmental and renewable energy advocates are closely watching the board’s switch to a Biden-selected majority. The transition follows the federal utility’s decision to stick with a fossil fuel — gas — to replace some of the generation from the aging coal-burning Cumberland Fossil Plant in Tennessee, which is slated to shut down. Those advocates highly criticized the choice, as did the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which ultimately declined to challenge the plan all the way to a White House council.

The utility has replaced coal units with gas previously, and it’s considering that option again at another aging coal plant in Tennessee. Currently, TVA’s generation capacity of more than 33,700 megawatts includes 39% nuclear, 19% coal, 26% natural gas and 11% hydro. Wind and solar make up 3%, while energy efficiency programs amount to 1%, according to the utility’s website.

Lyash said natural gas was the “only mature technology available today that could be in operation at Cumberland to provide firm, dispatchable power” to replace the generation of the first unit at the plant before it shuts down in 2026. TVA has faced criticisms that it didn’t take a broad enough look at combinations of available options.

The decision at Cumberland was only briefly discussed Thursday.

Gaby Sarri-Tobar, a campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Energy Justice program, said in an emailed statement that “TVA needs to build a just, 100% renewable system” adding that new board members have “an enormous responsibility.”

Sarri-Tobar also mentioned failures in coal and gas plants from a winter storm just before Christmas last year that forced TVA to resort to rolling blackouts. The breakdowns are the subject of multiple reviews.

Don Moul, TVA’s chief operating officer, said Thursday that about 6,800 megawatts of power generation were lost as harsh freezing conditions proved to be “beyond the capabilities of existing heat trace and insulation to protect equipment exposed to the elements.” Other utilities couldn’t help supply TVA with extra power because many were affected by the storm as well, Moul said.

Both units at Cumberland went down for the entirety of the frigid conditions due to frozen implementation lines, he said. Many of the simple cycle and combined cycle gas plants were affected, but most of those were brought back online during the cold, Moul said. Even though TVA was able to put 1,000 megawatts back online after the initial outages, TVA decided to implement rolling blackouts on a second day to keep its power system stable.

Maggie Shober, research director at the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, noted in an emailed statement that the meeting discussion included her organization’s priorities around the Christmas Eve blackouts, energy efficiency and decarbonization. But there wasn’t “any indication of clear action steps by the Board on these priorities around accountability, transparency, economic development, and comprehensive planning for the future,” Shober added.

Biden has set a goal of a carbon-pollution-free energy sector by 2035 that TVA has said it can’t achieve without technological breakthroughs in nuclear generation and energy storage. TVA has set a goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2035, compared with 2005 levels. The utility has its own aspirational goal of net zero emissions by 2050.

Lyash said TVA plans to add 10,000 to 14,000 megawatts of new power generation by the end of the decade to meet growing demand. He also said the utility thinks it can achieve up to another 1,000 megawatts over the next year through initiatives to reduce customer demand for power.

He also noted TVA’s goal to add 10,000 megawatts of solar power to its system by 2035 and talked up efforts to support electric vehicle producers and help install charging stations.

“Electrifying the transportation sector, if we can do it effectively and efficiently, is our biggest opportunity for carbon reduction here in the valley,” Lyash said.

TVA provides power to 10 million people in parts of seven southern states.

Source: AP

Treasury made the announcement as it issued initial guidance for the Inflation Reduction Act program aimed at expanding U.S. manufacturing capacity and jobs in clean energy technologies and separate tax incentives for small-scale solar and wind power projects in low-income and disadvantaged communities.

Congress approved a total of $10 billion worth of advanced energy project tax credits, with $4 billion reserved for hard-hit coal communities, among the $369 billion worth of clean energy incentives in the IRA legislation. To be eligible in the first round, applicants must submit a “concept paper” to the Department of Energy by July 31, which will determine whether it can move forward in the approval process.

The Treasury guidance for the program gave several examples of likely qualifying projects, including those that capture or sequester carbon dioxide, produce hydrogen with zero- or low-emission energy, produce renewable biofuels and battery electric vehicles as well as critical materials for those vehicles and charging infrastructure.

BONUS LOW-INCOME CREDITS

For wind and solar projects in low-income and disadvantaged “environmental justice” communities, the IRA offers a bonus 10% or 20% credit on top of 30% general tax credit for these projects. This bonus credit is limited to a total of 1.8 gigawatts worth of generating capacity each year and a per-project limit of five megawatts.

Nonetheless a U.S. Treasury official said that since a typical community solar project was one to five megawatts, the bonus credit could drive more than 1,000 new projects annually.

Treasury said in the environmental justice guidance that for 2023, 700 megawatts of the total project capacity would be allocated for facilities located in low-income communities with a poverty rate of at least 20% and median income less than 80% of its state average.

Treasury will allocate 200 megawatts of capacity for facilities located on Indian lands and 200 megawatts for federally subsidized residential buildings.

Another 700 megawatts of capacity will be reserved for half the financial benefits of the electricity produced to households with incomes below 200% of the poverty line or below 80% of area median income.

Source: Reuters

The US will invest about US$370 billion in clean energy, but the IRA would not resolve all challenges after all as the renewable energy industry is currently tackling issues that include the tumultuous supply chain, strained trade relationships, and postponed grid connection, while the regulations that are on the verge of announcement can also restrict installed capacity of solar power.

The US solar industry is expected to surpass in growth compared to that of 2022 and 2021. Wood Mackenzie and the SEIA are estimating an increase of roughly 27.9GW in solar installations for the US this year, which is higher than 18.6GW and 24.1GW respectively projected for 2022 and 2021, and are forecasting a much larger growth for 2024, 2025, and 2026.

Abigail Ross Hopper, CEO of SEIA, commented that local potentials are yet to be exerted, and that the government would be able to resolve some existing challenges.

These challenges include how the US is banning partial imports of solar products from Xinjiang due to suspicions on forced labor, however, more than 50% of global multi polysilicon supply is generated by Xinjiang. According to statistics, the US Customs has so far detained more than 1GW of imported solar modules.

Solar developers, even after successfully obtaining solar panels and establishing power plants, would have to wait for a period of time before receiving licenses for grid connection. Pol Lezcano, solar analyst at BloombergNEF, commented that the IRA, despite providing momentum for the development of solar economy by offering significant subsidization, serves zero functions if corresponding products cannot be sold.

California will also reduce subsidization on residential solar in the future. The measure is expected to come into effect starting from April, and could possibly decelerate the level of rooftop PV installations for the largest state of the US.

The industry, despite facing the aforementioned challenges, remains relatively optimistic. SEIA estimates an average YoY growth of 21% for solar power between 2023 and 2027.

The IRA also significantly encourages investment in the clean energy production chain of the US, which helps to lower the dependency on products imported from Asia for the country. Affordable solar modules are convincing some conservative regions of the US to turn to solar power, whereas the increasingly popular battery energy storage systems that offer 24-7 power supply are transforming renewable energy into a non-intermittent energy and offsetting advantages of natural gas in comparison with renewable energy.

Source: energytrend

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), profitable copper reserves are estimated to be 870 million tons globally, with annual demand amounting to 28 million tons. As unknown copper reserves on Earth could probably exceed 5 billion tons along with the capacity of copper recycling, the agency believes that the world is extremely unlikely to run out of copper.

That being said, Robin Griffin, vice president of metals and mining at Wood Mackenzie, believes that copper supply will continue to fall short of demand amid unrest in Peru and higher copper demand from the energy transition industry. The UK-based consulting firm estimates severe copper shortages to persist until 2030, where a severe deficit of 10 million tons is likely.

Chile and Peru are the top two copper producers, accounting for 37% of global copper supply. However, Peru—responsible for 10% of global production—has been struck by massive demonstrations following the ousted of its former president in December last year. On January 20, multinational mining company Glencore suspended operations in Peru after protesters looted and set fire to its Antapaccay copper mine.

Despite its largest share with 27% of total copper production worldwide, Chile saw a 5.3% drop in annual output to 5.3275 million tons, the lowest level since 2011. The noticeable decline was mainly attributed to lower ore grades (the concentration of the desired metal in an orebody), water restrictions and protests from unions and local residents. Goldman Sachs predicts that Chile will likely produce less copper between 2023 and 2025.

However, the demand for copper has been high and even soared following China’s reopening along with growth in the vehicle and energy transformation sectors. Analysts from CMC Markets project copper prices to double in 2024–2025.

Copper is essential to electricity-related technologies and energy transformation. Particularly, the EV market has the highest demand for the red metal. An EV alone requires 2.5 times as much copper as a fossil fuel vehicle. The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that sales of EVs increased more than twofold in 2021, boosting the total number of EVs globally to around 16.50 million. As EVs will go mainstream in the future, corresponding charging systems will need more copper, too.

Edward Moya, senior market analyst at New York-based OANDA, also said that Peru and Chile have been largely frustrated by low-grade ores, strikes, and water restrictions, which might threaten copper supply in the coming years. By contrast, copper prices are expected to soar due to strong demand in 2022 and (possibly) rapid economic recoveries in China after its reopening.

With a different opinion, some analysts believe that China’s economic returns will not considerably stimulate the demand for copper. Nevertheless, the metal is definitely a fundamental basis for electricity-related technologies, with its demand mostly from widespread electrification. The market is also expecting the decreases in copper supply to fuel global inflation, for which central banks worldwide will adopt tougher actions.

Source: energytrend

The Biden administration’s $430 billion Inflation Reduction Act devotes billions of dollars for tax credits and direct payments for solar, wind, battery and other energy sources to move electric power supplies from fossil fuels.

Regulated utilities including Duke Energy Corp and Dominion Energy Inc begin reporting fourth-quarter results this week and analysts expect them to lay out plans for capitalizing on the IRA.

“The main beneficiaries are likely going to be the utilities that eventually acquire (these) projects and already had some in the pipeline,” said Ryan Kronk, power markets analyst at consultancy Rystad Energy, adding the full effects would likely be delayed due to labor and supply chain constraints.

NextEra Energy Inc last month said the new law’s extension of tax credits has stabilized the renewables outlook and spurred investments.

NextEra, the biggest U.S. generator of renewable energy, has a backlog of 16,500 megawatts of renewables projects. The parent of Florida Power and Light has added 25% to that backlog in the last year, executives have said.

The company’s business providing services to other utilities expanding into clean technologies will give it an added boost from the IRA, said Michael Doyle, senior equity analyst for utilities at brokerage firm Edward Jones.

Duke, which has directed 80% of its five-year $63 billion capital plan towards clean energy, also stands to be a major benefactor.

“What the IRA does is it lowers costs for customers,” said Duke spokesman Neil Nissan. Duke also owns the largest U.S. nuclear fleet, which will see new advantages under the IRA, he added.

NextEra and Dominion were not immediately available for comment.

Where utilities are located will help determine how much they can gain from the IRA, said Emily Beagle, research associate at Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas at Austin.

Solar projects in sunny states in the south and southwest and wind projects in the Midwest are among the best situated to collect IRA dollars, she said. One caveat is the greater the rate-paying population, generally the better off the utility.

Developers are expected to add nearly 55 gigawatts of utility-scale electric generation this year, with more than half coming from solar, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Smaller utilities and cooperatives are not completely left out. They stand to benefit from the IRA’s direct-pay provisions, Beagle said.

The full impact of climate-friendly incentives will likely take a “few years” to arrive, said Michael Haggarty, associate managing director, Moody’s Investors Service.

Source: Reuters

PUERTO PEÑASCO, Mexico : Mexico was pushed to accelerate its turn toward renewable energy after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year drove a sharp increase in global energy costs, Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said late Thursday.

Ebrard made the comments after taking dozens of foreign diplomats to see a massive new solar energy project near the U.S. border.

“Mexico is making a really great effort because it didn’t consider (the shift to renewable energy and electric vehicles) would be so fast,” Ebrard said. The decisions made by the United States and Mexico in the past year to invest heavily in those areas “didn’t appear so near before the war.”

“We too have to change the focus,” he said. “It has to go faster.”

In April, Mexico plans to power up the first phase of a huge solar energy project near a beach town popular with tourists making the short drive from the United States.

Once completed, the full $1.6 billion project will have a generating capacity of 1,000 megawatts — enough to power some 500,000 homes. It will be the largest solar project built by Mexico’s state-owned electric company.

In Puerto Peñasco, near the top of the Gulf of California and border with Arizona, rows of solar panels that tilt with the passing sun run off to the horizon hovering above the sand. The project will eventually cover 5,000 acres in the transition where the desert flattens between the rugged brown mountains and blue sea.

The Federal Electric Commission plans to have the first 120 megawatts of the project operational by April 29, Juan Antonio Fernández, the commission’s strategic planning director, said Thursday.

Sonora Gov. Alfonso Durazo, who once served as a Cabinet minister alongside Ebrard before running for state office, made the case that Sonora should be the center of Mexico’s electric vehicle production. In addition to the solar energy coming online — in total 5 gigawatts of solar capacity are planned for the state — Sonora has the country’s largest known deposits of lithium, a key component in batteries for electric vehicles.

Ebrard said the plan represented a “new model of development.”

“We’re not going to be able to do that in all of the states at the same time,” he said. “But we have to demonstrate that that idea can be real and is not wishful thinking.”

The turn toward renewable energy is at odds with other priorities of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The president has invested heavily in propping up the long-struggling state-owned oil company. He is building a big new oil refinery. And he has pushed legislation that gives advantages to the state-owned electric company over private energy production, which in many cases was cleaner. It is the subject of a trade dispute with the United States and Canada.

Ebrard is one of several people seeking the presidential nomination of López Obrador’s Morena party for the 2024 national elections.

Source: abcnews

Seattle, United States : The company’s renewable energy portfolio now totals more than 20 GW and will generate enough clean energy to power 5.3 million homes in the U.S.

Amazon’s renewable energy purchases last year brought it closer to powering its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025—five years ahead of its original target

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that in 2022 it grew its renewable energy capacity by 8.3 gigawatts (GW) through 133 new projects in 11 countries. This brings Amazon’s total portfolio to more than 20 GW—that could generate the amount of energy to power 5.3 million U.S. homes—across 401 renewable energy projects in 22 countries. The company’s renewable energy purchases continue to add new wind and solar projects on the grids that power Amazon’s operations, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers, Amazon fulfillment centers, and physical stores around the world.

With these continued investments, Amazon set a new corporate record for the most renewable energy announced by a single company in one year. The company remains the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy—a position it’s held since 2020, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Amazon’s continued investment in renewable energy helps to accelerate growth in new regions through innovative deal structures, technologies, and cloud solutions.

These purchases also bring Amazon closer to powering its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025—five years ahead of its original 2030 target. In 2022, the company announced new projects in Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Singapore, Spain, and the U.S., and broke ground in Brazil, India, and Indonesia. With 25 new renewable energy projects secured to close out the year, the company now has 401 projects globally, including 164 wind farms and solar farms, and 237 rooftop solar projects on Amazon facilities. Once operational, Amazon’s global renewable energy projects are expected to generate 56,881 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of clean energy each year.

“As we continue to launch new renewable energy projects around the world, we’re pleased to be on track to power our operations with 100% renewable energy, five years ahead of our original target. With 133 projects in 11 countries announced in 2022, Amazon had another record year,” said Adam Selipsky, CEO of AWS. “These projects highlight the diversity of our renewable energy sources and showcase our ability to bring new technologies to new markets and further reduce the impacts of climate change.”

In addition to the 108 clean energy projects the company announced in 2022, Amazon today is announcing 25 additional 2022 clean energy projects. These include:

Eleven new projects in Europe, including Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, totaling 372 megawatts (MW) of capacity. Tapping into one of the world’s best renewable energy resources, Amazon continued to add to its portfolio of offshore wind projects, investing in two new offshore wind projects in Europe totaling 280 MW of capacity.
Four new projects in North America, totaling 918 MW of energy in Arizona, California, and Texas. A new solar project paired with energy storage in California allows Amazon to store clean energy produced by its solar projects and deploy it when solar energy is not available, such as in the evening hours, or during periods of high demand. Also in California, Amazon added its first on-site solar project at the Amazon Air Hub, where employees pack and handle freight and conduct planeside operations.
Ten new renewable energy projects in India, Indonesia, and Japan. In India, a third 200 MW wind-solar hybrid project was added to Amazon’s first two wind-solar hybrid projects. Renewable hybrid energy systems can play a key role in helping India accelerate the decarbonization of power generation, lowering the cost of electricity in the medium term. These hybrid energy systems also maximize clean energy use on the grid by combining two technologies with different generation profiles, reducing variability in renewable generation, and improving grid stability. In Indonesia, Amazon invested in its first renewable energy projects, securing a first-of-its-kind agreement for corporations to access additional utility-scale solar projects. In Japan, Amazon added three on-site solar projects and a new 38 MW utility-scale solar project.

Rapidly scaling renewable energy is one of the most effective strategies to fight climate change. To ensure organizations’ renewable energy purchases have the greatest impact on emissions reductions, Amazon recently led the creation of the new Emissions First coalition. This coalition is leading advocacy efforts to modernize the world’s leading carbon-accounting standard, helping to reduce carbon from global electricity grids as quickly and cost-effectively as possible.

“Amazon’s clean energy portfolio doesn’t just top the corporate charts—it is now among the leading utilities globally, as well,” said Kyle Harrison, head of sustainability research at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “The fact that it announced a new annual record of clean energy in a year mired by a global energy crisis, supply chain bottlenecks and high interest rates speaks to its forward planning and expertise in navigating power markets and executing long-term contracts.”

“Amidst the market uncertainty of 2022, Amazon led clean energy buyers and doubled down on its commitment to renewable energy,” said Miranda Ballentine, CEO of Clean Energy Buyers Association (CEBA). “Amazon’s commitment to decarbonization is demonstrated through its leading placement on CEBA’s Deal Tracker Top 10, within our member community, and on a global scale.”

“As Asia continues to transition away from coal and gas, these investments by Amazon in wind and solar are further evidence that there is a large and growing corporate renewable electricity demand in this region. We look forward to continuing to work with Amazon and our other ACEC members to rapidly increase the supply of renewables and to achieve our shared 100% renewable ambitions in the region,” said Sam Kimmins, director of energy at Climate Group and Asia Clean Energy Coalition (ACEC) spokesperson.

Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge in 2019, committing to reach net-zero carbon by 2040—10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement. The Pledge now has nearly 400 signatories, including Best Buy, IBM, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Siemens, Unilever, Verizon, and Visa. Amazon continues to transform its transportation network, including electrifying its delivery fleet and sourcing alternatives to fossil fuels—it currently has thousands of electric delivery vehicles from Rivian in more than 100 cities and regions in the U.S., more than 3,000 electric vans delivering packages to customers in Europe, and several electric vehicle partnerships in APAC. The company is also investing $2 billion in the development of decarbonizing services and solutions through The Climate Pledge Fund.

About Amazon

Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Amazon strives to be Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company, Earth’s Best Employer, and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios, and The Climate Pledge are some of the things pioneered by Amazon.

About Amazon Web Services

Since 2006, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud. AWS has been continually expanding its services to support virtually any workload, and it now has more than 200 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), media, and application development, deployment, and management from 99 Availability Zones within 31 geographic regions, with announced plans for 12 more Availability Zones and four more AWS Regions in Canada, Israel, New Zealand, and Thailand. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs.

California is embarking on an audacious new climate plan that aims to eliminate the state’s greenhouse gas footprint by 2045, and in the process, slash emissions far beyond its borders. The blueprint calls for massive transformations in industry, energy and transportation, as well as changes in institutions and human behaviors.

These transformations won’t be easy. Two years of developing the plan have exposed myriad challenges and tensions, including environmental justice, affordability and local rule.

For example, the San Francisco Fire Commission had prohibited batteries with more than 20 kilowatt-hours of power storage in homes, severely limiting the ability to store solar electricity from rooftop solar panels for all those times when the sun isn’t shining. More broadly, local opposition to new transmission lines, large-scale solar and wind facilities, substations for truck charging, and oil refinery conversions to produce renewable diesel will slow the transition.

I had a front row seat while the plan was prepared and vetted as a longtime board member of the California Air Resources Board, the state agency that oversees air pollution and climate control. And my chief contributor to this article, Rajinder Sahota, is deputy executive officer of the board, responsible for preparing the plan and navigating political land mines.

We believe California has a chance of succeeding, and in the process, showing the way for the rest of the world. In fact, most of the needed policies are already in place.

LOS ANGELES: One-in-five new cars sold in California in 2022 was a zero-emission vehicle, the state said on Saturday, as the largest car market in the United States charges towards its goal of electrifying its fleet.

Last year officials set ambitious targets for boosting the number of electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) on the roads, as they look to slash planet-warming gases produced by combustion engines.

The California Air Resources Board announced in August the sale of new gasoline and diesel-powered cars would be eliminated by 2035, setting an aggressive timeline to phase them out.

On Friday the California Energy Commission said 18.8 percent of new cars sold in the state in 2022 were EVs, PHEVs or fuel cell electric vehicles, all of which California includes in its zero-emission category.

Ten years ago, that figure was two percent.

“California continues to lead the zero-emission vehicle revolution with groundbreaking policies and investments that drive innovation, create good jobs and expand (zero-emission vehicle) access and affordability across the state,” said Governor Gavin Newsom.

“Keeping our focus on the communities that are most impacted by the intensifying climate crisis, we´ll keep pushing ahead to make our clean transportation future a reality in California.”

Data showed Tesla continued to dominate the market for EVs, with around two-thirds of the 346,000 zero-emission vehicles sold in the year being made by Elon Musk´s company.

Source: AFP

WASHINGTON  : President Joe Biden persuaded Democrats in Congress to provide hundreds of billions of dollars to fight climate change. Now comes another formidable task: enticing Americans to buy millions of electric cars, heat pumps, solar panels and more efficient appliances.

It’s a public relations challenge that could determine whether the country meets Biden’s ambitious goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.

Relying on tax credits and rebates made the climate legislation — it was approved in August with only Democratic votes — more politically palatable than regulations that force wholesale changes in polluting industries.

But it also means the administration’s battle against global warming will be waged “one household at a time,” said Shannon Baker-Branstetter, who works on energy issues at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank closely aligned with the White House.

“It is very incremental,” she said. “So it requires a very sophisticated communications strategy.”

Biden acknowledged the hurdle during a recent Cabinet meeting as he talked about the incentives that are becoming available this year.

“Folks need to know how to take advantage of these benefits that we passed. That’s on all of us around the table here to make sure we get that message out clearly,” he said.

The White House says it is piecing together a plan to partner with state governments, contractors, retailers and social media influencers to get the word out. “Lowering utility bills is going to be a key driver,” said Josh Peck, a senior policy adviser on clean energy issues.

It’s also collaborating with Rewiring America, a nonprofit focused on ways to electrify homes and businesses, and companies like Airbnb, Redfin and Lyft. As part of the effort, Rewiring America created an online calculator that shows what credits or rebates homeowners might be eligible for, depending on their ZIP code and income.

Buying a heat pump or installing solar panels is “a major expense line and a major opportunity for savings,″ said Ari Matusiak, the group’s founder and CEO. “So it’s really important to make sure people are aware of the resources they have available and the benefits they can unlock in terms of bringing energy bill savings.″

But the White House faces an uphill battle.

Polling shows that while Americans support action to slow climate change, they are broadly unaware of the Inflation Reduction Act, the massive legislation that includes financial incentives to lower emissions, and skeptical of their own role in the climate crisis.

An AP-NORC poll released in September, one month after the law was signed, found that 61% of U.S. adults said they knew little to nothing about the legislation. And despite the multibillion-dollar investment in climate solutions, only a third said it would help climate change; about half said it wouldn’t make a difference.

The White House says it’s not rattled by the results. The goal is to make sure consumers know the financial benefits of energy efficient products at the moment that they’re making key decisions on which products to buy, Peck said.

“One of the challenges here is trying to meet consumers where they are when they make decisions about these purchases,” he said.

Majorities of U.S. adults said they are unlikely to install solar panels or buy an electric vehicle in the next three years, according to the AP-NORC poll. Among those, at least half said financial incentives would not make a difference in their decision.

Homeowners typically are reluctant to swap out furnaces or water heaters until they absolutely have to shell out the money for them.

“One day the heat won’t turn on and it’s negative 10 (degrees) outside and you say, ‘Oh crap, I’ve got to get a furnace,'” said DR Richardson, co-founder of Elephant Energy, a Colorado company that helps homeowners install electric heat pumps and other appliances. “So the biggest challenge from our perspective, and from a climate perspective, is to get people to think ahead of time about how to replace these assets.”

Most homeowners don’t understand what equipment qualifies for a rebate or a tax credit — and even contractors are not always aware, Richardson said. While some heat pumps qualify for a full rebate, others do not or are only eligible for partial rebates.

“So it’s just a nightmare if you’re not used to working in building spreadsheets to analyze and understand all this stuff,” he said.

Not all of the incentives are ready either. While people can get a tax break on the cost of an electric car, solar panels or heat pump, rebates for low- and middle-income Americans seeking to make their homes more energy efficient are not yet available. The Energy Department is still developing the system to distribute that money.

Cecilia Muñoz, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council in the Obama administration, said she learned in her tenure that it’s critical for government to invest in the delivery of policies.

“Too often we as advocates and policymakers applaud when policy gets enacted and then stop paying attention,” she said. Instead, they need to design ways to target people directly to help them “understand the steps that they can take and the ways that the government is going to make it easy.”

The Energy Department has begun releasing information to states about their allotment of $9 billion to support household energy upgrades, including weatherizing homes and installing heat pumps.

And Biden, a self-described “car guy,” has been doing his part to promote electric vehicles, making appearances at the Detroit car show in September and on the TV series “Jay Leno’s Garage.”

Donnel Baird, founder and CEO of BlocPower, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based company that partners with utilities, government agencies and building owners to improve energy efficiency, has worked with Lowe’s and other retailers to promote green appliances.

The idea, Baird said, is that “the checkout person says, ‘You know, you can get a tax credit if you don’t get that gas lawn mower and get a green one instead.’″ While such engagement may not have immediate results, Baird said he’s confident the tax credits and other benefits of the climate law will become better known.

“It took years for the ACA to get going,″ he said, referring to the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. “I think the same thing could happen with this law.″

Dan Pfeiffer, a former top communications adviser to President Barack Obama, sees another lesson in the Affordable Care Act.

“The ACA got more popular the more that Republicans tried to repeal it,” he said, suggesting that Biden take advantage of any Republican efforts to roll back to the Inflation Reduction Act to draw more attention to the law’s benefits.

“I have no doubt the White House has thought of all of this,” Pfeifer said. But the problem is that none of it is easy.”

He added: “The bulk of the work starts now.”

Source: AP

On January 14, Tesla officially slashed prices on its EV models in the US, with the long-range Model Y costing only $52,990 now, almost 20% ($13,000) cheaper compared to its price a day ago.

The EV maker has largely cut prices for all models from the most affordable Model 3 to the most lavish Model X Plaid. Specifically, the Model Y LR is now $13,000 cheaper, marking the greatest drop by percentage (a 20% reduction), while the Model S Plaid, which now costs $21,000 less, witnessed the sharpest decrease by amount.

Prior to 2020, Tesla had been striving to increase the manufacturing capacity of EV batteries at a lower cost. However, the subsequent COVID-19 pandemic, chip shortages, and supply woes resulted in higher costs as well as EV sales prices. Unlike the car price hike among leading automakers, Tesla has continually cut the prices of its vehicles.

Following a major price reduction in China, Tesla cut the prices of its models available in the US. This might directly affect car prices in the Taiwanese market such as the Model 3 as the cars available in Taiwan are made in the US. Accordingly, Taiwan will likely see a price reduction of the Model 3 soon.

In contrast to the Model 3 with the smallest price drop by percentage, the price of the Model Y has been cut from $65,000 to 52,000, making it eligible for a $75,00 federal tax credit. However, the five-seat Model Y Performance, despite a $13,000 reduction as well, does not qualify for the credit.

Put it simply, you can now get a Model Y LR by spending $20,000 less thanks the discount and tax credit. It’s a good thing that Tesla owners in the US are not as aggressive as their Chinese counterparts. Otherwise, protesters might have stormed into the EV maker’s stores across the country.

The Model Y cars in Taiwan are made in Germany, so their price will probably remain the same for now.

Nevertheless, Tesla has yet to complete its price reduction task, as CEO Elon Musk believes that the ideal price of a Model 3 should be $35,000, while that of a Model Y is $40,000. To achieve the goal, the EV maker must boost its manufacturing capacity and economies of scale so as to reduce the cost.

In 2022, Tesla achieved a 44% growth rate in 2022, falling 6% short of the 50% goal. Nonetheless, the EV maker topped BMW to become the top-selling luxury car brand in the US. The last time that an American automaker won the title was almost a century ago.

Entering 2023, Tesla has received mixed reviews on its development. Some people believe that such a great price drop denotes overstocking and reduced demand and predict the end of Tesla’s dominance in the EV market. Others argue that the car company has finally managed to control its costs and logistics, allowing sales prices to return to normal with sales booming. That being said, buying an EV at a lower cost is favorable for consumers with greater likelihood of reduced CO2 emissions overall and improved air quality.

Source: energytrend

• The world will not be able to avoid overshooting the goal established in the 2015 Paris Climate Accord to limit global warming to, ideally, 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-Industrial levels, Bill Gates told Reddit users on Wednesday.

• While it’s “great” if people want to be vegan, Gates doesn’t think most people will do that and thinks that alternative meat products will “eventually” be “very good.”

• Individuals who want to contribute to climate change mitigation can do things like vote, buy an electric car and stay optimistic.

The world will not be able to avoid overshooting the goal established in the 2015 Paris Climate Accord to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-Industrial levels, according to Bill Gates.

The billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder answered questions from Reddit users on Wednesday and a handful of the questions revolved around climate change. Gates made his fortune launching the software company Microsoft, but he has since launched the nuclear innovation company TerraPower and an investment firm, Breakthrough Energy, to back various climate change innovations, and has written a book about climate change, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.

“The pace of innovation is really picking up even though we won’t make the current timelines or avoid going over 1.5,” Gates wrote in response to a question about how well the world is responding to climate change.

Gates is hardly alone in his view. A report out at the end of October from the United Nations Environment Program found “no credible pathway to 1.5° Celsius in place.”

Gates also said bedraggled climate mitigation efforts will “slow down the progress we make on improving the human condition.” He pointed out that in some parts of the world more than 10% of kids die before the age of five and more than 30% don’t have enough to eat.

Despite Gates’ dour outlook, he also maintains some amount of optimism: “I still believe we can avoid a terrible outcome,” he said.

The advanced nuclear reactors TerraPower are building use liquid sodium as the coolant and uranium as a fuel source.

“We are making excellent progress,” Gates said, while also acknowledging that the Ukraine war has thrown a wrench in TerraPower’s plans because the reactors planned to operate with fuel coming from Russia and that relationship is no longer viable.

TerraPower’s first plant is slated for Wyoming and due to be online by 2030, Gates said. “This can make a huge contribution to climate challenges since it will be low cost and super safe,” Gates wrote.

Where making electricity is responsible for 27% of emissions, growing things like plants and animals is responsible for 19% of emissions, according to a breakdown Gates provided in his own climate book.

Gates has backed several companies working to make meatless meat products, including Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, he told Reddit users. And he’s also backed Memphis Meats (which has since rebranded under the name Upside Foods), Gates said, and which takes cells from an actual animals and grows the products in laboratory environments.

“I think eventually these products will be very good even though their share is small today,” Gates told Reddit. It’s important to innovate alternative ways to produce meat alternatives and climate conscious ways because, “for people who want to go Vegan that is great but I don’t think most people will do that,” Gates said.

Beyond diet, Gates generally supports the thesis that creating cost-effective clean-energy alternatives is the best way to fight climate change. “The key on climate is making the clean products as cheap as the dirty products in every area of emission — planes, concrete, meat etc,” Gates said on Reddit. “This is the only way we can ask all the countries in the world to change. If it costs a lot extra we won’t succeed.”

While innovation is the primary tool humans have to address climate change, according to Gates, everyone can contribute to mitigating the effects of climate change, he said.

“You are a voter, a consumer, a giver and a worker. In every one of those roles you can help,” Gates wrote.

Buying an electric car is something individuals can do, as are options to pay “a bit extra” to offset emissions generated when you travel, which Gates does for all of his emissions for himself and his family.

“We need support on climate from both parties in the US and in all countries,” Gates said. Also, “staying hopeful is a good thing!”

Source: PTI

The US drive to decarbonize is at an inflection point. Critical actions could accelerate the transition while enhancing energy affordability and supporting inclusive economic growth.

The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—as well as the commitments made by the federal government to cut greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions by 50 to 52 percent by 2030 and achieve a net-zero grid by 2035—has given new momentum in the United States to public- and private-sector efforts to moderate the effects of climate change. At the same time, these efforts have to contend with powerful headwinds arising from the war in Ukraine, disruptions to global supply chains, and exacerbated inflationary trends.

The net-zero transition is predicated on substituting electricity for fossil fuels. Therefore, a key enabling step is to decarbonize the electric sector, which currently accounts for 25 percent of US GHG emissions. Such a step will, by nature, have to be front-loaded. This will require new policies, market mechanisms, business models, and technologies to be developed and deployed at scale. Achieving all of these at the pace and scale required may prove elusive in the current, highly challenging environment. The net-zero transition looks set to be even more disorderly across the globe than feared a year ago. Nevertheless, we believe that maintaining focus on the goal of a relatively more orderly transition is critical. This will require business leaders and policy makers to thoughtfully plan, design, innovate, and act in concert and with great urgency. Conversely, if these shifts were to be delayed or not carefully managed, the result would be a significantly less orderly transition that would cost considerably more and entail much greater environmental damage.

We have identified six action areas that we believe are critical to enabling a more orderly net-zero transition. Such a transition includes near-term emissions reductions that would rapidly put the United States on a 1.5° pathway while remaining cognizant of affordability, reliability, resiliency, and security (see sidebar “Modeled scenarios underlying our analyses”). Such imperatives must be balanced with the need to maintain a resilient energy supply and to enable a least-cost pathway with equitably distributed economic growth opportunities. Although the actions we set out here will likely not be sufficient, they constitute, in our view, the necessary bedrock for this transformation and take priority at this stage:

• designing and deploying a capital-efficient and affordable system
• strengthening supply chains to provide stable access to raw materials, components, and skilled labor
• securing access to adequate land with high load factors for the deployment of renewables while taking into account the needs of local communities
• reforming transmission development to include proactive planning, fast-track permitting, and systematic consideration of transmission alternatives
• creating market mechanisms for expanding firm capacity to ensure reliable and adequate clean-energy supply
• accelerating technological innovation to ensure timely deployment of new clean technologies

Designing and deploying a capital-efficient and affordable system

Historically, energy sector spending has focused on ongoing fuel costs, but these costs are expected to be cut in half by 2050 as the system shifts toward renewables. By contrast, energy sector transition spending will have to focus on capital investments—for example, to deploy more renewable-energy facilities and boost electric-grid capacity. We estimate the energy transition could potentially require more than $500 billion in additional capital for generation, transmission, and distribution through 2030 in the United States.

Given the magnitude of this investment, making efficient use of capital will be critical. Businesses and policy makers will need to target capital expenses with a laser focus to mitigate the affordability challenges that end customers will face. Three key priorities would enable such a focus:

1. Plan investments for long-term decarbonization. Given the longevity of power infrastructure, customers would bear the costs over many decades. Getting long-term planning right today is critical to managing costs through the 2040s and 2050s. System planners and electric and gas utilities would gain from immediately adopting resource planning that is cross-sectoral and incorporates emissions caps. As an example, effective decarbonization planning that integrates across gas and electric utilities could lead to a system that is at least 15 to 25 percent more cost-effective.1

2. Deploy capital more cost effectively. Capital efficiency is more critical than ever today, especially in the context of steep inflation and supply chain challenges. Renewables developers, for example, have lowered capital expenditures by 10 to 20 percent through measures such as design-to-cost analysis, clean sheet–based negotiation, schedule optimization, and lean and digitalized construction. To motivate these and other cost-saving measures, the government and regulators could adjust incentives for utilities through performance-based measures or evaluation of a utility’s total expenditure.

3. Empower and educate customers to manage rising rates. Utilities and other energy companies can put in place programs to help their customers understand, prepare for, and adapt to potential changes. A key step would be to focus on rate-design options targeting lower-income households and other consumers who would be most affected by energy transition costs. Companies can also develop tools that encourage cost-effective demand-side management and distributed energy resources (DERs) where sensible for the system and the customer.

Strengthening supply chains to provide stable access to raw materials, components, and skilled labor

Supply chains, already under stress, will likely be stretched further as demand for materials, manufacturing, and labor scales not only in the United States but also globally, with many countries ratcheting up commitments. Companies would need to act in three main areas:

1. Secure availability of raw materials. To ensure the steady availability of raw materials and other resources that are critical to the energy transition, private-sector companies can commit to long-term supply agreements. Where those are insufficient, companies can innovate to reduce material constraints in four ways: innovating to increase supply; applying advanced analytics in mining and processing; reducing demand by developing alternative materials that are less constrained—boosting efficiency without increasing material usage—and by developing recycling processes and capacity; and proactively plan for constraints.2

2. Scale up resilient manufacturing. Companies can focus research and development on innovation for domestic production capabilities and use artificial intelligence to create optimized, flexible sourcing plans to scale up resilient manufacturing. For example, one global renewables developer is building a domestic, automated manufacturing facility to mitigate supply chain risk. While it will likely result in a near-term price increase, the risk reduction could pay off by minimizing project delays that result from supply chain issues.

3. Develop and acquire talent. With more than 550,000 new energy transition job opportunities in the United States expected by 2030, workforce gaps could delay execution at pace. To solve this, companies can tap into talent pools from fossil-fuel industries. In many instances, these workers have skills that are transferable to the jobs required for the energy transition, potentially filling 10 percent of the overall openings. To fill the remaining gap, companies could adopt more inclusive hiring practices, such as shifting to skills-based rather than credential-based hiring. Companies can also facilitate upskilling and reskilling through vocational schools and on-the-job training programs. This training and development are needed for the energy transition, but also facilitate the creation of good jobs.

The government can also support the scaling of resilient supply chains by developing a robust, multiyear national resource strategy to secure access to rare-earth materials, provide incentives to onshore manufacturing, and dedicate funding for training and vocational programs.

Securing access to adequate land with high load factors for the deployment of renewables

If the 2030 goals set by the US government are to be met, about 75 percent of all land with strong potential for renewables (that is, having a capacity factor in the 95th percentile or higher) and proximity to transmission lines would need to be developed for either solar or onshore wind power generation.

On the regional level, some areas—particularly the Northeast—have insufficient high-quality land to cost effectively produce all their renewables locally. These areas will have to rely on improved transmission or alternative technologies such as offshore wind, as described below.

Land for the development of renewables could be used more efficiently—for example, with improved solar and wind technology that is more efficient and therefore requires less land for the same power output. To address siting challenges, including community concerns, that could limit access to high-quality land, developers could share the economic value of high-quality land with owners and local communities. Communities that have recently experienced economic shifts could particularly benefit from the jobs and economic development, enabling a win–win situation for the developer and the community if value is appropriately distributed.

Reforming transmission development to include proactive planning, fast-track permitting, and systematic consideration of transmission alternatives

Transmission is critical to achieving a more orderly energy transition, given its role in connecting communities to renewable power. A McKinsey analysis evaluating the current US transmission interconnection queue estimates that 175 gigawatts of renewables—or nearly 500,000 gigawatt-hours of zero-carbon electricity each year—could be unsupplied if interconnection is not accelerated.

The challenges associated with transmission buildout in the United States have been widely analyzed, and some proposed solutions are being piloted or deployed.3 Most remain far from being realized, however, despite a number of attempts at transmission reform over the past decades.

To continue and accelerate the policy discussions and planning reforms that are under way, addressing three core planning issues will likely prove critical: the evaluation of diverse value streams unlocked by transmission; cost and benefit allocation across jurisdictions; and permitting and siting challenges.

However, given that these issues have proven hard to tackle in the past, it is prudent for businesses and governments to plan for alternative options in the event that the transmission gridlock does not get resolved. There are three ways to diversify transmission:

1. Deploy DERs. Companies, system planners, and policy makers could enable and offer incentives for the deployment of DERs—including distributed solar and storage, as well as demand-side management and energy efficiency—to create local capacity.

2. Optimize electric transmission with the existing gas network. System planners and utilities could use the existing gas network to manage winter peaks and lower transmission capacity needs while reducing overall gas throughput and transitioning to zero-carbon molecules.

3. Transition to dispatchable zero-carbon resources. In places where transmission buildout to connect renewables to population centers does not materialize, system planners and companies could transition to dispatchable zero-carbon resources—for instance, offshore wind, the combustion of zero-carbon fuels (such as renewable natural gas, synthetic natural gas, or hydrogen), nuclear power, and long-duration energy storage—that can be sited closer to population centers.

Creating market mechanisms for expanding firm capacity to ensure reliable and adequate clean-energy supply

About 80 percent of today’s power system is made up of flexible power sources such as natural-gas plants that can ramp up and down quickly to meet sudden shifts in supply or demand. But as penetration of intermittent renewables increases, lack of flexible resources will likely become a risk to system reliability. To mitigate this risk, system planners, utilities, generators, and policy makers should collaborate through data sharing, simulation planning, and stakeholder engagement to establish and implement the market mechanisms needed.

System planners can evolve market mechanisms to incentivize sufficient flexible resources in three ways:

1. Revise methodology for resource planning to avoid overstating firm capacity. Today, most capacity markets allow some share of a renewable plant’s power to count as “firm” power that can be called upon when the system is in need. However, given renewables’ intermittency, they cannot reliably deliver in every instance. In most capacity markets, renewables’ stated flexibility should be adjusted to reflect this reality. This issue is not limited to renewables; system planners could also carefully assess other resources to reduce the risk that firm capacity is overstated.

2. Expand forecasting to account for changing supply and demand, particularly as climate shifts. Under a 2.0°C degree warming scenario in Texas and California, the number of yearly heat waves would increase by about 20 to 30 percent. More frequent extreme weather events result in three system problems: power generation can decline (for example, solar panels operate at lower efficiency in heat); demand can spike (for instance, increased demand for air conditioning); and if the weather event affects an entire region, energy imports from nearby can become unavailable. Given these shifts, system planners would need to forecast more conservatively rather than relying on historical trends.

3. Provide adequate incentives to flexible power sources that can generate power for long periods of time. As an example, during a week of low wind in February in a northern region, the system would be put in a bind by electrified heating and limited solar output, coupled with an occasionally expected “drought” of wind power. During such periods, the power system will require resources that are not energy or duration limited. Regulators can consider policies that avoid incentivizing a single threshold, such as by creating mechanisms that auction capacity in tranches of duration.

Accelerating technological innovation to ensure timely deployment of new clean technologies

Historically, clean technologies have come onto the grid over several decades, from initial small-scale deployment to broad commercial deployment. For example, offshore wind took 25 years to progress from the first commercial demonstration in Europe to starting to scale in the United States. Such a timescale is too slow to develop and deploy the newer technologies that would be needed to affordably meet 2030 decarbonization goals.

This is the case with wave power, for example, which offers an attractive load profile that mitigates some of the challenges of renewables intermittency and that can be sited near population centers on the coast or placed alongside offshore wind farms. The first commercial contracts for this technology were recently signed in Europe. Other innovative technologies that could solve energy transition challenges include perovskite solar cells to reduce the cost of solar; long-duration energy storage to provide grid reliability; small modular reactors to enable zero-carbon baseload power; and direct air capture to reduce carbon. Businesses and policy makers would benefit from considering three key priorities to accelerate technological innovation: investing to reduce risk, providing long-term market and regulatory clarity, and investing in the shared infrastructure needed to scale.

The time to act

The United States’ accelerating momentum toward an energy transition puts it, at long last, on a path to achieving necessary decarbonization, even though the short-term global headwinds cannot be ignored. If carefully planned and executed—with attention to socioeconomic impacts and affordability concerns; supply chain, transmission, and land constraints; technological innovation; and enabling market mechanisms—the United States can make marked progress toward a relatively more orderly energy transition. Equally important, it could do so through a path that creates new economic opportunities for individuals, communities, and companies and that sets the tone on a global scale.

Source: mckinsey

Principal Engineer Mohamed Mekkawy will be based in the company’s California office

Engineering consultancy Gavin & Doherty Geosolutions (GDG) has expanded its footprint to the US West Coast with the appointment of Mohamed Mekkawy.

Mekkawy, a Principal Engineer with 14-years’ experience, is a technical expert in site investigation and the design of coastal and offshore structures.

He has a particular interest in the design of deep foundations, site characterisation and the integration of geotechnical and geophysical data for managing subsurface risk.
Mekkawy will be based in California.

GDG is already active on the East and West Coasts of the US and the team has worked with several bidders for the recent California auction.

Paul Doherty, GDG founder and Executive Vice President of Engineering at Venterra Group, said: “Dr Mekkawy’s appointment demonstrates GDG’s commitment to the US market as well as their ambition to grow the American technical team.

“2023 will be an exciting year as we build our current USA platforms.”

In his previous role, Mekkawy managed integrated technical and commercial offshore renewable projects and led several US offshore wind projects that utilised nearshore marine site investigation and geophysical methods as well as the design of various foundations for offshore turbines.

He was a project manager on several offshore wind projects including the Skipjack Offshore Wind Farm in Delaware, the Icebreaker Wind project in Ohio, and the Virginia Offshore Wind Technology Advancement project for Dominion Energy.

Source: renews

nanoFlowcell is a European company headquartered in London that focuses on flow battery technology. Flow batteries are an intriguing concept. Unlike lithium batteries or fuel cells, they store electricity in two liquid chambers separated by a membrane. They hold enormous potential for low cost, environmentally friendly energy storage because the basic materials are cheap and abundant. To add capacity, simply make the tanks larger.

While that makes flow batteries ideal for energy storage — whether in the basement of a building or as part of a grid scale installation — their size and weight make them a challenge for use in vehicles. That hasn’t stopped nanoFlowcell from designing a number of concept and prototype vehicles over the past 10 years and introducing them to the public at the Geneva auto show. Its latest concept is a tasty little crumpet known as the Quantino 25.

The Flow Battery & Bi-ION Fluid

The thing that makes the nanoFlowcell ecosystem work is an electrically charged fluid called Bi- ION derived from seawater or reclaimed waste water. It works sort of like hydrogen in a fuel cell. Pump hydrogen in, run it through a fuel cell, and get electricity out. With the Quantino 25, which the company calls a “2+2 sports car,” you pump two liquids to the membrane interface to make electricity.

There are two 33-gallon tanks mounted low in the chassis much the way a lithium-ion battery pack fits into a normal electric car. Fill up with Bi-ION, and you have a car that will dash to 100 km/h in 2.5 seconds, thanks to its 4 electric motors with 80 horsepower each. And get this. According to Autoblog, the company says with full tanks, the Quantino 25 has a range of 1200 miles! Goodbye range anxiety, hello happy motoring.

We should point out that water weighs about 8 pounds per gallon, so the “fuel” to travel 1200 miles would weigh roughly 528 pounds. A conventional lithium-ion battery pack with its attendant cooling apparatus that could travel that far would weigh at least 3 times as much. Granted, the Quantino 25 is not a production car and very few people have ever driven one, but that kind of range vs weight ratio has got to get your whiskers twitching a little in anticipation.

Actually, the folks at Autocar did drive an early prototype in 2016 at the TCS test track near Zurich, Switzerland, and determined that it was a real driveable car. My colleague Jennifer Sensiba reported in April of 2019 that the company’s Quantino test vehicle passed the 350,000 km mark (220,000 miles) with no signs of damage to the membrane or the pumps, and didn’t seem to have suffered any wear at all. The vehicle’s engineers pointed out that it had driven for 10,000 hours at this point. The company says it wants to offer its flow battery technology to EV manufacturers and give the system a 50,000-hour guarantee. That translates to well over 1 million miles of driving.

The problem, of course, is that there is no Bi-ION refueling infrastructure just yet, but that doesn’t mean someday there couldn’t be. Tesla had no Supercharger network when it first started either and things turned out reasonably well for Musk and company.

nanoFlowcell USA Announced

nanoFlowcell announced this week that it has established a new division based in New York to bring its flow battery technology to America. The mission of the new division is to adapt the nanoFlowcell process to US-specific applications and develop nanoFlowcell applications in America. Priority one is beginning series production of flow battery vehicles as well as the constructing a large scale bi-ION production facility that will provide transportable renewable energy for nanoFlowcell applications.

The Bi-ION electrolyte is a high density energy carrier that makes renewable energies storable and transportable in large quantities. The company says it will produce the energy carrier bi-ION from 100 percent renewable energy. Flow cell energy technology is an important solution to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions as laid out in the Paris Agreement, the company says. Its many benefits include being a safe and clean energy source for many energy intensive processes and transportation services.

“Our nanoFlowcell flow cell and bi-ION energy carrier are key technologies for a successful energy transition,” says Nunzio La Vecchia, CEO of nanoFlowcell Holdings. “We need to make energy from renewable energy safe, storable and transportable to drive environmentally sustainable economic growth. This requires a well thought out strategy and the development of the appropriate infrastructure. With the establishment of nanoFlowcell USA, we are reaching an important milestone in this regard for our future corporate development.”

Focus On Renewable Energy

The production costs of Bi-ION are directly linked to the cost of electricity from renewable sources. With the accelerated expansion of renewable energy under the Inflation Reduction Act, nanoFlowcell expects the cost of electricity from solar power to be relatively low in the future which will further strengthen the competitiveness of energy sources such as Bi-ION.

“With the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. has made the largest investment in clean energy in U.S. history, and the potential implications for renewable energy are far-reaching.” But La Vecchia points out, “We will not seek government investments for nanoFlowcell USA to expand our manufacturing facilities and infrastructure in the United States. Where appropriate, we will enter into strategic partnerships to build and expand manufacturing and infrastructure, and to integrate nanoFlowcell technologies into all sectors of the economy.”

“More importantly, with nanoFlowcell USA, we want to help accelerate the decarbonization of the global economy and create economic, social and ecological prosperity. After all, estimates suggest that the clean energy sector will create 500,000 additional jobs. We want to do our part to make this happen.”

‍The Takeaway

nanoFlowcell is about more than electric cars. It wants to get involved in grid-scale energy storage, among other things. But to those of us soaking in the hot tub warmed by excess heat from a nearby data center here at CleanTechnica global headquarters, it seems that its contribution to emissions-free transportation could be enormous. Maybe some of those companies still chasing the hydrogen fuel cell dream might find the company’s flow battery technology cheaper and more durable without all the headaches that go with making, storing, and transporting hydrogen.

A Bi-ION refueling station would probably cost less than a tenth as much as a hydrogen filling station. A link-up with a major manufacturer would make it easier to build out the infrastructure needed to make this dream a reality. Hey, people laughed at Tesla in 2010. If nothing else, this is a company we will be keeping our eye on.

Source: statnano

In the fight against climate change, national goals are facing local resistance. One county scheduled 19 nights of meetings to debate one wind farm.

MONTICELLO, Ill. : Depressed property values. Flickering shadows. Falling ice. One by one, a real estate appraiser rattled off what he said were the deleterious effects of wind farms as a crowd in an agricultural community in central Illinois hung on his every word.

It was the tenth night of hearings by the Piatt County zoning board, as a tiny town debated the merits of a proposed industrial wind farm that would see dozens of enormous turbines rise from the nearby soybean and corn fields. There were nine more hearings scheduled.

“It’s painful,” said Kayla Gallagher, a cattle farmer who lives nearby and is opposed to the project. “Nobody wants to be here.”

In the fight against global warming, the federal government is pumping a record $370 billion into clean energy, President Biden wants the nation’s electricity to be 100 percent carbon-free by 2035, and many states and utilities plan to ramp up wind and solar power.

But while policymakers may set lofty goals, the future of the American power grid is in fact being determined in town halls, county courthouses and community buildings across the country.

The only way Mr. Biden’s ambitious goals will be met is if rural communities, which have large tracts of land necessary for commercial wind and solar farms, can be persuaded to embrace renewable energy projects. Lots of them.

According to an analysis by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the United States would need to construct more than 6,000 projects like the Monticello one in order to run the economy on solar, wind, nuclear or other forms of nonpolluting energy.

In Piatt County, population 16,000, the project at issue is Goose Creek Wind, which has been proposed by Apex Clean Energy, a developer of wind and solar farms based in Virginia. Apex spent years negotiating leases with 151 local landowners and trying to win over the community, donating to the 4-H Club and a mental health center.

Now, it was making its case to the zoning board, which will send a recommendation to the county board that will make a final call on whether Apex can proceed. If completed, the turbines, each of them 610 feet tall, would march across 34,000 acres of farmland.

The $500 million project is expected to generate 300 megawatts, enough to power about 100,000 homes. The renewable, carbon-free electricity would help power a grid that currently is fed by a mix of nuclear, natural gas, coal, and some existing wind turbines.

But with more and more renewable energy projects under construction around the country, resistance is growing, especially in rural communities in the Great Plains and Midwest.

“To meet any kind of clean energy goals which brings consumer benefits and energy independence, you’re going to see an increase in projects,” said JC Sandberg, interim chief executive of the American Clean Power Association. “And with those increases in projects, we are facing more of these challenges.”

On Election Day last month, Apex saw its development efforts for a wind farm in Ohio die when voters in Crawford County overwhelmingly voted to uphold a ban on such projects. On the same day, voters in Michigan rejected ordinances that would have allowed construction of another Apex wind project. Earlier this month, local officials in Monroe County, Mich., extended a temporary moratorium on industrial solar projects, delaying plans by Apex to develop a solar farm in the area.

“Projects have been getting more contentious,” said Sarah Banas Mills, a lecturer at the school for environment and sustainability at the University of Michigan who has studied renewable development in the Midwest. “The low hanging fruit places have been taken.”

In Piatt County, the zoning board decided to conduct a mock trial of sorts. During the first nine hearings, Apex and its witnesses made the case that property values would not decline and that other concerns about wind farms — that they are ugly, that they kill birds, or that the low frequency noise they emit can adversely affect human health — were not major issues.

They won some converts. Meg Miner, 61, a resident who was on the fence about the project, decided to support Apex after considering how the project would help fight climate change.

But others were worried about all the issues that the real estate appraiser mentioned, and more. “I moved here for nature, for trees, for crops,” said Sandy Coyle, who lives nearby and opposed the project. “I’m not interested in living near an industrial wind farm.”

Much of that skepticism appeared to be earnest concern from community members who weren’t sold on the project’s overall merits. On the fringe of the debate, however, was a digital misinformation campaign designed to distort the facts about wind energy.

The website of a group called Save Piatt County!, which opposes the project, is rife with fallacies about renewable energy and inaccuracies about climate science. On Facebook pages, residents opposed to the project shared negative stories about wind power, following a playbook that has been honed in recent years by anti-wind activists, some of whom have ties to the fossil fuel industry. The organizers of the website and Facebook groups did not reply to requests for comment.

As part of the Goose Creek Wind project, Apex has secured a commitment from Rivian, the upstart electric truck company, to buy power from the project, a development that drew skeptical replies in one Facebook group. “Scam artists in it together to fleece middle class taxpayers,” wrote one local resident in response to a news story about the deal. “Wake up.”

That milieu of misinformation appeared to sway some residents.

“These things are intrusive,” said Kelly Vetter, a retiree who opposed the project and disputed the overwhelming scientific consensus that carbon dioxide emitted from the burning of fossil fuels is dangerously warming the planet. “The company’s never going to have the community’s interest at heart.”

Smack in the middle of the area where Apex wants to erect its turbines sits the Bragg family’s farm, a roughly 1,500-acre plot that on a cold December afternoon was little more than an expanse of mud following the fall harvest and a week of rain.

Braxton Bragg, 40, who grew up on the land and returned following stints in the Peace Corps that took him to Mali and Mongolia, supports the project. He is concerned about climate change, and said he already sees its effects. The rain is harder when it comes, the cold sets in later than it used to, and overall, the growing season is less predictable than it was when his grandfather worked the same land.

But his support for wind comes down to economics. Mr. Bragg has agreed to let Apex site one of its turbines on his property, and expects to earn about $50,000 a year if it is built.

“It’s not going to save the farm or allow me to retire,” he said. “But just having that steady income every year, you know what you’re going to get.”

A few miles down the road is Gallagher Farms, another multigenerational operation. Like Mr. Bragg, Ms. Gallagher, 34, believes in climate change. She has invested in cover crops, which absorb carbon and lock it away in the soil, and other regenerative agriculture practices.

But Ms. Gallagher is opposed to the project. The aerial seeding of cover crops will cost more with wind turbines nearby and make it harder for her to sustainably farm. The use of heavy equipment to install turbines can disrupt drainage patterns in agricultural land, and Ms. Gallagher believes her farm will suffer.

Adding to her frustration is the fact that about 70 percent of the landowners who have agreed to let Apex put turbines on their property live outside Piatt County.

“They don’t live here, so they’re not impacted,” Ms. Gallagher said as she tended to her cattle before heading to yet another hearing.

More than anything else, Ms. Gallagher fears that the wind turbines, which she would see from her front porch, would disrupt the bucolic land she loves. In the predawn hours, she walks outside and listens to the crickets, which she worries will be drowned out by the low thrum of the turbines. At night, she watches the sun set over a grain silo in the west, and doesn’t want the view marred by spinning turbines and flashing lights.

“We all want what’s good for society,” she said. “But it seems to be coming at the expense of our day to day lives.”

Mr. Bragg was sympathetic. “The only real argument that is valid, in my opinion, is that it’s going to change people’s sunsets and the beauty of living out in the country,” he said.

Still, he said, this was working farmland, and it was his right to put it to productive use.

“If you put your nice country house in the middle of my of my business, I’m sorry, there’s not much I can do about that,” Mr. Bragg said. “I think they probably would do the same thing if they were in my boat. The economics takes precedence over everything.”

Landowners like the Braggs would receive about $210 million in lease payments over the project’s 30-year life, Apex said. There would be other economic benefits including $90 million in local taxes. And if the project is built, the company said it would it would create eight permanent jobs, and employ nearly 600 people during construction, including men like Brendan Burton.

Mr. Burton, an ironworker who has helped build several nearby wind farms, said the jobs would help fill the void created by factories that have closed or moved overseas.

“We’re not building things here like we used to,” he said. “We need the jobs.”

Mr. Burton added that he wanted to see his community contribute clean energy to the grid as well.

“We can’t keep burning coal or natural gas,” he said.

‘We’re going to make people angry’

The debate in Piatt County has been remarkably civil. Similar hearings elsewhere have descended into shouting matches. In some cases, activists with ties to organizations that shield their donors have turned communities against proposed wind and solar projects.

That was the case in Monroe County, Mich., where local officials recently extended a moratorium that is blocking Apex from developing a solar project.

The opposition in Monroe County includes local residents, but also anti-wind activists with ties to groups backed by Koch Industries, which owns oil refineries, petrochemical plants and thousands of miles of oil and gas pipelines. On Facebook, those skeptical of the Apex project shared negative stories about solar power, and opponents of the project went door to door distributing misinformation.

On another cold night in December, as the 11th hearing on the Goose Creek Wind project began at the Monticello community building, Phil Luetkehans, a lawyer hired by opponents of the project, called more witnesses, including an audiologist, who discussed what he said were the adverse health effects of wind turbines. A lawyer representing Apex cross-examined him, and the hearing stretched for more than four hours.

“Both sides are getting a full opportunity to portray their position and to put forth the facts, and the people who we elect will make those final decisions,” Mr. Luetkehans said. “Some communities end up saying, ‘No, we don’t want an industrial scale wind at this proximity to homes.’ Others say, ‘Yeah, we want the money.’”

Among those in the audience was Michael Beem, a newly elected member of the Piatt County board, which will ultimately decide whether Apex can build its wind farm. From the back of the room, Mr. Beem was bracing himself to make a choice that will undoubtedly leave this rural community divided.

“No matter what decision we make,” he said, “we’re going to make people angry.”

Source: nytimes

Countries around the world are trying to solve the problem of EV charging by accelerating the construction of charging stations, with EV makers striving to advance battery technologies. However, extreme cold can cause trouble to EV owners as freezing conditions affect the performance of Li-ion batteries—a crucial component powering their vehicles. The historic winter storm blasting the US recently has prompted Tesla owners to complain that the blizzard has caused a range dip and that they cannot charge their vehicles.

A Tesla owner, for example, recently told the media that his EV battery was 40% charged at 19°F (around 7°C) outside. After charging for 2 hours, the battery level did not change much. As the temperature got lower, the charge became inefficient and fully stopped in the end. Because the car could only go for 19 miles with the remaining charge, he was forced to cancel his holiday trip.

A Taiwanese tech worker in New York also grumbled about the charging problem on social media when the city was hit hard by the winter storm, saying, “Winter is really a big challenge to EVs. At sub-zero temperatures, the Model Y keeps telling me to warm the battery before going on for a DC charge. This warm-up process is required only for AC charging in average weather. The charging speed thus slowed down dramatically. If the car stays at sentry mode when parked, it can lose nearly 10% of its range overnight.”

Li-ion batteries are prone to damage when charged below 0°C as lithium plating occurs at the freezing point. To avoid this chemical reaction in cold weather, EV systems will spend some time on heating up the battery to a certain temperature before actually initiating a charge, consequently increasing the charging time. Moreover, the battery range of EVs are lower under freezing conditions, as EV makers like Tesla restrict the capacity of batteries when their temperature is excessively low with an effort to protect them. The retained capacity can be accessed when the battery temperature returns to a normal level.

An EV’s range can largely slump in cold weather. According to a range test done in winter environments by the American Automobile Association, range fell by 41% at 20°F (−6.7°C) on average among the five EV models (including the Model 3) it tested. During the test, the Model 3 was stopped to let the cabin cool down. When the car was turned on again, the vehicle must use part of its battery capacity to heat the cabin, resulting in a range reduction. However, the Model 3 was not equipped with a heat pump system when the test was conducted. Therefore, later models with heat pumps will have better heating efficiency than their predecessors adopting resistance heating.

Batteries Have Limits

A Norwegian Automobile Federation study showed that EVs in Norway—where half of all new cars are powered by electricity—lost about 20% of their driving range in winter and took more time to charge in extreme cold. To maximize an EVs’ driving range in winter, experts and carmakers have offered some tips for EV owners, such as keeping the vehicle plugged in when not driving it, keeping the car warm, and even setting the time to pre-warm and pre-charge the vehicle before heading out.

Still, batteries have limits. As Anna Stefanopoulou, director of the University of Michigan’s Energy Institute, said, “Batteries are like humans. They prefer the same sort of temperature range that people do. Anything below 40°F (4°C) or above 115°F (46°C) and they’re not going to deliver their peak performance.”

EVs have no problem with charging in warm weather and can survive the cold of winter if the driver follows corresponding guidelines. Although driving a Tesla is a cool thing, gasoline cars might be more suitable for those who want to save the trouble of complex technical settings as extreme cold may be more common in the future.

Source: energytrend

Tesla’s new in-house batteries are finally on track, and can now supply 1,000 units of Model Y in the most recent week. It has been more than two years since they first announced the concept of this battery.

Tesla’s 4680 battery, the company’s first in-house battery cell, has a diameter of 46mm and a height of 80mm. It is being considered as a potential replacement for the existing 2170 battery cell.

Giga Texas produced 868K units of 4680 battery cells over the past week, which are enough for 1000 units of Model Y, and marked a major milestone for the particular factory at last.

It was February this year when Tesla last officially announced any news regarding 4680, when the Fremont Factory had completed the one millionth 4680 battery cell, and the company had not updated its news on batteries ever since.

Model Y that is only produced at Giga Texas right now, is adopted with the 4680 battery and a structured battery pack. According to what Tesla said previously, a single 4680 battery can provide five times the energy and increase 16% of durability, though it is larger in size, but it remains advantageous in cost compared to the existing 2170 battery.

The innovation of the 4680 battery lies on the production process that has altered the production procedures of traditional batteries by lowering water usage, degree of pollution, and production time. Tesla, once it is able to mass produce the 4680 battery on an extensive scale, will further bring down the cost of battery, and is no longer confined by battery suppliers then.

The production of this battery has evidently encountered numerous difficulties over the past year, where the three major suppliers that initially promised to fight for outsourcing opportunities had announced no further news after completing the prototype, while Tesla’s in-house battery plant has only started to ramp up in capacity now.

Models that are expected to adopt the 4680 battery include Model S Plaid, Tesla Semi, and Cybertruck, where the former two have decided to adopt old batteries due to pressure coming from delivery, while the latter’s capacity will depend on the provision of 4680 batteries as the model now has more than 1.5 million pre orders.

Source: energytrend

SÃO PAULO : Scala Data Centers, the leading Latin American platform of sustainable data centers in the Hyperscale market, is the first company in its sector to measure 100% of the Scope 3, as recommended by the GHG Protocol, the main tool used worldwide by companies and governments to understand, quantify, and manage their emissions.

Scope 3 is the most complex to measure, as it encompasses the carbon emissions generated by the company’s value chain related to the acquisition of goods and the commute of employees, among other items. The company was also the first in data centers’ sector in the region to fully neutralize its emissions, starting from its foundation, in 2020.

In line with its non-negotiable commitment to sustainability, Scala has measured and completely neutralized Scope 3 emissions, although this is not a mandatory step. “In addition to being an initiative that makes us proud and differentiates us in our industry, we hope that it will engage our ecosystem and peers to adopt it as a practice,” evaluates Christiana Weisshuhn, Senior Director of Strategy and ESG Program at Scala.

Scope 2 of GHG Protocol, which accounts for emissions caused by electricity consumption, is neutralized at Scala with the use of 100% renewable energy since its foundation. The company acquires energy through Power Purchase Agreements – PPAs, recognized by International Renewable Energy Certificates (I-RECs), which prove that the energy consumed comes from a renewable source.

In addition to using 100% renewable energy in its operations, Scala, through its unprecedented Engineering Center of Excellence (CoE), invests in projects that significantly increase energy efficiency and reduce water consumption. As a result, it boasts one of the best energy efficiency indices in Latin America, known as the PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness), below 1.4.

To neutralize the remaining Scope 1 emissions – generated by Scala’s own operations – and Scope 3 emissions, the company acquired more than 62,000 carbon credits from environmental projects focused on social development in Latin America.

“Sustainability is a principle that has guided our operations since Day 1. As a major consumer of energy, we understand our role as a transforming agent to promote a low-carbon economy and, therefore, we operate with the maximum efficiency possible from a safe, qualified, and sustainable IT infrastructure that brings benefits to our customers and society,” completes Christiana.

Social Commitments

Assuming responsibility for building a connected and environmentally responsible future, Scala has chosen to invest in projects focused on social responsibility and sustainable economic development in Amazonas, Acre, Mato Grosso and Maranhão. The projects seek to preserve local biodiversity, combat deforestation and, above all, generate economic and social alternatives for local communities in these regions.

About Scala Data Centers

Scala Data Centers is the leading Latin American platform of sustainable data centers in the Hyperscale market. Headquartered in Brazil and founded by DigitalBridge, it was developed to meet and exceed the growing demand for digital access in Latin America. Scala has a highly qualified team of over 500 professionals and applies a flexible and innovative approach to providing exceptional quality colocation services to hyperscale clients, cloud-based software and service providers, and large enterprises. We customize state-of-the-art solutions for each client in the construction of the latest generation data centers, with high availability, the best energy efficiency rates, and superior density. All this allied to the best sustainability practices guided by our ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) program.

Gates has invested more than $2 billion toward climate technologies, including direct air capture, solar energy and nuclear fission.

• Gates reflected on 2022 and described what he’s most excited about in the year ahead
• He transferred $20 billion of his funds to the Gates Foundation’s endowment
• He also praised Warren Buffett for his contribution

When it comes to climate change, Bill Gates considers himself a realist – even if that means admitting the world has no chance limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Given “the overall scale of our industrial economy … we’re going to have to do mind-blowing work to stay below 2 degrees,” he said.

But on meeting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C goal? No one wants to be “the first to say it,” but the math shows it’s no longer within reach, Gates said in a video interview with Reuters.

The software-developer-turned-philanthropist was nevertheless upbeat about climate innovation – ticking off numerous areas advancing low-carbon technologies with funding from the Breakthrough Energy Group, which Gates founded in 2015.

Gates has invested more than $2 billion toward climate technologies, including direct air capture, solar energy and nuclear fission. The 14-year-old fission company under the Breakthrough umbrella, TerraPower, aims to have a demo reactor running by 2030.

These things take time, said Gates, co-founder of Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O).

Gates spoke with Reuters ahead of the release of his annual letter – reflecting on 2022 and describing what he’s most excited about in the year ahead.

He transferred $20 billion of his funds to the Gates Foundation’s endowment, which plans to increase philanthropic spending on public health and education from $6 billion to $9 billion in coming years.

He also praised Warren Buffett for his contribution, which Gates said totaled $45 billion since 2006, counting Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N) stock appreciation.

Breakthrough Energy, however, operates separately from the Gates Foundation charity. In his letter to shareholders, Gates explains that the climate problem is too enormous for philanthropy alone to tackle.

“There’s not enough money, and so you have to have some innovation,” he told Reuters. “The idea that it can be done by brute force, there’s just no chance.”

Companies need investment and technical support to prove their low-carbon ideas beyond the pilot phase – and then to scale up manufacturing, he says. But any Breakthrough Energy profits are funneled back into the group or to the foundation.

Some of the companies under Breakthrough that are developing Direct Air Capture (DAC) – technology designed to pull CO2 straight from the atmosphere – have their sights set on some $3.5 billion in newly announced U.S. contracts to build DAC plants and fund research grants.

“We have a number of Direct Air Capture companies that will bid on being a part of those projects,” he said, noting that the recent Inflation Reduction Act legislation has boosted prospects for climate innovation. He did not elaborate on the DAC companies’ plans.

In manufacturing, the steel and cement industries have made “fantastic” progress, he said, a change from his worries about that sector just two years ago.

Manufacturing is responsible for about a third of global climate-warming emissions.

Now, “there’s no area of climate mitigation that I feel like ‘Oh, that’s really completely uncovered,'” he said.

Instead, with the world set to push past 1.5C of warming, he said the challenge is shifting toward helping people adapt to a harsher, hotter future.

“In addition to mitigation, which will still be the biggest part (of Breakthrough Energy’s investment), we’ll also fund adaptation-related work.” That could include technology to help control forest fires, using coral reef type structures to create barriers to flooding, or development of crop strains that can withstand drought.

Source: Reuters

• Bill Gates funds climate adaptation through his namesake philanthropic venture, the Gates Foundation, and he invests in climate tech companies through his investment firm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

• “Getting to zero will be the hardest thing humans have ever done,” Gates writes in his year-end letter published Tuesday. “We need to revolutionize the entire physical economy—how we make things, move around, produce electricity, grow food, and stay warm and cool—in less than three decades.”

• The bad news is that greenhouse gas emissions are still increasing. The good news, writes Gates, is that investment in climate tech solutions is exceeding his expectations.

The idea of becoming a grandparent is emotional for Bill Gates to even write about.

“I started looking at the world through a new lens recently — when my older daughter gave me the incredible news that I’ll become a grandfather next year,” Gates wrote in a letter published overnight on his personal blog, Gates Notes.

Gates’ 26-year-old daughter, Jennifer, and her husband, Nayel Nassar, are expecting their first baby in 2023.

“Simply typing that phrase, ‘I’ll become a grandfather next year,’ makes me emotional,” wrote the 67-year-old billionaire philanthropist, who earned his fortune from co-founding Microsoft
in the 1970s. “And the thought gives a new dimension to my work. When I think about the world my grandchild will be born into, I’m more inspired than ever to help everyone’s children and grandchildren have a chance to survive and thrive.”

Gates goes on to summarize the work his namesake philanthropic organization, the Gates Foundation, is doing for children living in global poverty, to improve education, pandemic preparedness, and the fights against polio and AIDS.

Gates also talks about the work he is doing to combat climate change, both through the Gates Foundation by supporting early stage climate companies with his investment firm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

Current leaders’ response to climate change will impact future generations, which is the first point Gates makes in the section of his letter where he addresses climate change.

“I can sum up the solution to climate change in two sentences: We need to eliminate global emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050,” Gates writes. “Extreme weather is already causing more suffering, and if we don’t get to net-zero emissions, our grandchildren will grow up in a world that is dramatically worse off.”

The implications are enormous — and so is the challenge.

“Getting to zero will be the hardest thing humans have ever done,” Gates writes. “We need to revolutionize the entire physical economy — how we make things, move around, produce electricity, grow food, and stay warm and cool — in less than three decades.”

Gates got started in working on climate change when he learned about the struggles of small farmers in countries where his namesake philanthropic organization was doing work. The Gates Foundation funds climate adaptation work, helping people adjust to the implications of a warming world, where there is no profit to be made by a commercial enterprise.

“It starts from the idea that the poorest are suffering the most from climate change, but businesses don’t have a natural incentive to make tools that help them,” Gates writes.

“A seed company can earn profits from, say, a new type of tomato that’s a nicer shade of red and doesn’t bruise easily, but it has no incentive to make better strains of cassava that (a) survive floods and droughts and (b) are cheap enough for the world’s low-income farmers,” Gates writes. “The foundation’s role is to make sure that the poorest benefit from the same innovative skills that benefit richer countries.”

Not all of Gates’ climate work is philanthropic. Breakthrough Energy Ventures funds early stage companies that are working to build and grow companies to decarbonize various sectors of the economy. Building for-profit companies to address a problem that impacts the well-being of the global population may come across as unsavory from Gates, who already has a fortune to his name — $103.6 billion according to Forbes as of Monday.

But Gates says decarbonizing global industry is too large a problem even for his deep pockets.

“Philanthropy alone can’t eliminate greenhouse gases. Only markets and governments can achieve that kind of pace and scale,” Gates said. Any profits Gates makes on investments he makes in Breakthrough Energy companies will go back into climate work or into the philanthropic foundation, he said.

Plus, if companies working to address climate change can be self-sustaining, that will encourage other investors to put money into them.

“Companies need to be profitable so they can grow, keep running, and prove that there’s a market for their products,” Gates writes. “The profit incentive will attract other innovators, creating competition that will drive down the prices of zero-emissions inventions and have a meaningful impact on emissions from buildings.”

Greenhouse gas emissions still increasing

The bad news is that greenhouse gas emissions are still increasing.

“Unfortunately, on near-term goals, we’re falling short. Between 2021 and 2022, global emissions actually rose from 51 billion tons of carbon equivalents to 52 billion tons,” Gates writes.

On Monday, the secretary-general of the United Nations also underscored the grim reality of the current moment in climate change.

“We are still moving in the wrong direction,” António Guterres said Monday. “The global emissions gap is growing. The 1.5-degree goal is gasping for breath. National climate plans are falling woefully short.”

Despite the bleakness of the current climate moment, Gates is optimistic about the rising investment in decarbonization technologies.

“We’re much further along than I would have predicted a few years ago on getting companies to invest in zero-carbon breakthroughs,” Gates writes.

Public money for climate research and development has gone up by one-third since the 2015 Paris climate accord, and in the United States, laws passed this year will put $500 billion toward moving the U.S. energy infrastructure away from fossil fuel-based sources, according to Gates.

Private money is also going into climate technologies at a good clip. Venture capital firms have put $70 billion in clean energy startups in the past two years, Gates writes.

Source: PTI

EV startup Canoo has finally delivered its first vehicle to its buyers, who is the US Army, and there is only one unit only. The Light Tactical Vehicle is a preliminary EV test by the US Army, and may generate additional profits for Canoo in the future to support the startup’s precarious financial reports.

The light Tactical Vehicle (LTV) of EV startup Canoo was delivered to the US Army last week, which completes the US$67,500 contract signed back in July this year.

The US Army is currently seeking for vehicles used for special purposes that can lower the dependency on petroleum and store significant power, which fulfill requirements of modern warfare, and that is why BEVs have aroused an interest for the US Army. Canoo’s multipurpose chassis is able to construct different vehicle interiors in accordance with various needs, thus conforming to the US Army’s demand.

The US Army’s requirements include: SAE=1772 charging port, full-wheel drive, at least 20cm above ground, configuration of dirt tires, load capacity of 2.5-5 tons, and independent provision of 120V power.

Building an electric truck with a contract of US$67,500 may seem very expensive, but it is actually quite a bargain if we probe into the use of materials. Canoo’s LTV has adopted carbon fiber and Kevlar for its compartment and chassis that offer sizable protection without adding too much weight, which not only safeguard its passengers, but the batteries located at the chassis would also be safe when traveling in harsh terrains.

Despite its rugged look, the LTV is exceptional in power performance by offering a horsepower of 600 from its all-wheel drive motor, and is adopted with a raised air suspension system, with corresponding 32-inch all-terrain tires that ensure continuous marching in battlefields or rubbles.

Another advantage of Canoo’s multipurpose chassis is that it transforms the LTV into a pick-up or a flatbed truck, where the vast and flat trunk can carry various construction materials or objects that exceed the length of the vehicle, as well as install all sorts of equipment.

The sand paint and all-terrain ties should attract enough outdoor lovers once the vehicle enters mass production, though the biggest problem of Canoo is not on sales, but production.

Thanks to the chassis and multipurpose functions, Canoo has received orders from NASA and Walmart, with orders of nearly 20K units also coming from the public, though the company can only produce roughly 100 units for the Gamma project right now. Canoo announced in November to have bought a battery plant and vehicle assembly plant in Oklahoma, and hopes to elevate capacity during the second quarter of 2023.

Canoo had a free cash flow of US$-115 million as indicated from the financial report of Q3, which is an improvement from US$-150 million in the previous quarter, though the company is still sitting on US$-100 million in revenue.

Source: energytrend

Statement From Gregory Wetstone, President and CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE):

“We commend Chairman Glick for being an exceptionally effective and visionary leader of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). His commitment, collegiality, and willingness to tackle the regulatory barriers facing the transition to a 21st century grid have been critically important. Chairman Glick’s departure will create a 2-2 split at FERC, leaving the commission divided and potentially stalling progress on critical transmission policy that is key to realizing the immense potential for investment and renewable deployment under the Inflation Reduction Act. We respectfully urge the President to quickly nominate a worthy successor and call on the Senate for rapid confirmation to restore a full complement of five FERC commissioners.”

About ACORE:

For more than 20 years, the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) has been the nation’s premier pan-renewable nonprofit organization. ACORE unites finance, policy and technology to accelerate the transition to a renewable energy economy.

Source: acore

ACORE, BW Research Release New Report Assessing Opportunities for Minority- and Women-Owned Businesses in Utility-Scale Wind, Solar, and Battery Storage Manufacturing

WASHINGTON, D.C. : As the U.S. renewable energy economy expands, intentional commitments for equitable economic and workforce development will be critical to achieving the nation’s just transition objectives and building a diverse domestic manufacturing supply chain. A report released today by the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) and BW Research Partnership identifies existing minority- and women-owned business enterprises (MWBEs) within the utility-scale wind, solar, and battery storage manufacturing supply chains; assesses existing supplier selection practices; and highlights opportunities to foster the growth of MWBEs and improve sector diversity.

“Thanks to the enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act, we can develop an enhanced domestic clean energy manufacturing base and do it in a way that meaningfully advances the renewable industry’s diversity, equity, and inclusion priorities,” said ACORE President and CEO Gregory Wetstone. “While diversifying our supply chains will require bold investment and support, we offer a roadmap in this report that includes a multi-pronged strategy across government policies and private-sector practices.”

The new report, Opportunities to Diversify the U.S. Renewable Energy Manufacturing Supply Chain, outlines three sets of opportunities to enhance supply chain diversity in the renewable energy and battery storage sectors:

Increasing the number and size of MWBEs in the industry to ensure there are adequate suppliers for downstream purchasers
Connecting MWBE suppliers to downstream purchasers in the renewable and battery storage sectors
Addressing market challenges by providing key support for MWBEs already in the supply chain

“As the United States accelerates decarbonizing its economy, building strong domestic supply chains for clean energy technologies has become a key priority,” said Philip Jordan, Vice President of BW Research Partnership. “It is critical that new investments to expand local manufacturing are accessible to communities that have typically been left behind to ensure equal access to the emerging opportunities.”

“As the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy, we acknowledge the important need to expand inclusion of Black, Latino, Native and communities of color in the clean energy workforce and actively advocate for the success of businesses owned and operated by women and people of color throughout the supply chain, said Blair Anderson, Director of Public Policy, AWS.” This report highlights important steps to address several barriers to entry for businesses owned and operated by women and people of color and AWS will continue to support ACORE programs like Accelerate to address these recommendations.”

“It is vitally important we create a more inclusive and equitable economy to ensure the U.S. remains competitive and resilient both at home and on the world stage,” said National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) CEO and President Ying McGuire. “This report reflects that reality and NMSDC looks forward to helping ensure minority business enterprises play a central role in building the sustainable and secure energy infrastructure needed for the future success of our country.”

ACORE will continue to work with policymakers, utility-scale developers and MWBEs to realize the report’s recommendations. To download a copy of Opportunities to Diversify the U.S. Renewable Energy Manufacturing Supply Chain.

About ACORE:

For more than 20 years, the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) has been the nation’s premier pan-renewable nonprofit organization. ACORE unites finance, policy and technology to accelerate the transition to a renewable energy economy.

About BW Research:

BW Research is a full-service research consulting firm specializing in workforce and economic development, with a particular focus on clean energy and decarbonization. It has a staff of 15 with offices in Carlsbad, California, and Wrentham, Massachusetts. Clients include public entities such as workforce investment boards, economic development agencies, cities, counties, and educational institutions that are looking for answers to empower effective decision making, as well as entities such as non-profits and advocacy groups, foundations and clean energy developers. BW Research provides services utilizing secondary research, qualitative research (e.g., focus groups, stakeholder interviews, ethnographies), and quantitative research (e.g., telephone, mail, web surveys) techniques and facilitating client engagements and strategy development.

Source: acore