University of Florida students at a September climate demonstration in Gainesville. (Instagram/Climate Action Gator)
A remarkable set of climate action records has been set just in the last week, with plenty more on schedule to top nearly all of them. Engineers always used to say: You can have good, fast, and cheap. Pick two. But not in renewables or computers, both of which get better, faster, and cheaper by the day.
Renewables
Construction began in the UAE before COP28, and is now complete.
Storage
The announcement came as Gelion, a separate Anglo-Australian battery company, said that early results showed that its own plans for lithium-sulphur batteries are working. It plans to use those batteries in products including electric aircraft that can take off and land vertically, as well as drones and more traditional electric vehicles.
Utah developer quadruples battery storage to meet demands
Here’s one way to accelerate the clean energy transition: quadruple the energy storage projects you’re already building.
Salt Lake City–based rPlus Energies made this move with its Green River Energy Center in eastern Utah. Utility Rocky Mountain Power had awarded a contract from a 2020 proposal for 400 megawatts of solar paired with 200 megawatts/400 megawatt-hours of energy storage — a substantial battery, to be sure.
But since then, electricity demand has switched into major growth mode to supply data centers, AI and electrification of vehicles and buildings. To deal with that, the utility asked for more from the Green River project. RPlus complied, and earlier this month, it announced it had amended its contract to include 1,600 megawatt-hours of storage capacity, four times the previously agreed-upon amount. It’s an unprecedented leap for a large-scale grid storage project, and it says a lot about the crucial storage market’s propulsive new era.
“This really gives [Rocky Mountain Power parent company] PacifiCorp the ability to have a large dispatchable system. […] It becomes effectively a 400-megawatt peaker plant,” rPlus President Luigi Resta told Canary Media.
EPA issues new auto rules aimed at cutting carbon emissions, boosting electric vehicles and hybrids
Finally a way to tell how clean grid batteries are
A carbon-free grid needs batteries that can store solar and wind power for use when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. But batteries don’t necessarily make power grids cleaner — not unless the power they charge up with is much lower-carbon than the power they displace.
Though this sounds obvious, it’s a tricky thing to measure in practice. But Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, a clean-energy and battery developer, has made some progress.
Last month, it unveiled the results of a real-world test of an emissions measurement tool for grid batteries. That’s a vital step for energy storage projects looking to sell to customers bound by strict carbon-accounting standards — including data centers, green hydrogen producers and a growing roster of “24/7” clean power seekers.
Student led climate action is flourishing in DeSantis Florida
The University of Florida made history last month when its student senate became the first at a public university to pass a climate resolution in support of Green New Deal policies. The “Green New Deal for UF” is a statement of support for bold, progressive climate action put forward by students at a time when the far-right holds a near monopoly on power in the state.
“This is big news for the climate movement at universities — not just in Florida, but everywhere,” said Cameron Driggers, a UF freshman. “It’s a first of its kind resolution that pushes back against the narrative that some states are lost causes for climate action.”
EVs
E-Bikes
How a cold hilly Canadian city became a year round cycling success story
The average daily temperature in February is 26 degrees Fahrenheit, with overnight lows at 12 degrees. There are 12 days of precipitation (primarily snow). There’s a massive, 764-foot-high hill (locals call it a Mont) smack dab in the middle of the city. Who would go cycling in such conditions? Montrealers, and the city’s bikeshare program has the stats to prove it.
Montreal’s bikeshare program, called BIXI, has grown exponentially since launching in 2009. With over 10,000 bikes, it has the largest fleet in Canada and one of the largest in North America. BIXI has a user base of more than 500,000 riders, who took almost 12 million trips in 2023, more than double the 5.8 million in (pre-COVID) 2019. This demand led BIXI to add winter service for the first time this season.
Opponents of investing in human-powered infrastructure often point to some impediment that makes their city less amenable to cycling than, say, sunny San Diego. 70,274 bike rides in February in one of the coldest and hilliest cities in North America suggests they may be underestimating that demand.
How and why to start an E bike library
Christopher Schmidt didn't set out to become a "bike therapist" when he started lending e-bikes to his neighbors out of his Cambridge backyard for a week a time. But soon, he found himself spending nearly as much time helping riders navigate the emotional challenges of getting on two wheels as he did loaning out chargers and helmets.
"Their questions aren't just, ‘How does the bike work?’" he added. "They're about, ‘What do you think about e-bikes? What do you think about e-bike fires?' … I think [that's] a lot of the reason that people come to the e-bike library, in place of a bike store."
Schmidt is one of a growing number of American who have launched a free, grassroots "e-bike library," which he created to help "more people understand whether an e-bike is right for them, and help them find the one that will work right for them if so." The model provides a neighborly alternative to sometimes-costly traditional bike share rentals that only offer limited models, too-short test-rides at bike shops that can be alienating for some shoppers, and even to traditional libraries that allow patrons to check out bikes alongside books — but may not have an expert on hand to talk about how and where to ride in a neighborhood they know intimately.
Electric Cars
Nissan promises an aggressive electrification push
Nissan plans to launch 34 EV models from fiscal 2024 through fiscal 2030, so that EVs will account for 40% of its global offerings by fiscal 2026, and 60% by the end of the decade.
Costs will come down for electric models so they’ll be about the same as gasoline-engine models by fiscal 2030, while global sales will grow by a million vehicles during that period, he added.
“Nissan must change. We cannot succeed if we continue along the same path.”
EPA issues new auto rules aimed at cutting carbon emissions, boosting electric vehicles and hybrids
Electric Trains
Hydrogen Cars
Toyota CEO: "This NEW Engine Will Destroy The Entire EV Industry!"
This video claims that 5 kg of hydrogen is enough for a range of about 300 miles, and that it’s ICE puts out no pollutants (which turns out not to be the case. Combustion in air produces NOx).
Corolla Cross H2 concept car
Hydrogen cars are trying to be the next big sustainable vehicle
But questions remain as to whether they can overtake battery-powered electric cars
No, not questions. Obfuscation.
Toyota sees hydrogen-combustion Corolla Cross as EV alternative
hydrogen combustion does produce some tailpipe emissions, including nitrogen oxide (NOx).
How does the cost of Hydrogen stack up against gasoline?
FCV [Fuel Cell Vehicle] fuel cost is three times higher per mile than a gasoline hybrid and two times higher than that of a conventional gasoline vehicle. To be competitive with hybrid gasoline vehicles on a per-mile basis in 2021, hydrogen needed to have been priced at $5.88/kg; hydrogen retailed at $16.50/kg that year.
ICEs are necessarily less efficient than FCVs.
Doom & Gloom
The Economic Consequences of Climate Change: An Interview with Nobel Laureate William Nordhaus
The DICE model (the Dynamic Integrated model for Climate and the Economy) is one of the first integrated assessment models or IAMs. This approach provides policy-relevant insights into global environmental issues through quantitative descriptions of key processes in human and earth systems. IAMs model the climate problem from end to end, from economy to emissions to atmospheric chemistry to climate dynamics, then on to impacts such as sea-level rise, wildfire, and health impacts, and finally closing the loop by including policies to bend the curve of CO2 emissions. The outputs of these models play a key role in understanding key relationships and formulating efficient policies to slow or reverse the trends.
International climate policy has set ambitious goals but has failed to establish an architecture for implementation.
We estimate that a global carbon price of $80 per ton of CO2 would be necessary to reach the goals of the 2015 Paris Accord. Yet, the World Bank estimates that the current global price is only a tiny $3 per ton.
This critical measure [social cost of carbon] (“SCC” for short) is the most important single economic concept in the economics of climate change. It designates the current and future damages caused by an additional ton of carbon dioxide emissions or its equivalent. The SCC has become a central tool used in climate change policy, particularly in the determination of regulatory policies that involve greenhouse gas emissions. The SCC has been used by the US government in rules that provide more than $1 trillion in benefits. Integrated models like DICE are essential to the calculation of the SCC and have been used by many governments in their formulation of climate policies.
- Countries need to raise carbon prices sharply.
- Replace the flawed international architecture on climate policy with a structure with carrots and sticks for incentivizing countries to participate in strong policies.
- Recognize that a policy of decarbonizing our economies will require major new technologies such as fusion ✖, advanced nuclear ✖, and superconducting networks ✖.
🤦🤦🤦
Big-time economist who knows nothing of the real technologies. No, what we need is cheap EVs, vastly expanded electrical grids, advanced geothermal, carbon-free or carbon-negative steel, cement, and ammonia, and real carbon capture at scale, something over 50 gigatons/year.
And a bigger stick
Winning fossil fuel workers over to a just transition
I have a dream. I have a nightmare.
The dream is that working people find careers with good pay, good benefits, and a platform for addressing grievances with their employers. In other words, I dream that everyone gets what I got over twenty-plus years as a unionized worker in the oil industry.
The nightmare is that people who had jobs with good pay and power in the workplace watch those gains erode as the oil industry follows the lead of steel, auto, and coal mining to close plants and lay off workers. It is a nightmare rooted in witnessing the cruelties suffered by our siblings in these industries — all of whom had good-paying jobs with benefits and the apparatus to process grievances when their jobs went away.
Workers, their families, and their communities were destroyed when the manufacturing plants and coal mines shut down, with effects that linger to this day. Without worker input, I fear that communities dependent on the fossil fuel industry face a similar fate.
This nightmare is becoming a reality as refineries in Wyoming, Texas, Louisiana, California, and New Mexico have closed or have announced pending closures. Some facilities are doing the environmentally conscious thing and moving to renewable fuels. Laudable as that transition is, a much smaller workforce is needed for these processes. For many oil workers, the choice is to keep working, emissions be damned, or to save the planet and starve.
This turns out not to be the case. Those fossil fuel jobs are going away regardless, and there are plenty of other jobs replacing them. As I have said before, we won’t need coal miners, but we will need to mine a variety of minerals. We won’t need oil and gas wells, but we will need geothermal wells.
As we say in Buddhism,
The Universe is not answerable to my personal will.
Snark
