Mar 6, 2020
Recycling, Renewables and Sustainable Business 25
Friday, March 6, 2020
Recycling, Renewables and Sustainable Business 25
1 UBS hardens energy lending as ‘sustainable’ investments rise
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ubs-group-sustainability-idUSKBN20S0SF
Switzerland’s UBS (UBSG.S) said the value of its ‘sustainable’ investments rose by more than 50% to nearly $500 billion in 2019, while lending to the energy and utilities sectors fell by 40% as it tightened its rules.
2 Recycling: New PE Grades Made With a Blend of Recycled Material
https://www.ptonline.com/products/recycling-new-pe-grades-made-with-a-blend-of-recycled-material-
Ineos Olefins & Polymers and Forever Plast SpA, a polymer recycling technologies operator in Italy, have developed a range of new polyethylene grades made with 50% recycled bottle caps diverted from waste. Ineos claims that this range mirrors virgin grades and works with injection molding and compression molding machines.
3 Plant-based? Compostable? What you need to know about bioplastics
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/bioplastics-backgrounder-1.5485009
Plastics are an integral part of our lives, but they also pose some big environmental problems.
They generate a lot of waste, most of which isn’t recycled. A recent study from Environment and Climate Change Canada found that even in our country, only nine per cent of plastics are recycled — the rest is either incinerated, landfilled or ends up in the environment, where it can harm wildlife such as whales, turtles or seabirds. Those are some of the reasons the federal government plans to ban many single-use plastics by 2021.
4 Hydrogen Mobility: Coming Soon to a Bus or Truck Near You?
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/hydrogen-mobility-coming-soon-to-a-bus-or-truck-near-you
Hydrogen could have a significant impact on the transportation sector even though sales of fuel-cell cars have been miniscule to date.
More than 9 million hydrogen fuel-cell passenger vehicles could be built to support aggressive targets in markets such as California, China, Japan and South Korea, according to a new market report published by Wood Mackenzie.
5 How the new generation of 500 W panels will shape the solar industry
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/03/06/how-the-new-generation-of-500-watt-panels-will-shape-the-solar-industry/
There are two solar module manufacturers, Risen Energy and Trina Solar, that have unveiled first-of-their kind 500 W, 72-cell PV modules.
How will the advent of 500 W PV modules change the solar industry?
“For applications where you have a lot of area, particularly commercial and especially utility-scale, it’s really significant,” Cinnamon Energy Systems CEO Barry Cinnamon told pv magazine. “You could just use fewer modules – it reduces handling costs and overall balance-of-system costs go down.”
6 Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling: Fortum, BASF and Nornickel
https://www.argusmedia.com/pages/NewsBody.aspx?id=2084420&menu=yes
Finnish state-owned electricity producer Fortum has teamed up with chemical producer, BASF, and Russian miner Nornickel to form a battery recycling cluster in Finland. A letter of intent signed by all three companies announces a plan to develop a recycling operation next to Nornickel’s Harjavalta nickel refinery in western Finland. The plant will recycle old lithium-ion batteries, extracting battery metals to go back into the supply chain.
7 China Could Start A New Solar Price War
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/China-Could-Start-A-New-Solar-Price-War.html
The solar market is becoming supersized, with the size and scale of solar projects soaring and some of the biggest names in the tech industry getting behind the renewable energy boom. Despite the high-profile failure of the $1 billion Crescent Dunes solar plant developed by SolarReserve way out in the Nevada desert, which was going to be the biggest solar plant in the world, the solar industry is moving forward in its belief that, in most cases, bigger is better.
8 Warren Buffett’s Secret For Super Cheap Energy
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Wind-Power/Warren-Buffetts-Secret-For-Super-Cheap-Energy.html
In this year’s edition of his letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Warren Buffett had one more success story to share: the story of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, which this year celebrates 20 years under Berkshire ownership. The clients of the utility also have reason to celebrate: they are paying a lot less for electricity than, say, people in California, and they have been promised frozen rates until 2028. The secret behind the rate freeze and the low prices? Wind power.
9 Support builds to end free EU carbon permits for aviation
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-carbontrading-aviation-idUSKBN20S2FP
A proposal to end free European Union carbon allowances for airlines and make them buy all the pollution permits they need gained momentum on Thursday, as at least seven member states backed the idea, EU officials said.
10 Tesla wins approval to sell longer-range China-made Model 3 vehicles
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-china-idUSKBN20T1G2
Tesla Inc has secured Chinese government approval to sell longer-range China-made model 3 vehicles in China, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said on Friday.
The vehicles will have a driving range of more than 600 kilometers before they need to be recharged, the ministry said in a statement, while the current China-made Model 3 has a standard driving range of more than 400 kilometers.
11 More than a pipe dream: How turning on your tap could create electricity
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/what-on-earth-newsletter-in-pipe-hydro-1.5487356
Hydroelectricity is a greener way to generate power than burning fossil fuels, but big hydro dams come with their own environmental problems. Those can include greenhouse gas emissions from flooded and rotting vegetation and the potential to kill fish.
But there are smaller-scale sources of hydro generation that can have a lower impact. In fact, one of them is right under our feet — namely, the pipes that make water flow when we turn on the tap.
12 Tropical forests losing their ability to absorb carbon, study finds
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/04/tropical-forests-losing-their-ability-to-absorb-carbon-study-finds
Tropical forests are taking up less carbon dioxide from the air, reducing their ability to act as “carbon sinks” and bringing closer the prospect of accelerating climate breakdown.
13 New Technology Will Revolutionize Hydropower
https://www.altenergymag.com/article/2020/03/new-technology-will-revolutionize-hydropower/32794
Water is essential to life. For all of human history, bodies of water have provided transportation, food, irrigation and power. Humanity will never outgrow the need for water, and it might even be the key to saving us.
The world is in desperate need of sustainable energy. Although renewable sources of electricity have grown, fossil fuels still account for roughly 80% of energy consumption in the U.S. These power sources are cheap and convenient but release harmful emissions into the atmosphere, feeding climate change.
14 Two Years In, New York’s Energy Storage Market Has Grown ‘Faster Than We Expected’
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/two-years-in-new-york-storage-market-has-grown-faster-than-we-expected
A $280 million bridge incentive launched last spring to pay for some of the gap between the calculated value of energy storage and the money it can earn in the market today. The plan was to jump-start the market ahead of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s target of having 1,500 megawatts installed by 2025; then the incentives will taper off so the industry can meet the goal of 3,000 megawatts by 2030 subsidy-free.
15 No Subsidies Please, Says Europe’s Struggling Energy Storage Sector
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/no-subsidies-please-says-europes-energy-storage-sector
Europe needs an immense rollout of energy storage and other flexible energy resources if it’s going to hit its 2050 net-zero target. As of today, the market is largely stuck.
To date, Europe’s big successes on the energy storage front have come from tenders to provide frequency response and other grid services. But those needs have largely been met; prices have fallen and a very short-lived boom has busted.
16 Huawei pens 5GW European inverter distribution deal
https://www.pv-tech.org/news/52162
Huawei’s inverters will be flowing in large volumes to European solar projects via the network of a German associate, who will handle the supply of 5GW over the next two years under the terms of a new deal.
17 New approach to sustainable building takes shape in Boston
http://news.mit.edu/2020/mass-timber-sustainable-building-boston-0305
Designed by architects from MIT and the design and construction firm Placetailor, the five-story building’s structure will be made from cross-laminated timber (CLT), which eliminates most of the greenhouse-gas emissions associated with standard building materials. It will be assembled on site mostly from factory-built subunits, and it will be so energy-efficient that its net carbon emissions will be essentially zero.
18 This winter in Europe was hottest on record by far, say scientists
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/05/truly-extreme-winter-2019-20-in-europe-by-far-hottest-on-record
The winter just experienced by Europe was by far the hottest on record, scientists have announced, with the climate crisis likely to have supercharged the heat.
The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) data dates back to 1855. It said the average temperature for December, January and February was 1.4C above the previous winter record, which was set in 2015-16. New regional climate records are usually passed by only a fraction of a degree. Europe’s winter was 3.4C hotter than the average from 1981-2010.
19 Evaluating battery chemistries for grid-level storage
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/03/04/researchers-evaluated-battery-chemistries-best-suited-for-grid-level-storage/
The battery in a gas-guzzling car is usually a lead-acid device and the battery in a laptop is lithium-ion. The different chemistries offer unique advantages and disadvantages which make them more or less suitable for each application, which is why the industry prefers one type over another.
20 Map: Russia eyes Antarctic oil potential, despite exploration ban
https://blogs.platts.com/2020/03/04/map-russia-antarctic-oil-exploration-ban/
A Russian move to size up offshore oil and gas potential in the Antarctic may not signal the start of a rush to develop the world’s last great wilderness, but it does threaten to unravel a fragile political compromise that has protected the region for the last 60 years.
21 Automakers In Overdrive To Produce Electric Vehicles. But Can They Roll Out Chargers In Time?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2020/03/04/automakers-in-overdrive-to-produce-electric-vehicles-but-can-they-roll-out-chargers-in-time/
General Motors has its electric vehicle marketing program in overdrive. This week it is unveiling its gradual plans to release several all-electric models. It is an effort to show that the legacy automaker can go head-to-head with Tesla and lead a new movement in the car market.
22 BP, Santos carbon capture pact may rekindle dormant Australia plans
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-carboncapture-idUSKBN20R155
Australia’s dormant carbon capture and storage projects may gain some momentum after BP Plc and Santos said they would join up on a pending site as world’s largest coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporting country steps up its climate change fight.
23 Fossil fuels for power at turning point as renewables surged in 2019: data
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-electricity-fossilfuel-decline-idUSKBN20R0HU
The use of fossil fuels such as coal and oil for generating electricity fell in 2019 in the United States, the European Union and India, at the same time overall power output rose, a turning point for the global energy mix.