Friday, August 7, 2020
Recycling Renewables and Sustainable Business 47
1 Could climate become the weak link in your supply chain?
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/could-climate-become-the-weak-link-in-your-supply-chain
Much of global economic production is organized around a complex system of interdependent supply chains. Supply chains facilitate the production of everything from computers and cars to lifesaving medicines and food, and support world trade in goods that is worth almost $20 trillion annually. End products have up to many thousands of parts, sourced from diverse geographies around the world. Over time, these supply chains have been honed to deliver maximum efficiency and speed.
2 Study to look into hydrogen use in maritime industry
https://www.offshore-energy.biz/study-to-look-into-hydrogen-use-in-maritime-industry/
OERA leads the study funded by Heritage Gas Limited, Liberty Utilities, the Nova Scotia Department of Energy & Mines and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
“This study is one way we are evaluating options to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in the Maritimes,” said OERA executive director Alisdair McLean.
“It will investigate hydrogen’s potential contribution to our region’s sustainable development goals, including creating hydrogen from local raw materials, transportation, storage and ultimate end uses both locally and in export markets,” he said.
3 Energy Giants Race For ‘Green Hydrogen’ Market Share
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Fuel-Cells/Energy-Giants-Race-For-Green-Hydrogen-Market-Share.html
Green hydrogen is red hot. While hydrogen has long been touted as a virtually inexhaustible source of clean energy, with zero carbon emissions since this first element on the periodic table burns clean, leaving behind only water vapor. This makes hydrogen highly marketable as a promising fuel source option for a decarbonized economy of the future. The idea of a new energy order has gained a ton of attention in the wake of the novel coronavirus’ unprecedented interruption to the energy sector status quo, with such influential organizations as the World Economic Forum calling for a “great reset”. Not all hydrogen is created equal, however.
4 Cobalt Price Squeeze Could Derail The EV Boom
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Cobalt-Price-Squeeze-Could-Derail-The-EV-Boom.html
Electric vehicle investors and enthusiasts tend to obsess about a single metric–EV sales–when trying to gauge the pace of global electrification. However, they tend to ignore another equally important part of the worldwide electrification drive: The number of EV charging points. Despite significant advances made in battery technology over the past decade, many people looking to make the switch to EVs still cite range limitation as their biggest concern, essentially meaning that they worry their EVs won’t make it to the next charging station before running out of juice.
5 Can Renewables Fully Sustain Our Current Way Of Life?
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/Can-Renewables-Fully-Sustain-Our-Current-Way-Of-Life.html
“The reason renewables can’t power modern civilization is because they were never meant to. One interesting question is why anybody ever thought they could.”
Michael Shellenberger, Time magazine “Hero of the Environment,” wrote this commentary in an article in Forbes.
According to Shellenberger, president at Environmental Progress and an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), renewables are simply incapable of sustaining our current way of life.
6 Lawrence Berkeley Lab helping advance lithium extraction from geothermal brines
https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/lawrence-berkeley-lab-helping-advance-lithium-extraction-from-geothermal-brines/
Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are working with two companies to evaluate and analyze their lithium extraction technologies at the planned lithium extraction from geothermal brines projects in at the Salton Sea in California.
The California Energy Commission recently awarded grants to advance lithium extraction from geothermal brines in California. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory will be working with two of the companies that received grants to explore and develop lithium extraction at the Salton Sea in California.
7 Covid-19 lockdown will have ‘negligible’ impact on climate crisis
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/07/covid-19-lockdown-will-have-negligible-impact-on-climate-crisis-study
The draconian coronavirus lockdowns across the world have led to sharp drops in carbon emissions, but this will have “negligible” impact on the climate crisis, with global heating cut by just 0.01C by 2030, a study has found.
But the analysis also shows that putting the huge sums of post-Covid-19 government funding into a green recovery and shunning fossil fuels will give the world a good chance of keeping the rise in global temperatures below 1.5C. The scientists said we are now at a “make or break” moment in keeping under the limit – as compared with pre-industrial levels – agreed by the world’s governments to avoid the worst effects of global heating.
8 Big Oil Took a Big Hit from the Coronavirus, Earnings Reports Show
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31072020/big-oil-coronavirus-losses
The world’s leading oil and gas giants this week revealed the scale of the damage inflicted on the industry by the coronavirus pandemic, with top American companies reporting billions in losses while some European companies were able to eke out small profits.
Shell and Total, based in the Netherlands and France, respectively, said a dimming outlook on the long-term demand for oil and gas had forced them to cut the value of their assets by a collective $25 billion. The two companies attributed that lowered outlook to the effects of the pandemic, but also to an accelerating global transition to clean energy
9 More than 100 coal-fired plants have been replaced or converted to natural gas since 2011
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=44636
According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), 121 U.S. coal-fired power plants were repurposed to burn other types of fuels between 2011 and 2019, 103 of which were converted to or replaced by natural gas-fired plants. At the end of 2010, 316.8 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired capacity existed in the United States, but by the end of 2019, 49.2 GW of that amount was retired, 14.3 GW had the boiler converted to burn natural gas, and 15.3 GW was replaced with natural gas combined cycle. The decision for plants to switch from coal to natural gas was driven by stricter emission standards, low natural gas prices, and more efficient new natural gas turbine technology.
10 Investors launch climate plan to get to net zero emissions by 2050
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-investors-idUSKCN2510FF
An investor group managing more than $16 trillion on Wednesday launched the world’s first step-by-step plan to help pension funds and others align their portfolios with the Paris Agreement on climate change.
Many investors have pledged high-level support to the goals of the 2015 Paris deal, but the “Net Zero Investment Framework” is the first to lay out the steps they need to take to ensure the commitment is backed up by the necessary action.
Specific targets could include increasing the percentage of assets invested in low-carbon passive indexes and ensuring the leaders of investee companies link pay to climate-related targets.
11 China poised to power huge growth in global offshore wind energy
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/05/china-poised-to-power-huge-growth-in-global-offshore-wind-energy
The world’s offshore windfarm capacity could grow eightfold by the end of the decade powered by a clean energy surge led by China, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).
A new industry report has revealed stronger than expected growth for the offshore wind industry, which could reach 234GW by 2030, from a global tally of just over 29GW at the end of last year.
The council revised its forecasts up by 15GW in its latest annual report on offshore wind power after the fastest ever growth in 2019, when new wind farms around the world added an extra 6.1GW to the global tally.
12 Energy is at the heart of the solution to the climate challenge — IPCC
https://www.ipcc.ch/2020/07/31/energy-climatechallenge/
The coronavirus pandemic has brought immense disruption to our world, destroying lives and livelihoods. But it is also reminding us that there are some challenges we cannot tackle alone.
Limiting the spread of the virus has required everyone to act collectively to make life safer for all of us. This holds true for the other great crisis the world faces – untamed levels of greenhouse gas emissions that are already bringing increasingly dangerous consequences.
13 Letter from economists: to rebuild our world, we must end the carbon economy
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/04/economists-letter-carbon-economy-climate-change-rebuild
From deep-rooted racism to the Covid-19 pandemic, from extreme inequality to ecological collapse, our world is facing dire and deeply interconnected emergencies. But as much as the present moment painfully underscores the weaknesses of our economic system, it also gives us the rare opportunity to reimagine it. As we seek to rebuild our world, we can and must end the carbon economy.
14 Credit Suisse earmarks more than $300 billion for sustainable finance
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-credit-suisse-gp-sustainability-idUSKCN24V1M3
Credit Suisse (CSGN.S) plans to provide at least 300 billion Swiss francs ($328.41 billion) in sustainable financing over the next decade in areas such as renewable energy and Green Bonds.
The move is the latest in a string of announcements by banks looking to display their green credentials and capture demand for cash from companies to help a shift to a low-carbon economy. Governments around the world are tightening rules on industry to try to meet the terms of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
