Framed by a backdrop of volcanoes, a semi-circle of gigantic fans in Iceland are sucking in air, super-heating it, then filtering out the carbon dioxide.
This carbon capture and storage facility, named Orca, turned on two weeks ago after more than 18 months of construction. The fans are embedded in shipping container-sized boxes, and once the carbon dioxide is separated, it gets mixed with water then travels through snaking, fat tubes deep underground, where the carbon cools and solidifies.
Through this process, Orca can trap and sequester 4,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year — making it the largest facility of its kind in the world (though there are currently only two running).
“Think of it like a vacuum cleaner for the atmosphere,” Julio Friedmann, an energy policy researcher at Columbia University who attended the plant’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, told Insider. “Nothing else can do what this tech does.”
According to the latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), carbon capture and storage is a necessary part of our best-case climate scenarios. But currently, facilities like Orca only negate a sliver of global emissions.
Climate scientist Peter Kalmus has done the math: “If it works, in one year it will capture three seconds worth of humanity’s CO2 emissions,” he wrote on Twitter.
Today the world's biggest carbon capture facility turned on. If it works, in one year it will capture three seconds worth of humanity's CO2 emissions… at incredible expense. I'm rooting for it, but only a fool would bet the planet on it. #EndFossilFuelpic.twitter.com/5ROJr4tPC9
It's #CarlSaganDay. In 1985, Sagan testified before Congress on climate change:
"Here is a problem which transcends our particular generation. It is an intergenerational problem. If we don't do the right thing now, our children & grandchildren will face serious problems." #COP26pic.twitter.com/wl5fsk8F1T
AUSTIN, Texas — Winter is coming and many Texans are still having vivid flashbacks to February’s deadly storm. But energy regulators announced late last week they will enforce new mandates.
The Public Utility Commission approved a new rule requiring power companies to better prepare for winter weather. They’re based on recommendations from 2011 that were never acted upon. The rule also requires power plants to fix “acute” issues from the February 2021 winter storm that left millions without power.
“I think the rule is actually a really good step in the right direction. There’s a lot left undone. Some of which is within the PUC’s control and some of which is not,” said Doug Lewin, an energy consultant and the president of Stoic Energy.
But there’s still concern the power grid won’t be ready for this winter. Lewin said had the rules from 2011 been implemented, Texans could have avoided the tragedy seen in February.
“It’s tragic to think that had we had those in place, a lot of people would still have their lives and a lot of damage would have been avoided. You can’t go back and change that but the point is now, is to get this right,” he said.
Lewin pointed to problems with a proposed rule from the Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees the oil and gas industry. The rule allows exemptions on weatherization for natural gas suppliers if they pay $150.
“I follow this very closely. I do not have confidence we are ready for this winter. I don’t have confidence the things they’re doing are going to have us ready for next winter for that matter,” he said.
Lewin noted February’s storm was historic, but that it could happen more frequently and Texas needs to be prepared
“Obviously that was a wild storm and hopefully we won’t have another storm like that. But hope is not a strategy. We need to harden our system,” he said.
With 67 days until the official start of winter, the threat of another widespread electric failure in Texas remains a possibility, one CEO said, as long as natural gas producers in the state are not required to weatherize their equipment.
“I will tell you I’m still worried,” said Curt Morgan, CEO of Vistra Corp. “If we have another event like [February’s Winter Storm] Uri this winter, we are not out of the woods. There’s no doubt about it.”
The Irving-based company is the largest electric producer in Texas.
On Friday, it gave rare access inside one of its power plants to show the weatherization efforts that have quietly been underway for months.
Vistra’s power plant in Midlothian, a combined cycle [natural] gas turbine facility, can produce about 1,600 megawatts of electricity at full capacity, which is enough to power 800,000 homes. Natural gas fuels this facility.
For months, Vistra has upgraded its weatherization here and at the other 19 facilities it operates in Texas.
Though state and federal regulators have not yet announced minimum standards for weatherization, Vistra said its facilities would be able to withstand temperatures of -5 degrees.
Across the system, Vistra is reinsulating pipes, adding heaters to them and even trucked in 2,000,000 gallons of diesel that can power back-up generators for up to a week in case they have to be turned on.
Here was President Biden and more than 100 other leaders, representing more than 85 percent of the world’s forests, pledging to halt deforestation over the next decade. Here were scores more nations signing on to the newly formed Global Methane Pledge,which aims to cut emissions 30 percent by the end of the decade.
Here was the prime minister of India vowing huge investments in renewable energy in the massive country — one of a number of nations to commit to new national climate targets. Here were nearly two dozen countries detailing plans to stop spending tax dollars to fund international fossil fuel projects.
Here were titans of the financial world, who together control $130 trillion in assets, touting a pledge to use their monetary might to help the world hit net-zero emissions by the middle of the century.
Outside the venue earlier this week, Thunberg, the Swedish activist, said the gathering was shaping up like so many that had come before it: Too much talk, too little action.
“They have led us nowhere,” Thunberg said on one of multiple occasions this week that she has criticized the United Nations summit known as COP26. “Inside COP, they’re just politicians and people in power pretending to take our future seriously. … Change is not going to come from inside there.” –
But not everyone is ready to declare the summit a failure at its halfway mark.
“COP26 is probably unfolding in a way that exceeds expectations compared to where we were a couple months ago, in no small part because I do think we’ve seen a few countries — a few important countries — step up,” said Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “And whether your glass is half full or half empty depends a lot on your expectations of what this COP was likely to deliver.”
Bapna and others have noted that while nations were always unlikely to put the world on a 1.5 Celsius path this year alone, the world is moving in the right direction, even if not fast enough. He noted that only a handful of years ago, existing policies put the world on a pathway to 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming. Recently, a U.N. analysis found current pledges would steer closer toward 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.9 degrees Fahrenheit).
Beware of the slippery slope from cynicism to nihilism. It leads to the same place as denialism: inaction. Which is precisely what polluters and those doing their bidding want. #COP26#ClimateAction#ConstructiveEngagement
Nations meeting here at a major climate conference have announced new commitments to cutting greenhouse gases that would—if realized— put nations on a path to meeting a key goal of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The new pledges, including revised commitments from India, China, and other nations, would keep warming to 1.9°C this century, a new analysis finds. That edges the world closer to the Paris goal of keeping warming “well below” 2°C.
I’m working on a piece examining the Republican (lack of) response to climate change, and the party’s current efforts to reposition itself on the issue.
In the course of research, I spoke to a range of sources, including Stuart Stevens of the Lincoln Project, above, and Karly Mathews, a young conservative climate activist with the American Conservation Coalition.
A huge facility designed to produce hundreds of thousands of pounds of cultured meat opened Thursday in Emeryville — a significant step forward in a nascent yet rapidly growing industry where meat is grown from animal cells without any need for slaughter.
The facility, part of a new, $50 million, 53,000-square-foot campus for Berkeley food tech company Upside Foods, is billed as the first of its kind in the world and ready for commercial scale. While other companies have made cultured meat, also known as cultivated meat or lab-grown meat, they’ve typically worked out of smaller laboratories.
The U.S. government still hasn’t approved the sale of cultivated meat, but Upside Foods Chief Operating Officer Amy Chen said the new facility is proof that the technology is ready.
“It’s not a dream,” said Chen, who left a senior vice president role at PepsiCo to join Upside in June. “It’s not science fiction. It’s reality today.”
Until the meat is legal to sell, the company will be hosting tours and testing products. Once it gains approval, Upside’s plan is to start supplying restaurants, specifically Dominique Crenn’s three-Michelin-starred Atelier Crenn in San Francisco. After introducing the meat to the public through chefs, the next move is into grocery stores — similar to the rollout followed by Impossible Foods, the Redwood City maker of the convincingly beefy burgers made from soybeans. Unlike plant-based meats, cultivated meat is actually animal-based, fleshy meat.
Located in a residential neighborhood near the Public Market Emeryville, Upside’s new space looks like a brewery on steroids. It’s capable of producing 50,000 pounds of meat per year, with room to eventually expand to 400,000 pounds.
Huge tanks known as bioreactors line the main room, where cells harvested from live animals will be bathed in nutrients such as glucose, vitamins and amino acids. The bioreactors create an environment similar to an animal’s body, and the nutrients feed the cells until they get bigger, forming an unstructured, ground-meat-like product. An additional, more complicated step involves creating a scaffolding that allows the cells to grow together and form the fibers and texture expected from a whole cut of meat, like a steak or chicken breast.
Advocates say the process not only avoids killing animals but, because it requires less water and land, is a more efficient, climate-friendly way to produce meat. That’s partially because the process is significantly faster, shrinking the three years it takes for a cow to mature to a matter of weeks.
That sales pitch has led to enormous interest in the industry, with Upside drawing more than $200 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. San Francisco cultured-meat competitor Eat Just, which is also known for its plant-based egg substitute Just Egg, has nabbed more than $450 million.
Audrey Gyr, a startup specialist with the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit that advocates for plant-based and cultivated meat, said Upside’s new facility is a testament to how much the industry has grown over the past few years — and how much it will continue to grow. A 2021 McKinsey & Company report predicts the market for cultivated meat could reach $25 billion by 2030.
“The technology and innovation has advanced considerably to enable them to build this kind of facility and move beyond the lab,” said Gyr, who is not affiliated with Upside.
When Upside Foods, previously known as Memphis Meats, started in 2015, it was the first cultured-meat company in the world. Now, there are at least 80, according to the Good Food Institute.
