Month: January 2023

Seeking Alpha:

The Chinese battery specialist CATL has announced a new cell chemistry requiring no cobalt, nickel, or lithium. At the end of July 2021, the world’s largest battery manufacturer CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology), surprised the public with an announcement about its new sodium battery. In this battery, sodium ions move back and forth between the cathode and the anode. The energy density of 160 Wh/kg is significantly lower than that of current batteries, which can hold about 270 Wh/kg. However, the density is expected to increase to 200 Wh/kg in the next generation. There are other advantages as well. CATL’s sodium cell has excellent cold resistance (90 percent capacity at minus 20 degrees) and outstanding fast-charging capability (0 to 80 percent in 15 minutes). It is scheduled to be launched in 2023.

Dr. Qisen Huang, deputy dean of the CATL Research Institute, said that sodium-ion battery manufacturing is perfectly compatible with the lithium-ion battery production equipment and processes, and the production lines can be rapidly switched to achieve a high-production capacity. As of now, CATL has started its industrial deployment of sodium-ion batteries, and plans to form a basic industrial chain by 2023.

catl.com

Advantages of sodium batteries

According to a scientific paper from 2019, the earth’s crust consists of 2.83% sodium while it consists of only 0.01% lithium. This means that sodium is available in huge quantities and, therefore, much cheaper to mine. Although the cost of EV batteries has fallen sharply since 2010, it was still $132/kWh in 2021. The Tesla Model Y has a 60 kWh battery, so the cost of the battery alone is almost $8000. Probably the actual price is less by now, but even half of $8000 would still be a lot. Current estimates suggest that sodium-based batteries will cost about $40/kWh in mass production, which would be a third of the current cost. If this is true, it would be a huge saving for manufacturers or consumers. If the energy density in these batteries is somewhat acceptable, an electric car manufacturer would have enormous cost advantages over its competitors.

The major advantage of Na-ion batteries is sustainability, which is important for a world striving to be free of carbon-based energy sources. We can foresee Na-ion batteries with hard-carbon anodes and cobalt-free cathodes as sustainable lower-cost alternatives to Li-ion batteries for applications such as short-range electric vehicles and large-scale energy storage (ESS) in a world that is increasingly being transformed to wind, solar, and hydroelectric power, which depend on battery energy storage for uninterrupted, around-the-clock, performance.

MIT Technology Review:

Solid-state batteries aren’t the only new technology to watch out for. Sodium-ion batteries also swerve sharply from lithium-ion chemistries common today. These batteries have a design similar to that of lithium-ion batteries, including a liquid electrolyte, but instead of relying on lithium, they use sodium as the main chemical ingredient. Chinese battery giant CATL reportedly plans to begin mass-producing them in 2023. 

Continue reading “Competing with Lithium: Cheaper Sodium Batteries Catching Up”

After the recent screaming headlines about “fusion breakthrough” (that leaves fusion reactors still, as always, 30 years away), I had to think carefully about how to frame this.
Good work. Pushes the science. More research needed. Meanwhile, existing technology gives us more than enough to deploy today.

University of Michigan:

A new kind of solar panel, developed at the University of Michigan, has achieved 9% efficiency in converting water into hydrogen and oxygen—mimicking a crucial step in natural photosynthesis. Outdoors, it represents a major leap in the technology, nearly 10 times more efficient than solar water-splitting experiments of its kind.

But the biggest benefit is driving down the cost of sustainable hydrogen. This is enabled by shrinking the semiconductor, typically the most expensive part of the device. The team’s self-healing semiconductor withstands concentrated light equivalent to 160 suns.

Currently, humans produce hydrogen from the fossil fuel methane, using a great deal of fossil energy in the process. However, plants harvest hydrogen atoms from water using sunlight. As humanity tries to reduce its carbon emissions, hydrogen is attractive as both a standalone fuel and as a component in sustainable fuels made with recycled carbon dioxide. Likewise, it is needed for many chemical processes, producing fertilizers for instance.

“In the end, we believe that artificial photosynthesis devices will be much more efficient than natural photosynthesis, which will provide a path toward carbon neutrality,” said Zetian Mi, U-M professor of electrical and computer engineering, who lead the study reported in Nature.

The outstanding result comes from two advances. The first is the ability to concentrate the sunlight without destroying the semiconductor that harnesses the light.

“We reduced the size of the semiconductor by more than 100 times compared to some semiconductors only working at low light intensity,” said Peng Zhou, U-M research fellow in electrical and computer engineering and first author of the study. “Hydrogen produced by our technology could be very cheap.”

And the second is using both the higher energy part of the solar spectrum to split water and the lower part of the spectrum to provide heat that encourages the reaction. The magic is enabled by a semiconductor catalyst that improves itself with use, resisting the degradation that such catalysts usually experience when they harness sunlight to drive chemical reactions.

Continue reading ““Major Leap” Lowers Cost of Green Hydrogen”

WFAE NPR Charlotte:

One of the longstanding arguments against renewable energy like wind and solar is that it’s not as reliable as conventional power plants. But the Christmas Eve rolling blackouts in North Carolina turned that conventional wisdom on its head.

Single-digit temperatures across the region froze instrumentation and sensing lines and caused other mechanical problems that reduced output at several of Duke Energy’s gas- and coal-powered plants.

For the first time ever, the company was forced to use rolling power outages to manage an electricity shortage. About 500,000 customers across the Carolinas lost power at some point on the morning of Christmas Eve, some for hours.

“At a fundamental level, it highlights how extreme weather, due to climate change, increasingly calls into question the resilience of our existing infrastructure, including our electric power generation system, and the assumption that fossil fuel generation is reliable and is there when you need it,” said David Neal, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Meanwhile, although solar energy was obviously not available overnight, it kicked in as the sun rose and performed as expected, with no outages, according to Duke Energy. In fact, Duke executives told regulators Tuesday that solar helped power the pumps needed to replenish the company’s South Carolina hydroelectric reservoirs. That helped avoid more blackouts on Christmas Day.

Neal said Duke’s experience during the blackouts shows that solar, combined with battery storage, “are going to be an important part of a resilient and cleaner electric grid going forward.”

Duke doesn’t currently have any wind power on its Carolinas grid. But Neal said that also should be a future option. “Offshore wind typically generates well in those early morning hours. So it would have been a great complementary resource to help meet that peak,” he said.

Blackouts fuel the debate 

But others see it differently. Since the blackouts, state Senate Majority Leader Paul Newton (R-Cabarrus) and the John Locke Foundation both have blamed the rolling blackouts on Gov. Roy Cooper’s push for more renewable energy.

Newton, a former Duke Energy executive, said in a Dec. 30 interview with Spectrum News that solar energy “destabilizes the grid.” Newton said he supports adding more nuclear energy, natural gas plants and gas pipelines.

“I have to remind people that our governor has fought every new natural gas pipeline that’s been proposed for the state of North Carolina. That natural gas provides dispatchable reliable energy, very clean energy, and yet he fights those pipelines. And I’m telling you, it’s coming back to haunt us,” Newton said.
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Continue reading “Christmas Blackouts Challenge Conventional Energy Wisdom”

EuroNews:

Record growth in renewable energy helped the EU avoid billions of euros in gas costs during the Ukraine war, according to a new study. 

Research by think tanks E3G and Ember showed that record-breaking wind and solar production meant the European Union (EU) averted €11 billion in extra gas costs since the Russian invasion began in February. 

“Wind and solar are already helping European citizens,” says Dr Chris Rosslowe, senior analyst at Ember, an independent energy think tank. “But the future potential is even greater.”
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A quarter of the EU’s electricity was generated by wind and solar from March to September – its highest-ever level, according to the report. But the bloc still spent an estimated €82 billion on fossil gas during this period, which supplied 20% of its electricity.

It also found that nineteen EU member states hit wind and solar records, including France (14%), Italy (20%), Poland (17%) and Spain (35%).

This growth in renewables meant more than eight billion cubic metres of gas was saved. 

AlJazeera:

The Ukraine war has made the security and price stability of domestically produced renewable energy so attractive to governments that it will become the world’s top source of electricity in the next three years, according to The International Energy Agency.

The world will build 2,400 gigawatts (GW) of new generating capacity mainly from solar and wind energy in the next five years, equal to China’s entire current generating capacity, the IEA said in a new forecast released on Tuesday.

That is a level of investment 30 percent higher than was predicted a year ago.

That rate of increase will make renewables the world’s biggest source of electricity by 2025, toppling coal, said the IEA.

By 2027, they will account for 38 percent of the electricity mix, up from 28 percent today.

Two long time Yale Climate Connections colleagues, Jeff Berardelli, Chief Meteorologist of WFLA in Tampa, and Dr Jeff Masters, well known as founder of the Weather Underground web site, discuss weather and climate for 2022, and look forward to a climate changed world.

As amusing as climate spokeswoman Greta Thunberg’s masterful, and total, takedown of misogynist and general ass-clown Andrew Tate, it underlines the emergence of just-this-week-20-year old Greta Thunberg as a formidable voice on the global stage, speaking for a younger generation who only want a fair shot at a life on a living planet.
Greta is only the first of an emerging host of voices on the way.

India Today:

 If you have visited Twitter recently, you probably have come across the verbal war between influencer and former kickboxer Andrew Tate and Greta Thunberg. Looks like the 20-year-old climate activist is going to have the last laugh, as Romanian authorities have confiscated Tate’s collection of luxury cars.

According to a report by The New York Post, Romanian Police seized 11 luxury vehicles worth millions of dollars, which includes the $2.9 million Bugatti Chiron that Tate used to mock Thunberg. The fleet of seized cars also included two Ferraris and a Porsche, as well as a Rolls-Royce Wraith and an Aston Martin Vanquish S Ultimate.

Interestingly, this week, even Joe Rogan had to grudgingly admit “that shit’s hilarious” at Thunberg’s closing tweet on the Tate affairs – at 4:00 in the video below.

Climate aware Gen-Zrs were not alive that last time this guy was relevant, but he’s still at it.

And still up to the same old craziness. We are seeing a small sample of the results of 40 years of attacks on science playing out today on the floor of the US House of Representatives.

Wikipedia:

Steven J. Milloy is a lawyer, lobbyist, author and Fox News commentator. His close financial and organizational ties to tobaccoand oil companies have been the subject of criticism, as Milloy has consistently disputed the scientific consensus on climate change and the health risks of second-hand smoke.^[1][2]

Among the topics Milloy has addressed are what he believes are false claims regarding DDT, global warming, Alar, breast implants, second-hand smoke, ozone depletion, and mad cow disease.^[3] Milloy runs CSRWatch.com, which monitors and criticizes the corporate social responsibility movement. From the 1990s until the end of 2005, he was an adjunct scholar at the libertarianCato Institute, which hosted the JunkScience.com site. He is an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

He operates The Advancement of Sound Science Center (TASSC), established by Philip Morris Companies Inc. to counter legislation against second-hand smoke.
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Milloy uses a particularly egregious form of distortion, that you would have hoped anyone could see through, but here’s a primer just in case. Do we really have to do all this again?

Continue reading “What’s Wrong with This Picture? Climate Denier Clings to Insanity”

Climatologists frequently talk about “positive feedback” effects – where one first order effect of planetary warming “feeds back” or enhances another knock-on effect, which makes the first one worse, which feeds back again, etc.
Prime example is, warming Arctic ocean water means melting sea ice, which replaces highly reflective white ice with dark ocean water, absorbing more solar radiation, creating more warming.

There are a number of others.

Now we have a furry, fuzzy, busy, new one.

Business Insider:

Beavers are taking over the Alaskan tundra, completely transforming its waterways, and accelerating climate change in the Arctic.

The changes are so sudden and drastic that they’re clearly visible from space.

As the Arctic tundra warms, woody plants are growing along its rivers and streams, creating perfect habitats for beavers.

As the furry rodents move into these waterways, they make themselves at home by doing what they do best: chewing and carrying wood to build dams, and clogging rapid rivers and streams to make lush ponds.

What was once a thin line of water cutting across the tundra has become a train of bulbous beaver ponds:

“There’s not even a lot of other animals that leave a footprint you can see from space,” Ken Tape, an ecologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, told Insider. “There is one, and they’re called humans. The funny thing is that humans could not get a permit to do what beavers are now doing in this state.”

This swimming, furry rodent’s invasion of the North American tundra is a mixed bag. The beaver ponds create lush oases that could increase biodiversity, but they also play a role in accelerating the climate crisis.

Continue reading “Arctic’s Newest Climate Feedback: The Beaver Effect”

But sure, tell me about the “risks” of solar panels.

Population Attributable Fraction of Gas Stoves and Childhood Asthma in the United States
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health:

“We found that 12.7% (95% CI = 6.3–19.3%) of current childhood asthma in the US is attributable to gas stove use.”

Harvard University:

Children living in households that use gas stoves for cooking are 42% more likely to have asthma, according to an analysis of observational research. While observational studies can’t prove that cooking with gas is the direct cause of asthma, data also show that the higher the nitrogen dioxide level, the more severe the asthma symptoms in children and adults.

Cooking and baking done with gas appliances can give off high concentrations of nitrogen dioxide. A recent study published by researchers at Stanford calculated that emission of nitrogen dioxide from certain gas burners or ovens rose above the standard set for outdoors by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) within a few minutes. Currently, the EPA has set no standard for safe levels indoors.

Organizations like the Massachusetts Medical Society and the American Medical Association are trying to raise clinician and public awareness about these risks. Yet much of this information still comes as a surprise to many.

Gas stoves leak even when they are off

The Stanford study tested gas stoves in 53 homes. All of the stoves leaked methane gas, even when turned off. These leaks equaled 76% of their total methane gas emissions. Both methane and nitrogen dioxide contribute to air pollution by forming ground-level ozone and smog. Methane is also a major greenhouse gasand worsens climate change. Notably, in this study, emissions of neither methane nor nitrogen dioxide were related to the age or the price of the gas stove.

Toxic chemicals in gas stoves and pipelines

What’s more, a study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and PSE Healthy Energy showed that gas appliances also introduce other toxic chemicals into homes. The researchers collected unburned gas from stoves and building pipelines in the greater Boston area. In their analysis, they identified 21 different hazardous air pollutants known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs). For example, benzene, hexane, and toluene were present in almost all of the gas samples tested. Exposure to some VOCs raises risks for asthma, cancer, and other illnesses.

https://t.co/OKDvVcN5Uc

— Cotsdi (@cotsdi) January 4, 2023

Below, San Francisco TV station puts events in perspective.

Continue reading “California Weather Event Astonishes”