sustainability – This is Not Cool

Renewables Only Getting Started

Renewable energy already beats fossil fuels on cost globally — and according to analysts, the gap is only going to grow.

By 2030, technology improvements could slash today’s prices by a quarter for wind and by half for solar, according to the authors of a recent report from clean energy think tank RMI. (Canary Media is an independent affiliate of RMI.)

These remarkable and ongoing cost declines have made clean energy so attractive that it now outcompetes fossil fuels for new investment: 62percent of global energy investment is expected to flow to clean energy technologies this year.

That cash is helping push renewables to new heights. According to estimates from the International Energy Agency, global clean energy capacity is expected to jump a jaw-dropping 107 gigawatts to more than 440 gigawatts this year — its largest increase ever.

What we’re living in “is an energy technology revolution,” said report co-author Kingsmill Bond, an energy strategist at RMI. It’s obvious from the data, yet the point is often lost in “a consistent drumbeat of counternarratives” about how difficult it is, and will be, to leave fossil fuels behind, he added.

“U.S. fossil-fuel demand peaked 15 years ago,” Bond said. “This is happening; people have just missed it.”

Renewable energy costs have fallen, and are projected to keep falling, because these technologies are riding “learning curves”: For every cumulative doubling of the deployed tech, its cost declines by a quantifiable percentage that varies by technology. Learning curves are a robust phenomenon that’s been observed for over 50 kinds of tech. Over the past 40 years, the average learning rate has been 20% for solar and 13% for wind.

Can the Cowboy State Keep Coal King by Capturing Carbon?

Carbon capture would appear to be delusional just based on the scale, which most folks don’t appreciate. For the moment, Wyoming’s Governor seems to be placating enemies on the right as he pushes green energy, but holds up carbon capture as a sop to the powerful coal industry.

Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis:

“As our report shows, CCS has been around for decades, mostly serving the oil industry through enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Around 80–90% of all captured carbon in the gas sector is used for EOR, which itself leads to more CO2 emissions.”

About three-quarters of the CO2 captured annually by multi-billion-dollar CCUS facilities, roughly 28 million tonnes (MT) out of 39MT total capture capacity globally, is reinjected and sequestered in oil fields to push more oil out of the ground.

The International Energy Agency says annual carbon capture capacity needs to increase to 1.6 billion tonnes of CO2 by 2030 to align with a net zero by 2050 pathway.

“In addition to being wildly unrealistic as a climate solution, based on historical trajectories, much of this captured carbon will be used for enhanced oil recovery,” says Robertson.

This Carbon Cap Solution is Thick as a Brick

I have questions.

Wall Street Journal:

American Airlines is joining the race to remove carbon from the atmosphere, tapping a novel method that is much cheaper than many existing approaches and could boost the fledgling industry.

The airline company is purchasing credits from a startup that uses bricks of carbon-absorbing plant material to sharply lower costs, potentially making carbon removal a widely used climate solution earlier than anticipated. It is one of the first carbon-removal deals by an airline and shows how some of the biggest corporate emitters are trying to find new ways to cut their environmental footprint.

“We’re excited about this new technology because it is within reach for us,” Jill Blickstein, American’s vice president of sustainability, said in an interview.

Graphyte, the startup working with American, collects agricultural waste products such as sawdust or tree bark that naturally absorb carbon dioxide. It compresses that dried biomass into shoebox-size bricks and seals it using a special barrier to prevent the plant matter from decomposing and releasing carbon. The bricks are then buried and monitored using an embedded tracer substance to ensure they are locking away carbon.

Graphyte charges a fraction of the price companies pay for direct-air capture, the most heavily funded carbon-removal technology. That process—which employs giant fan-like devices to suck up air and separate the carbon—isn’t expected to be deployed at a large scale for at least a few years and costs an average of about $675 a metric ton, according to data provider CDR.fyi.

By contrast, Graphyte is charging American Airlines $100 a metric ton to remove 10,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. That is the price the U.S. Energy Department and many industry executives say is the crucial threshold for broadening access to carbon removal.

Geothermal: They Know the Drill

Clean energy skeptic Peter Zeihan describes newest Fervo Energy geothermal project.
This is not your Grandpa’s geothermal, this is advanced geothermal, which could be theoretically available just about anywhere, using new drilling tech pioneered in the oil and gas industry, to reach hot rocks that would historically have been out of reach.

Tim Latimer is CEO of Fervo Energy, the project Zeihan is talking about.

Associated Press:

An advanced geothermal project has begun pumping carbon-free electricity onto the Nevada grid to power Google data centers there, Google announced Tuesday.

Getting electrons onto the grid for the first time is a milestone many new energy companies never reach, said Tim Latimer, CEO and co-founder of Google’s geothermal partner in the project, Houston-based Fervo Energy.

“I think it will be big and it will continue to vault geothermal into a lot more prominence than it has been,” Latimer said in an interview.

The International Energy Agency has long projected geothermal could be a serious solution to climate change. It said in a 2011 roadmap document that geothermal could reach some 3.5% of global electricity generation annually by 2050, avoiding almost 800 megatonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year.

But that potential has been mostly unrealized up until now. Today’s announcement could mark a turning point.

Fervo is using this first pilot to launch other projects that will deliver far more carbon-free electricity to the grid. It’s currently completing initial drilling in southwest Utah for a 400-megawatt project.

Treasury Stats Show IRA Benefitting Low Income Communities

Of course, a lot of clean energy is being developed in rural communities. Rural communities almost uniformly are poor communities.
If you want to support rural communities, you support clean energy.
At bottom of the post, see how green policies make a difference in urban communities as well.

US Treasury:

In the analysis, Treasury economists observe that investments in Inflation Reduction Act-related sectors of the economy since the law passed grew especially quickly in energy communities—communities historically dependent on fossil energy jobs and tax revenues, including areas with closed coal mines or coal-fired power plants, as well as communities that have significant employment or local tax revenues from fossil fuels and higher than average unemployment. This initial data suggests the Inflation Reduction Act is achieving its goal of revitalizing communities at the forefront of fossil fuel production where potential exists, but opportunity has been scarce.

“President Biden’s Investing in America agenda and the Inflation Reduction Act are achieving their goals of revitalizing communities that have been overlooked and need public investment to unlock private capital. Treasury analysis shows that funding is going where it’s needed most across the country, not just to the coasts or to wealthy communities,” said Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen. “The American economy is more productive when communities can realize their full potential, and more than one year into implementation of the law, there is strong evidence that’s happening.”

The analysis also concluded that investments across all technologies supported by the Inflation Reduction Act have been largely landing in economically disadvantaged counties with below average wages, household incomes, employment rates, and college graduation rates. This analysis updates earlier studies from the Treasury with more granular data produced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Rhodium Group.

81% of clean investment dollars announced since the Inflation Reduction Act passed have been for projects in counties with below-average weekly wages.
86% of clean investment dollars since the Inflation Reduction Act passed are landing in counties with below-average college graduation rates.
70% of clean investment dollars since the Inflation Reduction Act passed are in counties where a smaller share of the population is employed.
78% of clean investment dollars since the Inflation Reduction Act passed are in counties with below-average median household incomes.
The share of clean investment dollars going to low-income counties rose from 68% to 78% when the Inflation Reduction Act passed.

The Weekend Wonk: Brought to Life by a Spear in the Chest

Ray Anderson has died. NYTimes:

Ray C. Anderson was chairman and chief executive of the world’s largest carpet-tile manufacturer when he read a book that described people like him as thieves and plunderers of the planet. He saw the author’s point. He even wept. Then he set out to change things.

Mr. Anderson, an avowed “recovering plunderer” who re-invented his worldwide factory operation to reduce its environmental impact and became one of the nation’s most effective corporate advocates for environmental sustainability, died on Tuesday at his home in Atlanta. He was 77. His family said the cause was cancer.

Starting in the early 1970s, Mr. Anderson built a company based in Atlanta, Interface Inc., into a $1.1 billion a year concern manufacturing carpet, fabric and upholstery used in offices and commercial buildings.

(buy your Interface sustainable carpet here, at flor.com)

—

Those efforts drew praise from environmental organizations and earned him an appointment to a White House environmental commission under President Bill Clinton.

They also helped his company’s bottom line. “What started out as the right thing to do quickly became the smart thing,” he told a business group in Toronto in 2005. “Cost savings from eliminating waste alone have been $262 million.”

In his speeches, Mr. Anderson credited that book, “The Ecology of Commerce” by Paul Hawken, with changing his perspective. He described reading it as a “spear in the chest experience.”

Continue reading “The Weekend Wonk: Brought to Life by a Spear in the Chest”