nuclear-news

Saving the world is cheaper than ruining it

 https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-clean-energy-aids-big-cats-africa/?ref=future-crunch-newsletter 27 July 23

Let’s do a quick global whiparound. A former coal plant in the UK is being transformed into the world’s largest battery storage project; European renewables giant Octopus is planning to invest $20 billion in offshore wind by 2030; Thyssenkrupp, Europe’s second-largest steelmaker, has secured €2 billion from the German government for green steel investment; US regulators just opened the Gulf of Mexico to offshore wind leases; Egypt has brought its clean energy targets forward by five years and allocated land for a 10 GW wind project to provide electricity to 11 million households; Israel now requires all new non-residential buildings to be covered in solar; India is about to launch a staggering 20 GW tender for new battery manufacturing; 4.4 GW of rooftop solar has been installed in South Africa in the last year; the Philippines just awarded a whole lot of new solar projects; Brazil says its solar industry has created around 960,000 jobs since 2012; and Barbados is now targeting a 100% carbon neutral economy by 2030.

In the last six months nearly every mainstream media outlet has pointed out that China is still building a lot of coal, implying the country is hedging its bets on renewables.  It’s not. In the first half of 2023, around $5 billion has been invested in coal and fossil gas and a similar amount in both hydro and nuclear; $10 billion has been invested in wind, $18 billion in solar, and an astonishing $28 billion in transmission.

The IEA has a new report showing that renewables are on track to meet all the growth in global electricity demand over the next two years. This would represent a key milestone in the fight against climate change–once all new demand is met, renewables will start eating into fossil fuels’ share of the power mix.

The global price of polysilicon (the stuff they make solar panels from) has dropped by 78% over the past year.

Since August 2022, $278 billion in clean energy project investments and 170,600 clean energy jobs have been created in the United States. ‘We’ve been talking about bringing manufacturing jobs back to America for my entire life. We’re finally doing it, right? That’s pretty exciting.’ WaPo

The US offshore wind sector is booming. There has been a 272% increase in the number of offshore wind supplier contracts since 2021, and 47% of that growth has occurred since the passage of the IRA. Nine in every ten contracts are going to companies that are either headquartered or have a presence in the US. Industrial policy FTW. Renew.biz

The 12.5% royalty rate that oil companies in the United States have to pay for the use of federal lands has remained unchanged for over one hundred years. The government is now reforming that system, raising the minimum rate to 16.7% and prioritising renewables development on federal lands over fossil fuel development. Grist.

In the first half of this year, wind and solar generated more power than coal in the United States. Wind and solar produced 343 terawatt-hours (TWh) from January through June 2023, while coal produced 296 TWh. Five years ago, coal’s share was quadruple that of wind and solar combined. Next step: fossil gas. Canary

California, the seventh-biggest US crude oil producer, has put a near-halt on issuing permits for new drilling this year. The state’s Geologic Energy Management Division has approved seven new active well permits in 2023. Compare that with the more than 200 it had issued by this time last year. Reuters

Australia’s big banks have turned their backs on the country’s largest coal miner, refusing to refinance a billion-dollar debt in a major rebuff that will force Whitehaven Coal to source loans offshore, potentially speeding up the demise of the sector. Couldn’t have happened to nicer people. SMH

The European Union has adopted new rules intended to make it easier for electric vehicle owners to travel across the continent. From 2025 onward, the new regulation requires fast-charging stations offering at least 150kW of power to be installed every 60km along the EU’s TEN-T system of highways, the bloc’s main transport corridors. Verge

A reminder from Hannah Ritchie. ‘The internal combustion engine is shockingly inefficient. For every dollar of petrol you put in, you get just 20 cents’ worth of driving motion. The other 80 cents is wasted along the way, most of it as heat from the engine. Electric cars are much better at converting energy into motion. For every dollar of electricity you put in, you get 89 cents out.’………………………………………………………………

July 29, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, business and costs, ENERGY