Talking Climate Tech 027
♨️ Minewater Geothermal | ⚫ Big Agri Bad | ⚠️ Dieselgate | 👊 Trump v Elon | 🌮 TACO | ⚡ Pylon of the Month
On we go, another week zips past on the calendar. We are now downhill towards a full Year 1 - this is 027 of 052 weekly newsletters! 💥
As per last week, 💸 Startup News is parked this week - we're diving into a Minewater Geothermal 🔦 Spotlight Part 2 feature.
🔦 Spotlight
Minewater Geothermal ♨️
You can check back into Part 1, which gives a background on the geographic opportunity across the UK; the need for the UK to address decarbonising heat quicker; plus a couple of pilot schemes in the Netherlands and Germany.
Kane Watkinson
Project Progress ⛏️
Let's take a look at what's been happening in the UK. Some interesting projects that have been developed as pilots and moved forward into commercial schemes.
Lanchester Wines 🍷
Great to see a commercial business be an early adopter of this resource. Alongside their investment in Solar and Wind for their facilities, they are also employing a water source heat pump to utilise and boost that heat from the minewater to manage their 360,000²ft warehousing ambient temperature system.
Gateshead Heat Network ♨️
Funded by the Heat Network Investment Project (HNIP) and the Gateshead Council, it went live in 2023 after 3 years of development. Heat is extracted from mine water that has filled old mine workings at around 150 meters depth, via 3 boreholes.
A 6-MW water source heat pump boosts the system water temperature for the 5km heat network. Anchor buildings include the Baltic Arts Centre, Gateshead College, several office blocks, and 350 households. Future expansion plans include a new conference centre, a hotel, and an additional 270 homes. The project is estimated to contribute to savings of about 1,800 tonnes of CO2 per year.
Horden Minewater Project ♨️
This one is in the development phase - Durham County Council:
Horden was home to one of the largest coal mines in the country. At the height of the mine's operation, in the 1930s, it employed over 4,000 men and produced 1.5 million tonnes of coal per year.
Coal Authority, who own and operate the mine water pump which brings water that fills the mineshaft to the surface for treatment, to prevent contamination of a major aquifer, that provides 20 percent of the drinking water for the local area. The water from the mine is naturally heated to around 16°C
The Heat Networks Delivery Unit is currently going through funding requests and planning approvals to support Horden Village with renewable, low-carbon heat.
Seaham Garden Village ♨️
This one is also in the development phase - Mining Remediation Authority:
Seaham Garden Village is to be built immediately adjacent to the Coal Authority’s Dawdon Mine Water Treatment Scheme. This facility protects drinking water abstraction from Durham Magnesian Limestone by pumping 100 to 150 litres of mine water per/second to the surface for treatment.
This mine water is warmed by geothermal processes to provide a continuous supply of water at 18 to 20°C. There is the potential for 6MW of low-cost, low-carbon, sustainable renewable heat for residents.
Other Resources 💡
Continue to explore the UK opportunity with some additional resources:
⛏️ Mining Remediation Authority
UK interactive mining geothermal resource map here.
📺 Channel 4 News
"... abandoned mines to build a greener future" video here.
The Future ⏩
With approximately 25% of UK properties on or near coal mines, this is a fantastic legacy infrastructure resource that we can utilise to accelerate the energy transition, in the UK and beyond.
Delivering regeneration opportunities for a #justtransition to areas devastated by the loss of the coalmining industry, clean renewable heat, jobs and prosperity - this is low-hanging fruit on the journey to a decarbonised energy system. ✅
🔎 Deeper Dive
US-EU Dirty Ammonia Trail 🕵️♀️
You will have noted from the Ammonia content in this week's article on Maritime Shipping Future Fuels, that Ammonia is tricky stuff.
Global food chains rely on it for fertiliser, but it's fossil fuel-derived. ⚫
The global production of NH3 is 190 Mt annually, the vast majority is produced from fossil fuels (72% CH4, 26% coal, 1% oil) - a fractional amount is green NH3. The majority of NH3 is used to produce fertilisers (80%), nitric acid, explosives, plastics, and refrigerants.
It's big business, which typically means big emissions. Investigative journalists at DeSmog have been clearing away the smog to get into Yara's sourcing of 'green ammonia' from the US:
...currently estimated at around $200 billion (£148 billion). The use and production of fertiliser is already a major contributor to climate breakdown, creating more emissions than aviation and shipping combined [5% global emissions].
DeSmog goes on to discover it's quite the web of deception, involving a host of global players - Yara, BASF, Linde and Dow Chemicals - and fracked shale gas from the Permian Basin, some of the dirtiest in the world for emissions.
![Fracked Gas to Green Fertilizer [sic]](https://content.konfab.io/content/images/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-05-at-20.39.58.png)
It's a complex but worthwhile read - an extensive 9-month investigation to peel back the supply chains, permitting, processes, Dow's co-located ethylene plant, their hydrogen by-product, and that Permian Basin fracked-gas supply. 👏
Justin Mikulka, Oilfield Witness:
We know the Permian is one of the worst hotspots for oil and gas methane emissions globally. The hydrogen Yara claims to be sustainable starts with methane gas that is extracted from the Texas gas fields.
PS - Justin's a subscriber, you're on solid ground here 😉
Read the whole piece here:
Agathe Bounfour and Clare Carlile
Bad Boast 🧊
One of those advertising campaigns that people look back on with incredulity. Check this out from Humble Oil, Life Magazine, June 1962:
And we know, they have known, since the 195's, of the impacts of the fossil fuel industry on climate change. Article here.
Each day Humble supplies enough energy to melt 7 million tons of glacier!
This giant glacier has remained unmelted for centuries. Yet, the petroleum energy Humble supplies — if converted into heat — could melt it at the rate of 80 tons each second!
Dieselgate Still Lingers ☠️
Feels a long time ago, 2015 in fact. A lot has happened since then - even the claims hotlines have almost wrapped up calling people. 🙄
However, the legacy continues - an excerpt from my post on LinkedIn earlier this week:
More on the report in full from Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. From The Guardian's article on the findings:
In the US, regulators fined Volkswagen £1.45bn and the company also had to pay $5bn into pollution mitigation funds for its role in Dieselgate. It was also forced to fix the cars or buy them back. In contrast, the UK has imposed no fines on any car company nor forced any recalls.
Trump Watch 💥
Diving straight into more La La Land, it has gone PROPER crazy this week...first the relatively normal climate-related updates, then bringing the fire 🔥
Nippon Steel 🔪
Trump now approves the deal with the Japanese giant that he blocked originally, to stoke-and-coke up US steel. Trouble is, the US ageing fleet of coal-steel making furnaces is on its last legs and very emission-heavy.
In the meantime, the rest of the plants in the US have moved on to electric ARC furnaces. Nothing like trying to return to the 1900s in every industrial market and locking in emissions for another generation.
Expect it to be inefficient, not cost-competitive and bomb. Full report here.
My Foot 🔫
More self-defeating policy, reported by ICN again:
Businesses have cancelled or delayed more than $14 billion of investments in U.S. clean energy projects so far this year, reflecting their uncertainty and pessimism over federal support amid President Donald Trump’s climate policy retreat
Full read here. Expect that number to potentially rocket up - all depends on the Senate now and if the Big Ugly Bill lands, with its IRA clean energy tax credit repeals.
The Big Punch Up 👊
We all knew it was coming, eventually. Those earth-sized egos could not be contained in the same orbit any longer.
After Elon stepped back as planned, all seemed well...for a few hours. And then it all kicked-off...
That's quite the slap down of Trump's major bill and key initiatives, barely just after the door closed behind him!
What could be eating Elon up inside, or in his brain, aside from the alleged cocktail of drugs? Possibly the black eye from his kid [sic]?
Axios has suggested a couple of financial pointers that didn't go his way:
...the legislation cuts the electric vehicle tax credit....wanted the Federal Aviation Administration to use his Starlink satellite system .....withdrawing the nomination of Jared Isaacman, a Musk ally, to be NASA administrator....i.e. Space X.
Sounds like he's thrown his toys out of the pram!
Overnight Updates
I wrote that ⬆️ Thursday at 11 pm, turned on the TV, and it has blown up! 💥
The social media spat continued through the night, more on this next week for sure, but the trading of body blows included:
Musk questioning Trump's election victory; Trump threatening to cancel Musk's subsidies; Musk withdrawing his SpaceX rocket from NASA; Musk threatens to reveal Trump in the Epstein files; Trump threatens Musk's immigration status; Musk might launch his own centre-right party...
![Elon v Trump - That Escalated Quickly [Ron Burgandy Meme]](https://content.konfab.io/content/images/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-06-at-09.40.51-1.png)
Trump TACO 🌮
No one knows where we are on tariffs anymore. It's all part of the grift - put them up, bring them down, round and around, and then pretend you won with the 'art of the deal'. 🤪
They are back and forth with announcements, delays, pauses, additions and subtractions, on a daily basis.
What is worth talking about, beyond the massive impact on global trade, economies, standards of living, jobs and growth, is Trump's new nickname from Wall St., which he hates. 🤣
"TACO trade," which stands for "Trump always chickens out"
"Don't ever say what you said," Trump told the reporter. "That's a nasty question."
More on that fabulous exchange here. 🤣
🏡 Konfab News
New article this week from friend of the show and guest collaborator, Michael Sura, his second piece for Konfab. This time, diving into Ammonia and Methanol as future fuels to decarbonise maritime shipping.
Hint - there is no easy or right answer on this one. There are paths to follow though...
Michael Sura
Guest Article - Michael Sura
🌍 Climate Watch
There were some devastating climate-related events this week; they can't sit under the 😄 Good Stuff section, so here we are:
🇮🇳 Indian Monsoon - crop losses, 32 dead, thousands displaced. Here.
🇳🇬 Nigerian Floods - 700 dead, mudslides, carnage. Here.
🇨🇭Swiss Glacier - you've seen that right? Village gone. Here.
🇨🇦 Canadian Wildfires - burning again >200 live fires. Dashboard here.
Pylon of the Month ⚡
A safe place at last...this week's Tower of Power. We are back to June 2019 for this beauty from Pylon HQ:
Taken near Birmingham, in the heart of England, for those who haven't been to the UK, this is our equivalent of Venice [sic]
It’s at the heart of England’s canal network and has 35 miles of waterways so it does technically have more than the 26 miles of navigations you’ll find in Venice. But Birmingham is much bigger than Venice, so the density of canals there makes them a much more prominent feature of the city. Also, the canals of Venice are wide, whereas Birmingham’s waterways are narrow.
Before you go rushing to book your romantic trip to Birmingham instead of Venice, please take some time to fully research your trip. 😉
On that bombshell of a week, off we go - have a great weekend!
Thanks as always, let's keep pushing forward - remember, the momentum is unstoppable despite everything you might see and hear! 🌍
Stay warm, cool, dry, wet and safe wherever you are 🙏
Kane
Talking Climate Tech is free to its subscribers, but it does take a lot of time, energy and a fair bit of coffee to make it happen! 🥺
If you would like to support me, I could always use an extra cup... ☕ ⬇️
