Talking Climate Tech 035
🪫 Battery | 💧Water | 🚘 Brakes | ⚖️ Tipping Points | 🦖 FF Dino | 🙈 Trump v Class |⚡ Pylon of the Month
A 3 x 3 for you this week, plus old faithful to finish...no startups, plenty of other stuff to get stuck into:
🗞️ News Roundup // 🔎 Deeper Dive // 💥 Trump Watch
🗞️ News Roundup
EV batteries 🪫
Naysayers on batteries stand-down, they go again! Corporate Knights.
EV batteries are usually replaced once they reach 70% to 80% of their capacity; as more EV batteries retire throughout the coming decade, the second-life battery market is forecast to grow into a US$4.2 billion industry.
Also this just popped up, but not quite as we might hope for 🇪🇺 battery tech...
US battery company Lyten has agreed to buy Swedish gigafactory Northvolt’s remaining assets out of bankruptcy and plans to continue operations at the site, the company said in a statement.
Sounds promising; they have previously acquired Northvolt's Californian and Polish plants, and Quebec is now on the table for discussion.
Their core market is defence, not EV, however. Let's see where this goes. Stellantis is an investor, so some hope remains. 🤔
China Getting in Done 🇨🇳
Water Water Water 💧
From those clever people at NASA, [thank goodness they haven't been fully defunded just yet], satellite data suggests Earth’s landmasses are rapidly drying due to too much groundwater use.
It's impacting sea levels - water draining from continents now contributes more to sea level rise than melting glaciers. 🤯
Nearly 6 billion people, or three-quarters of humanity, live in the 101 countries that the study identified as confronting a net decline in water supply — portending enormous challenges for food production and a heightening risk of conflict and instability.
🔎 Deeper Dive
Hit the Brakes!! ✋
Everything is a problem, right!? 😫
No sooner do we get into EV from ICE to save tonnes of emissions, than it's tyre wear particle emissions and brake dust 🙄
More than 96% of the European population was exposed to PM2.5 concentrations exceeding the World Health Organisation’s annual air quality guideline limit in 2022. Road transport is a primary source of particulate matter in urban areas.
OK, EIT Urban Mobility Study, that's not good, more please - culprits?
The study dives into London specifically. Key takeaway:
...analysis revealed that shifting travel behaviour from cars to public transport delivers up to five times greater Particulate Matter emission reductions than fleet electrification alone (excluding the benefits of electrification for exhaust emissions).
Negative v Positive Tipping Points ⚖️
Always worth sobering up and checking back in on this very humbling explainer from Professor Johan Rockström, of The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
A reminder to us all of the race we are in to prevent the cascade of tipping points.
How can we balance-up these tipping points when we know the transition is not happening fast enough to prevent them?
And as an update, from the PDI, the Planetary Boundries Science Lab, has given Earth this health check at the end 0f 2024.
Not great then 🟠 🔴
All is not lost - our efforts can deliver positive tipping points. 🙌
The recent conference at University of Exter brought together the brighest and best. A deep dive on that both positve and negative from Carbon Brief here.
A lot of talk on modelling, systems, tipping points and economics.
Dive on into some Doughnut Economics here. 🍩 😋
Simply put we need to find an accelerate our delivery and belief in achieving positive tipping points
🚗 EV in Norway - >90% market share new car sales
🌞 Solar - exponential cost reductions and global scale
⚡ Renewables - tipped beyond fossil fuel investments
Some further data positive trending data indicators on this, S&P Global:
By 2028, renewable energy sources are expected to provide 42% of global electricity – over half of which will come from solar PV and wind
Image Credits IEA / Bloomberg NEF / Lazard
A big push from the global scientific community to be able to identify and quantify these positive tipping points, the timelines and the impacts.
But its about people as well as economics and technology.
“The global mutirão is about inviting people to think about who they are and what they can offer. It is also about designing potential positive tipping points. Because if we have different initiatives that are self-organised, we can integrate those local initiatives in a global framework.”
Expect to hear a lot more of the phrase global mutirão as we head to Brazil for COP30:
“We join the COP30 presidency in calling on governments to enact policies that help trigger positive tipping points in their economies and societies, which generate self-propelling change in technologies and behaviours towards zero emissions.”
Also an interesting final note in the review;
"creating a first global atlas of tipping financial risks"
As we know, money talks...
When the Institute of Actuaries gets hot under the collar, you know its a problem and something really should be done, and quickly 🚨
“Widely used but deeply flawed assessments of the economic impact of climate change show a negligible impact on GDP, rendering policymakers blind to the immense risk current policy trajectories place us in. The risk led methodology, set out in the report, shows a 50% GDP contraction between 2070 and 2090 unless an alternative course is chartered.”
Global Tipping Points - Planetary Solvency Dashboard - guess what, more 🟠 🔴
Dying Dinosaurs 🦖
The fossil fuel era really is coming to and end. Clean power will surpass fossil generation next year, another key tipping point.
Its cheaper, and has wider positive benefits - environment, biodiversity, air pollution, respiratory illness, early deaths. It's inevitable.
The fossil lobby knows the numbers. They see the charts. They know that clean energy is cheaper, cleaner, and more popular.
Which leads us straight into....
💥 Trump Watch
Defending Dinosaurs 🦖
The scientific carnage continues.
The Environmental Protection Agency, now led by Trump loyalist Lee Zeldin, announced plans to eliminate the 2009 “endangerment finding”—an action that would strip the EPA of its authority to regulate carbon pollution and dismantle the last legal guardrails on fossil fuel expansion.
You can read about and support efforts to 'make science great again' here.
The love for the black stuff, and not the Guiness kind, continues. Especially for his pals, all aboard the grift train. E&E News;
A West Virginia Republican whose family owns a sprawling [Bluestone] coal business helped lead the quiet, last-minute effort to add a lucrative tax credit to the GOP megabill that could net the fossil fuel industry tens of millions of dollars.
Sounds like there could be more to this...🤔
Justice [Sen. Jim Justice Rep] owns more than $50 million in stock in Bluestone Resources Inc., more than $25 million in Bluestone Coal Corp. as well as more than $25 million in an inactive processing facility in Alabama. Justice’s son now controls Bluestone
The Eraser ❌
Like it never happened 🤔
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., has removed references to President Donald Trump in a display about impeachments, despite Trump being the first and only president in American history to be impeached twice. But the museum says the move is temporary.
Oh, forgot, there is more science erasing here - CO2 monitoring, AP News;
...moving to shut down two NASA missions that monitor a potent greenhouse gas and plant health, potentially shutting off an important source of data for scientists, policymakers and farmers....which can precisely show where carbon dioxide is being emitted and absorbed and how well crops are growing.
The $750 million satellite monitors global carbon dioxide levels, tracks photosynthesis, and supports climate research including the Paris Agreement.
Democrats call the move “illegal” since Congress already funded the missions. NASA employees confirm they’re creating termination plans for OCO-2 and the ISS-attached OCO-3 instrument. 🤯
And erasing some wind farm projects, based on tightening FAA regulations so projects can't proceed - from the excellent, and worth a follow on LinkedIn, Michael Thomas, of Cleanview, plus a nice snapshot of the impact of clean-energy manufacturing from Canary Media.
Anyone betting on rising energy prices and a recession? 📉
Image Credits: Cleanview / Canary Media
The Real Estate Guy 🏛️
Such an eye for the finer things in life. Reflected on his careful managment of the beautiful Whitehouse Rose Garden, which has borne witness to so many events and histroic ocassions over the decades.
Now a patio. 🤯
Note the positioning of the Presidential Seal, adjacent to the drain. 🤣
Little bit more re-modelling planned, The ballroom, very discrete, touch of class to this one, bling bling 🙄. Merely $200m, good job that tarriff tax grab is rolling in.
⚡Pylon of the Month
Sanctuary from the madness at last, your Tower of Power this week - way back in 2009, a holiday season pylon from Turkey 🇹🇷
Whats the inside track on this squat pylon from HQ? No technicals this week, but some historical positioning for you:
If you happen to be out this way, be sure to check out the fabulous ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus and the remains of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Temple of Artemis.
⚡️Holiday culture ✅ 😎
On that bombshell, off we go - see you next week...
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
