Talking Climate Tech 040
⚫ Dead DAC + H2 | 🚗 EV Updates | 🇺🇾 Uruguay | ⚡ Electrotech | ⛔ Tech Explorer | ⛳ Golf Watch | 💔 No Pylon
Plenty going on around the world, let's dive in ➡️
🗞️ News Roundup
Dead DAC ⚫
Among the very many very wrong turns of the US Gov. right now, there are a couple of rays of light. One has been the support for Geothermal, which is perhaps weighted by the desperate search for baseload power generation for US data centre consumption, and the long lead time for gas turbines, so not exactly holy intent.
The other is the cancellation of funding support for some project technologies, such as these DAC boondoggles from Climeworks and Heirloom, as reported by Heatmap.
The Department of Energy appears poised to revoke awards...nearly $24 billion worth of grants as “terminated,” including Occidental Petroleum’s South Texas DAC Hub and Louisiana's Project Cypress, a joint venture between the DAC startups Heirloom and Climeworks.
And it's not just DAC, big oil's attempt to maintain business as usual through Hydrogen hubs are suprisingly on the blacklist too:
While the list floated last week showed the Trump administration’s plans to cancel the two regional hydrogen hubs on the West Coast, the new list indicated that the Energy Department planned to rescind grants for all seven hubs
It might be more luck than judgement, but I think we will take any win we can get in the US right now.
Inbound UK EV 🚗
With market demand increasing in the UK and EU, my home port of Southampton is gearing up for growth and a big influx from China in the coming years.
Operator ABP is developing a new £500m terminal - they are expecting 100,000 Chinese EVs in 2026, which is around 20% of all units imported or exported through the port.
They are out of storage capacity [currently 62,000] and are working on a land reclaim scheme, with storage and berths for transporter ships that carry 7,000 cars per load. 🤯
Germany 🇩🇪 still reigns for now, with an import value of £17bn, China 🇨🇳 next at £4bn, of total UK imports £44bn.
Uruguay Leading 🇺🇾
Interesting story - it doesn't have to be that hard, some countries just need a plan, they have all the natural resources they need to decarbonise their grid.
Ramón Méndez Galain helped Uruguay decarbonise its grid in just five years, with 98 per cent of its energy coming from renewable sources.
A good win story from the Washington Post.
We have been running a system which is much more sovereign, which is much cheaper, with reduced cost by a factor of two, and we created a lot of jobs.
Their answer - wind, solar and biomass, for a 99.1% renewable grid mix in 2025.
Now his role in Uruguay is complete, his new NFP is supporting more countries, first up - Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Panama and Colombia. 👏
Post Net Zero Bank Alliance ⁉️
You might recall that over recent months, once Don 🍊 pinned his colours to the climate denial mast, several global banks started sheepishly stepping back from the NZ Banking Alliance.
There is still a huge amount of risk tipping the scales between the fossil fuel industry and climate change impact.
60 largest banks in the world carry more than US$1.6 trillion in credit exposure to coal, oil and gas.
Interesting read from Corporate Knights, on where we might go next.
🔎 Deeper Dive
Drawdown Explorer 🔍
Project Drawdown, my favourite organisation that delivers science-based analysis and recommendations of what should be done now, to deliver the biggest impact on emissions asap.
They have launched their new Drawdown Explorer tool - technology assessments and impacts to focus policy and investment in relevant solutions. We don't have time or capital to waste.
Take a look for yourself here.
A snapshot of what we shouldn't be doing! Our old friends, CCS, Blue Hydrogen and DAC are all here. ⛔
EV Charge Infrastructure ⚡
Interesting analysis from Rob West at Thunder says Energy as always. The utilisation of charging infrastructure, perhaps not as good as you might expect - or is it just a function of ridiculous captured customer pricing? 🤔
The average global EV charging station achieves 13% utilisation of its nameplate capacity. This is lower than we had hoped in the past, and inflates current EV ownership costs.
TSE sites key factors;
🔌 Utilisation variability - between 30-70% best location, worst locations 2%
🧑🤝🧑 Population density - swings between 5-20% in the US
⏲️ Dwell times - 45% wait in the car, fast chargers are in demand
🚧 Overbuild - India and China utilisation is 5-10%, building for future demand
💰 Economics - utilisaiton rates impact the total cost of charging to consumer
More Electrotech Revolution ⚡
Yes I know we did this last week, but they have a lot of good stuff in there!
As we were talking about EV:
The deeantralised model reflected again here, as countries skip over legacy dirty grids and individuals take control of their own access to clean power via Solar PV.
Similar to the landline to mobile vault over legacy landline infrastructure that developing nations made:
I hope you enjoy reading this week's post - currently, Talking Climate Tech is a free newsletter - you can always become a supporter by popping something in the tip jar and keeping the coffee machine stoked!
💥 Trump Watch
Having noted the positive aspect of some DJT policies regarding DAC and Hydrogen in the news section - maybe policy is too strong a word, perhaps fund recovery for other purposes, read tax cuts - it's back to more familiar territory here.
No Words 💬
That's right, these words are now deleted from Gov use. Politico reports.
The Energy Department has added “climate change,” “green” and “decarbonization” to its growing “list of words to avoid” at its Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
How exactly might you describe something the colour green, without using the word green? 🤔
The list continues to grow:
emissions; energy transition; sustainability; sustainable; clean energy; dirty energy; carbon footprint; tax breaks; tax credits; subsidies
Delete the science, ban the words, doesn't make it disappear Don.
With the government on shutdown over healthcare funding, not much else is happening this week on climate.
In between 'solving wars' and applying for the Nobel Peace Prize, spoiler, he didn't win 🤣...Don has managed to get back on the golf course and give the bats a swing.
65 days / 264 days in office = 24.6%, taxpayer cost $91m
🏡 Konfab News
Busy this week building something new with a certain Michael Sura, friend and collaborator of Konfab on two guest articles to date.
More news coming next week... 🚀
The Big Survey? Will be sent in a separate message another day, hold tight.
⚡Pylon of the Month
It's true, the end of an era. The Pylon of the Month HQ site has disappeared forever.
It looks like the web based platform provider, has finally gone:
Typepad, one of the oldest microblogging platforms still live on the Internet, is going offline. Come September 30th, blogs and accounts hosted on the decades-old website will be taken down for good, and the service as a whole will cease to exist
A sad day indeed. What to do - I will include that as part of the survey!
Thanks for your time, interest and support as always, let's keep pushing forward - remember, the momentum is unstoppable despite everything you might see and hear! 🌍
Kane
