Talking Climate Tech 046
📈 India v China | ♻️ AI Grift | ⚙️ Hydrogen Carbuncle | ⚡Electrotech Spread | 🛢️ North Sea Empty | 🚀 Event 03 | 💩 COP30
It's nearly Christmas, I was feeling kind of different for today's musings, lots of visuals I was hoarding up for a rainy day.
🗞️ News Roundup
India the new China? 📈
Positive news from India, home to around 1.46bn people, the most populous country in the world. So when they make progress like this, it really matters.
We are used to China making all the strides in renewable deployment; India has matched them, meeting its target of 50% clean power by 2030, 5 years early, on its way to 500GW renewable generation.
As of early 2025, 50.3% of the country’s total installed electricity capacity comes from non-fossil sources. This includes solar, wind, hydroelectric, nuclear, and biomass energy.
215GW of installed generation capacity is now renewable - solar 82GW and wind 45GW, plus hydro and biomass.
China still China 🇨🇳
Not to be out-China'd, China is still holding firm on likely peak emissions:
China’s carbon dioxide emissions stayed steady in the third quarter from a year earlier, extending a flat or falling trend that started in March 2024, analysis by Carbon Brief.
COP30 Update ⚫
More on COP30 later ⬇️
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💸 Investment News
AI Circular Economy Grift ♻️
This is a problem. Very relevant in terms of energy demand, as they all compete for gas turbines, SMRs, and grid connections. See Deeper Dive in 043.
I came across this on LinkedIn; I've lost the source. The ridiculous valuations and impact on the S&P500 of the AI 'gold rush' will undoubtedly cause the next big crash. 🫧
Why? Because of this swap-club, meanwhile, revenue is nowhere by comparison, built on a promise and 'foundation' of the future value of AI usefulness that people are prepared to pay for.
And there is only one factory building relevant semi-conductors, Nvidia doesn't make much, just the design, development and supply. TSMC's 4nm & 5nm production facility in Taiwan is the single-point failure for the AI global economy. 🤯
Why do you think China is limbering up and giving the military flex, beyond the historical politics? 🇨🇳
Once it does go pop, at least we can get all that clean power back to work decarbonising the grid, while simultaneously not building out lots more GT-powered facilities.
🔎 Deeper Dive
Hydrogen Carbuncle ⚙️
Yet more overreach from the 'H2 economy' desperately trying to establish a foothold and purpose. This time in the UK, and an interesting graphic from Mike Jelfs - deeper analysis here from Mike, very thorough! 👏
See Mike's own bullets below for a summary; it's evident from the graphic and text that this is a Rube Goldberg of a project, forcing solutions into infrastructure, and not implementing the most direct and relevant solution for the best techco-economic and decarbonisation potential. ⚡
H2 for transport is a square wheel, H2 and Ammonia, for whatever this is, is a bowl of spaghetti that just slopped out on the floor.
Trouble is, this overreach of the H2 economy is being tried everywhere, especially in the EU, and often with bags of public money to give it a helping hand. We don't have the time or resources to waste on projects like this - direct HVDC anyone.
- Ammonia conversion and 1,100 km shipping ☠️ ⚫
- Rail transport to Kingsbury 🛤️
- Ammonia cracking to inject hydrogen into a 1970s pipeline 🤯
- Speculative storage options 🪫
- Aviation implications at East Midlands Airport ❌
- 8–10% of the original renewable energy survives the chain ⚡
Electrotech Spread ⚡
Want to know what electrotech is where, of course you do ⬇️
That Ship has Sailed 🛢️
A nice reminder on the 2023 UK oil flow - we don't keep much do we, and all those profits escape our economy. Lot's of media noise about North Sea licensing and expanding FF production, yet again.
The North Sera is in decline, it's uneconomic, we need to reshape the legacy as best we can - we sold it all off and don't have a Sovereign Wealth Fund like Norway.
even if new North Sea fields are developed – the UK’s reliance on imported gas is set to rise from 55% today to more than two-thirds dependent by 2030, and over 90% dependent on gas imports by 2050
The quicker we accelerate the just transition of the FF economy and skilled workforce to scaling renewables at even greater pace, the better shape our futures will be.
In contrast to the declining oil and gas industry, the net zero sector in the UK, which includes renewable energy, grew by 10% in 2024
More from Reuters here. And on that note to finish, looks like Gov. will maintain it's 'no new licensing' pledge, but allow some tie-backs to existing licencese. Net result, there isn't that much there either. More here.
The Energy Transition Certificate will permit some tie-back projects linked to existing fields provided they are deemed necessary for a “managed transition.”
💥 Trump Watch
Back in La-La-Land, the fallout from the regressive policies continues to impact the energy transition and climate:
Qcells furloughs 1,000 workers as trade restrictions slow factory, having invested $2.5 billion to establish a solar panel supply chain in the United States.
The problem? Tariffs and supply chain issues from source factories before final assembly. More here.
...open nearly 1.3 billion acres of waters on the Americans coasts to oil and gas drilling. The Department of the Interior proposed holding as many as 34 lease sales, including six off California and in a remote region of Alaska in the northern Arctic where drilling has never taken place
That's nice. More here.
In other news, the MTG fallout continues, the Epstein carnage bubbles underneath, and randonly, he now even has a soft spot for Mamdani and said it was ok for him to call him a fascist. 🤷♂️
And he's managed to crack on a bit further now he's vaulted that $100m cost threshold.
75 days / 313 days in office = 24%, taxpayer cost $105m
🏡 Konfab News
LinkedIn Roundup 📝
What have I been on about this week?
A couple of shorts released from EP06 with James from Caldera:
Link - The Thermal Energy Storage Sweet Spot? ♨️
Link - 🎙️Energy + Industrial Strategy 📈
Plus, even the Pope loves renewables:
Link - 👼 Even God & the Pope advocate for Clean Power ⚡
Climate Tech Impact_South Event 03 🚀
I've mainly been hustling this together - check out our speakers on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 - Amrit Chandan
Speaker 2 - Rob Bootle
Startups, founders and scale-ups take note...
The journey is a rollercoaster; Amrit will be sharing his learnings from a founders perspective, and as a advisor and mentor for Carbon 13, Unreasonable, NZTC and a few VCs.
You can have the best tech or solution...but if you don't have visibility, the right messaging, connection and brand approach, you will never make it. Rob will be sharing how brands and founders become credible.
The Survey 01 👂
It's still open, closing on 12th December, have your say!!
Kane Watkinson
🌍 Climate Watch
COP30 Again 🥱
You can read more about what was actually agreed, what didn't happen and the rest of the shenanigans, over here from the always excellent Carbon Brief.
But there is also this, from DeSmog.
The Kick Big Polluters Out coalition has today revealed that a staggering one in 25 attendees in Belém represent the fossil fuel industry – outnumbering every single country delegation aside from Brazil’s
And you can compare the big-dick lobbyists face-off between BigAg and BigOil respectively.
Great summary from Joseph Gelfer of Our Fair Future 🤣
The time for action is well beyond now.
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
