Month: March 2021

Politics and Policy

A coalition of environmental groups has urged the US to commit to slashing its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% by 2030.  On the other hand, a new analysis determined that the US must slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 57% to 63% below 2005 levels by 2030 to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.  The EU and the US need to align to tackle climate change, John Kerry said in Brussels.  The Pentagon announced the creation of a working group to respond to President Joe Biden’s executive orders addressing the climate crisis.  Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Brian Schatz (D-HI) introduced the “Methane Emissions Reduction Act,” which directs the Treasury to assess a fee on methane emissions, while Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) introduced a bill to incentivize companies to weatherize the power grid.  With a vote of 66-34, the Senate confirmed Michael Regan as the next EPA administrator, while the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 20-0 to advance the nomination of David Turk to become deputy Energy secretary.  Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said the US needs to sustainably boost domestic production of the minerals used to make electric vehicles (EVs).  She also said the administration is aggressively pursuing transportation electrification in part to prevent China from cornering the $23 trillion market in carbon-reducing technologies.  Proposals to form a national clean electricity standard have become a central focus of climate change legislation in the new Congress, with support from both parties.  For almost all cars on the road to be electric by 2050, EV sales must ramp up to 100% by 2035 and new programs should be adopted to get gasoline and diesel vehicles off the road.  GM President Mark Reuss said the government should extend investment tax credits for EV manufacturing and supply chains, and expand consumer incentives for EV purchases.  The Washington Post updated its tracking of Biden’s environmental actions.

Twelve states are suing the Biden administration for trying to establish a new value for the “social cost” of greenhouse gases to use in agency rulemaking.  After a three-member panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals found that federal judges lacked the power to order a climate recovery plan, as petitioned by the young people in Juliana v. United States, the plaintiffs filed a motion in federal court to amend their suit.  In 2006, Judge Gladys Kessler wrote in her opinion in the trial against tobacco companies, “Over the course of more than 50 years, Defendants lied, misrepresented and deceived the American public.”  Will the same thing be written about the oil companies?  More than 100 cities, counties, and states around the country have enacted ordinances restricting renewable energy projects.

As major corporations seek carbon credits to offset emissions, critics are questioning the value of “legacy” credits, arguing that the credit system needs to be reformed so that so it delivers actual carbon reductions.  Jonathan Foley, the executive director of Project Drawdown, laid out the overlapping stages of technological progress required to meet climate goals.  Among the many goals in Biden’s climate change agenda, protecting 30% of US lands and ocean territories by 2030 is among the most ambitious and among the most complex, as well as the most likely to face substantial political obstacles.  The controversy over a proposed lithium mine near Thacker Pass, NV, highlights a big challenge the Biden administration must grapple with to transition the US economy to carbon-free energy sources: How to acquire the needed mineral resources without sacrificing biodiversity or the health of communities living near mining projects.  Republican state legislators in Florida announced a suite of measures intended to save the state from rising seas, but they don’t tackle the root cause of the problem.  A group of 17 House Democrats introduced legislation to provide $6 billion to the US Postal Service to buy additional electric delivery vehicles.

Governments around the world are failing to match their rhetoric with action in rescuing their economies from the COVID-19 pandemic, with only about 18% of the funding being considered green.  Climate Home News focused on nine countries that are missing their chance at a green recovery.  A nine-country coalition led by the Netherlands and Denmark called on the European Commission to decide on a phaseout date for the internal combustion engine, drawing a withering response from Germany.

Climate and Climate Science

If governments fail to limit global warming to 1.5°C above the pre-industrial era, areas in the tropical band that stretches either side of the equator risk changing into a new environment that will hit “the limit of human adaptation.”  Humans have degraded or destroyed roughly two-thirds of the world’s original tropical rainforest cover, raising alarm that a key natural buffer against climate change is quickly vanishing.  The first-ever study to examine all of the gases that affect how the Amazon works — not just CO₂ — suggests that the forest is worsening climate change.

The changing climate is raising concerns about how the saguaro cactus will survive the 21st century in an environment that’s hot and getting hotter, dry and getting drier.  If emissions continue unchecked, summers in the Northern Hemisphere could last nearly six months by 2100, with significant impacts on agriculture, the environment, human health, and the timing of species’ activities such as breeding, feeding, and migration.

A new study suggests that, contrary to previous research, climate change will not cause global drylands to expand.  However, the climate crisis is altering the flow of rivers across the world, with increasing river flows in some regions, such as northern Europe, and decreasing river flows in others, such as southern Europe, southern Australia, and parts of southern Asia.

The downpours that triggered flooding that destroyed homes and bridges in Hawaii and set off mass evacuations on multiple islands this week are an example of the more intense rainstorms officials and climate scientists say are occurring more frequently as the planet warms.  Because of land subsidence due to a number of factors, including groundwater pumping, coastal communities are experiencing an effective sea level rise four times worse than global sea level rise.

Energy

Millions of Americans face the specter of prolonged power outages under the current power grid.  Climate change will have “far-reaching” impacts on the electric grid that could cost billions of dollars.  Investor-owned utilities face a $500 billion capital investment gap to build out resilience efforts and effectively address risks from climate change.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed its environmental review for an 800 MW windfarm 12 nautical miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Vineyard Wind, and said that its preferred alternative would allow up to 84 turbines to be installed in 100 of the 106 proposed blocks for the facility.  China built more new windfarm capacity in 2020 than the whole world combined in 2019.

Solar hydrogen production through a photoelectrochemical water-splitting reaction is an attractive alternative to water electrolysis for green hydrogen production because of its potential for higher conversion efficiency and lower cost.  Its adoption has been hampered by the difficulty of separating the hydrogen from the other gases, but now the Japanese have developed a membrane that may solve the problem.  A Japanese-Australian venture has begun producing hydrogen from brown coal in a pilot project that aims to show that liquefied hydrogen can be produced commercially and exported safely overseas.  If the project goes commercial, the CO₂ produced in the process would be injected underground off the coast.  Hyundai Motor Group has broken ground at its Guangzhou, China, fuel cell system plant, the first the company has constructed outside of South Korea.

FedEx has promised to be carbon-neutral by 2040 and has pledged an initial investment of $2 billion to start electrifying its fleet of more than 180,000 vehicles.  Full EVs are expected to account for more than 70% of Volkswagen’s total European vehicle sales by 2030, compared with a previous target of 35%.  While governments and automakers worldwide are making bold pledges to transition to electric-only vehicles, Japanese car companies and regulators are hedging their bets.  Honda has plans to sell two all-electric SUVs in the US for the 2024 model year, and it soon will offer hybrid gas-electric versions of its top-selling models.  LG Energy Solution says it will invest more than $4.5 billion in its US battery production business by 2025 as automakers ramp up production of EVs.

Analysts have calculated that abandoned oil and gas wells cover more than 2 million acres of the US and determined that if that land is restored, it could deliver billions of dollars in benefits for a fraction of the cost of the restoration.

Global banking giants and investment firms are continuing to bankroll a major driver of the climate crisis: food and farming corporations that are responsible for cutting down vast carbon-storing forests and spewing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.  “Food systems” were responsible for 34% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions in 2015.

Potpourri

Amy Brady interviewed poet Kathryn Smith about her latest collection, Self-Portrait with Cephalopod, and why she decided to write about climate change.  Jedediah Britton-Purdy reviewed Vaclav Smil’s new book Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made.  During 2020, the overall climate change coverage on corporate broadcast TV nightly news and Sunday shows plummeted by 53% compared to 2019.  The University of Virginia’s Religion, Race & Democracy Lab has produced a publicly available video entitled “God $ Green: An Unholy Alliance”, which addresses decades of what it calls “religious polarization, political propaganda, corporate deal-making, and environmental injustice based on systemic racism.”  Soleil Santana took a long look at the history of solar energy.  Fix recently launched a cli-fi writing contest, so Grist interviewed the judges about their approaches to climate fiction.

Closing Thought

Garner hope from the innovations happening in places like Seattle-based solar start-up BlueDot Photonics.

Politics and Policy

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 11-9 to advance Rep. Deb Haaland’s (D-NM) nomination to head the Interior Department to the full chamber.  Meanwhile, Interior is moving to lock in key parts of President Joe Biden’s climate agenda, particularly on oil and gas restrictions.  Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said she is ready to reactivate her department’s loan program that went mostly unused in the last four years and has more than $40 billion in funds to boost the transition to clean energy.  She also said the tens of billions of dollars in funding the agency plans to pour into the clean energy sector will likely require companies to create the high-paying jobs promised by Biden.  Ella Nilson of Vox spoke with National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy about how to achieve a clean energy economy, how to put forgotten coal communities back to work, and how to boost unionization rates to ensure that new energy jobs actually do pay high wages.  While policies and proposals in some states acknowledge the writing on the wall for the coal industry and are working for a just transition, others are denying it and fighting against it; the difference is largely due to the absence of a cohesive national energy transition policy.

The American Petroleum Institute is edging closer to endorsing a carbon tax, but as an alternative to federal regulation and policies aimed at slowing climate change.  The US Trade Representative’s office said a carbon border adjustment would be considered as part of an effort to develop market and regulatory approaches to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  US climate envoy John Kerry urged oil and gas companies to do more to diversify and adopt low-carbon technologies to tackle climate change.  Jeff Goodell at Rolling Stone discussed with Kerry whether the US will finally lead on climate.  Senior House Energy and Commerce Democrats unveiled a template of their plan to combat climate change this Congress — an expanded version of last year’s “CLEAN Future Act” — that would take a sector-by-sector approach to reach net-zero CO₂ emissions by 2050.  On the same day, Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) said that he would reintroduce the “Clean Energy Future through Innovation Act of 2020” as an alternative to the “CLEAN Future Act.”

The Biden administration asked the US Court of International Trade to dismiss a complaint from some members of the solar industry arguing that the tariffs on bifacial solar cells are unlawful.  Deputy Transportation Secretary nominee Polly Trottenberg said the department would analyze the ruling of the International Trade Commission that SK Innovation Co misappropriated trade secrets related to electric vehicle (EV) battery technology from LG Chem.  Bloomberg NEF forecast that solar, wind, and batteries will attract $10 trillion in investments through 2050; consequently, US manufacturing of clean energy equipment is gaining traction.  Several states will likely follow California and adopt stricter vehicle emissions standards if the Biden administration greenlights those efforts.  The consortium that oversees the model building codes for much of the US has stripped local governments of their right to vote on future codes, thereby establishing a major roadblock to decarbonizing the US economy.

All planned coal projects around the world must be cancelled to end the “deadly addiction” to the fossil fuel, UN secretary-general António Guterres said at the opening of a summit of the Powering Past Coal Alliance.  China succeeded in lowering its “carbon intensity” (the amount of CO₂ emitted per unit of GDP) by 18.8% in the five years through 2020, and plans to cut it by another 13.5% during the 2021-2025 period.  However, China’s coal consumption is expected to continue rising in 2021.  The British government has been hit by two reports criticizing its performance on climate change — one saying it has “no plan” to meet climate change targets two years after adopting them and the other that the UN climate conference scheduled for November will fail unless its goals are made clear.  Hungary announced that its last coal-fired power plant will be shut down in 2025 instead of 2030.

Climate and Climate Science

Last week I included an article about the weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC).  This week, The New York Times (NYT) had an article with excellent graphics explaining current research to better understand the AMOC and the impact of climate change on it.

Officials in Miami-Dade County, where climate models predict two feet or more of sea-level rise by 2060, have released an upbeat strategy for living with more water, although climate experts warned that the plan downplays the magnitude of the threat.  Because climate change is causing heavier rain storms and more flooding, it is a significant concern that the American Society of Civil Engineers has given the US’s flood control infrastructure a D grade and estimated the cost of rehabilitating all US dams at $93.6 billion.

A newly released paper in the journal Science concluded that the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) is very likely an artifact of climate change.  Because of the relationship between the AMO and hurricane activity, this discovery, if true, means that humans — not natural variability — have been the main driving force in the up-and-down cycles of hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean.  During the most recent 30-year period — 1991 to 2020 — there has been an increase in Atlantic hurricane activity.

While the US was experiencing some of the coldest weather in a century during February, large areas of the globe were basking in the warmest weather ever observed during winter.  Almost 80% of the Western US is in drought, with nearly 42% of the region in “extreme” or “exceptional” drought.  Hundreds of butterfly species across the American West are vanishing as the region becomes hotter, drier, and more vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Researchers reported that climate models with a high “climate sensitivity” overstate the cooling effect that arises from interactions between clouds and aerosols and project that clouds will moderate greenhouse gas-induced warming much more than climate records show actually happens.  Meanwhile, an international team of scientists discovered a new mechanism of cloud formation, not currently included in climate models, that could be important over the poles and affect sea ice melting.

Energy

Volvo says it intends to feature an all EV fleet by the year 2030.  Six major utilities unveiled a plan to add EV fast chargers to connect major highway systems across the US.  If you are thinking of buying an EV, the NYT has a guide to some of the environmental factors that should be considered.  According to an analysis by Transport & Environment, fossil fuel cars waste hundreds of times more raw material than their battery electric equivalents.  The goal of the Electric Highway Coalition, made up of six major electric companies in the Southeast and Midwest, is to build enough direct-current, fast-charging, EV charging stations to connect the Atlantic coast, the Midwest, and the South, as well as the Gulf Coast and Central Plains regions.  In order to supply its expanding EV fleet, GM says it’s looking for a site to build a second US battery factory with joint venture partner LG Chem of Korea.  Japanese industrial manufacturer Hitachi Zosen has developed a solid-state battery claimed to have one of the highest capacities in the industry.

Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods said that improving economics and government policies are creating opportunities for carbon capture and storage.  He also said that Exxon Mobil would try to set a goal for not emitting more greenhouse gases than it removed from the atmosphere, though it was still difficult to say when that might happen.  Chevron is partnering with Microsoft, Schlumberger, and Clean Energy Systems to build a carbon capture plant in California.  FedEx is investing at least $2 billion toward sustainable energy initiatives, including EVs and carbon capture research, as part of a new pledge to become carbon neutral by 2040.

Lockdowns around the world led to an unprecedented fall in CO₂ emissions of about 7% in 2020, or about 2.6 bn metric tons of CO₂, whereas reductions of between 1 bn and 2 bn metric tons are needed every year for the next ten years to have a good chance of holding the global temperature rise to within 1.5°C or 2°C.  Unfortunately, CO₂ emissions climbed steadily over the second half of 2020, so that by December, emissions were 2% higher than in the same month in 2019.  The US could cut emissions from its electricity grid in half within the next decade through investments in renewables and transmission lines.  Furthermore, a national approach to transmission planning can supposedly deliver large benefits at the speed necessary to meet the challenges of climate change.  Berkshire Hathaway Energy is spending billions to build transmission lines to carry electricity from remote areas where renewable energy is generated to population centers where it is needed.  FERC’s chairman is focused on enabling the construction of long-distance power transmission lines to help bring more renewable power onto the grid.

Governments and energy companies are placing large bets on clean hydrogen playing a leading role in lowering greenhouse gas emissions, although its future uses and costs are highly uncertain.  Shell is moving toward renewable aviation fuel production at its refinery in Rhineland, Germany, where it will conduct research using its bio-power-to-liquid plant and an upgraded hydrogen electrolysis facility.  Siemens Energy announced a US Energy Department grant to study how its electrolyzers could be combined with hydrogen compression and storage, and power plant control technology, to provide long-term energy storage at renewable energy facilities.  By using its tar-sands bitumen as a feedstock for carbon fiber production and by turning its natural gas into blue hydrogen via carbon capture, Alberta hopes to transform its oil and gas industry.

The CEOs of Duke Energy and Xcel Energy have said that natural gas will remain part of their power mix for years to come as they transition to cleaner forms of energy.  A furious industry backlash has greeted moves by cities to ban natural gas in new homes and businesses.

Potpourri

Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe is joining the Nature Conservancy as its next chief scientist.  The Washington Post Magazine published an interview with her.  The NYT had a review of Elizabeth Kolbert’s new book, Under a White Sky.  At GreenBiz, Joel Makower discussed the concept of “net-zero” and why it can be an instrument for greenwashing.  A UN report revealed that people waste over a billion tons of food a year, placing food waste right behind China and the US as a contributor of greenhouse gas emissions.  Environmental Health News released an important series of four articles, Fractured, documenting their investigation of fracking chemicals in the air, water, and people of western Pennsylvania.  Of the roughly 55,000 Indigenous households located on Navajo Nation lands, around 15,000 do not have electricity.  UN human rights officials issued a report condemning environmental racism in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” where the mostly Black population breathes air heavily polluted by an ever-widening corridor of petrochemical plants.

Closing Thought

Climate scientist Michael Mann talked with Jonathan Watts of The Guardian about his new book, The New Climate War, and why he thinks the tide may finally be turning in a hopeful direction.

Politics and Policy

The Senate confirmed Tom Vilsack, President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Agriculture Department, by a 92-7 vote.  Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm won Senate confirmation to be energy secretary, by a vote of 64-35.  New Mexico Representative Deb Haaland, Biden’s pick to head the Department of the Interior, appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in a contentious confirmation hearing that reflected deep divisions over some of Biden’s climate-focused executive orders.  The Guardian reported that hostile questioning of her was led by senators who have taken large amounts of campaign cash from the oil and gas industry, with some being personally invested in fossil fuels.  If she is confirmed, what will be the major items on her agenda for the Department?

The Economist reviewed techniques whereby policy makers could determine which strategies would lower CO₂ emissions for the lowest unit cost.  Robinson Meyer provided a rundown of what is happening on a Biden climate bill.  Energy Innovation maintained that a strong clean energy standard is among the most vital policy steps needed to push the US toward an entirely decarbonized economy.  Ed Dolan of the Niskanen Center reviewed four papers by writers who are committed to forceful climate action but who have little enthusiasm for carbon pricing as a policy tool.  The administration dramatically altered the way the US government calculates the social cost of carbon.  A new analysis by the Brookings Institution showed that regions with a high share of fossil fuel jobs have a lot of potential to benefit from wind and solar development.  Cities and towns across the country are rewriting local building codes so that new homes and offices would be blocked from using natural gas, but the American Gas Association and its members are campaigning in statehouses to prohibit such ordinances.  Twenty-five House Republicans held a summit to discuss how to position themselves to address climate change in the new Congress.

FERC said on Monday that it will examine threats that climate change and extreme weather events pose to the country’s electric reliability in the wake of last week’s deadly Texas freeze.  The Texas energy emergency provided ammunition for proponents of a single national power grid.  Wade Schauer of Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables examined the question of fuel diversity for the decarbonized grid.  The cost of federal flood insurance will need to increase significantly in much of the country to meet the growing risks of climate change.  The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it will update its guidelines on how publicly traded companies should disclose climate change-related risks to investors.  In the wake of the Texas disaster, four scientists argued that the Biden administration should convene a group to draft a plan for an advanced Earth observation system with the goal of expanding our ability to forecast extreme weather events.

By the time COP26 rolls around, new national targets for long- and short-term emissions cuts will have been tallied by the UN, so unless the organizers come up with a vision for something specific they can agree on, the meeting could end up accomplishing little.  Unfortunately, the combined impact of the new and updated targets submitted by the deadline was “far short of what is required” to achieve the goals set out in the Paris Climate Agreement.  Biden said on Tuesday that he and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed to work toward achieving net zero emissions by 2050.  The European Commission released a new adaptation strategy designed to ensure the bloc not only ramps up efforts to drastically cut emissions by 2050 but also survives forest fires, heatwaves, droughts, and storms.  Xie Zhenhua, who served as China’s chief negotiator during key climate meetings in Copenhagen and Paris, has been appointed the country’s new special climate envoy.  Speaking before a session of the UN Security Council, US climate envoy John Kerry warned that climate change was making the world a more dangerous place and posed risks to peace and security around the world, but Russia, India, and China argued that it should not be an issue for the Council.  In anticipation of that meeting, Reuters high-lighted five regions of the world where climate change poses significant risks.

Climate and Climate Science

Data from 11 types of proxy evidence have confirmed that the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, a system of currents that includes the Gulf Stream, is now “in its weakest state in over a millennium,” with implications for everything from the climate of Europe to the rates of sea-level rise along the US East Coast.  As the planet experiences increased CO₂ concentrations in its atmosphere, its oceans experience three different phenomena: warming, acidification, and deoxygenation.  A recent paper examined how these interact around the world to threaten ocean productivity.

Carbon Brief has updated its map of climate attribution studies, showing that 70% of the 405 extreme weather events included were made more likely or more severe by human-caused climate change.  Many more homes in Appalachian communities in Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia are at risk of flooding than the federal government’s emergency managers have indicated.

During the first week of February, avalanches killed 14 people across the US, and halfway through the avalanche season, 31 people have died across the country.  It appears that avalanche patterns are changing on our warming planet, but a linkage cannot yet be proven.  Polar bears and narwhals are using up to four times as much energy to survive because of major ice loss in the Arctic.  Alaska may need to brace for more thunderstorms — along with the landslides, floods, and wildfires they can bring — if current climate trends continue.

Scientists have just taken a detailed look at the 14 glaciers flowing into the ocean along a 600 mile stretch of the Antarctic coastline known as the Getz region and found that all of them have sped up.

Rising temperatures are shortening the lives of trees in tropical forests and reducing their capacity to absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere, with major implications for our ability to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.  California’s iconic redwoods, sequoias and Joshua trees are increasingly threatened by bigger and more frequent wildfires as the planet warms.

Energy

Texas officials’ repeated failures to act on expert advice for averting grid catastrophes paralleled their long ignoring experts’ warnings about dangers of climate change, leading to last week’s unnatural disaster.  Dual hearings in the Texas House and Senate highlighted shortcomings by grid planners, electric utilities, natural gas suppliers, renewable energy, and transmission operators that led to the grid disaster.  Ezra Klein had an insightful reflection on the Texas crisis in his column at the New York Times.  At Earther, staff writer Dharna Noor argued that the US needs a supergrid.  Dan Gearino provided four lessons he had learned from the debacle, the first of which is particularly important as we move to an electrified economy.

Thanks in large part to reductions in flying and driving associated with COVID-19, Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions dropped 4.4% in the 12 months to September last year, falling to the lowest levels since 1995.  Up to five of Australia’s remaining 16 coal-fired power plants could be financially unviable by 2025 due to a flood of cheap solar and wind energy entering the electricity grid.  Fossil fuel companies risk derailing the UK’s climate targets by planning to build a string of 17 new gas-fired power plants with a combined generation capacity of 14 GW.  As of January 2021, global institutional investors, such as pension funds, asset managers, and insurance companies, held investments worth more than $1 trillion in coal, with US investors collectively holding 58% of them.  According to 2020 figures released this week, US renewable energy sources for the first time generated more electricity than coal, although natural gas was far ahead of all other energy sources.

A new “green steel” venture in Sweden has been launched with plans to start production as early as 2024 using green hydrogen to process iron into steel.  Also, a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed for the assessment of the building and operation of a hydrogen powered steel mill in France.  Meanwhile, Enegix Energy from Australia is behind the construction of a green hydrogen hub in Brazil, which will not only support the economic activities of Brazil, but also export hydrogen to Europe and other continents.

Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools awarded a contract to Highland Electric Transportation which will supply it with the country’s largest electric school bus fleet by taking on its financing and management in exchange for a fixed annual leasing fee.  The US Postal Service said on Tuesday it had awarded a $482 million contact to Oshkosh Defense to finalize production plans for the next-generation of postal vehicles, but that only 10% will be electric.  Carbon emissions from passenger cars across Britain have fallen by just 1% since 2011, despite a steep rise in the sale of electric and hybrid vehicles, due to the popularity of SUVs and an increase in road traffic.

Tesla could be shifting more EVs to lithium iron phosphate battery cells over concerns about the long-term availability of nickel, which is required for lithium ion batteries.  Redwood Materials has reached an agreement to recycle scrap and defective battery cells for Envision AESC, which manufactures batteries for the Nissan Leaf in Smyrna, Tennessee.  One use for EV batteries once they are no longer suitable for their original use is for storage of solar energy in houses.  National Geographic explored the role that such batteries could play in averting disasters like that in Texas.

Dominion Energy South Carolina’s new 15 year plan reports that shuttering two coal-fired power plants and converting a third to natural gas is the best option by multiple measures.  It also participated in a hearing before the Public Service Commission regarding the establishment of new solar choice metering tariffs in the state, which critics contend will do more harm than good to the solar industry in South Carolina.

Potpourri

Peter Sinclair’s latest video focused on the question of whether capitalism and free-market forces could supplant political expediency as a major factor in advancing bipartisan support for renewable energy.  Determining how hard companies are trying to meet climate pledges can be very difficult when there are no regulatory standards that require uniform disclosures of important information like emissions.  Corporations were also the focus of Bill McKibben’s column this week.  More than a third of all food grown for human consumption in the US never makes it to someone’s stomach, and the carbon footprint of that waste is greater than that of the airline industry.  Being a person who spent many years loving road trips (and for way too long being oblivious to the climate impacts), I couldn’t resist including this column by Amy Brady, even though it didn’t come out this week.

Closing Thought

Jeremy Lent, author of the forthcoming book The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe, addressed the question “What does an ecological civilization look like?” in Yes! magazine.