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The World Needs Way More Carbon Dioxide Removal
Current conditions: A large wildfire is burning out of control in northwestern Turkey • Intense storms killed at least 11 people in South Africa • It will be 109 degrees Fahrenheit in Phoenix today, and tomorrow will be hotter.THE TOP FIVE1. Report: Global carbon dioxide removal must quadrupleA team of international researchers this week published a new report on the state of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) as it relates to global climate goals. The top-line takeaway is that CDR must quadruple if we want to stay in line with the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius....
How California Broke Its Electricity Bills
Rooftop solar is four times more expensive in America than it is in other countries. It’s also good for the climate. Should we even care about its high cost? Yes, says Severin Borenstein, an economist and the director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. In a recent blog post, he argued that the high cost of rooftop solar will shift nearly $4 billion onto the bills of low- and middle-income Californians who don’t have rooftop solar. Similar forces could soon spread the cost-shift problem across the country. On this week’s episode of...
What’s Even Better Than Building New Wind Farms?
It’s not easy to build a wind project. Many of the best spots for generating wind power are already occupied by turbines. Even if you do find a good one, then comes everything else — inflation in the supply chain, convincing a local community that they want a wind farm near them, leasing the land, and so on and so forth. The whole process can take as long as five years.But what about just making an existing wind farm … better.This option, known as repowering, is becoming more attractive to wind developers and operators as existing wind assets age...
Surprise! Climeworks Unveils Newer, Faster, Cheaper Tech
Direct air capture is leveling up. In a surprise move on Tuesday, Climeworks unveiled new “generation 3” technology that it said can suck up twice as much carbon from the atmosphere using half the amount of energy as its previous designs. The Swiss carbon removal company will premiere the new design in the U.S. at its Department of Energy-funded direct air capture “hub” in Louisiana, with construction to start in 2026.Climeworks already operates the two largest direct air capture plants in the world, both in Iceland. Its first commercial-scale plant, Orca, was designed to capture 4,000 tons of CO2...
Summer Electricity Bills Are on the Rise
Current conditions: Heat advisories are in effect across much of California • A large landslide buried cars in Taiwan • It is 70 degrees Fahrenheit and partly cloudy in Bonn, Germany, where delegates from 198 countries are gathering this week for the Bonn Climate Change Conference THE TOP FIVE1. IEA: World not on track to triple renewable capacity by 2030 A new report from the International Energy Agency released this morning concluded that the world isn’t yet on track to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 compared to 2022 levels – an ambitious goal set last year at COP28 in line...
A Critical Mineral Trade War Is Brewing
China and the United States have fired their opening salvos in a critical minerals trade war. Over the past year, China has imposed export controls on gallium, germanium, and graphite — all minerals necessary for energy transition technologies. Then in May, the Biden Administration shot back with tariffs on critical mineral imports, part of a package of trade protection measures to help shield domestic manufacturers in strategic sectors, including the mineral industry. The downstream consequence for energy transition technologies such as electric vehicle batteries, however, is almost certainly higher prices. In all likelihood, this critical mineral trade war will intensify,...
One Way Forest Carbon Credits Might Come in Handy
Wildfires are razing U.S. forests faster than either natural regrowth or active replanting can restore them. There’s a nearly 4 million-acre backlog in the western U.S. of forests that have burned and not been re-seeded. That’s slightly larger than the size of Connecticut. And unless we pick up the pace, the shortfall could increase two to three times over by 2050 as wildfires get worse under a warming climate.These are the findings of a study published last week on the yawning gap between reforestation needs and reforestation capacity in the western U.S. Trees are still the country’s most important...
Mexico Just Elected a Climate Scientist President
Current conditions: At least two people have died in ongoing flooding in southern Germany • Delhi’s deadly heat wave continues this week • Seven-inch hail reportedly fell in the Texas Panhandle.THE TOP FIVE1. Mexico elects climate scientist as next presidentMexico resoundingly elected Claudia Sheinbaum as its next president over the weekend. Sheinbaum, 61, is making headlines for becoming the country’s first female president, as well as its first Jewish leader, but she is also a climate scientist, and her landslide victory “could mark a turning point from the current administration’s pro-fossil fuel policies,” as Climate Home News explained. Sheinbaum...
The Great Electric Car Race of 1968
Volkswagen calls its new EV minivan “the electric reincarnation of the iconic Microbus.” But while the ID.Buzz may be a touchscreens-and-LEDs update on the bare-bones icon of the Sixties, it is far from the first electrified take on the VW bus. On an August morning in 1968, a Volkswagen bus jammed full of Caltech students who had hacked it to run on battery power departed their home base in Pasadena, California. Their destination: Cambridge, Massachusetts, home of rival MIT. At the same moment, MIT students in an electrified Chevy Corvair left the East Coast bound for the West. “I came...
Can Electric Cars Escape Identity Politics?
“What do you think of electric cars?” It’s a question Donald Trump asks the audience at his rallies these days, and the inevitable response is a chorus of boos. The mini-rant about EVs that follows is now as much a feature of Trump speeches as complaints about immigration or the injustice of his criminal indictments. As he said recently in Dayton, Ohio, “They want to do this all-electric nonsense where the cars don’t go far, they cost too much, and they’re all made in China.” When Trump chooses to elevate an issue, he inevitably infuses it with questions of...
Vermont’s ‘Climate Superfund’ Bill Just Became Law
Current conditions: Severe thunderstorms are slamming Houston • Earth could experience another solar storm this weekend • It’s about 78 degrees Fahrenheit and partly cloudy in New York City, where former President Donald Trump has been found guilty on 34 felony counts. THE TOP FIVE1. Vermont’s ‘Climate Superfund’ bill becomes law Vermont has become the first state to pass a law holding big fossil fuel companies financially responsible for climate change damages caused by the emissions from their products. The state’s Republican governor, Phil Scott, neither signed nor vetoed bill S.259, aka the “Climate Superfund Act,” therefore allowing it to become...
Tornado Alley Is Moving East
If hurricanes, wildfires, heat, and floods are the Big Four of extreme weather in America, then tornadoes are perhaps the equivalent of the National Bowling League. That’s not for lack of fatalities — tornadoes kill more people annually than hurricanes, per the 30-year average — nor for their lack of star power (see: The Wizard of Oz, Sharknado, Twister, and my most highly anticipated movie of the year, Twisters). But when it comes to the study of extreme weather, robust, detailed data on tornadic supercells has been described as “largely absent,” at least compared to the scholarship on their...
Will America’s Wet, Hot Summer Upend the 2024 Race?
Of the 158 days left to go before the presidential election, 94 of them will fall during the summer. Such an alignment is not entirely a coincidence — the 29th U.S. Congress designated the first Tuesday in November for voting in order to avoid summer planting and the autumn harvest — but in 2024, the overlap between the hottest months of the year and the feverish finale of the presidential campaign is especially apropos. Fire agencies have warned of an “above average” wildfire season in the Southwest, northern Great Lakes, northern Great Basin, and Hawaii. Last week, the National...
Exxon Triumphs Over Activists
Current conditions: More than 400,000 households are currently without power in storm-battered Texas and the southern Plains • Southeast Louisiana tied a century-old temperature record on Memorial Day, recording a high of 98 degrees Fahrenheit in Baton Rouge • India may have broken its own heat record with a preliminary reading of about 126 degrees Fahrenheit near New Delhi.THE TOP FIVE1. Exxon board members clinch reelectionExxonMobil Chairman Darren Woods and Lead Director Joseph Hooley easily won reelection at the company’s annual general meeting on Wednesday, neutralizing a threatened shareholder uprising over its climate policies. Several major pension funds said...
The Swiss Army Knife of Clean Energy Tax Credits Goes Into Effect Next Year
Before and for the first year or so after the Inflation Reduction Act, clean energy in the United States was largely developed under the aegis of two tax credits: the Production Tax Credit, which primarily useful for wind power, and the Investment Tax Credit, which is primarily used for solar power. (The actual eligibility for each tax credit for each technology has changed various times over the years, but that’s the gist.)Starting in 2025, however, and lasting (absent any change in the law) through at least 2032, that tax credit regime will be made “technology neutral.” Goodbye, existing credits...
How a Natural Gas-Powered Bitcoin Miner Became a Darling of Climate Tech
Categorizing Crusoe Energy is not easy. The startup is a Bitcoin miner and data center operator. It’s a “high-performance” and “carbon-negative” cloud platform provider. It’s a darling of the clean tech world that’s raised nearly $750 million in funding. The company has historically powered its operations with natural gas, but its overall business model actually reduces emissions. Confused yet? Here are the basics. The company was founded in 2018 to address the problem of natural gas flaring. Natural gas is a byproduct of oil extraction, and if oil field operators have no economical use case for the gas or...
Brazil’s Displacement Fears
Current conditions: More storms and possible tornadoes are forecast to hit Texas and the Plains, where millions of people are still without power • Cyclone Remal, the first tropical storm of the season, killed at least 23 people in India and Bangladesh • Brazilian authorities are investigating up to 800 suspected cases of waterborne illness following unprecedented flooding over the past month.THE TOP FIVE1. Biden administration invests in carbon removalThe Department of Energy on Tuesday gave $1.2 million to companies competing for a chance to sell carbon removal credits to the federal government. These 24 semifinalists, which were each...
These Carbon Removal Companies Got the Energy Department’s Stamp of Approval
The Department of Energy is advancing its first-of-a-kind program to stimulate demand for carbon removal by becoming a major buyer. On Tuesday, the agency awarded $50,000 to each of 24 semifinalist companies competing to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere on behalf of the U.S. government. It will eventually spend $30 million to buy carbon removal credits from up to 10 winners.The nascent carbon removal industry is desperate for customers. At a conference held in New York City last week called Carbon Unbound, startup CEOs brainstormed how to convince more companies to buy carbon removal as part of...
Tom Steyer Is Baffled By Warren Buffett’s Oil Bets
If you’re looking for a relatively optimistic read on the fight against climate change, Tom Steyer’s new book is out today. Called Cheaper, Better Faster: How We’ll Win the Climate War, it dives into the billionaire’s perspective on the state of the climate crisis and the clean energy solutions helping the world decarbonize. Steyer’s perspective is informed by the many hats he wears — investor, philanthropist, long shot 2020 presidential candidate, Yale man, and co-founder of the investment firm Galvanize Climate Solutions. I chatted with Steyer a few weeks ago about his book, his guiding investment principles, and how...
How Floods Are Contributing to Pregnancy Loss in India
Ashwini Khandekar was in her first few months of pregnancy when the flood came. This was July 2021, the peak of the annual monsoon season, when a downpour destroyed more than 300 houses in Ganeshwadi, a village 400 kilometers south of Mumbai in India’s Maharashtra state. Authorities instructed Khandekar and her husband to evacuate, she told me, “but I couldn’t leave my house because all the evacuation centers were full. I had nowhere to go.” Though in the end her home was spared, for the next 15 days, Khandekar lived in constant fear, praying until the waters finally abated....
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