For most of the time that I have compiled this, the IEA have been a source of frustration. Until recently they consistently, almost wilfully underestimated the growth of renewables in their forecasts. However, this week’s report, covered below, has the headline I have been waiting for ever since I started talking about “peak oil” back in 2001. At last there is visibility that oil demand is turning down, due to the twin threats of adoption of renewables at scale and the benefits of energy efficiency measures. At last!
Further evidence of this came with BP’s results where they took an impairement charge of $2bn relating to weaker demand in Germany (see HERE)
COMPANY NEWS
Dogger Bank South offshore project nears approval
RWE and Masdar have reached a significant development milestone for the Dogger Bank South (DBS) offshore wind farms.
The UK Planning Inspectorate has accepted the Development Consent Order (DCO) application for DBS East and DBS West offshore wind farms, situated over 100 kilometres off the northeast coast of England and slated to feature up to 200 turbines, delivering a combined capacity of 3GW.
The DCO application’s acceptance moves the projects into the pre-examination phase, with public examinations planned later in 2024. RWE and Masdar’s investment is expected to contribute nearly £1 billion to the UK economy, including £400 million for the Humber region. The development is expected to create up to 2,380 UK jobs during the construction phase. (current-news)
map: RWE
UK NEWS
Kraken to launch energy tech super-centre in Manchester
The ever-expanding software platform underpinning Octopus Energy, Britain’s biggest power retailer, is launching what it calls Britain’s first superhub for digital energy technology. Manchester will be its home.
Kraken has been Octopus’ billing, trading and operations fulfilment “brains” since 2016. It is now licenced to perform similar functions for a total of 54 million accounts of leading power retailers such as E.ON in the UK, and as far afield as Australia’s Origin Energy & Japan’s Tokyo Gas.
Kraken’s new EnTech superhub will empower partners to boost their products’ usability and expand their reach to more customers, homes and businesses by integrating with Kraken.
The powerhouse will be a melting pot of global leaders in clean tech, bringing together some of the world’s biggest names in e-mobility, EV charging, heat pump and home batteries.
Kraken has already secured over a dozen partners for the launch, including automotive leaders BYD of China and Ford, battery pioneers Tesla, solar technologists Enphase Energy, SolarEdge & GivEnergy, EV charge point players Indra Renewable Technologies, Hypervolt, Ohme and Myenergi, as well as heat pump providers Mitsubishi Electric and Daikin.
By integrating with Kraken, clean tech devices such as EVs and heat pumps can draw power from the grid when it is cheapest and greenest and export back when prices are higher – creating a smarter, more efficient system that slashes bills for consumers. (theenergyst)
Might have the wrong Kraken here?
Nesta says Government needs to inspire 12x increase in heat pumps
Over three million homes need to install heat pumps or other low-carbon heating over the course of this parliament, a 12-fold increase over the last parliament, new analysis finds.
Without this switch, which would involve one in ten households, the UK is unlikely to meet its legally binding carbon budgets, says sustainable innovation charity Nesta in a new report.
The UK installed only 250,000 heat pumps between 2020 and 2024, while 25.5 million UK homes still use oil or gas boilers.
The Nesta report outlines how the new Labour government could get the UK back on track with net-zero targets by decarbonising home heating.
Nesta estimates that key policy u-turns and delays by the previous government have left the UK around 15% short of the emissions savings from homes needed to meet future carbon budgets. This major gap comes from changes including scrapping higher energy efficiency standards for landlords and delaying the phase out of boilers in off-gas grid homes from 2026 to 2035. (coolingpost)
EV OF THE WEEK
Fiat Grande Panda to compete with new budget EV’s
Fiat is 125 years old this year, and is celebrating by announcing that it is shifting from a local production model to a global platform now that it is part of the sprawling Stellantis empire. It has announced that it will be launching an update of its old favourite budget car from the 1980’s, the Panda.
The Grande Panda looks more like the old Panda 4×4 in that it has a small boxy high driving stance and a chunky look with bold fonts for the name. It is to be sold as an EV and a hybrid, with the EV running on a 44kWh battery that will be good for just under 200 miles of range, enough for a city car. Fiat promise that the baby SUV will seat 5 within a sub-4 meter body.
When? Fiat say “soon to be launched”. How much? People are talking about £22,000 which will be competitive and will slot it in as a direct competitor to the Hyundai Inster covered last week.
As Fiat has proven with the success of the electric Fiat500 there is a willing market for these cheap, city SUV’s. I would recommend to Fiat that “soon” should mean soon.
Photo: Fiat
EUROPEAN STORIES
At least one traditional car company is enjoying the transition to EV
Volvo Cars reported 71,514 global car sales in June, 8% more than a year ago. During the first six months of the year, sales amounted to 388,073, up 14% year-over-year.
Meanwhile, in June, Volvo’s plug-in electric car sales increased by 41% year-over-year to a new record of 34,382. Within that number is a 93% increase in pure electric cars. Overall rechargeable cars represented nearly half (48.1%) of the brand’s total volume.
Critical to this is the success of their smallest ever car, the EX30 (below and featured in Titbits last August HERE). In June Volvo sold a record number of 12,500 EX30s. It’s one of the best-selling Volvo models globally and one of the best-selling all-electric cars in Europe. (insideevs)
Photo: Volvo
FOCUS ON: PLASTIC WASTE
Ocean Cleanup 003 breaks records in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP)
Titbits can’t get enough of the work that Ocean Cleanup does both in rivers but particularly in the GPGP. Their 003 system entered service in 2023 and is proving itself greatly more effective than the earlier versions, which is unsurprising as it is three times bigger. Here is how Ocean Cleanup describe it:
System 03 is big – really big. The wing length will vary according to operations and testing, but currently reaches a maximum length of around 2.2 km, nearly three times larger than System 002, with the ability at peak efficiency to clean an area the size of a football field every five seconds. The GPGP is enormous (around three times the size of France, or twice Texas) and cleaning the entire area requires a fleet of cleanup systems similar in scale to System 03. This is our first opportunity to deploy, test and optimize such a system, and we believe System 03 will develop into our blueprint for scale-up to a fleet capable of cleaning the entire GPGP.
Earlier this month the team ran a livestream of 03 in action. It is beautiful to watch apart from the good that it is doing. See it HERE
photo: Ocean Cleanup
Major investors call on petrochemical companies to tackle plastic pollution
Dozens of financial institutions with $6.8tr of assets under management are calling on the petrochemicals sector to step up in the fight to tackle plastic pollution and transition to “safe and environmentally sound” principles.
Seventy financial institutions have signed a collective statement organised by financial think tank Planet Tracker, which commits them to requesting that companies they invest in that produce plastic polymers disclose their environmental impacts and set targets for transitioning to more sustainable forms of plastic production.
The investors are also calling on companies to phase out toxic polymers and chemicals, establish dedicated governance and accountability measures at the Board level to ensure sustainability commitments are honoured, and link management compensation to circularity and resource efficiency goals.
Legal & General Investment Management, Robeco, Abrdn, Rockefeller Asset Management, Rathbones Group Plc, and Storebrand Asset Management are among the investors that have said they will step up pressure on petrochemicals companies in their portfolios. (businessgreen)
Olympic athletes tell Coca-Cola, Pepsi to end plastic pollution
More than 100 athletes have called on beverage giants Coca-Cola and Pepsi to stop selling single-use plastic bottles and promote reusable products when they sponsor sports events.
The push comes ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic games which begin on July 26 and which Coca-Cola is sponsoring.
In a letter sent Wednesday to the CEOs of the Coca-Cola Company, its European subsidiary Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, and American rival PepsiCo, 102 current and former athletes — 22 of which are competing in Paris — urge the companies to end plastic pollution “in the spirit of the Olympics and sport.”
The Games “will be the perfect opportunity for you and your companies to trigger a sea change in how the world understands packaging and light the torch for reuse,” the letter states.
Coca-Cola is the world’s top plastic polluter, according to environmental NGO Break Free from Plastics’s 2023 Brand Audit. In 2023 Paris’s mayor Anne Hidalgo announced a ban on single-use plastics at the games, but French media has since reported that an estimated 40 percent of drinks will come in plastic bottles. (politico-europe)
McKinsey says most consumer packaging still going unrecycled
Bolstering the circular economy represents a way to confront climate change while also presenting a more than $1 trillion opportunity, according to global consulting firm McKinsey & Co.
A June report by the firm, whose current and former consultants advise executives and board rooms around the world, says that every year, some $2.6 trillion worth of material in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG)—80 percent of the material value—is thrown away and never recovered.
Replacing the “linear model of mass consumption” can break a pattern that has contributed to the changes in our climate that, if left unaddressed, threaten to make life much more difficult in coming decades, McKinsey writes.
While building a circular economy designed to counter the linear model, the consulting firm says packaging designers and users should aspire to optimize resource yields by circulating products, components and materials in use at the highest possible levels at all times.
The company identifies plastics, lithium-ion batteries and cement and concrete as three sectors will pollution- and emissions-related challenges that will attract circular investments in the years ahead. (recyclingtoday)
Read the report HERE
NATURAL CAPITAL
Is the new EU Nature Restoration Law compatible with Regenerative Agriculture
An article in the Food Navigator (HERE) argues that the new EU Nature Restoration Law does align quite closely with the principles of regenerative agriculture.
Olivia Boothman, the global farm metric projects officer for the Sustainable Food Trust explains that increasing biodiversity and enhancing of carbon stock in soils are outcomes that Regen10’s outcomes based framework aims towards.
GLOBAL STUFF
IEA warns of a ‘staggering’ excess of oil
That’s happened against a backdrop of the U.S. ramping up shale production, countries tightly controlling how much oil is released, and the world transitioning to alternative energy sources.
All these factors will culminate in a “staggering” excess of oil by 2030 that will far outstrip demand, Paris-based global energy watchdog International Energy Agency (IEA) warned in a report on Wednesday.
Oil demand will gradually slow, hitting its peak by 2029 and plateauing after that. The IEA anticipates the oil supply hitting 114 million barrels a day by the end of the decade—roughly 8 million barrels a day higher than demand. (fortune)
Download the IEA Medium Term Outlook, called “Oil 2024” HERE
First Solar-Covered Canal in U.S. to Go Online This Summer
Work is nearly complete on a pilot project erecting solar canopies over a canal on tribal land south of Phoenix. When finished, it will be the first solar-covered canal in the U.S.
The project will cover a half-mile of the Casa-Blanca Canal, part of a network owned by the Gila River Indian Community, and will deliver power to the Pima and Maricopa tribes. Tectonicus, the firm behind the project, expects it will connect to the grid this summer. A similar canal pilot project is underway south of Modesto, California, and is set to be completed next year.
Solar canopies over canals have several upsides, experts say. Unlike many large-scale arrays, they don’t occupy needed farmland or destroy wilderness. They also shade water flowing through canals, slowing evaporation, an important advantage in the drought-afflicted Southwest. By one estimate, covering the vast network of canals in California with solar panels would conserve enough water to supply 2 million residents. (yale360)
photo: Tectonicus
Climate Group urges policymakers to phase out diesel buses and trucks by 2040
Global non-profit Climate Group and the Under2 Coalition’s ZEV Community have urged governments to set clear phase out dates for fossil fuelled buses and trucks, warning heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) alone could contribute 11 per cent of global emissions by 2050 if left unchecked.
A new report published by the pair this week has suggested a 2030 deadline for the sale of new fossil fuelled buses and a 2040 target date for trucks could prove vital if governments are to deliver on their climate goals.
It also highlighted how trucks are a disproportionate contributor to air pollution, representing just four per cent of vehicles on the road globally but accounting for 40 per cent of all road transport emissions and a third of total transport fuel use. As such, the report claims there is an urgent need for clear phase out dates, backed by legally binding emissions rules such as the CO2 Standards for Trucks Regulation in the EU and Advanced Clean Trucks legislation in California. (businessgreen)
TECHIE CORNER
Ceramic could be the ultimate material for solar panels
In 2015, researchers from ETH Zurich identified a new photovoltaic ceramic material that may entirely revolutionize solar energy. This new ceramic tile is 1,000 times more efficient than the present silicon-based solar panels.
The ceramic tile is composed of two essential components: a material that absorbs light and another that conducts electricity. It utilizes aluminum oxide and perovskite nanoparticles as the light-absorbing layer, which are well-known for their high efficiency in light absorption.
The perovskites are then embedded in highly stabilized aluminum oxide, which shields them from the vagaries of heat, moisture and any form of mechanical pressure. When the sunlight is shone on the ceramic, the electrons in the perovskite nanoparticles will receive the energy light switch too and go to the next level.
These excited electrons are then efficiently transferred into the aluminum oxide crystals that function as pathways within the ceramic to channel the electrons on the surface of the ceramic and produce the electric current. In a number of essential aspects, the photovoltaic ceramic designed by the researchers from ETH Zurich is actually more effective than common silicon solar cells. (ecoticias)
photo: ETH Zurich
