Plus: Floating wind set to double; $40B US “battery belt”; GM launches battery business; Green hydrogen risks dying of thirst
Hi Everyone,
With Thanksgiving behind us, we are full into the Fall season of yard clean up here in Calgary. And what a gorgeous Fall we’re having!
Lots of great news to share again this week. At least skim the headlines to understand the sweep of impressive developments occurring.
Keep sharing this around and encourage others to subscribe.
Thanks!
Peter
Observations & Comments
Canada risks getting left behind on investments in carbon capture and storage (CCS). The three feature stories below are all linked. The Oil Sands Pathways to Net Zero Alliance or in short, the Pathways Alliance is advancing a massive project to capture CO2 emissions from the oil sands (see first Feature Story), which if executed, would position oil production from Alberta as among the lowest emission barrels in the world – meeting demand that is expected to continue through the energy transition.
Canada and Alberta governments can help make this project a reality by creating the conditions necessary for investment decisions to be made. As it stands, those conditions are not yet in place.
From the second Feature Story:
“Previously, carbon emitters in America could access a production tax credit known as 45Q, which provided $50 per metric tonne of carbon dioxide that was captured and permanently stored. Now, under the IRA, that credit’s value has increased to $85 — an upgrade that could cover nearly two-thirds of a project’s total capital and operating costs, according to a Bank of Montreal analysis.
By contrast, the 50 per cent Canadian investment tax credit (ITC), unveiled in the last federal budget, likely covers less than 25 per cent of total projected costs for facilities sanctioned by 2030.”
That said, it appears the Federal government’s attention has been caught by the moves recently made by the US (see third Feature Story).
Yet Alberta has a remarkable advantage compared to the US that many don’t realize. Alberta has some of the world’s best geologic formations suitable for CO2 sequestration – and over a very large area. Alberta also has a very structured approach to allowing companies access to subsurface rights for things like CO2 storage. These formations in Alberta can safely and permanently store huge quantities of CO2 more than a kilometer below the surface. In fact, the Alberta government just approved the Pathways Alliance for moving to the next stage in establishing what will be the largest of areas in Alberta assigned for a CO2 sequestration hub. This truly is an Alberta Advantage compared to the complicated processes in the US for establishing a sequestration hub.
With early work on the Pathways Alliance’s foundational project progressing, it is now up to the Federal and Alberta governments to make sure Canada is not left behind by putting in place the policy certainty necessary for sanctioning the multi-billion-dollar investments. Just imagine what that would do for Canada’s economy!
Feature Stories – Carbon Capture
Oilsands group pledges to spend $16.5B on carbon capture project by 2030 | BNN Bloomberg
Canada’s biggest oilsands companies say they will spend $16.5 billion before 2030 on a massive proposed carbon capture and storage facility that is the centrepiece of their net-zero-by-2050 pledge.
‘Canada will get left behind’: U.S. incentives for carbon capture could lure investment south | Financial Post
Biden’s new climate package outstrips what’s on offer from Ottawa in terms of tax credits and price assurances. Canada was first with significant incentives for systems that would keep carbon from entering the atmosphere, but the United States now has the size advantage, and oilpatch leaders with capital to invest in green technology have noticed.
Trudeau wants to catch up with Biden on clean-energy tax credits | BNN Bloomberg
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has begun crafting plans to even the playing field with the U.S. on investment incentives for carbon capture and other clean energy projects.
Finance & Sentiment
Mercedes-Benz Secures €11 Billion Sustainability-Linked Loan Tied to Climate Goals | ESG Today
Mercedes-Benz announced today that it converted an €11 billion revolving credit facility into a sustainability-linked loan, with terms tied to climate-related goals aligned with the company’s sustainability strategy, Ambition 2039.
Hy24 Raises $2 Billion for Clean Hydrogen Infrastructure Fund | ESG Today
Hydrogen-focused investment startup Hy24 announced today it has closed the funding of its hydrogen impact fund, Clean H2 Infra Fund, raising €2 billion investment, making it the world’s largest infrastructure fund to exclusively invest in the clean hydrogen value chain.
Technology
Hydrogen
Fortescue forges ahead on massive hydrogen electrolyser for “world first” green ammonia plant | RenewEconomy
Image: IRENA
Fortescue Future Industries is moving ahead on plans to deliver Australia’s first commercial-scale renewable ammonia plant via a “world-first” conversion of an existing Queensland production facility to run on green hydrogen.
Suncor sells renewables to focus on hydrogen power | Canadian Mining Journal
Suncor has agreed to sell its wind and solar assets for $730 million to Canadian Utilities, an ATCO company. Instead, Suncor will focus on hydrogen and renewable fuels, which it considers more aligned with its core oil sands and petroleum business.
ExxonMobil Signs Deal With CF Industries to Make Blue Ammonia | MSN
Exxon Mobil Corporation XOM entered an agreement with fertilizer maker CF Industries Holdings, Inc. CF to produce blue ammonia, which is expected to help decarbonize hard-to-abate industrial facilities. Illinois-based CF Industries is a leading producer of nitrogen fertilizer in North America.
Green Hydrogen Revolution Risks Dying of Thirst | Reuters via EnergyNow
[Excerpt] Water is one of the three key inputs for manufacturing it, along with renewable energy and the electrolyser that splits H2O into its constituent parts of hydrogen and oxygen. Trouble is, generating the required power usually means building factories either in areas where industry, agriculture and households are already heavily competing for the resource, or in hot, sun-drenched regions suitable for solar panels. Estimates on how much water is needed to make green hydrogen vary wildly. That’s problematic as some 85% of planned facilities are in regions suffering from medium to high water stress, per consultancy Bluefield Research.
Maersk Orders Six Green Fuel-Powered Large Ships | ESG Today
Integrated container logistics company A.P. Moller – Maersk announced today an order for six large ocean-going container vessels capable of being operated on carbon-neutral methanol, to be built by shipbuilding company Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI).
The Grid
Subsea cable to bring wind, solar power from Egypt to Europe | pv magazine
Image: Screenshot, Entso-E
Greece-based Copelouzos Group plans to build a 1,373-km high-voltage, direct current (HVDC) subsea transmission line to connect Egypt with Greece’s Attica region.
Octopus’ Kraken platform to be used for domestic flexibility first in Belgium | Current
Octopus Energy’s cloud-native platform Kraken Technologies will be utilised in Belgium to control heat pumps and other energy technologies to reduce household bills amid the energy crisis.
Sunrun’s residential VPP injects 1.8 GWh into grid over 3-month period | pv magazine
In the hot summer months, thousands of residents with solar-plus-battery systems networked together to reduce peak energy costs and provide grid stability for ISO-New England’s customers.
Shell mines for “negawatts” in $31m flexible energy demand project | RenewEconomy
A $31.6 million project to demonstrate the largely untapped potential of demand-side energy management by controlling the loads of at least 40 commercial and industrial customers has won grant funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. The project, led by Shell Energy Australia, will take in shopping centres, supermarkets and a refrigeration distribution centre across Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria to harness an estimated 21.5MW of flexible demand capacity.
Nuclear
Cameco partners with Brookfield Renewable to buy nuclear firm Westinghouse for almost $8B | CBC
Uranium miner Cameco Corp. and alternative energy firm Brookfield Renewable Partners said on Tuesday they would acquire nuclear power plant equipment maker Westinghouse Electric in a deal with a price tag of $7.9 billion US.
Coal
German energy company RWE to end coal use by 2030 | AP
German energy company RWE said Tuesday that it will phase out the burning of coal by 2030, saving 280 million metric tons of climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions. The decision will accelerate the closure of some of Europe’s most polluting power plants and a vast lignite strip mine in western Germany.
NSW hits go on Australia’s biggest shift from coal to renewables | RenewEconomy
New South Wales has launched the first in a series of renewable energy and energy storage auctions that will replace the state’s retiring coal fired power stations, in the biggest energy transition plan ever undertaken in Australia.
Energy Storage
China turns on the world’s largest compressed air energy storage plant | New Atlas
The world’s largest [100MW] and, more importantly, most efficient clean compressed air energy storage system is up and running, connected to a city power grid in northern China.
Canada needs ‘between 8GW and 12GW of energy storage by 2035 to support net zero goals’ | Energy Storage News
[Excerpt] Power Advisory and Energy Storage Canada emphasised the versatility of energy storage, meaning it has an important role to play in each of the provinces, but those systems could perform a range of different applications suited to the needs of each. For instance, in some of the more rural regions of Canada, energy storage could be a cost-effective alternative to transmission network buildout.
California utility claims biggest flow battery deal in the world | RenewEconomy
A massive 200MW/2GWh long-duration iron flow energy storage system will be installed in the US city of Sacramento in what is expected to be the country’s – and the world’s – largest ever flow battery purchase.
New Jersey proposes energy storage incentives to reach 2GW deployment target | Energy Storage News
[Excerpt] The Board is proposing to create separate energy storage programmes creating incentives for front-of-meter (FTM) and behind-the-meter (BTM) energy storage projects connected to New Jersey’s electric distribution companies (EDC).
Fluence building 250MW ‘Grid Booster’ battery storage system for German TSO TransnetBW | Energy Sotrage News
Global system integrator Fluence will deploy a 250MW ‘Grid Booster’ battery energy storage system for transmission system operator (TSO) TransnetBW, one of two such projects planned in Germany.
Shell ties up with renewables firm for Australia battery storage project | Financial Post
Shell Energy Australia, global oil and gas major Shell Plc’s renewable energy business in the country, and AMPYR Australia (AMPYR) signed an agreement to develop a [500MW] battery energy storage system, the companies said on Friday.
Solar and Wind
Global floating offshore wind pipeline doubles to 185GW | RenewEconomy
[Excerpt] Floating offshore wind projects have increased over the last 12 months from 130 to 230, with a pipeline growing from 91GW to 185GW.
Solar Is Now 33% Cheaper Than Gas Power in US, Guggenheim Says | Financial Post
Natural gas’s dominance as power-plant fuel in the US is fading fast as the cost of electricity generated by wind farms and solar projects tumbles, according to Guggenheim Securities.
Suncor divests wind and solar holdings to focus on hydrogen, renewable fuels | Financial Post
Suncor Energy Inc. said it would sell its wind and solar assets in Canada to Canadian Utilities Ltd. for $730 million.
TC Energy spending $146M to build solar power project in Alberta | CBC
TC Energy Corp. has announced it will build its first Canadian solar power farm, a $146-million. 81MW project south of Calgary.
Tata Power to develop 10GW renewable energy portfolio in Rajasthan | NS Energy
Tata Power has revealed plans to develop a 10GW renewable energy portfolio in Rajasthan, India in the next five years, which would include up to 8GW of utility scale projects along with 1GW of solar rooftop and 1,50,000 solar pumps.
Transportation
Over $40 billion in EV investments establishes new US ‘battery belt’ with 15 new plants or expansions | Electrek
[Excerpt] With nearly every automaker targeting an all-electric future, it will require a good deal of batteries. The new climate bills are stimulating investments in US EV battery production, up 700% since the start of 2021.
GM is launching a new business to connect homes and businesses with EV chargers, energy storage | CNBC
General Motors on Tuesday said that it is forming a new business unit to offer stationary battery packs, solar panels, electric vehicle chargers and other energy-management products for homes and businesses.
Cars Are Vanishing from Paris | Reason to be Cheerful
The share of journeys made by car in the city has fallen by nearly half, and the trend is only accelerating.
Loblaw deploys Gatik’s fully driverless trucks on Toronto-area streets | Electric Autonomy
[Excerpt] Since August, Loblaw and its autonomous middle-mile logistics company partner, Gatik, which has offices in Palo Alto and Toronto, have been running regular commercial deliveries — deploying full Level 4 autonomous operation — between five retail stores and a micro-fulfillment centre in the city’s west end.
Tesla Semi production starts; Pepsi to get first electric trucks | Electrek
Elon Musk announced that Tesla is starting Tesla Semi production and that Pepsi is going to get the first electric trucks starting December 1. Tesla Semi, an all-electric class 8 truck, was unveiled back in 2017.
EV battery makers Gotion, ONE plan new Michigan plants; $4 billion combined | Reuters
Chinese battery company Gotion High Tech and Michigan-based startup Our Next Energy (ONE) will open separate, new electric-vehicle battery plants worth a combined $4 billion in Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced on Wednesday.
Amazon.com to invest over 1 billion euros in European electric van, truck fleet | Reuters
Amazon.com Inc said on Monday it will invest more than 1 billion euros ($974.8 million) over the next five years in electric vans, trucks and low-emission package hubs across Europe, accelerating its drive to achieve net-zero carbon.
Indonesia Plans EV Purchase Subsidies in 2023 to Spur Sales | Financial Post
Indonesia plans to begin subsidizing purchases of electric vehicles next year as the country aspires to have 2.5 million EV users by 2025 to boost demand and reduce air pollution.
Volkswagen to Invest $2.3 Billion in China Autonomous Driving Venture | BNN Bloomberg
Volkswagen AG will invest €2.4 billion euros ($2.3 billion) to set up an autonomous driving joint venture with China’s Horizon Robotics Inc. to strengthen the automaker’s tech presence in its biggest market.
Circular Economy
This startup is partnering with Sunrun to recycle and re-use millions of outdated solar panels | CNBC
[Excerpt] SolarCycle claims it can inexpensively extract about 95% of the high-value materials in solar panels, like silver, silicon, copper and aluminum. Those can then be repurposed or returned to the supply chain, creating a circular solar economy.
Policy
California offshore wind lease auction for up to 3 GW advances with BOEM assessment | Utility Dive
Leasing nearly 241,000 acres for wind farms off the central coast of California wouldn’t significantly affect the environment, according to an assessment released Wednesday by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.