Plus: “White” hydrogen; Blackrock invest $0.55B in direct air capture; Rethinking EVs; Pullback for US offshore wind; More grid upgrades planned
Hi Everyone,
Welcome to another issue of Energy Shift! See “Peter’s take” to learn about the “One stairway to housing heaven”.
Continue to forward on to others and encourage them to subscribe. I’ll be taking a break so watch for the next update in December.
Thanks,
Peter
Peter’s take: One stairway to housing heaven
I am sharing what I am learning about what it takes to make cities more livable and energy-efficient. I’ve talked about what good density looks like, along with access to good public transit. This is an extension of this theme, this time focusing on multi-family housing. Here, we learn about “point access blocks” – the way much of European cities achieve density in a very livable form factor. Yet Canada and the US have strict requirements that so far over-rule any chance of building the way European cities do. Canada is limited to 2 stories, where much of Europe allows for 6+ stories. For some reason, we think we know better and require far greater protections for fire safety. But the rate of fire deaths in the US is double that of Germany, and nearly triple that of the Netherlands. And Canada’s rate is roughly double that Italy and Spain. Yet Here in Canada and the US, a 3- or 4-bedroom condo is nearly unthinkable luxury, pushing families to start in the extreme suburbs to achieve the space needs at an affordable price. But what if we completely rethought our approach to building and fire codes? Doing so would unlock the use of the point access block design, making 3-bedroom condos more affordable. How does Germany make this possible? A second escape route is not required if the fire brigade has the necessary rescue equipment such as aerial rescue vehicles (think ladder truck).
I’m keeping my comments brief and encourage you to do your own reading. After reading the piece below, I found this deeper dive by Larch Lab very informative: Unlocking livable, resilient, decarbonized housing with Point Access Blocks
Here are two stories I want to highlight for you:
One Stairway is Enough to Reach Housing Heaven | The Urbanist
A bill allowing single-stairway “point access block” buildings would enhance housing and neighborhoods.
On February 2nd the Washington State Senate held its first hearing on SB 5491, a bill that adds a powerful tool to the state’s housing arsenal by permitting point access blocks — compact single stair buildings with dwellings centered around a stairway and elevator core. These buildings have a single point of access vertical corridor leading to the upper levels, hence the name.
Why Norway — the poster child for electric cars — is having second thoughts | Vox
Electric cars are crucial, but not enough to solve climate change. We can’t let them crowd out car-free transit options.
[Comment] I listened to a panel discussion this week talking about EVs. There were all manner of comments from the panelists about why EVs are such an obvious choice. When the moderator posed the top voted question (see below) to the panelists, it demonstrated they were entirely unprepared to provide enlightened commentary. Very disappointing and shows the sad tunnel vision we still have about building car dependent cities, electric or not.
Finance & Sentiment
France Bans Fossil Fuel Companies from Responsible Investment Labelled Funds | ESG Today
France’s Minister of the Economy, Finance and Recovery Bruno Le Maire announced today a series of updates to the French Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) label, aimed at making the label more demanding and climate-oriented, including new rules that would effectively exclude most oil and gas companies from SRI-labelled funds.
1PointFive and TD announce one of the finance industry’s largest purchases of Direct Air Capture Carbon Removal Credits | energy-pedia.com
[Excerpt] Under the terms of the agreement, and subject to STRATOS becoming operational, TD Securities has agreed to purchase 27,500 metric tons of DAC CDR credits over four years. This represents one of the largest purchases of DAC CDR credits by a financial institution and demonstrates TD’s continuing strategic focus on energy transition.
Oil and Gas Companies Face an Era of Credit Downgrades, Fitch Warns | BNN Bloomberg
Much of the fossil fuel industry may be facing an era of credit downgrades if producers prove too slow to adapt to a low-carbon future, according to Fitch Ratings. According to Inevitable Policy Response, a forecasting group whose data was used in the Fitch analysis, peak oil may come in 2025, after which demand will sink more than 60% over the next two-and-a-half decades.
Financial institutions push for Plastics Treaty to include corporate disclosure mandate | edie
Dozens of financial institutions managing more than $3.5trn of assets collectively are advocating for a UN Plastics Treaty which requires national governments to mandate plastic-related reporting from large businesses.
Technology
Hydrogen
They went hunting for fossil fuels. What they found could help save the world | CNN
When two scientists went looking for fossil fuels beneath the ground of northeastern France, they did not expect to discover something which could supercharge the effort to tackle the climate crisis. White hydrogen – also referred to as “natural,” “gold” or “geologic” hydrogen – is naturally produced or present in the Earth’s crust and has become something of a climate holy grail.
Netherlands starts building hydrogen network | pv magazine
Gasunie said this week that the authorities in the Netherlands have started building a national hydrogen network. The first section, stretching over 30 kilometers, will be built in Rotterdam and will connect the Tweede Maasvlakte industrial park to Pernis.
Air Products to Build Largest “Blue” Hydrogen Plant in Europe | ESG Today
[Excerpt] The facility is expected to be onstream in 2026, and will serve ExxonMobil’s Rotterdam refinery and additional customers via Air Products’ hydrogen pipeline network system. According to Air Products, project is being undertaken as part of long-term agreements with ExxonMobil and the Dutch State. Under the new project, Air Products’ carbon capture retrofit will capture CO2 from the company’s existing hydrogen plant and ExxonMobil’s Rotterdam refinery, with the plant connected to Porthos, one of the world’s largest carbon transport and storage projects.
Swedish firm behind world’s first ‘fossil-free’ steel pilot shelves plan for hydrogen facility at Finnish steelworks | Hydrogen Insight
SSAB and Fortum have concluded a FEED study early, finding that a viable commercial arrangement is ‘not possible’. SSAB, a Swedish steelmaker and one of the firms behind the Hybrit consortium for fossil-free steel production, has cut short a front-end engineering design (FEED) study with Finnish energy company Fortum for a project producing hydrogen for direct iron reduction at the existing Raahe steelworks.
Australian developer secures licenses for 8 GW green hydrogen project | pv magazine
Province Resources, which is developing an 8 GW green hydrogen project in Western Australia, has secured additional state licences for more than 600,000 hectares of land, as well as over 864 hectares of the seabed near Carnarvon.
[Comment] 600,000 hectares works out to an area 77km by 77km (48 miles by 48 miles). That would be quite the areas covered by solar panels. Now, the question is will this project ever become a reality?
Carbon Capture
The First Commercial Carbon-Sucking Facility in the US Opens in California | BNN Bloomberg
Workers at Heirloom’s Tracy, California, facility. The direct air capture plant is capable of grabbing 1,000 tons of CO2 from the air annually. Photo courtesy of Heirloom
[Excerpt] Heirloom’s facility, unveiled Thursday, will be capable of removing and storing as much as 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year. That’s a pittance compared with bigger plants poised to come online in Texas and Louisiana, but it’s enough to serve as a milestone for a technology that’s likely to spawn a significant business.
Major step towards full-scale CCUS in Eastern Europe: Heidelberg Materials starts carbon capture pilot in Bulgaria | Heidelberg
Construction start for a pilot carbon capture installation was celebrated at Heidelberg Materials’ plant in Devnya, Bulgaria, on Monday. Construction of the pilot unit will take only a few months, with the subsequent demonstration phase scheduled to last 12 to 24 months.
BlackRock Invests $550 Million in Occidental Carbon Capture | BNN Bloomberg
BlackRock Inc. will invest $550 million of client money into Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s Stratos project, which will be the world’s largest plant capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air. BlackRock’s diversified infrastructure business signed an agreement through one of its funds to form a joint venture with Occidental’s 1PointFive subsidiary that will own Stratos, the companies said Tuesday.
The Grid
New Jersey is going to get a nearly $1B power grid upgrade | electrek
[Excerpt] Jersey Central Power and Light (JCP&L), which serves over 1 million customers in central and northern New Jersey, is going to make its largest power grid upgrade in company history. The upgrades and increased capacity will prepare the grid for the clean energy transition to accommodate new solar and EV charging infrastructure.
[UK] National Grid to accelerate connection for 10GW of battery storage | Current
In an announcement made today (6 November), the organisation revealed that 19 battery energy storage systems (BESS), worth around 10GW, will be offered dates to plug in, on average, four years earlier than their current agreement. The projects set to benefit from this were not disclosed.
Urban Design & Buildings
To fight climate change and housing shortage, Austin becomes largest U.S. city to drop parking-spot requirements | Texas Tribune
Austin on Thursday became the largest city in the country to stop requiring new developments to have a set amount of parking — a move aimed at both fighting climate change and spurring more housing construction amid the city’s affordability crisis.
[UK] Major housebuilder Bellway joins Octopus Energy’s ‘Zero Bills’ homes initiative | Current
[Excerpt] In a bid to eliminate bills from homes, each building developed under the initiative is kitted out with solar, batteries and heat pumps, all of which are then optimised by Kraken, Octopus’ tech platform. Octopus Energy also provides a bespoke tariff.
Small Modular Reactors/ Nuclear
First US Small Nuclear Project Canceled After Costs Climb 53% | BNN Bloomberg
NuScale Power Corp., the first company with US approval for a small nuclear reactor design, is canceling plans to build a power plant for a Utah provider as costs surge. The move is a major setback to the burgeoning technology that has been heralded as the next era for atomic energy.
3 energy companies compete to build a new nuclear reactor in the Czech Republic | AP News
Three energy companies including U.S. Westinghouse, France’s EdF and Korea’s KHNP, have submitted their final bids to build the Czech Republic’s newest reactor at the Dukovany nuclear power station as the country strives to become more energy independent and wean itself of fossil fuels.
Belgium, Italy, Romania and U.S. form consortium to develop small nuclear reactors | Reuters
Belgium, Italy and Romania have formed a consortium with U.S. company Westinghouse Electric to develop small nuclear reactors, said the consortium’s partners in a joint statement on Wednesday, as many European countries rethink their nuclear energy strategies.
Energy Storage
Tesla launches virtual power plant in Puerto Rico, could become world’s biggest | Electrek
Tesla has officially launched its virtual power plant in Puerto Rico and it could quickly become the world’s biggest thanks to the large Powerwall user base in the region. The company also confirmed that there are already 75,000 Powerwall owners in the region that can sign up to the VPP directly through the Tesla app.
Flex-N-Gate, StoreDot collaborate on fast-charging battery cell technology | Electric Autonomy
[Excerpts] StoreDot’s collaboration will leverage the capabilities of Flex-N-Gate’s Flex-lon lithium-ion cell pilot factory in Windsor to produce samples of the 100in5 battery cells. Up until recently, StoreDot has been using solely soft case pouch cell designs for its XFC batteries. However, with the help of Flex-N-Gate, they will now produce hard case prismatic cells.
Vanadium flow batteries stake a claim for round the clock storage for renewables | RenewEconomy
Vanadium could be the answer to using solar and wind round the clock, potentially silencing critics who say the technologies are useless when the sun doesn’t shine and breeze isn’t blowing.
Australia’s big batteries: What do they do and how do they make money? | RenewEconomy
Battery storage is the possibly the fastest growing but least understood element of Australia’s green energy transition.
Solar and Wind
Kentucky just greenlit a 900% solar increase plan – why that’s a big deal | electrek
Kentucky’s largest utility requested a nine-fold increase in solar and battery storage, and the state’s regulators just approved it.
China achieves world solar domination with 80% of manufacturing capacity to 2026 | electrek
China invested over $130 billion into the solar industry in 2023. As a result, it will hold more than 80% of the world’s polysilicon, wafer, cell, and module manufacturing capacity from 2023 to 2026, according to Wood Mackenzie‘s recent report.
Orsted scraps 2 offshore wind power projects in New Jersey, citing supply chain issues | AP News
Danish energy developer Orsted said Tuesday night it is scrapping two large offshore wind power projects off the coast of New Jersey, adding uncertainty to a nascent industry the Biden administration and many state governments are counting on to help transition away from the burning of planet-warming fossil fuels.
Bill Gates backs radical new wind energy design using track-based wings | RenewEconomy
Airloom Energy says it has developed an “ultra lost cost” wind energy system that is unlike any other and which seek to harness the power of wind using wings that are propelled along an elevated lightweight track
[Comment] I recommend checking out the video on Airloom’s website to see how this thing works. Pretty cool. But if these things operated at high speeds and deployed widely, I wonder if birds would know to stay away.
Transportation
Best Electric Cars 2023/2024: Explore Bloomberg Green’s Electric Car Ratings
Be sure to select the region for you: US or UK.
Bloomberg Green’s EV ratings dashboard catalogues the models currently available in the US. Along with car specs, we also have come up with a Green rating for each model, based on how efficiently the cars travel once on the road and the resources needed to manufacture the batteries in those cars.
Panasonic slows battery production amid weaker EV business, but Tesla looks good | Electrek
Panasonic announced that it is slowing down its battery production amid weaker demand for electric vehicles, but it hints at demand from Tesla still being good on that front.
Switzerland pulls the plug on tax breaks for electric vehicles | electrek
In a controversial move, Switzerland has decided to tax electric cars in the same way it does for gas guzzlers, saying that special tax exemptions are no longer necessary.
Circular Economy
Honda, Mitsubishi Team Up To Repurpose Old EV Batteries | Inside EVs
Honda, the maker of the Prologue electric SUV, has teamed up with Mitsubishi Corporation, Japan’s largest trading company, to maximize the value of EVs, as well as to repurpose old electric car batteries.