A Trillion For Low-Carbon Tech!
Energy Terminal Weekly Newsletter
February 21st 2023 | Issue #40 | Subscribe here
Happy Tuesday!
Welcome back to ET weekly, Energy Terminal's weekly newsletter where we cover trends, opportunities, events and updates across the energy industry.
In this issue:
💲1.1 Trillion for Low-Carbon Technology
🌚 Moon Dust ➡️ Solar
👀 Access to an Exclusive Job Newsletter
📈 Canada's Sustainable Jobs Plan
📢 Decarbonizing Diesel
🚨 Top 3 Energy Jobs 🚨
1) Data Science Intern @ Electric Hydrogen
• Electric Hydrogen designs and builds low-cost, high-efficiency green hydrogen systems. As a data science intern, you’ll analyze prototype performance and support product development.
2) Financial Planning and Analysis Intern @ Pivot Bio
•Pivot Bio is a sustainable agriculture company developing technology that uses microbes to reduce fertilizer usage. As a FP&A intern, you’ll partner with key stakeholders to prepare budgets, forecasts, and analysis to support financial decisions.
3) Engineering Intern @ Plug Power
• Plug Power is developing hydrogen fuel cell technology and building the hydrogen economy. As an engineering intern, you’ll get hands-on experience working on challenging projects with cutting-edge technology.
🌟 Startup Spotlight: SkySailsPower
SkySails is revolutionizing wind technology, by developing an air-borne system SkyPower is harnessing the power of wind at up to 400 meters.
📣 Episode 23
When you think about sustainability, you might not think about industries like chemicals, industrials, and oil & gas. But for sustainability-focused professionals, these sectors hold some of the biggest opportunities to make a massive impact.
On Episode 23, we’re joined by Brandon Spencer, President of ABB’s Energy Division. Leading more than 8500 employees across 43 countries, Brandon works with companies across hard-to-abate industries to reduce emissions along their value chains by combining technology solutions with industry best practices. In the episode, we talk about the future of emissions-intensive industries, why it’s important to work with them to drive decarbonization, how sustainability professionals can make an impact, and how to get involved.
📚 Reading List (2/20- 2/27)
Carbon credits for forests?! The key to cleaner fuel, and huge spending on cleantech!! Check out this week’s handpicked reading list to learn more about these groundbreaking energy topics 🔥
🎙️Podcasts:
Climate Now, Decarbonizing diesel, cleaner fuel and engines
Transportation produces nearly 20% of global GHG emissions
Electric vehicles are great for passenger transport but are less well-suited to long-haul trucking, freight, aviation, and maritime applications
Renewable diesel (biodiesel) can offer a drop-in fuel replacement with significant emissions reductions
Not all renewable diesel feedstocks are equal, and it’s important to consider life cycle analysis and emissions along the entire value chain
My Climate Journey, Diego Saez Gil, Pachama & Sam Gil, Slyvera
If a project stops deforestation, and the additional carbon that will be kept on the ground is calculated, you can be credited for it. Or, if a project is responsible for reforestation, than you can be credited for the carbon that you removed
Companies can finance this as part of their compensation of their climate impact
This is the whole idea of forestry carbon offsets and credits
Important to find out a way to correctly quantify deforestation credits, so that landowners are paid more money to keep forests as is, instead of selling forests to cut them down
The current only mechanism to reward owners for deforestation is these forestry credits
We now have the technology (ML, cloud computing, etc.) to make accurate predictions of how many trees are being saved
Volts, The Digital Circuit Breaker and Why It Matters
All electronic devices attached to the grid go through a circuit breaker, which is a device that stops current in case of a fault or surge
Circuit breakers still don’t use digital control, but recent innovations have led to the development and commercialization of a digital circuit breaker controlled by semiconductors
Replacing existing circuit breakers with these new ones could bring more visibility and control to distributed energy devices, which would allow for more sophisticated demand management
Currently, the digital circuit breakers are being applied to the EV market, but there are many more applications that will likely be seen in the coming years
📰️ Articles:
Ars Technica, Solar Panels from Moon Dust
Jeff Bezos’s space exploration company, Blue Origin, recently announced it discovered a way to use the minerals in lunar soil to create solar panels
The new technology uses a high-heat electrolysis process to extract iron, silicon, and aluminum
The company plans to market the technology to NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to make extended lunar visits and infrastructure on the moon a reality
Reuters, Canada unveils sustainable jobs plan to prepare workers for future green economy
Canada released their sustainable jobs plan which outlines how the government is going to train workers for jobs in the clean energy economy in preparation for the target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050
This plan includes actions like setting up a sustainable jobs secretariat and a partnership council to to promote consultation with provinces, labor unions, and others
Various third parties, such as Clean Energy Canada, expect that the job market in this sector will grow by 3.4% annually in the next 10 years, which is 4x quicker than the Canadian average
However, there have been critiques of the jobs plan, such as the Alberta government, it doesn’t recognize provinces’ right to manage their own natural resources
World Economic Forum, Spending on low-carbon energy is on the brink of overtaking fossil fuels. These 4 charts tell the full story
Global investment in low-carbon energy technology surged to 1.1 trillion is 2022
Up 31% from 2021
War in Ukraine sparked some of this interest in clean energy technologies
Biggest share of investment was renewables
Spending went up 17% from 2021
Electric vehicles had a spending increase of 54%
Solar + wind power overtook gas as Europe’s largest source of electricity for the first time in 2022
The clear leader in low-carbon spending was China
⏰ Missed Episode 23?
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