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What’s best? Building Solar panels that last 30 years, or are short-lived easy-to-recycle and upgrade

April 27, 2022 by Harrison Dreves

The good news is that PV modules last so long – 30 years – that we don’t have to worry about recycling for a while. The bad news is that means we’re not thinking about the alternative pathway of deliberately building modules that last only a few years yet can be easily recycled and improved. Harrison Dreves at NREL describes the data-gathering and creation of a modelling tool that quantifies the flow of materials, energy, and carbon in the PV … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Renewables Tagged With: circular, investment, jobs, modelling, modules, PV, recycling, solar

Factory-built energy-efficient modular affordable Housing for reducing lifecycle emissions

March 16, 2022 by Jeffrey Wolf

Building construction and operation accounts for 37% of global energy-related carbon emissions, according to the UNEP. And every part of the world needs new housing. The U.S. has a 3.8-million-unit housing shortage. Jeffrey Wolf, writing for NREL, describes how modular factory-made affordable net-zero housing is being developed that costs no more than existing construction methods. To get the greatest decarbonisation impact most cost-effectively, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Buildings, Energy Tagged With: buildings, efficiency, housing, innovation, materials, modular, recycling

Critical Raw Materials for the energy transition: Europe must start mining again

January 10, 2022 by Frank Umbach

A ramp up of the supply of critical raw materials (CRMs) is essential for the world’s energy transition. Wind and solar, batteries, digitalisation, transport and hydrogen cannot meet their targets without it. The EU defines 30 minerals as critical. To give one example, the global deficits in lithium supplies could surge more than 60-fold to 950,000 tons by 2030. Frank Umbach at EUCERS takes a thorough look at the issue. Europe represented just 5% … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Policies, Resources Tagged With: batteries, China, cobalt, CRMs, Digitalisation, EU, Europe, hydrogen, lithium, magnesium, mining, recycling, solar, transport, Vanadium, wind

Behaviour Change: strategies and case studies for reaching net-zero by 2050

November 8, 2021 by Daniel Crow, Insa Handschuch, Gabriel Saive and Leonie Staas

Technological solutions on their own are unlikely to deliver emissions reductions at the speed and scale required to reach net zero by 2050. Daniel Crow, Insa Handschuch, Gabriel Saive and Leonie Staas at the IEA look at a suite of policy-driven citizen “behaviour changes” that should be used to bridge the gap. The impact will be greatest in advanced economies where energy intensity is highest. Meanwhile, in emerging economies the good habits put … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Policies Tagged With: appliances, aviation, BehaviourChange, buildings, Colombia, cycling, emissions, EU, France, Germany, heating, HVAC, Japan, Kenya, recycling, Scandinavia, Switzerland, transport, UK, US

New thermoplastic blades for coastal Tidal Energy turbines

September 15, 2021 by NREL

Large-scale tidal power turbines provide an option for clean energy generation that doesn’t depend on the weather, like wind and solar. Research led by NREL is using, for the first time anywhere, thermoplastic composite blades that will improve fatigue performance over typical epoxy blades, can be manufactured faster and more energy-efficiently, and can be recycled. The test site is located in New York City's East River, installed in Verdant … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Innovations, Renewables Tagged With: blades, composite, epoxy, ocean, recycling, renewables, seawater, thermoplastic, tidal, VerdantPower, wave

Biden’s Leaders Summit: turning climate commitments into solutions

May 10, 2021 by Dolf Gielen, Ricardo Gorini and Gayathri Prakash

President Biden's Leaders Summit on Climate last month helped focus minds on making firm commitments to reducing global emissions. As we all know, targets are one thing, credible and realistic solutions are another. To understand the challenge better, Dolf Gielen, Ricardo Gorini and Gayathri Prakash at IRENA break down into themes those areas that need much more effort and, if dealt with successfully, can get us to net zero by 2050: structural … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Policies Tagged With: BECCS, Biden, buildings, CCS, cement, efficiency, electrification, emissions, hydrogen, industry, infrastructure, jobs, recycling, renewables, transport

A circular economy for waste solar PV materials: what needs to be done to get it started

April 28, 2021 by NREL

Solar is already in the vanguard of the energy transition, and can similarly lead the world’s transition to a circular economy. Decommissioned PV modules could total 1 million tons of waste in the U.S. by 2030. Yet there are virtually no incentives or regulations to promote its recycling or reuse. In fact, says NREL, most current regulations in the U.S. define it as solid waste, making it difficult to introduce it to a recycling value chain. In … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Environment, Renewables Tagged With: circular, costs, incentives, PV, recycling, regulations, solar, waste

Plastic Solar Cells: OPV power conversion efficiency now reaches 18%

April 9, 2021 by NREL

Don’t just think plastics are insulators. Two Nobel prizes were won by showing they can be semiconductors. That celebrated research opened the door to polymer-based solar cells. They are made in a lab from common elements, using processes established decades ago for ordinary household items like plastic wrap. A design strategy breakthrough led by NREL has now created an organic photovoltaic (OPV) solar cell with a record-breaking 18.07% power … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Innovations, Renewables Tagged With: efficiency, fullerene, Nobel, OPV, organic, plastic, PV, recycling, solar

For energy security and waste reduction, EV battery manufacture in Europe is on the horizon

March 11, 2021 by Sam Hargreaves

Europe should have sufficient battery manufacture capacity for all its EV needs, explains Sam Hargreaves at T&E. Their report shows that Europe will not only achieve that capacity target this year itself, but has the ability to keep it up as EV sales continue to grow (460 GWh in 2025 and 700 GWh in 2030 of battery production in Europe). The report also stresses the major benefit of reduced waste. If manufacturers hit EU recycling targets, EV … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Transport and energy Tagged With: batteries, cobalt, EnergySecurity, EVs, innovation, lithium, metals, nickel, oil, recycling, storage, transport

Essential energy transition metals: “Eco-friendly” trawling of ocean floor could replace land mining

March 3, 2021 by James Conca

The availability of metals for raw materials has a make-or-break impact on the future of EVs, wind turbines and many other energy sector applications. The world needs 3bn EVs and 10tn kWh/yr more clean energy by 2040 to have any chance of achieving our climate goals. We need so much more that recycling what we already have won’t make a noticeable difference. Mining on land already has very serious negative environmental and social consequences. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Innovations Tagged With: cobalt, copper, EVs, manganese, metals, mining, nickel, recycling, turbines, wind

Create new laws to help bring Battery manufacturing to Europe

November 26, 2020 by Alex Keynes and Cecilia Mattea

Europe should start leading battery manufacturing instead of leaving it to China, argue Alex Keynes and Cecilia Mattea at Transport & Environment. With laws spreading across the continent to make electric vehicles compulsory for new car purchases, this is a growing and strategic market. But a firm grip on battery manufacture emissions, as well as ethical sourcing and recycling, has to be part of the plan. The authors give a template of what … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Storage Tagged With: batteries, China, cobalt, copper, emissions, emobility, EthicalSourcing, EVs, lithium, manufacturing, nickel, recycling, transport

Europe needs its own EV battery recycling industry

March 25, 2020 by Raphaël Danino-Perraud

Europe needs its own battery recycling industry, and the EU’s European Battery Alliance should make it happen, says RaphaĂ«l Danino-Perraud writing for the IFRI Centre for Energy & Climate. For economic, strategic and environmental reasons, today’s overwhelming dependence on outsourcing – in this case to Asia - for battery manufacture and recycling needs to change. To start with, Asia provides over 90% of global car battery output, half coming … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Storage, Transport and energy Tagged With: Asia, batteries, China, EU, Europe, EVs, policies, recycling, storage, transport, Umicore

Solar energy is green. Solar panels are not. AI can revolutionise their design

January 31, 2019 by Cathy Chen

Solar panels are manufactured at 2,000ËšC, a temperature so high it requires fossil-fuel power. They are also made using rare earth elements, the supply of which has both capacity and political issues. A new and global project is using artificial intelligence (AI) to rapidly create new designs with new materials that can make their manufacture greener and cheaper. The new designs may even bring their manufacture back to your home country, says … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Innovations, Renewables, Resources Tagged With: AI, artificial intelligence, manufacture, materials, PV, rare earth elements, recycling, solar

viEUws VIDEO: Brussels Briefing on Environment – All you need to know for March 2015

March 9, 2015 by viEUws - the EU Policy Broadcaster

In this Brussels Briefing on Environment for viEUws.eu, Sonja van Renssen provides an overview of the latest EU environment policy developments. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: *, EU Policy, Policies, Renewables, Videos Tagged With: biofuels, climate change, emission trading, EU ETS, heating, heating and cooling, recycling

Most read this week

  • Biofuel is approaching a feedstock crunch. How bad? And what must be done? by IEA | posted on January 23, 2023
  • EU ETS and CBAM: what the big update to emissions trading rules means for Europe’s key sectors by Simon Göss | posted on January 16, 2023
  • Can Aluminium-air batteries outperform Li-ion for EVs? by Helena Uhde | posted on September 8, 2021
  • Gravity Batteries: any nation can do it at scale using rocks by Simon Read | posted on July 27, 2022
  • 10 Carbon Capture methods compared: costs, scalability, permanence, cleanness by Ella Adlen | posted on November 11, 2019
  • Micro-nuclear reactors: up to 20MW, portable, safer by Christina Nunez | posted on April 22, 2021
  • EU Energy Outlook to 2060: how will power prices and revenues develop for wind, solar, gas, hydrogen + more by Alex Schmitt | posted on December 6, 2022
  • Europe needs a Regional Green Bank to fulfil its Green Deal and match the U.S. by Esmeralda Colombo | posted on January 20, 2023
  • Concrete: 8% of global emissions and rising. Which innovations can achieve net zero by 2050? by Ben Skinner | posted on January 24, 2023
  • How to sell Heat Pumps to the public in Europe by Helena Uhde | posted on January 19, 2023
  • Hydrogen production in 2050: how much water will 74EJ need? by Herib Blanco | posted on July 22, 2021
  • Twenty-first century energy wars: how oil and gas are fuelling global conflicts by Michael T. Klare | posted on July 15, 2014
  • What’s stopping even bigger Wind Turbines? Blade speed and flexing? More likely manufacturing and installation capacity by Simon Hogg | posted on January 18, 2023
  • What’s best for Hydrogen transport: ammonia, liquid hydrogen, LOHC or pipelines? by Herib Blanco | posted on May 5, 2022
  • Making Hydrogen will consume 2% of total global renewable capacity growth by 2027 by IEA | posted on January 17, 2023
  • EU energy ministers unable to agree on biofuels policy by Karel Beckman | posted on December 15, 2013
  • Why hydrogen fuel cell cars are not competitive — from a hydrogen fuel cell expert by Zachary Shahan | posted on June 17, 2016
  • Smart Glasses: experts can monitor and advise on power plant inspections anywhere in the world by Christoph Gatzen | posted on January 25, 2023
  • The 10 big problems with simply replacing fossil cars with electric by Schalk Cloete | posted on December 6, 2021
  • 2023 lookahead for Sustainable Finance: EU Taxonomy, ESG ratings, corporate disclosure laws, Europe’s “IRA” by Luca Bonaccorsi | posted on January 12, 2023

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Recent Posts

Make Hydrogen in developing nations: share prosperity while meeting our climate goals

Smart Glasses: experts can monitor and advise on power plant inspections anywhere in the world

Concrete: 8% of global emissions and rising. Which innovations can achieve net zero by 2050?

Biofuel is approaching a feedstock crunch. How bad? And what must be done?

Europe needs a Regional Green Bank to fulfil its Green Deal and match the U.S.

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