Europe needs its own battery recycling industry, and the EU’s European Battery Alliance should make it happen, says Raphaël 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...]
Are national fossil fuel car bans compatible with EU laws, intra-trade, movement?
A growing number of EU nations are announcing laws to phase out the sale of new fossil fuel cars within the next 20 years. But are the proposed bans compatible with EU laws, or even workable given cross border trade and movement rights? If you are Dutch, why not buy your new petrol car in Belgium, then drive it back to the Netherlands? How do you enforce CO2 targets with foreign haulage fleets transiting through your nation? Eoin Bannon at … [Read more...]
“All new vehicles sold must be electric by 2030” but can your nation, state, city do it?
More and more nations, states and cities are announcing plans for the ramping up of EV adoption. Jim Conca takes a look at his home, Washington State in the U.S., where all new vehicles sold must be electric by 2030. He says the new rules imply his state will have 4 million EVs on the road by 2045, up from 52,000 today. He carefully crunches the numbers to see if this target is realistic. The good news is that grid capacity will only need to rise … [Read more...]
UK’s COP26 Presidency will be the first big test of its post-Brexit diplomatic skills
November’s COP26 will arguably be the most important since the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015. By then, all signatory nations are required to submit their new and improved nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that set a credible pathway towards reducing their emissions. So far only the Marshall Islands, Suriname, and Norway have done so. Lucien Chabason and Lola Vallejo at IDDRI ask whether the UK teams behind their new COP26 President, … [Read more...]
Machine learning cuts new EV battery design testing times by months, years
Normally, battery prototype testing can take months and years to find the optimal design for fast-charging and battery life. Now scientists from Stanford, MIT and the Toyota Research Institute have developed a machine learning programme that can cut battery testing times by 98%. They’ve applied it to EV batteries. The faster a new and improved design is proven and taken to market the more rapid the uptake of EVs we’ll have. Matthew Vollrath at … [Read more...]
UK to phase out petrol, diesel, hybrid car sales by 2035. Here’s how
This month the UK government promised to accelerate the phase-out of fossil-fuelled cars. From 2035 all new diesel and petrol car sales (including hybrids) are banned. Promises are one thing, realistic policies, plans and investment is another. Last year only 1.6% of new passenger vehicles sold were EVs and that has to rise to 100% in 15 years. Ashley Fly at Loughborough University sets out what needs to be done. First, skills and training; much … [Read more...]
100% renewables by 2050: a technology, market, system, business model toolset for your nation
A growing number of countries are announcing increasingly ambitious renewable energy targets. But how do you deliver the results? IRENA’s Elena Ocenic explains that they have developed a toolset for countries to plot their unique pathway to success. Those tools range widely across technology, market design and regulation, system operation practices, and business models. The article lists the tools, and runs through some notable successes. Ocenic … [Read more...]
“Climate leader” UK: why did low-carbon electricity generation stall in 2019?
In 2019, just 1TWh of low-carbon electricity (wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, biomass) was added in the UK. That’s after a decade of adding an average of 9TWh/year. Why? The UK needs to know, given an extra 15TWh/year is required until 2030 to meet emissions goals on top of the planned electrification of transport and heating. Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans runs through their thorough analysis. Wind power alone rose by 8TWh in 2019, but was offset by … [Read more...]
EV Charging Infrastructure: “hidden” soft costs are slowing take up
You don’t buy an EV if you’ve nowhere to charge it. So the take up of EVs depends on the availability – and therefore the costs - of charging infrastructure. Rocky Mountain Institute’s Chris Nelder describes the surprising conclusion of their recent report “Reducing EV Charging Infrastructure Costs”, that it’s the soft costs that are stubbornly refusing to go down in the U.S. That means things like permitting delays, complex utility … [Read more...]
EU pathway to 3m EV charge points by 2030
Right now the EU has around 185,000 public charge points, which is enough for today’s market (seven cars for each point). The current policy scenario targets 33m electric cars by 2030 (44m for climate neutrality). Transport & Environment’s Nico Muzi summarises their latest report that plots their ambitious pathway. It’s driven by the forceful idea of a European ‘right to plug’, and enabled by their new Public Charging Supply metric, using a … [Read more...]
Is Germany’s emissions drop thanks to the EU ETS, not Berlin?
The good news is that 2019 saw a big decrease in Germany’s emissions, meaning a 35% reduction since 1990. It was only 30.8% by 2018, so the acceleration was thanks to a sharp drop in coal use. But emissions rose in transport and buildings, making the 2020 target of 40% more daunting. Add to that the slump in wind installations (permit problems) and the planned nuclear exit by 2022 (will more fossil fuels be needed to fill that big gap?), … [Read more...]
Don’t wait for international agreements. Sector-wide action can accelerate the Transition
December’s COP25 in Madrid showed how difficult it is proving to get agreement between nations on how to ramp up the deep decarbonisation the world needs. David Victor at the University of California, San Diego, writing for Rocky Mountain Institute, accepts that international consensus is never going to be easy. Instead, he recommends that individual sectors take control of their destiny. His co-authored report “Accelerating The Low Carbon … [Read more...]
What can Oil producers learn from a sunset Coal industry?
Although fossil fuels are being replaced by clean energy they are not going away. Even coal is not in decline, it’s just peaked globally: declining in mature economies, still rising in developing ones. Henning Gloystein at the Eurasia Group, writing for the Atlantic Council, asks to what extent oil will follow coal. Oil consumption is still growing – 1% this year - though at a much slower rate than before. As with coal, a re-focus onto cleaner … [Read more...]
The search for “thin film” solar PV: stable, efficient, non-toxic, abundant
Around 95% of the world’s solar modules are made with silicon. It’s stable against temperature and humidity fluctuations and we’ll never run out of it. But it’s quite inefficient at absorbing sunlight, and very brittle. So the silicon layers in PV have to be quite thick to capture sunlight and resist cracking, leading to heavy and bulky solar panels. The remaining 5% of solar modules are “thin film”, opening the way for game-changing lightweight … [Read more...]
Decarbonising light duty vehicles globally: consumer choice, technology, policy pathways
The MIT Energy Initiative (MITIE) has completed a 3-year study of “Mobility of the Future” to plot a decarbonised pathway for light duty vehicles (i.e. cars) globally. Wide in scope and detail, it covers government policies, consumer choices and technologies, combining their multiple and complex impacts to make their assessments. Kathryn Luu at MITIE reviews the final 220-page report. For consumers, cost, convenience, and — increasingly — carbon … [Read more...]
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