🌱🇦🇺 What's the John Dory?
Good morning all and welcome back to the Green New Spiel, the newsletter bringing you the latest stories and developments in the world of clean-tech, green energy and other climate related news.
Today’s Green New Spiel covers the following stories:
🔗 The weakest link in our green infrastructure challenge
🇦🇺 What a beauty! Aussie hydrogen coming to a European city near you
💰❤️ Carbon capture captures big tech’s hearts and wallets
🐛 The importance of creepy crawlies
🏆 XPRIZE - Elon’s first carbon capture winners have been announced
⬇️ Sign up below to receive this directly in your inbox ⬇️
🔗 The weakest link
Having lots of renewable energy supply is good, right? The more the better, right? Well, yes is the answer. But at the same time we need to be conscious that many countries are operating with dated infrastructure and grids which won’t be able to keep up with the demands of electrification.
The US, for example, apparently already has enough projects seeking connection to the grid to make 80% of the country’s energy demands to be from renewable sources by 2030. However, c. 75% of the projects are likely to fall away due to delays and increased grid upgrades and connection costs. That’s not good. No other way to say it.
🇦🇺 Hydrogen from down under
As discussed last week, European countries are looking for other sources to replace their Russian gas reliance. We spoke about how nuclear was now firmly back on the priority list, but so is hydrogen. And Europe might be looking down under for it. Despite the eye-watering sums of investment which are still required for Australia to become a hydrogen superpower, it has an advantage in making green hydrogen - swathes of sunshine blessing huge expanses of land which they could fill with solar panels in order to power the necessary electrolysis. By 2030, it is expected that the EU will be importing c. 10 million tonnes of hydrogen and Australia is in a good position to lead the pack.
Having said that, some critics do argue that their A$180bn of coal and gas exports may delay Australia’s government from truly accelerating their hydrogen efforts and policies.
💰❤️ Carbon capture captures big tech’s hearts and wallets
We’ve spoken a lot in the past about the importance of carbon capture, but also of the need to fund it to commercial scale as it is currently far too expensive for many to use. Alphabet, Meta, Shopify, Stripe and McKinsey recently pledged to buy up to $925m of carbon removal over the next eight years, which might help speed things up. The idea is that by committing to buying a product early, they can help bring it to market faster. They will also be providing off-takes agreements which allow young companies with developing technologies to access financing more easily, as they can point to guaranteed revenue as soon as their carbon removal services becomes available.
“In a world awash in overhyped corporate climate commitments, this is actually a big deal.”
🐛 A Bug’s Life - we need to save it
Bugs. Hate them or love them, they are key for a number of fundamental processes: they help to keep pest species under control and break down dead material to release nutrients into the soil. Flying insects are also key pollinators of many major food crops, including fruits and spices.
However a recent study by UCL has stated that we may be facing a hidden collapse in their numbers due to climate change and habitat loss. This could sound like a great result for some, but it would be disastrous for food supply chains.
Using fewer chemicals in the farming process may be one of the ways to mitigate the negative effects of habitat loss and climate change. That’s a challenging thought however, using fewer fertilisers, when we currently have a back drop of rising food prices and growing population numbers.
🏆 XPRIZE - Elon’s first carbon capture winners have been announced
XPRIZE, a carbon capture competition set up by Elon Musk in an attempt to fund innovative solutions to the nascent industry, has just announced its first 15 winners of its $1m milestone awards. Read more about the 15 winners here.
If you’re here, thank you for reading the Green New Spiel today, and a special thanks to Sam for the encouragement. If there is anyone who you think would find this interesting, click below and invite them to join!
Have any comments or questions? Message me on LinkedIn or reply directly to to this email.
Ciao,
Carlo