Happy Monday 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.
Please enjoy the stories we have for you today and as ever do let us know if there are topics you would like us to cover more of.
This week on the Green New Spiel:
🌴 Amazon deforestation falls 68% in April year on year
🇺🇸 🏭 Cleaning up power plants with carbon capture
👟 👠 Changing the way we recycle shoes
☢️ Microsoft shoots for the stars
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🌴 Amazon deforestation falls 68% in April year on year
This is the first major drop under Lula’s presidency. Protecting the Amazon was one of Lula’s key campaign promises, however whether he can take full credit for this fall just yet is unclear given that Ibama, the Brazilian environmental agency, is still struggling with a lack of staff.
Bolsonaro, the previous Brazilian president, had slashed environmental protection, funding and staff at key agencies. Deforestation in Brazil is down 40% so far this year - let’s keep up the momentum!
🇺🇸 🏭 Cleaning up power plants with carbon capture
Fossil fuel companies and utilities have championed carbon capture and storage (CSS) over the years as a way to minimise the impact of their energy generation; regulators now want them to act. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed new rules which aim to eliminate climate pollution from the majority of coal and natural gas fired power plants by 2040.
The proposal would cut an estimated 617m metric tons of CO2 emissions through 2042, equal to 40% of the power sector’s emissions in 2022. To achieve this the EPA has highlighted two pathways that power plants can choose: (1) CSS and (2) hydrogen blended with natural gas to reduce emissions. Click the link above to read more about what challenges both solutions face.
👟 👠 Changing the way we recycle shoes
The current shoe market is worth approximately $400bn annually with over 20bn pairs produced. It is estimated that for each pair produced, one ends up in landfill, being incinerated or into the environment. This is yet another element to the waste challenge we’re facing.
Shoe brand ON is trying to address this: they have introduced their ‘Cloudneo’ shoe, the composition of which is made of the same base material, allowing it to be fully recyclable. Baliston are also offering a similar product which is made out of only five materials allowing them to recycle them once worn down.
There is a catch though - the shoes are only available by subscription, hence creating an incentive to return the shoes at the end of the cycle however pricing themselves firmly outside mass market, even for developed economies. It is nevertheless exciting to see brands looking to improve the sustainability and circularity of their products.
☢️ Microsoft shoots for the stars
Microsoft has signed a purchase power agreement (PPA) with Helion to purchase electricity from them in 2028. The challenge? Helion Energy, which is backed by ChatGPT’s founder Sam Altman, is a nuclear fusion start-up which still has a long way to go before being able to generate electricity, let alone at a commercial scale. Nuclear fusion, the same generation process that powers the sun, is a highly complicated technology which has been studied for decades and continues to proves beyond our means to master.
It is great that Microsoft are showing a sign of confidence in the business and helping them secure future revenues, however this is a binding agreement with financial penalties for Helion if they do not deliver. Whether Microsoft would actually impose these penalties however is another question; with their resources, they hopefully won’t and will continue to support developing technologies with similar agreements.
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Ciao,
Carlo and Rob