The denialists and obstructionists haven’t been able to grasp what is hitting them, so they continue the greenwashing, gaslighting, and so on. We, too, are having trouble keeping up with it all, but we get to rejoice constantly. Have some more.
From Good News Roundups
California to require big firms to reveal carbon emissions
A groundbreaking California law will force large companies doing business in the state – including major global corporations – to disclose their planet-heating carbon emissions.
The measure will be the nation’s first of its kind, serving as a blueprint for national climate accountability.
The bills faced staunch opposition from the state’s chamber of commerce and powerful oil lobby. Other business interests, however, joined environmental advocates in supporting the measures.
We’re making a lot of money by doing the right thing.
Scientists find a way to suck up carbon pollution, turn it into baking soda and store it in the oceans
There are environmental questions about such a process, of course, but the technology is real.
Biden administration to invest $1.2 billion in projects to suck carbon out of the air
The Biden administration will announce on Friday its first major investment to kickstart the US carbon removal industry – something energy experts say is key to getting the country’s planet-warming emissions under control.
Direct air capture removal projects are akin to huge vacuum cleaners sucking carbon dioxide out of the air, using chemicals to remove the greenhouse gas. Once removed, CO2 gets stored underground, or is used in industrial materials like cement. On Friday, the US Department of Energy will announce it is spending $1.2 billion to fund two new demonstration projects in Texas and Louisiana – the South Texas Direct Air Capture hub and Project Cypress in Louisiana.
“These two projects are going to build these regional direct air capture hubs,” US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters. “That means they’re going to link everything from capture to processing to deep underground storage, all in one seamless process.”
Granholm said the projects are expected to remove more than 2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air annually once they are up and running – the equivalent of removing nearly 500,000 gas cars off the road.
The machines are being built to essentially supercharge the natural carbon removal already done by trees, bogs and oceans – which is not happening fast enough to capture fossil fuel emissions at the scale humans are emitting them.
White House senior adviser Mitch Landrieu told reporters these will be the first direct air capture projects at this scale in the US and “will be the largest in the world.”
Another project in Iceland that opened in 2021 removes about 10 metric tons of CO2 every day, roughly the same amount of carbon emitted by 800 cars a day. At the time, that project’s operator Climeworks said it was the largest one in the world.
The US direct air capture projects alone could increase global capacity for the technology by 400 times, said Sasha Stashwick, policy director at Carbon180 – an independent nonprofit focused on carbon removal.
“The industry’s very nascent at the moment,” Stashwick told CNN. “These are meant to be the first commercial-scale deployments at the mega-ton scale. It’s a very, very big deal.”
Here’s how Foundations are bringing solar to low income communities
The rooftop solar industry is booming, but far too few lower-income Americans are benefiting as a result. It’s a “modern version of redlining,” according to Joe Evans of the Kresge Foundation. Now an increasing number of charitable foundations are stepping up to redress that injustice
How many jobs is the inflation reduction act spurring? A lot
A new report from E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs) tallies employment expected to be triggered by 210 major clean-energy projects announced in the first 12 months after the law’s passage. The analysis finds that these projects will spur a total of 303,500 jobs each year over a typical five-year construction phase, and a total of another 99,600 jobs each year after that in their long-term operations.
Flooded coal mines being used to heat homes
An old coal mine has been providing an English town with green energy for the last six months.
The ground-breaking project in Gateshead is using the warm water that has filled the tunnels to heat hundreds of homes and businesses in the former coalfield community.
This Japanese city [Kashiwa Smart City] is piloting wireless EV charging at traffic lights
Precast charging coils are embedded into the road’s surface in front of traffic lights. A current only passes through the wireless chargers when a vehicle is detected. EVs and PHEVs that have special devices installed near the tires to receive the electricity get a charge when they slow down – 10 seconds of rolling over the coils provides about 1 km (0.6 miles) of range.
Full steam ahead for electric freight trains
No, that’s wrong. Hydrogen trains would produce full steam. Well, lots of old thoughts persist in the language, like “typing” and “clockwise”.
In the United States, tens of thousands of locomotives rumble down railroads every year, pulling cars that collectively carry around 20 billion tons of cargo. All of these powerful engines run on diesel fuel — and, as a result, generate both planet-warming emissions and harmful air pollution that afflicts communities surrounding rail yards and railways.
This week, Wabtec Corp., a rail technology company, took what it says is a “major step” toward electrifying this heavy-duty industry.
If widely adopted, battery-electric trains could slash the U.S. industry’s annual carbon dioxide emissions by more than half, while also avoiding roughly $6.5 billion in yearly health costs linked to air pollution, according to a 2021 study by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of California, Berkeley, and UCLA.
Added to my Pinterest board, Electric Vehicles and Tools/Trains.
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Canary Media
Full steam ahead for electric freight trains
No, that’s wrong. Hydrogen trains would produce full steam. Well, lots of old thoughts persist in the language, like “typing” and “clockwise”.
If widely adopted, battery-electric trains could slash the U.S. industry’s annual carbon dioxide emissions by more than half, while also avoiding roughly $6.5 billion in yearly health costs linked to air pollution, according to a 2021 study by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of California, Berkeley, and UCLA.
EVs have hit a tipping point for adoption in the U.S. — and now two models from the market leader are cheaper than many fossil-fueled alternatives.
Deducting the $7,500 federal rebate, that means the prices are around $36,490 for the Model Y and $31,490 for the Model 3, the latter of which Andrew Krulewitz, founder of EV financing startup Zevvy, called “silly-cheap.” He said that the average price of a new car in the U.S. is about $45,000 right now, and a used car averages a hefty $30,000, “which places the Model Y between the new and used [internal-combustion-engine] average,” even before rebates.
OK, but that’s just an average. We need more, faster, better than average. And we’ll get that.
BP buys $100M of Tesla chargers as oil majors prep for a post-gas future
It’s the first-ever sale of Tesla charging equipment to an outside company. But will EV drivers really want to charge up in dreary gas-station parking lots?
British energy company BP recently announced that it will build out its “bp pulse” network in the United States with Tesla chargers. It will begin installing the self-branded chargers next year at its BP and Amoco gas stations, ampm and Thorntons convenience stores, and TravelCenters of America truck stops, as well as at large “Gigahub” charging sites in major cities.
Why electric cars are driving the auto strikes
Nearly 20,000 American autoworkers went on strike as they ask for higher pay, better benefits and other concessions. At the heart of their concerns is one big question: Will the shift to electric cars leave them worse off?
If the bean counters in management had their way, yes, but the strikers won a lot.
What do EVs have to do with the autoworker strike? A lot, it turns out
Striking UAW members want to ensure that billions in EV investments translate into good-paying union jobs.
Collectively, the Big Three have committed to investing well over $100 billion in EV manufacturing over the next few years. The companies have also proposed 10 new EV battery plants owned jointly with companies including South Korea-based LG Energy Solution and Samsung. Most new EV and battery plants are located in a growing “Battery Belt,” with Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee leading the charge alongside the traditional automotive heartlands of Michigan and Ohio. Many of those states have “right-to-work” laws that curtail collective bargaining, leading to lower union density and lower paygrades overall. Indeed, the vast majority of the Big Three’s proposed battery plants are nonunion.
To keep union membership strong, protect worker safety and prevent the EV surge from undermining their bargaining power, the union has asked to include EV battery workers in their national contracts. “Now is really the moment, as the industry starts to take off, to ensure that those jobs can be union jobs,” J. Mijin Cha, an environmental studies professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz who studies labor issues and climate justice, told Grist.
(Gallup says that US approval of labor unions is at 71%, the highest since 1965.)
How the U.S. can decarbonize steel, cement, and chemicals Article with more information.
Heat pumps are everywhere — even in clothes dryers
Using heat pumps to dry clothes is dramatically more energy-efficient. Thanks to new rebates, the appliance could be coming soon to a laundry room near you.
New plan aims to quadruple heat-pump adoption in 25 states
The pledge from the members of the
U.S. Climate Alliance, covers
55% of the population. It calls for accelerating home decarbonization by deploying
20 million heat pumps by
2030.
From Social Media
From the TV Machine
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