The EcoTech Synthesis – how to judge climate change solutions
EcoTech Note: This post will be pinned to the top of the blog to define the “scope” of what will be covered here and to define terms found in the EcoTech Synthesis, summarized below.
I think this may be the most important post I’ve ever contributed personally, and I’d appreciate your reading it and giving me any feedback you have.
To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, CleanTech must displace DirtyTech in all sectors. That will only happen when CleanTech is cheaper than DirtyTech. And THAT will happen if we support CleanTech’s “learning curve” reductions in unit costs and/or if the cost of DirtyTech rises owing to carbon pricing.
Microsoft may pay a premium in Three Mile Island power agreement
EcoTech Note: Here is a great example of a “Green Premium” being paid by a company desperate for clean power a) to meet their need to power a data center and b) to meet their “net-zero by 2035” commitment:
“Jefferies estimated that Microsoft might pay Constellation about $110-$115 per megawatt hour (MWh) as part of the 20-year-long fixed price PPA. The brokerage’s analysts said the estimated cost represents a significant premium to market expectations, which are in the low $100 per MWh for a collocated deal.”
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‘Three New York Cities’ Worth of Power: AI Is Stressing the Grid
EcoTech Note: When demand surges far ahead of supply, the market adjusts either by raising prices or by rationing supply, e.g, by allocations or waiting lists.. The recent surge in demand for electricity is driven by AI, EVs, data centers, etc. This article quantifies the demand and the backlogs, now stretching into the 2030s.
This problem does create some good news though: first, businesses will press for permitting reform to speed up access to more electricity. Second, creditworthy corporations like Microsoft and Google are entering into power purchase agreements to help new clean energy generators get financed and built, even paying a “Green Premium” e.g., Microsoft reopening Three Mile Island and Google backing Fervo’s geothermal plant in northern Nevada.
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What Will We Do With Our Free Power?
EcoTech Note: Here is another great example of how humans cannot easily grok how prices declining owing to the “learning curve” create astonishing, geometric growth. “In 2023, the world installed 444 gigawatts of new solar photovoltaic capacity, an 80 percent year-on-year jump and more than was cumulatively installed between the invention of the solar cell in 1954 and 2017. Although solar power still provides just under 6 percent of global electricity, its share has nearly quadrupled since 2018, an exponential curve that is expected to continue for some time.”
The Economist magazine observes ‘The next tenfold increase [in solar capacity] will be equivalent to multiplying the world’s entire fleet of nuclear reactors by eight in less than the time it typically takes to build just a single one of them.’ By the 2030s — not very long from now — solar power will most likely be the largest source of electricity on the planet.”
The knock-on implications of cheap solar are staggering — from high-volumne desalination, to making green cement, to electrolyzing hydrogen from water, and even to powering Casey Handmer’s dream of making synthetic fuels solely from the air!
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Geothermal exploring accelerated by new House bill
News flash: H.R. 6474, a bill to amend the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to expedite geothermal exploration and development in previously studied or developed areas, passed the House yesterday by voice vote. It now goes to the Senate for action.
NV-03 Representative Susie Lee originally co-sponsored the bill with R. Michelle Steel from California. See https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/6474/all-actions for legislative details. Basically, this bill extends the same “categorical exclusions” to environmental impact requirements that are available for oil and gas exploration to geothermal exploration. It’s no secret that Nevada sits on top of some significant geothermal resources. It now goes to the Senate for action.
Case study of a NEPA case causing unnecessary costs and deaths
EcoTech Note: One public policy supporting the clean energy transition is “permitting reform.” This case study highlights a project begun in 2011 which was the subject of significant cost/delay owing to litigation under the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA). The litigation did not change the outcome but drove the cost up to $435 million, nearly 3 times the original estimate. And ratepayers have to foot the bill.
Note also that there is a real Environmental Justice price paid, too. The Clean Air Task Force estimated the new CleanTech would avoid 1,400 asthma attacks and 83 deaths per year, caused by the old coal plants being replaced. The NEPA delays therefore caused unnecessary deaths and disease.
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Climate Week in NYC Addresses Economic Impacts
EcoTech Note: Climate Week is a series of high-level international meetings that take place during the same week that the U.N. General Assembly meetings. It’s one of the two or three other high-level confabs that matter most (the others being the annual “Conference of the Parties” to the Paris Agreement and maybe Davos.
This article summarizes some of the more important talks and reports given so far this week, with elements of the EcoTech Synthesis highlighted in yellow.
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Op-Ed: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is our best shot at advancing critical climate goals
It would be a crucial step toward America realizing its potential as a clean energy superpower, but only if we can put our desires for a perfect policy aside and embrace practical compromise.
America has already begun to feel the impacts of landmark legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law. But how transformative these legislative achievements can be for American reindustrialization, our transition to a clean energy economy, and job growth rests on some key decisions still before Congress.
One bill with the power to make a remarkable difference is the bipartisan Energy Permitting Reform Act (EPRA) of 2024, which will come to the floor once the House and the Senate return in the fall.
Introduced in July by Senators Joe Manchin, I-W.Va., and John Barrasso, R-Wyo., EPRA would be a crucial step toward America realizing its potential as a 21st century clean energy superpower, but only if…
Google funds clean energy with upfront capital and “offtake agreements.”
EcoTech Note: Here’s an example of a corporation meeting its commitment to using only “carbon free energy” by supporting new CleanTech generation facilities with upfront investment and an “offtake agreement” — which is a long term contract to buy the electricity created at a pre-set price that allows the investment to be profitable. #Green_Premium #learning_curve
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In order to help overcome these challenges, and deliver 24/7 carbon-free energy onto the grid where these data centers operate, we’ve worked with Energix Renewables on an investment framework that allows us to invest in, and buy power from, a 1.5 gigawatt (GW) portfolio of new solar projects throughout the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) grid over the next three years. By providing both investment capital and energy offtake, these projects have a clearer path to construction, bringing the planned construction start of 150 MW of queue backlog from 2025 ahead to 2024.
10 Mind-blowing Climate Technologies You’ve Never Heard About
EcoTech Note: Carbon Equity is a private equity fund that invests in new CleanTech projects. Some of these technologies are early in the R&D process, but viable enough to attract investment. Others (like Form Energy) are deploying commercially. Notice the range of exciting CleanTech that is coming.
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From transforming air into jet fuel to using microorganisms to make concrete, let’s look at some of the most surprising climate technologies you have never heard of.
We actually know a lot about the steps we need to take and the technologies we need to develop to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. To get there, we need to change the way we work, eat, live, make things, generate power, and travel, meaning we will have to transform and decarbonize our entire economy. Thankfully, new competitive solutions are being developed every day.