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UK electricity from renewables outpaces gas and coal power

Posted on January 28, 2021 by dishanth

The UK’s renewable electricity outpaced its fossil fuel generation for the first time in 2020 and could remain the largest source of electricity in the future, according to an independent climate thinktank.

The thinktank behind the report, Ember, revealed that renewable energy generated by wind, sunlight, water and wood made up 42% of the UK’s electricity last year compared with 41% generated from gas and coal plants together.

Although renewable energy has overtaken fossil fuels during the summer months before, 2020 was the first time that renewables were the main source of the UK’s electricity over a year.

Renewable energy also outperformed fossil fuels across the EU for the first time, according to the report, following a collapse in the use of coal last year.

Ember said the UK’s growing stable of windfarms was one of the main reasons for the country’s renewable record. Almost a quarter of the UK’s electricity was generated by wind turbines last year, double the share of wind power in 2015 and up from a fifth of the UK’s electricity in 2019.

By contrast, electricity from gas-fired power plants fell to a five-year low of 37% of the UK’s electricity, while coal power plants made up just 2% of the electricity mix.

Charles Moore, the programme leader at Ember, said: “With Boris’s 40GW 2030 offshore wind target, gas generation is set for further rapid declines over the 2020s. It is clear the UK has started its journey towards gas power phase-out in 2035 as recommended by the Climate Change Committee.”

The report found that solar and hydro power generated 4% and 2% of the UK’s electricity respectively last year, which was unchanged compared with the year before.

Bioenergy, which is power generated by burning wood pellets, grew slightly to make up 12% of the UK’s electricity, raising concerns over the use of an energy source “with a high risk of negative climate and environmental impacts”.

Moore said: “We view bioenergy as a much higher risk form of renewable energy, for both climate and environmental outcomes, than the other forms such as wind and solar.”

Renewable energy overtook fossil fuels in 2020 as the largest source of UK energy

The trend towards renewable energy power accelerated in 2020 following a sudden drop in demand for energy from the national grid as shops, offices and restaurants closed during the Covid lockdown restrictions, the report said. Renewable energy, the cheapest source of electricity in the UK, was able to claim a larger share of the electricity mix as the electricity system operator left gas plants idle and called on nuclear reactors to lower their output to stop the grid from being overwhelmed with more electricity than the UK required.

The thinktank predicted that renewable electricity will maintain its lead in the UK’s electricity system in the years ahead, even after normal demand levels return, as new wind and solar farms are built across the country.

“The coronavirus has accelerated the trend towards renewable energy but we would have expected renewables to overtake fossil fuels by 2021. It has brought forward the trend by only a year or two,” Moore said. “Renewables will probably remain above fossil fuels this year, but it’s very dependent on various things like nuclear output and the weather. Even if fossil fuels return this year it will be a narrow lead and a short-lived one.”

The UK recorded a string of green energy records in 2020, including the highest recorded output for wind during Storm Bella on Boxing Day, and a new record for solar power in April.

The electricity system operator, which is owned by National Grid, said the larger role for renewables also caused the “carbon intensity” of Great Britain’s power system to fall to its lowest level on record. It fell to 181g of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour of electricity last year, compared with an average of 215g in 2019 and 248g in 2018, it said.

By Jillian Ambrose

Source The Guardian

Elon Musk just bought $100 million in publicity for the carbon capture industry

Posted on January 28, 2021 by dishanth

There is no way to stabilize the world’s temperature without an aggressive plan to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates than more than 3 to 7 gigatons (GT) of CO2 will need to be removed per year by 2050—up to 15 GT by the end of the century—to limit warming to 1.5° C. That’s akin to “running the fossil fuel industry in reverse,” says Rob Jackson, an earth system science professor at Stanford University who leads the Global Carbon Project.

While plenty of technology exists to extract and sequester CO2, ranging from biofuels to direct air capture, none have been scaled up commercially.

On Jan. 21, Elon Musk fired up the climate community by offering a $100 million prize (about .05% of his estimated net worth) to any team that comes up with the best way to capture carbon. It’s a small but meaningful addition to the $4 billion committed to such projects in 2020. Details are reportedly coming this week.

Am donating $100M towards a prize for best carbon capture technology

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 21, 2021

Musk, by offering the prize, joins a long line of governments, industrialists, and charities seeking to inspire new technologies over the past 500 years. Recently, the MacArthur Foundation put up $100 million for proposals promising “real and measurable progress in solving a critical problem of our time.” The Breakthrough Initiative extended two $100 million prizes searching for signs of alien life or demonstrating a fleet of spacecraft that can reach the Alpha Centauri system, our closest celestial neighbor at about four light-years away.

Some prizes appear to have worked: Since the 16th century, vaccines, lifeboats, and a method to calculate longitude at sea all emerged from prize competitions, according to Fiona Murray, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

But are prizes a good way to develop real-world solutions?

Here the evidence is shakier. The Virgin Earth Challenge, a $25 million prize sponsored by billionaire Richard Branson in 2007, failed to produce its objective of commercially viable CO2 removal technology, despite 10,000 entrants. Similarly, Google’s $30 million Lunar X-Prize failed to reach its moon landing after a decade.

In her book Inventing Ideas: Patents, Prizes, and the Knowledge Economy, Zorina Kahn analyzed 60,000 prize competitions over the past few centuries, and found that innovation prizes don’t typically result in scalable technologies that succeed in the marketplace. “The arbitrary nature of judging is a theme that reoccurs in all prize systems,” writes Kahn, a professor of economics at Bowdoin College and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Part of the problem is that “the best” in a competition is determined by the award’s administrator, rather than the market or society in general. “Even the most dedicated and knowledgeable panel are unlikely to be able to predict what will be the most appropriate technologies and how that will change over time,” Kahn writes. “Successful solutions are often associated with numerous incremental inventions and seemingly disparate discoveries rather than ‘THE best’ technology. The most efficient solution might be as simple as planting more trees or policies to prevent deforestation.”

All publicity is good publicity

The final product may not always be the point, and competitions that fail to produce the desired technology can still succeed at generating enthusiasm and ideas. At MIT, Murray researched the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X-Prize in late 2009 to build a clean-energy passenger vehicle with a range equivalent to 100 miles per gallon. She found that, like most of today’s competitions, the prize was designed to “maximize effort, not efficiency.”

The competition attracted participants from diverse communities including race enthusiasts, startups, universities, large corporations, high schools, and even solo entrepreneurs. None led to a company like Tesla, but “if you’re not quite sure what the solution should look like and you want to focus attention on something,” says Murray, “then you actually don’t mind the fact that lots of people are turning up and coming with novel ideas.”

Scandinavian researchers arrived at a similar conclusion after studying such competitions in Finland. As a matter of innovation policy, the awards delivered “mediocre or modest” results, but they proved excellent at delivering something else: media coverage and credibility. That, ultimately, is what drove participants: “The motives to enter award competitions are largely non-monetary,” the paper argues.

Today, carbon capture and storage need both more attention and more scalable innovations. The technology has languished for decades as mega-projects, such as the $1 billion Petra Nova “clean coal” plant and the $7.5 billion Kemper Project in Mississippi, proved too costly or unwieldy. The number of such facilities fell from a high of 77 in 2010 to just 37 in 2017.

In the last four years, more than 30 new projects have been announced, according to the Energy Information Administration, which would triple today’s global CO2 capture capacity to about 130 million tons per year if constructed, less than 1% of what’s needed by mid-century. To scale up the industry, the price of capture carbon (around $600 per ton) must come way down, and hundreds of billions of dollars in new investment will be needed.

Musk’s prize-winner may not produce the next Tesla of carbon capture and storage. But it could inspire the attention and excitement of someone who does.

By Michael J. Coren

Source Quartz

NYC To Tackle Largest Fossil Fuels Divestment In The World

Posted on January 27, 2021 by dishanth

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Comptroller Scott Stringer announced on Monday that two of the cities pension funds will divest completely from any securities “related to fossil fuel companies”.

The city expects its total divestment to be around $4 billion—likely one of the largest divestments in the world.

The purpose of the divestment is to “address the significant financial and environmental risks that these fossil fuel holdings post to the funds and to our planet.”

Investing in fossil fuels isn’t just bad for the planet, it’s a bad investment, de Blasio shared in a press release. ““Our first-in-the-nation divestment is literally putting money where our mouth is when it comes to climate change. Divestment is a bold investment in our children and grandchildren, and our planet. I applaud the trustees, advocates and experts for their hard work, and I look forward to seeing more cities around the world join this call for change,” de Blasio said.

Oil company stocks had a tough year in 2020, as the sector largely gave way to tech stocks, which fared better throughout much of the pandemic months.

The two funds divesting from fossil fuels include the New York City Employees’ Retirement System (NYCERS) and New York City Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS), which voted today to approve the divestments. New York City Board of Education Retirement System (BERS) is planning to vote “imminently,” according to the press release.

The divestment is expected to be complete within five years, and the names of the company will be released after the sale of the targeted securities.

The city committed back in 2018 to completely divesting its major public pension funds from fossil fuel reserve companies.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

First UK carbon neutral road improvement project

Posted on January 27, 2021 by dishanth

Contractor A E Yates teamed up with supplier Aggregate Industries and designers at Amey to deliver the landmark dual carriageway resurfacing project between M6 junction 6 and Brettarg Holt.

Highways England set highly ambitious carbon reduction targets that were met with extensive asphalt recycling through a Foamix asphalt.

Existing road surface planings were recycled and encapsulated back into the pavement by producing a site batched cold recycled asphalt using Aggregates Industries SuperLow asphalt.

This approach captured a huge 43% carbon reduction, compared with conventional resurfacing methods.

In total, 50,000 tonnes of material was extracted from the original pavement and 39,000 tonnes recycled over the course of just six weeks.

This included 11,600 tonnes of asphalt and 27,000 tonnes of foamix laid using wide pavers.

Through its partnership with not-for-profit offset specialist Circular Ecology, Aggregate Industries purchased a number of credits to offset the remaining carbon on the scheme.

Guy Edwards, CEO at Aggregate Industries UK, said: “As the world’s first building materials supplier to commit to hitting net zero emissions by 2050, completing the UK’s first carbon neutral pavement scheme is a landmark achievement for us and demonstrates our commitment to achieving this goal.

“By working collaboratively with Highways England, AE Yates and Amey on the A590 M6 J36 to Brettarg Holt scheme during the early contractor involvement stage, we were able to identify a low-carbon approach designed to provide significant environmental; and in turn, cost benefits, by establishing a best practice approach to greener road surfacing.”

Written by Aaron Morby

Source Construction Enquirer

Saudi Arabia Looks To Stop Using Crude For Domestic Power Generation

Posted on January 27, 2021 by dishanth

Saudi Arabia is working to replace the use of petroleum liquids for power generation with solar energy and gas-fired capacity, Argaam reported on Monday, citing Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, as saying.

As part of the program ‘Hydrocarbon Demand Sustainability’, the world’s largest oil exporter will aim to replace petroleum—which it still burns for electricity—with solar power energy, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said at a meeting to describe the strategy of the Saudi energy ministry.

“The program will rank among the most important initiatives, given its value added to the national economy and its ability to stop the country’s financial waste,” Argaam noted.

Replacing petroleum with solar energy for electricity generation would free up more oil for OPEC’s top producer and de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, to export. This could potentially give the Kingdom even more sway on the global oil market and help it obtain more revenues from crude oil sales, despite constant assurances that the economic diversification away from oil is underway.

At the event on Monday, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman also noted that Saudi Arabia made “strong efforts” to balance the oil market last year, according to Argaam.

Last year, Saudi Arabia went on a brief and ill-timed oil price war with Russia after the two friends/foes disagreed in March 2020 how to manage oil supply to the market at a time of collapsing demand in the pandemic. After Saudi Arabia and Russia returned to negotiations and sealed a new OPEC+ pact a month later, both leaders of the alliance had to cut their production much more than what they had discussed in March.

This quarter, global oil demand and the market are still wobbling due to the still spreading COVID, and Saudi Arabia abandoned, this time around, its insistence that everyone at OPEC+ take their share of the burden in rebalancing the market. The Kingdom announced a surprise unilateral cut of 1 million bpd of its crude oil production in February and March.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

Financing Sri Lanka’s Renewable Energy Drive – From Energy Storage to Diversification of Energy Generation

Posted on January 21, 2021 by dishanth

I have been following World Bank Group’s Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) “Unlocking Investment and Finance in Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EMDEs)” and have been challenged to draw up a finance and investment strategy for a developing economy of my choosing. With the election season (presidential election in 2019 and parliamentary elections in 2020) drawing closer, I felt that I could focus on Sri Lanka and particularly on its development challenge in meeting its intended Nationally Determined Contribution of reducing GHG emissions in the energy sector by 20% against the Business As Usual scenario and recommend an investment strategy from the point of view of a Government Official. I hope this article will spur further discussion on the options and avenues available for the country in financing the desired transition on the energy profile and serve to inform decision makers on the best course of action.

Sri Lanka has made major strides in its development journey with 100% of the population having access to electricity by the end of 2016 and approximately 83% of all adults having a bank account, with 18.6 bank branches for each 100,000 people in the population as at March 2018. These growth statistics could be taken to mean that the country is managing its energy and financial sectors well, however, a closer look will reveal that behind these respectable numbers are structural weaknesses in domestic resource mobilization and national financing strategy, which impede private sector investment in energy infrastructure and cause inefficiency in the system leading to higher costs for tax payers and higher energy cost for industry (posing a challenge to national competitiveness).

Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), a state-owned enterprise, controls all major functions of electricity generation, transmission, distribution and retailing in Sri Lanka. In attempting to make energy affordable for low-income households, a differentiated tariff regime is in place where the rates for low-energy consuming households are subsidized and some of this subsidy is recovered though higher rates to high-energy consuming households. Whilst subsidized electricity has helped to provide a better quality of life and led to positive externalities, the losses to the Government from this subsidization and reliance on expensive power generation has had to be met through increased taxation (with proportion of indirect taxes being approximately 80%). Therefore, even though low-income households spend less, directly for electricity, as a result of high proportion of indirect taxes, they are footing the heavy losses of the State Owned Utilities (eg: CEB reporting a LKR 23bn loss in Q1 2019).

This distortion in pricing of electricity and the extent of national grid coverage is also limiting renewable energy uptake and possibility of community-based micro-grid systems. In Kenya, with the coverage of the national grid being limited and with mobile money having a rapid uptake, off-grid solutions such as M-Kopa that employs “pay-as-you-go” solar model has seen great success. Similar off-grid solutions are also gathering great momentum in India, with the cost of renewable energy generation becoming cheaper than traditional fossil fuel sources. In Sri Lanka, with over 70% of the population having a mobile connection as at 2017 and with mobile money services such as Frimi and Genie available, “pay-as-you-go” rooftop solar investments are not attractive to many in the bottom of the pyramid because electricity is subsidized.

For high-energy consuming households in Sri Lanka, however, rooftop solar is attractive proposition with payback being between 5 to 8 years. As a result, there is high conversion to solar in this segment (177 MegaWatts (MW) of rooftop solar installed as at April 2019) . This would be a positive development in the country’s ambition on climate action, however, it does not bode well for the CEB, the utility provider, for whom this would mean a loss of revenue, because it is losing the client segment that is paying high tariffs. This would exacerbate the losses further and affect Government’s debt sustainability.

If renewables could provide consistent power, this solar rooftop adoption would not have been an issue. However, with the renewable energy generated being intermittent and with peak demand occurring at night time, CEB, the utility provider, has had to rely on large hydro and thermal power plants to provide the base-load. It also has to pay for peaker plants operated by Independent Power Producers and even buy expensive emergency power, when installed capacity falls short to provide the peak energy demand. The high energy consumers who have taken up rooftop solar systems park the excess power they generate during day to the grid and draw power from grid at night. Therefore, Government has to still incur the costs of maintaining the base-load and buy peak hour supply for night time energy demand.

Therefore, the need of the hour in scaling up renewable energy uptake is to invest in energy storage systems, where the excess energy generated during day can be made use of at night and in bad weather conditions. The Government has identified pumped storage hydropower plant (3 x 200MW in Maha Oya) to come online by 2028 and 125Mw of Battery Capacity Facilities to be set up where timelines have not yet been declared to address this issue. It has also planned for new investments in 1800Mw of solar , 850Mw of wind, 200Mw of Biomass, and 100Mw of Waste to Energy (6 plants).

The investment size for the pumped storage hydropower project is expected to be USD 621mn (USD 1,063/Kw). Delaying the set-up of pumped storage to 2028 will significantly affect amount of renewable energy that could be grid connected and renewable investments that could be scaled up. Government currently plans to invest in 4 new coal power plants due to issues in debt sustainability and grid reliability (noting that coal power is cheaper option and stabilizes the grid), however, if energy storage solutions are integrated to the grid making renewable energy investments feasible and if the inefficient subsidies are gradually replaced by alternate incentives facilitating self sustaining community micro-grids (loan schemes, roof rental for solar companies in working with low-income households, and making P2P energy trading possible through electricity auctions on micro-grids), Government will be able to ensure clean energy supply without having to spend public money on coal power plants, by crowding in private investment. This author came across a proof of concept developed by a group of students from University of Jaffna in having a mobile app for P2P energy trading in Sri Lanka during Sri Lanka’s first fintech hackathon. However, current regulatory set-up does not allow for such electricity trading within community micro-grids as sale of electricity is controlled. Therefore, a serious review on incentives for public engagement in support of the renewable energy drive needs to be undertaken and the enabling environment created.

With regards to funding the energy storage solutions and renewable energy investments (over USD 56 billion is needed between 2017 – 2050 to meet 100% renewable energy generation by Sri Lanka power sector), Government need not be restricted to public finance in financing these large investments. It could and it should crowd in private investment for these sustainable energy infrastructure, rather than place extra burden on the tax payer. It could resort to financing internationally, as the Cost of Funds in Sri Lanka is high. Sri Lanka is yet to issue a Green or Sustainable Bond. As in Fiji, the Government can raise a sovereign green bond or work with Sri Lanka Banks’ Association’s Sustainable Banking Initiative to get local banks to lead on issuing Green Bonds and working with MDBs such as IFC, FMO, etc to support this process. Additionally, Government could tap directly and through partnerships vertical funds such as Global Environmental Facility and Green Climate Fund, where there is additionality and market is not ready to accept the risk return profile of the investments. Recently launched Central Bank of Sri Lanka led Roadmap for Sustainable Finance in Sri Lanka identifies the need to build capacity and integrate financial sector to support the real economy through new solutions such as Green Bonds and there is interest by banks to engage in blended financing. Government should fast track the implementation of this roadmap on sustainable finance and I recommend that the Government work with IFC and Sri Lanka Banks’ Association’s Sustainable Banking Initiative to launch Sri Lanka’s first Green Bond to immediately fund the Pumped Storage (also referred to as Pumped Hydro Energy Storage [PHES] or Pump Water Storage Power Plants [PWSPP]) and Battery Solutions and relevant upgrades to the national grid to transition to a smart grid. London Stock Exchange Group has also expressed support to Sri Lanka and Colombo Stock Exchange. Therefore, these support networks must be leveraged.

Government has been successful in soliciting concessional finance from China, Japan and India for energy infrastructure (government to government loans and grants). Beyond this, the Government could also encourage FDI and public-private partnership for investments. Support from MIGA could be elicited to give international investors the confidence to infuse capital to the country.

In conclusion, Government would need to implement concerted effort to on the one side improve domestic resource mobilization and on the other hand, expand its sources of sustainable finance in the energy sector. Like the energy profile, the country also needs to diversify its investment streams and not excessively rely on Government funding for green energy infrastructure. An investment opportunity of over USD 56 billion exists and a healthy mix of international, domestic, public and private and debt and equity investment streams need to be explored. A first step in this journey could be a 10 year US$800mn syndicated green bond using SLBA Sustainable Banking Initiative platform, where use of proceeds will be for renewable energy storage solutions.

This article first appeared on Green Building Council of Sri Lanka’s newsletter “Green Guardian” in December 2020.

Published by Adheesha Perera

In the race to net zero, which sustainability solutions are most needed?

Posted on January 19, 2021 by dishanth

While 2020 was defined by the global pandemic crisis, the year also saw the doubling of global net zero commitments by governments and corporations as they prioritised climate action in their recovery from the impacts of Covid-19.

In addition, Covid-19 took the wind out of oil as global demand for oil reached an 18-year low and stock prices plunged, marking a turning point for climate change. But as economies recover, the need for sustainable innovations to create a decarbonised and resource-efficient society is greater than ever.

With companies and countries aiming for a net zero timeframe of either 2030 or 2050, this presents an opportunity for new innovations and solutions to meet the complexities of such commitments, said Marie Cheong, vice-president of the venture capital firm ENGIE Factory Asia-Pacific, at the virtual launch of The Liveability Challenge on Friday (15 January).

Back for the fourth year, The Liveability Challenge—a global search for sustainable solutions for Asia’s cities—is presented by Temasek Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Singapore’s state investor Temasek, and organised by sustainability media outlet Eco-Business.

The virtual launch of The Liveability Challenge 2021. From top left: Eco-Business’ Jessica Cheam, UNDP Global Centre for Technology, Innovation, and Sustainable Development’s Calum Handworth, New Energy Nexus’ Hendrik Tiesinga, ENGIE Factory Asia-Pacific’s Marie Cheong and Amasia’s John Kim.

Taking it a step further, companies like Google and US-based fintech company Stripe have committed to run their entire business on carbon-free energy “expressly for the purpose of spurring innovation in the space,” Cheong added.

As sustainability enters the mainstream, more capital and opportunities will be directed towards sustainable innovation, agreed John Kim, co-founder and managing partner of venture capital firm Amasia.

“If you want to raise money from public markets now, you need to have a succinct sustainability story. Changing the world now is not just about incremental behavioural change, but actually changing the physical world,” Kim said.

But which innovative solutions are needed to expedite the path to net zero?

“Most people tend to think about windmills and solar panels, and that’s it. But we need to rewire and retool the entire energy system. From your plug in the wall all the way to solar panels, and everything in between, including your cars,” said Hendrik Tiesinga, chief strategy officer of clean technology non-profit New Energy Nexus.

The Challenge is accepting submissions until April 15.

Ideas for The Liveability Challenge can be submitted here.

The journey to net zero will have several stages but the first step is to tackle the low-hanging fruit such as energy efficiency, suggested Cheong. “Once that’s addressed, the solutions will get more complex like retrofitting existing businesses, or dealing with carbon-intensive industries,” she said.

But even before that, industries should focus on decreasing consumption, cautioned Kim. “A lot of the assumption that we have around the world’s carbon supply is that we’re going to continue to consume. So to get to net zero, we need to offset our carbon. But it’s not just an offset issue, there’s a lot we can do on the demand side of things,” he said.

While carbon capture and storage is part of the solution, nature-based solutions are currently more practical whereas revolutionary technology-based solutions should only be considered after transitioning to a fully renewable energy system, warned Tiesinga.

“I think carbon capture is part of the solution, but they use a tonne of energy and only make sense once we transition to 100 per cent renewable energy. It’s good that people work on it, but let’s do in a decade or two,” he said.

What is The Liveabiilty Challenge 2021 looking for?

The two themes for this year’s edition are decarbonisation and re-imagining resources, with the aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and waste.

“We’re looking for solutions that will dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions in key sectors such as energy generation, urban infrastructure, transport and logistic systems,” explained Lim Hock Chuan, chief executive of Temasek Foundation Ecosperity.

In addition, the Challenge is looking for carbon capture, utilisation and storage solutions to remove carbon emissions from the atmosphere on a large scale—this includes both technology-based and nature-based solutions.

The second theme, re-imagining resources, tackles resource scarcity and the pollution crisis by seeking solutions for a circular economy.

“We are seeking disruptive solutions that can drastically reduce the amount of land, energy and water for production of food and other materials. We are also looking for innovative solutions to tackle waste—food waste, plastic waste and e-waste,” Lim added,

Such solutions include utilising waste materials and converting them into valuable products, and technologies to reduce plastic or paper packaging in food industries and e-commerce.

Shortlisted teams will pitch their projects to a panel of venture capitalists and investors at The Liveability Challenge Grand Finale, held in June/July 2021.

Winners will vie for the grand prize of up to S$1 million from Temasek Foundation, and other opportunities such as a minimum S$50,000 investment from Planet Rise and a S$50,000 investment from Amasia.

The Challenge is accepting submissions until April 15.

Ideas for The Liveability Challenge can be submitted here.

Source Eco-Business

Why businesses should go green

Posted on January 18, 2021 by dishanth

The onset of the pandemic and the ensuing lockdown have imperilled businesses worldwide.

It will be tempting for firms to put any commitment to the environment in the back seat as they attempt to recover, especially as some governments reduce requirements and undermine environmental protection.

This is short-sighted: businesses do not have to sacrifice their environmental goals for protecting their growth.

Greening initiatives like offering green products or services, introducing green processes internally, hiring employees to promote sustainable practices, or going beyond compliance requirements, can actually help firms.

Using data on 9,236 small and medium businesses in 35 countries across Europe and the US, our research suggests that on average, businesses benefit from going green, although the type of greening that gives the most significant benefit may differ between firms.

Here are four main ways that greening can benefit businesses.

1. Innovative market niches

By offering new green products or services, a business is more likely to cater to an emerging trend or niche market, which can make it more competitive. Frugalpac, a UK-based company that makes paper-based packaging for liquids that cut carbon footprints, received a £2 million investment during the pandemic – a time when most other companies were struggling for finance.

Already seeing widespread success for their recycled paper coffee cup, Frugalpac’s innovative paper wine bottle, also made from 94% recycled paper, has led to new opportunities and partnerships.

Companies focused on sustainability can rapidly expand by catering to new niche markets internationally.

Consider D’light, a company that offers innovative lighting solutions for people who do not have access to electricity. The company has transformed the lives of more than 100 million people across 70 countries through its green product offerings while raising US$197 million (£150 million) in investment.

Earlier this year, the Danish energy supplier Ørsted, formerly known as Danish Oil and Natural Gas, was named the most sustainable company in the world. This success followed from its transformation to a green energy supplier – which went hand in hand with accelerated profits.

By catering to new niche markets using green products and services, these businesses have emerged as future leaders in their sectors. Of course, not all companies are suited to finding such niches. But sustainability can be promoted in other ways like green working practices and processes, for example.

2. Employee motivation

Job seekers are increasingly attracted to companies that care for the environment. The employees of firms that promote sustainability are more likely to believe that their employer will care for them, and are more satisfied with their jobs.

Such companies create a higher sense of personal and organisational purpose that makes work meaningful. A recent poll shows that millennials and Gen Z’s are more concerned about the environment than any previous generation. This means they prioritise employers who put sustainability at the forefront.

By some estimates, companies that follow green practices have a 16% boost in employee productivity. Although establishing a direct causal link can be difficult, some of the greenest companies, such as Cisco, Tarmac or Stantec, are also considered the greatest companies by employees.

3. More engagement

Greening initiatives signal to external stakeholders, such as investors and customers, that a business is committed to doing good. This can lead to increased investment, customers and stakeholder loyalty. This is pertinent in the aftermath of COVID-19 as there is heightened awareness about the need to protect the environment.

For example, highly sustainable companies benefit from superior stock market performance in the long run, according to research looking at American companies in the period 1993-2009.

Investors are increasingly questioning firms on their commitment to sustainability, and expecting meaningful steps from them for integrating consideration of such issues into their investing criteria. This is reflected by the tenfold increase in global sustainability investment to US$30.7 trillion by April 2019 since 2004.

More recently, Polysolar, a company that makes glazed windows that generate electricity, has secured more than double the investment it sought on crowdfunding platform Crowdcube.

And large companies such as Unilever have benefited from increased stakeholder engagement and loyalty by adopting greening practices and products, addressing a dark history of environmental exploitation.

4. Increased efficiency

Greening processes can result in efficiency gains by reducing energy costs, allowing businesses to secure green tax credits, improving operational efficiency, and embedding circular economy principles internally.

Such gains directly translate into commercial benefits. As many as 75% of UK businesses that invested in green technologies subsequently enjoyed commercial benefits, even if financial concerns pose barriers to making these green investments in the first place.

For large companies such as Proctor & Gamble, these gains can run into billions of pounds.

Conversely, in cases where businesses harm the environment, they have to be prepared to incur significant costs. A prominent example is the famous case of Volkswagen, which has even adversely impacted the performance of other German car manufacturers like BMW and Mercedes Benz.

For all these reasons, time is ripe for business to go green.

Source Environment Journal

The Miraculous Material Transforming Energy Storage

Posted on January 18, 2021 by dishanth

A material discovered less than two decades ago could become the key to safer, faster-charging and lighter batteries that power electronic devices, electric vehicles, and stationary energy storage. Since the ‘supermaterial’ graphene was first isolated in 2004 by researchers at The University of Manchester in the UK, a growing number of graphene-making start-ups have been developing battery technologies which, the companies say, will usher in a future of fast-charging devices and electric vehicles (EVs), with higher energy capacity and without risks of overheating.

Graphene is only a single atom thick. It’s a superconductor of electricity and heat, and very light. It’s more than 100 times stronger than steel, but also 6 times lighter. Graphene slows the heating process in lithium batteries and allows up to five times faster charging speeds. Because it has low resistivity, graphene conducts heat evenly across the battery to help it cool, says one of the start-ups working with graphene, Real Graphene.

Graphene is not yet used in EVs or stationary storage systems, but developers of the material and technologies with it say that this supermaterial, because of its mechanical properties, holds the promise of more powerful, safer, and faster-charging batteries.

Graphene has the potential to be used not only in consumer electronics, but also in EVs and storage of solar and wind power, researchers at The University of Manchester say. Developing graphene supercapacitators could help enable high-performance electric supercars. Because graphene supercapacitators are light, they could also reduce the weight of cars or planes, according to the university, which is also studying, with its commercial partners, graphene’s potential in grid applications and storing wind or solar power.

Start-ups have recently accelerated the development of graphene and its incorporation into batteries.

Los Angeles-based graphene manufacturer Nanotech Energy, for example, said last year it had developed and scaled a process to produce graphene with more than 90 percent of its content monolayers—the purest form of graphene available in mass production quantities.

The company also launched in 2020 a proprietary non-flammable, high-performing battery ready for commercialization.

“We perfected the battery by utilizing the extraordinary electronic and mechanical properties of graphene to increase the battery capacity. To further increase the safety of a lithium ion battery, we took a step further by designing a non-flammable electrolyte that can withstand operation at high temperatures without catching fire,” Maher El-Kady, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Nanotech Energy, said at the time.

“Most industries and end users are confined to the technology of lithium-ion batteries, from smartphone and laptop manufacturers to automotive manufacturers to the consumer at large,” Dr. Jack Kavanaugh, chairman and CEO of Nanotech Energy, said.

“Nanotech Energy now offers all of these industries a path toward a safe and more powerful battery technology – a game changer for them,” Kavanaugh added.

Graphene Batteries of Norway is developing Lithium-sulfur (LiS) battery technology enhanced with graphene derivatives. The company has developed a sulfur cathode based on a proprietary method and is targeting stationary energy storage systems as one of the areas of application of its technology.

U.S. firm NanoGraf is developing silicon-graphene anode materials that enable longer-lasting and faster-charging batteries. NanoGraf believes that current lithium-ion battery chemistries have hit a plateau in performance improvements. The company says its silicon alloy-graphene material architecture in the anode could be customized to achieve between three and six times higher capacity than current graphite-based anodes.

Electric vehicles with batteries containing graphene will require at least four years of additional research and testing, NanoGraf’s Chip Breitenkamp, a polymer scientist and VP of business development, told Futurism at the end of last year.

The company is confident that its technology would work for EVs, but it knows it would take a few more years to have the thumbs-up for electric cars.

Graphene is an amazing material for batteries, Breitenkamp told Futurism, adding that, “Essentially, graphene can play a central role in powering a sustainable, electric future.”

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

Source Oilprice.com

How carbon capture networks could help curb climate change – TED Institute

Posted on January 18, 2021 by dishanth

What if we could build a global waste disposal service for carbon? In this forward-thinking talk, carbon capture advisor Bas Sudmeijer proposes building CO2 networks: partnerships between cities around the world that would share the cost and geological resources needed to trap emissions deep in the earth — and give us a shot at stalling climate change.

This talk was presented at a TED Institute event given in partnership with BCG.

Source Ted.com