The sustainability consulting market is set to more than double over the next five years, according to a new report from research firm Verdantix.
Spending by companies on environmental, social and governance (ESG) and sustainability consulting services hit US$6.24 billion globally at the end of 2021, and is projected to grow to US$16 billion by 2027, the study, ESG and Sustainability Consulting: Market Size and Forecast 2021-2027, estimated.
Regulatory changes that mandate sustainability reporting and pressure from stakeholders to acknowledge climate risk and decarbonise, will boost sustainability consulting spending in all regions and in all sectors, the study said.
ESG and sustainability consulting services are expected to grow by 17 per cent a year between 2022 and 2027, but corporate reporting and disclosure services will see the largest increases, with a compound annual growth rate of 21 per cent.
Market growth will be swiftest in Europe, Middle East and Africa, but there will be comparable growth in Asia Pacific and North America, the study projected.
Clampdowns by regulators and other law enforcement authorities in Europe and the United States have led to greater scrutiny of ESG commitments. US and German regulators are probing Deutsche Bank’s AG asset management following allegations last year that the firm overstated the credentials of some ESG-labeled investment products. This has prompted other companies to verify their own public statements related to ESG.
Previous data from Verdantix showed that acquisitions in the sustainability consulting sector tripled last year on the back of a surge in spending on ESG services and demand for sustainability expertise.
The report’s author and Verdantix research director, Kim Knickle, said that consultancies stand to benefit as companies look for external expertise to help them re-engineer their business models around sustainability, and adapt to more rigorous reporting requirements as regulations increase.
Singapore Exchange (SGX) became the first stock exchange in Asia propose mandatory climate disclosures aligned with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures last August. Most stock exchanges in Asia Pacific now mandate sustainability reporting, but rules are expected to tighten as scrutiny grows over the quality and effectiveness of reporting.
Virgin Atlantic is one step closer to its sustainable fuel target, thanks to an agreement with Neste Corp. to supply 2.5 million liters (660,430 gallons) of neat sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), which will be delivered in the first half of 2022 to London Heathrow.
The agreement forms part of a wider collaboration between Virgin Atlantic and Neste, a leading provider of SAF, to increase the availability and use of SAF in the U.K.
Virgin Atlantic and Neste are working with ExxonMobil on this delivery of SAF into the U.K. ExxonMobil is already Virgin Atlantic’s largest fuel supplier at London Heathrow.
Virgin Atlantic has had a track record as a sustainability leader for more than a decade and is committed to achieving net zero by 2050. Right now, the whole of its fleet is twin-engine aircraft—and 70 percent of those are next generation, making it one of the youngest and most fuel-efficient fleets in the skies. This follows a multibillion-dollar fleet renewal program that has already delivered a 20 percent reduction in carbon emissions between 2007 and 2019.
The agreement with Neste represents the first commercial supply of SAF for Virgin Atlantic, following its long-standing commitment to SAF and operation of the first commercial aircraft to use sustainable fuels in 2008.
“After fleet renewal, SAF represents the greatest opportunity to decarbonize aviation in the short to medium term,” said Holly Boyd-Boland, vice president of corporate development for Virgin Atlantic. “This supply is the beginning of commercial SAF at scale for Virgin Atlantic and whilst only enough to operate 140 flights between London and New York, it’s a starting point. To meet our 10 percent SAF target in 2030 we need to deliver this volume more than 70 times over, requiring cross industry and government action to support commercialization of SAF at scale, particularly in the U.K. We will continue to work closely with Neste and ExxonMobil, as well as wider industry partners, to find innovative solutions to achieve this goal.”
The US Army released its first climate strategy on Tuesday with goals to reduce the Army’s greenhouse gas pollution by 50% by 2030 and attain “net-zero” emissions by 2050.
The Army plans to meet these goals by increasing fuel efficiency, making more Army vehicles electric, modernizing “operational power generation, battery storage, land management, procurement,” and “supply chain resilience,” the report said.
The strategy comes as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has made climate change and studying its effects within the US military a priority since taking the helm of the Defense Department. Shortly after being sworn in as Defense Secretary in January 2021, Austin announced the department would “immediately” take “appropriate policy actions to prioritize climate change considerations in” military activities and risk assessments.
“Climate change threatens America’s security and is altering the geostrategic landscape as we know it,” Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth said in the opening statement of the Army’s strategy document. “For today’s Soldiers operating in extreme temperature environments, fighting wildfires, and supporting hurricane recovery, climate change isn’t a distant future, it is a reality.”
The US military has been impacted by extreme weather in the past few years at air force bases, naval stations and army bases in the continental US. Hurricane Florence in 2018 caused about $3.5 billion in damages and repairs at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and flooding at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska caused about $500 million in damages in 2019, according to a Defense Department report.
“The time to address climate change is now. The effects of climate change have taken a toll on supply chains, damaged our infrastructure, and increased risks to Army Soldiers and their families due to natural disasters and extreme weather,” Wormuth said.
The US Army strategy offers a “roadmap of actions” that will make army bases more prepared “in the face of climate-related threats,” a news release on the report said.
Part of the strategy involves enhancing “resilience and sustainability” by “adapting” military infrastructure to be better prepared to face the potential risks caused by climate change and climate change related weather events.
This includes considering climate change and its risks in all aspects of the Army’s development of infrastructure and installations, from “resilient energy and water supply” to “carbon-pollution-free electricity, efficient structures,” and more, the report states.
Right now, the US Army has 950 renewable energy projects supplying 480 megawatts of power, and there are 25 microgrid energy projects planned through 2024. The Army plans to install a microgrid on every Army installation by 2035, the report states.
The Army is moving towards carbon-pollution-free electricity production with the goal of using 100% pollution-free electricity on Army installations by 2030. They are moving towards purchasing electricity from carbon-pollution-free sources to meet this goal, the report states.
The strategy also includes ways to improve sustainability on army installations, reduce “sustainment demand” and prepare the Army with “skills, concepts and plans necessary to operate in a climate-altered world,” the release about the report said.
Petra Nova, once billed as the largest U.S. project to capture carbon-dioxide emissions from a coal-fired power plant, opened to considerable publicity in Texas in late 2016.
Less than four years later, owner NRG Energy Inc. NRG -0.20% shut down the carbon-capture system, which cost $1 billion—not because the technology wasn’t working but because the expected end use for the carbon was no longer economically viable. The coal plant continues to generate electricity and emit carbon.
Carbon-capture projects are attracting renewed attention from investors and governments world-wide as concerns mount about the greenhouse-gas emissions linked to climate change. But the initiatives have a dismal record.
More than 80% of proposed commercial carbon-capture efforts around the world have failed, primarily because the technology didn’t work as expected or the projects proved too expensive to operate, according to a 2020 study by researchers at Canada’s Carleton University, the University of California, San Diego and other institutions.
The U.S. has spent $1.1 billion on carbon-capture demonstration projects since 2009, with uneven results, according to a December report from the Government Accountability Office. None of the eight coal projects selected for $684 million of the funding during that time is operating, the researchers found. Projects to capture carbon from heavy industries met with some success.
While some early projects have demonstrated that it is technologically possible to collect carbon from power plants and industrial sites—or even directly out of the air—they have generally been very expensive. Many face a fundamental problem: there is no economic use for the carbon they capture.
Currently, the only large-scale use for captured carbon is for pushing more oil and gas out of declining reservoirs, which in turn leads to additional emissions when the fossil fuels are burned for energy. In the U.S., there is no federal requirement that companies capture carbon emissions, or carbon taxes or other fees aimed at discouraging them from releasing the greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
As a result, most carbon-capture initiatives don’t save companies money or generate profits, and they represent an added business expense. Still, some companies are pursuing the projects to reduce their carbon footprint under pressure from investors and activists concerned about climate change.
A fresh round of U.S. carbon-capture projects is in the works, bolstered by around $12.1 billion in funding in the $1 trillion infrastructure bill signed into law last year by President Biden. Oil, power, chemicals and biofuels companies are kicking off a wave of new proposed carbon-capture investments, including carbon-transport pipelines in Iowa, a coal-power plant in North Dakota and a hydrogen plant in Louisiana.
Large fossil-fuel companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM -2.59% and Occidental Petroleum Corp. OXY -4.02% are touting carbon capture as a part of their future plans to reduce emissions—and lobbying Congress to increase a tax credit to make the projects more economically sustainable.
New carbon-capture projects are bolstered by the infrastructure bill President Biden signed into law last year. PHOTO: SUSAN WALSH/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Many companies and climate activists say governments need to nurture innovative technologies to capture emissions that would otherwise be hard to cut. Accelerating such projects, they argue, is the only realistic way to reach the targets of the international Paris agreement, which seeks to keep rising temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
“To meet the goals of the Paris climate accords, there’s no way we can do it without direct-air capture,” Occidental Chief Executive Vicki Hollub said in an interview. The company, which uses carbon to extract oil, plans to build facilities to capture it straight from the air, but considers the potential tax-credit expansion vital to its efforts.
Exxon is proposing a project with other companies in Houston to capture and bury the carbon from an array of industries. But it would be difficult to launch at its proposed size without policy changes such as a larger tax credit, said Erik Oswald, a vice president at Exxon.
Congress is considering boosting the credit for collecting carbon emissions from smokestacks by 70% to $85 for a metric ton if the carbon is stashed in saline geologic formations, or $60 if it is sent down oil wells. Direct air projects would get $180 for a metric ton if the carbon is stored, or $130 for oil.
Less generous tax credits have been on the books since 2008 but have failed to create a real carbon-capture industry. “There’s been little material impact on the deployment of carbon capture and storage,” said Scott Anderson, senior director of energy at the Environmental Defense Fund, a U.S.-based advocacy group.
The infrastructure bill included funding for pipelines and storage to help build a missing puzzle piece: a spider’s web of infrastructure that could gather and ship carbon from multiple sites.
“That’s a massive step forward for carbon capture and carbon storage,” said Cindy Crane, chief executive of Enchant Energy Corp., which plans to retrofit a coal-fired power plant in New Mexico with carbon-capture equipment for around $1.3 billion. The project would also require up to roughly $390 million in plant improvements, a pipeline and storage field.
Globally, industries will have to raise carbon-capture capacity by a factor of 50 to 100 times over what is in the development pipeline to achieve what the International Energy Agency estimates is needed to reach “net-zero” carbon emissions by 2070, said John Bradford, professor of geophysics and vice president for global initiatives at the Colorado School of Mines.
Building those projects—and keeping them running—can be costly. Petra Nova was a joint venture of NRG and JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corp. that captured some emissions from a coal plant near Houston and piped them about 80 miles to an oil field, where they were used to push more crude out of the ground. The government awarded the project around $195 million in a proof-of-concept grant.
Petra Nova closed in 2020 after the pandemic reduced demand for fuel and led to a collapse in oil prices, which made the oil that the captured carbon was helping produce less economically viable. It remains in mothball status, though NRG said it proved the technology could work on a coal-fired plant.
“We continue to explore options to improve the economics,” said NRG spokesman Chris Rimel.
Mississippi Power’s plant in De Kalb, Miss. The company is the utility arm behind the Kemper project. PHOTO: ROGELIO V. SOLIS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
In Mississippi, a carbon-capture initiative by utility Southern Co. SO 0.35% has turned into a white elephant. The project known as Kemper aimed to use locally mined lignite coal to fuel a power plant, and capture the resulting carbon emissions, which were then to be sent to oil fields to prime crude production. The Energy Department invested $387 million.
Forecast to cost $3 billion in 2010, Kemper’s costs spiraled above $7 billion. Once constructed, the coal-gasification technology never quite worked as intended, and Southern abandoned its initial plans, burning natural gas in the power plant instead.
The company imploded coal and carbon-capture equipment that couldn’t be dismantled for resale last October. Coal conveyors from Kemper are now available for sale online.
“It was the end of a long, bad experiment,” said Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, a Kemper critic. Mr. Presley said he favors innovation but believes government and business should bear the risk instead of utility ratepayers.
Mr. Presley and other regulators didn’t allow Southern to pass Kemper’s full cost on to customers. The company, which had to assume some $6 billion on the project’s cost, is paying for demolition of the carbon-capture part, estimated at $10 million to $20 million annually through 2025, said a spokesman for Mississippi Power, the utility arm behind the project.
The federal government is now funding a $24 million feasibility study that includes the same plant—this time for capturing and storing carbon emissions from natural gas.
Beaches littered with plastic bottles and wrappers. Marine turtles, their stomachs filled with fragments of plastic. Plastic fishing nets dumped at sea where they can throttle unsuspecting animals. And far out in the Pacific Ocean, an expanse of water more than twice the size of France littered with plastic waste weighing at least 79,000 tonnes.
The plastic pollution problem is distressingly familiar, but many organisations are working to reduce it. Alongside familiar solutions such as recycling, a surprising ally has emerged: micro-organisms. A handful of microbes have evolved the ability to “eat” certain plastics, breaking them down into their component molecules. These tiny organisms could soon play a key role in reducing plastic waste and building a greener economy.
The scale of the problem
As a species, we make an enormous amount of plastic. In 2020, the most recent year for which we have data, 367m tonnes were produced globally, according to trade association Plastics Europe. This represented a slight decline compared with 2019, when 368m tonnes were made, but that was probably because of the Covid-19 pandemic: production had previously increased almost every year since the 1950s. A 2017 study estimated that 8.3bn tonnes of plastic had been made in total.
In 2016, the world produced 242m tonnes of plastic waste. Pictured below, volunteers collect plastic rubbish from a beach in Lima, Peru. Photograph: Ernesto Benavides/AFP/Getty Images
A huge fraction of this goes to waste. In 2016 the world generated 242m tonnes of plastic waste, according to the World Bank. Despite the popular image, only a small fraction of this ends up in the ocean – but the seas may still be absorbing more than 10m tonnes of plastic every year. As well as the dangers of the plastics themselves, they contain a lot of additives that leach out into the water. “Over time we really don’t know what effects these have,” says Tiffany M Ramos of Roskilde University in Denmark.
Much of the rest ends up in landfills. That does not sound so bad, but a lot of it is single-use plastic, which is inherently wasteful. Making plastic requires extracting fossil fuels such as oil from the ground, with all the pollution risks that entails. Plastic manufacturing also releases greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. A 2021 report found that the US plastics industry alone releases 232m tonnes of greenhouse gases every year, the equivalent of 116 coal-fired power plants.
The solution is not to stop using plastics altogether, because they are incredibly useful. For example, plastic bottles are far lighter than glass ones, so transporting them requires less energy and releases a smaller amount of greenhouse gases. But we do need a revolution in how we handle plastics, and this is where the micro-organisms come in.
On the scrapheap
In 2016 researchers led by microbiologist Kohei Oda of the Kyoto Institute of Technology in Japan reported a surprise discovery. Oda’s team visited a recycling site that focused on items made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a clear plastic that is used to make clothing fibres and drinks bottles.
Like all plastics, PET is a material made up of long string-like molecules. These are assembled from smaller molecules strung together into chains. The chemical bonds in PET chains are strong, so it is long-lasting – exactly what you do not want in a single-use plastic.
Oda’s team took samples of sediment and wastewater that were contaminated with PET, and screened them for micro-organisms that could grow on the plastic. It found a new strain of bacterium, called Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6. This microbe could grow on pieces of PET. Not only that: Oda’s team reported that the bacterium could use PET as its main source of nutrients, degrading the PET in the process.
A Chinese labourer sorts plastic bottles for recycling, 2015. In 2017, China banned trade in most plastic waste, putting pressure on the EU and US to find new ways to deal with the issue. Photograph: Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty Images
The key to this ability was a pair of enzymes made by the bacteria. Enzymes are complex molecules that can speed up chemical reactions. They are crucial to life: our digestive system relies on enzymes to break down the complex chemicals in food into simpler ones that our bodies can absorb and use. For example, our saliva contains an enzyme called amylase that breaks up the long molecules of starch found in foods such as bread.
Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6 produces two unique enzymes. The first is a PETase that breaks the long PET molecules down into smaller molecules called MHET. A second enzyme called MHETase then goes to work, producing ethylene glycol and terephthalic acid. These two chemicals are the building blocks of PET, so Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6 can completely reverse the manufacturing process that made PET.
Plastic eaters
The finding made headlines around the world, but it was not the first example of an organism that could degrade plastics. Reports of plastic-munching microbes date back to at least the early 1990s. The earliest examples were arguably less remarkable, because they could only eat plastics that were chemically flimsy or biodegradable. But by the 2000s researchers had found enzymes that could tackle tougher plastics.
A prominent researcher in this area has been Wolfgang Zimmermann of Leipzig University in Germany. His team studied enzymes called cutinases, which it obtained from bacteria such as Thermobifida cellulosilytica, and which could also break down PET.
If you’re the first bacterium in that rubbish pile that suddenly has a taste for plastic, then you’ve got an unlimited food source – Prof John McGeehan, University of Portsmouth
Lars Blank of Aachen University in Germany first heard about this in 2012. He set about creating a consortium of researchers to study plastic-eating enzymes. This became the P4SB project, which ran from 2015 to 2019. Blank has since set up a project called MIX-UP, which sees European and Chinese researchers cooperating.
By the mid-2010s plenty of plastic-degrading enzymes were known. The potential was clear to Gabriella Caruso of the Institute for Coastal Marine Environment in Messina, Italy, who wrote in a 2015 review that “microbial degradation of plastic is a promising eco-friendly strategy which represents a great opportunity to manage waste plastic materials with no adverse impacts”.
So why did Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6 cause such a stir? “The difference with the 2016 paper was this micro-organism could use the plastic as its sole energy and food source,” says John McGeehan of the University of Portsmouth. “That’s actually quite surprising and it kind of shows evolutionary pressure in action. If you’re the first bacterium in that rubbish pile that suddenly has a taste for plastic, then you’ve got an unlimited food source.”
Put another way, the earlier enzymes had not evolved for plastics. They evolved to break down tough chain molecules found in living things, and their ability to degrade plastic was a side-effect. In contrast, the enzymes in Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6 were specialised.
Blank has a different interpretation, arguing that the Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6 enzymes are not especially good because they only degrade PET slowly. “Wolfgang Zimmermann had far better enzymes at that point,” he says. But the excitement the paper created had a huge impact. “Suddenly the media and also the academic literature really cranked up and a lot of interest came in.”
Better and better enzymes
Two years later McGeehan and his colleagues took things further. They produced a three-dimensional structure of the Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6 PETase, shedding light on how it worked. Hoping to understand how it evolved, they tweaked the structure. To their surprise, this made the enzyme more efficient at degrading PET. Clearly, it was possible to improve the enzyme.
McGeehan now wants to take that further, modifying the PETase and other such enzymes so that they can be used on an industrial scale to break down plastics that would otherwise linger in the environment. “We’ve got a big £6m grant from the government,” he says, and they have started a specialist institute called the Centre for Enzyme Innovation.
This is now bearing fruit. In 2020 McGeehan’s team reported that it had linked the PETase and MHETase enzymes together. This “super-enzyme” could eat PET about six times faster than the two enzymes working separately. Other groups such as Blank’s MIX-UP have produced modified enzymes of their own.
Prof John McGeehan, director of the Centre for Enzyme Innovation at the University of Portsmouth. His team have created a ‘super-enzyme’. Photograph: University of Portsmouth/Stefan Ventur/PA
Meanwhile there is evidence that microbes all around the world are evolving similar abilities. A study published in October 2021 looked at microbial DNA from a range of habitats. In areas with high levels of plastic pollution, the researchers found that the microbes were more likely to have enzymes with plastic-degrading tendencies. In line with this, a 2020 study identified a soil bacterium that can feed on some of the components of polyurethane, which releases toxic chemicals when it breaks down.
The question now becomes: how significant a role can these enzymes really play in reducing plastic pollution?
The circular economy
So far, most of the activity has been in universities, but some groups are attempting to commercialise the technology. The University of Portsmouth has set up Revolution Plastics, which aims to forge links between academics and industry. “We’ve already advertised a joint PhD project with Coca-Cola,” says McGeehan. He is also part of an international research team called BOTTLE, which is negotiating with large companies.
The most advanced project is run by Carbios, a French biotechnology company. In September 2021 it opened a pilot plant in Clermont-Ferrand, where it will test a system for recycling PET. Carbios’s system uses an enzyme that was first identified in compost, which they modified so that it worked faster and could operate at high temperatures where PET is softer.
The advantage of these enzymes is that they break down the plastic at the molecular level, so it is possible to recreate the highest-quality plastic. In contrast, other forms of recycling cause a slow decline in quality, until eventually the plastic cannot be recycled again and gets landfilled or incinerated. Enzymatic recycling, in theory at least, is truly circular. “That’s what we call a closed-loop recycling system,” says Ramos. “You recycle something, but then you’re able to make something new of the same quality out of that.” To date, only a tiny percentage of plastics are being recycled in this way, but the enzymes could change that – “Which would be great.”
In a circular economy, everything is recycled as much as possible. Photograph: Yagi Studio/Getty Images
McGeehan says: “I think in the next five years we’re going to be seeing demonstration plants all over the place.”
Still, there are limits to the enzymes’ usefulness. “It will never be a one-size-fits-all type of solution,” says Ramos, and we should not count on the enzymes to mop up all our plastic waste. Some plastics are even tougher than PET.
Blank points out that the enzymes work best if the plastic has been softened by heating. That means releasing the enzymes into the environment would not do much good: they only really work in temperature-controlled reactors. So the solution to plastic in the sea remains the same as before: we have to stop releasing it in the first place.
Nevertheless, it seems likely that plastic-eating enzymes will have a role to play as societies move towards a circular economy in which everything is recycled as much as possible. In a study published in July 2021, McGeehan and his colleagues estimated how much enzymatic recycling of PET will cost. They calculate that it could compete on cost with standard manufacturing methods, which use fossil fuels as feedstock.
The key is to be savvy about where we use the enzymes, says Blank. Some plastics can be mechanically recycled, a technology that is improving rapidly, so they probably are not the best targets. Instead, he says, researchers should go for plastics that cannot be recycled any other way – particularly if they can become substances that are otherwise expensive to make.
Ultimately, the enzymes have to be part of a revolution in the entire way we make and use plastics, says Ramos. Better methods of recycling are useful, she adds, but they are only part of the solution. It is also important for plastic products to be designed in such a way that they can easily be reused and recycled. That might mean avoiding designs that use several kinds of plastic, or fuse plastic with other materials, as these are very difficult to recycle.
As with all our environmental problems, there is no silver enzyme. These chemical machines can help us recycle plastic better, but we will always need to pick up our litter.
Firms will work together on Catalina Phase I, which will be made up of 1.7 gigawatts of wind and solar in Aragon, north east Spain, and a 500 megawatt electrolyzer.
Project Catalina will eventually look to develop a total of 5 GW of combined wind and solar, producing green hydrogen using a 2 GW electrolyzer.
Hydrogen has a diverse range of applications and can be deployed in a wide range of industries.
Plans for a huge project aiming to produce green hydrogen and ammonia have been announced, with those behind it hoping construction of the first phase will begin in late 2023.
On Tuesday, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners announced details of a partnership with Spanish companies Naturgy, Enagás and Fertiberia. Vestas, the Danish wind turbine manufacturer, is also involved.
The firms will work together on Catalina Phase I, which will be made up of 1.7 gigawatts of wind and solar in Aragon, northeast Spain, and a 500-megawatt electrolyzer able to generate more than 40,000 tons of green hydrogen annually.
A pipeline will link Aragon with Valencia in the east of Spain, sending the hydrogen to a green ammonia facility. CIP said this ammonia would then be “upgraded” into fertilizer.
Project Catalina will eventually look to develop a total of 5 GW of combined wind and solar, producing green hydrogen using a 2 GW electrolyzer.
The scale of the overall development is considerable. “Once fully implemented, Catalina will produce enough green hydrogen to supply 30% of Spain’s current hydrogen demand,” CIP said.
Details relating to the financing of the initiative have not been revealed. CIP did say, however, that Project Catalina would make what it called a “significant contribution” to Spain’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, or PERTE, on renewable energy, renewable hydrogen and storage.
In Dec. 2021, the Spanish government said PERTE would mobilize resources amounting to 16.37 billion euros, around $18.54 billion. According to authorities there, the private sector will supply 9.45 billion euros, with 6.92 billion euros coming from Spain’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.
Hydrogen has a diverse range of applications and can be deployed in a wide range of industries. It can be produced in a number of ways. One method includes using electrolysis, with an electric current splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen.
If the electricity used in this process comes from a renewable source such as wind or solar then some call it green or renewable hydrogen.
Over the past few years, a number of firms have undertaken projects related to green hydrogen. Just last week, energy major Shell said a 20 megawatt hydrogen electrolyzer described as “one of the world’s largest” had begun operations.
In Dec. 2021, Iberdrola and H2 Green Steel said they would partner and develop a 2.3 billion euro project centered around a green hydrogen facility with an electrolysis capacity of 1 gigawatt.
While there is excitement in some quarters about green hydrogen’s potential, the vast majority of hydrogen generation is currently based on fossil fuels.
In recent times, some business leaders have spoken of the issues they felt were facing the emerging green hydrogen sector. Last October, for example, the CEO of Siemens Energy told CNBC there was “no commercial case” for it at this moment in time.
And in July 2021, a briefing from the World Energy Council said low-carbon hydrogen was not currently “cost-competitive with other energy supplies in most applications and locations.” It added that the situation was unlikely to change unless there was “significant support to bridge the price gap.”
The analysis — which was put together in collaboration with PwC and the U.S. Electric Power Research Institute — raised the question of where funding for such support would come from, but also pointed to the increasing profile of the sector and the positive effect this could have.
For its part, the European Commission has laid out plans to install 40 GW of renewable hydrogen electrolyzer capacity in the European Union by the year 2030.
Waitrose and Lidl are the most sustainable supermarkets, according to a Which?’s eco-friendly grocer ranking.
Iceland finished last, according to the research, which tracked supermarket policies on: plastic waste and food waste, which shoppers have reported are the biggest issues for them; and greenhouse gas emissions, which most experts say poses the greatest environmental threat.
In its first such ranking, the consumer magazine pointed out that supermarkets respond to customer demand, so if shoppers make eco-friendly choices and demand sustainable options, this can influence shops to improve.
Harry Rose, editor of Which?, said: “We know that consumers increasingly want to shop sustainably and our in-depth analysis of three key areas shows that all the big supermarkets could be looking to make some improvements.
“The good news is shoppers can make a big difference themselves by adopting more sustainable habits, such as buying loose fruit and vegetables, buying seasonal local produce, eating less meat and dairy and limiting their own food waste.”
Lidl performed above its rivals on greenhouse gas emissions but fell short on food waste, though it said this is because it serves more fresh food in-store than many other comparable shops.
Waitrose has strong policies on plastic and food waste compared with other supermarkets, and scored reasonably for greenhouse gas emissions.
Iceland fell short because it was unable to report how much of its own-brand plastic is recyclable, so scored zero points. It also faces disadvantages as a frozen food specialist, as this made it the worst performer on operational greenhouse gas emissions due to its energy-draining in-store freezers. However, it does buy 100% renewable electricity for its UK sites.
Marks & Spencer was found to use a lot of plastic compared with other supermarkets. It was also the only one unable to provide its food waste data in a comparable format, so scored zero points for this, and was in the bottom half of Which?’s table for emissions.
For plastic use, the Co-op did best, while Ocado was the frontrunner in terms of food waste, as it redistributes almost all surplus food, leaving just 0.04% as waste.
Space debris is a major threat to the satellite services we rely on
13 projects involve industry and academia across the UK
The UK Space Agency is providing £1.7 million for new projects to support sustainable space operations, Science Minister George Freeman announced today.
The 13 new projects will help track and remove dangerous debris in space. They include an AI-based tool which can take autonomous action to avoid a collision and another which will see multiple small spacecraft fired at debris before taking it into the atmosphere to dispose of it.
The Science Minister, UK Space Agency CEO Paul Bate and representatives from the UK space sector met at the Harwell Space Cluster in Oxfordshire to discuss the sustainable future of the space environment today (Monday 31 January).
Orbital congestion created by space debris is one of the biggest global challenges facing the space sector. There are currently an estimated 330 million pieces of space debris, including 36,500 objects bigger than 10cm, such as old satellites, spent rocket bodies and even tools dropped by astronauts orbiting Earth.
Space debris can stay in orbit for hundreds of years and present a real danger to the rapidly increasing number of new satellites being launched each year which provide vital services, including communications and climate change monitoring.
Science Minister George Freeman said:
Like debris on Everest, the first generation of space exploration and satellite launch has left millions of pieces of dangerous satellite fragments and 4,000 redundant satellites in orbit.
As our reliance on satellites for everyday activity grows, and the UK becomes a leading hub of small satellite design, manufacturing and launch this year via Virgin Orbit in Cornwall, this debris now poses a serious threat to our £16 billion space sector.
That’s why we have made debris mitigation and removal – and the long-term importance of space sustainability – key elements of our National Space Strategy.
These projects will help put the UK at the forefront of both protecting the space environment for future activity, and accelerating UK technology leadership.
The UK’s National Space Strategy set out a bold vision for the sector and recognises the need for the UK to lead in making space safe and sustainable. The new funding supports the development of underlying technology or data processing capabilities for space surveillance and tracking to support the removal of orbital debris.
In the past two years the UK Space Agency has provided £2.7 million for UK industry and academia to develop new technology for Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) and debris removal, as well as investing around £16 million on space sustainability through the European Space Agency in 2019.
The UK is the largest contributor to ESA’s Space Safety Programme. This new funding comes from a joint call from the UK Space Agency’s Space Surveillance and Tracking and National Space Technology Programme.
Managing Director, Astroscale Ltd and Co-Chair of the IOSM Working Group, UKspace, John Auburn said:
We need to act now to build the UK’s capability with the right level of UK investment; enhanced UK regulation and policy; supply chain development, and international partnerships. The In-orbit Servicing and Manufacturing (IOSM) working group, part of UKspace, is comprised of more than 65 members.
This rapidly expanding group is driving forward a shared vision to gain first leader commercial advantage in the in-orbit servicing and manufacturing sector. We must accelerate our efforts to secure a safe and sustainable space environment and see it as a natural extension of the Earth’s environment. This will help to protect vital services, including those monitoring climate change, weather forecasting, disaster management and digital services for citizens and ensure we can provide them for generations to come.
In 2021 the UK Space Agency worked with the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) to support the next stage of international efforts to promote space sustainability and provided funding to research a UK-led mission to remove junk from space.
The 13 projects in detail
Plasma thruster based Automated Deorbiting-Block system (PAD-B)
Lead: Magdrive
Partners: University of Southampton
Funding: £199,500
Magdrive and the University of Southampton are investigating the feasibility of the Plasma thruster based Automated Deorbiting-Block (PAD-B) system. A mothership will carry many of these ~1 kg nano-spacecraft, which can be fired at debris from afar. These will attach and work together to autonomously bring the debris into the atmosphere to dispose of it. Through this project the team will investigate the feasibility of PAD-B and deliver flight hardware for a subcomponent prototype space flight in June 2022.
The Great Eye: AI-based Space, Surveillance and Tracking (SST) Tool
Lead: Oxford Dynamics Limited
Partners: In-Space Missions Ltd
Funding: £157,500
Oxford Dynamics (OD) and In-Space Missions (ISM) are collaborating on the development of an innovative AI-based Space, Surveillance and Tracking (SST) tool, known as, “The Great Eye”. The project builds upon work by OD to provide the foundations for a satellite payload able to take autonomous collision avoidance decisions. The project also includes a novel ground ops Graphical User Interface (GUI) to demonstrate the tool’s capabilities. It will use OD’s expertise in payload development and AI machine vision, and ISM’s expertise in the design and supply of small, cost-effective satellites, to address an identified global market opportunity.
Supermagdrive ADR
Lead: Rocket Engineering
Partners: Magdrive Limited, Tokamak Energy
Funding: £198,500
High thrust electric propulsion will enable new space missions and businesses to thrive in space, allowing highly efficient precision manoeuvring in low orbits, a key requirement for space surveillance and tracking. The critical underpinning capability is harnessing high plasma densities with ultra-strong magnetic fields. This project will combine electric propulsion technology developed by Magdrive with superconducting magnet technology developed by Tokamak Energy for use in fusion power plants. Testing of key components aims to raise the technology readiness of thruster designs in a partnership between Rocket Engineering, Magdrive and Tokamak Energy.
Hyperspectral Imager for Space Surveillance and Tracking (HyperSST)
Lead: University of Strathclyde
Partners: Fraunhofer UK Research Ltd, Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics
Funding: £169,500
Project HyperSST will demonstrate the use of new hyperspectral imaging sensors to detect and characterise objects orbiting around the Earth. HyperSST will mix advanced hyperspectral technology with modern deep learning techniques to better understand the composition of space objects, their motions and predict their intentions. This project will demonstrate the use of hyperspectral imaging and AI for both on ground and in-orbit sensing and the detection and characterisation of objects of different size and nature, from active satellites to derelict upper stages.
Advancement of UK capabilities to identify the attitude state of resident space objects in Low Earth Orbit (LEO)
Lead: Astroscale Ltd
Partners: Northern Space and Security Ltd, Lumi Space Ltd
Funding: £55,000
The goal of this proposal is to advance the development of UK capabilities to determine how an uncontrolled object, whether it’s an inactive satellite or piece of debris, is spinning in space. An object’s spin or tumble is important to know when planning missions to clean up space by removing them from orbit. Capturing these objects safely requires delicate and precise manoeuvring, and if the space object is tumbling too fast or in a way that makes it tricky to capture, this needs to be understood before the servicer spacecraft is in orbit. This grant will help develop UK capability to ensure this information is available for such missions in the future.
ODIN detector TRL Advancement
Lead: ODIN Space
Partners: N/A
Funding: £91,000
ODIN Space is developing state-of-the-art, on-orbit detectors that will track lethal fragments of space debris, enabling essential risk management across the entire space ecosystem. ODIN Space detectors are sensitive to the tiniest pieces of orbital debris (0.01 – 2 cm) that are invisible to existing tracking solutions. Using a network of detectors, this will map the orbital debris environment, providing essential insights into the position, size, speed, trajectory and number of dangerous objects in LEO and GEO. The ODIN Space team is currently developing a deployable, flight-ready framework that will serve as the foundation for a future in-orbit demonstration of their detection technology.
Artificial Intelligence for Space Surveillance and Tracking (AI4SST)
Lead: University of Strathclyde
Partners: Imperial College London, D-Orbit UK
Funding: £153,500
This project will use the Computational Agent for Space Situational Awareness aNd Debris Remediation Automation (CASSANDRA) framework, which uses advanced artificial intelligence technology to help operators to manage traffic in orbit and avoid collisions between satellites and space debris. Project AI4SST will endow CASSANDRA with the ability to accurately forecast the position of space objects starting from radar observations. CASSANDRA will then be able to assist operators to make informed and reliable decisions on whether to perform a collision avoidance manoeuvre or schedule a new radar observation.
Extended Exploration of Census Program
Lead: D-orbit
Partners: N/A
Funding: £34,000
D-Orbit will build on a successful project last year to exploit a new capability to enable routine, targeted space-based low Earth orbit Space, Surveillance and Tracking (SST) observations. By using D-Orbit’s ION Satellite Carrier, an orbital transportation vehicle with a multi-year lifetime and propulsion capability, D-Orbit can offer an unprecedented opportunity to observe debris both passively and actively. ION cameras will be repurposed to capture images of space objects for processing on board and on ground, as well as exploring how the capability can be augmented by system upgrades.
Optimised Observations and Machine Learning for Space Safety
Lead: Cranfield University
Partners: University of Oxford, University of Surrey
Funding: £196,500
This project aims to improve our understanding of how we can monitor space objects in orbit, and to develop efficient tools to help us plan and implement safer ways to operate spacecraft. It aims to support UK leadership in this field, and an important output of the project will be an upgrade to the open-source software Kessler, which implements machine learning techniques to significantly accelerate predictions of space object close approaches.
Advancement of UK Capabilities in Satellite Laser Ranging
Lead: Lumi Space
Partners: University of Surrey, Durham University, SJE Space Ltd
Funding: £85,500
This project pushes Lumi Space forward in developing an advanced satellite laser ranging (SLR) system which is a simple but powerful method that uses light to track satellites. Continuing the work carried out last year, this project advances novel aspects of laser ranging technology and levels-up the technology readiness of the company. Lumi Space continues to strive for a more sustainable and accountable use of space, by bringing the UK closer to commercial SLR capabilities.
Beacon for Evaluation of Attitude and Position – BEAP
Lead: UK Launch Services Ltd
Partners: Alta Range
Funding: £79,000
This involves a study to look at the commercial and practical feasibility of a novel Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) service which is built around the principle of ‘tagging’ space objects. The system would allow active tracking, at very low cost, and with minimal impact and intrusion on the space objects themselves.
PAssive raNging anD ORbitogrAphy for mega constellations for STM – PANDORA
Lead: GMV NSL
Partners: N/A
Funding: £86,000
The PANDORA project will assess the potential to deliver an innovative new Space Surveillance and Tracking system for Low Earth Orbiting satellites based on the use of a ‘Passive Ranging’ concept. This concept uses communications signals from LEO constellations as ranging measurements to feed precise orbit determination and prediction of LEO satellites.
The orbital knowledge of LEO satellites is becoming increasingly important as part of future Space Traffic Management (STM) concepts and operations. The PANDORA project will quantify the performance of the passive ranging technique in delivering accurate predictions and manoeuvre detection of LEO satellites. It will prepare a roadmap towards the commercial implementation and exploitation of this new capability within the UK.
Fast determination of satellite re-entry and fragmentation
Lead: University of Strathclyde
Partners: Imperial College London, D-Orbit UK
Funding: £199,000
Fast, physically accurate tools for the analysis of the re-entry of controlled and uncontrolled objects are critical to many in the space sector. In particular, improved modelling and simulation of the deformation and fragmentation is paramount to design systems for safe demise and assess the associated risk. Joints are critical components of a spacecraft when it comes to fragmentation, this project will develop models to predict the structural failure of primary joints and hinges on satellites subject to high aero-, thermo- and flight dynamic loads, integrating the models and tools into an existing open-source framework for analysis of atmospheric re-entry. This will allow the UK to achieve a competitive edge against European counterparts in the challenging race towards a sustainable use of space.
Western Australia is a vast state. Power companies are having to come to terms with the high cost difference between maintaining poles and wires and installing hybrid power systems at the ends of the long power lines. And when the bushfires burn all the poles, then it makes the decision much easier.
Horizon Power is rolling out standalone off-grid solar and battery powered systems for 19 customers east of the town of Esperance. “Horizon Power first began offering certain remote regional customers the option to be powered by a custom built stand-alone solar and battery power system, or SPS, after bushfires destroyed more than 320 power poles and hundreds of kilometres of power lines in the region in November of 2015.”
At that time, only four landowners took up the offer. Now they expect to deliver more than 1000 systems to farmers and remote indigenous communities. As part of the Western Australian government’s Recovery Plan, Horizon Power has received $46 million to provide 150 systems across regional Western Australia. Each system consists of solar panels, battery storage, and a backup diesel generator. Connection to HP’s service hub means that any faults can be diagnosed remotely. Service teams can be dispatched if needed.
Image courtesy of Horizon Power
By March 2022, 45 standalone power systems are set to be deployed in Esperance to large commercial farms at the edges of HP’s overhead network. This will lead to the removal of 120 km worth of poles and wires from private paddocks. Farmers will no longer have to maneuver their huge tractors and other equipment around electrical infrastructure. Crop dusters will also appreciate the removal of flight obstacles.
The Renew the Regions Program has led to many power-related projects across Western Australia, which will lead to long-term benefit for the locals. Some of these are:
Derby, in the remote Kimberleys, had a $5.2 million solar and battery storage project installed, including a 40kW solar shade over the local pool.
Marble Bar (the hottest town in Australia) installed a 582kW/583kWh battery energy storage system to be paired with the Marble Bar solar farm, which generates more than 1,000MWh of electricity annually.
Broome is to receive two batteries, which would free up more than 1,400kW of new rooftop PV hosting capacity to residents and businesses next month.
Remote areas are showing the transition from centralized to decentralized power, and the locals are benefitting from the transition. This is a rare silver lining to come out of the WA bushfires of 2015.
