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Water Based Battery Safer than Lithium

Posted on January 25, 2024 by dishanth

A novel water based battery is said to be safer than lithium at half the cost.
A Boston-area startup called Alsym Energy has introduced a rechargeable water based battery that could match lithium-ion batteries’ performance at a fraction of the price.

In addition to using inexpensive, easily accessible materials like manganese and metal oxide, the novel battery is based on water, according to an initial report from Fast Company.

Being a water based battery means it avoids some of the main drawbacks of current batteries, such as the potential for lithium-ion battery fires and the negative impact of mining on the environment. And thanks to the use of non-toxic materials, the water based battery design is simpler to recycle, which is always a bonus.

Electric vehicles are becoming more important as the world’s nations step up their efforts to decarbonize the grid. That’s because they can aid in decarbonizing both transportation and supply of electricity through reduced tailpipe emissions and offer flexibility. Naturally, many automakers are tapping into the market by producing luxurious EVs; however, the expensive price tag remains to be a problem to this day. The costs are partly due to the lithium-ion batteries that are used in electric vehicles, which are too costly to make EVs that can compete in price tag with cars that run on fossil fuels.

This is where Alsym Energy, which recently emerged from stealth and secured $32 million from investors, comes in. According to a press release, with its first partner being an automaker in India, the startup wants to make it possible for manufacturers to produce cheaper electric vehicles.

“Our motivation was to make it affordable so that it could be widely deployed as opposed to niche,” Mukesh Chatter, CEO and co-founder of the startup, told Fast Company.

The Alsym Energy water based battery is inexpensive enough that it might be used in developing countries to store off-grid solar power. This is especially crucial for individuals who do not currently have access to energy.

What Makes the Water Based Battery Special?
The water based zinc battery makes use of other affordable, easily accessible components like manganese and metal oxide. Crucially, it does not contain cobalt, an expensive critical component of lithium batteries that also contributes to supply-chain health and environmental issues due to unethical mining practices. It also doesn’t use lithium at all, which requires resource-intensive salar brine extraction methods, mainly concentrated in conflict-prone regions of South America. Avoiding lithium and cobalt reliance is incredibly important as both metals have seen extreme price increases recently amid surging EV demand.

Lithium carbonate prices have skyrocketed over 750% in the last two years. And cobalt more than doubled in cost since 2020. These unstable dynamics will likely drive up prices of lithium-ion batteries for the foreseeable future. By swapping water for expensive, ethically fraught raw materials, the aqueous zinc batter stands to radically transform the energy storage calculus in terms of affordability, local manufacturing potential, and stability of supply chains.

According to the team behind Alsym Energy, the new design has “lithium-like performance.” But unlike the latter, Alsym Energy’s batteries are not flammable. This saves money as it doesn’t require special protection to avoid fires and gives the batteries additional applications, such as use in ships, where the industry is particularly concerned about fire risk.

If all goes to plan, Alsym Energy will start beta testing with its first customers in early 2023, with high-volume production beginning as early as 2025. The novel battery design will surely make waves globally; however, the company’s priority is to first make it affordable in low-income regions.

Source Happy Eco News

Apple aims for 100% recycled cobalt in batteries by 2025

Posted on April 18, 2023April 21, 2023 by dishanth

Apple has unveiled plans to increase the use of recycled materials in its products, with a new target of using 100% recycled cobalt in all Apple-designed batteries by 2025.

The tech giant will also aim to use entirely recycled rare earth elements in magnets for its devices and 100% recycled tin soldering and gold plating in all Apple-designed printed circuit boards by the same year.

“Every day, Apple is innovating to make technology that enriches people’s lives, while protecting the planet we all share,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “From the recycled materials in our products, to the clean energy that powers our operations, our environmental work is integral to everything we make and to who we are. So we’ll keep pressing forward in the belief that great technology should be great for our users, and for the environment.”

Reducing Apple’s carbon footprint

The announcement is part of Apple’s broader efforts to reduce its carbon footprint and become more environmentally friendly.

In 2022, the company significantly expanded its use of recycled metals, with over two-thirds of all aluminium, nearly three-quarters of all rare earth materials, and more than 95% of all tungsten in Apple products sourced from 100% recycled material.

Apple’s rapid progress in this area brings the company closer to its ultimate goal of making all products with only recycled and renewable materials and advances its aim to achieve carbon neutrality for every product by 2030.

“Our ambition to one day use 100% recycled and renewable materials in our products works hand in hand with Apple 2030: our goal to achieve carbon neutral products by 2030,” said Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives. “We’re working toward both goals with urgency and advancing innovation across our entire industry in the process.”

If Apple is able to achieve this goal, it will show major steps towards achieving a more sustainable future for the company.

Source Sustainability

Switching to renewable energy could save trillions – study

Posted on September 15, 2022September 15, 2022 by dishanth

Switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy could save the world as much as $12tn (£10.2tn) by 2050, an Oxford University study says.

The report said it was wrong and pessimistic to claim that moving quickly towards cleaner energy sources was expensive.

Gas prices have soared on mounting concerns over energy supplies.

But the researchers say that going green now makes economic sense because of the falling cost of renewables.

The cost of green energy like wind and solar has been falling for decades

“Even if you’re a climate denier, you should be on board with what we’re advocating,” Prof Doyne Farmer from the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School told BBC News.

“Our central conclusion is that we should go full speed ahead with the green energy transition because it’s going to save us money,” he said.

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The report’s findings are based on looking at historic price data for renewables and fossil fuels and then modelling how they’re likely to change in the future.

The data for fossil fuels goes from 2020 back more than 100 years and shows that after accounting for inflation, and market volatility, the price hasn’t changed much.

Renewables have only been around for a few decades, so there’s less data. But in that time continual improvements in technology have meant the cost of solar and wind power have fallen rapidly, at a rate approaching 10% a year.

The report’s expectation that the price of renewables will continue to fall is based on “probabilistic” modelling, using data on how massive investment and economies of scale have made other similar technologies cheaper.

“Our latest research shows scaling-up key green technologies will continue to drive their costs down, and the faster we go, the more we will save,” says Dr Rupert Way, the report’s lead author from the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.

Wind and solar are already the cheapest option for new power projects, but questions remain over how to best store power and balance the grid when the changes in the weather leads to fall in renewable output.

Cost of net zero
Back in 2019 Philip Hammond, then Chancellor of the Exchequer wrote to the prime minister to say that the cost of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in the UK would be more than £1tn. This report says the likely costs have been over-estimated and have deterred investment.

It also says predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the cost of keeping global temperatures rises under 2 degrees would correspond to a loss of GDP by 2050 were too pessimistic. The transition to renewables was, it says, likely to turn out to be a “net economic benefit”.

The research has been published in the journal Joule and is a collaboration between the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, the Oxford Martin Programme on the Post-Carbon Transition, the Smith School of Enterprise & Environment at the University of Oxford, and SoDa Labs at Monash University.

Source BBC

Can Renewables Become As Profitable As Oil And Gas?

Posted on January 6, 2021 by dishanth

Here’s the question for oil industry investors. Can oil companies scale up clean energy enterprises to replace business lost from a decline in fossil fuel revenues? Some of the oil companies put up a brave front as they boast of their decarbonization plans. Others ignore the question. But at the end of the day— and this is the takeaway— we don’t think they will replace lost fossil related income by massively investing in windmills and solar power. Here’s why. It’s a simple matter of risk and return. Investors accept lower returns when they make low risk investments (regulated utilities for example). Except for nuclear power, non-fossil fuel investments are lower in risk than fossil fuel investments. Energy exploration by its nature entails risk of financial loss. There is no such thing as a dry hole in the wind or solar industries. That is why renewable industries can attract new capital while offering investors steady but lower returns.

If oil managements do decide to enter the renewables business in a big way, as opposed to mere greenwashing, they may have to accept a lower rate of profitability. If they don’t, they will have a hard time obtaining business.

The inherently lower business risk of renewables distinguishes it from the oil business. Renewables do not require massive investments taking decades to fully develop in inhospitable and unfriendly places like the ocean floor. Their projects are bankable as soon as they have contracts signed. They do not compete against state controlled entities with few capital or environmental constraints. They can contract for a steady flow of revenues and pay regular dividends. Environmental accidents do not have multi-billion dollar consequences. Okay, weather can affect performance, but on balance performance averages out. In brief, renewable energy projects can be characterized as relatively small, or modular, with short duration of construction (planning takes longer), predictable revenues with limited foreign exposure. Low risk, low return. This profile doesn’t have the investment attributes of the oil business at all.

Maybe, though, the oil industry could find a suitable new opportunity in nuclear energy. From our perspective some of its investment attributes are similar: projects with long lead times, large concentration of capital in one project, relatively low risk of catastrophic accident but high risk that any accident will be really bad, ongoing need for negotiation with and cooperation from the government authorities. Big oil’s scale gives it an edge. New nuclear projects are too big nowadays for most energy companies.

And unlike renewables, if the nuclear builder negotiates aggressively it can extract an appropriately high return that reflects the risk. New nuclear construction is one business that most resembles the oil industry in terms of risk, possible return and scale. The obvious catch is that not many for-profit businesses want to get involved with new nuclear construction and operation for good reasons, all of which are well known to our readers.

But with better construction management, research to develop a new generation of reactors and permanent waste storage, who knows? A new generation of nuclear power plants might emerge just when the oil companies need to find big replacements for lost income. This is still a possibility. But if we assume that commercialization of new nuclear technology is at least a decade away that still leaves a big hole in prospective capital budgets. What to do in the meantime other than drill for oil?

In short, we don’t expect the oil industry to grow in any meaningful way with wind turbines and large solar arrays. The demand for capital in the renewable industry is high but the returns may not be high enough for oil investors.

Maybe the oil industry has confused its end market with its business strengths. It seems to see itself as purveyor of energy on a mass scale. Okay, but that market will become crowded with purveyors of new energy products who work for less. Perhaps, instead, the oil industry’s strength is not its customer base but rather its skill as a financier, developer and operator of risky resources on a massive scale, akin to the giant mining and trading combines, but with more technological skill.

Oil and electricity are both commodities but with very different margin structures. Perhaps the oil industry would be better served by investing in potentially high margin commodity businesses like cobalt or rare earth metals, for example, without which no batteries can be made. Or, it could invest in resources or capital intensive processes that will be required for decarbonization.

In short, replace oil profits with windmill and solar profits? Other people can do it as well. Oil companies will need to do something big, and maybe as daring as drilling for oil in the old days. How about, for instance, a process to remove carbon dioxide from the air and turning it into chemicals and fuels on a vast scale? They need to start thinking on a bigger scale. Otherwise, why bother?

By Leonard Hyman and William Tilles for Oilprice.com

Source Oilprice.com

IEA: Renewables Will Lead Global Generation in 2025

Posted on November 13, 2020 by dishanth

The world’s power generation is about to become even more green, according to a new publication from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The group on Nov. 10 published its “Renewables 2020″ report, and highlighted how generation capacity from both wind and solar will double across the next five years and surpass global generation from both coal and natural gas. The IEA said renewable energy this year is growing at its fastest annual pace in the past six years, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The agency said the pandemic has in fact hastened the closure of older thermal power generation infrastructure; as an example, American Electric Power this week announced it would shut down nearly half its entire fleet of U.S. coal-fired power plants.

The IEA in the report said “the COVID-19 crisis is hurting—but not halting—global renewable energy growth,” noting that “renewable markets, especially electricity-generating technologies, have already shown their resilience to the crisis.”

90% of New Generation Is Renewable

“From January to October 2020, auctioned renewable capacity was 15% higher than for the same period last year, a new record,” the report said. “At the same time, the shares of publicly listed renewable equipment manufacturers and project developers have been outperforming most major stock market indices and the overall energy sector.”

The report said almost 90% of new power generation in 2020 will be renewable, with about 10% of new output coming from natural gas- and coal-fired plants. The IEA said a continuance of that trend would make renewables the world’s largest power source in 2025.

Fatih Birol, the agency’s executive director, in a statement, said, “Renewable power is defying the difficulties caused by the pandemic, showing robust growth while other fuels struggle. The resilience and positive prospects of the sector are clearly reflected by continued strong appetite from investors—and the future looks even brighter with new capacity additions on course to set fresh records this year and next.”

Birol continued: “Governments can tackle these issues to help bring about a sustainable recovery and accelerate clean energy transitions. In the United States, for instance, if the proposed clean electricity policies of the next U.S. administration are implemented, they could lead to much more rapid deployment of solar PV [photovoltaic] and wind, contributing to faster decarbonization of the power sector.”

John Lichtenberger, senior vice president of Core Solar, an Austin, Texas-based developer of solar power projects, recently told POWER, “the cost of solar technology has come down so much” that developing solar power is a “no-brainer, from an environmental standpoint and an economic standpoint. Renewables are not a novelty, they’re a legitimate cost-effective, environmental way to generate power. Solar technology [has] been refined and improved, and the cost has come down. The technology has become a commodity, [and] we’re seeing production across the globe.”

Global Energy Demand Falls

The IEA said the coronavirus pandemic is a major factor in a 5% decline this year in global demand for energy. The report, though, said “priority access to the grid and continuous installation of new plants are all underpinning strong growth in renewable electricity. This more than compensates for declines in bioenergy for industry and biofuels for transport—mostly the result of lower economic activity. The net result is an overall increase of 1% in renewable energy demand in 2020.”

The report said new deployments of renewable energy, led by China and the U.S., mean that “net installed renewable capacity will grow by nearly 4% globally in 2020, reaching almost 200 GW. Higher additions of wind and hydropower are taking global renewable capacity additions to a new record this year, accounting for almost 90% of the increase in total power capacity worldwide. Solar PV growth is expected to remain stable as a faster expansion of utility-scale projects compensates for the decline in rooftop additions resulting from individuals and companies reprioritizing investments. Wind and solar PV additions are set to jump by 30% in both the People’s Republic of China and the United States as developers rush to complete projects before changes in policy take effect.”

The agency said India and the European Union also will drive increases in renewable energy, which the report said will result in a record expansion of global renewable capacity additions of nearly 10% next year, the fastest growth since 2015. The IEA recently said that solar power today is now the cheapest source of electricity in history.

The report said that total installed wind and solar PV capacity is on track to overtake natural gas in 2023, and coal in 2024—and said that generation from all renewable resources will become the “largest source of electricity generation worldwide in 2025,” supplying one-third of global power output.

The IEA report said, “Solar PV alone accounts for 60% of all renewable capacity additions through 2025, and wind provides another 30%. Driven by further cost declines, annual offshore wind additions are set to surge, accounting for one-fifth of the total wind annual market in 2025.”

Darrell Proctor is an associate editor for POWER

Source: Power Magazine

Onshore renewables could boost UK economy by £29bn

Posted on July 20, 2020July 20, 2020 by dishanth

Investor Thrive Renewables claims removal of local planning barriers could unlock multi-billion pound potential of onshore wind, solar, and hydropower sectors.

Easing planning barriers for onshore renewable energy projects could unlock 45,000 new jobs and pump almost £29bn into the UK economy over the next 15 years, as well as saving money on consumer energy bills, according to a new analysis by Thrive Renewables.

The clean energy investment firm – which manages £93m of renewable energy assets – claims that, based on Committee on Climate Change estimates for achieving net zero emissions by 2050, the UK will need to build 5.5GW of onshore renewable energy capacity every year between now and 2035.

That, it said, would require £4.75bn annual investment – including £2.75bn in onshore wind projects alone – amounting to a £66.5bn investment opportunity over the next 15 years. Unlocking that potential could deliver 45,000 new jobs, provide a £28.9bn economic boost, and save billpayers up to £1.5bn a year by 2035, according to the firm, which operates 15 renewables projects across the UK.

Echoing arguments from across the renewables industry, the report highlighted how onshore renewables were now both quicker to build and cheaper than nuclear projects and gas-fired power generation capacity, with onshore wind now considered to the lowest cost form of new electricity generation available.

Meanwhile, the same two years spent laying only the foundations for Hinkley Point C saw enough renewable power generation capacity installed in the UK to match the total planned generation of the flagship Somerset nuclear power project, the report said.

The analysis also stressed how giving existing onshore solar, wind, and other such projects a new lease of life by upgrading them with the latest, most efficient technologies offered yet another cost-effective means of delivering zero carbon energy.

“Renewables are the obvious choice for the government to take in driving our economic recovery, helping to ‘Build Back Better’ and deliver a net-zero carbon emission society,” said Matthew Clayton, managing director of Thrive Renewables. “We don’t need to reinvent the wheel or – in this case – the wind turbine and solar panel. UK renewables have enormous potential that can be unlocked, fast. We already have what we need: abundant natural resources, proven technology, lowest ever costs and the right skills.”

However, Clayton warned that in order to maximise the opportunities on offer a clear, long-term and investible clean energy policy platform was required in the UK, and that planning barriers to new renewables projects needed to be torn down.

Firstly he said more policy certainty was needed over price stability in Contracts for Difference auctions, distribution network connection planning, and cost structures, as long-term investment decisions remains challenging for developers.

Moreover, Clayton said new onshore wind projects continued to face automatic blocks from many local planning authorities, as too often councils have failed to update their local plans – in some cases for decades – to reflect their myriad climate emergency declarations.

“By providing policy certainty and creating a more positive environment for onshore renewables, the government can unleash huge private sector investment, create thousands of jobs and deliver a greener, cleaner UK for us all,” he said.

There have long been calls for the UK’s national planning policy to be amended to remove barriers to new onshore wind projects, although earlier this year the government did unveil plans to allow onshore renewables projects to compete for in upcoming CfD auction rounds, providing a major new potential route to market for new projects.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has also touted plans to reduce red tape in order to “build, build, build” as part of his strategy to stimulate the economy in the wake of the recession sparked by the coronavirus crisis.

However, it remains unclear whether the PM’s proposed planning changes could be used to accelerate rollout of renewables and clean technologies, given long-standing opposition to such projects from a vocal minority of the public.

Mewanwhile, some green groups have raised concerns that moves to dilute planning rules could lead to less democratic oversight of local planning decisions and green building standards being compromised.

By Michael Holder

Source: Business Green

Rapid shift to renewables could lead Australia to cheap power, 100,000 jobs

Posted on June 7, 2020June 7, 2020 by dishanth

A new analysis suggests a rapid expansion of renewable energy over the next five years could establish Australia as a home for new zero-emissions industries, cut electricity costs and create more than 100,000 jobs in the electricity industry alone.

The briefing paper by Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE), a Melbourne based climate change thinktank, presents an alternative vision to the conservative Liberal-National government’s gas-fired recovery plan’

It argues the shift to a clean electricity grid is inevitable and there are opportunities in accelerating it, rather than slowing it down.

Renewable energy investment in Australia fell 50 per cent last year.

Guardian Australia reports the work is backed by the former Liberal Party prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who described the central thesis of the report as “compellingly right”.

“That is, we have the opportunity to have zero emissions and cheap energy in Australia if we get over the political roadblock that has bedevilled the debate for so long,” Mr Turnbull told Guardian Australia.

The report is the first stage of a “million jobs plan” being developed by the thinktank. Mr Turnbull is a member of an advisory board supporting the project.

It recommends Australia aims to build 90 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity and 20GW of batteries over five years, a project it estimates would create 22,000 ongoing and 124,000 construction jobs.

It describes the goal as ambitious, but “an evolution, not a revolution” given 11GW was installed in 2018 and 2019.

It cites a report by consultants Rystad Energy that found 133GW of large-scale solar, wind and battery projects are in development and about a quarter have planning approval.

The report said reaching the target would require governments to send investors “an unequivocal signal” of support for large-scale renewable projects.

Its three main recommendations include underwriting new “renewable energy industrial zones” with long-term fixed electricity prices of $50-55 a megawatt-hour in regional centres such as Gladstone, the Hunter Valley, the Latrobe Valley and Whyalla to support new clean industries, such as green hydrogen and zero emissions metals.

It says transmission lines around the country, many of which are already proposed by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), would need to be fast-tracked, with governments intervening to overcome regulatory hurdles.

It calls for local content requirements for wind turbines, batteries and transmission components, saying it could create 15,000 manufacturing jobs.

The report says a wind energy manufacturing industry could be created quickly by converting disused factories, as has happened in Geelong, where part of an old Ford site is being used to make wind turbine components.

“Leading turbine-maker Vestas has indicated that, given sufficient demand, it would expand manufacturing in Australia,” it said.

BZEs’ chief executive, Eytan Lenko, said the shift to at least 100 per cent renewable energy was inevitable, having been flagged more clearly than any technological transition in history, with only the timeframe in question.

Guardian Australia reports Mr Lenko said the group supported the government and the National Covid-19 Coordination Commission’s (NCCC) goal of expanding manufacturing through cheaper energy costs, but evidence suggested renewable energy was a cheaper and more sustainable path to recovery than gas.

“We want to end up in the same space, it’s just the underlying technology that’s different,” Mr Lenko said.

“To us, it’s completely obvious. We don’t have a competitive advantage with gas, America has a cheaper gas industry than we do, but we do have unlimited renewable energy capacity.

“That’s the future, and the trend is unstoppable in terms of costs.”

The report is part of a growing global call for governments to respond to the economic shock of the coronavirus crisis with policies that also help tackle the climate crisis.

Guardian Australia reports assessments before the pandemic found solar and wind backed by storage were likely to be the cheapest source of new electricity in many cases, but the government and the NCCC have emphasised gas, a fossil fuel, as the key to driving economic recovery.

The government continues to reject international and domestic calls to set a target of net zero emissions.

BZE released a report calling for 100 per cent renewable energy a decade ago.

It now says this goal is uninspiring, and that Australia could reach it simply by maintaining the installation rate of the past two years.

Solar panels and windmills in the power plant

It quotes Darren Miller, chief executive of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), who has suggested the country could and should aim for a six-or-seven-fold increase in electricity generation to power new clean industries.

Research group BloombergNEF found the cost of solar panels had fallen 85 per cent over the past decade and onshore wind energy 49 per cent.

Mr Lenko said in 10 years nobody would be talking about building too much solar.

“It’s on such a fast cost decline, it will be completely non-controversial to make use of it to power industry,” he said.

Source: http://econews.com.au/

By David Twomey

Renewable energy topped coal in US for 40 days straight

Posted on May 25, 2020August 12, 2020 by dishanth

Renewables have generated more electricity than coal for the last 40 days, surpassing previous records.

Wind, solar and hydroelectricity have produced more electricity than coal since March 25, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration analyzed by the Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis (IEEFA).

That tops the previous record of just nine consecutive days of renewables beating out coal in power generation.

Renewable energy first surpassed coal-fired generation in April of last year.

Coal’s decline comes as a number of sectors set goals for renewable generation.

A number of utilities have announced their intention to cease their reliance on coal and close coal-fired power plants by dates ranging from 2030 to 2050.

Big-box retailers like Target have also made pledges to transition to renewable energy to power their stores.

But many states are also pushing the shift toward green energy, increasing renewable energy mandates for utilities within their borders.

The latest streak for renewables comes amid an overall decline in electricity demand as the coronavirus shutters businesses around the country — limiting the need to rely as heavily on coal.

Low natural gas prices and warm weather also help fuel the shift.

IEEFA previously predicted that renewable generation would consistently surpass coal by 2021.

“But in the first quarter of 2020, renewable generation unexpectedly exceeded coal, and with this strong performance continuing in the second quarter, there is an increasing chance that the milestone could occur this year,” the group said.

By sinktip

Houston Commits to 100% Renewable Energy in Step Toward Carbon Neutrality

Posted on May 25, 2020May 25, 2020 by dishanth

The City of Houston has committed to 100 percent renewable energy. Mayor Sylvester Turner announced that the city has teamed up with NRG Energy to power all municipal operations with renewable energy beginning in July.

Through the partnership, the City of Houston will receive 1,034,399 MWh of renewable electricity from a utility-scale solar facility each year. The contract with NRG is set to last seven years and is projected to save the city a total of $65 million during its duration.

The transition to renewable energy is part of Houston’s recently released Climate Action Plan. Mayor Turner, along with the City’s Office of Sustainability, released the Houston Climate Action Plan in honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.

“This announcement is a shining example of how the Houston Climate Action Plan is already in motion. Expanding our renewable energy investment through our partnership with NRG helps us build a more sustainable city and save over $9 million per year on our electric bill,” said Mayor Sylvester Turner. “Together, we are leading by example and showing how to reduce emissions in the Energy Capital of the World.”

Houston is no stranger to the impacts of climate change. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey pummeled Houston. The Category 4 hurricane caused widespread devastation and $125 billion in damage. According to Houston’s Office of Sustainability, the Climate Action Plan is a key element of the Hurricane Harvey recovery effort. The City of Houston aims to reduce emissions and reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

“Houstonians have experienced the effects of climate change. Hurricane Harvey was larger, slower, and had 40 percent more rain than it would have if it had occurred 100 years ago. In Houston, spring arrives three weeks earlier than it did even a generation ago and our already hot summers keep getting hotter,” stated Turner.

Here are the #ClimateFacts about #HurricaneHarvey. pic.twitter.com/lECmNlmbCh

— The YEARS Project (@YEARSofLIVING) August 28, 2017

Houston is one of many U.S. cities that have stepped up their climate ambitions in an effort to fight the global climate emergency following the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.

“Houston is a global city and climate change is a global challenge, which is why as a member of C40 Cities Global Climate Leadership Group and Vice Chair of U.S. Climate Mayors, I am committed to doing our part to make Houston carbon neutral by 2050 in accordance with the Paris Climate Agreement,” said Turner.

“We can’t fix the problem overnight—but if we take bold, transformative action to lead our city down a more sustainable path, we’ll leave behind a better Houston, and a better world, for future generations.”

This story originally appeared in The Planetary Press and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

Source: The Planetary Press

By Kimberly White