The Energy Mix team scans about 1,200 incoming headlines each week to build our story lineup. Here’s a rundown of some of the news that was fit to print but didn’t fit the page.
Three New York pension funds pressed the Royal Bank of Canada to release absolute greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for 2030. Toronto debated a 2023 budget that didn’t live up to its climate goals, cleantech analyst Dan Woynillowicz showed how a lack of transmission lines could defeat British Columbia’s carbon targets, and insurance companies wouldn’t cover homes that used heat pumps with no backup systems.
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A company announced B.C.’s biggest green hydrogen plant, and a consortium formed to build a small modular nuclear reactor in Ontario. French colossal fossil TotalÉnergies set aside its happy talk about a green transition to buy a larger share of the Fort Hills oilsands megaproject, and Imperial Oil announced that Canada’s biggest renewable diesel plant in Edmonton would produce 20,000 barrels per day after seeing its expected cost rise from C$500 to $720 million.
The Colorado River faced epic drought, Auckland faced torrential rains, and memories of killer floods in Nigeria didn’t stop its leading presidential candidates from dismissing the reality of the climate emergency. Veteran climate hawk Bill McKibben said seniors are ready to vote climate, Americans were more concerned about “carbon pollution” than “emissions”, and sustainability professionals faced the new risk of “greenhushing”.
Two big energy companies wanted to develop the same patch of land in the North Sea—renewables leader Ørsted for a massive wind farm and colossal fossil BP for carbon capture and storage. Kinder Morgan, the Texas-based company that sold Canadian taxpayers the Trans Mountain pipeline, saw U.S. tax credits speeding up its investments in “renewable” natural gas and carbon sequestration. The U.S. fossil industry fretted about security threats, physical and cyber, Texas environmentalists asked for federal help after state agencies failed them on methane controls, Exxon said it planned to stop routine gas flaring in Texas’ Permian Basin, and U.S. President Joe Biden issued more oil and gas permits than Donald Trump in his first two years in office.
Europe’s biggest pension funds warned banks to stop funding fossil fuel projects and analysts at E3G urged the EU to deal with the financial risks of climate change. The United Kingdom set aside £600 million for the switch to green steel, EU countries were counting firewood in their “bloated” renewable energy statistics, Germany admitted it had a long way to go to get free of Russian gas, and a new program looked to boost renewable energy manufacturing in Africa.
Portugal and Cape Verde agreed to swap international debt for climate action, Amazon defender Marina Silva returned to her previous job as Brazil’s new environment minister, and the new Giving to Amplify Earth Action (GAEA) looked to unlock US$3 trillion for climate and nature. East Anglia peatlands were leaking carbon, and DeSmog UK traced the “vicious cycle” between fossil-derived pesticides and climate change.
U.S. utility Xcel Energy planned to install two long-duration iron-oxide batteries at former coal plants in Minnesota and Colorado. The country’s biggest municipal utility in San Antonio, TX set a 2030 deadline to quit coal, and New York City planned to repower an old fossil plant with offshore wind. A research team said geothermal was ready to solve Texas’ epic problems with grid reliability, at 43% less cost if it drew expertise from the oil drilling industry, and a separate team said geothermal could turn abandoned wells in Illinois into a giant battery. Solar emerged as the best path for Puerto Rico to deliver clean, reliable energy, and CBC said the Caribbean island’s disintegrating power grid made a Canadian utility executive a contender for Puerto Rico’s most hated man. Reliability problems forced Bangladesh to embrace coal over renewables, and Tesla’s battery deployments increased 64% last year.
Jordan contended with electric vehicle battery recycling, a copper mine in Arizona was a threat to Indigenous land, and thermal storage—using blocks of ice for backup air conditioning—looked ready for prime time. California wanted four gigawatts of new wind and solar, and distributed solar delivered a record 25 GW in Spain last year
