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 stories that were fit to print but didn’t fit the page.
The world’s biggest fossil producers were selling assets to meet their climate goals but letting their emissions rise, a study said fossils owed $209 billion per year in reparations, and New Jersey turned to anti-mobster laws to prosecute fossil companies. Climate risk to species around the world was rising abruptly, researchers introduced the world’s first Global Primate Roadkill Database, and orcas began teaching each other to attack small boats, possibly as revenge for past injuries.
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Climate change intensified Asia’s April heat wave by 2°C, and outdoor labourers in India were particularly vulnerable to high heat. Torrential rains on top of the country’s worst drought in four decades forced 250,000 people from their homes in Somalia, South Africa braced for more frequent blackouts this winter, and climate change was on track to force 113 million Africans to migrate by 2050. Climate change was bringing big changes to farming for rice, a basic foodstuff that half the world depends on, and hotter nights were making it harder to sleep.
Calgary earned praise for its downtown revitalization plan but faced some of the world’s worst air quality due to a rash of early wildfires that could drag on all summer. The Calgary Stampeders delayed their first pre-season game as a result. Much of the west faced similar smoky conditions, and 16 evacuation orders had 10,872 Albertans out of their homes. Alberta took fire of a different sort for cutting one of the world’s best wildfire management programs by nearly $15 million, while wildland fires more than doubled since the 1970s. Alberta Indigenous communities faced the emotional roller coaster of wildfire risk, a fire was still burning near the Kátł’odeeche First Nation and Hay River, NWT, beekeepers and conservationists fretted about the fires’ impact on pollinators, an out-of-control fire in Kootenay National Park was still growing, a new fire in British Columbia’s Cariboo Region had the Blueberry River First Nations and the Doig First Nation under evacuation alert, crews were fighting to contain a fire in Wood Buffalo National Park, and a father-and-son team in Saskatchewan saved their cabin with nothing more than shovels, gasoline and their combined 64 years of wildfire experience.
Climate hawks noted that very little news coverage of a freakishly early fire season made any reference to climate change. Quebec set a 2030 target date to reduce its climate pollution by 60%.
The Biden administration and state authorities reached a temporary water conservation deal to reduce demand on the endangered Colorado River, and fracking companies in Colorado doubled their water use in a megadrought despite reduced drilling and production activities. The trendy ones at the annual Burning Man celebration, an annual event “focused on community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance,” mobilized against a proposed geothermal plant. The Mountain Valley Pipeline received a key permit in Virginia, an Appalachian community in east-central Ohio celebrated and mourned the death of its coal plant, the massive Tennessee Valley Authority dumped coal but opted for gas plants over renewables, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new emissions rule was expected to have little impact on carbon capture and storage or hydrogen projects. The White House pushed to repeal $31 billion in oil and gas subsidies over the next decade and launched $11 billion in rural clean energy programs, and new methane controls were expected to generate thousands of jobs in Texas.
Biden had a plan to get more transmission lines in place to carry renewable power, and California unveiled a $7.3-billion plan of its own. U.S. utility giant AES wanted 30 gigawatts of new renewables by 2027, utility Duke Energy planned a $145-billion clean energy investment, rooftop solar giant Sunrun expected to install a gigawatt of new capacity this year, renewables developer Invenergy and a Chinese partner looked to build America’s biggest solar factory, SPI Energy planned to create 300 jobs with a 3-GW solar wafer plant in South Carolina, Italian multinational Enel earmarked more than $1 billion for a solar panel plant in Oklahoma, and Rep. John Curtis (R-UT) was happy to take advantage of a climate bill he didn’t support when it came time to buy 30 rooftop panels and a heat pump for his own home in Provo.
A study said rooftop solar could power one-third of U.S. manufacturing, the Silicon Valley Bank reappeared to help fund a 100-MW community solar portfolio, recycling emerged as a part of the solar cell supply chain, robots looked like an opportunity to speed up solar farm construction while keeping workers safe, and a large solar farm was set to replace Western Pennsylvania’s biggest waste coal pile. Virtual power plants were set to save U.S. utilities up to $35 billion by 2033, a U.S. trade group said offshore wind companies had more than 51 GW on the way, onshore wind capacity in Netherlands topped 6 GW in 2022, and activists targeted cryptocurrency for its outsized climate impact.
Toronto-based Li-Cycle and mining giant Glencore planned a battery recycling plant in Italy, Hungary earmarked €155 million for storage projects, and Indonesia turned to a hazardous technology to mine nickel for electric vehicles. Sweden approved two offshore wind farms totalling 16 gigawatts that will generate as much power as a large nuclear plant. Scientists said small modular nuclear reactors will produce more nuclear waste than their backers might like, Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear plant was a $35-billion boondoggle, and Finland’s highly-touted Olkiluoto 3 nuclear plant had to cut back its output because of low electricity prices. Manufacturing powerhouse Jinko Solar expected to ship 70 GW of solar panels this year, the UAE’s Masdar said it added 20 GW of clean energy capacity last year, Thailand planned 10 GW of floating solar by 2037, Ireland awarded contracts for 3 GW of offshore wind, Chile announced an 863-MW wind/solar development, and Danish wind pioneer Henrik Stiesdal was still inventing and innovating 50 years later. The Philippines built the world’s biggest floating solar farm, Iran’s renewable energy capacity grew 2% in a month, Burundi’s first utility-scale solar plant met 10% of its power demand.
Australia cancelled two coal mines and approved one. The state of Western Australia unveiled a massive renewables plan, the country’s Northern Territory announced a new fracking project in the Beetaloo Basin, Italian multinational fossil Eni planned a “carbon bomb” gas project off the Australian coast, and the massive Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro storage project was pushed back to 2029 as its costs continued to “blow out”.
Zimbabwe moved to take control of its carbon credit market., and Alaska angled for carbon credits while planning to extract more oil and gas. Climate shocks were on track to push three million Brazilians into extreme poverty. Brazil blocked a controversial offshore oil project near the mouth of the Amazon River, reduced deforestation by 64% in April, returned 800 square miles of Indigenous land to its original caretakers, and saw panel manufacturer Sengi Solar sign a green hydrogen deal with the state of Parana. Zero-deforestation deals signed by the world’s biggest slaughterhouses were actually working, Ecuador boosted protection of the Galápagos with the biggest debt-for-nature deal ever, new research shone a light on the importance of kelp, organic farming was a post-typhoon lifeline for a Philippines community. The UN Environment Programme said the world could reduce plastic pollution 80% by 2040, and the UN Development Program introduced a climate dictionary.
