Welcome to Greenify! Subscribe now and thank us later for not missing the most insightful information on the booming #GreenTransition!
Please help us improve by leaving a comment or feedback, and if you like what you are learning… share it with your network 😁!
📌 Fact of the week
Researchers at the University of Melbourne came up with the world’s first direct air electrolyzer which makes hydrogen from humidity.
Hottest news of the week…
Regulation 🗃 – How is Germany splitting the 200bn euros?
What happened: The German government has provided more details on its 200bn euro subsidy pack which we discussed in Greenify #31. It will be divided in 3 steps… 1) It will pay the December gas bill for everyone. 2) Starting in spring, it will subsidize 80% of consumers’ gas bills and 70% of corporates’ gas bills at EUR 12 kw/h and EUR 7 kw/h respectively. 3) It will soon develop a separate package for large gas consumers in heavy industry.💸
Zoom out: Suddenly in Germany gas rebecame attractive. Back to cheap gas thanks to this measure, gas demand in the winter most probably won’t take the expected hit. This is clearly good news for consumers and corporates as increased cost of living keeps ruining peoples’ wallets; on the flip side, however, this supportive measure might penalize further deployment and growth of renewable solutions. 🤔
Business 💰 – A nuclear revival?
What happened: Westinghouse Electric, a nuclear power company that makes technologies for half of the 440 world’s nuclear reactors, has been acquired by Brookfield Renewable Partners and Cameco for $4.5B. The new owners will also have to repay the $3.4B of existing debt, bringing the total expenditure to $7.9B. This large investment signals high expectations for the nuclear sector in the years ahead, driven by the increasing climate and energy security’s concerns ⁉️
Zoom out: While the benefits of nuclear in cutting emissions have been known for long, its role in increasing energy security has become more popular recently. In fact, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting missing supply of natural gas, the nuclear debate has regained a central role in many countries. The German phase out from nuclear (decided before the conflict) is being challenged fiercely, while France decided to build new 14 reactors by 2050! Also in Italy, where the discussion has been considered dead and buried, some politicians are back discussing nuclear plants feasibility! 😮
Innovation 💡 - AI renovating our buildings!
What happened: The department of Civil and Environmental engineering at the University of Stanford carried out an experiment which could prove revolutionary in reducing buildings’ emissions. Using remotely sensed data such as street view and aerial imagery, it is able to estimate energy efficiency of different buildings. The study was performed on 40,000 buildings in the UK. 🏠
Zoom out: Buildings are extremely bad in the context of CO2; the IEA estimates that operating buildings (heating, cooking etc.) accounts for c.30% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The good news is these type of technologies can be helpful in addressing this specific problem in two ways: 1) they reduce costs associated to carry out “due diligence” on different buildings to understand how energy efficient they are, and 2) they could directly identify the worst buildings from an efficiency perspective: these, in turn, would be perfect retrofit targets where massive energy savings could be made. 👍
Deep dives of the week…
Graph of the week - Renewables overtake Oil & Gas!
For the first time ever, capital investments in renewable projects have surpassed those into Oil&Gas extractions, reaching a record of almost half a trillion dollars! Both solar and wind have contributed to this overtake! Now it is time to see the black line showing O&G investment to start falling… drastically!
Company of the week - Bluapple, no more rotten food! 🥑
If you’ve ever been worried about the food in your fridge expiring and leaving smell of rotten, then Bluapple is for you. Founded in the U.S. in 2009, Bluapple developed a product (yes, it’s the blue apple in the picture) whose embedded technology works by trapping the ethylene gas released by your produce, slowing down the spoiling process. This way, your food remains fresh for much longer and total waste can be reduced! 🍏
Comment of the week – Hydrogen: where are we at? 🤔
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has recently published its “Global hydrogen review” for 2022. We thought it would be useful to show you their key findings!
Positive signals 💪
Hydrogen demand for new applications grew by 60% from 2020, although starting from a very low base
The pipeline of projects for the production of low-emissions hydrogen is growing at an impressive speed, and we could reach 16-24 million tonnes (Mt) by 2030
With today’s fossil fuels prices, green hydrogen is already cost competitive with the one coming from fossil fuels in various regions
An international trade market for hydrogen is being implemented, with first shipments of liquefied hydrogen taking place!
IEA estimates that reconverting natural gas pipelines to welcome hydrogen would cut costs up to 80% compared to building new pipelines. Similarly, converting LNG terminals to receive ammonia or liquefied hydrogen would be cheaper than building new terminals
Crude Reality 😬
Production of low-emissions hydrogen was less than 1 Mt in 2021, a fraction of the 94 Mt of total hydrogen demand
We should be using 200Mt of Hydrogen, of which 100Mt low-emissions, by 2030 to be on track with net zero by 2050… unfortunately the IEA estimates we will only reach 115Mt, of which only 16-24Mt low-emissions!
Despite the various low-emissions hydrogen projects at advanced planning stages, only 4% are actually being implemented, with the causes being uncertainty over demand, lack of regulatory framework and infrastructure
What the IEA recommends🤓
Governments need to introduce policies to reduce risk and improve economic feasibility for low emission hydrogen, starting from implementing instruments to boost demand
Ensure infrastructure built for short-term purposes are able to be reconverted to welcome hydrogen
Develop international standards for low-emissions hydrogen, essential to create a global hydrogen marker
Now that you have the key takeaways, go read their report if you are brave enough!
👋 See you next Friday, for the best sum up of this coming week!
If you enjoyed this edition, help us grow by liking this post, and share it with your network!