Greenify #84: Wind, oil & batteries
October 27, 2023
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📌 Fact of the week
Brazil’s Petrobras will use 175,000 carbon credits it purchased to render carbon neutral around a year's worth supply of its premium gasoline.
Hottest news of the week…
Regulation 🗃 – EU rescuing the wind industry
What happened: The European Commission has unveiled a European Wind Power Action Plan to incentivize the development of new wind farms and maintain Europe's global leadership in the wind industry. The plan includes measures to increase financial support via export credit agencies and the European Investment Bank. Additional measures include: expediting project permitting to add 37 GW of wind power per year, focusing on workforce re-skilling, and an EU wind charter treaty.🌬️
Zoom out: This incentive plan was much needed and expected as the European wind industry has been facing challenges over the past years. In fact, the EU is currently behind its target of reaching over 500 GW of wind capacity by 2030, having only 204 GW in 2022. These delays are due to a variety of factors, including complicated permit procedures and difficulties in obtaining raw materials and skilled labor. These issues are impacting the sector’s profitability and therefore mining the deployment of new wind farms. The plan has been very welcomed by major stakeholders! 👌
Business 💰 – Another Oil and Gas
What happened: Chevron has agreed to buy oil producer Hess for $53 billion. This deal testifies, once again, how oil majors are betting on the resilience of oil and gas demand over the coming decades. Specifically, the deal will increase Chevron’s presence in offshore oil, thanks to Hess’ assets in Guyana. The deal, pending regulatory approval, is set to close in the first half of 2024. 🕰️
Zoom out: Oil and gas took centre stage in the last four months, as rising prices and massive M&A drew investors’ attention to the space. Two weeks ago, we spoke about ExxonMobil’s deal with Pioneer Natural Resources worth $60 billion, this week Chevron responded with a $53 billion deal. Consolidation in the industry is happening fast, as the big majors rotate cash generated from abnormal profits in the last two years into valuable assets, which offer access to new oil fields and ultimately increase their pricing power. 🤑
Innovation 💡 - Discovering thermal batteries
What happened: Antora Energy is leading the way within the thermal-batteries space. The California based start-up is planning to build its first large scale manufacturing plant in San Jose, California. Heat batteries essentially store renewable energy as heat, which is then used to power, in Antora’s case, the manufacture of industrial products. In some cases, thermal batteries can reach temperatures above 1,800 degrees Celsius.🔥
Zoom out: Industrial heat accounts for about 20% of all global energy demand. Industrial production of materials like cement require burning fossil fuels (gas, coal) at sintering temperatures which can sometimes exceed 1,500 degrees Celsius. Heat batteries are a relatively new technology, which can also be employed in other contexts such as home heat storage, where they can be used in place of hot water tanks. 💧
Deep dives of the week…
Chart of the week - 50 years of energy evolution🥇
Nothing explains better how the world’s energy consumption has changed over the past 50 years than the chart below. As we can see, the share of renewables in both energy supply and electricity generation has increased exponentially. However, as total demand for energy and electricity has also increased, consumption of fossil fuels has skyrocketed.
This reminds us that in order to abate fossil fuel consumption, renewables’ output must increase at a greater rate than total energy demand, otherwise we will keep burning more and more fossil fuels as we have done over the past 50 years.
Deal of the week - Eavor technologies: the efficient geo-thermal company ❄️
This week we talk about Eavor Technolgies, an innovative company in the Geo-thermal space. The company has patented Eavor-Loop™, a technology which consists in a closed-loop system that harnesses underground drilled passages and a benign working fluid to access the Earth's natural heat, providing a consistent and resilient source of clean energy. (See below for an interactive picture of the Eavor Loop)
This innovative approach boasts a reduced environmental impact compared to traditional geothermal systems, making geothermal energy more accessible, scalable, and cost-effective.
The company has just secured $182 million in funding to expedite the advancement and implementation of their ground breaking geothermal technology.
👋 See you next Friday, for the best sum up of this coming week!
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