Storms batter the world’s power grids

Traffic is directed around a downed power line in Houston, Tuesday, July 9, 2024. After Hurricane Beryl slammed into Texas, knocking out power to nearly 3 million homes and businesses it moved east and weakened to a tropical depression. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

This Week in Cleantech is a new, weekly podcast covering the most impactful stories in cleantech and climate in 15 minutes or less. Produced by Renewable Energy World and Tigercomm, This Week in Cleantech will air every Friday in the Factor This! podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts.

This week’s episode features Heatmap writer Katie Brigham, who reported on rising interest in sodium-ion batteries as an alternative to lithium-ion.

This week’s “Cleantecher of the Week” is Scott Wopata of the Rice County Community Action Center. This community offers net-zero housing for people experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity. They have an innovative wall design that delivers over a 60% reduction in energy use.

1. A Seismic Supreme Court Decision — New York Times

On June 28th, the Supreme Court overturned Chevron deference, a precedent that guided courts to defer to federal agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, in interpreting unclear laws. With this ruling, courts will no longer defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of the laws they administer and instead will rely just on the statutory text passed by Congress.

This decision could weaken some EPA rules on pollution limits, toxic chemical regulations, and climate change policies. The New York Times asked climate and legal experts about this decision, and most were concerned that this will impede the agencies from enforcing environmental protections and ultimately harm Americans’ health.

2. Climate Change Leaves World’s Electricity Networks Unable to Cope — Bloomberg

Last week, Hurricane Beryl left millions of Texans without power. This trend of extreme weather events causing blackouts has continued across the globe, showing how our electrical grid can’t keep up with increasing climate change impacts. 

The climate was different when most of the grid was built. Now, we have to expand the grid to accommodate for higher temperatures and more frequent extreme weather events. To meet net-zero goals by 2050, our friends at BNEF estimates the world will spend $24 trillion on grid expansions.

But “reconductoring”, or upgrading the grid rather than building new, could cut the amount of new power lines we need by up to 80%, and reconductoring projects typically cost less than half the price of new lines.

3. Biden faces criticism over his gas car ban. But he doesn’t have one — NPR

The Biden administration hasn’t banned gas-powered vehicles, but Midwestern states are still seeing ads by a trade group called The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, criticizing this alleged prohibition. These ads have been viewed over 27 million times so far.

Trump and fossil fuel groups are also warning swing states of this ban that doesn’t exist. Spreading these false claims may sway swing state voters on Election Day. Earlier this year, the EPA did set new tailpipe pollution standards, projecting a reduction in carbon dioxide pollution by seven billion tons. But this is nowhere near an outright ban.

Climate and energy group Climate Power argues that Biden‘s fuel economy rules actually increase consumer choice for vehicles because it makes EVs more widely available. 

4. This climate tech startup wants to capture carbon and help data centers cool down  — The Verge 

Data centers suck up lots of energy, increasing their carbon footprints. Startup 280 Earth just signed a $40 million agreement to capture CO2 pollution from the air using power from the waste heat of data centers.

This tech works more efficiently than other direct air capture technologies. Other DAC tech works in batches, meaning they lose energy from reheating, cooling and pressure changes of absorbent materials. 280 Earth’s carbon capture tech works continuously, eliminating that energy loss. And its sorbents can operate at low temperatures, eliminating the high energy demand other DAC’s need to heat filters. 

But, these new carbon capture technologies have yet to be proven at scale and they are expensive right now.

Watch the full episode on YouTube

5. Is Sodium-Ion the Next Big Battery? — Heatmap

With global lithium-ion supply outpacing demand and costs declining 97% over the past three decades, the battery technology is often an easy and cheap choice. However, China currently controls over half of the world’s lithium processing and the majority of global lithium-ion battery production.

This situation has U.S. manufacturers looking for a domestic alternative to lithium-ion batteries. Sodium-ion batteries have emerged as a contender for that role. Sodium-ion batteries have similar performance compared to their lithium-ion counterparts, and sodium is much easier to source in the U.S., resulting in a lower price.

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a research and consulting firm, projects a 350% increase in sodium-ion battery manufacturing capacity in 2023.

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Join us every Friday for new episodes of This Week in Cleantech in the Factor This! podcast feed, and tune into new episodes of Factor This! every Monday.

This Week in Cleantech is hosted by Renewable Energy World senior content director John Engel and Tigercomm president Mike Casey. The show is produced by Brian Mendes with research support from Alex Petersen and Clare Quirin.

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