Green Energy

Australia has a moment-in-time opportunity to develop a sovereign sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) industry, with domestic demand for jet fuel expected to increase by 75% by 2050, according to a new roadmap released today by Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO and Boeing Australia. Unlike conventional jet fuel, SAF is produced from renewable sources—like agricultural waste, animal fats and vegetable oils—and significantly reduces carbon emissions over the fuel’s life-cycle making it a more sustainable alternative for powering aircraft. The Sustainable Aviation Fuel Roadmap builds consensus on developing an Australian sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) industry, identifying opportunities to produce and scale production using Australian feedstocks. CSIRO Senior Manager and lead Roadmap author, Max Temminghoff, said Australia was in a prime position to develop a domestic industry. “By actively working to liberate feedstocks, the roadmap estimates that Australia is currently sitting on enough resources to produce almost 5 billion liters of SAF by 2025. This could supply nearly 60% of jet fuel demand projected for that year,” Temminghoff said. “That’s enough fuel to power 640,000 Melbourne to Sydney return flights on a Boeing 737. “Through a combination of feedstocks and mature technologies, a large and growing portion of Australia’s jet fuel demand can be met with local materials such as agricultural waste and residues. “To convert these feedstocks into viable jet fuel, the report identifies the Alcohol-to-Jet and the Fischer-Tropsch process—a process currently conducted at CSIRO’s Perth laboratory—as ideal technology options to propel a sovereign SAF industry. “But Australian government, industry and research must work together to overcome key challenges to realize the economic and sustainability benefits of a domestic SAF industry.” The challenges that the Australian SAF industry must address include feedstock availability, supply chain constraints, and aligning to international standards and regulation. The roadmap points to biogenic materials in the near term, such as sugarcane, sawmill residues, and municipal solid waste, as well as hydrogen and CO2 in the medium to long term, as key feedstocks. Boeing Regional Sustainability Lead APAC and Roadmap co-author, Heidi Hauf, said the findings highlighted that a local SAF industry will contribute to decarbonization and energy security while also generating more regional jobs and new export markets. “The report identified the role the Australian Defense Force could play in kickstarting Australia’s SAF industry and also addressing Australian fuel security challenges,” Hauf said. “Currently, Australia imports 90% of its liquid fuel, including jet fuel, through long supply chains exposed to geopolitical and climate change risks, and delays associated with quality issues, placing the country in a vulnerable position when it comes to jet fuel security. “With alternative technologies such as battery and fuel-cell powered planes still limited in long haul capabilities and the increasing competition for carbon offsets, SAF offers the largest potential for reduced aviation emissions in the near-term.” CSIRO Energy Director Dr. Dietmar Tourbier said the roadmap aligns with the Federal Government’s recently established Jet Zero Council—of which CSIRO and Boeing are members—and supports the commercial aviation industry’s commitment to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. “The roadmap is part of the critical work CSIRO is undertaking to support Australia’s hardest to abate sectors to halve their emissions by 2035, and forms part of our Towards Net Zero Mission,” Tourbier said. Together, Boeing and CSIRO have a 34-year collaboration on joint research projects which has led to significant aerospace advances, including a focus on scaling SAF production across the region. “While further technology development is expected to lead to fully synthetic fuels, biofuel is a critical component to help Australia advance its net zero ambitions now,” Tourbier said. “With the rest of the world transitioning to SAF, Australia should not miss out on the opportunity to become a major player in this space.”

Life and the auto industry have taught us many things, and one of the significant teachings is that there’s no free lunch. The push towards electric vehicles (EVs) is a remarkable step towards a cleaner future, but it comes with costs and concerns that must be addressed. Like any individual, what’s on the outside may not be what’s in the heart. So, let’s look at the heart of EVs—the battery.

The Environmental Paradox of EVs

The allure of electric vehicles lies in their promise of a cleaner, more sustainable driving experience. We promote it, sell it, and talk to our customers about it. But, like most things in life, this promise has its challenges. Though driving these vehicles may be clean, producing them is one of the dirtiest processes and requires fossil fuel to power it.

The complexity of EV battery technology, coupled with the difficulties in lithium mining and the ecological disadvantages in production, paints a more nuanced picture of the so-called ‘clean energy’ revolution. The mining process not only takes a toll on the environment but also on the workers involved.

The human cost in the lithium mines includes hazardous working conditions, long hours, and, in some regions, inadequate compensation. This adds another layer of complexity to the ethical considerations surrounding the adoption and promotion of electric vehicles.

The Promise and Challenges of Battery Life

When it comes to selling EVs, battery life is often at the forefront of customer concerns. With most new BEVs, their batteries offer substantial ICE comparable driving ranges. But understanding the factors that affect battery longevity is vital to addressing customer queries.

Charging Times: With the advent of fast-charging stations, EVs can be charged in a fraction of the time it once took. Dealers must be aware of the availability and compatibility of charging options for different models.

Battery Degradation: Over time, the capacity of a battery diminishes. Providing customers with accurate information about maintaining battery health can foster trust and satisfaction.

Recycling and Disposal: The disposal of an EV battery is a complex process, and, as we’ve reported here, few have been recycled. As these batteries contain harmful substances, proper recycling and disposal are vital. The burgeoning recycling industry is seeking ways to repurpose and reuse these materials, but it’s a complex field that requires strict regulation and innovative thinking. It’s good that OEMs like VW are taking the lead on recycling, but it’s still a work in progress.

Lithium Mining’s Environmental Impact: The extraction of lithium, a key component in EV batteries, comes with significant ecological disadvantages. Mining operations can lead to soil, water, and air pollution. Balancing the demand for lithium with responsible mining practices is a global challenge that the auto industry must grapple with.

Fossil Fuels in Manufacturing: Despite the clean driving experience, the production of EVs requires substantial energy, often derived from fossil fuels. This paradox underlines the importance of ongoing innovation to reduce the environmental impact of manufacturing.

A Balanced Perspective

The electrification of the auto industry offers exciting possibilities for a cleaner future but also brings forth complex challenges. As dealerships navigate this new landscape, a balanced understanding of EV technology, including its innovations and imperfections. Educating customers will also go a long way toward increasing customer loyalty.

As we move towards greener transportation, the industry must confront not only the technological hurdles but also the ecological and ethical considerations. From mining practices to manufacturing processes, each step toward an electric future comes with responsibilities.

Life teaches us that every reward has its costs, and the EV revolution is no exception. Pursuing cleaner driving must match a commitment to responsible production, transparent communication, and thoughtful innovation. Only then can the promise of electric mobility be fully realized without hidden costs overshadowing its potential.

As drought settled in over the Pacific Northwest this year, some electric utility managers did something unusual: They looked to California for hydropower.

While the Golden State’s reservoirs retained an abundant supply of water after an abnormally wet winter, in Washington, the nation’s leading producer of hydropower, some systems saw less water than expected.

The hydropower variability this year represents one example of some of the changes the country can expect in a warming world, according to a new report from Stanford researchers.

The report challenges the notion that hydropower will carry the Northwest into its clean energy future. Instead, it found that as climate change has driven worsening drought in the Western U.S., utility operators have increased electricity generation from fossil fuels.

The report suggests that without meaningful modeling for climate change in energy resource planning, the West will be ill-prepared to meet demand and its ambitious clean-energy goals.

At the turn of the 20th century, settlers encroached on Indigenous people’s homelands of the West and began building dams to make rivers run like machines—a series of stagnant pools and turbines. Dams transformed the free-flowing freshwater highways that once supported abundant salmon runs, lamprey and other life. They were harnessed to instead light up homes and businesses, and fire up lumber, pulp and paper mills.

In 2022, hydropower accounted for 67% of Washington’s energy generation. But many of the pieces of these dammed rivers are approaching or have passed their 100th birthdays and some operators are faced with expensive upgrades and with choices about their future. For some utilities, the benefits of removal outweigh the costs of keeping them running.

Since 2000, the Western U.S. has seen record-breaking droughts and a decline in total runoff coming through the region’s dammed rivers. In times of drought, utilities have fired up coal and gas facilities, driving up greenhouse gas emissions, and increasing methane leaks and air quality-related deaths, Stanford researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in July.

The decline in hydropower generation in the Western U.S. led to an extra 121 million metric tons of carbon emissions from 2001 to 2021. Electricity generation from fossil fuel plants was 35% higher in the driest months in California. In the Northwest, that generation crept up about 11% in the driest months.

In 2019, for example, Washington’s greenhouse gas emissions reached their highest levels in over a decade. That largely stemmed from a higher reliance on fossil fuels—mainly coal and natural gas—for electricity because of poor hydropower production, according to the state. The state electricity sector’s emissions rose from 16.5 million metric tons in 2018 to 21.9 million metric tons in 2019, the equivalent of adding more than 1 million gas-powered cars on the road.

This, the researchers found, is an unaccounted cost of climate change, one that amounted to $20 billion in the Western U.S. from 2001 to 2021. Greenhouse gas emissions from these power plants, researchers suggest, cost $14 billion, while deaths associated with pollution accounted for $5.1 billion and methane leaks were responsible for just under $1 billion, according to the study.

Even when up and running at full speed, hydropower isn’t carbon neutral. Reservoirs of all sorts are sources of the potent greenhouse-gas methane. The gas is produced by decomposing organic material underwater.

The Northwest isn’t experiencing anything like the bathtub rings on the drought-stricken Colorado River. But hydropower, like wind and solar, depends on the weather. Sometimes that makes for swings in power supply, but it often won’t hit all of the West’s major hydropower systems at one time.

“What this study shows is that there is just this increasing vulnerability of the hydropower systems that we need to account for in the energy-grid transitions,” said lead researcher Minghao Qiu.

For some Washington utilities, the current drought is a reminder of what’s to come.

Seattle City Light relies on hydropower for more than three-quarters of its electricity generation, with about half coming from its dams on the Skagit River and Boundary Dam on the Pend Oreille River. Much of the rest is purchased from the Bonneville Power Administration, which sells the power generated from the dams in the Columbia River Basin.

“If you just flicked up the data back in March, snowpack would be pretty good,” said Mike Haynes, interim general manager at Seattle City Light.

Then, Haynes said, the runoff came hard and fast. It was abnormally hot in May and June and it’s been dry ever since, so a lot of the precipitation didn’t make it into Ross Lake, the utility’s largest reservoir, he said.

Utilities including City Light and BPA historically relied on data spanning from the 1920s as the baseline for power generation. But as the regional climate continues to warm, older data becomes less relevant.

Bonneville is now using the three most recent decades of hydrologic data to inform future generation estimates. The federal agency noted that the effects of climate change felt in the Pacific Northwest include warming, earlier spring snowmelt, higher winter and early spring flows, earlier spring runoff and longer periods of low summer flows.

As Puget Sound Energy builds its clean energy portfolio to meet Washington’s target of nearly carbon-free electricity generation by 2045, it’s factoring in the need for backup generation from other renewables, namely solar and wind. Currently, the investor-owned utility gets about half of its electricity from coal and gas power plants. PSE serves 1.2 million electric customers and 850,000 natural gas customers, mostly in northwest Washington. In 2020, the utility relied on coal and natural gas for half of its electricity generation.

Hydropower has always been variable, largely at the whims of rainfall and snowpack, said Elizabeth Hossner, manager of resource planning and analysis at PSE. But the utility is planning for more hydropower generation in the winter, lower generation in the summer and a need to ensure there’s more water stored in reservoirs.

“We’re paying close attention to climate as a whole,” Haynes said. “And just challenging all of our historic assumptions and trying to remind people it’s not always the way it’s been, that is not always the way it’s going to happen going forward.”

For some, hydropower’s renewable value is often eclipsed by its effects on salmon recovery.

“How are we looking at energy into the future?” Nez Perce Chair Shannon Wheeler said. “Are we just looking at it from an economic standpoint? Are we looking at it from a holistic view? Both the damage that is caused through emissions or through the hydro system that is causing environmental issues for the salmon themselves.”

The number of local zoning ordinances governing renewable energy deployment is growing in the United States, according to new research by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The amount of land available to deploy renewables depends on the characteristics of the ordinances.

“It’s important to understand the types of ordinances in effect, specifically setback ordinances, or the required distance from a specific feature like a house,” said Anthony Lopez, lead author of a newly published paper that describes the research. “Setback ordinances determine how much land is available for deployment and how much wind and solar resource we have to decarbonize our energy system.”

The impact of setback ordinances has not traditionally been captured in large-scale resource assessments because it requires highly detailed modeling and hyperlocal data. As a result, previous assessments have likely overestimated the amount of land available to renewables and, in turn, underestimated the cost and challenges of achieving high levels of deployment.

State and local zoning laws and ordinances influence how and where a developer can site and deploy new wind and solar projects, supporting the sustainable and responsible development of renewable energy projects. For example, ordinances can establish standards for sound limits and setback distances to ensure the well-being of local citizens. Ordinances can also protect the natural habitats and species where renewable energy projects are deployed and ensure efficient, sustainable use of land resources.

In many places in the United States, zoning ordinances at the county and township level need to be enacted before a large-scale solar or wind facility can be constructed on private land. In these local jurisdictions, decisions are typically made by elected officials following public meetings and input from local citizens and other interested parties.

The NREL study identified 1,853 local wind ordinances in effect during 2022 compared to 286 in 2018. The most common types of ordinances were related to setbacks from structures, roads, and property lines; noise levels; and wind turbine heights.

A first-of-its-kind companion survey of regulations related to the development of utility-scale solar identified 839 ordinances in effect during 2022. The complete findings appear in the Nature Energy article titled, “Impact of Siting Ordinances on Land Availability for Wind and Solar Development.”

“The increase in local zoning ordinances is a sign that the renewable energy industry is maturing,” Lopez said. “Ordinances can provide a structured approach to thoughtfully weave clean energy infrastructure into society and our natural environments.”

Setback distances within the identified zoning ordinances vary considerably across jurisdictions. For wind, the setback is typically determined by a multiplier of the wind turbine’s total height, and for solar, the setback is typically a fixed distance. Researchers found wind and solar resource could be as much as 87% and 38% lower, respectively, under the strictest setback scenario compared to a baseline that does not account for setback ordinances.

Under the most permissive scenario that does not account for setbacks and only excludes legally protected areas and land that is unsuitable for development (because of wetlands, infrastructure, high elevations, or other issues), there is the technical potential of 147 terawatts of solar capacity and 14 terawatts of wind capacity—more than enough to decarbonize the nation’s energy system.

If communities across the country enact setback distances in the 50th percentile, the potential would be lower: 121 terawatts for solar and 4 terawatts for wind. If communities enact the strictest setback distances, the potential for solar could decrease to 91 terawatts and wind to 2 terawatts. That is still enough wind and solar potential to decarbonize the energy system, but the quality and cost of the remaining wind and solar resources will determine how much they are leveraged in the pursuit of decarbonization.

The results indicate that local land use and community considerations play a significant role in U.S. decarbonization and should therefore be accurately reflected in modeling and analysis.

“It’s really important that we understand the impacts of renewable development on communities and provide information that helps them develop ordinances that balance regulation of the real impacts of renewable energy development while enabling deployment and the benefits of that deployment,” Lopez said.

Lopez’s co-authors, all from NREL, are Wesley Cole, Brian Sergi, Aaron Levine, Jesse Carey, Cailee Mangan, Trieu Mai, Travis Williams, Pavlo Pinchuk, and Jianyu Gu.

Vast arrays of solar panels floating on calm seas near the Equator could provide effectively unlimited solar energy to densely populated countries in Southeast Asia and West Africa. Our new research shows offshore solar in Indonesia alone could generate about 35,000 terawatt-hours (TWh) of solar energy a year, which is similar to current global electricity production (30,000TWh per year). And while most of the world’s oceans experience storms, some regions at the Equator are relatively still and peaceful. So relatively inexpensive engineering structures could suffice to protect offshore floating solar panels. Our high-resolution global heat maps show the Indonesian archipelago and equatorial West Africa near Nigeria have the greatest potential for offshore floating solar arrays.

Solar power rules by mid-century

On current trends, the global economy will be largely decarbonized and electrified by 2050, supported by vast amounts of solar and wind energy. About 70 square kilometers of solar panels can provide all the energy requirements of a million affluent people in a zero-carbon economy. The panels can be placed on rooftops, in arid areas, co-located with agriculture, or floated on water bodies. But countries with high population densities, such as Nigeria and Indonesia, will have limited space for solar energy harvesting. Their tropical location in the so-called “doldrum” latitudes also means wind resources are poor. Fortunately, these countries—and their neighbors—can harvest effectively unlimited energy from solar panels floating on calm equatorial seas. Floating solar panels can also be placed on inland lakes and reservoirs. Inland floating solar has large potential and is already growing rapidly. Our recently released paper surveys the global oceans to find regions that didn’t experience large waves or strong winds over the past 40 years. Floating solar panels in such regions do not require strong and expensive engineering defenses. Regions that don’t experience waves larger than 6 meters nor winds stronger than 15m per second could generate up to one million TWh per year. That’s about five times more annual energy than is needed for a fully decarbonized global economy supporting 10 billion affluent people. Most of the good sites are close to the Equator, in and around Indonesia and equatorial west Africa. These are regions of high population growth and high environmental values. Marine floating solar panels could help resolve land use conflict.

Indonesia has vast solar energy potential

Indonesia is a densely populated country, particularly on the islands of Java, Bali and Sumatra. By mid-century, Indonesia’s population may exceed 315 million people. Fortunately, Indonesia has vast solar energy potential and also vast pumped hydro energy storage potential to store the solar energy overnight. About 25,000 square km of solar panels would be required to support an affluent Indonesia after full decarbonization of the economy using solar power. Indonesia has the option of floating vast numbers of solar panels on its calm inland seas. The region has about 140,000 square km of seascape that has not experienced waves larger than 4m—nor winds stronger than 10m per second—in the past 40 years. Indonesia’s maritime area of 6.4 million square km is 200 times larger than required if Indonesia’s entire future energy needs were met from offshore floating solar panels.

The future for offshore floating solar

Most of the global seascape experiences waves larger than 10m and winds stronger than 20m per second. Several companies are working to develop engineering defenses so offshore floating panels can tolerate storms. In contrast, benign maritime environments along the equator require much less robust and expensive defenses. We have found the most suitable regions cluster within 5–12 degrees of latitude of the Equator, principally in and around the Indonesian archipelago and in the Gulf of Guinea near Nigeria. These regions have low potential for wind generation, high population density, rapid growth (in both population and energy consumption) and substantial intact ecosystems that should not be cleared for solar farms. Tropical storms rarely impact equatorial regions. The offshore floating solar industry is in its infancy. Offshore solar panels do have downsides compared with onshore panels, including salt corrosion and marine fouling. Shallow seas are preferred for anchoring the panels to the seabed. And careful attention must be paid to minimizing damage to the marine environment and fishing. Global warming may also alter wind and wave patterns. Despite these challenges, we believe offshore floating panels will provide a large component of the energy mix for countries with access to calm equatorial seas. By mid-century, about a billion people in these countries will rely mostly on solar energy, which is causing the fastest energy change in history.

With air conditioner demand surging, scientists are looking for ways to improve the energy efficiency of cooling systems and limit damaging emissions that accelerate global warming.

Improve efficiency

Innovation is focused on three major fronts, with much of the attention on energy consumption. Air conditioning units account for six percent of electricity used in the United States.

Several breakthroughs have already cut power consumption by half since 1990, according to the US Department of Energy.

The most impactful was the so-called “inverter” technology, which makes it possible to modulate the motor’s speed instead of running it at 100 percent continuously.

Other new features include demand controlled ventilation (DCV), which relies on sensors to determine the number of people in the building and adjust airflows.

Different refrigerants

Another major area is the search for substitutes to the refrigerant gases used in most of the nearly two billion installed AC units, according to the International Energy Agency.

For decades, air conditioners almost exclusively ran on chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) or hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) gases, which are thought to be up to 10,000 times as bad as CO₂ in terms of global warming impact.

CFC and HCFC were banned under the Montreal Protocol, from 1987.

Then came hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are now scheduled to be phased out by 2050.

Factories and commercial buildings already use other gases, such as ammonia—which has no greenhouse gas impact—as well as hydrocarbons, mainly propane, whose emissions are lower than methane.

“In some countries, you’re starting to see hydrocarbon refrigerants,” mostly propane, “being used, but there are restrictions around how much quantity you can put into the system” because such gas is flammable, said Ankit Kalanki, manager at the Rocky Mountain Institute.

Mandatory safety features make for a “level of sophistication” with “a price premium that gets added to the units itself,” he added.

“And the residential air conditioning market tends to go towards the lowest first cost products, then the highest efficiency products.”

Some are trying to go gasless, like Pascal Technology, a Cambridge, Massachusetts startup, that’s working on a mechanism to keep refrigerants in a solid state, avoiding any discharge.

A new generation

Other innovation is focused on products that bypass compression, an energy-intensive process in air conditioning that has changed little since its invention in 1902.

Separate groups of scientists at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Wyss Institute at Harvard University, respectively have built air conditioners that use water to cool the air.

The Wyss Institute has already made prototypes based on its cSNAP model, that operates on a quarter of the electricity used in the traditional compression process.

The device is partly built with ceramic panels, made in Spain.

The startup Blue Frontier, which counts Bill Gates as an investor, uses a salt solution that captures the humidity of the air, then cools it through contact with water.

The solution also makes it possible to store energy, “so you’re not having to deal with capacity limits of the infrastructure,” said Daniel Betts, Blue Frontier’s CEO.

The Florida-based startup plans to rent its AC units to commercial building owners for a subscription fee, recouping its investment from electricity savings.

Usually, acknowledges Betts, “building owners don’t see the value, except for marketing, of having higher efficiency equipment.”

“We eliminate the burden of financing high efficiency equipment, because we’re doing it as a subscription service.”

Air conditioning innovation has been slower to address the third major issue related to conventional units, the discharge of hot air outside buildings.

One of the few available options are geothermal heat pumps, which employ a grid of buried pipes that channel cooler temperatures from underground, and do not release warm air.