Batteries

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Australia’s Climate Council has issued a new report on clean energy in the country’s states. Winter is ending in Australia, but it is worrisome that their August was among the hottest on record this year, presaging a hot dry summer to come, and raising the real risk of further massive […]

Batteries

How a Faster Move to Clean Energy will Save everyone Money on Power Bills

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Last week, the International Energy Agency put out a new report that turns conventional wisdom regarding the clean energy transition on its head. It is cheaper for everyone to adopt solar, wind, batteries and other renewables as soon as possible than to go on depending on coal, fossil gas and […]

Batteries

Climate Victory: Texas Solar Power Growing so Rapidly, it is Reducing demand for Fossil Gas

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The far right Texas legislature, dominated by Republicans in the back pocket of the fossil fuel industry, has done what it could to promote fossil gas as a power source for electricity generation. Just last summer, it passed a bill that offered companies bonuses for connecting new gas plants to […]

Batteries

Lithium Batteries for EVs need to be produced in Socially Responsible Ways

Joshua Frank

( Tomdispatch.com ) – With his perfect tan and slicked-back hair, California Governor Gavin Newsom stood at a podium at Sacramento’s Cal Expo in late September 2020 and announced an executive order requiring all new passenger vehicles sold in the state to be zero-emissions by 2035. With the global Covid pandemic then at its height, […]

Batteries

California’s Great Battery Revolution Allows Closure of Peaker Gas Plants and move to 100% Wind, Solar, Water

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The renewables revolution around the world has depended primarily on wind, hydro, and solar. A fourth factor is now swiftly emerging as essential, that is, mega-battery storage. Batteries store energy when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining, to release it when those sources decline. California has so […]

Batteries

Selling like Hotcakes: 1 mn EVs sold in US during Past Year — which is Why UAW Workers deserve Green New Deal

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A million purely battery-electric vehicles have been sold in the US during the past year, according to David Reichmuth at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Tom Randall at Bloomberg notes that it took 10 years for the first million EVs to be sold in the US, and it took two […]

Batteries

How Zinc-Ion Batteries may solve our Renewable Energy Storage Problem

The Conversation

By Storm William D Gourley, McMaster University and Drew Higgins, McMaster University | – (The Conversation) – Hotter summers, drier forests, rising waters: climate change is not just a threat to our future, it’s hurting our world right now. While there are many ways human activity has brought about climate change, global electricity generation sources […]

Batteries

How Nevada just became the Saudi Arabia of Lithium, as World’s Largest Deposit is discovered at Thacker Pass

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In the scientific journal Science Advances, Thomas R. Benton and his colleagues published a paper last month showing that a volcanic crater, the McDermitt Caldera, stretching across the Nevada and Oregon border may have doubled the world’s accessible lithium deposits. There are an estimated 88 million tons of lithium reserves […]

Batteries

In 2023, 86% of New Power Capacity in US will come from Renewables, with a Majority of it Solar

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Department of Energy has announced that that in 2023, 82% of new additions to electricity generation capacity in the United States will come from wind, solar and battery, and 86% in total will come from non-fossil fuel sources. Of fossil fuels, only fossil gas will provide new capacity, but […]