The Weekly Anthropocene, March 29 2023
The IPCC report, water troughs for wild tapirs, lithium prices, a solar boom in India, an MPA in Chile, and more!
Earth
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released on March 20, 2023 its AR6 Synthesis Report, the final component of its Sixth Assessment Report, a mammoth summation of human civilization’s current scientific knowledge on climate change. The key takeaway, as a striking graph makes clear (pictured), is that the temperature regime of the planet today’s children will experience when they grow up depends on our near-term choices. For more detail (there’s a lot of valuable information here), check out the headline statements, the press release, the figures, the summary for policymakers, and/or the longer report.
Mexico
In Mexico’s Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, the dry season is getting longer and longer due to climate change, driving many animals to seek out water closer to humans. In a 2019 drought, many dehydrated Baird’s tapirs encroached on farmlands and villages searching for water, and a 2021 study noted that many tapirs were found with bullets in their skills around that time, possibly due to water-related conflicts. Local conservationists (supported by WWF) have responded by setting up about 50 water troughs (bebederos) in the biosphere reserve and 20 in the surrounding area, despite the difficulty of transporting the water in the wild terrain. The project seems to be a resounding success, with over 70 species including jaguars, Baird’s tapirs, coatis, and ocelots recorded drinking from the troughs. Another great example of how proactive, compassionate conservation can help our animal relatives survive the turmoil of the Anthropocene!
Clean Energy in India
Wind and solar accounted for an amazing 92% of the 17.083 gigawatts of new electricity generation capacity added in India in 2022. India added over 13.8 gigawatts (13,800 megawatts) of new solar power alone in 2022, an amount comparable to the United Kingdom’s total solar fleet (not just new additions) in 2021. This is a great sign that clean energy is winning the future in the world’s most populous country1!
Clean Energy in America
Pennsy Supply, a Pennsylvania asphalt supplier, has accepted delivery of a very special giant dump truck. It’s the first construction machine in the history of North America to be made with fossil fuel-free steel! (Pictured). The truck was made by Volvo Group with steel from an SSAB steel plant in Sweden that burns hydrogen2 to create the heat needed to make steel, instead of burning coal or gas. Great news!
Biden’s Department of Energy has released three far-reaching Pathways to Commercial Liftoff reports, industrial policy for building out domestic hydrogen, advanced nuclear, and long-term energy storage industries. The aim is to expand America’s current technological lead in these fields into thriving manufacturing sectors. They will be regularly updated with in-depth information in an attempt to guide investment decisions. These reports demonstrate that America is moving to an unprecedently detailed, proactive, and forward-thinking industrial policy, with a focus on decarbonization.
Biden’s EPA will grant California a Clean Air Act waiver allowing it to impose stricter air pollution rules, which will enable the Golden State to move forward with its plan to phase out heavily polluting diesel-burning trucks and reach zero new fossil fuel burning trucks by 2045. This will be a great market signal to drive further decarbonization and boost adoption of electric trucks!
Climate Mapping for Resilience and Adaptation, a new multi-agency federal maps and data portal available at resilience.climate.gov, brings together an array of highly valuable information using ESRI mapping software. Impressively, one of their offerings is constantly updating real-time maps and statistics on wildfires, droughts, flooding, and extreme heat in the United States.
Invenergy is investing $600 million to build a new solar panel factory in Pataluska, Ohio, which should start production by the end of 2023 and will produce up to 5 gigawatts of solar panel capacity per year while supporting 850 jobs. Thanks, Inflation Reduction Act!
The Washington Post profiles the emerging electric snowmobile industry, where a company called Taiga has been making substantial progress. Electric snowmobiles have much lower emissions and almost no noise or odor (improving the outdoors experience considerably), and although they can be $2000-$2500 more expensive than comparable gas snowmobiles, they can make that up in reduced fuel costs in as little as two years. Electrification spreads still further!
Renowned Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams recently took a job as senior counsel for energy transition nonprofit Rewiring America, and will “launch and scale a national awareness campaign” focusing on helping Americans access Inflation Reduction Act support to fund electrification projects.
On March 23rd, the public utility San Diego Community Power committed to using 100% renewable electricity by 2035.
Lithium
Relatedly, lithium prices have fallen rapidly, dropping by 20% between January and March 2023. Lithium is a key component in electric vehicle batteries, and the price reduction is duly making EVs more affordable (Tesla and Ford both recently slashed prices on key EV models), in combination with new federal subsidies and other critical mineral price reductions. (For example, cobalt also dropped in price rapidly between early 2022 and early 2023). Lithium, unlike cobalt, cannot easily be eliminated from battery manufacturing: as a result, the U.S. State Department estimates that the global supply of lithium needs to increase 42-fold by 2050 to support the clean energy transition. Supporting lithium mining and processing (as the Biden Administration is endeavoring to do with Inflation Reduction Act funds) is a key priority for the fight against climate change!
Relatedly, a gigantic new lithium processing facility supplying this key material to American battery manufacturers is underway in South Carolina, thanks again to Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funds. Major lithium supplier Albemarle is set to build a $1.3 billion facility in Chester County, South Carolina that will be able to produce up to 50,000 tons of lithium hydroxide per year, enough for the batteries of 2.4 million new electric vehicles per year. For context, just over 800,000 EVs were sold in the US in 2022; even as EV demand is set to grow substantially with IRA tax credits, this facility will be providing a big chunk of all American EVs’ critical battery materials! It’ll be a key supplier of IRA-support-compliant American-processed lithium to the wave of new American battery manufacturing plants, and a big step forward for President Biden’s domestic green manufacturing agenda. The facility should create 300 permanent jobs with an average annual wage of $93,000, and construction is set to begin in late 2024 if all goes well.
This project also brings several other benefits, such as substantially cutting into China’s current control of about 60% of the global lithium processing industry, an increasingly important point. Notably, the new South Carolina facility will also be what Albemarle calls a “mega-flex” site able to accept unprocessed lithium from a variety of sources including lithium-bearing spodumene crystals from quarries, lithium obtained from underground brines (as projects in California and Nevada working to do), and lithium recycled from older batteries.
Chile
Chile has created a new marine protected area to safeguard part of a key summer feeding and breeding area for the Eastern South Pacific population blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus). Notably, the few hundred Eastern South Pacific blue whales vocalize differently than other blue whales, using their own “dialect” of whale song, one of many examples of cetacean species developing multiple different “cultures” and emphasizing the importance of protecting this unique group, which has recently been threatened by intense maritime traffic. The new Tic-Toc Golfo Corcovado Marine Park covers 247,100 acres (larger than all five boroughs of New York City combined) located south of Chiloe Island in the Gulf of Corcovado, and is also regularly visited by humpback whales, sei whales, two species of dolphin, sea lions, and penguins. Great news!
Yes, India is now the world’s most populous country, not China, which is now experiencing population decline. As of January 2023, India was estimated to have 1.417 billion people (and still growing) compared to China’s 1.412 billion and declining. (Strangely, Wikipedia has not updated with this yet). 2023 was the first year in centuries that China was not the most populous country in the world. Historical population numbers are notoriously controversial and often hotly disputed, and no one can say for certain, but it’s possible that the last country to have a higher population than China or one of its predecessor dynasties was the Roman Empire. Historic times.
Critically, this is “green” hydrogen, made with renewable energy-powered electrolyzers instead of with fossil fuels. Here’s a more in-depth explanation of the “hydrogen rainbow.”