Many stakeholders from Ukraine, the European Union and around the globe, including just-in-time working groups and international financing institutions, are currently engaged in the Ukraine green reconstruction agenda. The challenges are colossal. Half of Ukraine’s power generation infrastructure has been destroyed or badly damaged. It makes little sense to reconstruct a tangled web of centralized […]
May 29, 2023
As with most environmental solutions, electric mining equipment (EME) offers opportunities for reducing capital and operating expenditures, while providing a host of solutions to address risks. These lower risks include decarbonization; curtailment of colossal ventilation expenses to evacuate fumes, particulate matter and heat from diesel engines; and improved employee health and working conditions. Higher profits, […]
April 5, 2023
Perfect storm for the green economy and fossil fuels alike
Investments in clean tech deployment in 2022, US$1.1 trillion, were for the first time ever, equivalent to that spent on fossil fuel production. The story behind these historic stats is that of a current perfect storm and circumstances leading up to the present.
The combination of the Ukraine war; high fuel prices; European Union energy independence and electric vehicle (EV) strategies; the U.S Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law; China’s new 5-year plan; and tectonic changes in other countries...
Critical minerals: Global and Canadian portraits
Global developments in a nutshell
For the rest of this century, most of the world’s needs for critical minerals can be accommodated from mined resources in democratic countries and 95% recycling of battery content. China and the European Union have policies in place to optimize electric vehicle (EV) battery recycling.
Australia towers above the rest as a source of half of global lithium resources.
Canada and the U.S. provide financial support for advancing critical minerals activities.
Howbeit, China’s critical mineral importation practices are...
Big Oil, renewables, electric vehicles + clean tech: Fossil fuel windfalls
Prior to the Russian barbaric invasion in Ukraine, announcements made by the oil and gas majors seemed to imply they were engaged in energy diversification. This diversification has been typically presented as that of increasing the proportion of their assets in clean technologies while reducing the exploitation of fossil fuel reserves.
Now, with the oil and gas companies earning windfall profits linked to the Ukraine war, inflation and European urgent short-term requirements for fossil fuel sources substitutes, the real truth...
Canada’s indecent descent on climate since 2021 fed election
The Canadian federal election of September 20, 2021 brought the Liberals back to power, once again as a minority government. As with previous elections,...
China: Largest emitter to green gamechanger, but…
China is several years ahead of other developed countries on the migration to a green economy, in clean technology production capacity, massive market penetration...
Recent Posts
Electric vehicle battery recycling: Competing with mined materials
The environmental footprint of an electric vehicle represents a sectorial industrial revolution, including the first lifecycle end of an EV battery. With existing technologies, 95% of an EV battery can be recycled for inclusion in a new EV battery and/or energy storage. The remaining 5% can be handled by third party recyclers. Because the price of mined lithium is rising exponentially, recycled EV battery materials are set to compete with mined content. With high recycled content, the emissions of...
Canada’s 2030 climate plan: Designed to fail
Canada’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) was made public March 29, 2022. Since the country's oil and gas sector with methane included, plus transportation components, together, represent about half of Canadian emissions, one would have thought these sectors would be objects of strong climate initiatives. Yet, for these sectors, the ERP appears to be the product of accommodation of industry lobbies. The action items stupendously lack integrity and are weak. As such, the ERP like all previous government emission...
Fossil fuel methane climate emergency: Solutions
Methane emissions are underrated at one third of global warming gases, largely because fossil fuel sector methane emissions are underestimated by 70 percent. Current data indicates the energy sector accounts for 40 percent of man-made methane. Consequently, the COP26 non-binding pledges of over 100 nations for a 30 percent reduction by 2030 are not only dreadfully inadequate, but also, without standardized measuring, reporting and verification standards, oil and gas industry methane greenwashing is rampant. The draft European Union (EU)...
Green hydrogen, no panacea: Deep dive
Green hydrogen, produced with electrolysers to separate hydrogen from water, uses clean energy as a power source. Green hydrogen will not be with cost competitive with grey hydrogen for some time, perhaps not until 2030. Grey hydrogen, derived from steam reformation of natural gas, represents 98 percent of global hydrogen consumption, and is primarily used for industrial processes. To replace grey hydrogen with green hydrogen would require a doubling of global electricity generation with primarily solar and wind sources. ...
Carbon capture and storage: Greenwashing, subsidies and carbon pricing
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies are the darling of the fossil fuel industry since CCS offers the opportunity to continue increasing production, with the support of gargantuan government subsidies, while appearing to be green and gaining carbon price credits. But all CCS projects to-date have failed to live up to emissions reduction expectations and CCS is energy intensive. As such, CCS is a greenwashing narrative.
CCS and price of carbon
There is a growing chorus in favour of carbon capture...
Renewables, not gas, for Southeast Asia: Vietnam
The global natural gas industry, including that of Canada, has high hopes for weaning Southeast Asia from coal dependency. Concurrently, low-cost renewables are swiftly changing the electrical power landscape in this part of the world. Vietnam, caught in the squeeze between the two competing types of power sources, is favouring a clean energy metamorphosis. The country now has the greatest installed solar energy capacity in Southeast Asia. Government policies are both supportive and handicaps. Grid infrastructure is woefully insufficient. ...
