by Christian Robles (E&E News) Machinery that makes hydrogen fuel from water could become another energy technology whose production is centered in Asia. ... China leads the world in producing the essential technology for green hydrogen made from renewables: electrolyzers. The machines use
nickel
Back TO HOMEToyota Chairman Says People Are Finally Seeing the Reality about EVs
by River Davis (Wall Street Journal) Akio Toyoda’s comments come amid cooling U.S. demand and a price war with China -- Toyota Motor Chairman Akio Toyoda, when asked about electric-vehicle challenges including a recent lull in U.S. demand, said the industry was coming to
October 26, 2023 Read Full Article
EPA Is Ignoring the Glaring Problem with Dirty Electric Vehicles
by Benjamin Zycher (American Enterprise Institute/The Hill) The Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) has launched a new regulatory effort to force a massive transportation shift to electric vehicles (EVs) with its proposed “multi-pollutant emissions standards” for light- and medium-duty vehicles beginning with model
August 08, 2023 Read Full Article
Mining Critical to Renewable Energy Tied to Hundreds of Alleged Human Rights Abuses
by Katie Surma (Inside Climate News) A report released Wednesday faults the U.S. and other nations for providing incentives for the mining of rare metals like lithium and cobalt without enacting adequate labor and environmental safeguards. Over the past dozen years, hundreds
June 07, 2023 Read Full Article
Can We Replace All Crude Oil within 20 Years with Cellulosic Liquid Hydrocarbons?
by Charles Forsberg and Bruce Dale (Biofuels Digest) In the United States, crude oil products provide 48% of the total energy to the final customer: residential, commercial, industrial and transportation. Replacement of crude oil products (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, chemical feed
May 30, 2023 Read Full Article
Banning Gas-Powered Cars Won't Save the Environment | Opinion
by Jon Miltimore (Foundation for Economic Education) In March, Maryland Governor Wes Moore unveiled a plan to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles. He called the move "a major step in the state's acceleration to improve air quality and combat the
April 28, 2023 Read Full Article
The Changing Geopolitics of Critical Minerals and the Future of the Clean Energy Transition --- March 9, 2023 --- Washington, DC and ONLINE
The relationship between China and the US is commonly portrayed in terms of geostrategic competition, often leading to pessimistic accounts of international cooperation. This, in turn, glosses over important institutional innovations and joint efforts around shared concerns on climate change
February 16, 2023 Read Full Article
Electrifying Trucking Would Require a Major Chunk of the US Power Grid: ATRI
by Colin Campbell (Transport Dive) Shifting all vehicles to battery electric vehicles would demand more than 40% of the country’s electricity production, the American Transportation Research Institute said in a report. -- Electrifying long-haul truck runs alone on today’s roadways would
December 11, 2022 Read Full Article
Can Electric Vehicle Targets Be Met?
(Visual Capitalist/Transport Energy Strategies) ... Why Is It Unlikely We Will Meet Targets? Even as pledges vow to increase the forecast share of EV adoption, we still need to consider headwinds that will slow down the EV rollout. Roadblock 1: Resource Constraints Sourcing critical raw materials will be
November 03, 2022 Read Full Article
How Much Mining Is Needed to Save the Planet?
by Jael Holzman (E&E News/Greenwire) With climate change pushing the U.S. toward more rapid adoption of new technologies, many Republicans and Democrats are in rare agreement on one key point: This country needs a lot more mines. But exactly how much new
October 14, 2022 Read Full Article
Top 5: All EVs, All the Time in the EU??
by Tammy Klein (Transport Energy Strategies) ... • Plug-in Hybrids with E85: An IFPEN study has showed that they’re just as climate-friendly as EVs – but will the EU Commission, Parliament and Council listen as they enter the trilogue negotiations
September 22, 2022 Read Full Article
Visualizing All the Metals for Renewable Tech
by Nicholas LePen (Elements Visual Capitalist) Visualizing the Metals for Renewable Tech -- The energy transition will be mineral intensive and create massive demand for all the metals in renewable tech. Electricity from renewable technology grew at the fastest rate in
July 22, 2022 Read Full Article
Futurist: Battery-Electric Trucks Are a 'Fantasy'
by Josh Fisher (Fleet Owner) BEVs could have their day, but if the industry’s focus is on decarbonization, fuel cells are trucking’s future, according to a transportation futurist, who laid out the case for hydrogen. That's an argument also backed
June 09, 2022 Read Full Article
Rivian CEO Believes Battery Supply Chain Will Be the Next Disaster
by Jonathon Ramsey (AutoBlog) Will make the chip shortage look like 'a small appetizer' -- ... Rivian CEO R.J. Scaringe has the worst news yet. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the EV honcho said "Semiconductors are a small appetizer to what
April 25, 2022 Read Full Article
Biden to Invoke Defense Production Act for Electric Vehicle Battery Materials
by Zack Budryk (The Hill) President Biden is set to invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) as early as this week to step up production of minerals used to manufacture electric vehicle batteries, a source familiar the plans confirmed to The Hill. Biden is set to
March 31, 2022 Read Full Article
A New, Sustainable Way to Make Hydrogen for Fuel Cells and Fertilizers
(RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science) A new sustainable and practical method for producing hydrogen from water has been discovered by a team of researchers at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan led by Ryuhei Nakamura. Unlike
March 30, 2022 Read Full Article
Argonne Pioneers New Processes to Create Materials for Batteries, Biofuels
(Newswise/Argonne National Laboratory) New chemical separations enable battery recycling, biodiesel -- When recycling cans and bottles, at some point it becomes necessary to separate out plastic from metal. When recycling car batteries, getting out the most valuable metals also requires a separation,
March 19, 2022 Read Full Article
Hydro Production, Policies and Promise: The Digest’s 2022 Multi-Slide Guide to IRENA’s Report
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) IRENA’s latest report considers whether and how hydrogen may disrupt future energy systems, offers insights into how countries and stakeholders can navigate and shape hydrogen markets, and outlines policy considerations to help mitigate the geopolitical
January 21, 2022 Read Full Article
Do We Want All of These Electric Car Mines? If EVs Are Supposed to Be a Social Good, How Do We Deal with Them Needing Mines Nobody Wants?
by Raphael Orlove (Jalopnik) ... 1st Gear: Here’s Another Fun ‘Wait Do We Actually Want These Lithium Mines’ Article -- Every day I feel like there’s a new article about lithium mining coming home. Just the other day, Bloomberg was wringing its
December 22, 2021 Read Full Article
The Race to Secure Clean Energy Materials
by Ben Gelman (Axios) Minerals used in power generation technologies ... One persistent theme in analyses of the transition to cleaner energy is the scramble to obtain supplies needed for renewables projects, electric vehicle batteries and other low-carbon tech. The big picture: "A typical
December 06, 2021 Read Full Article
Growth of Electric Vehicles Endangering Rain Rorests
(NBC News) NBC News investigates how the growing efforts to mine nickel to help power electric vehicles are putting rainforests across the world at risk. It’s a reminder that even clean energy comes with an environmental cost. READ MORE' includes
December 06, 2021 Read Full Article
President Targets Raising Biodiesel Production to Save Forex
(Antara News) Domestic biodiesel production will reduce diesel imports in order to save up to Rp56 trillion (almost US$4 billion) of foreign exchange in 2021, according to President Joko Widodo. "If we can produce our own biodiesel here and use
October 22, 2021 Read Full Article
The Oil Industry’s Bright Green Energy Future
by Mike Newman (Parhelion Underwriting) The Oil industry is under pressure on many fronts in the climate change era and faces an existential threat from alternative, renewable sources of energy – but the industry is also best-positioned to win the
September 01, 2021 Read Full Article
The Tough Calculus of Emissions and the Future of EVs
by Mark Mills (TechCrunch) From materials and batteries to manufacturing, calculating the real carbon cost of EVs is just getting started -- ... While an EV self-evidently emits nothing while driving, about 80% of its total lifetime emissions arise from
August 23, 2021 Read Full Article
New Clean Energy Process Converts Methane to Hydrogen with Zero Carbon Dioxide Emissions
by Lynne Roeder (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) Novel bimetallic catalyst also yields valuable solid carbon co-products for manufacturing industries -- ... Researchers from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and West Virginia University (WVU), in collaboration with industry partners Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas)
March 22, 2021 Read Full Article
Auto Industry Peers into an Electric Future and Sees Bumps Ahead
by Steven Mufson (Washington Post) ... (T)he question is not, ‘Can we sell to the wealthy?’ It is, ‘Can we get the everyday household in mainstream America to buy an EV?’ and we’re still a long way away from that.” Meanwhile,
February 12, 2021 Read Full Article
Electric Cars Are Coming, and Fast. Is the Nation’s Grid Up to It?
by Brad Plumer (New York Times) GM’s decision this week to phase out gasoline vehicles is the latest in a major shift that will mean drastic new demands on electric utilities. Here are four things that will need to happen. ... Generate
February 01, 2021 Read Full Article
These Metal-Based Catalysts Can Boost Biofuel Yields
by Mike Timko (Worcester Polytechnic Institute/Biofuels Digest) A recent study led by a team from Worcester Polytechnic Institute shows that metal-oxide-based catalysts reduce char build up during biofuel conversion processes, increasing bio-crude oil yield and decreasing yields of low-value byproducts. ... Utilizing
December 24, 2020 Read Full Article
Commentary: Electrify A Lot … But Not Everything -- Decarbonization Will Require a Judicious Mix of Electrification, RNG, Hydrogen, and Other Emerging Solutions if We Want to Get to a Truly Sustainable Future.
by Matt Tomich and Joanna Underwood (BioCycle Magazine/Energy Vision) ... Some environmental advocates are looking to “electrify everything” to generate power and fuel our transportation systems, because electric motors are more efficient than combustion engines. But electrification is not a
November 18, 2020 Read Full Article
Biden Win Could Be Net Positive for Metals and Mining, Observers Say
by Jacob Holzman and Gaurang Dholakia (S&P Global Platts) ... As a result, observers have predicted that producers of battery and base metals such as lithium and nickel could benefit from a Biden victory. ... The benefits to metals producers from a
October 20, 2020 Read Full Article
Jokowi Says EU Palm Oil Restrictions Are 'Act of Trade War'
by Telly Nathalia (Jakarta Globe) he European Union had provoked a "trade war" by issuing discriminative restrictions on Indonesian palm oil, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo tweeted on Saturday. "Indonesia has 13 million hectares of oil palm plantations that produce 46 million tons
January 14, 2020 Read Full Article
Mining Turned Indonesian Seas Red. The Drive for Greener Cars Could Herald a New Toxic Tide.
by Ian Morse (Washington Post) Now, a growing appetite for electric vehicles is creating new demand for nickel, whose chemical derivatives are increasingly used in cathodes of lithium-ion batteries. But the push for clean energy is coming at an environmental cost to
November 25, 2019 Read Full Article
Exclusive: Tesla Expects Global Shortage of Electric Vehicle Battery Minerals - Sources
by Ernest Scheyder (Reuters) Tesla Inc expects global shortages of nickel, copper and other electric-vehicle battery minerals down the road due to underinvestment in the mining sector, the company’s global supply manager for battery metals told an industry conference on Thursday, according
May 03, 2019 Read Full Article
Bank Of America: Oil Demand Growth To Hit Zero Within A Decade
by Nick Cunningham (OilPrice.com) By 2030, oil demand could hit a peak and then enter decline, according to a new report. For the next decade or so, oil demand should continue to grow, although at a slower and slower rate. According to
February 06, 2019 Read Full Article
With Rise of Electric Vehicles, a New Foreign Energy Dependence Looms
by James Osborne (Houston Chronicle) Forecasts say that electric vehicle sales are about to take off worldwide and increase demand for the raw materials that go into batteries. -- Energy Secretary Rick Perry earlier this month said he would put more federal
January 28, 2019 Read Full Article
Metals Shortfall to Crimp Electric-Car Battery Supply, Moody’s Says
by Claudia Assis (Market Watch) A shortfall in supplies of metals such as cobalt, copper, lithium and nickel is likely to slow down the production of batteries for electric vehicles, Moody’s Investors Service said in a note. Demand for the metals used
May 03, 2018 Read Full Article
Could Clean Energy Spark A Mineral Boom?
(Energy Today/Oilprice.com) A new World Bank report released today (July 18, 2017) highlights the potential impacts that the expected continuing boom in low-carbon energy technologies will have on demand for many minerals and metals. Using wind, solar, and energy storage batteries as