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On global coal demand, Everest Base Camp, and a compelling climate graphic
Current conditions: A major storm will batter the U.S. Eastern Seaboard this weekend • Moscow is buried under record snowfall • It's 50 degrees Fahrenheit and cloudy in Paris, which was recently named the world's top city destination.
Global demand for coal remains at a record high, but is expected to start declining in 2026, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) “Coal 2023” report. Most advanced economies are ditching this dirtiest of fossil fuels: Coal consumption fell by about 20% in the United States and the European Union this year. But the same cannot be said for China, India, and Southeast Asia, where coal demand is growing. But a turning point could arrive soon, the report says. Global coal demand is expected to fall by 2.3% by 2026 compared with 2023 levels. A lot depends on China, which accounts for 54% of global coal consumption.
IEA
Relatedly, this week Australia announced its last remaining coal plant will retire by 2038. As renewables take over, “expect more such announcements around the world,” saysBloomberg Green’s Akshat Rathi.
The Biden administration wants federal employees to use low- or zero-emission transportation when traveling for work. In a directive released yesterday, the White House said workers should travel by train for trips shorter than 250 miles, and especially in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, where rail travel is most accessible. If traveling by car is necessary, workers should opt for an EV. Employees should consider combining trips, taking public transportation, and avoid using their own private vehicles for work. Or better yet, they should avoid traveling at all. “In every case, the trip not taken is the least expensive and most sustainable,” the directive says. The federal government spent $1.66 billion on flights and $4.2 million on rail trips last year, Reutersreports. The White House says travel accounts for 1.8% of federal greenhouse gas emissions.
Sultan Al-Jaber, who served as president of COP28, tellsThe Guardian that his company Adnoc will continue to invest in oil and gas production so long as the demand is there. Adnoc is the United Arab Emirates’ national oil and gas company, and Al-Jaber is its CEO. He was applauded this week after delegates at COP28 agreed to “transition away” from fossil fuels, but faced criticism earlier this month for saying there is “no science” showing that ending fossil fuel usage will limit global warming. He has said in the past that he believes fossil fuels will inevitably be phased out, but has qualified that by saying “we need to be real, serious and pragmatic about it.”
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The glacier beneath Everest Base Camp is melting due to rising temperatures in the Himalayas, putting climbers at risk and forcing Nepal’s government to consider moving the camp, The Wall Street Journalreports. Everest tourism contributed $2.4 billion to Nepal’s economy last year, which is 6.1% of its GDP, and Base Camp is an essential gateway to the mountain. But ice at the camp is disappearing due to a combination of global warming and human activity. Moving the camp farther down the mountain is an option, but it would “make the climb to the top more dangerous than it already is,” the Journal explains. More people died on Mount Everest this year than ever before. A report released in June found that climate change could cause Himalayan glaciers to lose 80% of their volume this century.
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Climate Office recently announced its favorite “Little Pictures of Climate” for 2023. The competition highlights creators who use satellite-derived climate data tell visual stories about the changing planet. Here is one particularly compelling submission:
A runner-up in the ESA's Little Pictures of Climate 2023 competitionESA
The length of pipeline that would be needed to create a U.S. carbon capture network would be enough to circle Earth four times.
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Almost half of developers believe it is “somewhat or significantly harder to do” projects on farmland, despite the clear advantages that kind of property has for harnessing solar power.
The solar energy industry has a big farm problem cropping up. And if it isn’t careful, it’ll be dealing with it for years to come.
Researchers at SI2, an independent research arm of the Solar Energy Industries Association, released a study of farm workers and solar developers this morning that said almost half of all developers believe it is “somewhat or significantly harder to do” projects on farmland, despite the clear advantages that kind of property has for harnessing solar power.
Unveiled in conjunction with RE+, the largest renewable energy conference in the U.S., the federally-funded research includes a warning sign that permitting is far and away the single largest impediment for solar developers trying to build projects on farmland. If this trend continues or metastasizes into a national movement, it could indefinitely lock developers out from some of the nation’s best land for generating carbon-free electricity.
“If a significant minority opposes and perhaps leads to additional moratoria, [developers] will lose a foot in the door for any future projects,” Shawn Rumery, SI2’s senior program director and the survey lead, told me. “They may not have access to that community any more because that moratoria is in place.”
SI2’s research comes on the heels of similar findings from Heatmap Pro. A poll conducted for the platform last month found 70% of respondents who had more than 50 acres of property — i.e. the kinds of large landowners sought after by energy developers — are concerned that renewable energy “takes up farmland,” by far the greatest objection among that cohort.
Good farmland is theoretically perfect for building solar farms. What could be better for powering homes than the same strong sunlight that helps grow fields of yummy corn, beans and vegetables? And there’s a clear financial incentive for farmers to get in on the solar industry, not just because of the potential cash in letting developers use their acres but also the longer-term risks climate change and extreme weather can pose to agriculture writ large.
But not all farmers are warming up to solar power, leading towns and counties across the country to enact moratoria restricting or banning solar and wind development on and near “prime farmland.” Meanwhile at the federal level, Republicans and Democrats alike are voicing concern about taking farmland for crop production to generate renewable energy.
Seeking to best understand this phenomena, SI2 put out a call out for ag industry representatives and solar developers to tell them how they feel about these two industries co-mingling. They received 355 responses of varying detail over roughly three months earlier this year, including 163 responses from agriculture workers, 170 from solar developers as well as almost two dozen individuals in the utility sector.
A key hurdle to development, per the survey, is local opposition in farm communities. SI2’s publicity announcement for the research focuses on a hopeful statistic: up to 70% of farmers surveyed said they were “open to large-scale solar.” But for many, that was only under certain conditions that allow for dual usage of the land or agrivoltaics. In other words, they’d want to be able to keep raising livestock, a practice known as solar grazing, or planting crops unimpeded by the solar panels.
The remaining percentage of farmers surveyed “consistently opposed large-scale solar under any condition,” the survey found.
“Some of the messages we got were over my dead body,” Rumery said.
Meanwhile a “non-trivial” number of solar developers reported being unwilling or disinterested in adopting the solar-ag overlap that farmers want due to the increased cost, Rumery said. While some companies expect large portions of their business to be on farmland in the future, and many who responded to the survey expect to use agrivoltaic designs, Rumery voiced concern at the percentage of companies unwilling to integrate simultaneous agrarian activities into their planning.
In fact, Rumery said some developers’ reticence is part of what drove him and his colleagues to release the survey while at RE+.
As we discussed last week, failing to address the concerns of local communities can lead to unintended consequences with industry-wide ramifications. Rumery said developers trying to build on farmland should consider adopting dual-use strategies and focus on community engagement and education to avoid triggering future moratoria.
“One of the open-ended responses that best encapsulated the problem was a developer who said until the cost of permitting is so high that it forces us to do this, we’re going to continue to develop projects as they are,” he said. “That’s a cold way to look at it.”
Meanwhile, who is driving opposition to solar and other projects on farmland? Are many small farm owners in rural communities really against renewables? Is the fossil fuel lobby colluding with Big Ag? Could building these projects on fertile soil really impede future prospects at crop yields?
These are big questions we’ll be tackling in far more depth in next week’s edition of The Fight. Trust me, the answers will surprise you.
Here are the most notable renewable energy conflicts over the past week.
1. Worcester County, Maryland –Ocean City is preparing to go to court “if necessary” to undo the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s approval last week of U.S. Wind’s Maryland Offshore Wind Project, town mayor Rick Meehan told me in a statement this week.
2. Magic Valley, Idaho – The Lava Ridge Wind Project would be Idaho’s biggest wind farm. But it’s facing public outcry over the impacts it could have on a historic site for remembering the impact of World War II on Japanese residents in the United States.
3. Kossuth County, Iowa – Iowa’s largest county – Kossuth – is in the process of approving a nine-month moratorium on large-scale solar development.
Here’s a few more hotspots I’m watching…
The most important renewable energy policies and decisions from the last few days.
Greenlink’s good day – The Interior Department has approved NV Energy’s Greenlink West power line in Nevada, a massive step forward for the Biden administration’s pursuit of more transmission.
States’ offshore muddle – We saw a lot of state-level offshore wind movement this past week… and it wasn’t entirely positive. All of this bodes poorly for odds of a kumbaya political moment to the industry’s benefit any time soon.
Chumash loophole – Offshore wind did notch one win in northern California by securing an industry exception in a large marine sanctuary, providing for farms to be built in a corridor of the coastline.
Here’s what else I’m watching …