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On the IEA’s latest report, electric semi trucks, and bananas
Current conditions: Storms dropped hail stones big enough to leave craters in the ground in Argentina • Denver is expecting more than a foot of snow • A wildfire outbreak is possible in Texas and Oklahoma.
Methane emissions from energy production around the world reached a record high in 2019, and have remained at that level ever since, with 2023 being no exception, according to the International Energy Agency’s 2024 Global Methane Tracker. Methane is a greenhouse gas that traps more heat than carbon dioxide, and is responsible for about one-third of the total rise in global temperatures compared to pre-industrial levels. Fossil fuel production is not the only source of methane emissions, but it is a big one, and it is within our control. Improvements to oil and gas infrastructure can reduce methane leaks, for example.
Energy production is the third largest source of methane emissions. IEA
Last year oil, gas, and coal producers added more than 120 million metric tonnes of methane to the atmosphere, a number that is “unacceptably high,” said the IEA’s chief energy economist Tim Gould. The agency called for a 75% reduction in methane emissions from fossil fuels this decade to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and said new policies, pledges, and methane-tracking satellites could bring emissions down soon. “If all methane pledges made by countries and companies to date are implemented in full and on time, it would be sufficient to cut methane emissions from fossil fuels by 50% by 2030,” the IEA said. “However, most pledges are not yet backed up by plans for implementation.”
The Biden administration yesterday released details of its plan to create the infrastructure needed to electrify the nation’s trucking fleet. “Heavy duty vehicles have a disproportionate effect on pollution, as large diesel engines release many more particulate emissions than light-duty vehicles do,” explained Jameson Dow at Electrek. Indeed the transportation sector accounts for about 30% of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, and more than a fifth of that comes from the biggest trucks. Phase 1 of the plan is to build out charging and hydrogen fueling hubs along some 12,000 miles of roads between 2024 and 2027, targeting some of the busiest routes first, including those around major ports. After the hubs are established, the subsequent phases would then connect those hubs to one another, and then expand the network. Here is a look at the hubs:
Joint Office of Energy and Transportation
Did you know there’s a World Banana Forum? The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FOA) hosts the annual gathering so the “main stakeholders of the global banana supply-chain work together to achieve consensus on best practices for sustainable production and trade.” This week the event took place in Rome, and climate change was top of the agenda. “Farmers are battling daily with unpredictable weather patterns, scorching sun, floods, hurricanes, and increased cases of plant diseases,” said Anna Pierides, a sustainable sourcing manager at the Fairtrade Foundation. She warned that farmers may go out of business if they do not get more support and see fairer prices. “There will be some price increases, indeed,” said Pascal Liu, senior economist at the FAO. “If there’s not a major increase in supply, I project that banana prices will remain relatively high in the coming years.” Bananas are the world’s most exported fruit.
For the second day in a row, police forcibly removed Greta Thunberg from the entrance to the Swedish parliament in Stockholm. The 21-year-old climate activist and other protesters began their demonstration there yesterday, protesting against what they see as inaction from political leaders in addressing the climate crisis. After Thunberg refused to move, police lifted her by the arms and put her about 20 meters away from the building’s door.
Jeff Bezos’ philanthropic organization, the Bezos Earth Fund, is pouring $60 million into setting up hubs at universities where researchers will work to improve the texture, taste, and nutritional value of meat alternatives. We’re not talking about “lab grown” meat here, but plant products made to taste like meat. Animal agriculture accounts for up to 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations, and meat consumption is expected to grow by 50% by 2050. Meat alternatives could reduce the environmental footprint of the food system, but only if they taste good enough to convert enough meat lovers. Last week Oscar Mayer announced it had partnered with a Bezos-backed food startup to create meatless hot dogs and sausages that “not only deliver on great taste, but also bring the smell, appearance, texture, and grill marks consumers desire and want.”
Oscar Mayer's plant-based sausges and hot dogs KraftHeinz
Heatmap News has been named Hottest in Sustainability on Adweek’s 2024 Media Hot List for quickly becoming “a critical part of the climate news landscape.”
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Has Plug Power pulled the plug on its upstate New York facility?
In 2021, top elected officials in New York state promised that Plug Power, a nascent company in the growing hydrogen industry, would build a large hydrogen fuel production facility in the Buffalo-Rochester area. It was supposed to make the state an industry leader.
Today, the project is looking more like a warning sign about the perils of being a first-mover in the unproven hydrogen business.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Plug Power, an American hydrogen and fuel cell producer founded in 1997, believed it would capitalize on rising demand for the liquid fuel when it broke ground at its hydrogen production facility at Genesee County’s Science, Technology and Advanced Manufacturing Park in 2021, a project known colloquially as STAMP. Heavy polluting industries like steel and transportation were chomping at the bit to strike supply deals for hydrogen, a liquid fuel that produces no carbon when burned. And this New York plant would on paper be particularly attractive from a climate perspective: It would be powered by hydroelectric dams at Niagara Falls, offering a potential carbon reduction of an estimated 14,000 tons of CO2 per year. It would also be the largest project of its kind in the Northeast.
Three years later and the project appears to be on ice, according to a phone call recording between New York county officials and a real estate developer that was obtained by Heatmap News.
Construction stopped in January, per the call, as did work Plug Power promised to do on an electrical substation that will also power a neighboring semiconductor manufacturing plant. Now energy-hungry data center developers are bidding to pick up the substation work instead in exchange for a spot at STAMP and access to some of the remaining hydroelectricity, and county officials are looking at buying Plug Power’s electrical equipment.
It is unclear whether the hydrogen production plant will ever be completed.
“They’ve put things on hold and now we’re coming to pick up the pieces,” Chris Suozzi, an executive vice president at the Genessee County Economic Development Authority, told one bidder – PRP Real Estate Management – on a call last month. PRP taped the call and shared it with us after it was first reported by local news nonprofit InvestigativePost. Suozzi also said on the call: “They’re not ready to go. They’re on pause. We don’t know what’s going to happen with them at this point.”
The New York Plug Power plant’s problems should be familiar to anyone in the climate tech startup space but for the unfamiliar, the company’s rapid growth seems to have run headlong into struggles with cash. A year ago Plug Power said in an investor filing there was a “substantial” concern the company may not have “sufficient funds to fund [its] operations through the next 12 months.” So problematic are Plug’s financial woes that they’ve become a political target; after the Energy Department offered a $1.6 billion conditional loan commitment to Plug for building hydrogen production plants, Republicans in Congress called for an inspector general investigation into the move.
But the New York production facility won’t benefit from the potential loan either. We’ve learned from two sources familiar with the matter that the project is not included in its potential loan application currently pending before DOE.
Then there has been the rollout of the Inflation Reduction Act. Even though the project relies on carbon-free hydropower, it may not qualify for the IRA’s hydrogen production tax credit because of proposed requirements for fuel to rely on new renewable energy sources (known as “additionality”). This has been a major sticking point in implementation of the credit, and Plug Power is quoted in InvestigativePost last week linking the work stoppage at the production facility on waiting for the final regulation implementing the credit. This is even as the company uses the yet-to-be finalized credit in its financial analyses for other hydrogen facilities in operation today, like this one in Georgia.
Environmental justice issues have also been a drag on development. The native Tonawanda Seneca Nation is opposed to the entire industrial park because of the resulting impacts on wildlife, noise and the visual landscape. In April, the Fish and Wildlife Service revoked a necessary permit for a wastewater treatment pipeline that would be used by companies at the park.
Earthjustice attorney Alex Page – who is working with the Nation to fight the project – told me the tribe was told last year by the Energy Department that Plug Power had withdrawn the New York site from its loan application. The Nation will continue to fight the project and DOE’s loan financing to Plug Power on the chance that money could be reprogrammed to the industrial park. Page said: “The Nation remains very, very much opposed.”
We sent Plug Power multiple requests for comment as well as Suozzi. A representative for Plug Power declined to answer questions about the project. I got a text from a number listed for Suozzi asking to chat later, but I didn’t hear back before publication.
The week’s biggest fights around renewable energy
1. San Diego County, California – The battery backlash just got stronger after the city of Escondido, California, indefinitely banned permits to the entire sector in reaction to a battery fire last month.
2. Waldo County, Maine – The potential first floating offshore wind assembly site in America is now one step further in the permitting process, after Maine’s Department of Transportation released a pre-application alternatives analysis required for federal environmental reviews.
3. Dickinson County, Kansas – This one county may be a bellwether for future problems in Kansas, a state with many existing wind farms — and even more potential — but also a lot of opposition.
4. Washoe County, Nevada – The company behind the Burning Man festival will be acquiring nearby geothermal energy leases, in a settlement resolving litigation that had the high-profile naturalist escape challenging access to a renewable energy resource.
Here’s what else we’re watching right now…
In North Carolina, the Kerr Lake Solar project proposed by Cypress Creek Renewables is facing its own apparent local onslaught at community meetings.
In California, Capstone and Eurowind Energy are seeking permission to build a long-duration battery storage facility in Alameda County.
In New Jersey, a coalition of shore towns and opposition groups fighting the EDF-Shell Atlantic Shores offshore wind farm have issued a new missive criticizing state financial benefits to the project.
In New York, the town of Oyster Bay looks like it’ll be extending its moratorium on BESS for at least another six months.
In Pennsylvania, a Pivot Energy solar farm also has some local organizing in the way.
Why alarm bells are ringing in the renewable energy ecosystem, plus more policy news
IRA on the mind – The renewable energy ecosystem is starting to really sound alarm bells about the November election and the risks of what they’re calling a “clean energy plan repeal” – e.g. scrapping IRA credits and carbon pollution rules.
No Golden climate bill – However, if Kamala Harris and the Democrats do win in November, I’m bearish on the odds of another big piece of renewables stimulus passing through Congress next term.
Data center moratoriums – Energy demand for tech may be a driver of renewables development across the country, but data centers are starting to face moratoria fights of their own.
Here’s what else we’re watching…
In Illinois, the Solar Energy Industries Association and American Clean Power are rallying behind comprehensive decarb stimulus legislation.
In Louisiana, voters going to the polls will decide whether to increase revenues from offshore energy – including wind – that go to coastal restoration.