You’re out of free articles.
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
Sign In or Create an Account.
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Welcome to Heatmap
Thank you for registering with Heatmap. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our lives, a force reshaping our economy, our politics, and our culture. We hope to be your trusted, friendly, and insightful guide to that transformation. Please enjoy your free articles. You can check your profile here .
subscribe to get Unlimited access
Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your subscription will renew automatically unless you cancel prior to renewal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We will let you know in advance of any price changes. Taxes may apply. Offer terms are subject to change.
Subscribe to get unlimited Access
Hey, you are out of free articles but you are only a few clicks away from full access. Subscribe below and take advantage of our introductory offer.
subscribe to get Unlimited access
Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your subscription will renew automatically unless you cancel prior to renewal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We will let you know in advance of any price changes. Taxes may apply. Offer terms are subject to change.
Create Your Account
Please Enter Your Password
Forgot your password?
Please enter the email address you use for your account so we can send you a link to reset your password:
It wasn’t the titanium iPhone 15 casing, the USB-C charging port, or the ever-baffling Vision Pro updates that got top billing at Apple’s 2023 launch event on Tuesday — it was carbon neutrality.
The company’s annual new product showcase still included all the anticipated announcements, including two new Apple watches, the iPhone 15, and updated AirPods Pro. But Apple also used this year’s event to highlight the progress it has made towards hitting its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2030.
Unfortunately, it often managed to do so in the most confusing and cringey ways possible.
One particularly embarrassing early skit involved “Mother Nature” (in a cameo by Octavia Spencer) stopping by the Apple HQ to check in on the progress of the net-zero promise (think: Mother Nature staring soberly out at the horizon and Tim Cook being called Henry David Thoreau). Further loftily worded claims about Apple’s first-ever “carbon-neutral products” — the Series 9 Apple Watches — were couched in caveats about how “high-quality carbon credits” will be used to “address the small amount of remaining emissions.”
2030 Status | Mother Nature | Applewww.youtube.com
Overpromises (especially ones featuring Mother Nature played by an Academy Award-winning actress) matter: Most Americans already distrust corporate pledges around climate change, a Heatmap poll conducted earlier this year found. That's probably because corporations have a habit of making strong but vague vows about reducing carbon emissions and then not following through.
Americans might be growing attuned to a few giveaways that corporate spin is afoot. For instance, buying carbon credits without actually cutting emissions can be used to claim progress that wasn't actually earned. An investigation earlier this year even found that 90% of the carbon offsets by Verra, one of Apple’s partners, are “worthless.” Additionally, unit-focused carbon reductions, like those behind the Series 9, might make you feel good when you’re in the checkout line looking at the leafy label on the box, but don’t ultimately reflect the enormous work that goes into shifting the larger company’s footprint.
There can also be a lot of noise among corporate climate promises because drawing attention to small deeds can create the impression that real progress is being made when it isn’t. And Apple’s sustainability announcements sure felt noisy. Apple announced that it is completely eliminating the use of emissions-intensive leather (though the Hermes bands aren’t going anywhere). It said its iPhone screens will be “more repairable,” but then stopped short of actually making the anticipated right-to-repair announcement. And while Apple didn’t exactly volunteer to switch its charging ports to USB-C, it didn’t bother to address the inevitable e-waste that such a switch will create, either.
But here’s the thing: It appears Apple is starting to do the hard work. It is not completely relying on carbon credits to hit its ambitious goals. Its carbon-neutral watch is not masking total inaction elsewhere. And its list of emissions cuts is starting to add up to something real — in fact, its latest sustainability report says it has already reduced its gross emissions by over 45% since 2015. Why Tim Cook didn’t lead with this on Tuesday is beyond me.
Other initiatives that were actually pretty cool didn't get enough attention. Apple said it is prioritizing lower-emission shipping, like ocean and rail freight — a claim it says its methodology shows will emit “95 percent fewer emissions than by air,” a staggering number if true. It also highlighted its use of recycled materials but lingered too long on the ugly leather watchband replacements and too little on what was actually noteworthy: that the iPhone 15 uses 100% recycled cobalt in the battery; 100% recycled rare earth elements in the magnets; 100% recycled copper foil in the main logic board; and 100% recycled aluminum in the internal structural frame. (The mining and carbon-intensive processes like smelting aluminum required for iPhone manufacturing have long been targets of Apple’s sustainability critics).
Some of the most interesting moves by Apple were actually on the software side — and weren’t even featured in the streamed event. Take the introduction of a new tool called the “Grid Forecast,” which uses data from Watttime to predict when there’s cleaner energy available on a user’s grid, helping them to make informed usage or charging decisions. The tool appears to be the evolution of the “clean charging” feature that was introduced in iOS 16 and received considerable pushback (“iPhone users claim Apple is trying to TRICK them into upgrading by quietly slowing charging,” roared The Daily Mail at the time). Apple is also adding real-time EV charging station availability to its Maps app, which, if you haven’t heard, is good now.
Another neat new feature that I’ve already been enjoying while using the iOS 17 beta has been the addition of historic temperature data to the weather app, so you can see how much hotter it is out than average. It’s one thing to know that extreme heat events are becoming more common with climate change; it’s another to see day after day that it’s been “+19 above average.”
Screenshot
It’s absolutely true that Apple highlighted its carbon-neutral progress at length in part to help you feel less guilty about purchasing an expensive new gadget when the one you already have works perfectly fine. But it’s also worth applauding the company for taking some meaningful steps in the right direction that could add up in the long term.
You’re always right to be wary of when corporate climate promises sound too good to be true, but despite the cringe-worthy videos and eye-roll-inducing claims, Apple hasn't wholly underdelivered.
Editor's note: A previous edition of this article misidentified the actor in the Apple skit. It has been corrected. We regret the error.
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
A conversation with VDE Americas CEO Brian Grenko.
This week’s Q&A is about hail. Last week, we explained how and why hail storm damage in Texas may have helped galvanize opposition to renewable energy there. So I decided to reach out to Brian Grenko, CEO of renewables engineering advisory firm VDE Americas, to talk about how developers can make sure their projects are not only resistant to hail but also prevent that sort of pushback.
The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Hiya Brian. So why’d you get into the hail issue?
Obviously solar panels are made with glass that can allow the sunlight to come through. People have to remember that when you install a project, you’re financing it for 35 to 40 years. While the odds of you getting significant hail in California or Arizona are low, it happens a lot throughout the country. And if you think about some of these large projects, they may be in the middle of nowhere, but they are taking hundreds if not thousands of acres of land in some cases. So the chances of them encountering large hail over that lifespan is pretty significant.
We partnered with one of the country’s foremost experts on hail and developed a really interesting technology that can digest radar data and tell folks if they’re developing a project what the [likelihood] will be if there’s significant hail.
Solar panels can withstand one-inch hail – a golfball size – but once you get over two inches, that’s when hail starts breaking solar panels. So it’s important to understand, first and foremost, if you’re developing a project, you need to know the frequency of those events. Once you know that, you need to start thinking about how to design a system to mitigate that risk.
The government agencies that look over land use, how do they handle this particular issue? Are there regulations in place to deal with hail risk?
The regulatory aspects still to consider are about land use. There are authorities with jurisdiction at the federal, state, and local level. Usually, it starts with the local level and with a use permit – a conditional use permit. The developer goes in front of the township or the city or the county, whoever has jurisdiction of wherever the property is going to go. That’s where it gets political.
To answer your question about hail, I don’t know if any of the [authority having jurisdictions] really care about hail. There are folks out there that don’t like solar because it’s an eyesore. I respect that – I don’t agree with that, per se, but I understand and appreciate it. There’s folks with an agenda that just don’t want solar.
So okay, how can developers approach hail risk in a way that makes communities more comfortable?
The bad news is that solar panels use a lot of glass. They take up a lot of land. If you have hail dropping from the sky, that’s a risk.
The good news is that you can design a system to be resilient to that. Even in places like Texas, where you get large hail, preparing can mean the difference between a project that is destroyed and a project that isn’t. We did a case study about a project in the East Texas area called Fighting Jays that had catastrophic damage. We’re very familiar with the area, we work with a lot of clients, and we found three other projects within a five-mile radius that all had minimal damage. That simple decision [to be ready for when storms hit] can make the complete difference.
And more of the week’s big fights around renewable energy.
1. Long Island, New York – We saw the face of the resistance to the war on renewable energy in the Big Apple this week, as protestors rallied in support of offshore wind for a change.
2. Elsewhere on Long Island – The city of Glen Cove is on the verge of being the next New York City-area community with a battery storage ban, discussing this week whether to ban BESS for at least one year amid fire fears.
3. Garrett County, Maryland – Fight readers tell me they’d like to hear a piece of good news for once, so here’s this: A 300-megawatt solar project proposed by REV Solar in rural Maryland appears to be moving forward without a hitch.
4. Stark County, Ohio – The Ohio Public Siting Board rejected Samsung C&T’s Stark Solar project, citing “consistent opposition to the project from each of the local government entities and their impacted constituents.”
5. Ingham County, Michigan – GOP lawmakers in the Michigan State Capitol are advancing legislation to undo the state’s permitting primacy law, which allows developers to evade municipalities that deny projects on unreasonable grounds. It’s unlikely the legislation will become law.
6. Churchill County, Nevada – Commissioners have upheld the special use permit for the Redwood Materials battery storage project we told you about last week.
Long Islanders, meanwhile, are showing up in support of offshore wind, and more in this week’s edition of The Fight.
Local renewables restrictions are on the rise in the Hawkeye State – and it might have something to do with carbon pipelines.
Iowa’s known as a renewables growth area, producing more wind energy than any other state and offering ample acreage for utility-scale solar development. This has happened despite the fact that Iowa, like Ohio, is home to many large agricultural facilities – a trait that has often fomented conflict over specific projects. Iowa has defied this logic in part because the state was very early to renewables, enacting a state portfolio standard in 1983, signed into law by a Republican governor.
But something else is now on the rise: Counties are passing anti-renewables moratoria and ordinances restricting solar and wind energy development. We analyzed Heatmap Pro data on local laws and found a rise in local restrictions starting in 2021, leading to nearly 20 of the state’s 99 counties – about one fifth – having some form of restrictive ordinance on solar, wind or battery storage.
What is sparking this hostility? Some of it might be counties following the partisan trend, as renewable energy has struggled in hyper-conservative spots in the U.S. But it may also have to do with an outsized focus on land use rights and energy development that emerged from the conflict over carbon pipelines, which has intensified opposition to any usage of eminent domain for energy development.
The central node of this tension is the Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline. As we explained in a previous edition of The Fight, the carbon transportation network would cross five states, and has galvanized rural opposition against it. Last November, I predicted the Summit pipeline would have an easier time under Trump because of his circle’s support for oil and gas, as well as the placement of former North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum as interior secretary, as Burgum was a major Summit supporter.
Admittedly, this prediction has turned out to be incorrect – but it had nothing to do with Trump. Instead, Summit is now stalled because grassroots opposition to the pipeline quickly mobilized to pressure regulators in states the pipeline is proposed to traverse. They’re aiming to deny the company permits and lobbying state legislatures to pass bills banning the use of eminent domain for carbon pipelines. One of those states is South Dakota, where the governor last month signed an eminent domain ban for CO2 pipelines. On Thursday, South Dakota regulators denied key permits for the pipeline for the third time in a row.
Another place where the Summit opposition is working furiously: Iowa, where opposition to the CO2 pipeline network is so intense that it became an issue in the 2020 presidential primary. Regulators in the state have been more willing to greenlight permits for the project, but grassroots activists have pressured many counties into some form of opposition.
The same counties with CO2 pipeline moratoria have enacted bans or land use restrictions on developing various forms of renewables, too. Like Kossuth County, which passed a resolution decrying the use of eminent domain to construct the Summit pipeline – and then three months later enacted a moratorium on utility-scale solar.
I asked Jessica Manzour, a conservation program associate with Sierra Club fighting the Summit pipeline, about this phenomenon earlier this week. She told me that some counties are opposing CO2 pipelines and then suddenly tacking on or pivoting to renewables next. In other cases, counties with a burgeoning opposition to renewables take up the pipeline cause, too. In either case, this general frustration with energy companies developing large plots of land is kicking up dust in places that previously may have had a much lower opposition risk.
“We painted a roadmap with this Summit fight,” said Jess Manzour, a campaigner with Sierra Club involved in organizing opposition to the pipeline at the grassroots level, who said zealous anti-renewables activists and officials are in some cases lumping these items together under a broad umbrella. ”I don’t know if it’s the people pushing for these ordinances, rather than people taking advantage of the situation.”