Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Sparks

New ‘SAF’ Just Dropped

A natural gas refinery is being converted into a plant for jet fuel made from carbon dioxide and green hydrogen.

An American airplane.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

American Airlines will purchase sustainable aviation fuel from a first-of-its-kind facility under development in Texas called Project Roadrunner. Infinium, the company behind the project, will be converting a former natural gas refinery into a commercial “eFuels” plant where it will make jet fuel and diesel from carbon dioxide and green hydrogen. The company announced the offtake agreement on Wednesday along with a $75 million equity agreement with Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, a subsidiary of a climate tech firm backed by Bill Gates that focuses on first-of-a-kind projects. Infinium specified that it would use “waste CO2” for the process, although it did not say where the carbon would be sourced from.

Most so-called sustainable aviation fuels in use today are made from waste cooking oils and agricultural residues, but experts are skeptical they’re truly scalable. In theory, fuel made from carbon dioxide captured from the atmosphere and green hydrogen could be carbon neutral, though capturing the carbon, and producing green hydrogen, requires a lot of energy.

This first appeared in Heatmap AM, a briefing on the most important climate and energy news. Sign up to get it in your inbox every week day:

Blue

You’re out of free articles.

Use code: LABORDAY to save 20%.
Subscribe to access Heatmap’s exclusive polling and expert analysis of energy, climate change, and sustainability, now just $99/year $79.20/year.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Sparks

The Startup Behind Lamppost-Mounted EV Chargers Pulls Into the Garage

Voltpost announced two new models today designed to mount on walls and ceilings.

Voltpost chargers.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Voltpost, the company putting electric vehicle chargers on lampposts, is now expanding to parking garages.

On Wednesday, the company unveiled two new configurations that can attach to the walls and ceilings of parking garages, lots, and other locations without easy access to streetlights or utility poles. Like Voltpost’s signature pole-mounted design, the ceiling- and wall-mounted options avoid the expensive construction work required by freestanding charging infrastructure. In theory at least, that should allow the company to deploy more chargers faster.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Sparks

Trump’s USDA Using Farmland Rule to Go After Energy Companies, Democrats Say

A proposed change in how the agency implements an obscure Cold War-era law would impose onerous reporting requirements on renewables and pipelines.

Wind turbines and a farm.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Democrats in Congress claim that a new Trump administration proposal will have a chilling effect on the energy sector by subjecting renewables and fossil fuel pipelines alike to an obscure, rarely cited Cold War-era law requiring detailed information on foreign farmland ownership be submitted to the Agriculture Department.

In late June, the Agriculture Department released a proposal to change implementation of the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978, which requires companies to provide information to the federal government on foreign investors in farmland holdings, acquisitions, and sales. If finalized, the new rule would expand the definition of “agricultural land” in regulation to include all renewable energy facilities and pipeline corridors by explicitly tying the term to those industries’ formal codes under the North American Industry Classification System.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Sparks

Electricity Bills Were Higher Than Ever in July

Americans paid $217 on average for electricity last month, according to Heatmap and MIT’s Electricity Price Hub.

A plug graph.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

July is typically the season of high electricity bills, and this year is no exception.

Nationally, the average electricity bill spiked to $217, an all-time high, according to new data from Heatmap and MIT’s Electricity Price Hub. That’s up from $177 in June, and $215 last July. Meanwhile, electricity rates were 19 cents per kilowatt-hour, virtually unchanged from June and slightly higher than July of last year.

Keep reading...Show less