Sign In or Create an Account.

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

Technology

Researchers Created A Super Thin Solar Cell That Could Be ‘Painted’ Onto Surfaces

On solar breakthroughs, IRA delays, and the magic of mature forests

Researchers Created A Super Thin Solar Cell That Could Be ‘Painted’ Onto Surfaces
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Another tropical storm is brewing in the Atlantic and could bring more devastation to the Caribbean • In North Korea, Kim Jong Un has been visiting victims of recent catastrophic floods • July was California’s hottest month on record.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Report: Many IRA manufacturing projects on hold

About 40% of the largest manufacturing projects made possible through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Chips Act are delayed or paused, according to an investigation from the Financial Times. Some of the projects facing delays are a $1.3 billion lithium refinery in South Carolina, a $1 billion solar panel factory in Oklahoma, and LG Energy Solution’s $2.3 billion battery storage facility in Arizona. The companies point to a combination of factors, including overproduction of clean tech from China, macroeconomic pressures, policy confusion, and a drop in EV demand. “Everybody’s running into higher-than-expected costs just because of labor and supply chain,” said Craig MacFarland, mayor of Casa Grande, Arizona, where a semiconductor facility has been delayed by two years. The IRA marks its second anniversary this Friday.

2. Large wildfires force evacuations near Athens

Large wildfires are raging on the outskirts of Athens in Greece, turning the skies an eerie shade of brown and prompting evacuations of at least 11 towns and several hospitals. More than 670 firefighters have been deployed to tackle blazes north of the capital city. Forty new fires ignited yesterday alone, and half the country is under a high-risk fire warning. Drought-stricken Greece is in the grips of its hottest summer ever recorded, and other parts of Europe are sweltering, too.

3. Enthusiasm for COP29 is already wavering

This year’s COP29 global climate summit in Azerbaijan is expected to draw a smaller crowd than last year’s event in Dubai, according toPolitico. Businesses are “wary of the event’s location and logistics, the oil-evangelizing autocratic regime running it and, perhaps most notably, the prospect of Donald Trump winning the U.S. presidential election just days before the November summit begins.” Anticipation is already growing for next year’s event in Brazil, where countries will be expected to submit their new and updated climate plans, or nationally determined contributions, which will outline how they plan to cut emissions and adapt to climate impacts. In an article published today, the World Economic Forum insisted this year’s summit in Baku remains relevant because it will determine new goals for climate finance, and could finalize Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which sets out how countries can use international carbon markets. “With a nationally determined contribution update on the horizon, achieving a robust outcome at COP29 is critical to send a strong signal of progress,” the WEF post said.

4. Researchers create thin film that could turn almost anything into a solar-power surface

Researchers at Oxford University have created a new solar power-generating material that “is thin and flexible enough to apply to the surface of almost any building or common object.” The new perovskite film, which Tina Casey at CleanTechnicacalled a “paint-on solar cell,” matches the energy efficiency performance of a traditional single-layer silicon PV and is almost 150 times thinner than a modern silicon wafer. Could this replace silicon-based solar panels altogether? Not anytime soon, Casey wrote, but it could turn almost anything into a solar surface. “We can envisage perovskite coatings being applied to broader types of surfaces to generate cheap solar power, such as the roofs of cars and buildings and even the backs of mobile phones,” said Dr. Junke Wang, a Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions Postdoc Fellow at Oxford University Physics. “If more solar energy can be generated in this way, we can foresee less need in the longer term to use silicon panels or build more and more solar farms.”

5. Study: Older trees grow more wood to absorb rising CO2 emissions

Mature trees appear to be able to respond to higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by increasing the amount of the greenhouse gas they can absorb. In a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers observed that a group of 180-year-old oak trees exposed to elevated CO2 emissions over a seven-year period made about 10% more woody biomass than trees that didn’t experience the emissions rise. The added wood locks away the gas for decades. The study is only about half-way done and will continue through 2031, but the researchers hope the initial results demonstrate the power of mature forests to act as a natural climate solution. “This is evidence in favor of careful management of established forests,” said Rob MacKenzie, director of Birmingham Institute of Forest Research and one of the study’s authors. “The old forest is doing a huge amount of work for us. What we definitely should not be doing is cutting it down.”

THE KICKER

“Certainly, neither despair nor complacency is any use to us. Conversely however, both acceptance and optimism are functionally necessary. Acceptance of our current circumstances is a precondition of effective action in the reality we actually inhabit, whilst hope that liveable futures are possible remains a precondition of necessary effort to bring them about.” –Jamie Bristow and Rosie Bell writing about navigating the messy middle paths of climate breakdown at DeSmog.

Yellow

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
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
Climate

AM Briefing: Trump Targets Key Climate Report

On the National Climate Assessment, data centers, and tornadoes

A Key U.S. Climate Change Report Is At Risk Under Trump
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Californians who live near the site of January’s devastating Los Angeles wildfires are being urged to get tested for lead poisoning • The Ohio River in waterlogged Louisville, Kentucky, crested at 37 feet on Wednesday • It will be about 60 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny in Brussels today, where European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the EU is pausing its retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. for 90 days following a similar move from President Trump.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Trump takes aim at national climate report

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Climate Tech

Tapestry and PJM Partner on AI for the Interconnection Queue

The project from Google’s internal incubator program aims to help speed approvals to get more renewables on the grid.

The Google logo and power lines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The country’s largest electricity market, PJM, has a problem: It’s facing a slew of retiring fossil fuel resources just as electricity demand is ramping, largely thanks to AI data centers. Meanwhile, PJM has a years-long waitlist full of wind and solar projects seeking permission to connect to the grid that are languishing in no small part due to its slow approval process.

Enter Tapestry, the so-called “moonshot for the electric grid,” as Page Crahan, Tapestry’s general manager, put it on a press call Wednesday. The initiative is a part of Google’s internal project incubator, known simply as X. Today, the tech company and the grid operator announced a partnership that will use artificial intelligence to develop a unified model of the grid’s electricity network, bringing in data from dozens of disparate tools into one simplified “Google Maps for electrons,” as Crahan put it.

Keep reading...Show less
Green
Sparks

Trump to New York: End Congestion Pricing, or Else

The administration is doubling down on an April 20 end date for the traffic control program.

Kathy Hochul and Janno Lieber.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Congestion pricing has only been in effect in New York City for three months, but its rollout has been nearly as turbulent as the 18-year battle to implement it in the first place.

Trump’s Department of Transportation escalated its threat this week to retaliate against New York if the state’s Metropolitan Transit Authority, or MTA, does not shut down the tolling program by April 20.

Keep reading...Show less
Green