Toward a Cleantech-Led Economic Development Strategy for South Carolina

South Carolina has an unprecedented opportunity to leverage federal policy and global momentum in the clean energy transition, and has the existing industries and policy tools to capitalize on this moment. This report identifies industries where South Carolina is competitive, constraints that may hold it back, and opportunities to coordinate in a cleantech-led economic development strategy.…

Ethical Framework Principles for Climate Intervention Research

Climate intervention, also known as geoengineering or climate engineering, is the deliberate large-scale intervention in Earth’s climate system to counteract global warming. Climate intervention includes primarily carbon dioxide removal (CDR) techniques, which address the root cause of climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and solar radiation modification (SRM) techniques, which offset the effects of greenhouse gas concentrations by preventing Earth from absorbing as much solar radiation.

The urgency to address climate change has led to rapidly growing interest in climate intervention research. However, both CDR and SRM techniques, as well as other methods, present opportunities and risks …

Equity in Energy Resilience

Across California, 4.4 million households face an energy affordability gap totalling $4.1
billion dollars, where energy costs in these households are greater than 8.5 percent of their net income. If the costs of dealing with power outages are included, another $900 million dollars in resilient energy affordability gap emerges for 4.9 million households. While the energy gap is emerging as an equity and affordability metric for energy policy decision making, considerations of resilient energy affordability gaps are so far lacking. Here they provide a method to measure the affordability gap incurred by a lack of resilient energy, using similar methods …

Capturing the Benefits of Industrial Decarbonization for Houston and Beyond

The energy transition is well underway and represents an enormous opportunity for economic growth and emissions reductions worldwide. This report identifies the double benefits the Houston region could experience through a concerted effort to decarbonize existing industrial activity and presents an outline for other jurisdictions to follow.

This paper identifies four primary pathways for achieving emissions reduction in the Houston region — electrification, energy efficiency measures, hydrogen utilization, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) — between 2025 and 2050. Three scenarios — a business-as-usual case, a selective investment scenario reflecting economic limitations on the cost of carbon abatement measures, and …

Thermal Batteries: Electrifying Heating in Chemical Plants

The heating needs of the chemicals and petroleum refining sectors account for 5 percent to 6 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions. Today, most of this heat is generated by burning natural gas or other fossil fuels. As industry faces increasing pressure to reduce emissions, thermal batteries’ potential to abate as much as 99 percent of current heat emissions when coupled with renewable energy make them an attractive alternative for industrial heating.

This guide was designed to help industry and policy stakeholders better understand where and how the chemicals and refining industries can implement thermal batteries today, and how policy …

Dearborn Works: An Integrated Steel Mill Transition Study

Michigan is a recognized leader in the transition toward economy-wide carbon neutrality. But to achieve the objectives put forth in the state’s MI Healthy Climate Plan, Michigan’s emissions intensive industrial sector needs its own leader, and that proposed leader — Cleveland-Cliffs, owner of the Dearborn Works integrated steel mill — needs its own viable transition plan. Disrupting decades of technological stasis and a precipitous decline in quality steelmaking jobs, breakthrough technology in clean steel produced using ‘green’ hydrogen is finally here. With Cleveland-Cliffs expected to commit the next round of major investments in Dearborn Works by 2027, to ‘reline’ the …

Delivering on the Targets and Signals from the First Global Stocktake

As Parties and non-Party stakeholders (NPS) head to Baku, Azerbaijan, for the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), much attention will be focused on the agreement of a new collective quantified goal (NCQG) on climate finance to fund historic damage caused by emissions from advanced economies. However, of critical importance will be the opportunities to take stock of Parties’ progress in implementing and achieving the targets and signals from the conclusion of the first GST at COP28.

Parties must consider the outcomes from the GST when they formulate their new nationally …

Project Decarbonize: The Current State of Corporate Renewable Energy Adoption

The global effort to reduce emissions in commercial and industrial sectors is yielding results. Over the past decade, corporate initiatives have slowed the growth of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions to an annual increase of 0.5 percent, while global GDP growth averaged 3 percent.

Yet current efforts must scale to meet climate goals. This paper examines the strategies and innovations commercial and industrial companies are using to reduce their Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions and achieve ambitious goals. Bringing together insights from sustainability leaders from organizations across various industries — including manufacturing, technology, retail and agriculture — the paper highlights …

Emissions Gap Report 2024

As climate impacts intensify globally, the Emissions Gap Report 2024: No more hot air … please! finds that nations must deliver dramatically stronger ambition and action in the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions or the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C goal will be gone within a few years. The report is the 15th edition in a series that brings together many of the world’s top climate scientists to look at future trends in greenhouse gas emissions and provide potential solutions to the challenge of global warming.…

Case Study: Microgrid at Amond World Cold Storage Facility

Scale Microgrids partnered with Origo Cold Storage to implement an off-grid microgrid solution at Amond World, a 500,000 square-foot cold storage facility in California’s Central Valley. Commissioned in 2023, the microgrid includes a 1,200 kW solar photovoltaic array, a 1,200 kW battery storage unit, and two 1,200 kW natural gas-powered dispatchable generators to provide reliable, around-the-clock refrigeration at temperatures as low as 32F for almonds and other local crops. Using a microgrid-as-a-service model, the project enabled Origo to bypass a multi-year grid interconnection queue while reducing energy costs by 10-30% and carbon emissions by 30-40% compared to a typical grid-connected …