transition

Electric Buses In Latin America

October 31, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Latin America has become increasingly urbanized. In fact, about 80% of the region’s population lives in cities today and by 2050, that figure could climb to 90%. Transportation is the largest and fastest-growing source of energy-related emissions in Latin America and accounts for about a third of all of the region’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Private vehicle ownership is rising in Latin America but at the same time, the region’s rapidly growing cities have increased demand for buses, taxis, and motorcycles. Currently, an estimated 64,000 people die prematurely every year in Latin America and the Caribbean as a result of air pollution, which is mostly caused by transportation emissions.

Given this situation, major cities across Latin America – from Colombia to Argentina – are starting to adopt electric bus fleets. Latin America actually has the highest use of buses per person globally. So, the transition to electric buses is an important step toward meeting climate targets, cutting fuel costs, and improving air quality.

Medellin, Colombia – whose metropolitan area has 3.7 million people – has started to add electric buses to its fleet, the rest of which runs on natural gas. When new units arrive from China later this year, Medellin will have the second largest electric bus fleet in Latin America, after Santiago, Chile.

Worldwide, 425,000 electric buses are in operation, 99% in China. Europe has a couple of thousand while the United States has only 300. But going forward, and especially in Latin America, electric buses are the wave of the future. Estimates are that there will be 1.3 million on the roads by 2040.

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An Increasingly Urbanized Latin America Turns to Electric Buses

Photo, posted April 22, 2018, courtesy of Hans Johnson via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Shutting Down Minnesota Coal Plants

July 8, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

One of the largest utilities in the United States, Xcel Energy Inc., announced that it will close its remaining coal-fired power plants in the Upper Midwest a decade ahead of its previously-announced schedule. In addition, the company will add 3,000 megawatts of new solar capacity by 2030.

The Allen S. King plant in Oak Park Heights, Minnesota and the Sherburne County Generating Station in Becker, Minnesota are the plants in question. The transition away from coal is a difficult challenge for such small communities. The plant in Becker, for example, employs 300 people in a town of 4,500 and provides 75% of the city’s tax base. Towns like this realize that coal is inevitably going away and must find ways to move beyond their dependence upon it. The Becker plant will not completely close until 2030, but parts will now only run seasonally, and one of the 3 units will close permanently in 2023

Xcel Energy, based in Minneapolis, serves more than 3.3 million electricity customers in 8 states. Last December, the company announced that it would deliver 100% clean, carbon-free electricity by 2050 and would achieve an 80% carbon reduction from its 2005 levels by 2035. It is the first major US utility to set such a goal.

Xcel will increase its investment in energy efficiency measures, bring 1,850 megawatts of new wind capacity online in Minnesota by 2022, and keep its Monticello Nuclear Generating Station operating until 2040, a decade later than planned. The company’s stepped-up clean energy strategy is part of a new legal settlement between the company, environmental organizations, and labor groups that involves Xcel’s proposed $650 million purchase of a 760-megawatt natural gas plant.

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A Major U.S. Utility Is Closing Its Coal-Fired Power Plants a Decade Early

Photo, posted January 3, 2016, courtesy of Tony Webster via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Plant-Based Jet Fuels

May 9, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The global aviation industry uses a whole lot of fuel: more than 5 million barrels a day. It is an incredibly energy-intensive industry and almost all of its energy comes from petroleum-based fuels.

While other large energy sectors such as electric power, ground transportation and commercial buildings have well-defined pathways to adopting renewable energy sources, the aviation industry does not have such a straightforward way to make a transition to sustainability. Electrifying planes using batteries or fuel cells is very challenging for a number of reasons, notably the weight restrictions on aircraft. So liquid biofuels as replacements for petroleum-based fuels remain the most promising approach.

A new study at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory concludes that sustainable plant-based biofuels could provide a competitive alternative to conventional petroleum fuels if current development and scale-up initiatives are successful.

Multidisciplinary teams based at the Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute are focused on optimizing each stage of the bio-jet fuel production process. This includes bioengineering ideal source plants and developing methods for efficiently isolating the carbohydrates in non-food biomass that bacteria can digest and bioconvert into fuel molecules.

The critical issue is cost. The theoretical cost of bio-jet fuel has come down dramatically in recent years but is still around $16 a gallon. The cost of standard jet fuel is about $2.50 a gallon. So, the real challenge is bridging that gap.

Reducing the cost of the fuel could come both from the material and process improvements that are underway as well as by finding ways to turn the leftover lignin residuals from the bioconversion process into valuable chemicals.

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Bright Skies for Plant-Based Jet Fuels

Photo, posted March 28, 2009, courtesy of Yasuhiro Chatani via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Can Germany Meet Its Energy Goals?

February 4, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Germany has been a global leader in efforts to decarbonize its massive economy. A national initiative known as Energiewende – or clean energy transition – has been in place since 2010 and relies heavily on renewable energy sources, energy efficiency, and energy demand management.

The program has involved some of the most aggressive deployment of renewable energy sources in the world. Germany was the first country to install 1 GW of solar energy and still has the 5th largest amount of solar power in the world despite actually being a country with fairly limited sunshine. Germany has nearly 30,000 wind turbines, most of which are onshore, unlike many other countries in northern Europe. Over the past five years, government support and cost to consumers for the shift to clean energy have totaled over $180 billion.

However, despite these efforts, Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions have not declined as rapidly as expected, even though nearly 40% of the country’s electricity now comes from renewable sources.

This lack of expected success comes as a shock to the environmentally conscious German population, nearly 90% of which supports the program.

There are two major problems Germany faces. One is that Germany is Europe’s largest producer of coal, which still generates more than a third of the country’s power. The other is that Germany’s large auto industry is still married to gas- and diesel-fueled cars and emissions from the country’s cars are a big problem.

The Energiewende program was driven by political will and investment certainty. It is unclear whether Germany can muster these forces again. The Merkel government has dragged its feet on environmental issues in recent years. It remains to be seen what effect shifting political power in Germany will have.

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