Daily Climate News - March 13
Recycling Critical Minerals with Plasma Arc Furnaces; Global Methane Tracker; Energy performance of buildings.
In this newsletter:
Recycling critical minerals with plasma arc furnaces
Legislation and government announcements
Top Stories
Recycling Critical Minerals with Plasma Arc Furnaces
Obtaining rare metals - such as cobalt, nickel, platinum, iridium - from used electronics is an expensive and time-consuming process. Japan is the only country that has reached significant recycling rates - 25% for Copper, 54% for Tin. The collective global recycling rate for these minerals is only about 1%.
There are 2 key challenges
obtaining individual metal alloys from the battery packs - a toxic, labour-intensive process since each battery pack is built differently
purifying metal from the alloys so that the metal can be reused
Plasma Arc Furnaces allow obtaining metals of high purity from alloys.
The process uses a plasma torch - a stream of inert gas such as helium or argon heated to ultra-high temperatures over 10,000℃ that are directed at the metal alloy inside the furnace. Most impurities vapourize and escape as exhaust, the metal is heated till molten and settles at the bottom of the furnace and any remaining non-metallic impurities collect into a separate layer called “slag” that can be extracted separately.
The approximate cost of a plasma torch can range from $200,000 to $1.8 million per torch, depending on the application. The furnace can be designed to handle from a few pounds to several tonnes of metal. Traditional recycling methods use fuel to provide the energy and high temperatures inside furnaces. With plasma arc furnaces, this can be done using electricity, thus reducing overall emissions.
India is now setting up its first recycling unit using plasma furnace technology.
Legislation and Government Announcements
The European Parliament has adopted the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) that introduces targets to
reduce primary energy consumption
renovate the worst performing buildings by 2030
decarbonise heat systems
The directive also requires new buildings owned or occupied by public authorities to be net zero by 2028.
UK will launch consultations on its Voluntary Carbon and Nature Markets in coming months. In its Nature Markets Framework (published March 2023), the government “set a goal to grow annual private investment flows to nature to at least £500 million every year by 2027 in England, rising to more than £1 billion by 2030”. Carbon Pulse | UK Govt - Nature Markets Framework progress update March 2024
California (USA) has invited comments on draft Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations for packaging. Waste Dive | California Gov - Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act Permanent Regulations
Top Stories
In response to widespread protests by farmers in Europe, the European Commission is considering rolling back policy measures that require farmers to meet certain environmental and agricultural practices to qualify for subsidies. Some of the obligations that may be made voluntary are
— requiring farmers to minimize tillage to prevent soil erosion.
— requiring farmers to grow cover crops between seasons to conserve soil, water and nutrients, thereby reducing the need for chemical inputs such as fertilizer.
— requiring farmers to grow a series of different types of crops in the same area across a sequence of growing seasons. This helps return nutrients to the soil without synthetic inputs and reduces the need for chemical pesticides.
— requiring farmers to set aside at least 4 percent of their farmland for biodiversity.
IEA’s Global Methane Tracker 2024 reveals - fossil fuel production and use resulted in nearly 120 million tonnes of methane emissions in 2023. Detailed analysis shows that while fossil fuel supply has grown, the emissions per unit fuel produced have reduced marginally. 70% of total emissions come from top 10 emitters.
The United States is the largest emitter of methane from oil and gas operations, closely followed by the Russian Federation (hereafter “Russia”). The People’s Republic of China (hereafter “China”) is by far the highest emitter in the coal sector. The amount of methane lost in fossil fuel operations globally in 2023 was 170 billion cubic metres, more than Qatar’s natural gas production.
Analysis of 125 GW of Solar PV installations worldwide shows that power loss from asset health and equipment issues is leading to $177 million in lost annual revenue from the surveyed sites. Raptor Maps, a provider of robotic solar inspection and management solutions, gathered data on the installations through several methods including drones & robotics, APIs and IoT sensors. Factors driving equipment-related underperformance include:
Increasing component quality issues, with 32% of bills of materials (BOMs) experiencing at least one failure in PVEL’s 2023 Scorecard
Velocity of solar deployment coupled with labor constraints potentially causing workmanship, QA/QC, and operational issues
Constraints in asset management and O&M as the number of sites increases without effective tools to manage and address issues at-scale
US’s Energy Information Administration forecasts residential electricity prices in 2025 to reach their highest levels since 1998.
Clean Energy jobs have grown by 80% since 2010 in the State of Massachusetts (USA). At the end of 2022, there were 108,450 direct clean energy workers - 2.8% of the workforce. Analysis shows that 58% of clean energy firms are small businesses and the majority of jobs are in Energy Efficiency, Demand Management, Clean Heating and Cooling. Solar Power World | Massachusetts Clean Energy Industry Report 2023
Canada plans to partner with Asian Development Bank (ADB) to launch a $260 million fund to fund projects involved in nature-based solutions such as habitat restoration and protection, climate-smart agriculture and aquaculture, pollution prevention and water management and nature protection and ecotourism. Carbon Pulse
India spent $39.3 billion in energy subsidies in 2023 - highest in last 9 years. ET Energy | IISD
Elections for the European Parliament will be held in June 2024. In its election manifesto, Germany’s CDU/CSU - the opposition party in the German parliament - has called for a reversal of the ban on combustion engine vehicles. The incumbent president of the European Union is the CDU/CSU’s lead candidate for the June election. ECEEE
Do you appreciate music? So do inhabitants of coral reefs. New research shows playing sounds of healthy reef ecosystems improved restoration efforts at reefs in the Caribbean The Guardian
New Reports & Dataset
Determining the Product Carbon Footprint of Lithium - Guidance by International Lithium Association (via Innovation News)
Revised Framework for Assessing Decarbonization Technologies and Alternative Energy Carriers Marine Technologies Forum (via Offshore Energy)
Construction output in Great Britain: January 2024 Office for National Statistics
RMI Case Studies on emissions reporting in Aluminium and Steel Industry RMI
You can read over 200 stories from March 13 on Telborg.
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Best,
Soumya Gupta
Founder, Telborg.com | SummaryWithAI.com