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- #38. 🌍Earth's slower warming regions | 🇺🇸Texas' clean energy | 🔌Mercedes' global EV plans
#38. 🌍Earth's slower warming regions | 🇺🇸Texas' clean energy | 🔌Mercedes' global EV plans
Plus: Fetuses' climate vulnerability | Climate change and wine | California's rooftop solar rules | HSBC quits oil | EV truck conversions | Germany's wireless EV charging
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🌡 CLIMATE CHANGE
Climate change impacts not only directly via physical catastrophes like storms and floods, but indirectly via smoke particles, the latter of which are particularly harmful to pregnant mothers. Studies now show that while just 56% of US adults between 18-45 years of age are concerned about the impacts of climate change on children’s physical health, 79% of parents on the west coast are concerned.
This is a brief discussion supplemented by animated images highlighting the following: Antarctica’s warming is slowing due to the depleted ozone later at Earth’s southern pole; ice meltwater cools the waters near Greenland; and India’s air pollution reduces warming.
A small winery in New England says the dryer, hotter weather makes the wine “clearer,” spicier, and drier. Cooler, wetter years have the opposite effect.
🔋 CLEAN ENERGY
A new proposal in San Diego, CA means that electricity will cost just $0.05/kWh during the day when rooftop solar provides abundant cheap electricity; at night, in contrast, the prices rise to over $1/kWh. San Diego is committed to reaching net-zero by 2035, with 100% of all electric retail to be renewable and zero-carbon by 2045.
Texas, the epicenter of America’s oil production, led the country in renewable energy in 2021 with more than 7 GW of wind, solar, and energy storage projects, hugely outpacing second-place California with just 2.7 GW. New projects include a $6B hydrogen fuel plan; a $4B green hydrogen plant; a $1B blue hydrogen plant; and a solar facility.
HSBC, the 8th largest bank in the world, will no longer provide lending or capital markets finance for new oil and gas fields; they will however continue to provide consulting and financing at the corporate level for oil businesses.
đźš— AUTONOMOUS & ELECTRIC VEHICLES
An Australian company, Janus Electric, now has 140 confirmed orders to convert large trucks to fully electric powertrains. They have orders to convert everything from Macks, Volvos, Kenworths, and Freightliners. While a Tesla Semi sells for AUS$800,000 ($540,000), a Janus Electric conversion is about one-fourth the price, at AUS$175,000 ($118,000).
With Mercedes’ plans to be a fully-electric vehicle manufacturer by 2030, it will start realigning its entire supply chain network from 2024. It will invest some €1B in EV powertrain systems including batteries, drive units, and axles.
Germany’s first public project for wireless charging of electric vehicles has started (quick read)
This is a press release about a collaboration between Israel-based Electreon and EnBW, a leading charging infrastructure provider in Germany, that will produce the development of a 1 km (0.6 mi) Electric Road System (ERS). The infrastructure contains inductive charging coils under the surface of the road that continuously charge vehicles as they drive along the road’s surface.
🎉 THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY!
Thank you so much for reading, see you tomorrow!-Marc
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