New Developments September 2017

Is this a good time to talk about climate change? Experiencing extreme weather events can make people modestly more likely to support policy measures to help communities adapt to climate change. The effect on people’s attitudes is not only small but only lasts about a month. But the world measured in the study may no longer be the one we are living in. The researchers only looked at how the frequency of extreme weather affects attitudes, not the severity. Yet the most extreme weather events may affect people’s psychology over a longer period.

A Washable, Stretchable Solar Cell For Clothes and Awnings Engineers have made a new solar cell that works well even after being washed. The stretchable, water-resistant cells could be used to make clothes that can power wearable devices and sensors. They could also lead to power-generating awnings, shades, and tents. Thin, flexible solar cells made of organic polymers are less efficient, but are easy and cheap to manufacture. This has made them attractive for large-area, flexible devices, especially as scientists have in recent years improved their efficiency and longevity; organic solar cells can degrade when exposed to water and oxygen. They went from efficiencies of 2 percent in 2007 to over 8 percent in 2016.

New Developments August 2017

Where we start the clock for climate change makes a big difference Carbon emissions at the start of the Industrial Revolution are often unaccounted for but may have significant consequences, an analysis published last week in Nature Climate Change finds. According to the study, the small increase in temperature that may have resulted from these early emissions dramatically shrinks the global carbon budget – the amount of greenhouse gases that we can collectively produce in the future while still avoiding harmful increases in global average temperature. The problem is, just what “pre-industrial” means is often poorly defined. The most commonly used baseline is the period between 1850 and 1900. But the Industrial Revolution was already well underway by then. What if temperatures had already begun to increase? Analyses suggest that it’s possible that temperature hadn’t yet begun to increase in the late nineteenth century, making this a reasonable baseline period. But it’s equally plausible that human activities had already increased global average temperature by roughly 0.2 °C by then. If we manage to implement steep reductions in emissions, the choice of baseline period matters a lot. If 1850-1900 was already 0.2 °C warmer than a true pre-industrial baseline, then the chance of avoiding the 1.5 °C threshold drops from 40% to about 12% even with extreme emissions cuts. The chance of avoiding 2 °C drops from 75% to 70%.

How 139 countries could be powered by 100 percent wind, water, and solar energy by 2050  Such a transition could mean less worldwide energy consumption due to the efficiency of clean, renewable electricity; a net increase of over 24 million long-term jobs; an annual decrease in 4-7 million air pollution deaths per year; stabilization of energy prices; and annual savings of over $20 trillion in health and climate costs. The analyses specifically examined each country's electricity, transportation, heating/cooling, industrial, and agriculture/forestry/fishing sectors. Of the 139 countries -- selected because they were countries for which data were publically available from the International Energy Agency and collectively emit over 99% of all carbon dioxide worldwide -- the places the study showed that had a greater share of land per population (e.g., the United States, China, the European Union) are projected to have the easiest time making the transition to 100% wind, water, and solar. The most difficult places to transition may be highly populated, very small countries surrounded by lots of ocean, such as Singapore, which may require an investment in offshore solar to convert fully. The changes in infrastructure would also mean that countries wouldn't need to depend on one another for fossil fuels, reducing the frequency of international conflict over energy. The researchers intentionally exclude nuclear power because of its 10-19 years between planning and operation, its high cost, and the acknowledged meltdown, weapons proliferation, and waste risks. "Clean coal" and biofuels are neglected because they both cause heavy air pollution, which Jacobson and coworkers are trying to eliminate, and emit over 50 times more carbon per unit of energy than wind, water, or solar power.

New Developments July 2017

Japan’s Renewable-Energy Revolution Japan's approach to stewardship of its land and water resources is distinct from that of the U.S. As an island nation with a millennia-long history, the concepts of reuse, repurposing and multiple use are intrinsic to Japanese culture. In 2011, the Tohoku earthquake and subsequent Fukushima nuclear disaster caused Japan to reassess its dependence on nuclear power as a primary source of electricity generation. Building renewable-energy capacity, predominantly in the form of photovoltaic projects, is one answer in the nation's quest for alternatives. These images, from a series of flights over the Tokyo and Kobe/Osaka regions of Japan, show a range of photovoltaic projects on former golf courses, quarries, dams, man-made islands and floating projects on ponds and reservoirs.

Climate change damages US economy, increases inequality Unmitigated climate change will make the United States poorer and more unequal, according to a new study. The poorest third of counties could sustain economic damages costing as much as 20 percent of their income if warming proceeds unabated. States in the South and lower Midwest, which tend to be poor and hot already, will lose the most, with economic opportunity traveling northward and westward. Colder and richer counties along the northern border and in the Rockies could benefit the most as health, agriculture and energy costs are projected to improve. "Unmitigated climate change will be very expensive for huge regions of the United States," said Hsiang, Chancellor's Associate Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. "If we continue on the current path, our analysis indicates it may result in the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in the country's history." The team of economists and climate scientists computed the real-world costs and benefits: how agriculture, crime, health, energy demand, labor and coastal communities will be affected by higher temperatures, changing rainfall, rising seas and intensifying hurricanes.

Visit to the Life Cycle Carbon Minus House at the Building Research Institute

We recently visited the Life Cycle Carbon Minus House in Tsukuba, which has as aim to have negative carbon emissions once it is in operation, including the carbon dioxide generation during construction. We first had a lecture on the workings of the house in Japanese. Aside from applying renewable energy in the form of solar cells, the layout of the house uses different principles depending on the season.  

New Developments June 2017

Graphene electrodes offer new functionalities in molecular electronic nanodevices The field of nanoscale molecular electronics aims to exploit individual molecules as the building blocks for electronic devices, to improve functionality and enable developers to achieve an unprecedented level of device miniaturization and control. The main obstacle hindering progress in this field is the absence of stable contacts between the molecules and metals used that can both operate at room temperature and provide reproducible results. Graphene possesses not only excellent mechanical stability, but also exceptionally high electronic and thermal conductive properties, making the emerging 2D material very attractive for a range of possible applications in molecular electronics. "We find that by carefully designing the chemical contact of molecules to graphene-based materials, we can tune their functionality," said Dr Rungger. "Our single-molecule diodes showed that the rectification direction of electric current can be indeed switched by changing the nature of chemical contact of each molecule," added Dr Rudnev. The findings will also help researchers working in electro-catalysis and energy conversion research design graphene/molecule interfaces in their experimental systems to improve the efficiency of the catalyst or device.

Other lithium consuming processes

There are many lithium consuming processes outside of batteries, whether for electric vehicles (EV) or not. Examples include ceramics, glass, polymers, aluminium, medications, continuous casting molds, air conditioning, lubricating greases, etc. However, there is a distinct lack of data on the lithium consumption of the various lithium consuming processes. 

One scientific paper from 2009 (Yakson and Tilton, doi:10.1016/j.resourpol.2009.05.002) estimated the growth rates for 8 different processes until 2100. More recently, two industry reports from Deutsche Bank (DB) (2016) and Stormcrow (SC) (2015) included estimated for a more elaborate range of processes, until 2025. As they both distinguish different processes, only a few can be compared for the assumed volume and growth rates. The resulting similarities and differences, and thereby implications on total lithium demand, are interesting to note. 

I compared these two estimates per process on total volume and growth rates, and extrapolated reasonable growth rates until 2050 for each process to magnify the effect of the estimates and provide a range of likely total industry growth for lithium consuming processes other than EV batteries. The first step was to convert the estimates of lithium carbonate equivalent into lithium in tons. Next I determined annual growth rates for the SC data. For both data sets I estimated reasonable growth rates per process as listed in the table below. As a last step, I compared both data sets to my previously estimated total of demand from lithium consuming processes other than EV batteries (dependent on Yakson and Tilton, 2009).

Estimating the future number of cars - 2

I prepared two scenarios to estimate the future number of electric vehicles (EV), and total number of cars, on a global scale. 

The first scenario is a business as usual (BaU) scenario, where the annual number of new cars is based on the average growth rate of total cars from 1999-2016 (calculated to be 3.28% - data from OICA). The annual number of new EV and the total stock of EV were estimated in line with the target of 41 million cars sold by 2040 (What will the global EV Light-Duty Vehicle fleet look like through 2050?, Sitty & Taft, Fuel Freedom Foundation, 2016). 

The second scenario is called 2DS, as it is in line with the 2 degree Celsius scenario from the International Energy Agency (IEA). This corresponds to reaching 80% greenhouse gas emission reduction by 2050. In this scenario the annual number of new cars is based on the low growth scenario in Sitty & Taft (2016), which leads to 2% growth until 2040, and 1% until 2050. The annual number of new EV and the total stock of EV were based on the IEA goals of 25 million stock by 2020 and 200 million stock by 2030 (Global EV Outlook 2017, IEA, 2016). 

For both scenarios, the total stock of cars is based on OICA figures including the current stock in use (2015), the average of retired vehicles (2006-2015), and the annual number of cars. The ratio of battery electric vehicles (BEV) to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) was based on the average of annual new BEV/PHEV registrations (data taken from the IEA, 2008-2016). This lead to an increase of BEV over PHEV, with 100% BEV reached by 2028.