"There is no question that these proposed reforms are a major departure from the status quo, but they are reasonable, not radical. They would foster good governance and economic progress in the industry. As COP28 representatives discuss how to reduce carbon while raising global living standards, nuclear energy should be on the front burner."
"The company said its technology 'is designed to maximize the value of renewable energy generation and offer grid operators control and flexibility at the lowest cost compared to other energy storage options. The system is also modular and scalable by adding more carbon blocks to increase storage duration, allowing growth with the grid as renewable generation increases.'"
"The founders of EthioChicken, set up 13 years ago, hawked their first crop of chicks out of baskets strapped to motorbikes when a contract fell through. But now the company employs 1,600 people directly and 10,000 agents, and it has been boosted by investments from the World Bank’s private arm, the International Finance Corp.; and the Gates Foundation. The company projects that it will sell 35 million chicks this year and has expanded to five other countries under the umbrella Hatch Africa."
"Natural gas is central in delivering both energy justice and climate progress in African countries. Without it, there is a risk that the disparity in energy consumption will continue to grow. On a per capita basis, when excluding South Africa, consumption of energy in Sub-Saharan Africa is just 180 kilowatt-hour (kWh), compared to the United States’ 13,000 kWh and Europe’s 6,500 kWh. Expanding the supply of energy by leveraging natural gas ensures that demand that decarbonization does not come at the expense of inclusive economic development."
"The industry is racing to develop SMRs — new types of advanced nuclear reactors that have a power capacity of 300MW or less, which is about a third of standard facilities. Governments and private investors — including Rolls-Royce, GE and Hitachi — have spent billions of dollars to commercialise the technology over the past decade."
"Rather than micromanaging production, governments should unleash investment, by acting boldly to strip back permitting rules and ease the risk of projects in the global south. They also need to face up to the fact that protectionism frustrates their climate goals. It leads to lower returns, higher prices for power and more broken promises over decarbonisation."
"'We were looking for a private-sector approach that wasn’t dependent on policy, it wasn’t dependent on traditional taxes, regulation or philanthropy to price in these assets and give investors the opportunity to invest directly in nature, whether that’s for climate or biodiversity,' said IEG Chair Douglas Eger."
"'Masdar City is dismissed because the tech side didn’t work. It's seen as an eccentric experiment of an oil-rich state,' says Sarah Moser, an assistant professor at McGill University in Canada who studies new cities. 'But what's simple and radical about it is that there’s almost no direct sunlight that reaches the pedestrian level.'"
"Symbium is part of a wave of software companies looking to speed up notoriously sluggish permitting timelines for renewable energy projects. These startups say approval processes can be tightened up dramatically with the help of automation software."
"KOKO hints at why there is excitement about carbon markets. The African Carbon Markets Initiative (ACMI), a UN-backed consortium, reckons that Africa uses just 2% of its annual carbon-credit potential; it aims for Africa to sell $100bn worth of credits a year by 2050. Even a fraction of that would be a boon for a continent where annual foreign direct investment has never surpassed $80bn. William Ruto, Kenya’s president, calls carbon credits an “unparalleled economic gold mine” and his country’s “next significant export”. Yet, as is often the case with Africa and its natural resources, things could go wrong."
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