Amrith Ramkumar of The Wall Street Journal reports on the race to build better air conditioners. “When air conditioning is needed, the solution is brought in contact with air, absorbing water and removing humidity. The air is cooled within a component called a heat exchanger using a high-efficiency method to lower air temperature by exposing...
"'The trouble with talking about nuclear waste is that most people don't know what it is or what it looks like. Thanks to The Simpsons, many people think nuclear waste is a bright green liquid and stored in leaky oil drums,' she explained. 'I find that when people see pictures of nuclear waste and discover that it's actually solid metal, safe enough to hug [when safely stored] and actually quite boring—it alleviates a lot of their anxieties.'"
"Mineral-related initiatives are coming in droves. China’s dominance, says Australia’s resources minister, Madeleine King, is a 'strategic challenge.' On June 20th her government unveiled a critical-minerals strategy to address it. Australia is the biggest producer of lithium, the third-biggest producer of cobalt and fourth-biggest of rare earths—yet a processing minnow. It aims to become, by 2030, 'a globally significant' producer of processed critical minerals. It can 'play its part in making sure we build secure supply chains', says Ms King."
"Occidental in March announced it had leased 55,000 acres for carbon sequestration in three Texas counties, including Chambers, where Dugat’s ranch is located—part of at least 287,000 acres it has secured for the purpose across Texas and Louisiana. Chevron and two partners said the same month that they had leased 100,000 acres to store carbon in Chambers and neighboring Jefferson counties alone—more than a 10th of the counties’ total land area."
"The United States Department of Energy (DOE), Nuclear Engineering & Science Center at Texas A&M and the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have partnered with Chicago-based Clean Core Thorium Energy (CCTE) to develop a new thorium-based nuclear fuel they have dubbed ANEEL. ANEEL (Advanced Nuclear Energy for Enriched Life) is a proprietary combination of thorium and 'High Assay Low Enriched Uranium' (HALEU) that intends to address high costs and toxic waste issues (thorium must be paired with at least a small amount of a fissile material due its inability to naturally fissile on its own)."
Wyoming Governor Mark Gorden writes in The Hill about the benefits of carbon capture and storage (CCUS). “Americans rely on energy every day to make our way of life possible. We in Wyoming care deeply about our natural heritage because we live close to it and appreciate the delicacy of powering our nation without sacrificing...
"To put it bluntly: Bringing in a new guy — whether it’s an 'art of the deal' president or a US transportation secretary from McKinsey — won’t necessarily speed things up. Because the delay comes not from government incompetence but from the great mass of citizens who demand more voice, more procedure, more consultation and more review."
"Founded in 2018, KoBold says it uses data science and machine learning to identify deposits of cobalt, copper, nickel and lithium, crucial components of the electric-vehicle boom. It has 60 continuing exploration projects in North America, Africa and Australia. Last December, it agreed to invest $150 million to buy a controlling stake in a large, undeveloped copper deposit in Zambia that it says should take at least eight years to yield copper."
"Baker Hughes, which is more equipment-focused than its peers, therefore seems to have a head start: Orders in its new energy business were substantial enough to be noted on earnings calls. It booked more than $400 million of orders in the segment last year and said it is on track to exceed that amount this year."
"Obtaining an exemption for a prescribed fire under the Clean Air Act is already so arduous that states are reluctant to implement or expand burn programs. The Government Accountability Office recently reported that the approval process is so burdensome that only one state has submitted and been granted an exemption from the EPA, a project in Kansas in 2012."
Help us promote free market solutions for climate change.
Thank you for signing up