December Cleantech Roundup: 2018 in Review / How Not to Pass Climate Policy / How Our Energy Mix Has Changed / GIANT CRANES
Clean Energy Trust’s cleantech roundup highlights interesting cleantech news and perspective, from policy changes to technology updates and investment news.
Interesting Posts and Thoughts
The team at Clean Energy Trust compiled our annual lessons and takeaways from 2018. Link
Speaking of year-end activities, here are our top 5 blog posts from the year. Link
Greentech Media’s Year in Review. Greentech Media reviewed 2018 on The Energy Gang and The Interchange podcasts. Among many important stories, they highlighted shipping giant Maersk’s pledge to eliminate carbon emissions by 2050 as an underappreciated story.
Also, I really liked how Stephen Lacey made the analogy between “Build the Wall” for conservative activists and “100% Renewables” for liberal ones. Neither approach appears to be strong policy, objectively, but they do effectively boil down complex issues into catchy slogans that are helping to motivate real action. Link
Tom Steyer Advocates Defeating Moderate Republicans as a Strategy for Addressing Climate Change. Liberal activist Tom Steyer criticized Republican Former Representative Carlos Curbelo as a “pretend environmentalist” and suggested that a winning strategy for addressing climate change is just to defeat Republicans in elections. For reference, Carlos Curbelo showed leadership on climate when he introduced a carbon tax bill in this House this past July.
I think Tom Steyer is very wrong on this. I think his positioning represents a nice rallying cry for Democratic climate activists, but it ignores the realities of divided government. One cannot just defeat all of the moderate Republicans in order to pave the way to pass climate policy — the math just doesn’t add up to get to 60 votes in the Senate in today’s political landscape (a requirement for any legislative action). It is exceedingly rare that major legislation moves with only one-party support, and I don’t think that’s a successful approach for climate and energy policy.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with calling out elected officials when they aren’t being serious, like when Senator Barrasso suggested a good way to reduce emissions was to produce more oil via enhanced oil recovery (which would actually increase emissions, but, in theory, would then also improve carbon capture and sequestration technology, which could then be implemented in the future).
What we actually need is to make it clear when people are not being serious, while elevating the voices of people that are. I didn’t agree with the specifics of Rep. Curbelo’s carbon tax policy proposal, but I was extremely supportive of him proposing something in general.
When we just try to eliminate different voices in the climate debate by defeating them in elections, we run the risk of creating an ideological echo-chamber, where only one policy prescription is acceptable. At the same time, we may discourage others from speaking up on climate change if they don’t share the political persuasions of many climate activists. Link to Axios post on Tom Steyer’s comments
Other Links
The New York Times has a nice graphic-heavy article that charts how every state generates electricity, and how this has changed since 2001. Link
Energy Vault is a company trying to build a giant 6-armed crane that lifts and drops blocks for grid-scale mechanical energy storage. If they are successful, look for “giant crane mechanical storage operator” to become the most in-demand profession for 6-year olds everywhere. Link
For Further Reading:
These publications and newsletters are what I typically pay attention to and are great sources for cleantech and investing news.
Energy:
- GreenTech Media — Good source for news and analysis on all kinds of clean energy.
- Axios’ Generate — Daily energy news roundup, with coverage that includes (but is not limited to) federal goings-on
- The Energy Gang Podcast — weekly cleantech news digest podcast produced by Greentech Media
Investing and Technology:
- Axios’ Pro Rata — Weekday morning newsletter by Dan Primack
- Money Stuff — Weekday opinion piece from Matt Levine at Bloomberg on finance
- Benedict’s Newsletter — Ben Evans’ weekly summary of interesting tech and investing news, along with his own interesting takes
- A VC — Blog by Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures — lots of interesting commentary on venture investing in general, and blockchain in particular
