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It’s been a busy month, and a couple of weeks have actually skipped by us since my last “Cleantech News of the Week” update. So, this is a two-week summary of some of the biggest news we’ve seen and op-eds we’ve written.
Clean Energy
The world is moving into a clean energy future, and there’s no doubt about that. One data point showing us this is fact that the world is investing almost twice as much money into clean energy than fossil fuels this year. Similarly, forecasts for how much clean energy will be installed in coming years keep having to be revised upward.
Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory, June 2024
In the US, almost all new power capacity added in the country this year has come from renewable energy sources.
We just passed the two-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act, and research shows that “Red states” (primarily Republican states) have received the most investment, despite actually having far less of the population than Blue states. (As a reminder, the Inflation Reduction Act was passed by Democrats when they controlled Congress, with no support from Republican politicians.)
Perhaps on a related note, Tina Casey discusses how much agrivoltaics and community solar power are a match made in heaven.
Steve Hanley also discussed solar growth and success in Germany, the UK, and Texas.
On the topic of wind power, the US Department of Energy has three new reports out on our growing wind energy future.
Unfortunately — not because of radiation or anything like that, but because of basic economics, practicality, and financial efficiency — some are still wasting their time on new nuclear power.
But let’s end with something fun — walkable solar PV floors. Okay, this may not be the most efficient use of solar PV, but it’s a fun option to explore.
Electric Cars
350 mayors across the US have pledged to electrify at least 50% of their municipal fleets by 2030 and increase their EV infrastructure by 500% by 2035. The pledge was made as part of the 2nd anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act.
We have a fun new monthly report from Jose Pontes in which he does a “market roundup” of the top countries in the world and their EV sales trends. Those of us into number fun are absolutely loving this.
Colombia is not one of those major markets, but we also have a report on this booming young market, which has seen EV sales grow 240% recently.
But it’s not all about new EVs. The great news for the majority of people who shop the used car market is that used electric vehicle prices have come down tremendously in the past several months — by 20.5% year over year in the 2nd quarter.
On the topic of Tesla, we discussed what should be coming from an upgraded Tesla Model Y, recently spotted undercover, and also a super-trimmed-down and cheaper Model 3 for Mexico.
Concerningly, Tesla’s favorability dropped from among Democrats 39% to 16% in just 6 months this year! There are some expected reasons for that, but they go a bit broader than we probably assume, because
On the positive front for Tesla, it got a relatively small 9% tariff added to the base EV tariff of 10% for electric cars produced in China and shipped to the EU. That should help protect it from a big sales drop in Europe.
Over in China, EV startup Zeekr has now set a new high bar for how fast an electric car (for sale on the market today) can charge. The company also just reached 300,000 cumulative sales.
Chinese EV companies Zeekr, BYD, and NIO also continue their rapid expansion in markets around the world, most recently into Japan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the UAE.
At home, China’s got a new “cash for clunkers” program to incentivize more EV sales and get more old polluting cars off the road.
We’ve also had a few broader articles about the EV leadership of China — how long-term vision and 20 years of policy initiatives have led to China dominating the clean energy and EV markets. All the while, too many in the US — including in power in the market or politics — have been complacent, entitled, and scared of change. On that matter, GM and Ford have, unfortunately, followed the short-term, anti-community, short-sighted guidance of Jack Welch — and it’s not turning out well.
Sticking to US challenges, the latest news is that the rollout of Tesla Supercharging adapters for non-Tesla brands is not going well — it’s going very slowly due to an unexplained glacial pace of production of these adapters by Tesla. Hopefully that will change soon.
A police chief in Georgia explains how he went from EV skeptic to EV lover. It’s a fun story.
Many anti-EV people like to claim “they’re not as green as you think they are.” Well, that’s bunk. And on that matter, the US Department of Energy points out that “a small electric SUV with a range of 300 miles produces 52% fewer life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than a comparable gasoline vehicle.”
George Harvey wrote a fun little thought exercise on what will happen as we come to the end of the fossil fuel era.
And over in Kenya, we’ve got the positive news that the government there is buying 1,000 electric vehicles for its staff, a growing trend of strong government policy towards EVs over in Africa.
Robotaxis
Perhaps these should be in the section above, but I’m giving them their own category.
Waymo Zeekr concept robotaxi. Image courtesy of Waymo.
The biggest news is that Waymo has tripled its weekly paid robotaxi trips in just 3 months!
Also, the company has a new, 6th-generation self-driving system just launched which can drive in more extreme weather, is cheaper than ever, and was developed faster than ever.
Other
The 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles are reportedly going to be car-free. It’s hard to imagine that in one of the most auto-dependent cities in the world. But that’s the goal. As part of that, we’re expecting to have electric air taxis at the 2028 Olympics! In fact, the more ambitious goal is to have those electric air taxis in operation for the 2026 World Cup in the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco.
On the matter of electric air taxis, the key company behind those plans mentioned above, Archer Aviation, also just sold 116 of its Midnight electric aircraft to Future Flight Global.
Regarding the coming presidential election in the US, I also discussed something I’d much rather not discuss — how the Trump administration aims to dismantle climate action, clean energy progress, and even basic things like the National Weather Service and Department of Energy if Trump is elected again. That’s part of a Project 2025 agenda built by dozens of former Trump admin people and people very close to Trump and JD Vance, and it essentially aims to “drown the government in the bathwater,” as Grover Norquist once advised.
Okay, I’ll end on another bad note. I pointed out in an op-ed recently that, ironically and unfortunately, it seems the people most scared of immigration to the US (a country built by immigrants) are also most likely to ignore the underlying climate crisis that is causing much of this immigration. Ugh.
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