Weekend Reads: SBTi Staff Revolt; Is Climate Change Rewiring Fish Brains? - Smart Energy Decisions

GHG Emissions, Industrial, Solar, Sourcing Renewables  -  April 13, 2024

Weekend Reads: SBTi Staff Revolt; Is Climate Change Rewiring Fish Brains?

It's the weekend! Kick back and catch up with these must-read articles from around the web:

Climate target organisation faces staff revolt over carbon-offsetting plan (The Guardian)  Staff at one of the world’s leading climate-certification organisations have called for the CEO and board members to resign after they announced plans to allow companies to meet their climate targets with carbon offsets. They fear that companies will use the offsets for greenwashing, while avoiding making the necessary cuts in greenhouse gas emissions – without which the world faces climate catastrophe. 

Texas Solar Power Growth Changing the Shape of Daily Electricity Supply in ERCOT (Clean Technica)  The electricity mix of energy sources in Texas, managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) electricity grid operator, changed noticeably in 2023. Although wind power remains the largest source of renewable power in the state, the installation of new wind turbine capacity slowed in 2023, while additions of solar generating capacity, often co-located with storage, grew rapidly. With more solar capacity on the ERCOT electricity grid, we expect less use of natural gas generation during the middle of the day when solar generation displaces it. 

‘Game-Changing’ Electric Factories Will Reshape Heavy Industries, Says European Developer Coolbrook (Forbes)  At the Brightlands Chemelot Campus, near the Dutch city of Geleen, a kindred group of engineers are plugging away on a novel pilot project they describe as "game-changing" industrial technology - the replacement of conventional fossil fuel dependent high temperature equipment by a low carbon solution that uses only electricity. The motley group hails from Finland-headquartered pan-European firm Coolbrook, and they are almost ready for a commercial launch expected early in 2025, according to CEO Joonas Rauramo.

Climate change is rewiring fish brains — and probably ours, too (Grist)  Imagine you are a clown fish. A juvenile clown fish, specifically, in the year 2100. You live near a coral reef. You are orange and white, which doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you have these little ear stones called otoliths in your inner ear, and when sound waves pass through the water and then through your body, these otoliths move and displace tiny hair cells, which trigger electrochemical signals in your auditory nerve. Nemo, you are hearing. But you are not hearing well. In this version of century’s end, humankind has managed to pump the climate brakes a smidge, but it has not reversed the trends that were apparent a hundred years earlier. 

Digital Realty ditches diesel for salad dressing in US to cut datacenter emissions (The Register)  Datacenter operator Digital Realty is replacing diesel with hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) at sites in the US in a bid to reduce carbon dioxide emissions following a successful trial in Europe. The global bit barn provider said that HVO will be introduced first at three of its sites in California and Oregon as an alternative to diesel for powering its backup generators. It expects this will help it avoid approximately 12,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions, compared with previous years. 

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