The energy sector is responsible for three quarters of global emissions and achieving significant energy efficiency improvements within this sector will be the difference between achieving, or falling well short, of the 2050 net zero targets.

Digital technologies are transforming the energy sector and creating a new generation of energy efficient solutions. New digital solutions can limit production and distribution losses and accommodate growing shares of variable and distributed renewable energy while increasing grid flexibility. In recent years, energy management systems in buildings have also become smarter, integrating external data sources, like weather conditions, traffic patterns, and more. Using artificial intelligence, these advanced systems can forecast energy demand and improve response capabilities. The potential benefits of capitalising on these existing digital solutions are significant. IEA analysis estimates that through using the technology already available, we could improve the efficiency of more than 12% of 2018 global electricity consumption. By 2050 that improvement potential will nearly double, representing about one-quarter of global electricity consumption. Governments can play a key role in scaling the market for these smart devices through standards, regulations, incentives or information sharing. Digitalisation will play a key role in rapidly growing cities where dense populations, increasingly high concentrations of electric vehicles, and innovative district energy, heating, and cooling systems can work in sync to optimise demand and consumption, improving efficiency and reducing emissions.

However, some of the proposed solutions seem well beyond the realms of possibility as they would require buildings all around the world to improve their energy intensity by up to 50%, and as of June 2020, we were already well behind the required rate of progress.

This solution, which is described as a core component of net zero target, is being presented as the “logical” or “common sense” approach. However, reality is the polar opposite because the wholesale changes required to building regulations and thereafter enforcement measures, would already need to be in place in order to deliver the improvements within the net zero target timeframe.

For a moment let us set aside the length of time wholesale regulatory changes would take to draft, pass into law and implement, given they have to go through a notoriously slow bureaucratic process, even if everyone was in agreement. Let us also set aside that retrofitting existing building stock on a global scale, as laid out in this plan, would take decades and cost trillions. The fact remains some of the very same organisations politicians rely on for support and funding are the same organisations that prioritise economic stability, economic growth and economic opportunities, which a solution such as this would undermine on a fundamental level, especially when we consider we are also faced with a huge economic recovery challenge due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the World Economic Forum, under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nearly 200 countries said they would act to limit the rise in global average temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times and strive to keep it to a ceiling of 1.5C. But the world has already heated up by about 1.1C and is currently on track for warming of at least 3C this century as emissions continue to rise. Scientists say that would bring ever-worsening extreme weather and potentially catastrophic sea level rise, making some parts of the planet uninhabitable and fuelling hunger and migration. That – and mounting public pressure – is why a growing number of countries, companies and others are promising to cut their planet-warming emissions to net zero by 2050 or before.

Source: “The role of energy efficiency in achieving net zero targets”, The Open Access Government

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In California, state electricity regulators over-relied on solar panels, despite warnings from the state’s grid operator that doing so was dangerous, since most of the state’s peak electricity use occurs during and after the sunset. “For many years we have pointed out that there was inadequate supply of electricity after solar had left its peak,” said an emotional CEO of California’s grid manager, Caiso, last August during the blackouts. “We told regulators over and over that more should be contracted for. That was rebuffed. And here we are.”

Renewables don’t have to cause blackouts. Germany generated 37.5% of its electricity last year from wind and solar and didn’t suffer from a decline in electricity reliability. California would have avoided its blackouts had it not shut down a large nuclear plant and several natural gas power plants over the last decade.

As for Germany, it has only maintained its reliability by continuing to operate fossil fuel power plants of all types including lignite coal, not by building more transmission lines and batteries. Of the 56% of German electricity from carbon-free sources, nearly half (24% overall) came from nuclear, hydroelectric dams, and biomass, which are far more reliable than solar and wind. And, last month, Germany’s independent federal government auditor warned in strong language that adding more weather-dependent energy sources increases the risk of blackouts.

University of Chicago economists found recently that state policies promoting renewables led consumers to pay $125 billion more for electricity than they would have without such mandate policies. In Texas actual construction far outstripped the mandate, and with prices staying level, experts argued that Texas represented an example of cost-efficient addition of renewables.

All possible savings were wiped out in February and blackout-time energy costs have swamped energy companies and consumers alike. Meanwhile, California’s retail electricity prices rose eight times faster than the average in the other 49 states in the 10 years between 2011 and 2020 due to its increased use of variable energy sources.

Over the 20th century, as power plants grew larger and more efficient, the cost of electricity declined dramatically, contributing significantly to rising living standards. Indeed, the process of producing energy, food, and products more efficiently and cheaply is the main driver of economic growth and prosperity.

But over the last 20 years, as federal and state policies have subsidized and mandated the use of less efficient sources of energy from weather-dependent wind and solar, which require far more land, transmission, and other infrastructure, electricity prices have risen, thus threatening economic growth, living standards, and societal resilience.

As such, while Democrats in Congress point to extreme weather events as justification for subsidizing renewables, the blackouts in California and Texas, and the maintenance of fossil fuels and renewables slowdown in Germany, suggest that anybody concerned about preventing blackouts should favor relying less, not more, on weather-dependent energies.

Source: “Renewable Energy Boom Risks More Blackouts Without Adequate Investment In Grid Reliability”, Forbes

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ExxonMobil promotes the plan as one that would help Houston and the country achieve objectives related to the Paris Climate Agreement, as well as Houston’s commitment to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Mayor Turner appeared to agree. “This proposal by ExxonMobil is the type of bold ambition and investment we will need to meet our climate goals and protect our communities from climate change,” he said on Tuesday. “ExxonMobil’s proposal represents a significant step forward for the energy industry, and I hope it brings more companies to the table to help Houston lead a global energy transition.”

It’s the kind of plan that only a company of ExxonMobil’s size, experience and internal expertise could hope to undertake. Joe Blommaert, President of ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions, in an interview Wednesday, told me that the company’s 30+ year experience in the CCUS realm, during which time it has accounted for 40% of all of the CO2 that has been captured by mankind, makes it uniquely situated to execute such a plan. “We do believe we have the necessary operating experience of running carbon capture,” he said. “We have the geo-science and other critical skills within our company, and we have the proven capability to execute very large projects and managing large capital investments.

Guy Powell, Vice President of Planning and Business Development for the Low Carbon Solutions group told me, “The U.S. Gulf Coast endowment is incredible. The estimate of total available capacity is roughly 500 billion tons of storage capacity in the Gulf of Mexico, if you look at the region from New Orleans all the way down to Corpus Christi.” That’s enough capacity to accommodate hundreds of years’ worth of the plan’s goal of sequestering 100 million metric tons of CO2 per year once it is fully online.

Exxon’s vision is to source that CO2 from the 50 largest industrial emitters in the Houston area, a plan that would go a long way to helping the city achieve its net-zero carbon goals. But even working in partnership with the city, state and federal governments, Exxon believes it is a plan that would of necessity involve many other industry participants besides itself. The plan would also require the creation of a regulatory framework at all of these levels of government in order to be successful. That itself presents a huge challenge, especially given that the Biden/Harris administration appears to have de-emphasized support for CCUS, at least in its initial proposal on infrastructure legislation.

Another big challenge will come from opposition from the green lobby, which seems to just knee-jerk in opposition to any proposal from the oil and gas sector.

The company firmly believes the world needs big, bold CCUS projects such as this one if it ever hopes to achieve its Paris Agreement goals. As Blommaert puts it, “This is not a question of ‘or’. Society needs all available solutions to meet the Paris goals. That is recognized by the International Energy Agency and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This is particularly true for these hard-to-decarbonize sectors that have a lot of heat requirements, a lot of heat flow requirements. There is no technology readily available at scale that can decarbonize those activities, which are fundamental, and are manufacturing day-to-day products that society needs.”

Source: “Exxon’s $100 Billion Carbon Capture Plan”, Forbes

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The president convened the summit to urge global cooperation on climate change. “It’s an encouraging start,” Biden told world leaders during the summit. “We’re really beginning to make some real progress.”

In a split from his past attitude toward climate change, Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro vowed to end illegal deforestation in the country by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said the country will pledge to curb emissions by 46% by 2030 compared with 2013 levels. Japan, the world’s fifth largest emitter, previously committed to a 26% reduction, a goal that was criticized as insufficient. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed that Canada will slash emissions 40% to 45% by 2030 compared with 2005 levels, a major increase from its previous pledge of 30%. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn’t provide a new target but re-confirmed the country’s vow to install 450 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030. Russia President Vladimir Putin broadly pledged to “significantly” reduce the country’s emissions in the next three decades and said Russia makes a big contribution in absorbing global carbon dioxide. Putin also said the country has nearly halved its emissions compared to 1990 and called for a global reduction of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide and a main driver of climate change. China’s President Xi Jinping re-affirmed commitments to peak emissions before 2030 and go carbon neutral by 2060. The U.S. and China have agreed to cooperate on climate change despite division on issues like trade and human rights. CNBC

President Ursula von der Leyen said: “I am delighted that we have reached an agreement on this core element of the European Green Deal. Our political commitment to becoming the first climate neutral continent by 2050 is now also a legal commitment. The Climate Law sets the EU on a green path for a generation. It is our binding pledge to our children and grandchildren.”

Executive Vice-President for the European Green Deal, Frans Timmermans added: “This is a landmark moment for the EU. We have reached an ambitious agreement to write our climate neutrality target into binding legislation, as a guide to our policies for the next 30 years. The Climate Law will shape the EU’s green recovery and ensure a socially just green transition. Today’s agreement also reinforces our global position as a leader in tackling the climate crisis. When world leaders gather on Earth Day, the EU will come to the table with this positive news, which we hope will inspire our international partners. This is a good day for our people and our planet.” European Commission

Described by the United Nations as a legally-binding international treaty on climate change, the landmark accord aims to “limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.” 2 degrees Celsius is around 35 degrees Fahrenheit.

Now, years later, politicians are — pandemic permitting — preparing to meet once again for the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, or COP26.

As things stand, COP26 will be hosted by the U.K. and held in the Scottish city of Glasgow between Nov. 1 and 12, 2021. It was originally due to take place in Nov. 2020, but was rescheduled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

COP stands for Conference of the Parties — in other words, countries — while the number 26 refers to the fact it will be the 26th summit. The European Union is considered a “party” to the Paris Agreement in its own right, as are its 27 member states.

The U.K. government says talks at COP26, “will bring together heads of state, climate experts and campaigners to agree coordinated action to tackle climate change.”

Italy has been designated as a “co-host” of COP26 and in late September a three day “Pre-COP” session will take place in Milan, which between 35 and 40 countries are expected to attend.

Participants at COP25, which was held in Spain at the end of 2019, included the U.S., China, India and the European Union. It’s hoped all will be active, vocal participants at the talks in Glasgow.

A great deal of attention will focus on China in the run up to this year’s event. In an illustration of the challenges involved when it comes to coordinating major international summits, China did not take part in a recent climate meeting held by the U.K. ahead of COP26.

The BBC reported that China was not involved in the meeting, which was attended by the EU, U.S., India and others, despite being invited.

China did, however, take part in the IEA-COP26 Net Zero Summit, which was held on the same day.

A lot is riding on COP26. “We know that in order to limit the warming of the Earth to 1.5C at a maximum, the international community, and major and historical emitters need to bring highly ambitious plans,” Jake Woodier, COP26 Campaign Manager at The Climate Coalition, a group focused on tackling climate change, told CNBC via email.

Helen Clarkson, who is CEO of the Climate Group, an international non-profit, told CNBC that COP26 was “a crucial moment in the fight against climate change.”

“As host of the talks, the U.K. has a responsibility to lead from the front and urge governments to set net zero goals that align with the Paris agreement, limiting global temperature rises to no more than 1.5 degrees C,” she added.

All countries that are part of the Paris Agreement are supposed to update their NDCs every five years. This is important because the targets need to be ramped up regularly in order meet the agreement’s overall target of limiting global warming.

In theory, these updates should have been submitted by the end of 2020. In practice, this didn’t happen due to a multitude of reasons, including Covid-19 related disruption.

Published in February, a UN report showed that as of Dec. 31 last year, only 75 parties involved in the Paris Agreement had updated their NDCs. This represents just 40% of the total number involved, and together they account for only 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The interim report was described as a “red alert for our planet” by UN Secretary General António Guterres.

“It shows governments are nowhere close to the level of ambition needed to limit climate change to 1.5 degrees and meet the goals of the Paris Agreement,” he added.

Elsewhere, Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of UN Climate Change, said the report showed that current targets were “very far from putting us on a pathway that will meet our Paris Agreement goals.” An updated version of this report will be published in the run up to COP26.

The anxiety surrounding new NDCs — or the lack of them — is one of several stumbling blocks already experienced by the summit.

Meanwhile, teenage activist Greta Thunberg – a hugely influential figure in the climate change movement – recently cast doubt on her attendance.

Given all of the above, what would need to be achieved and agreed at COP26 for it to be considered a success?

“Success would look like rigorous targets that embody a high level of ambition that ensures warming is kept to below 1.5C,” The Climate Coalition’s Woodier said.

The U.K. says its COP26 Presidency will focus on five things: finance, clean road transport, adaptation and resilience, the energy transition and nature. The latter has some high-profile advocates, including Prince William.

Addressing the virtual spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group last week, the Duke of Cambridge said protecting and restoring nature was “critical to the success of COP26 in Glasgow later this year and for the brighter, greener, more prosperous future that we all want to see.”

“We cannot recover sustainably from coronavirus, eradicate global poverty, achieve net zero emissions or adapt to climate change without investing in nature,” he added.

COP26, William went on to state, was a “vital step on the path to putting nature center stage in our fight against climate change.”

Source: “World Leaders, Royalty And Environmentalists Gear Up For Major Climate Summit COP26”, CNBC

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“We may see tight grid conditions due to the large number of generators out of service for planned and forced maintenance combined with low wind and solar output forecasted for today,” said ERCOT Vice President of Grid Planning and Operations Woody Rickerson in a release. “Additionally, we’re seeing some risk in the Rio Grande Valley due to the forced outage of a generating unit in the area.”

An email from Rob Allerman, Senior Director Power Analytics at Enverus, provided more details into what was taking place: “Enverus is seeing another day (similar to yesterday) in Texas where the risk for blackouts are possible due to power supply issues. However, what is also driving this shortage is the amount of units that are off-line due to units winterizing. The reported telemetered outages today is 21.1 GW where normally we would be measuring around 14.5 GW of outages in ERCOT for April.”

Intermittent forms of energy – i.e., wind and solar – providing well below their expected loads for this time of year. Wind provided roughly 60% of what ERCOT projected it would supply, while Solar provided only a little more than half of its expected supply. Why? Because the wind didn’t blow as much and the sun didn’t shine as much as ERCOT’s models anticipated they would.

As I’ve detailed previously, the root cause of this issue is that the reserve capacity margin on the Texas grid is simply too slim. Since 2010, Texas has only seen the new construction of just 2 gigawatts of baseload reserve capacity as wind and solar capacity on the grid have exploded. During those same ten years, the state has seen the decommissioning of half a dozen big capacity coal-fired plants. The result has been a net-negative change in baseload supply during a time in which the state’s population has expanded by 20%.

The solution is clear: Texas policymakers must reform this broken system in order to ensure more reserve baseload capacity is built, and existing plants are weatherized. As NBC5 in Dallas reported on Wednesday, the Texas grid currently operates with about a 5% capacity margin. Other, more highly-regulated states operate with margins that are 3-4 times that amount, in order to protect against extreme changes in weather that can dramatically increase demand for power.

University of Houston energy expert Ed Hirs told NBC5 that “The main thing is we’re paying for an electricity grid that’s broken. We’re going to have to spend some money. And since this is the Texas grid, it’s a Texas problem.” Hirs was especially critical of the ability of power generators to charge such exorbitant rates during times of crisis. “They failed to deliver what the contract that is for cheap, reliable electricity. And on top of that then they get to price gouge. You know, something’s wrong with this market.”

Another increasingly obvious question the legislature and regulators should address is how the grid will be managed going forward, and by whom. Two straight days of warnings about capacity shortages in the middle of April raises legitimate questions about ERCOT’s ongoing competence to manage the mess of a grid its leadership did so much to create.

Source: “Another April Day, Another ERCOT Warning About Inadequate Supply”, Forbes

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“Twenty years ago, when people were talking about hydrogen, almost exclusively people were talking about use in light-duty vehicles. Today, people are talking almost exclusively about everything else,” said Julio Friedmann, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. “Hydrogen is the Swiss Army knife of decarbonization,” added Friedmann, who served as the principal deputy assistant secretary for the Energy Department’s Office of Fossil Energy in the Obama administration.

For example, hydrogen can be used in a fuel cell to power a heavy-duty truck. It can be converted into ammonia, which can then be used to fuel a cargo ship. Hydrogen can be blended into natural gas and run through a gas turbine to generate electricity. It can serve as a replacement fuel for steel, cement, chemical, and other manufacturing plants that can’t be easily electrified. Hydrogen can even store energy, acting similar to a long-duration battery to provide power to the grid when renewable energy is in short supply. The challenge, however, is scaling the technology. To do so will require a concerted policy effort to help drive down the costs of producing carbon-free hydrogen, according to energy analysts and industry representatives.

“In terms of the policy environment, hydrogen is a little bit of a blank slate, which is a challenge and an opportunity,” said Paul Wilkins, senior director of federal government relations for Bloom Energy, which manufactures fuel cells and electrolyzers. “We’d love to see the administration put together a national hydrogen strategy.” Even so, Biden’s proposals thus far pale in comparison to comprehensive hydrogen road maps that other countries, such as Australia and Chile, are putting into place.

The European Union, as part of its European Green Deal, is investing massively in hydrogen, with an aggressive goal of deploying 40 gigawatts of electrolyzers, which are used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, by 2030. That government commitment to support hydrogen is already driving private investment. Cummins, for example, is already helping run hydrogen-powered trains in Europe, said Traci Kraus, the company’s director of government relations.

These other countries are focusing on hydrogen not only to decarbonize their own industries but also to take advantage of a future export market. Japan, which doesn’t have many energy resources of its own to extract, is planning to rely heavily on hydrogen as a replacement fuel in nearly everything, including vehicles, power plants, and industrial manufacturing, which Friedmann said creates a new market pull for the fuel. Other smaller Asian nations, such as South Korea and Singapore, are soon to follow. Right now, Japan is working with Australia, which could provide much of its hydrogen, but hydrogen advocates see an eventual opportunity for the United States to supply hydrogen abroad, if the federal government commits to support the technology.

The U.S. currently produces 10 million tons of hydrogen each year, one-seventh of the global supply. Roughly half of that hydrogen is used in oil refining, and most of the other half is used in fertilizer production. Already, there are a few thousand miles of hydrogen pipelines in the U.S. in the Gulf Coast and California, largely connecting oil refineries.

That scale, however, is far insufficient to what energy analysts and industry representatives have said will be needed in a net-zero emissions world. That developing market for hydrogen is large, “somewhere on the order of a gigaton of hydrogen,” said Jonathan Lewis, senior counsel and climate specialist at the Clean Air Task Force. In addition, most hydrogen in the U.S. today is produced from natural gas by exposing methane to high-temperature steam.

Decarbonizing hydrogen production requires installing carbon capture equipment to those natural gas operations, known as “blue” hydrogen, or creating hydrogen using renewable energy. The latter “green” hydrogen is produced by using renewable energy to power an electrolyzer, which splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. Both low-carbon hydrogen production methods, however, remain too expensive to be widely commercialized, as the costs of carbon capture equipment and electrolyzers are high.

The Energy Department sees an opportunity for the U.S. to increase its hydrogen production capacity by two to four times, said Sunita Satyapal, who directs the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office in the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

Satyapal said the department recently launched a consortium and research effort dedicated to driving down the cost of electrolyzers. The Energy Department is aiming to cut the costs of green hydrogen production by two to three times, making it competitive with hydrogen produced from natural gas without carbon capture.

The Energy Department has already been launching some hydrogen production pilot projects, and it is exploring pilot projects for various end uses of hydrogen, including a data center, marine shipping, steel manufacturing, and heavy-duty vehicles, she said.

The agency has also successfully introduced hydrogen to some niche markets, Satyapal added. For example, the Energy Department helped demonstrate a few hundred hydrogen-fueled forklifts. Now there are more than 40,000 hydrogen-fueled forklifts in warehouses across the country.

Beyond direct incentives, Biden administration efforts to build out clean energy infrastructure, including electric transmission lines, carbon dioxide pipelines, and clean vehicle refueling stations, are all essential to supporting a hydrogen economy, Friedmann of Columbia University said.

Natural gas companies also see hydrogen as an opportunity to repurpose their existing infrastructure, avoiding stranded assets and lost jobs. Low levels of hydrogen can already be blended into the natural gas supply and transported through existing gas pipelines.

Source: “Biden Administration and Industry Alike See Hydrogen As ‘Swiss Army Knife’ For Eliminating Emissions”, Washington Examiner

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More investment decisions to build new lithium mining projects need to be added to the pipeline, and fast, as Rystad Energy estimates it can take between five and seven years to develop, finance, and build an average new project.

In fact, based on our current lithium mining capacity outlook and the share of lithium demand that electric passenger vehicles will create, we estimate that the supply deficit is poised to delay the production of the equivalent of around 3.3 million electric vehicles with a battery of 75 kilowatt-hours (kWh) already in 2027. The impact will grow quickly, to around 9 million EVs in 2028 and some 20 million electric cars in 2030.

“A major disruption is brewing for electric vehicle manufacturers. Although there is plenty of lithium to mine in the ground, the existing and planned projects will not be enough to meet demand for the metal. If more mining projects are not added to the pipeline quickly, the energy transition of road transport may need to slow down,” says James Ley, Senior Vice President at Rystad Energy’s Energy Metals team.

Although lithium-ion is not the only battery technology, it is far superior in EV applications and won’t be substituted by anything else this decade. Even if other technologies evolve later, they too are likely to use lithium, although maybe in smaller volumes. Lithium is the lightest metal applicable to batteries and switching it with something else would reduce energy density, resulting in shorter ranges for EVs.

Excluding the lithium mining capacity that supplies non-battery markets such as glass and ceramics, the remaining lithium production capability that can be used for manufacturing batteries of all applications in 2021 is standing at nearly 520,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent per year. Widely known as LCE, this unit is the market’s most-used measurement for lithium production.

Demand for LCE from battery manufacturers is estimated at about 300,000 tonnes this year, but this will grow fast. Already in 2025 LCE demand from battery manufacturers will reach just over 1 million tonnes, compared to a LCE mining capacity of just over 1.3 million tonnes when other uses are excluded. By 2026, the scale will tilt towards a minor mining capacity deficit.

If the current mining project pipeline remains unchanged, the capacity deficit will start swelling and reach nearly 820,000 tonnes in 2028 when LCE demand is estimated to surge to 2.8 million tonnes. Things could get even worse as demand continues to rise, with the imbalance possibly ballooning to 2 million tonnes of LCE as soon as 2030.

LCE prices averaged at around $8,200 per tonne in 2020. The metal’s value saw a massive surge just a few years ago, from $6,500/tonne in 2015 to a record high of $17,000/tonne in 2018, before the market started to calm down in the latter part of the year and into 2019.

“We anticipate that lithium prices could replicate their past turbulence if supplies cannot catch up with booming EV demand later this decade. Looking at the significant task ahead to build more mining capacity, prices could even triple as a result of the market imbalance,” adds Ley.

As the EV industry matures, it will be necessary to establish and cultivate industries that promote second-life battery use and near 100% recyclability. Recycling of batteries has so far been blocked by technical constraints, economic barriers, logistical issues, and regulatory gaps.

With battery recycling set to become ever more important, start-up companies in America and Europe are beginning to commercialize new battery recycling technology. We believe that there will be an increasing drive to tackle recycling as more batteries reach the end of their life. Widespread adoption of battery recycling may not be seen until after 2030, however, as EV batteries currently entering the system are normally designed to have a 15-year lifetime.

Recycling is thus unlikely to plug the gap in lithium supply shortages to battery manufactures after 2025. We therefore expect prices of lithium to rise in line with our demand forecast until new mines are developed beyond the 40 or so that are currently proposed.

Source: “Lithium Prices Could Triple As EV Production Soars”, World-Energy

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The money is split into 338 billion euros in grants and 386 billion in loans for the 27 EU countries and the rest is for joint EU programmes. It will be distributed over the next five years with a third to be spent on reducing CO2 emissions in the EU’s 27 economies.

Each of the 27 EU governments can get 13% of its share of the money this year in pre-financing before projects paid for by the scheme reach agreed milestones and targets. The EU will publish a funding plan six months in advance to allow investors to plan.

“Our structures will be ready by June and theoretically we could start borrowing then, but it depends on how quickly member states complete the ratification process,” Han told a news conference.

The repayment of the borrowing is supposed to come from new taxes the EU is to agree on over the coming years, rather than from national budgets. The repayment is to start in 2028 and continue until 2058. The EU also plans a financial transaction tax and a financial contribution linked to the corporate sector or a new common corporate tax base. Reuters