Equilibrium/Sustainability — Home battery wars heat up

Toyota, the world’s largest car company, is rolling out a new home battery system to take on a similar product sold by Tesla.

While the system is currently available only in Japan, it’s part of a move by auto giants into the growing home energy storage market, according to clean energy reporting site Electrek. 

With a capacity of 8.7 kilowatt hours, the Toyota battery will hold about two-thirds as much as a Tesla Powerwall — and just about half as much as the largest-capacity Renault Powervault.

A similar effort by Mercedes Benz failed in 2018, according to Electrek. 

It’s not Toyota’s only foray this week into new forms of energy storage.

The company also has a new prototype “hydrogen cartridge” — like a zero-emission propane canister — that has enough power to “operate a typical household microwave for approximately 3-4 hours,” Toyota said.

Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. We’re Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Send us tips and feedback. Subscribe here.

Today we’ll look at President Biden’s potential upcoming trip to push Saudi Arabia on oil production, and we’ll examine House Republicans’ fossil-fuel based plans to address climate change.

Biden eyes Saudi trip amid rising oil prices 

President Biden is preparing for a possible meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a high-profile meeting that would likely focus on convincing Riyadh to ramp up oil production, our colleague Laura Kelly reported Thursday.

Biden on Friday acknowledged that the trip was a possibility while indicating that plans have not been finalized, telling reporters that he would attempt to advance Middle East peace prospects if he did go on such a trip.

Reversing course: If the meeting with the crown prince does take place, it would mark a reversal of Biden’s campaign promise to isolate the Gulf leader, though would come as the administration tries to tamp down on global oil prices.

U.S.-Saudi tensions remain high over a variety of issues, including the Saudi government’s repression of opposition leaders, the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi and Riyadh’s actions in the war in Yemen.

Bringing down gas prices: The possible meeting between Biden and the crown prince would likely center on convincing Riyadh to release more oil, Samantha Gross, of the Brookings Institution, told The Hill. 

Need for political headwind: A Bloomberg report likewise suggested that “soaring crude prices would color any visit,” as high gas prices “are paralyzing political headwind for Biden’s party heading into November midterm elections.”

TURNING TIDES

News of the possible meeting came just after OPEC+ nations — of which Saudi Arabia is considered a de facto leader — announced that they will be increasing oil output by about 50 percent over the next two months.

OPEC+ includes oil-producing countries such as Russia, which are aligned with OPEC but not official members.   

Moscow is becoming “less relevant in this cartel group as Europe and the rest of the world starts to sanction Russia,” Dan Pickering, of Pickering Energy Partners, told CNBC on Friday morning.

EU confirms oil embargo: Later Friday, the EU formally adopted a sanctions package that will phase out imports of Russian crude oil over the next six months, our colleague Zack Budryk reported for The Hill.  

“This will make it particularly difficult for Russia to continue exporting its crude oil and petroleum products to the rest of the world since EU operators are important providers of such services,” the European Council said in a statement.

GOP climate plan: More drilling, more mining

House Republicans released their new climate strategy this week — and they want fossil fuels to play a big part. 

What the plan says: Republicans want to see more U.S. production of minerals, oil and methane, our colleague Rachel Frazin reported for The Hill. 

Methane is a powerful climate pollutant that is also the primary ingredient in products sold as natural gas and liquefied natural gas. 

‘All of the above’: The GOP climate plan “means U.S. innovation, it means U.S. renewable energy technologies and, yes, it means conventional energy sources like oil and gas,” Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) told reporters. 

Why fossil fuels? Republicans have started to make the case that more U.S. production — even in heavily polluting sectors like agriculture and fossil fuels — will cut emissions globally, because U.S. environmental regulations help keep domestic emissions low compared to those of the rest of the world. 

Cutting regulations: Conservative organization Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions issued a statement praising the plan’s reduction of “red tape.”

The group argued that anything that increases cost for U.S. producers will simply displace production of polluting industries to countries where those industries are less regulated. 

Other plan elements: The policies outlined by Graves also push for more domestic development of battery materials — necessary for energy storage and electric vehicles — as well as hydropower.

While hydropower is renewable, it is vulnerable to drought — and also risks causing substantial methane emissions of its own as drowned forests decay beneath new reservoirs, according to a study in Science. 

Who it’s for: The Washington Post noted that the plan, released months before the midterms, comes as the party tries to win over suburban voters and moderates.

DEMS PUSH BACK

Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.), a prominent proponent of renewable energy, told Republicans to “[face] reality and do their jobs” in backing the rollout of new low-emission power sources on a large scale.   

Climate organizations also not convinced: A flurry of statements on Thursday from environmental nonprofits and renewable power trade groups largely panned the proposal outlined by Republicans.

“Real and effective climate solutions are at our fingertips,” but Republicans would “rather double down on the technologies of the past that are poisoning our communities and cooking our planet,” Jamal Raad, executive director of Evergreen Action, said in a statement. 

The clean energy industry — which stands to gain from any additional federal support to wind and solar power — pushed back too. 

“What we need is real energy security, and that’s only available thorough clean energy, not at the bottom of a well,” Andrew Reagan of Clean Energy for America — which advocates for renewable energy workers like wind, solar and geothermal — said in a statement. 

States, tribes get new Clean Water Act protections

State and tribal governments could soon regain a new measure of power in keeping potentially water-threatening infrastructure projects from crossing their territories. 

The proposed rule would bar the federal government from approving infrastructure projects that could lead to water pollution on state or tribal territory — unless those governments consent to such activity, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Thursday.

That raises additional protections — or roadblocks — in the face of interstate infrastructure development. 

Restoring protections: The new EPA rule would restore Obama-era rights to state and tribal leaders, our colleague Rachel Frazin reported. 

The rule would allow them to block a project when its “activity as a whole” could lead to water pollution — reversing a Trump-era policy that only allowed those governments to challenge a project if its direct discharges could pollute waters.

Change reflects a larger dispute: The Trump administration asserted that more liberal state governments were using measures from the country’s Clean Water Act as a back door means to influence federal climate policy, The New York Times noted.

The Clean Water Act, established in 1972, enables the EPA to regulate discharges of pollutants into U.S. waters and regulating quality standards for surface waters. 

Far-reaching: While media attention has largely focused on pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure, the proposed rule — and the Clean Water Act it expands — applies to any project with potential “discharge” of pollutants into water. 

For example, the EPA prosecuted five Northeastern construction companies last month for violation of Clean Water Act, the agency reported. 

Takeaway: That means the rule could mean a greater need for mining, manufacturing and construction companies to develop effective environmental plans and get local communities on board. 

Harnessing supercomputers to forecast volcanoes

Scientists have developed a method for predicting the eruption cycles of a volcano by harnessing the power of supercomputers in their research. 

But their success, revealed in Science Advances on Friday, was somewhat accidental: The researchers didn’t realize just how precisely their forecasts would line up with reality until the eruption came, they explained in a statement.

An important upgrade: Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign said they were keen to test out their new high-performance volcanic forecasting program starting in fall 2017. 

The program was based on an earlier iMac version that had attracted attention for recreating the unexpected eruption of Alaska’s Okmok volcano in 2008, according to the scientists.

Fortuitous timing: As the team sought out possible locations of interest, they learned that the Sierra Negra volcano in the Galapagos Islands was showing signs of an imminent eruption, identified by Dennis Geist of Colgate University. 

Ideal test-case: “Sierra Negra is a well-behaved volcano,” Patricia Gregg, the study’s lead author, said in a statement.  

This meant that prior to past eruptions, the volcano showed “telltale signs” like groundswell, gas release and a rise in seismic activity, according to Gregg.  

“This characteristic made Sierra Negra a great test case for our upgraded model,” she said.  

Surprise success: Over 2017-2018 winter break, Gregg and her team ran data on Sierra Negra through their new supercomputing-powered model — ultimately forecasting that the volcano’s magma chamber would become unstable between June 25 and July 5. 

“Dennis texted me on June 26, asking me to confirm the date we had forecasted,” she said. “Sierra Negra erupted one day after our earliest forecasted mechanical failure date. We were floored.”  

Power of supercomputing: The researchers acknowledged the limitations of their model in that it represents an ideal scenario. Nonetheless, they said their approach demonstrates the power of incorporating high-performance supercomputing into practical research.

Follow-up Friday

In which we revisit issues from the past week.  

Tobacco threats may be shifting toward Africa 

• We looked earlier this week at how the tobacco industry is polluting the environment. As the industry’s profits continue to “choked off in the west, big tobacco has homed in on African communities, and especially their young people, as incubators for deadly new initiatives,” The Guardian reported. 

Clean air bill becomes law in Colorado

• We spoke with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) about efforts to cope with drought and make the air more breathable. The governor signed a bill on Thursday to invest more than $110 million in improving air quality — by allocating $25 million to the state’s Clean Air Grant Program and $65 million for electrifying school buses, among other initiatives local NBC affiliate KPVI reported. 

Korea’s coal exit is emission-reduction opportunity

• We reported on how the global rush for coal supplies to meet rising temperatures is driving up prices and thwarting climate goals. In South Korea, the country’s state-run power plant is selling off its overseas coal assets— raising the possibility for nonprofits and international development banks to buy them up and take them offline, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

Please visit The Hill’s Sustainability section online for the web version of this newsletter and more stories. We’ll see you next week.

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