Beyond Net Zero — Tasmania, Battery of the Nation
Two friends of mine decided after many years of working to buy a large four-wheel-drive vehicle and caravan and travel around Australia. They had a great time exploring this vast continent, and the places where most people just couldn’t go. We caught up with them a few years into their travels when they were making their way around Tasmania.
A short time later, they told us that they had bought a llama farm and settled down with their spoodles in Sheffield. This town is famous in Australia for its dedication to steam engines. Geoffrey is in heaven maintaining, building, and driving the engines that have been his passion for decades. Nancy is a born organizer and is helping run SteamFest.
Tasmania is an island state off the south coast of Australia. It is the smallest state by size (90,000 sq km) and population (half a million). But it has big ideas. Some of its citizens may have one eye on the past, but successive governments are definitely pushing into the future.
Tasmania wants to move beyond net zero (achieved in 2015), past 100% renewables (achieved 2020), to being “The Battery of the Nation.” Tasmania is already 100% self-sufficient in hydro and wind power. The aim now is to expand the wind farms to become an electricity supplier to the mainland. The Tasmanian government has enacted legislation to ensure 200% renewable energy generation by 2040 — the excess to be exported to Victoria via a cable link (www.marinuslink.com.au). Australia is going to need a lot of electric cars and industry to soak up the massive amounts of power to be generated by projects like this in the pipeline.
On the subject of EVs, Tasmania is investing in new chargers, especially at tourist spots. The government has set aside $600,000 for its ChargeSmart Grants Program. Councils, community groups, and local businesses can apply for grants to put in EV chargers. That could mean 240 destination chargers. Tasmania has around 340 electric vehicles on the road, or one for every 1,599 people as of 21 Apr, 2021. Are we heading for a situation where there will be more chargers than cars?
Tasmania has introduced a stamp duty waiver, which saves consumers $2000 on the purchase of an EV. A local company has established itself in Tasmania importing second-hand Leafs from Japan. There is no shortage of demand.
Well done, Tassie, for showing us what is beyond net zero, and even beyond 100% renewable. Geoffrey will be happy using renewable energy to build his steam engines.
Featured image courtesy of Tasmanian Networks Pty Ltd
In a joint statement, French and German economists have called on governments to adopt “a common approach” to decarbonize European trucking fleets – and they’re calling for a focus on fully electric trucks, not hydrogen.
France and Germany are the two largest economies in the EU, and they share similar challenges when it comes to freight decarbonization. The two countries also share a border, and the traffic between the two nations generates major cross-border flows that create common externalities between the two countries.
At the same time, the EU’s transport sector has struggled to reduce emissions at the same rate as other industries – and road freight in particular is a major contributor to harmful carbon emissions issue due to that industry’s heavy reliance on diesel-powered trucks.
And for once, it seems like rail isn’t a viable option:
While rail remains competitive mainly for heavy, homogeneous goods over long distances. Most freight in Europe is indeed transported over distances of less than 200 km and involves consignment weights of up to 30 tonnes (GCEE, 2024) In most such cases, transportation by rail instead of truck is not possible or not competitive. Moreover, taking into account the goods currently transported in intermodal transport units over distances of more than 300 km, the modal shift potential from road to rail would be only 6% in Germany and less than 2% in France.
That leaves trucks – and, while numerous government incentives currently exist to promote the parallel development of both hydrogen and battery electric vehicle infrastructures, the study is clear in picking a winner.
“Policies should focus on battery-electric trucks (BET) as these represent the most mature and market-ready technology for road freight transport,” reads the the FGCEE statement. “Hence, to ramp-up usage of BET public funding should be used to accelerate the roll-out of fast-charging networks along major corridors and in private depots.”
The appeal was signed by the co-chair of the advisory body on the German side is the chairwoman of the German Council of Economic Experts, Monika Schnitzer. Camille Landais co-chairs the French side. On the German side, the appeal was signed by four of the five experts; Nuremberg-based energy economist Veronika Grimm (who also sits on the National Hydrogen Council, which is committed to promoting H2 trucks and filling stations) did not sign.
You can read an English version of the CAE FGCEE joint statement here.
Electrek’s Take
MAN Trucks’ CEO famously said that it was “impossible” for hydrogen to compete with BEVs, and even committed to building 200 hydrogen-powered semi truck to prove out that hypothesis.
He’s not alone. MAN’s board member for research and development, Frederik Zohm, said that the company is the one saying hydrogen still has years to go. “(MAN) continues to research fuel cell technology based on battery electrics,” he said, in a statement quoted by Hydrogen Insight, before another board member added that, “we (MAN) expect that, in the future, we will be able to best serve the vast majority of our customers’ transport applications with battery-electric trucks.”
With companies like Volvo and Renault and now Mercedes racking up millions of miles on their respective battery electric semi truck fleets, it’s no longer even close. EV is the way.
SOURCE | IMAGES: CAE FGCEE; via Electrive.
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GE Vernova has produced over half the turbines needed for SunZia Wind, which will be the largest wind farm in the Western Hemisphere when it comes online in 2026.
GE Vernova has manufactured enough turbines at its Pensacola, Florida, factory to supply over 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of the turbines needed for the $5 billion, 2.4 GW SunZia Wind, a project milestone. The wind farm will be sited in Lincoln, Torrance, and San Miguel counties in New Mexico.
At a ribbon-cutting event for Pensacola’s new customer experience center, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik noted that since 2023, the company has invested around $70 million in the Pensacola factory.
The Pensacola investments are part of the announcement GE Vernova made in January that it will invest nearly $600 million in its US factories and facilities over the next two years to help meet the surging electricity demands globally. GE Vernova says it’s expecting its investments to create more than 1,500 new US jobs.
Vic Abate, CEO of GE Vernova Wind, said, “Our dedicated employees in Pensacola are working to address increasing energy demands for the US. The workhorse turbines manufactured at this world-class factory are engineered for reliability and scalability, ensuring our customers can meet growing energy demand.”
SunZia Wind and Transmission will create US history’s largest clean energy infrastructure project.
Read more: The largest clean energy project in US history closes $11B, starts full construction
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