Environment

Coal use needs to be slashed seven times faster to meet emissions target, analysis finds

Published

1 year ago

November 17, 2023

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A coal-fired power plant in Indonesia.

Aditya Aji | AFP | Getty Images

Efforts to restrict global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius are failing “across the board” — and major shifts will be required to create meaningful change, according to a new report, including a much faster move away from using coal to generate electricity.

Published Tuesday, the “State of Climate Action 2023” paints a sobering picture of the challenges that policymakers face as they gear up for the COP28 climate change summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates at the end of November.

Like much of the discourse on climate action, 2015’s Paris Agreement — which aims to “limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels” — looms large over the analysis.

Tuesday’s report takes that 1.5 degrees goal and develops targets for 2030 and 2050 that align with it. The overall findings are stark, with just one of 42 indicators — sales of electric passenger cars — on course to meet its 2030 target.

The U.N. has previously noted that 1.5 degrees Celsius is viewed as being “the upper limit” when it comes to avoiding the worst consequences of climate change.

“Global efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C are lackluster at best,” Sophie Boehm, lead author of the report and a research associate at the World Resources Institute, said in a statement.

“Despite decades of dire warnings and wake-up calls, our leaders have largely failed to mobilize climate action anywhere near the pace and scale needed,” Boehm added.

“Such delays leave us with very few routes to secure a livable future for all. There’s no time left to tinker at the edges,” she said.

“Instead, we need immediate, transformational changes across every single sector this decade.”

With the above in mind, the report’s authors propose a raft of measures that need to be taken if climate goals are to be reached. They include:

Phasing out coal from electricity generation at a rate seven times faster than now. That, the report says, “is equivalent to retiring roughly 240 average-sized coal-fired power plants each year through 2030.”
Boosting growth in wind and solar power.
Ramping up the speed at which rapid transit infrastructure is expanded.
Moving toward diets that are healthier and more sustainable eight times faster.
Cutting the yearly rate of deforestation four times faster in this decade.

“We already know what needs to be done, sector by sector, by 2030,” Ani Dasgupta, the WRI’s president and CEO, said.

“The world has made some progress — in some cases, exponential progress — but overall, we are lagging, with several trends moving quickly in the wrong direction,” he added.

“It’s going to take drastic action from all of us — governments, corporations, cities — to embrace the systemic change needed to create a livable and thriving future for people, nature and climate.”

UN warning

Tuesday’s report — a “joint effort” from the WRI, Bezos Earth Fund, ClimateWorks Foundation, Climate Action Tracker and the United Nations Climate Change High-Level Champions — was published on the same day that UN Climate Change released its own assessment of the current state of play.

According to the NDC Synthesis Report, governments around the world are not doing enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change and need to be more proactive in their attempts to slash emissions.

Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, refer to individual countries’ targets for cutting emissions and adapting to the effects of climate change.

All countries that are part of the Paris Agreement are supposed to update their NDCs every five years.

Targets need to be ramped up regularly to meet the agreement’s overall target of limiting global warming.

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Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of UN Climate Change, said its report showed that “governments combined are taking baby steps to avert the climate crisis.”

“And it shows why governments must make bold strides forward at COP28 in Dubai, to get on track,” he argued. “This means COP28 must be a clear turning point.”

“Governments must not only agree what stronger climate actions will be taken but also start showing exactly how to deliver them.”

Environment

Go West, young brand – GreenPower Motor Company sells 11 more BEAST buses

Published

4 hours ago

January 19, 2025

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GreenPower Announces Order of 11 BEAST All-Electric School Buses for Western U.S. Markets

GreenPower Motor Company says it’s received three orders for 11 of its BEAST electric Type D school buses for western state school districts in Arizona, California, and Oregon.

GreenPower hasn’t made the sort of headline-grabbing promises or big-money commitments that companies like Nikola and Lion Electric have, but while those companies are floundering GPM seems to be plugging away, taking orders where it can and actually delivering buses to schools. Late last year, the company scored 11 more orders for its flagship BEAST electric school bus.

As far as these latest orders go, the breakdown is:

seven to Los Banos Unified School District in Los Banos, California
two for the Hood River County School District in Hood River, Oregon
two for the Casa Grande Elementary School District in Casa Grande, Arizona

Those two BEAST electric school buses for Arizona will join another 90-passenger BEAST that was delivered to Phoenix Elementary School District #1, which operates 15 schools in the center of Phoenix, late last year.

“As school districts continue to make the change from NOx emitting diesel school buses to a cleaner, healthier means of transporting students, school district transportation departments are pursuing the gold standard of the industry – the GreenPower all-electric, purpose-built (BEAST) school buses,” said Paul Start, GreenPower’s Vice President of Sales, School Bus Group. “(The) GreenPower school bus order pipeline and production schedule are both at record levels with sales projections for (2025) set to eclipse the 2024 calendar year.”

GreenPower moved into an 80,000-square-foot production facility in South Charleston, West Virigina in August 2022, and delivered its first buses to that state the following year.

Electrek’s Take

GreenPower electric school buses — BEAST and NanoBEAST; via GreenPower Motor Company.

Since the first horseless carriage companies started operating 100 years ago (give or take), at least 1,900 different companies have been formed in the US, producing over 3,000 brands of American automobiles. By the mid 1980s, that had distilled down to “the big 3.”

All of which is to say: don’t let the recent round of bankruptcies fool you – startups in the car and truck industry is business as usual, but some of these companies will stick around. If you’re wondering which ones, look to the ones that are making units, not promises.

SOURCE | IMAGES: GreenPower Motors.

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Environment

Harbinger electric truck brand gets real with $100M Series B funding raise

Published

5 hours ago

January 19, 2025

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Medium-duty EV maker Harbinger raises $100 million in Series B funding

While some recent high-profile bankruptcies have cast doubt on the EV startup space recently, medium-duty electric truck maker Harbinger got a shot of credibility this week with a massive $100 million Series B funding round co-led by Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for fledgling EV brands like Lion Electric and Canoo, but box van builder Harbinger is bucking the trend, fueling its latest funding round with an order book of 4,690 vehicles that’s valued at nearly $500 million. Some of the company’s more notable customers including Bimbo Bakeries (which owns brands like Sara Lee, Thomas’, and Entenmann’s) and THOR Industries (Airstream, Jayco, Thor), which is also one of the investors in the Series B.

Other prominent investors include Tiger Global, the Coca-Cola System Sustainability Fund, and ArcTern Ventures.

As for what makes Harbinger such an attractive investment prospect, Dipender Saluja, Managing Partner of Capricorn Investment Group’s Technology Impact Fund explains that, “Harbinger has demonstrated a remarkable ability to reach significant milestones far quicker than other EV companies … the market has been impressed by their ability to develop large portions of the vehicle in-house to drive down unit costs, while remaining capital efficient.”

The company plans to use the funds to ramp up to higher-volume production capacity and deliver on existing orders, as well as build-out of the company’s sales, customer support, and service operations.

“Harbinger is entering a rapid growth phase where we are focused on scaling production of our customer-ready platform,” said John Harris, co-founder and CEO. “These funds catalyze significant revenue generation. We’ve developed a vehicle for a segment that is ripe for electrification, and there is a strong product/market fit that will help fuel our upward trajectory through 2025 and beyond.”

The company has raised $200 million since its inception in 2021.

SOURCE | IMAGES: Harbinger.

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Environment

Michigan State Police deploy their first electric patrol vehicle

Published

8 hours ago

January 19, 2025

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Michigan State Police deploy their first electric patrol vehicle

State Police Pilots First Battery Electric Vehicle in Patrol Fleet

There is no state more associated with cars and car culture than Michigan – and the state that’s home to the Motor City has just taken a huge step into the future with the deployment of its first-ever all electric police vehicle.

The 2024 Ford Mustang Mach-E patrol vehicle is assigned to the Michigan State Police State Security Operations Section, and will be to be used by armed, uniformed members of the MSP specializing in general law enforcement and security services at state-owned facilities in the Lansing, MI area.

“This is an exciting opportunity for us to research, in real time, how a battery electric vehicle performs on patrol,” says Col. James F. Grady II, director of the MSP. “Our state properties security officers patrol a substantially smaller number of miles per day than our troopers and motor carrier officers, within city limits and at lower speeds, coupled with the availability of charging infrastructure in downtown Lansing, making this the ideal environment to test the capabilities of a police-package battery electric vehicle.”

The MSP’s Precision Driving Unit is nationally renowned for its annual Police Vehicle Evaluation, which our own Scooter Doll participated in last year, driving the then-new Chevy Blazer EV Police Pursuit Vehicles in a game of “cops and robbers.”

In those tests, the EVs have impressed – but the MSP has been hesitant to commit to a BEV until now. “We began testing battery electric vehicles in 2022, but up until now hybrids were the only alternative fuel vehicle in our fleet,” said Lt. Nicholas Darlington, commander of the Precision Driving Unit. “Adding this battery electric vehicle to our patrol fleet will allow us to study the vehicle’s performance long-term to determine if there is a potential for cost savings and broader applicability within our fleet.”

Michigan joins other states like Wisconsin and California in deploying electric patrol cars and saving big money on fuel and maintenance, with many more out there and many more to come.

SOURCE | IMAGES: Michigan State Police.

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