Mega-Trends for De-Carbonized Society

Some noticeable trends of industry and society could be collected and shared in this post.

1. According to the information (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-lithium-production-by-country-1995-2020/), Australia, Chile and China occupies 86% of worldwide lithum production in 2020. (inputted on 10th February, 2022)

2. It is quite an example of energy-water nexus, if you cover public water canals with solar panels. It prevents water evaporation by cooling, while it does not occupy the enormous land area. It is said that this project Nexus in California aims to this example. (inputted on 10th February, 2022)

3. It is notable that in Denmark, around 94% of PV capacity comes from solar power plants without subsidies because big corporations prefer clean electricity from solar source which is a very important for a company's image, and relatively stable energy cost from PPA comparing to traditional energy source which is frequently unstable due to many geopolitical reason. (inputted 3rd March, 2022)

4. It is meaningful that large scale solar parks could increase rainfall in the Red Sea of arid region. It says that these solar parks could make the strong temperature difference between sea and land, strengthens breezes, higher water vapor mixing, and enhances more rainfall. (inputted 10th March, 2022)

5. EU's Fit for 55 - "To cut 55% in EU carbon emission this decade" -extends to further reduction of Russian gas import this year with a proposal to bring 15 TWh roof top solar. The European Commission also said EU should double the Fit for 55 rate of heat pump deployment. The Ukraine-Russian war will bring the fast forward of renewable energy supply and reduction of gas usage, and diversify the source of EU gas imports. (inputted 10th March, 2022)

6. Now the "Hydrogen" is generally accepted as the most promising solution against global fired warming. But, it does not seem to appear all-mighty because the leaked hydrogen will increase the "radiative forcing". Therefore, how to minimize the hydrogen leakage will be more and more important as the hydrogen society comes nearer. (inputted 20th April, 2022)

7. Australia's inventories of critical materials was up in large percentage. Now it is common to say that globalization economy is ended and local economy is set to the new normal. Even though some countries have enough technologies to fulfill the foreign customer needs, they couldn't get well without the stable supply chain which secures critical resource materials. A country like Korea has been mostly befitted from the globalization will need the best ideas to overcome this. (inputted 20th April, 2022)

8. Now the right timing to install the efficient means of energy utilization. UK government supports the part of installation money replacing the old firing furnace with air source heat pump or ground coupled hat pump. The war between Russia and Ukraine accelerate the energy transition from traditional coal or gas firing society to renewable or efficient energy utilization society. (inputted 8th June, 2022)

9. Covering the water canal (for agriculture) with solar panels gives both preventing evaporation of water and cooling the temperature of solar panels. We can expect positive effects from this combination installation. (inputted 8th June, 2022)

10. First Solar recently receives the order of 2.4 GW. It is quite impressive that toxic material based solar panel maker still grows its business. But it reports its advantage over crystalline solar panel from the points of the carbon footprint and the water footprint as well as the recycling program recovering approximately 90% of Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) semiconductor material. Very nice example of success of the company strategy which maximize an its core competence which might had possibly been an devastating weak point. (inputted 2nd August, 2022)

11. Now the Japanese strategy for hydrogen utilization will be changing. I remember that Japan had long been studied and tried to realize "Hydrogen Society" from many decades ago. Nowadays a worldwide common sense that the application of hydrogen should be limited to the specific areas where there is no other way to use it is prevailing. Even to this inevitable limiting trends, the green hydrogen is still expensive. All these facts will drive Japanese hydrogen vision changed inevitably. (inputted 26th January, 2023)

12. It is also a worth of notice that grid capacity will probably be a bottleneck to expansion of renewable energy or distributed energy management. According to the recent report of Berkeley Lab. the total capacity in queue at the end of 2022 is 2 Terawatts. This number is said to be greater than current U.S. generating capacity of 1.25 Terawatts. (inputted 12th April, 2023)

13. IEA says renewables are to meet almost half of a global electricity demand by 2023 according to the PV magazine on October 11, 2024.