Wind Power Generates Over Half of UK Energy in January, Interior Department Wants to Fast Track Offshore Wind Developments, Climate Champions–Helping Us Help You Reforest the Planet!

DANISH COMPANY TO RECYCLE 100% OF USED WIND TURBINE BLADES

A Denmark-based company Continuum plans to make all wind turbine blades fully recyclable BY BUILDING SIX industrial-scale recycling factories across Europe, backed by investment from the Danish venture capital firm Climentum Capital and a grant from the UK’s Offshore Wind Growth Partnership (OWGP). Continuum, which is already present in Denmark and the UK, plans to build six factories, the first of which will be in Esbjerg and is expected to be operational by the end of 2024, followed by a second factory in the UK. The company says it will be able to start taking end-of-life blades by the end of 2023. After the first two factories, Continuum plans to build four more by 2030 in France, Germany, Spain, and Turkey. 

Each factory will have the capacity to recycle a minimum of 36,000 tonnes of end-of-life turbine blades per year and will be designed to be powered only by 100 per cent green energy, with zero carbon emitting environments. Continuum says its goal is to abandon landfilling and drastically reduce CO2 that is currently being emitted during incineration and co-processing in cement factories by 100 million tons by 2050 through state-of-the-art mechanical composite recycling technology and industrial scale factories. The company will recycle wind turbine blades into composite panels for the construction industry and the manufacture of day-to-day products such as facades, industrial doors, and kitchen countertops. 

Why does recycling 100% of old wind turbine blades matter to us? It’s all about the circular economy.Continuum is offering wind energy operators & developers across Europe a service which will give their businesses complete and sustainable circularity to their operations while also helping protect the planet in the process.

DEEPER DIVE: IEEFA, OffShore Wind Biz

THE CLIMATE LAUNCHES LISTENER-BACKED REFORESTATION CAMPAIGN

Jeffrey and I are super excited about this—in honor of our second anniversary of podcasting The Climate Daily, and from input from some of our faithful listeners who kept asking us, “What else can we do to take positive action to combat climate change, aside from listening to The Climate Daily?”, we are launching The Climate Champions project!

 What’s a climate champion, you ask? A climate champion proves that a small group of people can make a massive impact on the planet in a short amount of time.  How? Our company, The Climate, is partnering with over 30 international tree-planting organizations–ALONG WITH our climate champions– to re-plant, and regrow forests all over the world, by planting ten thousand trees at a time. Why? Because science says the best way to combat climate change is to restore nature. And the fastest way to restore nature is to plant and grow a trillion trees, and the fastest way to plant and grow a trillion trees is to replant and regrow forests. The fastest way to do that is to plant ten thousand trees at a time. And the fastest and most fun way to plant ten thousand trees at a time is to fundraise with friends, climate champions. When just 33 people commit to just $3/ day for four months, we can plant and grow 10K trees…a 20-acre forest! (Which our tree planting partners will do. They’re the tree-planting professionals.

Surf on over to theclimate.org/change hyphen  champions. Click on the donate button and join our team of climate champions today.  $3/day? That’s less than the price of coffee, or a slice of pizza or to pay for parking to grab that coffee or that pizza. And when you do it, you’ll get a social media shout out, a receipt for your taxes, and your whole family will be proud of you. Again, Surf on over to theclimate.org/change-champions. Click on the donate button and join our team of climate champions today. And if you want to start your own team of climate champions, reach out to us at info@34.203.12.8. Well help you put together your own small group of change champions to make a massive impact on the planet in a short amount of time, planting 10 thousand trees–a 20-acre forest! 

Wouldn’t it be great to be the change you want to see in the world? Go to theclimate.org/change-champions and become part of something special. Become a climate champion.  Thank you!!

DEEPER DIVE: Climate Champions

KOREAN COMPANY TO BUILD SOLAR PANEL PLANT IN GEORGIA

A Korean solar company, Hanwha Qcells, last week announced that it would spend $2.5 billion to build a large manufacturing complex in Georgia, in the United States. The plant will produce critical components for solar panels and build complete panels. In its announcement, Seoul-based Qcells said it was making the investment to take advantage of tax credits and other benefits laid out in the Inflation Reduction Act, the law Biden signed last summer. The Cartersville plant will make silicon ingots and wafers and solar cells — key ingredients in a solar panel. When opened, the company’s plans will bring some of the supply chain for solar energy to the United States and away from China.

Brian Deese, director of Biden’s National Economic Council, said such supply-chain integration will help break China’s stranglehold on solar panel components and untie knots in overseas supply chains. And this is why the Qcells announcement matters to us. No one country should have a monopoly on solar panels, much less any potential climate change-mitigating, clean energy technology. Qcells CEO Justin Lee said in a statement, “As demand for clean energy continues to grow nationally, we’re ready to put thousands of people to work creating fully American made and sustainable solar solutions, from raw material to finished panels.” The manufacturing facility is expected to create 2,500 jobs in Cartersville, Ga., roughly 50 miles northwest of Atlanta. Production is expected to start in 2024.

 DEEPER DIVE: AP, Savannah Now, IEEFA