Join daily news updates from CleanTechnica on electronic mail. Or follow us on Google News!
US President Trump is set to tear up Europe and toss the items to Russia, so it was no shock to listen to Power Secretary Chris Wright pile on to the UK earlier this week, reportedly calling the nation’s hot-paced clear vitality plans “lunacy.” Effectively, take into account the supply. The very fact is that the UK has emerged as a worldwide decarbonization chief thanks partly to their copious offshore wind assets, and so they have the receipts to show it.
For precise lunacy, how a few Commander-in-Chief that tramples over longtime alliances in Europe to curry favor with Russia? In order for you a say within the matter, calling your representatives in Congress is an efficient place to begin.
UK Units File Tempo For Clear Power Transition
Final spring, the UK vitality agency Drax tasked its Electrical Insights group with working nation-by-nation decarbonization numbers. “The country’s carbon emissions have fallen by 52% since their peak in 1971, a more significant drop than any other comparable nation,” they reported. The determine confirms an analogous train that used 1990, the date of the Kyoto Protocol, that tapped the UK as the primary nation on the planet to chop emissions by half (for the report, US emissions didn’t peak till 2005, based on the Drax EI group).
Power Secretary Wright had one thing to say about that. As reported by Reuters on Monday, he dropped in on a right-wing convention in London by video hyperlink and singled out the UK for particular consideration.
“No one’s going to make an energy-intensive product in the United Kingdom any more. It’s just been displaced somewhere else,” he stated. “This is not energy transition. This is lunacy. This is impoverishing your own citizens in a delusion that this is somehow going to make the world a better place.”
Ouch!
Extra Power Storage Coming To UK
As if on cue, the UK vitality storage startup Invinity Power Methods got here proper again in a press launch on Tuesday, outlining its plan for peppering the globe with vanadium circulate batteries.
Flow batteries are non-flammable and scalable, opening up extra clear vitality storage alternatives past standard lithium-ion batteries.
Invinity’s plan is supported by a brand new partnership with the agency Frontier Energy Restricted, below which Frontier has reserved as much as 2 gigawatt-hours value of circulate batteries manufactured by Invinity.
“This collaboration marks a significant step forward in the UK’s clean energy transitiontargeting a boost to domestic manufacturing, creating jobs, and positioning the UK as a global leader in advanced energy storage technologies,” Invinity emphasised.
“Invinity’s vanadium flow batteries are Made in Britain at the Company’s factories in Scotland and offer significant advantages over other battery technologies,” they emphasised once more, taking specific word of their manufacturing and R&D belongings in Scotland.
An Power Storage Love Letter To The World
Invinity shouldn’t be limiting its targets to the UK. With Frontier as accomplice, they anticipate reworking their homeland into a number one international vitality storage exporter whereas additionally attracting new investments.
“Frontier Power’s active presence in other countries, especially in Asia, provides a platform for expanding this partnership and deploying UK battery technology on a global scale,” Invinity notes.
Invinity additionally used the chance to take a poke at Trump and the entire thought of “American energy dominance.” In distinction to the US, the place Trump has single-handedly snuffed out the offshore wind industryInvinity attracts consideration to the UK’s clear vitality assets.
“Maximising the use of the UK’s own energy resources in the form of wind and solar power is essential to delivering enhanced energy security while also driving down costs for consumers,” the corporate notes. “By deploying our Made in Britain batteries in partnership with Frontier Power and others across the UK energy industry, we are meeting this challenge head on.”
So A lot Profitable For Clear Power
Invinity shouldn’t be the one one clapping again. On Tuesday, the VisNet department of the main UK energy administration agency EA Expertise emailed CleanTechnica with a message that offers brief shrift to Wright’s gloomy perspective on the UK economic system.
“While some have expressed concern about the projected cost of decarbonising the UK energy network, the benefits are set to supercharge the economy in the long run, aligning with Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s goal of increasing investment and unlocking the potential of UK industry,” VisNet said.
“With infrastructure projects like The Great Grid Upgrade on the horizon, there’s never been a better time to position the UK as a decarbonisation leader,” added VisNet Industrial Director Mark Sprawson, referring to a plan for integrating extra clear vitality into the UK grid.
“With 130,000 new jobs projected to be created by new electricity transmission infrastructure and the UK green economy growing by 9% in 2023 (against 0.1% growth in the rest of the economy), there’s a clear economic benefit to the UK in becoming an international decarbonisation leader,” Sprawson added.
Sprawson took further steps to make sure Wright obtained the message, describing the UK as “a leading European hub for green technology,” and including “as we’ve seen with other sectors like financial services, exporting our expertise can be a lucrative economic exercise” for good measure.
“The renewable energy sector is playing a key role in Britain’s economic growth, and positioning ourselves as international leaders is the best way forward if we’re to become a hub for overseas investment,” he concluded.
In the meantime, Right here In The US
Along with choking the offshore wind trade from federal lease areas, Trump issued a blanket ban on wind and photo voltaic growth on federal lands. His freeze on federal disbursements can also be disrupting clear vitality tasks from one finish of the nation to a different, amongst different impacts.
Keep watch over the sprawling community of 900 member-owned native rural electric cooperativesrepresented by the Nationwide Rural Electrical Cooperative Affiliation.
NRECA management has enthusiastically welcomed Trump and his appointees, however their welcome word to newly confirmed Agriculture Secretary Brooke Leslie Rollins suggests they’re nervous about one thing.
Apropos of nothing, the temporary word devotes a complete paragraph to the Rural Utilities Service of the US Division of Agriculture. RUS “is a source of critical tools and funding that assist electric co-ops in their mission of providing reliable and affordable power to rural communities,” NRECA explains, referring to a Despair-era mortgage program that started in 1936.
“These loans are issued at no cost to the federal government, and in fiscal year 2023 they netted $218 million to the U.S. Treasury,” NRECA added.
Oh…you don’t say? Good mortgage program you bought there…
Picture (cropped): The UK vitality storage startup Invinity is launching its new flow battery into the worldwide clear vitality transition, Trump or no Trump (courtesy of Invinity).
Chip in a couple of {dollars} a month to help support independent cleantech coverage that helps to speed up the cleantech revolution!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Need to promote? Need to counsel a visitor for our CleanTech Speak podcast? Contact us here.
Join our each day publication for 15 new cleantech stories a day. Or join our weekly one if each day is simply too frequent.
CleanTechnica makes use of affiliate hyperlinks. See our coverage here.
CleanTechnica’s Comment Policy
