Climate, in brief

US government backing petrol cars

The US Transportation Department lowered the mileage new cars must average by 2031. [1] It also cancelled a $20 million grant to Boston because the street project included chargers for electric cars. [17] Electric cars fell to 6.5% of new US vehicle sales in February. [2]

New power waiting to connect

Britain's prime minister plans a state-owned company to speed up connections to the grid. [14] New York picked 950 megawatts of big batteries, which the state pays only once they run. [11] Fervo's first geothermal unit in Utah began selling power into the grid. [8]

The sea coming ashore

Officials in Puerto San Carlos, a Mexican fishing town, said 90% of it could flood as Hurricane Polo arrived. [6] Meteorologists said very warm water from El Nino was feeding the storm, the BBC reported. [5] The UN General Assembly unanimously approved a resolution on how to deal with rising seas. [21]

Paying before the power comes

Fervo's first geothermal plant is set to cost about $7,000 per kilowatt to build, against $2,157 for an average new gas plant in 2025. [8] A Nature Climate Change study found that counting poorer countries' higher borrowing costs raises the modelled cost of keeping warming well below 2C by about 9%. [20]

1. 1The US cuts the mileage new cars must average in 2031 from 50.4 to about 35 miles a gallon, and missing it already costs carmakers nothing
2. 2Hurricane Polo reaches Mexico's Baja coast
3. 3A new kind of geothermal plant sells power
4. 4New York picks its first big battery projects
5. 5US limits solar imports before new tariffs

The US Transportation Department finalised new fuel-economy standards for cars and light trucks on Monday. [1][2]

Watch whether the Sierra Club or other groups take the rule to court, and whether GM, Ford or Stellantis change the mix of vehicles they plan to sell, since missing the target already carries no fine. [1][2]

Hurricane Polo bore down on Baja California Sur, a Mexican state on a long Pacific peninsula, on Monday as a Category 3 storm. [4][6]

Its winds were near 115mph, and the US National Hurricane Center warned of 15 to 30cm of rain, flash floods and mudslides. [4]

Water began to flood some streets along the coast on Monday. [7] Officials said 90% of Puerto San Carlos, a fishing town of about 5,700 people, could flood. [6]

In Jalisco state, two children died after their home was swept away, and their parents are missing. [4]

After crossing the peninsula, Polo could hit mainland Mexico as a hurricane late on Monday or early on Tuesday. [4]

San Juanico, a small fishing town in its path, has had electricity all day only for a few years and still loses it often. [6]

Fervo Energy began selling electricity to the grid from Cape Station in Utah, the first time a large next-generation geothermal plant has done so anywhere. [8][9]

Older geothermal plants use hot water and steam that are already underground. [8]

Fervo uses drilling methods from the oil and gas industry to make its own reservoir in hot, dry rock, where water turns to steam. [8]

Its first 33-megawatt unit starts full commercial service this week, selling to Shell Energy. [8] Fervo raised $1.9 billion when it listed its shares in May. [10]

Geothermal makes only 0.4% of US electricity, and it runs day and night. [8]

Fervo told Canary Media its first phase would cost about $7,000 per kilowatt to build and the second about $5,500, against $2,157 for an average new US gas plant in 2025. [8]

Hot rock has always sat under southern Utah, and Fervo's oil-field drilling is what turned it into electricity for sale this month.

Fervo found a way to get it out at a price Shell Energy agreed to pay, and so it became electricity on sale in California.

Fervo's first plant is set to cost about $7,000 per kilowatt to build, more than three times an average new gas plant in 2025.

Which rocks get drilled is settled by engineers, lenders and governments that most of us never meet.

NYSERDA, New York State's energy agency, picked eight large battery projects on Wednesday with 950 megawatts between them. [11]

They are lithium batteries that can each run for four to eight hours. [11] They include a 150-megawatt battery in Suffolk County and the eight-hour, 140-megawatt Lighthouse project in Chautauqua County. [11]

The agency also chose 13 solar, wind and hydro projects with 719 megawatts. [11]

The state's goal is 6,000 megawatts of storage by 2030, and it pays each project only once it is running. [11]

The batteries would more than double the large-scale storage New York has built or contracted, the agency said. [11]

The state has fallen behind its clean-power goals, and this year it changed its targets for cutting greenhouse gases. [11]

The US Commerce Department issued an emergency rule capping imports of solar panels, cells, wafers and polysilicon, the purified silicon they are made from. [12]

From 4 December these imports pay a 15% tariff and must meet minimum prices. [12] The rule is meant to stop importers bringing in far more than usual before that date. [12]

Importers registered after 6 August may bring in only 55 panels and 2,000 cells a week. [12] Customs brokers who help anyone dodge the limits can lose their licences. [12]

Hanwha Qcells, which makes solar panels in the US, welcomed the rule. [12]

Clean-energy trade groups and developers warn the tariffs will raise the cost of building solar farms and slow the move away from fossil fuels. [12]

The law lets households, small firms and public bodies share the renewable or stored power they make with other customers, and the shared power comes off those customers' bills. [13]

Countries had until 17 July to write it into their own laws and report it. [13]

The 18 have two months to answer, and the case can end at the EU's top court. [13]

The letters are about failing to report, not a finding that the rules are missing: Spain and France already had schemes for sharing power people make themselves. [13]

The Commission also wrote to 26 countries over a separate hydrogen and gas law, whose deadline only Italy met. [13]

Andy Burnham, Britain's prime minister, was expected to announce Great British Grid, a publicly owned company to invest in the electricity grid, in a speech on Tuesday. [14]

It would compete with the three private companies that own Britain's main power lines to build connections for new power plants and businesses. [14]

Its money would come from the budget of GB Energy, the state-owned green energy company. [14] Full details have not been set out. [14]

Ofgem, the energy regulator, estimates 70 billion pounds of grid investment is needed from 2025 to 2031. [14]

Burnham ties it to a goal of bringing UK energy costs into line with other European countries within ten years. [14]

Some forecasts have household energy bills in Britain rising by about 500 pounds from January, and Unite, Labour's biggest union funder, has proposed a cap on energy prices. [15][16]

Boston sued the US Transportation Department on Monday for cancelling a $20 million grant to rebuild three busy streets in Roxbury, a Boston neighbourhood. [17]

The department said the grant clashed with its priorities because the project included chargers for electric cars. [17]

The city says the chargers were less than 1% of the cost, and it offered to drop them. [17]

The department refused to restore the money, and says it is reviewing the lawsuit. [17]

Boston is the second city to sue over these cancelled grants: Albuquerque's case over an $11.5 million grant is still going. [17]

The grants came from a 2021 infrastructure law signed by President Biden. [17]

SOCAR, Azerbaijan's state oil company, TotalEnergies of France and XRG of Abu Dhabi agreed to fully develop the Absheron gas field in the Caspian Sea. [18]

President Ilham Aliyev said its second phase would raise Azerbaijan's gas output by about 5 billion cubic metres within three to four years. [18]

SOCAR also signed with ExxonMobil, the US oil company, to look for unconventional oil and gas, meaning fuel held in tight rock, in the Middle Kura basin. [18]

ExxonMobil will run that work. [18]

About half of Azerbaijan's 25 billion cubic metres of gas exports last year went to EU countries. [18]

Selling Europe more would need new pipeline capacity, and Aliyev said oil and gas would keep leading the economy. [18]

Geothermal Engineering, a company in Cornwall in south-west England, plans to spend about 43 million pounds on a plant that takes lithium out of hot, salty water from deep underground. [19]

It aims to start commercial production in 2029, making about 1,500 tonnes of lithium carbonate a year. [19] That is enough for more than 180,000 typical electric-car batteries. [19]

The UK government has offered the project nearly 10 million pounds from a fund for the car industry. [19]

Lithium is used to make the batteries in electric cars, and demand for it is expected to rise 1,100% by 2035, the company said. [19]

The plant would create nearly 50 jobs and support about 80 more, officials said. [19]

A study in Nature Climate Change looked at how much it costs to borrow for energy and industry projects in different countries. [20]

The computer models used to plan the world's carbon cuts usually assume every country borrows as cheaply as the safest ones. [20]

When the authors put in each country's own estimated borrowing rate, the price of keeping warming well below 2C rose by about 9% up to 2100. [20]

The cheapest cuts also moved to lower-risk regions. [20]

In the model, poorer countries got less money for their grids and made more of their central heat from gas. [20]

Green hydrogen, made with clean electricity, came out dearer there, so it spread more slowly. [20]

The UN General Assembly in New York unanimously approved a resolution on how to deal with rising seas, Carbon Brief's daily digest reported. [21]

The US did not block it, although it mentions climate change and climate aid for poorer countries. [21]

In the same week, a fund aiming to raise $100 million to fight forest fires in South America was launched in New York. [21]

A report the same week found a gap of millions of dollars in money for protecting tropical forests. [21]

Grist, a climate news site, called the vote a rare win for countries acting together. [21] The fire fund leaves out large forests in Africa and south-east Asia. [21]