Reflecting on the Climate Activities of 2024 - Episode 109

Paul wraps up 2024 with an episode looking back on the major trends and news stories from this past year. From good news stories such as the retirement of the UK's last coal facility to hard news such as the realization that we may have already passed our global 1.5 degree temperature target.

In any regard, review with us the progress that we've made over these past 12 months and set an ambition for what 2025 is going to look like!

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Transcript

This is Eight Minute Climate Fix – a podcast helping you understand the energy and climate challenge in just a few minutes – I’m your host, Paul Schuster

So, here we are at the end of another long year – and I’m only a few hours away from ringing in 2025. It seems like a good time to reflect back upon the previous twelve months and take stock of some of the biggest stories that occurred in climate, energy and clean technology.

Naturally, the biggest story was probably that of the US presidential election – but the repercussions of that aren’t going to be understood for a few months so let’s park that for the moment. Instead, let me try to dissect the remarkable changes that di happen in our space as we launch into a *hopeful* New Year.

Eight minutes – it’s how long it takes the sun’s rays to hit earth, or, about how long we’re all going to stay up past midnight tonight before calling it quits and hitting the hay! I’m … not as young as I used to be

Let’s get it on!

2024 was the hottest year on record. Not a surprise. That’s probably going to be a common refrain as we go forward. But what was really disturbing was that the globe passed our one and a half degree centigrade target to stave off the worst of climate impacts. Global temperatures are now 1.54 degress Celsius HIGHER than they were during pre-industrial times – and we’re getting perilously close to that 2 degree mark as laid out in the Paris Agreement.

Obviously, there’s a lot that needs to happen to stay under that target – and top on that priority list is probably getting rid of coal powered generation. 2024 – was NOT a great year in that regard. The International Energy Agency reports that global coal consumption reached a record high this past year at 8.77 billion tonnes. This was driven by strong demand by Asian countries in particular – led by China and India.

But other areas of the globe did a much better job of phasing out the dirty fossil fuel. The OECD countries have seen a remarkable decline in new coal plant proposals over the past decade. Back in 2015, the bloc registered 142 proposals – but only counted FIVE this past year. Ideally, that would zero – but the progress in the right direction.

And then the UK officially announced the closure of their last coal plant in September – a remarkable achievement for a country synonymous with driving industrial progress on the back of the black rock.

As coal was being phased out, developed countries in 2024 turned to alternative clean energy sources to backfill the baseloaded power contributions of their coal facilities. This included a breakout year for utility scale battery storage.

Hawaii, for instance, brought online their 185 megawatt Kapolei Energy Storage station powered by Tesla megapacks. That station offsets the power generation previously being provided by Oahu’s last coal plant that shut down in 2022.

And the Menifee power bank in California accounts for over 400 megawatts of storage.

Overall, the US saw 14.3 gigawatts of storage capacity come online, nearly doubling the total from 2023. And advancements weren’t just coming in traditional battery storage projects, either. Form energy, a pioneer of long duration iron-air storage systems, announced that it had broken ground on it’s Cambridge Energy Storage Project in Minnesota while also securing over $400 million in financing for expanding their manufacturing facility in West Virginia.

Aside from storage, the year also marked a bit of a renaissance for nuclear power as well.

The Nuclear ADVANCE Act sailed through Congress, garnering votes from both sides of the aisle. Conservatives loved the baseload consistency of the generation type while progressives appreciated the zero emissions factor. It’s likely that 2025 will see similar support as nuclear starts to heat up as an alternative generating source compared to coal or even gas facilities.

And while the cost of NEW nuclear needs to come down in order for the generating source to be competitive with other power types, the option to re-open old, retired facilities is also gaining steam … uh, sorry about that pun there.

Palisades Nuclear facility shut down in 2022 but Holtec International received a federal loan this past year to reopen and repower the facility to support expected electricity growth. And Three Mile Island made headlines with their determination to repower a reactor and sell power under a 20-year PPA to service Microsoft datacenters.

Which brings me to the last major trend of 2024, which was the growing load demand on the power grid. After decades of flat to slightly falling demand growth (thanks, in part, to investments made in energy efficiency efforts), we’re starting to see the first signs of a wave of electricity load growth prompted, in part, by a burgeoning demand for datacenters. 

Regardless of industry, 2024 was the year of AI … but for the energy space, the impact of this exploding industry was felt probably the most. Hyperscalers and AI datacenter giants quickly realized that in order to meet the massive demand for AI computing power, they would need to build a LOT of datacenters very, very fast. The only problem? Where would they get the electricity needed to power these behemoths? The IEA estimates that datacenters consume about 4.4% of the United States’ annual power – and are expected to reach 6, 7 … or even 12 percent of the annual load by 2030!

Our AI revolution smacked right up against the deliberate, steady march of a power utility system unfamiliar with such rapid growth – and the results have been frustrating for all parties. 

Utlities want to invest, but need to ensure reliability, safety and affordability for all stakeholders – leading to interconnection models and analyses that take time. While big technology companies are learning that the biggest constraint on their growth may no longer be the physical properties of computing power … but may be whether ACTUAL power can be obtained in the first place!

Which has led to wacky deals like Constellation opening up Three Mile Island’s reactor for Microsoft …anything to find an extra electron in this crazy time.

Which is a theme that will likely persist throughout 2025 – if not for the rest of the decade. Hyper growth industries and staid, deliberate industries are colliding into each other with no clear direction on what to do next. And the result may be a slowing of a domestic AI industry as other countries, such as those Asian entities I spoke about earlier, sweep in to build the necessary infrastructure.

2024 was a mixed bag in climate and energy. We faced difficult challenges with regard to coal and overall planetary temperatures. Our global political consensus took a couple of hits – not just with the reelection of President Trump but with a COP conference in Azerbaijan that seemed to be losing a lot of momentum.

But we also achieved a lot, too. Marked by the shutting down of the United Kingdom’s last coal facility, as well as the growth of new nuclear and battery storage domestically.

2025 will be a challenge. New regulations in California and Europe are set to take effect, emissions guidance may see an overhaul. And the global political will to enact climate action may see a shift toward smaller, more localized solutions as Trump and other conservative politicians push back on needed investment.

But … we’ll see. Let’s anchor on the hopeful and continue to fight the good fight. I’ll see you all in 2025.

I’m Paul Schuster – and this has been your eight minutes.