Sustainability offenses with depth and no ‘gretas’.
The virus is indoors, the fire is outdoors. An apocalyptic August for California sets the clock to think actively about the climate again. One of the big four gets straight to the point: Google becomes the first company to become carbon neutral in 2007 and the first to match their energy use with 100 % renewable energy in 2017. By 2030 they aim to be the first company to operate carbon free. On the other side of the aisle, British Petroleum aims to reduce production in oil and gas by 40% before 2030 and increases hugely its investment in renewable energy to achieve net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. It is the most ambitious plan by an oil company in a decade. The environmental ambition comes nevertheless with collateral damage since BP reported a headline loss of 6.7 billion dollars, Chevron lost 8.3 bilion dollars and Exxon lost 1.1 billion dollars since the start of corona in March (all within the light of lower oil prices). Ursula Von der Leyen announces that the EU-commission wants to lower the CO2-emissions with 55% compared with 1990. Bold plays when almost every EU-country’s GDP is shrinking around the 10% mark and “gesunder menschenverstand” would prevail. Belgium is one of those countries which is running stiff around its environmental/energy budgeting since its risk parity control of the “begroting” is arduous.
The delight is in the details
Keeping the belgian budgeting shortfall below 3% of the GDP (in best case scenario, all Vivaldi parties commit to 12 billion euros in savings over a 4 year period) is one of the main negotiation hurdles in September’s policy making . A complete nuclear exit by 2025 is a bee sting at every start of every meeting for the last 2 months, even in the most prosperous scenario drawn by the minister of Energy, Zuhal Demir. The nomenclature in the expert’s treaty highlights renewable “electricity” while the broader renewable “energy” would put the begroting’s build off plan into new perspective. For example, bringing water to someone’s house without Farys (Flemish water infrastructure and community company) proposed 600 km tap water piping network would already cover the basic energy scenario (one where a zero case covid-19 scenario is saving 2 billion euros/year): an idea which should be taken into consideration from a technological challenge and corona timing standpoint. But, not my country’s cup of tea.
Our scarcest resource…
In the U.S., the company ‘Zero mass water’ skips such piping infrastructure entirely by placing water-making solar panels on most roofs in the states of Arizona, Michigan, California and Florida instead. It is now raising 50 million dollars to expand its capacity abroad and was named by angel investor Jason Calacanis as “a possible new silicon valley unicorn”. Why? Zero feedstock cost + about a third of the world’s population is still walking for drinking water and doesn’t have consistent water going to their homes. ‘Zero mass water’ technology works by extracting water from the air in tv-size panels using a nanostructured material which is hygroscopic (just like sugar in chips attracts water from humid air making the chips chobby). The panels are concurrently exposed to sunlight. Solar thermal power desorbs water from the hygroscopic materials and amplified water vapor is cycled within the panel resulting in liquid water formation, flowing into a reservoir.
Two 72 inch hydropanels (costing $2000 each) are is able to make a “case” a day of drinking water, replacing your bottled water dependence and undersink osmosis system during 15 years (see figure).
After 15 years, combined with a healthy economy (enough disposable income) and public anxiety of tap water, the founder might hit the same success as Mr. Zhong Shanshan has in China with Nongfu Spring.
H20,000,000,000
Nongfu Spring, China’s most popular brand of bottled water, was listed september 8th on Hong Kong’s bourse. Demand for shares outstripped supply by 1,148 times (Only Bank of Shanghai (2016) and Ningxia Baofeng energy group(2019) have done better.The price shot up 60% over the first three days of trading and made Zhong Shanshan China’s third richest man. One effort of such massive success is the ability to cater multiple market segments. Stingy folk can buy plastic bottles for as little as 1.5 yuan ($0.22) while the well-heeled may opt for a well designed glass bottle for 35 yuan. The ability to enter the markets has few technical barriers: the raw material is PET (polyethylene), the cheapest plastic to process. Another edge Nongfu Spring has is its closeness with the Chinese officialdom. At political summits, the sight of rows of Nongfu bottles is common sight. As sources of advantage go, it doesn’t get better than this in China.
See you next week,
Laurent
PS: if you really want to become self-sufficient on producing drinking water in Flanders, it suffices to pay a levy on the extraction of water (below 500 m³) to the VMM (Vlaamse Milieumaatschappij) while eliminating your yearly bill for waterinfrastructure taxes. Thank you Louis Casteleyn for checking the legal barriers eloquently on this issue.
