Climate Now

Sustainable aviation fuel can use a variety of feedstocks, from used cooking oils to oily seeds. When those feedstocks are heated under high pressure with a catalyst, the process produces hydrocarbons - the essential component in fuel. This process is called HEFA, Hydro-processed Esters and Fatty Acids. One company using this process to produce sustainable aviation fuel is Montana Renewables, based out of Great Falls, Montana, where they reconfigured equipment previously used in petroleum refining. 

In part two of four, we'll be sitting down with Bruce Fleming, who serves as Executive Vice President of Calumet Specialty Products Partners and CEO of Calumet subsidiary Montana Renewables. Bruce will take us behind the scenes of the biofuel industry, discussing Montana Renewable's approach to feedstocks, infrastructure, and and other challenges to scaling SAF.

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In the latest installment of Climate News Weekly, James Lawler and Dina Cappiello (RMI) discuss a variety of stories on climate, sustainability, and technology. Dina and James cover a breaking story out of the Supreme Court: the ruling that ended Chevron deference and slashed the power of regulatory agencies. Later, James and Dina analyze the Economist's special report on solar and a tax on methane emissions from gassy cows and pigs. Also covered this week: a new angle on climate-related insurance impacts, climate washing lawsuits' success, and Mexico's over-burdened grid.

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Aviation accounts for 12% of CO2 emissions from transportation and 2% of all CO2 emissions globally. Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is fuel made not from petroleum hydrocarbons, but from other sources of carbon and hydrogen. These non-fossil hydrocarbons include waste oils, plant-derived oils, and more complex sources like woody biomass and municipal solid waste; even CO2 can serve as a source of carbon to make hydrocarbons.

Derived from all of these sources and more, approximately 160 million gallons of SAF were consumed in 2023 - a drop in the bucket of the 90 billion gallons of conventional fuel consumed globally that year. In the first of four episodes focusing on the sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) landscape, we sat down with Beatrice Batty, Director of Fuel Planning at EPIC Fuels, the fuel supply division of Signature Aviation. Beatrice shares her expertise on aviation fuel and discusses the different methods for deriving SAF and why SAF is essential to meet the aviation industry's net-zero goals.

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Climate News Weekly is back to cover the week’s biggest stories in climate news. Host James Lawler, joined by Julio Friedmann (Carbon Direct), begins this episode with follow-up coverage of heat-related fatalities at the Hajj pilgrimage. Up next, James and Julio discuss two tales of climate risk- one relating to critical infrastructure and the other relating to the insurance industry. Later, the team covers a recent ruling by the UK Supreme Court and pushback against the UN's biodiversity treaty. Rounding out this week's stories, James and Julio discuss a G7 debate on who bears responsibility for climate action.

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The US Department of Energy (DOE) was established in 1977 with two key missions: to carry out defense responsibilities relating to nuclear weapons, and to bring together under one department the "loosely knit amalgamation" of various energy projects which were, at the time, scattered across the United States government. The Department of Energy Organization Act created the Department to better coordinate national energy strategy in the face of new challenges – namely, two OPEC energy crises and the growing nuclear energy industry. Since then, the DOE's responsibilities have evolved with the challenges that the country has faced.

Today, one key dimension of the DOE's role in national energy security is supporting low-carbon energy production and carbon management projects. This role includes advancing Carbon Dioxide Removal, or CDR as the US will likely need to remove at least a billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year to meet its net-zero goals. We spoke with Rory Jacobson, the acting division director for Carbon Dioxide Removal in the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, or FECM to better understand the DOE's role in advancing CDR.

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On this week's Climate News Weekly, James Lawler and Julio Friedmann discuss the latest in global climate news. Up first, James and Julio cover the latest developments in Europe; namely, green parties suffering losses in the latest elections as EU steelmakers risk missing their climate targets despite billions in subsidies.  Our hosts also discuss climate impacts around the world, from record temperatures making the Hajj pilgrimage particularly perilous to a deluge in Florida. James and Julio round out this week's news with discussion of the New York congestion pricing pause and what it means for the city's residents. 

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Climate News Weekly is back to cover the week’s biggest stories in climate news. Emma Crow-Willard and co-hosts Julio Friedmann (Carbon Direct) and Heather Clancy (GreenBiz) begin by discussing why the OECD’s $100 billion in climate finance for developing nations is better late than never. Later, the team covers international stories, including record-breaking temperatures in New Dehli and Kenya’s president visiting the United States to discuss climate goals and trade. Next, our hosts cover the US Department of Energy’s announcement of its principles for integrity in the voluntary carbon market. The team rounds out this week’s news by digging deeper than the headlines on Microsoft’s emissions hikes, attributed to the company’s AI operations – but not for the reasons you may think.

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Climate Now is back to tackle six of the biggest stories in recent climate news. James Lawler, Julio Friedmann, Dina Cappiello, and Darren Hau discuss recent developments in the U.S., from electric grid planning and finance to the Department of Energy's list of 10 national interest energy corridors. The team also digs into BHP's bid for Anglo American with one metal at the center of it all: copper. Our hosts round out this week's news by discussing the biggest year over year jump in CO2 at Mauna Loa Observatory, climate action collaboration between the U.S. and China, and Climeworks' record-breaking DAC plant beginning operations. Tune in to dig deeper than the headlines with our expert team. 

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According to the CDC, the spread of vector-borne diseases (those spread by blood-feeding bugs like mosquitos, ticks, and fleas) is linked to climate change. Rising temperatures and humidity influence breeding rates and can extend the range of disease-spreading bugs, bringing diseases to areas that have never seen a case. What are the ways that climate change can influence the spread of disease? How can we best track this spread to get ahead of it and avoid worse impacts? To find out what we need to know about the relationship between vector-borne diseases and climate change, we sit down with two experts in the field: Dr. Erin Mordecai, professor of biology and senior fellow at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment and Dr. Manisha Kulkarni, professor in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa.

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Julio Friedmann and Darren Hau join James Lawler to discuss the latest climate news: Tesla lays off its supercharger team, historic flooding and heat in Asia, $11 Billion committed to the World Bank, G7 agree to phase out coal by 2035, and several new rules from the CEQ and EPA to advance permitting reform and expand solar in the United States.

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