Sustainable Arlington

Saturday 22

Tesla Signs Lithium Supply Deal with China’s Biggest Producer

China’s largest lithium producer, Ganfeng Lithium, said on Friday that it had signed a three-year deal to supply Tesla with lithium hydroxide for batteries—another lithium supply agreement for Tesla as it tries to stay ahead in raw materials sourcing before the coming massive EV competition from legacy carmakers. The top Chinese lithium producer will supply around one-fifth of its production to Tesla under the deal between 2018 and 2020, according to a filing by Ganfeng Lithium with the Shenzhen stock exchange as carried by Bloomberg.  The agreement can be extended by another three years, Ganfeng Lithium said. In May of this year, Tesla entered into an agreement with Australia’s Kidman Resources Limited.  The Australian company entered into a binding deal to supply Tesla with lithium hydroxide for an initial term of three years on a fixed-price take-or-pay basis from the delivery of first product.  The deal also has two 3-year term options for renewal. If Tesla’s Nevada factory reaches battery production equivalent to 35 gigawatt hours by late next year, Tesla may need 28,000 tons of lithium hydroxide from late 2019 onwards, according to forecasts by industry consultants Benchmark Minerals, quoted by Bloomberg. Read more at Tesla Signs Lithium Supply Deal with China’s Biggest Producer

Solar Energy Largely Unscathed by Hurricane Florence’s Wind and Rain

In North Carolina, the #2 solar state, Florence was the first extreme weather test for much of its renewable energy.  Nuclear and coal ash had flood problems.Faced with Hurricane Florence's powerful winds and record rainfall, North Carolina's solar farms held up with only minimal damage while other parts of the electricity system failed, an outcome that solar advocates hope will help to steer the broader energy debate.North Carolina has more solar power than any state other than California, much of it built in the two years since Hurricane Matthew hit the region.  Before last week, the state hadn't seen how its growing solar developments—providing about 4.6 percent of the state's electricity—would fare in the face of a hurricane.Florence provided a test of how the systems stand up to severe weather as renewable energy use increases, particularly solar, which is growing faster in the Southeast than any other other region.Read more at Solar Energy Largely Unscathed by Hurricane Florence’s Wind and Rain

Tesla Model 3 Gets 5-Star Rating from U.S. Safety Agency

Model 3 sedan has been awarded a five-star rating by the U.S. auto safety agency NHTSA in tests that are standard for cars in the United States. The agency has been investigating crashes involving other Tesla models, which have raised questions over the functioning of the automaker’s auto-pilot system. The company’s shares were up 1.7 percent at $304.27 in early trading on Thursday. The agency started the 5-Star safety ratings program in 1993 and Tesla's Model X and Model S, which has been the subject of at least one NHTSA investigation, have both received the top rating in the past. The ratings provide information about crash protection and rollover safety of new vehicles. Read more at Tesla Model 3 Gets 5-Star Rating from U.S. Safety Agency

Glacial Engineering Could Limit Sea-Level Rise, If We Get Our Emissions Under Control

Targeted engineering projects to hold off glacier melting could slow down the collapse of ice sheets and limit sea-level rise, according to a new study published in the European Geosciences Union journal The Cryosphere.  While an intervention similar in size to existing large civil engineering projects could only have a 30% chance of success, a larger project would have better odds of holding off ice-sheet collapse.  But study authors Michael Wolovick and John Moore caution that reducing emissions still remains key to stopping climate change and its dramatic effects. "Doing geoengineering means often considering the unthinkable," says Moore, a scientist at Beijing Normal University, China, and a professor of climate change at the University of Lapland, Finland.  The term 'geoengineering' is usually applied to large-scale interventions to combat climate change.  But instead of trying to change the entire climate, Wolovick and Moore say we could apply a more targeted approach to limit one of the most drastic consequences of climate change:  sea-level rise. Their "unthinkable" idea is glacial geoengineering: making changes to the geometry of the seafloor near glaciers that flow into the ocean, forming an ice shelf, to prevent them from melting further.  Some glaciers, such as the Britain- or Florida-sized Thwaites ice stream in West Antarctica, are retreating fast.  "Thwaites could easily trigger a runaway [West Antarctic] ice sheet collapse that would ultimately raise global sea level by about 3 meters," explains Wolovick, a researcher at Princeton University's Department of Geosciences, US.  This could have dramatic effects to[…]