QUICK NEWS, December 17: A Concrete Climate Concern; GE Can Beat The Market With New Energy

A Concrete Climate Concern Climate change: The massive CO2 emitter you may not know about

Lucy Rodgers, 17 December 2018 (BBC News)

Concrete is the most widely used man-made material in existence. It is second only to water as the most-consumed resource on the planet…[But cement, the key ingredient in concrete,] is the source of about 8% of the world's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions…If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest emitter in the world…Production has increased more than thirtyfold since 1950 and almost fourfold since 1990. China used more cement between 2011 and 2013 than the US did in the entire 20th Century…[But] emerging markets of South East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa - driven by rapid urbanisation and economic development…[will require] cement production to increase by a quarter by 2030…[Production involves dust-producing quarrying, the use of massive kilns, which require large amounts of energy, and a chemical process that] emits staggeringly high levels of CO2…

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[I]mprovements in the energy-efficiency of new plants and burning waste materials instead of fossil fuels has seen the average CO2 emissions per tonne of output fall by 18% over the last few decades…[and] digitalisation, machine learning and an increasing awareness of sustainability are all having an impact on the cement industry's culture…[But the] sector is dominated by a small number of major producers who are reluctant to experiment or change business models. Architects, engineers, contractors and clients are also, rather understandably, cautious about using new building materials…[while global] CO2 emissions need to decline by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030…” click here for more

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GE Can Beat The Market With New Energy General Electric May Be Forced to Bet on Renewable Energy; With many legacy businesses crumbling, GE may see a rare bright spot in renewable energy.

Travis Hoium, December 16, 2018 (The Motley Fool)

Despite General Electric (NYSE:GE) being a world leader in wind energy, renewable has always been…overshadowed by power plants, oil and gas, aviation, GE Capital, and healthcare, which generated more revenue and profits…[but power plants are in structural decline, oil and gas hasn't been as profitable as expected, and GE Capital is a shell of its former self…Despite being a small business for General Electric, the company's renewable energy business is actually one of the largest in the world. In the third quarter of 2018 alone, GE's renewable energy segment generated $2.9 billion in revenue, or an annualized rate of $11.6 billion, beating what some of the biggest renewable energy companies in the world make in an entire year…

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[GE] could acquire its way to dominance in solar, energy storage, and smart devices. It could also leverage GE Capital to develop and build renewable energy projects using other companies' technology…[And] it could leverage existing relationships…Housing multiple groups of technologies under one roof could help lower the cost of integration across technologies and bring unique product and service offerings to market…GE could build a solar farm with wind turbines and energy storage all on one site…[and sell smoothed] streams of electricity to utilities…If GE is profitable and has tax liabilities, it could even use the tax credits that come with renewable energy development…[The renewable energy industry could use a company with GE's scale to help it gain more mainstream recognition and grow to the scale of other energy industries…” click here for more

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