QUICK NEWS, August 8: The Climate Crisis And High Finance; The Energy Sector Holy Grail Found!

The Climate Crisis And High Finance How Climate Change Could Trigger the Next Global Financial Crisis; The Federal Reserve should act aggressively to reduce that risk, a leading economic historian argues.

Robinson Meyer, August 1, 2019 (The Atlantic)

“…[The U.S. Federal Reserve needs to battle climate change in the same way it responded to the 2008 recession, according to Columbia University Professor of History Adam Tooze. Policymakers] will need to pull every lever at their disposal…[Jerome Powell, the Fed chairman] is probably the most powerful person in the American government who affirms climate science. Yet he has taken a subdued approach to mitigating climate change…[He has written that] addressing climate change is a responsibility that Congress has entrusted to other agencies…[His British counterpart has convened 33 central banks to investigate how to ‘green the financial system’...and every powerful central bank is [reportedly] working with him—except for Banco do Brasil and the Fed…

click to enlarge

[The head of the Bank of England has raised the possibility that the climate crisis is a Minsky moment in which] an asset’s price suddenly collapses after a long period of growth…[That means there could be] some kind of subprime-like scenario…[It could be created if fossil-fuel assets were] on the balance sheet of actors who were under huge pressure in a fire-sale situation and who couldn’t deal with a sudden revaluation…[The sudden revaluation could happen if climate nonlinearities kick in and create] a Fukushima-style event…[That leads to nervous democratic politicians] suddenly deciding that we have to [immediately] stop doing one or another part of our carbon-based economy…[That leads to] big shocks…[and] sudden revaluations…[Because one-third] of equity and fixed income assets issued in global financial markets can be classified as belonging to the natural resource and extraction sectors, as well as carbon-intensive power utilities, chemicals, construction, and industrial goods firms…” click here for more

click to enlarge

Tweet

The Energy Sector Holy Grail Found! Why Energy Storage Is Proving Even More Disruptive Than Cheap Renewables

Jeff McMahon, August 2, 2019 (Forbes)

The falling price of renewable energy has been dominating the headlines, but more dramatic change is happening behind the scenes, where battery storage is disrupting the way utilities provide power…[The key is] the electronics…[In the past, utilities relied on] slow, inflexible fossil-fuel plants…[for] enough energy to meet peak demand…Now, utilities will have abundant cheap power from renewables. Paired with batteries, that power can be deployed by computer in microseconds to ensure reliability or fulfill other ancillary services…

click to enlarge

[Tightly coupled storage and solar PV is] a solid-state computer-controlled power plant…[and a shift] from slow and heavy to fast and light…[With cheap renewables, energy will be abundant and the grid reliability will be for] flexibility and balancing…That reliability will be watchdogged by the resources themselves, networked across the grid..[In July,] NextEra announced a new 700 MW renewables+battery hybrid plant—described as America's largest so far—in Anadarko, Oklahoma, the heart of oil country.” click here for more

click to enlarge

Tweet