Falling oil makes EVs an even tougher sell as Volvo dials back
Falling oil makes EVs an even tougher sell as Volvo dials back
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It’s a wild world: Scientists are studying migrations, endangered species, and global change by tagging thousands of animals to be monitored by a satellite system. This image shows a year of animal movements as tracked by ICARUS (International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space) and other research groups around the world. Data compiled by Movebank.
Swedish automaker Volvo became the latest major vehicle manufacturer to dial back its EV ambitions this week as it admitted it won’t be all electric by 2030 and that it was exploring more hybrid sales in the face of sagging global demand.
While Volvo joins Ford F 0.00%↑, General Motors GM 0.00%↑ and several others in cutting what turned out to be inflated expectations for demand for electric vehicles, all of them still believe the future is electric. But when?
One thing certainly holding back interest in electric this year is falling oil prices, which hit nine-month lows this week below $70 a barrel on the Brent contract. OPEC even agreed to delay an increase in production output for two months on Thursday as weak economic outlooks in China and the U.S. hold back demand.
With hurricane season in the Gulf in an odd holding pattern, and — at least so far — no increase in hostilities in the Middle East, it’s hard to see a catalyst for rising oil or gasoline prices anytime soon. That plays well for the presidential election coming up in that it erases anger at the pumps. But it leaves electric car dealers holding the bag.
Savvy EV shoppers looking for great price deals going into the holidays may take pleasure in this, but for the automakers themselves, particularly the ones who have rolled the dice on EVs, it could be a long winter. . . .
Don’t forget to contact me directly if you have suggestions or ideas dcallaway@callawayclimateinsights.com.
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What the election means for clean energy stocks — a different analysis
. . . . The popular narrative is that clean energy stocks will rise if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the election in November, and oil stocks will fall. And the opposite if former President Donald Trump wins. But a statistical analysis by Mark Hulbert of the movements of these stocks correlated to electronics futures trading on shifting odds in the presidential election yields a different, more nuanced forecast. Because investor money is at stake in electronic futures, vs. media opinion polls, the odds coming from this trading are typically more reliable. But like polls, they are always shifting, as are the outlooks for the two closely watched stock sectors.
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Callaway Climate Insights and The Independent team up on NYC Climate Week event to celebrate 100 climate leaders
. . . . When I was a young journalist in London in the early 1990s, the hottest newspaper in the UK was The Independent, a brash, lively exercise in passionate journalism with a notable interest in the environment. More than 30 years later, The Independent, now in digital form, retains that climate-friendly passion.
That’s why we’ve been writing for The Independent for the better part of the past three years and now are joining them to throw a special event for climate investors and advocates later this month at New York Climate Week in Manhattan. We’ll be unveiling a Climate 100 List of the most passionate climate advocates from business, entertainment, academia, fashion, and travel, among other industries, and many of Callaway Climate Insights’ top sources will be on the list.
The event, which you can register online here to watch for free, will feature former British Prime Minister Theresa May, interviewed by Independent Editor Geordie Greig. For more info or to register for free, click here.
Also speaking will be best-selling author John Vaillant, WaWa Gatheru, founder of Black Girl Environmentalist, and the Independent’s own star foreign correspondent, Bel Trew, who I will have the pleasure of introducing and questioning myself.
Coming in the middle of the United Nations Global Leaders meeting in NYC, Climate Week is quickly becoming one of the must stops on the annual climate calendar. In terms of global leaders, this year it will easily top COP29 itself in Azerbaijan. We look forward to being part of it and to seeing you there or online on Sept. 25.
As insurers seek a handle on rising climate catastrophes, cat bonds in turmoil this year
. . . . As the peak of the annual hurricane season nears in the Caribbean, a lack of big storms this year has puzzled meteorologists who expected one of the busiest seasons on record and thrown the market in catastrophe bonds, or cat bonds, into turmoil.
Reinsurers have raised their exposure levels to natural catastrophe (nat-cat) risk three years in a row, and this year expanded the cushion on their balance sheets for expected losses to more than $19 billion, according to S&P Global. A fear of a huge season caused a big selloff in Cat bonds during the spring, according to Bloomberg, but that has changed now that the season has moved forward without disaster.
Still, the worst of hurricane season is usually September, and there are at least three current tropical depressions being monitored by scientists that could develop in the next week or two. But the turmoil suggests that even the best laid financial hedges against climate change can change in a world where even scientists can’t accurately decide what Mother Nature is up to.
Editor’s picks: What’s happening to Earth’s carbon sinks?; plus, keeping wind blades out of landfills
Watch the video: NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) satellites have found that carbon sinks might be changing. We power our daily lives mainly by burning fossil fuels, and this adds greenhouse gases to the air, warming the planet. That’s where trees, the ocean, and soil and grasslands come in. They reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. When something takes carbon away from the air, it’s called a sink. But NASA’s satellites have found these sinks might be changing. Could it be that our sinks stop removing carbon from the air, and add more instead? Take a look.
NREL develops recyclable resin for turbine blades
A team at the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory has developed a new resin for the manufacture of bioderivable wind turbine blades that can be chemically recycled and the components reused. If successful, the material could end the practice of old blades winding up in landfills at the end of their useful life, reNEWS.Biz reports. The new resin is made of materials produced using bioderivable resources and can perform on par with the current industry standard of blades made from a thermoset resin. The NREL said it also can outperform certain thermoplastic resins intended to be recyclable. The biomass-derivable resin is nicknamed PECAN, which stands for polyester covalently adaptable network.
Latest findings: New research, studies and projects
U.S. hotspots are getting hotter more often
This graph shows the percentage of the land area of the contiguous 48 states with unusually hot daily high and low temperatures during the months of June, July, and August. The thin lines represent individual years, while the thick lines show a nine-year weighted average. Red lines represent daily highs, while orange lines represent daily lows. The term “unusual” in this case is based on the long-term average conditions at each location. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, nationwide, unusually hot summer days (highs) have become more common over the past few decades. The occurrence of unusually hot summer nights (lows) has increased at an even faster rate. This trend indicates less “cooling off” at night. The 20th century had many winters with widespread patterns of unusually low temperatures, including a particularly large spike in the late 1970s. Since the 1980s, though, unusually cold winter temperatures have become less common — particularly very cold nights (lows). Data source: NOAA, 2024.
Words to live by . . . .
“It’s not that the world hasn’t had more carbon dioxide; it’s not that the world hasn’t been warmer. The problem is the speed at which things are changing. We are inducing a sixth mass extinction event kind of by accident, and we don’t want to be the ‘extinctee.’” — Bill Nye, The Science Guy.