A Well-Oiled Climate Plan

Hey there! This week, we’re giving you the full scoop on the startup transforming leaky oil wells into renewable power storage. Dive in to learn more about their work, as well as a climate success story on wheels and a hopeful look at slowing down global CO2 output.

November 30, 2022

— Written by Shayna Berglas

Renewell Energy

Fossil Fuels, like oil, release large amounts of carbon when burned — approximately a third of the world's total carbon emissions. But even when oil wells are out of commission, they’re still harming the planet. Almost half of idle wells release methane, a greenhouse gas that warms the atmosphere at a rate 80x that of CO2.

And that’s not all. Idle wells can also leak air pollutants or allow toxic substances to migrate into groundwater and flow up to the surface. This risk increases the longer wells are left unattended, but keeping an eye on them is extremely costly — I’m talking about hundreds of billions of dollars, costly. That’s where Renewell comes in.

The California-based startup figured out a way to solve two problems at once: cap the well, and transform it into a renewable energy storage device.

Watch the full film here.

Yupp, More on Bikes. 🚴

(Joaquin Sarmiento/AFP via Getty Images)

How many stories have we written about bikes at this point? Let’s see, there was the one about Amsterdam reclaiming its streets, Paris prioritizing people over passenger cars, and also debunking some popular qualms with biking as a whole. Moral of the story, we love traveling on two wheels - it’s better for our health, our wallets, and for the planet.

But don’t just take it from me. Protected bike lanes can help cities cut emissions, and Bogotá’s $130 million investment proves it.

A new study shows that the city’s 368 miles of protected lanes eliminate approximately 22,000 metric tons of CO2 each year. To capture that much carbon, it would mean planting between 300,000 and 400,000 new trees. (Although, old trees are better at storing carbon, hence why it’s critical to protect old growth forests. More on that another time.)

That kind of climate benefit would be even more substantial in American cities, where more individuals own cars, on average, than the Colombian capital’s residents. Unfortunately, no cities in the U.S. have built a safe and substantial enough network of bicycle lanes to analyze.

If we want to make biking seem like a viable alternative to more people, our cities need to prioritize protected lanes. I live in New York City, and let’s just say that if you asked me to bike through Midtown, you’d get this face in response:

According to the new study, performed by the Institute of Transportation & Development Policy (ITDP), every $200 spent on highway construction in a city creates about a ton of CO2 emissions annually. But take that same amount of funding and put it towards protected bike lanes and we can observe a decrease in emissions by just about the same amount.

Bogotá’s $130 million investment has already paid off in a number of ways. The ITDP study tells us that riders are saving around $80 million combined compared to car drivers. Additionally, the exercise has prevented an estimated 300 deaths, equal to an economic benefit of about $230 million. It’s time to take cycling seriously and pedal towards a greener future.

Good Climate News! 🌍

(Getty Images)

Have you ever walked out of an exam thinking you performed really, really badly, and then found out you scored just high enough to avoid a report card disaster? To some, I bet this headline feels kind of like that.

It’s important to remember that the fight against big oil has been, and will continue to be, a long and difficult one. But despite widespread concerns that the economy was going to fall back to coal, oil, and gas in response to a global energy crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels are expected to rise less than 1% this year. Frankly, that’s a win. Let’s all take a collective sigh of relief.

What's more, we have renewable energy and electric vehicles to thank. The world hit record growth this year in solar and wind energy, generating some 700 terawatt-hours - enough to power around 67 million American homes for a year. Without the green tech’s significant deployment in the last few years, the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects the annual rise in emissions would have been much larger, potentially by an increase of 1 billion tons.

Here’s the takeaway: renewables don’t just generate a substantially lower amount of emissions themselves, they also decrease our reliance on the sources of power that do produce them. In terms of energy production, it's time to lean into clean.

What We’re Watching 🎥, Reading 📚, and Listening to 🎧

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