Climate Action 100+ deploys asset managers of $40 trillion to pressure corporate action on climate

Climate Action 100+ (CA100+), the largest asset manager activist alliance, with more than 450 investor members which collectively manage $40 trillion in assets, has secured climate action commitments from 70% of the 161 targeted companies, which account for the vast majority of CO2e emissions, since the group was organized 2.5 years ago.

BlackRock, which joined CA100+ earlier this year and manages $7 trillion in assets, is now among hundreds of large investors that have committed to working to get the targeted corporations (the ‘systemically important emitters’ accounting for two-thirds of annual global industrial emissions) aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement. These asset managers are now actively driving change at the worst emitter companies from PetroChina to BP, forcing them to make public commitments to reduce emissions from their lines of business.

As the largest investor-to-company climate initiative in history, CA100+ has become the flagship investment industry group demanding that global corporations act on climate change.

Read more by Attracta Mooney at the Financial Times: "Corporate eco-warriors driving change from Shell to Qantas."

Published by Nucleation Capital in Asset manager support, Capital reallocation, Carbon emissions, Climate change, Corporate purpose, Fund sustainability, International support for nuclear, LINKS, Public companies

August 20, 2019

Jamie Dimon, 180 CEOs of Business Roundtable unveil new understanding of business purpose

Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Chairman of Business Roundtable, with support of 181 CEOs, released a new Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, committing their organizations to work for the benefit of all stakeholders — customers, employees, suppliers and communities, as well as shareholders.

“Major employers are investing in their workers and communities because they know it is the only way to be successful over the long term,” said Jamie Dimon. “These modernized principles reflect the business community’s unwavering commitment to continue to push for an economy that serves all Americans.”

The statement also received signatures from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan, Boeing’s Dennis A. Muilenburg; 3M CEO Michael Roman, Abbott CEO Miles D. White, AT&T’s Randall Stephenson, Cisco’s Chuck White, CVS Health’s Larry Merlo, Ford CEO James P. Hackett, GM’s Mary Barra, Johnson & Johnson CEO & Chair Alex Gorsky, Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga, P&G’s David S. Taylor and more. The full list of signatories is available here.

See Sustainable Brand's 180 CEOs Redefine Corporate Purpose to Promote ‘An Economy That Serves All.’

Published by Nucleation Capital in Climate change, Corporate purpose, LINKS, US competitiveness

November 7, 2017

Wind and Solar Power Advance, but Carbon Refuses to Retreat

The world’s carbon intensity of energy, namely the amount of CO₂ spewed into the air for each unit of energy consumed, has not budged much since Kyoto was held, 20 years ago. Even among the highly industrialized nations in the OECD, the carbon intensity of energy has declined by a paltry 4% since then, according to the International Energy Agency. This statistic, alone, puts a big question mark over the 100% renewable strategies deployed around the world to replace fossil energy. In a nutshell: Perhaps 100% renewables are not the answer.

Eduardo Porter isn't taking his eye off the ball, the way many reporters are, in gushing over the growth of wind and solar around the world. Instead, he takes a hard look at the carbon-intensity of energy, which we think is the key metric to assess for our progress in addressing climate change, along with the parts per million of CO2 that are interfering with our atmosphere.

Although the world emerged from Kyoto, Japan, with what was billed as the first-ever deal to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases, we have not made a lot of progress reducing the carbon-intensity of energy since then. All but one of the world’s nations — the United States, thanks to then President Bush — committed to making concrete commitments to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. But now, twenty years later, emissions have kept rising, along with the carbon-intensity of energy, despite the fact that the price of wind turbines and solar panels has plummeted.

"Over the past 10 years, governments and private investors have collectively spent $2 trillion on infrastructure to draw electricity from the wind and the sun, according to estimates by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Environmental Progress, a nonprofit that advocates nuclear power as an essential tool in the battle against climate change, says that exceeds the total cost of all nuclear plants built to date or under construction, adjusted for inflation.

Capacity from renewable sources has grown by leaps and bounds, outpacing growth from all other sources — including coal, natural gas and nuclear power — in recent years. Solar and wind capacity installed in 2015 was more than 10 times what the International Energy Agency had forecast a decade before."

By The New York Times | Source: Environmental Progress with data from BP’s “Statistical Review of World Energy”

Read more of this analysis by Eduardo Porter at the New York Times: "Wind and Solar power Advance, but Carbon Refuses to Retreat."

Published by Nucleation Capital in 100% Renewables, Carbon emissions, Corporate purpose, Future of Energy, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Zero emission energy

November 18, 2014

What it takes to reverse climate change

Ross Koningstein and David Fork, armed with the resources of Google, Inc., set out in an effort that was known as "RE<C" to assess and support the development of renewable energy sources so that they could generate reliable electricity more cheaply than coal. In an subsequent article penned in the IEEE Spectrum entitled What It Would Really Take to Reverse Climate Change: Today's renewable energy technologies won't save us. So what will?, we learn the results of their years of work.

Initially, Google announced that it would help promising technologies mature by investing in start-ups and even engaging in internal R&D. Its goal: to produce a gigawatt of renewable power more cheaply than could a coal-fired plant within a few years, not decades. Unfortunately, within a few years, Google shut down the initiative, when it became clear that exclusively using renewables would not work. Koningstein and Fork then turned their attention to examining the the underlying assumptions and learning from their experience.

Even though there were a few sparse areas that might manage to achieve higher renewables penetration and approach the goal, it was clear that most regions of the world would not be able to power their needs with renewables, if looked at on a time-coincident basis. They determined that the only way to both stop new emissions and reverse the warming trends that had been put into motion by CO2 accumulations was through "radical technological advances in cheap zero-carbon energy, as well as a method of extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and sequestering the carbon."

Ross Koningstein serves as an advisor to Nucleation Capital and we have discussed and benefitted in many ways from his vast experience. Read Ross' own published report at "What It Would Really Take to Reverse Climate Change: Today’s renewable energy technologies won’t save us. So what will?."

Published by Nucleation Capital in 100% Renewables, Advanced Nuclear, Brilliant thinkers, Carbon emissions, Carbon negative, Climate change, Corporate decarbonization, Corporate purpose, Future of Energy, LINKS, Public companies, Reduced ecosystem impacts, Solving climate

January 1, 1995

The First Atomic Age: A Failure of Socialism, by Rod Adams

This article was written in 1995 by Rod Adams, now a Managing Partner of Nucleation Capital, who, at the time was the founder of Adams Atomic Engines, Inc., having just completed twelve years of service in the Navy’s Nuclear Power Program, with much of that time, living within a few feet of a nuclear power reactor. Adams Atomic Engines was possibly the first advanced nuclear venture ever formed with the aim of enabling the broader use of nuclear power across more industry sectors. Unfortunately for everyone, Adams Atomic Engines did not survive the Navy's recall of Mr. Adams to naval service, but this early experience cemented his belief that only competitive markets could enable the kind of technological refinement and problem-solving thinking that has allowed men like Edison, Bell, Ford, and Gates to produce revolutionary products.

The first Atomic Age began with high hopes, but it has languished, being replaced in succession by the Space Age, the Computer Age, and the Information Age. Atomic planes, trains, and remote power stations discussed by 1940s visionaries were never built. Atomic powered ships, able to operate for years without refilling their fuel supply have seen limited civilian and military application. Most are now museums or being laid up as anachronisms. Nuclear submarines, powered by compact engines able to push their massive bulk at high speeds for years without any atmospheric intake or exhaust are widely thought to be expensive Cold War relics with no real mission or lesson to offer.

Was it all hype? Were Dwight Eisenhower, Al Gore, Sr., Isaac Asimov, Alvin Weinberg, Leo Szilard, Enrico Fermi, Lewis Strauss, and H.G. Wells all wrong in their predictions for a new source of abundant energy? If not, how did the present stagnation in the industry happen?

First the facts. Uranium is abundant. One indication of the enormity of the resource is that the United States has an existing stockpile of enriched uranium large enough to fuel over 1000 Trident class submarines for fifteen years. Another indication is that the price of natural uranium has fallen so low that domestic mining companies are crying for protection from foreign “dumping.”

Uranium, thorium, and plutonium are concentrated energy sources. One pound of any of them contains as much potential energy as 2,000,000 pounds of oil or 2,600,000 pounds of high grade coal.

Uranium, thorium, and plutonium have all been used as fuel in fission reactors. Fission waste products weigh less than the initial metal used for fuel and are compact enough to be completely retained within the reactor core. Each year, we produce approximately 4,000 tons of spent fuel from all 108 nuclear electric plants in the U.S. while a single 1,000 megawatt electric (MWe) coal station produces that much ash every day.

A 1,000 MWe nuclear power plant uses about seven pounds of fuel each day and produces no carbon dioxide. A 1,000 MWe coal plant burns 11,000 tons of coal and produces 42,000 tons of waste gas every day.

Please click here to continue reading "The First Atomic Age: A Failure of Socialism" preserved at The Foundation for Economic Education.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Brilliant thinkers, Corporate purpose, Future of Energy, Government support, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear financing, Nuclear innovation, Nuclear R&D, US technological leadership