The price of a lithium-ion battery pack used to power an electric vehicle has plunged 89% in the last decade, from $1,100 per kWh to $137 per kWh. Marine batteries still cost significantly more, ranging between $800-$1,000 per kWh for retrofits to $500 per kWh for newbuilds. DNV expects the cost of batteries to be reduced by 56% by 2025.

Using nanotechnology, a team of researchers led by Renu Sharma of the National Institute of Standards and Technology managed to break down CO2 into Carbon Monoxide (CO) and Oxygen (O) at room temperature. Though still fundamental and proven only in the lab, it is groundbreaking work that could pave the way for the creation of economic synthetic fuels, medicine and chemicals in a circular economy.

Following a historic vote in parliament on December 15th 2020, the Norwegian Government announced its funding decision for the ‘Northern Lights’ CO2 transport and storage project. The project aims to create a carbon capture and storage hub in Norway, open to third parties. It will be the first ever cross-border, open-source CO2 transport and storage infrastructure network and offers European industrial emitters the opportunity to store their CO2 safely and permanently underground.

The vision laid out in the actions signed by Biden are transformative. The president argues a $2tn clean energy plan will bring millions of new jobs by refashioning the power grid to run on carbon-free sources and offering up a future where electric tanks are operated by the US military. “The whole approach is classic Biden; working-class values, putting people to work,” said Tim Profeta, an environmental policy expert at Duke University.

Exxon has postponed development of the ‘LaBarge Carbon Capture and Storage’ project in Wyoming due to Covid-19. The company’s share price at one point during the pandemic dropped to an 18-year low, as oil prices cratered, throwing many plans across the industry for this year and beyond into turmoil. People familiar with Exxon’s CCS projects described it as a significant setback, because LaBarge was in an advanced state, used proven technology, and would have made money.

Equinor will explore opportunities within the realm of floating solar power. Together with Moss Maritime the company wants to start testing near the island of Frøya in the late summer of 2021. The plant will measure 6400 m2 and rise 3 meters above sea level and appears to be made of interlinked rigid structures.

The North Sea Giant, a Norwegian offshore construction vessel, is the first DNV class-approved ‘hybrid’ DP3 vessel with three batteries on-board that have a total capacity of 2.034 kWh. The batteries have been installed in an upgrade and serve the purpose of spinning reserve, peak shaving and load leveling. Since then, fuel consumption is reduced in all operational modes with over 2 million liters of diesel per year, saving up to 30% fuel.

BP and Ørsted have partnered to develop a zero-carbon hydrogen at BP’s Lingen Refinery in north-‎west Germany, BP's first full-scale project in a sector that is expected to grow rapidly. The 50 MW electrolyser project is expected to produce 1 ton of ‎hydrogen per hour - almost 9,000 tonnes a year - starting in 2024. The project could be expanded to up to 500 MW at a later stage to replace all of Lingen’s fossil fuel-based hydrogen.

2021 will be the first year in which investments in European offshore wind will equal investments in oil and gas. Investors in the energy sector are increasingly opting for companies with a green profile. The pressure on fossil companies to limit their CO₂ emissions is now called an 'investment risk'. Moreover, the non-fossil energy companies such as Ørsted have structurally outperformed traditional companies such as Exxon-Mobil.

The auto industry witnessed a historic event happening in Germany in 2019, which went by largely unnoticed. In a rare act of unity, the leaders of the country’s big three Automakers; Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche, and BMW CEO Harald Krüger, all agreed that the future of German auto is the electric car. Over the next decade, each CEO would be pushing their respective companies to shift and embrace the idea of an electrified fleet.

In September 2020, ice volume in the Arctic Ocean was just one quarter of what it was in 1979. Climate science makes it clear that ice-free summers in the near future are inevitable. Most models suggest that this could could happen around the middle of this century, with more pessimistic forecasts suggesting total melting of the ice cap before 2035.

A team of researchers created small prototypes of ‘power bricks’ which are able to power small LEDs. The energy density is only about 1% of that of lithium ion batteries, but is believed this can be increased by tenfold. A brick costs only about 3 dollars to make.

This is a story about how the shore power connection for Heerema in the Port of Rotterdam was realized from idea to reality. It is told from the perspective of Heerema, but could not be realized without help from Eneco, Siemens, Port of Rotterdam, the City Council of Rotterdam and InnovationQuarter. This story portrays the power of open collaboration for a sustainable future, and shows what can be achieved when working together on a common cause.

Volkswagen-backed QuantumScape is building a solid-state lithium metal battery for electric vehicles that it says should allow a car to charge to 80% of its full capacity in 15 minutes.

Designed in 2017 and launched in 2018, Hurtigreten has launched two new hybrid cruise vessels, the MS Roald Amundsen and MS Fridjof Nansen, that can sail fully electric for up to 30 minutes. Not only will it significantly reduce emissions, a hybrid system is also extremely quit. Arctic exploration has never been so much fun!

A tremendous amount of dry ice (solid CO2) is required in the coming year(s) for Corona-vaccine cold storage. This is a liveblog, dedicated to investigate the potential of creating dry ice using ship-based carbon capture and storage.

Japanese shipbuilding giant Mitsubishi announced that it will build and test a carbon-capture system for ships which promises to reduce ship emissions by 90%. Sea trials will be conducted by mid-2021 using an existing coal carrier operated by the Tohoku Electric Power Company.

The EU is currently 75% to 100% dependent on imports for most metals. With the EU's green and digital ambitions raw materials’ requirement requiring 18 times more lithium alone by 2030, this dependence must be reduced. She has come up with an action plan that includes setting up new European mines, which are not taken kindly upon by everyone. Lithi-yummy!

Four multinationals including Shell and Exxon aim to store CO₂ in an empty gas field off the Dutch coast and will apply for a subsidy at the end of this month. According to estimates, this subsidy could amount to around € 1.5 billion, which would cause other subsidies on ‘truly green projects’ to diminish.

Høglund Marine Solutions & HB Hunte Engineering have developed a new ‘bilobe’ tank concept for LPG and CO2 transportation. The solution is readily available for use in existing tanker designs. It more than doubles the transportation capacity of liquid CO2 over current vessel capacity without the size, weight and stability concerns that would have come from a higher capacity “monolobe” design.