Gratitude, Preview, Roundup, and Some Resources

We are on vacation this week, so the format of this post is a bit different. We’ll return next week with a fresh new post, but this week we’ll start with some gratitude, a preview of next week’s newsletter, a roundup of our posts so far, and a couple of resources you may find useful. See you next week!

First, Some Gratitude 🙏 

Thank You to the hundreds of folks who have subscribed to this newsletter since we launched last month! I started this newsletter with a simple aim: to write deeply about new sustainability research or developments that are interesting to me. It’s immensely gratifying to see these topics resonate with so many of you.

I’m likewise grateful for the many words of support, encouragement, surprise, criticism, etc. that I’ve received since we launched.

Sneak Preview of Next Week’s Post

I’m so excited to publish next week’s newsletter - a new study in the journal Scientific Reports found that there’s enough lithium (a key ingredient in EV batteries) in so-called produced water (water that comes out alongside gas and oil in hydraulic fracturing operations) from Pennsylvania to satisfy around 40% of the total US annual lithium demand. But could this future actually be realized 🤔?

The authors leveraged a state of Pennsylvania fracking data set with which I’m deeply familiar, having dug into it as part of one of my doctoral dissertation chapters on non-hazardous industrial wastes. The new study raises all kinds of fascinating questions about how to best handle waste products from large-scale extractive operations like oil and gas exploration, addressing challenges with the supply of critical minerals, transforming supply chains toward more domestic production, technology readiness and trade-offs, and a lot more. I can’t wait to share this next one with you!

Sustainability at the Frontier - Post Roundup

For those of you who recently joined us, we’re taking a page out of the TV show playbook by packaging together our previous work to catch you up (and for those of us who have been here since the very beginning, a chance to reminisce…). As a bonus, I’m including a 1-sentence TL;DR:

• 👩‍💻 Post 1: How do ESG Software Ratings Work? Software companies go through a competitive request for proposal-like process by answering lengthy questionnaires and giving a live demo of the software, and rating companies use a scoring rubric to place all companies against one another, usually on a 4-quadrant matrix.

• ♻️ Post 2: Are Plastic Bags Recycled After You Drop Them Off? Yes, for the most part, and life-cycle comparisons of current recycling fates show superior outcomes compared to disposal.

• 🛰️ Post 3: Can the Eye in the Sky Help to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Yes, new aerial and satellite tech solves a longstanding challenge of measuring methane levels from waste sites “on the ground” and will likely spur new operational modes and technology advances that reduce global emissions in the waste sector.

• 💰️ Post 4: Do Banking Financial Models Disincentivize Investment in Low-Carbon Projects? Yes <based on data from many EU banks>, but new methods of modeling the risk of new “green” investments, coupled with more historical evidence of the performance of renewable energy and related technologies, should help to reduce the perverse incentives currently in place for financial institutions when assessing high-carbon and low-carbon infrastructure and technology investments.

• 🚗 Post 5: Do Electric Cars Depreciate Faster than Gas-Powered Cars? Yes, but an improved set of features in newer electric vehicles (like a longer range) is already closing the gap and will likely continue to do so in the near future, thus unlocking some of the more promising aspects that EVs can deliver when considering transportation sector decarbonization.

• 🔥 Post 6: How Does Controlled Burning Lessen the Effects of Wildfires? Mainly, in combination with other manual and mechanical methods, by reducing the fuel available in forest lands if/when a wildfire occurs, but there is a point of diminishing returns from a public health perspective whereby too much controlled burning can create smoke that negatively impacts nearby populations.

A Couple of Assorted Links and Resources to Close This Newsletter Out

1. Climate Tech List. Shout-out to Sustainability at the Frontier reader Steven Zhang, who built one of the most helpful job boards for those looking to find their first or next role doing sustainability-related work - there are about 30,000 positions listed from more than 5,000 companies. I usually counsel at least a few people a week on either getting their first job in climate or otherwise advancing their career, and Climate Tech List is something I’ve probably recommended a couple hundred times.

2. Cal Newport’s Podcast, Deep Questions. Cal is a computer science professor at Georgetown, and in his podcast, he puts out a lot of great advice on minimizing digital distractions and cultivating an environment that allows you to do deeper work. I recommend his podcast, it’s one of the few I’m able to put in a regular rotation. Some rearrangements I’ve made to my ways of working in recent months (allowing me to make room for things like this newsletter!) are thanks in part to some of his suggestions.