by Dan Layug, CFA and Army Major Nicholas Ng The climate impact of US Army installations The US Army is the US government’s largest emitter of Greenhouse Gasses (“GHG”). In 2020, the Army purchased over $740M of electricity from electric grids. This electricity added 4.1 million metric tons of carbon…

Solar, geothermal, hydro and wind are critical to our path to net zero because of the low lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions generated per unit of energy produced (gCO2e per kWh) relative to coal and natgas.[i] On a stand-alone basis, only geothermal and hydropower are clean sources capable of providing reliable…

by Dan Layug, CFA and Vlad Dugin (Partner at E3 Capital) Gap in infrastructure in Central Africa Despite billions invested, the infrastructural gap in Sub-Saharan Africa has been a natural barrier to social development and economic growth. Today, more than 30 African countries experience power shortages, leading to either expensive…

Data centers, cold storage and electronics manufacturing are three real estate-adjacent industries that have surged in emerging markets due to the pandemic. Data centers due to AI and digitalization, cold storage due to refrigeration of food and drugs, and electronics manufacturing due to higher demand for automation. From an industrial…

Long Duration Energy Storage (“LDES”) is a group of technologies that are more economical storage mediums than lithium-ion over longer durations. Duration is a measure of how many hours a storage technology can discharge energy at full capacity. Energy is generally discharged at full capacity because discharging below this level…

Advances in battery technology are making it possible to move towards low carbon transportation and supply of energy. Morgan Stanley’s research team predicts that in 2040 the battery market for electric vehicles and grid infrastructure will be $535bn.[i] Higher performance and lower cost batteries have been driven mostly by demand…

Road transportation accounts for 11.9% of global greenhouse gas emissions.[i] Two-thirds of this comes from the internal combustion engines in passenger cars, motorcycles, buses and other public transportation vehicles.[ii] In emerging markets, the electrification of transportation has been proceeding at a slow pace due to previously high green premiums vs…

Battery Energy Storage Systems (“BESS”) are infrastructure technologies that can store large amounts of energy for an electricity grid. BESS projects are currently very profitable. In emerging countries such as the Philippines, unlevered investment payback periods for BESS projects are 3 – 5 years. Homeowners with rooftop solar may have…

Plastics are the New Cement: Climate Impact of Plastics Plastic is a global problem. The ENVIRONMENTAL impact of plastics (i.e. marine plastics) is front and center in discussions of circular economy. Particularly in developing island nations, the word “marine plastics” conjures up an image of a sea turtle with a…