Power Briefing recap: week of July 1

It’s the end of the first week of July, and those of us in the U.S. had a holiday yesterday for Independence Day. Here’s what you might have missed from Power Briefing:

• Can diesel-powered vehicles be good for the environment? According to Power Progress columnist Jack Roberts, Volvo thinks so. Particularly if they run on renewable fuels, such as the company’s new D17 diesel engine. And according to Volvo, it packs enough power to pull combination trailers hauling the equivalent load of 2-3 conventional trucks.
• Early June elections for the European Parliament resulted in significant gains for far-right parties — and noteworthy losses for the Greens. Some are concerned about the far right’s willingness to roll back certain environmental initiatives, or at least be less aggressive about policy making related to sustainability goals.
• Caterpillar, Cat dealer WesTrac and global mining services provider Thiess recently celebrated a milestone: 1 million meters of autonomous drilling operations at the Mt. Arthur coal mine in Australia. The companies said the benefits included operator safety, equipment utilization and improved performance.
• Power Progress recently heard from battery manufacturer EnerSys about the pros and cons of flooded lead acid batteries in electrifying industrial equipment. This past week, EnerSys discussed advanced thin plate pure lead (TPPL) and lithium-ion battery technologies as they relate to battery electric (BE) equipment.

In other news, the Power Progress events team extended the deadline for submitting nominations to the 2024 Power Progress Summit Awards.

Power Briefing recap: week of June 24 This week looked at China’s slumping construction equipment market, topics in hydrogen fuel and making diesel engines cleaner.

Power Briefing recap: week of June 17 This week saw maritime decarbonization, proposed CO rules for portable gen-sets and the case for renewable propane.