Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

UK funding to tackle climate crisis 'must double', government warned

Britain’s biggest environmental groups have warned the government that funding to tackle the climate emergency must be more than double next year to avoid an even greater cost from catastrophic ecological breakdown in the future.

John Sauven, an economist and executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: “No one in government is still trying to argue that this is not an emergency, and yet no one in government is acting as though it is.

“We are still constantly pumping carbon into the atmosphere, and trying to ignore the problem will leave our children with a damaged world and a planet-sized debt. There’s a strong economic case and an overwhelming moral imperative for the chancellor to act.”

Martyn1981

Coal is slip slip slipping down in the US now.

EIA Monthly Report Documents Decline Of Coal In US Electricity Generation

They have read every word, studied every chart, and report that the numbers show the amount of electricity generated in the US by coal fell by more than 13% in the first half of this year. During that same time, electricity from solar power grew by more than 10%. Natural gas also saw an increase of 6%.

The EIA says it expects coal to generate less than one quarter of the nation’s energy this year compared with about half only a decade ago. Clearly, coal power is in decline and sinking fast.

Moody’s said its long-term outlook for US thermal coal “calls for a substantial volume reduction over the next decade driven by utilities switching to natural gas and renewable energy.” It goes on to say coal producers have a good supply of orders through the end of this year but “many have substantial open positions beyond that.” That’s code for “Nobody wants to buy your climate killing, death dealing coal any more.”

Martyn1981

In the US we have an interesting split now, politically. The Republicans are still toeing the denial line*, whilst the Democrats are pro-action ...... so long as they don't upset voters too much!!!!!!

[*I think they are the only large scale democratic party in the World now, that still 'questions' AGW.]

So we get a split where the Democrat Party refuse to allow a debate on climate change for the wannabe presidential nominees, whilst almost all of the said wannabees are voicing solid AGW action plans/needs. So close, so close.

Anyway, here's an article about John Kerry, former US Secretary of State, and unsuccessful President candidate (lost to G W Bush). He addresses the AGW myths about living standards and jobs.

John Kerry says we can't leave climate emergency to 'neanderthals' in power

It’s a lie that humanity has to choose between prosperity and protecting the future, former US secretary of state tells Australian conference

“We just can’t sit on our asses and leave the political process to neanderthals who don’t want to believe in the future,” Kerry told the audience in Melbourne. “We have a dearth of leadership, but this will turn.”

The former US Democratic presidential candidate said it was not a choice between taking action on the climate emergency and securing jobs and growth.

“They are not separate. And anybody who persists in putting forward that notion that you have to make the choice – you can either have jobs plus prosperity or you can protect the environment and the future. That’s a lie.

“We’ve got a whole bunch of people running around trying to save the status quo – when the status quo is actually feeding a lot of jobs that don’t make sense.”

He said the transition to carbon emission-neutral economies would create better jobs and noted that the fastest growing employment opportunities in the US were for solar power and wind power turbine technicians.

Zarch

Great read for the data nerds!!

Drax
April to June 2019
Electric Insights - Quarterly

https://www.drax.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/SN7605_DRAX_Report_Q2_190828-copy.pdf

This quarter’s Electric Insights features two special reports on Britain’s
power system moving towards zero fossil fuels, and how this makes electric
vehicles cleaner than ever.

zeupater

Zarch wrote: »

Great read for the data nerds!!

Drax
April to June 2019
Electric Insights - Quarterly

https://www.drax.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/SN7605_DRAX_Report_Q2_190828-copy.pdf

This quarter’s Electric Insights features two special reports on Britain’s
power system moving towards zero fossil fuels, and how this makes electric
vehicles cleaner than ever.

Hi

That's a really important point that many tend to overlook when comparing emissions of EVs against petroleum fuelled vehicles (and yes, people still do!) .... as time passes any ICEV only becomes less efficient & emissions are set to increase, whereas an EV becomes 'cleaner' in line with the generating mix .... effectively it's a form of inbuilt technology future-proofing that ICEs simply can't access.

HTH
Z

GreatApe

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

That's a really important point that many tend to overlook when comparing emissions of EVs against petroleum fuelled vehicles (and yes, people still do!) .... as time passes any ICEV only becomes less efficient & emissions are set to increase, whereas an EV becomes 'cleaner' in line with the generating mix .... effectively it's a form of inbuilt technology future-proofing that ICEs simply can't access.

HTH
Z

This is only true when the marginal generation is green which for most the word isn't the case

So an EV in Scotland charging on a windy night might be pure green, the same EV in China will be coal powered. It doesn't matter if China makes its grid greener in 10 years time because in 10 years time marignal generation in China will still be coal

A fair accounting for an EV would take into account marignal generation over its say 15 year life
The emissions (both CO2 and actual pollutants) in making the car and then charging it for 15 years off marginal coal and the car doing 150,000 miles before being scrapped

Such an EV in China would use about 55 MWh (at the power station) of coal generation
With about 800kg/MWh you are looking at 44 tons per EV plus whatever the pollution cost of making the EV

That's more CO2 than an efficient diesel or petrol equivalent
And as said no the car doesn't get cleaner not until China generation is marginal green which it won't be in 15 years time so the whole lifetime of an EV built today will be marignal coal in China the world's biggest auto market


Of course this isn't a reason against EVs
China is logically quite happy with EVs to work for lots of reasons

1. Domestic coal is cheaper and provides domestic jobs rather than imported oil for oil cars
2. Potential dominate the sector as they are starting same time as the west while oil cars the west have a 30 year advantage
3. Less local pollution

Of course the downside is more CO2 but virtually no one cares or believes the extreme views of the climate protestors (Jude them by their actions world CO2 up 2018)

silverwhistle

That generating mix is changing all the time too. I went for a day trip to Brighton last week and the Rampion wind farm is now operational, last time I went they were still pile driving (it seems to have quite small turbines though). On my news feed there was also another North Sea project commissioning a phase (Hornsea?).



The incremental and distributed nature of the change is an important advantage over certain other technologies and efficiencies are still improving. Imagine if we had really committed policy makers..

Martyn1981

@Z the response starts silly:

GreatApe wrote: »

This is only true when the marginal generation is green which for most the word isn't the case

and only goes downhill from there:

GreatApe wrote: »

Of course the downside is more CO2 but virtually no one cares or believes the extreme views of the climate protestors (Jude them by their actions world CO2 up 2018)

As you say, EV's are cleaner, and will only get cleaner over time.

For me, and I know I've said this before (sorry), but the rollout of EV's now, on a serious scale, is wonderful news. Transport looked like being a pig to solve, but with cost competitive BEV's (on a TCO basis) the problem is already solved, or to be clearer, the solution already exists, just a matter of time now to replace one form of vehicle with another.

And of course it also means a my negative post (a while back about RE 'only' displacing gas now) is wrong, as RE is effectively displacing petrol and diesel, and all the supply chain energy consumption of oil back to source too.

The big picture is quite a pleasant one for dreamers like me to stare at.

Martyn1981

This may be an important bellwether, or meaningless, but either way I think it's interesting.

Exxon have fallen to 12th place in the US's main stock index, the S&P500. They used to represent 5% of the index's value, but now only 1%. Of course, much of that is the growth in value of the other companies, whilst Exxon has fallen (about 33% over the last 5yrs).

Why do I find it interesting, well, less value might, just might mean less influence on US politics, and back to my domino theory, where changes in the US should lead to changes round the World ...... assuming China or the EU aren't seen as 'World leaders' instead.

Exxon Dumped From S&P 500 Top 10 For First Time In 90 Years

When the S&P 500 index was created 90 years ago, the energy sector was one of its largest components and the company that came to be known as Exxon was the big dog in that sector. A decade ago, the energy sector represented 11.7% of the index. Today, it is just 4.4%, having been replaced increasingly by technology companies.

Exiled_Tyke

GreatApe wrote: »

This is only true when the marginal generation is green which for most the word isn't the case

So an EV in Scotland charging on a windy night might be pure green, the same EV in China will be coal powered. It doesn't matter if China makes its grid greener in 10 years time because in 10 years time marignal generation in China will still be coal

A fair accounting for an EV would take into account marignal generation over its say 15 year life
The emissions (both CO2 and actual pollutants) in making the car and then charging it for 15 years off marginal coal and the car doing 150,000 miles before being scrapped

Such an EV in China would use about 55 MWh (at the power station) of coal generation
With about 800kg/MWh you are looking at 44 tons per EV plus whatever the pollution cost of making the EV

That's more CO2 than an efficient diesel or petrol equivalent
And as said no the car doesn't get cleaner not until China generation is marginal green which it won't be in 15 years time so the whole lifetime of an EV built today will be marignal coal in China the world's biggest auto market


Of course this isn't a reason against EVs
China is logically quite happy with EVs to work for lots of reasons

1. Domestic coal is cheaper and provides domestic jobs rather than imported oil for oil cars
2. Potential dominate the sector as they are starting same time as the west while oil cars the west have a 30 year advantage
3. Less local pollution

Of course the downside is more CO2 but virtually no one cares or believes the extreme views of the climate protestors (Jude them by their actions world CO2 up 2018)

This really does read as making a case for not taking steps in the right direction because they are not quite as positive steps as we'd like them to be. In my mind a non-argument

But this isn't a debating thread is it. The fact that someone posts news and someone else then expresses an observation commenting on that news is not an invitation to start a debate. PERIOD!