Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Some extracts from this week's Carbon Commentary Newsletter:

1, Redox batteries. BASF is working with a German start-up to commercialise a new form of flow battery. A flow battery stores power by charging up one tank of electrolyte and then allowing it to flow as current into a second tank. Batteries of this type are heavier than lithium ion though they have extremely low degradation rates. They can last forever. Thus far, flow devices have been largely based around the metal vanadium, which is both expensive and highly volatile in price. The new start-up, Jena Batteries, uses much cheaper organic materials, making this company potentially a world leader in storage technology. (Thanks to Brian Tyler).
 
2, Stranded assets. The proposed Carmichael (or Adani) coal mine in Queensland, Australia will be one of the largest in the world and has been the subject of intense controversy. It will extract low quality coal, with its markets being the power stations of Asia. India takes about 5% of Australia’s current production, and is the probable destination of the Adani coal. However that market may well have disappeared by the time this mine and its transport infrastructure is completed. 2019 saw the first fall in coal use for electricity in India for ten years, cutting its share of generation by 2%. This may be a temporary blip in demand but within five years the expansion of solar and wind is likely to start consistently eating into coal use. As importantly, the politics of India make a ban on coal imports increasingly likely. The coal minister said this week that the country would stop buying coal from abroad in 2024 as the national coal mining company increased its own production and stepped its ownership of solar assets. The Adani mine, with its high costs of extraction, looks a prime candidate for stranded asset status.

3, Green hydrogen for oil refinery. The offshore wind developer Orsted and electrolyser manufacturer ITM Power gained another £7.5m ($10m) in UK grants for their project to design a 100 MW hydrogen manufacturing system. ITM’s electrolysers will take power from Orsted’s Hornsea 2 project, which has a projected capacity of 1.4 GW. The hydrogen will be used in the Phillips 66 Immingham refinery on the coast about 25 kilometres north of the point where the Hornsea 2 electricity arrives onshore. My rough calculations suggest that this scheme will potentially replace about 20% of the hydrogen needs of the refinery, saving about 100,000 tonnes of CO2 a year. Also last week, the German environment minister also indicated that she views replacing ‘grey’ hydrogen with its ‘green’ equivalent in refineries as an important objective of her government. She looks for an auction next year to start the process of decarbonising oil refineries. These steps sound good ideas but we have to remember that actually we need to phase out crude oil refining as fast as possible. (Thanks to George Georgiev).
  
5, Carbon capture at industrial plants. Chevron and Marubeni invested in a UK-headquartered business that promises much cheaper CO2 capture from industrial processes. Carbon Clean Solutions promises $30/tonne costs from a containerised capture plant within a few years. Its technology uses much cheaper solvents than other solutions. It may be worth pointing that $30 a tonne is only slightly more than current European carbon price, meaning that it would almost make financial sense to capture CO2 rather emit it to the atmosphere. Or the CO2 could be used in Electrochaea’s process (see paragraph 7) to make methane. 
 
6, Competitiveness of hydrogen. The senior energy banker at the European Investment Bank said that green hydrogen would be cheaper than natural gas once wind and solar were able to achieve ‘€0.02 or €0.03 per kWh’ (or up to £25/$32 per MWh). The EIB no longer finances fossil fuel investments and the reason, said Andrew McDowell, ‘is if you look ahead at €0.02 or €0.03 per MWh, you start to realise that entire sections of the energy value chain become completely redundant'. Two questions arise: how far away is €0.03/kWh and is this really the point at which natural gas becomes uncompetitive? An auction last week in Germany produced a minimum price of about €0.035 so the first answer is ‘probably not long’. The second is complicated by the current unprecedented glut in natural gas markets, which has resulted in UK wholesale prices of below €0.01 per kWh, a decadal low and well below the prospective cost of hydrogen. But eighteen months ago prices were at three times this level. Current investments in hydrogen will only succeed financially if natural gas reverts to its long-term average price or a widespread carbon tax is introduced. 
 
7, Methane from hydrogen. The increasingly prevalent assumption is that hydrogen will become the dominant energy source for low carbon heat, whether in steel plants or in domestic homes. One partial alternative is to exploit the CO2 that forms 45% of the biogas arising from wastewater treatment and other sources, such as farm waste. The carbon dioxide in the gas stream is combined with hydrogen to make methane, the main constituent of natural gas. The pioneer of this technology is the German company Electrochaea, which uses a biological route to combining H2 and CO2 using ancient tiny organisms called archaea in tall columns of water. The company reported impressive results for the latest commercial trial of its reactor in Switzerland, which now exports the methane directly into the gas grid and delivers up to 89% conversion efficiency with heat capture. The Electrochaea technology seems to be centrepiece of a new German government attempt to build worldwide capacity for making a near zero carbon natural gas replacement. Electrochaea says it is in negotiations for the construction of 1 GW of methane from biogas plants by 2025.
 
8, Home insulation. This is clever. A home thermostat system sold across Europe compared the heat losses from houses in different countries using data scraped from users. The information enabled it to estimate the average temperature drop over five hours when the heating was off, the internal temperature started at 20 degrees and the outside was at freezing point. British homes scored worst with a 3 degree loss but houses in Belgium weren’t much better. As expected, northern European houses have the best insulation and air tightness, with Norway seeing losses of less than a third the UK level. German and Austrian properties also scored well.

 
Quite an eclectic mix and interwoven. Point 8 was interesting, goes to show why heat pumps are so popular and successful in countries far colder than the UK. So as the 'rule' goes when choosing a heating technology, first three things to do are insulate, insulate, insulate.

Martyn1981

EU and New York both talking tough on RE, AGW and budgets:

EU budget 'must support Green Deal'

The European Parliament will reject any budget that does not give the EU the backing to finance the new Green Deal, as well as other challenges facing the bloc.

Cuomo plans accelerated renewables permit regime

New York governor Andrew Cuomo is proposing a 30-day budget amendment that he believes will “dramatically” speed up the permitting and construction of new renewable energy projects.
Cuomo said the plan, if adopted, will create a new Office of Renewable Energy Permitting to streamline the consenting process for large-scale projects across New York.
The state's existing energy generation siting process was designed for permitting fossil-fuel electric generating plants and created prior to the current clean energy and environmental goals set by the state. 
A new robust siting process will create modernised standards for developing renewable energy projects at an expedited pace to meet the urgency of the climate crisis, according to the governor.

EricMears

Martyn1981 said:  EU and New York both talking tough on RE, AGW and budgets:

EU budget 'must support Green Deal'

The European Parliament will reject any budget that does not give the EU the backing to finance the new Green Deal, as well as other challenges facing the bloc.

How does he know ?   There's no report of his parliament passing such a resolution.

JKenH

Martyn1981

EricMears said:

Martyn1981 said:  EU and New York both talking tough on RE, AGW and budgets:

EU budget 'must support Green Deal'

The European Parliament will reject any budget that does not give the EU the backing to finance the new Green Deal, as well as other challenges facing the bloc.

How does he know ?   There's no report of his parliament passing such a resolution.

Hiya Eric, wouldn't passing a resolution be 'acting tough' rather than 'talking tough'?

Martyn1981

JKenH said:

Looks like you can teach an old dog to learn new tricks, as Exxon is only in third place now when it comes to spending money to 'make things worse'.

Oil And Gas Giants Spend Millions Lobbying To Block Climate Change Policies

Every year, the world's five largest publicly owned oil and gas companies spend approximately $200 million on lobbying designed to control, delay or block binding climate-motivated policy. This has caused problems for governments seeking to implement policies in the wake of the Paris Agreement which are vital in meeting climate change targets. Companies are generally reluctant to disclose such lobbying expenditure and late last week, a report from InfluenceMap used a methodology focusing on the best available records along with intensive research of corporate messaging to gauge their level of influence on initiatives to halt climate change. 

Where's Hannah Waddingham and her 'shame' bell when you need her!

Martyn1981

Caught my attention as it's a big on-shore wind farm, or at least 1.2GW seems big to me, and also the number of WT's which suggests they will be biggies (for on-shore) at perhaps 5.3MW+. Cool.

Queensland green lights 1.2GW onshore giant

The government of Queensland in Australia has granted development approval to a 1200MW onshore wind farm.
The A$2bn (€1.2bn) Forest Wind project will comprise up to 226 turbines, with construction starting as early as the fourth quarter of 2020, subject to final consideration by the developer Forest Wind Holdings and the company finalising all contractual agreements.

EricMears

Martyn1981 said:

EricMears said:

Martyn1981 said:  EU and New York both talking tough on RE, AGW and budgets:

EU budget 'must support Green Deal'

The European Parliament will reject any budget that does not give the EU the backing to finance the new Green Deal, as well as other challenges facing the bloc.

How does he know ?   There's no report of his parliament passing such a resolution.

Hiya Eric, wouldn't passing a resolution be 'acting tough' rather than 'talking tough'?

Indeed yes.  My criticism was not of Martyn's comments but of David Sassoli  announcing what a parliamentary decision would be  (not even might be !) in advance of any debate.

silverwhistle

Another quick comment on wood burning: like JoeFizz I tend just to heat my living room and not have the central heating on most of the time - just over 1100kWh a year including hot water. 20% moisture is easily achievable if you season your own. Last week I felt like some exercise so split some poplar rounds I'd had up against a fence for a couple of years, intending them for the wood store for next winter. Using a moisture meter on the just split faces gives a better idea of their moisture. These were fine already and even better after a few days inside to dry out the surface moisture, and they've lit easily as these last few miserable days have really needed the fire.

As for sourcing I scrounge and process myself which is a bit more difficult in metropolitan areas. I've only once gone out of my way a couple of miles to grab some free wood, otherwise it's been opportunism mainly very close to home.

NigeWick

EricMears said:

Indeed yes.  My criticism was not of Martyn's comments but of David Sassoli  announcing what a parliamentary decision would be  (not even might be !) in advance of any debate.

EU "democracy" in action.