Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

EVandPV

https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/london-is-trialling-its-first-virtual-power-station-again-4013856

“Home energy storage is essential if we are to reduce our net carbon emissions to zero. Our vision is that Powervault will become as commonplace as a washing machine or dishwasher, allowing clean, zero carbon energy to be stored in the home for when it is needed most and allowing home energy use to be optimised”

Martyn1981

I don't know if the issues raised in this article relate to the UK or not, going forward, but in Australia there seems less and less need for any new gas generation as a 'bridge fuel' from coal to RE, as the current gas fleet is operating at low capacity factors anyway. Perhaps low (but rising) levels of storage will provide the bridge?

'Expensive and underperforming': energy audit finds gas power running well below capacity

Australia’s existing gas power plants are running well below capacity, challenging the justification for a Morrison government program that may support up to five new gas-fired generators, according to a new report.

Energy analyst Hugh Saddler, from Australian National University’s Crawford school of public policy, found the combined-cycle gas plants in the national grid – those expected to be available near constantly, sometimes described as “baseload” – ran at just 30% capacity across the past 18 months.

He said the idea gas would be a transition fuel in the Australian market was nearly 20 years out of date. “The ISP results [from Aemo’s integrated system plan for the grid] show very clearly there is a transition from coal to renewables without going via gas under all the scenarios,” Saddler said.

Richie Merzian, Australia Institute’s climate and energy director, said the grid’s gas plants were mostly built 10 to 20 years ago, when it was assumed the price of gas would come down and that gas would play a significant role as a transition fuel during the shift from fossil fuels to clean energy.

“In reality, gas is expensive, it’s high-polluting and, as this research shows, it is under-performing,” he said. “Given this, why would we underwrite new gas-fired plants?”

Gas-fired power is usually said to have about half the emissions of coal-fired generation, but some studies have found this does not factor in the amount of methane – a highly potent, but relatively short-lived, greenhouse gas – that leaks into the atmosphere during extraction and from pipelines.

Martyn1981

Bit of a sad article this, reflecting on the scientists and their feelings over AGW and their inability to convince enough people quickly enough over how serious this is.

You'd think that when there is a solid majority position for over 50yrs, and it's now unanimous, that we'd get on with it and kick the science deniers to the curb, but I suppose scared people will always clutch at straws and that might be a more comforting position for them than accepting the seriousness of the reality. Plus of course the FF industry is quite big and has a lot of money, and a lot of money to lose. We'll get there. 

'I'm profoundly sad, I feel guilty': scientists reveal personal fears about the climate crisis
 

Meissner, now director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, didn’t hesitate to respond partly because “it was the right thing to do”.

“But also because we have not been very good at communicating climate science to the public and I believe that it is my duty as a citizen to alert people to the urgency of the situation.”

But does Meissner think there’s a risk in scientists lifting their veil of cool objectivity to show their personal feelings? Could it cause some to question their objectivity?

“I actually think that the opposite is the case,” she says. “When I saw the whole collection of letters a few years ago, I was surprised by the number of colleagues who had participated.

“We are talking here about world-leading scientists, people who built their career on facts and data, who are spending their lives questioning every result they find, over and over again. People who are continuously challenging the status quo. People who are trained to be objective.

“When these people start to speak up about their feelings, about being frustrated, desperate, worried, angry or scared, then we really should listen very carefully.”

Martyn1981

Good / bad news, the direction is good, the speed is a bit slow though. [Note this is just leccy.]

Carbon emissions fall as electricity producers move away from coal

Carbon emissions from the global electricity system fell by 2% last year, the biggest drop in almost 30 years, as countries began to turn their backs on coal-fired power plants.

A new report on the world’s electricity generation revealed the steepest cut in carbon emissions since 1990 as the US and the EU turned to cleaner energy sources.

Overall, power from coal plants fell by 3% last year, even as China’s reliance on coal plants climbed for another year to make up half the world’s coal generation for the first time.

Coal generation in the US and Europe has halved since 2007, and last year collapsed by almost a quarter in the EU and by 16% in the US.

The report from climate thinktank Ember, formerly Sandbag, warned that the dent in the world’s coal-fired electricity generation relied on many one-off factors, including milder winters across many countries.

“Progress is being made on reducing coal generation, but nothing like with the urgency needed to limit climate change,” the report said.

Dave Jones, the lead author of the report, said governments must dramatically accelerate the electricity transition so that global coal generation collapses throughout the 2020s.

“To switch from coal into gas is just swapping one fossil fuel for another. The cheapest and quickest way to end coal generation is through a rapid rollout of wind and solar,” he said.

The report revealed that renewable wind and solar power rose by 15% in 2019 to make up 8% of the world’s electricity.

In the EU, wind and solar power made up almost a fifth of the electricity generated last year, ahead of the US which relied on these renewable sources for 11% of its electricity. In China and India, renewable energy made up 8% and 9% of the electricity system, respectively.

To meet the Paris climate goals, the world needs to record a compound growth rate of 15% for wind and solar generation every year – which will require “a colossal effort”, the report warned.

Martyn1981

Well this shocked me. I read 'commercial electric plane' and scrolled down quick expecting to see something like 10-20 passengers ...... I was out by quite a lot!
Weight equal to fully fueled conventional aircraft on takeoff and swappable batts. It's early days, obviously, and the Q&A is a bit vague, but still hopefully, very good news. 

Wright Electric Begins Developing Propulsion System For Commercial Electric Plane

Wright Electric, the LA-based electric plane startup, has begun developing the propulsion system for the Wright 1, an electric 186-passenger commercial aircraft. The propulsion system will reportedly utilize 10-14 electric motors.

joefizz

Ive been away for a week but Im surprised noone has mentioned the almost 40% chance of power cuts in the UK last week?

Nuclear ramped down and wind died and the UK was kept going by maximum use of coal and the continental interconnects.

Shows we still have a way to go (or just get used to power cuts/large price rises at certain times).

Martyn1981

Some Carbon Commentary newsletter extracts:
 [Lots this week on green/greener fuels lowering GHG emissions, from bio-fuels to hydrogen + carbon capture ..... God help me dig this bunker whilst I put my flak jacket on! ]
 
2, Hydrogen into gas networks. The French GRT network started injecting hydrogen into the pipes at Fos-sur-mer, an industrial area close to Marseille. It states that it believes it will be possible to increase the percentage to 20% ‘with moderate adaptation costs’. GRT points to the huge capacity of gas networks to hold hydrogen that has been generated during periods of excess electricity. Some gas networks and storage caverns can hold more than a hundred days of typical use.
 
3, Neste invests in Sunfire. Finland’s Neste, the world’s largest maker of renewable diesel from waste materials, said it had invested in German electrolyser company Sunfire. Sunfire makes hydrogen from high temperature steam, employing a different process to conventional electrolysers. Sunfire has informal links to Climeworks, the CO2 capture pioneer, and Ineratec, a German start-up that is focused on innovative small-scale Fischer Tropsch refineries. The Neste investment is therefore providing a route to more rapid commercialisation of fully zero carbon fuels that are not reliant on wastes. In my opinion, this is the most important news story in this week’s newsletter. 
 
4, Pressures on the shipping industry. Ships produce about 3% of world CO2 emissions. The industry knows it will have to change but with the possible exception of the cement business, it faces the greatest obstacles. Two articles in the shipping press talked of new pressures to decarbonise. The CEO of Hafnia, the largest tanker company, talked of the challenge of recruiting new executives into an industry seen as polluting and with a limited future. At the same time Orsted, the world’s largest offshore wind business, has begun the process of obliging its suppliers to move to carbon neutrality with a series of letters and requests for meetings. It wants a 50% reduction by 2032, including the emissions from the ships that transport and install the turbines. Full neutrality is required by 2040. Since a ship built today will still probably be in service in then, the industry faces renewed pressure to increase the pace of change towards hydrogen, either in the form of ammonia or the raw gas.
 

6, Battery recycling. Very few lithium ion batteries are currently recycled. Although several different routes for separating out the valuable metals are available, none are currently in full-scale commercial use. Finnish energy company Fortum, along with BASF and a Russian nickel producer, announced the development of a large recycling plant based on a technology for dissolving the individual metals in batteries in solvents. Fortum promises recovery of at least 80% of the metals (lithium, manganese, cobalt, nickel etc.) in a car battery. Assuming a near 100% electrified car fleet in 2050, will this technology recycle enough metal to meet world demand? The numbers for lithium are reassuring. I calculate that the batteries in approximately 65 million cars will need to be recycled in 2050. If each has about 50 kWh of batteries, providing approximately 300 km of range, then each will contain about 5 kg of lithium metal, worth about $200 today. At 80% recycling rate, the world will need about 65 million kilos of new lithium each year, or about 40% of current production. This suggests the recent fall in the lithium price is justified. However other metals may be more scarce.
 
7, Exporting green hydrogen. Belgian dredging company DEME said it was investigating the feasibility of a green hydrogen plant in Oman, which has good wind and solar resources. The stated intention is to put a trial system in place of 250 or 500 MW to generate hydrogen for local industry but also for export to industrial users in Europe. A final investment decision is expected in 2021. DEME is already involved in a plan for hydrogen in Ostend, Belgium, covered in this newsletter a few months ago. If it comes to fruition, the Omani plan is, I think, likely to be the first in the world to make hydrogen for export, rather than for wholly local use. When I read the press release, I barely noticed the proposed size of the project - 250 to 500 MW – but this is another example of the rapid exponential growth in the scale of proposals. 10 MW would have seemed enormous a year ago. 

8, Regenerative agriculture. My guess is that one of the big themes of the next few years will be ‘regenerative agriculture’, or the use of agricultural techniques to help rebuild the quality of world topsoils, partly by increasing the carbon content. French food and water producer Danone announced its early pilots to improve the soils of the farms from which it buys milk and other products had increased carbon content by 9%. This may sound a small increase but soils store about four times as much carbon as currently in the atmosphere. Even relatively slight changes in soil storage capacity could mean major CO2 sequestration. Danone also said it would spend $2bn over the next three years on a series carbon reduction projects.

9, Zero carbon building. The embodied emissions in the materials used to make a building are often more important than energy required to operate it. This is increasingly true as energy grids are decarbonised, buildings are generally better insulated and efficiency of lighting and heating improves. Very little effort has gone into reducing the emissions generated in construction itself. A new generation of materials, based on layers of wood and usually called Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) is making possible multi-storey buildings of excellent insulation standard and low embedded emissions. An MIT spin-out is developing one of the first large-scale residential developments using CLT and standardised modular construction techniques. Perhaps surprisingly, CLT buildings can be made to over ten stories, and because their weight is so much less than concrete buildings, often require far less work on foundations. More on this new material in What We Need To Do Now.

10, Aviation. I wrote an article for UK's The Independent newspaper on why the block to the development of a third runway for Heathrow airport is a good result for climate change but must be urgently accompanied by investment in research and development into low carbon fuels. Aviation will continue to be necessary, even if flygskam succeeds in cutting passenger volumes, and this means that the world urgently needs synthetic fuels. There is a dangerous lack of communication between those environmentalists who want to stop all flying, and those who argue for a reduction in flights but know that some aviation is nevertheless necessary. This division risks reducing the effectiveness of campaigns to decarbonise aviation. 

Martyn1981

This article made me recall the suggestion (a year or so back) that oil prices could permanently drop (effectively hit a peak price) with a relatively small drop in demand, a drop only twice that already displaced by the introduction of BEV buses (mostly in China). A permanent drop in price would push out the most expensive, and coincidentally, dirtiest extraction methods such as Canadian tar sands oil, and some US frack oil.

OIl Prices Plunge As OPEC Countries Fail To Reach Agreement

Martyn1981

joefizz said:

Ive been away for a week but Im surprised noone has mentioned the almost 40% chance of power cuts in the UK last week?

Nuclear ramped down and wind died and the UK was kept going by maximum use of coal and the continental interconnects.

Shows we still have a way to go (or just get used to power cuts/large price rises at certain times).

Nuclear has been down for ages due to scheduled and unscheduled shutdowns. The ageing fleet is not exactly reliable anymore.

joefizz

Martyn1981 said:

The ageing fleet is not exactly reliable anymore.

One of the earliest posts I made on this forum was about this and about the gap it would create going forward. At some point the politicians will have to make a call on it, rather than just kick the can down the road constantly because as I mentioned before, its all very safe right up until the point its not and we dont want to go there.

Of course nobody wants to be the one to raise electricity prices during periods of no wind and we almost got through the winter without major mishap this year.