Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Extracts from the latest Carbon Commentary newsletter:

1, Blockchain for electricity trading. A large-scale experiment on the Orkney islands off north-west Scotland sees direct electricity trading between producers and consumers of electricity. Much of the electricity generated currently on Orkney is currently wasted because of limited capacity to export to the mainland. The new system allows surplus (and therefore cheap) electricity to be bought by local households for uses such as electric storage heating. The arrival of long periods of close-to-zero prices on the UK and other grids is making the need for automated trading systems such as this ever more urgent.
 
2, Vehicle-to-grid (V2G). Fiat Chrysler and Engie have begun developing the world’s largest vehicle-to-grid site at a Fiat production plant near Turin in northern Italy. When construction is completed, up to 700 electric vehicles will be able to provide power back into the local grid. The project will offer about 25 MW of potential capacity to offer into the electricity market. Fiat Chrysler says it sees the V2G as a means of improving the competitiveness of EVs by offering their owners a chance to profit from participation in trading in the electricity market. (Thanks to Gage Williams)
 
3, CCS. Norway is one of the very few countries actively pursuing carbon capture and storage. Progress is patchy. This week Finnish energy multinational Fortum (ultimate owner of the coal plant in note 4) announced the end of the initial trial phase at a large waste-to-energy plant on the edge of Oslo. About 7,000 tonnes of CO2 were captured in two month-long phases, with a capture efficiency of about 90% of a partial stream of the waste gas output. But the whole plant generates about 400,000 tonnes of emissions each year and is one of the largest point sources in Norway outside the oil and gas industry. So the pilot was capturing approximately 10% of total CO2. The intention is now to scale up and begin to transport liquidified CO2 by ship to an onshore centre which will then pipe the CO2 to a depleted offshore field along with emissions from a cement works. The CO2 transportation and storage system will be developed by the Northern Lights consortium of 3 oil majors and is intended to be operational by 2024. (Thanks to Brian Tyler).
 
4, German renewables. The German government upped its targets for offshore wind substantially, confirming that it is looking for 20 GW by 2030 and setting a goal of 40 GW a decade later. Capacity is about 8 GW today. Germany also lifted the cap on solar installations and the federal government agreed that the states (lander) should take the final decision on whether to restrict onshore wind. Taking together, these changes will probably mean that Germany will hit its target of 65% renewables in electricity supply by 2030. At the same time, we have just seen the opening of what will be the last new hard coal generating plant in Germany. Under current market conditions, it is likely to only operate a few hours a day and Fortum, its owner, makes clear that the new power plant will never pay back its €1.5bn cost. A perfect example of the stranded assets discussed in the Carbon Tracker paper in note 8. The German recovery programme puts €40bn into climate-related projects out of €130bn total, including building insulation, EVs, hydrogen and improved public transport. While not perfect, this a model for other countries.

5, Synthetic fuels from offshore wind. Some of the top Danish companies came together to plan for a large scale synthetic fuels plant in Copenhagen. Wind business Orsted, shipping company Maersk and their partners, including Copenhagen Airport, envisage 1.3 GW of electrolysers by 2030, powered by the forthcoming wind farms off the island of Bornholm. The source of carbon for the synthetic hydrocarbons will come from carbon capture at industrial sites around the Danish capital. When fully operational, the hub will provide about 250,000 tonnes of liquid fuel a year and Copenhagen Airport plans to obtain 30% of its fuel needs from the new refinery. The partners stress that synthetic fuels are not currently competitive with fossil equivalents. The Orsted CEO said ‘our vision to produce sustainable fuels in the Greater Copenhagen area will deliver the necessary industrial scaling to drive the needed cost-out towards making renewable fuels competitive with fossil fuels. With the right policy framework in place, this project could be a defining leap forward for the production of sustainable fuels in Denmark.
 
6, Power-to-gas-to-power (P2G2P). Siemens, Engie and their partners got European funding for most of the cost of what might be the world’s first large scale P2G2P installation. Surplus renewables will be used to make hydrogen that will be stored. When required, the hydrogen will provide up to 100% of the fuel for a repurposed gas turbine that delivers heat and power in a paper mill in southwestern France. The turbine will be able to provide up to 12 megawatts into the local distribution grid and will be able to operate on either natural gas or hydrogen. 
  
8, Capital at risk. Carbon Tracker put out a fully quantified assessment of the money at risk as the industries using coal, oil and gas start contracting. Analyst Kingsmill Bond and his colleagues estimate that ‘a quarter of the global equity market and half of the global corporate bond markets are in sectors linked to the fossil fuel system’. The authors focus on the industries whose health is tied to the continued growth of the fossil industries. This means sectors such as offshore oil exploration or gas turbines, amounting to around $6trn in current value. The number can be compared to the net profits of fossil fuel use passing through financial markets of just $1-2trn a year. This is really path-breaking work, full of vital numbers for the stocks and flows in the world fossil fuel system.

9, Direct Air Capture of CO2 (DAC). Swiss company Climeworks raised $75m, taking the total invested in the company up to $120m. This is the largest sum ever raised for a DAC company. Climeworks is a world leader in the extraction of CO2 directly from the atmosphere, either for the creation of synthetic low carbon fuels or for permanent sequestration into basalt rock . (It was one of the winners of the Stripe competition in note 10). The investment into company from existing investors suggests a growing appreciation of the potential of Climeworks’ approach to DAC, although its projected 2040 capture cost is still $100 a tonne, far greater than that proposed by the proponents of olivine rock weathering.

10, Permanent carbon storage. I wrote a post on the competition run by payments company Stripe to find technologies on which it could spend $1m to permanently sequester CO2. (I covered this in the last newsletter). The bidders offered carbon storage through soil carbon regeneration, various ideas in forestry, enhanced rock weathering, biochar and CO2 storage in building materials. In the longer post, I used the figures provided to Stripe by the 24 bidders to guess wildly at the cost of storing 10 billion tonnes of CO2 in 2040 as around 0.4% of today’s global GDP. This is based on the average of the estimates in all of the bids of about $37 a tonne of carbon dioxide. For comparison, this number is below almost all estimates of the eventual full cost for CCS at gas fired power stations. Most surprising are the 2 bidders’ estimates for the cost of weathering olivine, a widely available geological mineral, at $10 a tonne or less by 2040. If even remotely accurate, these numbers should make us optimistic about the prospects for multi-gigatonne sequestration.

Exiled_Tyke

More good news, although to be fair it summarises news that Martyn has already shared. It's great when these stories get to a mainstream news channel though rather than just sitting on specialist interest pages.  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52973089

joefizz

zeupater said:

This is where michaels' point on economic multipliers becomes relevant - if you can encourage local supply chains using local materials & produce, the money exchanged passes from consumer to supplier, to sub supplier, to producer etc with each recipient paying their own taxes and employees, who pay their own taxes and spend their income as consumers which starts a new loop .... this is where the economic multiplier comes in and why this is good for government revenues, which in turn can create the funds which can be allocated to subsidising renewable energy projects.

Fine, scene set, so what happens when a country acts as consumers of products from other countries? ... simple, you both create an economic multiplier overseas to enrich them whilst ensuring that you need to borrow against future economic activity in order to invest in projects such as renewable energy!!! ...

This. Underlined.

Going back to my previous posts about hydrogen. It doesnt matter how much it costs or how 'inefficient' it is compared to whatever form of batteries you want to compare to, if the entire/majority of the supply chain is enveloped in one country. In 5-10 years time when the excess offshore wind comes ashore the UK will have an abundance of energy it can exploit internally.
If the government has any sense (big ask I know) it could provide a lot of jobs and national security and Ive even heard talk of arc furnaces etc. Look at Norway in terms of aluminium production (and Iceland?) particularly recycling it, with their 'surplus' energy. (Would provide a link to the surplus energy blog but different ideas).

I wonder what odds you would get on Chinese built nuclear plants ever seeing the light of day in the UK under current conditions?

We could be on the brink of a new cold war and the beginning of the end of cheap everything (not just tat) from China.

gefnew

This is a bit of strange read.
But it is very interesting about magnets  and and electric cars.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52701851

EVandPV

Britain goes coal free as renewables edge out fossil fuels

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52973089

Exiled_Tyke

Three interesting pieces from the BBC in one day.  This one a brilliant variation on a GSHP. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52963645

Exiled_Tyke

Exiled_Tyke said:

More good news, although to be fair it summarises news that Martyn has already shared. It's great when these stories get to a mainstream news channel though rather than just sitting on specialist interest pages.  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52973089

This story was (unsurprisingly) covered on the BBC lunchtime news. What was great was the emphasis in the story that it's not just the 'green push'  but that the Economics of renewable energy is now a big driver in it's expansion.

silverwhistle

zeupater said:

Hi

This is where michaels' point on economic multipliers becomes relevant - if you can encourage local supply chains using local materials & produce, the money exchanged passes from consumer to supplier, to sub supplier, to producer etc with each recipient paying their own taxes and employees, who pay their own taxes and spend their income as consumers which starts a new loop .... this is where the economic multiplier comes in [SNIP etc.]...

HTH - Z

Well, I seem to recall that from my O level economics though blowed if I can remember the formula for Velocity of Money, it was a very long time ago. But perhaps it could be pointed out that this multiplier effect is more effective in more equal societies, given the propensity of the poor to spend additional income (as opposed to saving) and to consume locally (as opposed to importing expensive cars, wines or taking foreign holidays).

As for 'short-sighted greens' against extracting gas, and remember we are talking about non-conventional extraction, the opposition seems perfectly rational from a very localised point of view, with very little going into the local economy and the downsides significant. As you yourself say it would be a short term boost, but any disadvantages such as impacts on aquifers are likely to last longer and a forlorn hope to get any rectification work done with any profits from the venture long since over the horizon. The Alberta Tar sands situation a particularly horrible illustration of the issue.

I take your point at a national level about import substitution, although COVID seems to be helping our (is it?) 3 to 1 spend on foreign holidays as compared to incoming tourist receipts! But I don't think there would be much sector destruction going on from any emphasis on greener development. Stranded assets are already a fact of life. In the UK at least the current government has actively sabotaged rather than encouraged green moves: think unplanned curtailing of domestic PV, not allowing onshore wind, lowering building standards.

So whilst investment always needs to be targeted and planned, the latter not a forte of this current administration, the one thing business would like is a little predictability. The situation is already predictable enough for the operators of coal fired power stations!

michaels

silverwhistle said:

zeupater said:

Hi

This is where michaels' point on economic multipliers becomes relevant - if you can encourage local supply chains using local materials & produce, the money exchanged passes from consumer to supplier, to sub supplier, to producer etc with each recipient paying their own taxes and employees, who pay their own taxes and spend their income as consumers which starts a new loop .... this is where the economic multiplier comes in [SNIP etc.]...

HTH - Z

Well, I seem to recall that from my O level economics though blowed if I can remember the formula for Velocity of Money, it was a very long time ago. But perhaps it could be pointed out that this multiplier effect is more effective in more equal societies, given the propensity of the poor to spend additional income (as opposed to saving) and to consume locally (as opposed to importing expensive cars, wines or taking foreign holidays).

As for 'short-sighted greens' against extracting gas, and remember we are talking about non-conventional extraction, the opposition seems perfectly rational from a very localised point of view, with very little going into the local economy and the downsides significant. As you yourself say it would be a short term boost, but any disadvantages such as impacts on aquifers are likely to last longer and a forlorn hope to get any rectification work done with any profits from the venture long since over the horizon. The Alberta Tar sands situation a particularly horrible illustration of the issue.

I take your point at a national level about import substitution, although COVID seems to be helping our (is it?) 3 to 1 spend on foreign holidays as compared to incoming tourist receipts! But I don't think there would be much sector destruction going on from any emphasis on greener development. Stranded assets are already a fact of life. In the UK at least the current government has actively sabotaged rather than encouraged green moves: think unplanned curtailing of domestic PV, not allowing onshore wind, lowering building standards.

So whilst investment always needs to be targeted and planned, the latter not a forte of this current administration, the one thing business would like is a little predictability. The situation is already predictable enough for the operators of coal fired power stations!

Hmm - opposition to fracking on nimby grounds is justified but nimby objection to onshore wind (apparently banning it was a vote winner in the relevant local areas) is fine? [Only pulling your leg]

silverwhistle

Heh, heh. Since we're talking about investment I can't say I've seen any news about community owned fracking wells..