Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Do you want the good news or the bad news!

Renewables 'to miss Paris accord target'

The 826GW of new non-hydro renewable power planned worldwide by 2030 falls far short of what is needed to meet the Paris agreement, according to a new report.

Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2020, produced by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), analyses 2019 investment trends, and clean energy commitments made by countries and corporations for the next decade.

The report found that planned non-hydro renewables investments “fall far below” the $2.7tn (€2.3tn) committed to renewables during the last decade.

Renewables 'could create a million jobs in England'

Nearly 700,000 direct jobs could be created in England’s low-carbon and renewable energy economy by 2030, rising to over 1 million by 2050, according to a report published by the Local Government Association (LGA).

‘Local green jobs – accelerating a sustainable economic recovery’ forecasts more 1.18 million direct jobs could be created by 2050, rising by nearly 500,000 from 2030.

The LGA said it is “urging the UK government to work with councils to develop post Covid-19 economic recovery options”.

zeupater

Martyn1981 said:

But that would require the industry to work, and for the gas to be profitable (cheaper than European wholesale price). But in the US the industry has lost $320bn and is now receiving bailout monies, it went bankrupt in Poland, and with fugitive emissions, the CO2(e) of US frack gas is worse than coal.

So it's fine to say we could spend all the money on decarbonising the UK, but there's a good chance it will actually lose money, waste time, cause environmental problems, and distract from simply accelerating efforts to get off FF gas.

We know that RE, insulation, efficiency changes (such as heat pumps) will all reduce gas consumption and are labour intensive, and crucially are where we have to go anyway, so let's just get on with it.

Regarding ring fencing, I've always said we should increase VAT on energy bills to 20%, and ring fence the 15% extra for RE, efficiency, insulation, and protection/support for those in fuel poverty. The bonus is that higher prices will reduce demand, and make investment in energy efficiency and PV more economical for homeowners and businesses.

Hi

(1) ... How would you know if the industry could work if it's not allowed to explore it's potential? ... it's a null argument that makes no sense whatsoever! ... as for comments on European wholesale pricing & US sector profitability, well would price be considered to be relevant - if so could the average natural gas price in Europe being ~75% higher than that in the US have the potential to raise expectations on margins? ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/252791/natural-gas-prices/ ).... as for the US 'fugitive emissions' this has been addressed in technical papers and seems to be almost exclusively related to very early developments of shallow shale-oil deposits where the process of fracturing so close to the surface disrupted both shallow gas pockets & aquifers and created some highly criticised & often reported cases ... eg, the case where the water well on a farm was delivering natural gas through the kitchen sink taps, a case where fracking had occurred at depths which were not far below the water table, something which isn't the case in the UK as exploration that has occurred has shown our reserves to be extremely deep, so any comparison made must be seen as one of apples & pears ....

(2) ... On losing money & wasting time .... Okay the situation is that (i) we're importing gas, (ii) we're using gas, (iii) we're looking to decarbonise to a timescale, (iv) Private companies are willing to provide capital & expertise for development despite any risks associated with i, ii & iii ..... if they're wrong and there's nothing there or it's found to be uneconomical to develop reserves, then i & ii continue, nothing lost, nothing gained and we find ourselves in a totally neutral position still talking about how to afford to decarbonise --- alternatively, whoopee, let's not only have a tidal scheme in the Severn estuary, let's plan to have ones in the Solway Firth, Menai Straights, Firth of Forth, Thames Estuary & Morcambe bay too ..... where's the lost money & wasted time there? - the potential ranges from status quo to significantly decreasing the decarbonisation timescales to below the 'deadlines' that current scientific consensus have described ...  

(3) ... On RE, insulation, HP etc ... Agreed, they all reduce reliance on gas, there's no issue there ... what we're discussing is how you afford to provide appropriate funding to these requirements .... if there's no, or little, money available to spend, there's no chance of achieving the goals .... what needs to be realised is that the current health crisis is seriously depleting the economic ability for countries all over the world to focus spending on decarbonisation as primary effort is the immediate health & welfare of the population ... 'money' which could have been allocated to decarbonisation may simply no longer exist and that may be the case for some time as economies recover, so it's either a case of 'we're all doomed' -or- acceptance of pathways which may not exactly conform to ideological conception may actually get us to the desired destination on time!

(4) ... VAT ... The issue is keeping money revolving around the UK economy many times so that the tax take can be improved .... VAT is simply what it says on the box. it's related to the 'added value' (ie netted!) at each point of material or product exchange & is only payable at the point of consumption ... no matter what the VAT percentage is, if the product that it's related to is imported then you have money leaving the UK economy .... you're looking at a ~15% marginal improvement  (Tax 5% to 20%) whereas the proposal would effectively be based on 100% improvement on balance of payments plus whatever VAT you would like to see applied (as covered before in previous post!) .... simple concept - more money revolving within the UK economy means more tax available to be taken and more money available to spend on projects which will accelerate decarbonisation ... I'd rather have the tax proceeds of (say) 6x£100billion+VAT at 20% than 6x20%  VAT on £100billion as it certainly has more purchasing power to point at all of the decarbonisation solutions that we need!!!!         

HTH - Z

Martyn1981

zeupater said:

Martyn1981 said:

But that would require the industry to work, and for the gas to be profitable (cheaper than European wholesale price). But in the US the industry has lost $320bn and is now receiving bailout monies, it went bankrupt in Poland, and with fugitive emissions, the CO2(e) of US frack gas is worse than coal.

So it's fine to say we could spend all the money on decarbonising the UK, but there's a good chance it will actually lose money, waste time, cause environmental problems, and distract from simply accelerating efforts to get off FF gas.

We know that RE, insulation, efficiency changes (such as heat pumps) will all reduce gas consumption and are labour intensive, and crucially are where we have to go anyway, so let's just get on with it.

Regarding ring fencing, I've always said we should increase VAT on energy bills to 20%, and ring fence the 15% extra for RE, efficiency, insulation, and protection/support for those in fuel poverty. The bonus is that higher prices will reduce demand, and make investment in energy efficiency and PV more economical for homeowners and businesses.

Hi

(1) ... How would you know if the industry could work if it's not allowed to explore it's potential? ... it's a null argument that makes no sense whatsoever! ... as for comments on European wholesale pricing & US sector profitability, well would price be considered to be relevant - if so could the average natural gas price in Europe being ~75% higher than that in the US have the potential to raise expectations on margins? ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/252791/natural-gas-prices/ ).... as for the US 'fugitive emissions' this has been addressed in technical papers and seems to be almost exclusively related to very early developments of shallow shale-oil deposits where the process of fracturing so close to the surface disrupted both shallow gas pockets & aquifers and created some highly criticised & often reported cases ... eg, the case where the water well on a farm was delivering natural gas through the kitchen sink taps, a case where fracking had occurred at depths which were not far below the water table, something which isn't the case in the UK as exploration that has occurred has shown our reserves to be extremely deep, so any comparison made must be seen as one of apples & pears ....

(2) ... On losing money & wasting time .... Okay the situation is that (i) we're importing gas, (ii) we're using gas, (iii) we're looking to decarbonise to a timescale, (iv) Private companies are willing to provide capital & expertise for development despite any risks associated with i, ii & iii ..... if they're wrong and there's nothing there or it's found to be uneconomical to develop reserves, then i & ii continue, nothing lost, nothing gained and we find ourselves in a totally neutral position still talking about how to afford to decarbonise --- alternatively, whoopee, let's not only have a tidal scheme in the Severn estuary, let's plan to have ones in the Solway Firth, Menai Straights, Firth of Forth, Thames Estuary & Morcambe bay too ..... where's the lost money & wasted time there? - the potential ranges from status quo to significantly decreasing the decarbonisation timescales to below the 'deadlines' that current scientific consensus have described ...  

(3) ... On RE, insulation, HP etc ... Agreed, they all reduce reliance on gas, there's no issue there ... what we're discussing is how you afford to provide appropriate funding to these requirements .... if there's no, or little, money available to spend, there's no chance of achieving the goals .... what needs to be realised is that the current health crisis is seriously depleting the economic ability for countries all over the world to focus spending on decarbonisation as primary effort is the immediate health & welfare of the population ... 'money' which could have been allocated to decarbonisation may simply no longer exist and that may be the case for some time as economies recover, so it's either a case of 'we're all doomed' -or- acceptance of pathways which may not exactly conform to ideological conception may actually get us to the desired destination on time!

(4) ... VAT ... The issue is keeping money revolving around the UK economy many times so that the tax take can be improved .... VAT is simply what it says on the box. it's related to the 'added value' (ie netted!) at each point of material or product exchange & is only payable at the point of consumption ... no matter what the VAT percentage is, if the product that it's related to is imported then you have money leaving the UK economy .... you're looking at a ~15% marginal improvement  (Tax 5% to 20%) whereas the proposal would effectively be based on 100% improvement on balance of payments plus whatever VAT you would like to see applied (as covered before in previous post!) .... simple concept - more money revolving within the UK economy means more tax available to be taken and more money available to spend on projects which will accelerate decarbonisation ... I'd rather have the tax proceeds of (say) 6x£100billion+VAT at 20% than 6x20%  VAT on £100billion as it certainly has more purchasing power to point at all of the decarbonisation solutions that we need!!!!         

HTH - Z

Hiya.
1. I don't know if the industry would fail to be economical, I'm simply saying that as it has failed where it has been tried then that suggests something.

2. You say nothing nothing lost, nothing gained, but if we've directed the stimulus monies into fracking instead of RE+, then we have lost something, the opportunity cost of the lost additional RE+ and time.

3. I'm suggesting we fund these through the stimulus spending, not spending it on fracking instead and hoping to then tax that industry and spend it on RE+ later.

4. +15% VAT on all energy would include the sub part supplied from the UK fracking, so it's more, and this takes us back to point one which is that we can't spend tax receipts from fracking if the industry fails to be economical and therefore generates no taxable profits.

Think about it, you want to support fracking so we can tax it and support RE+. Let's just support RE+ and reduce the need for any and all gas, not replace US frackgas with UK frackgas. We need to leave about 80% of known reserves in the ground to meet the target of limiting runaway global warming to only a 1/3rd chance, so any solution based on extracting more FF's is not a solution. Trying to suggest that the bad thing is fine as it will generate loads of money to spend on the good thing has some value, but I feel that is more a hope than a possibility, and wasting time on a failed UK frack venture would ultimately make matters worse as people will look to it (or the hoped for revenue from it) as a future solution, rather than just getting on with it today. That tactic worked with 'clean diesel' to slow down electric car development, and has also been used to try to slow down RE deployment with the much hyped clean coal and CCS 'solutions'.

I know you said you don't really want fracking, and I get the argument for fund raising through it, though I don't personally believe it will work, but the UK like much of Europe has effectively banned it now, so is it really worth considering this very dirty form of FF gas production on this thread anymore? I think all of us, especially you, have made efforts to reduce their FF consumption, and that's the end solution we all agree on, even if we can't quite decide on the best route.

zeupater

Martyn1981 said:

Hiya.
1. I don't know if the industry would fail to be economical, I'm simply saying that as it has failed where it has been tried then that suggests something.

2. You say nothing nothing lost, nothing gained, but if we've directed the stimulus monies into fracking instead of RE+, then we have lost something, the opportunity cost of the lost additional RE+ and time.

3. I'm suggesting we fund these through the stimulus spending, not spending it on fracking instead and hoping to then tax that industry and spend it on RE+ later.

4. +15% VAT on all energy would include the sub part supplied from the UK fracking, so it's more, and this takes us back to point one which is that we can't spend tax receipts from fracking if the industry fails to be economical and therefore generates no taxable profits.

Think about it, you want to support fracking so we can tax it and support RE+. Let's just support RE+ and reduce the need for any and all gas, not replace US frackgas with UK frackgas. We need to leave about 80% of known reserves in the ground to meet the target of limiting runaway global warming to only a 1/3rd chance, so any solution based on extracting more FF's is not a solution. Trying to suggest that the bad thing is fine as it will generate loads of money to spend on the good thing has some value, but I feel that is more a hope than a possibility, and wasting time on a failed UK frack venture would ultimately make matters worse as people will look to it (or the hoped for revenue from it) as a future solution, rather than just getting on with it today. That tactic worked with 'clean diesel' to slow down electric car development, and has also been used to try to slow down RE deployment with the much hyped clean coal and CCS 'solutions'.

I know you said you don't really want fracking, and I get the argument for fund raising through it, though I don't personally believe it will work, but the UK like much of Europe has effectively banned it now, so is it really worth considering this very dirty form of FF gas production on this thread anymore? I think all of us, especially you, have made efforts to reduce their FF consumption, and that's the end solution we all agree on, even if we can't quite decide on the best route.

Hi

(1) ... If it's failed elsewhere the question is why ... were the reserves not viable or was the achievable market price too low? - as already mentioned, European prices seem to be 75% higher than in the US ... if the US sector is marginal, then what's to say that with 75% higher prices the same would apply in the UK?  .... above this, if the theory is that there's nothing there or extraction isn't viable then shouldn't we try to prove the hypothesis before simply stating that it's likely to be the case? ...

(2) ... Stimulus money being diverted to gas? .... how much & who's paying for it? ... it's private enterprise looking to invest in a capitalist endeavour to make profit, what we're discussing is applying various forms of taxation (extraction, corporation, income, VAT etc) to the sector & their supply chain and allow money that would otherwise leave the UK to stimulate the economy & provide further downstream taxation as it passes through various hands .... this stimulation is not a loss to the economy or a diversion of funds away from decarbonisation, it's a way of increasing the funds available to decarbonise .... additionally, as previously raised, there is absolutely no lost opportunity either in money or time, it simply avails more money which will allow the employment of more resource, which in turn actually reduces the critical path timeline ....

(3) ... From where does the stimulus funding arise? .... raising national debt through issuing bonds ?, in which case which departments are going to have their funding cut to pay for the additional interest payments? ... the NHS?, Social Care?, Defence?, Local Services? ... the Police???? .... all of which remain essential spending! ... Regarding the effect of diversion, see (2) as it still applies ...

(4) ... No, if you're increasing VAT on gas from 5% to 20% then the consumer pays the additional 15% through their bills independently of where the gas is extracted, be it Norwegian NG, shipped LNG  or UK on-shore there's no difference ... if the option of fracking fails to reach fruition, there's no difference, the end user, the consumer, pays the same VAT, so the source is effectively irrelevant!! ... what we're talking about is addressing UK earned wealth that leaves the country and looking to see how this can be leveraged within the UK economy in order to stimulate/subsidise the uptake of decarbonisation ....

As for the rest, you've already mentioned that there are currently more known gas reserves than could possibly be allowed to be consumed, therefore your own belief must revolve around most of those reserves being left in the ground ... logically that must mean that as economies decarbonise demand will fall to a point where what's there will remain there .... the idea wouldn't be to replace US fracked gas (or LNG from any other source!) with that extracted in the UK in order to increase the amount of gas consumed within the UK nor the total consumed globally so I don't really follow the points you raise, particularly so when wasted time is a continual concern ....

An example, is it quicker to build a house if you (a) don't have the funds, (b) have constrained 'drip' funding over a long period of time which is enough for a serial stage build, or (c) have sufficient funds for a parallel stage build? .... my opinion is that here in the UK we're bouncing between (a) & (b), but in order to get in by winter we really need to think about how we get to (c) without it becoming too painful !!

Regarding banning ... fine, if that's the decision made because of severe lobbying by climate lobbyists using scientific consensus, then that's a quandary that they themselves need to address ... as mentioned previously, 'methinks the lady doth protest too much' and that goes right back to the very reason we are where we are, when a little application of unbiased/uninfluenced logic could have got us much further down the path .... if the deadlines & targets set by scientific consensus are missed, then it's pretty fair to say that the blame can be laid squarely at the feet of those that used that very scientific consensus to support whatever their own agenda may be as opposed to accepting solutions as they arise!! 

Aristotle posed "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" well over 2300 years ago, it's just a shame after all these centuries that there are so many within the scientific & concerned group arena that still refuse to entertain and think things through using basic reason & logic as opposed to preconception! ....

HTH - Z

Martyn1981

Been a great decade:

Britain Saying Goodbye To Coal, Sunlight & Wind Climb From 3% To 37% In One Decade

Martyn1981

AGW could be even worse than we thought, I think we are facing a race now to get annual CO2(e) emissions down to zero, before the cumulative atmospheric levels get so high nothing we do will stop it running away from us.

Climate worst-case scenarios may not go far enough, cloud data shows

Worst-case global heating scenarios may need to be revised upwards in light of a better understanding of the role of clouds, scientists have said.

Recent modelling data suggests the climate is considerably more sensitive to carbon emissions than previously believed, and experts said the projections had the potential to be “incredibly alarming”, though they stressed further research would be needed to validate the new numbers.

Modelling results from more than 20 institutions are being compiled for the sixth assessment by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is due to be released next year.

Compared with the last assessment in 2014, 25% of them show a sharp upward shift from 3C to 5C in climate sensitivity – the amount of warming projected from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide from the preindustrial level of 280 parts per million. This has shocked many veteran observers, because assumptions about climate sensitivity have been relatively unchanged since the 1980s.

“That is a very deep concern,” Johan Rockström, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said. “Climate sensitivity is the holy grail of climate science. It is the prime indicator of climate risk. For 40 years, it has been around 3C. Now, we are suddenly starting to see big climate models on the best supercomputers showing things could be worse than we thought.”

michaels

We are always criticising the UK but it turns out that in fact we may not be so bad when it comes to climate policy:
https://epi.yale.edu/epi-results/2020/component/epi
4th in the world is not bad and hopefully something we can push on from rather than be self congratulatory

Martyn1981

Extracts from this week's Carbon Commentary newsletter:
 

3, Synthetic aviation fuel. Climeworks, the direct air capture specialists, and Sunfire, a power to liquids pioneer, joined two large Norwegian companies to launch a synthetic fuels venture in the Oslo area. By 2023, it aims to provide enough aviation kerosene to cover 50% of the needs of the five busiest links inside Norway. This will require about 10 million litres of fuel, a figure which the new venture wants to expand to 100 million by 2026. (World aviation fuel consumption is about 400 billion litres a year). The Danish plan for renewable fuels detailed in the last newsletter is a larger venture but this Norwegian scheme promises earlier delivery. When opened, it will be the largest single synthetic fuels project in the world. I've asked for details of the expected cost of the fuels but haven't had a response yet. The venture in Denmark admitted the aviation kerosene would be at a premium to conventional fuel.
 
4, US renewables. A report from UC Berkeley looked at the costs of 90% decarbonisation of the US electricity grid by 2035. It suggested that without including any environmental value the cost of 90% renewables plus nuclear would be about 10% higher in 2035. But after putting a price on the costs of pollution (CO2 plus other pollutants), a renewables dominated grid would be about 25% cheaper at around $48 per megawatt hour. The report puts the capital cost of the US transition at around $1.7 trillion, most of which goes to build 1100 GW of wind and solar at the rate of about 70 GW a year. (Current worldwide renewables installation rates total about 200 GW). The researchers estimate the direct health benefits of the transition to be worth about $1.2 trillion, including almost 100,000 avoided premature deaths from local pollution. The switch also creates half a million more jobs. 
  
6, Community energy. Ripple Energy in the UK opened a community share issue with a very unusual feature. Instead of dividend payments from a 2.5 MW wind turbine, it proposes to offer a reduction in annual electricity bills. Shareholders are obliged to get their power from a specific supplier which then discounts the bill by an amount depending on the price that the turbine’s electricity was sold at. The higher the price of electricity, the greater the reduction in the shareholder’s expenditure. So the financial returns are critically dependent upon the high wholesale prices. The assumption in the share prospectus is that the turbine’s output can be sold for £65 ($80) a MWh. But in today’s circumstances, the open market price of UK power is around £25 ($31), and long term contracts for renewable electricity are being struck at around £35 ($44). 
 
7, Thyssen and RWE hydrogen. Thyssen Krupp is one of the largest steel producers in Germany with a total output of around 11 million tonnes a year. It announced an agreement with utility RWE to commission a 100 MW electrolyser to make hydrogen to replace coal in one blast furnace. This will allow the manufacture of about 50,000 tonnes of low carbon steel a year, or 0.5% of the company’s output. This demonstrates just how large the electrolyser industry will eventually become. To replace coal in German steelmaking (40 million tonnes a year) will require about 80 GW of electrolysis equipment, twice the government’s recently announced target for the entire country in 2040. And, of course, Germany will also need its renewables capacity to rise by at least an order of magnitude to provide the clean electricity required. No wonder that Germany made an informal inquiry of the Scottish government recently about the possibility of importing hydrogen made from electricity generated in UK offshore wind farms.
 
8, Vertical farming and post-Covid health. Jersey City, an ethnically diverse town close to Manhattan, said it would put ten vertical farms into city buildings to help improve the diet of a population which has been severely affected by the virus. The food from the individual farms will be distributed at no charge to disadvantaged members of the community. The farms are small scale, producing in total only about 8 tonnes of produce a year. However this is the first time I have seen urban vertical farms used in a direct way to try to improve local public health. 

 

Martyn1981

Article on one of the large scale geo-engineering technologies being suggested as a way to remove CO2 from the air/water and help to combat AGW. Geo-engineering solutions have a strange effect on me, they give me hope, but also scare me if they are used/promoted as a crutch to allow us to remove FF combustion more slowly. But (of course) nice to see these technologies being researched, and best of luck to them.

Project Vesta Is Using The Mineral Olivine To Remove CO2 From The Air

Enhanced silicate weathering works by having the mineral ground to small grain sizes and spread over suitable areas such as beaches. These grains dissolve (think of chemical weathering) and this is how they capture the CO2 from the air. In the case of Olivine, it is abundant and is fast at weathering. It is a prime candidate for enhanced silicate weathering. This is due to its ability to dissolve in the ocean, consume protons, and increase the alkalinity of the ocean.

Project Vesta And Olivine

The goal of Project Vesta is to capture a trillion tonnes of excess CO2 in rock by using the power of natural wave energy. Natural weathering is how earth removes CO2 from the atmosphere in the first place — and it has been doing this for billions of years. Project Vesta wants to accelerate this process by taking olivine from below the surface directly to the coastal areas to make green sand beaches. The waves will break down the mineral and speed up the removal of CO2 from both the atmosphere and the oceans.

Martyn1981

The same argument/issue as before to use stimulus monies to create a 'green recovery'.

Leading UK charities urge PM to demand a green Covid-19 recovery

The chiefs of some of Britain’s leading charities have written to the prime minister to demand a “green recovery” from the coronavirus crisis, urging him to use economic rescue packages to build low-carbon infrastructure and spur the creation of long-term green jobs.

The group of 57 charities representing 22 million members called for any bailouts to be subject to strict conditions so that companies receiving state help in the Covid-19 crisis would have to meet low-carbon targets, and for all elements of any economic recovery package to be subject to a test to ensure they were in line with the UK’s target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

The charities join an increasing number of economists, health professionals, leading climate experts, developing countries and the government’s own statutory advisers, who are all calling for a green recovery to lift countries out of recession and on to a low-carbon pathway.