Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Is the UK starting to get serious at last, perhaps!

UK to stop funding overseas fossil fuel projects

The UK taxpayer is to stop funding fossil fuel projects overseas as part of the government’s push for international action on the climate ahead of a key summit on Saturday.

Taxpayers helped to support more than £21bn of fossil fuel development overseas in the last four years, despite calls from green campaigners to halt the finance.

EricMears

Martyn1981 said:

Is the UK starting to get serious at last, perhaps!

UK to stop funding overseas fossil fuel projects

Probably not !   It's just one (very small) part of the overseas aid budget that can be saved without causing too much reaction.

Martyn1981

This might help, also the change in rhetoric from talking about climate change and using the term 'climate crisis' instead.

UN secretary general urges all countries to declare climate emergencies

Governments around the world should all declare a state of climate emergency until the world has reached net zero CO2 emissions, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has told a summit of world leaders.

At least 38 countries have already declared such a state of emergency, often owing to their vulnerability to the impacts of climate breakdown, which are already being felt.

“Can anybody still deny that we are facing a dramatic emergency?” Guterres said on Saturday. “I urge all others to follow.”

Declaring an emergency would require countries to step up their actions on greenhouse gas emissions urgently. An increasing number of governments have a target to reach net zero emissions by around the mid-century, but few have detailed plans on how to get there.

Many countries are also pouring money into high-CO2 activities as they strive to recover from the coronavirus crisis and recession. Guterres noted that G20 countries were spending 50% more in their stimulus packages on fossil fuels and CO2-intensive sectors than they were on low-CO2 energy.

EVandPV

China Considers Exiting U.K. Nuclear Plant Project

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-12/china-considers-exiting-u-k-nuclear-plant-project-daily-mail

Martyn1981

Carbon Commentary newsletter time:

1, Green ammonia. Two new project plans this week. Danish chemical engineering company Haldor Topsøe and Vestas, the wind turbine company, said that they would build a pilot plant in Western Jutland by 2022. (They claimed it would be the first in the world but Iberdrola's plans are actually more advanced). 12 MW of wind capacity and 20 MW of solar will power an experimental plant producing ammonia from hydrogen. The quantities are small - only 5,000 tonnes a year – but the partnership says it sees this pilot as the basis for developing much larger plants. The current cost of green ammonia was described as ‘significantly higher’ than manufacture from fossil fuels. Yara has a much larger outline plan for switching one of its Norwegian operations to using hydrogen from electrolysis. This plant produces about 500,000 tonnes of ammonia a year (about 0.3% of world output). Yara comments that the cost of green ammonia is ‘2-4x higher’ than the conventional product and asks for public subsidy before proceeding. Its presentation also indicates that it sees ammonia as the logical fuel for long distance shipping, a view shared by some, but far from all, shipowners. Yara also joined six other large multinationals in an ambitious partnership striving to drive the cost of hydrogen down to $2/kg, the level at which many conclude that green hydrogen will match the cost of the existing product. (Thanks to Greg Yakolev).
 
2, Airline emissions. United Airlines said it would invest in the Direct Air Capture (DAC) plant being planned by Occidental Petroleum (Oxy). It views large scale expansion of DAC as the best route to carbon neutrality by 2050, a promise it also made this week. United is the first major airline to commit to net zero. The Oxy plant, which will begin construction in 2022 using the Carbon Engineering technology, will capture about 1 million tonnes of CO2 a year, a small fraction of United’s 40 million tonnes of emissions. Nevertheless this is an important step forward. The United Airlines CEO was scathing about alternatives to DAC, commenting that traditional offsets, such as tree planting, ‘do almost nothing to tackle the emissions from flying’.
 
3, California demand management. One of the Californian demand management companies raised another $80m to increase the size of its customer base. OhmConnect aims to equip almost a million homes with the smart devices necessary to cut electricity use in response to grid crises, such as the recent late summer heatwave in the western US. Demand reduction of this type enables OhmConnect to operate as a ‘virtual power plant’. Home customers receive some of OhmConnect’s revenue earned from cutting electricity use. The company claims its virtual power plant will eventually provide 550MW of demand management, making it the biggest in the world. But California’s peak electricity use runs at 100 times this level, meaning that many demand response programmes of this type are likely to be needed.
 
4, E-methane. A consortium in Belgium has applied for funds to build the world’s largest factory to make methane using carbon capture. A 75MW electrolyser will take renewable electricity to generate hydrogen which will be combined with the CO2 arising from cement production. The plant will use the technology pioneered by the German company Electrochaea, which uses microscopic living organisms to produce the methane. Although the methane will return CO2 to the atmosphere when burnt, the use of e-methane will reduce emissions by replacing an equivalent amount of fossil gas. As with the green ammonia plants in note 1, the immediate economics of this plant are not obviously favourable. At today’s high EU carbon prices, the annual value of the avoided CO2 emissions is less than €3m but the investment cost of the plant will be around fifty times this level. Public money is being requested in order to complete the plant by 2025.
 
5, Low carbon steel. Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest steelmaker, made a new promise of carbon neutrality by 2050. It is responsible for almost 10% of the country's emissions. The Japanese steel industry had previously suggested 2100 for net zero. Nippon Steel also committed to move to direct reduction of iron ore using hydrogen. Germany’s Thyssen Krupp backed a partnership investigating the building of an electrolysis plant in North Rhine Westphalia that will supply hydrogen as a partial coal replacement for a blast furnace. In the longer run Thyssen Krupp will also move to direct reduction of ore. As the CTO commented, ‘our climate transformation is based on the use of hydrogen’. Thyssen Krupp claims the plan would be the largest in the world steelmaking industry.
 
6, Vertical farming. Interest in developing large and highly automated vertical farms continues to grow, partly as a result of widening concerns about security of supply in times of epidemics (or Brexit). One huge salad factory under construction in Denmark provided some arresting numbers to demonstrate how easily some crops can be grown locally. The vertical farm near Copenhagen will produce 1,000 tonnes a year of salads and herbs, or about 5% of national consumption. The developer claims that total Danish needs could be produced on an area the size of no more than twenty soccer fields, replacing the 70% of salads that are currently imported. The water required will weigh little more than the weight of the end products – compare that to the millions of litres needed for field grown salads. Energy is all provided by Danish wind power. I haven’t worked out the numbers but I suspect that although vertical farms require large amounts of electricity for lighting, overall energy needs may be lower than in-field production because hydroponic farming needs far less fertiliser, thus saving on the huge energy requirements for ammonia production.
 
7, Asking to be taxed. My weekly research for this newsletter now often finds an industry pleading for a high carbon tax to be applied to their sector. This week it was the turn of the Norwegian shipping industry to ask for a levy on fossil fuels. Their Danish equivalent quickly followed. (Between them, shipowners in these countries probably control about 10% of global tonnage). But a Norwegian professor then commented that a carbon tax that immediately incentivised a move away from fossil fuels would need to roughly double the price of fuel oil.  The laggards at the International Maritime Organisation will probably use this another excuse for their lamentable lack of interest in decarbonisation.
  
10, Planetary boundaries. In a fascinating lecture, the chair of the Energy Transitions Commission Adair Turner argued that neither ‘techno-optimism’ nor ‘anti-consumerism’ were invariably the right response to the climate crisis. Neither Elon Musk nor Greta Thunberg are completely correct. Yes, the world has almost unlimited supplies of zero carbon energy, so there is no ultimate constraint on any human consumption of services requiring just energy (such as transport). But, for example, land use constraints do inevitably mean that food production patterns need to change away from meat. He points out that on questions governed by physics and inorganic chemistry, we have effectively no planetary boundaries. Electrons, ions and photons are there for us to use. However, the same is not true where biology and organic chemistry are concerned, meaning that in many other cases we have to work within tight constraints.

ABrass

Sizewell C is in trouble again.

The government has begun talks with EDF about the construction of a new £20bn nuclear power plant in Suffolk.
...
China General Nuclear Power has a 20% stake in Sizewell C but is thought to be planning to pull out after security concerns were raised about a Chinese state-owned company designing and running its own design nuclear reactor on UK soil.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-55299511

Coastalwatch

An unusual design in development for the last four years so possibly not the first time mentioned here, but a step forward all the same. Unfortunately it would seem that most projects associated wth Hydrogen suggest it will be another decade before any sort of maturity arrives!

Hydrogen fuel cell aircraft takes off in Stuttgart

The latest generation of the world’s first four-seater hydrogen fuel cell aircraft, the Hy4, has now been unveiled at Stuttgart Airport. The latest generation of the Hy4’s propulsion system recently received test flight permission, which means that the model can now take off at Stuttgart Airport.

The first flight of the hydrogen passenger aircraft at Stuttgart Airport dates back to 2016 and the initiators are only now providing new insights into the project. The model’s drive system has been continuously developed since 2016 under the leadership of Professor Josef Kallo, who conducts research at the University of Ulm and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Stuttgart. The Hy4 has now been presented with its sixth drive generation. “The system includes redundancy concepts for the hydrogen tank, fuel cell, energy distribution and the electric drive,” says the director of the Ulm-based institute. The resulting increased efficiency and improved safety architecture would make hydrogen-powered aircraft for up to 40 passengers and with ranges of 2,000 kilometres possible in the next ten years.

To date, the Hy4 has completed more than 30 takeoffs and flights of up to two hours with the new propulsion system. The fuel cell system is coupled with a lithium-ion battery in such a way that the latter battery steps in if the energy generated in the fuel cell is insufficient such as during takeoff or climbing flights.

https://www.electrive.com/2020/12/14/h2-fuel-cell-aircraft-takes-off-in-stuttgart/

michaels

What are the relative weights of a pressurised hydrogen tank and the best current batteries for the same number of kwh?

Coastalwatch

Hot on the heels of yesterdays announcement comes a second, this time of an existing FF model having undertaken a hydrogen conversion and somewhat more practical than the unit HY4 from Stuttgart. Encouraging first steps and interesting that it suggests the fuel cell has a 4 to 1 weight advantage over existing battery energy densities.

Interesting times!

ZeroAvia completes maidenflight with hydrogen aircraft

ZeroAvia that specialises in zero-emission aircraft propulsion has now completed the maiden flight of a six-seater fuel-cell-electric aircraft at Cranfield Airport as part of the HyFlyer project supported by the British government.

The launch of the hydrogen passenger plane follows a similar test ZeroAvia managed only in June earlier this year. The company had then taken flight with the same model but powered by batteries. As before the event took place at ZeroAvia’s research and development lab in Cranfield, England.

ZeroAvia deemed the latest launch to be “the world first hydrogen fuel-cell-powered flight of a commercial-grade aircraft.” For the demonstration in Cranfield, the Piper M-class six-seat plane completed taxi, takeoff, a full pattern circuit, and landing.

ZeroAvia is initially targeting a 500-mile range in 10-20 seat aircraft used for commercial passenger transport, package delivery, agriculture, and more. The firm says it has already secured experimental certificates for its two prototype aircraft and that it is on track for commercial operations in 2023.

https://www.electrive.com/2020/09/30/zeroavia-completes-maidenflight-with-hydrogen-aircraft/

Martyn1981

Hadn't thought of this, and a different angle to divestment. Lloyd's (insurance not LLoyds Bank) is to move away from FF insurance, and relatively quickly.

Lloyd's market to quit fossil fuel insurance by 2030

Lloyd’s, the world’s biggest insurance market, has bowed to pressure from environmental campaigners and set a market-wide policy to stop new insurance cover for coal, oil sands and Arctic energy projects by January 2022, and to pull out of the business altogether by 2030.

In its first environmental, social and governance report, Lloyd’s, which has been criticised for being slow to exit fossil fuel underwriting and investment, said the 90 insurance syndicates that make up the market would phase out all existing insurance policies for fossil fuel projects in 10 years’ time. Less than 5% of the market’s £35bn annual premiums comes from insurance policies in this area.

“We want to align ourselves with the UN sustainability development goals and the principles in the Paris [climate] agreement,” said the Lloyd’s chairman, Bruce Carnegie-Brown.