Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Solarchaser

KayBur said:

Now the trend of nature conservation is popular and relevant, but no less important is the fight against the destruction that has already occurred. It is very important to cleanse the planet of pollution. This also applies to the near-earth orbit, which we managed to clog with the remnants of spacecraft, carriers, etc. I just read an article a few hours ago https://www.skyrora.com/post/government-backs-uk-companies-tackling-dangerous-space-junk and this causes indignation in me, because our planet, including the upper atmosphere, suffers from pollution so much, and it seems that it is not profitable for the governments of many countries to support such programs.

Reads like spam to me... not clicking link

Coastalwatch

Interesting views across the pond of likely storage options and their costs given the necessary scale. Several cases are evaluated, each with their own pro's and cons' and as if to please Mart   Compressed Air Energy Storage is identified as the likely most cost effective means.

Although it does qualify this by adding that this is achieved when utilising suitable nearby caverns to keep costs to a minimum. Don't know if disused mines might fall into this category.

US energy storage strategy includes tech cost estimates

The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) has released a new energy storage strategy that aims to accelerate the transition of technologies from the lab to the marketplace. Its “Energy Storage Grand Challenge” plan focuses on ways to manufacture technologies at scale in the United States, while ensuring the security of supply chains to enable domestic manufacturing.

• A $0.05/kWh levelized cost of storage for long-duration stationary applications, and a 90% reduction from 2020 baseline costs by 2030. The DoE said that achieving this levelized cost target would ease commercial viability for storage across a range of uses, including meeting load during periods of peak demand, grid preparation for fast charging of electric vehicles, and applications to ensure reliability of critical services.
• A $80/kWh manufactured cost for a battery pack by 2030 for a 300-mile range electric vehicle – a 44% reduction from the current cost of $143 per rated kWh. Achieving this target would lead to cost-competitive electric vehicles and could benefit the production, performance and safety of batteries for stationary applications, the DoE said.

The report says that for lithium-ion and lead-acid technologies at this scale, the direct current storage block accounts for nearly 40% of total installed costs. Compressed air energy storage (CAES) is estimated to be the lowest-cost storage technology ($119/kWh), but depends on siting near naturally occurring caverns to reduce overall project costs.

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/12/23/us-energy-storage-strategy-includes-tech-cost-estimates/

Martyn1981

This may be a duplicate posting as weird things are happening today with my connection, but here goes.
Thanks CW, that's great news for costs today and the incredible reductions suggested by 2030 when we will probably need larger/longer term storage.
Even at the 5c/kWh mark (close to my recent guess of 5p) that probably means RE + (RE + storage) coming in today at around 5.5c/kWh in the US - I'm guessing / projecting that 50% of demand will come from storage, perhaps 50% direct from RE gen, then 25% from intraday storage, then the last 25% from long(er) term storage. Based on them already having cheap PV and on-shore wind generation costs ..... and falling.
Or to steal a phrase from Steven (STMP) - "Tesla RE has won the decade."

Martyn1981

Carbon Commentary newsletter extracts, and a completely new idea to me at no.10

"Thank you for reading this year, and for the many suggestions for topics I should cover. I will be back in early January."

2, Commitment to transition. Although the Ørsted example has been obviously successful, relatively few other businesses have yet decided to make a wholehearted 100% transition into the new energy economy. Scorpio Bulkers, a US shipping line that owns 30 or so bulk carriers, recently said it intends to sell all its existing vessels. The cash raised will be used to buy a small number of the ships that install offshore wind turbines. There is a worldwide shortage of these $250m+ vessels and rental rates currently run at over $200,000 a day. So the economics compare well to running a fleet of bulk carriers. 
 
3, Carbon neutral buildings. The international real estate group Lendlease enhanced its carbon reduction plans, committing to full neutrality by 2040 without using any offsets. Its proposed journey sees a complete move away from diesel on construction sites by 2025, a challenging target given the underdeveloped state of electric or hydrogen industrial vehicles. (This may be too pessimistic: last week saw the first deliveries of Volvo electric construction trucks to a project to extend the Paris metro). Full carbon neutrality of its new buildings by 2040 requires Lendlease also to find large volumes of steel smelted with hydrogen and cement made without CO2. These are ambitious aims but will be very encouraging to producers in these industries looking for evidence of customer support.
 
4, Large scale battery storage. Grid storage in ten years might not be dominated by lithium ion technologies. The vanadium flow battery company Invinity has made major progress this year. Its storage units don’t require huge factories to make, are completely safe and don’t deteriorate, even after thousands of charging cycles. However they are currently significantly more expensive than lithium ion installations and have a lower efficiency per cycle. Nevertheless, two recent contract wins suggest that some customers value the reliability and longevity of the technology. In South Australia, the world’s largest vanadium flow battery will be commissioned in the next year, providing 8MWh of storage of electricity from a solar farm. In Scotland, a much smaller battery will store electricity from a PV array at a wastewater treatment plant. Invinity’s share price - up fivefold since May - reflects the surprisingly rapid progress the company has made this year. (Thanks to Andrew Wainwright).
 
5, The deflation of a carbon bubble in oil rigs. Many offshore oil rigs are standing idle and will be scrapped. One financial assessment of the value of the world’s stock of this equipment suggested that the overall value declined by over 40% in the past year, falling from $73bn to under $43bn. Of course there are reasons for this collapse other than the slow switch away from oil but this is an illustration of how costly a carbon bubble can be. 10 year old rigs that cost $600m to build are now sometimes sold for scrap for $6m.
 
6, Ammonia fuel cells for ships. A Norwegian offshore supply vessel will be the first in the world to travel long distances using an ammonia fuel cell. The ship currently uses LNG and will switch to being 90% powered by ammonia in 2024. The fuel cell will provide 2 MW of power, the maximum currently available. Large ocean-going ships will need far larger cells, a substantial technical challenge. Separately, a different consortium, involving Shell and Norwegian companies is planning to set up a hydrogen supply chain and bid for the rights to operate a ferry service across a wide fjord in northern Norway.
 
7, Another carbon bubble. A 10 year old Australian power station that cost US$900m was written down in the books of two of its owners to a zero valuation. This is the newest coal-fired power station in the country but its economics have been derailed by rising solar penetration and, perhaps more importantly, but the withdrawal of bank lending to its key coal supplier. The problems at Bluewaters power station appear to be one of the reasons the Australian government has begun to aggressive pressure banks to re-open their lending lines to the coal sector. 
 
8, Green hydrogen into a bio-refinery. The Italian utility ENEL said that its North American subsidiary intends to build a green hydrogen plant attached to one its large solar farms. The hydrogen will be used in a bio-refinery creating low carbon liquid fuels. One of the interesting features of this announcement was the statement that hydrogen production helped reduce the risks of developing new renewables projects. The developer is no longer reliant on a single source of revenue from electricity sales.
 
9, Decarbonising cement. Making cement results in large amounts of emissions from two sources. First, the mineral used in the kiln needs to be heated to very high temperatures, requiring substantial amounts of fuel. Second, the process of making cement drives off CO2 from the calcium carbonate source material. The British subsidiary of Heidelberg Cement said it would start a trial of a new type of fuel, containing 20% hydrogen and large amounts of biomass. Although the material produced by Heidelberg isn’t specific on this point, I presume that the addition of the hydrogen assists in raising the temperature of biomass combustion to the high levels required by cement. In Norway, Heidelberg’s local subsidiary separately announced that its plan to capture the emissions from cement manufacture had been approved by the Norwegian government. The CO2 will be stored in depleted oil fields as part of the Northern Lights project, the world’s most advanced carbon capture plan. (Thanks to Nick Hanna)
 
10, Emerging technology of the year. S&P Global gave its award for ‘Emerging Technology of the Year’ to Star Scientific, an Australian company developing a process for directly generating 700 degree C heat from the chemical combination of hydrogen and oxygen that makes water. There is no combustion, meaning the technology is safe and easily scalable. The unique part of Star Scientific’s approach is a thin layer of a proprietary catalyst that causes the chemical reaction. The company claims that this technology could, for example, replace the coal in a power station as a means of creating the steam to drive turbines. The efficiency of conversion of hydrogen to heat would improve on any approach that relies on combustion. If this technology works, it would provide an extraordinary boost to efforts to switch from fossil fuels to hydrogen.

Coastalwatch

Having read an article the other day on another government backed Hydrogen project I was beginning to wonder that there must be something in it's development after all. And then I came across the article below which again made me question its feasibility. Other than for the FF industry that is!

I add but a few snippets below to keep it brief but found the whole article rivetting.

Latest “Hydrogen Economy” Round Is Hype, But There Is A Place For Hydrogen

There’s been a recent emergence of the ‘hydrogen economy’ nonsense globally. CleanTechnica has not been immune to this, and has had to yank articles that got out over their skis, either permanently, or to edit them to a more nuanced perspective. In aid of CleanTechnica’s efforts to establish a clear policy on hydrogen-related reporting, and for the benefit of others, this is my take on where hydrogen will be valuable, might be valuable, and won’t be of use at all.

In summary, green hydrogen will be necessary to displace the existing fossil-fuel sourced hydrogen used today, but it will have limited additional niche applications. It will not be a major economic driver, it will not be seasonal grid storage, it won’t be piped into homes instead of natural gas and it won’t make a difference if mixed with natural gas. As with mechanical carbon capture and sequestration, it’s best thought of as a fossil fuel industry PR and lobbying push to perpetuate their industry and the gas utilities.

Now For The Areas Where Hydrogen Won’t Work

Hydrogen as a store of grid energy makes no sense.

Hydrogen in existing natural gas lines makes no sense.

Hydrogen embrittles hard steel. As a result, it’s limited to roughly 20% of volume in European gas lines and about 4% in North American ones. However, its energy density by volume is much lower, as Paul Martin recently explained in CleanTechnica, so the actual energy that gets to the other end is a fraction of either the 20% or the 4%. This isn’t a case of cutting 20% or 4% of CO2 emissions from the use of natural gas, it’s a case of cutting a tiny handful. It’s greenwashing.

Piping pure hydrogen into homes makes no sense.

Shipping hydrogen as an energy store between countries makes no sense.

Hydrogen for ground transportation has already lost.

Hydrogen cars are dead on arrival, having been vastly outcompeted by electric cars. Hydrogen buses failed, and battery electric buses are dominant. Tesla is in the S&P 500 and Nikola has been determined to be a complete sham. Every form of wheeled road vehicle is going to be battery electric, not hydrogen.

https://cleantechnica.com/2020/12/23/latest-hydrogen-economy-round-is-hype-but-there-is-a-place-for-hydrogen/

Edit:duplicated statement re gas lines deleted.

Martyn1981

Sign of the times?
(BTW, it's not 'that' Cambridge.)

Cambridge To Post Warning Stickers On Gas Pumps

Cambridge, Massachusetts, home to Harvard and MIT, is ground zero for the tree hugger crowd in the United States, closely followed by Berkeley on the Left Coast. So it should surprise no one that it will be the first US city to place warning labels on the gas pumps within its city limits. Warning labels similar to those approved by Cambridge are already found in Sweden. Oddly enough, a campaign advocating for similar stickers in Berkeley was unsuccessful.

Coastalwatch

The REA appear to have a strong case in calling for a VAT reduction for energy storage given that FF's are only taxed at the lower 5% rate. Along with this they also point out it's importance as a “key part of our journey to net zero” suggesting, as yet, no government schemes exist to incentivise it's take up despite the obvious benefit it has of assisting in smoothing out the peaks and troughs of energy demand upon the National Grid.

Wouldn't it be great if REA's letter resulted in a positive outcome. Don't think I'll be holding my breath in the mean time!

Companies call on government to ‘level the playing field’ by reducing VAT for energy storage

In an open letter to the government, the Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology (REA) and a coalition of 30 industry groups have called for changes to the controversial rise in VAT brought in for home energy storage in October 2019 to comply with an EU ruling. This saw the tax rise to 20% for many applications, according to the groups.

With the UK leaving the EU at the end of this month, the coalition is highlighting that the country can now set its own rules on VAT.

Dr Nina Skorupska CBE, chief executive of REA, highlighted that domestic energy storage acted as a key enabler to technologies such as solar, heat pumps and electric vehicle (EV) charging in a smart home eco-system.

“Yet there remain challenges to deploying it at scale, including that such projects are not eligible for a reduced VAT rate, unlike other technologies, such as fossil fuel heating.

https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/companies_call_on_government_to_level_the_playing_field_by_reducing_vat_for

Martyn1981

Another nice little milestone reached. As these keep popping up, we'll have to start on more storage, and then the real fun will begin, and the big records will start falling.

Storm Bella helps UK set new record for wind power generation

More than half the UK’s daily electricity came from wind turbines for the first time on Boxing Day, in a performance achieved on gusts of up to 100mph (160 km/h) from Storm Bella.

Data charting the proportion of power generated from different sources, including fossil fuel and nuclear plants, show that on 26 December wind provided 50.7% of UK electricity.

While wind briefly hit 60% in August, it had not previously sustained such levels for 24 hours.

Coastalwatch

Hadn't previously appreciated how harmful the indoor effects of these appliances were or indeed how common they in our modern society, circa 16% -18% of households apparently. While our old solid fuel stove was removed some forty or so years I do have to confess to burning a charcoal barbeque on camping weekends and on particularly cold evenings actually taking the dying embers into the van for warmth!

Wood burners triple harmful indoor air pollution, study finds

Wood burners triple the level of harmful pollution particles inside homes and should be sold with a health warning, says scientists, who also advise that they should not be used around elderly people or children.

The tiny particles flood into the room when the burner doors are opened for refuelling, a study found. Furthermore, people who load in wood twice or more in an evening are exposed to pollution spikes two to four times higher than those who refuel once or not at all.

The particles can pass through the lungs and into the body and have been linked to a wide range of health damage, particularly in younger and older people.

The research was conducted in 19 homes in Sheffield over the course of a month at the start of 2020. The wood burners used were all models certified by the government as “smoke exempt appliances”, meaning they produce less smoke. But this and the new EcoDesign standard, due to become compulsory by 2022, only assess outdoor pollution.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/18/wood-burners-triple-harmful-indoor-air-pollution-study-finds?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

thevilla

https://www.getoutwiththekids.co.uk/say-no-to-co/
Taking embers indoors is far more dangerous than that!

"There have been a shocking number of deaths due to the lack of awareness about carbon monoxide when camping"