Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Ickle bit of news on floating off-shore wind. I think this is a big hope for the western (Pacific) coast of the US, where the sea shelf drops off too quickly for much conventional off-shore wind to be installed.

Shell and Scottish Power submit plans for floating offshore windfarms

Royal Dutch Shell has joined forces with Scottish Power to develop the world’s first large-scale floating offshore windfarms in the north-east of Scotland.

The energy companies have submitted multiple plans for a string of large floating offshore windfarms to Crown Estate Scotland as part of the property manager’s latest leasing round for access to the coastline.

Floating turbines, which have no fixed subsea foundations, are a relatively new technology that will play a key part in the government’s plan for an offshore wind boom because they can be developed in areas of very deep water where traditional offshore windfarms are not feasible.

Martyn1981

Anyone fancy a Tesla battery system supplied and installed for $278/kWh?

There is a tiny catch, that's the price for 1,000 units of their Megapack, coming in at 3,047.6MWh and $848,135,990 ....... perhaps not then?

Tesla Launches Megapack Order Page & Pricing

Tesla has launched a new order and pricing page for its Megapack, which provides utility-scale energy storage. Up until recently, there have been very few details on the Megapack since Tesla was only selling them business to business. (Though, see: “Tesla Megapack, Powerpack, & Powerwall Battery Storage Prices Per KWh — Exclusive.”) Today, pretty much anyone who wants one can order a Tesla Megapack.

Edit - All joking aside now, let's say you're building a community of 100 homes, with PV, then one Megapack in Cali would provide 30kWh of storage per property, and cost ~$12.5k each. Add in some wind generation, and perhaps an emergency back up gennie, and you'd have a very nice little micro-grid.

EVandPV

Sounds like solid state batteries are finally about to become a reality and go into production.

Murata to mass-produce all-solid-state batteries in fall

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Murata-to-mass-produce-all-solid-state-batteries-in-fall2

https://youtu.be/fdSqibMhBwg

Martyn1981

Flippin Aussies, not only do they have excellent solar and onshore wind potential, but turns out that a country where most of the population live near the coast, it also has excellent offshore wind potential, around 2,000GW's, or at a capacity factor of 50%, roughly 25x the UK's average leccy consumption.

And they can take their time, and let the rest of us develop the technology further, whilst they concentrate on the aforementioned onshore wind and solar. Kinda looking bad for their FF consumption, if it wasn't for their government's desperate attempts to consume as much FF's as possible.

Australia has huge potential to develop offshore windfarms near existing substations, report says

Australia has the potential to develop a substantial offshore wind energy industry from scratch, with abundant resources available near existing electricity substations across the continent, according to a new report.

The Blue Economy Cooperative Research Centre said Australia was yet to capitalise on significant offshore wind capacity despite the International Energy Agency nominating it as one of the “big three” likely sources of renewable energy globally alongside solar and onshore wind.

It found more than 2,000GW of offshore wind turbines – far more than Australia’s existing generation capacity – could be installed in areas within 100km of substations. Environmentally restricted and low-wind areas were excluded from the assessment.

Briggs said offshore wind could be built on a much larger scale than solar or onshore wind – up to 2GW for a project – and could generate more electricity per megawatt of capacity. “This could be very valuable in the late 2020s and 2030s as we see coal plants retiring,” he said.

The project’s leader, Dr Mark Hemer of the CSIRO, said offshore wind could be particularly important under “energy superpower” scenarios that involved mass electrification of industry and transport and hydrogen production for domestic use and export.

The report said there were 10 offshore wind projects with a combined capacity of 25GW in development in Australia, all at an early stage. The most advanced is the $10bn Star of the South – a 2.2GW windfarm planned for between 7km and 25km offshore in South Gippsland.

Coastalwatch

It seems no matter where a BEV is charged it still has a smaller CO2 footprint than an ICE of comparable size. The study also confirms that Hydrogen produced from renewable energy sources is three times more energy intensive than when using a battery. Which rather suggests it's a rather pointless route to follow, never mind investing millions into it's processing.

Can't quite see there ever being a favourable return from such schemes?

Is that why Elon labels such vehicles Fool cells!

ICCT study finds BEVs maintain 70% smaller CO2 footprint

A new study by the ICCT finds battery-electric cars already have a better greenhouse gas emissions record than conventionally powered vehicles – and not only in Europe, but also in China, India or the USA. By 2030, the emissions advantage will increase further.

For the study, the experts of the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) considered the compact car class over its entire lifetime, so the emissions from the production of the vehicles and batteries are included. Furthermore, the disposal of the vehicle was also taken into account.

Based on the USA’s supply chains and electricity mix, the emissions advantage of the electric car is already 60 to 68 per cent today. For China, with its high share of coal-fired power, the ICCT has calculated a saving of 37 to 45 per cent, and for India, still 19 to 34 per cent. The biggest factor in all regions is the energy needed to operate the vehicles; the CO2 emissions for battery production, vehicle production and maintenance over the vehicle’s lifetime are the much smaller items.

However, if fuel cell vehicles are operated with green hydrogen produced by electrolysis from renewable energy sources, FCEV emissions are 76 per cent lower than those of petrol cars. However, the ICCT also points out that running fuel cell cars on electricity-based hydrogen is about three times more energy-intensive than using electricity directly in battery vehicles.

https://www.electrive.com/2021/07/21/icct-study-finds-bevs-maintain-70-smaller-co2-footprint/

Martyn1981

Coastalwatch said:

It seems no matter where a BEV is charged it still has a smaller CO2 footprint than an ICE of comparable size. The study also confirms that Hydrogen produced from renewable energy sources is three times more energy intensive than when using a battery. Which rather suggests it's a rather pointless route to follow, never mind investing millions into it's processing.

Can't quite see there ever being a favourable return from such schemes?

Is that why Elon labels such vehicles Fool cells!

Yep, HFCV's are not looking good for road transport, though they may pick up some edge cases. BEV's put about 75% of the leccy that leaves the powerstation onto the road, whereas HFCV's put down about 25%. Plus they cost more to buy, fuel and maintain, and due to the high cost of the fuelcell stack tend to be built to meet average power demand, via a battery buffer, not sustained max power.

My guess would be that locating H2 storage and leccy generation sites near a sensible use of H2, perhaps shipping, train fuelling station, etc, might make for a sensible solution where enormous amounts of energy need to be carried, but battery charging is not ideal, or perhaps even possible?

Probably gonna be a long time though before H2 gets cheap. If it needs so much leccy to be produced, then it'll have to wait till FF's are mostly pushed off the grid, and the rising demand for intraday storage has been met, only then will the excess leccy be really cheap, and make good sense to store in less efficient, but vastly greater scale longer term storage.

At the moment, the FF industry seems to be pushing for H2 solutions, which makes sense for them - if we move too fast into H2, then demand will have to be met by FF hydrogen, or diverting too much green leccy, too soon, away from FF generation displacement.

Looks like a fun balancing act is going to have to play out this decade.

michaels

How do the efficiencies compare for FCEV vs using RE spill H2 to generate electricity that then goes into EVs - can't help thinking the latter would be the best way to use H2, as an electricity store right were it can then be used to produce electricity than having to set up an infrastructure to distribute it to cars etc.  WE seem to be largely solving the EV fuelling time issue although I guess in theory there is still a battery weight and raw materials issue but are they really much difference from h2 tanks, fuel cells and the H2 infrastructure? 

Martyn1981

michaels said:

How do the efficiencies compare for FCEV vs using RE spill H2 to generate electricity that then goes into EVs - can't help thinking the latter would be the best way to use H2, as an electricity store right were it can then be used to produce electricity than having to set up an infrastructure to distribute it to cars etc.  WE seem to be largely solving the EV fuelling time issue although I guess in theory there is still a battery weight and raw materials issue but are they really much difference from h2 tanks, fuel cells and the H2 infrastructure? 

I'm cheating and doing this from memory, so the numbers may not be exact:

So, converting H2 to leccy via a fuel cell is about 50% efficient, and I think burning H2 at a gas generation powerstation is around 60% efficient. Just a guess, but assuming a large fuel cell facility will be more efficient than a small fuel cell in a car, then perhaps such a facility will also be around 60% efficient?

I'm not trying to cheat here, but that 10% difference might make up for the transmission and charging losses of sending the leccy to the car, and into its batts, v's a 50% efficient fuel cell in a car - so we come out breakeven(ish), but remove the need for two different types of car, which in a perfect World would reduce costs from larger production numbers, and save on all of the local H2 supply infrastructure.

Can't remember why I think this, but I seem to recall that a fuel cell car may be a similar weight to a BEV not lighter, since the weight savings from having a smaller battery are balanced out by the additional weight of the fuel tank(s) and fuel cell. Also the H2 tanks aren't as easy to accommodate as batteries are, so they may interfere with space in the boot, or under the rear seats. In the case of my TM3, not only does it have a pretty big boot, but under the boot floor is another storage space, around 2ft by 1.5ft by 1ft deep ...... roughly where a petrol tank would go.

Here's a funny thing, HFCEV's are a really good alternative to FF ICEV's, it's just that BEV's are now even better, with ultra fast charging solving the fuelling time issue, as you mentioned.


I'm stretching for a HFCEV positive, but I suppose producing H2 at dedicated sites would remove some of the leccy charging  demand from residential areas, easing the load for DNO's. But I'm pretty sure that the average* demand for BEV charging, done overnight, will not lift demand as high as the evening peak, for which the DNO already copes well.

*When there are millions of BEV's, then such high numbers should naturally lead to average charging patterns, plus smart chargers can be dialled down if too many are all pulling a load from say midnight when a tariff kicks in, and the demand should fall as more and more vehicles reach the desired charge level through the night.

Martyn1981

So, RE is cheaper than FF's and nuclear, and creates more jobs. Sorted.

Hitting global climate target could create 8m energy jobs, study says

If some politicians are to be believed, taking sweeping action to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement would be calamitous for jobs in the energy sector. But a study suggests that honouring the global climate target would, in fact, increase net jobs by about 8 million by 2050.

The study – in which researchers created a global dataset of the footprint of energy jobs in 50 countries including major fossil fuel-producing economies – found that currently an estimated 18 million people work in the energy industries, which is likely to increase to 26 million if climate targets are met.

Martyn1981

This could be incredible news. Could also be vapourware. But since there are plans to rollout a large iron/air battery by 2023, then I guess there must be something to it, which is, fingers crossed, great news.

Form Energy Reveals Iron-Air 100 Hour Storage Battery

Boston-based Form Energy has been diligently working on an iron-air battery since 2017, but details of its research have been sparse … until now. This week, the company said its first commercial product is a “rechargeable iron-air battery capable of delivering electricity for 100 hours at system costs competitive with conventional power plants and at less than 1/10th the cost of lithium-ion. This battery can be used continuously over a multi-day period and will enable a reliable, secure, and fully renewable electric grid year-round.”

Obviously we will need to know the efficiency, and is the long duration because it has slow charge/discharge 'issues', in which case, perhaps it would sit quite nicely somewhere between intraday storage, and the far greater needs of longer term storage for us to meet a 100% RE leccy future?

It sounds a bit too good to be true, but as Donald Sadoway once said - ”If you want to make something dirt-cheap, make it out of dirt. Preferably dirt that's locally sourced.” and iron is pretty cheap.

So we have RE already undercutting new FF's and new nuclear generation costs giving us a nice margin for the cost of storage, especially as we won't need to store all of the RE leccy generated. Even if we had to store 50%, that would give us 2x the cost margin for storage costs, and that's before the arbitrage gains of buying cheap excess leccy, and selling into the higher priced periods of high demand and low RE generation.

If we rollout RE that takes into account seasonality demand, such as being wind heavy as it has a winter bias, and we use hydro, and bio-energy to partly demand follow, then we may only need to store 25% of RE generation (as an example) giving us a 4x multiplier of the cost difference of RE v's FF's and nuclear.

Looking promising.