Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Been a long battle for students and staff, about 10yrs, but Harvard has finally decided to divest from FF's.

Activism Works! Harvard Will Divest From All Fossil Fuels

In an open letter to the Harvard community, President Lawrence Bacow announced that the Harvard Management Company (HMC) is in the process of removing the university from all fossil fuel investments. While not incorporating the word “divestment,” Bacow outlined a multi-pronged approach to the updated financial strategy.

The decision to divest Harvard’s $42 billion endowment from all fossil fuels honors student protests that have pressured the Harvard endowment to transcend its legacy of profit above morality. An article this week in The Nation, written by one of many student activists who “petitioned, protested, and politicked,” breathed a proverbial sigh of relief that Harvard “finally announced that it would divest from fossil fuels.” Ilana Cohen shares how their advocacy “clearly demonstrates what sustained student pressure can do. The move sends a powerful signal that the costs of clinging onto what is inevitably becoming the bygone fossil fuel era are simply too steep.”

The power of young people is without a doubt the strongest it has been in many generations. In 2019, at the Global Climate Strike, teenage activist Greta Thunberg of Sweden called on world leaders to end the madness of fossil fuel investments and subsidies. Many student leaders have risen up, demanding that their universities protect their futures by addressing the climate crisis and other social justice disparities. As the New York Times notes, divestment battles are based on the idea that university endowments, because they are tax-free, have an obligation to attend to the public good, and huge endowments like Harvard’s may be instruments for change.

gefnew

Hi All
A bit of different news on new forms of use of renewables in transport.
Unmanned submarine earmarked for Irish Sea freight crossings - BBC News
Cheers

Martyn1981

I appreciate that issues like these can happen at any time, but I wonder if it'll help to encourage a faster, sooner and larger rollout of storage if there's an opportunity to make money (or more money) via arbitrage.

Even if we were to rollout storage a bit ahead of an economic demand curve, it would still help to push a bit more FF (probably mostly gas by then) off the grid?

Good thing we've got so many more interconnectors coming on line this decade, but perhaps a few more wouldn't be a bad idea. And we know Norway still has huge untapped reserves for more hydroelectric generation, and PHS (pumped hydro storage) if we need a home for excess off-shore wind generation?

Fire shuts one of UK’s most important power cables in midst of supply crunch

A major fire has forced the shutdown of one of Britain’s most important power cables importing electricity from France as the UK faces a supply crunch and record high market prices.

The market price at one of the UK’s main electricity auctions cleared at a record price of £2,500 per megawatt-hour for the hours of peak demand on Wednesday, compared with a typical baseload price of about £40/MWh throughout 2019 and 2020.

Martyn1981

I thought these articles from Renews stood out a bit today.

First, one from the Floating Off-shore Wind conference (who'd have thought!), about the need for said floaters, for the UK to meet it's off-shore wind needs.

Floating wind 'vital to reaching net zero'

Floating offshore wind is central to the UK achieving its net zero ambitions, according to RenewableUK chief executive Dan McGrail.

McGrail, speaking at the Floating Offshore Wind conference in Aberdeen, said the industry needs to seize the moment and political momentum sparked by the upcoming Cop26 climate change conference in Glasgow.

McGrail, who was giving the event's opening address this morning, said: “The UK needs floating wind to get to net zero. We don’t have the luxury of choice if we need to build over 100GW of offshore wind by 2050.

And an article here on the production and export/import (Australia to Japan) of green hydrogen. Green H2 looks like it'll play a big part for most countries going 100% RE, but Japan has particular issues as it may not be able to scale up RE generation to meet all of its needs, so a source of green H2, from super cheap Aussie RE in the future, could be an ideal solution. This article looks at the progress being made on Aus/Japan deals.

Japanese firms strike Australian green hydrogen deal

Japan-based Iwatani Corporation, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Kansai Electric Power and Marubeni Corporation have signed a MoU to explore large scale green hydrogen generation in Australia. 

The agreement with two energy infrastructure companies headquartered in Australia, Stanwell Corporation and APT Management Services Pty, to jointly implement a feasibility study of the Central Queensland Hydrogen Project (CQ- H2).

This project will produce hydrogen on a large scale using renewable energy, liquefy it at the Port of Gladstone, Queensland, Australia, and then export the liquefied hydrogen to Japan.

The scheme aims to produce and supply low-cost hydrogen reliably over the long-term and has set goals of producing at least 100 tonnes of hydrogen per day around 2026, and 800 tonnes of hydrogen per day from 2031.

Currently, the production volume of liquefied hydrogen in Japan is 30 tonnes per day maximum, meaning that the target production volume of 800 tonnes per day from 2031 is about 26 times as much as the current production volume in Japan.

shinytop

https://interestingengineering.com/china-to-test-thorium-fueled-nuclear-reactor

Not sure how new this is but maybe a bit more of this would help with the current increase in ff usage/price? 

Martyn1981

Article here suggesting that the COP 26 climate summit may be a good opportunity to raise the issue of the damage done by the FF companies through their continual denial of AGW science, despite their own research confirming it 50yrs ago.

Even more incredible, is that over 20yrs ago Royal Dutch Shell actually predicted that they'd get caught and face class action lawsuits for neglecting what their own scientists knew.

Exxon helped cause the climate crisis. It’s time they owned up

Fossil fuel companies bear as much responsibility as governments do for humanity’s climate predicament – and for finding a way out. Our planetary house is on fire, and these companies have literally supplied the fuel. Worse, they lied about it for decades to blunt public awareness and policy reform.

There’s no better time for ExxonMobil and other petroleum giants to be held accountable than at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow in November. The Glasgow summit is more than just another international meeting. It is the last chance for world leaders to limit future temperature rise to an amount that civilization can survive. Doing so, scientists say, will require a rapid, global decline in oil, gas and coal burning.

Dozens of these lawsuits seek financial compensation from fossil fuel companies for the loss and damage caused by the burning of the companies’ products. Some lawsuits – for example, those brought by New York City and the state of Minnesota – point out that oil and gas companies have known privately for decades that their products would cause catastrophic temperature rise and extreme weather. Nevertheless, these companies lied about what they knew, telling the outside world that human-made climate change was unproven.

An internal Exxon document dated 16 October 1979 and stamped “Proprietary Information” stated that increasing fossil fuel combustion “will cause a warming of the earth’s surface … and dramatic environmental effects before the year 2050”. Royal Dutch Shell even anticipated the current wave of lawsuits: an internal study in 1998 forecast a scenario in which environmental groups would band together to file “a class action lawsuit on the grounds of neglecting what scientists, including [the industry’s] own, have been saying for years”.

Martyn1981

Perhaps controversial, if you don't live in Scotland, but for me, anything that helps the UK's RE engine grow bigger is a good idea, and if Wales and England fail to expand fast enough, or make better use of our RE potential and connection expansion, then why not let Scotland shine ever brighter.

UPDATE: UK urged to share grid charges equally

The UK parliament's Scottish Affairs Committee has today called for transmission charges and grid investment to be equally shared across the UK to help strengthen the Scottish renewables sector.

The committee made four recommendations to the UK government in a report released today.

It said the energy regulator Ofgem must consider the financial burden of transmission charges in Scotland.

Ofgem should consider the long-term impacts on net zero targets, and ensure renewable energy projects can flourish over the next 30 years, rather than pushing for a short-term, lowest cost view.

The regulator should also complete a review of the grid in Scotland as a “matter of urgency” and prioritise reinforcement of the grid where there is potential for a high renewable energy yield.

Solarchaser

There does seem something off with the fact the north pays charges which decrease the further south you go

Martyn1981

Carbon Commentary time from Chris Goodall:

Things I noticed and thought were interesting

Week ending September 19th 2021

1, Solar PV costs and efficiency. An Australian start-up established a new record for the efficiency of a conventional solar cell. SunDrive's 25.5% beats Longi’s 25.3%. This is a staggering achievement but the cell is also remarkable for its use of cheaper copper, rather than silver, as the medium for collecting the electricity. In a standard panel of around 350 watts, about 10% of the cost is currently silver. And since photovoltaics already use about 8% of world silver, future increases in PV sales will push up the price of the metal. If the new solar cell from SunDrive is durable, and can be made using existing equipment, it will continue the downward trend in PV prices for silicon panels, and possibly even threaten the economics of producers using cheap perovskites as an alternative. (Thanks to Gage Williams).
 
2, Tata Steel Netherlands. Tata Steel, one of the world’s top producers, announced that it had decided to switch its large plant at IJmuiden to ‘direct reduction’ using natural gas and eventually hydrogen. Earlier this year it had indicated it might continue to use coal with carbon capture and storage. The proposed switch to direct reduction is a confirmation of a growing trend in world steel towards the use of hydrogen, in this case strongly pushed by the need to reduce local lead pollution from burning coal. Tata didn’t reveal any figures about the cost of the transition probably because it is in negotiations with the Netherlands government about financial support. Given that both Germany and Spain have promised large sums to Tata’s rival Arcelor Mittal to convert to hydrogen in recent months, the EU is unlikely to object to assistance from the Netherlands. Tata indicated it would have to commence its operations using natural gas as the fuel and reducing agent but would switch to green hydrogen as soon as adequate offshore wind capacity is available. This move by Tata suggests a growing view in the steel industry that hydrogen is going to be the eventual winner of the decarbonisation race. 
 
3, Agrivoltaics. Combining photovoltaics and some types of agriculture looks possible. A new project in Germany puts PV panels above eight different varieties of apple, both to confirm the impact on fruit growth and to examine whether the panels can help mitigate some of the effects of climate change. For example,  the array can be used to protect the apples against intense rain. Among other uses the electricity will power a tractor and the watering system. The project developer BayWa r.e. has installed PV on several other farms. In the Netherlands, a 1.2 MW solar field sits above redcurrants. One advantage is that the panels can reduce peak temperatures on hot days by 10 degrees. 
 
4, Maltese hydrogen pipeline. The island of Malta has begun a preliminary study of a pipeline link to Sicily, about 150 km away. The pipeline is intended to eventually transport green hydrogen from ENI’s Gela refinery to replace the LNG currently imported to Malta. Adding the capacity to transport hydrogen is forecasted to add about 6% to the cost of a natural gas-only pipeline. The particular significance of this scheme is that it the first to propose a new pipeline to gain access to a future European hydrogen network. The electricity power plant that is the destination of the pipeline uses Siemens turbines that can be converted from burning natural gas to hydrogen.
5, 40% solar US. The US Energy department (DoE) looked at the possibilities for solar power in the US grid. It suggested a target of 1000 GW of US capacity by 2035, requiring annual installations over four times that of 2020’s record 15 GW. 1000 GW would provide about 40% of the US’s total need for electricity, compared to 3% from solar today. Up to 1% of US jobs would then be in the solar industry. The benefits from improved air quality could be worth a cumulative $1.7 trillion by 2035, equivalent to about 50% of UK’s annual national income or almost 8% of the US. No electricity price rises would be necessary, says the DoE.
 
It seems to me that stressing the benefits is the right way to push the energy transition forward. Carbon Tracker makes a similar point in a recent paper. The think tank says that ‘gain’ not ‘pain’ must be the dominant theme of November’s COP meeting in Glasgow. The key question is ‘how can we bring forward this great wave of innovation and wealth generation to avoid climate chaos’. 

6, Chevron. The oil major increased its commitment to lower carbon technologies. It announced a budget for capital expenditures of about $1.5bn a year to 2028, more than three times the previous target. But $1.5bn is still only about 10% of its proposed spend on fossil fuel projects. Nevertheless, it may be worth noting that four out of the last five corporate press releases relate to decarbonisation initiatives. One of these is the very interesting Utah hydrogen storage venture with Mitsubishi Power and another investor. The site sits above some of the world’s most usable salt caverns, probably the lowest cost way of storing H2 and next to the Intermountain power plant, which is slated to be gradually converted to burning 100% hydrogen. Chevron’s plan seems to be to become the operator of a distribution network that takes hydrogen produced in the region to the areas of greatest demand on the west coast of the US. (Thanks to Thad Curtz).
 
7, Volta trucks in London and Paris. Volta is a Swedish headquartered electric truck company. It said it would introduce a trial fleet of heavy 16 tonne vehicles into central Paris and London in early 2021. Using technology from Proterra, the US electric bus manufacturer, Volta offers a simple design with far better visibility for the driver. (80% of cyclist deaths in London are caused by heavy vehicles). The range between charges, at around 150 km on a cold day, isn’t huge but is probably sufficient for very dense urban delivery rounds. All being well, full scale production will start in Austria by the end of 2022. No mention of price in the announcement.
 
8, Tree planting. No-one argues against the idea of planting more trees. But reforestation schemes can be strikingly counter-productive. An article in Nature (paywall) examined the results of projects in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh in northern India and showed ‘that decades of expensive tree planting programmes in this region have not proved effective’. The percentage of forest cover has not risen and the composition of woodlands has shifted slightly towards coniferous types that are less useful to local populations. A large percentage of the trees planted appear not to have survived their first years in the soil. One of the authors of the paper wrote an interesting Twitter thread. The core lesson seems to be that increasing woodland cover requires the local community to willingly lead the tree planting efforts.
 
9, Partial decarbonisation of cement production. Cement production causes emissions partly from the combustion of fuel to heat raw materials and partly from the CO2 given off as the carbonates break down. Eventually hydrogen will be used as the source of heat in cement kilns but the capture of the CO2 from the production process itself is more difficult. French producer Vicat announced a joint venture this week with an EdF subsidiary to use about 40% of the carbon dioxide from a cement kiln on the Rhône near Lyon to make synthetic methanol. It expects to produce about 200,000 tonnes a year, about a quarter of France’s current demand, using locally made hydrogen from electrolysis alongside the CO2. Will the methanol be sufficiently ‘green’ to make it eligible for Maersk’s 8 new dual fuel container ships requiring 360,000 tonnes a year? I have asked Maersk and will report any response.
 
10, Basalt. In a previous letter I wrote about the prospective importance of using basalt dust spread on fields as a way of naturally capturing billions of tonnes of CO2. I couldn’t find any examples of current experiments. Reader Tanguy Tomes suggested one good example in western Wales where a charitable venture is spreading dust in an area that will be reforested. In addition, the experiment will add microbes and mycorrhizal communities (tiny organisms that work symbotically with tree roots) transplanted from existing forests to see whether this encourages growth and thus carbon storage. The basalt dust comes as waste from a local quarry that makes road aggregates.
 
In last week’s newsletter I gave a very imprecise summary of some McKinsey work on electric vehicles. As many readers pointed out (thank you), it was unclear whether the figure of 80% that I quoted for the increased emissions from EVs referred to their operation or to their manufacture. I should have emphasised that EVs save CO2 in use, even in areas with coal-generated electricity. The 80% increment refers to the typical emissions from the manufacturing cycle, largely because of the batteries. Apologies. 

Martyn1981

Boris confirms he doesn't understand climate science.

Perhaps the good news takeaway here, is that science deniers are now finding it almost impossible to deny the science that has been solid and beyond reasonable doubt for almost their entire lives.

But I do like the dodge Boris uses that he's changed his opinion in line with the science that has apparently changed ...... since 2015!

Johnson defends trade secretary after climate crisis denial tweets

Boris Johnson has acknowledged that he has altered his views about the climate crisis over recent years, saying, “the facts change and people change their minds”.

The shadow international trade secretary, Emily Thornberry, had highlighted a series of tweets sent by Trevelyan between 2010 and 2012 that explicitly rejected the science of global heating. “Clear evidence that the ice caps aren’t melting after all, to counter those doom-mongers and global warming fanatics,” read one.

Another, sent in support of a campaign against windfarms, said: “We aren’t getting hotter, global warming isn’t actually happening.” A third approvingly shared an article by an explicitly climate emergency-rejecting Twitter account Climate Realists.

As recently as 2015, Johnson claimed “global leaders were driven by a primitive fear that the present ambient warm weather is somehow caused by humanity; and that fear – as far as I understand the science – is equally without foundation”.

Okay, based on a handy comment I've found, perhaps I was being overgenerous with the age of the science, it goes back far further, I was thinking the papers in the 60's and 70's that showed a massive consensus (over 60%) of global warming, v's various other theories, such as cooling (~12%).

Johnson ........

my articles from 20 years ago you might find comments I made, obiter dicta, about climate change that weren’t entirely supportive of the current struggle, but the facts change

20 years ago?

The first scientific paper on what we now call the greenhouse effect was published in 1824.

An experiment showing CO2 was a key greenhouse gas was demostrated at a scientific event by Mrs Eunice Foote in 1856.

Svante Arrhenius published the first calculation of global warming from human emissions of CO2 in 1897. He'd started off investigating how changes in CO2 could be connected to ice ages.

There's a paper from 1956:
"The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change" - G. N. Plass 1956

......the average surface temperature of the earth increases 3.6° C if the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is doubled.......

(This number is a little higher than some more recent analyses)
Still, before long, the politicians will blame the scientists for not warning them.

"Still, before long, the politicians will blame the scientists for not warning them." Nice!