Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

QrizB said:

There's a 2017 article here from the Institute of Civil Engineers looking at wholesale electricity prices from 2003-2016:

https://www.ice.org.uk/knowledge-and-resources/briefing-sheet/the-changing-price-of-wholesale-uk-electricity

I dimly remember electricity getting cheaper in the early 2010s; per the ICE, the average price in 2008 was over £70/MWh (equivalent to £95 now, per the BoE inflation calculator)!

That was fun, I'd forgotten the big spike.

Lately I've tended to use a figure of £30-£40 for considering CfD strike prices, and the subsidy element, but if prices remain above (or even fall to near £40), then a lot of RE may become net subsidy zero, which is something I know Michaels has raised regarding the amount of potential capacity rollout if the bids are low enough v's the Gov's estimated wholesale prices.

I appreciate that rising prices are not good news for many, but it's good to see that they have been here before, and if we play our cards right, then RE and storage, could stabilise prices at a reasonable level.

Alternatively, next time there is a glut of nat-gas and prices fall, I suspect some folk will complain about 'expensive' RE again.

Martyn1981

Carbon Commentary newsletter from Chris Goodall

 Things I noticed and thought were interesting

Week ending Newsletter 10th October 2021
 
1, More from Andrew Forrest. Australia’s Andrew Forrest is the world’s most active proponent (registration required) of green hydrogen and is driving his iron ore business towards net zero by 2030. He wants to make 15 million tonnes of H2 – 20% of current world production – by this date. The speed of his company’s innovations is unmatched around the globe, including the recent use of green ammonia in a locomotive and the development of hydrogen heavy truck with a 240 tonne payload. The latest step has been a plan to convert the company’s eight huge iron ore carriers to the use of ammonia as a fuel. The business also made a new promise to achieve Scope 3 net zero by 2040, largely by using hydrogen to turn its iron ore into raw iron for making steel. Forrest’s investment spending on hydrogen projects has been made easier by the high iron ore prices, creating huge cash flow for his company. (Thanks to Thad Curtz)
 
2, Orkney flexibility trials. The islands of Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland, have fabulous wind resources and the power system frequently has to disconnect turbines because of over-production. A useful experiment linked two community-owned wind turbines with 134 homes with electric storage heating. In periods of over-supply, householders were offered low cost electricity via automated and decentralised software. This was close to genuine ‘peer-to-peer’ trading with limited involvement from the electricity supplier. Volumes were small, averaging transactions of only 1 kWh for a total of 26 MWh but the software appears to have worked well. Mechanisms like this will form a vital part of the electricity system.
 
3, CO2 capture and use. A Danish foundation gave a large grant to set up a CO2 centre at Aarhus university. The intention is to pioneer ways of using carbon dioxide in productive ways. I was struck by the comments of Paul Vainikka, the CEO of Finland’s Solar Foods, which makes protein from air and electricity. He said “CO22 will replace almost all material use where oil is used today. Basically in plastics, chemicals, medicine, and some fuels. We have had so many bioeconomy and biotech centers on the planet, but no CO2 center, even if it is THE commodity of this century.” He is right; the world urgently needs to capture gigatonnes of CO2 a year and combine it with hydrogen as a replacement for fossil sources of carbon, as well as to draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
 
4, Methane reduction. The IEA tells us that methane is responsible for 30% of all temperature increases to date. About one third of methane getting into the atmosphere now is coming from leaks in the supply chain from natural gas well to the end-user. Much of this leakage could be very easily avoided. A 45% reduction would be possible at no net cost because of the value of the methane retained. The IEA suggests that countries concerned about methane leaks from producer countries should exert stronger pressure, perhaps by directing their purchases to gas suppliers that are taking appropriately aggressive action on unnecessary methane loss. The Energy Transitions Commission made similar recommendations in a recent report, saying that methane emissions from fossil fuel extraction could be cut by 60% by 2030 and agriculture should target a cut of 30% by the same date. The 30% of methane emissions arising from agriculture come largely from cows and their manure.
 
5, Plastics recycling. Carbios, a French company with rich intellectual property, opened its first demonstration plant in central France. This 2 tonne chamber will use enzymes to break down PET, the main constituent of soft drinks bottles, into the monomers from which the plastic is composed. This process should take less than a day. The monomers leaving the chamber can then be used to make new plastic bottles. Carbios intends to use the results from this pilot to inform how it builds its first large scale factory, which is scheduled for 2024 and will be built alongside an existing plastics factory. The immediate target is to make enough monomers to service about one thousandth of world PET demand.  The Carbios process doesn’t make plastic carbon-neutral and may only save about 20%-40% of emissions. The company also makes an additive which breaks down other plastics, including biologically-based ones such as PLA, in ordinary home composting. But plastics made from maize/corn, for example, still have a carbon footprint, albeit one that is smaller than oil-based equivalents.
 
6, Wind-powered shipping. The enormous rise in the costs of container shipping in recent months accompanied by increased oil costs may open a market for using smaller wind-powered ships. A grouping of companies pushing for the addition of sails to large ships has already said 40-45% of vessels could be using wind assistance by 2050. Retrofitting sails on existing ships can save 30% of emissions and the savings will be larger on new vessels. The group says that 12 large vessels already use wind assistance and the number is rising sharply as the cost savings become clear. These ships are ‘hybrid’, continuing to use conventional engines. But some shipbuilders want to go further, operating entirely with sails but with backup in case of zero wind.  The Swedish ship design company Wallenius has a 200 metre vessel under development which will carry 7,000 cars. It claims to be able to construct it by 2025, expecting to save 90% of fuel consumption.

TOWT, a French start-up with experience in running sailing ships for small cargoes, is fund-raising for its first ocean-going vessels. These will be smaller, carrying 1,100 tonnes but achieving speeds only slightly slower than today’s ships. The target market seems to be luxury brands seeking to claim near carbon neutrality. TOWT claims large numbers have signed up to use the service. Once again, the company says it will achieve a 90% saving in fuel. What will be the cost penalty? Before the recent flare-up in shipping prices (combined with long queues at some of the main container ports), TOWT estimated that its higher costs would add 20 Euro cents to the price of a bottle of wine. I guess that a small but not negligible share of customers would be prepared to pay this increment. And if the current congestion persists, TOWT might even become cost competitive as it slides into smaller harbours where the goods can be taken off by fork lift truck rather than waiting a month to unload at a container port.

7, EV sales. I wrote a piece that commented on the widespread coverage of growing EV sales around the world. Focusing on an article (paywall) in the Financial Times that suggested that we have just seen ‘an inflection point’ in the market share of electric cars, I plotted the data for the UK over the last five years. My graph shows that the ‘inflection point’, at least in this country, was actually over two years ago. It was in the summer of 2019 that electric car sales started growing by about 7% a month rather than the 2% previously. If we’d carefully extrapolated the growth rate of sales then, we would have forecast a slightly higher market share for EVs than actually occurred. But exponential growth always confuses us.
 
8, Carbon taxation. Why have large corporates moved so strongly in favour? In an interview with fund manager Pictet, I suggested that a world carbon price would allow management to switch to initially expensive low carbon technologies without fear of being threatened by investors. A uniform global tax is an absolute necessity but ‘This isn’t going to happen quickly or painlessly. I think we are likely to see a decade or more of faltering and highly contested steps towards a uniform world-wide carbon price.” Perhaps I was too pessimistic; Austria added itself to the lengthening list of European countries with a national carbon fee, which will rise to €55 a tonne in 2025, similar to the level in Germany.
 
9, Volkswagen and cycling. Sometimes large corporations say the most surprising things. Herbert Diess, the chairman of Volkswagen, wrote the following statement on LinkedIn. Cycling is fun, healthy and good for the environment. In overcrowded urban centres, the car - including the emission-free e-car - will only be accepted in the future if the bike has enough space in the mobility mix.   

Martyn1981

Nice bit of news that fits in with what I've seen over the last decade regarding public opinion surveys on renewables and tackling the climate crisis. In fact it looks to me as if support is still steadily growing, and I hope that is in part due to the falling cost of renewables, the lack of impact that RE actually has on us when rolled out (remember all the fear and angst about PV and wind farms), and the media now (mostly) pointing out that AGW is a fact.

Interesting ideas/solutions being proposed here, with a carbon tax being very popular, and helping to reduce the cost/impact of measures on those with lower incomes.

‘Overwhelming’ backing for strong climate action, UK study shows

The UK public backs a carbon tax on polluting industries, higher levies on flying and grants for heat pumps in order to tackle the climate crisis, according to the biggest analysis of policy preferences ever published.

Almost 22,000 people chose their favoured mix of policies to hit the government’s 2030 target for emissions cuts. A speed limit of 60mph on motorways and a campaign to reduce meat eating by 10% were also among the most popular measures, all of which had between 77% and 94% public support.

The public went further than the government, choosing to surpass the current carbon target by 3%. Age, location and political leaning made little difference to the policy choices, the researchers found, with an “overwhelming consensus” for strong and fair climate action.

The most popular suite of policies meant people earning less than £22,000 would be £44 a year better off, thanks to redistribution of the carbon tax to the less well-off and savings on heating and car bills. Those with incomes between £35,000 and £53,000 would pay £195 more a year to fund the policies. The policy suite was also estimated to support a million jobs by 2030.

• The most popular policy mix selected by the public was:

• A carbon tax of £75 per tonne on polluting manufacturing and construction businesses, with some funding to invest in new technologies, supported by 94% of people.

• Better-integrated public transport coordinated by local government (93%).

• Food campaigns and support from government, supermarkets and food companies promoting plant-based diets and cutting meat and dairy consumption by 10% (93%).

• A comprehensive UK-wide electric vehicle charging network by 2028 (91%).

• Raising flying costs, particularly on frequent fliers (89%).

• Some restrictions on cars entering city centres and a 60mph speed limit on motorways (82%).

• Support for less intensive farming and paying farmers to improve nature, including woodlands (79%).

• Grants for heat pumps and home insulation for low-income households and low-interest loans for others, reaching 1.4m heat pump installations a year by 2030 (77%).

Last week, Chris Stark, the chief executive of the CCC, said a UK-wide public information campaign on climate change and net zero could usefully be deployed, as is already underway in Scotland.

“There’s this feeling often of how difficult this will be. [But] many of the changes are profoundly positive, not just for the climate but also for things like health, air quality and our experience generally.”

Martyn1981

This is a great read, and short too. It runs through the numbers for the UK relying on wind and PV generation, with a simply vast amount of H2 storage to get us through the lows. This example would be so big as to actually offer/provide seasonal storage.

It suggests as much as 140-190GW of wind generation, which I'd suggest translates to roughly 70GW-95GW equivalent of constant generation (on average), when capacity factors are applied, and weighted towards off-shore wind being on a larger scale than on-shore. For comparison, current UK leccy consumption is about 40GW on average.

It then mentions storage potential of 115-140TWh of H2. We currently use about 1TWh of leccy per day, so assuming 50% generation efficiency, and a doubling of demand, that works out at a simply massive potential of ~30 to 35days. Wowza.

I don't know if the idea is intended this way, but I'm reading it as theoretical potential, and in reality would work, on a reduced scale, within a mix of solutions (mix of RE, storage, and interconnectors). But great to know that the extreme maximums can be solved, even if we never have to go that far.

'Green hydrogen critical for more efficient UK wind expansion'

“A System For All Seasons” analysed Britain’s electricity generation and consumption trends and found that renewable hydrogen produced by wind farms and stored in disused oil and gas fields will “reduce the need for the total electricity generating capacity of UK wind farms from 500-600GW by 2050 down to 140-190GW”.

Renewable hydrogen produced by wind farms and stored in disused oil and gas fields can also help avoid future winter energy supply crunches in the UK, the report, published by Energy Networks Association (ENA), highlighted.

Edit - The report can be downloaded/read here.

michaels

Presumably the storage level is set to meet the worst historic low RE weather pattern (with a margin).  IN reality this would mean on many occasions there would actually be more H2 available than that size of store would hold but this would have value.  I am trying to get my head round the economics of this scale of RE plus H2 storage build out and what it would cost per kwh at current prices - we know we could have as much electricity from wind as we want for about £50 or less per mwh based on the capacity auctions but we would need to add on the extra costs of the hydrogen storage/generation plus any remaining spill if we have built enough capacity to generate 2x our actual demand (does this double the price?)

Martyn1981

michaels said:

Presumably the storage level is set to meet the worst historic low RE weather pattern (with a margin).  IN reality this would mean on many occasions there would actually be more H2 available than that size of store would hold but this would have value.  I am trying to get my head round the economics of this scale of RE plus H2 storage build out and what it would cost per kwh at current prices - we know we could have as much electricity from wind as we want for about £50 or less per mwh based on the capacity auctions but we would need to add on the extra costs of the hydrogen storage/generation plus any remaining spill if we have built enough capacity to generate 2x our actual demand (does this double the price?)

At a guess, I'd think that generating 2x our demand, with the costs (and losses) of storage, would most likely double the price, but I don't think we'd need to generate twice our demand, only enough to cover the losses from storage.

For example, if you get 50% of your generation from storage, then that storage, in this example with H2, would need double, so 100%, plus the other 50% used at time of generation, so a total generation of 150% v's demand/consumption.

If we actually consume, on average more than 50% of generation, then the storage element and losses reduce.

We can further reduce the need for lower efficiency, longer term storage, with intraday storage, technologies that can demand follow, such as bio-fuels, PHS, and interconnectors. At a total guess, if we needed on average / or over a year, to get 20% of our generation from long term storage, then with H2, that would probably require a primary input of 40%, giving us an annual total of 120% ...... does that make sense?

Another way of looking at it, is if this H2 storage really is seasonal, then it may only cycle once pa, so 35days worth of storage is roughly equal to 10% of demand, and 20% primary generation, so 110% total. But I don't think that's how it would actually work, and some of it would cycle more often, as shown in the diagram on page 11 of the report.

[Note - If your question relates to my comparison to current leccy consumption of 40GW, then I should have pointed out that we will probably need to double that figure, due to BEV's and electric space heating, so apologies, as I didn't make that very clear.]

michaels

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

Presumably the storage level is set to meet the worst historic low RE weather pattern (with a margin).  IN reality this would mean on many occasions there would actually be more H2 available than that size of store would hold but this would have value.  I am trying to get my head round the economics of this scale of RE plus H2 storage build out and what it would cost per kwh at current prices - we know we could have as much electricity from wind as we want for about £50 or less per mwh based on the capacity auctions but we would need to add on the extra costs of the hydrogen storage/generation plus any remaining spill if we have built enough capacity to generate 2x our actual demand (does this double the price?)

At a guess, I'd think that generating 2x our demand, with the costs (and losses) of storage, would most likely double the price, but I don't think we'd need to generate twice our demand, only enough to cover the losses from storage.

For example, if you get 50% of your generation from storage, then that storage, in this example with H2, would need double, so 100%, plus the other 50% used at time of generation, so a total generation of 150% v's demand/consumption.

If we actually consume, on average more than 50% of generation, then the storage element and losses reduce.

We can further reduce the need for lower efficiency, longer term storage, with intraday storage, technologies that can demand follow, such as bio-fuels, PHS, and interconnectors. At a total guess, if we needed on average / or over a year, to get 20% of our generation from long term storage, then with H2, that would probably require a primary input of 40%, giving us an annual total of 120% ...... does that make sense?

Another way of looking at it, is if this H2 storage really is seasonal, then it may only cycle once pa, so 35days worth of storage is roughly equal to 10% of demand, and 20% primary generation, so 110% total. But I don't think that's how it would actually work, and some of it would cycle more often, as shown in the diagram on page 11 of the report.

[Note - If your question relates to my comparison to current leccy consumption of 40GW, then I should have pointed out that we will probably need to double that figure, due to BEV's and electric space heating, so apologies, as I didn't make that very clear.]

Martyn - that makes sense and I got the point about future demand being of order twice current consumption from your first email.  However this then suggests potentially no spill if we only need capacity for an annual average 70-95kwh and this is also demand - I would have thought even with H2 there might till be economics in favour of spill rather than build out of electrolysers that may only very rarely get used. Obviously the less overbuild the better the economics although that may also mean we need for H2 power stations to meet peak demand above minimal RE periods?

Martyn1981

Yeah, but remember the figure of 70-95GW of generation (140-190GW of capacity) is just for wind, not the total of RE, as the article also mentions excess solar generation for storage, just as an example.

I assume the article is focusing primarily on wind generation, since that will be the UK's main source of RE* and also since the anticipated shortfall(s) are expected in the winter, and hence why it sets out how storage can reduce/displace some wind overcapacity for those periods.

*Just as an aside, most RE models seem to suggest that PV will provide roughly 70% of the World's leccy needs, but the UK and similar countries, will be almost the opposite, relying on something more like 70% wind generation. This makes a lot of sense if you look at PVGIS and check the generation potential of Spain, just as an example, not only is PV generation almost twice as much per kWp, but the variance across the year is far, far smaller. For the UK, we might see a 4:1 ratio for June v's Dec, perhaps 3.5:1 if steep pitched and optimized for winter, whereas southern Spain is more like 3:2.

Martyn1981

This has a lot of potential, and is a great read, but my hopes aren't riding high.

Big Oil will have to answer questions about their lies and misinformation campaigns, just like Big Tobacco did, but 'we' need big oil at the moment, our lives are still sadly ruled by FF's, even if that's partly their fault. So how much action can be taken against corporations that effectively power the World?

Fingers crossed this will be a turning point, if only to convince more Americans that the climate crisis is real, but for once, my optimism is struggling.

Big tobacco got caught in a lie by Congress. Now it’s the oil industry’s turn

Two weeks from today, Darren Woods will face a potential doomsday moment before the US Congress.

As the CEO of ExxonMobil, Woods was paid $15.6m last year to run the richest, most powerful private oil company in history. But his earnings and influence will be on the line when he appears before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on 28 October. His testimony could mark the beginning of the end of big oil escaping legal and financial responsibility for the climate crisis.

Joining Woods, assuming that they all show up without being compelled by subpoenas, will be the heads of three other giant oil companies: Michael Wirth of Chevron, David Lawler of BP and Gretchen Watkins of Shell Oil. The Big Oil 4, let’s call them, will be questioned about what members of Congress call a “long-running, industry-wide campaign to spread disinformation about the role of fossil fuels in causing global warming”.

For the Big Oil 4 and their public relations advisers, the nightmare scenario is that 28 October will mirror the infamous congressional hearing that led to the downfall of big tobacco.

The parallels with big oil today are uncanny. The big tobacco lawsuit was “premised on a simple notion”, said Mike Moore, the attorney general of Mississippi, who initiated the case: “You caused the health crisis – you pay for it” by reimbursing states for the extra costs that smoking imposed on their public health systems. Replace “the health crisis” with “the climate crisis” and you have the very same argument that New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota and dozens of other state and local governments have made in their pending lawsuits against oil companies.

And just as tobacco companies lied for 40 years about the dangers of smoking, so too have the oil companies lied for decades about the dangers of burning fossil fuels. They saw today’s climate crisis coming – their own scientists repeatedly warned top executives about it – and decided, bring it on.

michaels

Martyn1981 said:

This has a lot of potential, and is a great read, but my hopes aren't riding high.

Big Oil will have to answer questions about their lies and misinformation campaigns, just like Big Tobacco did, but 'we' need big oil at the moment, our lives are still sadly ruled by FF's, even if that's partly their fault. So how much action can be taken against corporations that effectively power the World?

Fingers crossed this will be a turning point, if only to convince more Americans that the climate crisis is real, but for once, my optimism is struggling.

Big tobacco got caught in a lie by Congress. Now it’s the oil industry’s turn

Two weeks from today, Darren Woods will face a potential doomsday moment before the US Congress.

As the CEO of ExxonMobil, Woods was paid $15.6m last year to run the richest, most powerful private oil company in history. But his earnings and influence will be on the line when he appears before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on 28 October. His testimony could mark the beginning of the end of big oil escaping legal and financial responsibility for the climate crisis.

Joining Woods, assuming that they all show up without being compelled by subpoenas, will be the heads of three other giant oil companies: Michael Wirth of Chevron, David Lawler of BP and Gretchen Watkins of Shell Oil. The Big Oil 4, let’s call them, will be questioned about what members of Congress call a “long-running, industry-wide campaign to spread disinformation about the role of fossil fuels in causing global warming”.

For the Big Oil 4 and their public relations advisers, the nightmare scenario is that 28 October will mirror the infamous congressional hearing that led to the downfall of big tobacco.

The parallels with big oil today are uncanny. The big tobacco lawsuit was “premised on a simple notion”, said Mike Moore, the attorney general of Mississippi, who initiated the case: “You caused the health crisis – you pay for it” by reimbursing states for the extra costs that smoking imposed on their public health systems. Replace “the health crisis” with “the climate crisis” and you have the very same argument that New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota and dozens of other state and local governments have made in their pending lawsuits against oil companies.

And just as tobacco companies lied for 40 years about the dangers of smoking, so too have the oil companies lied for decades about the dangers of burning fossil fuels. They saw today’s climate crisis coming – their own scientists repeatedly warned top executives about it – and decided, bring it on.

I don't know if this is a good or bad thing but I know who will be the winners - US lawyers, and who will be the losers - everyone who ends up paying more for heating, insurance etc etc  Darren Woods with his 15.6m pa will not be affected.