Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

matelodave

I was reading about the UK use of nuclear energy and this graph was used to demontrate how much energy was being produced from differnt sources.

However what really stood out for me was not the mix of geneartion and how it has changed but the reduction in TOTAL leccy consumption between 2005 and now - it' looks like we are using around 30% less electricity than we were fifteen years ago.

A fact which seems to have escaped most people is that we seem to be making really big strides in reducing our leccy consumption although that doesn't seem to resonate very much with the hreen brigade.

Martyn1981

Hiya, just checking but you've posted a graph of UK leccy production, so we do have to take into account exports and imports, and the net imports for consumption.

Also I'm probably being stupid, but I can't understand the figures in context. They seem to suggest that current production is about 600,000GWh's, but that seems to be 2x too high, and gas seems to be out of proportion to RE, when they are both now at around 40%. Could this graph be showing energy in(?) so it reflects the higher primary energy of coal, gas etc v's the leccy energy that comes out, if so, then that helps to explain the greater reduction, due to the reduction in use of less efficient FF energy?

I have to say that the top of energy reduction has been popular on this board for over 10yrs, and there's been lots of acknowledgement and discussions about the significant efficiency gains that have been achieved - for instance in domestic consumption we've seen large savings from low energy lighting, LED telly's and more efficient compressors in freezers.

As a very rough estimate, I'd suggest demand over the last 20yrs has fallen from about 350TWh to about 300TWh, but obviously that's been impacted recently by Covid.

This Dukes report shows the figures, though I'm unclear about the sentence - "Electricity demand reached a record low in 2020 of 330.0 TWh", when it looks to have fallen under 300TWh, and may be a typo based on the opening 2000 figure, I'm not sure.

Chapter 5: Electricity


But yes, overall, the improvements are very impressive, and these reductions have been mentioned by the National Grid as part of the reasoning behind why they don't fear additional demand from BEV's, since both total demand, and peak time demand are lower than a decade or so ago.

Martyn1981

I'm almost starting to feel sorry for the FF industry ....... almost!  

Financial Markets May Kill Off Fossil Fuels Before Governments Do

There is an interesting email from Bloomberg Green today. It discusses how the cost of capital is going up for fossil fuel companies and down for renewables. The concluding sentence goes like this: “Markets may end up killing off fossil fuels before governments do.” Why is that? Let’s dig into the details behind that rather startling statement.

Investors want to be paid back with interest. How much interest is usually determined by how risky the investment is. The higher the risk, the greater the interest. Bloomberg executive editor Tim Quinson writes in today’s email that a decade ago, the cost of capital for for developing oil and gas projects and for renewable projects was pretty much the same — somewhere between 8% and 10%.

Not anymore, he writes. The threshold of projected return that can financially justify a new oil project is now at 20% for long cycle developments, while for renewables it has dropped to somewhere between 3% and 5%. That’s according to Michele Della Vigna, a Goldman Sachs analyst based in London.

“That’s an extraordinary divergence which is leading to an unprecedented shift in capital allocation,” Della Vigna says. “This year will mark the first time in history that renewable power will be the largest area of energy investment.”

Verdigris

However what really stood out for me was not the mix of geneartion and how it has changed but the reduction in TOTAL leccy consumption between 2005 and now - it' looks like we are using around 30% less electricity than we were fifteen years ago.

I doesn't surprise me. My consumption (and costs until the latest debacle) have gone down over the past 15 years, even though I have more electrical "stuff". I would say LED lighting is probably the largest factor in the reduction.

Martyn1981

News today that China and the US have agreed joint action on the climate crisis. lots of articles and opinions on this, but this one is quite good as it reviews/breaks down some of the decisions and statements:

Breaking News: China & USA Joint Declaration On Climate Action Collaboration

Coastalwatch

Thanks for posting that Mart. After being thoroughly depressed by news from the 10 day long farce of COP 26 I do at last see a ray of hope for the planets future. If the two largest and politically opposed nations can show progress then others must surely follow.

 

Martyn1981

2nd attempt - I suspect I didn't click 'post comment' yesterday evening before shutting down ..... silly billy!

[Edit - Turns out I posted it on the G&E ethical investing thread by mistake. Well  it's the thought that counts! M.]

Chris Goodall's Carbon Commentary newsletter time.

Things I noticed and thought were interesting

Week ending November 14th 2021    
 
1, Synthetic fuels. Researchers in Switzerland and Germany reported results from a two year experiment to make aviation kerosene using only heat from the sun and direct air capture of CO2. The small pilot plant (capturing a maximum of 5 kW) sits on the roof of a university building in Zurich. The scientists confirm the technical feasibility of their method of making the fuel, stating that ‘the technology is now sufficiently mature for use in industrial applications’. They also claim that when a large production plant is developed the cost of aviation fuel will be €1.20-€2.00 per litre. (The bottom end of this range is more than twice today’s wholesale prices for the equivalent fossil fuel and would add perhaps 15% to ticket prices). The researchers recommend that countries introduce quotas for genuinely sustainable aviation fuel in order to encourage the rapid take-up and consequent cost reductions of this technology (see note 3 below).
 
2, Fortescue hydrogen plans. Andrew Forrest’s company Fortescue announced partnerships with Jordan, Argentina and Papua New Guinea. The outline agreement with Argentina suggested that Fortescue might invest over $8bn in renewable electricity and hydrogen production. The media coverage implied that this investment will deliver more than 2 million tonnes of hydrogen a year, or around 3% of current global consumption. That isn’t exactly what was said. The $8bn investment would actually result in just over 200,000 tonnes of hydrogen a year, or around 10% of what was suggested, with an energy value of approximately 7 TWh. 
 
This is still highly significant but the partnership with Jordan, which wasn’t widely reported, may be more important. The kingdom has granted Fortescue rights to examine the solar or wind potential on about 1,500 square kilometres of land with a view to developing electricity generating capacity for hydrogen production. That area, if all devoted to solar, might produce more than 2 million tonnes of hydrogen a year. In another announcement, the company also said it would work with Papua New Guinea to build hydrogen generating capacity using hydro and geothermal electricity. 
 
In addition, Fortescue signed an understanding with the UK’s Bamford family, owners of the JCB construction machinery business. The contract will allow the Bamfords to buy 10% of the Fortescue’s global hydrogen production. If things go to plan, this would mean at least 1.5m tonnes a year by 2030, more than twice today’s total UK demand for hydrogen across all sectors. But we should also remember that even Fortescue, currently valued at around $32bn, will have to raise substantial new capital to grow its hydrogen interests rapidly.
 
3, More on synthetic aviation fuel. Vattenfall and Shell linked up to explore making an ‘electrofuel’ using LanzaTech’s technologies which turn H2 and CO2 into ethanol and then into a hydrocarbon similar to aviation kerosene. Vattenfall will supply the required CO2 from the flue gas from a district heating plant in Uppsala which is fuelled by household and industrial waste (and which will be zero carbon within the decade). The new venture is in its very early stages but is interesting for several reasons. It demonstrates that introducing mandatory quotas for aviation fuel, which Sweden has done, can be extremely helpful in encouraging businesses to begin work on genuinely sustainable manufacturing. And, second, Shell has previously said that it wants 10% of its aviation fuel sales to be sustainable by 2030 and it was looking for partners with the technology to achieve this. Lanzatech, whose technology is now well-established but not necessarily the cheapest, appears to be first provider to formally link with Shell on synthetic fuels. Shell also said it would work with Norsk Hydro to build a hydrogen business and indicated it would switch its Wesseling refinery in Germany, processing 0.3m barrels of oil a day, away from fossil fuels by 2025. Is the speed of change increasing at this oil major?
 
4, Small scale carbon capture and use. Last week’s news that world wine production will fall about 4% this year, largely as a result of climate-related losses in Europe, reminds us of the urgency of the threat to winemakers. Torres, the major Spanish producer, has been at the forefront of carbon reduction efforts over the past decade. It told us that it has successfully pioneered a new method of capturing CO2 from fermenting grapes and then using the gas productively. (Similar technologies are used in some breweries, but the cost is higher). Ballons above the winemaking tanks are inflated by the flow of carbon dioxide. The CO2 is then compressed and stored and used in the sterilisation of other tanks in the winemaking process. This saves the winery the cost of purchasing the CO2 for this purpose. The quantities are small but Miguel A. Torres, the president of the winemaker, said ‘This system is effective and profitable, and we're going to share it with other wineries so that, together, we’ll be able to significantly reduce the use of fossil-origin CO2’.
 
5, The climate impact of air travel. How much climate damage results from a return flight between Europe and New York? Henry Mance in the Financial Times gave us one estimate: one traveller’s share melts 3 square metres of Arctic summer sea ice. Another figure came in a paper published in Nature this summer. The author calculated that if emissions continued on their current path an additional 4,400 tonnes of CO2 will cause one more heat-related death. This is before any consideration of extra mortality from floods, storms and drought, or from food shortages. Thursday 11th November saw 13 flights between London Heathrow and JFK in New York. According to the researcher’s figures, these flights alone, combined with their return trip, will result in 2 incremental deaths just from higher temperatures. If the world does start reducing emissions sharply, the implied deaths fall, but even if net zero is reached by 2050, Thursday’s flights on this one route alone will cause 1 fatality.
 
6, Cost of capital. Goldman Sachs published a report that suggested that the cost of finance for some fossil fuel projects has risen to 20% a year. For renewables, the decline continues and is now 3-5% annually. These differences dramatically affect the levelised cost of energy. Many argue that divestment movements, such as those pushing universities to sell their stakes in oil and gas companies, have little effect. The shares simply pass from one owner to another. And the new owner probably has less interest in pursuing the company to improve its environmental record. I try to make the opposite case: divestment movements are pushing shareholdings into the hands of funds that demand much higher returns. This immediately reduces the attractiveness of fossil fuel projects, helping speed up the transition. Separately, even today’s higher costs of capital do not seem to fully reflect the risks that legal action around the world will oblige large polluters to pay compensation to their victims. About 1000 legal actions against governments and greenhouse gas producers have been launched in the last six years. Almost sixty per cent of those where a judgment has been reached were decided, at least in part, in favour of climate change victims. It might only take one successful action - perhaps Lliuya v. RWE - to affect the finances of the entire fossil fuel industry. This still does not seem to be included in their cost of capital. (Thanks to Thad Curtz).

7, Small nuclear reactors (SMR). The UK’s Rolls Royce announced it had raised £200m/$270m to fund the development of a 470MW SMR. The government said it would match this investment with a grant of a similar amount. The Rolls Royce SMR would enter service in about 2030 at a cost projected at around £1.8bn/$2.45bn for the 5th unit constructed. This implies a capital cost of around $5m per MW, about half the price of the large EPR reactors that are being built in Europe. If achieved, the $5/MW figure would be slightly less than the cost of the world’s largest offshore wind farm now being constructed off the UK coast at Dogger Bank (after adjusting for the projected 50-55% capacity factor for the turbines). But three factors should nevertheless make us cautious. First, Rolls Royce’s projections can only be early estimates. Second, the cost of all forms of renewables is tending to decline sharply. By the time the SMRs are built the cost of electricity from wind and solar is likely to be markedly lower than today. Third, and this point does not appear to have been weighed by the UK government, the projected costs of the most advanced SMR project in the world from NuScale in the US are roughly half what Rolls Royce is suggesting for its own designs. 
 
8, Green methanol shipping. Maersk and its tugboat partner Switzer said they would build a vessel by 2024 that will use methanol fuel cells, combined with power boosts from batteries when needed. The intention is to gain experience of using the fuel prior to the delivery of Maersk’s large order of 8 dual-fuel container vessels with green methanol capability in about 2025.   

Coastalwatch

And we thought Morrocco to the UK was ambitious. I wonder if they could be persuaded to direct some our way!

Chile wants to export solar energy to Asia via 15,000km submarine cable

The Antípodas project was announced by the Chilean government last week. It is aimed at taking advantage of the huge solar potential of the Atacama Desert, which is the world’s region with the highest solar radiation.

Piñera explained that, through the cable, the electricity produced by between 200 and 600 GW of photovoltaic generation capacity may transmit power to Asian countries when it is daytime in Chile and nighttime across the Pacific, or when it is winter in Asia and summer in the southern hemisphere.

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/11/15/chile-wants-to-export-solar-energy-to-asia-via-15000km-submarine-cable/

Verdigris

If nothing else, they could be a world centre for the creation of green hydrogen.

Martyn1981

OK CW, yet again you've shocked me. I'll admit to reading less of the PV news on the basis that you'll catch the good stuff for me .... getting lazy in my old age!

So, is this possible, practical .... no idea. I'm going to make a massive assumption and suggest that the higher generation in Chile, and therefore lower cost won't be enough to justify the transmission distance, v's locally installed PV. So the real issue here is the timing of the generation v's local storage costs, and again, just my guess, but that's probably cost effective, especially given Chile's predictable generation, plus the seasonal issues too, as mentioned.

If possible, then this is probably the Holy Grail of RE, given the incredibly low costs of PV generation, especially in sunnier areas. It could mean reduced intraday stiorage needs, and possibly no long term storage needs, if enough countries are suitably interconnected?

Expanding on the idea, I wonder if PV gen from Australia would help too. It's width (like the US) allows for PV gen crossing a lot of domestic time zones, and could also shift leccy from the southern to the northern hempishere?

Just an aside, but any project that encourages long distance transmission and increased interconnectivity of countries, would benefit the UK. Our off shore wind potential is almost mind blowing in scale, so exporting to western Europe, who in turn may be trading leccy through to the east and back (more and more), would help us.