Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

michaels

Martyn1981 said:

Not fun reading today, we have the unfolding humanitarian disaster in Ukraine, and also the latest info from the IPCC letting us know how badly we've done so far managing the climate crisis.

Perhaps Mr Putin's actions will help to minimise coverage of this report, a fossil fueled vicious circle. Ironically, his actions could accelerate a shift to RE, heatpumps, BEV's, demand side PV etc etc .......... yep, Mart looking for something positive as always.   

Climate change: IPCC report warns of ‘irreversible’ impacts of global warming

Many of the impacts of global warming are now simply "irreversible" according to the UN's latest assessment.

But the authors of a new report say that there is still a brief window of time to avoid the very worst.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that humans and nature are being pushed beyond their abilities to adapt.

Over 40% of the world's population are "highly vulnerable" to climate, the sombre study finds.

But there's hope that if the rise in temperatures is kept below 1.5C, it would reduce projected losses.

I was about to link this.  Shame that what should be the top story is getting zero traction today.  No offence to the Ukrainians but just like with the pandemic, climate change is actually the bigger story in terms of impact on people's lives but the news has such an immediate, short term focus (perhaps we all do) that understanding multi-year or even multi-decade impacts is just 'too hard'.

Martyn1981

News here for an off-shore wind turbine combined with 'waterotors' to extract energy from the water movement too. Interestingly, these seem to be aimed at reducing diesel leccy generation on oil rigs.

Waterotor Unveils 20MW 'Big Cajun' System Aimed at Decarbonizing Offshore Oil Operations

Hydrokinetic energy company Waterotor International Corp. on Tuesday unveiled its 20MW hybrid ocean energy-generating system aimed at decarbonizing offshore oil and gas operations.

The megarotor system design called “The Big Cajun” was unveiled at the Floating Wind Solutions 2022 convention in Houston, Texas.

"The 20 Megawatt Big Cajun is the first that simultaneously extracts energy from slow-moving water and wind. This worldwide, patented technology utilizes unique rotor stacks in low water speed and conventional wind turbines to extract large amounts of power," the company said.

Martyn1981

Article and links here about a green hydrogen production idea in Texas. Now, I may be misunderstanding this but from the mention of 60GW of 'behind the meter' RE generation, I think this project isn't to provide energy to the grid, but to provide green H2. Now, one of those uses may be for burning in a suitable 'gas' generation plant, but I don't think the idea here is storage, so much as producing a clean fuel for whatever needs it.

However, the article makes the point that the facility would also 'suck up' cheap excess RE from the grid when demand is low. Now, obviously that's not storage, certainly not in a conventional form, but having additional demand for excess, allows for greater amounts of RE generation capacity to be deployed, and thus greater amounts of RE generation per year.

Nuclear Disaster Vs. Green Hydrogen & Renewable Energy: Compare & Contrast

Texas provides an ample demonstration of the potential for green hydrogen to scale up and decarbonize multiple industries at a hot pace, especially when paired with green ammonia production. Hydrogen is the main ingredient in ammonia fertilizer (NH3). Ammonia can also be used as a fuel, and it is being eyed as a cost-effective transportation medium for green hydrogen.

In January of 2021, the University of Texas at Austin hosted a conference exploring the potential for Texas to become the “backbone of the emerging U.S. hydrogen economy.”

Just one year and two months later, the idea is already resolving into concrete form. Last night, the startup Green Hydrogen International announced the launch of “Hydrogen City, Texas” as the biggest green hydrogen production and storage hub in the world, with a green ammonia angle.

“Hydrogen City, Texas will be an integrated green hydrogen production, storage, and transport hub growing to 60GW in size and producing over 2.5 billion kilograms of green hydrogen per year,” GHI enthused. “The project is centered around a hydrogen storage facility in the Piedras Pintas Salt Dome located in Duval County. Pipelines will deliver the green hydrogen to Corpus Christi and Brownsville.”

HYDROGEN CITY, TEXAS

The world’s largest green hydrogen production and storage hub

Martyn1981

This article is all about the US grid, but I thought it was really interesting, in context, given all the posts on this thread about UK interconnectors, or Europe as a whole.

In the US, it turns out the East and West aren't that well connected to each other, and there's a 'seam' down the middle, which kinda makes sense with demand following FF generation. But if that seam is properly crossed, it would allow for better transmission of RE generation across the US. And the cost/benefit ratio is really impressive.

US Finally Stitches Renewable Energy “Seams” Together

For those doubting that the global economy can decarbonize fast enough to avert catastrophic warming, take a look over at the United States. The nation’s massive offshore wind resources are finally in the pipeline, and its land-based renewable energy profile is about to get a shot of adrenaline.  Two leading transmission stakeholders in the US have hatched a plan to stitch themselves together, opening a bottleneck that has held back wind and solar developers for years.

Last October, the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory published an update in the journal IEEE Transactions on Power Systems.

“Uniting the Eastern and Western U.S. electric grids could offer significant value in strengthening the power system’s ability to share generation resources and flexibility across regions, according to the Interconnections Seam Study,” NREL explained.

NREL senior research engineer Josh Novacheck emphasizes the impact on cross-country renewable energy resource sharing:

“With variable renewable resources like wind and solar contributing an increasing share of our nation’s electricity supply, the ability to transfer those resources across regions could be incredibly valuable—whether that’s in periods of power system stress, like extreme weather, or during a typical day when we want to take advantage of the best available resources.”

“Results show that increasing the transmission capacity between the Eastern and Western Interconnections could enable more economically efficient and flexible exchange of power throughout the United States—with scenarios showing up to $2.50 in benefits for every $1 of cost,” NREL explained.

Martyn1981

I have to say I'm more than a bit baffled at this government idea/suggestion.

Do we need to move away from dependence on Russian gas (and oil) asap, of course the answer is yes, but so is the need regardless, to move away from FF gas and oil asap.  But I have admittedly assumed, that ramping up existing extraction would already be happening given the current high prices and profits on the market. So I then assumed that additional exploration and extraction of new sources would take 10yrs or more - it seems it may be considerably longer than that.

So, without wearing green tinted glasses, isn't the obvious(?) alternative to accelerate:
the rollout of new RE generation,
the rollout of heatpumps,
and (how many times does this need to be repeated) insulate, insulate, insulate.

These actions would have results ranging from immediate (insulation programmes) to 1yr (accelerated PV farm approval) to 2yr (accelerated onshore wind farm deployment), to 5yr (additional offshore wind approvals, on top of the current CfD auction). [Note - The PV and wind times might need to be 1.5x to 2x longer for new proposals, but I'm thinking about those progressing through the pipeline already.]

Johnson hints UK oil and gas output must rise to cut dependence on Russia

Boris Johnson has said the UK may have to increase its domestic gas and oil production in order to wean itself off Russian resources, despite the opposition of climate campaigners and some scepticism in the cabinet.

The prime minister said the UK was looking at increasing North Sea output, although critics say it would take two decades to ramp up significantly and would have little immediate effect on the impending rise in domestic energy bills.

However, climate campaigners gave a scathing verdict. Greenpeace UK’s head of politics, Rebecca Newsom, said: “Boris Johnson is right that we urgently need to end our dependence on Russian gas, but more drilling in the North Sea is not the solution. It could take a quarter of a century to open up new gas fields, and the product will then be sold to the highest bidder on the global market, having no impact on our energy bills. It makes a lot more sense to reduce our gas dependence by insulating homes, installing heat pumps and boosting renewables.

Some cabinet ministers who support the push for net zero are concerned that Tories opposed to the target are using Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to undermine climate goals. The Times reported on Monday that Johnson was prepared to give gas companies a “climate pass” in order to increase reliance on the fossil fuel while the west weans off Russian gas, even at the expense of climate change targets.

A source close to one pro-net zero cabinet minister said: “There’s been a resurgence of this kind of argument, but it’s for the birds that anything is going to change. Every G7 country has a net zero target, and we now know, given the circumstances in Ukraine, that getting to net zero is very much in the interests of national security.”

Another cabinet source said it made sense to continue North Sea production as it was better to have gas supply domestically than elsewhere, but highlighted that “gas is expensive, and more expensive than any renewable”, adding that there was no quick fix for the problem of high prices.

Just my thoughts, and something that might offend the more G&E folk on here, but if it does, please believe me, that's not how I mean it.

The problem is one of cost, and the massive impact on household bills. New gas exploration won't reduce those costs. Less demand (insulation) will help, and shifting to RE faster, meaning less gas in the mix that makes up the average price will also help ..... so ....... OK I'm genuinely worried to post this .........

........ but an immediate solution* for costs, would be to halt the move to remove coal completely from the grid by 2024. I'm not in any way suggesting coal is OK, but over the decades gas and coal percentages on the UK grid fluctuated in relation to their costs and supply. Perhaps maintaining the ~2GW of coal generation, throughout the spring / summer  / autumn (which may be the plan anyway) is an acceptable move given the current and extreme situation? [Please be kind to me?]

[*Edit - Apologies, that was very badly worded, not a 'solution' but perhaps a small aid. M.]

Lastly, and trying to flip back to green and positive statements. The news seems to suggest that Europe gets 30-40% of its gas supply from Russia, so with a concerted effort to reduce space heating requirements and leccy generation from gas, perhaps that percentage could be addressed over the next 5yrs. It doesn't mean we have to end Russian gas imports, and hopefully by then we'll all be 'friends' again, but it would remove the price spike by better matching demand with supply. Plus, such a strong move and progress would almost certainly result in a continuation of such a policy rapidly reducing ongoing FF consumption. Maybe?

Coastalwatch

I couldn't disagree with that Mart unless it meant purchasing additional coal from Russia or opening a new coalmine here to ensure the supply required to keep exisiting coal powered stations running.

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

I have to say I'm more than a bit baffled at this government idea/suggestion.

The problem with Johnson's latest utterings on the subject is that they're a long-term response to a short-term problem. Oil and gas companies know this, and I'd be surprised if any of them are keen to take up new drilling opportunities given the expected sunset date for fossil fuels (not just in the UK but elsewhere).

I've seen gushing press reports regarding Rolls Royce's new small nuclear reactors but (unless there's some serious government intervention) the first of those is further in the future than Sizewell C is.

Keeping existing coal plants open, and increasing their annual running hours, will help with the short-term problem although I'm not sure there are enough of them still operable to make a big dent in our gas demand.

Getting a wiggle on with permitting and building the pipeline of RE projects will help, too; Ripple WT1 comes on-line next month but we could do with 1000 more of them!

And you're right, reducing demand needs to be included too; it has relatively high ROI and passive insulation has no ongoing operational costs.

Verdigris

I fear this current crisis will be seized upon by the usual suspects to put us back decades in decarbonising our economy. Ironically, it may be the FF companies that save us, with their greater expertise in looking into the future, from the ravings of the grotesques who inhabit the Tory back-benches.

Have a listen to the last 5 minutes, or so, of last Sunday's The Westminster Hour (R4) to see what I mean.

Martyn1981

Cheers guys, there's always a risk that comments can be misinterpreted, and in sensitive times like these, when even 'safe' folk (compared to the humanitarian crisis hitting those in Ukraine) in the UK are facing massive financial impacts, there really is no simple answer, just a least worse case I suppose.

@QrizB "The problem with Johnson's latest utterings on the subject is that they're a long-term response to a short-term problem."

That's the bit that has been making my head explode over the last few weeks and months. I don't want to appear naive but it seems so, so obvious. Plus I do believe in fairness, so if we encouraged an expansion in the FF industry, it would then be unfair to hammer the industry* in just 5-10yrs with reversals of policy, or just the simple fact that FF's are in for a hiding over that period anyway with expanding RE, HP's and BEV's gaining momentum.

*The 'industry' of course representing many workers and the indirect jobs related to it.

ABrass

To cut prices, keep coal and cause a problem down the line. To cut emissions and costs insulate everything.

We could probably build a new wind farm factory and start installing turbines faster than we could get more gas production on stream. The industry has said there's no real potential to increase the output of existing fields.

I expect coal will get a reprieve, the government doesn't really care about net zero, just the optics of it. I doubt we'll get the subsidised insulation for lower earners that is needed to help with fuel poverty.