Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Well! It seems those clever bods at Stanford University have been at it again.

The headline says it all, and the article/essay runs through the arguments. Now, all we have to do is get on with it, or keep getting on with it - nothing can stop us now.................  wait ...... what ........ WHO!!!!!  So it seems that Jacob Rees-Mogg is now in charge of business and energy ...... so close, we were so close!

Switching The World To Renewable Energy Will Cost $62 Trillion, But The Payback Would Take Just 6 Years

Mark Jacobson and his colleagues at Stanford University have published a new study in the journal Energy & Environmental Science that claims 145 of the world’s nations could switch to 100% renewable energy in a few years using renewable energy technologies available today. They recommend the world make the switchover by 2035, but in no event later than 2050. Their goal is to have 80% operating on renewable energy by 2030.

The researchers looked at onshore and offshore wind energy, solar power, solar heat, geothermal electricity and heat, hydroelectricity, and small amounts of tidal and wave electricity. Batteries were the most common electricity storage solution, with the team finding that no batteries with more than four hours of storage were necessary.

“We do not need miracle technologies to solve these problems. By electrifying all energy sectors; producing electricity from clean, renewable sources; creating heat, cold, and hydrogen from such electricity; storing electricity, heat, cold and the hydrogen; expanding transmission; and shifting the time of some electricity use, we can create safe, cheap, and reliable energy everywhere,” Jacobson says. He is a staunch supporter of the Green New Deal.

The researchers say switching to renewable energy would avoid utility grid blackouts and save consumers trillions of dollars. One of the main reasons for that finding is that the combustion-based energy systems most countries rely require a lot of energy just to function. In switching to a clean, renewable energy system, Jacobson states that worldwide energy usage would go down by 56% immediately.

ABrass

At the moment commercial Solar systems must be incredibly good value. Possibly single year payback 

Exiled_Tyke

An interesting article mainly about how the renewables industry is prepared to take a hit on potential revenues to support the energy crisis. This does make me think 1: how much more ethical these industries are than the FF industries.  2. If the argument for not imposing a windfall tax on the FF industries is that they need funds for investment then how come the renewables sector can continue to grow and invest (as it is doing) whilst still taking a profits hit?  My cynicism in the FF industries has just increased in the same way my respect (and dare I say love) of RE is also increasing. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62832029

thevilla

A short term hit for long term guarantees.   A bit like the Hinkley Point deal.  Not particularly charitable but I'd vote for it for my bit of Ripple.

What I don’t understand is how is this better than existing cfd?  How much of RE is already under cfd and therefore already potentially capped?

Martyn1981

Couple of articles from Renews.

The first quickly reports on some of the Gov's policies for energy. This part really jumps out and smacks you in the face:

Truss said energy policy has not focused on securing supply over the last decade. 

She added the government will drive forward the acceleration of new sources of energy supply from wind and solar.

That's not really true, the Gov has focused on securing supply, especially onshore wind and PV, it's just that their focus was on minimising.

UK government to introduce CfDs for existing projects

And nicely linking to the second article, which covers the scale of current onshore wind schemes at various stages of progress. The theoretical operational scale for 2030 of ~30GW, would at the rough UK average capacity factor of 27% be equal to ~8GW, or around one quarter to one fifth of UK demand.

UK onshore wind pipeline 'now at 37GW'

A new report published by RenewableUK (RUK) shows that the overall pipeline of onshore wind projects in the UK has increased by more than 4GW in the last twelve months, from 33GW in October 2021 to 37GW today. 

The pipeline includes projects which are operational, under construction, consented or being planned.

If all projects in the pipeline were to be built, the UK could have 29.8GW of onshore wind capacity operational by the end of 2030, increasing to 34GW by the end of 2031, RUK said.

michaels

Exiled_Tyke said:

An interesting article mainly about how the renewables industry is prepared to take a hit on potential revenues to support the energy crisis. This does make me think 1: how much more ethical these industries are than the FF industries.  2. If the argument for not imposing a windfall tax on the FF industries is that they need funds for investment then how come the renewables sector can continue to grow and invest (as it is doing) whilst still taking a profits hit?  My cynicism in the FF industries has just increased in the same way my respect (and dare I say love) of RE is also increasing. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62832029

thevilla said:

A short term hit for long term guarantees.   A bit like the Hinkley Point deal.  Not particularly charitable but I'd vote for it for my bit of Ripple.

What I don’t understand is how is this better than existing cfd?  How much of RE is already under cfd and therefore already potentially capped?

Thanks, the rose tinted glasses of the first post troubled me.  Be interesting to see what the 'strike' price for bringing existing capacity into a CfD style regimen will be.  The govt have rather blown their negotiating position by ruling out a windfall tax so the generators can basically name their terms - perhaps shave of 25% of the amount they could sell for over the next 1-2 years for a 50% bump for the following 8 - good business if you can do it, people will be making a fortune by arbitraging the governments panic plans.

QrizB

thevilla said:

A short term hit for long term guarantees.   A bit like the Hinkley Point deal.  Not particularly charitable but I'd vote for it for my bit of Ripple.

Ripple isn't in-scope for the CfD switch, it seems - only RO-funded generators (who are, essentially, already under Gov't contract).

What I don’t understand is how is this better than existing cfd?  How much of RE is already under cfd and therefore already potentially capped?

Per the latest Ofgem report, in 2020-21 ROs are funding about 80TWh of renewable electricity generation, which was about 31% of the UK electricity market. Electric Insights thinks we produced (very roughly) 100GWh of renewable energy in the same period, whoch means 80% of renewable generation is subject to ROs.

The Guardian think that CfD's make up 15% of renewable generation, which leaves 5% for FITs and self-funded commercial projects like Ripple.

I might not be comparing like-with-like above but it gives an idea. ROs are by far the biggest slice of the renewables pie. Per Annex 4 ROs add about £25/MWh (2.5p/kWh) to the Ofgem cap; they're the biggest single component of the Policy Costs aka "the green levy".

CfDs on the other hand are currently negative, reducing the cap by £23.

Martyn1981

It's Sunday, so must be Carbon Commentary time. Here's this week's newsletter from Chris Goodall:

Industry news

Things I noticed and thought were interesting

Week ending September 11th 2022
 
1, Polysilicon availability. Power rationing in China in recent days has curtailed the production of polysilicon, the principal raw material for solar PV. This problem exacerbates the existing shortages caused by the rapid rise in demand for solar panels in China. The latest difficulties have further increased the price of polysilicon to about seven times the level of June 2020. How long will these shortages persist? Will they impede the long run growth of PV? The evidence suggests otherwise. One recent survey proposed that the price would continue to rise until early 2023 but then the huge growth in production capacity in China will stabilise the polysilicon market. The report suggests a doubling of potential factory output by the end of next year. Other sources have suggested that the investment going into polysilicon production will mean output in 2030 may be sufficient to produce 1 terawatt a year of PV, equivalent to today’s total global installations.
 
2, Hydrogen combustion engine. Dutch construction firm BAM gave details of its first asphalt paving machine powered by a hydrogen engine. The engine was supplied by a Netherlands engine specialist. The principal advantage of using hydrogen for a vehicle that makes asphalt roads is the small amount of time needed for refuelling. Importantly, BAM claims that the hydrogen combustion engine has very low emissions of nitrous oxide, a potential problem whenever hydrogen is burnt in air.
 
3, EV battery fast charging. Israeli startup StoreDot told us that it has shipped its first trial batteries to major customers in the automobile industry. It targets 100 miles/160 km of range within 3 minutes by 2028 for a standard EV battery pack. Its lithium ion pouches have a storage density of over 300 watt hours per kilogramme and are manufactured by its partner EVE Energy in China. But of course very fast charging EV batteries depend on the availability of equally rapid charging stations.
 
4, Solar fuels. Synhelion makes a tower that converts solar energy reflected from mirrors into direct substitutes for fossil fuels. Temperatures in the tower reach 1500 degrees centigrade, meaning that no electricity is needed for the conversion of CO2 and water into kerosene or other liquid fuels. The company announced that it has begun construction of its first trial plant in Germany. It targets a cost of $1 per litre by 2030 and production of enough aviation kerosene to supply half of the needs of Swiss airports.
 
5, Hydrogen bromine flow battery. Netherlands-based Elestor raised €30m for rapid expansion of its innovative energy storage technology. Investors included Equinor, the Norwegian oil major. Elestor makes a flow battery containing hydrogen and bromine, both available in large quantities. Various flow battery technologies have promised cheap long duration storage for at least a decade but thus far progress has been strikingly slow. Elestor may be different, not least because its process produces hydrogen when the battery is charging, possibly enabling integration into hydrogen transmission and distribution infrastructure.
 
6, Direct Air Capture (DAC). Details are incomplete but the US company CarbonCapture and its partner announced a plan for a 5 million tons a year DAC plant in Wyoming. This would be by far the world’s largest air capture plant. The scale can be judged by comparing it with Climeworks’ recent announcement of an intention to build a 40,000 tonne plant. The CO2 will be stored in deep saline aquifers. This project is a clear beneficiary of the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credit of $180 per ton for permanent CO2 sequestration.
 
7, Hydrogen transportation. An Australian group looked at the future potential for the export of hydrogen to Germany. Informed by interviews with 50 industry participants, it concluded that most exports will probably be in the form of ammonia, not liquid hydrogen which is too energy intensive and subject to high rates of ‘boil-off, nor hydrogen carriers such as methanol. One commentator suggested that 80% of Australian exports would be shipped as ammonia.
 
8, Hydrogen for steel. ThyssenKrupp said it had formally decided to begin the move away from coal at its Duisburg plant in Germany. Part of the reason for the final decision seems to be the increasing evidence of customer demand for green steel. 2.5 million tonnes a year will be produced using hydrogen, more than previously indicated. This is about 6% of German steel production, and about a quarter of the huge Duisburg plant’s total output. About 200,000 tonnes of hydrogen will be needed. Production is planned to start in 2026 but the company cautioned that ‘the major project remains subject to public funding’. 
 
9, Hydrogen trains. After extensive trials, a regional line in northern Germany has committed to convert entirely to hydrogen trains. This is a world first. The line runs for 100 km and the trains have enough fuel to continue operating for the entire working day. The operator has taken delivery of five trains on the route and the remaining nine diesel units will be replaced by hydrogen as they reach the end of their lives. The company commented that 'we are convinced that diesel trains will no longer be economically viable in future'. The manufacturer Alstom added that by 2035 ’15-20% of the European regional market could be using hydrogen’.
 
10, Rooftop solar PV. The rise in energy prices affects poorer households the most. A large Belgian scheme will put solar panels on the roofs of social housing across the country. Power generated from the PV will be sold to the tenants at lower and stable prices, reducing bills and shifting consumption to daylight hours. The target is 400,000 solar panels on 50,000 roofs (about 2.5 kW per house). Not all the electricity generated will be used in the house but the PV should provide around a third of a family’s needs, and around 0.2% of total Belgian electricity use. This scheme is probably the easiest way of reducing fuel poverty and cutting emissions and should be widely copied. The €150m cost of the scheme is coming from the European Investment Bank.  

Coastalwatch

At a mere 95MW it didn't strike me as being especially large and knowing how Aus relies on coal for much of it's energy generation  wasn't particularly impressed that it was proposed by a mining company. Until I learnt it wasn't coal but a mineral called Spodumene concentrate of which I knew nothing. Apparently, amongst it's other constituents is Lithium at around 6% so naturally a little more interesting and to the tune of 30,000 tonnes/year. So guess we should say "Good on yer Bruce", get a crack on.

Zenith plans Australia’s largest off-grid hybrid power plant for mining op

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/09/13/zenith-plans-australias-largest-off-grid-hybrid-power-plant-for-mining-op/

Martyn1981

No surprises here, but always good to see the message repeated:

Switching to renewable energy could save trillions - study

Switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy could save the world as much as $12tn (£10.2tn) by 2050, an Oxford University study says.

The report said it was wrong and pessimistic to claim that moving quickly towards cleaner energy sources was expensive.

Gas prices have soared on mounting concerns over energy supplies.

But the researchers say that going green now makes economic sense because of the falling cost of renewables.

"Even if you're a climate denier, you should be on board with what we're advocating," Prof Doyne Farmer from the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School told BBC News.

"Our central conclusion is that we should go full speed ahead with the green energy transition because it's going to save us money," he said.