Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Found one -

UK Wind Power Hits a Record, Easing Reliance on Expensive Gas

UK wind farms generated a record amount of electricity on Wednesday, relieving the country’s power grid from having to rely on natural gas plants.

UK wind power generation rose to more than 19.9 gigawatts, passing a record set in May this year, according to data from National Grid. Breaking wind power records will become an increasingly common occurrence as Britain adds more wind farms at sea to help achieve its goal to reach net-zero carbon emissions by the middle of the century. 

Martyn1981

Call for increased investment in RE, as we approach a nice milestone, where we may, finally stop adding more CO2 to the environment than the year before. Obviously we will still be adding vast amounts, but at least it will be a diminishing amount. Looks like Russia's invasion of Ukraine has helped turbocharge things.

Just a thought on spending. The article states this:-

Under the new plans investment in low-carbon energy such as solar, wind and nuclear power will rise to $2tn (£1.7tn) a year by 2030, an increase of more than 50% from today. However, annual clean energy investment would have to reach $4tn by 2030 to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, a figure that illustrates the scale of the challenge facing governments around the world.

I'm assuming/guessing that most of that $4tn won't be subsidies or additional spending, 'just' spending on RE instead of spending on something else, like gas generation. Similar to buying a BEV instead of an ICEV, it's not the cost of the BEV, but the cost difference that's important. So maybe(?) the $4tn isn't as scary as it sounds, and will partially transition naturally as the economics favour RE.

Carbon emissions from energy to peak in 2025 in ‘historic turning point’, says IEA

Global carbon emissions from energy will peak in 2025 thanks to massively increased government spending on clean fuels in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to analysis by the world’s leading energy organisation.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said that government spending on clean energy in response to the crisis would mark a “historic turning point” in the transition away from fossil fuels, in its annual report on global energy.

The invasion of Ukraine has prompted an energy crisis around the world, with global gas prices initially surging. The crisis has caused steep inflation that has made households poorer around the world.

Birol said the crisis had not changed the IEA’s assessment, first published last year, that all new fossil fuel projects should stop immediately in order for the world to hit net zero emissions by 2050. New oil and gas extraction projects “will jeopardise our climate goals”, he said.

He also dismissed criticism from some climate deniers that spending on clean energy had contributed to higher energy prices, saying that argument was “hiding who sparked the energy crisis, which is Russia”. The IEA found that higher shares of renewable energy were correlated with lower electricity prices.

“None of the government leaders complained about too much clean energy,” Birol said. “They complain that they don’t have enough clean energy.”

paul991

The new London buses that charge wirelessly from the roof and are a world first (msn.com) nice to london at least is trying to go green

zeupater

70sbudgie said:

I don't disagree that nimbyism is a big problem. But will the current energy crisis have an effect on that? Surely a windfarm is better than a nuclear power station visible from home?

The tin hat bit is way too cryptic for me to be able to process right now. Am I the only one that would appreciate a less politic translation?

Hi

The issue that I was trying to convey is that recent nimbyism has nothing to do with back yards & visibility, it's controlled by protest groups from far afield acting on the grounds that they're locals & have a right to object to whatever development they 'dislike' without looking at the larger picture, obviously it's in their interests to find a couple of clueless real locals to get onboard through well rehearsed misinformation, but that's how it goes ... we have a number of ~5MWp PV farms within walking distance which were opposed by various groups using all of the usual arguments ... including the very rare newts that seem to be so endangered that wherever you plan to dig a hole around here you seem to have to be careful where to tread ...

 ... then again, we all see that wind turbines slice the majority of nearby cute little birdies and birds of prey into a fine salami, and of course there's the sushi equivalent in tidal flow schemes, rare pasture grasses & orchids whenever a reservoir is proposed, migrating bird wetlands for the Severn barrier ... of course, these should all be important considerations, but in failing to weigh priorities against the bigger picture all of these groups (if they believe in climate change!) are ultimately ensuring both their 'interest' & themselves are doomed to extinction ... however, even if they don't associate what they're protesting with climate change but own a cat or a car they themselves already have a share of responsibility for far more slaughter of the 'little birdies' than wind-turbines likely ever would ...

Anyway, on 'tin foil hats', I thought that everyone was aware of the phrase ... but, for reference ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_foil_hat ...

HTH - Z 

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

Just a thought on spending. The article states this:-

Under the new plans investment in low-carbon energy such as solar, wind and nuclear power will rise to $2tn (£1.7tn) a year by 2030, an increase of more than 50% from today. However, annual clean energy investment would have to reach $4tn by 2030 to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, a figure that illustrates the scale of the challenge facing governments around the world.

I'm assuming/guessing that most of that $4tn won't be subsidies or additional spending, 'just' spending on RE instead of spending on something else, like gas generation. Similar to buying a BEV instead of an ICEV, it's not the cost of the BEV, but the cost difference that's important. So maybe(?) the $4tn isn't as scary as it sounds, and will partially transition naturally as the economics favour RE.

If Wikipedia is to be believed, world GDP is around $160Tn so $4Tn is 2.5% of world GDP. Which doesn't sound too scary at all.

Coastalwatch

Probably preaching to the converted here, but guess it doesn't hurt to post latest research findings on relative cost of FF energy generation compared to that of renewables.

New solar capacity 10 times cheaper than gas, says Rystad

Operating gas-fired power plants would be 10 times more expensive in the long-term than building new solar capacity in Europe, according to research from intelligence company Rystad. Their study uses the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for gas and coal-fired power generation at different price levels and compares it to the LCOE of solar PV and wind.

Europe has seen skyrocketing gas prices since the drop in Russian gas exports, with spot prices on the Netherlands-based Title Transfer Facility (TTF) rising to an average €134 ($135.15)/MWh so far this year. Rystad forecasts prices will stabilize at around €31 per MWh by 2030, which puts the LCOE of existing gas-fired plants closer to €150 per MWh.

“This is still three times more than the LCOE of new solar PV facilities. For gas-fired plants to continue being competitive, gas prices would need to fall closer to €17 per MWh and carbon prices would need to fall to €10 per tonne, which is currently unthinkable,” the company said in a statement.

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/10/27/new-solar-capacity-10-times-cheaper-than-gas-says-rystad/

Martyn1981

This line from the article smacked me right across the face today:

A week ago, all of the electricity demand in South Australia was met by solar — rooftop and utility — from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.

Wow things are changing fast. Makes me a bit jealous though that we don't have the levels of sunshine that so much of the planet's population will be able to rely on for much of their generation. I think Aus has a worst to best month ratio for PV gen of about 1:1.5, whereas the UK is around 1:4 for south facing, and about 1:7 in my case with E/W orientation.

Solar Powering South Australia Completely For Several Hours A Day

A week ago, all of the electricity demand in South Australia was met by solar — rooftop and utility — from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. That’s six hours of free power from the sun. Sometime this year (remember, we in the antipodes are heading into summer) all operational demand being met by renewables may become the norm. Excess supply is being exported to Victoria or stored in batteries. The Hornsdale (Tesla) “Big Battery” is proving that it is far more useful than the Big Banana. And Electro might drop in for a snack.

Only a few years ago, South Australia’s Big Battery was being ridiculed, and predictions of an apocalyptic nature were being made about the state grid. Now, it is an example to the world and a supplier of electricity to the other states. From 2025, the link to New South Wales will also be able to handle any excess power generated in South Australia.

gefnew

Welsh town to use electric charging points to attract tourist.
Rhyl to open major electric vehicle charging site - BBC News

gefnew

Some news on carbon capture from National grid.
Humber: Consultation begins on carbon capture pipeline - BBC News

Martyn1981

I thought this article was very interesting. Not just the new milestone of RE (briefly) hitting 2/3rds of Australia grid demand, but the info on how fast this has risen, a 4% increase on the previous high in Sept, and 5yrs ago the high was 30%.

Astonishing how quickly they seem to be turning things around, now that they've embraced cheap RE. The coal loving nation is ending coal generation by 2035, with many power stations shutting earlier.

Renewable energy contributes record 68.7% of power to Australia’s main grid for brief period

Renewable energy generation hit a new record on Friday, briefly contributing more than two-thirds of the power in Australia’s main grid.

According to the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo), the milestone was set at 12.30pm, with a contribution of 68.7%, or 18,882MW, from renewable sources.

The figure is 4.6 percentage points higher than the previous record, which was set on 18 September.
Of total power in the grid on Friday, 34% came from distributed solar, which outstripped black coal’s contribution of 22%.

A July report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) found Australia was now among the world leaders in cheap solar energy.

Behind China and India, in 2021 Australia had the third-lowest utility-scale solar cost in the world, of $0.042 USD/kWh (AU$0.065). This represented a 21% year-on-year drop in price.

According to Irena data, the average cost of electricity from utility-scale solar has dropped by 90% in Australia since 2010.

On the subject of Australia, some recent analysis has shown that the amount of storage needed, for a ~100% RE grid, may be far smaller than I'd thought possible. Perhaps as low as 5hrs of storage. [But tbc, this is for the Aussie grid, where highly predictable, and cheap PV is possible.]

Rather than an endlessly reheated nuclear debate, politicians should be powered by the evidence

David Osmond, a Canberra-based engineer with the global energy developer Windlab, is among those with a markedly different, evidence-based take. For more than a year, he has been posting weekly results from a live simulation tracking what would happen in Australia’s main electricity grid if it relied primarily on renewable energy.

Using a live stream of electricity data from Opennem, he adjusted inputs to see what would happen if there was enough wind and solar energy to supply 60% and 45% of demand respectively. He added enough short-term storage, likely to be in the form of batteries, to supply average demand for five hours.

The results are encouraging. They suggest close to 100% of demand – 98.9% over a 61-week period – could be delivered by solar and wind backed by existing hydro power and the five hours of storage. Nearly 90% of demand was met directly by renewable energy and 10% had to pass through storage. Achieving it would require a major expansion of transmission, as proposed by Labor under its Rewiring the Nation policy.