Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Impressive result for the UK with falling emissions. Perhaps the dig at France is a bit cheeky given they have a lot of nuclear, so harder to reduce their comparative emissions.

I'd also risk saying that the potential to shift emissions from space heating and transport look very promising. Hopefully within just a few years, we'll see costs for the technology fall, and the price of leccy too, as Europe as a whole continues to shift away from gas, and the price spike caused by the invasion of Ukraine.

I know I'm ever the optimist, but there could be a lot of momentum for change/progress in the second half of this decade. I'm also assuming that the negativity and FUD about HP's, BEV's and storage will now start to decline, just like it did for on-shore wind and PV over the last 10-15yrs, as reality displaces fear of the unknown.

UK halves emissions since 1990

The UK is the first major economy to halve its emissions, having cut them by 50% between 1990 and 2022, while also growing its economy by 79%.

New official statistics released today from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero found this compares to a 23% reduction in France and no change in the USA between 1990 and 2021.

With renewables now accounting for more than 40% of the country’s electricity – up from just 7% in 2010, this shows the UK is leading the way on cleaner energy, DESNZ stated.

These reductions are largely due to cutting emissions from energy generation, through the shift away from using coal to using renewables.

zeupater

NigeWick said:

zeupater said:

Personally, obviously I don't consider biomass burning to be 'greenwashing', but neither do I consider it to be a 'silver bullet' solution ... but it should certainly be considered as being a component in the overall goal of balanced sustainability ... after all it's the very existence and cycling (/recycling) of biomass that differentiates our planet and it's ability to sustain life from anywhere else that our current level of scientific knowledge can identify .... 

On that, "beam me up Scotty I need a cuppa!" ... Z

We'll have to agree to disagree. I am an adherent of Tony Seba as he has been proven to be right over a number of years. By building a lot more renewables than enough, with adequate storage, he has shown numbers that offer comparatively cheap electricity without nuclear or fossil energy production. 

I really do appreciate the time an effort you put into your explanations. I am having a cuppa as I write.

Hi

The issue remains that the scale of renewables build within the context of politically demanded timescales results in an inevitable energy gap. Logic would say that denying the ability to do good today and doing nothing until the perfect is available is a flawed concept .... 

Considering this, I've also been following the Tony Seba thought process on disruption for years and have concluded that he's right on many things related to technology transformation, but that being entirely from the application of historical disruption to 'things' with current 'things' that will likely provide similar disruptive outcomes using similar patterns over similar timescales, for example past transport disruption where car replacing horse can be applied to EV replacing ICE. This is completely different to his predictions on various biomes where the thought process is active reforestation of huge tracts of agricultural land after taking it out of production ....

I don't think I've ever seen TS reference to biomass combustion other than raise biofuels related to transport, which I take to be the likes of bio-diesel & ethanol as opposed to direct combustion. This obviously makes sense because it both stands to slow the pace of EV disruption and introduces a huge new market for agricultural products on land which would otherwise be considered for reforestation. What needs to be considered is that TS's thoughts on addressing climate change rely heavily on convincing the general public to effectively become vegetarian, if not vegan, through the industrialisation of food through PF (precision fermentation) and CA (cellular agriculture) ... in short, the plan would be to stop small farmers producing meat, buying up the land to prevent the reintroduction of animal husbandry, then through subsidising large corporations to invest in bioreactors to grow microbes and process them into a meat-like protein .... I can't think of anything like this being done before (apart from under extreme Marxist regimes), so I'm not sure what relevant uptake models could possibly be applied in democratic societies ...

Don't know about everyone else's thoughts on this, but I see a real difference between disruptive technologies where the people/market drives the change and politically enforced societal disruption which is effectively designed to choke off supply leaving demand to raise prices to a level which forces compliance with an agenda based more on heavily centralised supply, the related profits related to those few suppliers, and of course the level of centralised power of control which this brings .... effectively the outcome moves from one of 'disruptive technology' towards one that simply boils down to 'comply-or-die' .... 

Anyway, back to burning biomass related to TS's position ... I believe that much of his disruptive thinking is based on doing things which can be done immediately, in saying "We do not need to wait decades or spend hundreds of billions of dollars in a desperate bid to develop unproven breakthrough technologies"  which effectively mirrors what I wrote in the last post - "Where short cycle biomass is readily available and easily replaceable and can almost immediately substitute for long cycle fossil fuel generation with little investment/disruption then what's the issue?" both myself & TS seem to be in lockstep ... so, let's not overlook the good that can be done today in the hope of the perfect that the future can possibly hold ...  

HTH - Z

Martyn1981

Hi Z, just a teeny weeny example of sustainable bio-mass, but I recall an article on Working Lunch, must be 15yrs ago(?). It involved a builders merchants / timber supplier. They had several large wood worrking machines, such as saw benches and planers. These had large vacumn's attached and filled very large bags with saw dust/shavings. They had to pay to have this removed.

Then they installed a wood compressor/pellet machine and pellet boiler. The pellets were very large, the extrusion pipe was about the size of a scaffolding pole (in diameter). The cost of the equipment had (I seem to remember) a 5ish year payback, via winter gas savings by switching to the bio-mass boiler, and also selling excess pellets to local customers.

Whilst, as I've said, I'm not sure the UK can manage large scale bio-mass, such as Drax's scale, there are I assume lots of smaller examples, such as this, that fit within your statement - Where short cycle biomass is readily available and easily replaceable and can almost immediately substitute for long cycle fossil fuel generation with little investment/disruption then what's the issue?

NigeWick

zeupater said:

NigeWick said:

zeupater said:

Personally, obviously I don't consider biomass burning to be 'greenwashing', but neither do I consider it to be a 'silver bullet' solution ... but it should certainly be considered as being a component in the overall goal of balanced sustainability ... after all it's the very existence and cycling (/recycling) of biomass that differentiates our planet and it's ability to sustain life from anywhere else that our current level of scientific knowledge can identify .... 

On that, "beam me up Scotty I need a cuppa!" ... Z

We'll have to agree to disagree. I am an adherent of Tony Seba as he has been proven to be right over a number of years. By building a lot more renewables than enough, with adequate storage, he has shown numbers that offer comparatively cheap electricity without nuclear or fossil energy production. 

I really do appreciate the time an effort you put into your explanations. I am having a cuppa as I write.

Hi

The issue remains that the scale of renewables build within the context of politically demanded timescales results in an inevitable energy gap. Logic would say that denying the ability to do good today and doing nothing until the perfect is available is a flawed concept .... 

Considering this, I've also been following the Tony Seba thought process on disruption for years and have concluded that he's right on many things related to technology transformation, but that being entirely from the application of historical disruption to 'things' with current 'things' that will likely provide similar disruptive outcomes using similar patterns over similar timescales, for example past transport disruption where car replacing horse can be applied to EV replacing ICE. This is completely different to his predictions on various biomes where the thought process is active reforestation of huge tracts of agricultural land after taking it out of production ....

I don't think I've ever seen TS reference to biomass combustion other than raise biofuels related to transport, which I take to be the likes of bio-diesel & ethanol as opposed to direct combustion. This obviously makes sense because it both stands to slow the pace of EV disruption and introduces a huge new market for agricultural products on land which would otherwise be considered for reforestation. What needs to be considered is that TS's thoughts on addressing climate change rely heavily on convincing the general public to effectively become vegetarian, if not vegan, through the industrialisation of food through PF (precision fermentation) and CA (cellular agriculture) ... in short, the plan would be to stop small farmers producing meat, buying up the land to prevent the reintroduction of animal husbandry, then through subsidising large corporations to invest in bioreactors to grow microbes and process them into a meat-like protein .... I can't think of anything like this being done before (apart from under extreme Marxist regimes), so I'm not sure what relevant uptake models could possibly be applied in democratic societies ...

Don't know about everyone else's thoughts on this, but I see a real difference between disruptive technologies where the people/market drives the change and politically enforced societal disruption which is effectively designed to choke off supply leaving demand to raise prices to a level which forces compliance with an agenda based more on heavily centralised supply, the related profits related to those few suppliers, and of course the level of centralised power of control which this brings .... effectively the outcome moves from one of 'disruptive technology' towards one that simply boils down to 'comply-or-die' .... 

Anyway, back to burning biomass related to TS's position ... I believe that much of his disruptive thinking is based on doing things which can be done immediately, in saying "We do not need to wait decades or spend hundreds of billions of dollars in a desperate bid to develop unproven breakthrough technologies"  which effectively mirrors what I wrote in the last post - "Where short cycle biomass is readily available and easily replaceable and can almost immediately substitute for long cycle fossil fuel generation with little investment/disruption then what's the issue?" both myself & TS seem to be in lockstep ... so, let's not overlook the good that can be done today in the hope of the perfect that the future can possibly hold ...  

HTH - Z

Once again, thanks for a thoughtful response. I believe precision fermentation will be the end of farming as we know it because people want cheaper nutrition if it tastes alright. Does it take less time to build a biomass burner and grow trees than putting up wind turbines or solar panels? One problem I have with burning biomass is the resulting pollution. Then there's transporting the wood chippings from Canada to Drax.

zeupater

NigeWick said:

zeupater said:

NigeWick said:

zeupater said:

Personally, obviously I don't consider biomass burning to be 'greenwashing', but neither do I consider it to be a 'silver bullet' solution ... but it should certainly be considered as being a component in the overall goal of balanced sustainability ... after all it's the very existence and cycling (/recycling) of biomass that differentiates our planet and it's ability to sustain life from anywhere else that our current level of scientific knowledge can identify .... 

On that, "beam me up Scotty I need a cuppa!" ... Z

We'll have to agree to disagree. I am an adherent of Tony Seba as he has been proven to be right over a number of years. By building a lot more renewables than enough, with adequate storage, he has shown numbers that offer comparatively cheap electricity without nuclear or fossil energy production. 

I really do appreciate the time an effort you put into your explanations. I am having a cuppa as I write.

Hi

The issue remains that the scale of renewables build within the context of politically demanded timescales results in an inevitable energy gap. Logic would say that denying the ability to do good today and doing nothing until the perfect is available is a flawed concept .... 

Considering this, I've also been following the Tony Seba thought process on disruption for years and have concluded that he's right on many things related to technology transformation, but that being entirely from the application of historical disruption to 'things' with current 'things' that will likely provide similar disruptive outcomes using similar patterns over similar timescales, for example past transport disruption where car replacing horse can be applied to EV replacing ICE. This is completely different to his predictions on various biomes where the thought process is active reforestation of huge tracts of agricultural land after taking it out of production ....

I don't think I've ever seen TS reference to biomass combustion other than raise biofuels related to transport, which I take to be the likes of bio-diesel & ethanol as opposed to direct combustion. This obviously makes sense because it both stands to slow the pace of EV disruption and introduces a huge new market for agricultural products on land which would otherwise be considered for reforestation. What needs to be considered is that TS's thoughts on addressing climate change rely heavily on convincing the general public to effectively become vegetarian, if not vegan, through the industrialisation of food through PF (precision fermentation) and CA (cellular agriculture) ... in short, the plan would be to stop small farmers producing meat, buying up the land to prevent the reintroduction of animal husbandry, then through subsidising large corporations to invest in bioreactors to grow microbes and process them into a meat-like protein .... I can't think of anything like this being done before (apart from under extreme Marxist regimes), so I'm not sure what relevant uptake models could possibly be applied in democratic societies ...

Don't know about everyone else's thoughts on this, but I see a real difference between disruptive technologies where the people/market drives the change and politically enforced societal disruption which is effectively designed to choke off supply leaving demand to raise prices to a level which forces compliance with an agenda based more on heavily centralised supply, the related profits related to those few suppliers, and of course the level of centralised power of control which this brings .... effectively the outcome moves from one of 'disruptive technology' towards one that simply boils down to 'comply-or-die' .... 

Anyway, back to burning biomass related to TS's position ... I believe that much of his disruptive thinking is based on doing things which can be done immediately, in saying "We do not need to wait decades or spend hundreds of billions of dollars in a desperate bid to develop unproven breakthrough technologies"  which effectively mirrors what I wrote in the last post - "Where short cycle biomass is readily available and easily replaceable and can almost immediately substitute for long cycle fossil fuel generation with little investment/disruption then what's the issue?" both myself & TS seem to be in lockstep ... so, let's not overlook the good that can be done today in the hope of the perfect that the future can possibly hold ...  

HTH - Z

Once again, thanks for a thoughtful response. I believe precision fermentation will be the end of farming as we know it because people want cheaper nutrition if it tastes alright. Does it take less time to build a biomass burner and grow trees than putting up wind turbines or solar panels? One problem I have with burning biomass is the resulting pollution. Then there's transporting the wood chippings from Canada to Drax.

Hi

The way I look at it is that there'll be significant issues in convincing consumers to switch over to PF based meat substitutes other than taste, such as texture (mouth feel) ... something labelled as a prime steak substitute that has the texture of mashed potato and tastes like a beefy stock cube would be hard to sell as a replacement 'restaurant quality' product ... then there's the economics as the lookalike product doesn't only need to be price competitive, it needs to be cheaper .... just consider the issues in the Netherlands where the plan is to take productive farmland out of production - to me this simply looks like supply/demand ratio interference to increase prices in order to make PF more competitive ... the problem here is that when it's been prototyped in a highly efficient agricultural country such as the Netherlands, it'll be rolled out throughout the EU then globally, all driven by the 'big money' which will place the power of 'life support' in the hands of very few corporations, those who run them, and of course - the agendas of those individuals ...

On the back of this we must identify the context in terms of disruption and disruptive technologies ....

There is a pretty apt saying ... 'Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people' ... Okay, we can all recognise the oil side of the equation, it's effectively been a primary driver of international power brokering for around a century .... anyone seen the problem yet? ... yes, we're phasing out oil so an oil based global economy won't be around for much longer, neither will the be the ability to control personal & economic activity by controlling energy prices (domestic/commercial/industrial/transport) through supply restriction or taxation - so that leaves a control gap ... fill it with control of food and normality is restored, not only that but it's hugely enhanced as the power moves from a base of convenience and comfort to one of an existential nature (you can be cold & inconvenienced for much longer than it takes to starve) .... maybe there's a reason why some of the richest & most influential individuals have been buying up land like 'it's going out of fashion' - so what do they know and where did they learn it ?!

Anyway, putting the potential for 'tin foil hat' accusations aside for a while ...  regarding ... "Does it take less time to build a biomass burner and grow trees than putting up wind turbines or solar panels? One problem I have with burning biomass is the resulting pollution." ... that's exactly where the energy gap raised earlier comes into play ... if the biomass burner, or something that can readily be converted to burn biomass cleanly is already available then why not use it to reduce the long term carbon cycle impact of fossil fuels ... it's there, no need to build, no lead time, little (if any) investment and a big win for the environment ... wait, do I hear a stampede of rare newts approaching to pour water on the biomass fire? .. no? .. oh, it'll be the air quality police with their PPM meters in hand shouting things like 'asthma' and 'build wind turbines' ... closely followed by a bunch of pseudo-twitchers shouting 'protect the poor little birdies' and the likes that do nothing but extend the build timelines for solar, turbines or whatever else can be done to 'save the planet', and by doing so ensuring that their claimed goal is unachievable ... pure lunacy, that's why we can't allow issues such as short term 'energy gaps' to arise as history has proven that these gaps won't be filled due to some 'do-gooder' group or other .... if something like Drax burning biomass as opposed to coal is better for people & the environment than it burning nothing or continuing with coal, then there's no additional negative issue .... it's a move in the right direction ... it's doing good today instead of waiting for the potential of perfect at some time in the future, whether realistic or not ... 

Long thought processes, but they do link a number of current issues as opposed to seeing them as having no connection ...

HTH - Z

70sbudgie

Scaling right down from international to regional, I spotted this from the DNO in my area.
https://news.enwl.co.uk/news/electricity-north-west-enables-more-than-2gw-of-additional-network-capacity
Has anyone seen anything similar from other DNOs?
As it talks about generation since 2020 I am assuming it is renewable generation (and/or storage) or is there still financing for new FF generation?

Netexporter

Looking at the link I think that majority of the increased capacity has come about by revising their ideas about what the existing network can carry. It was something that WPD (now part of National Grid) did about a decade ago. In the Olden Days, the grid was essentially a one way system, radiating out from the coalfields where the generation took place. Now, with distributed renewables and storage all over the place. Distributed generation just gets absorbed locally, before it has to travel any great distance in the transmission network.

And storage fills up when general demand is down and then reduces demand at peak times. Once bidirectional charging for cars (V2G/H) becomes the norm, there will be another huge increase in "virtual" grid capacity. That's why predictions of the grid not being able to handle the electrification of transport are very wide of the mark. EVs will allow for far more renewable energy to be economically utilised.

Martyn1981

Not particularly interesting, as it's just another story about an eco-wave deployment. But I thought I'd post it, as it has a UK link this time.

This is the idea that uses existing structures like harbour and breakwater walls, to mount the devices.

No idea if the technology is economically viable, but great to see it being deployed in many locations, so we can at least learn more. Fingers are crossed.

UK funding supports Thai wave pilot

Eco Wave Power is part of a consortium that has won a UK government grant for a pilot microgrid on a remote island in Thailand that will use wave energy.

The £1.5m has been awarded to the project consortium, which is led by Toshiba (UK) and Aquatera (UK), and is part of Innovate UK's Energy Catalyst programme Round 10.

It supports UK and international businesses and organisations in developing market-focused technologies that provide clean, affordable and accessible energy.

The consortium also includes Hitachi Energy and teams from the University of Manchester, the University of Exeter, the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) and the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL).

The consortium will use Eco Wave Power’s onshore wave energy converters (WECs) and implement advanced technology developed by the corporate partners and the university teams.

Martyn1981

Recently, in the chat about bio-mass, I mentioned hemp as a potential product for large scale sustainable bio-mass in the UK, as it grows so fast, possibly two harvests per year (so a 6 month carbon cycle(ish)).

This article isn't about bio-mass, but just the other qualities of hemp, for construction - particularly its ability to provide great insulation, and displace some concrete/cement products, thus locking in CO2, rather than releasing it.

‘It’s almost carbon-negative’: how hemp became a surprise building material

But now cannabis – or specifically its non-psychoactive variant, hemp – is being touted for something greater still: building blocks for housing that may avoid some of the environmental, logistic and economic downsides of concrete.

But more recently its ability to capture more than twice its own weight in carbon – twice as fast as traditional forestry – has come into focus. By some estimates, hemp can capture up to 15 tonnes of CO2 per hectare, through photosynthesis. Hemp cultivation taking up only 25% of the world’s agricultural land used for dairy and livestock would close the UN emissions gap of 23 gigatons of CO2 annually.
“Choosing materials that sequester a lot of carbon before they become construction materials can be very beneficial in this quest to get to carbon-neutral by 2050,” Kühl said, pointing out that the hemp that is used is the hurd, from the inner stem, and not the bark that is used for paper or rope.

In Europe, however, things are a little further along. In the UK, for example, the Haverhill hemp houses in Suffolk are a couple of decades old, while in France the Pierre Chevet sports centre, near Paris, was recently constructed using hempcrete. According to estimates, the global market for hempcrete is projected to grow at 16% a year from 2021 to 2028, with the overall global market for green building materials projected to reach a value of $419bn by 2026.

zeupater

Hi

Someone I know (a farmer) renovated and extended an old property (no cavity) and used hemp based products quite extensively for internal wall & loft insulation ... I know that he also wanted to use hemp based bricks/blocks to build the new extension but the material wasn't suitable for structural use at the time (but this may have since changed), instead the structural strength was based on a timber frame with hemp block insulation ... and if you're thinking it -  no, the home doesn't have the odour of old potato sacks .... 

It's this that prompted me to mention carbon sequestration into the likes of building materials, but it doesn't stop there as the likes of hemp, jute & flax have long been used for cloth based materials, it's just that they've been superseded by the convenience & feel of cotton & man-made fibres ... doesn't mean that there's no mass market potential in the future though if someone invests in product development & manufacturing at scale ... 

HTH - Z