Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Not 'fun' news, just some policy changes, but it is a good step in reducing the FF industry's ability to litigate against G&E progress.

UK quits treaty that lets fossil fuel firms sue governments over climate policies

Britain joins France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands in withdrawing from charter it says ‘penalises’ shift to net zero

The UK is pulling out of a treaty that lets fossil fuel firms sue governments over their climate policies.

The UK will quit the controversial energy charter treaty (ECT) after efforts to align it with net zero emissions plans failed, the government announced late on Wednesday.

The treaty allows fossil fuel investors to sue states for lost profit expectations in an opaque corporate arbitration system set up to protect fossil fuel investors in the former Soviet economies in the 1990s.

Graham Stuart, the energy security and net zero minister, said: “The energy charter treaty is outdated and in urgent need of reform, but talks have stalled and sensible renewal looks increasingly unlikely. Remaining a member would not support our transition to cleaner, cheaper energy, and could even penalise us for our world-leading efforts to deliver net zero.”

Campaigners welcomed the news, with Global Justice Now saying it “untied a straitjacket” to a just transition. “The ECT is now a dead man walking, and only those profiting from the destruction of our planet will mourn its passing,” said the group’s trade campaigns manager Cleodie Rickard.

“However, the mechanism in the ECT which made it so deadly – the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions – lives on in a number of other treaties, including the pacific trade deal. With ISDS’s legitimacy crumbling, now is the time to scrap all this system.”

A UN report last year said that ISDS contained risks of bias, conflicts of interest and abuses of power, with “catastrophic consequences” for climate action.

More than 54 countries are still listed as ECT signatories on the treaty organisation’s website, but in reality many have already exited – or plan to – after the failure of modernisation talks.

Coastalwatch

EDF look to offer a challenge to Octopus when it comes to the supply of renewable energy and all other home energy solutions with the acquisition below. I wasn't previously aware of the depth of their involvement and it can only be good for consumers to have this additional choice.

I think we shall need all the competition possible in order to reach Net Zero inline with the promises made.

EDF announces acquisition of solar panel and battery installer, Contact Solar

EDF, Britain’s biggest generator of zero carbon electricity, has acquired Chorley-based solar panel and battery installer, Contact Solar.

This latest investment is part of the energy supplier’s UK strategy to help its customers and Britain achieve net zero. It follows last year’s acquisition of heat pump installer CB Heating, moving the energy supplier one step closer to being able to offer ‘whole house’ net zero home offers, combining solar, battery, EV charge points and heat pumps.

https://www.pv-magazine.com/press-releases/edf-announces-acquisition-of-solar-panel-and-battery-installer-contact-solar/?utm_source=Global+|+Newsletter&utm_campaign=9cad80a913-dailynl_gl&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6916ce32b6-9cad80a913-159300013

Martyn1981

Bit of a muck up regarding the Carbon Commentary newsletters - sometimes they are a tad irregular, so I don't worry, so to speak, if there isn't one. But this week's has a correction regarding last weeks ...... um .... last weeks!

And after a quick search, I found last week's newsletter hiding in my spam folder, so here it is, plus the correction, and I'll post the latest one in a day or so, after we've all had time to digest this one, with a nice cup of tea.

Apologies for messing folk around.

1, EV pricing. The threat posed by highly competitive Chinese EV imports seems to be prompting action by other manufacturers at last. "Our mission is to reduce costs as quickly as necessary to absorb the additional costs of electrification and sell EVs at the same price as combustion-engine cars because the Chinese know how to do it’ said the head of Stellantis recently. The price differences are still stark; an automotive web site says the petrol Fiat 500 starts at £16,790 in the UK while the electric equivalent is priced at £28,195. But the last weeks have seen the announcement of several small EVs not made in China that are broadly competitive with internal combustion engine equivalents. Hyundai said it would start production of an electric car in mid-2024 that will retail in Europe for less than €20,000, a price point often stated to be necessary for both competing with Chinese imports and with petrol alternatives. Renault, Citroen and VW have also recently revealed smaller EVs at around €20-25,000.

2 German solar auctions. The requested prices in German PV auctions continue to fall. Accepted bids in the last round of 2023, announced earlier this month, averaged €0.517 per kWh. This is down by 20% from the results of previous auction in August of last year and a quarter less than the results of April 2023. Interest was also higher; bids were entered for 5.4 GW compared to 4.6 GW in the August auction.
[There was a silly typo in last new week’s newsletter. I said that the recent German solar auction had resulted in a price of about €0.5 per kilowatt hour when I should have written €0.05, or 5 Euro cents a kilowatt hour. Apologies, and thank you to the many people who wrote very politely to point out the error.]

3, Hydrogen at Kraft Heinz factory. Carlton Power, a UK renewables developer, will work with Heinz to replace 50% of natural gas use at a large factory in Wigan in north west England. (For UK readers, this is where your baked beans are made). The factory will be Heinz’s first use of hydrogen for process heating worldwide. Carlton Power has four other hydrogen projects at industrial sites around the UK. The hydrogen in Wigan will be made using renewable electricity and a 20 MW electrolyser to replace about 50% of its gas use. Although the construction of this £40m ($50m) hydrogen plan is not yet finally approved, partly because it depends on obtaining government subsidy, Heinz says it hopes to start using H2 as early as 2026. What’s particularly surprising about this announcement is that the hydrogen will be almost certainly far more expensive than the natural gas it replaces.

4, Aviation and sustainable fuels. Thus far, Airbus has presented its vision of the future as being dominated by aircraft burning hydrogen. This attitude appears to be changing. In recent remarks, CEO Guillaume Faury said that the company envisages a completely new mid-range aircraft arriving in the second half of the next decade. This plane would be designed to run on Sustainable Aviation Fuel, probably largely consisting of synthetic kerosene made from hydrogen and captured CO2. I think this is the first public acknowledgement from Airbus that synthetic kerosene may be the crucially important fuel for all but very short distance aviation, where batteries and fuel cells will have an important role. Guillaume Faury is quoted as saying that the new aircraft will be ‘front-and-centre to our strategy to enable carbon neutrality for aviation by 2050’. He didn’t make clear why an airplane burning e-fuels would need to be any different to conventional jets sold today.

5, US geothermal energy. The Biden administration put $60m into 3 geothermal projects intended to help move the US from about 4 GW of geothermal energy today to around 90 GW by 2050. (Expressed as electricity produced per year, the mid-century figure is over twice total UK supply today). The winners include Chevron, which will use new techniques to drill for heat near an existing geothermal field and Mazama, a pioneer drilling into very high temperatures close to a volcano in Oregon. Perhaps the most interesting technology comes from Fervo, the third winner. It is using techniques copied from shale oil exploration to significantly reduce the time needed to drill the wells. The company just reported a 50% reduction in the cost of drilling a well and big improvement in drilling rates to about 20 metres per hour. Most strikingly, it suggests a ‘learning curve’ for geothermal drilling of about 35%, meaning every doubling of accumulated kilometres of well will result in a reduction of more than one third in the time taken, with roughly equivalent impacts on cost. In some areas of the world, such as parts of America, steam from geothermal wells may generate electricity at prices competitive with solar.

6, Biological recycling of plastic. The French company Carbios said it has commissioned an engineering firm to execute the construction of the world’s first biological recycling plant for the plastic PET in eastern France. Carbios uses enzymes to break down the polymers in plastics into the original simple monomers. These monomers can then be repolymerised into virgin plastics. The company’s technology is amongst the first to offer full circularity for PET and it claims it will be able to extend its enzymatic approach to many different types of plastic. (Current plastic recycling technologies are absolutely not properly circular). Carbios’ approach may also be able to produce plastics at lower cost than those made from oil. (My new book, available on March 21, has a chapter on the difficulty of recycling plastics and covers Carbios and its main competitors).

7, Biomethanol. Denmark’s European Energy continues its push into low carbon methanol, the likely fuel for world shipping of the future. It announced a deal with Montauk Renewables in Texas to collect the CO2 collected from landfill waste sites and transport it by truck to European Energy’s methanol production plant where it will combined with hydrogen and turned into methanol. The volumes are significant for the very early stage in this new industry. The 140,000 tonnes of CO2 in the deal will result in about 100,000 tonnes of methanol, about 2% of the amount the shipping industry leader Maersk says it will need to meet its 2030 decarbonisation objectives.

8, The cost of green steel. H2 Green Steel, the highly funded startup developing a hydrogen steel works in northern Sweden confirmed again this week its expectation that its product will be 20-30% more expensive than conventional steel. This is less than many analysts thought. The relatively small price premium partly arises because of the low price of power used to make hydrogen in its chosen location. The premium is roughly equivalent to a €150 carbon tax on slab steel, either in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme or as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism price. So the price to the end-user may be little different from conventional steel made from coal if the ETS price continues to strengthen.  In any event, H2 Green Steel appears to be having very few problems selling its steel today on long-term contracts.

9, Electric car sales. Stories proliferate that say that electric car sales are falling. Yes, the rate of increase varies sharply from month to month- often in response to subsidy changes in individual countries - but overall global volumes continue to increase. Consultants Rho Motion reported that world sales increased by 69% in January compared to January 2022. However January 2024 sales fell sharply compared to December 2023, even as total sales of battery and plug-in hybrid cars hit 1.1 million. Although sales of pure electric cars remain strong, concerns over charger availability seem – perhaps temporarily – to be encouraging the rise of hybrid vehicles.

10, Green fertiliser. Three stories from the global south this week on the decarbonisation of fertiliser production. Atome, a UK company focusing on producing low carbon fertilisers in South America, said it was working with the Costa Rican state electricity company to obtain 120 MW of green power for a new factory that will make 100,000 tonnes of fertiliser a year. If I have done my research correctly, this output will approximately match the country’s current fertiliser imports. The plan mirrors an existing Atome project to use hydro-electric power in Paraguay to make green ammonia. A second project in Uganda will use Norwegian money to fund the construction of an even larger fertiliser factory using green hydrogen from hydro-electric power. In Angola, an earlier stage project backed by an Australian mining company also targets the use of very low cost surplus hydro-electric power to make ammonia for fertiliser use and for manufacturing explosives for use in mining. Many countries in the global south import most of their ammonia-based fertilisers. Cheap electricity and efficient production of the hydrogen needed will mean that fertiliser manufacture can occur locally. This may be an early benefit of the energy transition to less developed countries, which so far have seen little advantage from decarbonisation.

Exiled_Tyke

Coastalwatch said:

EDF look to offer a challenge to Octopus when it comes to the supply of renewable energy and all other home energy solutions with the acquisition below. I wasn't previously aware of the depth of their involvement and it can only be good for consumers to have this additional choice.

I think we shall need all the competition possible in order to reach Net Zero inline with the promises made.

EDF announces acquisition of solar panel and battery installer, Contact Solar

EDF, Britain’s biggest generator of zero carbon electricity, has acquired Chorley-based solar panel and battery installer, Contact Solar.

This latest investment is part of the energy supplier’s UK strategy to help its customers and Britain achieve net zero. It follows last year’s acquisition of heat pump installer CB Heating, moving the energy supplier one step closer to being able to offer ‘whole house’ net zero home offers, combining solar, battery, EV charge points and heat pumps.

https://www.pv-magazine.com/press-releases/edf-announces-acquisition-of-solar-panel-and-battery-installer-contact-solar/?utm_source=Global+|+Newsletter&utm_campaign=9cad80a913-dailynl_gl&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6916ce32b6-9cad80a913-159300013

I'm not a fan of EDF for two reasons. One is whenever I've had my account with them the customer service was awful. In particular getting my payments changed was a nightmare as they wouldn't accept my import  was changing when I first got PV.   Secondly they make this big thing of being 'zero-carbon' which I presume they except people to think is RE when a lot of it is nuclear which I can't bring myself to support now I've so much about the issues associated with it. 

Martyn1981

And here's the more recent Carbon Commentary Newsletter from Chris Goodall, bringing us up to date:

1, Magnets without rare earth metals. Analysts predict price instability and severe shortages of the metal neodymium because of the dominance of China in the supply chain. Neodymium is needed for the manufacture of the strongest magnets in items such as wind turbines and the motors of electric cars. Niron Magnetics, a US company, raised another $25m from investors, including Samsung and car component manufacturer Magna, to commercialise its alternative iron nitride magnetic materials, avoiding the need to use any rare earth minerals. This new money adds to the $33m raised in November 2023 from major automobile manufacturers. The Niron technology should enable the production of magnets of comparable strength but at much lower cost and with very limited environmental impact. They will also work better at higher temperatures.

2, Electricity for hydrogen manufacture in the steel industry. German steelmaker Salzgitter and the UK’s Octopus told us that they had agreed a deal to supply power from a German solar farm to make hydrogen. The quantity specified was about 120 GWh. ThyssenKrupp, Germany’s largest steelmaker, said it was buying a similar quantity of electricity from an RWE wind farm. In total, these two deals will be sufficient to make about one fifth of one percent of German blast furnace steel.  Turning all primary steel production over to using hydrogen would require about twice Germany’s total current production of solar energy.  No wonder the search is intensifying for new sources of imported hydrogen. But Arcelor Mittal says it wants to go in a different direction, buying imported iron made using hydrogen to turn into steel. It says European hydrogen will always be too expensive and iron would be better made in very low cost energy locations to be converted to steel in Europe. The countries that gave the company huge subsidies to switch blast furnaces to hydrogen direct reduction plants will not have been pleased to read this.

3, Switching to heat pumps. Thermondo, Germany’s largest home heating installer said it had stopped providing fossil fuel boilers. From February 2024, it will use only heat pumps for domestic heating. ‘Thermondo is now fully concentrating on heat pumps, photovoltaics and other technologies for climate-neutral living and sees itself as making the energy transition in single-family homes possible’ said the company. (I saw this on Jan Rosenow’s social media account).

4, Grid connections. The single biggest obstacle to the expansion of renewable power is the lack of capacity to make connections to the grid. This is true almost everywhere around the world. One important way forward could be the development of contracts that accept new wind and solar but with the explicit understanding that the grid can disconnect the renewables at times of excess electricity production. Many developers will accept this provision, knowing for example that high winds tend to not occur at the same time as high solar output so they won’t be frequently curtailed. Most national grids have been very reluctant to put this option forward but the Estonian network recently made clear that customers could now accept this option if the local links are overcrowded. This is particularly brave in that Estonia is currently engaged in the complicated manoeuvre of disconnecting itself from the Russian grid and synchronising with the rest of Europe. There’s a chapter on how grids might be able to handle the expansion of renewables in my new book. (Thanks to Ursula Brewer).

5, ‘Gold’ hydrogen. Pure hydrogen (now called ‘gold’ hydrogen) is generated by chemical reactions between iron-bearing rocks and water below ground. An active debate has begun on whether large quantities of the gas can be extracted from these natural sources. An increasing number of optimists claim that trillions of tonnes are potentially available, and at costs that will make electrolysis of water uneconomic. Many others point to the likely loss through porous rocks and fissures of very high percentages of the hydrogen naturally created. And underground microbial life may also consume H2. Much of the enthusiasm of recent weeks arises because of the report in a science journal of the volumes of hydrogen being found in an Albanian metal mine. The researchers calculate this source to naturally produce over 200 tonnes a year, said to be one of the largest resources ever found. The magazine New Scientist called this a ‘huge’ amount but, for context, this would be worth just $1m at a price of $5 a kilo of H2. Collecting it and taking it to a hydrogen terminal would be barely economic, particularly if the processes affected the other outputs of the mine. A cautionary story arises from the pioneer Natural Hydrogen Energy. The company has drilled for hydrogen and the associated helium in Nebraska and claimed recently to the FT to be two years from commercial production. However on its web site Natural Hydrogen’s statement of its core activities says ‘we are guest speakers, lecturers and ambassadors for the proliferation of natural hydrogen’.  And there’s no promise of any further drilling.

6, Recycling nylon. Nylon is a difficult plastic to recycle. Only about 2% is currently reused in any way. In common with other plastics, the eventual route to full recycling will be the chemical breakdown of the polymer back into the original monomer. As with the Carbios polyester process - covered in last week’s newsletter - Australian company Samsara Eco uses enzymes to carry out the breakdown of nylon. According to Samsara, this process can be completed at low temperatures and is finished within hours. The business announced the launch of a new range of sports clothing with its Canadian partner Lulemon, claiming that the material contains over 90% recycled nylon.

7, Long-term hydrogen storage. Gasunie is the state-owned gas transmission company in the Netherlands and is leading the development of salt cavern storage for hydrogen in the Europe. It announced it was working on the development of a huge 1 TWh storage site near Wilhelmshaven in northern western Germany. I think this is may be the biggest proposed hydrogen storage site in the world but it probably represents less than 1% of eventual storage needs in north west Europe.  Gasunie will employ an underground salt dome that is already used for holding natural gas. Hystock, Gasunie’s other main hydrogen project, will operate from 2028 in the northern Netherlands, also in salt caverns, and will function as an open access business, storing the gas for private sector participants in the hydrogen market. I think Gasunie is right to say that without the early development of large scale storage the growth of the hydrogen market will be severely curtailed.

8, Tidal power. Tidal turbines have not yet achieved the cost and performance that many expected. A new design from Swedish company Minesto connected to the Faroe Islands grid earlier in the month. This unusual 1.2 MW machine acts like a kite circling in a figure of eight, thus boosting the average speed of turbine rotation. (Explanation here). The company said that after the first two weeks of power production ‘performance is satisfactory and as expected’. The company plans a total of 200 MW of turbines around the Faroes, providing about 40% of the needs of the islands. This would be by far the largest tidal installation in the world.

9, Dual-fuel power stations. Australia opened its first power plant capable of running on a mixture of hydrogen and natural gas. I think this may be the first new gas power station carefully designed to burn some hydrogen. Germany announced subsidies to encourage the construction of similar plants that can be converted to hydrogen, with a complete switch required by 2040.

10, The health effects of cycling compared to the carbon benefits. A nice recent study (available today in pre-print form, and thus not yet peer-reviewed) estimated that each kilometre of cycling in France saved about €1, including both reduced health care costs and the estimated benefits of longer, healthier lives. This number is somewhat higher than similar academic work. I thought it was interesting to compare this outcome with the carbon dioxide benefit of not driving. Perhaps surprisingly, this figure is much lower; not driving a car for one kilometre reduces emissions by about 200 grams, suggesting a climate benefit of around 2 Euro cents, assuming a CO2 cost of $100/tonne. So the health benefits of active travel are vastly greater than the climate gains. Perhaps policy should focus more on this. But the researchers also make the point that encouraging cycling also encourages people to travel less, perhaps shopping at the store a kilometre away rather than driving to the larger shop ten kilometres distant, thus reducing emissions by a larger amount. 15 minute cities are good for carbon, good for health and probably very beneficial for the development of stronger communities.

There was a silly typo in last new week’s newsletter. I said that the recent German solar auction had resulted in a price of about €0.5 per kilowatt hour when I should have written €0.05, or 5 Euro cents a kilowatt hour. Apologies, and thank you to the many people who wrote very politely to point out the error.

gefnew

Somerset to get a giga battery factory from jl group owners.
Tata confirms Somerset will host £4bn battery factory - BBC News

Martyn1981

Nice bit of economic news for a change.

UK’s net zero economy grew 9% in 2023, report finds

The UK’s net zero economy grew by 9% in 2023, a report has revealed, in stark contrast to the 0.1% growth seen in the economy overall. Nevertheless, the report pointed out that strong future growth from green businesses was being put at risk by government policy reversals, lack of investment and competition from the EU and US.

Thousands of new green companies were founded in 2023 and overall the sector was responsible for the production of £74bn in goods and services and 765,000 jobs, according to the report by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).

I was surprised at this line (my bold):

Farquhar said only 1% of UK homes had transitioned to low carbon dioxide heating, compared with 66% in Norway; and only 5% of suitable UK homes had installed solar panels, compared with 16% in the Netherlands.

seems very low, but as panel prices fall, and power rises, hopefully this means that there is a lot of untapped potential.

QrizB

I thought this was interesting, and haven't seen it shared here yet:

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy/chart-nearly-all-new-us-power-plants-built-in-2024-will-be-clean-energy

Chart: Nearly all new US power plants built in 2024 will be clean energy

Renewables, batteries and nuclear will add up to 96% of all new power capacity constructed this year, per federal data.

Article at link.

Martyn1981

This week's Carbon Commentary newsletter from Chris Goodall:

1, Heat pumps. Contrasting news from the US and Europe. In the US, heat pump sales exceeded gas boilers for the second year running, although sales of both types of heaters fell last year. Heat pump sales contracted by 17% compared to 23% for gas boilers. But the US still managed over 3.6 million installations. Europe saw a 5% fall to around 2.6 million heat pumps sold, with the number of units sold falling each quarter in 2023. (For a wider comparison, China installed over 12 million heat pumps in 2021).

2, Vehicle to Grid. The new Renault 5 E-Tech, just launched in Europe, will be able to put electricity from its battery back into the power networks. This small car will have a 40 kWh battery that can charge or discharge at 11 kW. Very few EVs have had this capacity up until today. Priced at €25,000 for its basic version, the car can therefore save owners money by charging at night and discharging at times of maximum electricity need. Vehicle to Grid capability will be a critical requirement for EVs within a couple of years. As an example, if 50% of UK cars were electric, their batteries would contain enough electricity to power the country for a day.

3, Clothing recycling. Renewcell, the pioneering Swedish clothing recycler, filed for bankruptcy. The company specialises in processing worn cotton clothing, such as jeans, and turning the material into new cellulosic fibres. It was one of the first genuinely circular technologies in the world clothing industry. Why did the company fail, even when it had the apparent backing of some fashion industry majors, such as Zara? Some commentators blame the remote location of Renewcell’s factory in central Sweden. They say it would have been better sited close to clothing manufacturers so that the product could be easily incorporated into new textiles. More cynical observers say that Renewcell’s troubles stemed from the reluctance of the fashion industry to get fully behind recycling of used clothing. I point out in Possible, to be published in the UK on 21st March, that textiles business around the world have been all too willing to talk about sustainability but their actions have rarely matched their rhetoric. The carbon reducing performance of the global fashion industry has fallen way behind other emissions intensive sectors such as cement manufacture, which faces even greater difficulties than textiles in decarbonising its industry.

4, Natural carbon storage. Leading researcher David Beerling and his colleagues contributed an important paper on how finely ground basalt rock applied to agricultural soils can capture CO2. The work, carried out on a US Corn Belt farm, suggests that applying 50 tonnes of dust to fields over four years can result in extra carbon storage, eventually carried into the oceans, of around 10 tonnes of CO2. This is a comparable result to previous work and Beerling suggests it allows for the possibility of a global target of 2 billion tonnes of CO2 sequestration a year (about 5% of current emissions) from the weathering of fine rock particles deliberately applied to agricultural land. Other major benefits include significant soil fertility improvement, helping to raise yields, and decreased acidification of the land, reducing the need to apply lime. Some estimates suggest that what is known as ‘enhanced rock weathering’ may cost substantially less than $100 a tonne of CO2 sequestered. Another unusual technique for carbon sequestration on currently agricultural land was put forward by researchers a year ago. They suggested that burying wood or organic materials underground in a dry chamber would permanently sequester carbon if kept free of moisture. The researchers estimate a cost of around $60 a tonne of CO2, a figure similar to the possible net cost of spreading basalt dust. The world needs to research natural carbon storage techniques such as these, which have the potential to be far lower cost than direct air capture. (Thanks to Thad Curtz and Nick Jelley).

5, Germany and carbon capture. The electricity sector and other industries in Germany have long wanted CCS to be allowed but environmental groups have been understandably sceptical: is CCS just a way for power producers and heavy industry to continue to burn fossil fuels? The problem Germany faces is that without carbon capture net zero is close to impossible. Even with massive imports of hydrogen and maximum expansion of offshore wind, substantial emissions will remain. It was a pivotal moment this week when economy minister Robert Habeck said the government proposes to allow offshore, although not onshore, storage of CO2. Habeck is a member of the Greens, and his parliamentary colleagues indicated strong disapproval of the new policy. The debate is not over but this was a significant change in direction in a country long sceptical of underground storage of CO2.

6, Wind to H2. Will large wind farms convert part or all their output to hydrogen at the point of production? The news this week gives varying pointers. The backers of Dogger Bank D in the UK North Sea said that the final phase of what will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm would not make hydrogen, an option previously considered. Instead it announced that the project had secured an electrical connection into the UK grid and may also connect to the rest of Europe. But a major new investment in offshore wind off the east coast of Canada will see a 4 GW wind farm connect to a 1.5 GW electrolyser to make about 120,000 tonnes of hydrogen a year. If I have done my calculations correctly, about 20% of the output of the wind farm will be used to make H2, presumably at times of abundant electricity. In China, a new 700+ km hydrogen pipeline will link Inner Mongolia, where solar and wind are abundant, to a port south of Beijing. This could be the world’s longest H2 pipeline but installing such a link would be far cheaper and quicker than building an electricity connection.

7, Goldman Sachs on batteries. The bank cut its estimates of battery growth this year to 29%, down from the 35% of a previous projection. Demand rose 31% in 2023, meaning that Goldman now sees growth slowing slightly this year. However, the bank went on to say that ‘Goldman Sachs Research expects a nearly 40% decline in battery prices between 2023 and 2025, and for EVs to reach breakthrough levels in terms of cost parity (without subsidies) with internal combustion engine cars in some markets next year’. 68% of car sales in Europe are projected to be electric in 2030, a forecast that might look too optimistic to someone noting that pure EVs only represented 11% of European sales in January 2024. (But January tends to be a bad month for battery-only cars).

8, IEA carbon emissions calculations. The International Energy Agency provided its estimate that CO2 output from global energy production rose by 1% last year. This rate of increase was slightly higher than 2022, even though global GNP growth was marginally lower. As with the previous year’s analysis, the IEA blamed the weather (also known as ‘climate change’) for part of the continued increase in emissions. In 2023 water shortages pushed hydro-electric production down, causing a rise of emissions from coal-powered stations of around 170 million tonnes, equivalent to around half of the global increase in CO2. In the previous year, the IEA had identified ‘extreme weather’ as causing about 20% of the rise in emissions. In an unrelated but striking comment, the Agency noted that advanced country emissions have now fallen to the level of fifty years ago. Coal use in these countries is similar to the amounts burnt in 1900. But increased coal use in China and India was responsible for a substantial part of the rise in global emissions this year.

9, Sustainable Aviation Fuel. The IAG, the parent of several European airlines including British Airways and Iberia, agreed to buy nearly a billion litres of what is called e-SAF, which is made from captured CO2 and hydrogen. The supplier is Twelve in Washington State. The  aviation group says this purchase will cover about one third of its target of 10% SAF use by 2030. Although this deal is not one of the largest contracts for the provision of sustainable fuel to the aviation industry, I think it is biggest to use captured CO2, rather than carbon obtained from biomass. The limited amounts of biomass available globally for use in making fuels, and the increasing competition for this material, means that the extensive use of synthetic fuels, also known as e-fuels, will be necessary for the aviation industry to decarbonise.

10,  China completes first SMR. As small nuclear reactors stall in the West, China announced the structural completion of its first onshore example, a 125 MW power station built on the southern island of Hainan. (Completion does not mean the reactor is producing power – that is scheduled for 2026). I could find no estimates of the likely cost of this SMR but the rapid progress of this pressurised water reactor suggests that China is likely to dominate this sector, much as it does all almost all other clean technologies.

michaels

Martyn1981 said:

This week's Carbon Commentary newsletter from Chris Goodall:

1, Heat pumps. Contrasting news from the US and Europe. In the US, heat pump sales exceeded gas boilers for the second year running, although sales of both types of heaters fell last year. Heat pump sales contracted by 17% compared to 23% for gas boilers. But the US still managed over 3.6 million installations. Europe saw a 5% fall to around 2.6 million heat pumps sold, with the number of units sold falling each quarter in 2023. (For a wider comparison, China installed over 12 million heat pumps in 2021).

2, Vehicle to Grid. The new Renault 5 E-Tech, just launched in Europe, will be able to put electricity from its battery back into the power networks. This small car will have a 40 kWh battery that can charge or discharge at 11 kW. Very few EVs have had this capacity up until today. Priced at €25,000 for its basic version, the car can therefore save owners money by charging at night and discharging at times of maximum electricity need. Vehicle to Grid capability will be a critical requirement for EVs within a couple of years. As an example, if 50% of UK cars were electric, their batteries would contain enough electricity to power the country for a day.

3, Clothing recycling. Renewcell, the pioneering Swedish clothing recycler, filed for bankruptcy. The company specialises in processing worn cotton clothing, such as jeans, and turning the material into new cellulosic fibres. It was one of the first genuinely circular technologies in the world clothing industry. Why did the company fail, even when it had the apparent backing of some fashion industry majors, such as Zara? Some commentators blame the remote location of Renewcell’s factory in central Sweden. They say it would have been better sited close to clothing manufacturers so that the product could be easily incorporated into new textiles. More cynical observers say that Renewcell’s troubles stemed from the reluctance of the fashion industry to get fully behind recycling of used clothing. I point out in Possible, to be published in the UK on 21st March, that textiles business around the world have been all too willing to talk about sustainability but their actions have rarely matched their rhetoric. The carbon reducing performance of the global fashion industry has fallen way behind other emissions intensive sectors such as cement manufacture, which faces even greater difficulties than textiles in decarbonising its industry.

4, Natural carbon storage. Leading researcher David Beerling and his colleagues contributed an important paper on how finely ground basalt rock applied to agricultural soils can capture CO2. The work, carried out on a US Corn Belt farm, suggests that applying 50 tonnes of dust to fields over four years can result in extra carbon storage, eventually carried into the oceans, of around 10 tonnes of CO2. This is a comparable result to previous work and Beerling suggests it allows for the possibility of a global target of 2 billion tonnes of CO2 sequestration a year (about 5% of current emissions) from the weathering of fine rock particles deliberately applied to agricultural land. Other major benefits include significant soil fertility improvement, helping to raise yields, and decreased acidification of the land, reducing the need to apply lime. Some estimates suggest that what is known as ‘enhanced rock weathering’ may cost substantially less than $100 a tonne of CO2 sequestered. Another unusual technique for carbon sequestration on currently agricultural land was put forward by researchers a year ago. They suggested that burying wood or organic materials underground in a dry chamber would permanently sequester carbon if kept free of moisture. The researchers estimate a cost of around $60 a tonne of CO2, a figure similar to the possible net cost of spreading basalt dust. The world needs to research natural carbon storage techniques such as these, which have the potential to be far lower cost than direct air capture. (Thanks to Thad Curtz and Nick Jelley).

5, Germany and carbon capture. The electricity sector and other industries in Germany have long wanted CCS to be allowed but environmental groups have been understandably sceptical: is CCS just a way for power producers and heavy industry to continue to burn fossil fuels? The problem Germany faces is that without carbon capture net zero is close to impossible. Even with massive imports of hydrogen and maximum expansion of offshore wind, substantial emissions will remain. It was a pivotal moment this week when economy minister Robert Habeck said the government proposes to allow offshore, although not onshore, storage of CO2. Habeck is a member of the Greens, and his parliamentary colleagues indicated strong disapproval of the new policy. The debate is not over but this was a significant change in direction in a country long sceptical of underground storage of CO2.

6, Wind to H2. Will large wind farms convert part or all their output to hydrogen at the point of production? The news this week gives varying pointers. The backers of Dogger Bank D in the UK North Sea said that the final phase of what will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm would not make hydrogen, an option previously considered. Instead it announced that the project had secured an electrical connection into the UK grid and may also connect to the rest of Europe. But a major new investment in offshore wind off the east coast of Canada will see a 4 GW wind farm connect to a 1.5 GW electrolyser to make about 120,000 tonnes of hydrogen a year. If I have done my calculations correctly, about 20% of the output of the wind farm will be used to make H2, presumably at times of abundant electricity. In China, a new 700+ km hydrogen pipeline will link Inner Mongolia, where solar and wind are abundant, to a port south of Beijing. This could be the world’s longest H2 pipeline but installing such a link would be far cheaper and quicker than building an electricity connection.

7, Goldman Sachs on batteries. The bank cut its estimates of battery growth this year to 29%, down from the 35% of a previous projection. Demand rose 31% in 2023, meaning that Goldman now sees growth slowing slightly this year. However, the bank went on to say that ‘Goldman Sachs Research expects a nearly 40% decline in battery prices between 2023 and 2025, and for EVs to reach breakthrough levels in terms of cost parity (without subsidies) with internal combustion engine cars in some markets next year’. 68% of car sales in Europe are projected to be electric in 2030, a forecast that might look too optimistic to someone noting that pure EVs only represented 11% of European sales in January 2024. (But January tends to be a bad month for battery-only cars).

8, IEA carbon emissions calculations. The International Energy Agency provided its estimate that CO2 output from global energy production rose by 1% last year. This rate of increase was slightly higher than 2022, even though global GNP growth was marginally lower. As with the previous year’s analysis, the IEA blamed the weather (also known as ‘climate change’) for part of the continued increase in emissions. In 2023 water shortages pushed hydro-electric production down, causing a rise of emissions from coal-powered stations of around 170 million tonnes, equivalent to around half of the global increase in CO2. In the previous year, the IEA had identified ‘extreme weather’ as causing about 20% of the rise in emissions. In an unrelated but striking comment, the Agency noted that advanced country emissions have now fallen to the level of fifty years ago. Coal use in these countries is similar to the amounts burnt in 1900. But increased coal use in China and India was responsible for a substantial part of the rise in global emissions this year.

9, Sustainable Aviation Fuel. The IAG, the parent of several European airlines including British Airways and Iberia, agreed to buy nearly a billion litres of what is called e-SAF, which is made from captured CO2 and hydrogen. The supplier is Twelve in Washington State. The  aviation group says this purchase will cover about one third of its target of 10% SAF use by 2030. Although this deal is not one of the largest contracts for the provision of sustainable fuel to the aviation industry, I think it is biggest to use captured CO2, rather than carbon obtained from biomass. The limited amounts of biomass available globally for use in making fuels, and the increasing competition for this material, means that the extensive use of synthetic fuels, also known as e-fuels, will be necessary for the aviation industry to decarbonise.

10,  China completes first SMR. As small nuclear reactors stall in the West, China announced the structural completion of its first onshore example, a 125 MW power station built on the southern island of Hainan. (Completion does not mean the reactor is producing power – that is scheduled for 2026). I could find no estimates of the likely cost of this SMR but the rapid progress of this pressurised water reactor suggests that China is likely to dominate this sector, much as it does all almost all other clean technologies.

I thought the transporting wind generation via H2 pipeline rather than wire electricity transmission was an interesting new new dimension to the economics of using wind spill.