The Alternative Green Energy Thread

JKenH

Source Direct: A Planet Drowning in Greenwash

THE RHETORIC WOULD have you believe we are undergoing a green revolution. 

However, for all the glossy green paint jobs, it all looks rather less impressive under the bonnet.

An apparent pro-green cultural consensus masks considerable continuity in our carbon-oriented economies.

The problems are twofold. On the one hand, the consensus stretching from social movements and campus societies to boardrooms and high-end fashion magazines has shallow social foundations. 

On the other hand, there remains that stubborn beast, the capitalist system itself.

So, the canny politician will placate worthy consciences with Captain Planet rhetoric (key demographics are aghast at Trumpian polluter talk) but not to the point of threatening the status quo. 

https://sourcenews.scot/source-direct-a-planet-drowning-in-greenwash/

ABrass

JKenH said:

China drives rise in coal-fired power plants

Maybe this is where the green warriors should be targeting their fire. What is the point of China switching to EVs when they are building new coal plants to produce and power them? 

The number of coal-fired power stations granted approval globally has risen for the first time since 2015 – with China making up two thirds of all plans for the heavily polluting plants.

Revealing the trend in its World Energy Investment report published today, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says: “This is a reminder that energy transitions do not follow a simple story line.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/06/02/china-drives-rise-coal-fired-power-plants/

China is adding more wind and solar than it is coal generation but it can’t keep up with demand for electricity and that is what is driving the construction of new coal plants. So what do we tell China? Stop building and driving electric cars until RE can cope with the extra demand?  It is all about marginal generation - what is meeting that? In China the switch to EVs is not helping the planet as every kWh consumed is another kWh that has to be generated and as they can’t build out enough RE it is coming from coal. 

China has been unable to find enough clean energy to meet rapid increases in demand, with renewables meeting only half of China’s power consumption growth last year. New coal-fired power installations reached 38.4 GW in 2020, more than three times the amount built by the rest of the world, according to a February research report.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-china-coal-idUSKBN2BK0PZ

The last I heard they were building more plants but the total coal used was more or less flat and the utilisation for each plant keeps falling.

JKenH

ABrass said:

JKenH said:

China drives rise in coal-fired power plants

Maybe this is where the green warriors should be targeting their fire. What is the point of China switching to EVs when they are building new coal plants to produce and power them? 

The number of coal-fired power stations granted approval globally has risen for the first time since 2015 – with China making up two thirds of all plans for the heavily polluting plants.

Revealing the trend in its World Energy Investment report published today, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says: “This is a reminder that energy transitions do not follow a simple story line.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/06/02/china-drives-rise-coal-fired-power-plants/

China is adding more wind and solar than it is coal generation but it can’t keep up with demand for electricity and that is what is driving the construction of new coal plants. So what do we tell China? Stop building and driving electric cars until RE can cope with the extra demand?  It is all about marginal generation - what is meeting that? In China the switch to EVs is not helping the planet as every kWh consumed is another kWh that has to be generated and as they can’t build out enough RE it is coming from coal. 

China has been unable to find enough clean energy to meet rapid increases in demand, with renewables meeting only half of China’s power consumption growth last year. New coal-fired power installations reached 38.4 GW in 2020, more than three times the amount built by the rest of the world, according to a February research report.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-china-coal-idUSKBN2BK0PZ

The last I heard they were building more plants but the total coal used was more or less flat and the utilisation for each plant keeps falling.

In 2020 China‘s coal generation was up by 77 TWh despite COVID. Between 2015 and 2020 coal generation rose by 734 TWh. (That’s twice the total UK annual electricity consumption).

There are some interesting statistics in the Ember report. One that surprised me was that China’s electricity consumption per capita is higher than in the UK. 

https://ember-climate.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Global-Electricity-Review-2021-China.pdf

JKenH

UK’s carbon emissions ‘now at 1888 levels’

Not a new report but something I came across when looking at our emissions compared to China. 

https://www.energylivenews.com/2020/03/03/uks-carbon-emissions-now-at-1888-levels/

JKenH

Exclusive-Shell weighs blockbuster sale of Texas shale assets

Royal Dutch Shell is reviewing its holdings in the largest U.S. oil field for a potential sale, people familiar with the matter told Reuters, marking a key moment in its shift away from fossil fuels as it faces growing pressure to slash carbon emissions.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-shell-usa-permian-idINKCN2DP0K5

Shell, it seems, is reacting to the Dutch court ruling against it by selling off its dirty shale fields.

JKenH

A Brief History Of Gasoline: They Trashed Pennsylvania First

An interesting history off the early days of the oil industry and how cavalier practices of the early days became the standard for the future.

https://jalopnik.com/a-brief-history-of-gasoline-they-trashed-pennsylvania-1846823800

POLLUTION 101

To say that drilling for oil was not as easy as drilling for salt would be to understate the matter; to say that there was anything neat or hygienic about the enterprise would simply be wrong. All technologies employed in the mechanical processes of extracting oil were fairly primitive. While this made on-the-fly field repairs and the use of unskilled labor possible, it also meant that cave-ins, flooding, off-course drilling, broken drills and implements and high levels of incompetence were only among the many irritants, hardships, and filth generators.

Commenting on a not untypical 30,000-barrel oil spill in 1863, Oil Region geologist J.F. Carll lamented, “We have reaped this fine harvest of mineral wealth in a most reckless and wasteful manner.”

JKenH

A Brief History Of Gasoline: A Century And A Half Of Lies

The opening article in this10 part series, reveals the conversion of a petrolhead to an environmental critic of the oil industry and the efforts made to convince the world that we still needed lead in our petrol. 

The first result of my study, “The Secret History of Lead,” appeared in The Nation magazine in 2000, and made the case that some of America’s biggest corporations – DuPont, its longtime charge General Motors, and Standard Oil of New Jersey (today known as ExxonMobil,) – had put lead in gasoline for profit in the 1920s, ignored legitimate health warnings and covered up safer alternatives, which we use today. Translated into 16 languages and a mini-best-seller in France, it remains a piece of history its star players would prefer we forgot.

I accused the companies of wildly overstating the benefits of the additive and monopolizing all scientific research in the area for forty years, to grossly understate lead’s hazards, to life and property. I called the companies some of the biggest polluters of the 20th century and the prime architects of that century’s lasting contribution to the art of pollution – the scientific uncertainty principle. (“You say ‘It’s dangerous,’ we say ‘We’re not sure,’ so let’s study it for forty years and make lots of money before washing our hands of the whole thing.”) Finally, I recounted how, faced with a declining market in America and other western countries, the lead gasoline industry had stepped up efforts to sell their product in the Third World, where they continue to sell it today.

https://jalopnik.com/a-brief-history-of-gasoline-the-lie-of-leaded-gas-1846790331

JKenH

Shell Starts Up Green Hydrogen Electrolyser at German Refinery

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2021/07/05/shell-starts-up-green-hydrogen-electrolyser-at-german-refinery/

JKenH

Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos backs ‘clean’ hydrogen fund planning UK float

Ineos set out plans to invest in hydrogen plants across Europe late last year, and revealed its next step into the UK hydrogen market weeks before the UK government is expected to launch a strategy worth £240m to support hydrogen production.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/05/jim-ratcliffe-ineos-clean-hydrogen-fund-uk-float-hydrogenone-capital-growth

QrizB

It's interesting to see Shell building a hydrogen plant in Germany. Looks like a pilot plant to test the waters.