The Alternative Green Energy Thread

JKenH

ed110220 said:

thevilla said:

JKenH said:

Global environmental cost of using rare earth elements in green energy technologies

I am inserting just one sentence from this paper for impact. The report is too long to quote in full or even paraphrase. Please read the rest of the report for more information.

The calculations indicate that every 1% increase of green energy production causes roughly a 0.18% depletion of rare-earth elements reserves and 0.90% increase of CO2 eq. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969722021155

FWIW my take on the conclusions of the paper:

• "Green" energy environmental costs are front loaded so reducing fossil fuel use in mining is essential.
• The paper acknowledges it takes no account of potential recycling of rare earth materials.  Understandable as its hard to quantify but hard to believe there will be zero recycling of rare and presumably expensive resource.
  

Not a reason to turn back to oil.  Phew!

It's also worth looking carefully at those percentages in context as they could easily be presented in a misleading way.

A 1% increase in green energy production causes a 0.90% increase in CO2 equivalent from the processes used to produce the rare earth elements (not in CO2 emissions in general). If REEs are mainly being used in "green energy" technologies, it's not surprising that emissions from producing them will increase more or less in proportion with the increase in "green energy" technologies. Though longer term, as countries that produce REEs get more of their energy from low carbon sources, you'd expect that linkage to break down.

And yes, recycling will surely be important. If a large wind turbine has several hundred kilograms in it, its not going to be put in the bin like a mobile phone might.

I have to admit that what the 1% figure refers to could have been made a lot clearer. I have reread the paper a couple of times to try and understand it myself. 

In the section 3.7 Discussion it says “ The detailed calculation shows that an increase by 1% of green energy production represents roughly a 0.90% increase of GHG emissions in exploitation phase including mining, processing, and production stages ”. 

So what is meant by the “exploitation phase”?

Earlier in the same section it says

” It is generally accepted that wind energy generators emit no pollution to air or water, require no mining or drilling for fuel, use no water in electricity generation, and create no hazardous or radioactive wastes that would require a permanent storage. Also, it is estimated that wind power has the potential to cumulatively avoid one-third of global annual carbon emissions until 2050 — a 2 MW wind turbine containing around 350 kg REEs can reduce up to 42 kt of CO2 eq over its life time (Change, 2014; Nugent and Sovacool, 2014). However, those benefits are limited only to the system exploitation phase.”
I took it therefore that the exploitation phase was the exploitation of the technologies such as wind turbines, I.e. their usage rather than the exploitation of the land from which they were mined.

I therefore read “ an increase by 1% of green energy production represents roughly a 0.90% increase of GHG emissions in exploitation phase including mining, processing, and production stages” as meaning use of these technologies was only saving around 10% in GHGs.

The report had earlier stated “The calculations indicate that every 1% increase of green energy production causes roughly a 0.18% depletion of rare-earth elements reserves and 0.90% increase of CO2 eq. It means, cumulatively 32 billion t CO2 eq of greenhouse gas emissions in the period 2010–2020, globally.” In 2010 global emissions were of the order of 30 billion tonnes so the figures are very significant.

Anyway, that’s my reading but as I said above, it is a shame it wasn’t a bit clearer.

JKenH

How bad are incandescent light bulbs for the environment?

We all know we should be using LEDs but there are some interesting tips here if you haven’t made the switch yet. e.g. Meanwhile, compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL), which are more affected by the number of times they are switched on and off, should only be turned off when leaving the room for more than 15 minutes. 

We have one room where we have CFL because of the design of the light fittings so that is useful to me anyway.

https://www.popsci.com/environment/light-bulbs-sustainability-energy/

JKenH

Day ahead prices yesterday were, I believe, at their lowest price (averaged over whole day) that they been for 12 months even with gas making up a third of generation.

https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?start=2022-05-11&&_k=vamj57
https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?start=2022-05-11&&_k=vamj57

michaels

Leccy prices seem to have been much lower of late and with very little interconnector import too.

Sadly although near term gas price shave also been low, prices for next winter remain nearly 60% above the current cap baseline.

QrizB

JKenH said:

Day ahead prices yesterday were, I believe, at their lowest price (averaged over whole day) that they been for 12 months even with gas making up a third of generation.

https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?start=2022-05-11&&_k=vamj57
https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?start=2022-05-11&&_k=vamj57

The day as a whole is slightly more expensive tomorrow, but I was struck by the lowest priced hour at Nordpool being 2-3pm and a shocking £9.98/MWh - that's ~1p/kWh, in the middle of a weekday afternoon

michaels said:

Leccy prices seem to have been much lower of late and with very little interconnector import too.

We've even spent quite long periods exporting power to continental Europe, which hasn't been a frequent occurrence recently.

Sadly although near term gas price shave also been low, prices for next winter remain nearly 60% above the current cap baseline.

Gas futures are all over the place at the moment, the market doesn't know what's happening with Russian supplies or whether we'll cope without them or not.

Day-ahead gas is cheap, though, which makes Octopus Tracker very competitive for now. The averages for my region this month have been 4.4p/kWh for gas and 23.5p/kWh for electricity.

JKenH

Worries over security of supply for the electricity market next winter

Articles from this source have been increasingly negative about renewables (so I am tending not to publish them) but the focus here is on trends in non renewable generation which are impacting our generation capacity. As someone  pointed out on another thread the government’s performance on energy is at best mixed (I agree) but I think NG ESO must take some responsibility having for too long been telling the government what it wants rather than what it needs to hear. Potential shortfalls in capacity coupled with high gas prices are going to lead to some very expensive generation next winter.

There are four ways in which the capacity margin for this coming winter will be different from last year:

The first is that around 4 GW of coal plant is set to close by September this year:

• 2 GW West Burton A plant
• Last two coal units at Drax with a combined capacity of 1.4 GW
• One 500 MW unit at Ratcliffe

The second is that almost 2 GW of nuclear capacity is due to close this year. The Government has reportedly asked EDF to consider keeping Hinkley Point B open, but this may not be feasible since the closure was motivated by age and safety reasons.

The third is that the situation with the French nuclear fleet may mean we switch from importing electricity from France to exporting to France.

And the fourth is that the Norwegian electricity commission might restrict Norwegian electricity exports.

https://watt-logic.com/2022/05/13/security-of-supply-4/

JKenH

The Global Energy Shortage Could Be A Boon For Tidal Power

https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Tidal-Energy/The-Global-Energy-Shortage-Could-Be-A-Boon-For-Tidal-Power.html

JKenH

Britain’s electricity market needs to be substantially reformed, says National Grid ESO

I can’t say I am keen on this idea personally, living in an area with coal fired stations which are here for historic reasons and support the whole grid by generating at times of high demand/high prices. It will be great if you live in northern Scotland or the north east of England.

Nodal pricing’ divides the national network into different nodes, each with its own wholesale electricity price which reflects the cost of supplying electricity at that location.

National Grid ESO has predicted this option could create opportunities for low-cost, low carbon electricity to be harnessed when and where it is abundant.

That could contribute to lower electricity prices and reduced network operating costs while helping to decarbonise the grid.

https://www.energylivenews.com/2022/05/25/britains-electricity-market-needs-to-be-substantially-reformed-says-national-grid-eso/

Edit: actually if Octopus regional pricing is any guide we might be ok.

michaels

JKenH said:

Britain’s electricity market needs to be substantially reformed, says National Grid ESO

I can’t say I am keen on this idea personally, living in an area with coal fired stations which are here for historic reasons and support the whole grid by generating at times of high demand/high prices. It will be great if you live in northern Scotland or the north east of England.

Nodal pricing’ divides the national network into different nodes, each with its own wholesale electricity price which reflects the cost of supplying electricity at that location.

National Grid ESO has predicted this option could create opportunities for low-cost, low carbon electricity to be harnessed when and where it is abundant.

That could contribute to lower electricity prices and reduced network operating costs while helping to decarbonise the grid.

https://www.energylivenews.com/2022/05/25/britains-electricity-market-needs-to-be-substantially-reformed-says-national-grid-eso/

Edit: actually if Octopus regional pricing is any guide we might be ok.

Perhaps making people face the real costs of upgrading the grid will encourage other mechanisms such as strategically placed battery storage, demand management etc.

JKenH

Biden Says The Quiet Part About The Energy Transition Out Loud

President Joe Biden took some heat on Monday for saying the quiet part of the energy transition out loud. At a press conference following a meeting in Japan with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the President seemed to frankly admit that high gasoline and diesel prices are just part of the overall plan for the transition to renewables.

“[When] it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over,” Biden said. It was a mistake since, although running prices for fossil fuel-generated energy higher has always been part of the plan for Biden’s Green New Deal energy policies, admitting it aloud in public was not supposed to be part of the messaging.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2022/05/24/biden-says-the-quiet-part-about-the-energy-transition-out-loud/