Coal is cheap. In countries historically reliant on it, as well as emerging economies still building plants, switching to cleaner energy just doesn’t seem to add up. That’s when you’re only looking at your national energy system costs. But the externality costs of air pollution, public health and a degraded local environment are rarely factored in to the equation. When they are, explains Sebastian Rauner writing for Carbon Brief, abandoning coal … [Read more...]
Archives for April 2020
How Eurobonds can raise trillions for recovery and the Green Deal
EU nations have lined up for and against any form of Eurobonds, including Coronabonds, that would mutualise vast amounts of debt across all the member states. Yet vast amounts are needed to recover from this unexpected and unprecedented global slump caused by the Coronavirus pandemic. Where will it come from? Luca Bonaccorsi at Transport & Environment explains EC president Ursula von der Leyen’s proposal for how the EU budget (on its own, … [Read more...]
Bounceback or Recession? Modelling the impact on electricity prices to 2025
Carlos Perez Linkenheil at Energy Brainpool models three scenarios to understand the factors that are having the biggest impact on – and thereby make predictions for - electricity prices, revenues, energy source merit order, and emissions in the EU. Other parameters in the scope of their analysis include oil prices, gas prices, commodities markets, carbon taxes, and the EUA/emissions market. Clearly, collapsing prices are profoundly distorting … [Read more...]
U.S.: Counting Renewables jobs and projects under threat, what can be done and why
All sectors across all economies are trying to add up their potential job losses and projects in jeopardy, then telling their governments to prioritise them for Covid lockdown support. Mike Jacobs at the Union of Concerned Scientists looks at renewables in the U.S. He quotes news reports that over 100,000 workers in this fast-growing industry filed for unemployment in March 2020. On top of that, the already planned expiry and phase-down of … [Read more...]
EU needs clear European Green and Solidarity Pact by September
Stark predictions around the unprecedented economic challenges facing Europe (and the world) are starting to take shape. The possible solutions must keep pace with them. Here, Marc-Antoine Eyl-Mazzega at the IFRI Centre for Energy & Climate lays out those challenges and robust policy answers that can keep us on a net-zero emissions track while stimulating economies, creating jobs, and maintaining social justice. It’s no surprise that there is … [Read more...]
Designing the Covid-19 stimulus: what the 2008 crisis can teach us
Policy makers around the world are hearing a lot of advice on how to design their stimulus packages. This comes from the IEA where Fatih Birol lays out five fundamental lessons we can learn from the stimulus packages that came out of the 2008 global financial crisis. His main headings are: Build on what you already have – and think big (e.g. feed-in tariffs, production tax credits); Choose technologies that are ready for the big time (e.g. wind, … [Read more...]
Floating Offshore Wind Turbines: utility scale by 2024?
Floating wind turbines can access deeper waters that the usual fixed offshore ones. There the wind speeds are greater and more consistent. It opens the door to even greater efficiency and cost reductions. America’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has summarised a webinar by their Offshore Wind Research Platform Lead, Walt Musial. Other main take-aways include: floating platforms have long been engineered and proven by the oil and gas … [Read more...]
Four reasons to reconcile EU economic recovery and the climate agenda
Politicians and interest groups are polarising the debate between post COVID-19 economic recovery and decarbonisation. By doing so, they jeopardise Europe’s future. It has to stop. While Pascal Canfin, prominent Member of the European Parliament, launched a vast call to restore Europe’s economy in line with the EU Green Deal, others are calling to delay or freeze climate ambitions. European and national leaders have to understand that they … [Read more...]
Regulatory challenges to foster cross-border trade in electricity systems with increasing shares of renewables
The share of renewable generation in Europe’s power system is rising fast, but interconnection is not keeping up. Join us on May 19, 2020 to discuss this and related issues. More wind and solar makes the supply of electricity much more dependent on the weather. Nobody wants to build capacity only to switch it off when there’s too much heading onto the local grid. This could put an extra strain on delivering the Green Deal. One solution is to … [Read more...]
Green Ammonia can replace fossil fuel storage at scale
What’s the best way to store energy, from industry scale to electric vehicles, replacing the widespread use of fossil fuels? Pure hydrogen is an energy dense alternative, but the gas takes up a lot of space. Liquid ammonia doesn’t, yet it contains the hydrogen and therefore the energy. Ian Wilkinson at Siemens explains the advantages of using ammonia, NH3. Already the world produces 180m tonnes a year, worth €80bn. It’s mainly for agricultural … [Read more...]
Accelerate EV infra, buildings refits to use electricity’s looming spare capacity
How do we turn the pandemic downturn into an executable opportunity, above and beyond targets and promises? Chris Nelder at RMI presents data on how electricity load has dropped during the lockdown in the U.S. That load will return when the economy recovers. In the interim capacity will go unused. New capacity in the pipeline could be delayed. Nelder suggests policy makers grasp the opportunity to fill that gap and use that capacity by directing … [Read more...]
The outlook for Powerfuels in aviation, shipping
The development and commercialisation of powerfuels is in its very early stages. Powerfuels are synthetic gaseous and liquid fuels produced from green electricity. The plan is to use them when there is no viable alternative, like aviation and shipping. The big hurdle is cost, currently in the range of €3-5/litre, or five to ten times the price of fossil fuels. Dolf Gielen and Gabriel Castellanos at IRENA and Kilian Crone at the German Energy … [Read more...]
Stimulus opportunity: Hand all carbon taxes to households
Governments worldwide now have the opportunity to radically rethink how household consumption can be stimulated, and where that money can come from. And every serious politician knows a radical change in fiscal policy is a rare opportunity to shape perceptions and values. This could be that moment for carbon taxes. Gerard Wynn at IEEFA first notes the success they have had in reducing emissions in the EU. With a rise in the CO2 price on the … [Read more...]
Beyond pilots: scaling up energy innovation in cities
Our current electricity grid was built hundreds of years ago, when power generation was centralised and our energy needs were far simpler. Electricity was distributed from large stable power plants to the consumers through a unidirectional flow that was easily predictable and did not require complex control. But over the last decades, cities have been going through a substantial change, seeing an exponential increase of their energy needs which … [Read more...]
Behaviour Change: Covid-19 lockdown kicks open the door to a net-zero pathway
Working from home and minimal travel are “no brainer” ways to drastically reduce emissions. They’ve never been tried on a nationwide scale anywhere. Now they are, everywhere. Everyone is doing their best to make it work. Next, food waste should also be in decline, hopefully. Even if panic stockpiling happens, people’s mindsets are being changed as they try to use everything they’ve bought. The act of re-thinking what and how much we eat, in every … [Read more...]