The impressive rise of renewables and energy efficiency, alone, will not be sufficient to meet the world’s 2050 emissions goal, says the IEA in its flagship Clean Energy Innovation report. New technologies, taken all the way through to widespread adoption by the market, must become an essential part of the net zero pathway. The stark warning is that existing policies to decarbonise shipping, trucks, aviation and heavy industry are not nearly … [Read more...]
Europe’s new Hydrogen Strategy: the questions that still need answering
Yesterday saw the launch of the EC’s new Hydrogen Strategy, the focus of our next live online discussion and Q&A. Register now to join us at the event next Wednesday at 12.45 CEST on Zoom to hear direct from the European Commission's Dr. Florian Ermacora, Future Energy System expert Prof. dr. Ad van Wijk, Giulia Branzi - Head of Regulation at event partner SNAM and trading specialist Marcel Steinbach of BDEW. Here, to set the scene, Gökçe … [Read more...]
Three U.S. utilities to skip the gas “bridge”, move straight from coal to renewables
At the end of June, utilities in three U.S. states declared they are closing down coal plants and moving straight to renewables, without building new gas plants as a “bridge” fuel. For example, to replace lost coal capacity, Tucson Electric Power in Arizona will add 2,457MW of new wind and solar generation, backed up with 1,400MW of battery storage. Similar commitments are being made by other utilities in Colorado and Florida. New Mexico is … [Read more...]
BP’s world energy review: 2019 saw clean electricity match coal
Simon Evans at Carbon Brief summarises BP’s 69th edition of its influential annual statistical review of world energy, looking at 2019. Overall, total energy demand rose, though slower than usual. Renewables were the largest source of new energy, but were closely followed by oil and gas. Coal use dropped again, the fourth drop in six years, thanks to historic declines in the EU and the US. But continued growth in SE Asia, China and India leaves … [Read more...]
Batteries’ next challenges: fast charging, vehicle-to-grid, long duration, second life
Li-ion battery storage costs continue to fall dramatically. But for batteries to fulfil their potential, particularly for grid storage, developers need to focus on fast charging, electric vehicle-to-grid capability, long duration storage and second-life batteries, explains Madeline Tyson at Rocky Mountain Institute. She runs through the different types of Li-ion batteries, their strengths and weaknesses, how they can be harnessed to address these … [Read more...]
Buildings Efficiency: France must embed deep retrofits into its market
France’s energy efficiency ambitions for buildings are well off target. Buildings account for 28% of the nation’s emissions and they’ve hardly reduced since 1990 – only by 3%. It’s because of the lack of development of the buildings renovation sector, explains Andreas Rüdinger at IDDRI. Without it, there’s little chance of renovating 500,000 housing units per year and bringing the entire housing stock up to the "low-energy building" (BBC) … [Read more...]
Russia and U.S. are backing next generation Nuclear
Russia’s Rosatom is positioning itself to lead research and testing for Generation IV fast neutron reactors, including high temperature gas-cooled, molten salt, and lead-bismuth designs. Following an update of plans released by Rosatom in June, Dan Yurman fills in the details. It is creating an International Research Centre and has signed up four partnering nations so far – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. The R&D facility … [Read more...]
Optimising Cyanobacteria for carbon fixation and biofuels
The landscape can be changed for energy transition technologies by research breakthroughs, and that includes work on bacteria and proteins. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and its partners have been running experiments on cyanobacteria. These single-cell organisms, also using photosynthesis, fix carbon dioxide twice as efficiently as plants. They grow rapidly, doubling their numbers in three hours. The first step is to understand … [Read more...]
The PAC Scenario: net-zero by 2040 to meet Europe’s Paris goals
The EU is not on track to meet its Paris Agreement obligations on emissions and limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5°C. CAN Europe and the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) present their Paris Agreement Compatible (PAC) scenario, designed to do just that. It’s been created through the careful analysis of contributions from more than 150 stakeholders including NGOs, scientists, industry and grid operators. Jörg Mühlenhoff at CAN Europe … [Read more...]
German Geothermal: from 1.2TWh to 100TWh by 2050?
The IEA’s Sustainable Development Scenario sees the world's geothermal power generation tripling to almost 300 TWh by 2030. That’s because there’s an almost unlimited supply that can provide power, heating and cooling. It’s also a continuous supply uninterrupted by the weather, unlike solar and wind. The plants are small and quiet. For heating, ground-source heat pumps use significantly less electricity than other technologies. Writing for CLEW, … [Read more...]
The nexus between data centres, efficiency and renewables: a role model for the energy transition
How much will electricity consumption from data centres grow from today’s 1% of the global total? 40-fold by 2030? Or a more manageable 5-fold? Or less? Sean Ratka and Francisco Boshell at IRENA try to answer this question by looking at the innovations being made by the tech industry to drive down power costs and emissions. The evidence is promising. Though data centre computing output jumped 6- fold between 2010 and 2018, their energy … [Read more...]
Do black households in the U.S. pay more for their energy?
The “Black Lives Matter” movement, sparked by the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police at the end of May, has reverberated around the world. Particularly in North America and Europe it has gone well beyond the behaviour of the police and prompted calls to identify and root out structural racism wherever it is found. Maximilian Auffhammer at the Energy Institute at Haas looks at U.S. research that asks: “Do black households spend more on … [Read more...]
“Green” chemical plants that ramp up and down with wind, solar
One solution to variable renewables is to create customers that have no problem with ramping up and down production along with the power. In fact, when the wind and solar is producing too much power for the grid it can be bought very cheaply, making intermittent customers very happy. Jim Conca describes a new design for a Chlor-Alkali Chemical Plant that can “idle” without critical of the plant degrading – the main reason for a plant to be … [Read more...]
Will the Just Transition Fund deliver the Green Deal? [VIDEO]
![Will the Just Transition Fund deliver the Green Deal? [VIDEO]](https://energypost.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/JTF-Event-02-150x99.jpg)
Last week 390 Energy Post readers registered for our latest online panel discussion sponsored by PGE Poland. Our speakers included Wojciech Dabrowski - President of PGE Poland, Aleksandra Tomczak of the European Commission's dedicated Green Deal cabinet, Henrike Hahn MEP for the Greens, Corinna Zierold of European trade union IndustriAll and Jerzy Buzek MEP, former Prime Minister of Poland and President of the European Parliament 2009 to 2012. … [Read more...]
Ukraine’s integration into the EU gas market is a positive lesson for the region
Ukraine is shaping its gas infrastructure and regulations to integrate into the EU market. On the infrastructure front, its interconnectors with neighbours, extensive pipeline network and storage facilities are making it an increasingly important European player, explains Aura Sabadus writing for the Atlantic Council. The gradual opening up to EU free market rules are evidenced by its gas prices following those of the EU. Ukraine's attractive … [Read more...]
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