Institutions in Hamburg are proposing to build a large underground thermal heat storage system that could supply roughly a quarter of the city’s heating needs with waste heat from industrial and power plants. If successful, it would make Vattenfall’s plans to realise a CO2-neutral district heating network superfluous. It could also serve as an example for other cities. … [Read more...]
Wake-up call: production of Dutch small gas fields headed for collapse
Partly as a result of policy neglect, production from small gas fields in the Netherlands has dramatically declined in recent years, a fact that so far seems to have escaped public notice, writes Jilles van den Beukel. Dutch gas is effectively being replaced by Russian gas, he notes. According to Van den Beukel, this is not in the best interest of the Netherlands or of the EU, neither from a financial nor from an environmental point of view. He … [Read more...]
Green power revolution grinds forward, an unstoppable glacier
Webster’s defines revolution as “a sudden, radical or complete change.” The ongoing revolution in the United States electric utility industry fits that definition to a T, writes Washington-based energy reporter Dennis Wamsted. The changes have been unbelievably quick (at least by company standards, if not by activists’ desires), and the long-term impacts are going to be both radical and complete. Importantly, in today’s political climate, the … [Read more...]
Can emissions trading produce adequate carbon prices? That’s the question
Prices under emissions trading schemes have been low, unlike some carbon taxes. This undermines confidence in this key climate instrument, writes energy and climate change economist Adam Whitmore. The EU should take the lead in demonstrating that emissions trading can work, or climate change efforts will suffer. … [Read more...]
Carbon Tracker: no growth for oil and coal from 2020, gas can flip-flop
Falling costs of electric vehicle and solar technology could halt growth in global demand for oil and coal from 2020, finds a new report co-authored by the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London and the Carbon Tracker Initiative launched on Thursday. The future of natural gas is highly uncertain in this new scenario analysis. … [Read more...]
The next EV revolution: think trucks and buses
Most of the talk around electric vehicles centres round Tesla’s, Chevy Bolts and other passenger cars. But the financial and environmental case for the electrification of big vehicles, such as buses and garbage trucks, is actually much more compelling than for small cars, writes Chris Denny Brown. According to Brown, founder of job site Cleantekker, this is where the electric transport revolution should have begun. … [Read more...]
Trump administration needs to be watched closely
The first actions of the new Trump administration raise grave concerns, both with regard to their energy policies and their policies in general, writes Allan R. Hoffman, author of the blog Thoughts of a Lapsed Physicist and formerly with the U.S. Department of Energy. We need to be vigilant to safeguard our democratic system. … [Read more...]
Emissions trading: Time to make it work
There is broad consensus that carbon pricing should be one of the key measures to deal with global warming, yet there has been no effective emission trading scheme anywhere in the world, writes Stig Schjolset, who this week is leaving his job as head of carbon analysis at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon to become special advisor on climate policy and green growth to the Norwegian government. According to Schjolset this is not because there is … [Read more...]
BP’s Energy Outlook: between forecasting and advocacy
BP’s new Energy Outlook predicts ever-growing demand for oil and gas, and rising emissions that would take the world well beyond 2°C of warming. According to Greg Muttitt, Senior Advisor at NGO Oil Change International, previous Outlooks do not provide much confidence in BP’s projections, but it clearly helps BP if decision-makers believe that’s what the future holds. It looks like the forecasting value of BP’s Outlook is undermined by its use as … [Read more...]
Theft of refined oil products threatens global stability
The theft of refined oil products, such as petrol and diesel, poses significant threats to the global economy and to the stability of states and regions in which it is prevalent, according to a first-ever in-depth study of global downstream oil theft, conducted by Ian M. Ralby for the Atlantic Council. The report shows that refined oil theft is becoming ever more sophisticated and increasingly involves those who are supposed to guard against it. … [Read more...]
States, not Trump, will decide future of U.S. electricity sector
The new US president Donald Trump has quickly removed any reference to former president Obama’s Climate Action Plan on the website of the White House. It is not clear yet whether Trump will be able to dismantle the Clean Power Plan, which was part of Obama’s wider climate action program. According to Frederick Weston of the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) policies in the electricity sector have always been determined by the US States rather … [Read more...]
What a CO2 price floor can (and cannot) do for German climate goals
Germany can meet its climate goals for the energy sector if it introduces a CO2-price floor of between €50 and €75 per ton, write Fabian Huneke, Carlos Perez Linkenheil and Simon Göß from the Berlin-based independent energy market specialist Energy Brainpool. However, if neighbouring countries don’t take similar measures, more than half of the reduced CO2- emissions will be shifted abroad, note the authors. As long as power markets are … [Read more...]
Gazprom plays ball: the depoliticization of the European gas market
Gazprom’s gas supplies to Europe and Turkey reached an all-time record in 2016. This might suggest Europe is becoming more dependent on Gazprom, but according to Danila Bochkarev, Senior Fellow at the EastWest Institute, the Russian company gained market share by playing by the rules of the market. The European gas market is finally becoming depoliticized. … [Read more...]
France can’t meet its own power demand
France was heavily dependent on power imports from Germany during the first cold spell of this winter, despite the fact that most of the country’s nuclear reactors are back online, writes Craig Morris from the Energy Transition blog. As the US is now also investigating 17 nuclear reactors with parts from reactor producer Areva, just rescued by the French state, it shows the perilous state the French power sector is in. Courtesy Energy Transition. … [Read more...]
Turning point: solar cheaper than wind
It was bound to happen, and apparently it has: utility-scale solar-generated power, certainly in sunny parts of the world, appears to be cheaper than wind and both are cheaper than fossil-fuel generated power, writes Fereidoon Sioshansi, president of Menlo Energy Economics and publisher of the newsletter EEnergy Informer. … [Read more...]
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