Negotiations are underway for the reform of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), an international trade agreement under fire from former Energy Charter executives, members of the European Parliament, and NGOs. Created at the end of the cold war, it was designed to protect cross-border energy investments â in a fossil fuel world â from political risk. Clare Taylor quotes the critics who say it no longer makes sense for the treaty to protect oil and … [Read more...]
Grid scale Battery costs are declining faster than Wind and Solar
Gas as a transition fuel for grids may be around for a lot less time than we thought. We already know that large batteries, if they are cheap enough, can replace gas plants to provide peaking power to grids reliant on intermittent wind and solar. Bruce Robertson at IEEFA says the numbers are showing battery costs declining even more rapidly than wind and solar. Precisely because of that increased competitiveness Australiaâs AGL Energy is starting … [Read more...]
Hydrogen, CCS, and more: without new clean energy technologies we cannot hit our 2050 emissions targets
The flagship 400-page report, Energy Technology Perspectives 2020, is another salvo from the IEA to concentrate the minds of the world on new technologies and their roll out. Thatâs because transforming electrification and the power sector alone, where most of the progress is happening, will only get us one-third of the way to net-zero emissions by 2050. The IEA has analysed over 800 new technology options. The most important categories â … [Read more...]
The expansion of Europeâs EV charging infrastructure: new rules and incentives needed
In 2021 the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Directive, which regulates public charging infrastructure, will be revised and updated by the European Commission. Referencing her study, Julia Hildermeier at RAP identifies some of the rules and incentives that will be needed to optimise the expansion of EV charging infrastructure. To start with, she says that EU countries need to define the baseline essential charging network. Such a promise would … [Read more...]
City-level emissions reductions: what can successful cities teach us
The EU Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (EUCoM) requires their member cities to commit to exceeding their national goals. EUCoM is one of the worldâs largest subnational climate action networks, with over 1,000 cities and home to 50m people. Writing for Carbon Brief, Angel Hsu, Nihit Goyal and Amy Weinfurter at Yale-NUS College review the data to see how successful they have been. About 40% of the cities show emission reductions that are … [Read more...]
Cooling: up-front costs are the barrier to new solutions that cut energy use by two-thirds
Existing, latest technology could be delivering the worldâs current air conditioning needs with just a third of the energy use, say Sneha Sachar at the AEEE (India) and Iain Campbell at RMI. The main barrier is the up-front costs. And thatâs for everything from improving the thermal efficiency of buildings to accelerating the deployment of the most efficient cutting edge ACs (at present, legal minimums lag behind the best ACs, and the best ACs … [Read more...]
âVertical wellâ Pumped-Storage Hydro: small, cheaper, 1-to-100MW range
In the U.S., pumped-storage hydropower (PSH) already provides 95% of all utility-scale energy storage. So any innovations that cut costs or extend PSH usability should be well received. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and its partners Obermeyer Hydro, Microtunneling Inc. and Small Hydro Consulting are demonstrating the advantages of a small pump installed in a vertical âwellâ rather than an underground powerhouse, one of the most … [Read more...]
E-Trucks need infrastructure, not just cheaper batteries
The electrification of road freight has great potential, but there are some big gaps that first have to be bridged. Writing for IRENA, Dolf Gielen, Francisco Boshell, Guy Lentz and Sita Holtslag explain what needs to be done to ensure that the technological advances and cost reductions happening at the forefront of e-mobility are quickly delivered onto our roads. To illustrate the problem: in Europe over half of road freight is transported less … [Read more...]
Will Saudi Arabia build the worldâs largest green hydrogen and ammonia plant?
The Gulf is already a major producer and consumer of hydrogen, mainly for fertilisers and specialty chemicals. Like most hydrogen produced globally, it is the âgreyâ kind made from hydrocarbons. But the regionâs low renewable power costs and abundance of land give it the key components for the industrial scale production of green hydrogen. So in July, the Saudi model city of Neom (Neom means ânew futureâ) and ACWA Power signed a joint venture … [Read more...]
Zero U.S. power sector emissions by 2035, says Biden. How?
Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential hopeful, wants to reduce U.S. power sector emissions to zero by 2035. Thatâs more ambitious than Obama, and more than what Biden promised when campaigning to be the Democratâs candidate. His emphasis has been on the jobs and investment a green economy will create â language that has more voter appeal than reversing emissions. Meredith Fowlie at UC Berkeleyâs Energy Institute at Haas reviews the promises … [Read more...]
Franceâs recovery plan: will support for emissions-high sectors compromise a new Green economy?
The French recovery plan, formally presented today, combines emergency rescue measures, economic stimulus and longer-term investments. A substantial âŹ32bn out of the âŹ100bn budgeted is earmarked for the green economy. But SĂ©bastien Treyer at IDDRI asks whether rescue measures for traditionally emissions-high sectors - tourism, aviation, automotive, buildings, agri-food â will collide with climate targets. He references studies that should be used … [Read more...]
âElectro-swing cellâ captures CO2 direct from the air
The problem with capturing carbon from a power plant is that the CCS system is itself huge, expensive, consumes a lot of energy, and only works on exhaust streams with high concentrations of CO2. Whatâs more, to meet global CO2 targets, total atmospheric CO2 has to be reduced, not just held at todayâs concentrations by capturing new emissions alone. Writing for MIT, Nancy Stauffer explains how researchers there are piloting an âelectro-swing … [Read more...]
Europe could have subsidy-free Offshore Wind by 2023
A study has analysed offshore wind projects in 5 countries â the UK, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium â to show that wind farms due to be built after 2020 are converging towards a range of âŹ50-70/MWh. It wasnât long ago that such low prices were only predicted for 2050, say Iegor Riepin, Felix MĂŒsgens (Brandenburg University of Technology), Malte Jansen and Iain Staffell (Imperial College London), writing for Carbon Brief. To make … [Read more...]
Who will be the Hydrogen superpower? The EU or China
Implicit in the EUâs plans, announced in July, to be the worldâs Hydrogen leader is that this technology will have others competing for the top spot too. When EU nations ramped up their solar PV sector in the 2000s they couldnât survive the arrival and rapid expansion of Chinese production. Will EU Hydrogen meet the same fate? Sören Amelang at CLEW speaks to a wide range of experts to try to answer this vital question from all the relevant … [Read more...]
Summer break! See you in September
Once again Energy Post thanks all of our readers and expert contributors for a tremendous first half of the year. We have run three events entirely online in the last two months to discuss policy. Our latest (on Hydrogen) had almost 400 people from across the industry logged in to listen to â and ask questions of â our expert panel. The lockdown has made us more busy, not less! Meanwhile, our readers have been avidly sharing our articles on … [Read more...]
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