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...]
Tipping Points reached for Solar, Wind, Batteries, EVs. What of the other Clean Energy techs?
History shows a disruptive technology’s tipping point can be under 5% of market share, that’s all it takes. The number of horses in use peaked in the U.S. once car ownership reached 3%. Gas lighting in the UK peaked with electric lighting at just 2% of the market. Landline phones in the U.S. fell precipitously after mobiles captured 5% of the market. Ji Chen and Koben Calhoun at RMI argue the tipping point has already been passed for solar, wind, … [Read more...]
IEA projections 2020: energy demand plunges but Renewables still grow at Gas, Coal’s expense
The IEA has made its projections for the impact of the pandemic lockdown on energy demand in 2020 (they say it’s too early for them to assess anything more long term), and its implications for the different generation types. This article summarises their special Global Energy Review 2020, published at the end of last week. It assumes that lockdowns are eased this year and growth gradually returns. With that, global energy demand will fall 6% in … [Read more...]
Defining green investments, ending greenwash: the EU’s new Taxonomy Regulation
When the EU Commission’s new Taxonomy Regulation is approved, expected in March, it will provide the legal framework to define what is a truly ‘green’ investment. As Luca Bonaccorsi at Transport & Environment explains, right now asset managers and national authorities are free to define what is green, allowing some to greenwash investments in things like oil and pesticides. The Taxonomy's purpose is to reduce ambiguity and therefore increase … [Read more...]
Biofuels “light-to-power” slump: because photosynthesis is no match for Solar PV
The success of energy crops depends on many things. But the first link in the chain is a weak one: natural photosynthesis, the conversion of light into energy by plants. The problem is the efficiency of photosynthesis is no match for that of a modern solar PV cell. And while solar technology keeps improving, mother nature – not a signatory to the Paris Agreement – has no plans to do so. Any progress must come from biotechnology which is slow … [Read more...]
Biofuels: slump in investment and innovations must be reversed
IRENA is predicting the future of liquid biofuels by monitoring the number and technology-type of patents. It’s not looking good. The first thing to note is that, after a promising rise, the total number of patents has slid from over 6,000 in 2011 to around 2,500 in 2017. That’s reflected in the dramatic fall in global biofuel investments, from $27bn in 2007 to $2bn in 2017. The likely main cause is a lack of stable regulation, say Alessandra … [Read more...]
An independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050 (part 5 of 5): Electric cars
Schalk Cloete has completed his own 5-part independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050, to compare with this year’s IEA World Energy Outlook, published this week. Underpinning all his predictions is his bet that the world will adopt tech-neutral policies (i.e. not backing any one technology over another) in 2030 as the best and only way to accelerate the transition to meet the 2050 goals. Given that, he sees the traditional fossil fuel ICE’s share … [Read more...]
Shipping: commercially viable zero emission deep sea vessels by 2030
Last year the International Maritime Organization, recognising the slow progress the sector had made, set ambitious targets to reduce shipping emissions by at least 50% by 2050 compared to 2008. Companies started lining up to face the challenge. But the shipping sector is very energy intensive. Bunker fuel costs can account for 24 - 41% of total shipping costs, so any clean fuel transition must be competitively priced. The fact that alternatives … [Read more...]
German task force agreement on traffic emissions 1/3 off target
During what was billed as the decisive meeting, the German transport commission charged with proposing emissions cuts for the sector could only reach consensus on measures that will lower emissions by around two thirds of the necessary amount. Pro-climate activists, disappointed with the results, nevertheless welcomed the recommendation to look into the introduction of a CO2 price. Meanwhile emissions have actually increased. And VW, siding with … [Read more...]
Study says no way to decarbonise the gas sector by 2050
Gas industry advocates argue that expansion of gas infrastructure is justified because it will be possible to switch to low-carbon gases such as hydrogen and biomethane in future. But research by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) predicts that biomethane production will remain modest, even with massive subsidies. … [Read more...]
EU gas and power transmission grid operators map out energy future (Energy Post Weekly)
For the first time ever, the gas and electricity transmission system operators in the EU have joined forces to develop a series of joint scenarios for the European energy system out to 2040. Takeaways: high carbon prices, no shale gas, hardly any CCS, less gas in heating/more gas in transport, less nuclear and more biomethane and power-to-gas. The scenarios matter because they will ultimately help decide which energy infrastructure projects get … [Read more...]
Jet fuel from sugarcane? It’s not a flight of fancy
Through genetic engineering, researchers from the University of Illinois have produced a new form of sugarcane, called lipidcane, whose leaves contain 12 percent oil, instead of the natural level of 0.05 percent. They are working to produce a variety they call energycane, with 20 percent oil. The new plant variety could produce enough oil to produce biodiesel and jet-fuel economically, they write. Courtesy The Conversation. … [Read more...]
Green Gold: a documentary filmmaker unearths the shocking story behind biofuels
On 22 November, the impressive documentary “Green Gold” by veteran filmmaker Sergio Ghizzardi premieres at the Aventura cinema in Brussels. Over a period of nearly ten years Ghizzardi travelled to all corners of the globe, interviewing politicians, farmers, oil industry representatives, biofuel producers and NGOs to understand “a political project” that began in Brussels and kicked up a worldwide storm that is still getting bigger every day. … [Read more...]
Five things that should happen at the Bonn climate talks but probably won’t
If the Paris agreement is to be anything other than a farce, there are five things that should happen at the climate convention that has just started in Bonn, write Matthew Paterson and Marc Hudson of the University of Manchester. Chances are, however, that they won’t. Courtesy The Conversation. … [Read more...]
Beyond oil: options for clean fuel production
Several options exist for clean fuel production in the long-term future, writes Schalk Cloete in the third and last part of a series on the future of the internal combustion engine. Next-gen biofuels have the potential to approach current oil prices at a low environmental cost. Hydrogen can be produced economically from excess wind/solar power, nuclear heat or fossil fuels with CCS. Ammonia and hydrocarbon synfuels from clean hydrogen can be … [Read more...]
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