The coal industry and some power utilities have been talking up the supposed benefits of ultra-supercritical power plants – leading some decision-makers and commentators to mistakenly believe that the choice of ultra-supercritical technology for a power plant will substantially mitigate air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions, writes Lauri Myllyvirta of Greenpeace East Asia. Courtesy Reneweconomy.com … [Read more...]
Interview bio-energy expert AndrĂ© Faaij: “So much nonsense has been told – high time for the real story”
“An enormous amount of nonsense” has been told about bio-energy, says AndrĂ© Faaij, scientific director of Energy Academy Europe and professor Energy Systems Analysis at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. According to Faaij, it is high time for the real – scientifically validated – story. “The bio-based economy is indispensable for our climate policy and can mean huge progress for agriculture and nature in developing countries”. … [Read more...]
To slow climate change, India joins the renewable energy revolution
India has embarked on a remarkable renewables revolution, made possible by falling prices of solar power, writes Arun Agrawal, Professor of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan. According to Agrawal, what is needed above all to make the energy transition succeed, is robust grids and careful land use planning. Courtesy The Conversation. … [Read more...]
Climate change (I): How did we get here, and why is it so hard to fix?
Why is the climate change problem so hard to fix, asks energy and climate change economist Adam Whitmore? The answer in a nutshell: activities that cause emissions are ubiquitous, diverse and deeply embedded in modern life. The world’s energy system is huge and long-lived. In addition, there are considerable political and psychological barriers. Whitmore addresses both these aspects in a two-part series. … [Read more...]
The Petro-Powers vs. the Greens: is Trump launching a New World Order?Â
There may be more method behind Donald Trump’s madness than people think, writes energy expert and author Michael Klare. His attempts to forge alliances with Russia and Saudi Arabia show that Trump is laying the foundations for a new world order, in which fossil-fuel powers will contend for supremacy with post-carbon, green-energy states. If we let him get his way, warns Klare, the world may soon be divided into two camps: the carbonites versus … [Read more...]
Interview David Hone, Chief Climate Change Advisor Shell: “Net zero emissions are achievable. The timing is challenging”
EU climate and energy policy is “reasonably effective”, but it could achieve more for the climate if it focused purely on reducing CO2-emissions, says David Hone, Chief Climate Change Advisor at Shell, in an interview with Energy Post. “There are too many goals and too many targets.” Hone also argues that first generation biofuels are needed to make advanced biofuels work and that a “new approach” towards CCS is urgently needed. Globally, Hone … [Read more...]
Remi Eriksen, CEO DNV GL: Gas and renewables can be best of ‘frenemies’
Gas could be the ideal partner for renewable energy generation in a future sustainable energy mix, writes Remi Eriksen, Group President and CEO of DNV GL, one of the largest risk management providers in the world with operations in more than 100 countries. However, for this to happen, the oil and gas industry must help policymakers and the public become aware of all the benefits of gas, notes Eriksen, not just the economic ones. Also, the … [Read more...]
Some irony: Trump’s Paris exit will hurt nuclear and coal power
Ironically, Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement will hurt two sectors that his administration would like to protect: the nuclear and the coal power industry, writes Washington DC-based energy author Dennis Wamsted. This is because without a Federal climate policy, neither nuclear power nor carbon capture and storage (CCS) will get the support they need. … [Read more...]
A new energy bible: Samuele Furfari explains why technology is king
If you’re in the energy business, here is a new manual for you that lays out the essentials of what energy is and how it shapes geopolitics today. Professor and long-time European Commission official Samuele Furfari has condensed his 39 years of experience in the energy sector into a two-volume tome of more than 1,250 pages that goes right from the fundamentals of physics through Britain’s rule of the Middle East to modern day realities such as … [Read more...]
Are solar and wind really killing coal, nuclear and grid reliability?
U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry wants to know whether solar and wind are killing coal, nuclear and grid reliability. Thanks to Texas, where Perry was governor, we know that a combination of wind and solar with fast-ramping natural gas, smart market designs and integrated load control systems will lead to a cleaner, cheaper, more reliable grid, write four researchers at the University of Texas. Courtesy The Conversation. … [Read more...]
Jobs? Investing in renewables beats fossil fuels
For policymakers who are interested in job creation, investing in renewable energy is considerably more effective than investing in fossil fuels, writes Allan Hoffman, author of the blog Thoughts of a Lapsed Physicist and formerly with the U.S. Department of Energy. Solar and wind are powerful engines of job creation and economic growth. … [Read more...]
China’s continuing green shift in electric power: evidence from 2016
Over the past decade, China has been greening its electric power system faster than any other industrial power. But China is also continuing to pump out more greenhouse gases than any other other country. Is its green transformation happening fast enough? Hao Tan and John A. Mathews dig deep into the 2016 data and present an awesome picture of the stunningly large Chinese electric power sector. Courtesy Asia-Pacific Journal. … [Read more...]
Costs of electricity generation compared: beware of simple metrics
With the rapid growth of renewables, comparing costs of different forms of power generation has become important for policymakers, investors and analysts. In these comparisons, the metric of LCOE (levelized cost of energy) is often used, but the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) warns that this metric does not cover all the complexities involved. The EIA has written a short primer on comparing power generation costs. … [Read more...]
Divestment will not block German lignite
Stock divestment strategies have been widely proposed to undercut financial support for fossil fuels. The German lignite industry, however, cannot be tackled in this way, writes independent energy expert Jeffrey Michel in a highly informative analysis. Lignite stations and mines are owned by regional communities in the west and a Czech consortium in the east. Although some power plants are being phased out against government-arranged subsidies, … [Read more...]
Tobacco and climate change liability: there are more similarities than you might think
While there are some important differences between liability for the damage of smoking and the damage caused by climate change, from a legal perspective there are also many significant similarities, write Martin Olszynski, Sharon Mascher (both at the University of Calgary) and Meinhard Doelle (Dalhousie University). Automakers and fossil fuel energy companies may want to start warning the public more explicitly about the risks of fossil fuel … [Read more...]
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