The EU Taxonomy is a classification system that defines a list of environmentally sustainable economic activities. If your activity is on the list you should see green finance flow your way. Hence the heated debate over what is “green”. It’s of vital interest to sectors like gas and nuclear (it’s green compared to the coal it replaces) as it will have a major effect on the cost of capital and therefore the future of the sector. Indeed, any … [Read more...]
EU Taxonomy: Gas as a transition fuel needs Green Deal support too
PGE Group is Poland's largest energy company. Its transformation plan targets a 50% share from renewable generation and an 85% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030. By 2050 it intends to have net zero CO2 emissions and provide 100% green energy to its customers. As with all nations around the world, and certainly in the EU, successful transitions depend on capital flows to the right sectors, signposted by policies and support. What does and does … [Read more...]
The dangers of using Climate Policy as a Social Justice tool
Cap-and-trade has been criticised in California for allowing big emitters to pay their way out of reducing emissions and cause pollution. It’s become a social justice issue as poorer communities tend to be located near where the pollution is being created. James Bushnell at the Energy Institute at Haas warns that such clashes are being caused by the mistaken view that climate policy should be a major tool for reducing inequality. In fact, some … [Read more...]
How Biden can start to find a compromise on Nord Stream 2
The Trump administration and the U.S. Congress threatened sanctions on European companies helping to build the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, and that is still the current position of the new U.S. government. To end the deadlock, president Biden needs to change the tone of the debate and focus on the true interests of the affected parties, explains Nikos Tsafos at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He summarises those … [Read more...]
Oil’s decline will weaken its political influence
2020 was another bad year for the oil and gas industry. The pandemic made it worse but it was not the cause: a decline has been going on for a long time. Energy firms in the S&P 500 (overwhelmingly oil and gas) make up 2.3% of the total value, down from 16% just over a decade ago, and 30% forty years ago. Clark Williams-Derry and Tom Sanzillo at IEEFA explain why, how and what the likely consequences are for oil firms. For many years it’s … [Read more...]
Asia’s record Gas prices expose the need for faster market reform
After record lows in mid-2020, Asian spot prices for LNG rose tenfold to reach record highs in January 2021. This volatility is an obstacle to the development of the gas infrastructure that’s essential to the region where demand for gas is growing, explain Jean-Baptiste Dubreuil and Gergely Molnar at the IEA. There were multiple causes for the price spike, including the cold winter, limits to nuclear and coal generation, and outages at regional … [Read more...]
How to create four major regional Gas hubs in Russia
Kamil Sobczak at the Russian Gas Society has co-authored a report, “Opportunities and prospects for the development of gas hubs in Russia”, which he summarises here. It scopes out what is needed to create four major gas hubs in the Far East, North West, Central and Southern Russia. The plan will help develop and modernise Russia’s gas sector as well as increase exports. Transparency in prices and transaction volumes will be essential to create … [Read more...]
China’s 14th Five-Year Plan will reshape its growing Gas sector
Demand for natural gas in China is set to continue its rise, increasing by 7% to 9% annually to reach up to 500 bcm by 2025, explains Sylvie Cornot-Gandolphe at the IFRI Centre for Energy & Climate. Domestic gas production has continued its significant growth too, driven by a surge in shale gas. Even then, gas imports – both pipeline and LNG - should increase to fulfil the rising supply/demand gap. This growing importance of gas in the energy … [Read more...]
Decarbonising Industry is key to China’s net-zero strategy
China has committed to a CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060. It’s 14th 5-year plan will be released in March, followed by sector-oriented plans. For the first time it will include a dedicated plan addressing climate change. Dolf Gielen, Yong Chen and Paul Durrant at IRENA start by laying out China’s energy mix for scrutiny, then dive into its industrial sector which accounts for 60% of gross final energy use. Success … [Read more...]
A new EU Gas Market must expose it to all clean energy solutions, not just gas-on-gas
Towards the end of this year the EC is expected to issue new proposals for gas legislation, a once in a decade market reform. Simon Skillings and Lisa Fischer at E3G highlight the big difference between the design of gas and electricity markets for Europe. The electricity market is growing, the gas market needs to shrink. The authors quote figures showing that the EU's 55% emissions reduction target for 2030 means natural gas use will reduce by … [Read more...]
The Energy Charter Treaty makes the transition easier. Don’t scrap it, reform it
Energy and climate experts as well as national and EU parliamentarians are lining up to press their governments to withdraw from the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) if insufficient progress is made in its modernisation. Their main argument is that it gives protection to fossil investments in a world where policies are changing in order to constrain or phase them out. Here, Frank Umbach at EUCERS sternly warns against abandoning the ECT. The treaty … [Read more...]
Nuclear-Wind hybrid plants for grid stability, Power-to-X and more
How would you use a nuclear-wind hybrid plant and maximise its potential? When intermittent wind’s output falls, nuclear can step in to feed the grid. When it’s not doing that it can use its power to run the production of a wide range of commodities: from biofuels, hydrogen, pumped hydro to wastewater purification, desalination, chemical manufacturing and more – including straightforward thermal power for industry. In collaboration with NREL, the … [Read more...]
The top Clean Energy developments of 2020
The world is still a long way off the pathway to meeting our emissions goals. But 2020 saw a number of major steps in the right direction. Laurie Stone at RMI presents a list of what has been achieved and which trends and new policy commitments are pointing us towards a much needed faster transition. They include coal’s decline, wind and solar’s growing competitiveness (even compared to gas), the promise of green hydrogen, bans on gas/petrol … [Read more...]
Satellite monitoring of Methane leaks makes policing them more effective
Satellites, drones, and airplanes should be used to detect methane leaks across the million active wells and hundreds of thousands of miles of pipelines across the U.S. That’s because without proper monitoring it’s extremely hard to find leaks, let alone regulate them. Meredith Fowlie at UC Berkeley’s Energy Institute at Haas describes their paper that uses such data to, first, show that 2.3% of upstream natural gas production is leaking. That’s … [Read more...]
What effect will blending Hydrogen into the Natural Gas network have?
What are the technical barriers to blending hydrogen into the natural gas network? How well will the pipelines cope? How will the blend affect equipment and appliances? What are the costs and environmental impacts? The answers to these key questions are being sought by a collaboration of laboratories, industry and academia led by NREL, called HyBlend. The long-term impact of hydrogen on materials and equipment is still not understood. The effect … [Read more...]
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