China’s coal-to-gas ambitions are driving big changes to its internal gas markets, says a report “China’s Quest for Blue Skies: The Astonishing Transformation of the Domestic Gas Market” by the IFRI Centre for Energy & Climate, authored by Sylvie Cornot-Gandolphe. To cope with a doubling of gas demand by 2030, market reforms are liberalising the downstream gas market. Nobody wants a repeat of the winter shortages of 2017-18. And air … [Read more...]
An independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050 (part 3 of 5): fossil fuels
Schalk Cloete is creating his own 5-part independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050, to compare with the next IEA World Energy Outlook, due in November. To make his predictions he has created simulations of cost-optimal technology mixes and made his own assumptions over the drivers that will affect them: policy, technology, demand growth and behavioural change are all included. Cloete reminds us that fossil fuels did not reach their dominant … [Read more...]
Hydrogen Fuel Cell trucks can decarbonise heavy transport
Patrick Molloy at Rocky Mountain Institute runs through the pros and cons of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCEVs). The big pluses are that hydrogen has an energy density of around 120 MJ/kg, almost three times more than diesel or gasoline. Half the energy generated by an internal combustion engine is wasted as heat, whereas electric drivetrains used by FCEVs only lose 10%. Nikola Motors, a U.S. maker of hydrogen trucks, claims its vehicles can get … [Read more...]
TurkStream disruption: Turkey, Greece can become new gas hubs
For over 30 years the Trans-Balkan pipeline has been used to pump Russian gas to southeast Europe. But Russia’s construction of the new TurkStream pipelines can open the door for the Trans-Balkan to be re-purposed, explains Aura Sabadus writing for the Atlantic Council. Going forward, LNG can be imported into Turkey and Greece and pumped back up the same pipes to serve the region, reducing dependence on Russian gas. However, such a plan would … [Read more...]
Extract CO2 from our air, use it to create synthetic fuels
Carbon Capture needs to take off, but nobody knows how it’s going to happen. We need innovation, scrutinised, tested and funded. Jim Conca looks at a method of extracting CO2 directly from the air that’s being pioneered by Carbon Engineering in Canada, backed by private investors and government agencies. It grew out of academic work at the University of Calgary and Carnegie Mellon University. It’s “Direct Air Capture” system can remove a ton of … [Read more...]
Calculating the effect of $50/tonne CO2 on energy prices
Despite much debate, governments are hesitant to raise – or even impose – carbon pricing, worried about the direct impact it will have on businesses and consumers.To help understand its effect Severin Borenstein at the Energy Institute at Haas has crunched the numbers of a $50/tonne CO2 price, very expensive by today’s standards. He’s calculated the actual price increases on a gallon of petrol/gasoline, gas- and coal-fired generation, and natural … [Read more...]
Private finance must invest in carbon asset retirement, not just clean energy
The Climate Finance Leadership Initiative (CFLI) is laying out concrete plans for the private sector to finance the low-carbon transition, say Tyeler Matsuo and Lucy Kessler of Rocky Mountain Institute. One important insight of their new report “Financing the Low-Carbon Future” is that it’s not enough to back clean energy. Climate finance also needs to accelerate the retirement and transformation of the carbon assets that are responsible for 78% … [Read more...]
EU policing of Member State gas plans not consistent
Elisa Giannelli at E3G explains why the European Commission’s assessment of Member States’ natural gas plans is not consistent, on three fronts. Firstly, with its own EU climate targets: many nations are planning to increase their consumption of and investment in gas regardless of EU-wide targets to cut emissions. Secondly, the Commission is critical of some of these nations but actually supportive of others. Thirdly, even the EU’s own policies … [Read more...]
An independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050 (part 2 of 5): wind and solar
Schalk Cloete is creating his own 5-part independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050, to compare with the next IEA World Energy Outlook, due in November. Many of his assumptions are different from the big institutions, not least that technology-neutrality will be widely adopted as the best policy, as carbon budgets are exhausted around 2030. There are other big differences too. He starts with wind and solar, two technologies that the IEA and … [Read more...]
UN climate summit: which nations are leading, which failing
Ahead of the UN climate summit in New York on September 23rd, where countries are expected to set themselves more ambitious targets and roadmaps than they did in Paris in 2015, Bill Hare of Climate Analytics looks at the emissions league table. There are some surprises at the top: Ethiopia, Morocco and India, though he points out being at the top can still be a long way from doing enough to meet the 1.5℃ goal. At the bottom are Australia, the … [Read more...]
China’s quest for gas security is reshaping the global LNG market
In just two years, China has become the world’s top gas importer and should soon become the largest importer of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). But that growing import dependency, domestic winter supply concerns, and the trade war with the U.S. means the Chinese government is reinforcing its gas supply policy, says a report "China’s Quest for Gas Supply Security: The Global Implications" by the IFRI Centre for Energy & Climate, authored by … [Read more...]
2018 investment in renewables 12% down on 2017
At $272.9bn, 2018 investment in renewables capacity was 12% down on the previous year. Despite this, renewables’ investment was three times the total for coal and gas-fired generation capacity combined in 2018. Over the last decade, $2.6tn was invested in renewables (half going to solar), quadrupling capacity to 1,650GW. Consequently, renewables’ share of electricity generation reached 12.9%, up from 11.6% in 2017. This avoided an estimated 2bn … [Read more...]
A cheap Carbon Capture breakthrough? MOF molecular cages that trap CO2
Carbon Capture is the Transition’s great unknown. Big targets have been set but nobody knows how we’re going to meet them. It's clear we need utility-scale breakthroughs, and fast. And cheap. We take a look at one example of cutting edge research that could deliver both. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s SLAC Laboratory and Stanford University have taken the first images of CO2 molecules captured within a highly porous nanoparticle … [Read more...]
Gas v Electric new buildings: U.S. standards agency backs gas with out-of-date data, says RMI
Official reports matter. That’s why the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) is taking to task the U.S.’s National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) which published a paper stating that all-electric systems are more carbon intensive and more costly than gas-fired systems in new buildings. The NIST paper assumed a high reliance on coal as the primary source for electricity generation in their Maryland case study. Those stats are out of date, … [Read more...]
Utility-scale batteries can undercut peaking gas and coal
A report by IEEFA looks at trends in the U.S. to install utility scale batteries. The report’s author, Dennis Wamsted, gives examples of how it is replacing the peaking and seasonal generation being provided by gas and coal. Emissions aside, the numbers are starting to add up. In Hawaii the combination of solar generation and storage is expected to undercut the price for fossil fuel generation. In Texas, Vistra Energy’s batteries are soaking up … [Read more...]
