If offshore wind, why not offshore solar? It’s been talked about for a while and implemented on a small scale in places like Norway. You Xiaoying, writing for Dialogue Earth (formerly China Dialogue), looks at China’s efforts to establish it as a new and – once scaled up - major contributor to the energy transition. The main advantages over land-based solar are clear: large spaces of land must be found, they’re not usually near population or … [Read more...]
Big Data’s huge power demand can migrate globally, instantaneously: implications for planning regional capacity and markets
Something is going to make the planning of regional power generation and associated markets even harder: the ability of big data users to shift their demand across the globe quickly, based on price. Ira Joseph at CGEP peers into the near future to ask some difficult questions. When such power demand can “at the push of a button” migrate long distances, how do you make predictions for local capacity needs? And today, market design in most … [Read more...]
How can Biomass fulfil its potential in EU carbon markets?
In carbon markets such as the EU ETS participants must monitor and report their emissions and ultimately pay for them. Biomass occupies a unique place. It is well positioned to be a net-zero emissions energy source for hard-to-abate sectors. Coupled with effective on-site carbon capture technologies, it can be carbon negative. And there is a great diversity of project types involving forestry, biochar kilns, waste-to-energy, carbon capture and … [Read more...]
Gulf States are investing in Carbon Capture to maintain Hydrocarbon business
The Gulf region wants to maintain their substantial revenues from hydrocarbons in a decarbonising world. One way to do that is to invest in carbon capture, to make cleaner and more marketable fossil fuel products. Megren Almutairi and Karen Young at CGEP look at their current plans and future prospects. Right now, about 10% of CO2 captured globally is in the industrial facilities of the Gulf States. Their national oil companies boast some of the … [Read more...]
Eleclink: what can be learned from this innovative private European interconnector?
Europe has put in place a specific regime to incentivise private investors to build, own and operate new interconnectors. Jean-Baptiste Vaujour at the Emlyon Business School looks at Eleclink, a private interconnector built to connect the UK with France. It uses the existing Channel Tunnel infrastructure. But the most disruptive side of Eleclink is not its smart use of the tunnel but its innovate business and regulatory model. The 1,000 MW DC … [Read more...]
Will EU decarbonisation policies shift the Fertiliser industry into making Ammonia for energy (but outside the EU)?
The EU’s fertiliser industry must face up to the region’s ambitious decarbonisation rules, making its carbon-intensive processes much more costly. But a door of opportunity is also being opened: the industry already produces ammonia which is increasingly being seen as an alternative clean fuel, explains Hyung-Ja de Zeeuw at Rabobank. The problem for EU nations is that it will be cheaper for the industry to relocate and make that ammonia somewhere … [Read more...]
2024 a tipping point for Sustainable Buildings? Demand now outstrips supply in major cities
Guy Grainger at JLL, writing for WEF, believes 2024 will be the tipping point when returns for investing in sustainable office buildings will start to pay dividends for building owners. That’s because, according to JLL research, there is now a good premium on rents for sustainable buildings in important locations: just over 7% across eight cities in North America, around 10% across nine cities in the Asia Pacific and more than 11% in London. In … [Read more...]
Carbon Footprints for every product: the need for sector-specific, comprehensive granular data and accounting
As governments and consumers increasingly want to know the carbon footprints of individual products, all actors in the global supply chain are under pressure to measure them, and accurately. But existing voluntary emissions reporting frameworks need to greatly improve the quality of their data and accounting processes, explain Nicole Labutong, Wenjuan Liu and Iris Wu at RMI. Blind spots can lead to meaninglessly inaccurate measurements. It’s far … [Read more...]
Annual Energy Efficiency improvements must double to meet climate targets. We know how to do it
Global energy intensity – a measure of how efficiently the global economy uses energy – improved by just over 2% in 2022. That needs to double to 4% annually to 2030 to meet global efficiency targets, explains Brian Motherway at the IEA. If achieved, by 2030 one unit of energy used will generate 40% more economic output than today. That’s huge, and shows why few other policy areas offer such widespread benefits. More than half of the 150 … [Read more...]
When 0.2% Methane leakage can make Gas dirtier than Coal
Around the world gas is replacing coal to reduce emissions. But even small amounts of methane leakage in the gas life-cycle can make emissions on par with or even worse than coal, explain Shannon Hughes and Deborah Gordon at RMI. They present their calculator that shows if West Virginia state's gas methane leakage rate is just 1.4% their emissions equal the coal it replaces. Texas Permian LNG exported to China only needs a leakage rate of 0.2% to … [Read more...]
What can today’s Energy Revolution learn from the previous Industrial and Information Revolutions?
What can the Industrial Revolution and the more recent Information Revolution teach us about the Energy Revolution we are going through now, ask Yuki Numata, Laurens Speelman and Marissa Gantman at RMI. Importantly, the same questions that were ignored or dismissed in those past transitions will help us shape our energy transition to make it better, faster, less wasteful and polluting, as well as more equitable. The authors reveal a 4-part … [Read more...]
Formula 1’s energy efficiency innovations for road transport are being wasted
Formula 1 racing is infamously emissions intensive. But the pressure to win is a pressure to innovate and raise energy efficiency, supported by an extravagant budget. Maximilian Auffhammer at the Energy Institute at Haas looks at what has been achieved over decades, and what has – and has sadly not – been translated onto our roads. The earliest cars had 4.5L engines that produced 400 horsepower, refuelled during the race. Today’s cars have 1.6L … [Read more...]
Agrivoltaics: GWs of solar power from farmland using strategically placed panels (and raising crop yields)
In Canada and the U.S. “agrivoltaics” are taking off. It’s when solar panels are laid out strategically on farmland. After concerns that it will obstruct farm machinery and lower crop yields, studies have shown that panels – on a large scale – can be placed so that they do not. In fact, certain crop yields can be raised when the panels are used to shield them from direct sunlight, explains Joshua Pearce at Western University, Canada. He looks at … [Read more...]
Norway’s Sleipner and Snøhvit CCS: problems expose limitations of the science, regulations and multi-decade commitment
The offshore carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects of Norway’s Sleipner and Snøhvit are often cited as good case studies for the viability of the technology. Other CCS hubs are being proposed from Malaysia to the North Sea to the Gulf of Mexico, larger by factors of 10 or more. But how viable are they? Grant Hauber at IEEFA summarises his in-depth report on the risks. Both Sleipner and Snøhvit, operating since 1996 and 2008 respectively, have … [Read more...]
“Book and Claim”: how end consumers can pay distant producers for low carbon products
In long logistical chains (found in steel, concrete, aviation, shipping and others) end consumers that want to pay a premium to cut their emissions (for example to comply with corporate decarbonisation promises) often have no way to pay the first link in that chain to go low-carbon. “Book and Claim” creates a market to do that. Consumers buy certificates, and producers get the money to fulfil the commitment. And a working system will bring to … [Read more...]
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