What will be the scale and design of Germany’s hydrogen roll-out? Different scenarios are coming to wildly different conclusions. Simon Göss at cr.hub, writing for Energy Brainpool, looks at several, including the dena-TM95 scenario of the German transmission system operators for gas (FNB Gas) where gas consumption rises, and the NECP-KSP 87.5 scenario of the German Ministry for Economic Affairs where gas consumption falls. The possible hydrogen … [Read more...]
Eradicate global poverty, meet climate goals, by avoiding rich-world energy consumption patterns
There is concern that eradicating poverty in the global south means their growing wealth and energy consumption will make our climate targets too hard to meet. Here, Jarmo Kikstra and Narasimha Rao, writing for Carbon Brief, explain that the energy needed to eradicate poverty is compatible with climate goals, provided that policymakers focus on delivering decent living standards, and not copying the affluence and habits of rich countries. Most … [Read more...]
Comparing four Carbon Removal scenarios (IPCC, IEA, McKinsey, NGFS) and policy implications
Most net-zero scenarios include carbon removal as a major component. Simon Göss and Hendrik Schuldt at cr.hub review five major scenarios from the IPCC, IEA, ETC, McKinsey, and the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS). They start by making the very important distinction between carbon capture and negative emissions: capturing carbon from, say, a gas plant does not deliver negative emissions, it just prevents new emissions. This … [Read more...]
How to grow grid-scale U.S. Battery capacity to 125GW (or even 680GW) by 2050
Grid-Scale U.S. storage capacity could reach 125GW by 2050, or even as much as 680GW, according to research from NREL. Almost all today, under 25GW, comes from pumped hydro which has probably reached its limit so the future is batteries. Growth depends on commercial viability, so the research led by NREL has modelled what services storage can supply, the main three being firm capacity, energy time-shifting and operating reserves. The sets of … [Read more...]
Improving cost and performance modelling for energy technologies, old and new
Measuring the performance of an energy technology is key to informing policies and pathways as the transition scales up. But are we measuring all the right things and getting accurate answers? If we’re not, those policies and pathways could end up wrong. Paul Sapin at Imperial College, UK, explains how they are creating a library of data-rich models to greatly improve predictive power for all energy technologies, both existing and emerging. He … [Read more...]