Renew
On Line 112
Forum
Odds
and ends for you to chew on Comments welcome!
A quick roundup- some
movement forward and backwards
Slow track You can tell that renewables are winning when you get refutations
like this: www.forbes.com/sites/michaellynch/2014/02/25/renewable-energy-myths-1-inevitability-or-bad-timing-a-renewable-obsession
Fast track Quick-build PV roof: time lapse video of a 3 day install for a huge US BIPV integral array: www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Fc2GeSzcI&app=desktop
Fast track Quick-build PV roof: time lapse video of a 3 day install for a huge US BIPV integral array: www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Fc2GeSzcI&app=desktop
Blue
track EDF’s new ‘blue’ energy retail package is ‘a low-carbon product
backed primarily by nuclear’ which it say ‘is us trying to normalise nuclear for consumers’. The Olympics were an initial focus, but EDF
is now evidently championing a ‘Bringing Nuclear to Life’ outreach advocacy
initiative, putting the case for ‘why nuclear matters’. www.prweek.com/article/1292267/pr-summit-edfs-gareth-wynn-its-olympic-legacy-new-nuclear
Off
track Lord (Nigel) Lawson’s demolition of
global warming alarmism: so we can happily go for coal and gas and do a bit of
adaptation: www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/5541/full
But
see http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/policy/projects/climate-evidence-causes/climate-change-evidence-causes.pdf for the
Royal Society view. Also CO2
levels below.
And for a grim US
take on the task ahead: www.jacobinmag.com/2014/05/a-second-civil-war/
Or an
F-word rich view from Australia: www.forbiddenknowledgetv.com/videos/humor/aussie-humor-if-you-cant-handlemulti-f-bombs-do-not-open.html
In praise of gas - better than
electricity
Some critics argue that the UK government has adopted an un-justified 'anti-gas' view, with nuclear and renewable based electrification being seen as the way to decarbonise all end uses- including for heating and transport as well as conventional electricity use. So we have a push for electric heat pumps for heating and electric cars for transport, when in fact there are better non-electric options, such as gas heating and CNG powered cars and (especially) trucks, both of which end uses could increasingly be met using green gas-biomethane from AD biomass/ waste conversion or syngas via surplus wind to gas conversion. It’s been pointed out that the UK has the world's best-developed gas grid carrying 4 times more energy than the electricity grid, and offering large scale energy storage options, including by far the UK's largest existing balancing energy store -250 times that for electricity currently. In transport, the other main emphasis, apart from electric vehicles, is liquid biofuels, but it’s claimed the biomethane option can access a much wider range of biomass feedstocks than for liquid biofuels and has a higher conversion efficiency, producing more fuel energy from a given limited biomass supply.
Some critics argue that the UK government has adopted an un-justified 'anti-gas' view, with nuclear and renewable based electrification being seen as the way to decarbonise all end uses- including for heating and transport as well as conventional electricity use. So we have a push for electric heat pumps for heating and electric cars for transport, when in fact there are better non-electric options, such as gas heating and CNG powered cars and (especially) trucks, both of which end uses could increasingly be met using green gas-biomethane from AD biomass/ waste conversion or syngas via surplus wind to gas conversion. It’s been pointed out that the UK has the world's best-developed gas grid carrying 4 times more energy than the electricity grid, and offering large scale energy storage options, including by far the UK's largest existing balancing energy store -250 times that for electricity currently. In transport, the other main emphasis, apart from electric vehicles, is liquid biofuels, but it’s claimed the biomethane option can access a much wider range of biomass feedstocks than for liquid biofuels and has a higher conversion efficiency, producing more fuel energy from a given limited biomass supply.
In praise
of PV solar - now at 37GW in Germany ‘In
2007 the wholesale cost of German electricity was 30% higher at its peak around
noon than at night. That difference has steadily declined, summer and winter,
as the amount of PV power connected to the grid has increased. This is because,
when the sun shines, electricity from PV generators costs less than
conventional electricity generation. PV has no fuel and only small operational
cost. On some sunny days the
daytime peak wholesale cost of electricity on the German grid has fallen below
the night-time price. Domestic
electricity consumers in Germany are not seeing this benefit yet. The retail
price of electricity, as in the UK, is considerably higher than the wholesale
price. This is due to many factors: taxes, levies, transmission charges and
distribution company costs and profits. The feed-in-tariff for solar, which is
responsible for much of this 36GW of PV power, only contributes a small part to
the retail price. Much of German industry is excused these add-ons. The
industrial retail price paid by our rivals is falling, though not as fast as
the peak wholesale price. This suggests the distribution companies have yet to
pass on the benefit to the consumer’.Prof. Keith Barnham, author of The Burning Answer.
Offgrid
PV OK in
areas without grids, but what about bulk supply in industrial countries? www.renewableenergyfocus.com/view/38378/time-is-ripe-for-off-grid-solar/
The Bio-energy debate Trees: carbon sinks or energy
sources? The Bio-energy debate rumbles on. It’s clear
that some liquid biofuels for vehicles don’t yield positive carbon saving gains and
can have large eco-impacts, but that may also be true of some solid biomass burnt for energy production-
as the FoE/RSPB report ‘Dirtier than Coal’ alleged: www.rspb.org.uk/Images/biomass_report_tcm9-326672.pdf (for a critique see: www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/05/biomass-electric-power-generation-dirtier-than-coal-not-possible) The use of wood from forests
is especially contentious for groups like Biofuelwatch www.biofuelwatch.org.uk While companies like DRAX
insist the wood pellets they import from the US are sustainably sourced,
there’s evidence of deforestation: www.southernenvironment.org/uploads/publications/NWF_Biomass_Wildlife_Full_Report.pdf and www.dogwoodalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Enviva-Mill-in-Ahoskie-Dogwood-Report.pdf
Video: http://dia.dogwoodalliance.org/p/salsa/web/questionnaire/public/?questionnaire_KEY=1656
Certainly
this may not always yield much in the way of net, or at least fast, CO2 savings: http://iet.jrc.ec.europa.eu/bf-ca/sites/bf-ca/files/files/documents/eur25354en_online-final.pdf
But
it’s not clear if that ‘whole trees’ are being widely used to make wood
pellets; it’s more likely it’s saw mill and forest residue unsuitable for the
timber industry. The value of sawmill quality logs is up to 10 times what can
be obtained for pellets. Though that may change. Then again, some say all
logging is bad -and worse in CO2 terms than once thought: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcbb.12044/abstract And we shouldn’t use any wood from trees
for energy. Others say the reality of forest management is that, if fellings
and residues are not used, they will rot and create methane. So they say that, though burning wood
in old inefficient power stations may not be the best option, it’s worth doing
while we develop more efficient uses of biomass resources e.g. AD biogas, or
CHP and/or direct heat supply i.e, not just for electricity. The debate can get heated: e.g. www.foe.co.uk/news/40000 DECC’s new bio-carbon calculator may help
clear the air, but it does say emissions can be high if stem wood is used. And
interestingly DECC say the next rounds of the CfD won’t support any more
biomass conversion plants. A hot potato!
Climate change: uneven CO2 levels
Atmospheric CO2 concentration rises due the human activities are not initially evenly spread around the world (spatially or temporally), due to the location of power plants (mostly in the global north), the time taken to mix the extra injected CO2 globally (about a year), and differing annual forest absorption/decay cycles and sea absorption/release processes around the world. http://carboncycle2.lbl.gov/resources/experts-corner/annual-cycles-of-atmospheric-co2-concentration.html Watch it happening, and the result getting worse year by year, in this really excellent animation: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA7tfz3k_9A Pretty convincing, even to hardened skeptics. Tragically though, the fact that the seas have absorbed so much CO2 from our activities (about 50% of it) means that we are unlikely ever to get back to where we started. Air capture of CO2, biologically or otherwise, would be working against sea CO2 outgassing for a long while- the CO2 would come back out to replace at least some of what’s been captured. Though it would take time- the rate of outgassing might be low, depending on, amongst other things (including temperature), the small partial pressure difference. Even so, the slow CO2 blow back means that sadly CO2 absorption from reafforestation would be undercut and may not be too much (climate) use long term, unless done on vast scales. Nor would artificial air capture of CO2 using chemicals: it’s too big a job. As a recent ERL paper says: ‘To maintain atmospheric CO2 concentrations at pre-industrial levels for centuries, ultimately an amount of CO2 approaching the total cumulative amount of anthropogenic CO2 emissions would need to be removed from the atmosphere’. And, it seems, from the sea. http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/2/024011/pdf/1748-9326_5_2_024011.pdf So we can’t repair the earth much, except maybe very long term, and the higher the temperature, the harder that will be. But we can stop making it worse by not burning fossil fuels. That is the only major option. Unless Gaia comes to the rescue and allows the sea to absorb a lot more CO2 without getting too acidic! Or some other natural feedback loop intervenes.
Atmospheric CO2 concentration rises due the human activities are not initially evenly spread around the world (spatially or temporally), due to the location of power plants (mostly in the global north), the time taken to mix the extra injected CO2 globally (about a year), and differing annual forest absorption/decay cycles and sea absorption/release processes around the world. http://carboncycle2.lbl.gov/resources/experts-corner/annual-cycles-of-atmospheric-co2-concentration.html Watch it happening, and the result getting worse year by year, in this really excellent animation: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA7tfz3k_9A Pretty convincing, even to hardened skeptics. Tragically though, the fact that the seas have absorbed so much CO2 from our activities (about 50% of it) means that we are unlikely ever to get back to where we started. Air capture of CO2, biologically or otherwise, would be working against sea CO2 outgassing for a long while- the CO2 would come back out to replace at least some of what’s been captured. Though it would take time- the rate of outgassing might be low, depending on, amongst other things (including temperature), the small partial pressure difference. Even so, the slow CO2 blow back means that sadly CO2 absorption from reafforestation would be undercut and may not be too much (climate) use long term, unless done on vast scales. Nor would artificial air capture of CO2 using chemicals: it’s too big a job. As a recent ERL paper says: ‘To maintain atmospheric CO2 concentrations at pre-industrial levels for centuries, ultimately an amount of CO2 approaching the total cumulative amount of anthropogenic CO2 emissions would need to be removed from the atmosphere’. And, it seems, from the sea. http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/2/024011/pdf/1748-9326_5_2_024011.pdf So we can’t repair the earth much, except maybe very long term, and the higher the temperature, the harder that will be. But we can stop making it worse by not burning fossil fuels. That is the only major option. Unless Gaia comes to the rescue and allows the sea to absorb a lot more CO2 without getting too acidic! Or some other natural feedback loop intervenes.
Piketty on Capital – our potted politics guide
Some greens see low growth as the way ahead. In Capital in the
21st century French economists Thomas
Piketty sees it all very differently. He says historically the rate of
return on capital has mostly been higher that the rate of economic growth.
Owners of capital did well. But then came a hiccup, and capital returns
faltered, as Marx predicted. But
they recovered post war - although now economic growth has fallen off. And far
from leading to a happy or green egalitarian world, we have a super rich elite-
the 1%. And austerity. Piketty is not a green, as such, but his analysis does
offer radical insights on how we might head off social and environmental disaster. Tax wealth basically, then
spend it on developing a green infrastructure for a more sustainable and
egalitarian future. But that’s unlikely given current politics, social
expectations and power balances. New Statesman’s re-relay of Stalin’s views on
some of this (see below) was perhaps timely! But he certainly didn’t do it
right or well. Can we?
www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/13/occupy-right-capitalism-failed-world-french-economist-thomas-piketty
and www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/may/08/thomas-piketty-new-gilded-age/
An early definition of the Alternative
Technology movement!
‘The
engineer, the organiser of production, does not work as he would like to, but
as he is ordered, in such a way as to serve the interests of his employers.
There are exceptions of course; there are people in this stratum who have
awakened from the intoxication of capitalism. The technical intelligentsia can,
under certain conditions, perform miracles and greatly benefit mankind. But it
can also cause great harm....Of course, things would be different if it were
possible, at one stroke, spiritually to tear the technical intelligentsia away
from the capitalist world. But that is Utopia. Are there many of the technical
intelligentsia who would dare break away from the bourgeois world and set to
work reconstructing society? Do you think there are many people of this kind,
say, in England or in France? No; there are few who would be willing to break
away from their employers and begin reconstructing the world.’Joseph Stalin in
conversation with H.G Wells in Moscow 1934 First published as a special New
Statesman Supplement 27 Oct. 1934. Recycled by NS on April 18th, 2014 www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/04/h-g-wells-it-seems-me-i-am-more-left-you-mr-stalin What would he have made of the Centre for
Alternative Technology, now 40 years old: www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/01/turning-a-slate-quarry-green-40-years-of-centre-for-alternative-technology
A different politics
Direct
Action in Taiwan- people power against nuclear, with over 200,000 on the streets at one time in 2013, and 30,000 or more
in an April 2014 rally, at which point the government decided to abandon its part completed $10bn new nuclear
project. A nuclear-free island by 2025 is now being debated. Don’t try this at
home!
