The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[bilby]

Renewable Energy Prices Hit Record Lows: How Can Utilities Benefit From Unstoppable Solar And Wind?

Over the last decade, wind energy prices have fallen 70% and solar photovoltaics have fallen 89% on average, according to Lazard's 2019 report. Utility-scale renewable energy prices are now significantly below those for coal and gas generation, and they're less than half the cost of nuclear. The latest numbers again confirm that building new clean energy generation is cheaper than running existing coal plants.

noting
Lazard's Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis - cost in US: $/MWh

• 151 - 242 - Solar PV - Rooftop Residential
• 75 - 154 - Solar PV - Rooftop C&I
• 64 - 148 - Solar PV - Community
• 36 - 44 - Solar PV - Crystalline Utility Scale
• 32 - 42 - Solar PV - Thin Film Utility Scale
• 126 - 156 - Solar Thermal Tower with Storage
• 69 - 112 - Geothermal
• 28 - 54 - Wind
• 150 - 199 - Gas Peaking
• 118 - 192 - Nuclear
• 66 - 152 - Coal
• 44 - 68 - Gas Combined Cycle

It's good to see wind and solar beating fossil fuels. Now what we need is good batteries and other such storage.

Without the storage, wind and solar beat nothing. They make more electricity than you can use; Or less than you need. Usually the latter.

Hand waving is not a substitute for storage. Nor is hope. That's why wind and solar have huge "installed capacity", but still produce three eighths of bugger all percent of electricity worldwide, and an even lower percentage of world energy.

Installed capacity is so misleading that it's practically an outright lie. Install 1GW of nuclear, and you get 900+MW. Install 1GW of solar, and you are lucky to get 250MW, even in the tropics. And you get it when the sun shines, not when you have a need for it. So some of it is likely a waste - unless solar is a tiny fraction of your total generating capacity.

Stop the spin. Stop the lies. Tell us what proportion of energy demand is being generated by these things, not what the "installed capacity" is. That metric is purely useful for propaganda purposes.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Renewable Energy Prices Hit Record Lows: How Can Utilities Benefit From Unstoppable Solar And Wind?

Over the last decade, wind energy prices have fallen 70% and solar photovoltaics have fallen 89% on average, according to Lazard's 2019 report. Utility-scale renewable energy prices are now significantly below those for coal and gas generation, and they're less than half the cost of nuclear. The latest numbers again confirm that building new clean energy generation is cheaper than running existing coal plants.

noting
Lazard's Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis - cost in US: $/MWh

• 151 - 242 - Solar PV - Rooftop Residential
• 75 - 154 - Solar PV - Rooftop C&I
• 64 - 148 - Solar PV - Community
• 36 - 44 - Solar PV - Crystalline Utility Scale
• 32 - 42 - Solar PV - Thin Film Utility Scale
• 126 - 156 - Solar Thermal Tower with Storage
• 69 - 112 - Geothermal
• 28 - 54 - Wind
• 150 - 199 - Gas Peaking
• 118 - 192 - Nuclear
• 66 - 152 - Coal
• 44 - 68 - Gas Combined Cycle

It's good to see wind and solar beating fossil fuels. Now what we need is good batteries and other such storage.

None of those beat gas combined cycle--you forget that they don't run all the time.

 

[lpetrich]

Hawaii Is a Test Bed to See if Renewables Can Meet Peak Energy Demands - Scientific American

They are solar arrays coupled with more efficient and agile control, storage and distribution systems. They can store solar-powered electricity and then use it to meet periods of peak electricity demand in the evening (4 to 10 p.m.) and early morning hours (6 to 9 a.m.) when sunshine is waning or just starting to build.

One of these peaker plants is up and running on Kauai, Hawaii’s fourth-largest island, and another will likely be completed by the end of this year. Now Hawaiian Electric, the company that operates the state’s three largest utilities, has decided to add to the state’s experiments. It’s weighing 75 proposals, many of which use storage for solar, wind-generated power and other relatively new technologies.

Renewable energy storage is a fast-growing business. A recent report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) said new facilities jumped by 93% in the third quarter of 2019. Several of the newest proposals would replace Hawaii’s two largest existing power plants by 2024. They currently burn oil and coal.

Nice to see how storage has become such a Big Thing.

Cramer sees oil stocks in the 'death knell phase,' says new tobacco

• CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Friday that oil and other fossil fuel stocks are now like tobacco stocks.
• “This has to do with new kinds of money managers who frankly just want to appease younger people,” Cramer said. “We’re starting to see divestment all over the world.”
• Shares of Chevron and Exxon both fell in early trading Friday after announcing quarterly results.

On “Squawk Box,” Cramer compared oil and other fossil fuel stocks to the sigma attached to investing in tobacco companies, saying they are in the “death knell phase.” He added, “They’re tobacco. I think they’re tobacco.”

“I’m done with fossil fuels ... they’re just done. We’re starting to see divestment all over the world,” Cramer said. “You’re seeing divestiture by a lot of different funds. It’s going to be a parade. It’s going to be a parade that says, ‘Look, these are tobacco and we’re not going to own them.’”

Oil companies have a potential future in a renewable-energy world: making Fischer-Tropsch synfuels. Coal companies don't.

 

[lpetrich]

This Scottish tidal power project has generated record levels of electricity and is opening up new possibilities for renewable energy | World Economic Forum

• Four turbines off the north coast of Scotland generated enough energy to power nearly 4,000 homes in 2019.
• Sitting in a natural channel, they harness the energy of the changing currents and are helping build the case for tidal as the energy source of the future.
• To date, very little research has been done into the impact tidal projects have on the surrounding marine environment.

Nice to see some variety. One should use what one can.

Indonesia plans to replace old coal power plants with renewable plants: minister - Reuters - but coal will be at least 1/2 until 2028.

Tesla's giant home battery is paying for itself much faster than expected | TechRadar - at least for one Australian's home

EIA expects U.S. electricity generation from renewables to soon surpass nuclear and coal - Today in Energy - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) - though it will take a while to beat natural gas

Texas Is the Center of the Global Corporate Renewable Energy Market | Greentech Media - "The U.S. drove growth in global corporate renewables deals last year, with even oil producers now picking up the wind and solar habit."

In some ways this is unsurprising; there are few places in the world where it’s cheaper to build a new wind farm than West Texas. More surprising is the fact that roughly 80 percent of the corporate deals signed last year in Texas were for solar energy, a dramatic shift for a market long dominated by wind.

...
Another interesting wrinkle in Texas’ white-hot corporate renewables market is growing demand from oil and gas producers. ExxonMobil kick-started the trend in late 2018, Harrison said, signing up for 500 megawatts of wind and solar power in West Texas’ Permian Basin.

While big technology companies such as Google and Facebook continue to drive the overall corporate renewables market, a number of oil companies have piled on this year, including ExxonMobil, Occidental Petroleum and Energy Transfer Partners.

That's the endgame for fossil fuels -- their extraction being powered by renewable-energy systems. I was thinking of adding a detail to a story I'm writing: oil-well pumps (pumpjacks) being powered by solar panels. But it looks like it'll be coming to pass in real life.

 

[lpetrich]

Scotland to reach 100% renewables in time to host 2020 climate summit | RenewEconomy

Scotland is shaping up as an exemplary host for this year’s UN climate conference, with data showing it is likely to meet its national target of 100 per cent renewable electricity in good time for the crucial November meeting.

Scotland, whose southern city of Glasgow was named last September as the host for the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26), has a goal to source the equivalent of 100% of its electricity demand from renewable energy sources by the end of this year.

Scotland's last coal powerplant was shut down in 2016, and all that remains is a natural-gas one. Scotland is also continuing to build wind farms.

Santos turns to solar and storage to power remote oil wells | RenewEconomy

Twenty of Santos’ oil wells across South Australia and Queensland will now be powered by solar energy, instead of being fuelled by crude oil.

Santos has worked with AGL Energy to deploy 1.2MW of solar panels across its oil well sites in the Cooper Basin. An additional 2MWh of battery storage capacity was installed along side the solar power systems.

More of that fossil-fuel endgame.

Quid pro coal: Morrison support for NSW renewables contingent on fossil fuel expansion | RenewEconomy

The Morrison government has landed its first bilateral agreement on energy policy, securing a commitment from the New South Wales government to ramp up its fossil fuel industries in return for chipping in funds to support “emissions reduction” activities as part of a $2 billion funding deal.

What a dirty deal.

Is Morrison government fit for purpose, or the greatest danger to our national security? | RenewEconomy

United Energy to trial pole-mounted batteries to relieve peak demand stress on networks | RenewEconomy - lots of small batteries instead of a few big ones, and mounted on utility poles.

 

[bilby]

 

[lpetrich]

$64 Million Makes It Official: Renewable Hydrogen In, Natural Gas Out

Just a few years ago, a chorus of hee-haws would be expected to erupt whenever the topic turned to the hydrogen economy of the sparkling green future. Well, money talks. The US Department of Energy has been plowing research dollars into hydrogen and fuel cell technology, and the latest development is all about leveraging wind and solar energy to bring the cost of renewable hydrogen down, down, down.

Hydrogen is currently produced from natural gas, usually by steam reforming:
H2O + CH4 <-> 3H2 + CO

Energy Department Announces Up to $64M to Advance H2@Scale in New Markets | Department of Energy

• Electrolyzer Manufacturing R&D (up to $15M): Lowering the cost of hydrogen produced from megawatt- and gigawatt-scale electrolyzers by improving large-scale, high-volume electrolyzer manufacturing in the U.S.
• Advanced Carbon Fiber for Compressed Gas Storage Tanks (up to $15M): Reducing the cost of hydrogen and natural gas storage tanks by developing low-cost, high-strength carbon fiber and scaling up to industry-relevant scales.
• Fuel Cell R&D and Domestic Manufacturing for Medium and Heavy Duty Transportation (up to $10M): Advancing the development of domestically manufactured fuel cell components and stacks that meet the cost and performance needs of trucks and other emerging heavy duty applications.
• H2@Scale New Markets R&D – HySteel (up to $8M): Enabling the use of hydrogen in steel manufacturing applications, aligned with FCTO and H2@Scale priorities for fostering new markets for hydrogen.
• H2@Scale New Markets Demonstrations in Maritime and Data Centers (up to $14M): Developing first-of-a-kind demonstrations to jumpstart emerging new market opportunities for hydrogen in maritime and data center applications.
• Training and Workforce Development (up to $2M): Creating cohesive, strategic, and well-coordinated regional efforts to develop the skills necessary to support the growing hydrogen and fuel cell industry.

With electrolyzers and fuel cells, we get that much closer to a full-scale renewable-energy economy.

The main problem with hydrogen is that it's hard to store. Its boiling point at 1 bar is 20 K, and its critical point is 33 K. Meaning that it is hard to liquefy.

The next step is synthetic fuels, and hydrogen is a good feedstock for making them. I don't see nearly as much activity as I'm seeing with hydrogen.

So far, I've seen

• Wind turbines
• Photovolaic cells
• Batteries
• Hydrogen (up and coming)

 

[lpetrich]

This Is How Natural Gas Loses: One Building At A Time

File this one under Y for Yikes! Natural gas investors in the US are already beset with a flooded market, sinking prices, accusations of Ponzi style business models, a mounting pile of evidence that fossil gas is not “cleaner” than coal, competition from low cost renewable energy, and local pushback against new pipelines. Now here comes another party heard from: the city of Berkeley, California, which has just banned gas hookups for certain types of new buildings constructed after January 1, 2020.

...
In that regard, the building electrification movement is analogous to the emergence of the electric vehicle trend.

...
A similar wave of support for renewable energy is building from appliance manufacturers and other stakeholders in the building electrification movement.

...
Local policy makers are also weighing in on building electrification. One good example is California, where regulators have long acted aggressively to control emissions from vehicles. Buildings are the next-most common source of greenhouse gas emissions in California and elsewhere, and that’s where the attention is focusing now.

AOC's Green New Deal for public housing also continues with that trend, replacing natural gas and fuel oil with electricity.

Renewable Hydrogen Will Drink The Fossil Fuel Milkshake

The field of renewable hydrogen has been blowing up in recent years, and the latest news broke just in time for Christmas. Well, it was good news unless you have a stake in the fossil fuel industry, in which case it was a lump of coal. Hydrogen-fueled personal mobility is still but a distant twinkle in the sky, but renewable hydrogen is poised to suck up shares of the market for industrial energy supply, long-haul shipping, and other sectors where coal, oil, and natural gas still have a toehold.

...
With that in mind, Let’s take a look at a new renewable hydrogen project taking shape in Denmark.

CleanTechnica caught wind of the project a while back at an energy conference in New York. The basic idea is that Denmark has far more offshore wind potential than its population can absorb. Rather than letting it sit out there in the ocean gathering dust, Denmark is going to develop offshore wind farms anyway.

The question then is what to do with all that excess electricity, and it looks like producing renewable hydrogen for vehicles is one of the winning tickets.

Yesterday, Denmark-based Ørsted let slip word that it has secured funding to build a 2-megawatt electrolysis facility, which will deploy electricity from offshore wind turbines.

Ørsted’s partners in the project are Everfuel Europe A/S, NEL Hydrogen A/S, GreenHydrogen A/S, DSV Panalpina A/S, Hydrogen Denmark and Energinet Elsystemansvar A/S.

The target market for hydrogen from the new facility will be a fleet of 20-30 buses, with the potential for testing in trucks as well.

Thus getting around intermittency -- run the electrolyzers whenever there is an excess.

 

[lpetrich]

Renewable Hydrogen Will Drink The Fossil Fuel Milkshake

Speaking of red states, the Energy Department has been aggressively promoting renewable hydrogen in recent years with a focus on California, Connecticut, and several other coastal states.

Now it looks like the trend is hitting the so-called heartland states. Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas have been enlisted in a new hydrogen-promoting effort called the Midwest Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Coalition.

It's nice that wind energy is doing so well in the purple and red states of the Midwest, and it's nice that these states are getting involved in that also.

The (Green) Hydrogen Economy is About to Take Off - The Energy Transition Magazine
It describes fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEV's).

FCEVs are more efficient than gasoline- or diesel-powered internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and their only emission is water. Hydrogen is also less explosive than gasoline, and this potentially makes it safer. ...

And when talking about the vehicles of the future, FCEVs have to compete against not only ICE vehicles but also electric vehicles based on lithium-ion battery technology, termed battery electric vehicles (BEVs). ...

Despite the first FCEV being developed in the 1960s, BEVs are well ahead in the car market. ...

But FCEVs have some advantages over BEVs, and these are particularly important when looking at longer distances and heavier loads. First, fuel cells and hydrogen tanks are lighter than lithium-ion batteries and have much higher energy densities. This gives an FCEV an advantage at a BEV’s weakest point: range. “With current battery technology, the weight of the battery required to move such a large truck limits it to urban operations,” notes EJ Klock-McCook, a principal in RMI’s Mobility Program. “It just can’t do long haul.”

By contrast, the much lighter FCEVs can offer increased range. The Toyota/Kenworth trucks to be deployed at the Port of Los Angeles have a range of over 300 miles, and Nikola is aiming to develop an FCEV truck with a range of 500–750 miles. However, there are an increasing number of trucks running on regional routes of lengths and durations that fall between local and long-haul, and the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE) describes BEVs as a viable technology for this sector.

Another advantage of FCEVs for trucking is refueling time, and here the rapid refueling available for hydrogen vehicles contrasts with the relatively slow charging time for BEVs. “If you are a logistics company where time is money, even a 30–40-minute charge on a high-speed charger is not the same thing as a 7-minute fill up,” notes Klock-McCook.

 

[bilby]

Renewable Hydrogen Will Drink The Fossil Fuel Milkshake

Speaking of red states, the Energy Department has been aggressively promoting renewable hydrogen in recent years with a focus on California, Connecticut, and several other coastal states.

Now it looks like the trend is hitting the so-called heartland states. Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas have been enlisted in a new hydrogen-promoting effort called the Midwest Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Coalition.

It's nice that wind energy is doing so well in the purple and red states of the Midwest, and it's nice that these states are getting involved in that also.

The (Green) Hydrogen Economy is About to Take Off - The Energy Transition Magazine
It describes fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEV's).

FCEVs are more efficient than gasoline- or diesel-powered internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and their only emission is water. Hydrogen is also less explosive than gasoline, and this potentially makes it safer. ...

And when talking about the vehicles of the future, FCEVs have to compete against not only ICE vehicles but also electric vehicles based on lithium-ion battery technology, termed battery electric vehicles (BEVs). ...

Despite the first FCEV being developed in the 1960s, BEVs are well ahead in the car market. ...

But FCEVs have some advantages over BEVs, and these are particularly important when looking at longer distances and heavier loads. First, fuel cells and hydrogen tanks are lighter than lithium-ion batteries and have much higher energy densities. This gives an FCEV an advantage at a BEV’s weakest point: range. “With current battery technology, the weight of the battery required to move such a large truck limits it to urban operations,” notes EJ Klock-McCook, a principal in RMI’s Mobility Program. “It just can’t do long haul.”

By contrast, the much lighter FCEVs can offer increased range. The Toyota/Kenworth trucks to be deployed at the Port of Los Angeles have a range of over 300 miles, and Nikola is aiming to develop an FCEV truck with a range of 500–750 miles. However, there are an increasing number of trucks running on regional routes of lengths and durations that fall between local and long-haul, and the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE) describes BEVs as a viable technology for this sector.

Another advantage of FCEVs for trucking is refueling time, and here the rapid refueling available for hydrogen vehicles contrasts with the relatively slow charging time for BEVs. “If you are a logistics company where time is money, even a 30–40-minute charge on a high-speed charger is not the same thing as a 7-minute fill up,” notes Klock-McCook.

Anyone who claims that hydrogen is less explosive than gasoline has insufficient knowledge to be anything other than dangerous to themselves and others.

Hydrogen is explosive in a very wide range of blend proportions in air; It's much more of an explosion hazard than gasoline (and gasoline is the wrong comparison in the context of trucks - diesel fuel is incredibly difficult to ignite by comparison with either gasoline or hydrogen).

Hydrogen is a great vehicle fuel in the lab. It's bloody awful in the real world, which is why it's never been seriously adopted by anyone. It's hard to contain; leaks are hugely dangerous; it is hard to carry in worthwhile quantities without very heavy containers; And it's a nightmare in any kind of crash.

Hydrogen is a very poor substitute for gasoline - if you are going to make fuel from 'spare' electricity, you're better off making alcohols or hydrocarbons. In fact, from an engineering perspective, octane [or octane + ethanol] (gasoline) is a great fuel; And nonane thruogh hexadecane (diesel) is even better from a safety perspective.

The only problem with these fuels is that they are currently sourced from fossil reserves, rather than being synthesized from atmospheric carbon dioxide (and water).

 

[lpetrich]

Why hydrogen for high temperatures?

 Oxyhydrogen - "The maximum temperature of about 2,800 °C (5,100 °F) is achieved with an exact stoichiometric mixture, about 700 °C (1,300 °F) hotter than a hydrogen flame in air."

Its electric competition:

•  Electric arc furnace"Industrial electric arc furnace temperatures can reach 1,800 °C (3,272 °F), while laboratory units can exceed 3,000 °C (5,432 °F)."
•  Induction furnace - using electric induction from an oscillating magnetic field.
•  Joule heating - Ohmic heating, resistance heating
•  Dielectric heating - what a microwave oven uses
•  Electric heating - "Industrial heating processes can be broadly categorized as low-temperature (to about 400 °C or 752 °F), medium-temperature (between 400 and 1,150 °C or 752 and 2,102 °F), and high-temperature (beyond 1,150 °C or 2,102 °F). "

The (Green) Hydrogen Economy is About to Take Off - The Energy Transition Magazine

The article then gets into hydrogen for industrial processes, described in more detail in Decarbonizing Steel and Cement - The Energy Transition Magazine
Steel is a family of iron alloys that can sometimes be very strong. The iron in it is made by refining iron ores, and those are usually oxides and hydroxides of iron. The most common process uses coke, baked coal that is mostly carbon.
FeOx + (x/2)C -> Fe + (x/2)CO2

That releases CO2, along with the burning of some of the coke to make the necessary heat. An alternative is syngas, made by reforming natural gas:
CH4 + H2O -> CO + 3H2
The hydrogen in it reacts with the iron oxide:
FeOx + x(H2) -> Fe + x(H2O)

With hydrogen from electrolysis, one can do the H2-FeOx reaction there also.

In the snowy forests of Northern Sweden, near the Gulf of Bothnia, a plant is being built to explore one of the most promising routes to decarbonizing steel: hydrogen-based DRI. “From a technical point of view, hydrogen has been proven as very good agent for iron ore reduction in the laboratory for a long time,” states Martin Pei, chairman of the board of Hybrit Development AB, a joint venture of three companies to make fossil-free steel. “It is rather easy.”

 

[lpetrich]

Then cement for making concrete.

But if you think steel is hard to decarbonize, consider the process of making cement. “It is even worse,” states Koch Blank. “You have carbon in the molecule of your raw material.” He is referring to limestone (CaCO3), the most common raw material for making portland cement. This limestone is ground into small bits (clinker) before being heated in kilns to a very high temperature to produce calcium oxide (CaO), releasing CO2 in the process.

The heat used for this process is an emissions problem on its own, but more than 60 percent of the annual emissions from cement production comes from the limestone itself. This also means that, like steel, methods to improve the efficiency of the cement-making process are limited in their CO2 reduction potential.

Alternative materials can be used, but they are often more expensive and they have different characteristics.

High temperatures are also necessary for making brick and glass.

An alternative way of making high temperature is concentrated solar power, and there have been some experiments with that.

For synfuels and plastics, one can do Fischer-Tropsch with electrolysis H2 and atmospheric CO2.

Electrolysis hydrogen is still relatively expensive, but increased production of it will produce economies of scale, driving down its cost.

 

[lpetrich]

Can Flying Be Made Carbon Neutral? - The Energy Transition Magazine

It is a long way from Plymouth, England, to New York; 1500 nautical miles. This summer it took the Malizia II 15 days to make the voyage, a trip that many major airlines complete in less than seven hours. But that wasn’t the point for the 60-foot racing yacht’s world-famous activist passenger, Greta Thunberg. Instead, this was the most dramatic manifestation of her commitment to avoid flying due to the carbon footprint that it imposes.

Aviation is responsible for some 3% - 9% of humanity's CO2 emissions, comparable to shipping.

How to avoid emitting CO2? Batteries have low energy density and hydrogen is hard to store. So electric and hydrogen airplanes won't have very long range.

In contrast to ground transportation, most of the action in aviation to date has centered not around electric drives, but around biofuels. This is a broad term for any substance that came from a living organism, with feedstocks that include everything from corn to used cooking oil to agricultural wastes and inedible animal fat.

Perhaps the biggest advantage is that they can be made chemically almost identical to petroleum-based jet fuel, dropped in to replace conventional fuel, or mixed in to form a blend. This means little change to manufacturing or the operational practices of airlines.

And they may be better fuels, as well. Biofuel distribution leader SkyNRG estimates that the fuel it supplies is slightly more energy dense, with 90 percent less particulate pollution and none of the sulfides (SOx) that are produced from burning kerosene jet fuel. Overall, SkyNRG advertises a 1.5–3.0 percent improvement in fuel efficiency over conventional fuels.

Then the article gets into synthetic fuels or synfuels. These can be made with H2 from electrolysis and CO2 from the air. The chemistry is well-understood but the economics still aren't good. But some experiments have been done, like Audi's "blue crude".

 

[lpetrich]

Renewable Hydrogen News: Power-to-Gas Mania Hits Maine

Maine’s emerging position in the US power-to-gas vanguard is the subject of a new article in The Portland Press Herald last Saturday, by staff writer Tux Turkel. Support local journalism and follow the link for all the details, but for those of you go the gist of it is location, location, location.

Turkel explains:

“The transmission lines connecting Maine’s far-flung renewable generators to the regional electric grid sometimes are too weak to carry all their power. When that happens, grid operators order generators to reduce output or even stop running, to prevent overloading and jeopardizing reliable service.”

By “renewable generators” Turkel means wind farms and solar arrays along with hydropower, biomass, and agricultural gas. The state is already awash in various forms of renewable energy and it hasn’t even begun to tap into its offshore wind resources yet.

In other words, there is a major renewable energy bottleneck in Maine.

Hydrogen made remotely can be transmitted with existing natural-gas pipelines, thus continuing the use of that infrastructure.

Hydrogen In, Fossil Fuel Out For Leading Steelmaker, Eventually

Fossil fuels are slowly losing their grip on the transportation and power generation sectors, and the next domino to fall is the industrial sector. In the latest development, earlier this month the leading global steelmaker voestalpine announced the startup of the largest (so far) “green” hydrogen pilot plant in the world at its site in Linz, Austria.

Hydrogen Revolution Comes To California Railways, Eventually

Zero emission hydrogen-powered locomotives are edging onto the tracks in Europe and Asia, and now California is getting into the act. The Golden State has just called dibs on the the first ever hydrogen train in the US. Of course, a single fuel cell train won’t knock diesel off the tracks, but it can’t hurt, either. If all goes according to plan, the new train will help spark the next generation of low carbon mass transit and railway shipping alternatives on these shores.

Then plans on using a hydrogen train on a commuter-rail line now under construction: San Bernardino - Redlands east of Los Angeles.

 

[lpetrich]

Anyone who claims that hydrogen is less explosive than gasoline has insufficient knowledge to be anything other than dangerous to themselves and others.

Hydrogen is explosive in a very wide range of blend proportions in air; It's much more of an explosion hazard than gasoline (and gasoline is the wrong comparison in the context of trucks - diesel fuel is incredibly difficult to ignite by comparison with either gasoline or hydrogen).

Hydrogen is a great vehicle fuel in the lab. It's bloody awful in the real world, which is why it's never been seriously adopted by anyone. It's hard to contain; leaks are hugely dangerous; it is hard to carry in worthwhile quantities without very heavy containers; And it's a nightmare in any kind of crash.

Hydrogen is a very poor substitute for gasoline - if you are going to make fuel from 'spare' electricity, you're better off making alcohols or hydrocarbons. In fact, from an engineering perspective, octane [or octane + ethanol] (gasoline) is a great fuel; And nonane thruogh hexadecane (diesel) is even better from a safety perspective.

The only problem with these fuels is that they are currently sourced from fossil reserves, rather than being synthesized from atmospheric carbon dioxide (and water).

bilby, I fully concede these inadequacies of hydrogen as a vehicle fuel. I also agree that liquid synfuels are the way to go. But one has to start with making hydrogen, and that's why I think it significant that there is such a buzz around it.

 

[Tigers!]

Anyone who claims that hydrogen is less explosive than gasoline has insufficient knowledge to be anything other than dangerous to themselves and others.

Hydrogen is explosive in a very wide range of blend proportions in air; It's much more of an explosion hazard than gasoline (and gasoline is the wrong comparison in the context of trucks - diesel fuel is incredibly difficult to ignite by comparison with either gasoline or hydrogen).

Hydrogen is a great vehicle fuel in the lab. It's bloody awful in the real world, which is why it's never been seriously adopted by anyone. It's hard to contain; leaks are hugely dangerous; it is hard to carry in worthwhile quantities without very heavy containers; And it's a nightmare in any kind of crash.

Hydrogen is a very poor substitute for gasoline - if you are going to make fuel from 'spare' electricity, you're better off making alcohols or hydrocarbons. In fact, from an engineering perspective, octane [or octane + ethanol] (gasoline) is a great fuel; And nonane thruogh hexadecane (diesel) is even better from a safety perspective.

The only problem with these fuels is that they are currently sourced from fossil reserves, rather than being synthesized from atmospheric carbon dioxide (and water).

That picture of the Hindenburg blowing up is most striking.

 

[lpetrich]

New 'anti-solar' panel generates electricity in the dark | TheHill
noting
Anti-Solar Cells: A Photovoltaic Cell That Works at Night | UC Davis

What if solar cells worked at night? That’s no joke, according to Jeremy Munday, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC Davis. In fact, a specially designed photovoltaic cell could generate up to 50 watts of power per square meter under ideal conditions at night, about a quarter of what a conventional solar panel can generate in daytime, according to a concept paper by Munday and graduate student Tristan Deppe. The article was published in, and featured on the cover of, the January 2020 issue of ACS Photonics.

noting
Nighttime Photovoltaic Cells: Electrical Power Generation by Optically Coupling with Deep Space | ACS Photonics

It would work by tapping thermal energy that powers infrared-light emission.


Circular economy can improve the profitability of wind power -- and vice versa | EurekAlert! Science News

In Åland, the circular economy processes selected for research were biodiesel production utilising waste from the fish industry and the further processing of biogas into synthetic methane. In addition to methane, biogas produced from biowaste contains carbon dioxide, which must be separated from the methane to produce valuable fuel equal to natural gas. However, carbon dioxide can be used to manufacture synthetic methane with hydrogen, but hydrogen production requires a lot of electrical energy. Consequently, the cost and origin of electricity largely determine the profitability and ecological sustainability of the process.

Thus getting around intermittency by making synfuels when the wind is blowing.

Plummeting costs spur Oregon floating wind activity | New Energy Update

The U.S. Pacific coast is seen as a major future market for emerging floating wind technology, as water depths are too large to accommodate fixed-bottom wind farms. Several projects have been proposed in California and activity is now spreading north. Demand for renewables in Oregon is set to soar as utilities race to meet stringent state targets.

Fossil Fuels Aren’t Even a Very Good Investment | The New Republic

Jim Cramer is done with fossil fuel stocks. It’s not that the fundamentals are bad, the irascible investment guru and Mad Money host told CNBC anchor Becky Quick last week. The dividends are great. But “nobody cares,” he explains. “The world has changed. There’s new managers [trying to] appease younger people who believe that you can’t ever make a fossil fuel company sustainable. In the end they make fossil fuels. We’re in the death knell phase.”

Quick rushed to clarify. “The death knell phase for the stocks, but not the death knell phase for us using fossil fuels, right?” Cramer didn’t offer much comfort, comparing multinational oil and gas companies—historically, some of the world’s most profitable—to the comparatively meager and maligned tobacco industry. “You can tell that the world’s turned on them.”

Nice to see rejection of blood money.

 

[lpetrich]

Synthetic gas could be as cheap as fossil fuels by 2022–report - "But better infrastructure will be needed."

noting CO2-to-Fuels Renewable Gasoline and Jet Fuel Can Soon Be Price Competitive with Fossil Fuels: Joule

Whenever we fill up at the pump or take our seat on an airplane, we add to the carbon emissions cycle created by the transportation industry. Despite knowing its negative effects, the cost and access to alternatives can be prohibitive (Teslas aren't cheap). But with recent innovation in renewable fuel technology, a new report predicts that synthetic gas will become as cheap as fossil fuel by 2022.

The report, published last week in the energy-focused academic journal Joule, focuses on one type of renewable energy creation in particular called direct air capture (DAC), and highlights how this alternative could fit into already existing fuel infrastructure.

...
"Recent breakthroughs in separations and catalysis, along with long-trend reductions in solar and wind electricity costs, have significantly increased the potential for cost-competitive renewable fuels from direct air capture (DAC) of CO2," writes McGinnis. "This is an important development because there is little time available to reduce CO2 emissions sufficiently to avoid the worst effects of climate change."

Report author Rob McGinnis claims that catalysts are now good enough to enable the necessary reactions to occur at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, with the CO2 being dissolved in water. Thus doing Fischer-Tropsch without a lot of heat and pressure.

 

[lpetrich]

Renewable Hydrogen "Gigastack" Monster Rises From UK Seas

Gigastack will demonstrate the delivery of bulk, low-cost and zero-carbon hydrogen through ITM Power’s gigawatt scale polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolysers, manufactured in the UK.

The project aims to dramatically reduce the cost of electrolytic [aka renewable] hydrogen. This funding will enable ITM Power to work towards developing a system that uses electricity from Orsted’s Hornsea Two offshore wind farm to generate renewable hydrogen for the Phillips 66 Humber Refinery.

... Metals manufacturers and other industrial sectors are already dipping into renewable hydrogen as an alternative fuel and power source, and Gigastack could help accelerate that trend by bringing costs down on an industrial scale.

That’s a lot nicer, climate-wise, than the current state of affairs in which natural gas is the primary source for hydrogen.

Phillips 66 is an oil and gas company - nice to see it recognizing the sort of future that such companies will have.

Jimmy Carter's Solar Panels Power Plains, Georgia | PEOPLE.com | PEOPLE.com - 10 acres of solar panels gives Plains, GA half of its electricity.

Texas is the US leader in wind — and now it's ramping up solar - Electrek

The state provided almost one-fifth of the total US utility-scale electricity generation from all non-hydroelectric renewable sources in 2018, more than any other state.

Texas leads the nation in wind-powered electricity generation, producing more than one-fourth of the US total in 2018.

Solar, wind and batteries expected to outpace new gas-powered generation in Texas - HoustonChronicle.com

Solar developers are expected to install about 68 gigawatts of solar power capacity, representing 61 percent of the power projects expected to come on the grid between now and 2023. One gigawatt provides enough power for about 700,000 homes.

Since Texas is a rather sunny state, it's nice to see solar energy catching on there also.

Solar development on farms can save farmers and farmland – pv magazine USA - showing some solar panels on dual-axis trackers - that makes them follow the Sun and not receive sunlight at a slant. Below them is some animals that look like goats.

By elevating the panels, they can easily coexist with crop plants and farm animals.

 

[lpetrich]

Renewable energy could power the world by 2050 | Climate News Network

This is the consensus of 47 peer-reviewed research papers from 13 independent groups with a total of 91 authors that have been brought together by Stanford University in California.

Some of the papers take a broad sweep across the world, adding together the potential for each technology to see if individual countries or whole regions could survive on renewables.

Special examinations of small island states, sub-Saharan Africa and individual countries like Germany look to see what are the barriers to progress and how they could be removed.

In every case the findings are that the technology exists to achieve 100% renewable power if the political will to achieve it can be mustered.

That's good news. Seems like renewable-energy developers will succeed where nuclear-power ones have failed.

Wind energy gives American farmers a new crop to sell in tough times - while having a very small footprint on the land that they are built on.