Tag Archives: renewable

Capture carbon engineering 1.jpg

Homeopathy Could Cure Global Warming

Leave a reply

""

Homeopathy to Cure Global Warming!

I sometimes ask myself at the age of 92 why I have such a keen interest in the future? I read all I find on Electric cars, driverless cars, space travel, financial systems. energy innovation, artificial intelligence.

Because, come on, be realistic. As realistic as Warren Buffet, who, when asked by a young salesman to make an investment that would double in price in 12 months said – ‘Listen sonny, at my age I don’t even buy green bananas’.

But I can’t help it, and when I read in an energy newsletter that the future is carbon fuelled cars it has me excited.

 Yes, carbon, one of the main villains of global warming could be the saviour. It reminds me of the homeopathic principle – (What causes – Cures) or ( Like cures Like)

Both President Trump and the book ‘Abundance’ are relaxed about the carbon CO2 threat because they either believe it’s cyclical or say technology will save the day – could they be right? – read on -.

Back in 2004, the film ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ depicted the end of the world, as we know it, through extreme changes in weather that plunge us into another Ice Age.

In the film the cause of these extremes in weather was global warming and while the science is wildly inaccurate, there has been something ominously truthful in its predictions.

This year in the UK alone, we had record heatwaves, forest fires and snow in March. In the US it’s been even more extreme – as shown by the tragic California wildfires.

In order to prevent further warming, drastic changes need to happen, with the UN stating the world will require a transformation in society that is “unprecedented in scale”.

Even with an apocalyptic warning, such as the fire in Paradise, California, people still hope global warming is a weather pattern that will pass.

For most people the resistance to global warming is less an objection of the science, and more an objection to the lifestyle changes needed if they accept it as true.

As cited above, the transformation in society would be unprecedented, it would affect all walks of life, and people are resistant to change.

They are rejecting the solution to climate change because it does not offer any choice.

The automotive industry is a prime example; the only viable solution offered up is electric vehicles. But, for people who already own combustion cars the move to expensive electric vehicles is not an easy option.

Some bought themselves a diesel car to get cheaper tax. Now they are being told that was the wrong decision. Diesel is worse, and they must purchase an electric vehicle. Unsurprisingly, they are frustrated by the prospect.

Moreover, despite their benefits to the climate, electric vehicles are not without flaws. The infrastructure for electric vehicles, for example, is expensive. It’s currently costing the tax payers £400 million for a charging network.

Yes, electric vehicles will play a crucial role in the development of our society. They are inherently a good thing. They create cleaner, less polluted environments, they are on the whole carbon neutral and it is a step away from fossil fuel reliance.

But what about offering a choice? Giving people an option to be climate change aware without a dependence on electric vehicles.

There is a company out in Squamish, Canada, that offers this option. It is called Carbon Engineering and it is using carbon to create fuel. What is so clever about its approach to climate change is that it has succeeded in making the problem part of the solution. Remember – The Homeopathic Principle!

By using its DAC (direct air capture technology) Carbon Engineering sucks air out of the atmosphere and refines it, removing the carbon. It then combines the carbon with hydrogen and water to create a fuel that is chemically identical to the fuel used by vehicles today.

Not only is it chemically identical but it is high performance, it burns clean and it is carbon neutral. What this means is it has created a fuel that is great for your car (better than the petrol or diesel we use today), it is less pollutant – making our air cleaner – and it doesn’t contribute to global warming.

For most people, going “green”, is difficult because it results in changes to everyday life and takes away the things they enjoy. With this technology, they don’t have to do that (at least from the automotive sense). They have the choice either to go electric or to carry on as they are.

As with everything, Carbon Engineering does have its drawbacks. Unfortunately, it has similar pitfalls to electric vehicles. The plants use a lot of energy to operate and if this energy is not supplied by a renewable source then, like charging your vehicle that gets its electricity from the oil-powered plant, it is no longer a completely emissions-free endeavour.

However, this is not a finished project, it is still a private company looking for investors and if you[ compare it to other carbon capture companies such as the European company Climeworks, which is using CO2 to boost plants photosynthesis, its running costs last year was $600 per tonne of CO2.

Carbon Engineering has not only developed a fuel that is carbon neutral, but it goes one step further. It actively removes carbon from the air. Using the same DAC technology, which refines carbon for fuel, it can remove the carbon and store it underground.

Therefore, when using the carbon neutral fuel that Carbon Engineering produces, plus the safe removal and storage of carbon underground, one can contribute negative emissions. What this means is that while driving, you could be actively contributing to the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere, rather than its production.

Unfortunately, the company is still private, but its potential is massive. Its current investors include Bill Gates, and you can be sure that it will be making headlines in the future.

If it all sounds too good to be true. You decide. Visit the ‘Carbon Engineering’ website. It is impressively serious and busy.

Ivor Vale.

Hello. I did use the pen name jibberjabber because people might think ‘What’s this old fart doing on the internet? I’m a retired businessman. A widower age 92. Yes, I know, a bit ancient to be doing WordPress Posts & Etsy, but I am active, and switched on as my granddaughter says, and I do need something challenging and creative to occupy the day. Even though family and friends are good and call in or invite me out frequently – coffee mornings, shopping, short walks etc – (I was in a Rambling Club for many years) -there are still a lot of hours alone to fill. Also, anything EARNED adds to pension income. I like paintings and art, Humour – (Laughter is the Best Medicine) – Reading – (Tales From A Traveller’s Life – John Simpson, at the moment of writing) I write articles for a blog on Steemit – https://steemit.com/@ijavee

Visit my shop in Etsy – https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/HomeDecorTag Thank you Ivor.

http://register.affiliatecontentprofits.com/ivorvale

https://app.5minutesfunnel.com/app/ipn/351569

Visit my blog on Steemit – https://steemit.com/@ijavee

Acknowledged – Extracts from ‘The Influential Investor’-DONOVAN MATTHEWS.

 

WEF: Big energy CEOs don’t get the renewable revolution Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




The World Economic Forum’s ‘The Future of Electricity‘ report on power generation makes depressing reading.

Perhaps the pessimism about new technologies is predictable given that Davos represents large companies, not the innovative companies at frontier of energy transformation.

Even so, to say that renewable power sources, excluding hydro, are projected to generate less than a quarter of OECD electricity by 2040 is a strikingly conservative. The percentage is probably about 8% today.

Part of their pessimism seems to derive from a very outdated view of the economics of solar power. Take a look at the chart (right). It shows WEF’s estimates for the costs of electricity generation now and in the future.

The yellow line at the top, starting off the scale, is solar PV. A megawatt hour is said to cost well over $200 in 2016 (about £130). Even by 2030 it’ll be over $110.

PV in Dubai is already at half the price WEF predicts in 20130

I think the people in Davos may have been imbibing too much of the local homebrew. Today, in overcast Britain, groups of installers are racing to put panels on the ground as fast as they can across the southern counties to ensure that they get the current subsidy rates.

The price they get for a medium-sized commercial field? A subsidy of about $100 a megawatt hour (6.38 pence per kilowatt hour) plus the wholesale price of electricity. Let’s call that $70 a megawatt hour in addition.

So even in one of the least attractive parts of the world, PV is already cheaper than WEF says, and by a large margin. More tellingly, one of the latest auctions for installing PV, in Dubai in November last year, produced a figure of about $65 a megawatt hour.

Just to be clear: an installation firm promised to install a large PV farm if it was paid less than a third of the price that WEF says is the underlying cost of solar in 2016 – and about half the price it predicts for 2030.

Open a newspaper in most parts of the world today, and you’ll see optimistic references to the prospect of ‘grid parity’ for the best suited renewable in the local market, whether it is biomass, onshore wind, storage or PV.

A business-oriented organisation like WEF should spend more time in the outside world, sensing the excitement about the rates of progress of low-carbon technologies rather than unquestioningly repeating the five year old wisdom of its leading sponsors.

Perhaps most surprisingly, WEF’s cost figures are approximately 50% higher than those produced by the International Energy Agency, long a sceptic about the progress of PV. And its figures for onshore wind are equally wrong.

By now, I would have thought that at least parts of big business would have recognised the inevitability of the transition to renewables (with storage) and begun to look at how it could profitably participate.

WEF: what are your sources?

None of the projections, estimates or calculations in the report are given a source. We cannot check their accuracy or even the provenance of their figures.

I’m sure that the writers of the document have tried to use reasonable data. But the report is stacked full of statements made without any support or justification, many of which look highly contentious.

We are expected to believe, for example, that “wholesale electricity prices are expected to continue to rise by 57% in the EU” between now and 2040 at the same as retail prices are expected to stay the same. It doesn’t need an economist to say that such a combination is impossible.  

My confidence in the report’s recommendations was further shaken by WEF’s assertion that the EU had wasted $100bn by siting wind and PV in the wrong countries.

“It is obvious to most European citizens that southern Europe has the lion’s share of the solar irradiation while northern Europe has the wind”, says the report – before concluding that Germany has installed too much PV and Spain too much wind.

Wong again. 2013 estimates from the IEA suggest that the average productivity of a Spanish turbine was 26.9% of its maximum capacity, but only 18.5% in Germany. Spain’s wind turbines are almost 50% more productive than Germany’s. In fact Spain managed slightly more than the worldwide average and was only just below the UK or Denmark in average output.

The real stories the WEF missed

Actually, it isn’t that ‘northern Europe has the wind’ but rather that westerly coasts have high wind speeds, making Spain and Portugal’s Atlantic turbines better than almost any inshore areas in northern Europe.

There’s a second reason why Spain should have wind turbines: wind speeds are relatively poorly correlated with the winds in northern Europe. For a more secure European supply, turbines in Spain have a high value, particularly when interconnection with France is improved.

 And in the case of Germany, which does have much lower output from PV than Spain, the argument that it should have left the solar revolution to its southern neighbours is a remarkably ahistorical conclusion.

Without Germany’s very costly support of PV a decade ago we would not currently be looking at grid parity for solar across much of the world.

 

 

Chris Goodall is an expert on energy, environment and climate change and valued contributor to The Ecologist. He blogs at Carbon Commentary.

The report: ‘The Future of Electricity – Attracting Investment to Build Tomorrow’s Electricity Sector‘, written in collaboration with Bain & Company, “outlines recommendations to attract the needed investment and grasp these new opportunities.”

This article was originally published on Carbon Commentary.

 

 




389374

WEF: Big energy CEOs don’t get the renewable revolution Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




The World Economic Forum’s ‘The Future of Electricity‘ report on power generation makes depressing reading.

Perhaps the pessimism about new technologies is predictable given that Davos represents large companies, not the innovative companies at frontier of energy transformation.

Even so, to say that renewable power sources, excluding hydro, are projected to generate less than a quarter of OECD electricity by 2040 is a strikingly conservative. The percentage is probably about 8% today.

Part of their pessimism seems to derive from a very outdated view of the economics of solar power. Take a look at the chart (right). It shows WEF’s estimates for the costs of electricity generation now and in the future.

The yellow line at the top, starting off the scale, is solar PV. A megawatt hour is said to cost well over $200 in 2016 (about £130). Even by 2030 it’ll be over $110.

PV in Dubai is already at half the price WEF predicts in 20130

I think the people in Davos may have been imbibing too much of the local homebrew. Today, in overcast Britain, groups of installers are racing to put panels on the ground as fast as they can across the southern counties to ensure that they get the current subsidy rates.

The price they get for a medium-sized commercial field? A subsidy of about $100 a megawatt hour (6.38 pence per kilowatt hour) plus the wholesale price of electricity. Let’s call that $70 a megawatt hour in addition.

So even in one of the least attractive parts of the world, PV is already cheaper than WEF says, and by a large margin. More tellingly, one of the latest auctions for installing PV, in Dubai in November last year, produced a figure of about $65 a megawatt hour.

Just to be clear: an installation firm promised to install a large PV farm if it was paid less than a third of the price that WEF says is the underlying cost of solar in 2016 – and about half the price it predicts for 2030.

Open a newspaper in most parts of the world today, and you’ll see optimistic references to the prospect of ‘grid parity’ for the best suited renewable in the local market, whether it is biomass, onshore wind, storage or PV.

A business-oriented organisation like WEF should spend more time in the outside world, sensing the excitement about the rates of progress of low-carbon technologies rather than unquestioningly repeating the five year old wisdom of its leading sponsors.

Perhaps most surprisingly, WEF’s cost figures are approximately 50% higher than those produced by the International Energy Agency, long a sceptic about the progress of PV. And its figures for onshore wind are equally wrong.

By now, I would have thought that at least parts of big business would have recognised the inevitability of the transition to renewables (with storage) and begun to look at how it could profitably participate.

WEF: what are your sources?

None of the projections, estimates or calculations in the report are given a source. We cannot check their accuracy or even the provenance of their figures.

I’m sure that the writers of the document have tried to use reasonable data. But the report is stacked full of statements made without any support or justification, many of which look highly contentious.

We are expected to believe, for example, that “wholesale electricity prices are expected to continue to rise by 57% in the EU” between now and 2040 at the same as retail prices are expected to stay the same. It doesn’t need an economist to say that such a combination is impossible.  

My confidence in the report’s recommendations was further shaken by WEF’s assertion that the EU had wasted $100bn by siting wind and PV in the wrong countries.

“It is obvious to most European citizens that southern Europe has the lion’s share of the solar irradiation while northern Europe has the wind”, says the report – before concluding that Germany has installed too much PV and Spain too much wind.

Wong again. 2013 estimates from the IEA suggest that the average productivity of a Spanish turbine was 26.9% of its maximum capacity, but only 18.5% in Germany. Spain’s wind turbines are almost 50% more productive than Germany’s. In fact Spain managed slightly more than the worldwide average and was only just below the UK or Denmark in average output.

The real stories the WEF missed

Actually, it isn’t that ‘northern Europe has the wind’ but rather that westerly coasts have high wind speeds, making Spain and Portugal’s Atlantic turbines better than almost any inshore areas in northern Europe.

There’s a second reason why Spain should have wind turbines: wind speeds are relatively poorly correlated with the winds in northern Europe. For a more secure European supply, turbines in Spain have a high value, particularly when interconnection with France is improved.

 And in the case of Germany, which does have much lower output from PV than Spain, the argument that it should have left the solar revolution to its southern neighbours is a remarkably ahistorical conclusion.

Without Germany’s very costly support of PV a decade ago we would not currently be looking at grid parity for solar across much of the world.

 

 

Chris Goodall is an expert on energy, environment and climate change and valued contributor to The Ecologist. He blogs at Carbon Commentary.

The report: ‘The Future of Electricity – Attracting Investment to Build Tomorrow’s Electricity Sector‘, written in collaboration with Bain & Company, “outlines recommendations to attract the needed investment and grasp these new opportunities.”

This article was originally published on Carbon Commentary.

 

 




389374

WEF: Big energy CEOs don’t get the renewable revolution Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




The World Economic Forum’s ‘The Future of Electricity‘ report on power generation makes depressing reading.

Perhaps the pessimism about new technologies is predictable given that Davos represents large companies, not the innovative companies at frontier of energy transformation.

Even so, to say that renewable power sources, excluding hydro, are projected to generate less than a quarter of OECD electricity by 2040 is a strikingly conservative. The percentage is probably about 8% today.

Part of their pessimism seems to derive from a very outdated view of the economics of solar power. Take a look at the chart (right). It shows WEF’s estimates for the costs of electricity generation now and in the future.

The yellow line at the top, starting off the scale, is solar PV. A megawatt hour is said to cost well over $200 in 2016 (about £130). Even by 2030 it’ll be over $110.

PV in Dubai is already at half the price WEF predicts in 20130

I think the people in Davos may have been imbibing too much of the local homebrew. Today, in overcast Britain, groups of installers are racing to put panels on the ground as fast as they can across the southern counties to ensure that they get the current subsidy rates.

The price they get for a medium-sized commercial field? A subsidy of about $100 a megawatt hour (6.38 pence per kilowatt hour) plus the wholesale price of electricity. Let’s call that $70 a megawatt hour in addition.

So even in one of the least attractive parts of the world, PV is already cheaper than WEF says, and by a large margin. More tellingly, one of the latest auctions for installing PV, in Dubai in November last year, produced a figure of about $65 a megawatt hour.

Just to be clear: an installation firm promised to install a large PV farm if it was paid less than a third of the price that WEF says is the underlying cost of solar in 2016 – and about half the price it predicts for 2030.

Open a newspaper in most parts of the world today, and you’ll see optimistic references to the prospect of ‘grid parity’ for the best suited renewable in the local market, whether it is biomass, onshore wind, storage or PV.

A business-oriented organisation like WEF should spend more time in the outside world, sensing the excitement about the rates of progress of low-carbon technologies rather than unquestioningly repeating the five year old wisdom of its leading sponsors.

Perhaps most surprisingly, WEF’s cost figures are approximately 50% higher than those produced by the International Energy Agency, long a sceptic about the progress of PV. And its figures for onshore wind are equally wrong.

By now, I would have thought that at least parts of big business would have recognised the inevitability of the transition to renewables (with storage) and begun to look at how it could profitably participate.

WEF: what are your sources?

None of the projections, estimates or calculations in the report are given a source. We cannot check their accuracy or even the provenance of their figures.

I’m sure that the writers of the document have tried to use reasonable data. But the report is stacked full of statements made without any support or justification, many of which look highly contentious.

We are expected to believe, for example, that “wholesale electricity prices are expected to continue to rise by 57% in the EU” between now and 2040 at the same as retail prices are expected to stay the same. It doesn’t need an economist to say that such a combination is impossible.  

My confidence in the report’s recommendations was further shaken by WEF’s assertion that the EU had wasted $100bn by siting wind and PV in the wrong countries.

“It is obvious to most European citizens that southern Europe has the lion’s share of the solar irradiation while northern Europe has the wind”, says the report – before concluding that Germany has installed too much PV and Spain too much wind.

Wong again. 2013 estimates from the IEA suggest that the average productivity of a Spanish turbine was 26.9% of its maximum capacity, but only 18.5% in Germany. Spain’s wind turbines are almost 50% more productive than Germany’s. In fact Spain managed slightly more than the worldwide average and was only just below the UK or Denmark in average output.

The real stories the WEF missed

Actually, it isn’t that ‘northern Europe has the wind’ but rather that westerly coasts have high wind speeds, making Spain and Portugal’s Atlantic turbines better than almost any inshore areas in northern Europe.

There’s a second reason why Spain should have wind turbines: wind speeds are relatively poorly correlated with the winds in northern Europe. For a more secure European supply, turbines in Spain have a high value, particularly when interconnection with France is improved.

 And in the case of Germany, which does have much lower output from PV than Spain, the argument that it should have left the solar revolution to its southern neighbours is a remarkably ahistorical conclusion.

Without Germany’s very costly support of PV a decade ago we would not currently be looking at grid parity for solar across much of the world.

 

 

Chris Goodall is an expert on energy, environment and climate change and valued contributor to The Ecologist. He blogs at Carbon Commentary.

The report: ‘The Future of Electricity – Attracting Investment to Build Tomorrow’s Electricity Sector‘, written in collaboration with Bain & Company, “outlines recommendations to attract the needed investment and grasp these new opportunities.”

This article was originally published on Carbon Commentary.

 

 




389374

WEF: Big energy CEOs don’t get the renewable revolution Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




The World Economic Forum’s ‘The Future of Electricity‘ report on power generation makes depressing reading.

Perhaps the pessimism about new technologies is predictable given that Davos represents large companies, not the innovative companies at frontier of energy transformation.

Even so, to say that renewable power sources, excluding hydro, are projected to generate less than a quarter of OECD electricity by 2040 is a strikingly conservative. The percentage is probably about 8% today.

Part of their pessimism seems to derive from a very outdated view of the economics of solar power. Take a look at the chart (right). It shows WEF’s estimates for the costs of electricity generation now and in the future.

The yellow line at the top, starting off the scale, is solar PV. A megawatt hour is said to cost well over $200 in 2016 (about £130). Even by 2030 it’ll be over $110.

PV in Dubai is already at half the price WEF predicts in 20130

I think the people in Davos may have been imbibing too much of the local homebrew. Today, in overcast Britain, groups of installers are racing to put panels on the ground as fast as they can across the southern counties to ensure that they get the current subsidy rates.

The price they get for a medium-sized commercial field? A subsidy of about $100 a megawatt hour (6.38 pence per kilowatt hour) plus the wholesale price of electricity. Let’s call that $70 a megawatt hour in addition.

So even in one of the least attractive parts of the world, PV is already cheaper than WEF says, and by a large margin. More tellingly, one of the latest auctions for installing PV, in Dubai in November last year, produced a figure of about $65 a megawatt hour.

Just to be clear: an installation firm promised to install a large PV farm if it was paid less than a third of the price that WEF says is the underlying cost of solar in 2016 – and about half the price it predicts for 2030.

Open a newspaper in most parts of the world today, and you’ll see optimistic references to the prospect of ‘grid parity’ for the best suited renewable in the local market, whether it is biomass, onshore wind, storage or PV.

A business-oriented organisation like WEF should spend more time in the outside world, sensing the excitement about the rates of progress of low-carbon technologies rather than unquestioningly repeating the five year old wisdom of its leading sponsors.

Perhaps most surprisingly, WEF’s cost figures are approximately 50% higher than those produced by the International Energy Agency, long a sceptic about the progress of PV. And its figures for onshore wind are equally wrong.

By now, I would have thought that at least parts of big business would have recognised the inevitability of the transition to renewables (with storage) and begun to look at how it could profitably participate.

WEF: what are your sources?

None of the projections, estimates or calculations in the report are given a source. We cannot check their accuracy or even the provenance of their figures.

I’m sure that the writers of the document have tried to use reasonable data. But the report is stacked full of statements made without any support or justification, many of which look highly contentious.

We are expected to believe, for example, that “wholesale electricity prices are expected to continue to rise by 57% in the EU” between now and 2040 at the same as retail prices are expected to stay the same. It doesn’t need an economist to say that such a combination is impossible.  

My confidence in the report’s recommendations was further shaken by WEF’s assertion that the EU had wasted $100bn by siting wind and PV in the wrong countries.

“It is obvious to most European citizens that southern Europe has the lion’s share of the solar irradiation while northern Europe has the wind”, says the report – before concluding that Germany has installed too much PV and Spain too much wind.

Wong again. 2013 estimates from the IEA suggest that the average productivity of a Spanish turbine was 26.9% of its maximum capacity, but only 18.5% in Germany. Spain’s wind turbines are almost 50% more productive than Germany’s. In fact Spain managed slightly more than the worldwide average and was only just below the UK or Denmark in average output.

The real stories the WEF missed

Actually, it isn’t that ‘northern Europe has the wind’ but rather that westerly coasts have high wind speeds, making Spain and Portugal’s Atlantic turbines better than almost any inshore areas in northern Europe.

There’s a second reason why Spain should have wind turbines: wind speeds are relatively poorly correlated with the winds in northern Europe. For a more secure European supply, turbines in Spain have a high value, particularly when interconnection with France is improved.

 And in the case of Germany, which does have much lower output from PV than Spain, the argument that it should have left the solar revolution to its southern neighbours is a remarkably ahistorical conclusion.

Without Germany’s very costly support of PV a decade ago we would not currently be looking at grid parity for solar across much of the world.

 

 

Chris Goodall is an expert on energy, environment and climate change and valued contributor to The Ecologist. He blogs at Carbon Commentary.

The report: ‘The Future of Electricity – Attracting Investment to Build Tomorrow’s Electricity Sector‘, written in collaboration with Bain & Company, “outlines recommendations to attract the needed investment and grasp these new opportunities.”

This article was originally published on Carbon Commentary.

 

 




389374

WEF: Big energy CEOs don’t get the renewable revolution Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




The World Economic Forum’s ‘The Future of Electricity‘ report on power generation makes depressing reading.

Perhaps the pessimism about new technologies is predictable given that Davos represents large companies, not the innovative companies at frontier of energy transformation.

Even so, to say that renewable power sources, excluding hydro, are projected to generate less than a quarter of OECD electricity by 2040 is a strikingly conservative. The percentage is probably about 8% today.

Part of their pessimism seems to derive from a very outdated view of the economics of solar power. Take a look at the chart (right). It shows WEF’s estimates for the costs of electricity generation now and in the future.

The yellow line at the top, starting off the scale, is solar PV. A megawatt hour is said to cost well over $200 in 2016 (about £130). Even by 2030 it’ll be over $110.

PV in Dubai is already at half the price WEF predicts in 20130

I think the people in Davos may have been imbibing too much of the local homebrew. Today, in overcast Britain, groups of installers are racing to put panels on the ground as fast as they can across the southern counties to ensure that they get the current subsidy rates.

The price they get for a medium-sized commercial field? A subsidy of about $100 a megawatt hour (6.38 pence per kilowatt hour) plus the wholesale price of electricity. Let’s call that $70 a megawatt hour in addition.

So even in one of the least attractive parts of the world, PV is already cheaper than WEF says, and by a large margin. More tellingly, one of the latest auctions for installing PV, in Dubai in November last year, produced a figure of about $65 a megawatt hour.

Just to be clear: an installation firm promised to install a large PV farm if it was paid less than a third of the price that WEF says is the underlying cost of solar in 2016 – and about half the price it predicts for 2030.

Open a newspaper in most parts of the world today, and you’ll see optimistic references to the prospect of ‘grid parity’ for the best suited renewable in the local market, whether it is biomass, onshore wind, storage or PV.

A business-oriented organisation like WEF should spend more time in the outside world, sensing the excitement about the rates of progress of low-carbon technologies rather than unquestioningly repeating the five year old wisdom of its leading sponsors.

Perhaps most surprisingly, WEF’s cost figures are approximately 50% higher than those produced by the International Energy Agency, long a sceptic about the progress of PV. And its figures for onshore wind are equally wrong.

By now, I would have thought that at least parts of big business would have recognised the inevitability of the transition to renewables (with storage) and begun to look at how it could profitably participate.

WEF: what are your sources?

None of the projections, estimates or calculations in the report are given a source. We cannot check their accuracy or even the provenance of their figures.

I’m sure that the writers of the document have tried to use reasonable data. But the report is stacked full of statements made without any support or justification, many of which look highly contentious.

We are expected to believe, for example, that “wholesale electricity prices are expected to continue to rise by 57% in the EU” between now and 2040 at the same as retail prices are expected to stay the same. It doesn’t need an economist to say that such a combination is impossible.  

My confidence in the report’s recommendations was further shaken by WEF’s assertion that the EU had wasted $100bn by siting wind and PV in the wrong countries.

“It is obvious to most European citizens that southern Europe has the lion’s share of the solar irradiation while northern Europe has the wind”, says the report – before concluding that Germany has installed too much PV and Spain too much wind.

Wong again. 2013 estimates from the IEA suggest that the average productivity of a Spanish turbine was 26.9% of its maximum capacity, but only 18.5% in Germany. Spain’s wind turbines are almost 50% more productive than Germany’s. In fact Spain managed slightly more than the worldwide average and was only just below the UK or Denmark in average output.

The real stories the WEF missed

Actually, it isn’t that ‘northern Europe has the wind’ but rather that westerly coasts have high wind speeds, making Spain and Portugal’s Atlantic turbines better than almost any inshore areas in northern Europe.

There’s a second reason why Spain should have wind turbines: wind speeds are relatively poorly correlated with the winds in northern Europe. For a more secure European supply, turbines in Spain have a high value, particularly when interconnection with France is improved.

 And in the case of Germany, which does have much lower output from PV than Spain, the argument that it should have left the solar revolution to its southern neighbours is a remarkably ahistorical conclusion.

Without Germany’s very costly support of PV a decade ago we would not currently be looking at grid parity for solar across much of the world.

 

 

Chris Goodall is an expert on energy, environment and climate change and valued contributor to The Ecologist. He blogs at Carbon Commentary.

The report: ‘The Future of Electricity – Attracting Investment to Build Tomorrow’s Electricity Sector‘, written in collaboration with Bain & Company, “outlines recommendations to attract the needed investment and grasp these new opportunities.”

This article was originally published on Carbon Commentary.

 

 




389374

WEF: Big energy CEOs just don’t get the renewable revolution Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




The World Economic Forum’s ‘The Future of Electricity‘ report on power generation makes depressing reading.

Perhaps the pessimism about new technologies is predictable given that Davos represents large companies, not the innovative companies at frontier of energy transformation.

Even so, to say that renewable power sources, excluding hydro, are projected to generate less than a quarter of OECD electricity by 2040 is a strikingly conservative. The percentage is probably about 8% today.

Part of their pessimism seems to derive from a very outdated view of the economics of solar power. Take a look at the chart (right). It shows WEF’s estimates for the costs of electricity generation now and in the future.

The yellow line at the top, starting off the scale, is solar PV. A megawatt hour is said to cost well over $200 in 2016 (about £130). Even by 2030 it’ll be over $110.

PV in Dubai is already at half the price WEF predicts in 20130

I think the people in Davos may have been imbibing too much of the local homebrew. Today, in overcast Britain, groups of installers are racing to put panels on the ground as fast as they can across the southern counties to ensure that they get the current subsidy rates.

The price they get for a medium-sized commercial field? A subsidy of about $100 a megawatt hour (6.38 pence per kilowatt hour) plus the wholesale price of electricity. Let’s call that $70 a megawatt hour in addition.

So even in one of the least attractive parts of the world, PV is already cheaper than WEF says, and by a large margin. More tellingly, one of the latest auctions for installing PV, in Dubai in November last year, produced a figure of about $65 a megawatt hour.

Just to be clear: an installation firm promised to install a large PV farm if it was paid less than a third of the price that WEF says is the underlying cost of solar in 2016 – and about half the price it predicts for 2030.

Open a newspaper in most parts of the world today, and you’ll see optimistic references to the prospect of ‘grid parity’ for the best suited renewable in the local market, whether it is biomass, onshore wind, storage or PV.

A business-oriented organisation like WEF should spend more time in the outside world, sensing the excitement about the rates of progress of low-carbon technologies rather than unquestioningly repeating the five year old wisdom of its leading sponsors.

Perhaps most surprisingly, WEF’s cost figures are approximately 50% higher than those produced by the International Energy Agency, long a sceptic about the progress of PV. And its figures for onshore wind are equally wrong.

By now, I would have thought that at least parts of big business would have recognised the inevitability of the transition to renewables (with storage) and begun to look at how it could profitably participate.

WEF: what are your sources?

None of the projections, estimates or calculations in the report are given a source. We cannot check their accuracy or even the provenance of their figures.

I’m sure that the writers of the document have tried to use reasonable data. But the report is stacked full of statements made without any support or justification, many of which look highly contentious.

We are expected to believe, for example, that “wholesale electricity prices are expected to continue to rise by 57% in the EU” between now and 2040 at the same as retail prices are expected to stay the same. It doesn’t need an economist to say that such a combination is impossible.  

My confidence in the report’s recommendations was further shaken by WEF’s assertion that the EU had wasted $100bn by siting wind and PV in the wrong countries.

“It is obvious to most European citizens that southern Europe has the lion’s share of the solar irradiation while northern Europe has the wind”, says the report – before concluding that Germany has installed too much PV and Spain too much wind.

Wong again. 2013 estimates from the IEA suggest that the average productivity of a Spanish turbine was 26.9% of its maximum capacity, but only 18.5% in Germany. Spain’s wind turbines are almost 50% more productive than Germany’s. In fact Spain managed slightly more than the worldwide average and was only just below the UK or Denmark in average output.

The real stories the WEF missed

Actually, it isn’t that ‘northern Europe has the wind’ but rather that westerly coasts have high wind speeds, making Spain and Portugal’s Atlantic turbines better than almost any inshore areas in northern Europe.

There’s a second reason why Spain should have wind turbines: wind speeds are relatively poorly correlated with the winds in northern Europe. For a more secure European supply, turbines in Spain have a high value, particularly when interconnection with France is improved.

 And in the case of Germany, which does have much lower output from PV than Spain, the argument that it should have left the solar revolution to its southern neighbours is a remarkably ahistorical conclusion.

Without Germany’s very costly support of PV a decade ago we would not currently be looking at grid parity for solar across much of the world.

 

 

Chris Goodall is an expert on energy, environment and climate change and valued contributor to The Ecologist. He blogs at Carbon Commentary.

The report: ‘The Future of Electricity – Attracting Investment to Build Tomorrow’s Electricity Sector‘, written in collaboration with Bain & Company, “outlines recommendations to attract the needed investment and grasp these new opportunities.”

This article was originally published on Carbon Commentary.

 

 




389374

Community renewable energy in the UK needs co-ops! Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has been giving the UK’s small but fast-growing community energy sector a serious headache.

For years a cooperative ownership structure had proved highly popular for small scale, community based renewable energy projects, and a valuable alternative to standard companies limited by shares.

But last summer the Financial Conduct Authority suddenly – and without warning or prior consultation – ceased to register new energy coops.

The surprise move appeared to be no change of government policy, but rather the financial regulator itself applying existing rules more strictly than it had before.

Not surprisingly the move created significant political controversy, and before long Labour’s energy minister Tom Greatrex stepped into the fray with a letter to the FCA complaining that “future energy co-ops are being put at risk” by the change of approach.

“This sudden change threatens a model that combines the twin goods of decarbonisation and community involvement in energy”, he continued. “The FCA must urgently reconsider their approach – and Ed Davey needs to wake up and get a grip to prevent lasting damage to the prospects of more community energy projects in the UK.”

Consultation launched

The upshot was that the FCA launched a consultation on the topic – and tomorrow, 28th November, is the deadline for putting in comments. So please try to get your comments in!

Energy4All – a ‘co-operative of co-operatives’ in the renewable energy sector (and my employer) – also launched a 38 degrees petition aimed at the FCA: “Allow the creation of Renewable Energy Co-op’s with the Financial Conduct Authority.”

At the heart of the issue is the question of whether energy co-operative members participate enough in the co-op. To register a co-op, FCA rules require it to “show participation” by “buying from or selling to the society”, “using the services or amenities provided by it” and “supplying services to carry out its business”.

But unlike a co-op shop, which can sell direct to its members, energy co-ops are too small to apply for the public energy supply licenses that would allow them to sell electricity from their solar panels or wind turbines direct to members. Instead, they tend to sell their power into the local power network. Profits are divided among co-op members based on the size of their investment.

And there is no requirement in the ‘seven principles‘ of the International Co-operative Alliance that co-ops have to trade with their members. We believe the FCA should register any co-op that complies with the international principles without imposing additional constraints.

Co-ops have the potential to become a significant alternative to the big energy companies, but the growth of the sector – which is Government policy and backed by all parties – is at risk unless the FCA backs down.

What’s so good about co-ops?

Co-ops are open democratic structures (one member, one vote) with a social rather than a commercial ethos and would appear to be the natural way for like minded people to come together to make a renewable energy project work. The ‘seven principles’ are, in full:

  1. Voluntary and Open Membership – there is usually a public share offer to raise funds to build the project;
  2. Democratic Member Control – each member will have one vote no matter how much they have contributed to the capital of the co-op;
  3. Member Economic Participation – the members contribute equitably to and democratically control the capital of their co-operative;
  4. Autonomy and Independence – renewable energy co-ops are self help organisations controlled by their members;
  5. Education, Training and Information – renewable energy co-ops provide education and training for their members, and inform the public about the benefits of co-operation and of renewable energy;
  6. Co-operation among Co-operatives – renewable energy co-ops help other co-ops;
  7. Concern for Community – renewable energy co-ops spend part of their profits on community projects, especially those related to energy efficiency and education.

It’s not hard to see how an organisation set up and operated on these principles is not the same as any old limited company or PLC, and makes an ideal vehicle for locally-based energy projects for the mutual benefit of members and the wider community.

FCA proposal not good enough

The FCA says that using a Society for the Benefit of the Community (a ‘BenCom’) is more appropriate for community energy. However the consultation looks at making the raising of capital by a BenCom very restrictive. The result is that larger projects, the ones that generate most power per pound of investment, will be more difficult to finance.

It does seem odd that an individual can take advantage of the Feed in Tariff by putting solar panels on their roof, whereas other less fortunate people – say those with less cash, living in flats, or just with wrongly positioned roofs – are not to be allowed to come together in a co-operative which can often achieve a better result in terms of renewable energy output and social benefits.

Most people think renewable energy co-ops are a force for good and should be encouraged. Elswhere in Europe the co-operative is the main form for community energy ownership, and in countries where community ownership is much more established than in the UK, such as Denmark, co-ops have been instrumental in driving the expansion of the sector.

Wider use of the co-operative model in the UK can make an important contribution to changes in energy production and consumption which will help democratise the ownership of energy, reduce energy prices, support communities and increase the production of renewable energy which is such a vital tool in the fight against climate change.

It seems a pity that the UK, where the co-op was invented in the 19th century, cannot see its way to permitting its wider usage.

Would the Rochdale Pioneers have used a co-op to generate energy if they could? Surely the answer is a resounding ‘YES!’ Co-operative enterprise has a long and proud history and we must, in the spirit of the early co-operative pioneers, oppose needless restrictions on the sector.

 

 

Petition: “Allow the creation of Renewable Energy Co-op’s with the Financial Conduct Authority.”

Consultation document: CP14/22 Guidance on the FCA’s registration function under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014. The consultation closes tomorrow,
Friday 28 November 2014.

If you want to see more renewable energy co-operatives running community projects in the UK please participate in this consultation and make sure your views are heard!

Energy4All was formed in 2002 to expand community ownership of renewable energy. We now have 15 projects in the Energy4All family with 10,000+ members, £37m capital raised – enabling many more communities to benefit from renewable energy. We are ourselves a co-operative, owned by the co-ops that we serve.

Tammy Calvert is office manager at Energy4All.

 




387510

World Bank to focus on ‘all forms of renewable energy’ Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




The World Bank will invest heavily in clean energy and only fund coal projects in “circumstances of extreme need” because climate change will undermine efforts to eliminate extreme poverty, says its president Jim Yong Kim.

Talking ahead of a UN climate summit in Peru next month, Kim said he was alarmed by World Bank-commissioned research from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, which said that as a result of past greenhouse gas emissions the world is condemned to unprecedented weather events.

“The findings are alarming. As the planet warms further, heatwaves and other weather extremes, which today we call once­-in­-a-century events, would become the new climate normal, a frightening world of increased risk and instability.

“The consequences for development would be severe, as crop yields decline, water resources shift, communicable diseases move into new geographical ranges, and sea levels rise.”

“We know that the dramatic weather extremes are already affecting millions of people, such as the five to six feet of snow that just fell on Buffalo, and can throw our lives into disarray or worse.

“Even with ambitious mitigation, warming close to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is locked in. And this means that climate change impact such as extreme heat events may now be simply unavoidable.”

‘Only in extreme need will we do coal again’

But the Bank, which has traditionally been one of the world’s largest funders of fossil fuel projects and has been accused of adding to the problem of climate change, said it could not ignore the poorest countries’ need for power.

“We are going to have to focus all of our energy to move toward renewable and cleaner forms of energy”, said Kim.

“But on the other hand we believe very strongly that the poorest countries have a right to energy and that we not ask these energy ­poor countries to wait until there are ways of ensuring that solar and wind power can provide the kind of base load that all countries need in order to industrialise.

“The stakes have never been higher. We cannot continue down the current path of unchecked growing emissions. The case for taking action now on climate change is overwhelming, and the cost of inaction will only rise.”

Kim was backed by Rachel Kyte, World Bank group vice president and special envoy for climate change. “It will only be in circumstances of extreme need that we would contemplate doing coal again”, she said.

“We would only contemplate doing [it] in the poorest of countries where their energy transition as part of their low-carbon development plan means that there are no other base load power sources available at a reasonable price.”

“The focus is on being able to ramp up our lending and the leveraging of our lending into all forms of renewable energy. That’s the strategy. It includes everything from all sizes of hydro through to wind, to solar, to concentrated solar, to geothermal. I think we’re invested in every dimension of renewable energy. That is what we’re concentrating on.”

Now, what about oil, gas and other fossil fuels

The bank’s report showed that with a 2C warming, soya and wheat crop yields in Brazil could decrease 50-70%: “In the Middle east and north Africa, a large increase in heatwaves combined with warmer average temperatures will put intense pressure on already scarce water resources with major consequences for food security.

“Crop yields could decrease by up to 30% at 1.5-2C and by almost 60% at 3-4C. Pressure on resources might increase the risk of conflict.”

Climate change posed a substantial risk to development and cutting poverty, the report said, adding that action on emissions need not come at the expense of economic growth.

But the bank made no commitment to cut funding for oil or other fossil fuel exploration. Analysis earlier this year by Washington-based NGO Oil Change International showed that the bank had funded $21bn (£13bn) of fossil fuel projects since 2008, including $1bn of oil and other fossil fuel exploration in 2013.

“The bank has taken an important first step in essentially stopping its support for coal-fired power plants, but climate change is caused by more than just coal”, said Stephen Kretzmann, director of Oil Change International.

“The vast majority of currently proven fossil fuel reserves will need to be left in the ground if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change, but last year the bank provided nearly $1bn in support for finding more of these unburnable carbon reserves.”

 

 

John Vidal is Environment Editor for the Guardian.

This article was originally published by The Guardian and is reproduced with thanks via The Guardian Environment Network.

 

 




387301

World Bank to focus on ‘all forms of renewable energy’ Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




The World Bank will invest heavily in clean energy and only fund coal projects in “circumstances of extreme need” because climate change will undermine efforts to eliminate extreme poverty, says its president Jim Yong Kim.

Talking ahead of a UN climate summit in Peru next month, Kim said he was alarmed by World Bank-commissioned research from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, which said that as a result of past greenhouse gas emissions the world is condemned to unprecedented weather events.

“The findings are alarming. As the planet warms further, heatwaves and other weather extremes, which today we call once­-in­-a-century events, would become the new climate normal, a frightening world of increased risk and instability.

“The consequences for development would be severe, as crop yields decline, water resources shift, communicable diseases move into new geographical ranges, and sea levels rise.”

“We know that the dramatic weather extremes are already affecting millions of people, such as the five to six feet of snow that just fell on Buffalo, and can throw our lives into disarray or worse.

“Even with ambitious mitigation, warming close to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is locked in. And this means that climate change impact such as extreme heat events may now be simply unavoidable.”

‘Only in extreme need will we do coal again’

But the Bank, which has traditionally been one of the world’s largest funders of fossil fuel projects and has been accused of adding to the problem of climate change, said it could not ignore the poorest countries’ need for power.

“We are going to have to focus all of our energy to move toward renewable and cleaner forms of energy”, said Kim.

“But on the other hand we believe very strongly that the poorest countries have a right to energy and that we not ask these energy ­poor countries to wait until there are ways of ensuring that solar and wind power can provide the kind of base load that all countries need in order to industrialise.

“The stakes have never been higher. We cannot continue down the current path of unchecked growing emissions. The case for taking action now on climate change is overwhelming, and the cost of inaction will only rise.”

Kim was backed by Rachel Kyte, World Bank group vice president and special envoy for climate change. “It will only be in circumstances of extreme need that we would contemplate doing coal again”, she said.

“We would only contemplate doing [it] in the poorest of countries where their energy transition as part of their low-carbon development plan means that there are no other base load power sources available at a reasonable price.”

“The focus is on being able to ramp up our lending and the leveraging of our lending into all forms of renewable energy. That’s the strategy. It includes everything from all sizes of hydro through to wind, to solar, to concentrated solar, to geothermal. I think we’re invested in every dimension of renewable energy. That is what we’re concentrating on.”

Now, what about oil, gas and other fossil fuels

The bank’s report showed that with a 2C warming, soya and wheat crop yields in Brazil could decrease 50-70%: “In the Middle east and north Africa, a large increase in heatwaves combined with warmer average temperatures will put intense pressure on already scarce water resources with major consequences for food security.

“Crop yields could decrease by up to 30% at 1.5-2C and by almost 60% at 3-4C. Pressure on resources might increase the risk of conflict.”

Climate change posed a substantial risk to development and cutting poverty, the report said, adding that action on emissions need not come at the expense of economic growth.

But the bank made no commitment to cut funding for oil or other fossil fuel exploration. Analysis earlier this year by Washington-based NGO Oil Change International showed that the bank had funded $21bn (£13bn) of fossil fuel projects since 2008, including $1bn of oil and other fossil fuel exploration in 2013.

“The bank has taken an important first step in essentially stopping its support for coal-fired power plants, but climate change is caused by more than just coal”, said Stephen Kretzmann, director of Oil Change International.

“The vast majority of currently proven fossil fuel reserves will need to be left in the ground if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change, but last year the bank provided nearly $1bn in support for finding more of these unburnable carbon reserves.”

 

 

John Vidal is Environment Editor for the Guardian.

This article was originally published by The Guardian and is reproduced with thanks via The Guardian Environment Network.

 

 




387301