5 June 2017, Renew Economy, Finkel’s fine line through Australia’s testy power politics. It now seems certain that chief scientist Dr Alan Finkel will deliver a range of options for government policy makers when presenting his review to the COAG ministers and leaders this Friday. There will be mention of the emissions intensity scheme, but because a carbon price of any form is not on the menu of this Coalition government, other more “palatable” alternatives will be on offer, including a low emissions target, an option on pairing new renewables with storage or back-up and, possibly, a pathway for regulation. All have their merits. But as in any policy, the devil will be in the detail and the way these schemes are designed – for the future or the past. And it is going to be interesting to see how Finkel presents his case. Will it be his view of what should be done? Or will it be focused on what can be managed in the current political environment? Certainly, there is a growing chorus among politicians and the mainstream media that something should be done. But there is not a lot of thought into what these policies can actually achieve, even though they should obviously seek to meet climate targets and manage the energy transition efficiently and at lowest cost. The problem was that none of the institutions could bring themselves to actually say it: that wind and solar are by far cheaper than coal and gas and any “other low-carbon technologies”. The Australian Energy Markets Commission and the Climate Change Authority reinforced their support for an emissions intensity scheme (EIS), and only saw a low emissions target (LET) as a second-best measure. Once again, those recommendations simply reinforce preconceived ideas, and lousy modelling. Both institutions came out strongly in support of an EIS last year, but as we pointed out at the time, here and here, these positions were based on hopelessly pessimistic modelling inputs on the cost of solar and wind. Read More here
Category Archives: New Energy Sources
22 March 2017, Yale Climate Connections, Company turns piped water into electricity. To reach your tap, water flows through a network of pipes. One company is using the pressure in those pipes to create energy. Bergan French: “We take the excess pressure that would otherwise be thrown away, and we convert it into electricity.” That’s Nina Bergan French, CEO of Lucid Energy. Her company installs turbines inside gravity-fed water pipes. They provide energy without interrupting service. Bergan French: “It’s a whole pipe system with one or more turbines in it, with a generator sitting outside the pipe, connected to either the grid or a battery backup.” Unlike most hydropower, the system does not pose risks to wildlife or its habitat. And unlike solar and wind …Bergan French: “This technology works 24/7. If the water is flowing, we’re making electricity. It’s not dependent on day and night. It’s not dependent on the weather.” A pilot project in California powers street lights. And another in Oregon makes enough electricity to power about 100 homes. French says the company is working on making the turbines more efficient. She expects that they will have a commercially viable product ready for testing by the end of the year. The goal is to provide a source of renewable energy that can be easily integrated as cities upgrade their water pipes. Read More here
2 December 2016, The Guardian, After 60 years, is nuclear fusion finally poised to deliver? “We are standing on the ground that could change the future of energy,” says engineer Laurent Pattison, deep in the reactor pit of the world’s biggest nuclear fusion project. Around him is a vast construction site, all aimed at creating temperatures of 150mC on this spot and finally bringing the power of the sun down to Earth. The €18bn (£14.3bn) Iter project, now rising fast from the ground under the bright blue skies of Provence, France, is the first capable of achieving a critical breakthrough: getting more energy out of the intense fusion reactions than is put in. “It is a bet that is very important for humanity,” says Johannes Schwemmer, the director of Fusion for Energy, the EU partner in the international Iter collaboration. “We need to get this energy once and for all.” The long allure of nuclear fusion is simple: clean, safe, limitless energy for a world that will soon house 10bn energy-hungry citizens. But despite 60 years of research and billions of dollars, the results to date are also simple: it has not delivered. Read More here
18 November 2016, Energy Post, Why the future belongs to decentralised renewables, not centralised hydrogen and giga-scale nuclear. What the future of our energy system will look like continues to be a subject of heated debate. According to one well-established tradition, writes Professor John Mathews of Macquarie University in Australia, the route to decarbonisation will run via massive nuclear power systems to the hydrogen economy. But China and to some extent India are emerging as the principal practitioners of an alternative vision of energy growth, underpinning their vast industrialisation efforts with conventional renewables that are the products of manufacturing. According to Mathews, the world is much more likely to follow the second route. Renewables, he argues, are benign, provide energy security, create jobs and above all are the least expensive option. How we envision the future of our energy systems is important as this tends to drive our policies and decisions. In a new scientific paper, “Competing principles driving energy futures: Fossil fuel decarbonisation vs. manufacturing learning curves”, published this month in the journal Futures, I contrast two broad energy visions. Read More here