6 September 2017, IOL Motoring The hydrogen vs battery car debate is far from over. London – With hybrid and full electric cars now becoming mainstream, it may seem as though the early debate between hydrogen and battery power is over. But batteries have considerable drawbacks. They’re heavy, they’re expensive, they require the extensive use of rare earth metals, and the production of lithium-ion batteries is itself an energy-intensive process that creates considerable emissions. Despite the progress made in EV technology, most car companies are predicting it will be a long time before batteries become dramatically cheaper or lighter than they are today. Speaking to investors last year, Stefan Juraschek, vice president of electric-powertrain development at BMW, said the car maker needed to “walk through the valley of tears” of funding highly costly research and development in order to make significant progress on battery power. Electric cars require energy straight out of the mains, which could come from power plants that are not using renewable technology. In Tesla’s home state of California, 60% of electricity was provided by coal and gas power stations in 2015, while only 14% came from wind and solar. China is investing more in renewables than any other nation yet derived roughly 72% of its electricity from coal power in 2014. In a hydrogen fuel cell car (FCEV), electric motors power the wheels but the energy is supplied through a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen in the fuel cell. Unlike the rare and heavy components needed to build a battery, hydrogen is the most abundant and lightest element in the known universe although it is worth noting that hydrogen drivetrains also require rare materials. Read More here
Tag Archives: Renewables
4 September 2017, One Step Off the Grid, Community retailer Enova to buy and sell rooftop solar power, Australia’s first community-owned energy retailer, the Northern Rivers NSW-based Enova Energy, will soon offer customers locally generated rooftop solar power, as part of its goal of producing enough renewable electricity to meet all of its customers’ needs. In a statement released late last week, the company said it would now purchase excess rooftop solar generation from its customers, as well as from local community solar farms and gardens, to sell on to other customers who wanted access to solar power, but could not generate it themselves. The new scheme, which Enova says could meet just under half of existing customer requirements, comes less than two months after the retailer boosted its solar feed-in tariff by 33 per cent, to 16c/kWh. “Using solar supplies such as (the new 18kW system on our own office rooftop in Byron Bay) ….we can now supply locally generated renewable energy to people who don’t own their own solar panels,“ Enova said in a statement late last week. “Enova can meet approximately 40% of existing user requirements with this locally generated renewable energy.” The retailer said that it was also introducing new energy plans to allow customers to access the community generated solar. Read More here
14 July 2017, The Conversation, Memo to COAG: Australia is already awash with gas. Federal, state and territory energy ministers are gathering today in Brisbane for the tenth meeting of the COAG Energy Council. In the wake of the Finkel Review, and against a backdrop of rising electricity and gas prices, they have much to discuss. Some of the focus will certainly be on gas policy and prices. Earlier this week, the federal energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, argued that state governments should develop their onshore gas reserves to relieve pressure on the gas market. Victoria and the Northern Territory both have bans on onshore gas development, introduced partly to protect prime farming land. Controversially, federal Liberal MP Craig Kelly suggested on Thursdaythat pressure from renewable resources on energy prices meant that “people will die” this winter if they’re afraid to turn on their heating. Yet it is gas generation, not renewables, that typically sets the price in the electricity market. As Fairfax reported yesterday, electricity prices move up and down with the gas price, almost exactly in tandem. What’s more, the reality is that Australia has enough existing gas reserves to keep producing at current rates, including exports to the international LNG market, for at least the next 25 years. Developing extra onshore gas potentially risks harming valuable agricultural land for little gain – and certainly won’t bring energy prices down by the end of this winter. Read More here
12 July 2017, The Guardian, Commentators who don’t understand the grid should butt out of the battery debate. Criticising South Australia’s battery for not meeting peak demand is akin to raging at your smartphone because it can’t send a fax. he Australian electricity grid’s most recently announced extremity is a gargantuan battery system in South Australia, designed to bolster grid security. The facility has been met mostly with a warm welcome, interspersed with weird, interesting and tense hostility. Buried in the mix of reactions are clues about how a new phase of grid transition might play out, as we switch from the rapid build out of zero carbon power sources to building and integrating them into a system designed for fossil fuels.Before we interrogate the misunderstandings of South Australia’s new battery, we have to step back and look at the system as a single, electric organism. Read More here