PALMING OFF RESPONSIBILITY

Consumer goods giants including PepsiCo, Unilever and Nestle have been accused of indirectly sourcing palm oil from a mill supplied by a producer which destroyed almost 3,000 hectares of forest in Indonesia in the first half of 2020.

In its latest analysis of palm-oil-driven deforestation, sustainability risk analysis organisation Chain Reaction Research (CRR) tracked the activity of key producers in Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea using satellite imagery. It found that just ten palm oil groups were behind more than half of the 19,894 hectares of nature destruction recorded in these regions in the first half of 2020.

The worst single offender was found to be Sulaidy, which has eight concessions in Kalimantan, Borneo. Collectively, these concessions cleared forest from around 2,900 hectares between January and June, CRR believes.

While no consumer goods firms with deforestation-free, peat-free and exploitation-free (NPDE) palm oil commitments were found to be sourcing directly from Sulaidy subsidies, one of Sulaidy’s plantation companies, PT Palmdale Agrosia Lestari, told CRR that it was delivering fresh fruit bunches to a mill operated by PT Pundi Lahan Khatulistiwa. According to CRR, that mill has contracts with Avon, Danone, Kellogg Company, L’Oreal, Mondelez, PepsiCo, Unilever and Reckitt Benckiser (RB) - 

link to Edie Newsroom

JCB 220X

JCB has developed a hydrogen-fuelled digger that allows operators to excavate while generating zero greenhouse gas emissions.

The construction equipment manufacturer revealed the model yesterday, hailing the 20-tonne machine as the world's first hydrogen-powered excavator.

The 220X prototype underwent "rigorous testing" for 12 months at the JCB's quarry proving grounds, the company said. The use of fuel cell technology to power the digger means the only emissions released by the machine's exhaust is water.

JCB chairman Lord Bamford applauded the achievement, noting that it was part of the firm's ongoing plans to develop technologies that support the transition to a net zero economy.

"The development of the first hydrogen-fuelled excavator is very exciting as we strive towards a zero carbon world," he said. "In the coming months, JCB will continue to develop and refine this technology with advanced testing of our prototype machine and we will continue to be at the forefront of technologies designed to build a zero carbon future." - link

THREE GORGES @ 74'000 CU MTR PER SECOND

The Three Gorges Project, a massive hydroelectric facility designed in part to tame floods on the Yangtze, is expected to see water inflows rise to 74,000 cubic metres per second on Wednesday, the highest since it was built, the Ministry of Water Resources said.

The project restricts the amount of water flowing downstream by storing it in its reservoir, which has been at least 10 metres (33 feet) higher than its official warning level for more than a month.

The facility was forced to raise water discharge volumes on Tuesday in order to "reduce flood control pressures", the water ministry said.

Authorities have been at pains to show that the cascade of giant dams and reservoirs built along the Yangtze's upper reaches have shielded the region from the worst of the floods this year, although critics say they might be making things worse - link

UNITED DOWNS

This week (06/08/2020) the UK Government and Cornwall & IOS LEP announced plans to invest in the construction of Europe’s first geothermal lithium recovery pilot plant at a location near Redruth.

The project will extract lithium for use in electric vehicle and power storage batteries. This investment supports a £4m collaboration between Geothermal Engineering Ltd (GEL) and Cornish Lithium at GEL’s deep geothermal project at United Downs, which aims to demonstrate that lithium can be produced from geothermal waters with a net zero carbon footprint.

The lithium extraction pilot plant at United Downs will trial environmentally responsible Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) technology, and its suitability to extract lithium from Cornish geothermal waters. DLE technology has been developed by various companies for the extraction of lithium from geothermal waters in the United States, Europe, New Zealand and other locations globally.

The optimal DLE technology for Cornish waters is currently being selected, however the processes being considered utilise technologies, such as nanofiltration, to selectively remove lithium compounds from the water, rather than relying on evaporation and other less environmentally friendly methods. Once the lithium has been extracted, the waters will be returned to depth via injection boreholes - link - more like this - link

US DOE INVESTS $20 MILLION IN PEROVSKITE

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced $20 million in funding to advance perovskite solar photovoltaic technologies.

Perovskites are a family of materials with a specific crystal structure, named after the mineral with that structure, Kallanish Energy reports.

When used to create solar cells, they have shown potential for high performance and low production costs, the DOE said. To be competitive in the marketplace, perovskites long-term durability must be tested and verified, it said. That is the goal of the federal grant program through DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

“We will continue to invest in early-stage research and development to improve the affordability, reliability and value of solar technologies on the grid and position the United States as the world’s leading manufacturer of clean-energy technologies,” said Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette in a statement.

Perovskites are a promising solar technology that could help boost solar power, said Deputy Secretary of Energy Mark Menezes - link

University of Cambridge - ‘Messy’ production of perovskite material increases solar cell efficiency - LINK

EVERSHOLTRAIL FAST-TRACKS H2

Eversholt Rail and Alstom have announced plans to fast-track the hydrogen train industry with a new £1m investment into British hydrogen trains, creating a new class of train, the 600 series.

Taking the Breeze hydrogen train plan to another level, this investment means that the Breeze will be ready for early deployment in the UK to meet the Government’s need.

Breeze trains will be built at Alstom’s Widnes Transport Technology Centre. Widnes will also become Alstom’s worldwide centre of excellence for hydrogen conversion, creating over 200 engineering jobs in the North West - Link - Michael Holden - link - more like this - link

HYPERION XP-1

We’ve seen a lot of high-tech, green cars come and go without making much of a splash or nary a ripple in the marketplace.

We’ve seen it go the other way, too, and we’re still waiting on sure signs of success from others. Hyperion CEO Angelo Kafantaris called the XP-1, in part, “an educational tool for the masses.” He added, “Aerospace engineers have long understood the advantages of hydrogen as the most abundant, lightest element in the universe and now, with this vehicle, consumers will experience its extraordinary value proposition.

This is only the beginning of what can be achieved with hydrogen as an energy storage medium. The potential of this fuel is limitless and will revolutionize the energy sector.” Link

POLENERGIA

 

Polenergia’s strategic cooperation deal with Siemens, which will prepare sections of its CHP plant in Nowa Sarzyna for burning green hydrogen, follows announcements from Polish companies on using the environmentally-friendly fuel.

Polenergia announced co-operation with Siemens Energy, signed this week in an area of clean energy production which is touted to grow by 35 percent between 2015 and 2022 to PLN 600 bn, (EUR 135 bn) according to data quoted in a report by the The Polish Economic Institute (PIE).

The Polish company’s chairman Michał Michałski said the deal with the multinational engineering and technology firm would range “from high-efficiency gas cogeneration to the effective electrolysis of green hydrogen production,” at their plant in Nowa Sarzyna in south east Poland.

Green Hydrogen

Currently, hydrogen is mainly produced from methane, a method which involves significant CO2 emissions. However the European Union’s climate neutrality targets will prioritise the use of zero-emission hydrogen, which is produced by electrolysis, using renewable energy sources such as wind or solar power. However, the production costs are high and storage and transport bring additional challenges to the technology - link

AGRIVOLTAICS

Could the use of tinted and semi-transparent solar panels result in leafier and more nutritious plants and boost the income of farms through electricity generation?

Researchers at the University of Cambridge say they have demonstrated the use of such solar panels to generate electricity and produce “nutritionally-superior” crops simultaneously, which they believe can result in higher incomes for farmers and maximise the use of agricultural land.

The use of crops and electricity have already been produced simultaneously using semi-transparent solar panels – a technique called ‘agrivoltaics’.

But in a new adaptation, the researchers at Cambridge used orange-tinted panels to make the best use of the wavelengths, or colours, of light that could pass through them.

They used basil and spinach plants as test crops and grew them under tinted solar panels that absorbed light from the blue and green parts of the spectrum, while filtering the orange and red lights to the crops below, which is important for photosynthesis.

While the crop receives less than half the total amount of light it would get if grown in a standard agricultural system, the colours passing through the panels are said to be the ones most suitable for its growth -link

LOVE - RAGE - REBELLION - 1ST SEPTEMBER

 

CHINA AIMS FOR RENEWABLE GRID PARITY

China is sticking to its timetable for removing renewable energy subsidies. 

Faced with delays caused by Covid-19, developers are under pressure to not only restore production and get supply chains up and running again, but to get extra capacity installed and connected to the grid before subsidies end.

Despite the disruption, the government is set on having wind and solar compete with coal power on price and on schedule – ushering in an era of “grid parity”. Renewables have received subsidies since 2011 and their removal is expected to increase competition in the sector.

Grid connection delays

The pandemic has made it harder to get grid connections in place before subsidy windows close. In May 2019, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the top agency for economic policymaking, said that onshore wind power projects approved in 2019 and 2020 and connected to the grid before the end of 2021 would get a lower subsidy than those approved in 2018 and connected to the grid by the end of 2020. After 2021, there would be no more subsidies for new projects. Some solar farms that are not connected to the grid by 30 June will lose subsidies. link 

LOGAN ENERGY

LOGAN Energy, the Scottish hydrogen technology specialist, is set to link up with a UK Government programme to supply publicly-accessible hydrogen refuelling stations.

The firm based on the outskirts of Edinburgh has been chosen as the preferred partner to supply the first two such hydrogen refuelling stations in Teesside.

The £2.25 million project will allow cars and vans to be powered by what is being described by some as a green superfuel - Link

XR - THE BEGINNING

In November 2017, Roger Hallam looked up from his cup of tea in a central London cafe and made a bold prediction. 

He had been walking me through the principles behind a new air pollution campaign he was organising, which involved small groups of activists blocking some of London’s busiest junctions, when he paused, mid-sentence. “Of course, this is just small-scale stuff compared to what is coming,” Hallam said. “The scale of the ecological crisis is a different thing. It is going to change everything.”

The air pollution campaign, Stop Killing Londoners, had yet to gain traction with politicians or the media, but Hallam didn’t seem too concerned. He explained that it was partly being used to “road-test” civil disobedience tactics. “Within a year or so we will have thousands of people on the streets, blocking large parts of central London for days on end,” he said. “Hundreds will be arrested and the government will be forced to sit down and tell the truth about the climate emergency.”

It seemed fanciful at the time. Hallam, a charismatic, committed and sometimes divisive figure, was splitting his time between his organic farm in Wales and King’s College London, where he was researching a PhD about political activism. Earlier that year, he had staged a hunger strike, which led King’s College to divest from fossil fuels.

Despite this recent victory, and an air of certainty that would become familiar to those who dealt with him in the months to come, there was still little to suggest Hallam’s predictions would come to pass – almost word for word – within 18 months. Nothing he had been involved in before had achieved the kind of impact that he was now prophesying. The movement that would carry out these protests, Extinction Rebellion (XR), didn’t yet exist - link

GREEN COMPETITIVE TO GREY BY 2023

Green hydrogen could as soon as 2023 be competitive with grey H2 made using fossil fuels thanks to US wind power that’s as cheap as $5/MWh, said finance giant Morgan Stanley.

Steep falls in clean generation costs mean at $1.53/kg, hydrogen produced via electrolysis sited at “best in class” US renewable projects is already competitive with so-called blue H2, made using abated gas, said Morgan Stanley in a note to clients.

By 2023/24 continued falls in onshore wind costs that are already often as low as $20/MWh – and, crucially, a further extension to key renewable energy tax credits – could drive LCOE in regions such as Texas and the Midwest as low as $5-7/MWh.

Morgan Stanley’s analysts reckon that would make green hydrogen from wind competitive with new grey production “much sooner than appreciated” at about $1/kg - link

OWNING THE HYDROGEN FUTURE

Within the span of a week, major utilities Iberdrola, Uniper and NextEra all made moves into the hydrogen market, in a reminder that the miracle molecule is not the sole domain of the oil and gas sector.

But whether utilities will have the ability or need to compete with oil companies in the emerging hydrogen market remains an open question.

To date, gigawatt-scale announcements in the hydrogen sector have been dominated by the likes of Shell, BP and Equinor, typically involving plans for meeting large sources of existing demand in industrial clusters and in some cases their own oil refining operations. Prolonging the lifespan of multibillion-dollar gas infrastructure investments makes for another compelling incentive.

But big utilities in Europe and North America, increasingly large actors on the global energy stage, are not staying on the sidelines - Link

COVID CROP UPDATE 007

37.1%

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has published its latest annual energy statistics, revealing that a record 37.1% of the electricity generated in the UK in 2019 was renewable.

Published today (30 July 2020), the Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES) serves as the Government’s energy “bible”, documenting figures on energy production, consumption, demand, imports and exports. The latest edition covers the 2019 calendar year.

It reveals that 37.1% of the electricity generated in the UK in 2019 was renewable, up from 33.1% in 2018. BEIS attributes this growth in proportion to coal plants coming offline ahead of the 2024 deadline and to the rapid expansion of the nation’s offshore wind sector. Of the total electricity generated, a record 20% was attributable to wind – 10% to offshore and 10% to onshore.

The combined output of domestic wind, solar and hydropower was up 11% year-on-year, while bioenergy output was also up by 1.6%. At the same time, the overall output of the UK’s fossil fuel sector decreased slightly (0.3%), with coal closures and natural gas scale-backs mainly being offset by a rise in primary oil production as the new Clair Ridge field - LINK

F1 RACE DRIVERS

The seven drivers that chose not to take a knee at Silverstone yesterday should, in a non-confrontational way be asked to explain themselves better. 

Taking part in a ‘we race as one’ video, wearing the politically correct T shirt and then not taking the knee, whether they like it or not sends out a stronger message than simply taking the knee in the first place. 

Saying they are concerned about how the gesture would be perceived in their respective countries is simply not good enough – people are intelligent enough to understand that taking a knee at an F1 race in a demonstration of solidarity against racism is just that and not relevant to anything else in that instance.

A driver surely wouldn’t want to accidentally give the impression that a negative reaction to taking the knee in their native country would indicate that their countryfolk are fundamentally dumb racists, would they? link

PLANET OF THE HUMANS - REPLY

OXFORD 115

More like this - link

ZEROAVIA

ZeroAvia, a company with operations in the US and UK, says retrofitted 19-seat aircraft, powered by hydrogen fuel cells, is the most cost-effective way for regional commercial operators to introduce zero emission flying in the next few years.

It says retrofitting larger aircraft like the 50-seat and 70-seat ATR is feasible but would require liquid hydrogen whereas 19-seat aircraft could be powered by compressed hydrogen, ZeroAvia’s business development and project manager, Julian Renz, tells Smart Aviation APAC.

Compressed hydrogen stores less energy, than liquid hydrogen, but still produces sufficient energy to power a 19-seat aircraft, says Renz.

He says hydrogen pressurized at 350-bar is the sweet spot in space usage and in the next few years can power aircraft up to and including 19-seaters at a cost competitive price as compared to jet fuel - Link