RUDOLF THE RED NOSED TEA LIGHT

GREEN HYDROGEN CATAPULT

Has the time for the “fuel of the future,” green hydrogen, arrived? 

Recently, some of the world’s biggest green hydrogen project developers and partners joined hands to launch the “Green Hydrogen Catapult” initiative that aims to drive down costs to below U.S. $2 per kg to help change energy across carbon intensive industries, including steel.

The seven founding partners include the Saudi-based ACWA Power, CWP Renewables, Envision, Iberdrola, Ørsted, Snam and Yara - Link - Picture link

MERRY CHRISTMAS

 MERRY CHRISTMAS

SEOUL ROLLS OUT H2 BUSES

Hydrogen-powered buses are running on roads throughout downtown Seoul in South Korea as of today (18th Dec).

The Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) said the buses will be introduced in the regular intracity route for bus 370.

This particular route was chosen due to the close proximity of a nearby hydrogen station, the Gangdong Hydrogen Station, which is 2.4km from the garage of 370 buses, making refuelling.

A single refuel is sufficient for a day-long operation, SMG said.

The introduction of the hydrogen-powered bus is one of the key projects of the Seoul-type Green New Deal, announced in July - Link

OXFORD PV

Solar technology developed by British scientists has set a new world record for the amount of the sun’s energy converted to electricity by a single cell. 

Oxford PV, a spin out of Oxford University, has spent a decade working on more efficient solar technology. 

The fruits of its labour is a ground-breaking solar cell that can convert 29.5 per cent of solar energy into electricity. That far outstrips the performance rate of average solar cells, that convert just 15-20 per cent of solar energy into electricity - link - more like this (UOX) - link

THE WORLD'S LARGEST H2 PROJECTS

Gigawatt-scale: the world's 13 largest green-hydrogen projects

These projects alone account for 61GW of the 80GW of renewable H2 developments now in the works, promising economies of scale that would drive down the cost of the zero-carbon fuel

Despite all the challenges that 2020 has brought, a staggering 50GW of green-hydrogen electrolysis projects have been announced this year, out of a current global total of 80GW, as more and more countries announce ambitious clean-hydrogen strategies to help them decarbonise transport, heating and heavy industry.

Many of these projects are gigawatt-scale, with the hope that their immense size will quickly bring down the cost of green hydrogen through economies of scale — in the same way that the prices of wind and solar power have fallen exponentially over the past decade. For project details, click on this - Link - Photo LINK

PANDEMICS FOR DUMMIES

Matt Hancock has branded Londoners who left the city in huge crowds on Saturday night ‘totally irresponsible’. 

It comes after the Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced at 4pm that the capital would be placed into a new ‘tier four’ within hours, meaning people risked being arrested for leaving the capital after midnight.

What an insensitive arsehole Matt Hancock is - should have seen that one coming? Link 

INEOS F1

Chemicals company INEOS has become a one-third shareholder in the Mercedes Formula 1 squad as part of a new deal that commits Toto Wolff to remaining as team principal.

On Friday it was confirmed that ownership of the team would now be split three ways, with equal parts taken by Mercedes, INEOS and Wolff.

The deal means that Mercedes has diluted its previous 60% ownership of the team, while Wolff has increased his share up from 30% - Link

AIR LIQUIDE TO SPEND BILLIONS ON H2

Air Liquide SA, the largest supplier of industrial gases, aims to spend billions of euros over the next ten years on hydrogen production to meet a surge in demand driven by a global shift to cleaner energy, its chief executive officer said on Wednesday.

The gas could account for 20% of worldwide energy consumption by 2050, with a market value of about $2.5 trillion, Benoit Potier told a French senate hearing on Wednesday. 

This means global investment of $5 trillion to $7.5 trillion, enabling carbon dioxide emissions to be cut by 6 billion tons - Link

ASIAN RENEWABLE ENERGY HUB NEWS

The world’s largest power station is planned for a vast piece of desert about half the size of greater suburban Sydney in Australia’s remote north-west.

Called the Asian Renewable Energy Hub, its size is difficult to conceptualise. If built in full, there will be 1,600 giant wind turbines and a 78 sq km array of solar panels a couple of hundred kilometres east of Port Hedland in the Pilbara.

This solar-wind hybrid power plant would have a capacity of 26 gigawatts, more than Australia’s entire coal power fleet. The hub’s backers say the daytime sun and nightly winds blowing in from the Indian Ocean are perfectly calibrated to provide a near constant source of emissions-free energy around the clock.

Most of it will be used to run 14GW of electrolysers that will convert desalinated seawater into “green hydrogen” – a form of energy that analysts expect to be in increasing demand as a replacement for fossil fuels in the years and decades ahead - link

MERRY CH2ISTMAS

I've been thinking about what to post over Christmas and inevitably I've looked back over the last year searching for something good to say.

Were there any good days, dates, times, occurrences? Yes - 8th July 2020 - not a date that instantly springs to mind when considering the pandemic, Brexit, the virtue signalling BBC or small boats fighting to get to the UK but worthy of note.

N.B. It goes without saying that the EU's adoption of a hydrogen strategy only came a distant second from the joy that the LGBGT community must have felt following Phillip Schofield's coming out of the broom cupboard (oh the irony) - link

FCEV

What if your electric vehicle could be refueled in less than 5 minutes? No plug, no outlet required. The range anxiety that's stymied sales of EVs? Forget about it.

What if your electric vehicle could be refueled in less than 5 minutes? No plug, no outlet required. The range anxiety that's stymied sales of EVs? Forget about it.

Three EVs can meet these demands and allay concerns about owning an emissions-free vehicle.

There's just one drawback. You can only find them in California.

Welcome to the world of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). A tiny market that includes Toyota's Mirai, Hyundai's Nexo and Honda Motor's Clarity Fuel Cell, these "plug-less" EVs are the alternative to their battery electric cousins. 

Drivers can refuel FCEVs at a traditional gasoline station in less than 5 minutes. The 2021 Mirai gets an EPA estimated 402 miles of range on the XLE trim with the Nexo close behind at 380 miles. Neither cold weather nor heated seats deplete the range, another added bonus - Link

CHINA - 18.29 MILLION KW

BEIJING, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- China ranked the world's first in newly installed wind capacity amid efforts to pursue greener development, according to the National Energy Administration.

China's installed wind capacity continued to expand this year. During the first 10 months, the country added 18.29 million kilowatts of wind power capacity, up 3.63 million kilowatts from a year ago.

Besides wind energy, the country is also a global leader in the production and use of solar energy and hydropower, among others.

China has made and upheld solemn vows to the world in response to climate change, pursuing greener development over the span of the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020) - Link

WORLD'S LARGEST SOLAR POWER PROJECT

Huanghe Hydropower Development has connected a 2.2 GW solar plant to the grid in the desert in China’s remote Qinghai province. The project is backed by 202.8 MW/MWh of storage.

Chinese state-owned utility Huanghe Hydropower Development has finished building the world's largest solar power project in a desert in the northwestern Chinese province of Qinghai.

Chinese inverter manufacturer Sungrow, which supplied the inverters, said that the 2.2 GW solar plant was built in five phases. It involved an investment of RMB15.04 billion ($2.2 billion) and includes 202.8 MW/MWh of storage capacity. 

The company announced the storage system as a solar+storage project in mid-May, but at the time it did not reveal that it was to be connected to a giant solar plant - link

nortH2

Norwegian energy major Equinor and German utility RWE have joined the NortH2 green hydrogen project in the Netherlands.

NortH2 aims to produce green hydrogen using electricity from about 4 GW of offshore wind off the coast of the Netherlands by 2030, and 10+ GW by 2040.

The project was launched in February 2020 by Shell, Groningen Seaports, Gasunie, and the province of Groningen - Link

BCOMP AMPLITEX

The use of natural fibres to make a composite material that’s more sustainable than carbonfibre is something mainstream car manufacturers have been looking at for a few years.

One of the favourite materials is flax, an ancient plant widely grown in the UK and elsewhere for the linseed it produces. Tellingly, its fibres are also used to manufacture linen.

Swiss firm Bcomp has made great strides with the new material, producing a reinforcement called Amplitex that consists of woven fabric made of flax fibres that can be impregnated with standard epoxy resin. Like carbonfibre, it can be woven in different ways and weights to suit various applications. For semi-structural use such as body panels, Amplitex is bonded on inside surfaces with ‘Powerribs’, also made from flax but resembling a kind of 3D grid to add stiffness to the finished component - link

SIEMENS GAMESA BRANDE

Siemens Gamesa is developing the first pilot project in the world to connect a wind turbine to an electrolyser with the ability to operate in "island mode", i.e. driving an electrolysis rig with no link to an electricity grid. 

The pilot is now under development close to Siemens Gamesa’s Danish headquarters in Brande, western Denmark.

It includes a 3MW Siemens Gamesa wind turbine owned by local partner Uhre Windpower, that will produce clean electricity to power a 400 kW electrolyser. This machine splits water into oxygen and hydrogen, so that the hydrogen can be stored and later delivered to customers in the mobility sector.

The project is close to obtaining final permits; the first test runs are planned for December 2020 and hydrogen production should start by January 2021. Siemens Gamesa recently signed an agreement with Danish company Everfuel, which will distribute the 100% green hydrogen produced by the facility to refueling stations across Denmark, for example in Copenhagen, where it will be used to fuel taxis.

When fully operational, the project’s single turbine will produce enough hydrogen to fuel around 50-70 taxis each day. Carbon-free hydrogen, derived from low-cost, competitive wind power, can be stored and transported for use on demand. This facility will provide insights that will be crucial to scaling up the technology to much larger turbines and wind farms both on land and at sea - link

QUEENSLAND GOV TRIALS GREEN NEXO FCEV

The Queensland state government will trial five hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) powered by “home-grown” hydrogen to help underpin development of a local hydrogen industry, it announced today.

The five Hyundai Nexo FCEVs will be trialled for three years as part of the government Qfleet, which has had an electric vehicle transition plan in place since 2018.

The first inklings that this might include FCEVs came in August 2019 in tandem with an announcement by the state that it would pursue “green hydrigen under an initial $19 million plan.

“This trial will accelerate our journey towards establishing Queensland as a renewable energy superpower,” Queensland minister for energy, renewable and hydrogen and publis works Mick de Brenni said in a statement on Thursday - Link

SIEMENS GAMESA

As the wind power industry strives for ever larger turbines on land as well as offshore, Siemens Gamesa is focusing on how to deal with the resulting transportation issues and how to split large components, recently appointed onshore technology head Jorge Magalhães told Recharge.

“Technically, there is no upper limit. That is certainly demonstrated by offshore,” Magalhães said when asked how big onshore turbines could become.

“It really is an economic trade-off decision. How are you going to deal with the logistical challenges for a specific geography?”

While some regions have less of those challenges due to a good access to ports or roads that are fairly wide, in other geographies logistical challenges to size and weight, or issues such as crane availability or crane heights matter more, he said - Link

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ROSA PARKS

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks taught the world a valuable lesson: we can fight for our beliefs by not tolerating everyday acts of injustice and oppression. 

Our awareness of these injustices and our willingness to act against them may be present in our own private thoughts, in words shared with others, or through actions of visible defiance and civil disobedience.

"People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” Link

SGN - H100 FIFE

Residents in a Fife town are set to become the first in the world to heat and cook using zero carbon hydrogen.

Energy regulator Ofgem has awarded up to £18 million to gas network company SGN to build its H100 Fife hydrogen demonstration project.

It will take the Kingdom Fife one step closer to becoming home to the world’s first zero carbon hydrogen-to-homes network.

SGN will build its 100 per cent green hydrogen-to-homes network in Levenmouth, where up to 300 homes will be connected to the new network.

Hydrogen will be produced on site through electrolysis powered by an offshore wind turbine - Link

RED BULL - NO BULL SUSTAINABILITY

Red Bull have announced their ‘no bull’ sustainability drive, following a three-year carbon footprint study.

“Despite changes to the 2020 / 2021 F1 calendars having a direct impact on our overall emissions we have set ourselves aggressive targets to achieve net carbon neutral status for the 2020 season, reduce Team carbon emissions by 5000 tonnes in 2021 and responsibly offset our currently unavoidable carbon emissions through a partnership with Gold Standard,” said the team in a statement.

“We are working with Gold Standard to responsibly offset carbon emissions such as flights, freight and manufacturing operations that are currently unavoidable. Yes, we’re working to further reduce these emissions. Yes, we’ll be continuing our monitoring and identifying every opportunity to improve. But we’re not hiding behind this.

“Having taken action for our currently unavoidable emissions, our attention turns to the 48% of our carbon footprint which lies firmly in our hands – our facilities in Milton Keynes and our ‘NO BULL’ committee have been hard at work.”

Red Bull’s charge towards reducing emissions will include:

From October 2020, all on-site electricity comes from renewable sources, thanks to a wholesale switch to a Green Energy tariff

Zero manufacturing waste to landfill policy

Smart building technology implementation on our campus and older structures are being upgraded

Waste heat from manufacturing operations is captured and used to heat the factory

Green travel plan in Milton Keynes to incentivise walkers, cyclists and car-sharers

Significantly reduced single-use plastics both in our factory and trackside – although progress has been slowed by the Pandemic, with PPE and disposable food packaging becoming unavoidable in the short term, we are committed to fully eliminating them

Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner commented: “We are in full support of F1’s ‘Countdown to Zero’ initiative and we all have a part to play in minimizing our environmental impact - Link