Industry news
Things I noticed and thought were interesting
Week ending Newsletter September 5th 2021
1, DNV Energy Transition Outlook. When looking at forecasts, I think it's often helpful to compare this year’s numbers with those in the previous edition. It is the direction of movement that is most useful to study, not the absolute numbers. In the case of the extremely thorough DNV report, the first comparison should alarm us. Global 2050 energy emissions were forecast at 17 gigatonnes last year. The number has risen to 19 gigatonnes in the report published this week, with the new forecast exhausting the 1.5 degrees budget by 2030. The reason for the increase is that in 2020 the effects of Covid on energy emissions were seen as permanent. That turned out to be incorrect and forecast 2050 energy demand is 12% up on last year.
Other numbers are more encouraging. Aided by the arrival of hydrogen as an excellent mechanism for storing surpluses, renewables are seen to provide 82% of all electricity by mid-century compared to last year’s 60%. Estimated hydrogen production, still much lower than many recent other forecasts, has been increased by nearly 50% in the last year. Much more H2 is expected to come from renewable electricity, not fossil fuels. Cumulative solar installations have gone up 17% to 12.4 TW in 2050, almost twenty times today’s level. But, as a result of the increase in energy use, the share of electricity in final demand has fallen slightly to 38%, leaving the world still consuming almost as much natural gas as today for heat and other uses. Net zero will still be a very long distance away.
2, Hydrogen trains in Italy. A plan to convert a mountainous railway line in Italy into a hydrogen-only route was backed by the EU. Partners in the project include the Spanish utility Iberdrola and US construction company Aecom. The 300 km line, which runs through regions damaged by recent earthquakes, is only partly electrified and uses ageing diesel locomotives. I think this may be the first railway line to plan full conversion to hydrogen.
3, Passivhaus and low energy use buildings. The UK has a very poor record in constructing homes and other buildings to good insulation and airtightness standards. The building industry has successfully blocked government attempts to improve construction methods by claiming that better insulation would cost too much. One of the most demanding standards is called Passivhaus, which was developed in Germany and will usually allow a domestic home in the UK to run comfortably without central heating. A Passivhaus study two years ago suggested that it should be possible to build home to high standards at about a 4% premium to conventional techniques. Another study this week suggested a likely cost penalty of less than 1% for buildings constructed in the University College London estate. And this is before the benefits of lower operating costs and reduced maintenance expenditures.
4. Biochar. This is the carbon-rich charcoal that remains after wood, straw and other organic material have been heated to very temperatures in the absence of oxygen, driving off gases and liquids. Biochhar is easy to make with rudimentary equipment in the Tropics. Does it improve agricultural yields and hold carbon in the soil? Scientists and practitioners have argued about this for a decade because of the wide variety of experimental results in different parts of the world. Now a recent article looks at the evidence from 1700 academic studies showing, on average, strongly beneficial effects. Yield increases typically range from 10%-46%, say the authors. The carbon in biochar is stored in the soil for centuries. Emissions of the greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide are lower in biochar treated soil. Fertiliser use can be reduced. So the effect of biochar on emissions may be strongly positive. One previous study suggested that biochar application might result in the storage of the equivalent 0.7-1.8 gigatonnes of CO2 per year, or up to perhaps 5% of global emissions. And there is the increased soil productivity on top of this benefit. Alongside rock weathering (mentioned in last week’s edition), biochar is one of the easiest ways of achieving negative emissions.
5, Hydrogen pipelines. My guess is that pipelines will supply a large fraction of the hydrogen needed in energy-poor countries such as Germany. The cost involved is far lower than liquefying gas for sea transport or converting to ammonia. Energy-rich states are beginning to investigate the use of pipelines to get the hydrogen to customers. Last week, Ukraine said it would search for investment in a new pipeline into the EU. It said that its capacity to make hydrogen would be about 5 billion cubic metres a year. This is about one tenth of what will be transported by Nord Stream 2 (and hydrogen has a lower energy value than natural gas at equivalent pressure) but would provide about a third of today’s German need for ‘grey’ hydrogen.
6, Heavy truck electrification. The debate over whether heavy trucks can be fully electrified, or will need to rely on hydrogen fuel cells, continues. A respected think-tank has modelled how far 40 tonne electric trucks can travel with a 1 tonne battery pack, both now and in the future. It shows that the truck will have a range of 500 km, assuming one 45 minute charging stop. This distance will cover 95% of all heavy vehicle trips within the EU. The effect of heavy battery weight on the maximum load that can be carried will become insignificant as the EV chassis becomes lighter and batteries more efficient. The analysis in this document provides very useful numbers for further discussion of this question, including estimates of battery weight and efficiency. If correct, it demonstrates that batteries can economically power all but the heaviest long-distance vehicles.
7, Solar growth rates. Solar provided about 3.1% of world electricity last year from about 780 GW of capacity. With the growth of installed PV expected by the industry, 2025 would see almost 8% of current global electricity demand met by solar. But growing at this rate, it will take another 10 years for incremental solar capacity to cover the predicted 2.1% annual increase in global electricity demand. (Of course new wind turbines will be also adding to electricity supply). Facing the headwinds of rising silicon prices and the pandemic, some markets have nevertheless grown at unprecedented rates in 2021. France, for example, installed as much in the first half of 2021 as the whole of 2020. (Thanks to Marc Muré).
8, More on heavy vehicle electrification. The Swiss brewery group Feldschlösschen put 20 heavy Renault trucks into service, claiming it is the largest such fleet in the world. Partly powered by on-site solar power, the trucks have a range of about 200 km a day. I thought it was interesting that the company’s push into electric transport seems to have been strongly encouraged by customer demand for low-carbon transport. But there is no claim that it saves money yet. The use of electric vehicles is only one part of Feldschlösschen’s decarbonisation strategy; some of the heat used in its operations now comes from burning the alcohol taken out of its alcohol-free beer.
9, Cement. For at least a decade after its invention/discovery, nobody quite knew what to do with graphene, the ultra-thin carbon structure. The material is light, extremely strong and long-lasting. So it makes obvious sense to use it to strengthen concrete, responsible for about 8% of world emissions. Very gradually, graphene is creeping into early use in construction. HS2, the vastly expensive new railway that will run from London over 200 km north to Birmingham, will experiment with using graphene-enhanced concrete in some parts of the project. The choice will mean that interior reinforcement by steel (‘rebar’) may not be needed. And the weight of concrete required will fall. According to HS2, these two consequences of graphene use combined with 3D printing of the concrete using robots, will cut carbon by up to 50%. This will help, but capturing CO2 at the plants that make the cement for the concrete will also be necessary. Heidelberg Cement said in June that it would upgrade its Slite plant in Sweden to create the world’s first carbon neutral cement factory. Details were very sparse. (Thanks to Michael King).
10, Electrolysers. A fascinating chart on the amount of announced electrolyser capacity by 2030. Spain (71 GW) appears to have seven times as much planned as the next European country, the Netherlands, and then comes Greece on 5 GW. (Thanks to Raymond Betz). Many other states have few large installations yet committed.
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