Renew Extra Weekly

Drax, a major UK biomass energy company, wants to develop biomass plants with carbon capture and storge (BECCS) on a large scale, but a new report depicts Drax as being caught up a ‘swirl of controversy and increased polarisation’, including starkly diverging views between many of the scientists involved in the biomass area. That certainly seem to be the case, with some NGOs also being bitterly opposed to Drax’s current large scale operations. The report notes that ‘some NGOs now believe that there is no role for unabated bioenergy (i.e. burning biomass without CCS, as currently happens at Drax), and only a very limited role for BECCS at scale. Others acknowledge that there may indeed be a role, but only if certain conditions as to ‘BECCS Done Well’ are strictly complied with’. To explore that possibility, Drax commissioned Forum for the Future to carry out an independent Inquiry into what those conditions for ' BECCS Done Well'  might look like, primarily with a focus on Drax...

The battle over whether nuclear power should be retained in UK energy plans continues, with press reports that the go ahead given by Boris Johnson for the proposed  Sizewell C European Pressurised-water Reactor might be reconsidered given its costs.  However, lobby support for nuclear remain quite strong (there was even a pro-nuclear editorial in the Observer ) and the standard view, that we needed more nuclear, was given a full airing by Baroness Byrony Worthington in Prospect magazine.   She was once an opponent of nuclear, but now says that its problems have been overstated, and that it has a great future, there being many still not fully developed options. For example, she points to high temperature and fast reactors, and the use of thorium and molten salt fuels.  She even managed to be positive on waste: ‘The higher the radioactivity, the quicker it decays to a safe state’. And also on costs: ‘Nuclear power provides power throughout the year and this makes...

Technological innovation can be chaotic and even disastrous at times, as with early attempts at flight .  In the renewable energy field there have been failures, including with some early wave energy systems.  But in general, we have learnt from them, and, for the leading technologies, wind and solar, we have now moved on to steady progress. Some new wind ideas have emerged, most obviously floating offshore systems, but the basic horizontal propellor-type technology dominates so far, with the units getting larger and taller . Nevertheless,  Darius ‘eggbeater’ type vertical axis systems are being looked at again. So too are double-unit vertical axis contra-rotating systems. However, although very varied in design, micro wind designs have generally not been favoured of late, given their lower efficiency, but some novel small wind ideas have still emerged and may yet have niche markets.   Some new PV cell materials are emerging, beyond just crystalline and thin ...

A new optimistic Nature paper from the LUT University in Finland looks to a key role being played by renewables for rapid transitioning of the power sector across states in India. Progress has been uneven at times, but LUT says that a renewables-based power system by 2050 could be ‘lower in cost than the current  coal dominated system’ and have ‘zero greenhouse gas emissions’ while providing ‘reliable electricity to around 1.7 billion people’.  Electricity generation would be based on solar PV, wind energy, and hydropower, while batteries and multi-fuel reciprocating internal combustion engines based on synthetic fuels provide the required flexibility to the power system. This transition, it says, would ‘address  multiple imperatives: affordability, accessibility, and sustainability without compromising economic growth’. Solar PV capacity increases in all the states during the transition, and from 2030 onwards, PV has a steady average annual growth rate of 35% across th...

The UK may currently be going through a very erratic time politically, but a recent Oxford-based study suggests there may be some clarity ahead when it comes to energy issues. It asks ‘Is there a path forward that can get us to net-zero emissions cheaply and quickly?’ and its answer is: ‘Very likely, and the savings are probably quite large.’ Indeed, the savings could be very large, mainly since, the team says ‘its analysis supports other recent efforts using up-to-date data and technology assumptions that conclude that the green energy transition may be cheap’.   It notes that the 2022 IPCC AR6 estimates that the additional cost of decarbonizing the energy system in order to have a greater than 67% chance of keeping warming below 2°C corresponds to a GDP loss in 2050 of 1.3%–2.7%. But the Oxford team study suggests that  ‘there is likely no cost at all—the transition is expected to be a net economic benefit, raising future GDP’.  Is this credible? The teams ‘empiri...

 Renewables met 100% of global electricity demand growth during the first half of 2022. So says the ‘Global Electricity Mid-Year Insights 2022’ from Ember , a global energy think tank. In fact, it says there was a 389 TWh increase in the demand for electricity in the first half of 2022 compared to the first half of 2021, whereas the rise in renewables supply was actually a  bit more – 416TWh. That’s not surprising given that renewables are getting so cheap- including in the UK, with wind and solar the most prolificate new sources across world. However, that in turn may create a bit of a problem for older renewables, set up under quite lucrative subsidy schemes, based on now high gas prices, like the Renewables Obligation in the UK. As I have noted in earlier posts, there is pressure on them to switch to the more competitive CfD system.   Certainly the RO system is based on adding a subsidy to wholesale gas prices, so something has to change, since gas prices are now so hi...

In my old age, heading for 80 next year, and with recent health worries, it is maybe timely for me to look back at the past and at how I managed to end up as an emeritus University professor, focusing on renewable energy. So, fresh from a holiday in Spain, as something of change from my usual current energy policy posts, here’s a brief bio- a version of what I have recently written for my old school magazine, Oak Leaves. It may be of interests to those contemplating a career in the renewable energy area. Going back to 1954, when I was living on a council estate in Mitcheldean, on the edge of the, by then, mostly-closed Forest of Dean coal field, I had failed the 11 plus exam, and was destined for a secondary modern school, but had been given a second chance via an interview for marginal cases. So I had ended up at East Dean Grammar School in Cinderford, in the center of the Forest, in effect by the back door.  A lot of my life has been similar- taking indirect routes. Though I did ...