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Goodbye _kt75 | mirror. Hello _progress | M- a status note -

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 27 May 2015 13:12:00 +0000

note (by W. Scharnhorst) As of 1st July 2015 _progress | M will replace _kt75 | mirror, the latter will as of than to be further developed nor will any content be published via that platform. Already today, you can visit _progress | M via http://progress-m.blogspot.ch. There are many improvements compared with _kt75 | mirror, e.g.:

full responsive design
panel/mobile reader mode (recommended if you want to get the full content of an article
redesigned download area (http://progress-m.blogspot.ch/p/downloads.html)
redesigned fonts to facilitate readability

There are some more features currently still in the development mode, therefore they are not yet available, e.g.:

embedding related content (via the content bar in the panel£/mobile reader mode)
opportunities to allow for 3rd party actions (user customisation)

Overall the development of _progress | M is part an entire blog development package. Other parts of development include:

u.pid (yoUr Personal Internet Desk), http://u-pid.blogspot.ch
graphisch.ch, http://graphisch.blogspot.ch

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Download now the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management Q01/2015 free of Charge from: http://bit.ly/1xkJRZS and learn more about urban water supply... continue to discuss the issues via sustainability2.0: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/104496231474687499876 and subscribe to the free _progress | M reader: http://bit.ly/progressM-reader

Another neverending story: Does Fossil Fuel Divestment Make Sense?(a status note)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 18 May 2015 20:04:00 +0000

reprint (by W. Scharnhorst) Divestment of stocks in fossil fuel companies may seem like a good idea if the goal is to put financial pressure on conventional energy companies and thereby leave an opening for cleaner alternative fuels in the fight against climate change. The question is whether the strategy works. Certainly any company, whose core business is making money, is likely to take notice of any activity that affects its revenues. Yet many argue that a drop in investment in an energy company may not be the best way to get its attention, especially at a time when alternative energies are scarce and fossil fuels remain the dominant source of power. In other words, how many people today can afford to junk their gasoline-powered cars and invest in more expensive electric models? That’s exactly the point made by London Mayor Boris Johnson, a member of Britain’s Conservative Party who also harbors libertarian, if not liberal, political views. The London Assembly had called on him to divest City Hall’s pension fund from fossil fuels.

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Johnson responded on May 12 that Britain needs to press on with domestic oil exploration and production, including the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to keep the kingdom more energy independent and less reliant on gas from Russia and the Middle East. To divest from fossil fuels, he said, would be to face a “sudden cliff edge.” Johnson isn’t alone in preferring a slower approach to a change in investments. The same day Johnson rejected the London Assembly’s proposal, the court of Scotland’s Edinburgh University decided unanimously that it wouldn’t make a complete and immediate divestment in stocks its owns in fossil fuel companies. “Our commitment is to engage before divestment,” said the school’s senior vice principal, Professor Charlie Jeffrey, “but the expectation is that we will bring about change by engagement.” In other words, rather than divesting across the board, the university’s investment in each company would be evaluated on its specific merits. Jeffrey said the school would divest from companies that produce oil sands, such as those in western Canada, or mine for coal, but only if these companies don’t also have stakes in low-carbon energy sources and when alternative forms of power aren’t available. Some representatives of environmental groups expressed disappointment, either through statements in response to Johnson’s refusal to divest, or with Edinburgh University students lying down on the steps of the building where Jeffrey set out the school’s decision. And their reaction may be understandable.

After all, the divestment tactics have a proven track record from the second half of the 20th century, when an increasing number of individuals, then companies, then governments divested their stakes in South African companies to bring economic pressure on Pretoria to end its apartheid policy. And it worked. But some economists note that the climate change challenge that the world faces today isn’t the same as apartheid. For one thing, unless a 21st century world wants to revert to the candles of the 19th century, it will need some sort of modern alternative to oil, gas and coal. More important is the understanding that investment is “proportional ownership” of a company, Timothy Devinney, the University Leadership Chair & Professor at University of Leeds, writes on The Conversation, an Australian website featuring academic articles. “Legally, any individual holding a specific ownership share can bring issues to the company and has proportional rights to vote on all motions put to the ownership either by the board or shareholders,” Devinney writes. Continue... // empowered by scharnhorst-csa.blogspot.com).

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Upside down Sustainable Energy or Why Fracking May Support Renewables - a remark -

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 14 May 2015 19:10:00 +0000

reprint (by W. Scharnhorst) Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is shunned by the environmentalists that laud renewable energy sources. However, by not supporting both initiatives, they may be working at cross purposes. Natural gas, booming largely because of fracking, complements renewable energies on the grid. The two seemingly opposite technologies are, for the moment, inextricably linked. Renewable energies like solar and wind produce most of their output at times of the day when not that many people need it. Peak demand for electricity is usually in the morning and evening. Solar production is highest during the middle of the day and afternoon, and wind reaches its highest production at night. Because there is no large-scale economical way to store that energy and reconcile the misaligned supply and demand, most of our peak demand must still rely on non-renewable fuel sources.

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Electricity outputs from burning different fossil fuels also have different characteristics. Output from coal-fired plants is particularly inefficient to ramp up and down to meet changes in demand. However, natural gas-fired plants can quickly meet those hourly variations. Some natural gas can even ramp up or down at a moment’s notice to meet minute-to-minute fluctuations During most of the year in Northern states, energy consumption peaks first in the morning as we all take showers and get ready for the day, then levels out during the midday. It peaks again more dramatically in the evening hours as we flip on computers, televisions, ovens, microwaves and water-heaters. Demand finally drops down to base load, or minimum demand, at night. Some states use Demand Response programs to smooth out demand by making electricity cheaper on off-peak hours, thereby disincentivizing peak use. However, even the best program can’t eliminate all variability in power demand. Base load in most parts of the United States is still provided by coal plants or nuclear plants. Because both are slow and inefficient to ramp up — though very efficient once at full capacity — they have contractual minimum run times that can last several days. In contrast, large, efficient combined-cycle natural gas plants, which can often be ramped up in half an hour, are used to accommodate these relatively predictable hourly changes. More renewables, however, lowers the predictability of the total energy supply. The wholesale price of electricity is measured by marginal cost, with the cheapest going on line first. Because renewables are essentially free to switch on, they’re the lowest part of the order, or supply stack, and are automatically connected to the grid. The minute-to-minute variations in solar and wind output from cloud cover or interrupted winds adds another layer of variability to the inescapable daily variation in renewable output. That variation within daily variability is met by either gas- or oil- fired peaking units, named for their ability to meet fluctuations in peak demand quickly. While gas-fired peaking units are less efficient than their large combined-cycle counterparts, most of them are capable of ramping up to full output within just a few minutes to offset either an unexpected or expected fall in renewable production. Large natural gas combined-cycle units are ostensibly cleaner than coal plants and the same is true of gas-fired peaking units versus their oil counterparts. When all options were available, hydroelectricity is actually the perfect way of compensating for variation in renewable production. Hydro power ramps up nearly instantaneously, emits few greenhouse gases, if any, and has almost no marginal cost, which determines electric wholesale prices. However, it is limited both to specific locations and in total quantity. Only 6 percent of American electricity is generated by hydropower, and most of it is consumed within state lines. Continue... // empowered by scharnhorst-csa.blogspot.com).

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The Red Line: The Potential Impact on Asia Gas Markets of Russia’s Eastern Gas Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 13 May 2015 08:57:00 +0000

reprint Russia possesses the potential to produce significant gas from its Eastern Regions, with total proved reserves in East Siberia and the Far East of Russia standing at 5 trillion cubic metres (Tcm) while prospective resources could be as large as 65Tcm. This would appear to give Russia a huge opportunity for export sales into the Asia Pacific region, which contains the world’s largest LNG importing nations and two of the world’s fastest growing gas markets in China and India (also importers of LNG). It is surprising, therefore, that despite the obvious commercial logic of linking enormous gas resources to expanding consumption centres, to date Russia’s only significant exports in the region are from the Sakhalin 2 project, which currently sells 10.8mt (14.6 Bcm) of LNG per annum into the neighbouring Asian markets. However, it is possible this situation could change significantly over the next five to ten years as Russia attempts to re-focus its Asian efforts with plans for potential sales of piped gas and LNG.

A number of key uncertainties remain, though: will Russia finally sign a gas export contract with China; will Gazprom as a result remain the dominant player, or will its domestic competitors Rosneft and Novatek take on a more prominent role?

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If the latter is the case, will Russia’s eastern strategy be driven by LNG alone, implying much lower volumes of exports into Asia; and finally, is it possible that Russia may miss this opportunity altogether, either as a result of political delay or failure to price gas competitively from these new projects? We briefly discuss these issues below and assess the potential consequences for the Asian gas market. Continue... // empowered by scharnhorst-csa.blogspot.com).

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Clearner Production?Japan Anticipates Clean Energy Will Edge Out Nuclear Power by 2030

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 12 May 2015 12:36:00 +0000

reprint Japan anticipates that by 2030 clean energy such as solar and hydro will generate slightly more of the nation’s electricity than nuclear power plants.

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Clean energy sources will supply as much as 24 percent of Japan’s electricity in 15 years, while atomic power will account for as much as 22 percent, according to a draft report from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on what Japan’s electricity mix should look like by 2030. Though the eagerly-awaited report — the result of months of study by a ministry panel debating the electricity mix — continues to see a need for nuclear, the draft proposes a diminished role compared with before the Fukushima disaster of March 2011. Nuclear power accounted for more than a quarter of Japan’s electricity generation before the meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi reactors. Even the 22 percent level is doubtful for a nation with one of the world’s oldest nuclear fleets and where the majority of the public has opposed atomic generation since Fukushima, environmental group Greenpeace, which campaigns against nuclear power, said in a statement. Nuclear’s role has been the central focus of the panel’s discussions. The 2011 disaster triggered strong opposition to atomic power among the public, while the subsequent spike in electricity prices has seen business groups lobby intensively for the nation’s nuclear reactors to resume operations. Nuclear provided about 29 percent of Japan’s electricity in fiscal 2010, while clean energy sources supplied 9.6 percent with most of that coming from hydro. None of Japan’s commercially operable nuclear reactors are working at the moment. If all 24 nuclear reactors currently under review for a restart by the country’s nuclear watchdog are allowed to switch back on, they would still not be able to generate more than 16 percent of Japan’s power, Greenpeace estimates. At least 10 more reactor units need to resume operations to reach the government’s target for nuclear, the group said. Such a mass-scale restart is unlikely, according to Shaun Burnie, a nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Germany. “The scale of the challenges facing the nuclear industry are such that generation from reactors is likely to collapse during the coming decade,” Burnie said in the statement. “Many reactors will never restart, and most reactors over the coming years will be too old to operate.” The latest proposal signals less reliance on nuclear than a previous plan released in 2010. Japan had been envisioning nuclear and renewable sources supplying 53 percent and 21 percent of power, respectively, by 2030, under the government led by the Democratic Party of Japan.

The DPJ’s stance shifted following the Fukushima disaster, with the party eventually calling for all nuclear to be phased out. The DPJ was replaced by a coalition led by the Liberal Democratic Party in December 2012. The draft foresees hydro power accounting for as much as 9.2 percent of Japan’s total power generation, with solar at 7 percent, wind at 1.7 percent, biomass coming in at as much as 4.6 percent and geothermal as much as 1.1 perce nt, according to the release. By 2030, gas will supply 27 percent while coal and oil will provide 26 percent and 3 percent, respectively. The release came a day after the trade ministry issued draft estimates of power generation costs. Nuclear is estimated to be the cheapest source, as low as 10.1 yen per kilowatt hour, by 2030. Large-scale solar was estimated to cost 12.7 yen to 15.5 yen, while onshore wind was projected to cost 13.9 yen to 21.9 yen, according to the ministry. Continue... // empowered by scharnhorst-csa.blogspot.com).

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Renewables - Part II: Wind Power Can Provide Cost-Effective Path to Meeting India’s Renewable Energy Targets

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 10 May 2015 19:22:00 +0000

reprint New analysis from Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) and the Indian School of Business shows that, with the appropriate policies, the Budget 2015 target of 60 GW of wind power by 2022 can easily be met with minimal government financial support. In the report, Reaching India’s Renewable Energy Targets Cost-Effectively, CPI found that, in absence of any subsidies, wind power is already cheaper than the total cost of power from a new build imported coal plant, at INR 5.87/kWh for electricity from wind power and INR 6.81/kWh for electricity from imported coal. The comparison with imported coal is key because this is the fuel that additional renewable energy will likely replace, rather than domestic coal or natural gas, which are limited in supply. The analysis also finds that wind power will continue to remain competitive beyond 2022. Because the government has a constrained budget, a cost-effective policy path to achieving its renewable energy targets is crucial. These findings suggest that wind power can provide a cost-effective path to meeting targets, and that the government should encourage rapid deployment of wind power through policy measures that address non-cost related barriers to wind power, for example challenges in land acquisition and delays in environmental clearances. CPI also found that, as the costs of installing solar power continue to decrease, solar power will become competitive with power from imported coal by 2019, and will require some government support from 2015 to 2019. In order to achieve the target of 20 GW of solar power by 2022, the total cost of government support would be INR 46.97 billion, or INR 2.71/W, under the current federal policy of accelerated depreciation. However, this government support could be significantly reduced – by 96% – by replacing the current federal policy with reduced cost, extended tenor debt. Under reduced cost, extended tenor debt, the cost of support would fall to INR 1.81 billion, or INR 0.1/W. To accelerate solar power sooner to meet the Budget 2015 goal of 100 GW of solar, revised upwards from 20GW, it would need to provide more financial support. Continue... // empowered by scharnhorst-csa.blogspot.com).

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_moneytalks VI: Non-renewables not considered important?Why is there still an investment?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 09 May 2015 12:21:00 +0000

reprint Investors who have dumped holdings in fossil fuel companies have outperformed those that remain invested in coal, oil and gas over the past five years according to analysis by the world’s leading stock market index company, MSCI, which runs global indices used by more than 6,000 pension and hedge funds, found that investors who divested from fossil fuel companies would have earned an average return of 13% a year since 2010, compared to the 11.8%-a-year return earned by conventional investors.

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The figures indicate that if a major charitable institution or foundation with £100m in funds had divested from fossil fuels in November 2010 they would be around £7m better off today than if they had maintained their holdings in coal, oil and gas companies. In total, a portfolio of shares with fossil fuel companies included has grown in value by 62.2% since 2010, but this compares to the 69.9% growth of a fund without fossil fuel investments. The data will challenge the widespread belief among asset managers that divestment hurts the financial performance of investment funds. One reason why funds without fossil fuel companies have outperformed is that the precipitous fall in the oil price that began in June last year has driven down the share price of companies such as BP and Shell. But the MSCI data reveals that its ‘All Companies ex Fossil Fuels Index’ outperformed throughout 2012 and 2013, before the fall in the oil price. Matt Davis, director of Share Action, a charity campaigning for responsible investment, said: “The conventional wisdom amongst financial experts is that ‘you have to have fossil fuels in your portfolio in order to get good returns’, but these figures call that into question. “Not everyone wants to divest because some believe that engagement with fossil fuel companies is the best way to get them to change their ways, and we do believe the two approaches can exist side-by-side.

But whereas the industry belief seems to be that there is little demand for fossil-free savings products, these figures do give added weight to our ‘I want to break fossil free’ campaign, which says that regular savers should be offered low-cost ways to save fossil free, if they choose to.” MSCI launched the index late last year amid growing pressure from both climate-focused campaign groups such as 350.org and demands from major charitable groups and foundations with large endowments for investment funds that are free of fossil fuel companies. It analysed the 9,500 biggest stock market-quoted companies around the world, worth $37.5tn in total, and tracked their performance over the last five years. It found that eliminating fossil fuel companies reduced the ‘investable universe’ by 7%, to $34.9tn, but improved returns for investors. However, it added that before the financial crisis struck in 2007, investors who included fossil fuel companies in their portfolios would have outperformed those that excluded them. Before 2007, most resources companies enjoyed a long boom in sales and profits, driven by ravenous demand from China’s industrialisation. The indices run by MSCI, similar to those such as the FTSE 100 in the UK, are hugely influential among institutional investors. Around $7.5tn in funds globally are benchmarked against MSCI world indices, and apart from the Ex-Fossil Fuel Index, the company (which originated from Wall Street investment bank Morgan Stanley) has also launched “low carbon” indices that eliminate 70%-90% of major carbon emitters. It is understood that several major foundations and charitable institutions are in negotiation to switch their benchmark from the standard MSCI World Index to the ex-fossil fuel or low-carbon world indices, with announcements expected later this year. By switching benchmarks, institutions effectively divest from fossil fuels. The indices will also provide a stepping stone for pension funds to offer individual members a route to personally divest from fossil fuels. In Britain, major institutions that look after billions in pension savings from small investors have also begun assessing the long-term financial risk that coal, oil and gas companies will become ‘stranded assets’ worth much less than their book value today. Continue... // empowered by scharnhorst-csa.blogspot.com).

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Renewables - Part I: Is Solar Energy Ready To Compete With Oil And Other Fossil Fuels?- a status note -

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 05 May 2015 17:49:00 +0000

reprint The solar energy industry may prove to be a dark horse in the race to provide global energy security. The world has renewed its interest in solar energy investment as it searches for a cleaner and more sustainable alternative to conventional fossil fuels. Countries like China, Germany, the UK, the US, Japan and Canada have already made significant investments in solar power. Who are the other players who are investing big in solar energy? With its own set of limitations such as high installation costs and high plug-in time, are consumers across the world ready to choose solar energy to power their daily lives? Or, are the conventional energy sources still the best bet? The best part about solar energy is that it is abundant and freely available, at least in most parts of the world. However, the high upfront costs of a photo voltaic panel remain a concern for many. Things are changing fast, however, and according to data from SEIA, the cost of an average PV system in the US is declining each year at a rate of 11%. In fact, the average price of a PV panel has dropped by 63% since the third quarter of 2010. In a surprising development, even the gulf region has now recognized the changing nature of global energy dynamics and the growing demand for sustainable energy. According to a report for the national bank of Abu Dhabi by the University of Cambridge and PWC: “As Government and utilities are driven to bring new generation capacity on stream, this new reality (Solar energy) presents a significant opportunity to make savings, reduce fuel cost risks, achieve climate ambitions and, at the same time, keep more oil and gas available for export.

The study says that more than half of global investment in new electricity generation is in renewables. As per this report, around $150 billion was invested globally in solar energy generation in 2014 and solar energy is all set to be at grid parity in 80% of the countries in the next two years. These are big numbers. What we get from this study is that even the gulf region, which is traditionally more inclined towards oil and gas production, is slowly and steadily investing in solar energy. Very few are aware that at the end of 2014, Dubai set a new benchmark by showing the world that photovoltaic technologies can be competitive with oil at $10/ barrel and gas at $5 MMBTU. According to Thomas Kaberger of the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation, solar energy is all set to replace imported uranium and fossil fuels in Japan as it is set to become profitable by this financial quarter. Japan is among the world’s four largest markets for solar panels. After the Fukushima disaster, the country’s 43 nuclear reactors have been shuttered. Following these crucial developments, Japan has tripled its renewable energy capacity to 25 gigawatts. What is worth noticing here is the fact that solar energy accounts for more than 80% of this capacity. The process of connecting a PV system to the grid can be time consuming, frustrating and expensive. In some locations in the US, homeowners wait for more than six months to complete this process. This is one of the biggest factors that limit the tremendous potential of solar energy. Intermittency is another area that dampens the impact of this renewable as current modern grids can only cope with around 40 % of renewable input before requiring modifications. But the biggest limitation of solar energy is the lack of proper storage technology. Energy storage is a solution that would tackle several issues related to intermittent power generation. As per the report by Cambridge and PWC, Total Energy Ventures (TEC), the venture capital arm of Total invested in the California based company Stem at the start of 2015. This marked TEV’s fifth investment in storage and smart grids. The truth is that energy storage technologies require big purchase opportunities and decisions in order to drive down the cost of batteries; one such decision has been taken by Southern California Edison (SCE). In 2014, SCE awarded a huge energy storage contract of 250 MW, thereby providing a fair chance to different energy storage technologies. As sources from Morgan Stanley put it: “Given the relatively high cost of the power grid, we think that customers in parts of the US and Europe may seek to avoid utility grid fees by going “off-grid” through a combination of solar power and energy storage. We believe there is not sufficient appreciation of the magnitude of energy storage cost reduction that Tesla has already achieved, nor of the further cost reduction magnitude that Tesla might be able to achieve once the company has constructed its “Gigafactory,” targeted for completion later in the decade.” The report states that Tesla’s future batteries could potentially store more than 10 gigawatt hours of energy per year, which is enough to run an average home for 1000 years! Interestingly, according to a report form Rocky Mountain Institute, a combination of photovoltaics and battery storage technology would be able to compete commercially with grid electricity in US within a decade.
Moreover, nearly 600,000 US homes and businesses have already gone solar by the end of 2014. This shows that in spite of its current shortcomings, people have slowly and steadily started turning towards solar power.Although China’s investments are almost ten times that of India’s, with the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, India is all set to change the dynamics of solar energy investments in South East Asia. With some bold new initiatives proposed by the new Indian government, many foreign companies are eying India as an attractive solar destination. US based Sun Edison committed to setting up a 15,200 MW plant and First Solar a 5,000 MW plant at a ‘RE-invest program that was inaugurated by Narendra Modi recently. If all goes well, Morgan Stanley and other institutional investors like Goldman Sachs and Standard Chartered would soon be investing in the Indian solar space. Continue... // empowered by scharnhorst-csa.blogspot.com).

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Storage/Transmission Networks - Part I: Challenges for Europes Energy FutureStorage May Become an Important Part of Europe’s Plan to Integrate RegionalGrids - a status note -

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 14:00:00 +0000

reprint European energy storage developers have until the end of this month to submit proposals for projects in a new 10-year transmission system operators plan. But the minimum requirements imposed by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) mean that only a small number of projects might be eligible.

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ENTSO-E, which represents 41 system operators in Europe, announced the search for energy storage plants at the end of last month as part of a 10-year network development plan. The plan, updated every two years, acts as the basis for a list of so-called "projects of common interest" to better integrate the grid across the European Union. To be eligible for inclusion, a project has to be at least partially located in one of the 34 countries represented within ENTSO-E, and needs to have a minimum 225-megawatt installed capacity and generation capability of 250 gigawatt-hours per year. Bloomberg New Energy Finance associate Logan Goldie-Scot said the project parameters were likely to favor large-scale technologies such as compressed air energy storage (CAES).

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“The requirements for the bid seem to limit the potential technologies involved, since battery technologies have yet to be deployed at that scale,” he said. “This suggests the bid is targeted at CAES projects, which have struggled in recent years to be developed." Goldie-Scot continued: “Also, the projects of common interest require the project to benefit two countries, and most storage projects are very focused on specific regions, rather than cross-border.” In ENTSO-E’s last 10-year network plan, issued in 2014, energy storage was included alongside transmission plans for the first time. With 22 transmission and smart grid proposals, 11 storage projects totaling almost 5.7 gigawatts were admitted for assessment. Of these, nine were related to pumped hydro storage, with the largest being the Tarnita-Lapustesti project currently courting Chinese investors in Romania. There was also a 268-megawatt CAES project by Gaelectric in Larne, Northern Ireland, and a 225-megawatt lithium-ion battery storage facility proposed by Tisza Power of Hungary. ENTSO-E reported that the battery storage plant and a 313-megawatt pumped hydro proposal in Austria both failed to qualify as projects of common interest. Conversely, there were four projects whose promoters did not submit information to ENTSO-E. Three of these were for pumped hydro projects, while the fourth was for a battery storage system in central south Italy. Continue... // empowered by scharnhorst-csa.blogspot.com).

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Steps ahead: Liquid Batteries for Solar and Wind Powera status report

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 15:24:00 +0000

reprint In an industrial park on the outskirts of Pullman, Wash., 10 white storage trailers sit side by side, neatly arranged in two rows. These are no ordinary storage units. Arranged on racks inside are the guts of a large rechargeable battery, the kind of device that can store and release utility-scale amounts of electricity. But this is no ordinary storage battery, either. In contrast with the typical lead-acid batteries used to start car engines or the lithium-ion cells that power electric vehicles — both of which are largely solid — this battery is mostly liquid. The chemicals that react to produce electricity are dissolved in water and circulated into and out of the heart of each cell, where the reaction occurs. For that reason, it is called a flow battery, and the one in Pullman, a demonstration project that will be tested over the next year and a half, is one of the largest in the world. It can store about 3.2 megawatt-hours of energy and discharge a megawatt of power for over three to four hours — enough to keep 500 average homes going for an afternoon. Flow batteries are not new (and they are similar, in some ways, to fuel cells), but they have never really caught on. They were invented in France in the 19th century and studied by NASA in the 1970s as potential power sources in space or on the moon.

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Now, flow batteries are being viewed as a possible way to help the electrical grid handle greater amounts of renewable energy, and they are being developed further by companies like UniEnergy Technologies, the maker of the Pullman battery, and academic and government researchers. Because solar panels and wind turbines produce varying amounts of electricity during the day, utilities and system operators must work harder to integrate the renewable sources into the grid. Batteries are one way to do this, by storing excess electricity from solar panels during the middle of the day, for example, and releasing it in the evening. Such batteries are being used mostly for purposes other than integrating renewables into the grid — for example, by providing short infusions of electricity to keep the grid stable. Only 60 megawatts of storage were in use in the United States last year. But storage is expected to grow rapidly as prices of batteries and related control equipment fall. Other battery technologies — notably lithium ion, by virtue of its widespread use by Tesla Motors and other electric-car makers — have a head start in the market. Experts say, however, that flow batteries have some advantages that make them well suited to grid storage. “I see flow batteries as being increasingly important,” said Imre Gyuk, who manages an Energy Department program to help develop technologies for utility-scale electricity storage. Lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries pack more power for their size, which makes them especially useful for tasks like turning over a gasoline engine or getting an electric car moving from a full stop. And watt per watt they are smaller than flow batteries, which have tanks for the liquid chemicals and equipment to pump them into the cells. But on the grid, batteries do not need to supply a lot of power at once; instead, they need to provide energy steadily over time. And compact size is not as important. “A smaller footprint is not as useful in a stationary battery,” Dr. Gyuk said. Because the electricity-producing reactions take place in the liquids, increasing the size of the tanks allows flow batteries to store larger amounts of electricity. While there are practical and economic limits to their capacity, flow batteries are seen as having potential for situations where a battery system has to discharge a large amount of electricity for more than a few hours. Read the entire reprint ... // empowered by scharnhorst-csa.blogspot.com).

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Bigger, better, faster, more - II.A matter of scale: the cultural and environmental impact of big solar

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 19:09:00 +0000

reprint Eighty miles east of Palm Springs, California, eight million solar panels lean toward the sky, their deep blue shine a modern oasis interrupting the brown dust of the Mojave Desert. Known as Desert Sunlight, the solar power plant is the first of its kind and promises to provide 550 megawatts (MW) of clean energy powering over 150,000 homes in California (a few percent of the state's total power consumption). Such large amounts of power from one, 3000-acre solar installation have been unheard of until now, hinting at a revolution in large-scale renewable energy generation that could compete with fossil-fuel-based power plants. Not so fast, say Native American tribes and environmentalists, who protest these solar plants due to their impact on sacred heritage lands and native species. The ongoing debate shines an important light on the fact that renewables introduce unique environmental and cultural impacts. These issues may rest in a blind spot for policymakers trying to reduce fossil fuel emissions at all costs or private companies taking advantage of renewable energy mandates and subsidies to cultivate successful business ventures.

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A beneficial political climate and plummeting costs of solar panels has made the Desert Sunlight plant possible. California has set strict mandates to produce a third of their energy from renewables by 2020, opening a market for such a large-scale project. To construct such a power plant with a million individual panels, each solar cell must be extremely cheap. First Solar, the private company behind the project, decided to use cadmium telluride cells, which require significantly less material and cost less compared to traditional silicon cells (with a slight sacrifice in efficiency), allowing them to manufacture the millions of panels necessary to reach MW levels of power generation. The Mojave Desert is the perfect location to try such a novel way of generating renewable power on a large scale. The sun shines at least 300 days each year, annual rainfall reaches only several inches, and the desert is close enough to larger cities to easily connect to the electrical grid, all factors which are crucial to ensure reliable power generation to pay for the large capital costs of such a power plant. The success of an ambitious project like Desert Sunlight has not gone unnoticed as at least 10 other large-scale plants are planned for the same region, which means the Mojave Desert may soon be swarming with construction sites. All of the above sounds great from an economic and clean energy perspective. Unfortunately, that's only part of the story. The Mojave Desert does not reside in a vacuum waiting for power plants to be built. Quite the opposite, as several Native American tribes have lived in the region for generations alongside a diverse desert ecosystem. The Mohave, Chemehuevi, Hopi, and Navajo make up the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) that live on a reservation along the Colorado River just east of Desert Sunlight. Companies that want to follow the example set by First Solar must obtain land grants from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to allow private construction on the federal lands surrounding the reservation. However, much of this region contains sacred lands, buried artifacts, and relics important to these Native American tribes. To try to prevent the destruction and desecration and of artifacts and lands, CRIT has filed a lawsuit against the federal government to try to delay the issue of land grants given to private companies by the BLM. The US government has been careful to try to recover and relocate artificats important to the tribes, however the lawsuit claims that the tribes "experience significant spiritual harm when such resources are dug up, relocated or damaged"². In addition, archaeological surveys often miss artifact locations, leading to their destruction when the ground is dug up in preparation for new plant construction. In their defense, the BLM claims they have met with CRIT representatives and other tribes to ensure respectful treatment of the sacred lands; however, the tribes claim that BLM has not gone far enough to respect their spiritual heritage. Discussions appear to be at an impasse, and plans for new solar plant construction appear to be moving forward despite the lawsuit. . Read the entire reprint ... // empowered by scharnhorst-csa.blogspot.com).

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Breakthrough?The world is finally producing renewable energy at an industrial scale

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:13:00 +0000

reprint Renewables are finally becoming a globally significant source of power, according to a United Nations Environment Programme report released in March by Frankfurt School UNEP Centre and Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Driven by rapid expansion in developing countries, new installations of carbon-free renewable power plants in 2014 surpassed 100,000 megawatts of capacity for the first time, according to the Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment report. It appears that renewable energy is now entering the market at a scale that is relevant in energy industry terms – and at a price that is competitive with fossil fuels. The numbers are compelling. Renewables such as wind, solar and biomass generated an estimated 9.1% of the world’s electricity in 2014, up from 8.5% in 2013, according to the report. These sources made up the majority of new power capacity in Europe, and also brought electricity to new markets. They also caught the eyes of investors: in 2014, energy investment in rose 17% over the previous year, surging to $270bn, according to the report.

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Some experts still predict that fossil fuels will supply the majority of our energy for decades to come, but the evidence strongly points in another direction. As the Global Trends report points out, the clean energy investment that funded almost half of all new power plants in 2014 came at what would, seemingly, be a very bad time for renewables. While oil prices were rapidly falling and China’s coal consumption was decreasing, both commodities were, if anything, more economically viable. Solar sails set course for a new journey into renewable energy. But at the same time, renewables appear to be increasing rather than decreasing in competitiveness. For example, a large-scale solar plant in Dubai has recently bid to provide electricity at less than $0.06 per kilowatt-hour. To put this in context, this is less than what the vast majority of consumers around the world pay to keep the lights on. It’s a third of the cost of electricity in Africa. Grid parity for solar is already available in many countries; in others, it’s just around the corner. In developing countries, where renewables are best positioned to address the chronic lack of energy access, clean energy investment rose 36% to $131bn. It’s well on track to surpass investment in developed countries, which amounted to $139bn last year. When it came to investment, China led with $83bn in clean energy funding, but many other countries followed closely behind. Some of the most promising states – like Brazil, India and South Africa – are expected to lead the way. Others, like Kenya, which boasts one of the largest solar rooftop system on the continent and shortly the largest wind farm, are more of a surprise. Read the entire reprint ... // empowered by scharnhorst-csa.blogspot.com).

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Brazil/Global: Water Pricing, Not Engineering, Will Ease Looming Water Shortagesa controversy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 18 Apr 2015 08:46:00 +0000

reprint Authorities in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, recently announced that if current drought conditions persisted, they would be forced to restrict water availability for the city of 20 million to only two days per week.

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The economic and social implications of such a decision are staggering. One senior water official admitted that residents might have to “get out of São Paulo” in order to bathe. The same combination of increased demand and decreased supply that afflicts

São Paulo’s water supply is also gripping the American West, and we would be fools not to think that some Western cities might end up like the Brazilian city — and not in some distant future. Poor planning, climate change and an over-reliance on engineering solutions to water scarcity problems threaten cities across the globe. Unless policy makers in Washington and state capitals heed the lessons of Brazil and other countries facing crippling water scarcity, parts of America will also be left high and dry in the decades to come. Like the water of most large cities around the world, São Paulo’s is supplied through a giant system of canals, reservoirs and pipes that transport water to the city from hundreds of miles away. Although the system has worked for decades, it has failed to keep pace with increasing demand as the city’s population has grown.

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Even more important, destruction of the Amazon rain forest has reduced rainfall in the region that supplies São Paulo’s water, even as climate change has made Brazil more susceptible to a vicious cycle of flooding and drought. Above all, this crisis shows the limits that human and natural changes are placing on engineering solutions to water scarcity. Yet Brazilian water officials are promising more of the same, planning yet another set of reservoirs and canals to supply water to São Paulo from even more distant sources. In trying to engineer their way out of water scarcity, Brazil’s leaders are repeating mistakes made by their American counterparts. California and Arizona are among the Western states that rely on their own giant feats of engineering to pump water from mountain streams and rivers like the Colorado to such cities as Los Angeles and Phoenix. But strains are beginning to show. In the Colorado River basin, a 14-year drought has forced federal officials to begin rationing the river’s flow into Lake Mead, which functions as a giant reservoir for downstream Arizona and California. Earlier this year, NASA warned that “mega-droughts” were likely to become more common throughout the Southwest. In light of this new reality, American policy makers should take three important steps to change how the country deals with drought and water scarcity. First, the United States needs to move away from engineering solutions in favor of economic approaches. In most parts of the country, water prices are simply too low, giving users little incentive to conserve and to adopt new, more water-efficient technology. One promising solution is to create water markets that allow people to buy and sell rights to use water. Read the entire reprint ... // empowered by scharnhorst-csa.blogspot.com).

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Release AnnouncementQuarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q01/2015Groundwater Management

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 13:34:00 +0000

note The present issue of the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management (Q01/2015) – Groundwater Management – concentrates exclusively on issues like aquifer replenishment/recharge, energetic as well as geo-political issues of groundwater access and use as well as other effects on groundwater, for example by the mining industry. The key topics addressed by the articles comprise among others:

•   Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR)
•   Forecasting ground water levels
•   Aquifer Protection
•   Combined operation of wind mills and ground water pumping
•   Effects of heat pump systems on groundwater
•   Economic effects of aquifer recharge
•   Managing conflicts in context of aquifer usage

All articles are fully referenced at the end of this issue of the Notes and can be accessed online.

In addition this issue of the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management provides a comprehensive status overview on the functional and graphical re-design of the former web-site _kt75 | mirror (http://kt75-mirror.blogspot.com/) and its integration.

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Germanys Next Topmodel: Coal (a status report)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 19:13:00 +0000

reprint UPDATE -- The debate about the future use of coal to generate power gathered steam in Germany after the country recently saw greenhouse gas emissions rise. The government’s Climate Action Programme foresees additional emission cuts from the power sector and the federal grid planning agency now assumes there will be one third less coal in the power mix in the future. By summer 2015, the Ministry for Energy wants to present legislation that specifies how and when coal power generation has to be limited.

Power generation from coal has long served German industry, and despite Germany’s reputation as an ecological role model, the cheap, carbon-intensive, fossil fuel has recently seen a revival. After many scientists, activists and politicians, including the Environment Minister, warned that Germany would miss its target of cutting CO2 by 40 percent by 2020 (over 1990), the government adopted a plan to cut the share of coal in the mix. The Climate Action Programme stipulates that the energy sector must save an extra 22 million tonnes of CO2 by 2020. While the government has not detailed where the savings will have to come from, it will be hard to achieve without affecting coal. Because of its highly political role – industry and unions alike are unhappy about the cuts – the government has not specifically outlined how much coal will need cutting. A decision on that is expected in the first half of 2015. But several recent events indicate the future direction: Besides the government standing firm on climate targets and enacting the Climate Action Plan, the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) recently published future grid plans, assuming up to seven gigawatts less lignite capacity by the year 2025. Those replaced previous assumptions that more lignite power would be added. Nevertheless, utilities like RWE, MIBRAG, Vattenfall and E.ON, as well as some trade unions, portray lignite as an essential “bridging” technology, which provides jobs in otherwise economically weak areas. They believe that recent modernisations and abundant lignite resources in Germany will enable the technology to prevail in the coming decades.

Status of hard coal

The post-war economic boom in Germany (Wirtschaftswunder) was fuelled by hard coal mined in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Saarland, which powered the industries of West Germany. But hard coal has since lost its competitive edge: Of the 83 billion tonnes of hard coal still in the ground, 36 million tonnes are considered minable, but their extremely deep and complicated geological location makes mining too costly to compete on the world market (the average cost for mining one tonne of hard coal in Germany is 180 euros; the average price for imported hard coal was 79 euros per tonne in 2013). The output of hard coal in Germany in 2013 shrank to just 5 per cent of what it was in 1956. With 14,500 jobs still connected to the coal mining sector, the government supported hard coal mining with 1.65 billion euros in 2014. However, subsidies are planned to end by 2018 in a “socially acceptable” way. There are three remaining hard coal mines in North Rhine-Westphalia. Only a fraction of hard coal used in German power stations is mined locally. Instead, coal is imported from Russia (29.3 percent), Columbia (21.2 percent), the United States (20.3 per cent), Australia, South Africa and Poland. In 2013, imports of hard coal increased by 15.2 percent compared to 2012.

Status of lignite

Germany has been the largest lignite producer in the world since the beginning of industrial lignite mining. It still is, followed by Australia, Russia and the United States. Lignite (also called brown or soft coal), mined in Eastern-German Lusatia (Lausitz) and Saxony-Anhalt, was indispensable for the industries of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany). Ninety villages were lost to mining expansion in Lusatia alone. After reunification in 1990, many mines and power stations were closed within a few years as they were not profitable anymore. Today, unlike hard coal, the remaining opencast lignite mining operations are still a profit-making business, with most of the coal being used in power stations that are close to the mines. There are four coal-mining districts where RWE, Vattenfall, E.ON and MIBRAG operate mines and/or power plants. 5.6 billion tonnes of soft coal are accessible via existing or planned opencast mining – total reserves of minable lignite amount to 34.8 billion tonnes. In 2013, 182.7 million tonnes were mined in the whole of Germany – compared to 169.8 million tonnes in 2009. Exports – mostly to other EU member states – grew by 21.6 per cent in 2012 compared to 2011 but only increased slightly in 2013. The Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) reported 16,410 employees in the lignite mining business in Germany in 2013. The trade union IG BCE wants to sustain these jobs even if this means further exploration and destruction of villages. The government of the state of Brandenburg — home to Germany’s second largest lignite mining region — ruled in June 2014 that Vattenfall may continue mining in Welzow-Süd beyond 2026, even though 810 people will have to be relocated. But in October 2014, Vattenfall announced its intention to sell all its lignite operations in Germany, in a move to improve the company’s CO2 footprint. In North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) – traditionally another stronghold for coal mining in Germany – the state government decided in March 2014 to cut future lignite production by 1.3 billion tonnes, saving 1,400 people from relocation. But at the same time, the NRW government stressed that coal mining will continue until at least 2030. Read the entire reprint ... // empowered by wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com).

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_moneytalks V:On the New Economy of Renewable Energy Storage

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 07:34:00 +0000

reprint A major new Deutsche Bank report has predicted that energy storage – the “missing link of solar adoption” – will be cheap enough – and technologically ready – to be deployed on a large-scale within the next five years. The solar industry report, published on Friday, said that while costs for the greater majority of available battery technologies remained prohibitive, economically competitive batteries were the “killer app” and the “holy grail” of solar penetration.

But with many costs already lower than published literature would suggest, Deutsche Bank believes this ultimate solar and renewable energy goal might not be far out of reach. “Using conservative assumptions and no incentives, our model indicates that the incremental cost of storage will decrease from ~14c/kWh today to ~2c/kWh within the next five years,” the report says. “When overall system cost decreases are considered, we believe solar + batteries will be a clear financial choice in mature solar markets in the future.” Currently, according to Deutsche, the cost of a typical lead-acid battery may be as low as ~$200/kWh, while best in class lithium-ion technology was producing commercial/utility packages in the ~$500/kWh range at end 2014 – half the cost of the ~$1000/kWh 12 months prior.

“We believe 20-30 per cent yearly cost reduction is likely (for lithium-ion batteries), which could bring (them) at commercial/utility scale to the point of mass adoption potential before 2020,” the report says. eutsche points to the commercial-scale market as one of the first areas where battery deployment will flourish, due to clear economic rationale. “Commercial customers are often subject to demand based charges, which can account for as much as half of the electric bill in some months,” Deutsche says. “We think companies with differentiated battery solutions coupled with intelligent software and predictive analytics that work with the grid to avoid these charges and smooth electric demand will pave the way for mass adoption.” The report also points to utilities as a major market for batteries on a large scale, as costs drop and distributed renewable energy generation deployments increase. On the residential level, the report said households were still unlikely to go down the energy storage path in the short term, without proper pricing mechanisms in place, or access to solar plus storage energy packages. But again, Deutsche sees this as as a major, untapped opportunity for utilities: “Over the next decade, we see a substantial opportunity for utilities to utilize smart grids through residential battery aggregation.” Properly incentivised, the report says, utilities could begin to aggregate neighborhoods of solar + batteries to behave as a single source of load reduction. “Batteries could be dispatched as needed to reduce peak demand across the system. In a high gridpenetration scenario, this could reasonably lower the necessary capacity from conventional generation sources.

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“In turn, we think it is reasonable to hypothesize that lowered capacity needs from lowered peak demand would simultaneously lower the need for large up front capital investment in peaker plants.” Deutsche sites two likely scenarios that would enable this sort of utility-driven household battery deployment: Third party leasing companies and individuals work with the utilities; or a shift in regulatory framework that allows utilities to include residential solar in their rate base. “Both of these scenarios would likely significantly improve reliability, enable microgrids to function as needed, and improve grid resiliency during emergency situations,” the report says. So what sort of batteries will homes, businesses and utilities be using? As the table below shows, there is quite a range of key technologies that, according to Deutsche, have the potential to be longer-term energy storage solutions, subject to technological feasability and cost. Read on ... // empowered by wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com).

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Nevermind. The Bottom Line on Nuclear Energy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 06:58:00 +0000

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Alpiq starts new business: Dismantling of Nuclear Power PLants.

reprint Existing nuclear power plants are extremely valuable societal assets. Shutting them down in the absence of compelling economic or technical reasons is folly. It sometimes feels like this statement is so obvious that it shouldn’t need to be made and yet you don’t have to look far to see governments which appear not to care.

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In Europe, Germany and Belgium have implemented arbitrary caps on reactor lifespans as part of their phase-out policies. Green party pressure in Sweden may yet result in tax hikes which make the ongoing operation of nuclear plants there next to impossible. In Spain the Garoña plant closed due to the impact of a new tax law (the government is now in fact seeking to resurrect the plant). Even in France, that champion of nuclear technology, the Hollande government is introducing legislation that would cut the country’s reliance on nuclear energy to 50% of generation by 2025, down from 75% today. If enacted (and as of writing the senate has just rejected the 2025 time frame) this would surely result in early reactor closures.

In the USA, currently cheap natural gas is putting the squeeze on some plants with the retirement of at least two units in recent years being primarily due to ‘economic’ factors and with three others being negatively impacted by these. Ironically, this is happening just as the country has acknowledged the seriousness of climate change with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the process of finalising new rules for power plants to help the country meet carbon emissions targets. The USA, like many others, is heavily subsidising renewables while utilities are becoming increasingly concerned about the lack of diversification in dispatchable capacity. The idea then that reactor closures have taken place on economic grounds needs some qualifying.

Make no mistake. Closing well-performing nuclear plants before it is technically necessary costs society dearly. Anyone who has ever bought an expensive appliance will understand that you aim to squeeze every bit of useful work out of it before letting it go. You maximise the value of your investment. The economics of nuclear generation is dominated by construction and financing, with fuel and operating costs typically lower than fossil. As with renewables such as wind and solar, once you have gotten through the painful period of paying back the initial capital outlay you should have entered a golden period of low-cost power production.

Nuclear plants form the baseline of healthy power systems in countries lucky enough to have them. Their continuous reliable output helps to keep grids going largely irrespective of the weather and stable low production costs reduce consumer price volatility. Replacing them will almost certainly result in extra expense to consumers as adding new capacity incurs both a new capital and operating charge, while the existing nuclear plant need only cover any upgrades and ongoing production costs.

Many in the green movement like to characterise nuclear energy as ‘uneconomic’ but this is absurd when applied in relation to the vast majority of existing plants – not to mention overly-simplistic for new-build (to be the subject of another post). The existing nuclear fleets in Europe and the USA were built decades ago – and almost to a unit were built by the then regulated or state-controlled energy sectors which made this kind of public serving long-term investment possible. These plants are now in their prime, with the vast majority showing clear potential for decades of additional service. Read on ... // empowered by wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com).

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Heavy Fuel: European Comission favours Energy Union

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 16:43:00 +0000

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reprint Energy is used to heat and to cool buildings and homes, transport goods, and power the economy. But with ageing infrastructure, poorly integrated markets, and uncoordinated policies, our consumers, households and businesses do not benefit from increased choice or from lower energy prices. It is time to complete the single energy market in Europe.

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Delivering on this top priority set out in President Juncker's political guidelines, today the European Commission sets out its strategy to achieve a resilient Energy Union with a forward-looking climate change policy.

The Energy Union means in particular:

Solidarity clause: reducing the dependence on single suppliers and fully relying on their neighbours, especially when confronted with energy supply disruptions. With more transparency when EU countries make deals to buy energy or gas from countries outside the EU;
Energy flows, as if it were a Fifth freedom: that of free flow of energy across borders - strictly enforcing the current rules in areas such as energy unbundling and the independence of regulators – taking legal action if needed. Redesigning the electricity market, to be more interconnected, more renewable, and more responsive. Seriously overhauling state interventions in the internal market, and phasing out environmentally harmful subsidies.

Energy efficiency first: fundamentally rethinking energy efficiency and treating it as an energy source in its own right so that it can compete on equal terms with generation capacity;

Transition to a low-carbon society that is built to last: ensuring that locally produced energy – including from renewables – can be absorbed easily and efficiently into the grid; promoting EU technological leadership, through developing the next generation of renewables technology and becoming a leader in electromobility, while European companies expand exports and compete globally.

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In an Energy Union, citizens are at the core. The prices they pay should be affordable and competitive. Energy should be secure and sustainable, with more competition and choice for every consumer. These and other commitments sit alongside an action plan to meet these ambitious goals in our energy and climate policy. Jean-Claude Juncker, Commission President, said "For too long, energy has been exempt from the fundamental freedoms of our Union. Current events show the stakes – as many Europeans fear they may not have the energy needed to heat their homes. This is about Europe acting together, for the long term. I want the energy that underpins our economy to be resilient, reliable, secure and growingly renewable and sustainable." Maroš Šefcovic, the Vice-President responsible for the Energy Union said: "Today, we launch the most ambitious European energy project since the Coal and Steel Community. A project that will integrate our 28 European energy markets into one Energy Union, make Europe less energy dependent and give the predictability that investors so badly need to create jobs and growth. Today, we set in motion a fundamental transition towards a low-carbon and climate-friendly economy, towards an Energy Union that puts citizens first, by offering them more affordable, secure, and sustainable energy. Together with all other Commissioners who have worked closely on the project team, and with the support of the entire Commission, I am determined to now turn this Energy Union into reality." Miguel Arias Cañete, Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy said: "Let's get down to work. Today we have set the course for a connected, integrated and secure energy market in Europe. Now, let's make it happen. Our path to real energy security and climate protection begins here at home. That's why I will focus on building our common energy market, saving more energy, expanding renewables, and diversifying our energy supply. After decades of delay, we will not miss another opportunity to build an energy union. The Juncker Commission gets the big things right."

Key figures

● The EU is the largest energy importer in the world, importing 53% of its energy, at an annual cost of around €400 billion.
● 12 EU Member States do not meet the EU's minimum interconnection target – that at least 10% of installed electricity production capacity be able to "cross borders". The EU has listed 137 electricity projects, including 35 on electricity interconnection: between them, these projects could bring that figure from 12 down to 2 Member States.

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Construction Time Again: the Return of Nuclear Power

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 07:28:00 +0000

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reprint East–West nuclear rivalry is back. The Ukraine crisis threatens the nuclear governance. Demand for nuclear energy is growing again after the 2011 Fukushima disaster. A 2014 report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance forecasts a 69 per cent expansion in nuclear capacity worldwide from 345GW in 2012 to 583GW by 2030. Furthermore, the International Energy Agency counts that more than three-quarters of nuclear reactors under construction are in non-OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. China’s domestic appetite for energy accounts for much of this increase, with four to six reactors expected to be built every year for the next five years. Civil nuclear facilities in China incorporate technology from a variety of western suppliers, but Beijing has aggressively negotiated for intellectual property to be shared during the acquisition process. Westinghouse, for example, handed over designs of its AP1000 reactor to State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation, providing China with a foundation from which it has developed its own pressurised water reactor technology, the Hualong One.
emergence of a new Cold War, and with it the return to a standoff between nuclear-armed opponents. Meanwhile, nuclear rivalry is shaping up in another arena: exports of civil nuclear technology represent a new battleground in which Russia – and increasingly China – are significantly outgunning the West, with troubling implications for global

This untested Chinese technology is being installed at a facility in Pakistan, although progress on construction was recently halted by courts in Karachi citing environmental concerns. Despite this setback, Beijing has ambitions to export nuclear technology on a large scale. The February merger of China Power Investment Corporation and State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation—designed to consolidate expertise in international technology transfer and nuclear power production—suggests that Beijing is positioning itself to increase international supply of its own nuclear technology in the future. An assessment of the dynamics of nuclear supply already provides difficult reading for Western suppliers such as Areva or Westinghouse, who are simply unable to compete with Chinese and Russian financing. According to data from the World Nuclear Association, Russia is currently building 37 per cent of the civil nuclear facilities under construction globally, followed by China with 28 per cent. Rosatom, the Russian nuclear corporation, has orders on its books worth US$100bn. Both Russia and China are offering prospective buyers, predominantly in emerging economies, generous financial support to gain access to a range of markets. Moscow has already transferred technology to Hungary, Turkey and Venezuela, and in November 2014 announced that it would build up to eight new nuclear reactors in Iran, despite continuing concerns about Tehran’s nuclear intentions. A preliminary agreement signed last week between Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, and Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi suggests this trend shows no signs of abating. In addition to the on-going relationship with Pakistan, China has also signed bilateral deals to provide new nuclear reactors to Argentina and is expected to be closely involved in the new nuclear build at Hinkley Point in the UK. While the Chinese contribution to the British facility will be financial, this is a likely precursor to an operational role at future UK nuclear sites, with the possibility of indigenously designed Chinese technology being installed on Britain’s east coast. Although nuclear exports are expected to generate profit, they are also strategic. Sanctions have driven Russia to use such deals to solidify relationships with states outside of Europe. For example, Moscow is establishing deeper ties with states in the Middle East and Latin America. China exports to Pakistan to balance its rivalry with India, straining if not ignoring international guidelines set out by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which oversees the trade of international civil nuclear technology. Suppliers are not supposed to export civil nuclear technology to states that have not signed the international Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), of which Pakistan is one, alongside India, Israel, North Korea and South Sudan. Read on ... // empowered by wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com). Also read: [1], [2]

Back to the Future: BP Energy Outlook 2035

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 12:35:00 +0000

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reprint Global demand for energy is expected to rise by 37% from 2013 to 2035, or by an average of 1.4%/year, due in large part to ongoing economic expansion in Asia, particularly in China and India, according to the latest BP Energy Outlook 2035. Demand for oil is projected to increase 0.8%/year to 2035, coming entirely from countries outside of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Oil consumption within OECD peaked in 2005 and by 2035 is expected to have fallen to levels not seen since 1986. China by 2035 is likely to have overtaken the US as the world’s largest single consumer of oil. The recent worldwide rise in oil supply stemming in large part from strong growth in tight-oil production in the US, meanwhile, is likely to take several years to work through, BP indicates in its outlook. Tight-oil production in 2014 drove overall US oil output higher by 1.5 million b/d—the largest single-year rise in US history. But further out, BP notes, the growth in tight oil is likely to slow and Middle East production will gain ground once more. By the 2030s the US is likely to have become self-sufficient in oil, after having imported 60% of its total demand as recently as 2005. The outlook also projects worldwide carbon dioxide emissions to increase 1%/year to 2035—or 25% over the period—on a trajectory significantly above the path recommended by scientists as illustrated, for example, by the IEA’s “450 Scenario” (OGJ Online, Dec. 7, 2009).

Natural gas demand rising

Demand for natural gas will increase fastest of the fossil fuels over the period to 2035, rising 1.9%/year, led by demand from Asia, the outlook indicates. Half the increased demand will be met by rising conventional gas production, primarily in Russia and the Middle East, while the other half will come from shale gas. By 2035 North America, which currently accounts for almost all global shale gas supply, will still produce about 75% of the total.

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As demand for gas grows, there will be increasing trade across regions and by the early 2020s, Asia-Pacific will overtake Europe as the largest net gas importing region. The continuing growth of shale gas also will mean that in the next few years, North America will switch from being a net importer to net exporter of gas, BP says. The overwhelming majority of the increase in traded gas will be met through increasing LNG supplies. Production of LNG will show dramatic growth over the rest of this decade, with supply growing almost 8%/year through the period to 2020. This also means that by 2035 LNG will have overtaken pipelines as the dominant form of traded gas, BP says. Increasing LNG trade will also have other effects on markets. Over time it can be expected to lead to more connected and integrated gas markets and prices across the world. And it is also likely to provide significantly greater diversity in gas supplies to consuming regions such as Europe and China. Read the entire outlook... // empowered by wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com).

The Carbon Bubble: Concept, Hype or another Sort of Reality?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 07:29:00 +0000

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reprint The so-called “carbon bubble” is no longer a concept, it’s a reality, according to UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, who will oversee the crucial UN climate conferencein Paris in December.

Investors who sunk their money into the fossil fuel sector are going to come up losers, she suggested, as plummeting oil prices have made new extraction projects too costly to continue to pursue and concerns about global warming have made them too risky. “A lot of the stranded asset conversations we’ve been having for a long time are now coming true,” she told RTCC, speaking from the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi. “Those expensive oil projects—deep sea, Arctic, tar sands—those are actually beginning to be taken off the table because of the low oil prices.” That’s good news for the environmental groups that have long warned about “stranded assets”—coal, oil and gas that would have to be left in the ground to slow climate change—and how that was leading to an overvaluation of these reserves. RTCC cited a number of expensive exploration and extraction projects that have already been cancelled. Chevron has delayed plans to drill in the Canadian Arctic. Norway’s Statoil has returned three licenses to explore for oil off the Greenland coast. And Shell and Qatar Petroleum announced last week they were scrapping a planned $6.5 billion petrochemical project in Qatar, saying it was “commercially unfeasible, particularly in the current economic climate prevailing in the energy industry.” Qatar’s state-controlled petrochemical company Industries Qatar abandoned plans for another $6 billion plant last September. Many of these projects were planned when oil was $100 a barrel. It’s now under $50. In the U.S., Texas is feeling the brunt of the oil bust, as extraction companies lay off workers. The New York Times reported yesterday, “With oil prices plummeting by more than 50 percent since June, the gleeful mood of recent years has turned glum here in West Texas as the frenzy of shale oil drilling has come to a screeching halt. Every day, oil companies are decommissioning rigs and announcing layoffs. Small companies that lease equipment have fallen behind in their payments.” And the once seemingly unstoppable growing of fracking in North Dakota’s Bakken shale region has also come to a screeching halt. Carbon Tracker Initiative, a independent nonprofit think tank that analyzes energy from both an environmental and financial standpoint, coined the term “carbon bubble” and has continuously warned investors about the risks of sinking money into fossil fuel-related businesses, due to the 2c target of limiting global warming to 2 degrees to stave off the worst impacts of climate change. “If the 2C target is rigorously applied, then up to 80 percent of declared reserves owned by the world’s largest listed coal, oil and gas companies and their investors would be subject to impairment as these assets become stranded,” the group said in its report Unburnable Carbon. Read on ... // empowered by wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com).

Download now the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management Q04/2014 free of Charge from: http://bit.ly/185cRt9 and learn more about urban water supply... continue to discuss the issues via sustainability2.0: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/104496231474687499876 and subscribe to the free mirror | first reader: http://goo.gl/2D9xT

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Radioactive? On the Role of Nuclear Power in UK

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 16:17:00 +0000

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reprint The global rebirth of nuclear power was meant to be well under way by now, writes Jim Green. But in fact, nuclear's share of world power generation is on a steady long term decline, and new reactors are getting ever harder to build, and finance. The only real growth area is decommissioning, but that too has a problem: where's the money to pay for it? The UK's planned Hinkley C nuclear plant is looking increasingly like a dead duck - or possibly parrot. As the Financial Times reports today, Parliament's Public Accounts Committee has abandoned plans to examine the 'value of money' Hinkley C offers taxpayers - because no deal has been reached and none is expected before the general election in May. In other words, all that bullish talk about Hinkley C launching Britain's 'nuclear renaissance' has melted away like a spring frost in the morning sun. There is no deal on the table for the PAC to examine - indeed it's looking increasingly as if there may never be a deal, in spite of the astonishingly generous £30 billion support package on offer, at the expense of UK taxpayers and energy users. Only last week Austria confirmed that it will launch a legal action against the Hinkley C support package, on the grounds that it constitutes illegal state aid. The action looks likely to succeed - and even if it doesn't, it's predicted to ensure at least four years of delay.

But it's not just in the UK that the nuclear renaissance has hit the rocks. Global nuclear power capacity remained stagnant in 2014 according to the World Nuclear Association:

⬛ Five new reactors began supplying electricity and three were permanently shut down.
⬛ There are now 437 'operable' reactors compared with 435 reactors a year ago. Thus the number of reactors increased by two (0.5%) and nuclear generating capacity increased by 2.4 gigawatts (GW) or 0.6%. (For comparison, around 100 GW of solar and wind power capacity were built in 2014, up from 74 GW in 2013.)
⬛ Construction started on just three reactors during 2014. A total of 70 reactors (74 GW) are under construction.

Thus a long-standing pattern of stagnation continues. In the two decades from 1995-2014, the number of power reactors leap from 436 to 437. Ten years ago, the rhetoric about a nuclear power renaissance was in full swing. In those ten years, the number of reactors has fallen from 443 to 437. But despite 20 years of stagnation, the World Nuclear Association remains upbeat. Its latest report, The World Nuclear Supply Chain: Outlook 2030, envisages the start-up of 266 new reactors by 2030. Read on... // empowered by wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com).

Download now the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management Q04/2014 free of Charge from: http://bit.ly/185cRt9 and learn more about urban water supply... continue to discuss the issues via sustainability2.0: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/104496231474687499876 and subsribe to the free mirror | first reader: http://goo.gl/2D9xT

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Release Announcement: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management Q04/2014 Managing the Urban Water Supply

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 10:16:00 +0000

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print download: http://bit.ly/185cRt9 Sustainable urban water supply represents a key issue today as well as in the near future. Often networks are out of date, leakage or plugging is a common issue and investments need to be considered very careful. In addition, the behaviour, i.e. the demand of the consumers varies strongly.
The present issue of the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management (Q04/2014) – Managing the Urban Water Supply - tries to provide an overview of innovative articles addressing the above issues in-depth.
As always, a summary of news about the development of the web-portal is given. In the fifth year of its operation the platform is subject to a thorough re-design. This implies that the former _kt75 | mirror (http://kt75-mirror.blogspot.com/) is now integrated into the large information portal http://wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com. Via this portal a number of other services will be available in the near future. Definitely, the portal will go live fully functional as of 1st April 2015.

Content:

■ Hedging Supply Risks: An Optimal Urban Water Portfolio ■ An Overview of Hybrid Water Supply Systems in the Context of Urban Water Management: Challenges and Opportunities ■ Assessing the performance of urban water utilities in Mozambique using a water utility performance index ■ Water Supply Network Sectorization Based on Social Networks Community Detection Algorithms ■ Moving Towards Sustainable and Resilient Smart Water Grids ■ Scenario-Based Analysis on Water Resources Implication of Coal Power in Western China ■ Analysis of the Possible Use of Solar Photovoltaic Energy in Urban Water Supply Systems ■ The Water Demand of Energy: Implications for Sustainable Energy Policy Development ■ Rogun Dam—Path to Energy Independence or Security Threat? ■ Global analysis of urban surface water supply vulnerability ■ Water on an urban planet: Urbanization and the reach of urban water infrastructure ■ Challenges for urban water supply: the case of Masvingo Municipality in Zimbabwe ■ (Book): Integrated Water Cycle Modelling of the Urban/Peri-urban Continuum ■ Investigating Transitions of Centralized Water Infrastructure to Decentralized Solutions – An Integrated Approach ■ Transitioning Towards Urban Water Security in Asia Pacific ■ A political–industrial ecology of water supply infrastructure for Los Angeles ■ The Economics of Groundwater Replenishment for Reliable Urban Water Supply …

Download it now free of Charge from: http://bit.ly/185cRt9 and learn more about urban water supply... continue to discuss the issues via sustainability2.0: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/104496231474687499876 and subsribe to the free mirror | first reader: http://goo.gl/2D9xT

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Aquifer Recharge: new GIS-solution to provide for sustainable water supplyJapanese Experiences (sci paper).

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 13:18:00 +0000

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reprint Vulnerability assessment to delineate areas that are more susceptible to contamination from anthropogenic sources has become an important element for sensible resource management and land use planning. This contribution aims at estimating aquifer vulnerability by applying the DRASTIC model as well as utilizing sensitivity analyses to evaluate the relative importance of the model parameters for aquifer vulnerability in Kakamigahara Heights, Gifu Prefecture central Japan. An additional objective is to demonstrate the combined use of the DRASTIC and geographical information system (GIS) as an effective method for groundwater pollution risk assessment. The DRASTIC model uses seven environmental parameters (Depth to water, net Recharge, Aquifer media, Soil media, Topography, Impact of vadose zone, and hydraulic Conductivity) to characterize the hydrogeological setting and evaluate aquifer vulnerability. The western part of the Kakamigahara aquifer was dominated by high vulnerability classes while the eastern part was characterized by moderate vulnerability classes. The elevated north-eastern part of the study area displayed low aquifer vulnerability. The integrated vulnerability map shows the high risk imposed on the eastern part of the Kakamigahara aquifer due to the high pollution potential of intensive vegetable cultivation. The more vulnerable western part of the aquifer is, however, under a lower contamination risk. In Kakamigahara Heights, land use seems to be a better predictor of groundwater contamination by nitrate. Net recharge parameter inflicted the largest impact on the intrinsic vulnerability of the aquifer followed by soil media, topography, vadose zone media, and hydraulic conductivity.

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Sensitivity analyses indicated that the removal of net recharge, soil media and topography causes large variation in vulnerability index. Moreover, net recharge and hydraulic conductivity were found to be more effective in assessing aquifer vulnerability than assumed by the DRASTIC model. The GIS technique has provided efficient environment for analyses and high capabilities of handling large spatial data. Read on... (empowered by wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com).

Oops! They did it againLinkedIN continues to inactivate user accounts

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 31 Dec 2014 13:21:00 +0000

-- a _kt75 | note

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Have you also been informed that your LinkedIN account has been inactivated, at least temporarily? Did you also receive an e-mail that told you that "some members accused you to either spam, perform phishing or connecting with people you don't know"? Did the same e-mail ask you to confirm in written that you will adhere to the rules of LinkedIN? If so, you are in good company with many other concerned people. The common procedure is as follows:

the account is inactivated without any prior warning
the only contact path is directly via some sort of help center of LinkedIN
if happened for the second time or more, the individual request for re-activation of the account is processed rather slowly
the accusations are as always: spam, phishing or connecting with to many people and the accusations are not documented at all

This rather in-transparent and basically crude way of "coordinating" member behavior in principle must result in a functional loss of the usefulness of social media as such. Essential questions popup like:

How does LinkedIN evaluate accusations like spamming, phishing, wrong commenting, etc.? What are the benchmarks?
Who actually accuses? More and more one gets the impression that everybody can accuse anybody for doing wrong resulting in the inactivation of the respective member account.
What in terms of member participation is actually still allowed?
Isn't it LinkedIN that encourages the members to network (today one simply can connect with almost everybody without indicating any reason like in earlier times)?
Isn't it LinkedIN that motivates the members to share comments as much as possible?

All this is basically frustrating and is in principle in contradiction to what social media was before. Though trying to think positive, the impression appears that inactivating member accounts may also be some kind of censorship. In the particular case important information provided by http://kt75-mirror.blogspot.ch/ about sustainable development (with a particular focus on sustainable water management) is suppressed. The publication of the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management is hindered. And lively debates about sustainable development (including networking) is prevented. Question: is this the aim of social media? Just take into account: there is nothing about marketing a product (which would be spam if its done to often). There is nothing about stealing information (which would be phishing). There is nothing about connecting with to many people and there is nothing about flooding members with information (as posting is done 3 to 5 times a month at its maximum).

Feel invited to reflect about the above, comment it, share it, etc. and follow the further development of a new sustainability page.