Climate change innovation – Page 4

May 26, 2023May 24, 2023

France has decreed that every carpark with more than 80 car spaces must have a solar canopy

Across France this is around 11gigawatts, or over the year almost 10 terawatt hours of electricity generation per year. This is a very sensible idea, as it is a second use of the land.

Might this become a common site in the UK as well as France (where it is required on all new car parks over 80 spaces)

In the south of England, there are now 2000 panels placed over car parking spaces. These offer a capacity of almost 1MW hour. Each parking space covered, has a capacity of about 2kw. In the UK, the countries target of solar by 2030 is to have 40gw of solar capacity, up from 15gw currently. It is estimated, that almost half the remaining target would be met by carpark roofing – which suggests that we could hit far more than 40gw of solar.

May 25, 2023May 24, 2023

A new way of modelling wind turbines, could lead to an 1% increase in the amount of wind power generated – for free

Usually in order to increase the power generation from anything, it needs new hardware – if you wanted to increase the amount of power from a set of solar panels on your roof there is little you can do, without replacing them (this of course pre-supposes that the panels are in a good location, and are not in the shadow of a tree).

That is why this is incredibly exciting. The idea of being able to roll our new rules about how wind turbines work, and instantly make 1% more energy is incredible.

It is true that, currently, wind only accounts for about 6.5% of electricity generation. Conversely, it accounts for 24% of renewable generation – which is quite likely to be a percentage that grows as we move towards 100% renewable electricity generation.

So, with this change it will only account for 6.565% what difference is that?

Well, last year the world generated 28500 terawatt hours, which means that 0.065% increase is 18.5 terawatt hours extra created through 100% green sources.

Now, between 2020 and 2022, the average carbon emissions per kwh was around 370g. As such, were all of this energy created in the USA (it is not the most expensive or the least, so we are going to use it as representative – even though this power would be generated around the world) this much extra green energy would save 0.370 time 18.5 time 10 to the power of 9 (there are 1,000,000,000 kwh in 1 terawatt hour) which means that this little modeling trick would have saved roughly 7 million tonnes of carbon emissions. Now while this is relatively small in global terms (with 50 gigatonnes of emissions in 2020) it is still not insignificant – indeed, it is equivalent to the total emissions of Botswana, or indeed Latvia in 2021. That strikes me as an easy move, perhaps looking at this in a different way, perhaps more importantly, for wind farm companies, this energy is worth roughly £340 million ($450 million)

May 10, 2023May 9, 2023

Will flying ever be green?

The world has got far smaller since the advent of the aeroplane. While many people that are writing on environment and wildlife (like me) would encourage you to avoid flying, By all means reduce it as much as possible, if your journey can be done in the car or by train do it this way. I understand the desire to fly – in just a few hours you can be on the other side of Europe.

Currently in development, while not a passenger jet, could replace many of the private jets around the world, with a rang of about 250 miles and carrying 11 people

However, most European trips can be done either on the train or in the car. Indeed, by train it is often faster than by plane – when you include the waiting time, baggage reclaim, and the time taken getting to and from the airport.

April 29, 2023April 27, 2023

AA says charging is less per mile than petrol? when has it not been – only in very specific circumstances is this not true

So at the current time, tesla charges 50p per kwh (for almost everyone charging at home will account for most, so supercharging probably only accounts for about 10% but we will look at this later).

How does this compare? in the UK fuel is currently 165p for diesel and 147p for petrol.

Now one needs to compare like for like – it is unreasonable to compare a tesla s with a fiat punto, these are not comparable cars. So We will do it car by car. Please note, as teslas are only every electric, I will be comparing them to their nearest petrol BMW competitor – BMW does have electric cars in competition – though generally these get lower miles per kwh.

As such, I have compared the 4 main tesla cars to their nearest equivalent BMW (fair warning lots of numbers below

April 28, 2023April 27, 2023

UK government backsliding on environment? two clues and an how is Australia doing

The government of the UK has been talking the talk for a significant period of time. At times they have suggested some policies that should move in the right direction, unfortunately they have often reversed these relatively quickly.

An example of this is the governments green housing grants – advertised as intending to improve the UK housing to work more efficiency. Unfortunately, it was cut too soon, had perhaps 1% of the investment needed to get the whole job done, and proved to merely be a handout to building companies.

So what has caught my eye this time?

A suggestion that oil and gas can be part of the UK net zero strategy? No carbon capture scheme (CCS) has ever worked large scale, and furthermore, none have captured all of the pollution. Far from moving away to fossil fuels, the UK intends to create a new wave of oil and gas exploration – and trying to justify this by suggesting that all the carbon will be caught. Of 13 CCS projects carried out recently, a study found that – 1 was cancelled before start, 2 failed, 7 underperformed, which leaves only 3 to have succeeded. A success rate of 23%. Looking back, out of the 39 million tonnes of carbon dioxide caught worldwide through CCS, more than 70% was used for Enhanced Oil Recovery – in other words of the 3 projects that performed, less than 1 of them would have actually helped to reduce carbon emissions. SO ARE WE ACTUALLY TRYING TO CUT EMISSION IN THE UK?
The UK has just scrapped a top climate diplomatic role. As roles like this are one of the simple ways that a country shows what its priorities- countries who are paying attention will be saying this means that the UK is no longer concentrating on global warming. The FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) said the climate crisis remained of “utmost importance” – while this may be true ?!? it certainly sends the wrong signal.

How is Australia doing?

We need to start reducing emissions at some point – this seems self evident, if we are to meet any of our carbon reduction goals. In Australia the labour and Greens have done a deal that might actually improve policy covering Australia’s biggest polluters.

While the new ideas is complicated, it changes the safeguard mechanism to take the country closer to meeting the goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.

While Australia’s government has been talking the right talk recently, the Australian newspapers have published fear mongering by the fossil fuel companies – forcing up prices, put domestic gas supply at risk, destroy jobs and “kill foreign investment” in the coal industry, The Daily Telegraph published a story which claimed the changes to the safeguard mechanism would risk $96 billion of energy projects – and that should be seen as “coal hard facts”.

One coal boss told the Australian that the changes to the safeguard mechanism were built on a political objective to push a “base demonisation of fossil fuels” that would threaten Australias role as a “Reliable energy exporter” for the region. This is so completely illiterate of the science as to be laughable (if it was not for the fact that many people will listen).

A former editor of the Australian Chris Mitchel wrote that Environmental journalists and the “left media” were “in a frenzy” over the most recent release from the UNs climate panel – he claimed that they are missing the elephant in the room, that climate change has failed to arrive.

Despite what many in the fossil fuel industry wish to claim, it is not hard to see climate change, indeed it is all around us. Mitchell claimed that the world would not, and could not do without fossil fuels – though if you don’t believe that the climate has been effected, then this is an easier position to reach.

What is clear, is that while the voices against doing what i needed to leave a world we wish to for future generations, have not shut up, in most instances they are not winning.

April 21, 2023April 27, 2023

Another report stresses the importance of rewilding for climate change, and reintroductions

A report has calculated that the reintroduction of 9 species would do so much benefit to the ecosystems that they are found in, that these reintroductions would help us to keep global warming to 1.5° C.

While some of these would require human adaption, many would have benefits far beyond climate change.

These species are

April 13, 2023April 11, 2023

Can nuclear fusion replace fossil fuels?

So, one of the arguments from the fossil fuel lobby for the last 150 years is that their product is essential. The fossil fuels are the only people who can produce the base load of electricity for the grid.

There are loads of other things that can take parts of this (this is the arguments that the fossil fuel lobby put forth) such as wind turbines and solar panels – the problem is that both of these are only available some of the time. If electricity can be carried many thousands of miles, then tidal power might be able to help with this but not in the near future.

When Nuclear fission was first brought in, it was predicted that this would be the perfect base load. Unfortunately not, people don’t like living in places where a meltdown might occur, there is a large amount of nuclear material created, which needs storing for very long periods of times.

Nuclear fusion is different. It is incredibly hard to get it working, taking vast amounts of energy, and goes out if it goes out of control. As a result, a nuclear fusion plant cannot melt down, and you could not make a nuclear fusion bomb.

We are finally making some progress, though as it has always been, predictions as to when it will be ready lie 2 decades out. As if on schedule, late last year the UK government said that the world first nuclear fusion plant could generate carbon free energy by 2040 (18 years out). It is true that the government is putting hundreds of millions of pounds towards this goal, but it is still to far out – in other words, if it takes that long, the human race will need to have cut carbon emissions to near zero without the help of nuclear fusion. Indeed even the EU has referred to it as a possible way to save us from climate change – however, given there is still so much research to be done, we cannot rely on this.

This plant in Nottinghamshire could be replacing coal power plants in the future, though coal is being rapidly phased out anyway. In theory, it is calculated that nuclear fusion could create 4 million times as much energy with the same space, as coal oil or gas.

It is an exciting prospect, and the UK is one of the countries leading the way, never-the-less we are no where near that yet.

March 30, 2023March 23, 2023

Dairy without the animal?

In the west, for a large portion of the population a not insignificant proportion of their nutrients come from dairy. Unfortunately, though, this dairy requires various livestock to be kept, which are causing the methane emissions that are such a problem.

I have written before about milk without the cow, but this appears to be making some progress.

A company called Imagindairy is using a technique called precision fermentation. In a similar way to brewing beer, it uses microorganisms that have been genetically modified to produce casein and whey proteins, which is what makes up milk. A similar company called perfect day, is already creating similar products in the USA. However, with no lactose, hormones or cholesterol, which might one day make foods such as mozzarella or cream cheese a healthy option to eat. With the capacity to cut emissions on dairy products by as much as 97% it could also make it as good for the environment as vegetables.

March 25, 2023March 21, 2023

UK: talking the talk, but not walking the walk on net zero, the ban on onshore wind turbines stays in place

58% of Conservative voters want more solar and onshore wind turbines. Despite this, the current Chancellor in the UK has just decided to leave this ban in place. They have to be called out on this. On shore wind turbines are the cheapest way to make electricity bar none.

This is completely in contradiction to what they are saying. Jeremy Hunt has just released his budget, which includes £20 billion, which will include small nuclear reactor. The energy security minister, Grant Shapps stated

“Already a leader in offshore wind power, we now want to do the same for the UK’s nuclear and carbon capture industries, which in turn will help cut the wholesale electricity prices to among the lowest in Europe”.

This is true, but how much further would we be, if the leading government stopped listening to a small minority of voters, and bought back onshore wind power. This would be good for our emissions, price of power as well as being fantastic for farmers, who can host wind turbines, and be paid for it

March 24, 2023March 23, 2023

Could English channel ferries be electric within 5 years?

COP26 called for 6 green shipping corridors, and Dover Calais is an obvious place for this. The crossing is just 22 miles, but with over 400 ships crossing a day, it could make a big difference. Thankfully rival operators have signed up – both covering freight and passenger travel. Of course, it is a big risk to be left out as should this work any company still having to buy fuel will quickly go out of business.

This is obviously small compared to the size of P&O channel crossing ferries, but they are coming in fast

Industrial sized electric charging would be required to be installed, so that while the ships unload and then reload, the batteries can be recharged. it would require a large battery, likely using several megawatt hours per trip. Of course, while this is a great deal, it is far less than the fuel that is currently used.