Energy Sector News

[RubberToe]

The First Vineyard Wind Turbine Rises Off Nantucket

Nantucket Current is the island's leading online news source. We deliver the news, stories, and people of Nantucket, unbiased and unfiltered.

nantucketcurrent.com

First of 62 Haliade-X turbines installed. The ship that went out to do the install left about 5 weeks ago. Not clear why it took so long. I saw a mention somewhere of bad weather, but there may be something else going on. It is the first install of a machine that size off the US coast, so hopefully just getting the process down.

Wind turbine nearly as tall as Eiffel Tower rises in water off Nantucket

The first of Vineyard Wind’s 62 turbines has officially been assembled in the water about 15 miles southeast of Nantucket.

www.boston25news.com

Ok, maybe erecting an Eifell tower out in the Atlantic during a mini-hurricane presents some challenges

RT

 

[navguy12]

Smoke from forest fires reason to exclude pollution data from routine observations:

Revealed: how a little-known pollution rule keeps the air dirty for millions of Americans

Major investigation shows local governments are increasingly exploiting a loophole in the Clean Air Act, leaving more than 21 million Americans with air that’s dirtier than they realize

www.theguardian.com

Environmental political prisoners in Vietnam:

‘They challenged the Communist monopoly’: Vietnam regime turns on its climate champions

NGO leaders and technical experts who helped secure western aid for official shift to clean energy are being locked up now that they are no longer needed

www.theguardian.com

 

[Lozza12]

That first article about exceptions to reporting under the Clean Air Act beggars belief. Local government can say the air is cleaner than it actually is, because “someone else’s” forest fire dirtied the air in their district?

What is the point of air quality monitoring if you then change the data? Monitoring is a passive activity, it’s not political. This is also a good example of how environmental issues make our political borders irrelevant and require cooperative action.

 

[dhrivnak]

Info : I will not be posting further until I have cleared up some recent moderator behaviour to my satisfaction.

I too hope you come back soon as I find your posts quite informative.

 

[petit_bateau]

I too hope you come back soon as I find your posts quite informative.

Thank you, but until the Mods take a look at the issues I raised with them, I am unlikely to do so. (They seem to not to want to take a look.)

 

[CorneliusXX]

Interesting storage concept. @petit_bateau I would also prefer that you were posting updates but wanted to see if you are comfortable with us posting news in your thread while you are (hopefully) on hiatus?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1715330191206342700

 

[petit_bateau]

Interesting storage concept. @petit_bateau I would also prefer that you were posting updates but wanted to see if you are comfortable with us posting news in your thread while you are (hopefully) on hiatus?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1715330191206342700

Go for it. I had always intended this to be a community space.

 

[fhteagle]

Interesting storage concep

Reminds me of the Lithium HomeGrid Stack'd product, which is on the short list of products to put in my own home as soon as I can find the right installer.

 

[dhrivnak]

Reminds me of the Lithium HomeGrid Stack'd product, which is on the short list of products to put in my own home as soon as I can find the right installer.

Another possible option I went with if you want/need AC coupled is FranklinWH. Very similar to a Powerwall but with great support and availability.

 

[transpondster]

Seems Tesla lowered Megapack price:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1715205421428883753

Wartsilla adds EVE as additional supplier to CATL:

Wärtsilä signs large multi-year supply agreement with EVE Energy

We offer future-fuel enabled balancing power plants, hybrid solutions, energy storage and optimisation technology for power generation.

www.wartsila.com

EU gas storage is 98% full, but current 98% is like 100% year ago and additional ~2% are stored in Ukraine

Data Overview / Graphs - AGSI

agsi.gie.eu

 

[navguy12]

Only $2.8 billion was invested in solar energy in Canada last year, compared with $37 billion in oil and gas investments, according to federal data.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/iea-report-world-energy-outlook-2023-1.7005194

 

[navguy12]

Believe it or not, battery-powered vehicles have been around since Victorian times – everything from private automobiles to taxis, ambulances and tricycles. We’ve got the photos to prove it

Shock of the old: the amazing, infuriating history of the electric car – in pictures

Believe it or not, battery-powered vehicles have been around since Victorian times – everything from private automobiles to taxis, ambulances and tricycles. We’ve got the photos to prove it

www.theguardian.com

 

[navguy12]

The shareholder payouts are more than six times the amount Shell plans to spend on renewable energy this year. The company invested about $3.5bn in its renewables and energy solutions business in 2022, 14% of its total capital spending.

Shell angers climate activists with plan for $23bn shareholder payout

Company prepares to cut jobs from low-carbon division and focus on high-profit oil projects

www.theguardian.com

 

[navguy12]

She tries to help them shift to a different mind-set: We’re living on the cusp of total societal transformation and can build a more abundant, more equal future. The fact is, she would’ve had to write a very different book 50 years ago.
Today, decoupling energy consumption from carbon emissions is no longer some impossible engineering problem, she writes, and “like beating swords into plowshares, we can imagine transforming all the artifacts of a fossil-fuel-powered culture into the ones necessary for a sustainable world.”

https://wapo.st/45X3Ej7

 

[navguy12]

Satellite imaging of methane leaks across the Permian basin, a vast geological feature at the heart of the US oil and gas drilling industry, show that sites in Texas have emitted double the amount of the gas than in New Mexico, per unit of production, since 2019.

Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated neighbor, study finds

Data shared with Guardian reveals Texas oil and gas fields emitting far more methane than New Mexico, prompting calls for stiffer curbs

www.theguardian.com

 

[navguy12]

Meanwhile, Kauai’s high percentage of renewable generation buffered customers from exorbitant price hikes. Its rates have returned to where they were pre-Ukraine invasion. By contrast, every island served by Hawaiian Electric suffered price hikes of 50% or more in the months after the Ukraine invasion. Retail prices on populous Oahu still sit 49% higher than they were in January 2021, according to state data.

“Unfortunately, Hawaiian Electric customers will remain vulnerable to global fossil fuel prices until the utility can achieve greater integration of renewables across its service territory,” Colón noted.

Kauai became a clean energy leader. Its secret? A publicly owned grid

Making the island’s utility a cooperative resulted in cheaper and cleaner power. It could hold lessons for communities around the country debating local utility control.

www.canarymedia.com

 

[navguy12]

More pushback from the O&G sector of Alberta, via a complaint provincial government (paywalled).

“Tell the Feds,” says the Government of Alberta’s recent $8-million ad campaign opposing federal clean electricity rules. If you’re a resident of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario or Nova Scotia, you’ve likely heard or seen them.

Who could disagree with statements like “No one wants blackouts. What Canadians want is reliable and affordable power”? Nor does anyone want “to freeze in the dark.”

These messages seem sound, but they are grossly exaggerated if not outright false. Independent experts have already debunked the campaign’s central claims. With some effort and planning, the transition to a cleaner power grid could actually save Canadians hundreds of dollars in power bills annually, all while providing reliable and climate-friendly electricity.

But in this misinformation age, even the most engaged citizens will struggle to stay on top of the continuous need for fact-checking and claim-debunking. Instead, Canadians should consider a government’s policy track record as a handy shortcut – especially when that government wraps its arguments in feasibility, affordability and protecting the public purse. Alberta’s actual track record undermines each and every one of these arguments. (…)

(…) So of course Alberta’s Premier opposes federal clean electricity rules – and will oppose an oil and gas GHG emissions cap if and when it is announced. When a provincial government appears intent on picking up the tab on hundreds of billions of the sector’s cleanup liabilities, with the potential to double, triple or quadruple Alberta’s current debt of $80-billion, it’s no surprise that same government is unwilling to impose the costs associated with meaningful climate regulation – and will oppose such efforts from others.

Viewed this way, the “Tell the Feds” campaign isn’t about feasibility, affordability or reliability, but rather a thinly disguised attempt to enlist ordinary Canadians in Alberta’s unyielding service to the fossil fuel industry. But as year after year of extreme weather and fire seasons have made clear, climate inaction and delay come with their own significant – sometimes immeasurable – costs for the rest of us. Canadians would be justified in telling Alberta those are costs they’re no longer willing to bear.

Opinion: Alberta’s new ‘Tell the Feds’ ads are a naked ploy to unyieldingly serve Big Oil

Alberta’s ad campaign is an attempt to conscript Canadians in the province’s unyielding service to the fossil fuel industry

www.theglobeandmail.com

 

[navguy12]

Lauri Myllyvirta, a longtime China analyst now with the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, calculated that CO2 emissions from the world’s biggest national polluter are likely to fall next year and could then go into “structural decline”.

From China's emissions to Australia's offshore windfarms, things are moving on climate – some even in the right direction | Adam Morton

There is an unprecedented global swing towards solar and wind power under way

www.theguardian.com

 

[navguy12]

Cherry picking data…again…for more culture war crap.

This time, conflating resistance heating data to suggest heat pump data will be as expensive.

Now a slew of publications, including the rightwing Daily Caller, have reported that US households using electricity for heat this winter will pay hundreds of dollars more than those who use gas.

Electric heat costs way less than reports say, new data suggests

Electrification nonprofit says annual federal report on winter-fuels costs is misleading and leaves out critical nuance

www.theguardian.com

 

[iPlug]

Cherry picking data…again…for more culture war crap.

This time, conflating resistance heating data to suggest heat pump data will be as expensive.

Electric heat costs way less than reports say, new data suggests

Electrification nonprofit says annual federal report on winter-fuels costs is misleading and leaves out critical nuance

www.theguardian.com

Also it seems it does not compare heating energy fuel type against similar local households. The EIA link instead compares by "U.S. average household fuel expenditures".

The problem here is certain heating fuels are more common in different geographic regions that can have very different winter temperatures and hence large cost differences based on geography alone.

For example the heating oil is really just used in older homes in the Northeast, electric resistive heat is common in the South, and NG is common in the West.

The EIA should instead show costs of like-for-like households in different regions based on heating source and include heat pumps among NG, electric resistive, fuel oil, propane, etc. More importantly, reporters should report such data.