Energy Sector News

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

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 heat is common in the South, and NG is common in the West.

Energy prices can vary widely regionally. New England natural gas prices are clearly higher than other regions.

Here, the electricity supply price (energy only) is expected to drop 20% to 30% in January as the price were set during the spike and natural gas prices have fallen back. It was already cut by a cent a few months ago to compensate when the delivery price went up in part due to botching of a community solar scheme.

 

[navguy12]

Literally like drug dealers, trying to find new victims by enticing folks with deals too hard to pass up:

Saudi Arabia is driving a huge global investment plan to create demand for its oil and gas in developing countries, an undercover investigation has revealed. Critics said the plan was designed to get countries “hooked on its harmful products”.

Little was known about the oil demand sustainability programme (ODSP) but the investigation obtained detailed information on plans to drive up the use of fossil fuel-powered cars, buses and planes in Africa and elsewhere, as rich countries increasingly switch to clean energy.


The ODSP plans to accelerate the development of supersonic air travel, which it notes uses three times more jet fuel than conventional planes, and partner with a carmaker to mass produce a cheap combustion engine vehicle. Further plans promote power ships, which use polluting heavy fuel oil or gas to provide electricity to coastal communities.

Revealed: Saudi Arabia’s grand plan to ‘hook’ poor countries on oil

Climate scientists say fossil fuel use needs to fall rapidly – but oil-rich kingdom is working to drive up demand

www.theguardian.com

The operation was conducted by the Centre for Climate Reporting, and given exclusively to Channel 4 News, with a team posing as oil investors. In a secretly recorded video call, one official is asked by an undercover reporter: “My impression is that with issues of climate change there’s a risk of declining oil demand and so the OSP has kind of been set up to artificially stimulate that demand in some key markets?”


In response, he says: “Yes. It is one of the aspects that we are trying to do. It’s one of the main objectives that we are trying to accomplish.”

Undercover filming highlights Saudi plan to artificially raise oil demand

An undercover sting operation has highlighted a Saudi Arabian government plan to artificially raise global oil demand, Channel 4 News can reveal in an investigation released just days before climate crisis talks begin in the UAE.

www.channel4.com

 

[navguy12]

The September congress’s bigleague speakers — be they the CEOs of Kuwait Oil, Saudi Aramco or ExxonMobil — spent their time preaching to the choir of petroleum evangelists. They mocked a spate of recent reports that suggest peak global oil demand may be met before the end of this decade. Rather than discussing best practices and strategies for the sunsetting of the industry, they instead spent most of their time pontificating about the dangers of transitioning too fast, or adhering to arbitrary deadlines set by small groups of activists.
The problem isn’t transitioning too fast: it’s that the transition wasn’t started long ago.
The deadlines aren’t arbitrary: they represent a clear red line from which recovery, already doubtful, will likely be impossible.
And these deadlines haven’t been set by activists, but by the international community.
And yet delegates were almost obnoxiously bullish on their future prospects. It was not uncommon for them to declare many decades of future growth, even while the engineers and analysts out on the exhibition room floor privately confided their concerns that theirs is a moribund industry dependent on rapidly evaporating public support.

Toronto Star ePaper

Toronto Star ePaper

torontostarreplica.pressreader.com

 

[navguy12]

On a platform 140 kilometres off the coast of Norway, Crown Prince Haakon held two power cables connected to scale models: the first was a wind turbine, the second an oil rig.
Behind him, the world’s biggest floating offshore wind farm was just visible on the horizon, an engineering marvel that cost more than $660 million (U.S.) and took five years to complete. “By connecting these cables, we are connecting to the future,” the prince said before linking plug and socket. Tiny lights flickered to life inside the miniature oil rig, marking the official start of the planet’s first wind-powered offshore oil platform.

Toronto Star ePaper

Toronto Star ePaper

torontostarreplica.pressreader.com

 

[navguy12]

The president of Cop28, Sultan Al Jaber, has claimed there is “no science” indicating that a phase-out of fossil fuels is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5C, the Guardian and the Centre for Climate Reporting can reveal.

Al Jaber also said a phase-out of fossil fuels would not allow sustainable development “unless you want to take the world back into caves”.

Cop28 president says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels

Exclusive: UAE’s Sultan Al Jaber says phase-out of coal, oil and gas would take world ‘back into caves’

www.theguardian.com

 

[navguy12]

Worlds largest renewable energy park:

When completed, the project will be about as large as Singapore, spreading out over 726 square kilometres. The Indian government estimates it will cost at least $2.26 billion (€2.08b).

Once completed, the park will supply 30 gigawatts of renewable energy annually, enough to power nearly 18 million Indian homes.

India - the world’s most populous country - aims to install 500 gigawatts of clean energy by the end of the decade and to reach net zero emissions by 2070. This project site will likely contribute significantly to its transition to producing energy from non-carbon spewing sources.

India builds huge renewable energy park in earthquake-prone marshland

India is building the world's largest renewable energy park. Why are environmentalists concerned?

www.euronews.com

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Worlds largest renewable energy park:

India builds huge renewable energy park in earthquake-prone marshland

India is building the world's largest renewable energy park. Why are environmentalists concerned?

www.euronews.com

*Sigh*. It's going to be 30GW total generation capacity, not "annually", obviously.

 

[navguy12]

Released early on Monday evening local time, the draft avoided highly contentious calls for a “phase-out” or “phase-down” of fossil fuels in an attempt to find consensus from nearly 200 countries that have been meeting in Dubai for nearly a fortnight.

Cedric Schuster of Samoa, the chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, said: “We will not sign our death certificate. We cannot sign on to text that does not have strong commitments on phasing out fossil fuels.”

Cop28: Australia, US and UK say they won’t sign agreement that would be ‘death certificate’ for small islands

Australian climate change minister, Chris Bowen, says umbrella group of countries is united in saying draft agreement is too weak

www.theguardian.com

 

[fhteagle]

Some countries say "phase down" is too mild, others say phase down is too strong, nothing gets agreed, fossil fuel business as usual continues, Big Oil "wins" (for now, until their children roast in the climate they made).

 

[navguy12]

Somewhat off topic, but it demonstrates that one picture is worth a thousand words when it’s your home or business enterprise that will be under water within 27 years.

Their final report will be released in January, and aims to produce a set of recommendations which may range from building natural or human-made defences, such as vast dune systems or a sea wall, to moving bricks and mortar wholesale, and putting them somewhere else.

But earlier this year the north Cornwall town received a profound shock when it was presented with a visualisation created by the Environment Agency of the impact of rising sea levels on Bude.

It left little doubt about the seriousness of the threat and made it clear that global heating-induced sea level rises will push the community into full-scale retreat.

If nothing is done, by 2050 rising sea levels will consume landmarks, such as the surf life-saving club, and the Bude seawater swimming pool, as well as cafes, businesses and car parks.

Josie Dean, the charity manager at Friends of Bude Sea Pool, said she felt overwhelmed when she saw the visualisation. “It took me a while to take it in,” she said. “It was very stark.”

‘We can’t afford to wait’: a Cornish town faces climate threat head on

How an image of the projected high tide in 2050 swung the people of Bude into action

www.theguardian.com

 

[navguy12]

5 lessons from Portugal’s 6-day renewables streak​

One way to approach the carbon-free goal is to gradually minimize gas combustion over time until it’s no longer needed as a backup source. This sidelining process is already underway: Fossil gas usage in Portugal’s electricity sector fell 42% through November compared to the year before. That helps consumers, because instead of paying to burn imported fossil fuel, they get electricity without fuel costs.

5 lessons from Portugal’s 6-day renewables streak

The country's grid can handle 100% renewables — but what else needs to happen to go from six days of clean energy to 365?

www.canarymedia.com

 

[navguy12]

Ontario government stepping in to ensure more gas infrastructure being baked into new housing developments via macro policy versus making contractors liable for gas infrastructure (thus creating environment for planning for heat pumps more expensive versus business as usual gas furnaces):

Energy Minister Todd Smith said the OEB “was a bit out of their lane on this.”
“The majority of the meetings that I have with municipalities are municipalities that want to see natural gas expanded into their communities because it is the most affordable and efficient way to heat their homes,” he said in an interview.
Smith said he plans to introduce legislation that would reverse the OEB decision.

Toronto Star ePaper

Toronto Star ePaper

torontostarreplica.pressreader.com

 

[navguy12]

Only a few years ago, I thought this was where we were headed. Forget 1.5C or 2C – we were destined for 4C, 5C or 6C and there was nothing we could do about it. Most people still think that this is the path we’re following. Thankfully, it’s not.

These massive strides in technology mean that we use much less energy than we did in the past, despite appearing to lead much more extravagant, energy-intensive lifestyles. The notion that we need to be frugal to live a low-carbon life is simply wrong. In the UK, we now emit about the same as someone in the 1850s. I emit the same as my great-great-great-grandparents. And I have a much, much higher standard of living.

Yet very few people know that emissions are falling. The climate scientist Jonathan Foley recently polled his followers on Twitter [now X]. He asked what had happened to emissions in the US over the past 15 years. Had they:

a) Increased by more than 20%
b) Increased by 10%
c) Stayed the same
d) Fallen by 20%

Thousands of people answered. Two-thirds of people picked a) or b). Just 19% picked the correct answer d). No wonder people think we’re screwed.

Poorer countries do not have to follow the fossil fuel-heavy and unsustainable trajectories that rich countries did. They can leapfrog the centuries-long journey that we’ve taken. And they don’t have to sacrifice human wellbeing or access to energy. In fact, by adopting these technologies they can ensure that even more people have access to affordable energy.

I thought most of us were going to die from the climate crisis. I was wrong

In an extract from her book Not the End of the World, data scientist Hannah Ritchie explains how her work taught her that there are more reasons for hope than despair about climate change

www.theguardian.com

 

[navguy12]

This screenshot is from the linked article in yesterday’s Toronto Star.

Perhaps someone can shed some light on what the proposed “liquid organic carrier“ would be (that would solve all of the issues currently faced when handling H2).

Toronto Star ePaper

Toronto Star ePaper

torontostarreplica.pressreader.com

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

This screenshot is from the linked article in yesterday’s Toronto Star.

Perhaps someone can shed some light on what the proposed “liquid organic carrier“ would be (that would solve all of the issues currently faced when handling H2).

View attachment 1006981

Toronto Star ePaper

Toronto Star ePaper

torontostarreplica.pressreader.com

Ayrton Energy

Our technology enables the safe, efficient delivery of hydrogen and paves the way for a hydrogen future

ayrtonenergy.com

On their website they say 55kg/m^3. That's 0.208kg/gal., so about 1/5 of the density of gasoline. Not very dense, so not a transportation solution, but not crazy low, so a potential energy storage solution. I don't know if it's a solution, or a sol, or whether it'll be a viable solution.

At least it gets away from pressurized hydrogen which was obviously not a solution (or a solution).

 

[navguy12]

Ayrton Energy

Our technology enables the safe, efficient delivery of hydrogen and paves the way for a hydrogen future

ayrtonenergy.com

On their website they say 55kg/m^3. That's 0.208kg/gal., so about 1/5 of the density of gasoline. Not very dense, so not a transportation solution, but not crazy low, so a potential energy storage solution. I don't know if it's a solution, or a sol, or whether it'll be a viable solution.

At least it gets away from pressurized hydrogen which was obviously not a solution (or a solution).

From the website:

Hydrogen stored at room temperature and pressure in a non-toxic oil-based carrier fluid that is regulated like diesel or gasoline with negligible safety and environmental concerns

I wonder what happens to the oil-based carrier fluid once the H2 is extracted?

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

From the website:



I wonder what happens to the oil-based carrier fluid once the H2 is extracted?

Well, obviously that's a big question.

 

[navguy12]

Background: in 2018 the recently elected conservative government in Ontario gave all municipalities the ability to veto any new energy projects. The aim was to kill renewables. What seems to be happening now is that no one wants a fossil burner in their back yard either (even with the usual promises of $24 worth of beads).

Gifted link to a paywalled site…may or may not go directly to the story:

Ontario municipalities’ veto powers granted by Ford are complicating efforts to avert electricity shortages

Because of measures introduced by the Ford government, producers looking to supply extra power must first persuade local governments to provide approvals in writing

www.theglobeandmail.com

From the linked story:

 

[navguy12]

The world’s renewable energy grew by 50% last year to 510 gigawatts (GW) in 2023, the 22nd year in a row that renewable capacity additions set a new record, according to figures from the IEA.

World’s renewable energy capacity grew at record pace in 2023

IEA report says 50% growth last year keeps hope of achieving Cop28 climate target of tripling clean energy capacity

www.theguardian.com

 

[fhteagle]

Tesla Megapack battery turns on to replace Hawaii's last coal plant

A Tesla Megapack battery system has officially turned on to replace Hawaii’s very last coal power plant. In early 2022,...

electrek.co