Renewable Energy
900 TPD Waste to Energy Contract for Everbright in China
http://waste-management-world.com/a/900-tpd-waste-to-energy-contract-for-everbright-in-china
Hong Kong based waste to energy developer, China Everbright International (HKSE: 00257), has won the bid for the 900 tonne per day Shandong Zoucheng waste to energy project in China.
The company said that it has now signed a concession agreement with the City Appearance & Environmental Health Bureau of Zoucheng for the Zoucheng waste to energy project which will be constructed on a BOT (Build‐Operate‐Transfer) basis with a concession period of 30 years.
The plant has a designed daily household waste processing capacity of 900 tonnes and will be constructed in two phases. Phase I has a daily household waste processing capacity of 600 tonnes.
Everbright said that the project represents a total investment of approximately RMB353 million ($55.5 million) and that gas emissions will fully comply with the Euro 2000 Standard. It is expected to generate approximately 70,000 GWh of electricity annually.
The company added that Zoucheng is a national historical and cultural attraction and one of China’s top tourist cities with sites such as Mencius Temple pictured above. Given its continued economic and social development and its increasing amount of waste generated, the Zoucheng government launched the waste‐to‐energy project to facilitate the harmless treatment, reduction and reuse of household waste.
The Zoucheng Project is the first waste to energy facility to be developed in the city.
Small Scale Tri-Generation System Uses Waste Gasification
http://waste-management-world.com/a/video-small-scale-tri-generation-system-uses-waste-gasification
German micro power generation technology developer, ENTRADE, has launched a biowaste powered tri-generation high temperature gasification system for providing power, heat and cooling.
German micro power generation technology developer, ENTRADE, has launched a biowaste powered tri-generation high temperature gasification system for providing power, heat and cooling.
The mass produced, sub £200,000 system is claimed to be the world’s smallest combined cooling, heat and power (CCHP) unit fuelled by regional available biomass waste.
The technology is said to be based on a high-temperature, carbon-neutral and highly efficient gasification process.
It uses solid biomass waste to generates up to 30 kW of electricity, 60 kW of heating and/or cooling up to 30 kW of cooling, said to beenough for 22 American single family homes, a small production facility or even a village in developing countries.
ENTRADE said that one E3 unit is a turnkey solution small enough to be easily transportable on a pickup truck.
So far over 100 types of solid waste are certified for use in the system, including nut shells and other regional biomass.
“Here it is: The world’s smallest tri-generation power plant fuelled by waste, that will have a huge impact on the everyday-life of millions of people without any access to clean energy,” said ’ Julien Uhlig, ENTRADE’s CEO.
“The strong demand out of the world market is a hint to be sure that it’s an idea whose time has come,” he continued. “The E3 is ready to go into mass production.”
The company plans to produce up to 45 units per month with a target of 600 units in 2016.
An interview with Julien Uhlig can be viewed below.
Researchers develop sodium-ion battery in 18650 format
https://chargedevs.com/newswire/researchers-develop-sodium-ion-battery-in-18650-format-2/
Jules Verne recognized the potential of sodium batteries in 1869 – they powered the futuristic submarine of Captain Nemo, who found their “electro-motor strength” to be twice that of zinc batteries.
Now scientists at the French research network RS2E have brought sodium batteries into the 21st century, producing the first sodium-ion battery in the industry-standard 18650 format (a cylindrical format used in consumer electronics and Tesla automobiles). Several other labs are also working on Na-ion batteries, but RS2E is the first to announce the development of an 18650 prototype.
Na-ion batteries could offer lower cost thanks to the abundance of sodium, and the prototype shows promising performance. The energy density of the new Na-ion cell is 90 Wh/kg, comparable with that of the first lithium-ion batteries. Its lifespan exceeds 2,000 charge/discharge cycles, and it is capable of charging and discharging rapidly.
The next step is to optimize and increase the reliability of the cell with a view to future commercialization.
“The first application, the most obvious, would be grid storage: storing renewable energy. We are talking about a market as big as the EV market,” said Jean-Marie Tarascon, a professor at the Collège de France and one of the heads of the RS2E network.
Green financing gaining “unstoppable momentum”
http://www.eco-business.com/news/green-financing-gaining-unstoppable-momentum/
More money than ever is being invested in projects that build climate resilience in communities and cities around the world. The global agreement to be inked in Paris this week should give climate financing another boost.
With more money than ever before invested in low carbon and climate resilience projects, there is “unstoppable” momentum for green financing in helping the world cope with the effects of climate change, experts said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a panel held at the sidelines of the United Nations climate change talks in Paris, Barbara Buchner, senior director of U.S. think tank Climate Policy Initiative, noted that more than US$391 billion was invested in 2014 in climate projects, a 18 per cent jump from 2013.
Most of the money was for projects surrounding renewable energy, energy efficiency and sustainable transport, she added.
But while this is a huge amount, it still falls short of what is needed to help vulnerable regions and countries cope with the effects of climate change.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) said last month in a report that US$16.5 trillion is needed from 2015 through 2030 to achieve the global goal of limiting temperature rise to below two degrees Celsius. That works out to just over US$1 trillion a year.
Experts speaking at the panel said the good news is that the ramping up of climate financing is “unstoppable” because of the national commitments that more than 190 countries have made ahead of the climate change talks this week.
“The momentum is unstoppable,” said Tessa Tennant, founder for Call to Action on Climate Finance, a worldwide group of global climate finance and responsible investing organisations including non-profit groups Climate Bonds Intiative, CDP and Ceres.
“Even if there isn’t a strong deal, there is still a way for the financial industry to work with governments because they don’t necessarily want to wait for some magic global moment. They want to get working now,” she added.
Among the groups shifting funds towards clean technology are pension funds controlling billions of dollars. One of them is California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), one of the world’s biggest pension funds.
Divya Mankikar, head of environmental, social and governance (ESG) integration of CalPERS, said that the US$300 billion fund with assets on six continents is transforming its portfolio into a low-carbon one.
“One way we are doing that is talking to our portfolio companies to push them towards low-carbon growth,” she said. “Another way is advocacy with regulators. We need them to scale back fossil fuel subsides and put a price on carbon, so we engage with them constantly.”
It is also actively looking for large climate-related projects to invest in but the main challenge is finding projects that fit its risk profile and tolerance.
Pelletier said the bank has been pooling climate-related infrastructure projects of all sizes and matching them with prospective institutional investors such as pension funds and corporate investors. This is where banks are playing a key role, said Virginie Pelletier, head of sustainable investment and finance at French lender BNP Paribas.
Its Tera Neva initiative, established with partners European Investment Bank, is a 500 million euros fund to invest in green projects. It is been fully subscribed.
“This shows the growing interest among investors for solutions that not only give financial returns but also have a positive impact on the environment,” Pelletier said. ”This is the direction the industry is heading.”
Biomethane from Organic Wastes Could Quadruple by 2021
Biomethane Availability and Usability
Utilization of green energy has progressed tremendously over the last few decades. However, many renewable and environmentally friendly sources of energy pose a challenge when it comes to availability or usability, or both. Solar energy for instance can be successfully harnessed only in regions which have a high amount of sunshine, wind turbines can be used to generate electricity only in areas with sufficient amount and power of the wind, etc. which makes their usability largely limited to regions which have ideal geographical or/and weather conditions. Biomethane production, on the other hand, has no such limits. On the contrary, methane which is derived from organic matter and is equivalent to fossil fuel derived methane when it comes to both chemical structure and usability can be produced just about everywhere.
Biomethane is produced by anaerobic digestion (bacterial breakdown in absence of oxygen) of organic matter such as organic household waste, dead animal and plant material, manure, slurry, sewage and other organic materials which are found in large quantities on literally every step all over the world. The usability of anaerobic digestion of organic matter for power generation was discovered many years ago, however, biogas plants were not economically feasible due to relatively low cost of natural gas and other fossil fuels just a few years ago. But due to highly unstable fossil fuel prices, fears that peak oil has already been reached and the potentially catastrophic effects of global warming, the interest in sustainable and environmentally friendly sources of energy has increased dramatically in the recent years. Renewable energy, however, accounts for a small part of the total global energy output.
This is partly related to the fact that efficient technology for power generation from alternative sources of energy has been developed only recently but it is partly also related to limited availability/accessibility to green sources of energy. But the percentage of global energy that is generated from renewable and environmentally friendly sources of energy is steadily rising also thanks to biomethane. It provides a stable and efficient source of energy to regions which do not have the ability to generate power from solar energy, wind power, etc. Biomethane production requires only collection of organic waste material and construction of biogas plants which are very simple in technological terms and relatively inexpensive in comparison to other green power generation facilities of comparable power output.
Usability is another great advantage of biomethane besides availability. Since it is identical to fossil fuel derived methane, it can be used for space heating, water heating, cooking, etc. but it can also be used for electricity generation and if compressed, as fuel for vehicles. Burning biomethane produces the same amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as burning the conventional natural gas. But in contrary to the latter, biomethane does not increase the greenhouse effect and global warming because its utilization produces the same quantity of greenhouse gases as if organic matter would be left to decompose in nature.
Uruguay makes dramatic shift to nearly 95% electricity from clean energy
In less than 10 years the country has slashed its carbon footprint and lowered electricity costs, without government subsidies. Delegates at the Paris summit can learn much from its success
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/03/uruguay-makes-dramatic-shift-to-nearly-95-clean-energy
As the world gathers in Paris for the daunting task of switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy, one small country on the other side of the Atlantic is making that transition look childishly simple and affordable.
In less than 10 years, Uruguay has slashed its carbon footprint without government subsidies or higher consumer costs, according to the country’s head of climate change policy, Ramón Méndez.
In fact, he says that now that renewables provide 94.5% of the country’s electricity, prices are lower than in the past relative to inflation. There are also fewer power cuts because a diverse energy mix means greater resilience to droughts.
It was a very different story just 15 years ago. Back at the turn of the century oil accounted for 27% of Uruguay’s imports and a new pipeline was just about to begin supplying gas from Argentina.
Now the biggest item on import balance sheet is wind turbines, which fill the country’s ports on their way to installation.
Biomass and solar power have also been ramped up. Adding to existing hydropower, this means that renewables now account for 55% of the country’s overall energy mix (including transport fuel) compared with a global average share of 12%.
Despite its relatively small population of just 3.4 million, Uruguay has earned a remarkable amount of global kudos in recent years. It enacted groundbreaking marijuana legalisation, pioneered stringent tobacco control, and introduced some of the most liberal policies in Latin America on abortion and same-sex marriage.
Now, it is being recognised for progress on decarbonising its economy. It has been praised by the World Bank and the Economic commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the WWF last year named Uruguay among its “Green Energy Leaders”, proclaiming: “The country is defining global trends in renewable energy investment.”
Cementing that reputation, Méndez – formerly the country’s national director of energy – has gone to this week’s UN talks with one of the world’s most ambitious national pledges: an 88% cut in carbon emissions by 2017 compared with the average for 2009-13.
There are no technological miracles involved, nuclear power is entirely absent from the mix, and no new hydroelectric power has been added for more than two decades. Instead, he says, the key to success is rather dull but encouragingly replicable: clear decision-making, a supportive regulatory environment and a strong partnership between the public and private sector.
As a result, energy investment – mostly for renewables, but also liquid gas – in Uruguay over the past five years has surged to $7bn, or 15% of the country’s annual GDP. That is five times the average in Latin America and three times the global share recommended by climate economist Nicholas Stern.
“What we’ve learned is that renewables is just a financial business,” Méndez says. “The construction and maintenance costs are low, so as long as you give investors a secure environment, it is a very attractive.”
The effects are apparent on Route 5 from Montevideo to the north. In less than 200 miles, you pass three agroindustrial plants running on biofuel and three windfarms. The biggest of them is the 115MW Peralta plant built and run by the German company, Enercon.
Its huge turbines – each 108 metres tall – tower over grasslands full of cattle and rhea birds.
Along with reliable wind – at an average of about 8mph – the main attraction for foreign investors like Enercon is a fixed price for 20 years that is guaranteed by the state utility. Because maintenance costs are low (just 10 staff) and stable, this guarantees a profit.
As a result, foreign firms are lining up to secure windfarm contracts. The competition is pushing down bids, cutting electricity generating costs by more than 30% over the past three years. Christian Schaefer, supervising technician at Enercon said his company was hoping to expand and another German company Nordex is already building an even bigger plant further north along route five. Trucks carrying turbines, towers and blades are now a common sight on the country’s roads.
Compared to most other small countries with high proportions of renewables, the mix is diverse. While Paraguay, Bhutan and Lesotho rely almost solely on hydro and Iceland on geothermal, Uruguay has a spread that makes it more resilient to changes in the climate.
Windfarms such as Peralta now feed into hydropower plants so that dams can maintain their reservoirs longer after rainy seasons. According to Méndez, this has reduced vulnerability to drought by 70% – no small benefit considering a dry year used to cost the country nearly 2% of GDP.
This is not the only benefit for the economy. “For three years we haven’t imported a single kilowatt hour,” Méndez says. “We used to be reliant on electricity imports from Argentina, but now we export to them. Last summer, we sold a third of our power generation to them.”
There is still a lot to do. The transport sector still depends on oil (which accounts for 45% of the total energy mix). But industry – mostly agricultural processing – is now powered predominantly by biomass cogeneration plants.
Méndez attributed Uruguay’s success to three key factors: credibility (a stable democracy that has never defaulted on its debts so it is attractive for long-term investments); helpful natural conditions (good wind, decent solar radiation and lots of biomass from agriculture); and strong public companies (which are a reliable partner for private firms and can work with the state to create an attractive operating environment).
While not every country in the world can replicate this model, he said Uruguay had proved that renewables can reduce generation costs, can meet well over 90% of electricity demand without the back-up of coal or nuclear power plants, and the public and private sectors can work together effectively in this field.
But, perhaps, the biggest lesson that Uruguay can provide to the delegates in Paris is the importance of strong decision-making. As has been the case at countless UN climate conferences, Uruguay was once paralysed by a seemingly endless and rancorous debate about energy policy.
All that changed when the government finally agreed on a long-term plan that drew cross-party support.
“We had to go through a crisis to reach this point. We spent 15 years in a bad place,” Méndez said. “But in 2008, we launched a long-term energy policy that covered everything … Finally we had clarity.”
That new direction made possible the rapid transition that is now reaping rewards.
Small nations, renewable giants
Uruguay gets 94.5% of its electricity from renewables. In addition to old hydropower plants, a hefty investment in wind, biomass and solar in recent years has raised the share of these sources in the total energy mix to 55%, compared with a global average of 12%, and about 20% in Europe.
Costa Rica went a record 94 consecutive days earlier this year without using fossil fuel for electricity, thanks to a mix of about 78% hydropower, 12% geothermal and 10% wind. The government has set a target of 100% renewable energy by 2021. But transport remains dirty.
Iceland has the advantage of being a nation of volcanoes, which has allowed it to tap geothermal sources of 85% of its heating and – with the assistance of hydropower – 100% of its electricity. This has made it the world’s largest green energy producer per capita.
Paraguay has one huge hydropower dam at Itaipu, which supplies 90% of the country’s electricity.
Lesotho gets 100% of its electricity from a cascade of dams that have enough spare capacity to export power to South Africa.
Bhutan’s abundant hydropower resources generate a surplus of electricity that accounts for more than 40% of the country’s export earnings. But over-reliance on one source can be a problem. In the dry season, it has to import power from India.
• This article was amended on 4 December 2015. An earlier version described Ramón Méndez as Uruguay’s national director of energy; he was formerly, but Olga Otegui now holds that post.
New Energy [R]Evolution Scenario from Greenpeace
http://www.airclim.org/acidnews/new-energy-revolution-scenario-greenpeace
The new 364-page Greenpeace scenario (GPER)1 portrays a world that is dominated by solar and wind by 2030 and even more so by 2050. Together they provide 43 per cent of electrical energy in 2030 and 75 per cent in 2050, replacing first lignite and nuclear, then coal and then gas. Biomass, geothermal and ocean power are given a minor role, but together with hydro they can help balance intermittent wind and photovoltaics. Much of this is what you would expect. Solar thermal, which produces power from solar heat, will also make also a big contribution, almost 19 per cent of all electricity by 2050, not so far behind PV. Heat can be stored, so power output is (somewhat) dispatchable, unlike PV, and can provide power at night. However, unlike photovoltaics, solar thermal power has so far not lived up to its promises. Greenpeace has long had high hopes for it, but has now postponed its breakthrough.
The hard part of reducing CO₂ emissions is not electricity, though. Neither is it heat, which can be provided via electricity, and that is what GPER counts on.
The hardest part is transport. There are three options: biofuels, electric cars, and hydrogen. Biofuels are produced in large quantity now, but mainly from farmland, where they may compete with food production and biodiversity. Electric cars are favoured by many car manufacturers, but Toyota, the biggest of them all, opts for hydrogen-powered fuel cell cars. GPER bets on both.
“The limited potentials of biofuels and probably also battery electric mobility make it necessary to have a third renewable option”, i.e. hydrogen.
This still means a tremendous increase in electricity (batteries) for road traffic: from 9 petajoules (PJ) in 2012, to 400 PJ in 2020 and 23,000 in 2050. Biofuels also increase, but only to about twice the present volume.
“The use of biofuels is limited by the availability of sustainably grown biomass. It will primarily be committed to heavy machinery, aviation and shipping, where electricity does not seem to be an option for the next few decades. Outside the transport sector, biomass is needed for specific industries to supply process heat and carbon”.
Let me add a personal note. When I interviewed people at the pro-CCS organisation Bellona in Oslo in 2008, their main line of argument was that CCS is needed because you cannot cut emissions enough without it. “Look at Greenpeace’s brand new [R]Evolution scenario”, they said. “It does not do the job!”
I found that this was true. The 2008 GPER projected just a 2 per cent global emission drop from year 2000 to year 2030. Fossil use in global primary energy demand would decrease only 50 per cent from 2010 to 2050. Obviously this was no way to save the world.
Intriguing. Greenpeace are no cowards. They are brave, outspoken, and smart!
They now have improved their act since 2008. The 2015 [R]Evolution sets 2050 CO₂ emissions at 4,358 Mtons, compared with 10,589 in the 2008 scenario. This means a fair chance of limiting warming to 2 degrees. But almost all the cuts are projected to take place after 2030. And this is not compatible with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees.
Maybe that is what is likely to happen, but what then is the point? The scenario should look at possibilities, to explain what Greenpeace wants, not what it guesses.
Now energy modelling is a tricky business. You feed in a lot of data and assumptions and the least you should ask for is internal consistency, so all the sums add up. It is mathematically quite demanding to construct a model that generates numbers on coal consumption In China in 2050 that fit together with economic growth assumptions and wind power installations in North America in 2025. Obviously you do not want wind power to grow very fast one year and then grind to a halt the next year, because unless you have a fairly consistent trend, the model will get very unstable, so a small change in one assumption will cause a landslide of big changes everywhere else. Unless the computer overheats.
But this requirement for stability and smoothness of curves in the model seems to lead to an unwarranted conservatism about the rate of change.
In the real world things happen superfast, stop or even slide backwards, and then skyrocket again. Two neighbouring countries move at extremely different speeds. Take solar power development in a group of countries since 2007.
In 2007, Germany was practically alone in its quest for solar, though Spain had just started. Then several countries experienced growth rates of several hundred per cent for several years. Spain, for example, grew its solar production from 0.5 TWh in 2007 to 12 TWh in 2012, i.e. by a factor of 24, or an average annual growth of 89 per cent. The 2008 growth was more than 400 per cent. The reasons for the fits and starts are overwhelmingly political. The 470 per cent growth that was seen in Italy in 2011 decelerated in 2013 not because the infrastructure would not permit more or because the market was saturated. It decelerated because of political decisions, just as the boom started as a result of political decisions.
Much the same can be seen for wind power. Between 2013 and 2014, Egypt’s wind power grew by 3,244 percent. Denmark’s solar power capacity grew by 2,040 per cent in 2012.
The opposite, contraction, can also happen pretty quickly. As a result of the Fukushima accident, Japan went from 292.4 TWh of nuclear power in 2010 to zero in 2014. There was also a drastic change in Germany. UK coal use fell by 20 per cent in 2014. Gas consumption in Europe fell dramatically between 2011 and 2014.
Over a longer time span and over larger regions, curves get smoother. Not because of physical constraints or saturation – but because governments cave in to the fossil and nuclear lobby.
But even on longer timescales and around the whole world, the models tend to underestimate change. The IEA has consistently overestimated nuclear and coal, and underestimated wind and solar in its canonical annual World Energy Outlooks.
NGO scenarios have tended to bend and stretch the IEA models, but to stay within their framework. In models, CO₂ emissions appear as a product of GDP, population, energy intensity etc. This is highly questionable, because emissions are real, while GDP and energy intensity are just derived numbers. Population is real but its effect on emissions is too erratic to be useful for any prediction or prescription. Luxemburg, with just 0.5 million people, uses as much electricity as Ethiopia, which has 100 million people.
The 2008 [R]Evolution scenario projected 386 TWh solar PV for 2020. Greenpeace was too shy to even hope for what happened anyway.
Evolution, according to Charles Darwin, moves slowly by small, small steps. But then he did not know that all multicellular life started with one single extremely improbable event, and that one asteroid killed off all the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
The world is less inert, more susceptible to change, than the models depict. Perhaps it would be better to think more about the next 15 years, never mind 2050!
It is hard to get it right even so. Who now believes the GPER assumption that the oil price will be $106 by 2020 (and stay there)? It is $45 in November 2015. The difference has large consequences for all energy markets – but it does not have a strong influence on political decisions such as feed-in-tariffs or renewable certificates.
One advantage of modelling is, however, that it can optimize the use of resources, for example by avoiding building more power lines and storage than is really needed. If the world would follow the GPER recipe, it would save a lot of money. But don’t bet on a smooth transition!
Fredrik Lundberg
1. Also briefly presented in AN October 2015