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Black & Veatch to Support Hong Kong’s Woody Waste to Energy Pilot Project

https://waste-management-world.com/a/black-veatch-to-support-hong-kong-s-woody-waste-to-energy-pilot-project

As Hong Kong increases the recycling rate of yard waste and wood waste to promote sustainability, it is embarking on a semi-research project to facilitate territory-wide recycling of woody waste material.

Employee-owned engineering, procurement, consulting and construction company, Black & Veatch, explained that as Hong Kong increases the recycling rate of yard waste and wood waste to promote sustainability, it is embarking on a semi-research project to facilitate territory-wide recycling of woody waste material.

The Environmental Protection Department (EPD) of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has appointed Black & Veatch to be the Owner’s Engineer of Hong Kong’s first pilot plant for woody waste recycling. The pilot plant will have a capacity of 24 tonnes-per-day and will be constructed in EcoPark, Tuen Mun.

Reducing waste is one of Hong Kong’s strategies to optimise resources and reduce landfill disposal, while supporting sustainability. Woody waste recycling is a core element of the city’s biowaste management strategy to divert valuable biomass resource from the landfills.

“Black & Veatch is ready to support Hong Kong’s sustainability visions. We have worked with a large number of utilities and government agencies on waste to energy projects throughout the world, and many of them involve the conversion of biomass by means of pyrolysis or gasification to energy products,” says Andy Kwok, Managing Director, Black & Veatch Asia North.

“The unique aspect of this pilot project is its focus on the production of biochar-type products, which are expected to find sustainable outlets in the Hong Kong market,” says James Chan, Project Director, Black & Veatch Hong Kong.

Biochar is similar to charcoal and made by burning biomass in a process called pyrolysis. Biochar improves soil fertility and captures and stores carbon dioxide safely. In addition, the pilot plant project will explore if biochar can be produced to meet higher quality standards for other beneficial uses. For Hong Kong’s woody waste recycling plant, the potential feedstock includes used pallets, yard wastes as well as spent bamboo scaffolds.

Black & Veatch Hong Kong is tasked with reviewing the technology, market, environmental and regulatory aspects of the project’s proposed biochar plant. It is responsible for preparing a reference design, assisting in procurement, supervising construction and commissioning, and overseeing the pilot testing.

Hong Kong green group blasted for ad on LED screen

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CTA at Quarry Bay School on Energy in HK

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Hong Kong government investigated over planning for electric car roll-out

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Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific seeks 80pc emissions reductions on some long flights with big switch to biofuels

Airline among world’s first to adopt fuels made largely from landfill rubbish

Cathay Pacific Airways has pledged an 80 per cent cut in the amount of climate-changing gases some of its longest flights pump into the Earth’s atmosphere, by betting big on biofuels.

The Hong Kong carrier will be one of the first airlines in the world to switch to cleaner jet fuels on an industrial scale.

The city is slowly strengthening its push to lessen its contribution to climate change, and the government aims to cut annual carbon emissions per person almost in half by 2030.

The aviation sector had avoided regulation until last year, when its governing body, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, agreed a global deal to curb emissions growth by the end of the decade.

Cathay Pacific planes will use fuel made from landfill rubbish. Many of its flights from the United States, where the fuel is being produced, will be able to fly to Hong Kong using a half-half mix of biofuel and conventional fuel by 2019. It is on these trans-Pacific flights that the company expects the 80 per cent emissions reductions.

“Aviation biofuels will play a key role for Cathay and the aviation industry’s quest for lower emissions,” the airline’s biofuel manager, Jeff Ovens, said. “We are on the cusp of large-scale production of low-carbon jet fuel and are eager to use it.”

The high and notoriously unpredictable cost of fuel has forced the airline to control how much it uses. By – among other things – reducing aircraft weight, flying on more direct flight paths and only using one engine to taxi on runways, the company cut emissions and paved the way for the rethink of how it could further cut pollution.

“This is where biofuels come in,” Ovens said. “These fuels will have a lower carbon footprint than fossil fuels, and the pricing we have is competitive with traditional fuels.”

Aside from the carbon dioxide reduction, using the mixed fuel avoids emissions of other harmful gases, like methane, given off as rubbish – which will instead be used as fuel – naturally degrades in landfill.

Cathay Pacific passengers are unlikely to see a rise in fares, because the biofuel investments since 2014 have been absorbed into the company’s operating costs. But it is too early to tell whether the switch could lower ticket prices.

Christine Loh Kung-wai, undersecretary at the Environment Bureau – which spearheaded the government’s 2030 climate action report – said: “I think the world as a whole has come to embrace dealing with climate change, and you are seeing major industry sectors coming forward to say they need to do more.”

But she said the lack of global rules on the production, infrastructure and supply of biofuels made long-term policymaking harder. “I think that is further down the road than we are able to make policies on,” she said.

Roy Tam Hoi-pong, CEO of Green Sense, an environmental pressure group, said the airline’s climate effort was a “good start”.

He said: “As one of Asia’s biggest airlines, they can do much more.”

Airlines occasionally test biofuels, mainly with used cooking oil, but not landfill waste.

United Airlines has started running some domestic flights on biofuels regularly, but even then in small quantities.

The airline’s new batch of Airbus A350 planes – themselves 25 per cent more fuel efficient than their forerunners – flew from France to Hong Kong for delivery using a small amount of biofuel.

The airline’s partnership with a US-based renewable fuel producer is on track to help make its flights from the US to Hong Kong International Airport, starting from 2019, greener.

Fulcrum Bioenergy and Cathay Pacific signed an agreement in 2014, helping the airline meet its biofuel supply targets, with a purchase of 375 million gallons of biofuel over 10 years.

That fuel would be enough to supply Cathay Pacific’s 76 weekly US flights to Hong Kong for six months.

Source URL: http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/2066549/hong-kongs-cathay-pacific-seeks-80pc-emissions

CLP Power to tap methane from Tuen Mun landfill for electricity

The company is awaiting an environmental approval for its plan to build generators on the site; project will cost “more than HK$100 million”

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/2065471/clp-power-tap-methane-tuen-mun-landfill

The larger of the city’s two electricity providers will seek approval for the installation of 14-megawatt electricity generating units powered by gas at a Tuen Mun landfill to expand its portfolio of “renewable” energy projects.

CLP Power managing director Paul Poon Wai-yin said the large amounts of flammable gases such as methane, produced from the decomposition of municipal waste, could be tapped for power.

About 7,300 tonnes of such waste is dumped in the landfill at the tip of Nim Wan daily.

Poon said the waste-to-energy conversion was a better source of renewable energy than solar or wind, which required massive amounts of land and investment, adding:

“On one hand it will help reduce [greenhouse gas] ¬emissions from landfills, and on the other, help replace the burning of fossil fuels to generate electricity.”

Quince Chong Wai-yan, head of corporate development, said the new facility – estimated to cost “more than HK$100 million” – would have a minimal impact on tariffs due to its limited scale.

The project’s first phase comprises five units capable of generating enough electricity to power 17,000 four-person households for one year. A second phase will add two more units to the site.

A new climate change action plan released by the government last week set new emissions reduction targets for 2030. Authorities hope to achieve this by moving away from coal-fired power generation to natural gas and non-fossil fuels.

While the plan stopped short of a target for renewables, it highlighted a “3 to 4 per cent” capacity, to be realised between now till 2030. Poon said CLP was already on the way to help meet 1 per cent of this mark.

He stressed that the phasing out of CLP’s coal-fired units over the next decade would also be discussed with the government in negotiations for a post-2018 regulatory framework, expected to be completed by the end of the administration’s term.

Greenpeace senior campaigner Frances Yeung Hoi-shan said the facility would help reduce methane emissions, a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. But she said most green groups did not consider processed waste a “renewable energy” source. Yeung urged the government to require power companies to incentivise investments in sources such as solar and wind energy in the new regulatory framework.

The new action plan stated that tariffs and renewable energy certificates will be introduced as incentives in negotiations with CLP Power and HK Electric. But Poon did not provide details at a media briefing on Wednesday.

Impact assessments for CLP’s proposed units at the landfill have been completed and the company will apply for an environmental permit shortly. It hopes to begin operations of the first phase in the third quarter next year.

The Environmental Protection Department welcomed the project and said it would facilitate implementation.

Hong Kong government aims to slash carbon emissions with 2030 action plan

While government hopes to reduce total emissions by 26-36 per cent, some critics say the plans lack conviction

Annual carbon emissions could be slashed from around six tonnes per person to between 3.3 and 3.8 tonnes by 2030, according to the government’s latest climate change action plan.

But a think tank and green group believe the plan lacks hard targets for renewables and the ambition to phase out coal in the fuel mix.

The target, which will translate to an absolute carbon emission reduction of 26 to 36 per cent and reduction of 65 to 70 per cent in carbon emissions per GDP from 2005, will use a cleaner, less coal-intensive fuel mix and more energy efficient buildings and transport.

Renewable energy would also be applied on a “wider and larger scale”, it said.

Measures to incentivise private investment in renewables could be introduced in the post-2018 regulatory framework with power companies, which is being negotiated, the plan says.

Government departments are looking at installing floating photovoltaic systems on reservoirs, with two expected to be completed at Shek Pik and Plover Cove this year, and on slopes, such as at the old Anderson Quarry.

The Environment Bureau however stressed that the city did not have favourable conditions for large-scale commercial use and as such, did not set any concrete targets for 2030.

Also missing were hard targets for reducing energy use in the private buildings sector. Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing said a consensus had been reached for the building sector to voluntarily reduce electricity consumption on an “ongoing” basis, with details still to be finalised.

“Overall we would like to make it a kind of pattern similar to the Paris agreement,” he said, referring to the land climate accord, which requires each individual country to work toward its own nationally-determined contributions to curb global warming and report back every five years.

Maura Wong, CEO of think tank Civic Exchange believed the plan lacked commitment. “We still don’t know by 2030 whether we will be coal-free and what the mix will be between natural gas and nuclear,” she said. “They need to be ambitious enough to set a clear date of when they will completely phase out coal.”

WWF-Hong Kong’s conservation director Gavin Edwards said: “We welcome the government’s openness to 3 to 4 per cent renewable energy, but believe that it should be a formal target and … more ambitious with at least 5 per cent renewables by 2030.
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Source URL: http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/2064045/hong-kong-government-aims-slash-carbon-emissions

How China has embraced renewable energy and Hong Kong hasn’t, and what’s behind city’s green power inertia

Summer 2016 saw record heat, and health problems from air pollution are rising, yet green energy projects have been shelved or denied funding; electricity firms lack incentives to go green, WWF says

Professor Johnny Chan Chun-leung is one of Hong Kong’s most eminent climate and energy scientists, and he is a very frustrated man. This month Beijing announced it would invest 2.5 trillion yuan (HK$2.8 trillion) in renewable energy technology by 2020 to establish the nation as world leader in sustainable and clean energy, and create 13 million jobs. Meanwhile, Chan and other respected scientists in Hong Kong are struggling to obtain financial support for their green energy projects.

Whereas China embraces wind, tide, solar and wave energy as essential tools to tackle climate change and its acute air pollution, attitudes in Hong Kong appear as fossilised as the fuel that provides 78 per cent of its energy needs.

Chan, chair professor of atmospheric science at the City University of Hong Kong’s School of Energy and Environment, outlined details of an innovative tidal turbine project at a conference on renewable energy last week, organised by the city’s Business Environment Council. Chan’s team has developed a system that can generate electricity even in low tidal streams, typical of the seas around Hong Kong. Though it is early days, trials staged at the Gold Coast Marina in the city’s Tuen Mun district produced encouraging results.

He now needs funding to scale it up, with a view to offering the city a viable green energy alternative, but his application to the Environment and Conservation Fund for HK$2 million was rejected. “The ECF told me today that I ‘did not demonstrate the merits and contributions of the proposed study to environmental protection’,” he says. “How ridiculous.”

It is not an isolated incident. Others complain privately that Hong Kong funding bodies are “overly risk averse” and are rarely enthusiastic about funding green energy research and development.

“I believe more can be done to promote local funding for R&D for all renewable energy components,” says Dr Walid Daoud, a solar energy expert from City University and another speaker at the council’s conference. Many believe these difficulties are just one symptom of a wider malaise when it comes to supporting green energy in Hong Kong.

“Hong Kong performs badly in overall carbon emissions and renewable energy,” says Cheung Chi-wah, senior head of climate and footprint programmes at environmental campaign group WWF-Hong Kong. He notes that the city’s emissions of greenhouse gases responsible for global warming have been rising steadily and are 23 per cent above their level in 2002. That was the same year the Hong Kong government published its first study of renewable energy, compiled by the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department. The report estimated that 17 per cent of Hong Kong’s energy needs could be supplied by solar power alone.

It also made a key primary recommendation that the government should set targets for renewable energy’s contribution to demand of 1 per cent, 2 per cent and 3 per cent for 2012, 2017 and 2022, respectively. Nearly 15 years later, with electricity consumption rising about 5 per cent a year, the city recording record-breaking temperatures last summer, and health problems due to worsening air pollution growing, very little has been achieved. Instead of the proposed 2 per cent target for 2017, the latest data shows that the proportion of energy used in the city that is produced by renewable means is still less than 1 per cent – far from the 17 per cent potential – and the targets have not even been implemented.

Indeed, by 2012 only 2.2 megawatts of solar photovoltaic panels, capable of meeting 0.01 per cent of Hong Kong’s energy needs, had been installed.

Hong Kong is also one of the few advanced cities in the world with no feed-in tariff scheme, or “net metering system”, in place. This means that, rather than small-scale green energy producers being paid for contributing any excess energy to the grid, they can only donate it.

Energy consultant Mike Thomas, of the Lantau Group, another speaker at the council’s event, thinks it is unhelpful to compare China and Hong Kong in terms of being “behind or ahead” because of the vast differences in the two economies’ scale, resources and political systems. He also believes Hong Kong is taking the right steps by implementing the government’s new fuel mix for energy supply by 2020, which consists of about 50 per cent natural gas, around 25 per cent nuclear power and more use of renewable energy sources. Natural gas is still a fossil fuel, but 30 per cent to 50 per cent cleaner than coal in terms of emissions.

“It is true that there is very little renewable energy, strictly speaking, but given the rabid debate about the use of green space for housing, I’m not sure that converting the hillsides to solar panels would appeal either,” he says. The issue of “low energy density” (the relatively high land area needed to produce 1 kilowatt of renewable electricity) is often cited by opponents of renewable energy in Hong Kong, which, including its 263 islands, has a land area of just 1,104 sq km.

Douad calculates the city would need to cover 20 per cent of its surface area with 10 per cent efficient solar panels to meet its energy needs, yet he remains a firm advocate of solar power.

“The 20 per cent is for the actual lateral 2D land use. However, we could also consider the vertical 3D of the urban landscape, using building walls as well as rooftops, sun-exposed roads and highways, sound barriers and water reservoirs,” he says.

While delegates at the council’s conference earnestly discuss the possibilities of using renewable energy locally, most leading cities have already embraced renewables and the smart grid – the use of digital technology to improve reliability, resiliency, flexibility, and efficiency – and have coherent policies in place to foster them.

Singapore is ramping up the use of solar panels through initiatives such as SolarNova, a government-led programme, and investing in green energy research via The Energy Research Institute. The city state is already seeing positive results. Figures for 2014 show that green energy sources contributed 3.7 per cent of total energy consumption (up from 2.4 per cent in 2005) and analysts expect that figure to top 5 per cent by 2020.

Hong Kong does have small-scale solar schemes designed for local consumption, and some government buildings generate solar power, but its approach to solar energy is piecemeal.

CLP Power, one of the city’s two electricity suppliers, commissioned its award-winning renewable energy power plant on Town Island in Sai Kung in January 2010, comprising wind turbines and solar panels, to supply the needs of the island’s drug rehabilitation centre, and says it has connected about 250 small-scale local schemes.

The other supplier, Hongkong Electric, says about 70 local use renewable systems have been connected to its grid over the past 10 years. It also operates a 1MW solar plant and the only wind turbine connected to Hong Kong’s power grid.

It might be imagined that geographical restrictions and a scarcity of available land would make harnessing offshore wind, wave and tidal power – as Chan proposes – more attractive, but there is little sign of progress on any of these. Detailed proposals from the electricity companies to build offshore wind farms were awarded environmental permits, but both schemes were shelved in 2013 and mysteriously disappeared from the local energy agenda.

“We are in the process of collecting wind, wave and other environmental data, along with a review of the engineering design, to complete the feasibility study,” a CLP spokesman says of its plan.

Hongkong Electric’s proposed wind farm in waters off Lamma Island was to supply 1.5 per cent of its total output. Asked about the proposal, a company spokesman says “field wind measurement has been going on since 2012”.

Cheung says no one in the industry understands why the company needs to collect five years of wind data. He suspects the real reason for offshore wind power being dropped is that the schemes of control both power companies have negotiated with the government, which regulate their profits on operations and investment, do not offer enough financial sweeteners for either company to proceed.

The current schemes of control are due to expire by end of 2018, and the government is negotiating terms with the companies to renew them. Cheung thinks it’s “a perfect time for the government to show its determination by introducing significant targets and incentives for energy consumption reduction and [renewable energy] development”.

One of the thorny issues that will need to be ironed out is tariffs. Hong Kong has some of the cheapest and most reliable power in the world (electricity costs about half what it does in New York). Although it is widely believed that greater use of green energy is essential, there is less agreement on who will pay for the higher prices or pick up the bill for integration of an intermittent power source to the grid.

While energy costs account for only 1.6 per cent of the average Hong Kong household’s budget, there is little commercial incentive for change and little political appetite for heaping extra costs on hard-pressed families.

There is more hope than expectation that Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying will use his final policy address to announce Hong Kong will follow Beijing’s lead and reveal a bold new policy for renewable energy with defined targets, a credible strategy to achieve them, and support for home-grown innovations such as Chan’s.
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Source URL: http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/2062467/how-china-has-embraced-renewable-energy-and-hong-kong-hasnt-and-whats

Large-scale use of solar power not feasible in Hong Kong

http://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/2043067/large-scale-use-solar-power-not-feasible-hong-kong

Hong Kong is facing serious air pollution, which can cause irreversible damage to our society. To cope with the problem, some may suggest the adoption of larger-scale usage of solar power. However, I don’t think that it is feasible to widely use solar power in Hong Kong.

Firstly, from the economic perspective, I think it is very difficult to instal a lot of solar panels in our city. The cost of solar power is very high, even higher than that for conventional fossil fuels (for example, coal and natural gas). That is because we have to buy not just one, but a large number of solar panels. Also, we have to rent a big flat for enough area to place the solar panels, and it will be very expensive to do so.

Moreover, we have to purchase new generating units, as we cannot possibly use the old units for solar energy. Despite its unbelievably high cost, the efficiency of converting solar energy into electricity is very low.

Secondly, considering Hong Kong’s geographical structure, I think it is difficult to use solar power widely here. Solar panels require large open areas for instalments, while Hong Kong is fairly mountainous. So it would be difficult to find open and flat spaces to place solar panels in a place this hilly.

Moreover, Hong Kong’s high population density and scarce land already makes it difficult to find enough space for living. If Hong Kong had enough space, it should be used to build public housing, which is a much more serious problem. We cannot possibly try to solve one problem if it gives rise to a worse one.

If citizens oppose the promotion of solar energy, it will surely not be feasible, and it is very unlikely that they, especially the underprivileged, will support such an idea when using solar power would mean higher electricity bills for them.

All in all, I do not think it is practical to have wide use of solar power in Hong Kong. We should be looking at other forms of renewable energy that would have a much greater chance of success.

Eiman Arif, Tuen Mun

Could this HK$300,000 hybrid taxi be the new look of Hong Kong cabs?

A new-generation taxi produced by Toyota with wheelchair access is slated to hit the Hong Kong market in the fourth quarter of next year, its supplier Inchcape announced on Thursday.

The new taxi will cost about HK$300,000 and be more environmentally friendly than typical local cabs as it is designed as a hybrid vehicle run by LPG and electricity, according to Inchcape’s mass transport deputy general manager David Lee.

“The vehicle has four seats and its rear side is equipped with an electric sliding door so it is wheelchair accessible,” he said.

Once the new taxis are launched in the city, Toyota will cease production of its current Comfort taxi model, which costs about HK$230,000.

At present, there are 18,138 taxis in Hong Kong, of which Toyota has a market share exceeding 90 per cent.

Lee estimated there were about 10,000 Toyota Comfort taxis on local roads that are over 13 years old and need to be replaced. “But there are only several thousands of this model available in the market for replacement, so we think there is a market for this new generation of taxi,” he said.

Orders for the new taxi cannot yet be placed in Hong Kong as the carmaker must wait for government approval of the importation date.
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Source URL: http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/2038545/hk300000-hybrid-taxi-hit-hong-kong-market-next-year-toyota