States and companies compete for billions to make hydrogen
This is all theory. The need to keep hydrogen in a pressure vessel is just one factor that will make it unaffordably expensive
The Biden administration is turning to hydrogen as an energy source for vehicles, manufacturing and generating electricity.
It's offering $8 billion to entice the nation’s industries, engineers and planners to figure out how to produce and deliver clean hydrogen. States and businesses are making final pitches Friday as they compete for a new program that will create regional networks, or “hubs,” of hydrogen producers, consumers and infrastructure. The aim is to accelerate the availability and use of the colorless, odorless gas that already powers some vehicles and trains.
How can enough hydrogen be produced to meet demand — in ways that don’t worsen global warming? And how can it be moved efficiently to where users can get it? Such questions will be tackled by the hubs.
Nearly every state has joined at least one proposed hub and many are working together, hoping to reap the economic development and jobs they would bring. The governors of Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma came up with the “HALO Hydrogen Hub” to compete for funding, for example.
Big fossil fuel companies like Chevron and EQT Corporation, renewable energy developers such as Obsidian, and researchers in university and government labs are involved, too.
But only a select few will receive billions in federal funding.
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/states-companies-compete-billions-make-hydrogen-98386065
***************************************************China is winning the climate policy game
Search “strategy games” on the internet and you will find a seemingly endless list of computer games in which participants seek to win military or geopolitical competitions through careful planning, organization of forces, implementation of tactics to attain long-term advantage and, often, confusion of adversaries. The Rand Corporation and other U.S. think tanks have sometimes used similar gaming models to assess China’s efforts to supplant the United States as the world’s preeminent economic and military power.
What is seldom featured in such analysis, however, is China’s management of its global image as a “climate leader.” In 2020, President Xi Jinping promised China’s emissions would peak before 2030 and the country would reach carbon neutrality by 2060. China does lead the world in power generation from wind turbines and solar panels and it is the fastest-growing market for all-electric cars. Net-zero activists often praise the “China model” while condemning countries like Canada.
But activists’ assessments of China seldom focus on its additions to its coal-fired electricity generation capacity. Coal is the most carbon-intensive energy source, and China is by far the largest coal-consuming country, accounting for fully 53 per cent of global demand. China’s coal consumption increased from five billion barrels of oil equivalent (BBOE) in 2000 to 14 billion in 2021, almost tripling in two decades.
In 2022, according to Bloomberg Business Review local governments in China permitted 106 gigawatts of new coal-fired capacity, about four times more than in 2021 and the equivalent of two large coal-fired plants per week. For comparison, 106 gigawatts is over 70 per cent of Canada’s annual electricity generation from all sources. That may be worth repeating: in 2022 China’s permitted increase in its generation capacity from coal was equal to 70 per cent of Canada’s electricity consumption from all sources.
All the approved capacity is needed to meet large increases in demand. Last summer a severe heat wave led to record levels of demand in a country in which rising average incomes have brought greatly increased use of air conditioning. China also needs affordable and reliable energy to power its industrial facilities, as it is still the worlds’ largest manufacturer. Renewables will play a role, but Chinese officials have indicated that coal-fired generation offers critical baseline capacity to ensure the stability of the power grid and minimize blackout risks.
The facilities China is constructing are state-of-the-art, high-efficiency plants designed to avoid most of the air-contaminant emissions historically associated with burning coal. With proper maintenance, they should have operating lives of 40 to 60 years or more. It is highly unlikely that China would choose to spend many billions of dollars building such plants with the intention of shutting them down by 2050, just 27 years from now. Whatever they may commit to at international conferences, China’s leaders are clearly placing both energy security and prosperity ahead of emissions-reduction goals.
That is not the case in Canada and several other OECD countries. This county is steadily phasing out coal-fired power generation. The centrepiece of federal government climate policy is a carbon tax of $50 per tonne in provinces subject to the federal regime. That rate is scheduled to rise to $170 per tonne by 2030, which is placing Canadian firms at a competitive disadvantage compared to firms in countries that have either no or very low carbon taxes. The few regions of China that impose a carbon tax use an emissions trading system. According to the World Bank, the most recent permit price was just $US9.20 per tonne. No wonder industries are fleeing Canada for lower-cost jurisdictions, taking their investments, jobs and emissions with them.
At COP 27, the UN climate conference held last year in Egypt, the central subject of debate was how much the wealthier countries should commit to pay to subsidize the efforts of developing countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change, as well as to cover the “loss and damages” they have incurred due to weather events allegedly caused by industrialized countries’ historic emissions. The Group of 77 developing countries demanded at least $1.3 trillion per year from 2025 to 2030, and more thereafter. Canada has committed to $5.3 billion over five years. China, despite its high emissions and immense economy, is not included in the list of countries that are expected to pay. In fact, it may even qualify as a recipient.
In many parts of the world, global climate policy is not yet perceived as a competitive game in pursuit of long-term strategic advantage — which is one reason that so far China is winning it.
*******************************************
The EU's Net Zero plan is in tatters - and not a moment too soon
If anyone had any lingering doubts that the EU is run by German car-makers (in association with French farmers), they will surely have been dispelled by the news that the bloc is to backtrack on its plan to ban combustion engines from new vehicles by 2035. While petrol and diesel cars will still be banned, carbon neutral synthetic "e-fuels" will be permitted. While bringing the EU's green juggernaut to a skidding halt may have required some very powerful lobbying, it is also the right decision.
Proposed bans on petrol and diesel cars in the EU and in Britain were put in place without any proper consideration as to whether electric cars were capable of replacing them. It was simply assumed that improvements in technology would solve the issues of range, ease of recharging, the cost of buying electric cars and their over-reliance on rare metals such as cobalt – which are extracted in troubled parts of the world. Yet prices of electric cars – not to mention the electricity to run them – have remained stubbornly high. Moreover, their manufacture can involve rather more emissions than a petrol or diesel equivalent.
Some are already trying to play down the significance of the EU’s decision, arguing that "e-fuels" will be so expensive that internal combustion engines will become a high-end, niche product. Yet two decades ago, long before we had a net zero target, drivers in Wales found to their pleasure (and to the annoyance of the then HM Customs and Excise) that an ordinary diesel engine could run quite happily on waste oil from chip shops. Since then, the government has made petrol with a 10 per cent renewable ethanol component the British standard, so most of us are already running our cars partly on non-fossil fuels.
As for synthetic fuels made from carbon dioxide and hydrogen produced by electrolysis of water, the German Aerospace Centre estimates such fuels could be made for aviation purposes using existing technology for around 2.26 Euros (£2 per litre). That is expensive – it currently costs around 50 pence to produce a litre of unleaded, the rest being tax and distribution costs – but it is not much higher than recent at-pump prices. The EU’s change of heart means that the car industry can now work developing what could be the ideal compromise: plug-in vehicles which could run 50 miles or so in pure electric mode, but which have a small engine – powered by synthetic fuel – to keep the battery charged on longer trips.
But what will Britain do? The government is showing no signs that its own ban on petrol and diesel cars will not go ahead as planned – which would mean no new pure petrol and diesels sold after 2030, and no hybrids from 2035. This is foolish, and the government will be forced to reconsider. No manufacturer is going to make cars exclusively with the UK market in mind, so if the internal combustion engine does remain a standard product in Europe and elsewhere in the world, UK motorists are going to find themselves restricted to a handful of pure – and expensive – electric models. What remains of our car industry will be put under even greater pressure.
If the electric car makers do improve and bring down the cost of their product, then that's great – most of us will want to drive them. But in keeping options open for internal combustion engines the EU, for once, has done something sensible that Britain should emulate.
***************************************************
Energy security is trumping climate concerns
On TikTok, a campaign to deny ConocoPhillips permission to launch an oil project in Alaska recently went viral. Look up the hashtag #StopWillow and the search results are full of protests warning of the potential damage the project could wreak. One video, which has been liked 3.4mn times, declares that approval would be “game over” for the planet.
As impassioned as the campaign was, it did not work: Joe Biden approved the drilling on March 13. The president had given ConocoPhillips almost everything it wanted, said Elise Joshi in one TikTok clip. “Biden just slapped young people in the face.”
Willow isn’t huge: Conoco says the $8bn project will produce 180,000 barrels a day of oil, or about 1.5 per cent of current US supply. Since Biden entered office, New Mexico’s shale wells alone have added more than 700,000 b/d. Still, approval came just days before the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned, again, of the catastrophe facing the world from existing fossil fuel infrastructure, let alone new projects that will pump for decades.
And the shift from Biden is telling. Fossil fuel interests are on the rise again. Biden entered office promising to ban new fracking and last year signed sweeping clean energy legislation into law. Now his administration promotes liquefied natural gas exports and boasts that US oil output will soon reach record highs.
European countries such as Germany that once pledged to stop funding fossil fuel projects in the poor world last year fired up their own coal plants and now seek to water down EU climate rules.
It marks a reversal from three years ago, when the pandemic shattered global fossil fuel demand, devastated Big Oil balance sheets and prompted claims that the decarbonisation era had begun. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is one reason for the turn. It has been a gift for the oil industry, pushing up prices and delivering record profits for producers.
For ExxonMobil and Chevron, the cash windfall has vindicated their dogged allegiance to a model of ever-rising fossil fuel output. For supermajor BP, the cash gusher has justified another decision to slow its retreat from oil and gas. Russia’s invasion has also changed the narrative. The stages at Davos still ring with “net zero” platitudes, but after last year’s energy crisis politicians’ concern is “energy security” — code for cheap fuel and stable supplies.
That’s why European governments ramped up subsidies for energy consumers last year and the White House released oil from strategic stockpiles while badgering shale companies to frack more wells. “We’re in the middle of a war,” US energy secretary Jennifer Granholm told the Financial Times in March. “We want to continue to see that increase in production even as we accelerate towards clean [energy] . . . We don’t want the prices to go up at the pump.”
Europe’s energy anxieties have been an especially big win for American fossil fuel exporters. “The key to energy security is American energy — and specifically US LNG,” Toby Rice, head of EQT, the US’s biggest gas producer, told Houston’s recent CERAWeek energy conference. Now, with Biden’s backing, another wave of LNG export capacity is under construction on the US Gulf Coast.
But the other reason that fossil fuel producers are gaining momentum again is that the energy transition is proving more fraught than some strategists expected.
The environmental, social, and governance movement was supposed to accelerate the transition by making capital cheap for clean energy projects, while deterring investment in more fossil fuel production.
Oil and gas capital spending has indeed fallen and many fund managers have left the sector for good. Wood Mackenzie reckons annual global upstream spending was $491bn last year, less than half the rate of investment from a decade ago. This level of upstream spending would be adequate if the world’s fossil fuel consumption was falling at the pace some models say is necessary to meet climate goals.
The problem is that consumers are not ditching hydrocarbons as quickly as those models would like. Fossil fuel consumption is soaring. Oil demand will break records again this year.
Renewable alternatives are rising fast but still supply less than 10 per cent of global energy. Annual spending on them is running at barely a quarter the $5tn needed to displace hydrocarbons, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
This dearth of capital amounts to “a self-inflicted train crash in slow motion”, according to Equinor’s chief economist Eirik Wærness. It implies higher demand and higher prices for oil and gas for longer. It’s also why Biden didn’t #StopWillow. If consumers are to keep burning so much oil, is it better coming from Alaska or Saudi Arabia?
https://www.ft.com/content/65d7d4d5-9aa5-466c-b686-796b2a6cf586
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
*****************************************
Jim Hansen and his twin
No comments:
Post a Comment