Energy storage capacity set to soar, 300 UK-based companies involved in new sector

More slippery Green/Left statistics.  They give battery statistics in MW (Megawatts) and GW (Gigawatts). And they mean it as they do so repeatedly.  And it is the post of a renewables website so it is official, not just some journalistic muddle.

But MW and GW tells you nothing.  You want to know for HOW LONG you can supply current at that rate.  You need to give your figures in MWh (megawatt hours).  So the figures below are wholly meaningless from any practical viewpoint.  If they supply current at any sort of high rate, batteries regularly go "flat" in a matter of minutes.  And what use is that?

The Green/Left HAVE to deceive -- because reality constantly undermines their claims.  And it doesn't bother them to lie.  They believe that "There's no such thing as right and wrong" anyway.  They are a very poisonous lot


A new database to be launched by RenewableUK today shows a massive increase in battery storage capacity is set to take place - enough to power nearly half a million electric vehicles.

Planning applications in the UK to install just 2MW of battery storage capacity in 2012 have soared since then to a cumulative total of 6,874MW in 2018. (92% of applications for storage projects are approved first time).

The database will allow RenewableUK members to access comprehensive information on nearly 400 UK energy storage projects. It will show where operational projects are located on an interactive map, as well as schemes being planned and under construction, including those sited alongside solar, wind and tidal energy projects.

It also reveals that the average capacity of applications for new battery storage projects has increased from 10MW in 2016 to 27MW today, and that more than 300 UK-based businesses are operating in this new sector.

3.3GW of storage capacity (including hydro projects) is now operational in the UK and a further 5.4.GW has planning consent -  including 4.8GW of battery storage, which is enough capacity to fully charge 480,000 electric vehicles.

The database will be launched at the first joint conference on energy storage to be held by RenewableUK and the Solar Trade Association, in London today.

The conference will explore what our energy system would need from storage to achieve 100% of our power from renewable generation, and the new technologies that could get us there. Developers, investors, representatives from Government, National Grid, Ofgem, legal professionals and policy analysts will examine the new business models and energy services which are already up and running, and the shape of those to come, as well as the potential obstacles standing in the way of the rapid development of a low-carbon system.

RenewableUK’s Executive Director Emma Pinchbeck said:

“The energy sector is breaking new ground by making an unprecedented transition to a clean, flexible system which will power our country in the future. Energy storage is already playing a key part in that, from small local projects to grid-scale schemes. We’re decentralising the way the power system works and, at our conference, we’ll hear how an increased share of wind, solar and storage on the grid could transform UK energy markets”. 

The Chief Executive of the Solar Trade Association Chris Hewett said:

“Energy storage has already begun to unlock the full potential of wind and solar energy, and it’s happening faster than almost anyone anticipated. It’s clear that storage will be the foundation of a smart, flexible and decarbonised future energy system, and this conference is an excellent opportunity to hear straight from the experts and business leaders who are working to make that future a reality”.

SOURCE





Ozone layer will be completely HEALED by the 2060s: Holes in the upper atmosphere are recovering at a rate of up to three per cent a decade, UN study says

What rubbish!  How do they explain that the hole was at its maximum extent only recently -- in 2015?

The ozone layer that shields life from cancer-causing solar rays is slowly recovering, a UN study has revealed.

A hole was found in the ozone layer above Antarctica in the 1980s as a result of harmful chemicals being pumped into the atmosphere.

This has allowed large amounts of ultraviolet light to reach Earth unabated and has been linked to an increase in skin cancer diagnoses.

Severe bans on the manufacture of these products has seen the hole in the ozone recover at a rate of one to three per cent per decade, scientists have now found.

This process reverses the damage done by years of dangerous depletion and is expected to be fully repaired by the 2060s, the study revealed. 

The study was a four-yearly review of the Montreal Protocol, a 1987 ban on man-made gases that damage the fragile high-altitude ozone layer.

It found long-term decreases in the amount of these gases in the atmosphere and that the stratospheric ozone was recovering.

'The Antarctic ozone hole is recovering, while continuing to occur every year, the report said.

'As a result of the Montreal Protocol much more severe ozone depletion in the polar regions has been avoided.'

The Antarctic ozone hole was expected to gradually close, returning to 1980 levels in the 2060s, the report said.

'Evidence presented by the authors shows that the ozone layer in parts of the stratosphere has recovered at a rate of 1-3 per cent per decade since 2000,' UN Environment and the World Meteorological Organisation said.

'At projected rates, Northern Hemisphere and mid-latitude ozone is scheduled to heal completely by the 2030s followed by the Southern Hemisphere in the 2050s and polar regions by 2060.'

SOURCE






Is repairing and recycling really worth it?

By Tim Worstall

The idea that we might want to save resources is fairly central to the subject of economics. It is, after all, the science of allocating scarce resources.

Yet as with any science we need to start by defining our terms – just what are the scarce resources which we want to save? The usual answer here is simple enough: a scarce resource is a resource which is scarce. Somehow we’ve got to find a balancing act between all of those various scarcities in order to have the best lifestyle we can, given the constraints the universe places upon us.

Of all the resources we have at our disposal, our time is the scarcest of all. Our lifespans are not something we can stockpile, we can’t save them up for later, and there are very few of us who go into that long dark night thinking life took too long. The preciousness of our time is the crucial thing we need to understand in order to analyse the repair movement.

We are forever told that we live in a throwaway society. We buy cheap gimcracks and when they crack we toss them, instead of saving those resources by repairing and mending them into further use. Therefore, the theory goes, it makes sense change the design of everything so that we can repair, learn the skills to do so and expend our time on such matters rather than further exploitation of Mother Earth to make ourselves more trinkets.

This is great religion and lousy economics. For what is that scarce resource that we’re trying to save the use of? Our time. Why learn to repair the £10 toaster, why bother to fix it, when for that £10 we can have another and use the time instead to sing Bach cantatas? Or watch Big Brother… each to his own.

It isn’t, of course, quite that simple. To insist that we must save our time, exclusively as a target, is to be overly specific and wrong. We are not trying to save one particular resource and to insist that we are makes the same mistake as the environmentalist mavens who tell us we must save metals, or energy, or land.

What we need is to economise on the use of all the varied resources in the optimal manner. That means some things are worth using our time to recycle or repair, and others can be tossed into landfill or incinerator. What we need is a method of deciding how we are to optimise the use of which resource.

Fortunately, we’ve got one, it’s called the market and the associated price mechanism. As long as externalities – say, CO2 emissions, pollution, the value of our time – are included in those prices then the economy itself becomes the great calculating engine that Hayek insisted was the only one capable of working this out for us.

Some estimates tell us that it takes 45 minutes per household per week to sort waste for recycling. That’s hundreds of millions of man hours a year of human labour. We should – but don’t – value that at something like the average wage of £14 an hour, perhaps the minimum wage of closer to £8. At which point recycling becomes an obvious waste of resources, the value of the time taken to do it being very much greater than the value of what is extracted from the rubbish.

Repairing the gears on a bicycle might tip the other way, a couple of hours labour in order to get working again a few hundred pound piece of kit. The £10 toaster rather depends upon how you value your time. The importance is not necessarily what we do, but the method by which we reach the decision.

Yes, of course, we should save resources, but that includes our own time and effort. Of course, if policymakers want us to recycle more, they could further incentivise us to do so. But such a move would come at a cost to us in terms of time or money.

Price our time into the decisions and market prices will then tell us which we should be doing. The answer is we should be landfilling and burning a great deal more than current fashion says we should. The fact that doing so is cheaper than recycling or repairing is all the proof we need that it uses fewer resources.

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Trump: 'People very much dispute' climate change

President Trump questioned his administration's scientists in an interview broadcast last night on "Axios on HBO."

President Trump dismissed the National Climate Assessment that shows humans are driving climate change, and said he was focused on the reports that dispute it.

Jim VandeHei of Axios showed Trump a copy of the assessment, which was developed by his administration, and said the language identifies humans as the source of global warming. The interview was conducted in the White House by VandeHei and reporter Jonathan Swan for the debut "Axios on HBO" show.

Trump repeated a popular talking point among conservatives, acknowledging that humans contribute in some way to global warming, without accepting mainstream climate science that says consumption of fossil fuels is responsible for warming the planet.

Instead of dismissing it as a hoax, as he has in the past, Trump said humans play a role because "there's certain pollutants that go up and there's certain things that happen, certain things we do."

Trump then repeated a talking point he first used several weeks ago. The president claimed that climate change will "go back" on its own. Scientists dispute that characterization.

"Is there climate change? Yeah. Will it go back like this, I mean, will it change? Probably, that's what I think," Trump said as he waved his right hand. "I believe it goes this way, and I believe man, meaning us people — man and women, to be politically correct, because everyone says man, but now we have to add women to that one, too — man and women, we do have an impact, but I don't believe the impact is nearly what some say, and other scientists that dispute those findings very strongly."

E&E News reported recently that senior administration officials had sought a PowerPoint presentation on climate change from the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank that works to cloud the findings of scientists. The group largely relies on the work of researchers who aren't climate scientists or who are funded by the energy industry.

Trump said he was focused on those types of scientists.

"I want everybody to report whatever they want, but ultimately, I'm the one that makes that final decision," Trump said. "I can also give you reports where people very much dispute that, you know, you do have scientists that very much dispute it. I want to make sure that we have the cleanest air."

SOURCE






Could Australia's reefs be saved after all? Weed-like cauliflower coral has evolved unique immunity genes that means it could survive global warming

So a very vigorous coral is a "weed".  The Green/Left never miss a chance at negativity.  And saying it has developed "immune" responses to survive is a stretch.  Starfish, lowered water levels, and  unexpected heat variations are the big enemies of coral, not viruses and bacteria

A common coral has evolved unique strategies to cope with environmental change. Scientists say the cauliflower coral - which is traditionally thought of as a weed - could be one of the only corals to survive dramatic changes in the climate.

As one of the most abundant and widespread reef-building corals in the world it could be crucial to the future survival of the world's reefs, scientists found.

Researchers from the University of Miami say the common coral species might have evolved unique immune strategies to cope with environmental change.

Roughly 30 per cent of the cauliflower coral's (Pocillopora damicornis) genome was unique compared to several other reef-building corals.

This adaptation could be crucial for the long-term survival of coral reefs as climate change and ocean acidification continue to ravage the oceans.

'This coral is traditionally thought of as a weed, and yet it may be one of the last corals to survive environmental changes such as climate change,' said senior author of the study Nikki Traylor-Knowles, an assistant professor of marine biology and ecology at the University of Miami.

To conduct the research, scientists extracted and sequenced the genomic DNA from two healthy fragments and two bleached fragments of P. damicornis.

Their genome was then compared to publicly available genomes for several other coral species.

'The study shows that this is an important coral with a very complex and unique immune system, which may explain why it is able to survive in so many different locations,' said the paper's lead author Ross Cunning who is now a researcher at Shedd Aquarium.

The results suggest that the evolution of an innate immune system has been a defining feature of the success of hard corals like P. damicornis.

The immune system of corals, like humans, is vital to protect overall health and deal with changes in its surroundings.

If an animal has a stronger immune system then it will be better equipped to deal with environmental changes.

These new findings, published in Scientific Reports, suggest that some corals have many more immunity genes than would be expected.

'This study helps us better understand how corals deal with stress,' said Dr Traylor-Knowles.

'Its complex immune system indicates that it may have the tools to deal with environmental change much more easily than other corals.'

SOURCE

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