Daily Climate News - March 25
what will hydrogen cost in 2050; dual-harvesting; EU's Nature Restoration Law delayed further
Clean Energy Economics - hydrogen in 2050
In a comprehensive review of hydrogen production costs, researchers in Germany have collected 832 cost forecast points from 89 articles published from 2000-2023 to deduce the cost trajectory - 5.3 €/kg in 2020, to 4.4 €/kg in 2030, and to 2.7 €/kg in 2050.
There’s lots of variation in costs for different technologies and geographies.
Both in Germany and China median and mean values decline significantly between 2020 and 2050. In contrast, the mean value of production costs in the USA is not changing significantly between 2020 and 2050, and median values show a projected change in costs only between 2030 and 2050.
In 2050, Asia has the lowest average costs of the regions analyzed at 1.8 €/kg.
…The most studied production processes are electrolysis, steam methane reforming and steam methane reforming coupled with CCS. According to the studies evaluated, hydrogen produced by electrolysis currently has by far the highest production costs. The costs are more than twice as high as for hydrogen from SMR or SMR+CCS processes.
By 2030, however, the costs for hydrogen from electrolysis will drop rapidly, and thereafter the production costs will continue to fall.
Royal Society of Chemistry - Sustainable Energy and Fuels
“Dual harvesting” - Capturing light and radiating heat away from the Earth simultaneously
That is what a new power system can do using solar panels and radiative cooling.
“In radiative cooling, the infrared light radiates from a piece of transparent, low-iron glass,” Zhu said. “The light bounces off the glass, passes through the atmosphere without warming the surrounding air, and lands in outer space, which we call the cold universe.”
This process, in turn, cools the surface of the radiative cooler. That cooling capacity can then be directed toward an object, like inside a building or refrigerator.
Underneath the radiative cooler, the researchers positioned a solar panel, so that during daylight hours, the sunlight passes through the transparent radiative cooler and is absorbed into the solar cell to generate electricity.
In tests, the combined system exceeded energy savings from a simple solar power system by 30%.
Recharge | Article in Cell Reports Physical Science
US Government has announced $6 billion in funding for decarbonization projects
Aimed at emissions-intensive industries - chemicals & refining, cement, iron & steel, aluminium, food & beverage, glassmaking, process heating, and pulp & paper. The projects selected will:
create high-quality fuels and materials from recycled products
replace fossil fuels with synthetic/bio fuels such as green hydrogen
capture carbon and/or use it in value-added products
recycle important metals and minerals
electrify industrial processes that use low & medium-temperature heating
chemically modify emissions at source
Power Technology | Press Release
Top Stories
The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has come out with a draft illustration of what a net-zero framework might look for reducing emissions from shipping. The outline includes setting targets for reduction of fuel emissions in a phased approach, and setting up a market mechanism to incentivise decarbonisation. Offshore Energy | IMO Press Release
More than 60% of Portugal’s electricity came from renewable sources in 2023. About 25% came from wind, 25% from hydro, 7% from solar and 6% from biomass. Recharge | REN Press Release
Voting on EU’s Nature Restoration Law, aimed at restoring Europe’s rivers, forests and seas, has been delayed. The proposal includes targets for improving biodiverse habitats, reversing decline of pollinating insects, preventing loss of green urban spaces, improving stock of organic carbon in soils, improving river connectivity and restoring marine habitats. The Commission adopted the proposal in June 2022, but the law has not been voted on yet due to protests from farmers, conservatives and lack of sufficient support.
Sweden, for example, believes the EU is overstepping by trying to regulate how countries manage their forests, while Finland fears disproportionate costs. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is opposing the text to appease angry farmers, and Hungary argues that Brussels is setting “irrational targets” motivated by a “green ideology” — even though it previously supported the bill.
POLITICO (recommended)
Electric vehicles sales in India in the 9 months of FY24 (Apr-Dec 2023) crossed the annual sales in all of FY23. The overall share of EVs in India grew to 6.38% in 2023, from 1.75% in 2021. ET Energy | CareEdge - March 22 | CareEdge - January 18
As elections in Europe get nearer, EU’s main business lobby group, BusinessEurope and the German Industry for Chamber and Commerce (DIHK) are demanding that legislators simplify climate disclosures and keep carbon taxes low to keep industries competitive. ECEEE | EurActiv
Colombia-based Cercarbono, an environmental crediting standard has published its final biodiversity protocol that “identifies activities and types of ecosystems eligible for crediting, and lays out principles and processes for the creation and issuance of Voluntary Biodiversity Credits (VBCs) to Biodiversity Crediting Projects (BCPs). Carbon Pulse | Cercarbono’s Biodiversity Certification Programme Protocol (PDF)
A Guarantee of Origin (GO) is used to track the type and location of a power plant - typically to ensure procurement from a renewable source. New industry analysis by Aurora Research predicts the GO market to reach a size of €3.7 billion by 2030, driven by demand from corporates in Germany, France and Italy. Aurora Energy Research
Former FERC chairman Neil Chatterjee writes that to reduce transmission bottlenecks in USA, ISOs may look into Grid Enhancing Technologies (GETs)
Grid Enhancing Technologies, or GETs, are sensors, controls and software that maximize the value of the existing grid. They usually find 20%-40% more capacity, which would return billions of dollars in benefits to consumers every year. Separate studies by leading engineering firms Quanta Technologies and the Brattle Group found that using GETs in generator interconnection could reduce wholesale energy costs nationwide by over $5 billion per year.
GETs can also reduce grid congestion — when transmission infrastructure limits the delivery of lowest-cost power — which came to over $20 billion in 2022. GETs could have saved $2 billion-$8 billion in grid congestion every year for the past decade. GETs also mitigate the impacts of grid outages and find or create system flexibility that improves reliability.
Utility Dive (recommended)
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