Energy & the Environment News and Discussions

[weatheriscool]

Graphene-wrapped zeolite membranes for fast hydrogen separation
https://phys.org/news/2022-05-graphene- ... rogen.html
by Shinshu University

The effects of global warming are becoming more serious, and there is a strong demand for technological advances to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Hydrogen is an ideal clean energy which produces water when burned. To promote the use of hydrogen energy, it is essential to develop safe, energy-saving technologies for hydrogen production and storage. Currently, hydrogen is made from natural gas, so it is not appropriate for decarbonization. Using a lot of energy to separate hydrogen would not make it qualify as clean energy.

Polymer separation membranes have the great advantage of enlarging the separation membrane and increasing the separation coefficient. However, the speed of permeation through the membrane is extremely low, and high pressure must be applied to increase the permeation speed. Therefore, a large amount of energy is required for separation using a polymer separation membrane. The goal is to create a new kind of separation membrane technology that can achieve separation speeds that are 50 times faster than that of conventional separation membranes.

[raklian]

[Yuli Ban]

[wjfox]

[Tadasuke]

Renewables growth every year is faster than expected, because expectations are linear and growth is exponential.

[wjfox]

The IEA's predictions on solar have been consistently laughable.

[weatheriscool]

UK imposes 25% energy windfall tax to help households as bills surge
Source: Reuters

Britain announced a 25% windfall tax on oil and gas producers' profits on Thursday, alongside a 15 billion pound ($18.9 billion) package of support for households struggling to meet soaring energy bills. The move, which will give each UK household a 400 pound discount on their energy bill and more for lowest-income households, marks a change of heart for Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government, which had previously resisted windfall taxes, calling them a deterrent to investment. It is the second emergency policy intervention to help with rising bills this year.

Facing intense political pressure to provide more support for people coping with what political opponents and campaigners have called a cost-of-living crisis, finance minister Rishi Sunak said energy firms were making extraordinary profits while Britons struggled. "We will introduce a temporary and targeted energy profits levy but we have built into the new levy a new investment allowance that means companies will have a new and significant incentive to reinvest their profits," Sunak told parliament. "The more a company invests, the less tax they will pay."

Sunak did not refer to it as a windfall tax. He said it would raise 5 billion pounds ($6.30 billion) in the next 12 months and be phased out as oil and gas prices return to normal. He did not set out how the rest of the package would be funded. He also said there would be a new Investment Allowance that would nearly double the tax relief available for firms on their investments. On Tuesday the UK energy regulator said that a cap on gas and electricity bills was set to rise by another 40% in October, cause by a surge in global energy prices.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-mus ... 022-05-26/

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

Gas prices hit yet another record high
Source: CNN

Millions of Americans traveling this holiday weekend are being greeted by unprecedented prices at the gas pump.

The national average for regular gasoline rose to a fresh record of $4.62 a gallon on Monday, according to AAA. That’s up by a penny from Sunday and 44 cents more expensive than a month ago.

Gas prices are up sharply from last Memorial Day, when they averaged $3.05 a gallon, according to AAA.

Seven states are now averaging $5-a-gallon gas, with the latest being Illinois (rounded up from $4.996). New York and Arizona are just pennies away from hitting that milestone. And there are no states where gas prices average less than $4.10 a gallon.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/30/business ... index.html

[weatheriscool]

Gazprom suspends gas deliveries to Dutch trader GasTerra
Source: Reuters

AMSTERDAM, May 30 (Reuters) - GasTerra will no longer receive gas from Russia's Gazprom from May 31 after refusing to agree to Moscow's demands for payment in roubles, the two companies said on Monday. GasTerra, which buys and trades gas on behalf of the Dutch government, said it had contracted elsewhere for the 2 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas it had expected to receive from Gazprom through October.

The company is 50% owned by Dutch government entities and 25% each by Shell and Exxon(XOM.N). "We understand GasTerra's decision not to agree to Gazprom's unilaterally imposed payment conditions," Dutch Energy Minister Rob Jetten wrote on Twitter. "This decision will have no consequences for the physical delivery of gas to Dutch households." A GasTerra statement said the Dutch company had decided not to adopt the system that Russia had demanded, which involved the setting up of accounts that would be paid in euros and then swapped for roubles.

The company said such measures could violate European Union sanctions and also said the payment route presented too many financial and operational risks. A statement from Gazprom said that its suspension of gas supplies to GasTerra will continue until payments are settled in line with the Russia-proposed scheme.

GasTerra said that it had repeatedly asked Gazprom to adhere to its contractual payment methods and delivery obligations. "It is not possible to say in advance what impact the dropping off of 2 bcm of Russian gas will have on the supply and demand situation in the European market," the Dutch company added.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy ... 022-05-30/

[weatheriscool]

India's imports of cheap Russian crude surge since Ukraine invasion
Source: Reuters

NEW DELHI, May 30 (Reuters) - India has received 34 million barrels of discounted Russian oil since Moscow invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, according to Refinitiv Eikon data, more than trebling the value of total imports from Russia, including other products, compared with the same period of 2021.

The volumes of India's seaborne oil imports from Russia exclude CPC Blend oil, which is also exported via Russia's Black Sea port, but mostly supplied by Kazakhstan's subsidiaries of western countries as transit volumes. India's oil imports from Russia have been rising since February, as Asia's third largest economy and the world's third biggest oil importer, turned to deeply discounted Russian oil, mostly Urals crude, to cut its imports bill.

The country received more than 24 million barrels of Russian crude this month, up from 7.2 million barrels in April and about 3 million in March, and is set to receive about 28 million barrels in June, according to Refinitiv Eikon oil flows. Surging energy imports helped push India's total goods imports from Russia between Feb. 24 and May 26 to $6.4 billion, compared with $1.99 billion in the same period last year, according to government figures seen by Reuters.

Reuters Graphics


Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy ... 022-05-30/

[weatheriscool]

EU leaders agree on partial embargo on Russian oil
Source: AP

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders reached a compromise Monday to impose a partial oil embargo on Russia at a summit focused on helping Ukraine with a long-delayed package of sanctions that was blocked by Hungary.

The watered-down embargo covers only Russian oil brought in by sea, allowing a temporary exemption for imports delivered by pipeline. EU Council President Charles Michel said on Twitter the agreement covers more than two-thirds of oil imports from Russia, “cutting a huge source of financing for its war machine. Maximum pressure on Russia to end the war.”

The EU had already imposed five previous rounds of sanctions on Russia over its war. It has targeted more than 1,000 people, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and top government officials, as well as pro-Kremlin oligarchs, banks, the coal sector and more. But the sixth package of measures announced May 4 had been held up by concerns over oil supplies.

Hungary Prime minister Viktor Orban had made clear he could support the new sanctions only if his country’s oil supply security was guaranteed. The landlocked country gets more than 60% of its oil from Russia and depends on crude that comes through the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... 41b03b2ad4

[caltrek]

Solar-Biomass Hybrid System Satisfies Home Heating Requirements in Winter
May 31, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) WASHINGTON, May 31, 2022 – Adding an organic matter power source to a solar energy unit could provide 100% heating for a single-story home during the coldest months of the year and help the environment. In the warmer months, the system could generate electricity surpluses that can be sold back to the grid.

In Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, published by AIP Publishing, researchers in China and the United States outline a computer simulation model addressing the challenge of solar power's inherent intermittency by adding biomass as another renewable energy source to advance a reliable, affordable heating solution while reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

"We demonstrate how this hybrid system provides a cleaner, more energy-efficient heating solution than fossil fuel in single-family homes," co-author Gaoyang Hou said. "The system would be convenient in rural communities, where farms have large amounts of biomass in the form of agricultural waste that can be combined with solar power to close the urban-rural electricity gap and help the environment in the process."

The proposed solar-biomass hybrid system is based on distributed multi-generation technology that integrates photovoltaic-thermal (PV/T) and biomass power sources.

Biomass is produced from renewable organic matter, like corn husks, nut shells, wood pulp, and food and animal waste. A PV/T system, composed of PV panels and thermal collectors, is an emerging technology that converts solar energy into both heat and electricity with higher energy conversion efficiency.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/954209

[weatheriscool]

Scientists Find World's Largest Plant In Australia
Source: Huffington Post

Researchers were stunned when they discovered a species of seagrass had effectively cloned itself for 4,500 years and covered nearly 80 square miles.

By
Nick Visser
Jun. 1, 2022, 04:22 AM EDT | Updated 5 hours ago

SYDNEY ― Researchers have made a startling discovery beneath the waters off Western Australia. A meadow of sea grass stretching more than 110 miles long was actually a single plant that had spent the past 4,500 years cloning itself to carpet an area three times larger than Manhattan.

The findings, published Wednesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, make the colony of Posidonia australis, or ribbon weed, the largest known plant on Earth, scientists said.

Elizabeth Sinclair, a senior research fellow at the University of Western Australia and a lead author of the study, said her team has been testing seagrass meadows around Australia for genetic diversity for years to see how they respond to climate change. When her team visited an area known as Shark Bay, a relatively pristine landscape untouched by development, they went beneath the waves to collect samples of seagrass to see what types of plants were growing across the ocean floor.

The answer was one.

“It’s quite bizarre when you think about it, there’s this plant in one end of the bay and then you move 100 kilometers down to the other end and it’s the same plant,” Sinclair said.

Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/worlds-l ... b53b7ed338

[caltrek]

Leading Scientist Warns That We Cannot Adapt Our Way Out of Climate Crisis
by Fiona Harvey
June 1, 2022

Introduction:

(The Guardian) The world cannot adapt its way out of the climate crisis, and counting on adaptation to limit damage is no substitute for urgently cutting greenhouse gases, a leading climate scientist has warned.

Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy in the US and professor at Texas Tech University, said the world was heading for dangers unseen in the 10,000 years of human civilisation, and efforts to make the world more resilient were needed but by themselves could not soften the impact enough.

“People do not understand the magnitude of what is going on,” she said. “This will be greater than anything we have ever seen in the past. This will be unprecedented. Every living thing will be affected.”

While countries can start to adapt to some of the impacts, for instance with seawalls and flood barriers, and by making their infrastructure more resilient to extreme weather, if global heating is allowed to continue then the world will rapidly reach a point beyond what can be adapted to.

“If we continue with business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions, there is no adaptation that is possible. You just can’t,” she said, in an interview with the Guardian.

Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -scientist

[weatheriscool]

Canada ranks third worldwide in permeable landscapes for wildlife
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-canada-wo ... dlife.html
by University of British Columbia

Canada ranks third in the world for animal movement between protected areas, finds new UBC research.

Researchers have created the first global map of where mammals are most likely to move between protected areas, such as national parks and nature reserves. Lead author Dr. Angela Brennan, a research associate at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, says she hopes the data will help countries measure their success at protecting biodiversity over time.

Canada has many areas that are critical to animal movement, and therefore biodiversity, including the Yukon to Yellowstone corridor, and from the Coastal Mountains in B.C. to the North Cascade mountains in the United States. "Animals need to be able to move to find food, water, and mates, to maintain those vitally important flows of genes and other ecological processes across our landscapes," says Dr. Brennan. "Without connectivity—when animal movement is blocked—animal populations become isolated and these flows can stop, putting species and habitats at risk."

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

Scientists announce a breakthrough in determining life's origin on Earth—and maybe Mars
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-scientist ... -mars.html
by Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution

Scientists at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution announced today that ribonucleic acid (RNA), an analog of DNA that was likely the first genetic material for life, spontaneously forms on basalt lava glass. Such glass was abundant on Earth 4.35 billion years ago. Similar basalts of this antiquity survive on Mars today.

"Communities studying the origins of life have diverged in recent years," remarked Steven Benner, a co-author of the study appearing online in the journal Astrobiology.

"One community re-visits classical questions with complex chemical schemes that require difficult chemistry performed by skilled chemists," Benner explained. "Their beautiful craftwork appears in brand-name journals such as Nature and Science." However, precisely because of the complexity of this chemistry, it cannot possibly account for how life actually originated on Earth.

[wjfox]

Solar and wind keep getting cheaper as the field becomes smarter

Every time solar and wind output doubles, the cost gets cheaper and cheaper.

Doug Johnson - 6/3/2022, 5:18 PM

As solar and wind energy ramps up in the United States, the industries have gotten better at installing and operating their facilities. This experience can be seen in how the facilities are financed. According to new research, people working in the fields—and adjacent ones—have learned to be more efficient, reducing the overall cost of power. Further, according to Mark Bolinger, a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and one of the paper's authors, this so-called learning rate can be extrapolated into the future, and it spells good news for the two renewable sources of energy.

"The people who operate these turbines naturally get better over time as they do more of it. They get more efficient, and it allows them to lower their costs a bit," Bolinger told Ars, adding that the same holds true for the workers manufacturing the facilities. "Some of them have been doing it for a really long time… All things being equal, that should lead to a reduction in manufacturing costs."

There's a large amount of literature on learning rate and learning curve theory, he said. Moore's Law, which pertains to the power of silicon computer chips, says that the number of transistors per silicon chip doubles each year. Bolinger said that the learning rate in these renewable energy operations is similar to that. Learning rate is a measure of how much cost declines for each doubling of cumulative output, he said.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/06 ... s-smarter/

[wjfox]

Wind power meets and beats Denmark’s total electricity demand – two days in a row

2 June 2022

Windy conditions in northern Europe have highlighted once again the growing value of wind energy, which provided more than 100% of Denmark’s electricity consumption for two days in a row in May.

Keen-eyed Twitter user Troels Christensen posted on May 28 a screenshot of wind power figures from WindEurope’s Wind Power Numbers Daily tracker.

WindEurope, the region’s leading wind energy trade association, tracks wind generation figures for Europe as well as hourly electricity figures for many European countries.

As can be seen in the screenshot above, Denmark generated 94.9GWh worth of wind energy on May 27, which represented 108.1% of the country’s power demand.

Similarly, as representative of the day’s conditions, the share of wind energy in electricity demand for Western Europe was just under 24%.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/wind-power- ... -in-a-row/