Share
Jason Ford
Jason Ford
News Editor
Renewable optimism, emissions gloom
One wonders whether Briefing should be re-named Agent Provocateur, given the red flag of renewable-energy optimism that is about to be waved in front of you.
A report is expected today from a European-wide think tank that will provide an analysis on the progress made toward powering Europe and North Africa with 100 per cent renewable electricity by 2050.
The consortium, which includes PricewaterhouseCoopers, is expected to reveal that renewable electricity generation capacity grew by 30 per cent in Europe in 2010 but further progress may depend on reform of the EU infrastructure planning and permits regime, on a democratic outcome to political unrest in the Middle East, or on efforts to increase the competitiveness of power markets for the benefit of European consumers.
This report comes on the day that the International Energy Agency (IEA) issued stark estimates regarding world CO2 emissions in relation to limiting global temperature rise to 2oC by 2020.
In a statement, the IEA estimates that emissions from energy sources climbed to 30.6 Gigatonnes (Gt) in 2010, a five per cent rise from 2008, when levels are said to have reached a record 29.3Gt. Emissions of CO2 from fuel sources stood at 44 per cent from coal; 36 per cent from oil; and 20 per cent from natural gas.
Furthermore, the IEA says that 80 per cent of projected emissions from the power sector in 2020 are already locked in, as they will come from power plants currently in place or under construction.
IEA believes limiting global temperature rise to 2oC, as agreed at UN climate change talks in Cancun last year, will require the long-term concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to be limited to around 450 parts per million of CO2-equivalent, a five per cent increase compared to an estimated 430 parts per million in 2000.
Still with renewable energy and news that Judith Farman, an electrical systems engineer with Dresser-Rand, is to give a talk tomorrow entitled ‘Advances in Wave-Power Technology’.
Taking place at The Adelaide in Teddington, Farman will take a two-pronged approach to the discussion, talking first about wave energy mathematical models, the difficulties in capturing wave energy and the myriad of installed and prototype equipment in the field.
Farman will then take attendees through Dresser-Rand’s HydroAir, a variable radius turbine used on oscillating water column power plants.
HydroAir is claimed to offer a higher efficiency and a wider range of operation than other OWC turbines such as the Wells turbine.
According to Dresser-Rand, incoming surface waves induce an oscillating flow of air within a chamber which flows back and forth through an air turbine installed in a duct connecting the chamber to the atmosphere. The turbine then converts this air movement into electrical energy. Click here to read more.
Still with power generation, this time with the diesel engine and a talk entitled ‘The Challenges for Applying Advanced Diesel Engine Technology in the Global Commercial Vehicle Market’.
Delivered by Dr Richard E Kleine, the SAE International Technical Exchange Lecture at Ricardo’s Shoreham Technical Centre will look at how regulations are necessitating the application of new technology to achieve more stringent emissions standards.
According to the event’s blurb, total systems engineering focus is required to ensure the design and development of reliable products - given their complexity - and the challenges presented in optimizing engine systems for the machines and vehicles in which they are used.
The application of more complex systems is resulting in challenges not only for the engineer but for the mechanic maintaining and the repair technician to diagnose and fix problems.
Similarly, more complex systems may require specific fuels and lubricants specifications that when not available can have significant consequences to the machine/vehicle operation and reliability.
The event’s publicity material goes on to state that the need for more detailed processes to ensure the delivery of good performance, reliable and safe products will be discussed and an approach to total systems integration will be presented.
View results 10 per page | 20 per page
Readers' comments (12)
Peter Jones | 31 May 2011 2:09 pm
This underlines the madness of failing to break the link (real and imagined) between economic development and increasing power demands.
Power conservation should be at the forefront of global thinking.
Why do we need High Speed trains that use up to four times the energy if trains that only travel at 135 mph.
Why do we need to light up the Globe every night?
And why do we need to increase the speed limit on UK roads to 80mph?
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Bill Baird | 31 May 2011 2:12 pm
if the UK government legislation did not induce hydro producers to reduce the output of their units deliberately and pay them to do so there would be far less of a power reserve problem than there exists currently
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Brian Pollard | 31 May 2011 2:23 pm
Once again we see in the renewable energy world a concentration only on electricity generation, which accounts for only an eighth of our total fossil fuel use.
The report mentioned is going to show the progress made towards powering Europe and North Africa with 100 percent renewable electricity by 2050. In other words, progress towards meeting 12% of renewable total energy by 2050, leaving a mere 88% unaccounted for.
And what is the whizz technology that IEA is going to talk about the day after? Our old friend wave power. Even in the UK, which is unusually highly favoured for wave power generation, the calculations in “Without Hot Air” show that tidal and wave power could possibly deliver about 12% of our total energy if constructed on a scale that completely dwarfs the small experimental systems that have been developed in the last 15 years. And then if it’s cost effective. The wave power systems developed so far are so tiny, and so far away in concept from the required scale for real power generation, it is not even possible to estimate the likely cost of providing usefully large systems.
What this whole area lacks is a vision of how we are going to achieve the proper goal of completely renewable energy by 2050. Instead, there is a hotch-potch of unrelated ideas such as biofuels (now discredited), more nuclear power (expensive and too small to make a real difference), solar PV (very expensive and highly subsidised, and useless in the winter), hybrid cars, and wave power, all of which contribute in small ways, but none of them are ever placed and sized against the overall requirements so we can see how much they each can be expected to contribute, and how much is missing (which in fact is most of it, as described above).
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Bill White | 31 May 2011 2:28 pm
No new non carbon neutral buildings from now on, (why not?). New big offshore power distribution grid, (Why not). Single British standard for power output and transmission for renewables, (why not?). Abandon marinized wind turbines for tide power generation and concentrate on real innovative practical new systems, (why do we have multiple versions of the same thing under test?). Admit that regardless of environmental impact we cannot import energy in any form and stay solvent as a country, (why not?).
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Brian J. BAKER | 31 May 2011 3:02 pm
Stark warning indeed. 20ppm increase now equates to 5%. Some more maths. If the world pre-industrial was 260ppm CO2 and the present level of 430ppm has resulted in a temperature rise of 0.6degC how can a 20ppm increase equate to a 2degC rise, especially, as the IPCC AR4 admitted, the earths temperature response to a rise in CO2 is logarithmic.
We have to stop all this green madness as it is going to cost real jobs as the fusion researchers at Culham are finding. The lab faces an estimated £400,000 payment next year, raising the spectre of job losses and operational cuts directly as result of the governments carbon reduction committment. This is in addition to the huge scale backs in future investment in the oil and gas industries. There is enough shale gas that could be developed to power our energy need until well into the next century. But you wish to highlight technologies that will provide only a miniscule amount of power.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Jim H. White | 31 May 2011 3:49 pm
Again and again I still see the focus on increases in supply when the real opportunities will be in demand reduction. What the UK needs is their own summary report on the cost of demand reduction, for all types of use, versus the cost of supply. Remember that most of demand reduction stays with you long after the event while supply increases often peter out over time.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Brian J. BAKER | 31 May 2011 4:05 pm
Re: Jim H. White
Around our neck of the woods we had a lot of demand reduction last winter with people being forced to choose between eating and heating.
Why bother with euphemisms! Much nicer than saying starving or freezing!
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
John Harrison | 31 May 2011 4:52 pm
I'm all for addressing the problem - establish the cause and stop the spread -rather than finding unsustainable solutions. It's like we have an infected wound and rather than treat the infection, we seem hell bent on finding bigger and bigger plasters.
While we're having a go at the motoring fraternity, why have we littered our streets with speed bumps so that we are now constantly accelarate, brake, accelarate, brake, etc. I'll wager that this uses more fuel on a day-to-day basis than some people driving at 80mph, in addition to the damage done to vehicles.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Colin Megson | 31 May 2011 4:53 pm
I was 54 years in mechanical engineering when I retired 3 years ago and only 9 months ago I picked up on the uniqueness of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTRs).
It's ridiculous that on a forum for young engineers, like this one, none of them can be bothered to investigate the potential of a technology capable of answering some of the worst problems facing humankind.
Get real and stop filling your heads with the pathetic 'solutions' ranted about in many of the comments.
Half a dozen companies in the UK could manufacture the (relatively) simple, say, 100 MWe LFTRs on factory production lines. They are so cheap that developing countries and regions can afford them and the market will be for tens of thousands of such units.
The UK has a few years to jump-the-gun on the likes of China and create manufacturing jobs, growth and prosperity we haven't seen in 3 generations. Otherwise, we'll be buying them in by the containership-full, as the cheapest way of meeting our carbon targets.
Move your backsides; you've been warned.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Ken R | 1 Jun 2011 9:58 am
I agree with some of the other contributors on waste of expensive fuel caused by traffic calming measures especially were the road is narrowed so that you have to give way to oncoming traffic. Also the long queues that build up behind the recycling lorry as the operatives block the road while sorting bottles etc. The collection of a prescription every month rather than every 3 months as was the case a few years ago. The buses that stop in the road; why does every bus stop not have a layby?. We also have the bussing of children around as the school allocation system is a mess. And don’t get me started on the Chelsea tractors delivering one child to school and the picking it up afterwards. Some of the one way systems also increase both journey time and distance. Un-coordinated road works... the list goes on.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment