EU Commission unveils ‘European Green Deal’ - Page 4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15101355
@BeesKnee5 @Atlantis

Once again. I am not saying the renewables is going to decline. Your argument was that low gas and oil prices is somehow good for renewable energy implementation. My argument that it is not. I understand that you want to post how wonderful everything else and we will be green in no time but you are not adressing the issue.

To Atlantis: Oil and gas industry survived for a decade during the 90s with the price of 10-20 dollars. You are saying that they are gonna die for some reason now with a higher price? :eh: Oil shale production will decrease but other sources will be pretty fine or may be decrease a bit mainly because of over supply. Also you are also misunderstanding cost of extraction and breakeven.

This is an example:

Image
#15101368
JohnRawls wrote:@BeesKnee5 @Atlantis

Once again. I am not saying the renewables is going to decline. Your argument was that low gas and oil prices is somehow good for renewable energy implementation. My argument that it is not. I understand that you want to post how wonderful everything else and we will be green in no time but you are not adressing the issue.

To Atlantis: Oil and gas industry survived for a decade during the 90s with the price of 10-20 dollars. You are saying that they are gonna die for some reason now with a higher price? :eh: Oil shale production will decrease but other sources will be pretty fine or may be decrease a bit mainly because of over supply. Also you are also misunderstanding cost of extraction and breakeven.

This is an example:

Image


This is a circular argument.
Your original claim was that oil and gas is cheaper than renewables.
You have failed to support this claim because you refuse to take into account the cost of converting oil and gas into electricity.

I've repeatedly highlighted that even when oil and gas is cheap it still fails to be cheaper than renewables sources. So why would it hamper renewables?

I am not misunderstanding the difference between cost and break even. I'm highlighting that cost alone is an insufficient measure as the sale must generate sufficent income to meet debt and future exploration, not just cover itself.
Claiming that Saudi Arabia would be able to continue as a rich state by selling oil at close to cost is just fanciful.

One other thing $15 in 1990 is the equivalent to $34 in 2019 due to inflation so I completely fail to see where you are going with this argument.
#15101389
@JohnRawls, I never said that sinking fossil fuel prices won't have an impact on renewable energy, but there is a limit to cost reductions in fossil fuel exploration, while there is far more potential for cost reduction in renewable energy. Large scale automated PV cell production will further reduce cost and improve efficiency of solar cells. Fixed offshore wind turbines will reduce cost by at least 30% in the next couple of decades. Floating wind turbines that can be installed at seabed depths of 100 meters will decrease the cost even more while substantially increasing the potential offshore energy capacity. Fossil fuel production just doesn't have that potential for cost reduction and too many people depend on the fossil fuel economy for their livelihood.

And the beauty of it is that, instead of transferring trillions of dollars to dodgy regimes in oil producing countries, we can use that money to create high-wage jobs in green technology in our own countries. And having pioneered green technology we'll be able to export it to the rest of the world. Only Trumptards refuse to understand that it's a win-win situation for industrial energy importing economies.
#15101514
There has been more than a decade of disinformation from Greens and their supporters about the cost of wind power.

First, we were assured that wind power costs were falling rapidly, and then that it had achieved ‘grid parity’.

Unfortunately for these charlatans, however, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, and we now have hard data from audited financial accounts for the majority of the UK’s offshore wind farms.

A paper in the journal Energy Policy reported that costs remain about 2-3 times those of gas and are falling only slowly, if at all.

Add the cost of dealing with the intermittent supply from wind farms, and the ratio may well be 4 to 1.

And before you start trying to tell me about the much lower wind-energy prices that are on the horizon – as (allegedly) revealed by recent bids into the government’s Contracts for Difference auctions – please note that these are not what they seem.

It is far more likely that they are an attempt to ward off competition and keep the subsidies flowing than a reflection of a fundamental change in costs.

https://climatechangedispatch.com/the-g ... nsion-pot/
#15101563
Sivad wrote:/


The last line is my favourite

'Read more at Conservative Woman'

I will look at the supporting evidence, just not today.

So I've looked.
The article is written by someone who is paid by GWPF, using two sources from the GWPF.

One source is straightforward propaganda with no evidence.

The other is using accounts between 2004-2017 to give an estimate of LCOE for wind farms. The comparison is made to a CCGT built in 1999.

This is fine, however as most of the lower cost off shore wind has only come online after 2016 then you have to question just what this means for recent wind farms. Certainly not what the author of the article is claiming it does.

Two things stand out on the second piece of evidence.
1. It gives its sources as the GWPF. So is effectively self referencing. This is the purpose of GWPF and the other Tufton street think tanks, provide misleading evidence to back up unsubstantiated claims.

2. There is only one reference to data after 2016. It shows turbine costs reduced from $2000 p\KW to less than $800 p/KW between 2009 and 2018.

And its conclusion was that the publicly available LCOE could be both higher or lower than that derived from accounts.

Image
#15105569
While phasing out nuclear and coal at the same time, German renewable energies now almost reach 56% of net generation. The biggest growth comes from wind energy.

Wind energy generated 30.6% of electricity in Germany

German renewable energies reach 55.8% of net generation for the first half of 2020, thanks to wind turbines and solar energy.


Image

In Spain, right now 22.73% is wind generated, 50.12% renewable energy.

https://demanda.ree.es/visiona/peninsula/demanda/total
#15106348
EU Commission charts path towards 100% renewable hydrogen

The European Commission unveiled plans on Wednesday (8 July) to promote hydrogen based entirely on renewable electricity like wind and solar, but said low-carbon hydrogen derived from fossil fuels will also be supported in order to scale up production in the short term.

Hydrogen is seen as a potential silver bullet to decarbonise hard-to-abate industrial sectors like steel and chemicals, which currently rely on fossil fuels and cannot easily switch to electricity. It is also seen as a long-term solution for shipping, aviation and heavy-duty road transport where electrification is not feasible at the moment.

“Hydrogen is a vital missing piece of the puzzle to help us reach this deeper decarbonisation,” said Kadri Simson, the EU’s energy commissioner who presented the strategy on Wednesday (8 July).

By 2050, the EU executive estimates that clean hydrogen could meet 24% of the world’s energy demand, with annual sales in the range of €630 billion. For Europe, that could translate into 1 million jobs in the hydrogen value chain.

But getting there will take time. Today, 96% of hydrogen today comes from fossil fuels, the Commission points out, saying: “The priority is to develop renewable hydrogen, produced using mainly wind and solar energy”.

That will require further cost reductions in technologies such as electrolysers, which aren’t expected to be fully mature until 2030 at the earliest, the Commission said in a statement.

Therefore, in the meantime, “other forms of low-carbon hydrogen are needed to rapidly reduce emissions and support the development of a viable market,” the Commission added, referring to carbon capture and storage (CCS) as well as hydrogen obtained from gas pyrolysis, which generates carbon in solid form instead of CO2.

The good news is that Europe is at the forefront of all these technologies, the Commission said.

“The new hydrogen economy can be a growth engine to help overcome the economic damage caused by COVID-19,” said Frans Timmermans, the Commission executive vice-president in charge of the Green Deal. “In developing and deploying a clean hydrogen value chain, Europe will become a global frontrunner and retain its leadership in clean tech,” he said.

In order to scale up production, the Commission said it will follow “a phased approach”:

From 2020 to 2024, the Commission’s objective is to support the installation of at least 6 gigawatts of renewable hydrogen electrolysers in the EU, in order to produce up to 1 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen.

From 2025 to 2030, hydrogen needs to become an intrinsic part of Europe’s integrated energy system, the Commission says, with at least 40 gigawatts of renewable hydrogen electrolysers and the production of up to 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen in the EU.

From 2030 to 2050, the aim is for renewable hydrogen technologies to reach maturity and be deployed at large scale across all hard-to-decarbonise sectors, such as chemicals and steelmaking.

To support Europe’s nascent renewable hydrogen industry, the Commission also set European Clean Hydrogen Alliance that will bring together industry leaders, national and regional ministers as well as civil society to “build up an investment pipeline for scaled-up production” and support demand for clean hydrogen in the EU.

“The Alliance is strategically important for our Green Deal ambitions and the resilience of our industry,” said Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market commissioner in charge of the alliance.

Chemicals and steelmaking

Most hydrogen in Europe today is generated and consumed by the chemicals industry, which sees it as “a viable option” to reduce CO2 emissions further in the future.

“Hydrogen can become an important low-carbon building block for the chemical industry’s production processes,” said Marco Mensink, director general at CEFIC, the EU chemical industry association.

“As one of the largest producers and consumers of hydrogen in Europe, it is a vital first step to see that these new strategies place the chemical sector at the heart of Europe’s future hydrogen economy,” he said.

Steelmaking is another key industrial sector which is expected to benefit from the widespread availability of clean hydrogen. For those sectors, the Commission intends to promote so-called carbon contracts for difference (‘CCfD’) that would remunerate investors by paying the difference between the CO2 strike price and the actual CO2 price on the EU carbon market.

Transition period

The difficult part will be to deal with the transition period until 2030 and avoid a lock-in effect into carbon-emitting sources of hydrogen.

“Of course there will be funding for CCS and pyrolysis technology,” said a senior Commission source who briefed the press on Wednesday.

“But we do not see this as a lock-in because the development of renewable hydrogen is a process that will take a while,” the official added, saying those investments have a lifecycle of around 25 years which could therefore be amortised by the time green hydrogen becomes competitive.

“In the transition period, we’re not going for fossil-based hydrogen,” the official insisted, effectively ruling out EU support for so-called “grey” hydrogen produced from steam methane reforming without CCS.

“Therefore, it is low-carbon hydrogen that we are using in the transitional period,” the official added.

This is why the carbon capture and storage will be essential in the transition period, said another senior Commission official. “We need the carbon capture solutions in order to quickly decarbonise as much as possible the existing production while scaling up renewable hydrogen production at the same time,” the source explained.

Russia has shown interest in developing pyrolysis technology, seeing it as a way to decarbonise its natural gas exports to Europe.

‘The right plan at the right time’

Transport and Environment (T&E), a green campaign group, hailed the Commission’s hydrogen strategy, saying it was “the right plan at the right time”.

“Hydrogen is the missing link in Europe’s strategy to decarbonise planes and ships where electrification is not an option,” said William Todts, executive director at T&E. “Now the EU needs to create laws that force airlines and shipping companies to start using zero-emission fuels including hydrogen, ammonia and synthetic kerosene,” he added.

T&E particularly welcomed the focus on zero-emissions trucking in the strategy, saying the Commission rightly identifies hydrogen and electrification as key technologies to achieve clean road freight.

However, Todts expressed doubts as to the Commission’s strategy of promoting low-carbon hydrogen with CCS in the transition period. “Hydrogen is only as clean as the energy used to produce it, and relying on fossil gas just delays the decarbonisation of the economy which the EU has committed to,” Todts said.

According to the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), a green campaign group, the Commission’s hydrogen strategy is simply “a gift to fossil fuel companies”.

“Investing in fossil-based hydrogen, whose production is already available at industrial scale, risks making truly clean and fossil-free hydrogen uncompetitive for the EU market and creating stranded assets. It’s a costly gamble that Europe cannot afford and could easily avoid,” said Barbara Mariani, senior policy officer for climate and energy at the EEB.



Airbus ponders hydrogen’s flying future

European aerospace giant Airbus sees hydrogen power as “one of the most promising technologies available” to decarbonise air travel and is looking to utilise it as part of plans to roll out a zero-emission aircraft by 2035.

CEO Guillaume Faury welcomed the publication of the European Commission’s hydrogen strategy on Wednesday (8 July), insisting his company is “committed to developing sustainable flight and believes hydrogen is one of the most viable solutions.”

Hydrogen is one of the most promising technologies available to help us reach zero-emission flights by 2035. We welcome the EU’s Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap, which enables us to live up to that ambition,” the firm added.
#15108134
In Europe, Portugal is the 4th country after Belgium, Austria and Sweden to phase out coal burning. More are to follow soon.

Portugal ends coal burning two years ahead of schedule

Portuguese energy utility EDP has announced the closure of its Sines coal power plant, bringing forward the planned shutdown of coal-fired power plants in the country by two years, from 2023 to 2021.

In addition to Sines, the company is preparing to close one more plant and convert another unit in Spain, EDP said in a statement.

The decision is “part of EDP group’s decarbonisation strategy” and was taken in a context in which energy production increasingly depends on renewable sources, the company said on Monday (13 July).

The falling cost of renewables, coupled with the rising cost of CO2 pollution permits on the EU carbon market, means that “the prospects for the viability of coal plants have drastically decreased,” EDP added.

“Last year, we saw an inevitable reduction in the prospects for profitability of coal power plants, with the rising costs of CO2 emissions and more competitive prices for natural gas,” said Miguel Stilwell d’Andrade, acting executive president of EDP.

“The decision to anticipate the closure of coal power plants in the Iberian Peninsula is thus a natural consequence of this energy transition process, in line with European carbon neutral targets and with the political will to anticipate these deadlines,” he said in a statement.

The move was hailed by climate campaigners pushing for a quick phase-out of coal power, the most polluting fossil fuel.

“Portugal had already accelerated its coal phase-coal from 2030 to 2023. The fact that it is being brought forward yet again to 2021 shows just how fast a country can clean up its energy system when it commits to clean energy and climate action,” said Kathrin Gutmann, director at the Europe Beyond Coal Campaign.

Portugal will be the third EU country to close its coal plants early, after Austria and Sweden did the same earlier this year.

Belgium was the first EU country to end coal, in 2016.

“Governments that have yet to plan a speedy coal exit are losing precious time to put in place ambitious coal exit plans that reflect market and policy realities,” Gutmann said.

Seven more countries are expected to end coal by 2025: France (2022), Slovakia (2023), Portugal (2023), the UK (2024), Ireland (2025) and Italy (2025), according to Europe Beyond Coal.


In good news for the climate, Sweden retires its last coal plant 2 years earlier than scheduled
#15108135
Atlantis wrote:This graph shows how nuclear energy prevents the development of renewable energy.

Image


May be in a very vague way. It is very unclear from it.
#15108149
Atlantis wrote:While Germany has 29% renewable energy, France has only 8% because it put all it's eggs into the nuclear basked. That is very clear.


That is one example. You don't make a conclusion on a sample of one. A lot of the countries in that picture have 0 nuclear energy production but they somehow both have high and low numbers for renewables. And the other way around -> UK has high nuclear power generation but has also high renewables at the same time.
#15108150
JohnRawls wrote:That is one example. You don't make a conclusion on a sample of one. A lot of the countries in that picture have 0 nuclear energy production but they somehow both have high and low numbers for renewables. And the other way around -> UK has high nuclear power generation but has also high renewables at the same time.


Even if it is only one example, it is also the most significant example. There is no other country that has invested as much in nuclear as France and, apart from Germany, there is no other large industrial country that has made the decision to exit nuclear. That explains why Germany has almost 4 times more renewable energy than France. All other countries are rather mixed without such a clear tendency.
#15108152
Atlantis wrote:Even if it is only one example, it is also the most significant example. There is no other country that has invested as much in nuclear as France and, apart from Germany, there is no other large industrial country that has made the decision to exit nuclear. That explains why Germany has almost 4 times more renewable energy than France. All other countries are rather mixed without such a clear tendency.


There is no such thing as the most significant example in statistics with a sample of one. That is pseudo-science.
#15108161
JohnRawls wrote:There is no such thing as the most significant example in statistics with a sample of one. That is pseudo-science.


Statistics doesn't ignore anything. Statistical analysis needs to be done properly though and you presented evidence where it is not done properly.
#15108247
JohnRawls wrote:Statistics doesn't ignore anything. Statistical analysis needs to be done properly though and you presented evidence where it is not done properly.


But you ignore the significance of an event. Ignoring the significance of the statistics you present is just another form of manipulating. Thus, some events or examples are more significant than others. Mass murder and a parking offense are both crimes, but treating them statistically as the same is very misleading.
#15108287
Atlantis wrote:But you ignore the significance of an event. Ignoring the significance of the statistics you present is just another form of manipulating. Thus, some events or examples are more significant than others. Mass murder and a parking offense are both crimes, but treating them statistically as the same is very misleading.

Nobody does that. You are just twisting things right now.

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