Global study reveals effectiveness of protected area

Certain countries perform significantly better than their neighbors in the effectiveness of their protected areas, finds new study.

OKINAWA INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (OIST) GRADUATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

IMAGE: DEFORESTATION IS THE REMOVAL OF TREES FROM PREVIOUSLY FORESTED AREAS IN ORDER TO USE THE LAND OR RESOURCES FOR OTHER PURPOSES, INCLUDING LUMBER, MINING AND AGRICULTURE. ONE OF THE KEY... view more 

CREDIT: PIXABAY

• Researchers have conducted a global study on the effectiveness of recently established protected areas in preventing forest loss

• The study explores protected area performance by countries, with South Africa, Cambodia, Latvia, Guatemala, Uruguay, Brazil and New Zealand leading the way in the effectiveness of their protected areas

• The research team estimated that overall, protected areas established between 2000-2012 prevented 86,062 square kilometers of forest loss

• If all countries had protected areas that were as effective as their top-performing neighbor, then an additional 33,020 square kilometers of forests would have been saved

• Machine learning found that agricultural activity, economic growth and governance were associated with effectiveness

Scientists have published a global study on the effectiveness of protected areas in preventing deforestation.

The study, published recently in Environmental Research Letters, explored the success of country-level protected areas at reducing forest loss, and used machine learning to uncover some of the factors that contribute to differences in effectiveness.

"Protected areas are a key conservation tool that are essential for stemming the tide of biodiversity and habitat loss across the Earth," said first author, Dr. Payal Shah, a research scientist at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), who specializes in applying economic theory to conservation.

She added: "Scientists are calling for 30% of land and ocean to be protected by 2030. But as more and more land is placed under protection, it's increasingly important to measure how well each protected area is working, so policy makers can make more informed decisions about future conservation efforts."

CAPTION

A global study, conducted by OIST researcher, Dr. Payal Shah, estimated protected area effectiveness by country, ranging from least effective (red) to most effective (dark green).

CREDIT

OIST

For the study, the research team used satellite data of forest cover between the years 2000-2012, focusing on protected areas that had been established during this timeframe. Countries that had not placed a large enough area of land into protection were removed from the analysis.

For the 81 countries that remained in the analysis, 3.2 million square kilometers of land had been placed into protection. The research team then estimated how effective these protected areas were by comparing changes in forest cover between protected and statistically matched unprotected areas. The areas of land were matched using a wide range of factors that are important predictors of deforestation, including their distance to cities, their elevation from sea level and the slope of the land.

"The aim was to try and understand how much deforestation would have occurred in an alternative scenario - if an area had not been placed under protection," explained Dr. Shah.

The researchers found that overall, around 34,000 square kilometers of forest was lost within newly established protected areas between 2000 and 2012 - an area larger than the size of Belgium. However, they estimated that if these protected areas had not been put into place, an additional 86,062 square kilometers of forest would have also been lost. This would have meant that an area of land totaling around 120,000 square kilometers - the size of North Korea - would have been deforested.

"This means that protected areas on the whole reduced deforestation by 72%, which is great news," said Dr. Shah. "But when you start breaking down the data by country, the results are more mixed."

The scientists saw that protected areas in some countries performed significantly better than other countries within their region. Leading the way were South Africa, Cambodia, Latvia, Guatemala, Uruguay, Brazil and New Zealand, for the regions of Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South American and Oceania, respectively.

The research team estimated that if all the other countries' protected areas had been as successful as the best performing country in their region, then an additional 33,020 square kilometers of forests would have been saved, which would have reduced deforestation within the newly established protected areas to roughly 1000 square kilometers only.

"The countries in each region are battling against similar key drivers of deforestation, such as timber logging or wildfires, so theoretically, every country has the potential to do equally well," said Dr. Shah. "But we are seeing these huge disparities in the effectiveness of their protected areas. So of course, we then want to understand the underlying factors."

One main factor found was based on the strictness of the protected areas. Strictness categories are based on the degree of human activity or use of natural resources allowed on the land. In most countries, more strictly protected areas were more effective than less strictly protected areas.

Next, the researchers fed data on the demographics, agriculture, economy and politics of each country into a machine learning algorithm, which then identified which factors were most strongly linked to the effectiveness of the country's protected area network.

Countries with high levels of economic growth were associated with higher levels of effectiveness for protected areas.

Meanwhile, countries with higher levels of agricultural activity tended to have less effective protected areas, particularly in countries that had a lower quality of governance and growing rural populations.

"This was expected as agriculture and deforestation often go hand in hand," explained Dr. Shah. "Land is a limited resource so in countries with high agricultural activity, there may be a large deforestation pressures within protected areas in countries that lack proper governance."

However, the researchers emphasized that more in-depth research needs to be done on a country-by-country basis to confirm the reasons underlying these associations.

"As a global analysis, this study allows us to pinpoint which countries are doing well, and which are doing less well," said Dr. Shah. "We can then carry out more targeted research in these countries to help support more effective conservation strategies."

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Mathematical model predicts the movement of microplastics in the ocean

A new model tracking the vertical movement of algae-covered microplastic particles offers hope in the fight against plastic waste in our ocean

NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

A new model tracking the vertical movement of algae-covered microplastic particles offers hope in the fight against plastic waste in our oceans.

Research led by Newcastle University's Dr Hannah Kreczak is the first to identify the processes that underpin the trajectories of microplastics below the ocean surface. Publishing their findings in the journal Limnology and Oceanography the authors analysed how biofouling - the accumulation of algae on the surface of microplastics, impacts the vertical movement of buoyant particles.

The researchers found that particle properties are the biggest factor in determining the period and characteristics of the repetitive vertical movement below the surface, while the algal population dynamics determine the maximum depth reached. Their findings also show that the smallest particles are extremely sensitive to algal cell attachment and growth, suggesting they are always submerged at depths surrounding the base of the euphotic zone, the layer closer to the surface that receives enough light to support photosynthesis, or could become trapped in large algal colonies.

In general, the results suggest that a higher concentration of biofouled microplastic is expected to be found subsurface, close to the euphotic zone depth rather than at the ocean's surface.

Microplastics (fragments with a diameter smaller than 5mm) make up 90% of the plastic debris found at the ocean surface and the amount of plastic entering our ocean is significantly larger than the estimates of floating plastic on the surface of the ocean. However, it is not exactly known what happens to these particles once they enter the ocean, and 99% of microplastics within our ocean are considered missing.

This new model has the potential to understand the distribution of fouled plastics in the ocean and therefore the ecological impact, particularly in areas of high concentration.

Dr Hannah Kreczak, EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellow at Newcastle University's School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics, said: "Mathematical modelling has been extremely beneficial in identifying hot-spots for marine plastic pollution on the ocean surface. I hope this research can be a constructive step in understanding the impact plastic pollution has below the surface and aid in the effort towards a more sustainable ocean."

Co-Author Dr Andrew Baggaley, Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics, added: "This is an exciting first step in our project to develop a comprehensive modelling framework to understand the transport of microplastic particles and their distribution in the oceans."

Future research by the team will focus on the fluid motion in the ocean mixed layer, to allow for even more complete assessment of microplastic vertical distributions in the ocean.

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Muon g-2 Experiment Results – Profound Implications for the History of the Universe

TOPICS:Fermi National Accelerator LaboratoryParticle PhysicsPopularUniversity Of Chicago

By LOUISE LERNER, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO JULY 10, 2021

Peering down a row of magnets leading to the particle storage ring at Fermilab’s Muon g-2 experiment. The results have theoretical physicists around the world frantically working through ideas for explanations. Credit: Photo by Cindy Arnold/Fermilab

Experiment opens up field for new physics, say Fermilab, UChicago scientists.

The news that muons have a little extra wiggle in their step sent word buzzing around the world this spring.

The Muon g-2 experiment hosted at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced on April 7 that they had measured a particle called a muon behaving slightly differently than predicted in their giant accelerator. It was the first unexpected news in particle physics in years.

Everyone’s excited, but few more so than the scientists whose job it is to spitball theories about how the universe is put together. For these theorists, the announcement has them dusting off old theories and speculating on new ones.

“To a lot of us, it looks like and smells like new physics,” said Prof. Dan Hooper. “It may be that one day we look back at this and this result is seen as a herald.”

Gordan Krnjaic, a fellow theoretical physicist, agreed: “It’s a great time to be a speculator.”

The two scientists are affiliated with the University of Chicago and Fermilab; neither worked directly on the Muon g-2 experiment, but both were elated by the results. To them, these findings could be a clue that points the way to unraveling the last mysteries of particle physics—and with it, our understanding of the universe as a whole.

The Muon g-2 ring sits in its detector hall amidst electronics racks, the muon beamline, and other equipment. This impressive experiment operates at negative 450 degrees Fahrenheit and studies the precession, or “wobble,” of particles called muons as they travel through the magnetic field. Credit: Reidar Hahn/Fermilab

Setting the Standard

The problem was that everything was going as expected.

Based on century-old experiments and theories going back to the days of Albert Einstein’s early research, scientists have sketched out a theory of how the universe—from its smallest particles to its largest forces—is put together. This explanation, called the Standard Model, does a pretty good job of connecting the dots. But there are a few holes—things we’ve seen in the universe that aren’t accounted for in the model, like dark matter.

No problem, scientists thought. They built bigger experiments, like the Large Hadron Collider in Europe, to investigate the most fundamental properties of particles, sure that this would yield clues. But even as they looked more deeply, nothing they found seemed out of step with the Standard Model. Without new avenues to investigate, scientists had no idea where and how to look for explanations for the discrepancies like dark matter.

Then, finally, the Muon g-2 experiment results came in from Fermilab (which is affiliated with the University of Chicago). The experiment reported a tiny difference between how muons should behave according to the Standard Model, and what they were actually doing inside the giant accelerator.

What is a muon, and how does the Muon g-2 experiment work? Fermilab scientists explain the significance of the result.

Murmurs broke out around the world, and the minds of Hooper, Krnjaic and their colleagues in theoretical physics began to race. Almost any explanation for a new wrinkle in particle physics would have profound implications for the history of the universe.

That’s because the tiniest particles affect the largest forces in the universe. The minute differences in the masses of each particle affect the way that the universe expanded and evolved after the Big Bang. In turn, that affects everything from how galaxies are held together down to the nature of matter itself. That’s why scientists want to precisely measure how the butterfly flapped its wings.

The likely suspects

So far, there are three main possible explanations for the Muon g-2 results—if it is indeed new physics and not an error.

One is a theory known as “supersymmetry,” which was very fashionable in the early 2000s, Hooper said. Supersymmetry suggests that that each subatomic particle has a partner particle. It’s attractive to physicists because it’s an overarching theory that explains several discrepancies, including dark matter; but the Large Hadron Collider hasn’t seen any evidence for these extra particles. Yet.

Another possibility is that some undiscovered, relatively heavy form of matter interacts strongly with muons.

Finally, there could also exist some other kinds of exotic light particles, as yet undiscovered, that interact weakly with muons and cause the wobble. Krnjaic and Hooper wrote a paper laying out what such a light particle, which they called “Z prime,” could mean for the universe.

“These particles would have to have existed since the Big Bang, and that would mean other implications—for example, they could have an impact on how fast the universe was expanding in its first few moments,” Krnjaic said.

That could dovetail with another mystery that scientists are pondering, called the Hubble constant. That number is supposed to indicate how fast the universe is expanding, but it varies slightly according to which way you measure it—a discrepancy which could indicate a missing piece in our knowledge.

Almost any explanation for a new wrinkle in particle physics would have profound implications for the history of the universe.

There are other, further-out possibilities, such as that the muons are being bumped by particles winking in and out of existence from other dimensions. (“One thing particle physicists are rarely accused of is a lack of creativity,” said Hooper.)

But the scientists said it’s important not to dismiss theories out of hand, no matter how wild they may sound.

“We don’t want to overlook something just because it sounded weird,” said Hooper. “We’re constantly trying to shake the trees to get every idea we can out there. We want to hunt this down everywhere it could be hiding.”

Sigma steps

The first step, however, is to confirm that the Muon g-2 result holds true. Scientists have a system to tell whether the results of an experiment are real and not just a blip in the data. The result announced in April reached 4.2 sigma; the benchmark that means it’s almost certainly true is 5 sigma.

“If it’s really new physics, we’ll be much closer to knowing in a year or two,” said Hooper. The Muon g-2 experiment has much more data to sift through. Meanwhile, the results of some very complicated theoretical calculations—so complex that even the most powerful supercomputers in the world need to chew on them for months to years—should be coming down the pike.

Those results, if they get to a 5 sigma confidence level, will point scientists where to go next. For example, Krnjaic helped propose a Fermilab program called M3 that could narrow the possibilities by firing a beam of muons at a metal target—measuring the energy before and after the muons hit. Those results could indicate the presence of a new particle.

Meanwhile, at the French-Swiss border, the Large Hadron Collider is scheduled to upgrade to a higher luminosity that will produce more collisions. New evidence for particles or other phenomena could pop up in their data.

All this excitement over a wobble might seem like an overreaction. But tiny discrepancies can, and have, led to massive shakeups. Back in the 1850s, astronomers making measurements of Mercury’s orbit noticed it was off a little from what Newton’s theory of gravity would predict. “That anomaly, along with other evidence, eventually led us to the theory of general relativity,” said Hooper.

“No one knew what it was about, but it got people thinking and experimenting. My hope is that one day we’ll look back at this muon result the same way.”

References:

“Measurement of the Positive Muon Anomalous Magnetic Moment to 0.46 ppm” by B. Abi et al. (Muon g-2 Collaboration), 7 April 2021, Physical Review Letters.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.141801

“Magnetic-field measurement and analysis for the Muon g – 2 Experiment at Fermilab” by T. Albahri et al. (The Muon g-2 Collaboration), 7 April 2021, Physical Review A.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.103.042208

Nuclear-Powered Crypto Plant Planned for PA Next Year. What Could Go Wrong?

By Nathaniel Mott

Good, clean crypto energy.

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Cryptocurrency mining is going nuclear in the home of America's first capital. Data Center Dynamics today reported that Talen Energy plans to establish a nuclear-powered mining operation and data center that will have up to 300MW of on-site power when it's finished, sometime after 2Q 2022.

The mining operation and data center will be built next to the company's Susquehanna Steam Electric Station in Pennsylvania, according to the report, and Talen Energy could eventually triple its capacity to 1GW of on-site power.

The facility's power capacity would grow in stages. It's expected to have 164MW of capacity "supported by dual 1+GW nuclear units and two independent substations" when the first phase of development is complete, Data Center Dynamics reported.

This isn't the first time nuclear-powered crypto mining has been proposed. Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy considered mining with nuclear power in February, and in June, the mayor of Miami pushed for the city's nuclear energy to go toward mining.

Talen Energy to build 300MW nuclear-powered cryptomining facility and data center in US

Energy company planning to bring Susquehanna Hyperscale Campus online in Q2 2022

July 12, 2021 

By

 

Dan Swinhoe

 

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US power company Talen Energy is planning to develop a nuclear-powered cryptomining facility and data center adjacent to a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, that could grow to 300MW.

Talen Energy formed Cumulus Data in 2020 to ‘invest in opportunities created by the convergence of digital infrastructure and power’. A spokesperson for Talen said Cumulus is a subsidiary of Talen Energy and has two separate businesses; Cumulus Data, focused on hyperscale; and Cumulus Coin, focused on digital currency mining.

The company is looking to develop the Susquehanna Hyperscale Campus (SHC) in Berwick, on undeveloped land next to Talen Energy’s Nuclear-powered Susquehanna Steam Electric Station (SSES) in Salem Township, Luzerne County.

Talen says the first phase of development will have 164MW of capacity, but when complete will have 300MW of on-site power supported by dual 1+GW nuclear units and two independent substations, with further potential to expand to 1GW capacity in the future if needed. The project is due to come online in Q2 2022.

Talen Energy's proposed development at the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station, PA– Talen Energy

“As the demand for energy increases among data center and cryptocurrency processing clients, so does the call for decarbonizing these energy sources. Talen Energy is constructing a hyperscale data center campus adjacent to its Susquehanna nuclear generation facility,” a company presentation said. “It will provide low-cost, reliable, carbon-free power to the data center clients on campus. This allows clients to benefit from carbon-free, 24/7 power being supplied directly to the campus, without the intermittency that renewable energy can experience, or requiring fossil fuels.

Talen tells DCD the company has already obtained the necessary permits at the township and state level to prepare the site for its first building and work has begun. Further permits are being applied for to begin construction of the first building. Talen says it has an anchor customer on the campus for the coin side of the business and is in discussions for data center customers.

Commissioned in 1983 for PPL, the 2,494MW Susquehanna Steam Electric Station is one of the largest nuclear power plants in the US. Its current owner, Talen Energy, was founded in 2015 after the competitive power generation business of PPL Corporation was spun off and combined with competitive generation businesses owned by private equity firm Riverstone Holdings.

Based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Talen operates more than 15,320MW of power generation across mostly coal and gas plants in Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Texas, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Montana.

In April, Talen also announced plans to develop 1.4 Gigawatts of solar and wind energy projects over the next five years and eliminate the use of coal at its plants. Talen's Montour generation facility in Pennsylvania and its Brandon Shores and H.A. Wagner coal generation facilities will cease coal-fired operations by the end of 2025, while its Brunner Island generation facility in Pennsylvania will cease using coal in 2028. The three sites total 5GW and around a third of the company’s energy generation footprint.

The company recently announced it was partnering with Key Capture Energy for a battery storage project at its H.A. Wagner coal plant in Baltimore, Maryland as part of plans to develop 1GW of battery storage projects across its plants. Talen told DCD it believes there is potential for more data center campuses at other plans, but it focused on Susquehanna for now.

Elsewhere in Pennsylvania, Stronghold Digital Mining, which owns the 80MW Scrubgrass Power Plant in Venango County, recently raised $105 million to help it mine cryptocurrencies at the plant. In New York, the Albany Engineering Corp. this month said it could make more money mining crypto at its hydroeletric plant in Mechanicville than generating energy for the grid.

Nor is this the first attempt to make crypto mining more environmentally friendly. El Salvador is looking to establish a volcano-powered mining operation, for example, and a hydroelectric plant in New York has started to mine Bitcoin to up its profits.


All of these efforts demonstrate the possibilities available to mining operations looking to mitigate the environmental impact of their businesses. Of course, that's assuming nothing goes wrong at said nuclear facility. We've got plans for nuclear, volcano, hydroelectric power and, hey, you can even join in the renewable energy mining craze with a solar-powered Raspberry Pi project.

Japanese oil producer eyes Canadian oilsands divestment

Japex seeking a buyer for its 75 per cent stake in the Hangingstone oilsands facility

Reuters
Shariq Khan and Rod Nickel
Publishing date:Jul 08, 2021 • 

Japex unit Japan Canada Oil Sands Ltd. (JACOS) is majority owner of Hangingstone, with Chinese state-owned oil giant CNOOC holding the remaining 25 per cent. PHOTO BY COURTESY JAPAN CANADA OIL SANDS LTD.

Japanese state-backed oil producer Japan Petroleum Exploration Co (Japex) is considering a sale among other options for its Hangingston oilsands project in Canada, a company spokesperson said on Friday.

Japex is seeking a buyer for its 75 per cent stake in the Hangingstone oilsands facility in Canada, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter previously told Reuters.

Several global oil majors have rushed to sell Canadian oilsands assets over the past four years over concerns ranging from high production costs and emissions to scarcity of capital.

Japex unit Japan Canada Oil Sands Ltd. (JACOS) is majority owner of Hangingstone, with Chinese state-owned oil giant CNOOC holding the remaining 25 per cent.

One source said JACOS could fetch more than $200 million (US$160 million) from the sale, which could attract notable bids as it has abundant oil reserves that would benefit from fresh funding.

“We are considering various measures including the sale of our stake and cutting production costs to improve profitability of the project, but nothing has been decided,” Yuki Goto, a spokesperson at Japex, told Reuters by phone, adding the move is part of its portfolio review.

JACOS, which did not respond to Reuters requests for comment, is working with an advisor on the sale, the sources said, requesting anonymity while discussing confidential talks.

They cautioned that a final decision on the sale has not yet been reached, and JACOS could still retain it.

The company also owns interests in undeveloped leases in Canada.

Hangingstone, a steam-assisted oil production site that began output in 2017, averaged 23,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the first four months of this year, according to the Alberta Energy Regulator.

Overall deal activity involving North American energy companies has accelerated as crude oil prices have surged after crashing last year during the pandemic.

Calgary-based ARC Resources, which in March bought rival Seven Generations Energy in a $2.7-billion deal, has sold its Alberta’s Pembina Cardium assets to privately held Ricochet Oil Corp. for around $100 million, four sources familiar with that transaction told Reuters.

Separately, Schlumberger NV has begun a formal process to sell its Canadian joint venture with Torxen Energy, multiple sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Chief Executive Olivier Le Peuch stated the goal in April to exit most oil producing assets globally.

The joint venture had spent over US$1 billion to buy oil and natural gas assets in the Palliser block in Alberta from Cenovus Energy in October 2017.

A Schlumberger spokesperson said the company is continuously looking at its portfolio.

© Thomson Reuters 2021

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What's the cost of cutting oilsands' carbon emissions? A cool $75 billion

The oilsands industry emits almost 70 million metric tons a year of carbon dioxide, about 10 per cent of Canada's emissions

Author of the article:
Robert Tuttle
Publishing date: Jul 08, 2021 •

The setting sun reflects off a tailings pond behind Syncrude's oilsands 

upgrading facility north of Fort McMurray. 

PHOTO BY RYAN JACKSON/EDMONTON JOURNAL FILES


It will cost about $75 billion to zero out greenhouse gases from oilsands operations by 2050, with a good deal of the costs borne by taxpayers and many loose ends yet to be tied up, according to two of the industry’s top CEOs.

To achieve the goal announced last month, about half of the emission cuts would need to come from capturing carbon at oilsands sites and sequestering it deep underground, which may require as much as two-thirds government capital like in Norway, Mark Little, chief executive office of Suncor Energy Inc., said in an interview. It’s still unclear how and when most of the projects will be implemented, or which agreements will be needed, but it’s clear the industry doesn’t want to do it alone.

“We haven’t been able to find any jurisdiction in the world where carbon capture has been implemented, where the national government or the state governments are not very significant partners in that investment,” Alexander Pourbaix, CEO of Cenovus Energy Inc., said in the same interview “I don’t think any of us would ever be in a position to go at this on our own. It’s just too significant an undertaking.”

The initiative follows mounting pressure from large, climate-minded investors, many of which have ditched their oil sands holdings. Sitting atop the world’s third-largest crude reserves, the Canadian industry uses carbon-intensive extraction methods that have made it a target of environmentalists. Also at stake are jobs and tax revenues from an industry that represents about 10 per cent of the Canadian economy.

“We have one Achilles heel: It’s greenhouse gas emissions,” Little said. “We can bury our heads in the sand and become a victim, or we can actually deal with it.”

The oilsands industry emits almost 70 million metric tons a year of carbon dioxide, about 10 per cent of Canada’s emissions, “so we are a big emitter for sure,” Little said.

The plan to cut those emissions — which also has the support of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Exxon Mobil Corp.’s Imperial Oil and MEG Energy Corp. — will include measures like switching the fuels used at oil sands operations and using solvents to haul crude more efficiently. Later on, the industry might employ small nuclear reactors to make steam, Pourbaix said.

One of the group’s first big project is to build a carbon dioxide-carrying trunk line along a corridor that links oil sands facilities in the Fort McMurray area and Cold Lake regions of Northern Alberta to a nearby carbon sequestration hub. The trunk line will likely cost $1 billion to $2 billion, and could be in operations by the middle of the decade. But the biggest costs are associated with capturing the CO2, ranging from about $50 a ton for industries that emit high concentrations to “several hundred dollars a ton” for direct capture from the air, Little said.

The plan doesn’t include so-called Scope 3 emissions, the ones generated by cars, aircraft, homes and factories when the fossil fuels produced in the oilsands are burned by the end consumers.

Bloomberg.com

 

Brazil Plans To Be 5th-Largest Crude Exporter By 2030

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Jul 09, 2021, 

Brazil’s expected oil output surge this decade will make it the world’s fifth-largest crude exporter in 2030, Brazilian Mines and Energy Minister Bento Albuquerque said in an interview with The Rio Times on Thursday.

“In 2030, when we reach a production of 5.3 million barrels of oil per day, Brazil will become the fifth largest exporter in the world,” Albuquerque said, adding that Brazil’s crude and liquids production is set to jump from 3.3 million barrels per day (bpd) now.

Currently, Brazil is out of the top ten of the world’s largest crude oil exporters, a ranking where Saudi Arabia is firmly in the lead.

Brazil’s prolific pre-salt offshore oilfields have been ramping up production in recent years and are the main driver of rising oil production. Moreover, Brazil is one of the countries not part of the OPEC+ alliance that are expected to continue to contribute to non-OPEC supply this year and in the coming years, according to estimates from OPEC itself.

The main drivers for 2021 supply growth are anticipated to be Canada, Brazil, China, and Norway, OPEC said in its latest Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) in June.

Brazil’s crude oil production in April 2021 rose by 128,000 bpd from March to average 2.97 million bpd. Based on preliminary production data, and fewer outages due to lower maintenance and other unplanned outages, May crude production indicates further month over month growth of more than 50,000 bpd, OPEC has estimated.

In 2020, Brazilian crude oil production rose by 5.7 percent to average 2.9 million bpd, according to data from industry regulator ANP published last month. The pre-salt basin with 2 million bpd output led the rise in supply. Thanks to the higher crude oil production, Brazil’s exports hit a record level of 1.4 million bpd in 2020, up by 16.9 percent year over year, ANP said.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

 

Batteries as an infrastructure asset class: A new paradigm

• 
  

Published:12 Jul 2021, 

Laurent Segalen

Financier, renewable energy transactions

Battery storage is flexible, remarkable — and investable — but you need to know what you’re doing and know where the market opportunities and limits lie. Renewable and clean energy financier Laurent Segalen from Megawatt-X explains some of the things he’s seen as batteries have become an infrastructure asset in their own right. 

This is an extract of an article which appeared in Vol.27 of PV Tech Power, Solar Media's quarterly technical journal for the downstream solar industry. Every edition includes 'Storage & Smart Power,' a dedicated section contributed by the team at Energy-Storage.news. 

As we witness the relentless growth of renewables, operators and investors are wondering how to mitigate the increased intermittency of power generation. We are seeing more and more instances of negative prices, and also an increased volatility in daily power prices, especially in the zones with high renewable penetration and thin grids.

These zones include Australia, the US West Coast, and the EU periphery (Spain, Scandinavia, UK). Going forward, the burden of dealing with intermittency will fall back, either directly or indirectly, in the hands of investors. This is not great news for infrastructure investors who allocated equity and debt into the renewable industry for its fixed income revenue profile. Once long term capital-intensive solutions (such as interconnectors and pumped hydro) have been exhausted, it is clearly the time for batteries to become a key infrastructure component of the balancing mechanisms.

How then can batteries become a proper infrastructure play?

From an investment point of view, going long on flexibility when the market is shorting it, is the perfect move. The technological trends are also heading in the right direction, as the cost for stationary storage is falling precipitously, in the wake of the billions of USD investments in EV batteries. Within a few years, leading experts such as Benchmark Minerals and BNEF expect another 50% fall in the costs of battery cells.

The question of bankability: From tech to revenue model

From a financial point of view, li-ion batteries are now a fully bankable technology. World-class providers like Fluence and Tesla are delivering new products with up to 20,000 cycles and above 90% round-trip efficiencies. And lithium ferro phosphate (LFP), with its lower cost and reduced fire risk, seems now the chemistry of choice for stationary storage.

Now that the technology aspect has been sorted, how can the revenue model of stationary storage become bankable? Contrary to wind and solar, batteries don’t typically benefit from long-term secured revenues, such as power purchase agreements (PPAs).

Instead, investors in storage need to deal with several types of revenues (arbitrage, grid services, reserve) which are difficult to model. Even more important, capturing those new revenues relies on implementing ever-improving software that maximise the monetisation of the numerous market opportunities but can be often seen as “black boxes” by investors.

The software race is on. Against Tesla’s Autobidder, you see Fluence acquiring AMS to provide an integrated hardware + software solution. Those new software are incomparably more suited to optimise battery assets than human traders. For instance in Australia, the new market design has created five-minute bidding windows: the best human trader will post 15-20 trades a day, whereas the software will be able to bid 288 times (12 bids per hour x 24h).

A tale of two countries: Germany and the UK

Germany has the most liquid and competitive power market in the EU. It is also at the centre of the European Grid. 800 distribution system operators (DSOs) are daily managing the flexibility of the system. The arbitrage cases are widely publicised but overall not sufficient to sustain a “buy low-sell high” business case. The balancing market is dominated by coal plants which remain cheaper than batteries. And for network services, a German DSO will directly invest in batteries. So there are limited short-term opportunities for infrastructure investors.

The UK presents a radically different picture, with less access to the ultra-liquid Central European Grid, much less pumped hydro capacity than in Germany and fewer interconnectors. Hence, there are many more opportunities for batteries and the strong UK investment community has started to invest in them. 

Namely, the UK harbours two pioneering funds, Gresham House Energy Storage Fund and Gore Street Energy Storage Fund which are 100% dedicated to batteries. Infracapital, with the support of M&G is also very ambitious in
its plans for storage and e-mobility solutions provider Zenobe. We also have leading traders, such as Hartree, Goldman Sachs and soon Mercuria and Trafigura that are joining the fray. And of course the “master disruptor” Tesla is also present; Tesla obtained this year a UK electricity trading license and signed an agreement with Octopus to connect all its Powerwall into a gigantic virtual power plant (VPP), while Shell’s sonnen is doing the same.

So how do you build a revenue stack for battery storage in the UK? First, it is better to partner with a digital platform that can provide you access to the various arbitrage, balancing and flexibility markets: routes to market providers like Flexitricy, Habitat Energy, Kiwi Power and others are delivering such very innovative services.

Second, a growing list of asset optimisers with solid balance sheets like Shell’s Limejump are offering PPAs with long term price floors to battery asset owners in return for a share of the upside; this is catalysing the interest of debt lenders.

Cover image: Energy storage is like a digital Swiss Army Knife for the grid. Credit: Flickr/James Case

This is an extract of an article which appeared in Vol.27 of PV Tech Power, Solar Media's quarterly technical journal for the downstream solar industry. Every edition includes 'Storage & Smart Power,' a dedicated section contributed by the team at Energy-Storage.news. To learn more and to subscribe, visit the homepage here. 

 

Convalt Energy to open 700-MW solar 

panel assembly facility in New York

 in 2022

By Kelly Pickerel | July 12, 2021

 

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There have been some announcements of crystalline silicon solar panel manufacturing outfits coming to the United States in the last couple years, but so far, nothing new has opened since Q CELLS (Georgia), LG (Alabama) and JinkoSolar (Florida) unveiled their panel assembly facilities in 2019. In fact, this year saw the closure of one of the longest-running solar panel manufacturing facilities in the United States when SunPower ceased production at the former SolarWorld plant in Oregon after over a decade of on-site manufacturing and 40+ years of technical know-how.

Archive photo of SolarWorld’s Oregon facility

But those veteran SolarWorld manufacturing lines live to fight another day now that ACO Investment Group (working through its subsidiary Convalt Energy) has bought the equipment and is moving it all to a new facility in upstate New York. The plan is to have 700 MW of American assembled solar panels coming out of the new-build factory starting in July 2022.

Solar Power World spoke to Hari Achuthan, managing director and CEO of Convalt Energy, to learn more about the company’s plans for U.S. solar manufacturing.

Who is Convalt Energy?

Convalt Energy initially began in 2011 as a solar developer, working on projects in Southeast Asia and Africa, but Achuthan said the focus is now on developing projects and starting panel manufacturing in the United States.

“We cut our teeth in development, and we’re now developing projects in the U.S.,” he said. “This opportunity came up [to buy SunPower equipment], and we’ve always had a vision of wanting to be a manufacturer in the U.S. to support American jobs and support the supply chain coming back to the U.S. This opportunity came up and our shareholders agreed we should do this.”

The Convalt website shows that a few members of the company’s technical team have experience with module manufacturing, but mostly Convalt will use its experience in buying modules for projects in multiple countries to be competitive in module manufacturing.

“During the last nine years, we have been developing projects and had to understand the supply chain, had to understand the pricing of panels,” Achuthan said. “We had exposure to pricing from a variety of sources, including SunPower and First Solar and panels from Chinese manufacturers. We started to dissect and understand how the pricing worked.”

Why New York?

Archive photo of SolarWorld’s 5-busbar stringer from 2016

The schedule of events is to break ground on the new facility in New York by October 2021, with module production beginning in July 2022. Convalt Energy expects an annual module capacity of 700 MW out of the gate.

Convalt chose Watertown, New York, near Lake Ontario, as its manufacturing base because the area has an eager manufacturing employment pool. Watertown has a long history of industrial success, once a major hub for pulp and paper mills, and access to clean energy from hydropower.

The Watertown facility is a go, and any manufacturing tax credits (like the one recently introduced to the Senate), incentives and grants would bolster the company’s startup and growth plans.

“We’re moving forward with this. [Any future federal credits] will give more comfort to the lenders as we need to expand and get additional working lines to move from 700 MW to 2 GW or getting cell lines or wafer lines,” Achuthan said.

What’s going to be made in the new factory?

Archive photo of SolarWorld’s Oregon facility

Convalt Energy acquired SunPower’s production lines in April 2021. The equipment, which was most recently producing SunPower’s shingled P-Series modules, has likely not been used since March 2021 when SunPower ceased operations at the plant. Since the equipment hasn’t been mothballed long, Achuthan expects startup to be quick with no major technology upgrades needed.

“I would say 95% will stay the same. There’s going to be some updates, but that’s minor,” he said.

Achuthan said Convalt is using its own technology to manufacture 72-cell panels for rooftop and utility-scale projects. He expects that Convalt will move to “the next generation technology pretty fast, within the next two years.”

Convalt does plan to use some of its produced modules for its own developed projects, but third-party sales will likely increase as demand accelerates. Things will iron out as plans set into place. Right now, Achuthan and Convalt are focused on shipping the equipment lines to New York and setting up U.S. manufacturing jobs.

“Our commitment is on supporting American jobs and getting the supply chain back here to the U.S. so we have control,” Achuthan said.