Physics

Quantum of solace: even physicists are still scratching their heads

Readers respond to an editorial about understanding quantum theory and defining the laws of physics

Richard Feynman (left) with fellow theoretical physicist Yang Chen Ning, pictured in the 1950s. Photograph: Science & Society Picture Library/SSPL via Getty Images

Letters

Fri 3 Sep 2021 15.41 BST

Your editorial on quantum physics (30 August) starts with a quote from Richard Feynman – “nobody understands quantum mechanics” – and then says “that is no longer true”. One of us (Norman Dombey) was taught quantum theory by Feynman at Caltech; the other (John Charap) was taught by Paul Dirac at Cambridge. Quantum theory was devised by several physicists including Dirac, Erwin Schrödinger and Werner Heisenberg in the 1920s and 1930s, and Dirac made their work relativistic.

It is absurd to say that quantum mechanics is now understood whereas it was not 50 years ago. There have of course been advances in our understanding of quantum phenomena, but the conceptual framework of quantum physics remains as it was. The examples you give of nuclear plants, medical scans and lasers involve straightforward applications of quantum mechanics that were understood 50 years ago.

The major advance in the understanding of quantum physics in this period is a theorem of John Bell from Cern, which states that quantum physics cannot be local – that is to say that it permits phenomena to be correlated at arbitrarily large distances from each other. This has now been demonstrated experimentally and leads to what is known as quantum entanglement, which is important in the development of quantum computers. But even these ideas were discussed by Albert Einstein and coworkers in 1935.

The editorial goes on to say that “subatomic particles do not travel a path that can be plotted”. If that were so, how can protons travel at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern and hit their target so that experiments can be performed?

We agree with Phillip Ball, who wrote in Physics World that “quantum mechanics is still, a century after it was conceived, making us scratch our heads”. There are many speculative proposals in contention but none have consensus support.
John Charap Emeritus professor of theoretical physics, Queen Mary University of London; Norman Dombey Emeritus professor of theoretical physics, University of Sussex

 Whoever wrote this editorial does not understand what Richard Feynman meant when he said that nobody really understands quantum mechanics. Being able to make a smartphone, a nuclear weapon or an MRI machine does not require understanding quantum mechanics in the sense he meant – it requires the physical chops to set up the equations and the mathematical chops to find or approximate solutions to them. Any competent physicist has been able to do those calculations for at least 50 years. What Feynman meant was that, for quantum mechanics, nobody has the kind of intuitive understanding of what is actually happening in the world that physicists seek to gain. All we can do is shut up and calculate, or get lost in a never-never land of competing but empirically equivalent interpretations.

Perhaps Carlo Rovelli’s relational interpretation of quantum mechanics provides the intuitive understanding we’d like to have, although I rather doubt it, and I don’t believe Rovelli claims it does. Perhaps it even makes testable predictions that could distinguish it from other interpretations and thus is science rather than philosophy (I have no objection to philosophy).

It is just as true today as it was when Feynman said it in 1964 that nobody (or almost nobody) really understands quantum mechanics. And now, as then, a competent physicist does not need the kind of understanding Feynman meant to use the theory. Indeed, there’s no strong reason to believe that the human mind should be equipped to understand it at all. To quote another famous physicist: this editorial is not even wrong.
Tim Bradshaw
North Tawton, Devon

 While it’s highly probable that the position of my copy of Helgoland is where I shelved it, I won’t know whether its pages are printed or blank until I get round to reading it. However, from Prof Rovelli’s previous work, I agree “the fundamental truth is that it’s impossible to know everything about the world”, including whether this letter will be published and in what world.
Harold Mozley
York

 Given your editorial on quantum physics, is the strapline now “facts are relatively sacred” or “facts are sacred but relative”?
Simon Taylor
Warwick, Warwickshire

Climate change deniers are as slippery as those who justified the slave trade

Nick Cohen

Global warming sceptics should be hiding in corners. But still some defend the indefensible


Former Conservative party minister Nigel Lawson, photographed on 11 May 2016. 

Sat 4 Sep 2021 

No one seems as defeated as the global warming “deniers” who dominated rightwing thinking a decade ago. Like late 18th-century opponents of abolishing the slave trade, Lord Lawson and the claque of Conservative cranks who filled the comment pages of the Tory press are remembered today as dangerous fools – assuming they are remembered at all.

The billions of dollars spent by the fossil fuel industry on propaganda and its acceptance by know-nothing elements on the right caused incalculable damage. They might have followed Margaret Thatcher, who warned in 1989 of C02 admissions leading to climate change “more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known”. The desire of business to protect profits and the vanity of politicians and pundits, who saw themselves as dissidents fighting the consensus rather than fanatics enabling destruction, helped to waste two decades of valuable time.

Every argument they advanced has been disproved, as much by the experience of everyday life as science. Journalists are advised: “If someone says it is raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the window and find out which is true.” The world only had to look at the weather outside to know who was trying to fool it.

To pick from the dozens of examples in Richard Black’s history of the conspiracy theory (Denied: The Rise and Fall of Climate Contrarianism) , global warming is not a “swindle”, as a Channel 4 documentary informed its viewers in 2007. Glaciers and ice sheets are shrinking and the seas are becoming more acidic. If there was swindling, it was at Channel 4, as Ofcom suggested when it found the station guilty of several breaches of the broadcasting rules. It is not “erroneous” to assume that humanity is driving the climate catastrophe, as the Spectator assured its readers as late as 2017. The pace of man-made climate change is faster than anything in the Earth’s history and all attempts to invent other explanations have failed.

Viscount Ridley, who presided over the collapse of Northern Rock, and now dismisses the collapse of the planet in the pages of the Times, said climate change was doing “more good than harm”. We should adapt to a warmer Earth and celebrate the reduction in deaths from the winter cold. But the seas and icecaps cannot adapt, nor can cities threatened with flooding and countries facing desertification. The lights did not go out as we switched to renewable energy, as so many pundits said they would. And energy bills have fallen rather than risen, despite the assertions of the noble Lawson to the contrary. Rightwing denialism appears buried so deep in the dustbin of history it can never be recycled.

And yet there is nervousness among the impressively large number of Conservative politicians who are serious about pushing for net zero. They are pleading with their colleagues to understand the advantages to consumers and businesses that a determined remaking of the economy would bring. The Conservative Environmental Network is already in a fight with a small group of rightwing MPs, who claim “the poorest will pay the highest price for net-zero fantasies” (even though no measure is more likely to reduce fuel poverty than a government home-insulation drive). That battle will only intensify.

I put “denier” in quotes at the top of this piece because the enemies of science (and of us all) are endlessly malleable shapeshifters. Once they can no longer deny the existence of man-made global warming, they shift and keet on shifting so no one can ever pin them down. In this, they mirror the defenders of slavery 230 years ago, who created the modern world’s first corporate PR campaign and provided an example for all who have followed.

The comparison isn’t harsh. One day, the attack on climate science will be seen as shocking as the defence of human bondage. Indeed, that day should have long passed. They are overwhelmingly old men or, in the case of Lawson, a very old man. They grew up in a 20th century where the carbon economy was natural: the way the world was and would always be. Slavery was equally natural to the plantation owners and slave traders of Georgian Britain. It had always existed, everywhere on Earth.

The 18th century had its Viscount Ridleys who opined that slavery did more good than harm. In 1789, during the hearings for the first abolition bill in history, one witness told parliament that Africans wanted to be enslaved and “nine out of 10 rejoice at falling into our hands”. The pro-slavery lobby was as well funded as the fossil-fuel lobby, and as relentless. The Telegraph comment pages did not exist in 1789 so it commissioned The Benevolent Planters by one Thomas Bellamy to appear at the Theatre Royal in London’s West End. The play told the story of Oran and Selima, lovers who are separated in Africa. Their capture by slavers is a blessing. Far from being oppressors, kind slave owners bring the couple together in the West Indies and allow them to live productive lives together.

William Wilberforce was assailed by claims that if Britain abolished slavery, “our manufactures will droop in consequence, our land-tax will be raised, our marine destroyed, while France, our natural enemy and rival, will strengthen herself by our weakness”. Today, Nick Timothy, the man who destroyed Theresa May’s premiership, tells Telegraph readers the British will be forced into penury by “net-zero zealots” while other countries “break their promises” and profit from our naivety.

In the 18th and 21st centuries, as soon as one fake position was exposed, another took its place. The arguments change. The intent remains the same.

It remains an open question as to whether Boris Johnson secretly shares a denialist intent. Conservative environmentalists look on him with approval as he prepares to host the Cop26 climate change conference in November. He says all the right things, but the investment and political will needed to electrify transport, reduce meat eating and refit the housing stock are nowhere to be seen. Denialism is a shapeshifter. Its latest form may be a bombastic prime minister who promises the Earth but does next to nothing to protect it.



Nick Cohen is an Observer columnist

 

Australia Prepares For Offshore Wind
Boom

Reuters

September 2, 2021

By Sonali Paul (Reuters)– Australia’s conservative government introduced legislation on Thursday that could help clear the way for offshore wind farms to go ahead in a country considered to have massive offshore renewable energy potential.

The long-awaited legislation will set up a framework for building, running, maintaining, and decommissioning offshore electricity projects including wind generation and transmission cables, with environmental and financial safeguards.

“An offshore electricity industry in Australia will further strengthen our economy, create jobs and opportunities for Australians and enhance the delivery of affordable and reliable power,” Energy Minister Angus Taylor said in a statement.

Projects that could progress if the legislation passes, as expected, include the Star of the South wind project off the coast of Victoria, the Marinus Link transmission line from Tasmania to Victoria, and Sun Cable, which plans to deliver solar power from the Northern Territory to Singapore.

“This legislation is a key step to realizing Australia’s offshore wind potential and unlocking the associated economic benefits, including providing opportunities for the nation’s strong resources and maritime sectors,” Star of the South Chief Executive Casper Frost Thorhauge said in a statement.

There are more than 10 proposed offshore wind projects with a combined capacity of more than 25 gigawatts (GW), a recent government research report said, adding that with a coastline of almost 60,000 km (37,283 miles) with “very high wind resources”, it made sense to consider developing an offshore wind industry.

Onshore wind farms with a combined capacity of 7.4 GW supplied nearly 10% of Australia’s power in 2020, with a further 21 onshore wind farms with a total capacity of 4 GW due to start construction.

The legislation has widespread support from the opposition Labor Party, unions, and green groups, in stark contrast to most of the government’s other energy proposals, which are seen as supporting gas and coal to the detriment of renewable energy.

“Australia’s wind capacity has been likened to the North Sea – an area that’s leading the world in offshore wind generation. Investing in and growing this industry is a no-brainer for Australia, but it needs to be done right,” said Climate Council spokesperson Madeline Taylor.

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021

'MAYBE'TECH

Better Than Batteries? A Startup That’s Storing Energy in Concrete Blocks Just Raised $100 Million
By Vanessa Bates Ramirez
-Sep 01, 2021


The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its Sixth Assessment Report in early August, and the outlook isn’t good. The report has added renewed urgency to humanity’s effort to curb climate change.

The price of solar energy dropped 89 percent in 10 years, and new wind farms are being built both on land and offshore (with ever-bigger turbines capable of generating ever more energy). But simply adding more wind and solar generation capacity won’t get us very far if we don’t have a cost-effective, planet-friendly way to store the energy they produce.

As Zia Huque, general partner at Prime Movers Lab, put it, “To truly harness the power of renewable energy, the world needs to develop reliable, flexible storage solutions for when the sun does not shine or the wind does not blow.”

A startup called Energy Vault is working on a unique storage method, and they must be on the right track, because they just received over $100 million in Series C funding last week.

The method was inspired by pumped hydro, which has been around since the 1920s and uses surplus generating capacity to pump water up into a reservoir. When the water is released, it flows down through turbines and generates energy just like conventional hydropower.

Now imagine the same concept, but with heavy solid blocks and a tall tower rather than water and a reservoir. When there’s excess power—on a sunny or windy day with low electricity demand, for example—a mechanical crane uses it to lift the blocks 35 stories into the air. Then the blocks are held there until demand is outpacing supply. When they’re lowered to the ground (or lowered a few hundred feet through the air), their weight pulls cables that spin turbines, generating electricity.

“Heavy” blocks in this case means 35 tons (70,000 pounds or 31,751 kg). The blocks are made of a composite material that uses soil and locally-sourced waste, which can include anything from concrete debris and coal ash to decommissioned wind turbine blades (talk about coming full circle). Besides putting material that would otherwise go into a landfill to good use, this also means the blocks can be made locally, and thus don’t need to be transported (and imagine the cost and complexity of transporting something that heavy, oy).

The cranes that lift and lower the blocks have six arms, and they’re controlled by fully-automated custom software. Energy Vault says the towers will have a storage capacity up to 80 megawatt-hours, and be able to continuously discharge 4 to 8 megawatts for 8 to 16 hours. The technology is best suited for long-duration storage with very fast response times.

The Series C funding was led by Prime Movers Lab, with existing investors SoftBank and Saudi Aramco adding additional funds and several new investors joining. Energy Vault plans to use the funding to roll out its EVx platform, launched in April of this year. The platform includes performance enhancements like round-trip efficiency up to 85 percent, a lifespan of over 35 years, and a flexible, modular design that’s shorter than the original—which means it could more easily be built in or near densely-populated areas.

Huque called Energy Vault a “gamechanger” in the transition to green energy, saying the company “has cracked the code with a transformative solution…designed to fulfill clean energy demand 24/7 with a more efficient, durable, and environmentally sustainable approach.”

The company will roll out its EVx platform in the US late this year, moving on to fulfill contracts in Europe, the Middle East, and Australia in 2022.

Image Credit: Energy Vault

CLEAN POWER

Vietnamese Solar Power Plant Could Reach 2.8 Gigawatts Soon

ByZachary Shahan
Published2 days ago

As we wrote in May, Vietnam has become a surprising solar power champion in the past year. Well, it shot into the role in December 2020. And it seems that it’s happy to keep going. Recent news is that the largest solar park in Vietnam is set to get a big boost and get even significantly larger by early 2022.

An 832 megawatt (MW) expansion is planned for Xuan Thien Ea Sup, which will bring it to 2.8 gigawatts (GW)! The expansion plans actually didn’t come from a press release from Xuan Thien Group, the developer, but were revealed in a report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).

Furthermore, “Chinese panel supplier Longi Solar announced the 273 MW first phase of the VND20 trillion ($869 million) project had been completed five months ahead of schedule in November, after construction had started in April last year,” pv-magazine writes.

Regarding Vietnam’s overall solar boom, in May Johnna wrote, “In Vietnam, banks are shunning coal; enabling the nation to shine brightly as a solar champion. … Vietnam has seen a 100-fold increase in solar power over the last two years and now ranks seventh in the world in terms of total installed capacity, BloombergNEF noted. In 2020, the only countries that installed more solar than Vietnam were the U.S. and China! … In addition, the increasingly low prices of solar panels have created a cheap and convenient alternative. What’s more is that many of these solar panels are assembled domestically.”

Vietnam has certainly been one of the brightest solar success stories of the past couple of years. It looks as though that will continue, but I’m eager to see the 2021 numbers. And if Vietnam can bust out of the gates with solar like this, then what’s saying many other countries can’t? Who will follow Vietnam’s example and become a solar champion next?

'MAYBE'TECH

Oil and gas pipeline industry tries to reinvent itself with carbon capture plans

Funnelling CO2 from power plants, cement factories and refineries a potentially immense business opportunity

Author of the article:
Financial Times
Justin Jacobs in Houston
Publishing date:Sep 01, 2021 • 

Pipeline operators are pointing to their potential as a link in carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems, in which CO2 emissions are trapped in underground reservoirs where they can be kept out of the atmosphere.

 PHOTO BY COURTESY SHELL
Article content

The U.S. oil and gas pipeline industry is looking for new opportunities to lay steel in the ground with pipes that carry the carbon dioxide produced when fossil fuels are burnt.

The midstream energy sector has clashed with climate campaigners who oppose pipeline projects as infrastructure that locks in greenhouse gas emissions. Wall Street is pushing the industry to show how it will adapt to demands for a lower-carbon world.

In response, pipeline operators are pointing to their potential as a link in carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems, in which CO2 emissions are trapped in underground reservoirs where they can be kept out of the atmosphere. Pipelines would move CO2 from industrial flues to the reservoirs.

“It’s hard to see how climate objectives are met without pretty widespread carbon capture and sequestration,” Steven Kean, chief executive of Kinder Morgan, one of the largest U.S. pipeline companies, recently told analysts. “We think we’ve got the expertise on the pipeline side of it.”

CCS IS USED FOR FRACKING

The U.S. already has about 5,150 miles (8,300 km) of CO2 pipelines. The network is tiny compared with the national web of oil and gas pipes, but it is the largest in the world.

They are mostly clustered around the Permian Basin oilfields of west Texas, where CO2 is injected into wells to squeeze out stubborn crude oil deposits. Revenue derives from selling the gas and claiming a federal tax credit worth US$35 for each tonne of carbon put underground.

A member of a drilling crew prepares to place a collar around drill pipe on an oil rig in the Permian Basin near Wink, Texas.

 PHOTO BY NICK OXFORD/REUTERS FILES

But future growth hinges on far more widespread deployment. Pipes would funnel CO2 exhaust from emitters such as power plants, cement factories and oil and biofuel refineries to underground sites in some cases hundreds of miles away.

François Poirier, chief executive of pipeline company TC Energy, recently told analysts that a “fundamental aspect” of the CCS industry was “the ability to store and transport a molecule, which is, of course, our core business.” TC Energy is best known as developer of the now-cancelled Keystone XL crude oil pipeline, a target of environmentalists.

The business opportunity is potentially immense. A July report from the Biden administration’s Council on Environmental Quality said that a CCS industry large enough to help meet the country’s goal of “net zero” emissions by 2050 could require 68,000 miles of new CO2 pipelines at a cost of as much as US$230 billion. That is roughly comparable to U.S. liquid fuel pipeline mileage built since 2000, a boom time for the oil industry.

CO2 pipelines require thicker walls than typical oil and gas pipes to move condensed, liquefied gas under heavy pressure, limiting prospects for cheaply converting existing infrastructure.

“The capital is going to be large, and obviously existing infrastructure players like ourselves are going to be involved,” Al Monaco, chief executive of Enbridge, a Canadian pipeline company with extensive U.S. assets, told analysts last month.

The midstream sector is under intense pressure to show it can survive a transition to cleaner fuels. The Alerian MLP index, which tracks shares of pipeline partnerships, is down about 43 per cent over the past five years. The broader U.S. stock market has more than doubled in the same period.

Carbon capture has seen false dawns before, largely because new projects have failed to make money owing to high costs and the lack of financial incentives to capture it, such as a price on carbon.

The capital is going to be large, and obviously existing infrastructure players like ourselves are going to be involved

AL MONACO, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, ENBRIDGE

But many see the tide turning in Washington, where carbon capture is one of the rare items on President Joe Biden’s climate agenda to enjoy wide bipartisan support.

Last December’s omnibus spending bill will feed at least US$6 billion into the sector over the coming years, and the infrastructure package currently moving through Congress could provide government-backed low-interest loans for carbon capture infrastructure and speed up permitting for new projects

“The real cog in the wheel here today is economics,” Jesse Arenivas, the head of Kinder Morgan’s energy transition ventures business, told the Financial Times. “I think the policy support is coming.”

The fund manager BlackRock and U.S. oil refiner Valero are backing a company called Navigator CO2 Ventures, which has proposed a 1,200-mile pipeline system to collect gases from industrial plants such as ethanol refineries for shipment to a subterranean site in Illinois, sequestering up to 12 million tonnes a year.

Many environmentalists see CCS as a fossil-fuel industry boondoggle and distraction from expanding renewable power and other zero-carbon technologies. Doubts have been underscored by failures of high-profile projects such as Petra Nova, a CCS-fitted coal-fired power plant in Texas that shut down last year. The US$1-billion project had received a US$195-million grant from the U.S. government.

Kinder Morgan’s Arenivas also pointed to delays in permitting new storage reservoirs, which he said could take as long as five years for the Environmental Protection Agency to approve.

He added that the “anti-pipe movement” in the U.S., which has derailed a number of oil and gas projects, could pose similar threats to new, large-scale CO2 pipelines.

Still, while Arenivas sees his company building more oil and gas infrastructure in the future, he said it was “inevitable” that eventually it would be building more pipelines to carry CO2, as well as hydrogen, than fossil fuels. “I do believe it provides a huge growth story,” he added.

© 2021 The Financial Times Ltd

Time to rein in the dangerous greenhouse gas that has slipped through the cracks of Canada’s ambitious net zero masterplan

Canadian cleantech’s 335% surge in financing sets up record year

Canada falling $60-billion short annually on investments needed to hit climate change targets: report

‘The world still needs fossil fuels:’ Canada’s oilpatch sees future for the industry despite ‘death knell’ warning

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'MAYBE'TECH

Hydrostor's big energy storage tech is 'kind of boring', says CEO

Jeff Lagerquist

Thu., September 2, 2021

Bill Gates is betting on liquid metal batteries that hit 500 C to help smooth out the surges and lulls that come with adding more wind and solar to electricity grids. Saudi Aramco (2222.SR), the world's largest energy company, recently invested in a firm that uses gravity, a giant crane system, and 35-tonne weights, to store vast amounts of power. 

For Hydrostor, a Toronto-based compressed-air energy storage company, the way to collect and redistribute the uneven supply of juice from intermittent sources doesn't sound nearly as flashy. But that's actually a good thing, according to the company's chief executive officer.

"Some investors like more of the science project-type stuff. We're not that. We're a very tried and true, kind of boring solution," Curtis VanWalleghem told Yahoo Finance Canada in an interview.

The need for energy storage is rising as utilities around the world look to phase out fossil-fuel power generation in favour of renewables. Hydrostor allows utilities to add more wind and solar to the grid with an updated version of a 50-year-old technology that requires no fuel. 

The company uses excess energy to pump compressed air into giant underground caverns. The air displaces water up to a surface-level reservoir. When the power is needed, the water is released back down into the cavern, pushing the air past turbines that generate electricity as it exits.

Hydrostor allows utilities to add more wind and solar to the grid with an updated version of 50-year-old technology that requires no fuel. 

"The more facilities we build, the more we unlock low-cost wind and solar, and shut down more coal and gas," VanWalleghem said.

Under its current government, Canada has committed to establishing a net-zero power grid by 2035. U.S. President Joe Biden is pushing Congress to pass a law requiring America's grid to get 80 per cent of its power from emissions-free sources by 2030, on its way to net-zero by 2035.

From iron-air batteries to solid-state designs, the race is on to find ways to store excess power from renewables. Investors have taken notice. According to the International Energy Agency's World Energy Investment 2021 report, spending on grid-scale batteries rose by more than 60 per cent in 2020 as investors flocked to renewable energy assets. Data from Texas-based Mercom Capital Group shows venture funding (including private equity and corporate venture capital) raised by battery storage companies in the first quarter of 2021 topped US$994 million. That's up from US$164 million in the same period last year.

"Anything that plays on climate technology is hot. There's certainly a lot of appetite," VanWalleghem said. "Everybody sees that wave coming. They saw how profitable it was for lithium in the short duration. Now they see a good 10 to 20-year run of long-duration opportunities."

Hydrostor aims to be the "day-long" energy storage leader, with facilities able to make money both by providing backup power to utilities, as well as buying and selling at advantageous times. VanWalleghem sees eight to 12 hours as today's duration sweetspot. Storing energy for longer only requires bigger underground caverns, he explains.

Hydrostor's small facility in Goderich, Ont., completed in 2015, became the world's first commercially contracted advanced compressed air energy storage facility, under an agreement with Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator. Today, the company is in the final stages of securing contracts for two utility-scale $500-million facilities in the U.S. and Australia, while working on two additional projects in the States, and one in Ontario. It is partnered with French fund manager and infrastructure developer Meridiam to finance one of its projects in California.

"We bring in partners at financial close. They provide the construction capital. We get an ownership stake for our efforts, as well as some fees along the way," VanWalleghem said, describing a typical deal for the company. "We're not an infrastructure company."

Earlier this month, Hydrostor received $10 million from Business Development Capital Capital to support its pipeline of projects. That's on top of the $4 million the company received in April from Natural Resources Canada's Energy Innovation Program and Sustainable Development Technology Canada to develop an up to 500-megawatt project in Ontario.

"We've spent that early-stage development money, and are now securing that first wave of contracts," said VanWalleghem. He's eyeing big, new opportunities in India, Spain, Germany, and the U.K., but isn't about to join a growing number of clean energy peers wading into the public markets through IPOs and SPAC deals in order to get there. 

Hydrostor's investors include ArcTern Ventures, Canoe Financial, the MaRS Catalyst Fund, Lorem Partners, Elemental Energy and U.S. oil field services company Baker Hughes (BKR).

Look at the companies that will be constructing our facilities . . . these are the people that build refineries for the oil and gas companiesCurtis VanWalleghem, CEO of Hydrostor

VanWalleghem says the connection to the 114-year-old firm, whose name is often associated with a count of how many oil rigs are operating in North America, speaks to Hyrdostor's rejection of "science project stuff" to get the job done.

"Every component we use is from the oil and gas industry. Our caverns are used for hydrocarbon storage, but also in the mining sector," he said. "I view it as a real advantage to be able to piggyback and stand on the shoulders of those giant industries."

Brady Yauch, markets and regulatory manager at the electricity price forecasting firm Power Advisory, sees utilities cautiously looking beyond pumped-hydro storage, which has long comprised the bulk of the storage on North American grids. Unlike pumped-hydro systems, which require elevated topography to work, Hydrostor facilities can be located virtually anywhere a big hole can be dug.

"As much as we'd like the sector to move very quickly and adopt technologies right off the bat, it moves very slowly,” he told Yahoo Finance Canada. “Utilities don’t want to be burdened with technology that either quickly falls in cost, or is replaced with something more efficient."

VanWalleghem counters with the danger of sticking with the status quo.

"There is going to be such demand that no one battery is going to be able to build out the manufacturing capacity to meet it. But the relative risk of trying something new is going down. The risk of building a new gas plant is that five years from now you've got to shut it down, and you lose all that money" he said.

"[Utilities] are being forced to do some new stuff, but you've got to make it easy for them."

For Hydrostor, the peace of mind afforded by using off-the-shelf equipment and services from energy and mining is bolstered by the massive skilled workforce caught in the middle of historic shifts in those industries.

"We've got probably 20 engineers on staff, and probably two-thirds of them come from the oil and gas sector. Look at the companies that will be constructing our facilities, whether that be Bechtel or Schlumberger, these are the people that build refineries for the oil and gas companies," VanWalleghem said. "It's a pretty seamless transition."

Jeff Lagerquist is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jefflagerquist.

'MAYBE'TECH

 Green ammonia: The rocky pathway to a new clean fuel
By Loz Blain
September 03, 2021

Long-haul shipping will be incredibly hard to decarbonize – but green ammonia offers a path forward
Vladsv/Depositphotos

You'll be hearing a lot more about ammonia as a clean fuel option as the race to zero carbon by 2050 progresses. In particular, it looks like a strong option for long-haul shipping and trucking. So what is it, how is it made, and how does it shape up as a green fuel?

Chemically, ammonia is a molecule comprising three hydrogen atoms, each linked to one central nitrogen atom. Both very common elements; the Earth's atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, and hydrogen is of course the most abundant element in the universe. That doesn't mean it's simple to produce, but we'll get to that.

At atmospheric pressure, ammonia is a very stinky gas with a boiling point of −33.3 °C (−28.0 °F). Kept cold or under a modest amount of pressure, it's relatively easy to liquefy, making it a much easier green fuel to transport and store than hydrogen. You can truck it about or keep it in tanks, cheap as chips. Hydrogen is nearly 30 times more expensive to store.

Indeed, in many ways, ammonia does a better job of storing hydrogen than hydrogen gas itself; H2 is notorious for leaking away through the metal walls of containers, for embrittling steel it comes into contact with, and for taking a lot of energy to liquefy at cryogenic temperatures. And then there's density: it may sound weird, but there's one and a half times more hydrogen in a gallon of ammonia than there is in a gallon of hydrogen, all else being equal.

Ammonia is dangerous to humans. It's caustic in high concentrations, and classified as an "extremely hazardous substance" in the United States, with strict reporting requirements for any facility that uses a significant quantity.

Today, it's most frequently used in agriculture, where as a salt or in solution it's a powerful fertilizer leading to improved yields of some cereal crops. This accounts for nearly 90 percent of commercial ammonia use in the United States. The rest includes industrial use as a precursor to virtually all synthetic nitrogen compounds, use as a general purpose household cleaning agent, use as a nitrogen source in the fermentation process, use as an antimicrobial agent, notably to kill E. coli bacteria in super-fine beef mince, and other uses.

Three hydrogen atoms joined to a single nitrogen atom. There's more hydrogen in ammonia than in hydrogen itself
Zerbor/Depositphotos


Ammonia as a fuel

By volume, ammonia (15.6 MJ/l) carries 70 percent more energy than liquid hydrogen (9.1 MJ/l at cryogenic temperatures) and nearly three times as much energy as compressed hydrogen gas (5.6 MJ/l at a pressure of 700 bar). By weight, it carries 6,250 Wh/kg – more than 20 times as much energy as today's lithium batteries, and more than enough to overcome the inefficiencies introduced when you extract the energy.

Diesel, as the dominant fossil fuel for long haul shipping, is of course considerably better, giving you 38.6 MJ/l and 12,667 Wh/kg in a combustion cycle. But ammonia's numbers are enough to bring it into the conversation, and diesel's days are numbered.

There are a few key ways ammonia can be used as a fuel. One is by "cracking" it back into H2 and N2 gases, and then using the hydrogen, either as a combustion fuel or to produce electricity via a fuel cell. Efficiency-wise, Australia's CSIRO calculates ammonia returns about 2,094 Wh/kg when converted to hydrogen and run through a PEM fuel cell. That's about 19 percent of the 10 MWh/ton of renewable energy it takes to create the ammonia.

Another option is to burn the ammonia directly as a combustion fuel, combining it with oxygen to release energy, with nitrogen gas and water the only exhaust products. This is not super simple – ammonia doesn't burn at lower temperatures, so typically another combustion fuel needs to be used in conjunction. Also, if the combustion process isn't well managed, it can release large amounts of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. But when done properly, CSIRO calculates it returns 2,315 Wh/kg, or 21 percent of the energy input for ammonia synthesis.

A third is to use ammonia directly as a fuel for a high-temperature solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), creating electricity with nitrogen and water as by-products. This is much more efficient, returning as much as 5,510 Wh/kg, or 50 percent of the energy input. A drawback here is that SOFC technology is expensive and tends to work slowly, offering poor power density – but it's possible to run a hybrid system off a single fuel tank, converting a percentage of the ammonia fuel to hydrogen when burst power is needed.


Nearly all the world's current ammonia production uses dirty, steam-reformed hydrogen and a massive amount of energy via the Haber-Bosch process
Saoirse2010/Depositphotos


Conventional ammonia production: an emissions nightmare

Right now, ammonia production is a dirty and energy-intensive process. Most of the hydrogen produced today starts with hydrogen from steam-reformed methane gas. Extracting that natural gas from the ground always causes methane leakage into the atmosphere, where it's an incredibly potent greenhouse gas, and the steam reforming process not only uses a lot of energy, it also releases carbon dioxide as part of the reaction.

To combine these H2 molecules with N2 molecules taken out of the atmosphere, you need to break the strong bonds holding those nitrogen atoms together. This is typically done using the Haber-Bosch process, which heats a mixture of the two gases up over 400 °C (752 °F) and pressurizes them to about 250 bar in the presence of an iron catalyst to create liquid ammonia.

Needless to say, the energy cost here is huge, and most of it typically comes from fossil fuels. Since ammonia is produced in enormous quantities – it's the second-most produced chemical in the world – it's currently responsible for about 2 percent of worldwide fossil energy use and the associated emissions. Add in the chemical processing and fugitive methane emissions involved, and ammonia is the single-biggest polluter in industrial chemical production, by a country mile.

At current production levels, ammonia is responsible for about 1 percent of all anthropogenic greenhouse emissions, and production is only going upward from here.


Sustainable ammonia production

It is possible to reduce emissions from the current ammonia production process, by substituting green energy for fossil energy in the Haber-Bosch process and using carbon capture and storage to separate and sequester most of the CO2 emissions from the methane reforming process. It's not possible to prevent fugitive methane leakage though, so this "blue ammonia" still comes at an environmental cost. It's considered a transitional step.

Truly "green ammonia" can be produced by using renewable energy to create hydrogen through electrolysis, and then running it through a Haber-Bosch process powered by green energy as well. It's a relatively inefficient use of renewable energy, but it gets you a genuinely emissions-free source of ammonia. This is thought of as a medium-term solution.

There are other fully green methods under development, including "reverse fuel cell" technology that converts renewable energy, water and air into ammonia without needing a separate hydrogen electrolysis process. These are starting to look pretty efficient, but they're currently still far too slow to produce the monster volumes of ammonia needed for current agricultural uses, let alone to service an emerging green liquid fuel market.

Electrochemical solutions like this are where brains and money need to be focused; they're the most promising path to zero emissions for this colossal industrial sector, no matter what the fossil-fueled incumbents might argue.

In essence, ammonia does have the potential to be a usable clean fuel. But the pathway here is not clear. Considerable work needs to be done developing and scaling new green ammonia production methods, and at the other end, considerable work needs to be done developing efficient and powerful ways to use the energy it stores. Both sides of this equation will need to become cost-competitive as well, if cheap, filthy diesel is to be replaced.

But research is gathering steam in these areas, and ammonia will be much easier to store, transport and distribute using existing networks and technologies than hydrogen.


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Loz Blain
Loz has been one of our most versatile contributors since 2007, and has since proven himself as a photographer, videographer, presenter, producer and podcast engineer, as well as a senior features writer. Joining the team as a motorcycle specialist, he's covered just about everything for New Atlas, concentrating lately on eVTOLs, hydrogen, energy, aviation, audiovisual, weird stuff and things that go fast.

GREEN CAPITALI$M

'Solar Bond' Demand Goes Through the Roof; Larger investors are starting to buy up the debt behind loans to homeowners who want to reduce their dependence on vulnerable electric grids



Carrotta, Joe.Wall Street Journal (Online); New York, N.Y.

Investment firms are buying record amounts of so-called solar bonds, debt issued to help U.S. individuals finance the purchase of rooftop solar panels to power their homes.

Sales of solar bonds hit around $2 billion in the first six months of the year, roughly double levels during the same period in 2020 and 2019, according to deal tracker Finsight.com. The bonds, which are backed by bundles of loans made to homeowners for panel purchases, are being issued by a handful of financing companies that specialize in residential solar panels, including GoodLeap LLC, Sunnova Energy Corp. and Solar Mosaic Inc.

By tapping bond markets, the companies are connecting fund managers looking for eco-friendly investments with homeowners who want to get cheaper—and potentially more reliable—electricity while cutting their carbon footprints.

"It came down to cost and the environment," said Josh Rudin, a 34-year-old real-estate attorney who took out a 10-year loan from Solar Mosaic to install solar panels on the house his family bought in Woodbury, N.Y., this year. "We just started a week ago, and even with the bad weather, the system is producing 82% of our electricity."

The solar panels cut the cost of his electricity purchases from the grid by 95% and qualify him for about $15,000 in federal and state tax credits. Even after accounting for loan payments, his monthly power expenditure will fall, saving him about $8,500 over the life of the loan, according to EmPower Solar, the company that sold him the equipment. Payments on the loan will remain fixed, and when the panels produce more electricity than he uses, Mr. Rudin can sell the excess to his local power grid, he said.

Demand for the loans is accelerating this year amid more violent and unpredictable weather patterns, said Tanguy Serra, chief financial officer for GoodLeap LLC, the largest issuer of solar bonds. "The wildfires in California, the Texas winter, the outages in Louisiana, they're all large-scale advertising for the product," he said.

Hurricane Ida cut power to roughly one million customers in New Orleans and Mississippi and 200,000 people in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania this past week.

Bond investors like debt backed by solar loans because the borrowers must own their homes and have good mortgage track records to qualify, said Katrina Niehaus, head of corporate structured finance at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which arranges solar bonds. Buying the securities also helps asset managers meet environmental, social and governance, or ESG, investing targets required by their clients.

Growing appetite for the bonds is lowering borrowing costs for companies like GoodLeap. Investors bought the bulk of the firm's most recently issued bonds at a yield of 1.94%, compared with 2.77% on a deal done in July 2020, according to Finsight.com.

Solar energy systems can cost $30,000 or more, and until recently, most homeowners had two choices when purchasing them: pay cash or sign a lease. Over the past five years, solar financing companies scaled up operations by borrowing money from banks and credit unions, then lending it out to customers of panel vendors like EmPower.

The companies use algorithms to rapidly assess and approve borrowers, collect fees on the loans and then sell them to fund managers. Loans accounted for 63% of solar financing in 2020, up from 21% in 2015, Mosaic Chief Executive Billy Parrish said.

Initially, finance companies sold much of their loans and bonds to hedge-fund managers. Alternative fund manager CarVal Investors LP has purchased more than $500 million worth of loans from GoodLeap and Blackstone Group Inc. bought large quantities from the company when bond markets seized up in the summer of 2020, people familiar with the matter said.

The solar bond market is still small, but it is now starting to attract larger traditional investors, said Rob Camacho, co-head of structured credit at Blackstone. "This market is going to grow a lot, so you have money managers willing to spend time on it," he said.

BlackRock Inc., the largest fund management company in the world, has begun buying solar bonds, a person familiar with the matter said.

As the market expands, so could the risk in the loans backing solar bonds. The average FICO score of solar loan borrowers is roughly 745, but "there's definitely the possibility that the industry will expand to borrowers that are in the lower credit spectrum," said Melvin Zhou, an analyst at Kroll Bond Rating Agency LLC.

Increased government support is playing a part in the industry's growth, said Bryan White, a solar analyst at market research firm Wood Mackenzie. The 26% federal investment tax credit on residential solar panels is slated to expire fully in 2024, but the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress are working on extending that by as much as eight years through the current budget reconciliation process, he said.

"It's a great day for solar today," Mr. Rudin said on Thursday as blue skies replaced Ida's torrential downpour. "I'm exporting five kilowatts to the grid and it's only 9 a.m."