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A Key Challenge to Harvesting Fusion Energy on Earth

TOPICS:FusionFusion EnergyPrinceton Plasma Physics Laboratory

By PRINCETON PLASMA PHYSICS LABORATORY SEPTEMBER 3, 2021

A key challenge for scientists striving to produce on Earth the fusion energy that powers the sun and stars is preventing what are called runaway electrons, particles unleashed in disrupted fusion experiments that can bore holes in tokamaks, the doughnut-shaped machines that house the experiments. Scientists led by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have used a novel diagnostic with wide-ranging capabilities to detect the birth, and the linear and exponential growth phases of high-energy runaway electrons, which may allow researchers to determine how to prevent the electrons’ damage. 

Initial energy

“We need to see these electrons at their initial energy rather than when they are fully grown and moving at near the speed of light,” said PPPL physicist Luis Delgado-Aparicio, who led the experiment that detected the early runaways on the Madison Symmetric Torus (MST) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The next step is to optimize ways to stop them before the runaway electron population can grow into an avalanche,” said Delgado-Aparicio, lead author of a first paper that details the findings in the Review of Scientific Instruments.

Fusion reactions produce vast amounts of energy by combining  light elements in the form of plasma — the hot, charged state of matter composed of free electrons and atomic nuclei that makes up 99 percent of the visible universe.  Scientists the world over are seeking to produce and control fusion on Earth for a virtually inexhaustible supply of safe and clean power for generating electricity 

Physicist Luis Delgado-Aparicio with figure of Madison Symmetric Torus from his paper. Credit: Photo and collage by Elle Starkman/Office of Communications

PPPL collaborated with the University of Wisconsin to install the multi-energy pinhole camera on MST, which served as a testbed for the camera’s capabilities. The diagnostic upgrades and redesigns a camera that PPPL had previously installed on the now-shuttered Alcator C-Mod tokamak at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and is unique in its ability to record not only the properties of the plasma in time and space but its energy distribution as well.

That prowess enables researchers to characterize both the evolution of the superhot plasma as well as the birth of runaway electrons, which begin at low energy. “If we understand the energy content I can tell you what is the density and temperature of the background plasma as well as  the amount of runaway electrons,” Delgado Aparicio said. “So by adding this new energy variable we can find out several quantities of the plasma and use it as a diagnostic.”

Novel camera

Use of the novel camera moves technology forward. “This certainly has been a great scientific collaboration,” said physicist Carey Forest, a University of Wisconsin professor who oversees the MST, which he describes as “a very robust machine that can produce runaway electrons that don’t endanger its operation.”

As a result, Forest said, “Luis’s ability to diagnose not only the birth location and initial linear growth phase of the electrons as they are accelerated, and then to follow how they are transported from the outside in, is fascinating. Comparing his diagnosis to modeling will be the next step and of course a better understanding may lead to new mitigation techniques in the future.”

Delgado-Aparicio is already looking ahead. “I want to take all the expertise that we have developed on MST and apply it to a large tokamak,” he said. Two post-doctoral researchers who Delgado-Aparicio oversees can build upon the MST findings but at WEST, the Tungsten (W) Environment in Steady-state Tokamak operated by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in Cadarache, France.

Range of uses

“What I want to do with my post-docs is to use cameras for a lot of different things including particle transport, confinement, radio-frequency heating and also this new twist, the diagnosis and study of runaway electrons,” Delgado-Aparicio said. “We basically would like to figure out how to give the electrons a soft landing, and that could be a very safe way to deal with them.”

Reference: “Multi-energy reconstructions, central electron temperature measurements, and early detection of the birth and growth of runaway electrons using a versatile soft x-ray pinhole camera at MST” by L. F. Delgado-Aparicio, P. VanMeter, T. Barbui, O. Chellai, J. Wallace, H. Yamazaki, S. Kojima, A. F. Almagari, N. C. Hurst, B. E. Chapman, K. J. McCollam, D. J. Den Hartog, J. S. Sarff, L. M. Reusch, N. Pablant, K. Hill, M. Bitter, M. Ono, B. Stratton, Y. Takase, B. Luethi, M. Rissi, T. Donath, P. Hofer and N. Pilet, 2 July 2021, Review of Scientific Instruments.
DOI: 10.1063/5.0043672

Two dozen researchers participated in the research with Delgado-Aparicio and co-authored the paper about this work. Included were seven physicists from PPPL and eight from the University of Wisconsin. Joining them were a total of three researchers from the University of Tokyo, Kyushi University and the National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology in Japan; five members of Dectris, a Swiss  manufacturer of  detectors; and one physicist from Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin.

Support for this work comes from the DOE Office of Science.

A team of nuclear physicists are celebrating what they say is a huge step toward a practical nuclear fusion reactor.

Nuclear fusion, if scientists ever manage to figure it out, could provide a bounty of clean energy — and potentially a clear path in the transition away from fossil fuels. But the technology to recreate the sort of reaction happening inside of stars in a controlled setting on Earth has proven tricky, to say the least. That said, research published last month in the journal Nature may represent a significant step forward. The physicists demonstrated that the Wendelstein 7-X, a nuclear fusion device in Germany, can successfully contain temperatures twice as high as the core of the Sun — and they’re utterly thrilled.

“It’s really exciting news for fusion that this design has been successful,” study coauthor and Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) physicist Novimir Pablant said in a press release. “It clearly shows that this kind of optimization can be done.”

The Wendelstein 7-X is a device called a stellarator — a kind of plasma containment device that was first developed in the 1950s but largely fell out of favor because its complex, twisted design is notoriously bad at keeping the heat generated by a fusion reaction from leaking out. Because of that, most facilities are developing donut-shaped tokamaks which retain heat better and, in some tests, have generated temperatures over ten times hotter than the Sun’s core.

But a practical stellarator would let scientists circumvent some of the other headaches caused by tokamaks, which can struggle to stabilize the super-hot plasma that drives fusion reactions. And that prospect has the team extremely excited.

“It’s been very exciting for us, at PPPL and all the other US collaborating institutions, to be part of this really exciting experiment,” Advanced Projects Department head at the PPPL David Gates said in the release. “[Pablant’s] work has been right at the center of this amazing experimental team’s effort. I am very grateful to our German colleagues for so graciously enabling our participation.”

READ MORE: PPPL physicist helps confirm a major advance in stellarator performance for fusion energy [Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory]

More on nuclear fusion: Scientists Are On the Edge of a Fusion Power Breakthrough

Negative triangularity—a positive for tokamak fusion reactors

by US Department of Energy

Tokamaks, such as the Tokamak Configuration Variable (TCV) shown here, are donut-shaped devices that confine plasma to produce fusion reactions. The shape of the plasma cross-section affects the quality of the containment.

 Credit: CRPP-EPFL, Association Suisse-Euratom

Tokamak devices use strong magnetic fields to confine and to shape the plasma that contains the fuel that achieves fusion. The shape of the plasma affects the ease or difficulty of achieving a viable fusion power source. In a conventional tokamak, the cross-section of the plasma is shaped like the capital letter D. When the straight part of the D faces the "donut hole" side of the donut-shaped tokamak, this shape is called positive triangularity. When the plasma cross-section is in a backwards D shape and the curved part of the D faces the "donut hole" side, then this shape is called negative triangularity. New research shows that negative triangularity reduces how much the plasma interacts with the plasma-facing material surfaces of the tokamak. This finding points to critical benefits for achieving nuclear fusion power.

One of the challenges in fusion energy science and technology is how to build future power plants that control plasmas many times hotter than the sun. At these extreme temperatures, interactions of the plasma with the material walls of the power reactor must be controlled and minimized. Unwanted interactions occur due to turbulence in the boundary region of the plasma. This research shows that the boundary turbulence in negative triangularity plasmas is much reduced when compared with that occurring in plasmas with a positive triangularity shape. As a result, the unwanted interactions with the plasma-facing walls are also much reduced, leading in principle to longer lifetimes for the wall and a reduction in the risk of damage to the wall, something that could shut down a reactor.

Scientists know that, in tokamak fusion devices, core plasma shapes with negative triangularity exhibit a substantial increase in energy confinement compared to plasmas with positive triangularity. Negative triangularity plasma shapes also show reductions in the fluctuation levels of the core electron temperature and density. This by itself makes negative triangularity plasmas promising candidates for a future fusion power reactor.

The new research reported here shows that the sign and degree of triangularity also have a large effect on plasma edge dynamics and power and particle exhaust properties, but scientists know relatively little about such effects. These experiments at the Tokamak à Configuration Variable (TCV), located at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland, revealed a strong reduction of boundary-plasma fluctuations and plasma interaction with the facing wall for sufficiently negative triangularity values. The researchers observed the effects across a wide range of densities in both inner-wall-limited and diverted plasmas. This strong reduction in plasma-wall interaction at sufficiently negative triangularity strengthens the prospects of negative triangularity plasmas as a potential reactor solution.

The research was published in Nuclear Fusion.
Cross-pollinating physicists use novel technique to improve the design of facilities that aim to harvest fusion energy
More information: W. Han et al, Suppression of first-wall interaction in negative triangularity plasmas on TCV, Nuclear Fusion (2021). DOI: 10.1088/1741-4326/abdb95
Provided by US Department of Energy

The six problems aviation must fix to hit net zero

Illustration by Philip Lay.


With passenger numbers growing and time to slash emissions dwindling fast, the industry must tackle urgent stumbling blocks on fuel, frequent flyers and more


Jocelyn Timperley
Sun 5 Sep 2021

Aviation tanked in 2020. The number of people taking flights fell by three quarters compared with 2019 levels and as a result there was a significant drop in greenhouse gas emissions from aviation. But as countries open up and people begin to fly again, aviation is expected to see a slow climb back to previous levels. The industry anticipates a return to 2019 passenger numbers globally by 2023 and to be back on track with previous growth projections within a couple of decades.

All this is bad news for the planet. CO2 emissions from the industry are likely to triple by 2050. But if the world is to limit global heating to 1.5C, it needs to have hit net zero CO2 emissions by this time. Aviation is a complicated sector to decarbonise. It has some prickly ingredients: difficult technological solutions, hidden extra climate effects, an association with personal freedoms and a disproportionately wealthy and powerful customer base. Here are just a few of the big hurdles the sector will need to overcome if it is ever to be carbon neutral.


1. The fuel problem

For a long time, jet kerosene from fossil fuels was the only available option for aeroplanes. “Flying through air essentially requires a lot of energy, so planes have to rely on fuels that have high energy density,” says Jagoda Egeland, an aviation policy expert at the OECD. “We haven’t had many substitutes with those kinds of properties.”
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The fuel efficiency of aircraft improves over time. For example, switching from an older four-engine jumbo aircraft to a more efficient twin-engine aircraft can reduce carbon emissions by up to 30% for each flight, says Emma Harvey, a sustainability consultant who was previously the head of sustainability at Virgin Atlantic. Therefore renewing and upgrading fleets can have an impact on emissions. However, the savings are not enough to keep up with the growth in flight numbers. Before the pandemic, aviation was becoming about 3% more efficient each year, while passenger demand was increasing at about 5% a year.

But after years of development, alternative low-carbon fuels known as sustainable aviation fuels, or SAFs, are now beginning to reach the market. These accounted for less than 0.1% of aviation fuel consumption in 2018, but the hope is that this can be ramped up over time.

In the short term, the most promising are advanced waste biofuels made from things like used cooking oils. “That is pretty cheap and has pretty good life-cycle emissions, but its supply is limited,” says Dan Rutherford, director of aviation at the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT). Using these fuels exclusively for aviation would provide for only about 2% of jet fuel use in the EU and US, he says.

Biofuels can also be made from crops such as palm, soya and corn. However, environmental groups have been arguing against these for years because they can compete with food production and drive deforestation – proposed EU legislation that aims to ramp up SAFs specifically excludes their use. Other kinds of “advanced biofuels” made from cellulosic plants and agricultural and forestry waste show more promise, says Rutherford.

A final type of fuel that could be used in current aircraft is “electrofuel”, made using clean electricity and hydrogen. In theory, these could have an “almost unlimited supply”, says Rutherford, but they are currently very expensive to make.

The debut flight of the hybrid electric Cessna Sky Master, from Exeter Airport, Devon. Photograph: Jim Wileman/The Guardian

There are also completely different kinds of aircraft on the horizon. Electric planes are promising for shorter routes, and battery technology is improving all the time, says Ruth Wood, a senior lecturer in environment and climate change at Manchester University. However, the size and weight of current battery technology mean electric propulsion is still a long way off for larger aircraft, she adds.

Some companies are working on new kinds of aeroplanes designed to run on hydrogen gas, which could also be produced using clean electricity. Last year, Airbus revealed its concept for a hydrogen aircraft that it said could enter service by 2035, although it has also admitted such planes won’t be widely used until after 2050.

Chances of being solved? Clean fuels are likely to be used more and more but will make up only a few percent of fuel by 2030 and are unlikely to make a significant impact until after 2050.

2. The non-CO2 problem

Aviation accounts for about 2.5% of global CO2 emissions, but its warming impact is actually far larger owing to the other gases and particulates it emits at high altitudes. Often collectively called “non-CO2” impacts, these include nitrogen oxides and contrail clouds. These are rarely touched upon in aviation climate goals, but they could be tripling the climate impacts of aviation compared with CO2 alone.

What’s problematic, but also promising, about these effects is that they vary substantially depending on the surrounding climatic conditions. For example, one study found that just 2% of flights contribute to 80% of contrail warming effects. Night-time flights are particularly bad, because contrails produce their warming impact mainly at night.

There is still more to learn about these impacts, but policies could already be put in place to limit them, says Egeland, such as an extra charge on aeroplanes that fly at particularly bad times of the day.

It’s important to note that low-carbon fuels can still produce non-CO2 impacts, although these are expected to be lower than for kerosene for most fuels.

Chances of being solved? Unlikely in the near term given low prominence. However, the EU is beginning to pay more attention to this issue.

3. The frequent flyer problem

Some argue technological solutions will be too slow to reduce emissions in the aviation sector, and measures to reduce the amount people fly are needed to limit the damage to the climate.

But flying is not an evenly spread activity. In the UK about 15% of the population take 70% of all flights, and around half of people don’t fly at all in any given year. “That’s a pattern replicated in many other counties,” says Cait Hewitt, policy director at the Aviation Environment Federation (AEF).

The inequality in flying is even more stark at a global level. One study estimated that just 1% of the world’s population emits 50% of CO2 from commercial aviation, while just 2-4% of people fly internationally in a given year.

Some campaigners therefore support a “frequent flyer levy” as a fairer way to limit aviation emissions. The UK campaign A Free Ride argues everyone should have one annual flight free from the levy, then pay a rising charge for every extra flight taken that year. The UK’s first climate assembly also backed the idea of a frequent flyer levy.

The problem with such a levy is that many people in the frequent flyer category are likely to have the wealth to pay a moderate levy, or to have it paid by their employers, says Wood.

Manuel Grebenjak, a campaigner at the Stay Grounded network, says measures to limit flights overall, such as banning flights on certain routes, could help to stem rising emissions in a fairer way. “If a flight is banned from a certain city to another one, no one can fly, so it’s very just,” he says.

France has already moved to ban domestic flights on routes that can be travelled by train within two-and-a-half hours. Even just providing an alternative to flying can be effective: new high-speed rail lines have reduced aviation transport on the same routes by up to 80%, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Chances of being solved? Governments, including the UK, tend to shy away from demand management approaches to limiting aviation emissions, but France and Austria are making good first steps.

4. The policy problem

All this feeds into a wider need for strong policy to tackle aviation emissions, which has largely been lacking so far. “International aviation sits outside the Paris climate agreement, because that agreement is about a country’s domestic emissions,” says Harvey. “So there was a real push to have a scheme for international aviation.”

After years of inaction, in 2016 countries at the UN aviation agency, ICAO, agreed on the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (Corsia), a global deal to “offset” the growth in aviation emissions above the average levels in 2019 and 2020. However, when flights plummeted during the pandemic, countries changed the baseline of this scheme, which means there are currently no obligations on airlines. Egeland says Corsia’s effectiveness will “ultimately depend on the quality of carbon offsets that ICAO will accept”.

ICAO is also in discussions over a long-term climate goal for aviation for 2050, but it is not clear when this will be agreed or what the target will be.

Meanwhile, policies are being increasingly discussed at the national and regional level. In particular, the EU’s proposed “Fit for 55” climate legislation includes plans to mandate targets for SAFs and to end aviation’s fuel tax exemption. “Aviation fuel is exempt from any taxes almost everywhere,” says Grebenjak. “The EU wants to end the basically free rider status of aviation, and implement a kerosene tax that’s at the same level as other fuels.”

Chances of being solved? ICAO has been notoriously slow to act on aviation emissions, and many environmental groups criticise CORSIA for being far too weak, but recent policy moves at the EU level represent a significant step change.

5. The new middle class problem

Action at the EU level is encouraging, and the UK government even has a consultation out on its strategy for net zero aviation. However, the biggest growth in flying in the coming decades is expected outside Europe and the US, especially among the growing middle classes of developing countries.

Asia and the Pacific, Africa and the Middle East are the regions expected to see the most growth in the next 20 years, and last year China overtook the US as the world’s largest air passenger market. “The rise of a travelling middle-class in China and India has seen passenger demand grow at around 10% per annum,” says Hewitt.

Qingdao Jiaodong airport in Shandong province, China. 

Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock

Rutherford adds that frequent flyers look similar wherever in the world they are, namely upper-middle-class professionals. A global frequent flyer levy could therefore be one way to curb the growth, he says.

Chinese airlines will also increasingly have to meet local rules designed for climate mitigation if they want access to international airports, says Hewitt. But the vast majority of flights in China take place within its borders, which international policies would not apply to. “States will need to take domestic action to supplement international agreements in order to achieve net zero for aviation by 2050,” says Hewitt.

It’s worth noting that China also has the world’s largest high-speed rail network by far, while some developed countries, such as the US, have yet to install a single high-speed rail line. “We have to do our own homework first before talking about China,” says Grebenjak.

Chances of being solved? It’s up to developed countries to lead the way on reducing aviation emissions, which will then give more leeway to put pressure on developing countries.

6. The supersonic problem

Even amid growing efforts to reconcile aviation with a net zero world, some companies are pushing to develop aircraft that are even more polluting.

Earlier this year, United Airlines announced plans to buy 15 supersonic aircraft from Boom Supersonic, with the aim to begin using them by 2029. Rolls-Royce and the US air force also have deals with Boom.

As well as the noise issues with supersonics, these super-fast flights could consume five to seven times as much fuel for each passenger as subsonic aircrafts. There’s also a concern that supersonics, which will be operating high in the stratosphere, will have a disproportionate impact through non-CO2 emissions, says Rutherford. Developing emissions-intensive supersonic planes could also end up being a distraction from zero emission technologies such as hydrogen planes, he adds.

Rutherford says the best way to prevent climate damage from supersonics may be to simply require them to meet the same environmental standards as other aeroplanes. “That would, in essence, act like a ban,” he says. “They just can’t meet those standards.”

Chances of being solved? Supersonics are a disaster for the climate and should be made to meet the same environmental standards as normal planes.

Can Airports Afford To Transition From Fossil Fuels?

byLinnea Ahlgren
September 2, 2021

With climate change and its impact on everyday existence undeniably hurtling closer, the question should actually be – can they afford not to? As extreme weather – and turbulence – is becoming more and more common, the political will to fight global warming means that aviation needs to prove that it has a place in a sustainable future.

Can airports afford not to move towards net-zero carbon emissions?

 Photo: Getty Images

Ushering aviation into a sustainable, post-fossil fuel era is a task that includes airports as much as airlines and planemakers. While the pioneers may end up paying more before innovation becomes more accessible, it is unquestionable that a transition away from reliance on fossil fuels needs to be made.
Front runner airports have clean grids

Some airport operators, such as Swedavia, which operates Stockholm Arlanda, have already reached its target of zero emissions of carbon dioxide from the airport’s own operations by 2020, showing that it is possible.

Lena Wennberg, head of Environment at Swedavia, says that the key to reaching such a goal was to first track and map the airports’ carbon footprint. Then to identify so-called low-hanging fruit to tackle, and then keep moving up the ladder, collaborating with manufacturers such as ground support equipment suppliers.

Speaking at an Aviation Week webinar on Wednesday, Wennberg stated that the key for airports moving forward towards net-zero will be to have access to cheap and clean energy. While countries such as Sweden and Norway are fortunate enough to have renewable energy sources, many other states still rely on fossil fuel to feed the electricity grid.

Stockholm Arlanda Airport and its operator Swedavia reached their target of zero carbon emissions from the airport’s own operations by 2020.

 Photo: Brorsson via Wikimedia Commons

To that effect, Juliana Scavuzzi, senior director for sustainability, environmental protection, and legal affairs at Airports Council International (ACI) says that the decarbonization of the grid will be the most important thing for airports to achieve visions of sustainable operations. Meanwhile, collaboration will also be key between front runner airports and those lagging behind.

Question of time perspective

Olav Mosvold Larsen, senior executive advisor for sustainability at Norwegian airport operator Avinor, agrees that collaboration and cooperation within the entire aviation eco-system will be the most important aspect to solve the industry’s impact on the climate.

Larsen also added that if the aviation sector cannot prove that it can function sustainably, lawmakers will keep adding taxes. As such, it is in the financial interest of airports to work towards less emissions. This includes investing in technology that may still seem expensive for the time being, such as biofuels.

“We have to start somewhere. Obviously some, the first movers, might have to pay a little bit more than the people coming later. I also think it’s a question of how you make your business cases? With what time perspective? And when do you need the return on the investment?”

Amsterdam Schiphol wants to be an emissions-free airport by 2030 and energy-positive by 2050. Photo: Amsterdam Schiphol airport

EU green taxonomy push for the region

Airports in Europe willing to make the pivot also have much to gain from the EU taxonomy and its focus on sustainable growth. This will help shift investment to where it is most needed, and support companies and operators in becoming more climate-friendly. According to ACI, 235 airports in the region have committed to net-zero by 2050.

If it wasn’t simply the right thing to do, transitioning away from fossil fuel dependent operations also makes business sense. In the words of Mosvold Larsen,

“If we have the new technologies, it’s easier also to regulate or to stimulate or to incentivize from policymakers, etc. So we can actually drive for change and be a part of the solution. It is a little bit costly to get there both in terms of calories and working hours and also money, but we have no choice.”



Linnea Ahlgren
Journalist - With a Master's in International Relations, Linnea has combined her love for current affairs with her passion for travel to become a key member of the Simple Flying team. With eight years’ experience in publishing and citations in publications such as CNN, Linnea brings a deep understanding of politics and future aviation tech to her stories. Based in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

IEEFA Says New Coal Power Plants In India Will Become Stranded Assets

IEEFA says building new coal fired plants in India is bad economics.

Air pollution is evident in Mumbai, India. Photo by Zach Shahan, CleanTechnica.


By Steve Hanley
Published15 hours ago

In theory, economics is pretty simple stuff. If Farmer A is selling apples 4 for a dollar and Farmer B is selling them 5 for a dollar, who you gonna call when you need apples? Farmer B, of course. You’d be crazy to pay more for apples than you need to, especially if you hope to resell them and become the Jeff Bezos of the apple world.

Now imagine you are a native of India and want to supply electricity to the teeming masses. You can either build coal-fired generating stations that cost more to operate or build renewable energy resources like solar and wind farms that cost less to operate. Once again, you’d be crazy to select the more expensive option, but that is just what India plans to do? Why? Because coal is like a religion and common sense rarely applies to theological discussions.

The Institute For Energy Economics And Financial Analysis says India is hell bent on building a fleet of new coal-fired generating stations — 33 gigawatts (GW) currently under construction and another 29 GW in pre-construction. All of them will wind up being stranded assets, says Kashish Shah, a research analyst at IEEFA. “Coal-fired power simply cannot compete with the ongoing cost reductions of renewables. Solar tariffs in India are now below even the fuel costs of running most existing coal-fired power plants.

“In the last 12 months no new coal-fired power plants have been announced, and there has been no movement in the 29 GW of pre-construction capacity. This reflects the lack of financing available for new coal fired power projects, and also the flattening of electricity demand growth, which has impacted coal the most.”

Despite such headwinds, the Central Electricity Authority still projects India will reach 267 GW of coal-fired capacity by 2030. That will require adding 58 GW of net new capacity additions, or about 6.4 GW annually.

IEEFA says it is “highly improbable” that the CEA’s projections will materialize, given the ongoing financial and operational stress in the thermal power sector, which means India’s coal capacity plans should be urgently revised.

“Any projections for India’s future generation mix should take into account that new coal-fired power plants are likely to become stranded assets,” says Shah. “The new capacity would only be economically viable if it replaced end-of-life, polluting power plants with outdated combustion technology and locations remote to coal mines.

“Even then, there would need to be sufficient coal plant flexibility to deliver power into periods of peak demand, and the time-of-day pricing would need to be high enough to justify the low over the day utilisation rates.”


Shah adds that without material growth in electricity demand, installing additional inflexible high-emissions baseload capacity will increase the financial distress of state-owned distribution companies by adding to their burden of paying fixed-capacity charges to thermal power plants that are used only sparingly.

The International Energy Agency’s road map for reaching net zero emissions by 2050 recommends no new investment in fossil fuel supply projects, and no further final investment decisions for new unabated coal plants. IEEFA notes there is little appetite from private investors to risk new capital in a sector that continues to carry US$40–60 billion of non-performing or stranded assets.

Only India’s state-owned Power Finance Corporation and Rural Electrification Corporation continue to tout new coal-fired power capacity, but that may have more to do with politics than economics. Nearly half of the 33 GW of capacity now under construction in India is sponsored by those state-owned companies. IEEFA suggests they should “walk away” from those “under construction” projects now to avoid the risk of them sitting idle after they are completed.

“Governments, investors and utilities across the globe are rapidly transitioning to cheaper domestic zero emissions renewable energy,” says Shah. “India should be taking advantage of the falling cost of renewables plus rising viability of battery storage, which can provide clean grid-firming, to meet incremental power demand.

“Accelerating renewable energy capacity commissioning is critical to lower India’s overall energy costs and support faster electrification of transportation and other industries. Ultra-low cost renewables would also enable development of a green hydrogen economy to strengthen India’s long-term objective of energy security.” Seems like basic economics to us.

 

An extraordinary South African story

Barbara Masekela

Barbara Masekela, who chose politics over her brother’s career in music, has had an equally colourful life. 

Photo: Melinda Stuurman

VOICES

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Almost twenty years old, I now had the opportunity to define my life according to my own precepts.

I had been groomed by Uncle Kenny to regard myself as different from other women of my age. He stressed that I was more articulate and intelligent, and would never be able to settle into the humdrum ways of ordinary township life.

Even when I was a child in KwaGuqa, my uncle would time his unexpected visits to coincide with my school holidays and, sweeping Ouma’s excuses aside, have my bags packed and drive off with me to his home in Springs. When I was driven back, his DKW would be full of packages of clothes and toys for me. Once, he even bought me a bicycle.

I never cried when my uncle left me back in KwaGuqa. I was always filled with awe and confidence, because he always came back for me. We would pay a surprise visit to my parents in Alexandra, who would be astounded by my appearance.

According to our Setlokwa custom, my father’s brothers were my fathers and their children were my brothers and my sisters. Uncle Kenny delighted in the exclamations of my parents as we made our surprise entrance.

READ: Felleng Yende | Redistribute resources in favour of women

Those were the best times of my childhood, and I never felt sad about waving goodbye to my parents as the case would be when they would leave KwaGuqa after a visit.

Uncle Kenny healed the deep feelings of orphanhood that used to wrack my body into an upheaval of shivers and hiccups long after the tears had gone. I loved him almost as much as I loved my brother, and my life afterwards, as a growing adult, would always be lacking without either of them. No one ever measured up to their high standing in my universe.

So, as I entered the stage of courtship, my yardstick shifted and slid to approximate the wit, the humour and the swaggering intelligence of those two: there was always something wanting in my suitors.

Many journalists came to the New Age offices to verify and follow up on stories, not least to get information about arrested leaders and other activists – the editor Fred Carneson, for instance.

Like many others who visited the office, Carneson had been a Treason Trialist, arrested over sixty times for his political activities. He was on trial for refusing to reveal the sources of a story in the paper.

Young journalists at Drum magazine, Golden City Post and the like often came to our offices to meet with Joe Gqabi or Ruth First. Govan Mbeki, who was on the New Age editorial board and was based in the Eastern Cape, was a frequent visitor.

I recognised people such as Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela, Titus Nkobi and Duma Nokwe from my childhood days

As a new employee, I was not familiar with many of the activists who closed the door behind themselves when they entered Ruth and Kathy Kathrada’s office. They were well known to Joyce Mohamed and to Esther Mtshali, my colleagues who were in the inner circles of the movement.

I met Nat Nakasa at the New Age offices. Like many journalists, he had come to get information about a story.

The most frequent visitors were lawyers and trade union members. I recognised people such as Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela, Titus Nkobi and Duma Nokwe from my childhood days when they addressed ANC meetings at the square in Alexandra near 12th Avenue, and from photographs in the newspapers.

The atmosphere at the office was very relaxed. I do not remember being vetted or questioned about my background, and I never witnessed a quarrel among the comrades or sensed the existence of a cult surrounding any of the leaders.

Nor was there any open demonstration of hierarchy. Despite the deepening repression and the growing number of arrests, there was a cheerful air that ruled the interactions that were focused on the liberation struggle.

Soon I was riding on the back of Nat’s scooter and accompanying him to shebeens in Johannesburg and Soweto. Ours was more of a companionship than a love affair.

I remember that he came to pick me up for a date once, all agog because he had met the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in South Africa and she had agreed to go on a date with him.

It did not affect me; in the short time I had known him, I had learnt that he was a sucker for short-lived infatuations that soon petered out. He took me to my first “mixed party” at the home of Nadine Gordimer.

Nat was greatly influenced by his homeboy Lewis Nkosi, for whom he had great regard and admiration. Nkosi had introduced him to the Johannesburg scene and it was not long before he developed his own professional and social reputation. For one, he managed to win my father over and became a family friend rather than a suitor.

Both my parents spoke freely to him about their work in the Natalspruit Municipality. He had liaisons with other women and never made a secret of it, but he liked my company and we became very close friends and intellectual mates who shared opinions about books and writers.

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Her autobiography, Poli Poli, is published by Jonathan Ball

It is during this time that I first met Yolisa Bokwe, with whom I have shared a friendship for over sixty years. Originally from Middeldrift in the Eastern Cape, she came to Johannesburg from Birmingham in England, where she had studied classical music. She taught the piano at Dorkay House.

Nat Nakasa took one look at this sophisticated, petite beauty and fell in love. I met her in Robinson Deep through Joyce Piliso, who was a neighbour of friends of my parents, the Denalanes.

We still roll about laughing when remembering the story of my arrest. It was a Sunday morning and I was at Yolisa’s cottage in a back yard in Parktown. There was a knock at the door and when Yoli opened it, a big white policeman shadowed the way and demanded to know what we were doing in a white area. He took our passes and we were under arrest.

As we waited for the police van to arrive, Yoli asked the policeman if she could go to the lavatory. He agreed, rather too readily. It was the custom of the police, then, to drive around all day collecting suspects and only to return to the police station when the van was full.

This was to be our fate too, but there was no Yolisa to be my partner in “crime” that day: she had climbed through the toilet window and escaped.

It was only when the van arrived with two more constables that it dawned on me that she had gone. I felt abandoned and betrayed as I bounced up and down in the empty van, which stopped periodically to pick up more reluctant passengers. Eventually, at dusk, after my charges were confirmed, I was taken to the women’s prison, where the Constitutional Court is now located.

I prepared myself for my first night in prison – ablution bucket, clanging doors and all. The cell reeked of dirt, dust, sweat and urine, and, for the first time, it dawned on me that I really was under arrest.

As I was coming to terms with my plight, there was a noise at the door, which was being unlocked, as my name was shouted out loudly.

I came out following the policeman. There, at the big counter, was a friend waiting. It was Andrew Lukhele, an advocate who was also a good friend and an Alexandra resident. He had managed to negotiate a trespass fine and I was free.

Outside waiting in his car was dear Yolisa.

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Barbara Masekela during the Hugh Masekela tribute at the 2018 Design Indaba. Photo: Design Indaba

I was impressed that her escape was not only to save herself, but to seek and find help to get me out of jail. Our friendship continues to thrive and I still rely on her for cool-headed, practical solutions.

But at this time, marriage was furthest from my mind. I was still looking forward to entering university and, with Uncle Kenny’s encouragement, had applied to what was then Pius XII University, at Roma Mission in Lesotho. When I had refused to go to the Bantustan Turfloop University, 1961 became a gap year for me.

The sexual terrorism I had experienced in Alexandra as a very young teenager, the train journey to Inanda Seminary with testosterone-charged young men on the rampage in the train corridors, the lustful conduct of close male friends as soon as you were alone with them, the bold remarks about one’s physical attributes, and more, did not make for a keen interest in a relationship.

There was something that turned men beastly about sex and it did not assist in one’s own self-regard. Additionally, coming from Inanda, the idea of men in charge, of men casually treating women as children they could rebuke – even punish and control – had become anathema, even as it was a common occurrence in society.

Masekela is SA’s former ambassador to the US. Her autobiography, Poli Poli, is published by Jonathan Ball

Dirty truth behind SA’s coal dependence

Neva Makgetla

An illegal miner gathers coal in a mine in Ermelo, Mpumalanga. South Africa’s lack of coherent policy direction and overreliance on coal will be detrimental to the country. Photo: Nelius Rademan


VOICESEvery woman has had visitors who sloganeer militantly in the lounge about women’s oppression but won’t venture into the kitchen to help do the dishes.

Theorising gender relations in the abstract is obviously necessary, but changing the world requires that we use the theory to diagnose the specific problems we face and then act on the diagnosis.

Unfortunately, the discourse on South Africa’s minerals-energy complex often seems mired in the abstract.

READ: Mining: goose that lays the golden eggs is dying

Associate professor of economics and econometrics Sam Ashman usefully shapes a broad understanding of how collaboration between the state and big mining companies historically entrenched mining, especially coal.

To inform practical policies today, we need a more detailed understanding of the costs, risks and benefits of the minerals-energy complex for different socioeconomic groups. Even more, we need to analyse the public and private sector systems that secure its reproduction. Only then can we develop effective interventions to change direction.

Consider, for instance, the factors that promote continued dependence on coal. In many ways, the coal value chain is the core of the minerals-energy complex.

It comprises the coal mines and refineries led by Eskom and Sasol, as well as the aluminium and ferro-alloy refineries (including Mozal, the joint smelter project in Mozambique) that use about 15% of Eskom’s electricity.
As a whole, the coal value chain contributes about 5% of South Africa’s GDP and exports, although only 1% of its employment.

But it fuels more than 80% of the national electricity grid and is critical for four Mpumalanga municipalities – eMalahleni (Witbank), Steve Tshwete (Middelburg), Govan Mbeki (Secunda) and Msukaligwa (Ermelo).

These towns account for only 2% of the national population but 4% of the GDP, 70% of coal mining and almost 15% of electricity and petrochemicals.

Cost versus benefit

This is the thorniest kind of economic policy, where the benefits of change – in this case, a shift to cleaner energy and development of more equitable, labour-intensive industries – are huge but widely spread and often intangible, while the costs are visible and concentrated.

Already, for most South Africans, the costs of coal outweigh the benefits. Those costs take the form of increasingly intense droughts and floods, the risk of tariffs on South African exports, and the escalating cost and unreliability of coal-fuelled electricity.

READ: Correction on green power, then botched again

Households and businesses that can afford it are fleeing to renewable generation, which promises lower costs and fewer interruptions than Eskom’s coal-based supply.

Improving the competitiveness of the national electricity supply can go a long way towards supporting small businesses, creating more employment and more dynamic industrialisation.

But the transition away from coal will also come with costs. Most obviously, the new energy systems require large upfront investments in transmission and grid management, as well as generation.
Like any shift to a more productive technology, the transition also entails a loss of capital and livelihoods in now obsolete processes.

Mining companies will have to write off both their capital investments and coal reserves. Most of the international mining conglomerates have already sold their coal mines pre-emptively to local interests. Downstream refineries may be able to avoid similar write-offs by investing in alternative energy sources and feedstocks.

In a decade or so, however, the 90 000 coal mine workers, almost all in Mpumalanga, will probably face downsizing. The coal towns will lose their central industry, spelling trouble for small companies serving the mines and their communities.

The costs of the transition have so far been higher than needed because government systems have long been skewed to favour coal use. This is a problem of both the structures of the state and its specific decision-making systems.

Disjointed perspectives

Government oversight over the coal value chain is fragmented between a dozen departments, the provinces of Mpumalanga and Limpopo, Mpumalanga’s coal towns and several state-owned enterprises. Of these, only the environmental affairs department has an explicit mandate to promote clean energy, and it has no direct authority over the pricing and use of coal.

This disjointed system inevitably leads to rifts between state agencies. Most notably, the mineral resources and energy department insists that South Africa cannot afford to write off its coal reserves and that they are irreplaceable as a baseload for the national grid.

READ: More power, less darkness after Gwede changes law

Other government institutions generally see the phasing out of coal as unavoidable, given its loss of competitiveness and growing unreliability, as well as the escalating cost of emissions for the economy as a whole.

The lack of coherence in state structures makes it harder to re-engineer decision-making systems that were structured to favour coal use.

A few examples illustrate the problem: When the energy department makes decisions on the national electricity supply, it does not have to show how they align with national emissions targets. Nor does the department have to publish evidence on the costs and benefits of different options for businesses and households.

That calculation should take into account not only the direct costs of generation and transmission, but also the cost of emissions and other pollution, the growing unreliability and escalating tariffs of Eskom’s supply, and the impact of global technological trends on generation costs.
State-owned enterprises historically helped build the minerals-energy complex. To date, Eskom remains locked into coal because the energy department has barred it from large-scale renewable generation.

Meanwhile, Transnet reaps about a fifth of its revenues from its export coal lines. It has no incentive to move out of these investments as long as it does not have to pay the full cost of the related emissions.

Then there is the proposal to build a new 3.5-gigawatt, $5 billion (R72 billion) coal-fuelled power station at the Musina Makhado special economic zone (SEZ) in Limpopo. The SEZ will be owned by Chinese companies – the first private one in the country – and centre on metals refineries. It is endorsed by the trade, industry and competition department and Limpopo’s provincial government, ensuring that it will enjoy a range of government incentives.

Ignoring national imperatives

If that plant is built, it will effectively render national emissions targets impossible.

Neither the mandate nor the key performance indicators of the trade and industry department nor Limpopo require them to help reach emissions targets or contribute to a just energy transition. Nor are they required to show the probable impact on jobs and equality of investing in capital-intensive refineries, compared with putting the same resources into more labour-intensive clusters and businesses outside of the minerals-energy complex.

An effective policy to diversify away from coal has to start with clarity around its governance. The first step would be to translate national targets for reducing emissions and improving economic equality into consistent mandates and performance indicators for all of the relevant state agencies.

READ: Zimbabwe bucks the trend to cleaner energy, digging deeper into coal

In the longer term, restructuring should ensure that the responsibilities for transformation are aligned with authority and resources. More fundamentally, South Africans need to understand both the benefits and costs of depending on mining, particularly that of coal.

Too often, decision-making systems in both the market and government encourage officials to avoid the risks of innovation and ignore the costs of promoting capital-intensive minerals and energy activities rather than more labour-intensive and innovative industries.


The ultimate price is that the soaring costs of emissions are criminally undervalued, even as the climate crisis intensifies.

Makgetla is an economist at research institute Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies. This article was first published in New Frame.

The future of gas: chewing over the green-hydrogen cooked sausage

Tom Pullar-Strecker

STUFF. NEW ZEALAND

Sep 05 2021

Robert Holt from Callaghan Innovation explains how its hydrogen BBQ works.

I am standing beside an outbuilding at Callaghan Innovation’s campus in Lower Hutt on a sunny winter’s day, watching engineer Robert Holt chuck a packet of sausages and a red pepper on the barbecue.

Not just any barbecue though.

This is New Zealand’s only zero-carbon, hydrogen-powered barbecue.

To my right are two wind turbines and above me on the roof of the building are some solar panels.

Round the back is a fridge-sized electrolyser designed by Callaghan that is using the power from the wind turbines and the solar panels to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

READ MORE:
* How 'green' hydrogen gas can help us protect the climate
* Gas appliances would need to be replaced from 2035 under First Gas hydrogen plan
* Time to ban new gas connections in houses?

The hydrogen, pumped out at the rate of 100 grams an hour, is being fed into an underground storage pipe connected to the barbecue, a hot water heater and a smoker.

And the “waste” oxygen is being spat out into the air in little hisses at the back of the electrolyser.

I am here because the gas industry wants to convince me to help persuade you that gas has a future beyond natural gas – a carbon-free future based on green hydrogen.

The proof that’s possible is in the sausage, which has now cooked. But whether it is likely hinges on some complicated practicalities.

Is hydrogen safe? Is it economic? How could the switch-over from natural gas be managed, and from an environmental point of view would it be better to just jump to electric appliances now?
Is the switch even possible?

First Gas hopes to start mixing a blend of up to 20 per cent green hydrogen with natural gas until some time from 2035, after which it would begin switching its network to 100 per cent hydrogen.

But there is a bit of a ‘chicken and egg’ problem.

Rinnai New Zealand managing director Ray Ferner says a lot of gas hot water heaters and fires have been tested on blends of up to 20 per cent hydrogen “and we don't perceive any real challenge”.

But move much beyond that to a richer hydrogen mix, and they will no longer work safely.

Callaghan Innovation converted its appliances, including a hot water heater, to run on hydrogen and Holt suggests there could be a market for conversion kits costing a few hundred dollars.



ROSA WOODS/STUFF
Callaghan Innovation converted a barbecue to run off green hydrogen that it produces by using solar and wind energy to split water.

But Ferner doubts converting appliances is going to be an option for most people.

That is because it would be logistically impossible to convert everyone on a gas pipeline from appliances that require natural gas to ones that could cope with a high hydrogen blend overnight.

And who would want to live without a stove or hot water heater for however long it took to do a switchover?

Ferner says there is a solution, but it also comes with a cost.

There are prototype gas appliances being demonstrated in Europe that are capable of burning either natural gas or hydrogen or any blend, he explains.

“All the major manufacturers are working on them.

“The appliances are smart enough to understand what they are burning, and they calibrate themselves to what is coming down the pipe.”

Ferner expects such devices to become commonplace between 2025 and 2030, and, surprising perhaps, he believes they could cost only “1 or 2 per cent” more than existing appliances.

“In a gas water heater for example, there's a heat exchanger, a burner, a gas control valve, a water control valve, and a computer that runs the whole thing.

“The only things that will really change is the design of the burner and the gas control valve, and the computer will control it all. There might be a couple more sensors, but I think we're talking about a nominal change.”


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Rinnai says devices capable of burning either natural gas or hydrogen should cost little extra to manufacture.

As and when such appliances do go on sale, people should be able to future-proof their homes for a switch to green hydrogen.

But until then it is easy to see people becoming more hesitant about buying new or replacement natural gas appliances that they might only get 10 to 15 years’ use out of.

Ferner’s response is that the switch to high hydrogen blends probably won’t really begin before 2040 or 2045.

Though that, of course, is not what climate change campaigners would want to hear.
What about the Hindenburg?

Hydrogen may never live down the 1937 Hindenburg airship disaster in which 36 people lost their lives in what was one of the earliest deadly accidents to be caught on film.

Holt notes hydrogen packs a punch, being “2½ times more energetic by weight than its nearest cousin”.

And because hydrogen is a far smaller molecule that methane, which is the main component in natural gas, it can also leak out of tiny holes.

But Holt argues hydrogen is the safest flammable gas because it is very buoyant and disperses rapidly.

Intentionally trying to create an explosion from hydrogen in the home environment is not as easy as it might sound, he says.

“I talked to some consultants from the UK last year and they spent three years trying to get a house in Scotland to blow up with hydrogen and they haven’t managed to sustain an explosion inside because it leaks away so quickly.”



The 1937 Hindenburg disaster left more than just one generation nervous about the fuel.

Holt admits there are safety issues, but says they are relatively easy to solve.

“Hydrogen doesn’t need complicated technology to render it safe.

“For $30 you can have a sensor which tells you when you have got a leak and you just shut it down.”

Preventing leaks is a question of using the right materials “and fortunately high-density polyethylene, which is what gas pipelines are made of, is one of them”, he says.

But there are still older gas pipes in New Zealand made out of types of steel that Holt describes as the “bogeyman of hydrogen”.

These can become brittle and fracture when hydrogen is piped through them.

Powerco gas manager Mark Hermann says that it is laying pipes that can take hydrogen whenever it connects new subdivisions and replaces existing infrastructure.

“When we are replacing older parts of the network, we're replacing it with newer materials, and most of that is polyethylene.”

But the future of gas may be looking a bit brighter for people living in new subdivisions, rather than in old villas in established suburbs.
And the cost?

The price of hydrogen is going to be tied to the price of electricity, as that is what is used to produce green hydrogen.

If the cost of electricity comes down, then the price of green hydrogen should come down in about the same proportion.

That appears quite likely given expected investments in low-cost solar and wind power, and pumped hydro, and the growing possibility of reforms to the currently highly-profitable electricity market.

But in almost all situations, using electricity as “electricity”, rather than converting it first to a gas and then burning it, should be the cheaper option.

That may be a bit ‘less true’ when comparing electric and gas home hot water heating, as there are some inefficiencies in having hot water sitting in a hot water cylinder waiting to be used.

Holt says the electrolyser that Callaghan has developed, HyLink, is about “70 to 75 per cent efficient”, meaning about three-quarters of the power generated from its solar panels and wind turbines is converted and stored as hydrogen energy.

The rest is given off from the electrolyser as heat, which it is not entirely wasted and is instead used to heat one of Callaghan’s offices.

Inconveniently, though, the more hydrogen that has to be produced quickly, the harder it is to make the process efficient.

“With almost all conversion processes, you can reach perfect efficiency when you're doing it infinitely slowly,” Holt says.

RICKY WILSON/STUFF
How green hydrogen is made commercially at BOC's facility in Glenbrook south of Auckland.

The main uses of green hydrogen are expected to be in applications that require a high power-to-weight ratio, such as heavy transport and aviation, and where fine control is needed of industrial processes.

One reason green hydrogen might appeal over electricity financially in the home environment, despite its higher energy cost, is if a homeowner has nowhere convenient in their home to put an electric hot water cylinder, or if installing one would involve a lot of re-plumbing.

But electric cylinders that are designed to be installed outside are now a more common option in New Zealand, which can alleviate those issues.

“Australians usually install electric cylinders outside and traditionally we have them inside,” Rinnai’s Ferner says.

“But there is a now a range of cylinders, we sell them and there are several others, that can be installed externally. They have a superior finish on them and are waterproof and are built for the job. They suit some people, but not others.”
Is waiting for green hydrogen the ‘right’ thing?

This is a tougher question than it sounds.

The Climate Change Commission initially recommended banning new natural gas connections from 2025 before walking back on that after Energy Minister Megan Woods signalled she would not be on board with that change.

Woods’ rationale seemed to be that it might not make sense to kill off the natural gas network if it could be repurposed to distributing green hydrogen.

So by that logic, by sticking with gas appliances now, perhaps consumers could claim they were helping pave the way for a greener future.

There is also an argument that the natural gas that will be produced by the country’s existing gas fields is going be used for one purpose or another, and out of those uses, using it for home and hot water heating is one of the more energy-efficient.

It makes far less sense environmentally, for example, to burn gas to produce electricity, than to use it directly in homes.

Doubling down on that argument, natural gas users could argue that they if they had switched to electricity this year, the net result would have been even more coal-burning and carbon emissions from Genesis’ Huntly power station.



LIAM COURTENAY/STUFF
There should be enough natural gas to power home appliances beyond 2050, but whether that is a valid use for the carbon-emitting fuel is a matter of opinion.

It is possible to take that argument too far though.

While the above might be the impacts in the short term, the more demand there is for electricity, the higher investment you would expect in renewable electricity generation– which has none of the emissions associated with natural gas.
The mood on the ground

There is a little sign that many consumers’ faith in gas has been shaken just yet.

Ferner says demand for Rinnai’s gas appliances is at record high thanks to the volume of new homes being built, and the company hasn’t seen any move away from the fuel as yet.

Even with the ban on new offshore exploration permits, there is probably enough natural gas in New Zealand to power home gas appliances through to at least 2050 and perhaps decades longer.

The assumption may be that if green hydrogen doesn’t ride to the rescue, the consumption of natural gas will simply be allowed continue, so why worry?

But given expected increases in the cost of carbon credits, the potential for electricity prices to fall, and the tough economics of green hydrogen, it may be worth accepting that gas, either natural or green, is going to become a bit of a luxury.

A luxury some buyers would pay for, of course.

Wellington gas fitter Dermot O'Shaughnessy of Hospitality Gas Services, says professional chefs he works with couldn’t get their heads around the idea of cooking without gas and don’t see induction cooking as an option.

That is especially as a lot of commercial cooking revolves around Asian cuisine cooked in woks.

Business owners were at a loss to think what they would do if they wanted to open a new restaurant and couldn’t put gas in and were “astonished” when the Climate Change Commission floated the idea of a ban on new connections, O'Shaughnessy says.

TOM PULLAR-STRECKER/STUFF
Gas-fitter Dermot O'Shaughnessy says electric cookers are not considered an option by the professional chefs he works with, but the industry should not be afraid of hydrogen.

“They are of the belief that will never happen because it can't happen. There will always be a demand for gas, whatever it looks like.”

But he says he knows other gas-fitters who lost work installing ducted gas heating systems in new homes after the commission’s draft recommendation.

“Quite a bit of that got cancelled.”

O'Shaughnessy hasn’t had many clients discuss the environmental conundrums, he says.

“Not in my world. They are only interested in performance and if it’s not working. You know, ‘I’ve got 100 customers tonight and I want it working hot’.

“We have got to hope hydrogen can deliver on that, especially in hospo.”

Younger gas-fitters shouldn’t be afraid of it, he says.

“There'll be plenty of work. There will be something where we'll be involved in that switch.”

Does green hydrogen have a future in the home? At the moment you could find reason to support whatever answer you wanted to believe, so pass the ketchup, I’m mainly here for the sausage.

'MAYBE' TECH
Solar Domes Could Desalinate Seawater at a Commercial Scale

The first solar dome plant is under construction in Saudi Arabia.

By Chris Young

Sep 03, 2021 

Solar Water PLC

71 percent of the Earth is covered in water, but only 3 percent of that is freshwater. The effective desalination of seawater at a mass scale would clearly be a world-changing achievement, celebrated the world over.

With that goal in mind, London-based Solar Water PLC recently signed an agreement with the Saudi Arabian government as part of the country's clean future $500 billion "NEOM" project. The company is building the "first desalination plant with solar dome technology", a CNN Arabia report (translated on Solar Water PLC's website) explains.
A future of carbon-neutral seawater desalination

The agreement, made on January 29, 2020, will see the London company build its technology in the northwest of Saudi Arabia, with the solar dome plant expected to be finished by mid-2021.

The plant is essentially "a steel pot buried underground, covered with a dome," making it look like a ball, Solar Water CEO David Reavley told CNN Arabia. The glass dome, a form of concentrated solar power (CSP) technology, is surrounded by "heliostat" reflectors that focus solar radiation towards inwards. Heat is transferred to seawater within the dome, which evaporates and then condenses to form freshwater. The solar dome plant does not utilize polluting fibers that are typically used in reverse osmosis desalination technologies, and Reavley claims that it is cheap and fast to build at the same time as being carbon neutral.

Questions remain over concentrated solar power

Questions do remain about the efficacy of CSP technology. One study in 2019, for example, pointed out that there is little evidence supporting the fact that the technology could be effectively deployed at a mass scale. The stakes are high, therefore, for Solar Water PLC's 2021 experiment. If they achieve their goal, they will prove the feasibility of a new carbon-neutral desalination technique that doesn't require vast amounts of electricity and polluting chemicals.

Solar Water PLC isn't the only firm aiming to provide seawater desalination services at a mass scale. Climate Fund Manager and Solar Water Solutions, for example, are installing approximately 200 carbon-neutral desalination units in Kitui County, Kenya with the long-term goal of providing clean water to 400,000 people by 2023.

Solutions such as Solar Water PLC's solar dome are particularly important in the Middle East, as large regions in the area get little rainfall and there is a lack of freshwater sources. Another recent experiment has seen "rain drones" deployed in the United Arab Emirates. The controversial drones discharge electricity near clouds to encourage precipitation. Sunlight, on the other hand, is abundant, meaning it can be harnessed for electricity and, in this case, for turning seawater into drinkable freshwater.