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Kinder Morgan sees tax credits speeding up clean energy investments

Wed, January 25, 2023 

HOUSTON, Jan 25 (Reuters) - U.S. funding for clean energy projects will help energy pipeline operator Kinder Morgan accelerate its investments in renewable natural gas and carbon sequestration, executives said on Wednesday.

The $430 billion Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) signed into law last September expanded tax credits for industrial projects that capture, reuse or permanently store carbon dioxide, a gas that contributes to climate change.

The funding "accelerates growth opportunities" in renewable natural gas (RNG), renewable diesel, hydrogen as well as carbon capture and storage (CCS), according to a presentation by Kinder Morgan, the largest operator of carbon dioxide pipelines in North America.

Opportunities to speed up development targets for CCS projects are tied to the increase in credits - to $85 per ton from $50 per ton - for carbon sequestration.

The law also provides $60 per ton for carbon used for enhanced oil recovery, used in Kinder Morgan's oil business.

Earnings before depreciation and amortization in its carbon dioxide business are set to grow 9% to $879 million this year, it said.

The company, which has a network of pipelines that transport natural gas and refined products, recently expanded its energy transition business with three acquisitions and as well as a carbon dioxide transportation and sequestration deal.

Last week, Kinder Morgan said it would move forward with an agreement with Red Cedar Gathering Company to transport and sequester carbon. It also decided to go ahead with a plan to convert its Autumn Hills landfill to an RNG facility, with construction scheduled to begin this month.

The Houston company also is evaluating whether to keep sites dedicated to producing electricity to take advantage of the EPA's proposed regulations allowing for the creation of e-RINs, a new type of credit that would be sold by electric vehicle makers if they can prove their cars and trucks are being powered by electricity from plants that burn biofuels. (Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in Houston, editing by Deepa Babington)

Politics aside, China's CATL ramps up cell production in Germany


Illustration shows Electric power transmission pylon miniatures and CATL logo

Thu, January 26, 2023 
By Victoria Waldersee

ARNSTADT, Germany (Reuters) -Chinese battery giant CATL is putting down roots near the small central German town of Arnstadt, ploughing ahead with the ramp-up of battery cell production despite uncertainty over Germany's future relations with China.

The Arnstadt plant delivered its first sample cells to customers in December and aims to have six production lines running this year.

At full capacity, the 14 gigawatt-hour (GWh) plant can make 30 million cells annually - enough to power around 350,000 electric cars with a 40 kilowatt-hour battery. CATL expects to receive approval in June to raise that capacity to 24 GWh.

For now, the materials used are mostly imported from China, partly because CATL has long-term relationships with suppliers there. But some Chinese suppliers have set up shop in Europe near the Arnstadt plant, CATL's Europe president Matthias Zentgraf said in an interview.

Long term, the battery maker hopes to localise its supply chain further and is organising a supplier conference later this year in Weimar, around a half-hour drive away, to start building relationships, Zentgraf said.

CATL will be the largest battery maker in Europe once its planned 100-GWh plant in Hungary reaches full capacity. Construction is due to start in the second half of this year with the aim of starting production in 2-3 years, Zentgraf said.

"We're just at the start. Long term, when volume grows, we will reassess our supply relationships," he said.

Some 44% of planned battery capacity in Europe by 2030 is from Asian companies, data shows, with CATL top of the list - prompting some concern in political circles on an over-reliance on foreign producers for a key technology.

Such concerns are particularly prevalent in Germany, where the government is developing a strategy on China which aims to reduce economic dependence on what is currently the country's largest trading partner.

"I don't find it good," Zentgraf said of the strategy under development, echoing others in the autos industry who fear the strategy's tone will strain their relationship with China.

"On a personal level, it doesn't help... but I try to carry on with my daily job and let it affect us as little as possible, despite not knowing how the political circumstances will pan out."

($1 = 0.9184 euros)

(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee, Writing by Miranda Murray; Editing by Madeline Chambers and Mark Potter)

Offshore wind farms off Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard: A guide of what to know

Heather McCarron, Cape Cod Times
Fri, January 27, 2023

With more than 95,000 miles of coastline in the United States, why is Massachusetts the proverbial gold rush for offshore wind? What makes it so special that the waters off its coast are called the "Saudi Arabia" of wind power?

With one offshore wind project well underway and others in progress, Massachusetts is leading the way in the nation's green energy expansion and meeting the goals set for reducing carbon emissions.

How many wind farms areas are there? When will the first wind-powered electricity start to flow into the grid? How will the electricity get from offshore into your home? How will it affect your electricity bill? And how does it all help the environment?

Keep reading to find the answers to these, and more, questions related to offshore wind.

What makes Massachusetts the 'Saudi Arabia' of wind?

Jeff Plaisted, of Eastham, with IBEW Local 223, operates a winch unspooling 3,000 feet of electric cable being pulled under Craigville Beach Road toward Covell Beach in Centerville on Jan. 10, 2023. The cable will join the offshore cable for the Vineyard Wind project. The line will carry 220,000 volts of electricity.

Anthony Kirincich, a scientist who studies physical oceanography at the Woods Hole Oceanaographic Institution, said it's a combination of factors, but the main one has to do with the atmospheric conditions that drive the weather as well as the oceans.

The really quick answer, he said, is the larger scale atmospheric flow patterns — the polar jet stream and the subtropical jet stream — "kind of draw together" and accelerate as everything moves from west to east.

"We in Massachusetts happen to be right at that place where convergences take place," he said.

The consistently strong wind patterns off the Massachusetts coast, particularly south of Martha's Vineyard, are borne out in the 2016 Offshore Wind Energy Resource Assessment for the United States from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

But other factors than atmospheric patterns converge here to make it ideal for offshore wind power production.

"Not only are the winds fairly strong, the continental shelf — the bottom of the ocean — is shallower," Kirincich said.

State Rep. Jeffrey Roy, D-Franklin, chairman of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy who has long supported offshore wind power development, summarized, "essentially, Massachusetts has a unique combination of; one, consistent, high-speed winds within distance from shore; two, shallow waters; and, three, substantial shoreline."

Wind resource maps show that wind speeds off the Massachusetts coast are slightly above 9 meters per second. A map from the Marine Cadastre National Viewer, compiled with data from National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit, shows how windspeed decreases as you move south along the East Coast, down to about 7 meters per second off Florida.
Offshore wind farms: Who is building them? who owns the waters? And who assigns the leases?

The offshore lease areas are in federal waters on the outer continental shelf south of Martha's Vineyard, southeast of Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay and west of Montauk Point on Long Island, New York. Together they amount to about 800,000 acres.

"Waters in the outer continental shelf are considered public waters, so nobody owns them in the traditional sense of the word; however, they are considered federal — not state — waters because the federal government holds and manages them for the public good," Roy said.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, an agency within the Department of Interior, assigns the leases. Permitting and environmental reviews are done at the federal, state, regional, local and tribal levels.

After a Construction and Operations Plan is approved, each lessee has an operating term of 25 years.

Here are the offshore wind projects in Massachusetts and Rhode Island

Several offshore wind areas are in the outer continental shelf south of Martha's Vineyard, each at different stages of development and each variously landing in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. They include:

What is Vineyard Wind?

Touted as the nation's first commercial-scale offshore wind enterprise, Vineyard Wind 1 is an 800-megawatt project that is co-owned by Avangrid Renewables, LLC and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. Power will go to Massachusetts and provide electricity to 400,000 homes, according to Avangrid.

What is Park City Wind?

An 804-megawatt project owned by Avangrid Renewables. This project is the first phase of a larger project called New England Wind and will occupy the northeast portion of the company's offshore lease area. Energy from Park City Wind will go Connecticut.

What is Commonwealth Wind?

A 1,232-megawatt project owned by Avangrid Renewables. This project is the second phase of New England Wind and will occupy the southwest portion of the company's offshore lease area. Power will go to Massachusetts and provide electricity to 700,000 homes.

What is Mayflower Wind?

A joint venture between Shell and Ocean Winds, this project has the potential to generate more than 2,400 megawatts of power. At this point, Mayflower Wind has contracts to produce about 1,200 megawatts, which will go to Massachusetts.

What is Revolution Wind?

A project owned jointly by Ørsted U.S. Offshore Wind and Eversource that will bring 304 megawatts to Connecticut and 400 megawatts to Rhode Island. The transmission cable is planned to land in North Kingston, Rhode Island.

What is South Fork Wind?

A 132-megawatt project owned jointly by Ørsted US Offshore .Wind and Eversource, with 12 turbines planned about 35 miles east of Montauk Point. Bringing power to the local grid in East Hampton, New York. A construction and operations plan was approved last year and onshore work is underway. Offshore work is set to start this spring.

What is Sunrise Wind?

A 924-megawatt project jointly owned by Ørsted U.S. Offshore Wind and Eversource to serve New York. The construction and operation plan is in progress, permitting has yet to start. The transmission cable is expected to land in central Long Island.

What is Beacon Wind?

A 1,230-megawatt project owned by Equinor and bp to serve New York. Permitting is yet to start. No cable landing site has been identified.

What are the advantages of wind power?

Wind power helps the environment by eliminating the use of fossil fuels in power generation and reducing emissions. Each wind project benefits the overall health of the environment.

For example, Vineyard Wind 1 will eliminate 1.68 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year, according to the company. That is the same as taking 325,000 cars off the road.

Commonwealth Wind is looking at cutting greenhouse gas emissions by more than 2.35 million tons annually, which is like taking another 460,000 cars off the road, while Park City Wind would reduce emissions by 1.59 million tons a year (310,000 car equivalent).
How will wind-generated energy impact your electricity bill?

With wind power in the mix, wholesale electricity rates won't be as sensitive to changes in the market as fossil fuels.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, natural gas was the largest source of energy for electricity production in the U.S. in 2021, accounting for about 38%, followed by coal at 22% and petroleum at less than 1%. Other sources are nuclear energy and renewable energy.

When fossil fuel prices go up, or supplies are short, electricity rates rise. With power from offshore wind flowing through the grid, there will be less volatility and generally lower rates overall, Ian Campbell of Vineyard Wind said.

Where are the Massachusetts-bound wind projects connecting to shore?

Vineyard Wind has already landed two, 230-kilovolt power export cables at Barnstable's Covell Beach. These will eventually be connected to the wind farm south of Martha's Vineyard.

Commonwealth Wind is proposing to land three cables at Barnstable's Dowses Beach, a plan that has drawn strong opposition from neighbors. An ad hoc community group called Save Greater Dowses Beach is circulating a petition, both on paper and online via Change.org, to stop the company's plans.

Concerned in Barnstable:Cold wind blows on proposed offshore cable landing at Dowses Beach

Park City Wind's plan calls for bringing two 400-megawatt transmission cables ashore at Barnstable's Craigville Beach.

Mayflower Wind is exploring landing sites in Falmouth but has also met with some criticism. Somerset is another possible landing site. On Dec. 19, the Falmouth Select Board turned down the company's request to explore three public sites for possible electric cables — officials said they took the action because of unanswered questions from the public.

When will wind turbines be built off Cape Cod?

Vineyard Wind completed permitting in 2020, broke ground in 2021 and is on track to be fully operational in 2024.

Environmental review and state and local permitting are ongoing for Park City Wind, Commonwealth Wind and Mayflower Wind.

Jeff Plaisted, of Eastham, with the IBEW local 223, operates a winch unspooling 3,000 feet of electric cable being pulled under Craigville Beach Road toward Covell's Beach in Centerville on Jan. 10, 2023. The cable will connect to the Vineyard Wind project south of Martha's Vineyard.

Park City Wind is more than halfway through the process. According to the company, it has completed the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act environmental review process and a substantial portion of the Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board (EFSB) review process. Benchmarks for 2023 include hearings by the Cape Cod Commission and the Barnstable Conservation Commission. It is scheduled to begin delivering power in 2025.

On track to bring power ashore this yearOffshore wind company lays final cable at Barnstable beach. What is next?

Commonwealth Wind is early in the permitting and environmental review process, with a goal to be online by the end of 2027.

When will power from wind energy come ashore in Massachusetts?

Vineyard Wind is on track to bring its first wind-generated power ashore later this year, and expects to be fully operational by next year.

Park City Wind expects to bring power ashore starting in 2025, followed by Commonwealth Wind in 2027 and Mayflower Wind in 2028.
How much does it cost to build a commercial-scale wind farm?

The cost of developing an offshore wind project runs into the billions. The various companies tend to keep their exact costs close to the vest for competitive reasons, but as an example, Vineyard Wind CEO Klaus Moeller says his company secured $2.3 billion from nine banks around the world.
How have world events caused wind farm construction costs to increase?

What's troubling offshore wind companies that are still early in their permitting process is a sharp increase in prices owing to international market conditions and burgeoning worldwide interest in offshore wind development. Executives with New England Wind at a January open house about Park City Wind pointed at the war in Ukraine, record increases in interest rates, inflation, supply chain issues and exploding demand for wind farms in Europe and elsewhere as causes.

Criticism in FalmouthMayflower Wind responds, after criticism in Falmouth over communication

The war in Ukraine particularly has "wreaked havoc" on the cost of steel, a key component in the construction of wind turbines, according to the project's manager of external affairs Pat Johnson. He said the Russian invasion of Ukraine highlights the need for alternative, more stable energy sources, consequently bumping up interest in offshore wind development in Europe and elsewhere.

Mayflower Wind is targeting the end of January 2024 to have its environmental review and permitting completed. The company is looking to start delivering power by 2028.

Johnson said while Park City Wind and Commonwealth Wind were bid in 2019 and 2021, their supply chain contracts were not locked in because there were still years of permitting ahead. Now, given the world economic situation, "projects that were profitable under yesterday's economic conditions are no longer profitable."

For this reason, Avangrid is planning to re-bid its projects while continuing with the permitting already underway. Commonwealth Wind will do this with the next Massachusetts offshore wind power procurement round in April, and the company is working with Connecticut officials either to renegotiate their existing contract or go to bid again.
How many wind turbines does each wind farm plan to install?

Vineyard Wind is planning a total of 62 General Electric Haliade-X turbines, spaced 1 nautical mile apart. Each turbine will be able to generate up to 13 megawatts

Park City Wind plans 50 turbines. There is no turbine count for Commonwealth Wind, since Avangrid has not yet made a final turbine selection for the project. Turbines will be spaced 1 nautical mile apart.

Mayflower Wind also has yet to determine the number of turbines. The number of turbines needed depends on the type of turbine that will be used.
So, how big is a wind turbine and its blades?

Just how big are the turbines? That really depends on the type of turbine used.

Vineyard Wind's General Electric Haliade-X turbines can serve as an example, though. Each of these turbines include a monopile that will anchor it to the seafloor, topped by a transitional piece at the surface, then a tower topped by a nacelle and the blades. Each blade is 107 meters, or almost the length of a football field including the end zones (109.7 meters). The height of each turbine is about the same as three Statues of Liberty stacked up, (about 850 feet) from blade tip to the water's surface.

According to the U.S. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, this scale is typical for offshore wind turbines. The greater heights and longer blades allow each turbine to create more energy more efficiently, therefore fewer turbines are needed to produce the same power that shorter turbines with shorter blades would generate.
Wind Turbines: How offshore wind power works

Wind turbines work on a simple principle, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy notes: "Wind turns the propeller-like blades of a turbine around a rotor, which spins a generator, which creates electricity."

Specifically, the kinetic (or moving) energy of wind is converted into electricity using the aerodynamic force from the blades.

"When wind flows across the blade, the air pressure on one side of the blade decreases. The difference in air pressure across the two sides of the blade creates both lift and drag," according to the agency. "The force of the lift is stronger than the drag and this causes the rotor to spin."

The rotor, in turn, creates rotation in a generator that converts the mechanical energy into electricity. The power is collected by an offshore substation before it is transmitted ashore through submarine cables, is run through on-shore substations and finally enters the power distribution grid. In the case of offshore power, the electricity travels under the seabed at higher voltages than onshore because it is more efficient. Onshore substations put the power through a series of transformers to downgrade the voltage so it is compatible with the capacity of the distribution lines.
Offshore wind versus onshore wind power

Offshore wind is just getting started in Massachusetts, but the state is no stranger to wind power. It is home to more than 44 land-based wind farms in more than 30 communities, according to the state Renewable and Alternative Energy Division. Collectively they generate more than 100 megawatts of power.

When it comes to power-generating capacity, offshore wind is the real workhorse because the ocean environment provides higher and more consistent wind speeds.
What are the advantages of wind power?

Wind power helps the environment by eliminating the use of fossil fuels in power generation and reducing emissions. Each wind project benefits the overall health of the environment.

For example, Vineyard Wind 1 will eliminate 1.68 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year, according to the company. That is the same as taking 325,000 cars off the road.

Commonwealth Wind is looking at cutting greenhouse gas emissions by more than 2.35 million tons annually, which is like taking another 460,000 cars off the road, while Park City Wind would reduce emissions by 1.59 million tons a year (310,000 car equivalent).

Contact Heather McCarron at hmccarron@capecodonline.com.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Offshore wind energy projects: A guide of wind turbines to dates

US company gets $120 million boost to make 'green steel'






Clean Steel Boston Metal Research and development engineer Ravneet Kailey performs an experiment to produce iron without using carbon in a glowing lab cell, left, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2023, at Boston Metal, in Woburn, Mass. The manufacture of ‘green steel’ moved one step closer to reality Friday, Jan. 27, as Boston Metal announced a $120 million investment from the world's second-largest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal.

 (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

ED DAVEY
Thu, January 26, 2023

The manufacture of "green steel" moved one step closer to reality Friday as Massachusetts-based Boston Metal announced a $120 million investment from the world's second-largest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal.

Boston Metal will use the injection of funds to expand production at a pilot plant in Woburn, near Boston, and help launch commercial production in Brazil. The company uses renewable electricity to convert iron ore into steel.

Steel is one of the world’s dirtiest heavy industries. Three-quarters of world production uses a traditional method that burns through train loads of coal to heat the furnaces and drive the reaction that releases pure iron from ore.

Making steel releases more climate-warming carbon dioxide than any other industry, according to the International Energy Agency — about 8% of worldwide emissions. Many companies are working on alternatives.

The financial package by global steel giant ArcelorMittal is the biggest single investment made to date by the firm’s carbon innovation fund. Microsoft is another investor.

Tadeu Carneiro, CEO of Boston Metal, said its technology is “designed to decarbonize steel production at scale” and would “disrupt the industry.”

The company's technology was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professors Donald Sadoway and Antoine Allanore, experts in energy storage and metallurgy respectively, are the founders.

Instead of burning coal, their process runs electricity through iron ore in a metal box or “cell” the size of a school bus to separate the iron from the oxide. Operators then collect the liquid iron from the bottom, Carneiro said. Boston Metal said it can eliminate all carbon dioxide from its steel production and hopes to ramp up production to millions of tons by 2026. As a bonus, it said, it is able to extract metals from slag normally considered waste.

Steel is in the early stages of a transition to cleaner processes that have less impact on the climate. Many major European steelmakers have announced alternatives to traditional coal-fired steelmaking and some automakers are buying the cleaner steel to fulfill promises to shareholders and customers.

By far the most steel is made in Asia. Both China and Japan have made moves in the direction of cleaner steel.

In the United States, most steel is already cleaner, because it is made by melting down old steel, for example junked cars. That can be done in electric kilns and emits a fraction of the climate-changing gases as virgin steel production.

It will be years before steel is cleaned up on a mass scale, Carneiro said. “It takes time to develop and scale up and get traditional and conservative industries to change things.”

Several industry alliances are working to speed things up. A non-profit called ResponsibleSteel, for example, brings together stakeholders from up and down the supply chain — mining to finished steel products — to cooperate on cleaning up steel.

In related news, on Thursday, U.S. steelmaker Nucor announced it will start making heavy grade steel at a new $1.7 billion mill in Brandenburg, Kentucky, using electric furnaces to make new steel from scrap. The company says the product is intended for the offshore wind industry.

Offshore wind is key to many plans to address climate change, because it partially replaces fossil fuel-burning electricity. It will require massive amounts of steel as turbines are built miles offshore from U.S. coastlines. Nearly 90% of an offshore turbine’s weight is steel, and each one, including the foundation, requires roughly 180 tons of steel per megawatt, according to the industry group American Clean Power.

————

Associated Press writer Jennifer McDermott in Providence, R.I. contributed.

———

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Hundreds of children packed in El Salvador's overcrowded prisons -rights group

Thu, January 26, 2023

(Reuters) - Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Salvadoran authorities on Friday of "mass due process violations" in the detention of tens of thousands of people, including hundreds of children, in over-crowded prisons, citing leaked government data.

The rights watchdog said following the introduction of a state of emergency suspending key rights to address gang violence in March last year, tens of thousands had been put into overcrowded prisons for "broadly defined crimes".

The state of emergency remains in force after multiple extensions, despite criticism from human rights groups.

El Salvador's government did not immediately respond to a late night request for comment from Reuters.

"This leaked database points to serious human rights violations committed during the state of emergency," said Tamara Taraciuk Broner, acting Americas director at HRW, which said more than 61,000 people had been arrested since March.

Reuters was not able to independently confirm the data.

HRW said the database was from the country's public safety ministry and listed people prosecuted between March and August last year. It showed that close to 1,082 children, largely boys, had been sent to pre-trial detention as of August, HRW said.

This was made possible under a March 2022 law that lowered the age of criminal responsibility in gang-related crimes from 16 to as young as 12, it added.

Citing the database, the HRW added that dozens have died in custody, mostly at the country's Izalco and La Esperanza prisons which respectively held three and four times as many prisoners they were designed to house.

Other prisons, such as Ilopango's women's prison and San Miguel, for men, were six times over capacity, it said.

More than 50,000 people were sent to pre-trial detention as of late August, the group said, while nearly 40,000 were charged with "unlawful association", a crime which includes people who take part in gangs or receive "indirect benefits".

Authorities also charged 8,000 with membership of a "terrorist organization", a broad term under Salvadoran law which the Human Rights Watch said opens the door for arbitrary arrests and does little to ensure justice.

(Reporting by Sarah Morland; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Brazil Justice Moraes fines Telegram for not complying with court order


The Telegram messaging app logo is seen on a website in Singapore

Wed, January 25, 2023 

BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazil's Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes fined on Wednesday messaging app Telegram for failing to comply with a court order that called for the suspension of accounts of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Telegram will be fined 1.2 million reais ($236,527), the decision said.

The ruling, made under an inquiry investigating acts of vandalism in public buildings in the country's capital earlier this month, said that Telegram was ordered to block five different accounts that had shared content related to hate speech and encouragement of institutional disruption.

However, Telegram did not block an account owned by congressman-elect Nikolas Ferreira, according to the decision.

Ferreira was Brazil's most voted congressman in the 2022 election, reaching 1.47 million votes.

"The malicious non-compliance by the providers involved indicates, objectively, consent with the continued perpetration of the crimes under investigation," the ruling said.

Moraes gave Telegram five days to pay the fine from the day of the decision.

Telegram did not immediately respond to a request to comment.

In March 2022, Moraes ordered the suspension of messaging app Telegram, saying it had repeatedly refused to adhere to judicial orders to freeze accounts spreading disinformation. The suspension was revoked days later, after the company complied with court requests.

($1 = 5.0734 reais)

(Reporting by Ricardo Brito; Editing by Chris Reese and Christopher Cushing)

Japan Tried to Build a Hydrogen Society. It Backfired Spectacularly.

Darren Orf
Thu, January 26, 2023 

Japan Tried—and Failed—to Build a Hydrogen Society

Andriy Onufriyenko - Getty Images

Japan has long been a leader in hydrogen energy and fuel cell technology.

Companies like Toyota plan to build entire cities entirely powered by hydrogen.

A new report from an environmental think-tank argues that Japan is investing in the wrong applications for hydrogen technology and the determine of its decarbonization efforts.

In the past couple decades, scientists and engineers have come up with lots of ways to rapidly decarbonize the planet—but some ideas are better than others.

Take, for instance, hydrogen. Thanks to the discovery of electrolysis, hydrogen’s been a known source of energy for centuries, but Japan became a frontrunner in that energy source in recent years because of its status as a resource-poor country. A steady supply of renewable energy isn’t just an important climate initiative, it’s a matter of national security.

However, Japan may have taken things a bit too far.

In 2017, the country became the first in the world to adopt a national hydrogen plan, and companies like Toyota have committed to constructing futuristic cities powered by the technology. In 2021 alone, Japan spent around $800 million on investments into hydrogen power and fuel cells.

But according to the Renewable Energy Institute (REI), a Japanese environmental think tank, this push to use hydrogen in every conceivable energy sector is actually doing more harm than good.

From the report:

“The 2017 Basic Hydrogen Strategy is misguided, both in terms of what hydrogen is used for and how it is produced. Moreover, it promotes the use of gray hydrogen, which does not contribute to emission reductions.”

Gray hydrogen is the most common form of hydrogen production, which uses the greenhouse gas methane.

The 20-page report doesn’t argue for hydrogen’s complete removal from the energy mix. In fact, REI argues that hydrogen is vital for industries where decarbonization is particularly tricky (think: aviation, shipping, and steelmaking). However, to use hydrogen in place of electrification via other renewable sources is a mistake, REI says.

The report continues:

“The scope of applications where energy demands can be met with electrification has grown, and the range of areas that need hydrogen have decreased. This has led to a common understanding worldwide that hydrogen should be limited to applications where it would be difficult to achieve decarbonization with other methods.”

The report identifies “bad idea applications” that have already gobbled up 70 percent of the country's hydrogen budget—things like hydrogen cars, refueling stations, and residential power systems. Adoption of this hydrogen technology has lagged far behind Japan’s estimations, and the report argues that fuel cell cars will hit just 1/40th of their sales target by 2030. This lopsided interest in hydrogen could also be harming the country’s solar panel adoption as the report notes Japan lags behind some European peers when it comes to building out its solar infrastructure.

REI punctures the often-reported facts about Japan’s utopian-esque hydrogen society. It’s unlikely the report will put a stop to megaprojects like Toyota’s “Woven City,” but those cities might not live in the green-energy future that they imagined.

Elon Musk says his biggest Tesla competition will be a Chinese automaker: ‘They work the smartest’



Tristan Bove
Thu, January 26, 2023

Elon Musk temporarily shed his “Mr. Tweet” cap for Wednesday’s Tesla earnings call to identify the biggest challenger to his electric car giant: competition from China.

With Tesla coming off its worst year in markets, Musk, who has been the company’s CEO since 2008, had some tough questions to answer during the investor call covering the company’s performance during the fourth quarter of 2022. The company’s shares have fallen 50% over the past year after a meteoric rise in 2020 and 2021, nestling in at a two-year low in November of last year.

Investors in the electric vehicle company have fretted over Musk spreading himself too thin after acquiring Twitter last year, while his appearance in court this week for allegedly misleading Tesla investors in 2018 with his “funding secured” tweet has certainly not helped matters.

So Tesla investors were likely relieved when the company reported record revenue on Wednesday. Musk said during the call that the company saw the “strongest orders year to date than ever in our history” in the first few weeks of January, suggesting that a series of price cuts worldwide had helped boost demand.

But when pressed on the state of the electric vehicle industry in China, where Tesla has lost ground in the past year, Musk conceded that Chinese companies are the most likely to challenge Tesla’s dominance.

“We have a lot of respect for the car companies in China. They are the most competitive in the world in our experience, and the Chinese market is the most competitive,” Musk said. “They work the hardest and they work the smartest, and we have a lot of respect for the Chinese companies that we are competing against.”

“If I were to guess, it would probably be some company out of China as the most likely to be second to Tesla,” he added.

China’s growing EV industry

Electric vehicles are big business in China, with the market accounting for two-thirds of EV demand last year, and Tesla, which began producing cars in its Shanghai Gigafactory in 2019, is far from the only game in town.

Demand for EVs in China is huge; a record 6 million electric cars were sold in China last year, accounting for over a quarter of new vehicle sales, and Chinese electric car companies are rising to meet demand. Chinese carmaker BYD, which is backed by Warren Buffett, raced past Tesla in electric car sales in China last year.

In 2021, roughly 300 EV-manufacturing companies operated in China, benefitting from over a decade of investments and generous subsidies by the Chinese government to grow the industry, which now includes around 4 million charging stations spread throughout the country’s provinces, one of which has three times as many charging units as the entire U.S.

EV subsidies were initially intended for electric cars to reach price parity with combustion engine vehicles, and the sector has matured and diversified in the decade since they were first implemented. The box-size Mini EV developed by Chinese company Wuling cost just over $5,000 last year, and in 2021 it ranked as the best-selling electric car in China.

Subsidies for consumers were scaled back in 2021 and scrapped on Jan. 1 of this year, but some tax exemptions remain in place, while industry analysts have forecasted that the industry will become more market- than policy-driven in the coming years.
A threat to Tesla

Musk has praised Chinese automakers in the past, calling them the “most competitive in the world” in 2021 while adding that Chinese electric carmakers boasted advanced software designs that could “shape the future of the automobile industry.”

But they also represent an enormous threat to Tesla’s waning power as demand for its vehicles softens in China, which currently makes up 40% of the company’s sales. BYD, Tesla’s main competitor in China, and other Chinese manufacturers posted huge sales growth towards the end of last year, while Tesla’s numbers slumped more than 40% in December.

Tesla lowered car prices in China twice in the past few months once the Chinese government removed its EV subsidies to prop up sales amid slowing demand. The company has since cut prices in the U.S. and other markets too.

Musk suggested during the earnings call that the price cuts seemed to have worked, given Tesla’s record profits last quarter, and added that the outlook for demand in the year ahead was optimistic, despite “probably a contraction in the automotive market as a whole.”

A BloombergNEF analysis forecasted Tesla sales to grow by 40% in 2023, while its in-demand Model Y car could become the best-selling EV in the world and even break into the top three cars of any type globally. But while Tesla is still performing in some places, increased competition from China’s domestic automakers might push that all-important market further out of reach.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Nigeria launches domestic card scheme in cashless bid


The Central Bank of Nigeria's logo is seen on its headquarters in Abuja

Thu, January 26, 2023

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's central bank on Thursday launched a domestic card scheme to rival foreign cards like Mastercard and Visa, hoping to enhance its drive to make Africa's biggest economy a cashless society and save the country foreign transaction fees.

The announcement by Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Godwin Emefiele follows the bank's decision last year to phase out old higher denomination bank notes.

Emefiele told a virtual launch of the "AfriGo" card scheme that although penetration of card payments in Nigeria had grown over the years, many citizens remained excluded.

"The challenges that have limited the inclusion of Nigerians include the high cost of card services as a result of foreign exchange requirements of international card schemes and the fact that existing card products do not address local peculiarities of the Nigerian market," said Emefiele.

AfriGo is owned by CBN and Nigerian banks and Emefiele said that Nigeria was joining China, Russia, India and Turkey in launching a domestic card scheme.

International card service providers like Mastercard and Visa would not be stopped in Nigeria, he added.

"Rather, it (AFRIGO) is aimed at providing more options for domestic consumers whilst also promoting the delivery of services in a more innovative, cost effective and competitive manner," he said.

Africa's most populous nation Nigeria, has more than 200 million people and the majority still use cash because they live in rural areas where there are not banks.

(Reporting by Camillus Eboh; Writing by MacDonald Dzirutwe; editing by Diane Craft)

Power surge crashes Pakistan grid, plunging millions into darkness

 A country-wide power breakdown in Peshawar

Thu, January 26, 2023 
By Asif Shahzad and Sudarshan Varadhan

ISLAMABAD/SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Pakistan's generators produced more power than was required on Monday, causing voltage fluctuations that culminated in a system collapse that plunged 220 million people into darkness, an internal government document reviewed by Reuters showed.

Complete grid failures are rare, and operators of modern grids count local shocks from integration of renewable energy as their primary challenge. But the blackout in Pakistan on Monday was its second near-complete grid failure and the third in south Asia in three months.

The grid's failure plunged 220 million people into darkness for a whole day and disrupted commercial activity as outages also hit internet and mobile services.

The blackout was triggered by the power grid's frequency rising to 50.75 hertz (hz) early on Monday, causing severe voltage fluctuations in transmission lines in the south, according to the internal note. A frequency over 50 hz indicates the power generated exceeds demand, while a frequency under 50 hz points to supply falling short of demand.

Grid operators attempt to keep the frequency of the grid stable at 50 hz, with deviations over 0.05 hz typically considered abnormal. The frequency of the grid was already 50.30 hz moments before the incident, according to the note.

The severe frequency fluctuations in the transmission lines caused it to trip, Sajjad Akthar, general manager at state-run National Transmission and Distribution Company (NTDC) wrote in the note drafted on Tuesday.

"Transmission lines tripped, which resulted in isolation of north and south system," Akthar said in the note.

Pakistan's energy ministry did not respond to a request for comment. The note did not mention why supply overshot demand.

About 11.35 gigawatts (GW) of power plants were in operation across the country when the transmission lines tripped and separated the northern and southern grid, the note read.

Such separations are intended to protect parts of the grid not primarily affected by instabilities.

However, demand potentially far exceeded supply in the northern grid after the isolation, as most power generators were located in the south, causing further instability, according to an industry official who reviewed the note.

The official declined to be named as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Pakistan's Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir had said in a tweet on Monday a "large voltage swing" in the south had "cascaded northwards" to cause a breakdown, but did not elaborate.

Pakistan started restoring power by operating hydropower stations in the north, and gas-fired utilities in the south, the note read, as they take the least time to start generating power.

While gas-fired utilities in the south started operating, it took nearly ten hours for the hydro plants to operate consistently and for the power restoration process to begin in the northern grid, according to the report.

Akthar said mechanisms meant to save the system from a blackout had worked, but the grid was overwhelmed by the magnitude and range of fluctuations.

"Though under frequency, cross-trip and rate of change of frequency schemes operated, system could not survive and (it) led to a complete blackout," the report read.

(Writing by Sudarshan Varadhan;Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Europe’s Energy Crisis Leaves Almost All Of Pakistan Without Power

Editor OilPrice.com
Wed, January 25, 2023 

The long-awaited winter energy crisis has finally hit…but it wasn’t in Europe after all. On Monday, almost the entirety of Pakistan was left without power when a misguided energy saving strategy by the government backfired. Runaway inflation, a severely weakened currency, and rapidly emptying foreign exchange reserves have left Pakistan on the brink of economic collapse. The country of 230 million people is plagued by overdue energy payments, and was seeking to cut costs by lowering energy use when the plan went off the rails, leaving people across the country without power or water for more than 12 hours.

Pakistani officials had planned to save on energy costs by turning off electricity across the country overnight. Nighttime has the lowest usage hours for energy in Pakistan, where winters are relatively mild. The problem came when technicians tried to reboot the electric system in the morning, and found out that the infrastructure wasn’t capable of booting up the entire nation’s energy grid all at once. Major cities, including the capital city of Islamabad, as well as smaller cities and towns across the country were left in the dark for 15 hours on Monday, lasting into the night.

“As an economic measure, we temporarily shut down our power generation systems” Sunday night, Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir told local media. He went on to explain that when engineers tried to turn the systems back on, a “fluctuation in voltage” occurred, which “forced engineers to shut down the power grid” stations altogether.

Millions of people were left without drinking water as electric-powered pumps failed. While some schools and hospitals were able to turn to backup generators, many were left without power entirely throughout the day. Pakistani authorities went as far as deploying additional police at markets around the country as the sun went down, for extra security in the darkness.

This isn’t the first time that Pakistan has suffered from widespread blackouts. Reporting from the Associated Press noted that Monday’s outage was “ reminiscent of a massive blackout that occurred almost exactly two years ago, in January 2021, attributed at the time to a technical fault in Pakistan’s power generation and distribution system.” This week’s blackout has catalyzed pre-existing nationwide distrust of the government’s tactics and capacities, and stoked fears and outrage about the government’s handling of the nation’s economic crisis.

A significant energy shortage is one of the main drivers of the nation’s current economic crisis. Pakistan’s high level of dependence on imports of foreign fossil fuels to keep the lights on has left the country “acutely vulnerable to to hikes in global oil and gas prices.” This has led to devastating consequences for the cash-strapped country as the energy war between Europe and Russia has caused widespread market volatility and driven energy costs up to painful levels.

According to the Asian Development Bank, Pakistan imports “nearly a third of its energy resources in the form of oil, coal, and liquefied natural gas (LNG).” Pakistan’s own Dawn Newspaper slammed the government this week for its ‘self-inflicted’ economic crisis based on “unsustainable energy policies — price and availability — coupled with constant currency volatility,” which it says “have kept the country’s export potential capped.”

Indeed, experts say that the nation has barely enough left in its coffers for one more month of crucial energy and fuel imports. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is currently discussing how to mitigate the crisis unfolding in Pakistan, starting with softening some conditions for a proposed $6 billion bailout, which the government fears will only fuel inflation. It would come on the heels of another $1.1 billion in IMF aid given to Islamabad in August. “Since then,” Associated Press reports, “discussions between the two parties have oscillated due to Pakistan’s reluctance to impose new tax measures.”

While there has been no shortage of mismanagement on the part of the Pakistani government, this problem is not just a Pakistani problem. Far from it. Economists and development experts have been warning for months that Europe would not be the real victim of the European energy crisis. Rather, it is the import-dependent and cash-poor countries in the developing world that will suffer the most. The International Energy Agency cautioned that as Europe has managed to stay afloat through a mild winter, for the rest of the world, the crisis is just beginning. Following in Pakistan’s footsteps, oil-importing nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America will be extremely hard-hit, as fuel prices continue to batter their relatively weak currencies.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com