Tag Archives: energy
China, India to Drive World’s Growing Energy Use
July 25, 2013 RYAN TRACY Enlarge ImageEnergy Department’s report Based on current government policies and a model that assumed continued growth in the world-wide economy, the report found that fueling that prosperity will take mostly traditional fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas. Those fuels will account for 80% of world energy use through 2040, the report projects. Consumption of natural gas is expected to grow faster than that of oil or coal, with the industrial and electric power sectors leading a shift toward burning more gas, which is being unlocked across the globe thanks to new extraction technologies. At the same time, the report predicts that renewable energy will be the fastest-growing source of the world’s electricity generation, driven by a huge increase in capacity of hydroelectric dams and wind farms. Fadel Gheit , an energy analyst for Oppenheimer & Co., cautioned that “projections are suicidal,” particularly in the energy sector, where technological advances have upended predictions. “Nobody had predicted five years ago that the U.S. would be self-sufficient in natural gas,” Mr. Gheit said. “Now we have gas that we don’t know what to do with.” While the U.S. has led the charge in producing more gas, the Energy Department projects it will have competition. The report says Russia will keep pace with the U.S. in boosting output, particularly in the Russian Arctic, and that China and Canada will increase production as well. By 2040, the U.S. and Russia are each expected to increase annual natural-gas production by about 12 trillion cubic feet from 2010 levels, according to the report. Much of the new production may be steered to meet growing demand in other countries. Russia is planning to transport more gas to China, while more than a dozen firms have proposed export facilities to ship gas from the U.S. to Europe and Asia. Separately, the Energy Department report predicts the world will be producing 116 million barrels of liquid fuel, which is mostly crude oil, in 2040. That is a much less aggressive estimate than an earlier projection in 2007 for 118 million barrels in 2030. “The difference between those two [projections] has more to do with demand than it does with supply,” Mr. Sieminski said. Fuel-efficiency standards, he said, are helping to tamp down demand in some places. In the U.S., regulations adopted by the Obama administration are expected to lower demand for gasoline by 1.5 million barrels per day by 2030. The Energy Department report says that trend could expand to other counties amid high oil prices, which are expected to rise to $163 per barrel world-wide in 2040 from $105 in 2013. That increase could drive consumers to use less or seek alternatives. “The greatest potential for altering the growth path of energy use is in the transportation sector,” the report says. Burning more fossil fuels will increase the amount of carbon dioxide produced world-wide: The report projects that emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas that scientists have linked to climate change, will increase 46% by 2040. Andrew Steer, president of the World Resources Institute, a think tank that focuses on climate policy, said that result “would be an exceedingly bad outcome for the environmental health of the world,” but it would also mean “we’re not using resources more efficiently, so we’re not benefiting economically from the huge gains that all analysis demonstrates that energy efficiency [provides].” The amount of electricity generated from nuclear power is also expected to more than double from 2010 to 2040. The report says that uncertainty around atomic power has grown since the 2011 nuclear meltdown in Japan, but predicts China, India, Russia and South Korea will move ahead with new nuclear plants. The world will also use more oil and coal in the coming decades, the report projects, though the growth rates are projected to be slower that other energy sources: an average of 1.1% per year for liquid transportation fuels including oil, and 1.3% per year for coal. That compares to projected annual growth rates of 1.7% for natural gas and about 2.5% per year for renewable energy and nuclear power. Continue reading
Government In Biomass Support U-turn, Says Renewable Energy Association
24 July 2013 | By Tom Kenning Dedicated new-build biomass facilities will not be eligible to claim subsidies under Contracts for Difference (CfDs), which will take over the Renewables Obligation (RO) in 2017. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has confirmed this by publishing the Government’s draft Electricity Market Reform (EMR) delivery plan. “In the medium to long-term, new-build electricity-only biomass plants do not offer as cost effective a means of decarbonising the electricity grid as other renewable technologies,” DECC stated in the EMR consultation document. The Renewable Energy Association said it was disappointed in what it called a “misguided” U-turn on support for new-build biomass and urged the Government to reconsider. Biomass projects are already under pressure after the Government proposed capping incentives at 400MW under the RO in May. The REA estimates that there were already one gigawatt of projects at an advanced stage of development. After the cap, only 40% could then go ahead. As a result, an estimated 600MW of projects are likely to be cancelled. REA chief executive Gaynor Hartnell said that combined with the RO cap and the lack of a strike price for new build biomass, the absence of subsidies for new-build biomass under CfD “means support for this important technology has effectively come to an end.” She said: “Whilst it was wrong to cap the amount of new build biomass under the existing policy, until today project developers had the alternative option of a contract under the new policy. Today that option has been closed off. This is a U-turn. “It is misguided and it will halt the kind of bioenergy industry that environmental NGOs had previously wanted to see, for example one based on domestic forests, woody energy crops, agricultural residues and waste. This decision sends a terrible message to investors.” Instead of electricity-only new-build biomass power stations, options preferred by the Government are: coal-to-biomass converted power stations; co-firing with sustainable biomass; or dedicated biomass combined heat and power (CHP). A spokesperson for the REA told MRW: “This doesn’t work, especially as CHP plants need a user for the heat, and power plants tend to be located a distance from communities and businesses, so there is often no user for the heat.” Choosing between converting coal fired power stations to biomass and building new projects should not be an issue, because the two operate at different scales and both can play an important role, added Hartnell. Last week cost-effective renewable heat projects such as direct air heating from biomass were also put in danger by the Government’s decision to delay a critical announcement about subsidies from the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) until the autumn. Continue reading
Bioenergy A Burning Question For Tasmania’s Forests
24 July 2013 Bioenergy a burning question for Tasmania’s forests AUTHORS Stewart Williams Russell Warman DISCLOSURE STATEMENT Stewart Williams teaches and researches at the University of Tasmania. He receives funding from AHURI and NCCARF. Russell Warman has previously worked as a policy analyst with ENGOs involved in Tasmania’s forest negotiations. Provides funding as a Member of The Conversation. utas.edu.au Harnessing the energy in wood may help wean Australia off fossil fuels. Flickr/chriscardinal With Australia trying to meet renewable energy targets and reduce emissions wherever possible, we should be considering bioenergy. Bioenergy can be made by burning biomass in a variety of forms, including agricultural by-products such as rice husks, poppy seeds, sugarcane waste and manure. It can also be made from forestry by-products such as sawmill and wood wastes. Tasmania is a prime candidate for such developments. Visiting international researcher Professor Andreas Rothe of the University of Applied Sciences, Weihenstephan , has recently released findings of a six-month study he conducted for Forestry Tasmania. He suggests that energy produced from wood “could lift Tasmania’s bioenergy contribution beyond 30%”. There seem to good reasons for Australia to transition towards greater use of bioenergy. It is a renewable and relatively secure energy source that can reduce CO 2 emissions by replacing fossil fuels. It seems a relatively straightforward proposal, especially given Prof Rothe’s experience in Europe. People of forested parts of Europe – such as Prof Rothe’s home state of Bavaria in Germany, and Scandinavia – have longstanding cultural practises and economies based on forest resources, with considerable uptake of bioenergy produced from wood. But people in Australia have a different relationship with forests. Unlike much of Europe, Australia has forests with little or no history of industrial resource extraction. Australian people have different values and perceptions about how those resources should be used. These differences are reflected in bitter conflicts over native forests in most of the states, not least in Tasmania. Recent efforts to forge peace in the Tasmanian forests signal progress. Professor Rothe takes some of these issues into consideration, and excludes the use of old-growth forest from his research. Tasmania’s bioenergy aspirations aren’t new. In 2002 Forestry Tasmania planned for a 30 megawatt bioenergy plant at a site south of Hobart, meant to burn wood residue and provide electricity to run the site and a surplus to the grid. It now includes a modern regrowth sawmill, log yard and rotary peel veneer mill. But the power plant has never been built. The proposal was submitted to the State’s planning authority but it failed to attract investment. This financial hesitation reflects uncertainties around the benefits of bioenergy. Can bioenergy substitute fossil fuels? Should we put new pressure on resources such as forests, clean air and water, which are already critically scarce (and key to other services including biodiversity conservation and food production)? Early on environmentalists and some industry sectors supported bioenergy in North America and Europe – backed by significant subsidies. But recently this support has started to unravel as mainstream economists question the logic of the subsidies, investors move away , courts intervene , and environmental organisations question the cost of the growth in biomass demand. Even before these doubts were raised in the Northern Hemisphere, there was a wariness in Australia about claims to make use of “waste” or “residue” wood in biomass. The experience of the rise of the wood-chip industry, initially slated as an industry sideline for waste logs, into a driver of native forest logging, is still fresh in the memories of many Australians. Tasmania is a prime candidate for any developments in bioenergy. Local and rural communities across the state are undergoing major changes. Bioenergy could be part of innovations as the forestry industry is restructured. But a lot more work will be required if the use of bioenergy from wood is to have any chance of going ahead with widespread community support, especially if native forests are involved. This issue, towards which the Tasmanian Forest Agreement is perhaps making some fragile first steps, concerns the need to forge a broader social consensus on how native forests are used and valued. It might be some time before Australia is ready for bioenergy. By then, ironically enough, Europe and North America might be winding back from their initial enthusiasm. Continue reading
