Energy & the Environment News and Discussions

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weatheriscool
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Oil tumbles below $100 a barrel
Source: CNN
US oil prices tumbled below $100 a barrel on Monday, unwinding a significant chunk of the recent spike caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Oil plunged more than 8%, touching a low of $99.76 a barrel. That means oil has lost almost roughly quarter of its value since touching a near 14-year high of $130.50 a barrel on March 6.

It's the first time oil has traded below $100 since March 1.

Brent crude, the world benchmark, dropped more than 7% to $104.35 a barrel in recent trading. That marks a sharp pullback from the recent peak of nearly $140 a barrel.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets ... ar-AAV2Jxd
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Yuli Ban
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IT HAPPENED!!!
Milestones may be arbitrary, but the morale boost they provide is not. Humans have very recently installed enough solar panels to generate one terawatt of electricity directly from the sun. It’s a pretty good feeling!

The expectation that our species would hit 1,000 gigawatts of solar was first based on estimations that we installed at least 183 GW in 2021, and that we had 788 GW of capacity in place at the end of 2020. These two values total 971GW of installed solar.

These numbers suggest that Earth’s solar capacity has breached 1,010GW, and that we can officially start measuring solar capacity in terawatts!

Good job, Earthlings! The galactic council sees this as a positive development.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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caltrek
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Australian Firm Claims “Giant Leap” Toward Clean, Cheap Hydrogen Power
By Peter Hannam
March 16, 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... e-hydrogen

Introduction:
(The Guardian) Australian researchers claim to have made a “giant leap” in lifting the efficiency of electrolysers, bringing forward the time when green hydrogen will be competitive with fossil fuels as an energy source.

Hysata, a company using technology developed at the University of Wollongong, said its patented capillary-fed electrolysis cells achieve 95% efficiency, meaning little wastage, beating by about one-quarter the levels of current technology.

The achievement, published in the peer-reviewed Nature Communication journal today, could see the Morrison government’s so-called hydrogen stretch goal of $2 a kilogram to make the fuel competitive reached as soon as 2025, the Hysata chief executive, Paul Barrett, said.

“We’ve gone from 75% [efficiency] to 95% – it’s really a giant leap for the electrolysis industry,” Barrett said.

Renewable energy from sources such as wind and solar is making big inroads into the power sector, supplying more than a third of eastern Australia’s electricity in the final three months of 2021. However, decarbonising industry and some transport, such as trucking, is likely to be tougher unless fuels such as hydrogen become much cheaper.
Don't mourn, organize.

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weatheriscool
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New technique transplants mitochondria from one living cell to another
https://phys.org/news/2022-03-technique ... -cell.html
by Ori Schip­per, ETH Zurich
In a technological breakthrough, researchers at ETH Zurich have announced the development of a new technique that can transplant mitochondria—the tiny powerhouses of the cell—from one living cell to another with unparalleled efficiency.

Just as the human body can be divided into different organs—such as the heart, lungs, kidneys, intestine or liver—our cells also consist of several complementary and interdependent systems. These are referred to as organelles, meaning small organs. And much as we are sometimes able to add several decades to the life of a patient with kidney disease by transplanting a healthy kidney, we may one day also be able to rejuvenate individual cells by transplanting cell components.
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caltrek
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'Ukrainian Blood on Their Hands': Analysis Details How Big Oil Funded Putin's War Chest
by Jessica Corbett
March 25, 2022

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/ ... -war-chest

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) Bolstering climate campaigners' charges that fossil fuels have funded Russia's ongoing assault of Ukraine, an analysis published Friday by three green groups reveals top energy companies helped build Russian President Vladimir Putin's war chest to the tune of nearly $100 billion since 2014.

The new briefing from Greenpeace USA, Global Witness, and Oil Change International targets eight companies: BP, Equinor, ExxonMobil, OMV, Shell, TotalEnergies, Trafigura, and Wintershall Dea.

The analysis tracks back to 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea—a region that most countries still consider to be part of Ukraine. Putin launched a full-blown invasion of Ukraine in late February, a war now in its second month.

"While the Russian government has benefited from majority state-owned or state-controlled oil companies such as Gazprom and Rosneft," the document states, "European and U.S.-based corporations have also spearheaded large oil and gas projects that filled Putin's coffers."

The report, which features "BP's and TotalEnergies' share of the royalties and taxes paid by the Russian companies, proportional to their equity stakes," specifically calls out BP, which the researchers say was responsible for over 80% of the $95.4 billion because of its Rosneft stock. Asked to comment on the findings, BP told Global Witness that "we simply do not recognize the numbers you cite or, indeed, any suggestion that BP was somehow 'responsible for paying' Russia 'an estimated $78.4' billion since 2014.'"
Don't mourn, organize.

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caltrek
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Europe Can Lead the Way Through an Energy Crisis Without More Fossil Fuels
by Rebecca Leber
March 26, 2022

https://www.vox.com/22983893/europe-us- ... ia-climate

Introduction:
(Vox) In five years, European countries hope to end dependence on Russian fossil fuels, and by the end of the year, they look to slash reliance on Russian gas by two-thirds. If Europe follows through on these pledges, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could propel one of the swiftest energy transitions in history.

The biggest question now is whether it’s a transition off oil and gas — or just off Russian oil and gas.

Right now, it seems fossil fuels are winning. Oil companies in the United States are eager for Europe to swap one fossil fuel for another and build out more infrastructure on both sides of the Atlantic to carry oil and gas to Europe. And despite their climate pledges, world leaders have shown early support for ramping up fossil fuel infrastructure.

On Friday, during President Joe Biden’s trip to Europe for meetings of the G7 and NATO, the US announced a new joint agreement with Europe that promises 15 billion cubic meters in new shipments of liquified natural gas (LNG) this year. That will be on top of the shipments already going to Europe, and will replace about a quarter of the gas imported from Russia.

But the United States is not in the driver’s seat. European countries are the ones that face the real choice between building new fossil fuel infrastructure or speeding up their timeline on clean energy investments. And they could hasten their transition off of fossil fuels by prioritizing climate-friendly solutions, like incentivizing energy efficiency, installing heat pumps, and speeding up renewable permitting. Two new reports from independent think tanks this week outline a viable path that doesn’t replace Russian oil and gas with other fossil fuels.
Don't mourn, organize.

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caltrek
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Fuel From Waste Wood
March 29, 2022

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/947988

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) Ethanol is usually produced through the fermentation of sugars from starchy raw materials such as corn, or from lignocellulosic biomass, such as wood or straw. It is an established fuel that decarbonizes the transportation sector and can be a building block to reduce emissions of CO2 over the long term. In collaboration with the Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT) in Finland, researchers at the Straubing Campus for Biotechnology and Sustainability of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed a new process for the production of ethanol.

In this context, offcut materials from the area of forestry are used together with hydrogen. The hydrogen is produced by separating water into hydrogen and oxygen with the use of electricity – in other words, with the use of water electrolysis. In the future, this will allow the excess electricity to be used for the production of ethanol.
Conclusion:
The technology needs to mature further

With the use of green electricity to power the electrolysis, this process can produce a low CO2 fuel that has a greenhouse gas reduction potential of 75 percent in comparison with a fossil fuel such as gasoline. Ethanol is established as a fuel. It can be used in the form of both E-10 gasoline, with 10 percent ethanol in the fuel mixture for regular automobiles, as is already the case, or as ED95, which is 95 percent ethanol, as a diesel substitute for heavy goods transportation.

With their process simulation, the scientists have demonstrated the competitiveness of the process. “To commercialize this product, it is necessary to further improve the degree of technological maturity. The next steps could entail further catalyst developments, a reactor design and the construction and operation of a pilot system,” says Prof. (Matthias) Gaderer (Professor of Renewable Energy Systems at Technical University of Munich).
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Fifty countries get more than a tenth of their power from wind and solar sources, according to research from Ember, a climate and energy think tank.

...Solar and wind and other clean sources generated 38% of the world's electricity in 2021. For the first time wind turbines and solar panels generated 10% of the total.

The share coming from wind and sun has doubled since 2015, when the Paris climate agreement was signed.

The fastest switching to wind and solar took place in the Netherlands, Australia, and Vietnam. All three have moved a tenth of their electricity demand from fossil fuels to green sources in the last two years.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60917445
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caltrek
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Renewable Energy Provided 24% Of U.S. Electricity in December
by Zachary Shahan
March 30, 2022

https://cleantechnica.com/2022/03/30/re ... -december/

Introduction:
(Clean Technica) In the month of December 2021, renewable energy sources accounted for 23.8% of electricity generation across the United States. Wind energy alone accounted for 11.9%, while solar energy accounted for 2.7%.

The good news is this is notably up from December 2019 and December 2020. In December 2019, those figures were 17.5% from renewable energy, 7.8% from wind energy, and 1.6% from solar energy. In December 2020, they had improved to 19.4%, 9.2%, and 2.2%, respectively. So, you can see that all of the new solar and wind power capacity does lead to noticeable increases in electricity generation from renewable sources. It’s just that the grid is so large and power plants have such long lifespans that even 100% of new power capacity coming from renewable power plants just means a modest increase in renewable energy’s share of electricity supply.

In December 2019 and December 2020, both nuclear and coal produced more electricity than renewable energy sources. In December 2021, renewables had passed both of them up and had a solid lead — 23.8% of electricity compared to 20.6% from nuclear power plants and 17.5% from coal power plants.

Interestingly, hydropower (part of the renewable energy supply) also saw a jump in production in that timeframe. It grew from 6.3% in December 2019 and 6.2% in December 2020 to 7.5% in December 2021
Don't mourn, organize.

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