Category Archives: Energy and Climate Change

News and articles on climate change, vehicle pollution, and renewable energy.

Elon Musk’s big battery brings reality crashing into a post-truth world

August 7, 2017Energy and Climate Change, Energy Storage, News, Reviews and Comment, TeslaJo

For months, politicians and fossil fuel industry have lied about the viability of renewables. Now Tesla’s big battery in South Australia will prove them wrong

Elon Musk’s agreement to build the world’s largest battery for South Australia isn’t just an extraordinary technological breakthrough that signs coal’s death warrant. It’s potentially a game changer in the way we do politics, reinserting the importance of basic reality into a debate which has been bereft of it for too long.

There’s been a lot written in recent years on the idea that we are living in a “post-truth” world. Climate writer David Roberts brought it to my attention around 2010, when I was grappling with the idea that dinosaur politicians and rent-seeking corporates not only weren’t telling the truth about climate change and energy: they were actively dismissive and destructive of the very idea of truth.

While we got a taste for it in Australia under Tony

“don’t believe anything I haven’t written down”

Abbott’s government, the idea sprang into the global mainstream last year with Donald Trump’s election campaign and the Brexit bus.

It seemed that truth no longer mattered. Facts were not just unimportant, but barriers to be smashed through with rhetoric. Demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt that a politician was lying no longer had any impact. Even when people agreed that he (usually) was lying, they still supported him, because he activated a frame or a value that drove their political decision-making.

Read more: The Guardian

Big Oil Just Woke Up to Threat of Rising Electric Car Demand

August 6, 2017Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, OilJo

OPEC quintupled forecast for battery powered cars in last year
Oil majors and automakers diverge on outlook for EVs

The world’s biggest oil producers are starting to take electric vehicles seriously as a long-term threat.

OPEC quintupled its forecast for sales of plug-in EVs, and oil producers from Exxon Mobil Corp. to BP Plc also revised up their outlooks in the past year, according to a study by Bloomberg New Energy Finance released on Friday. The London-based researcher expects those cars to reduce oil demand 8 million barrels by 2040, more than the current combined production of Iran and Iraq.

Growing popularity of EVs increases the risk that oil demand will stagnate in the decades ahead, raising questions about the more than $700 billion a year that’s flowing into fossil-fuel industries. While the oil producers’ outlook isn’t nearly as aggressive as BNEF’s, the numbers indicate an acceleration in the number of EVs likely to be in the global fleet.

“The number of EVs on the road will have major implications for automakers, oil companies, electric utilities and others,”

Colin McKerracher, head of advanced-transport analysis at BNEF in London, wrote in a note to clients.

“There is significant disagreement on how fast adoption will be, and views are changing quickly.”

BNEF expects electric cars to outsell gasoline and diesel models by 2040, reflecting a rapid decline in the cost of lithium-ion battery units that store power for the vehicles. It expects 530 million plug-in cars on the road by 2040, a third of worldwide total number of cars.

Electric car revolution: calculating the cost of green motoring

August 6, 2017Economy, Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and CommentJo

More battery-powered vehicles would mean cleaner air and quieter streets – but also a drain on the National Grid and less fuel duty to the Treasury

Streets will be quieter, the air will be cleaner, people will spend less time at petrol stations and car factories might even return to Britain’s shores if the country switches to electric cars in a dramatic, widespread fashion.

But widespread adoption of battery-powered vehicles would not be without challenges too. A large-scale switchover to electric cars could create problems for power grids, could mean roads lined with charging poles and it could also leave a big hole in public coffers as fuel duty dries up.

With just over 90,000 fully electric and plug-in hybrid cars now on UK roads, such risks and benefits might look a way off.

But this week big changes have been announced. On Wednesday Volvo said it will only launch electric or hybrid cars from 2019 and just a day later Emmanuel Macron’s new government pledged that France will ban diesel and petrol cars by 2040. Battery-powered travel could be coming far sooner than previously thought.

According to research published this week by Bloomberg New Energy Finance the proportion of fully electric new cars sold in the UK will be one in 12 by 2030 – up from one in every 200 today.

The surge in electric cars will have to be accompanied by thousands of new charging points to plug them all in.

Today there are around 4,000 publicly accessible locations with 13,000 plug sockets. Of the 13,000, a fifth are so-called rapid charging connections that will top up a Nissan Leaf, the UK’s best-selling pure electric car, in half an hour.

Read more: The Guardian

The post-Brexit future of the UK’s electric transport industry

August 5, 2017Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and CommentJo

According to the latest edition of the International Energy Agency’s Global EV Outlook, the number of electric cars in motion has to reach 600 million by 2040 in order for the current greenhouse gas emission target of temperature increases below 2°C to be reached and maintained.

A MINI chassis receives a polish at BMW’s Oxford plant. Source: BMW

Currently, we are nowhere near this figure, as only 0.2% of total light-duty vehicles were EVs in 2016. The figure is estimated to rise to 20 million vehicles by 2020, without taking into account regional politics. Is this estimate realistic when regional political uncertainty is included in the equation? Take, for example, the European perspective –Brexit could have a negative impact on the EV industry, especially under a Conservative government which was more inclined to drop the European gas emission targets a year ago. A year after the Brexit vote, relations between Europe and the UK may be looking at a bleak future, but neither should be short of ambition to make the best of their decarbonisation efforts.

Immediate reactions

A year ago, the Brexit vote triggered the immediate reaction of the British automotive sector to demand from the UK Government protection of the current tariff arrangements, as according to SMMT’s estimations a change in import tariffs could result in an increase of up to £1,500 per purchase if the retailers were unable to cover the additional costs.

Additionally, a report by PA Consulting has estimated that the cost of assembling a car in Britain could increase by £2,370 in the event of a hard Brexit. With more than 30 manufacturers based in the UK, accounting for over £69.5 billion of annual turnover, such an unfavourable change in tariff arrangements with the EU would cause stagnating sales, as the EU still remains the biggest market for vehicle parts from the UK.

Threats of relocating the plants outside of the UK were raised by carmakers, such as Nissan, whose production of Nissan Leaf EV in Sunderland accounts for 400,000 units annually. Nissan went as far as suing the Leave campaign for using their logo. On the other hand, BMW tried to remain cool-headed, hinting that its production network spread out across 31 locations in 14 other countries provides enough flexibility for the manufacturer to relocate the production of new models, such as the first battery-powered version of the Mini expected to go on sale in 2019.

In the window of Brexit negotiations, the ambition of UK-based manufacturers still remains focused on developing electric power trains. Depending on the final tariff arrangements in the near post-Brexit future, the electric transport industry might be negatively affected by the fleet of consumers to cheaper alternatives, meaning that more electric incentives have to be provided by the UK Government. However, there are positive consequences for British manufacturers to get up to speed with their own EVs.

Electric cars to account for all new vehicle sales in Europe by 2035

August 4, 2017Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and CommentJo

Falling battery costs to drive sales but European carmakers will lose out to rivals in the US and Asia, forecasts Dutch bank

All new cars sold in Europe will be electric within less than two decades, driven by government support, falling battery costs and economies of scale, a Dutch bank has predicted.

However, ING warned that with battery-powered vehicles accounting for 100% of registrations in 2035 across the continent, European carmakers would lose out to their rivals in the US and Asia who already lead on battery production.

The forecast is much more aggressive than most other projections, such as the UK’s National Grid which on Thursday said it expects 90% of new cars in Britain to be electric by 2050.

France’s commitment last week to banning new petrol and diesel car sales by 2040 suggests it also thinks the roll-out of electric vehicles will be slower than ING’s report expects.

However, the bank said that it believed pure electric cars would “become the rational choice for motorists in Europe” sometime between 2017 and 2024, as their car showroom prices fall, their ranges increase and charging infrastructure becomes more widespread.

By 2024, the report’s authors forecast that in Germany the cost of ownership for an electric car – including buying and fuelling it – would be the same as a conventional petrol or diesel model.

Read more: The Guardian

It’s a world of worry for oil companies

August 1, 2017Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and Comment, OilJo

Volvo Cars CEO Hakan Samuelsson announced last week that all Volvo cars will be electric or hybrid within two years. The Chinese-owned automotive group plans to phase out the conventional car engine.

India hopes to sell only electric vehicles by 2030. China is offering incentives to buy electric cars and investing heavily in renewable technologies. Volvo will scrap the pure internal combustion engine in favor of hybrids and electric cars.

And on Thursday, France announced it plans to ban the sale of diesel and gasoline-fueled cars by 2040.

The world’s major oil companies might disagree when global demand for petroleum will peak, but the news of the past seven months suggests that they should be worried, if they aren’t already. Nations, states and private companies are demanding cleaner energy, leaving the world’s oil producers to face a reckoning that many haven’t yet accepted.

European companies, analysts say, are at the forefront of recognizing this new reality.

Royal Dutch Shell and the Norway’s Statoil foresee peak demand hitting by 2030; others, like the French oil major Total and the British company BP, predict 2040. In contrast, American companies such as Chevron and Exxon Mobil don’t foresee oil demand peaking anytime soon, if ever.

Even as U.S. demand wanes with more efficient cars and changing commuting patterns, companies like Chevron and Exxon Mobil are banking on the rising middle classes of China, India and other emerging nations to buy more cars, demand more consumer goods and suck up the juice that the companies sell.

But recent developments show they may be disappointed. In January, China, already offering incentives for electric vehicles, said it would spend $360 billion on renewable energy. That news was followed by India setting an ambitious goal of electric-only car sales in a little more than a decade.

Around the world, more car manufacturers are offering electric-only models. Last week, Volvo became the first company to plan a complete phase-out of traditional cars.

To be sure, Volvo’s goal of 1 million electric vehicles by 2025 would only cut 20,000 barrels a day in gasoline demand, and it will likely be years beyond that for electric vehicles to make big impact on global petroleum consumption.

These Countries Want to Ban All Vehicles That Run on Gas or Diesel

August 1, 2017Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and CommentJo

If France’s Environment Minister has his way, the country could join a small but growing list of countries that plan to ban vehicles running on gasoline, diesel or other fossil fuels.

The proposal was announced late last week by Minister Nicolas Hulot and appeared timed to coincide with the G20 meeting in Germany where many European leaders, including new French President Emmanuel Macron, challenged U.S. President Donald Trump over his decision to walk away from the Paris Climate Accord.

Several countries have already laid out ambitious plans to eliminate fossil fuel-powered automobiles. Environment Minister Hulot said it won’t be easy for France, either.

“It’s a very difficult objective. But the solutions are there.”

And, as the world’s sixth-largest economy, and with one of the world’s largest automotive markets, the proposed ban on the internal combustion engine could have significant impact far beyond France’s borders.

Going Mainly Electric Within Six Years?

France has two major automakers based in Paris, both of which have made electrification key objectives. PSA Group — which owns the Peugeot and Citroen brands — plans to have 80 percent of its fleet electrified by 2023. Renault, along with its Japanese alliance partner Nissan, has produced more pure battery-electric vehicles, or BEVs, than any other manufacturer over the past decade, including models such as the Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe.

Sales of all battery-based vehicles dipped globally in 2016. In the U.S., for example, hybrids, plug-ins, and BEVs collectively accounted for barely 3 percent of the overall new vehicle market. But there have been signs of an upturn. Renault sold more of the battery-electric Zoe city cars during the first half of 2017 than it did all last year.
And the Renault-Nissan Alliance is expecting a major surge in demand for the Leaf with the remake due later this year. Like the recently launched Chevrolet Bolt EV and the upcoming Tesla Model 3, it will boost range to over 200 miles while keeping its price tag in the $30,000 range, the company has hinted.

In general, EV prices are expected to tumble sharply over the coming decade, even as range rapidly increases.

Europe, and France in particular, is already working to establish a network of public charging stations, making it easier to own and operate plug-based vehicles.

Government puts up £20m for electric vehicle-to-grid tech development

July 31, 2017Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and Comment, UncategorizedJo

Government has freed-up £20 million to help kickstart vehicle-to-grid (V2G) development. The aim is to work out how electric vehicles can help balance the electricity system.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis) and the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (Olev) said money is available for three types of V2G projects:

feasibility studies – investigating the ways vehicle to grid technology can be used in the future
industrial research or experimental development – for example, to develop vehicle-to-grid charging equipment
demonstrator trials in the real-world environment – projects that trial vehicle to grid technology in different locations across the country.

There are currently around 100,000 EVs on UK roads. That number is expected to swell significantly over the coming years. Manufacturers such as Volvo have grabbed headlines in recent weeks with commitments to focus entirely on electric vehicles, Tesla is launching its first mass production model and even Rolls Royce, which produces some of the biggest and best combustion engines in the world, accepts that eventually, its future business will be electric. Meanwhile, France’s policymakers have outlined a goal to ban sales of petrol and diesel cars by 2040.

With battery costs continuing to fall, some analysts now believe the EV market is approaching a tipping point, and that battery powered cars will be “cheaper to buy than internal combustion engines in most countries by 2025-29”. That analysis does not take into account any fuel savings or subsidies that may be on offer.

In the UK, Beis is keen for carmakers and battery firms to collaborate on energy storage and services in order to help decarbonise both electricity and transport sectors. While the former sector has decarbonised significantly due to subsidy regimes, the latter appears to be in reverse gear.

“The ability to marry energy and automotive [goals] is a wonderful opportunity that would be crazy to separate and dilute,” secretary of state Greg Clark said recently.

“If you can create jobs in both sectors and simultaneously address problems that do not respect boundaries… that is a huge opportunity.”

Some carmakers are ahead of the curve. Nissan, second only to Jaguar Land Rover in the UK in terms of cars produced, told National Grid’s recent Power Responsive conference that it was becoming an energy services company.

UK faces sharp rise in wind storms and higher bills as world warms

July 30, 2017Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and CommentJo

Data models show UK to be at mercy of fiercer winds and insurers call for action to reinforce buildings.

The UK is set to reap the whirlwind of climate change with the huge damage caused by wind storms expected to increase sharply, according to new analysis.

Even the minimum global warming now expected – just 1.5C – is projected to raise the cost of windstorm destruction by more than a third in parts of the country. If climate change heats the world even further, broken roofs and damaged buildings are likely to increase by over 50% across a swathe of the nation.

The research shows all of the UK is on track to see rises in high winds except the south and south-west, with the greatest impact across the Midlands, Yorkshire and Northern Ireland. This is because the main storms that barrel in off the Atlantic are expected to move their track northwards as the planet warms, a phenomenon linked to the rapid melting being seen in the Arctic.

Global warming is set to increase the destructiveness of wind storms in the UK

Flooding is the most high-profile impact of climate change on the UK. But the overall cost of wind storms is actually higher, as a result of a much larger number of smaller incidents, and currently runs at an average of about £1bn a year. Extreme wind storms can occur, though, and in 1990 the Burns’ Day storm resulted in 47 deaths, as well as more than £2bn of insured damage and many millions more in damage to roads, power lines and uninsured properties.

The new work was commissioned by the Association of British Insurers (ABI), which is concerned by the rising impacts of climate change on its customers, and was carried out by the consultancy Air Worldwide and the UK Met Office.

Read more: The Guardian

Gasoline Engines Emit More Particulates Than Diesels

July 29, 2017Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and Comment, PollutionJo

For years, the conventional wisdom has been that pollution from diesel engines was far worse than from gasoline engines for two reasons: First, diesel exhaust fumes are known to contain nitrous oxide emissions. Second, they also contain particulates, small molecules that are too small to see. Both are believed to cause serious damage to human lungs.

Particulate Emissions From Gasoline Engines

Now it turns out that conventional wisdom is wrong. A study by researchers at the Materials, Science, and Technology Laboratory in Switzerland claims that particulate emissions from gasoline engines can be far greater than those from diesel engines.

The laboratory studied the emissions of 7 gas engine vehicles equipped with direct-fuel-injection systems. The research found that they emit from 10 to 100 times more particulates than modern diesel engines. In fact, they have higher particulate emissions than older diesel without particulate filters.

Wait, did you read that right? Gasoline engines spew out up to one hundred times more particulates that a modern diesel engine equipped with a particulate filter? Yes, you read that right. Yikes. And people wonder why the incidence of asthma and other lung related diseases is on the rise!

Researchers Find Carcinogens In Gas Engine Exhaust

The researchers, led by Norbert Heeb, who has 25 years of experience analyzing emissions from diesel engines and designing filter systems, showed that the particles are the same size as those from older diesel engines. They measure between 10 and 20 nanometers and clump together into particles between 80 and 100 nanometers before they leave the exhaust system.

The gas engines were also found to discharge unburned hydrocarbons in the form of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), along with other liquid and solid toxins which accumulate on the surface of the emitted particles.

Particulates Penetrate The Lungs

Heeb says the particles are so small they penetrate lung tissue and pass into the bloodstream, bringing those toxins with them. Is this beginning to sound like the days when researchers first told the world about all the nasty stuff contained in cigarette smoke? It should, because it turns out there is a connection to smoking. The researchers also found that the exhaust gasses coming out ot the tailpipes of the cars with gas engines also contain benzo-α-pyrene, a carcinogenic produced when tobacco is burned.