Category Archives: Renewables and Clean Energy

A reply to McKinsey and its Net-zero transition report by the MD of One Earth

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I have been providing extracts from the recent McKinsey report in two posts recently,

My first post was  explaining their scenario limitations with the message “we hope that this scenario-based analysis will help decision-makers refine their understanding of the nature and the magnitude of the changes the net-zero transition would entail and the scale of response needed to manage it.”

Then the second post was to re-produce and show their summary of costs and outcomes.

I did not make any personal comments in these two posts, I found the report difficult to comprehend and have been hoping someone far more qualified could provide a view to add or to challenge this report view

I personally found the costs absolutely staggering. I find the disruption frightening. So, we face significant electricity price increases and uncertainties of continuity of supply, very limited job gains over job destructions, whole industries and supply chains wiped out, steel and cement price increases of 30 to 45%, investment inequality even more.

The way McKinsey has phrased this does need deeper clarity. The point is they highlight the effect of the additional $3.5 trillion, their view of the additional amounts we need to spend on achieving Net-zero, not the predicted total spend of $9.2 trillion needed each year. To put this increase in comparative terms, the $3.5 trillion is approximately equivalent, in 2020, to half of global corporate profits, one-quarter of total tax revenue, and 7 per cent of household spending. YIKES! That is of a magnitude that is way beyond me to comprehend. For Real?

Seriously, do any of the energy experts here in Energy Central contributors recognize this as the future conversation in the boardrooms or public institutions? Now if we have a disorderly transition it gets worse.

I felt this report needs understanding, hence my staying to the report faithfully. I made an appeal of “I can’t get my head around this”- can anyone offer insights to counter this was a reply I made on comments provided to where I had equally posted this on the energy-central site.

Energy Central is a membership-based Professional Network serving the global electric power industry

Today I was reading a reply to this McKinsey report by Karl Burkart, Managing Director One Earth, formerly DiCaprio Foundation Dir. Science & Technology.

I reproduce this here as it challenges the work of McKinsey significantly and gives me a better framing of my concerns and shock. Continue reading →

How to prepare as an Energy Company for significant disruption – Thomas Kiesslings Enlit Keynote

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Thomas Kiessling, the CTO of Siemens Smart Infrastructure, provided in a keynote at the Enlit Europe event, held in Milan between 30th November to 2nd December 2021 his thoughts on how to prepare as an Energy Company for significant disruption  He outlined in twenty-odd minutes keynote his transformation list to enable this with “All of us will go through disruption and opportunity.”

When anyone argues from the start of their keynote: “that no one would dispute that the energy sector is ripe for disruption, we have to go through profound change.” Then further adding, “there is a need to transform the systems radically“, you indeed start paying attention.

Kiessling said the industry “has entered a much greater degree of uncertainty. And uncertainty needs entrepreneurs; it needs trial and error, and it needs system-scale innovation.” Continue reading →

My energy wish list as we move towards 2022

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visual source dreamstime.com

Many of us have wish lists or resolutions as we get towards the end of one year and think about what we want out of next year.

So I decided to do a top of the mind wish list for the Energy Transition

Now we all can add to this but here are my nineteen wishes for kicking off 2022 in a focused way for the Energy Transition we all need to gather momentum, in really serious ways. Can you improve on this wish list?

Some of the ideas or thoughts are in the links provided. Happy holiday reading! Continue reading →

The World Awaits, What is the Energy and Climate Outlook?

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I have been reading IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2021 (WEO), issued a month earlier in October, specifically because of the COP26 Climate Change
Conference meeting in Glasgow in a few weeks time.

This is the IEA flagship report, a 380 plus page report has for this year’s edition of the WEO been designed, exceptionally, as a guidebook to COP26.
It spells out clearly what is at stake.

This COP – short for the Conference of the Parties, the main decision-making body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – is particularly significant. This COP session is being held between 31st October to 12th November 2021 and perhaps is the most pivotal climate meeting to date. Why?

It is the first test of the readiness of countries to submit new and more ambitious commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement. It is also an opportunity – as the WEO-2021 states – to provide an “unmistakable signal” that accelerates the transition to clean energy worldwide.

I wanted to “lift out” of the report a few very short but essential messages provided in this report that give the essential snapshot. Continue reading →

Getting concerned for Hydrogen

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Image: IRENA

Since I launched this dedicated posting site www.innovating4energy.com, in December 2019, specifically around innovating in energy, I have written 80 plus posts. Each post was undoubtedly a fundamental learning point for me as I attempted to dive deeper into the topic.

Within this, Hydrogen has been one of the main contributors. Including this post, I have written about different aspects of Hydrogen over ten posts, but most were during 2020.

Posts (with links) have covered Hotter Shades of Hydrogen, Tensions and Bottlenecks and Concerns, Show me the Electrolyzer, Hydrogen is the Big Ticket Needing a Landscape View,

Also, Has Hydrogen got the necessary gas, Massive Doses of Hydrogen Reality, Hydrogens Promise, Believing in Hydrogen and how Plug Power is the Apple of Hydrogen?

Then I suddenly “went off the boil” on Hydrogen. I felt a sense of hijack from the Oil & Gas Majors and the Equipment Suppliers, all pushing hard the interim solutions blending different gases for offering blue Hydrogen as the necessary bridge, over the next ten years or so.

I felt a sense of “lock into” as the investment to purchase gas generating assets and infrastructure can run for thirty or more years. That’s not interim or intermediate and is likely to stay blue as CCUS will get added on at the later stage as the logical option to complete a ROI on this “interim” decision

Continue reading →

Two sides of the Energy Equation

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Decarbonization is the critical component within the Energy Transition. We have to reduce our emissions down as fast as possible. The way we set about this will determine how we will manage the planet in the future.

Facing a climate that will become hotter, repressive and unpredictable is what we are all facing in the coming years. We have set ambitious targets to achieve the Paris Agreement as a legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was adopted by 196 Parties (countries) at COP 21 in Paris on 12 December 2015 and entered into force on 4 November 2016.

Its goal is to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.

To achieve this long-term temperature goal, countries aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible to achieve a climate-neutral world by mid-century.

Reshaping the energy systems is a massive challenge Continue reading →

Will Critical Mineral Supplies Stop the Energy Transition?

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Image sourced: IEA report The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions

An energy system powered by clean energy technologies differs profoundly from one fuelled by traditional hydrocarbon resources.

One real challenge is the impact on this energy transition that critical minerals will bring. These are new, different, perhaps more complex challenges to energy security. The shift to clean energy systems will bring potential new vulnerabilities.

The minerals needed for clean energy have huge questions over the availability and reliability of supply. There are a high concentration of production, long project development lead times, the worry over declining resource quality and growing scrutiny over environmental, social performance and climate risks.

These issues throw an increasing spotlight on supply sources and how critical mineral security can have far-reaching consequences throughout the energy system as we pivot towards a clean energy transition. Continue reading →

Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors- so what’s there not to like?

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Visual Source: Seaborg Technologies

Let’s discuss Nuclear in different ways than the present discussion has gone. Nuclear has been not given the debate it deserves. That needs changing in my view.

This is largely from the use of salt! Well, actually, small modular reactors offer a Nuclear future as part of our clean energy requirements.

I wrote a piece recently, “the Elephant that should be in the Energy Debate,” and it is largely because of the technology, safety and reality of what Nuclear offers in new approaches and designs that make it have a real place to be at the Energy Transition table.

Firstly what is a molten salt reactor (MSR)?

It is a class of nuclear fission reactors where the primary coolant and/or the fuel is a molten salt mixture. There are several different designs, all looking to bring small modular reactors (SMR) to market.

MSR has significant advantages over traditional nuclear reactors. Continue reading →

The Elephant that should be more in the Energy Debate

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Nuclear should “sit” in the Energy Transition debate is a tough one to call. The public sentiment, in general, would be against a ramping up of Nuclear after the two significant disasters etched onto our minds and stand out of Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima Daichi in 2011, and the human and environmental impact.

The impact of nuclear accidents has been debated since the first nuclear reactors were constructed in 1954. It has been a key factor in public concern about nuclear facilities ever since. Human error does happen. According to the IAEA, I was surprised by the high levels of accidents in the USA.

So why discuss an energy source that is highly contentious to argue it still has a future within the energy mix? Several reasons, many include Nuclear is still seen as a real need to deliver clean energy.

Continue reading →

A decade pivotal to a clean energy future.

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Explicit Milestones within this report are staggering in implications

The International Energy Agency (IEA) released its most comprehensive report “Net Zero by 2050: a roadmap for the Global Energy Sector” on 18th May 2021.

The roadmap outlined underscores how pivotal this current decade is to ever reach net-zero by mid-century. In my opinion, it is the next three to five years that will determine this. If we fail to drive down emissions into a really sharp decline through a global political will we are in serious trouble.

It is only through strong and credible energy policies and significant investment into clean energy solutions we will get onto any pathway. If we fail to recognize the overwhelming needs to change we can say goodbye to 2050 as a net-zero target, then that will have colossal economic and climatic consequences. Continue reading →