AFP
Saturday, 20 November 2010
US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Wednesday the United States and China had launched a joint clean energy initiative - one of the largest research collaborations between two countries in the world.
The scheme aims to enable joint research and development of clean energy technologies, including carbon capture, electric vehicles and energy-efficient buildings.
"This is one of the largest research collaborations between two countries," Chu said, pointing to the 150-million-dollar investment earmarked for the initiative over five years from private and public funding.
It does not involve a physical centre but will see teams of scientists and engineers from both countries collaborating.
The plan was first announced in November 2009 when US President Barack Obama came to China for a state visit.
"In the next several decades, the (Chinese) leadership says that there will be one United States' worth of infrastructure that has to be built in China," Chu told reporters.
He said both China and the United States - the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters - were now keen to build their infrastructure in the most energy-efficient way possible.
"In this respect, the two countries' interests are incredibly aligned - the sharing of technologies is a very natural thing."
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Philip Ditchfield's innovation: the 100 Solar Project
The pharmaceutical-firm worker who has made a roaring success of getting his local community to go solar
Lucy Siegle The Observer, Sunday 21 November 2010
Philip Ditchfield was by day a procurement expert for a pharmaceutical firm and by night harboured green tendencies. After watching The Age of Stupid he tired of hearing excuses such as: "There's no point doing anything because China's emissions are growing." By March 2010 he found himself persuading inhabitants of Marlow, Buckinghamshire, to become part of his 100 Solar Project, a community renewables buying group. To date, 185 households have registered, and 30 Marlow families now generate electricity through photovoltaic and solar thermal cells. "We've had calls from all over the country," he says. "I hope people outside of our seven-mile radius around Marlow will start their own scheme."
To this end he's compiled a best-practice document at transitionmarlow.org. He analysed 10 renewable energy companies using his procurement expertise before settling on freesource.co.uk. "We have enough homes to leverage a 12% discount, so everyone got a rebate after six months. But I'm still aiming for 100 homes, which would mean a rebate of 20%." This could "save 80,000kg of CO2 each year. Imagine if every town across the UK did that!"
But for now he is focused on Marlow becoming a destination where visitors notice a "disproportionate amount of solar". Naturally his house is a shining example. The family is the proud owner of nine Mitsubishi solar PV panels and two solar thermal panels for hot water. "I was offered free installation from installers as a perk of setting this up," he admits, "and as it cost £15,000, I'm sure my wife wishes we'd taken them up on it – but the purpose of a community buying group like this is being on the same terms, so I'm waiting for my rebate cheques, too…"
Email Lucy at lucy.siegle@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/lucysiegle for all her articles in one place
Lucy Siegle The Observer, Sunday 21 November 2010
Philip Ditchfield was by day a procurement expert for a pharmaceutical firm and by night harboured green tendencies. After watching The Age of Stupid he tired of hearing excuses such as: "There's no point doing anything because China's emissions are growing." By March 2010 he found himself persuading inhabitants of Marlow, Buckinghamshire, to become part of his 100 Solar Project, a community renewables buying group. To date, 185 households have registered, and 30 Marlow families now generate electricity through photovoltaic and solar thermal cells. "We've had calls from all over the country," he says. "I hope people outside of our seven-mile radius around Marlow will start their own scheme."
To this end he's compiled a best-practice document at transitionmarlow.org. He analysed 10 renewable energy companies using his procurement expertise before settling on freesource.co.uk. "We have enough homes to leverage a 12% discount, so everyone got a rebate after six months. But I'm still aiming for 100 homes, which would mean a rebate of 20%." This could "save 80,000kg of CO2 each year. Imagine if every town across the UK did that!"
But for now he is focused on Marlow becoming a destination where visitors notice a "disproportionate amount of solar". Naturally his house is a shining example. The family is the proud owner of nine Mitsubishi solar PV panels and two solar thermal panels for hot water. "I was offered free installation from installers as a perk of setting this up," he admits, "and as it cost £15,000, I'm sure my wife wishes we'd taken them up on it – but the purpose of a community buying group like this is being on the same terms, so I'm waiting for my rebate cheques, too…"
Email Lucy at lucy.siegle@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/lucysiegle for all her articles in one place
Last chance to prove that UK carbon capture plan can work
Other bids to trap CO2 have failed. But a project in Fife could still transform the use of fossil fuel
Robin McKie, Science editor The Observer, Sunday 21 November 2010
A collection of portable cabins and odd pieces of machinery has been assembled on an old, cracked patch of concrete outside Longannet power station on the banks of the Firth of Forth. Two thin metal towers loom over the huts, on which blue skies and white clouds have been painted.
This huddle of equipment may look unprepossessing, but it houses an ambitious technological enterprise. Engineers are testing equipment for Britain's first full-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) device. The lessons learned on this windswept corner of Fife will be used to design a full-scale machine that could turn coal-burning power plants into eco-friendly generating stations.
The Longannet carbon-capture system, scheduled to begin operations in 2014, will involve a major scaling-up of the test rig and should remove more than a million tonnes of the carbon dioxide currently being pumped into the air by its eight giant coal-burning generators every year. This will then b e funnelled into a depleted North Sea gas field and stored. The technology could transform the use of fossil fuels in Britain and prove to be a major export earner.
"The plant proposed for Longannet is the last and best candidate we have for building a device that could be fitted to existing power stations to extract and isolate their carbon emissions," said CCS expert Professor Stuart Haszeldine of Edinburgh University. "All other carbon-capture schemes being considered by the government have either been rejected or withdrawn by their backers. This is all we have left. The government has yet to make its final commitment. It looks good, however."
Several hundred million tonnes of carbon dioxide are produced in Britain every year, with electricity generating stations accounting for a substantial proportion. The UK has pledged to reduce these emissions by 80% by 2050, with renewable power plants taking over much of our energy production.
"However, we will always need plants to provide power, virtually instantly, for those moments – at a World Cup final half-time, for example – when kettles are switched on round the nation," said John Campbell, director of energy wholesale for ScottishPower, which owns Longannet. "Coal plants are good at providing rapid power generation."
All that needs to be done is prevent their carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere. For example, Longannet, which provides power for two million people and is one of Europe's largest power plants, emits between 7m and 8m tonnes a year. As a result, ScottishPower has joined forces with Shell and the Norwegian chemical company Aker to design a full-scale carbon capture and storage plant, Britain's first, to remove a sixth of all Longannet's carbon emissions.
Longannet's test rig is now providing precious data for their plans. At present, less than a thousandth of the station's flue gases is captured. But the chemistry for the full-scale plant will be the same and will use techniques originally developed to prevent carbon dioxide exhaled by crewmen from poisoning the air in nuclear submarines. "We exploit chemicals called amides," said Tom Corless, the test rig's technical director. "They bind and isolate the carbon dioxide."
In the Longannet rig, which began operations 18 months ago, flue gases, which are 12% carbon dioxide, are pumped up one of its towers. Then amides are showered down from the top. These combine with the carbon dioxide and sweep it back down the tower. Other gases are allowed to escape.
The resulting chemical mix is then heated, a process that breaks apart the carbon dioxide and the amides. The latter are kept and reused. The carbon dioxide is released via the rig's second tower. "A key point about setting up this rig is to find ways to improve the kind of amides that we use so we can keep down the heating bill and the cost of the carbon-capture plant. So far we have managed to cut operating costs by about a third," added Corless.
In the test rig, carbon dioxide is put back into the atmosphere. But when the full-scale plant is built it will be pumped through an old gas pipeline to the Goldeneye platform operated by Shell. There it will be forced underground into the former gas field where decades' worth of carbon dioxide could be stored.
"Gases stored in these fields remained there for millions of years until humans drilled into them," added Haszeldine. "So we are confident that carbon dioxide will stay down there. The crucial point is that we can use our North Sea engineering expertise and our depleted offshore gas fields to develop a new industry – one that could have crucial benefits for Britain and for tackling global warming."
Robin McKie, Science editor The Observer, Sunday 21 November 2010
A collection of portable cabins and odd pieces of machinery has been assembled on an old, cracked patch of concrete outside Longannet power station on the banks of the Firth of Forth. Two thin metal towers loom over the huts, on which blue skies and white clouds have been painted.
This huddle of equipment may look unprepossessing, but it houses an ambitious technological enterprise. Engineers are testing equipment for Britain's first full-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) device. The lessons learned on this windswept corner of Fife will be used to design a full-scale machine that could turn coal-burning power plants into eco-friendly generating stations.
The Longannet carbon-capture system, scheduled to begin operations in 2014, will involve a major scaling-up of the test rig and should remove more than a million tonnes of the carbon dioxide currently being pumped into the air by its eight giant coal-burning generators every year. This will then b e funnelled into a depleted North Sea gas field and stored. The technology could transform the use of fossil fuels in Britain and prove to be a major export earner.
"The plant proposed for Longannet is the last and best candidate we have for building a device that could be fitted to existing power stations to extract and isolate their carbon emissions," said CCS expert Professor Stuart Haszeldine of Edinburgh University. "All other carbon-capture schemes being considered by the government have either been rejected or withdrawn by their backers. This is all we have left. The government has yet to make its final commitment. It looks good, however."
Several hundred million tonnes of carbon dioxide are produced in Britain every year, with electricity generating stations accounting for a substantial proportion. The UK has pledged to reduce these emissions by 80% by 2050, with renewable power plants taking over much of our energy production.
"However, we will always need plants to provide power, virtually instantly, for those moments – at a World Cup final half-time, for example – when kettles are switched on round the nation," said John Campbell, director of energy wholesale for ScottishPower, which owns Longannet. "Coal plants are good at providing rapid power generation."
All that needs to be done is prevent their carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere. For example, Longannet, which provides power for two million people and is one of Europe's largest power plants, emits between 7m and 8m tonnes a year. As a result, ScottishPower has joined forces with Shell and the Norwegian chemical company Aker to design a full-scale carbon capture and storage plant, Britain's first, to remove a sixth of all Longannet's carbon emissions.
Longannet's test rig is now providing precious data for their plans. At present, less than a thousandth of the station's flue gases is captured. But the chemistry for the full-scale plant will be the same and will use techniques originally developed to prevent carbon dioxide exhaled by crewmen from poisoning the air in nuclear submarines. "We exploit chemicals called amides," said Tom Corless, the test rig's technical director. "They bind and isolate the carbon dioxide."
In the Longannet rig, which began operations 18 months ago, flue gases, which are 12% carbon dioxide, are pumped up one of its towers. Then amides are showered down from the top. These combine with the carbon dioxide and sweep it back down the tower. Other gases are allowed to escape.
The resulting chemical mix is then heated, a process that breaks apart the carbon dioxide and the amides. The latter are kept and reused. The carbon dioxide is released via the rig's second tower. "A key point about setting up this rig is to find ways to improve the kind of amides that we use so we can keep down the heating bill and the cost of the carbon-capture plant. So far we have managed to cut operating costs by about a third," added Corless.
In the test rig, carbon dioxide is put back into the atmosphere. But when the full-scale plant is built it will be pumped through an old gas pipeline to the Goldeneye platform operated by Shell. There it will be forced underground into the former gas field where decades' worth of carbon dioxide could be stored.
"Gases stored in these fields remained there for millions of years until humans drilled into them," added Haszeldine. "So we are confident that carbon dioxide will stay down there. The crucial point is that we can use our North Sea engineering expertise and our depleted offshore gas fields to develop a new industry – one that could have crucial benefits for Britain and for tackling global warming."
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