GWPF Newsletter: The New Gas Revolution That Could Make Renewable Energy Obsolete

German Government Unsettles Population With Climate Action Debate – Saxony State Premier Warns

In this newsletter:

1) The New Gas Revolution That Could Make Renewable Energy Obsolete
James Conca, Forbes, 31 July 2019
 
2) Election Panic: German Government Unsettles Population With Climate Action Debate – Saxony State Premier Warns
Clean Energy Wire, 31 July 2019 

 
3) Green New Deal Would Cost $70k-Plus Per Household In First Year: Study
Valerie Richardson - The Washington Times, 30 July 2019 
 
4) Study: Green New Deal Would Cost Households in Five States More than $70K in First Year of Implementation
Competitive Enterprise Institute, 30 July 2019

5) The ‘Green New Deal’ Is Breaking the Left Apart
Daniel Turner, The National Interest, 20 July 2019 
 
6) The Rain In America Falls Mainly On Democrats
Climate Discussion Nexus, 31 July 2019 
 
7) And Finally: Bad Day At The Office: Climate Change Activists Protest Outside The Wrong Building
City A.M., 31 July 2019 

Full details:

1) The New Gas Revolution That Could Make Renewable Energy Obsolete
James Conca, Forbes, 31 July 2019

If the Net Zero power plant performs as expected this is a real game changer for natural gas. Since the United States is sitting on more natural gas than any country in the world, and it’s getting cheaper to get it out of the ground, this is no small game to change.

An actual game changing technology is being demonstrated as we sit in our air-conditioned abodes reading this. And it is being demonstrated by North Carolina–based Net Power at a new plant in La Porte, Texas.

 
NET Power’s 50 MWth Demonstration Plant in La Porte, Texas.  NET POWER

The process involves burning fossil fuel with oxygen instead of air to generate electricity without emitting any carbon dioxide (CO2). Not using air also avoids generating NOx, the main atmospheric and health contaminant emitted from gas plants.

Included in a group of technologies known as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), zero-emission fossil fuel plants have been a dream never realized in practice, as it always seems to cost a lot, adding between 5¢ and 10¢ per kWh. This is probably because most attempts just add on another step after the traditional electricity generation steps, almost as an afterthought.

Some fossil fuel plants have tried, and failed, the most famous one recently being the $7.5 billion coal power plant in Kemper, Mississippi.

But this new technology completely changes the steps and the approach from the ground up. It is based on the Allam Cycle, a new, high-pressure, oxy-fuel, supercritical CO₂ cycle that generates low-cost electricity from fossil fuels while producing near-zero air emissions.

All CO₂ that is generated by the cycle is produced as a high-pressure, pipeline-ready by-product for use in enhanced oil recovery and industrial processes, or that can be sequestered underground in tight geologic formations where it will not get out to the atmosphere for millions of years.

The Allam Cycle also means the power plant is a lot smaller and can be sited in more areas than older plants can.


The Allam Cycle of Net Power’s new zero-emission natural gas plant. NET POWER

This 50 MW Texas plant is demonstrating that the technology works, especially to investors. So the project has some heavy hitters as partners - Exelon Generation will operate the plant, the infrastructure firm CB&I will provide engineering and construction, 8 Rivers Capital, Net Power's parent will provide continuing technology development, and Toshiba will develop the key components, particularly its new CO2-turbine.

Most power plants rely on thermal power cycles for energy production. These systems create heat by burning fossil fuel using the oxygen in air. In coal plants, this takes place in a large boiler, where coal is burned and water is boiled to create high pressure steam.  This high-pressure steam then expands through a steam turbine, creating power.

In combined cycle gas turbine power plants, natural gas or coal syngas is burned in a combustor with compressed air. The heated gases then expand and drive a gas turbine. The turbine exhaust is extremely hot, so it is subsequently used to boil water to create high pressure steam and drive a steam turbine, thereby combining cycles. In both systems, aqueous steam is essential to the process as a working fluid.

Not so in an Allum Cycle plant like Net Power’s. At their Texas demonstration plant, the natural gas is burned with a mixture of hot CO2 and oxygen, known as oxy-combustion. The resulting working fluid is a mix of high-pressure CO2 and water, which is subsequently expanded through a turbine and then cooled in a heat exchanger (a recuperator).

This is key. The turbine is not turned with steam, but with CO2. […]

Full story 
 
2) Election Panic: German Government Unsettles Population With Climate Action Debate – Saxony State Premier Warns
Clean Energy Wire, 31 July 2019 

The federal government is “frightening” the population with the debate about climate action measures such as higher prices for fossil car fuels and domestic flights, Michael Kretschmer, state premier of Saxony, told Rheinische Post in an interview.



Kretschmer said the conservative CDU/CSU alliance had to stop trying to copy the Greens’ policy, and help put a definite end to the discussion about the final shutdown date for Germany’s last coal plants.

Regarding proposals for a price on CO₂ emissions, the Christian Democrat said he opposes national solo runs, and warned that “commuters will pay the price. It is completely pointless to claim that the citizens all get compensation.” Paying back the revenues to citizens is part of several CO2 pricing design proposals, for example by environment minister Svenja Schulze.

Voters in the eastern German coal state of Saxony head to the polls on 1 September for regional elections, in which climate and energy policy is set to play a role. Still very dependent on coal mining and power production, Saxony will be strongly affected by the country’s decision to phase out the fossil fuel. The CDU’s main competitor in the election is the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), which exploits anti-government sentiments to discredit the coal phase-out.
3) Green New Deal Would Cost $70k-Plus Per Household In First Year: Study
Valerie Richardson - The Washington Times, 30 July 2019 

In its first year, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal would cost more than $70,000 per household in five states for higher costs for energy, housing, transportation and shipping, according to a study released Tuesday.

In five model states — Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Pennsylvania — the ambitious resolution aimed at achieving net-zero emissions by 2030 would come at a high price to consumers, said researchers at the free-market groups Power for the Future and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

“Economists and experts have been warning us for months about the devastating effects of the Green New Deal, and now we have the numbers to prove it,” said Daniel Turner, Executive Director of Power the Future.

“This study only calculates a fraction of the cost of Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez’s radical plan, which amounts to a socialist free-for-all with no regard for the American taxpayer.”

Introduced in February, the Green New Deal goes far beyond replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy, calling for state-sponsored jobs, universal health care and an increased minimum wage, making “a full calculation of the costs impossible,” said the study.

“The estimates are low-end approximations, given the unprecedented scope of the proposal,” said the study.

The resolution argues that climate change is projected to cost $500 billion annually in lost U.S. economic output by 2100, while the plan will create “millions of good, high-wage jobs and ensure prosperity and economic security.”

Mr. Turner countered that households would be “forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars in the first year alone to fund AOC’s ideological wish list.”

Alaska would experience the highest cost increase at $100,505 per household in the first year, dropping to $73,092 in years 2-5, and $67,536 in the sixth year and thereafter, the research found.

In the other four states, the cost per household in the first year ranged from $73,010 to $71,910, with the price tag dropping to about $38,000 in year six. The 2016 U.S. average real median household income was $59,039, according to the U.S. Census.

“Our analysis shows that, if implemented, the Green New Deal would cost for American households at least tens of thousands of dollars annually on a permanent basis,” said CEI President and CEO Kent Lassman.

“Perhaps that’s why exactly zero Senate Democrats, including the resolution’s 12 co-sponsors, voted for the Green New Deal when they had the chance.”

Full story
 
4) Study: Green New Deal Would Cost Households in Five States More than $70K in First Year of Implementation
Competitive Enterprise Institute, 30 July 2019

American households can expect tens of thousands of dollars in higher costs for energy, housing, transportation, and shipping if the Green New Deal is implemented, according to a new study released today by Power the Future and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). 

The joint study, co-authored by Power the Future Founder and Executive Director Daniel Turner and CEI President and CEO Kent Lassman, finds each household in five model states – Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania – will be on the hook for more than $70,000 in increased costs for electricity, upgrading vehicles and housing, and shipping in just the first year under the Green New Deal.

Alaska households would see an additional $100,000 in costs in the first year alone, due to the remoteness of the state and its dependence on fossil fuels. Those initial costs would be slightly lower in subsequent years, but households in the five model states should expect tens of thousands of dollars in higher annual costs going forward, if the Green New Deal is implemented...

You can see the entire study, including methodology, here.
 
5) The ‘Green New Deal’ Is Breaking the Left Apart
Daniel Turner, The National Interest, 20 July 2019 

The AFL-CIO union is absolutely right. The $93 trillion Green New Deal would bankrupt this country while throwing millions of Americans out of work.

Since the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, working-class union members have been the backbone of the Democratic Party. The left claimed to advocate workers’ rights and was seen, rightly or wrongly, as the party who fought for the little guy.

Well if it wasn’t clear before, it’s clear now—times have changed.

The election of Donald Trump to the presidency, aided by tens of thousands of Obama voters in states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, was the first sign of a political realignment.

Now, the “Green New Deal” is highlighting these cleavages in stark terms, with the nation’s largest union organization forcefully coming out against it.

Last week, the AFL-CIO sent a letter to the bill’s lead sponsors—Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.—expressing its opposition to the proposal on behalf of the 13 million workers the union represents.

“The Green New Deal resolution is far too short on specific solutions that speak to the jobs of our members and the critical sections of our economy. It is not rooted in an engineering-based approach and makes promises that are not achievable or realistic,” wrote the AFL-CIO’s energy committee.

“We will not accept proposals that could cause immediate harm to millions of our members and their families. We will not stand by and allow threats to our members’ jobs and their families’ standard of living go unanswered.”

The AFL-CIO is absolutely right. The $93 trillion Green New Deal would bankrupt this country while throwing millions of Americans out of work. Unemployment and deficits would skyrocket, and energy shortages would plague our electric grid. These socialist policies would wreak havoc on our freedom and way of life, as they have done throughout history.

Proponents of the Green New Deal argue that all of these jobs will be replaced by “green” energy jobs, but it is unreasonable to expect these magical “green” jobs to even come close to replacing the millions of quality jobs we have in the energy industry right now.

This letter will not soon be forgotten. It represents a major shot across the bow of the far left by the working class of the traditional left.

Full story 
 6) The Rain In America Falls Mainly On Democrats
Climate Discussion Nexus, 31 July 2019 

Why are US Democrats more likely to doubt empirical weather data?

Reuters reports that a poll it did with Ipsos shows “Democrats are far more likely to believe droughts, floods, wildfires, hurricanes and tropical storms have become more frequent or intense where they live in the last decade”. And of course polls are likely to show wide disagreement on all manner of subjects, especially among political partisans. But even in these broad-minded times, there’s one thing we should all agree on: If two people argue about whether, say, hurricanes have become more frequent or intense where they live, they can’t both be right and it is possible to check.

Reuters agrees, rejecting fashionable relativism on this topic at least. Nevertheless you can guess which side it thinks is right: it sides with the Democrats. “U.S. government researchers have concluded that tropical cyclone activity, rainfall, and the frequency of intense single-day storms have been on the rise, according to data compiled by the Environmental Protection Agency.”

Really? Where? When? We have pretty good data on tropical cyclones in particular and they aren’t increasing. Neither are US floods. Well, what about the other stuff including droughts? People who bother to check will thereafter doubt claims that these things are are all increasing, so if Republicans are doubters, maybe it just means they looked up the numbers. And you don’t win the argument by appealing to the speculative future. “’We do expect to see more intense storms,’ said David Easterling, a spokesman for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information.” Expect to see? Wasn’t the topic what we’d already seen?

Silly Republicans. “An overwhelming majority of scientists believe human consumption of fossil fuels is driving sweeping changes in the global climate by ramping up the concentration of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. But it is impossible to draw a direct link between the changes in U.S. weather in the recent past to the larger trend of warming.” Whereas an innuendo about the indirect links, followed by a snide reference to Donald Trump, should do the trick.

Full post
 
7) And Finally: Bad Day At The Office: Climate Change Activists Protest Outside The Wrong Building
City A.M., 31 July 2019 

Green protesters were left red-faced today after targeting the offices of a renewable energy company by mistake.



Several hundred climate demonstrators from a group called “Reclaim the Power” descended on the Square Mile to picket what they had thought was the headquarters of Drax, only to find out that the gas and energy group had moved offices more than a year ago.

The activists had instead chained themselves to a block in Moorgate that is now occupied by Europe’s leading renewables generator, Statkraft.

“There was some confusion” admitted one protester present at today’s rally.

Roughly 250 people carrying signs and wearing white boiler suiters marched through the City of London as part of a demonstration against Drax over its plans for a new gas-fired power plant in Yorkshire.

Offices belonging to asset management giant Schroders and Big Four accountant Deloitte were also targeted for their links to Drax.

Member of the group sang and chanted along the march while also carrying banners such as: “No Borders, No Nations, No Gas Power stations.”

Outside of London, Reclaim the Power had also been campaigning at SSE’s gas power plan in Lincolnshire.
The group said that they had blocked both entrances to the site and scaled cranes at the plant.

One activist vowed to City A.M. that there would be more such demonstrations to come in the Square Mile: “The City should be worried”.

Full post

The London-based Global Warming Policy Forum is a world leading think tank on global warming policy issues. The GWPF newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.thegwpf.com.