Production Of Solar Panels Increases Greenhouse Gas Emissions

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)http://www.thegwpf.com

US emissions of a greenhouse gas thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide have expanded tenfold over the past two-and-a-half decades, according to fresh government data. And one reason — wait for it — is America’s increasing reliance on solar power.

The gas, nitrogen trifluoride, or NF3, is a key chemical agent used to manufacture certain types of photovoltaic cells for solar panels, as well as semiconductors and LCD flat screens.

NF3 is produced in minuscule quantities compared to carbon dioxide and now adds only a wafer-thin margin to America’s total greenhouse gas emissions, while carbon dioxide makes up 82 percent and methane nearly another 10 percent. But researchers warn NF3 is dangerous due to its devilish efficiency in trapping energy, and long atmospheric lifespan of up to 740 years.

NF3 is thought to be 17,200 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“By itself, NF3 is not going to create a climate problem,” said Dr. Michael Prather, a professor of earth system science at the University of California, Irvine, who has tracked nitrogen trifluoride emissions. “But everything adds up. Everybody should be paying attention to the pieces that all add up.”

The 1,057 percent increase in US annual emissions of NF3 from 1990 to 2015 compares to an increase of 5.6 percent in carbon dioxide emissions, according to EPA data in a recently-published draft of a new report, Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2015. The report said overall emissions fell 2.2 percent in 2015 as the country continued to swap coal for natural gas and a warmer winter reduced demand for heating fuel.

To be sure, it’s easier to achieve impressive-looking growth rates from a low starting point.

As of 2011, total NF3 emissions equalled only 0.06 percent of the amount of greenhouse gas emissions contributed by CO2 using an apples-to-apples comparison, according to a study led by researcher and University of Edinburgh climate specialist Dr. Tim Arnold, then with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

But both production and industrial use of NF3 has soared since 1990, and analysts project continued expansion over the coming decade amid strong demand for solar electricity, computers, smartphones and televisions. The NF3 market is expected to rise 13 percent every year and reach $1.2 billion by 2020, according to Hexa Research, a California-based research and consulting firm.

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February 28, 2017 at 10:10PM

Germany Facing Mass Blackouts Because Of Unreliable Renewable Energy

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Germany’s power grid almost collapsed in January due to poor performance from wind turbines and solar panels, according to data from a major trade union.

Wind and solar power plants under-performed in January, 2017, because of cloudy weather with little or no wind, setting the stage for massive blackouts.

A major blackout almost occurred Jan. 24 and was only prevented when German energy suppliers “also took the last reserve power plant,” Michael Vassiliadis, head of the union which represents power plants IG Bergbauchemie Energie, told reporters. The country’s power grid was strained to the absolute limit and could have gone offline entirely, triggering a national blackout, if just one power plant had gone offline, according to Vassiliadis.

“The renewables could not even offer five percent [of total power demand.] Coal, gas and nuclear power kept the country almost in the first place under the electric current,” Vassiliadis said.

Germany was forced to recommission coal power plants to simply keep the lights on. The country’s green energy plans calls for the shut down of 30 such power plants by 2019.

Green energy approaches failed to meet Germany’s stated energy goals, even after spending over $1.1 trillion. The country’s “Energiewende” plan to boost wind and solar production to fight global warming hasn’t significantly reduced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and may have actually caused them to go up.

As a result of green energy’s rampant unreliability, Germany plans to cap the total amount of wind energy at 40 to 45 percent of national capacity, according to a report published by the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung. Germany will get rid of 6,000 megawatts of wind power capacity by 2019.

The country’s trendy and ineffective energy policy already forced payments to wind farms in the amount of $548 million last year to switch off, which prevented additional damage to the electric grid, according to a survey of power companies by the German newspaper Wirtschaftswoche.

Due to the inherent unreliable performance of wind power and political opposition to nuclear power plants, Germany has been forced to return to coal to generate electricity. Coal now provides 44 percent of Germany’s power, This shift caused Germany’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to actually rise by 28 million tons each year following the policy shift.

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February 28, 2017 at 09:40PM

Rupert Darwall: It’s Families Who Are Footing Bill For Britain’s Deluded Energy Policies

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)http://www.thegwpf.com

Keeping the lights on for the few, turning them off for the many. It’s hard to see this being welcomed by Just About Managing families whose interests the Prime Minister has put at the heart of her plan for Britain.

Last week when the Prime Minister took the unusual step of attending the House of Lords debate of the Brexit Bill, their lordships were finalising a damning report on the energy policies of the past three governments. Worse still, the Government is limbering up for a fake row over proposals to cap energy prices. Greg Clark, the Business and Energy Secretary, is threatening government action whenever the markets are not working for consumers. As the Lords report makes clear, the real problem is government policy not working for consumers.

In their report, the House of Lords economic affairs committee points out that having competition in energy benefited consumers. Labour’s 2001 election manifesto boasted how it had brought about “full competition”. For much of the Noughties, Britain had some of the cheapest domestic and industrial electricity bills among similar European countries.

That all changed in 2008 when Ed Miliband announced “a strategic role for government” in energy markets. As Dermot Nolan, the feisty head of energy regulator Ofgem, told the inquiry, the Government had decided to intervene in the market. “Is it less of a competitive market than it was 15 years ago? Undoubtedly yes,” he said.

In his evidence, Greg Clark claimed not to see conflict between security of supply, having more weather-dependent wind and solar, and cutting energy bills. Instead, he described it as an invitation “to see how we can solve them as simultaneous equations”.

Pseudo-mathematical flannel can’t hide the fact that you can’t simultaneously maximise two variables, let alone three. You can’t maximise the amount of wind and solar while maintaining grid reliability and simultaneously drive electricity prices down. Something has to give – and it’s consumers who are picking up the rising bill for the Government’s Mission Impossible.

Between 2008 and 2015, the average electricity bill rose by 22pc. Over the same period, the price of hydrocarbon fuels used by power stations fell sharply – coal down by 33pc and gas by 13pc. The rise in electricity prices is wholly attributable to government policies – and would be even higher if coal and gas prices had not fallen. As it is, industrial electricity prices in Britain are the highest in Europe, a millstone around the neck of business as it prepares to compete in a post-Brexit world.

The Lords criticise the Hinkley Point nuclear deal. One expert, Cornwall Energy’s Peter Atherton, called Hinkley “the most expensive programme for delivering nuclear power that we could have come up with”. The most recent estimate by the National Audit Office puts the extra cost to consumer of the 35-year contract at a cool £30bn.

What particularly riled the committee is the way these costs are imposed by the Government. Because they are not levied as a tax, it is not clear to customers the extent to which they are on the hook, an approach condemned by several witnesses as regressive, hurting those who can least afford it. The distortions created are now so dire that since 2012, no new power station has been built without some form of government support.

Stealth energy levies are also difficult to control. Adair Turner, the first chairman of the committee on climate change, acknowledged the “open-ended nature” of renewables subsidies. These unleashed a feeding frenzy of Green special interests. The worst example is solar, a technology that contributes nothing to peak electricity demand at 6pm in winter. The Government expected 3 gigawatts of solar but ended up with 11 GW. Costs spiralled out of control.

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February 28, 2017 at 09:40PM

Green Lunacy: Anti-Shale Europe Dependent On Russian Gas As Never Before

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)http://www.thegwpf.com

Europe has wanted to wean itself from Russian natural gas ever since supplies from its eastern neighbor dropped during freezing weather in 2009. Almost a decade later, the region has never been more dependent.

Gazprom PJSC, Russia’s state-run export monopoly, shipped a record amount of gas to the European Union last year and accounts for about 34 percent of the trading bloc’s use of the fuel. Russia will remain the biggest source of supply through 2035, Royal Dutch Shell Plc said last week, echoing comments by BP Plc in January.

EU lawmakers have had their hearts set on diversifying supplies with liquefied natural gas delivered by tanker from the U.S., where production of the fuel skyrocketed last year. So far, those shipments have failed to materialize amid a lack of firm contracts and higher prices outside Europe. Overall, LNG shipments to the region, led by Qatar, were stagnant last year.

“Russia will for sure remain Europe’s largest gas supplier for at least two more decades,” even if most of the incremental gains in EU imports are met by LNG from somewhere else, said Vladimir Drebentsov, chief economist for Russia and CIS at BP in Moscow.

Gazprom Chairman Viktor Zubkov reiterated on Monday that 2017 European exports are expected to be close to last year’s level.

But the company may face greater competition from LNG this summer as its oil-linked prices become less attractive relative to market rates, according to London-based analysts from Energy Aspects Ltd. to BMI Research.

More LNG will arrive in Europe from about mid-year as new plants start producing the fuel in the U.S. and Australia, increasing supply options for customers. Russian gas will also become more expensive after last year’s 52 percent gain in Brent crude.

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February 28, 2017 at 09:10PM