Renewables provided a record 30% of global electricity in 2023: Ember’s Global Electricity Review

A reader in Wales has drawn attention to Susanna Twidale’s coverage of Ember’s Global Electricity Review report which said that growth in solar and wind power pushed renewable generation to a record 30% of global electricity production in 2023 (Reuters).

Ember’s review showed that renewable sources provided 30.3% of global electricity last year, up from 29.4% in 2022 as growth in projects, particularly solar, increased capacity.

“The rise in solar capacity that happened during 2023 really unlocks the possibility that we are able to reach that level of renewables by 2030, and the tripling of capacity that was promised at COP28,” Dave Jones, Ember’s director of global insights said in an interview.

More than half of the global additions in solar and wind capacity came in China last year, the report said, with total global solar generation up 23.2% and wind power up 9.8%.

Cutting fossil fuel use and emissions in the power sector is seen as vital to meeting global climate targets. More than 100 countries at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai last year agreed to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030, but industry experts point out that issues around grid connections and permits for new projects need to be solved for the target to be met.

In Britain, energy supplier Octopus – said to be the UK’s largest investor in solar generation – is now seeking to build its own electricity pylons due to growing frustration at the pace of the National Grid’s expansion (Data Centre Dynamics).

The Ember report predicted that continued renewable growth would see fossil fuel power production fall by 2% in 2024 and push overall fossil fuel power production to less than 60% of global electricity production for the first time since at least 2000, when Ember’s data begins, and that:

“A permanent decline in fossil fuel use in the power sector at a global level is now inevitable, leading to falling sector emissions”.

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French consumers act in solidarity with farmers: Devinder Sharma’s update

In 2016 at a time of surplus milk production, milk prices in France crashed and – dairy farmers began to pull down shutters – the farm suicide rate in the rural areas soared.

After French ‘giant’ dairy group Lactalis offered farmers only 27.5 centimes per litre, which they said did not cover the cost of [reduction and a fair wage, Nicolas Chabanne (above), a food waste campaigner, met a dairy farmer Martial Darbon, who was also the president of a local dairy cooperative.

Chabanne, after hearing about the plight of the farming community and seeing their distress, thought of bringing together consumers to support farmers. He offered a deal of 39 centimes per litre to those farmers who agreed to feed their cows local forage, use no genetically modified products and to keep the animals at pasture for up to six months a year (Dairy Reporter).

Devinder Sharma points out that this French food cooperative brand C’est qui le Patron – “Who’s the Boss?”, has now become a lifeline for farmers, assuring a fair price to growers, ensuring that. they also have to follow healthy sustainable practices like no palm oil being used in the recipes or in the cattle feed, no genetically-modified ingredients, and grazing of animals for at least four months a year etc (Tribune) He comments that instead of preferring cheap food, these consumers – sensitive to farmers’ plight – realize that the fair price they pay supports farmers to earn a decent living, and provides safe and healthy food.

In Oct 2016, “Who’s the Boss?”, using social media to help spread the message, launched the blue carton design pack for milk to ensure the sale of 7-million litres of milk, helping 80 farming families in distress. Farmers get a fixed price that does not fluctuate with market trends.

The brand has now been extended to include nearly 18 products, including organic butter, organic cottage cheese, free-range eggs, yoghurt, apple juice, apple puree, potatoes, crushed tomatoes, wheat flour, chocolate, honey and frozen ground steak. Last week, to help local producers, the cooperative brand introduced three new fruit products – strawberries, asparagus and kiwis into its food basket.

Seven years later “Who’s the Boss?” solidarity brand has sold more than 424-million litres of milk at a guaranteed fair price of 0.54 Euros per litre, which is 25% higher than the market price. This has emerged now as the best-selling milk brand (along with two organic butters) in France today and is supporting (some 300 families (about 3,000 farm families for the entire product range).

It has become a unique consumer movement as licensing agreements have been set up with the parent French company in Germany, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Morocco, the Netherlands, Spain, UK and the US.https://www.facebook.com/allenmchastanet/photos/a.1452748034980368/2421341478121014/?type=3

Sharma adds that, as France imports 71% of its fruit and vegetable requirements, which hits the livelihoods of local producers, Chabanne has now launched a drive to help domestic farmers. “We don’t want to ship from the end of the world. We need to protect our local producers and the food they produce daily on our doorsteps”. This realisation is also gaining ground in a few other countries.

An antidote to gloom – this online magazine ‘centred on all things Bryncrug’

This post is directed, in particular, at those who have lamented that so little cheering news has been posted on this site of late, but many others are also being given the opportunity to discover it.

At any time they may safely open the BRYNCRUG BUGLE – a reliable antidote to gloom.

Ros Dodd writes: “(Bryncrug is) a small place (population circa 600), but it has big things to shout about. One of those is its location – just three miles from the sea, fringed by majestic hills and bookended by two stunning valleys, the Dysynni and the Talyllyn”.

“And then there are the residents! Mostly a mix of Welsh and English (for many, Welsh is their first language), there is an array of people who have done – and still do – amazing things. From a former sea captain and a county councillor to artists, musicians and entrepreneurs, Bryncrug has many stories to tell. This magazine aims to do just that – tell local people’s stories and put the village on the creative and inspirational map of Wales!”

Read about rescuing the Talyllyn Railway from almost certain closure, a life spent championing British farming across the globe, how a Bryncrug mother overcame adversity to run an award-winning manufacturing company and other true stories.

Ros Dodd is a writer and former newspaper journalist with a lifelong love of rural Wales. 

After spending much of her life in Birmingham and the West Midlands, she finally moved across the border in June 2021. 

Now she lives here in Bryncrug – and she wouldn’t be anywhere else!

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Minesto’s Dragon 12: “One of the vanguards in the fight against climate change”

Minesto, a marine energy technology developer, was founded in 2007 as a spin-off from Swedish manufacturer Saab. It has operations in Sweden, Wales, the Faroe Islands, Northern Ireland and Taiwan, with headquarters in Gothenburg.

A Stourbridge reader draws attention to the good news that, following the Dragon 4 tidal power plant launched in 2022, designed for microgrids, remote islands and remote/coastal communities, Minesto has successfully installed the Dragon 12, a 28-ton 1.2-megawatt tidal kite. Since January, it has been powering 1,000 homes in the Faroe Islands (Popular Science).

Whereas devices like Orbital’s O2 tidal turbine are moored to the sea bed at four points, with 10-m (32-ft) blades capturing energy from tidal currents over a swept area of more than 600 m2, the Dragon’s anchor is a steel cylinder drilled into the seabed and grouted into place.

Minesto explains that the Dragon flies around like a kite, treating the currents like wind, pulling more energy from a given tidal current than other designs and making slower tidal flows worth exploiting. It is cost effective (see analysis) and easy to install using a single boat and sea bed tether.

Offshore Engineer gives a clear description of its design and the early stages of installation

An OE staff member pointa out that Denmark’s Faroe Islands (above), in the North Atlantic between Scotland and Iceland, offer ideal conditions, funnelling tidal currents through a number of slim channels which accelerate the water significantly increasing the energy that devices like the Dragon 12 can harvest.

Scan Magazine comments under a subtitle: The race to net zero: clean electricity via underwater kites, “The need for clean energy technology in the global energy transition has never been clearer, and this Swedish invention is one of the vanguards in the fight against climate change”.

COMMENT

Diana Schumacher welcomed information on this fascinating new energy technology device adding that in some ways it is very surprising that it has taken so long to develop: “Since the 1980s Professor Stephen Salter of Edinburgh University has been working on the potential of wave and tidal power (remember the Salter duck?). Unfortunately his funding was withdrawn and the project abandoned in favour of nuclear power which proved more costly. Salter then went on to research tidal power projects but it has always surprised me that the u.k. has shown so little enthusiasm for such small decentralised energy generating developments. We are, after all, a small intensely populated island surrounded by water, with one of the best tidal ranges in Europe. Let us hope that our government will see its way to backing the development of home grown tidal and wave generating electricity supplies”.

 

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Some Israelis and Palestinians have long been working for peace

This blog expands on one of such partnerships, listed in an article on a different C3000 website.

Sophia Yan writes about the village of Neve Shalom or ‘Oasis of Peace’’, founded in the 60s, which proves that Palestinian Muslims and Israeli Jews can live together peacefully.  Edited extracts follow. Her article is pay-walled.

‌This idyllic spot between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is the only village in Israel where Muslims and Jews choose to live together. ‌A sign at the entrance displays the community’s name in Arabic and Hebrew – Wahat al-Salam and Neve Shalom – meaning “Oasis of Peace.”

It was founded by the late Rev Bruno Hussar – a Jew born in 1911 in Egypt, ordained as a Dominican priest, and later naturalised as an Israeli citizen. ‌In the 1970s, between two Arab-Israeli wars, he convinced a nearby Trappist monastery, Latrun, to lease 100 barren acres to him for 100 years – at just 25 cents a year. ‌‌His vision was for an interfaith community for Muslims, Christians and Jews, aimed at fostering mutual understanding and respect.

Eti Edlund founded the bilingual joint school in Neve Shalom

The Oct 7 Hamas attack in Israel – killing 1,200 people and taking 240 as hostages – shook the village of 300 residents to its core, as it did the entire nation.

The foundational tenets of the community – peace, mutual respect, equality – were suddenly under threat. ‌The community immediately shut its front gates and organised a night patrol just as they had done when, in calmer times, the village had been vandalised by extremist Jews who opposed the idea of peaceful co-existence.

‌More than three months into war, things are starting to settle into a new normal at the village. The primary school, which welcomes Arab and Jewish children, has reopened since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. has re-opened, kids are gathering for play dates, and group meditations are being held.

One week after the initial Hamas attack, the village’s 40 Palestinian and 40 Jewish families met separately to speak at the White Dove Hall, near the village entrance. ‌“Only from the third meeting onwards, we said we felt safe enough to sit together,” said Mr Joffe.‌

‌“As someone who lives in the middle, Oct 7 was hard for me as well,” said Nadim Tali, 23, a Palestinian. “I felt the blow as someone who has Jewish friends… and also friends in the south, where the attacks were.” It got tougher still when his best friend, Adam Ben-Shabbat, 23, became one of the 360,000 reservists called to serve in the war.

Conscription has long been a sensitive, complicated issue for the village. ‌A few years ago, Mr Ben-Shabbat joined the military – as mandated by the Israeli government for Jewish citizens, with 32 months of service for men and 24 for women. “You can’t create an ‘oasis of peace’ and then have people join the military. It contradicts the whole shtick of it,” said Adam Tali, Nadim’s brother (left).

For many Palestinians, the Israeli military is the most visible symbol of occupation and oppression. But for many Jews it’s a way to serve their country and, depending on the role they take up, a potential launching pad for various careers. “The army is like the biggest villain in our life,” said Nadim. “For Adam, he sees it as security.”

When Ben-Shabbat first enlisted, some of his friends boycotted a farewell party. His family, staunch nationalists, saw it as an honourable thing to do: “For me, as a Jew who grew up here, this is the law. One cannot choose to refuse the law when it suits, and also the belief that we need protection as a country.”

During his first stint in the army some friends from the village wouldn’t hang out with him when he was in uniform; one friend stopped talking to him entirely for six months. “After I finished, I really wanted to let go, and just be Adam from Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom, and to have this identity only,” he said, vowing never to put on a uniform ever again. But in October Mr Ben-Shabbat was ordered back to the army, along with his brother.

‌This time it brought the group of friends closer, as it pushed them into deep discussions in an attempt to work out their differences.‌“We don’t have another option; we don’t have other friends!” Ben-Shabbat said. “They understand me fully…more than anyone in the world.”

‌‌As the war continues,  Nadim and two other friends gather weekly in hopes of finding common ground, and to organise collective thoughts on paper – a statement they can all agree on. ‌Everyone agrees that compassion needs to go both ways – but it’s a work in progress.

 

 

 

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Greening Britain’s inland waterway transport – already the cleanest and most fuel-efficient form of carrying goods and passengers

On the Thames, GPS Marine has pioneered the use of 100% renewable fuel (hydrogen treated vegetable oil) in its fleet of tugs

This fuel reduces CO2 emissions by over 90%, eliminates SOx emissions, reduces particulate emissions by up to 86% and reduces NOx emissions by up to 35%. GPS also uses post combustion technologies in some vessels to further reduce NOx and particulates. Many other companies have followed suit.

Hydrogen fuel cells power the Ross Barlow narrowboat

From 2011 C3000 sites have been celebrating the work of the late Professor Rex Harris (below) and a small team of volunteers who used hydrogen fuel cells to power the Ross Barlow, a converted barge, which travelled on the canal between Worcester and Birmingham.

In 2022, during his final days, Professor Harris asked his daughter to write and tell me that his colleague Allan Walton (Professor of Critical and Magnetic Materials, University of Birmingham, left) had applied for and won a governmental grant to install new batteries in the Ross Barlow, which has been removed from the university site and is currently being rehulled in a boatyard in Stafford.

The Ross Barlow (interior below) uses a PEM (proton exchange membrane) fuel cell, a permanent magnet electric motor and tanks of hydrogen and batteries.

Professor Harris stressed that if renewable sources generated the hydrogen, no carbon would be released in the boat’s operation. 

To those with safety concerns he pointed out that the hydrogen was stored in the form of a metal hydride – an inert powder (left metal hydride store)

Now a link from a West Midlands engineer reports that in 2022 Bramble Energy was awarded Government funding from BEIS, now the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), of just under £1 million to develop its hydrogen fuel cell technology as a solution to replace diesel engines in boats.

It has designed, developed and deployed a fuel cell system for use within a narrowboat, which offers a solution to replace diesel engines in boats which could potentially save 12 tonnes of CO2 annually per vessel. Offers a solution to replace diesel engines in boats which could potentially save 12 tonnes of CO2 annually per vessel.

Built and launched in Sheffield

Bramble’s hydrogen-powered 57 foot narrowboat is to begin a testing programme on UK inland waterways with data collected helping Bramble to develop future marine PCBFC™s technology which can be manufactured in almost any size or arrangement at much greater speed and scale than traditional electrochemical stacks, at a much lower cost

Tom Mason, co-founder and CEO of Bramble Energy commented that while road transportation has arguably had the greatest amount of attention in terms of developing zero-emission solutions, the reality is there is a massive urgency to decarbonise across all transportation sectors – especially marine. CO2 emissions from the marine sector (Ed: though low on inland waterways) are staggering. It requires a quick, convenient, cost-effective technology that also provides no compromise when it comes to performance.

 

 

 

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News from a recent visitor to the flourishing Butterfly Project in Uganda

After doing voluntary work in Africa, Ben Parkinson sold his house in Britain and founded the visionary Butterfly Project in Uganda. He has been working on it for the last 14 years -taking no salary.. Young teenagers, living in poverty, are given training to enable them to become the changemakers (or social entrepreneurs) of the future.

In addition to a children’s community centre in Kampala, an impressive purpose-built secondary school for rural children (many of whom would not otherwise be attending school at all) has been built with ‘shoestring funds’. 

Ben believes that people growing up in poverty are the ones to know best how to act against poverty and injustice themselves. The Butterfly training includes project management, ethics, computing, leadership, public speaking, world issues, learning about the UN’s Strategic Development Goals (SDGs) and much more. Each Butterfly has also to deliver a social project of his or her own design and choice, whilst completing the training.

Children are selected for the training on the basis of having a social conscience themselves and a desire to help their community. Ben also finds sponsors for them, who will pay for their secondary education, as this is not free in Uganda. None of them would have had a secondary education without the sponsorship, as the first cohort all grew up in poverty, most of them in the slums of Kampala. 

The first cohort of “Butterflies,” called the “Pioneers” are now in their mid to late 20s and beginning to make their way in the world, each still developing their own chosen project.

Above are three of the Pioneer Butterflies, Samuel, Eunice and Gilbert, now in their late twenties. Samuel is studying IT at Makerere University and wants to develop computer systems that may help to improve life for people living in the slums.

Eunice has set up her own NGO, which is helping women and children living in poverty (SDG 5 – gender equality and female empowerment), offering them music and dance activities. She has always had a vision to set up an orphanage and is raising money to buy some land, where all these plans could come together.

Gilbert runs his own restaurant but is also interested in music, dance and drama; he has written four musical dramas and has toured with one of them in Kenya – he hopes also to take it to the USA.

I also met Francis, who recently established his own Gym. He instigated “The Slum Run,” which encourages children living in the slums to run and become athletes, and raises funds for their education.

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For more information go to https://www.cyen.online/the-butterfly-project

 

 

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Cornish firm unveils a world first: a manure-powered tractor

The New Holland T7 tractor is fuelled by farm slurry that would see farms become “energy independent” and “carbon neutral” at a time when the Government is placing mounting pressure on farms to decarbonise.

Journalist Floris de Bruin reports that Bennamann, its Cornish maker, claimed the tractor matches the performance standards of its diesel alternative, (The Telegraph).

Chris Mann (below left), the co-founder of Bennamann and its Chief Technology Officer, said: “The T7 liquid methane-fuelled tractor is a genuine world-first and another step towards decarbonising the global agricultural industry and realising a circular economy, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products for as long as possible.

Bennamann conducted a pilot study in Cornwall last year which saw the T7 prototype tractor successfully reduce its carbon emissions from 2,500 tonnes to 500 tonnes, without sacrificing performance against its diesel alternative.

The 270bhp tractor is powered by capturing the methane that would otherwise escape from cow manure – called “fugitive methane” – then treating and compressing the gas for use as liquid fuel. Its cryogenic fuel tank keeps the methane as a liquid at -162C.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXvucRBZ2jg

Leanne Williams, Lead Analyst Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources Association opened, explaining that the video will explore the global expansion of the biomethane-powered energy independent farm and its ability to facilitate the 30% methane emissions reduction committed to by 105 countries in the COP26 Methane Pledge.

The technology has the potential to combat climate change by removing large amounts of methane from the atmosphere, which “has more than 80 times the atmospheric warming power of carbon dioxide over 20 years”, added Chris Mann,

Gilles Mayer, a member of New Holland’s global management team for alternative fuels, told The Telegraph: “A 150-cow farm would balance the CO2 emissions of 140 households in the UK per year.”

The tractor is currently limited to using cow and pig manure, but Gilles Mayer explained that New Holland is working to expand the fuel’s source to other livestock manure such as that of poultry. 

 

 

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Greener fuel and electricity generation

In addition to wind and solar energy, biofuels are generating energy through burning, vaporising, or fermenting biomass such as leftover plant material, vegetable waste, and manure. One example follows:

GPS Marine replaced diesel fuel with Gd+ HVO – hydrotreated used vegetable oil – across its entire fleet in March 2021, reducing its carbon emissions by 85%. A dispenser barge was later launched to refuel the GPS Marine tug boats and many other commercial vessels on the Thames who are deciding to reduce their emissions (Ship and Bunker).

A reader in Wales sent a link to information about another new way of generating sustainable energy which has come from Wageningen University & Research, a collaboration between Wageningen University and the Wageningen Research foundation in the Netherlands.

Generating electricity from waste water

Researchers from Wageningen UR and Wetsus, a water technology institute, are working with each other as part of the Microbial Fuel Cell project.

This has found that if an electrode is placed in waste water, bacteria automatically begin to grow on it and can not only purify the water but also transform the organic compounds present in the water into electricity.

They are testing other organic materials which may act as catalysts on the process and improving the design of the model to enable the generation of electricity on a larger scale.

The Society of Chemical Industry asks:

At the present time, this has only been done in the lab, but Wageningen researchers describe the first results and applications of this new technology as ‘very promising’.

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See also a paper by Indian researchers: A Perspective Review on Microbial Fuel Cells in Treatment and Product Recovery from Wastewater, Water 2023, 15(2),16; https://doi.org/10.3390/w15020316

 

 

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Apple’s recycling robot is decarbonising and reclaiming rare metals

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bu-gl7v-P8

Apple’s recycling robot, Daisy, automates the process of removing components from 23 different models of iPhone in Amsterdam (Financial Times).

It is designed to process 1.2 million units a year and create clean streams of waste from which useful materials can be liberated, either by other Apple robots (named Dave and Taz) or by recycling specialists.

One tonne of printed circuit boards, flexible electronics and camera modules recovered by Daisy contains the same amount of gold and copper as would be found in 2,000 tonnes of rock.

Disassembled Apple iPhone Taptic engines containing rare earth metals, tungsten, copper, steel and gold

Apple’s ultimate aim (with no current timeline) is to make its products only from renewable and recycled materials. Some of its commitments are more specific: by 2025 it plans to use 100% recycled cobalt in all Apple-designed batteries and for all magnets in its devices to use recycled rare earth elements (beginning this year with the new iPhone 15 and Apple Watch Series 9).

Its drive towards decarbonisation continues with its first carbon-neutral products appearing in the new Apple Watch Series 9 line: these watches have the same carbon footprint as a plain white T-shirt, with high-quality offsets coming in the form of grasslands, savannahs and mangroves.

Daisy makes perfect sense — but it’s currently running under capacity simply because not enough devices are being supplied for it to operate 24/7.

Apple’s Trade In programme, available in 25 countries, simplifies the process of safely offloading unused devices, either in store or via post, and last year the company directed more than 40,000 tonnes of electronic scrap to recycling globally.

One of the main challenges of pushing towards complete circularity is the trace contaminants that can lower a material’s grade, and according to John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice-president of hardware engineering, the problem can only be overcome by imaginative innovation. “We have a very stringent specification for the aluminium we use to meet our [cosmetic and strength] requirements,” he says.

“But we’ve been able to design a completely new aluminium alloy that can handle those contaminants without affecting the material properties.

“So the MacBook Air (left) now has a 100 per cent recycled aluminium enclosure”.

 

 

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