Green Energy

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/25127295

This post uses a gift link which may be subject to a view count limit. Archived copy for after that

cross-posted from: https://kbin.run/m/technology@lemmy.ml/t/553659

A decline in fossil fuel power is now ‘inevitable’, the report's authors say.

The government has announced the immediate lifting of the de facto ban on onshore wind development in England, among other actions to speed up planning decisions.

The move, announced by chancellor Rachel Reeves in her first major speech since taking office, has been made as it sets a commitment to double the capacity of onshore wind in Britain by 2030 and boost energy independence.

https://archive.ph/LWoov

Ed Miliband has ordered an immediate ban on new drilling in the North Sea in a decision that overrules his own officials and risks triggering a wave of legal action. In an unusual intervention into what is typically an apolitical process, the Energy Secretary has told regulators not to approve a new round of drilling that was slated for confirmation in the coming weeks. His decision to block the licences means that companies will have wasted millions of pounds on preparing their bids, with experts warning they are likely to take legal action as a result.

Carbon in the atmosphere is a major driver of climate change. Now researchers from McGill University have designed a new catalyst for converting carbon dioxide (CO2) into methane -- a cleaner source of energy -- using tiny bits of copper called nanoclusters. While the traditional method of producing methane from fossil fuels introduces more CO2 into the atmosphere, the new process, electrocatalysis, does not. "On sunny days you can use solar power, or when it's a windy day you can use that wind to produce renewable electricity, but as soon as you produce that electricity you need to use it," says Mahdi Salehi, Ph.D. candidate at the Electrocatalysis Lab at McGill University. "But in our case, we can use that renewable but intermittent electricity to store the energy in chemicals like methane."

By using copper nanoclusters, says Salehi, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere can be transformed into methane and once the methane is used, any carbon dioxide released can be captured and "recycled" back into methane. This would create a closed "carbon loop" that does not emit new carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The research, published recently in the journal Applied Catalysis B: Environment and Energy, was enabled by the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask). The team plans to continue refining their catalyst to make it more efficient and investigate its large-scale, industrial applications. Their hope is that their findings will open new avenues for producing clean, sustainable energy.

The hippy-dippy looney lefty guys from Lazard investment bank come to the conclusion that wind plus storage at its most expensive is still considerably cheaper than nuclear at its cheapest.

Source

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/17797534

https://archive.is/EBogr

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17284168

DW Video.

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