1, Methane ‘plasmalysis’ (similar to pyrolysis). French start-up Spark raised €30m to commercialise its innovative technology, first developed at Stanford, for separating the hydrogen and the carbon in methane (CH4). The approach is aimed at decarbonising heavy industry by placing equipment that delivers pulsed plasma on an existing gas supply pipe, separating hydrogen to flow on to the industrial burners and extracting pure carbon in the form of carbon black. This approach has already been trialled in several industries. One key potential advantage of this approach is that it is said to use only a fifth of the electricity required by electrolysis to deliver the same amount of hydrogen. And it will also provide carbon black, currently a valuable product that is used in batteries. Perhaps this approach, or the similar technique of pyrolysis, will be the best route to lower cost hydrogen.
2, CCS. The Northern Lights consortium in Norway said that its third CO2 transport ship had begun its initial journey from the shipyard. This vessel will transport CO2 from a Yara fertiliser factory in the Netherlands to a collection point in Norway and hence via pipeline to an undersea storage site in the North Sea. Progress on this world leading project is very impressive but even at completion it will capture only 5 million tonnes a year. A larger but very early stage project reached the news in the US. NextEra, the country’s largest renewables developer is working with Exxon to develop a site for a data centre using 1 gigawatt of electricity provided by a new gas-fired power station. The resulting CO2 will be captured and stored. While it is troubling to see NextEra reverting to fossil fuels, this project may be one of the earliest to experiment with capturing relatively dilute carbon dioxide from the exhaust of a gas power station. This task will be vital to decarbonising electricity production in some countries.
3, Advanced geothermal. Fervo gained its drilling expertise by developing oil and gas fields It is now building what may become the largest single enhanced geothermal project in the world in Utah. The company raised another $462m in an oversubscribed round that will be used to complete its 500 MW project and begin development of other sites. In a world increasingly worried by the electricity demands of hyperscale data centres, enhanced geothermal is a potential source of 24 hour reliable supply (but only in some parts of the world). And geothermal has avoided the regulatory restrictions and cutbacks that have affected other low carbon sources. Chris Wright, the current US energy secretary, was CEO of Liberty Energy when it made a 2022 investment in Fervo.
4, EPR costs. French electricity supplier EDF announced a further increase in the prospective costs of the next generation of EPRs, raising the likely bill to around €73bn (2020 money and more than €80bn in 2025 terms) for six 1.6 GW reactors. This is 40% up on the figures presented in 2022 and after financing costs the eventual total will be more than €100bn.
5, Solar for data centres in space. Low earth orbit satellites are being asked to do many tasks that few imagined even ten years ago. Aetherflux said it is targeting a Q1 2027 launch for its first orbital data centre satellite. The satellite will process information sent from Earth powered by a solar array and, if successful, will be joined by others to create a ‘constellation of nodes’ that will replicate existing data centres. The company says this plan is an extension of its existing scheme to transmit energy via lasers from satellites to what it calls ‘contested environments’. (I think this what I would call ‘war zones’). The Financial Times columnist Anjana Ahuja laid into the multiple contending uses for low earth orbit, reminding us that this ‘commons’ is likely to get dangerously overcrowded.
6, Biochar impact on yields. Biochar, which is largely carbon, is the result of heating organic matter to very high temperatures in the absence of oxygen. Trials on okra fields in Taiwan have demonstrated that biochar can improve yields while also improving soil quality. The treated areas saw reduced nitrous oxide emissions, suggesting that fertilisers applied to the fields were being used more effectively by the plants. Fields treated with biochar at a rate of 30 tonnes per hectare saw crop production 41% above the areas used as controls for the experiment.
7, German hydrogen network. Gas network operator Gascade said it had completed the conversion to hydrogen of 400 km of a 1.4 metre natural gas pipeline. This section of the German gas grid runs from the Baltic coast southwards and is part of a proposed network that will eventually reach southern Germany, which is likely to be the region with maximum hydrogen demand. Gascade has said in the past that the network will handle up to 20 GW of energy transfer. For comparison, this is more than half the UK’s average electricity demand, showing the potential importance of relatively low cost hydrogen pipelines for energy transmission.
8, Synthetic fuels for aviation. The Swiss startup Synhelion uses concentrated solar energy to merge water vapour and CO2 into aviation fuel and other forms of hydrocarbon. It has a pilot plant in Germany and will open a second in Spain in 2027. SWISS, the airline of its home country, said it had committed to buy a small initial quantity of the fuel. Metafuels, also a Swiss firm, has a technology that converts methanol to aviation fuel. (The route to low carbon methanol is well understood but requires carbon capture). Metafuels commissioned the final design of its first commercial plant in Rotterdam, intended to be opened in 2028. This will produce larger quantities of fuel than the Synhelion plant, but the amounts are far too small to meet the EU’s requirement for a 1.2% share for sustainable fuels not made with biomass by 2030.
9, Hydrogen and ammonia plant in China. The world’s largest combined renewable hydrogen and ammonia factory was completed in China. Output is stated to be 45,000 tonnes of hydrogen and 200,000 tonnes of green ammonia and methanol (perhaps requiring a further 30,000 tonnes of H2). The site is also said to have large hydrogen storage capacity, allowing either a) power to be generated when renewables are not available or b) methanol to made at all times, whether or not electricity is available or c) both. Another example of a new industry being developed in China much faster than in the rest of the world. (I saw this on H2View).
10, Electricity costs in UK. I did an analysis of the causes of rising retail electricity prices in the UK, a subject of continuous debate. My numbers suggested that about one third of the increase from 2019/20 to today arose because of higher wholesale costs, principally driven by the increased prices paid by generators for natural gas. A roughly equal portion of the rise comes from costs imposed to speed up the energy transition. The final third of the increase was caused by other factors, including a steep rise in the share of the final price retained by retailers. Forecasts for the next five years show a decrease in wholesale costs but sharp increases in the portion of retail bills needed to pay for decarbonisation, particularly including the need for a huge expansion of investment in high voltage transmission networks. In other words, UK electricity prices will continue to rise at least for the next five years even as wholesale costs fall . Most of the data for my analysis came from the superb www.electricitybills.uk.
Best wishes for the holiday season to all subscribers. And thank you very much indeed for the comments and suggestions over recent months. Chris.
648639 I believe that high wholesale methane prices are due to lack of storage , which means gas is traded spot all winter when spot prices are high.