Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spain- Well, that didn't take long 2: The day after it was reported that the Sunday flea market was being closed, the Pontevedra city council backtracked and said that the 35 licensed stall holders could continue trading. So much for this being incompatible with the new Gastroespacio. As I suspected, it's all about getting rid for the illegal gypsy stalls. Without saying so.
- I mentioned a new camino from Braga but, as some readers might recall, this isn't the only walk you can do from there to Santiago. Last month, I cited the Via Marina, which starts in Braga and ends in Mugía/Muxía, having passed through Santiago en route.
- There are reported to be 20 'exotic' animals threatening the natural Galician wildlife. These include the Asian wasp, the North American mink, the Nile goose, and the cross between a wild boar and the Vietnamese pig - el porcolín. Reader María has endorsed the comment that dangerous wild boars are an increasing problem in our villages and even in our towns.
- The other animal causing grief to farmers is the wolf. This map shows where they are now in Galicia, ever closer to settlements:-
- For we city dwellers, life and its challenges are rather simpler. We still can't get across O Burgo bridge, for example. The shop-owners on the camino have now petitioned the council to at least open a lane on it, as 'pilgrims' are now bypassing the old quarter to cross over one of the alternative bridges and so costing them summer business.
- This is a song by Spanish guy at the Edinburgh festival, taking the piss out of Brits. The ironic element is the claim that, whereas Brits all mispronounce paella, Spaniards don't ever do the same with British food. S'funny . . . I'm pretty sure most of them say 'feesh and cheeps'.
- Talking of music . . . This is a piece of graffiti that I pass from time to time. I guessed it was a snatch of a song. ·Which is the same thought I'd had when I previously posted about it in September 2013!
Sure enough, Google told me that it came (almost) from Harlem Blues, the last verse of which runs:-
Ah, there’s one sweet spot in Harlem known as Striver’s Row
'Ditsy folks' some call them, one thing you should know
Is that I have a friend who lives there I know he won’t refuse
To put some music to my troubles and call ‘em Harlem blues
- Nice to know: The curse of intermittency for wind and solar power may be conquered sooner than almost anybody thought possible. A beautifully-simple technology from a British start-up has slashed costs to levels that drastically alter the calculus of long-term energy storage. Highview Power is pioneering the use of "cryogenic" liquid air to store electricity for long enough periods to cover the lulls in renewable energy. It appears close to doing so at levelized costs that will undercut competition from fossil fuel plants once scale is reached. Highview will almost certainly be the biggest company of its kind in the world by the early 2020s. See the full article below. Final line: It is something to cheer us up as the Amazon blazes.
- After skipping the G7 leaders’ meeting on climate change, Trump actually had the temerity to declare himself an environmentalist. And he somehow managed to do it with a straight face. The claim is so ludicrous that it’s downright asinine. Welcome to Trumpworld.
- A conservative talk radio host became the 2nd Republican to challenge Trump for the party’s 2020 nomination and his first opponent from the right. Joe Walsh, a former congressman for Illinois called Trump a “bigot” and a “narcissist”, adding: “I’m running because he’s unfit. Somebody needs to step up. He’s nuts. He’s erratic. He’s cruel. He stokes bigotry. He’s incompetent. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s a bully and he’s a coward and somebody needs to call him out. The bet . . . of my campaign is that there are a lot of Republicans that feel like I do. They’re afraid to come forward."
- But . . Ffart has 95% approval of Republicans and 79% approval of 'independents'. . .
- Need I add that Walsh is 'not expected to win'. And that Ffart might well get a 2nd term.
- Word of the Day: Solana.
- I've been taking fotos of shops in Pontevedra which have English words in their names and came across this one yesterday:-
- I'm not sure how to react to my daughter's knowledge that Grow indicates it sells hash stuff. Or did, as it seems to be closing down. Gone to pot, you might say.
British start-up Highview beats world to Holy Grail of cheap energy storage for wind and solar: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Manchester
Highview will almost certainly be the biggest company of its kind in the world by the early 2020s
The curse of intermittency for wind and solar power may be conquered sooner than almost anybody thought possible. A beautifully-simple technology from a British start-up has slashed costs to levels that drastically alter the calculus of long-term energy storage.
Highview Power is pioneering the use of "cryogenic" liquid air to store electricity for long enough periods to cover the lulls in renewable energy.
It appears close to doing so at levelized costs that will undercut competition from fossil fuel plants once scale is reached. Highview will almost certainly be the biggest company of its kind in the world by the early 2020s.
If it can deliver the full promise – big caveat – the cost break-through overcomes a key barrier for a future global economy driven primarily by zero-carbon energy. One oft-repeated argument against Britain’s North Sea wind expansion falls away.
There are rival technologies in this fast-moving field. Energy storage is the new playground for hedge funds and venture capital, as fashionable as fintech. Siemens Gamesa is working on hot rock thermal storage. A team at Harvard is betting on organic flow batteries using death-defying "zombie quinones" from material such as rhubarb.
The US Energy Department’s ARPA-E programme is – despite Donald Trump’s rhetoric – still supporting a string of energy storage projects in league with top US labs and universities. The Japanese and Chinese are pursuing the great prize as well. Energy storage is not a fundamentally difficult challenge for science, and will be solved one way or another.
Clean, dispatchable power on demand
The race comes down to cost, simplicity, and who can get there first with utility-sized plants. Highview’s chief executive Javier Cavada says nobody today can match his liquid air formula at gigawatt scale. “We are ready, we are scalable, we are much cheaper, and we are going to stay much cheaper,” he says.
The first viable CRYObattery is already up and running. A Highview plant is producing electricity for the local grid at a 15 megawatt/hour (MWh) plant in Bury outside Manchester, storing power during times of low demand and releasing it back when most needed. It is an arbitrage play on the variable costs of power.
The site shared with Viridor is tucked behind trees and is so discreet that my taxi had trouble finding it. The source of power is methane from a local landfill in this case. In the future it will be wind and solar.
Highview cools air to minus 196 degrees centigrade relying on the standard process used for the chemical industry for liquefied natural gas. It mostly uses off-the-shelf kit.
As the air turns into liquid the volume is compressed 700-fold. This concentrate is then stored in insulated steel towers at low pressure. The liquid re-expands with a blast of force when heated and drives a turbine. Bingo: clean, dispatchable power on demand.
The beauty is that it can be scaled-up to provide unlimited storage at diminishing extra cost. “We’re like a hydro plant in a box. We can cover times when the wind doesn’t blow. One to two weeks is totally doable, even a month,” said Mr Cavada.
“The storage tanks are the cheapest component. It is the turbine that costs money. We can double the MWh for 30pc extra investment. As we get bigger the ratios change exponentially,” he said. The efficiency loss or "boil off" rate from the storage vats is just 0.1pc each day. Much of this loss is recaptured by the closed system.
Tumbling costs
Last month the company teamed up with the US energy group Tenaska Power to build four vastly-larger "gigawatt-scale" plants in Texas over the next two years, chiefly intended to back up Texan wind power. This is a revealing venture. Highview is competing toe-to-toe with gas "peaker" plants in a region of the world where pipeline gas is almost given away thanks to shale. If the sums work in Texas, they certainly work in Europe.
Mr Cavada said the levelized costs for a one gigawatt (GW) plant comes in “way below” $100 per MWh. This is already cheaper than any other back-up option on the market, fossil or not. “In ten years from now, I can see that being $50.”
These are remarkable figures. Lazard estimates the levelized costs for gas peaker plants at $152-$206, new pumped-hydro at $152-$198, or a lithium-ion equivalent at $285-$581. Lithium batteries are superb for a few hours but the economics are not viable for utility power over long periods.
“Four hours is nothing for us, five is even better, six is fantastic, and at ten we’re making music,” said Mr Cavada. Liquid air is well-suited to overnight back-up for solar farms in sunbelt zones. Highview teamed up with Spain’s TSK in March to develop gigawatt plants in Spain, South Africa, and the Middle East.
In Britain it makes most sense for wind.
The technology is not magical. Liquefaction was around in the 19th Century. Use for energy storage was first explored in academic papers in the Seventies. This came to little because it was not needed. It is urgently needed now. Renewables are reaching critical scale at a breath-taking speed.
Solving intermittency has leapt up the priority ladder for the UK grid. Renewables topped 50pc of the country’s power this summer at peak moments of combined wind and sun. The blackout on August 9 was linked to a systems glitch at Orsted’s 1.2GW Hornsea 1 wind farm off Grimsby.
Gas peaker plants offer quick back-up but they are costly to maintain and depend on LNG imports. Highview says liquid air can do the same job better and is ideally-suited to power cuts linked to inertia. “We are faster than a gas plant” said Ed Scrase, the project manager.
The Government is targeting offshore wind capacity of 30GW by 2030. This may rise to 40GW given the plummeting costs achieved by the giant new turbines, smart blades, and economies of scale. The last round of bids in 2017 came in at £57.50 MWh. The next set later this month may be closer to £50 and below market spot prices. Subsidies turn into revenue for the Exchequer.
'No risk of explosions'
The official Committee on Climate Change wants to go for broke with 75GW of offshore wind to meet the UK’s Net-zero 2050 target. Such scale means a wash of surplus power in the middle of the night or at times of low demand.
This implies "free" or ultra-cheap electricity for energy storage, since otherwise it would have to be curtailed by shutting down turbines – “off-peak waste electricity” in the trade jargon. The UK plans makes cryogenic liquid air almost unbeatable.
The excess power can of course be used as well to make hydrogen green gas through electrolysis for trains, trucks, and home heating. This may be necessary, but it is trickier.
Mr Cavada said the "round trip" efficiency of the Highview process so far is 60pc (ie two fifths is lost). This can be raised to 70pc with the capture of wasted heat from industrial plants. It is safe and clean. “We have no combustion particles, and no risk of explosions,” he said.
Liquefaction extracts CO2 from the air as a by-product. The gas turns into solid dry ice. “We capture all the carbon and we can sell it,” he said. Several companies around the world are devising ways to turn CO2 into bricks or carbon-rich concrete.
Highview began in 2005 with the help of Leeds University at a time when few energy analysts – beyond a handful of tech-visionaries – had any idea how quickly renewable costs would reach fossil parity. The venture was backed by £12m of state grants from the Government and Innovate UK.
It is chiefly funded by "angel investors", City tycoons doing their bit to save the environment. Normally they are resigned to losing money. On this occasion they may get a bumper reward for virtue.
Expansion has reached take-off. The company is in talks to build twenty large plants over the next three years. “We will be the biggest energy-storage company on the planet,” he said.
It is something to cheer us up as the Amazon blazes.
No comments:
Post a Comment