Archive for March, 2012
British Airways Lead the Way With Bio Jet Fuel
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Fossil Fuel on March 26, 2012
What? I hear you say. Praise for an airline in the Green Review? Am I reading the right blog? Well; yes you are. And I have to say that – praise where praise is due – this is a really good idea.
British Airways, like most other airlines, will be very quick to tell us that they are doing their bit to protect the planet, and none of us will really believe them. Nevertheless, the world’s favourite airline could soon be on its way to becoming the world’s greenest airline if this project is successful.
BA is pioneering the world’s first waste bio jet fuel plant. Now, I’ve already had a pop at bio fuels for airlines, calling it a load of old greenwash, and I don’t agree with biofuels in general. However, I am a firm believer in fuels derived from waste, which is what BA are intending to manufacture.
Of course there is still the issue of carbon emissions from airlines and the fact that they release these emissions directly into a very sensitive part of the atmosphere. This impact will not be cured by a simple swap of fuels. That said, though, some figures say that lifecycle carbon emission reductions of 95% will be possible when compared to traditional jet kerosene, but we’ll see about that eh? (That’s not the sound of me being cynical is it? Never)
These lower emissions will – in part – be down to the fuel being produced in East London, practically next door to London City Airport and only a few miles from London Heathrow Airport. I also like that if this is adopted en-masse, it could potentially reduce our dependency on imported oil and we could see a home-grown fuel industry spring up that has the added bonus of reducing the amount of waste we have to send to landfill.
The biomass plant will use the Fischer-Tropsch process to turn the waste into fuel, and as an added bonus, will power itself and also put 20MW of electricity back into the grid, at the same time. Neat.
According to BA, “The first plant, being built in partnership with US-based green energy specialist Solena Group, is due to enter full production in 2015. Once completed, the London plant – costing £200 million to build – will convert up to 500,000 tonnes of waste a year into 16 million gallons of green jet fuel, enough to power 2 per cent of BA’s operation. The waste will come from food scraps and other household material such as grass and tree cuttings, agricultural and industrial waste.”
Of course 2 per cent sounds measly, which I guess it is in the grand scheme of things, but it is a step in the right direction and this is a pretty major innovation. I mean just imagine if every airline in the world were using the waste of the cities they are serving and producing their own ‘clean’ fuel right on their own doorsteps.
I do not condone the massive expansion of the airline industry, nor the way many of these low cost carriers are run (in particular the accident-waiting-to-happen that is Ryanair) and I do think we are jumping on a plane far too readily. However, air travel is an essential part of our modern lives and I think – if we’re honest – we would all miss it if it were gone. We certainly wouldn’t see the type of climate change and environmental summits that we see today – even if some of them are as useful as a hydroelectricity plant in the Sahara.
So can we envision a world where all of our planes – in fact all of our transport is running on waste? I doubt it. But this is a step toward tackling the increasing emissions from the airline industry while additionally securing our future energy supplies. Well done BA, let’s hope this works as well as you say it will.
In other airline news; The Major of London, Boris Johnson, has seen plans for his Thames Estuary Airport seriously dented, as the area earmarked for the development has just been included on a list of Nature Improvement Areas, throwing a huge green spanner into the planning application process. Oops.
GR
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I’m a Huge Fan of Wind Power, But This is Insane…
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Energy on March 12, 2012
I class myself as being pretty ‘up’ on environmental issues, but I was shocked when reading an article in the ENDs Report the other day. It was concerning the fact that we pay massive sums for wind energy. Ok, you say, we know that… ah yes, but this relates to the that fact that we pay millions of pounds when the turbines are too productive. Like I said, it’s insane.
These constraint payments are made when a wind farm produces electricity that has nowhere to go, say in a period of high wind but low demand. It’s all part of the National Grid’s balancing mechanism, and is supposed to keep all things fair.
In essence the theory is that if you have to tell a power generator to lower its output you are in breach of contract and they are losing money, so you compensate them. Fair enough… I think.
The trouble is that when a conventional fossil-fuelled power station is asked to lower production, they consequently save on fuel, so their payments reflects this. When a wind farm has to ‘shut down’ they not only lose profits through idleness, but also due to the renewables obligation, they lose out on potentially huge subsidy production payments, and so the constraint payments have to be a lot more. From recent reports it seems that nearly £15 million has been paid out over the last 2 years. £15 million? That’s crazy money.
They kept this one quiet…
After doing a bit of research on this subject, I found myself less ashamed at not being aware of these payments when a Google search for ‘wind farm constraint payments’ threw up a number of hits that also contained the word ‘secret’. That’s hardly surprising.
I’ve had many a late night debate (often slightly drunken and occasionally heated) over the merits and pitfalls of wind power, and this topic has never been raised, not once. I have to say I’m quite glad about that, because if someone did bring this up in a debate it would surely flummox me.
While it probably cannot be argued that this amount of money is being paid to wind farms, the government does try to put a realistic spin on things. They (DECC) say that only 10% of constraint payments go to wind power. Ok, but they also say this:
“No generator of any type should receive an excessive benefit from constraint payments. That is why the Government is currently consulting on the introduction of a Transmission Constraint Licence Condition later this year to help ensure we don’t encounter problems in the balancing market when normal competition amongst generators is distorted by transmission constraints. Planned upgrades to the most congested parts of the transmission system are also underway which will help ease constraints. The upgrades will begin to take effect from 2013.”
In other words, they know there’s a problem and they’re sorting it. Well that’s something I suppose.
I’m still a huge fan of wind power and watching a giant turbine atop a green, verdant hill turning lazily in the breeze never fails to bring a smile to my face. This discovery, however, as really dented my optimism is the industry.
As I said in a recent post, I’m happy to pay a proportion of my energy bill to help fund future renewable energy projects. I’m not happy, though, to pay what would appear to be a tasty little loophole payment to the wind power companies. I understand that they may lose money in subsidies, but surely this should be factored into any cost benefit analysis that is conducted prior to investment, not realised at a later date and left up to the taxpayer/energy customer to fork out.
If this is an issue, then any future wind developments must not be able to fleece us like this. On a positive note; the first step, a call for more transparency over constraint payments, appears to have been taken already.
If wind is to increase in such numbers as are expected, we shouldn’t have to face a future where we continue to pay these massive sums for having too much energy. Why don’t they use it for something else, like pumped storage?
Really at this point I should also question the government’s stupidity and short-sightedness over this but – just like a turbine blade – that keeps coming around again, and again, and again. So I can’t be bothered. They’re stupid; we’re all very clever. Let’s just leave it at that.
If the anti-wind lobby or – heaven help us – The Daily Mail really gets hold of this story and runs with it we could be in trouble. Even I think it’s stupid, and I love wind power. So if you do know any slightly deranged, outspoken country folk who hate wind power, please don’t forward this blog onto them. Thanks.
So yes, crazy as it may be to be paying millions of pounds to stop wind farms doing exactly what we’ve already paid millions of pounds for them to do in the first place – making electricity; at least it looks like something is being done about this. Let’s keep a very careful eye on this space shall we…?
GR
P.S. I still think it’s insane.
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Photos courtesy of Renewable UK
