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EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

reuters.com

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Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#91

Post by option »

nathan_phoenix wrote: post #12

For anyone wondering why gas, it's gas only in specific cases. > Investments in natural gas power plants would also be deemed green if they produce emissions below 270g of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour (kWh), replace a more polluting fossil fuel plant, receive a construction permit by Dec. 31 2030 and plan to switch to low-carbon gases by the end of 2035.

Germany is a powerful country in EU and they are going to buy more gas from Russia because they are closing their nuclear. Of course, it is ridiculous that gas is considered green…

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#92

Post by kergonath »

tcfhgj wrote: post #86
londons_explore wrote: post #2

The quoted level, 230g CO2/kWh is actually very good, and far better than most other gas turbines, even the latest combined cycle systems. I wonder how they achieve that? Perhaps burning biogas (where the carbon doesn't count?)

perhaps also mixing with green H2 (and if that's not enough you can add green methane from electricity as well)

Pity the guy painting all these molecules.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#93

Post by tcfhgj »

kergonath wrote: post #79
Gwypaas wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. So close you can call it equal, unless future deaths from groundwater pollution where to happen from leakage. So lets discount that and focus on the side which allocates capital and brings projects to completion. The cheapest renewables are currently a magnitude cheaper per KWH.

> unless future deaths from groundwater pollution where to happen Surely you have a risk assessment for this, or can point to holes in the existing ones? No industry is clean by definition and at the moment both wind turbines and solar panels depend on local industry in China, which is quite bad even by European standards and also runs on coal. And then there is the insanity of cutting down forests to put solar panel…

> There is no way of framing Germany’s decision to close early perfectly functioning nuclear reactors only to build gas-fired power plants as a win for either the climate or humanity.

It can be as long as this plan is not realized: gas is good for storing renewable energy over longer periods of time. Germany needs some way of compensating fluctuations of renewables over longer periods of times

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#94

Post by throwaway472927 »

horsawlarway wrote: post #30
dathinab wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still kinda rediculus IMHO. Nuclear power it's climate but but environment/human friendly. So I can understand that. But natural gas isn't green however I look at it. It's clearly better then cush l coal, but but green. So it shouldn't be allowed to be labeled as such. Instead we should add a label for better but but really good tech, like yellow or so.

The labeling matters because it influences funds allocation. "green" in this sense just means it's eligible to receive funding/tax status that is otherwise not available. It's not a judgement on whether the technology is carbon neutral.

Isn't it kind of worse that it's not just a branding question?

After all the idea is to incentivise truly carbon neutral energy.

Obviously there's pragmatism and gas is better than coal but I think an independent body would say "burn gas if you must, but don't expect to get off freely with closing the nuclear plants".

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#95

Post by tcfhgj »

shawnz wrote: post #58
dathinab wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that is what people will treat it as. If it's just about such aspect you could give it some arbitrary EU regulation number and say it's compatible with that. By basing it around the term "green" it's very much focused around marketing and what people will perceive as "carbon neutral".

Why would this impact the colloquial meaning of "green" in any way? Do people usually adapt their informal language to be consistent with EU regulations?

well all our energy infrastructure and politics will have to be adapted to it which makes this not unlikely

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#96

Post by CryptoPunk »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #68

The answer is that every time they green-wash, the problem simply isn't solved, and the fight to solve it properly must continue.

Excluding reliable and zero-emission nuclear from the green mix means coal plants having to be restarted when unreliable renewables under-produce:

https://news.sky.com/story/uk-had-to-turn-on-coal-power-plan...

It means that in countries that over-invested in unreliable renewables, and under pressure from dogmatic renewable advocates, under-invested in reliable sources of energy, like Brazil: "The poor .. are choosing between paying for food or electricity."

https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-lifestyle-bu...

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#97

Post by richardw »

mulmen wrote: post #61
jillesvangurp wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's oddly specific but apparently intended to allow countries to classify energy from such plants as "green" and treat it as such when buying/selling or taxing it. That is important because a lot of companies that are interested in buying green energy in order to reduce their carbon emissions would care about their energy being labeled as green. There is a lot of book keeping that is happening related to this a…

> People are going to notice this and call bullshit on that. And they will be right. If it emits carbon it isn't green, it really is that simple. By giving themselves this loophole the EU is undermining the market forces that will make green energy viable. We don't need to find economical energy sources anymore. We need to dump money into green energy now and last month and a decade ago. The price doesn't matter, jus…

> If it emits carbon it isn't green, it really is that simple.

Producing solar emits CO2 over the full lifecycle. Even during the generation and maintenance phase, it’s above zero. There’s no zero until we remove CO2 from the environment.

https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56487.pdf

Should we stop using solar until we find the zero-CO2 tech?

Obviously not. And obviously we need net-0 asap, but it’s not “really that simple.”

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#98

Post by kergonath »

retinaros wrote: post #81
kergonath wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> oh and because of europe we import electricity from germany that is burning coal for it This is a gross over-simplification. Most European countries are both importers and exporters at any point in time, but France is a notable net exporter, and actually stabilises the German grid. The French government is inconsistent and unbelievably short-sighted, but not because it wants more electric heating. We need to get ri…

gas is owned by russia and now thanks to biden germany. of course the french government wants gas to go away and electricity to be seen as green as we dont have any... why do you think germany pushes for labelling gas as green . net exporter or no as long as france imports electricity we shouldnt be able to say it is green and push people to move away from gas. especially when we see our nuclear reactors aging and be…

> why do you think germany pushes for labelling gas as green

What makes you think I don’t know? ;)

> as long as france imports electricity we shouldnt be able to say it is green

Sure, the current system of certificates is a complete joke and utterly unfit for purpose (you can sell “green electricity” in the middle of winter if you also buy a document showing that the same amount was produced last summer in any other EU country). Under the current system it is mostly irrelevant because certificates are cheap. Hopefully the rules will be tightened in the next couple of months and then the green labelling will be a bit more meaningful (and electricity produced from coal in September won’t be “green” anymore).

> especially when we see our nuclear reactors aging and being phased out.

I think the French government realised at some point the shitshow it would be. They started walking back earlier promises about plant closures and words I’ve heard say that the life extensions won’t be a political problem. Now, new builds will be the problem of the next government. Please vote responsibly…

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#99

Post by mlyle »

freemint wrote: post #78
mlyle wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not sure what your point is: once no fossil fuel is used to heat Europe (which has to be very soon), something else will. The replacement could be anything but it seems unlikely to be coming from Siberia. Thank you for putting this more clearly than I could. Europe's got to move to more heat pumps and more industrial use of electricity to be greener. Then the question becomes: where is the best source of that elect…

I am curious how well the new Lithium free batteries CATL is working on will perform at 10% extra volume and half as expensive they could be enough to make power-to-gas to expensive.

Yup, battery improvements may neutralize power-to-gas --- though there's a lot of reasons to consider it as useful (in addition to gas-to-power there's a whole lot of users of natural gas and not all may be easily retrofitted).

Still, I think a share of decent, predictable base load makes everything easier, and that's where nuclear can shine.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#100

Post by Rebelgecko »

jeeeb wrote: post #73
nathan_phoenix wrote: post #12

For anyone wondering why gas, it's gas only in specific cases. > Investments in natural gas power plants would also be deemed green if they produce emissions below 270g of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour (kWh), replace a more polluting fossil fuel plant, receive a construction permit by Dec. 31 2030 and plan to switch to low-carbon gases by the end of 2035.

Intuitively 270g per kWh seemed high to me, but to put it in perspective a Tesla model 3 does about 100km per 11.9~14.9kWh (according to Google). So taking the larger estimate (and ignoring transmission etc losses) at 270g/KWh that gives emissions of around 41g/km. Comparatively though my 2021 Camry hybrid has emissions of 96g/km. So, assuming the plants are primarily being used to level out variable renewable produc…

I do wonder, how significant are inefficiencies in transmission, charging, and storage? With cheap lithium batteries I've bought (like phone power banks), I usually need to subtract about 25% from the rated capacity to figure out how many times it'll fill my phone's battery. Although hopefully cars are more efficient
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