Tag: energy

Digital future of renewable energy

Posted on by janet.crompton

As part of Green Great Britain Week, supported by BEIS, we are posting a series of blogs throughout the week highlighting what work is going on at the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute for the Environment to help provide up to date climate science, technology and solutions for government and industry.  We will also be highlighting some of the big sustainability actions happening across the University and local community in order to do our part to mitigate the negative effects of global warming. Today our blog will look at ‘Technologies of the future: clean growth and innovation’.

1. Background

Today over 94% of the energy market in the UK is dominated by the Major Power Producers (MPP) who generate electricity and feed it to households and businesses over the grid [1].

Historically, to cut down on the fuel transportation costs, the major generation plants had to be located close to the fuel sources, i.e., where coal and oil were mined. The generated electricity would then be transmitted through power lines and distribution stations down to the households and businesses who would use the electricity up.

This structure of the industry was based on several constraints:

  • Electricity generation locations are constrained by the location of fossil sources (as it is cheaper and easier to transmit the generated electricity than to move fuel around);
  • Electricity generation requires large investments into large plants (due to economies of scale of the generation technology);
  • Electricity end users are only interested in consumption, and do not want to know much else about electricity itself.

Yet, technological advances as well as the societal understanding of the implications of the fossil fuel use have dramatically changed the framework within which the energy system operates:

  • Renewable generation technologies (such as solar panels, wind turbines, small hydro turbines) are now widely available for individual household and small community use.
  • As (most) renewable generation resources (e.g., solar or wind) are available where consumers are, it is technologically possible and economically affordable to generate and consume electricity locally, without centralised generation and transmission;
  • End users are increasingly interested in the environmental and social impact of the generated electricity, not only in consumption.

All the above, combined with the governmental subsidies for renewables installations (e.g., feed-in-tariffs) have led to a recent growth of micro-generation in the UK (i.e., individuals or organisations with small-scale energy generation, such as domestic wind or solar PV units). Such micro-generators consume their own generated energy and sell any excess back to the grid. Such generation offers the potential for a distributed model of energy generation and consumption that is not reliant on MPPs.

Challenge

Though presently, there is a successful renewables-based ecosystem in the UK, it has been largely driven by governmental subsidies. However, these subsides are now set to be withdrawn. As of March 2019 no new installations will be eligible to feed-in-tariffs. Will this result in fall of the renewables sector, as already experienced by solar PV sector in Spain [2] when their solar PV subsidies were removed? Or can UK micro-generators find another way of ensuring viability of renewable installations?

Opportunities

Research at the University of Bristol suggests that a subsidy-free localised renewables-based energy sector is not only possible but is also the best solution to the energy security and affordability dilemma. Our proposed model for the new, modernised UK energy sector is based around localised, but globally interconnected peer-to-peer energy markets underpinned by digital technology. This is illustrated in Figure 1 below:

Figure 1: Peninsula peer-to-peer energy market (from [6])

 

2. Peer-to-Peer energy market underpinned by digital platform

In a peer-to-peer energy market any two individuals/households can directly buy  from and sell to each other, without intermediating third parties. These households can be both prosumers (i.e., producing and consuming own renewables-based electricity, as well as selling the excess to others), on simply consumers (if they have not own generation). Yet, unlike most microgrids, this is not an islanded model – which would require complete internal balance of supply and demand –  but rather a “peninsula”. Where the locality experiences shortage or excess generation, the demand/supply are imbalance is resolved through trade with the other localities or the grid at large. The key advantages here are in providing avenues for:

  • Additional income streams to households with microgeneration – where the feed in tariff is no longer pays for the extra generation, the peers who use the energy do. Moreover, the price of the locally generated/consumed energy is more competitive than that of the grid supply as it does not need to pay the same full transmission, distribution, and utilities services charges. (Though I must underline that, as each locality remains interconnected with the gird, the energy costs will still include grid connection and maintenance changes. This is because the intermittency of the renewables generation must be insured against, and grid provides such an insurance and balancing services.)
  • Increasing value proposition of microgeneration and energy storage – the microgenerators are not only getting return to their generation investment, but are also supporting local communities’ energy needs, contributing to the decarbonisation and energy security efforts.
  • Increased control over source of supply – consumers are now able to express their preferences on energy purchase: do they wish to buy solar or wind, from the closest geographically located producer or from the cheapest supplier; do producers wish to donate their excess generation to the local school or to their extended family members, or to sell it to the highest bidder? All these options become viable when peers directly buy and sell from each other.

Such an energy system, however, cannot exist without a reliable and trusted digital platform which will both remove the 3rd party intermediation, and advertise the sale and purchase orders between the trading parties, undertake the users’ preferences-based matching of these orders, ensure security of the transitions, transparency of the trades, and accountability of the transaction participants.

To operate in such market:

  1. the consumers and prosumers would join the platform and publish their preferences (e.g., sell to the highest bidder, or buy solar energy only, etc.);
  2. the participants will they use their smart meter data to periodically (e.g., for every 15 min or half an hour) publish their sale and purchase orders on a digital platform;
  3. for each trading period (e.g., 15 min.) the platform will match best fitting sale and purchase orders, and settle transaction accounts.

Note, (as illustrated in Fig 2) while in the current intermediated market the utilities act as  the contracting parties between the prosumers, consumers and the energy market (see Fig. 2.a), in this peer-to-peer market each prosumer/consumer is the immediate contracting party itself (see Fig. 2.b).

Figure 2: Energy Market Dis-intermediation (from [6])

To realise these demanding requirements, we advocate use of  distributed ledger technology for the energy trading platform [3, 4, 7]. Distributed ledgers (which incorporate blockchain and block-free technologies) are decentralised, distributed databases in which all transactions are immutably recorded. In other words, these are databases which are not controlled by any single company or individual, but are run and maintained by their participating membership. Data in these ledgers is redundantly stored in many locations, and cryptographically secured. As a result, once recorded, the data in the ledger cannot be changed and falsified [1].

The details on how to engineer this platform in such a way that engenders trust and participation is a topic of the HoSEM research project [5] and will be detailed in another blog post. For now, let’s assume that this platform is in successful operation. What are the implication of it on the UK energy market?

3. Implications on energy market

Move to a peer-to-peer energy trading over a distributed ledger will lead to several major changes in the UK’s energy system, to name a few:

  1. First and foremost, it changes the structure of the energy system itself – from centralised fossil-based generation to decentralised, distributed, local renewables–based generation and consumption set up;
  2. The digital technology-based market disintermediation (see section 2) deprecates the role of a trusted 3rd party (utilities in this case), reducing both the cost of transactions (i.e., energy) to the end users and allowing for the best possible preferences match to each participant. Now the suppliers are switched every trading period (e.g., every 15 min.), without any effort or cost to the market participants.
  3. This structure also radically changes the role of the energy user – from the passive consumer to an active prosumer. The end user now matters, as every unit of produced and consumed energy is different. It is different because it is produced in the users’ local area, or is originated from solar/wined/gas sources, or is bought from a friend… Then the price of each energy unit is also different and that difference is decided on basis of the participants preferences.

Clearly, many issues remain to be resolved before this shift to a digitally enabled peer to peer market becomes a reality. These include issues of regulation and licensing (presently households are not allowed to act as suppliers in the UK), grid safety (e.g., current frequency assurance), geographical and population density (e.g., rural areas have more renewable per-person than cities), fairness and pricing (more affluent individuals can afford more generation installations), to name a few. Yet, it is encouraging to see that technologically and economically this future can be here already today.

Footnote

[1] Theoretically it is possible, but practically it is improbable, as record falsification is designed to be prohibitively costly [3].

References

[1] Dep. of Energy and Climate Change Updated energy and emissions projections 2015 Tech. Rep., URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/updated-energy-and-emissions-projections-2015

[2] The rise and fall of solar energy in Spain, URL: http://www.abacoadvisers.com/spain-explained/life-in-spain/news/rise-and-fall-solar-energy-in-spain

[3] R. Chitchyan, J. Murkin, Review of Blockchain Technology and its Expectations: Case of the Energy Sector, URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.03567

[4] J. Murkin, R. Chitchyan, D. Ferguson, Goal-Based Automation of Peer-to-Peer Electricity Trading, URL: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-65687-8_13

[5] Household-Supplier Energy Market, URL: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FP031838%2F1

[6] Used from J. Murkin, R. Chitchyan, D. Ferguson, Towards peer-to-peer electricity trading in the UK, Presented at All Energy 2018, URL: https://reedexpo.app.box.com/s/plwhcfaqp6pnhxc8mcjznh7jtkevg9h1/file/292636529562

[7] J.Murkin, Automation of peer-to-peer electricity trading, blog post at https://www.edfenergy.com/about/energy-innovation/innovation-blog/research-development-peer-to-peer-trading

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Ruzanna Chitchyan from the University of Bristol Faculty of Engineering and has been reposted from Refactoring Energy Systems blog.

Ruzanna Chitchyan

Read other blogs in this Green Great Britain Week series:
1. Just the tip of the iceberg: Climate research at the Bristol Glaciology Centre
2. Monitoring greenhouse gas emissions: Now more important than ever?
3. Digital future of renewable energy
4. The new carbon economy – transforming waste into a resource
5. Systems thinking: 5 ways to be a more sustainable university
6. Local students + local communities = action on the local environment

The new carbon economy – transforming waste into a resource

Posted on by janet.crompton

As part of Green Great Britain Week, supported by BEIS, we are posting a series of blogs throughout the week highlighting what work is going on at the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute for the Environment to help provide up to date climate science, technology and solutions for government and industry.  We will also be highlighting some of the big sustainability actions happening across the University and local community in order to do our part to mitigate the negative effects of global warming. Today our blog will look at ‘Technologies of the future: clean growth and innovation’.

On Monday 8 October 2018, the IPCC released a special report which calls upon world governments to enact policies which will limit global warming to 1.5°C compared with pre-industrial levels, failure to do so will drastically increase the probability of ecosystem collapses, extreme weather events and complete melting of Arctic sea ice. Success will require “rapid and far-reaching” actions in the way we live, move, produce and consume.

So, what comes to mind when you hear carbon dioxide – a greenhouse gas? A waste product? You’re not wrong to think that given the predicament that our planet faces, but this article is going to tell the other side of the story which you already know but is often forgotten.

For over a billion years, carbon dioxide has been trapped and transformed, almost miraculously, into an innumerable, rich and complex family of organic molecules and materials by photosynthetic organisms. Without this process, life as we know simply would not have evolved. Look around you, – I dare say that the story of carbon dioxide is weaved, one way or another into all the objects you see around you in this moment. Whether it’s the carbon atoms within the material itself – or that old fossilised sourced of carbon was used to smelt, melt or fabricate it.

The great growth and development of the last two centuries has been defined by humanity’s use of fossilised carbon which drove the first and second industrial revolutions. But now – the limitations of those very revolutions are staring us in the face and a new revolution is already underway, albeit it quietly.

An industrial revolution is said to occur when there is a step change in three forms of technology, Information, Transport and Energy. The step change that I will discuss here is the use of carbon dioxide coupled with renewable energy systems to deliver a circular carbon economy that aims to be sustainable, carbon neutral at worst and carbon negative at best. This burgeoning field comes under the name carbon capture and utilisation (CCU). CCU, represents a broad range of chemical processes that will most directly impact energy storage and generation and the production of chemical commodities including plastics and building aggregates such as limestone.

In our research we are developing catalysts made of metal nanoparticles to activate and react CO2 to form chemicals such as carbon monoxide (CO), formic acid, methanol and acetate. They be simple molecules – but they have significant industrial relevance, are made on vast scales, are energy intensive to produce, and all originate in some way from coal. The methods that we are investigating while being more technically challenging, consume just three inputs – CO2, water and an electrical current. We use a device called an electrolyser, it uses electricity to break chemical bonds and form new ones. The catalyst sits on the electrodes. At the anode, water is broken into positively charged hydrogen ions called protons and oxygen, while at the opposite electrode, the cathode, CO2 reacts with the protons, H+, to form new molecules. It sounds simple but encouraging CO2 to react is not easy, compared to most molecules, CO2 is a stubborn reactant. It needs the right environment and some energy such as heat, electricity or light to activate it to form products of higher energy content. The chemicals that can be produced by this process are industrially significant, they are used in chemical synthesis, as solvents, reactants and many other things. CO for example can be built up to form cleaner burning petroleum/diesel-like fuels, oils, lubricants and other products derived by the petrochemical industry.

Formic acid and methanol may be used to generate energy, they can be oxidised back to CO2 and H2O using a device called a fuel cell to deliver electricity efficiently without combustion. One day we could see electrically driven cars not powered by batteries or compressed hydrogen but by methanol which has a higher volumetric energy density than both batteries and hydrogen. Batteries are heavy, too short-lived and use high quantities of low abundance metals such as lithium and cobalt – meaning their supply chains could suffer critical issues in the future. While the compression of hydrogen is an energy intensive process which poses greater safety challenges.

However, there are still many hurdles to overcome. I recently went to the Joint European Summer School on Fuel Cell, Electrolyser and Battery Technologies. There I learned about the technical and economic challenges from an academic and industrial perspective. In an introductory lecture, Jens Oluf Jensen was asked “When will we run out of fossil fuels?”, his answer “Not soon enough!”. An obvious answer but there is something I wish to unpick. The task for scientists is not just to make technologies like CO2 capture, CO2 conversion and fuel cells practical – which I would argue is already the case for some renewable technological processes. The greatest challenge is to make them cost competitive with their oil-based equivalents. A gamechanger in this field will be the day that politicians enact policies which incorporate the cost to the environment in the price of energy and materials derived from fossil fuels, and even go so far as to subsidise the cost of energy and materials-based on their ability to avoid or trap carbon dioxide.

Even without such political input there is still hope as we’ve seen the cost of solar and wind drop dramatically, lower than some fossil fuel-based power sources and only with limited government support. Already there are companies springing up in the CCU sector. Companies like Climeworks and Carbon Engineering are demonstrating technology that can trap CO2 using a process known as Direct Air Capture (DAC). Carbon Engineering is going even further and developing a technology they call Air to Fuels™. They use CO2 from the air, hydrogen split from water and clean electricity to generate synthetic transportation fuels such as gasoline, diesel or jet fuel. You may question why we should need these fuels given the rise of battery powered vehicles but a better solution for fuelling heavy goods vehicles, cargo ships and long-haul flights is at the very least a decade way.

In 1975, Primo Levi wrote a story about a carbon dioxide molecule and he said in relation to photosynthesis “dear colleagues, when we learn to do likewise we will be sicut Deus [like God], and we will have also solved the problem of hunger in the world.”. The circular carbon economy may still be in its infancy, but the seeds have sprouted. Unlike the first and second industrial revolution, the 3rd industrial revolution will not be dependent on one single energy source but will be a highly interdependent network of technologies that support and complement each other in the aim of sustainability, just like nature itself.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Gaël Gobaille-Shaw, University of Bristol School of Chemistry. He is currently designing new electrocatalysts for the conversion of CO2 to liquid fuels.
For updates on this work, follow @CatalysisCDT @Gael_Gobaille and @UoB_Electrochem on Twitter.  Follow #GreenGB for updates on the Green Great Britain Week.

Gael Gobaille-Shaw

Read other blogs in this Green Great Britain Week series:
1. Just the tip of the iceberg: Climate research at the Bristol Glaciology Centre
2. Monitoring greenhouse gas emissions: Now more important than ever?
3. Digital future of renewable energy
4. The new carbon economy – transforming waste into a resource
5. Systems thinking: 5 ways to be a more sustainable university
6. Local students + local communities = action on the local environment

 

Micro Hydro manufacturing in Nepal: A visit to Nepal Yantra Shala Energy

Posted on by janet.crompton
Topaz Maitland with a micro hydro turbine

For nine months I am working at an NGO called People, Energy and Environment Development Association (PEEDA), in Kathmandu, Nepal. PEEDA is an NGO dedicated to improving the livelihoods of communities, particularly the poor, by collective utilization of renewable energy resources, while ensuring due care for the environment.

My primary project is the design of a micro hydro Turgo Turbine, a small turbine which is not commonly used in Nepal. The project aims to investigate this turbine, and its potential for us in Nepal.

Nepal Yantrashala Energy (NYSE) is one of the partners on this project. NYSE is a manufacturing company specialising in micro hydro systems and I went to visit their workshop to learn about how they operate.

Micro Hydro and NYSE

At NYSE, they manufacture Pelton, Crossflow and Propeller turbines. If a client comes to them with the required head (height over which the water will drop) and flow rate, NYSE can manufacture an appropriate turbine. Every turbine is unique to the site it will be installed into.

Rough cast of a  Pelton runner cup, alongside finished cups

 

A Pelton turbine runner

 

Crossflow runners are made using strips of pipe as blades and machined runner plates to hold the blades
A Crossflow turbine runner

The aim of this project is to develop a design for a Turgo turbine (an example turgo turbine system pictured below), so that NYSE might be able to manufacture one for any given head and flow. This means that engineers such as myself need to understand how our new optimised design will operate over a range of flows and heads.

Micro Hydro in Nepal

Nepal is second only to Brazil in term of hydropower potential (1). Despite this, crippling underdevelopment and a mixture of geographical, political and economical factors leave the country lacking the resources to exploit and develop this potential (1).

Dr. Suman Pradhan, Project Coordinator at NYSE, told us that the first ever Crossflow Turbine was installed in Nepal in 1961. His father was actually one of those involved in the project. Ironically, today Nepal has to import or buy the designs for such Crossflow turbines from abroad.

Universities in Nepal do have turbine testing facilities, but funding for PhDs and other hydropower research is still heavily dependent upon foreign investment. A key area of opportunity for Nepal is the development of such research facilities. With so much hydropower potential, good work could be done to improve the performance of hydropower to suit demand and manufacturers within Nepal.

Dr. Suman hopes that this new Turgo Turbine design, alongside other designs he is trying to obtain, may widen the hydropower options available and manufacturable in Nepal.

References

1) Sovacool, B. K., Dhakal, S., Gippner, O. & Bambawale, M. J., 2013. Peeling the Energy Pickle: Expert Perceptions on Overcoming Nepal’s Energy Crisis. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies.

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This blog was written by Topaz Maitland, a University of Bristol Engineering Design Student on 3rd year industry placement.

My work experience: Designing a renewable energy turbine in Nepal

Posted on by janet.crompton

PEEDA is an NGO aiming to help off-grid communities in Nepal develop sustainably, primarily by introducing renewable energy sources that are owned and managed by the community.

Projects vary widely, and all funding comes from grants – that’s why there’s only six full-time staff at the office in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital. Over the years various projects have been in partnership with the University of Bristol: that’s how I ended up working at PEEDA for my assessed year in industry. As part of the Engineering Design Degree, all students undertake a year of work experience in their third year.

Project work

My primary project for the first few months concerns the design of a pico-hydro Turgo Turbine, a small turbine which is not commonly used in Nepal despite its potential. Currently, one turbine has been imported from China and one turbine is being developed at the University of Bristol. These will be compared in the testing lab at Kathmandu University, and the final design will be manufactured in Nepal and introduced to a pilot site.

Pico-hydro Turgo Turbine

I will have the opportunity to assist with all stages of the design, working closely with the University of Bristol, the Turbine Testing Lab, and the manufacturers.

Most excitingly, I will be able to go on site visits for the project and for other projects which will involve haphazard bus journeys on winding roads to remote, beautiful areas of Nepal.

What is Kathmandu like?

The walk to work is always interesting. I may see as many as three wandering cows which are considered sacred by Hindu culture. My walk takes me past a large Hindu temple where there is always music playing and ladies in colorful saris sell flowers and fruit outside its gates.

It’s monsoon season, and after the daily downpour the mountains are visible in every direction just beyond the city.

It’s a busy, lively, polluted capital city but the people are extremely friendly and welcoming.

On my first day, my boss came to pick me up but couldn’t find the way (there are no street signs or house numbers, only vague area names). I handed the phone to the lady in the closest shop so that she could explain to him in Nepali. Every day when I walk past her little shop, she always waves hello to me.

I have been here for almost two weeks now and I have not spotted a single, functioning traffic light. My work colleagues tell me they can count all the working traffic lights in the Kathmandu Valley on two hands.

Overall, it’s mad and wonderful.
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This blog was written by Topaz Maitland, a University of Bristol Engineering Design Student on 3rd year industry placement.

Belo Monte: there is nothing green or sustainable about these mega-dams

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

File 20180807 191041 1xhv2ft.png?ixlib=rb 1.1
Google Maps

There are few dams in the world that capture the imagination as much as Belo Monte, built on the “Big Bend” of the Xingu river in the Brazilian Amazon. Its construction has involved an army of 25,000 workers working round the clock since 2011 to excavate over 240m cubic metres of soil and rock, pour three million cubic metres of concrete, and divert 80% of the river’s flow through 24 turbines.

 

The dam is located about 200km before the 1,640km Xingu meets the Amazon. kmusser, CC BY-SA

Costing R$30 billion (£5.8 billion), Belo Monte is important not only for the scale of its construction but also the scope of opposition to it. The project was first proposed in the 1970s, and ever since then, local indigenous communities, civil society and even global celebrities have engaged in numerous acts of direct and indirect action against it.

While previous incarnations had been cancelled, Belo Monte is now in the final stages of construction and already provides 11,233 megawatts of energy to 60m Brazilians across the country. When complete, it will be the largest hydroelectric power plant in the Amazon and the fourth largest in the world.

Indigenous protests against Belo Monte at the UN’s sustainable development conference in Rio, 2012. Fernando Bizerra Jr / EPA

A ‘sustainable’ project?

The dam is to be operated by the Norte Energia consortium (formed of a number of state electrical utilities) and is heavily funded by the Brazilian state development bank, BNDES. The project’s supporters, including the governments of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party) that held office between 2003 and 2011, have justified its construction on environmental grounds. They describe Belo Monte as a “sustainable” project, linking it to wider policies of climate change mitigation and a transition away from fossil fuels. The assertions of the sustainability of hydropower are not only seen in Brazil but can be found across the globe – with large dams presented as part of wider sustainable development agendas.

With hydropower representing 16.4% of total global installed energy capacity, hydroelectric dams are a significant part of efforts to reduce carbon emissions. More than 2,000 such projects are currently funded via the Clean Development Mechanism of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol – second only to wind power by number of individual projects.

While this provides mega-dams with an environmental seal of approval, it overlooks their numerous impacts. As a result, dams funded by the CDM are contested across the globe, with popular opposition movements highlighting the impacts of these projects and challenging their asserted sustainability.

Beautiful hill, to beautiful monster

Those standing against Belo Monte have highlighted its social and environmental impacts. An influx of 100,000 construction and service workers has transformed the nearby city of Altamira, for instance.

Hundreds of workers – unable to find employment – took to sleeping on the streets. Drug traffickers also moved in and crime and violence soared in the city. The murder rate in Altamira increased by 147% during the years of Belo Monte construction, with it becoming the deadliest city on earth in 2015.

In 2013, police raided a building near the construction site to find 15 women, held against their will and forced into sex work. Researchers later found that the peak hours of visits to their building – and others – coincided with the payday of those working on Belo Monte. In light of this social trauma, opposition actors gave the project a new moniker: Belo Monstro, meaning “Beautiful Monster”.

The construction of Belo Monte is further linked to increasing patterns of deforestation in the region. In 2011, deforestation in Brazil was highest in the area around Belo Monte, with the dam not only deforesting the immediate area but stimulating further encroachment.

In building roads to carry both people and equipment, the project has opened up the wider area of rainforest to encroachment and illegal deforestation. Greenpeace has linked illegal deforestation in indigenous reserves – more than 200km away – to the construction of the project, with the wood later sold to those building the dam.

Brazil’s past success in reversing deforestation rates became a key part of the country’s environmental movement. Yet recently deforestation has increased once again, leading to widespread international criticism. With increasing awareness of the problem, the links between hydropower and the loss of the Amazon rainforest challenge the continued viability of Belo Monte and similar projects.

Big dams, big problems

While the Clean Development Mechanism focuses on the reduction of carbon emissions, it overlooks other greenhouse gases emitted by hydropower. Large dams effectively emit significant quantities of methane for instance, released by the decomposition of plants and trees below the reservoir’s surface. While methane does not stay in the atmosphere for as long as carbon dioxide (only persisting for up to 12 years), its warming potential is far higher.

Belo Monte has been linked to these methane emissions by numerous opposition actors. Further research has found that the vegetation rotting in the reservoirs of dams across the globe may emit a million tonnes of greenhouse gases per year. As a result, it is claimed that these projects are – in fact – making a net contribution to climate change.

Far from providing a sustainable, renewable energy solution in a climate-changed world, Belo Monte is instead cast as exacerbating the problem that it is meant to solve.

The ConversationBelo Monte is just one of many dams across the globe that have been justified – and funded – as sustainable pursuits. Yet, this conflates the ends with the means. Hydroelectricity may appear relatively “clean” but the process in which a mega-dam is built is far from it. The environmental credentials of these projects remain contested, with Belo Monte providing just one example of how the sustainability label may finally be slipping.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Ed Atkins, Senior Teaching Associate, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol.  This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Ed Atkins

Regulatory defection in electricity markets

Posted on by janet.crompton
Graphic by Sarah Harman. Taken from energy.gov.

Electricity systems are undergoing rapid transformation. An increasing share of previously passive consumers is defecting energy demand and supply from the public electricity network (grid) as active ‘prosumers’ while technological and business model innovation is enabling demand-side resources to provide reliable and cost competitive alternatives to supply capacity.

Yet, centralised supply-focused market structures dominated by legacy infrastructures, technologies and supply chains associated with path-dependencies and technological lock-ins continue to dominate. Regulation has been designed around these existing supply-focused markets and structures rather than networks of the future capable of integrating and facilitating smart, flexible systems. Current systems and their regulatory frameworks are struggling to engage and integrate a range of technological, economic and social innovations promising consumer-oriented solutions to environmental problems.

In the UK, the Office for Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) regulates the electricity and gas markets to protect the interest of existing and future consumers. Ofgem acknowledges that ‘moving from a largely centralised, carbon-intensive model to one which will be increasingly carbon-constrained, smart, flexible and decentralised is creating challenges which can only be addressed by innovation’.

In practice, the rapid diffusion of emerging digital technologies such as smart grids, smart meters and the internet of things is disrupting market structures and business models. Progress in automated and machine learning is producing exponentially growing amounts of data which facilitates the deep learning required for more accurate time series predictions. At the same time, distributed ledger technologies such as blockchain provide combined digital accounting and measuring, reporting and verification infrastructures as well as a means of developing and executing smart contracts.

Regulators such as Ofgem are confronted with the need to ‘keep the lights on’ while balancing their primary focus of regulating centralised electricity supply and trading markets with engaging with disruptive innovations. This is reflected in Ofgem’s monolithic, centralised structure, despite its commitment to facilitating smart systems, flexibility and non-traditional business models.

The question is, how can the regulator square grid code written for large-scale generators and wholesale traders with an increasing understanding of and desire to facilitate smart, flexible systems?

Disruptive technologies and business model innovation

In practice, smart, flexible systems imply the bidirectional flow of information which relies on a combination of on storage, demand-side responses, interconnection and energy efficiency increasingly facilitated by emerging digital and distributed ledger technologies. It is evident that existing legal frameworks will need to change to accommodate emerging digital and distributed ledger technologies, but regulators need to proceed with caution and change is inevitably a slow process that needs to take a very wide range of statutory and non-statutory requirements into account. Up to that point, however, the regulators’ discretionary and exempting power can and should be applied (with caution).

In Europe, Ofgem is at the forefront alongside the Dutch regulator (Authority for Consumers and Markets – ACM) in providing ‘regulatory sandboxes’ for microgrids and peer-to-peer trading which facilitates buying and selling electricity locally. These sandboxes facilitate experimentation and innovation without companies incurring or being subject to established regulatory requirements.

Despite Ofgem’s commitment to providing space for experimentation and innovation, missing market rules and high entry barriers encourage innovators to seek alternatives through regulatory defection. Two reports by the Rocky Mountain Institute, one on load defection and one on grid defection sensitised research and policy communities to economic aspects of electricity market defection. Regulatory defection is another aspect of the same issue but it deals with the broader opportunity (and concern) of economic activity shifting beyond particular regulatory spaces and boundaries. Arguments have been put forward that the trend of government withdrawing from energy policy rewards regulatory defection in electricity markets.

Concrete examples of regulatory defection in the electricity market include engaging in behind the meter generation, private wire supply and microgrids. Behind the meter generation is facilitated by a rapid fall in electricity storage costs. Batteries are now available for home installation with promises of 60% savings on electricity bills if appropriately scaled to match on-roof solar PV generation. Behind the meter generation also includes anything else that can be done to limit engagement with the grid, including energy efficiency improvements and reducing demand.

Private wire supply and microgrids require the installation of dedicated physical electricity transmission infrastructure. Private wire enables generators to sell electricity to neighbouring premises without transmitting electricity through the grid. Microgrids take private wires a step further to include a private network across multiple sites and end consumers. These arrangements are complex and require considerable skills and capacity to engage with appropriate network design, infrastructure, installation costs, land and planning requirements and operation and maintenance.

Despite this complexity, regulatory defection is underway through behind the meter generation, private wire supply and microgrid development. For example, Easton Energy Group in Bristol is at the forefront of developing a community microgrid combining solar PV generation with battery storage and dedicated transmission infrastructure as part of their TWOs project.

Energy Service Company (ESCO) business models facilitate defection by shifting the emphasis on the delivery of energy services. Rather than delivering energy in the form of grid electricity or fuel, ESCOs deliver final energy services such as lighting, ventilation or refrigeration. By shifting profitability towards the efficient provision of these services at low energy and environmental costs, ESCOs shift economic activity beyond the scope of electricity market regulation.

Combined, behind the meter generation, private wire supply and microgrids on the one hand, and ESCO business models on the other, require a rethink of how electricity is regulated. Fairness and equity need to be prioritised to ensure that the costs of running the existing infrastructure (which will still be necessary no matter how rapidly distributed systems evolve) will not be borne by fewer and less fortunate consumers that lack the capacity to defect. Therefore, new regulatory approaches are required to ensure that clean energy will be available to all at affordable costs.

Embracing disruption

One way of engaging with change is by embracing the innovations that threaten to usurp the current system. The Chilean regulator, Commisión Nacional de Energía (CNE), considers Blockchain an essential element of fair and sustainable energy markets. Its web portal Energía Abierta, the 1st open data website in South America, uses Blockchain as a digital notary. It allows CNE to certify that information provided on the web portal has not been altered and modified while also leaving an immutable record of its existence.

To this end, CNE issues ‘certificates of trust’ to give greater credibility to the portal. The aim of the portal is to increase levels of trust among stakeholders and the general public that have access to and consume the portal’s data. Another aim is that by using blockchain, greater trust in the citizen-government relationship can be created through more open and transparent governance. Ultimately, CNE expects blockchain to increase traceability, accountability, transparency and trust.

Chile has taken the lead in using blockchain as part of its regulatory framework and other countries should learn from this experience, especially if blockchain is to fulfil its potential in reducing transaction costs and managing complexity. Combining distributed ledger technologies such as blockchain with emerging digital technologies such as smart grids, smart meters and the internet of things can provide a new platform for electricity market regulation with data embodied in electricity at its core rather than electricity by itself.

The problem with regulation, however, is that it is based on experience from the past. Regulating emerging technologies and facilitating beneficial outcomes while limiting potential negative ones requires a fine balance and technological agnosticism. In this context it is necessary to bear in mind that it is not Ofgem’s sole responsibility to alter regulation. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), District Network Operators, the National Grid and combined industry code panels governed by the Competition and Markets Authority and determined by the Secretary of State also have a role to play.

Regulatory defection in electricity markets will continue progressing in the absence of new market structures. Maybe it is time to rethink electricity market regulation in this space along the lines of platform regulation?

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This blog has been written by Cabot Institute member Dr Colin Nolden, Vice Chancellor’s Fellow researching in Sustainable City Business Models (University of Bristol Law School).

Colin Nolden

Rural energy access: A global challenge

Posted on by janet.crompton
Image credit: Amanda Woodman-Hardy

 

Energy affects all Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

A statement made at the beginning of a rural energy access session at the Global Challenges Symposium on 12 April 2018.  To give some context for those who aren’t aware, the SDGs are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity (see UNDP). As the goals are interconnected – tackling affordable and clean energy will mean also tackling the issues associated with the other goals.

During the session led by Dr Sam Williamson, held in Bristol and co-organised by the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute for the Environment, four issues were discussed with Nepal as a case study:

  1. How does a lack of energy access impact rural lives?
  2. How can technology enable access to modern sustainable energy?
  3. What are the key economic and policy interventions to ensure successful rural energy access projects?
  4. What is the social impact of having access to energy in rural communities?

I felt incredibly lucky to be in the same room as the invited guests from Nepal: Biraj Gautum (Chief Executive Officer at PEEDA); Giri Raj Lamichhane (Head Teacher of Dhawa School, Central Nepal); Sushila Lamichhane Adhikari (Regional Director, Learning Planet, Central Nepal); Muhan Maskey (Policy and Institutional Strengthening Expert, Renewable Energy for Rural Livelihoods Programme, Alternative Energy Promotion Centre, Government of Nepal); and Ramesh Maskey (Associate Dean, School of Engineering, Kathmandu University).  Listening to them speak, it was clear that the Nepalese have come through such adversity (including the 2015 earthquakes – more on this below) and have survived without access to energy like we know it in the Western world.  They are incredibly resilient and wonderful people. I was certainly in awe of them. Here I summarise their thoughts and hopefully provide you with a new knowledge of real rural lives affected by a lack of access to energy.

1. How does a lack of energy access impact rural lives?

Hearing from Sushila it was clear that a lack of energy access affects rural lives in ways I could not have imagined – cooking is not possible unless using indoor stoves which cause lots of pollution and health issues especially in women and children.  The burning of firewood, cow dung and kerosene on these stoves is used for lighting and cooking.  Can you imagine breathing in the fumes from kerosene whilst sat cooking indoors?  What is also true is that it is mainly women and children who are affected by indoor air pollution and as a result suffer many negative health effects.  It is clear that more research needs to be done to customise the cooking technology for Nepal and other areas so that it moves away from indoor stoves.  Interestingly, a member of the audience from Ghana mentioned that the electricity there can be so unreliable that people don’t always want to invest in electric cookers, they’d rather go out and collect firewood for their stoves.  Unfortunately rural Nepalese villages cannot get electricity when they need it for cooking or lighting so many are in a similar situation.
Things we take for granted in the UK – like using our mobile phones, using social media and getting search engines to answer our burning questions in life (#firstworldproblems!) – are limited in Nepal.  Access to communications like the internet and to the news is one of the most valuable things to come out of having access to energy.
Apparently the government of Nepal say giving access is one part of the energy problem, the other part of the problem is transformational access.  I.e. not just providing access to power but making sure it is provided everywhere, that it is clean and sustainable and that there is a support network in place to maintain it.  There is a lot of work to be done globally to address this issue.

I didn’t get chance to interact much with my mum when I was growing up as she was out early in the morning collecting firewood so wasn’t there when I woke up and was busy cooking in the evening.

One of the things you forget about lack of energy access is how it affects the social side of people’s lives.  The quote above was given by Biraj (as seen in the picture above, stood up).  It is common for women to spend four hours collecting firewood for their stoves so they are on when the children wake. I can’t even imagine getting up four hours early every single day to do this, let alone spend an hour collecting 20 litres of water and hiking it up a steep mountain every time I need water for cooking, washing and drinking.  After hearing this I am in awe of rural Nepalese women.  They are superhuman to me, pushing the boundaries of what a woman does for her family.  I am embarrassed that I have so many luxuries in my life resulting from having access to energy, whenever I require it.  I just need a plug and a socket.  It is time for us in the Western world to help support areas without access to energy, we have a duty to families the world over.

2. How can technology enable access to modern sustainable energy?

The market is very small in Nepal for research and development in new energy technology. It is cheaper to get technology from China. There is a real lack of finance, knowledge and government support which means that rural Nepalese have not been able to fully exploit the natural resources available to them for sustainable energy e.g. through installing hydro-power. There is also the problem that to the average rural person in Nepal, lifting water which can be used for drinking, cooking, washing and chores, is a more important focus for development than energy access.  It seems a catch-22, having energy access would actually improve water lifting from source up to areas of need in the Nepalese mountains, since a lot of water pumps require energy to run.

Another great challenge is to make Nepalese energy technology for rural areas easy to maintain and robust.  Remote areas are often hard to get to and it could be a long time before anyone could come and fix any issues and obviously the cost of doing so may be prohibitive.  Therefore technology needs to be simple and locals need to be trained in maintenance.  It was also suggested in the room that tech should be developed so that it can be fixed remotely if needed. It is also important for researchers to check new energy technology is actually working after they have developed and installed it in rural areas.

3. What are the key economic and policy interventions to ensure successful rural energy access projects?

It was good to hear during this session that the energy grid in Nepal is starting to approach the rural areas of Nepal which means that it is possible for the micro-hydro-power that currently exists in rural areas to be injected into the grid and payouts can be made to rural people who own them. However a lack of available funds means the rural Nepalese cannot build micro-hydro-power plants. Most micro-hydro-power plants are instead run by the government, whole communities or private individuals and there is a policy imbalance between government-owned power and community-owned power in Nepal.

These energy inequalities seemed to be echoed by a delegate from Ghana who said that some wealthy people in Ghana are able to get enough power from solar power to not have to rely on the governments unreliable electricity. They can sell their energy back to the grid and get richer in the process, causing further inequality in energy access.

4. What is the social impact of having access to energy in rural communities?

As mentioned earlier, there is a big social impact of not having access to energy in rural areas of Nepal. By having access it means that cooking is easier and not having to collect fire wood means time is freed for maintaining gardens to produce your own food. Three to four hours a day can be saved from not having to collect firewood which can improve women’s social lives and involvement in their communities.

As is the case in most societies, you will always get people who are resistent to change. In Nepal it was said that there may be some Nepali men who may not want women to have extra time available to them (from not collecting firewood) and may want them to stick to traditional roles instead.

Having access to energy can revolutionise rural lives without destroying traditional roles.  A Somali delegate said that energy is expensive but available in rural Somalia. Mobile phone access means nomads can find for e.g. the price of a goat and where the nearest one is so they don’t waste time and physical energy trekking to find one. Phones can be charged in the cities. There is also micro-insurance available in Somalia (I had not heard of it either!) being used by nomads with mobile phones to protect for example, against the impact of drought on food availability. A novel idea, being used currently and shown to work.  It is a system which could be copied and replicated in other rural areas lacking energy access.  It was clear that there is a lot of scope for African nations and Nepal to learn best practice from each other in regards to rural access to energy.

The 2015 earthquakes – and energy

It was asked of the Nepalese visitors, what role did energy play in the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal?  Their answers were grim…villages were flattened, there was no power supply, no place to cook, and it was difficult to contact relatives who were far away and may have also been affected by the quakes. Micro-hydro-power plants were destroyed and the national grid was down. There was a governmental dilemma as to what to do – whether to revive micro-hydro-power plants or extend the national grid? As it happened the national grid was a first priority and it is being rebuilt with a view to extend it.

Throughout all of this adversity, the resilience and positivity of the Nepalese visitors really shone through when they said that all the families, communities and pets came together in one space (shelter) regardless of wealth or who they were and that this was a great experience to come out of the earthquake. The earthquake also forced Nepal to become more self-sufficient in energy post-recovery and they are installing more renewables as a result.

Damaged house in Chaurikharka – by Sumita Roy Dutta – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Academics can research and write about rural energy access issues, but attending this Symposium showed that there is much we can learn from people who are actually living day in day out with these issues.  We need to collaborate and bring minds and experiences together to solve the issues around the Sustainable Development Goals.  I am happy to say that the Symposium was a great step in doing this and we hope that there will be many relationships and research interests developed from this Symposium that can apply for funding from the Global Challenges Research Fund to further research, and to improve and save lives globally.  Watch this space!

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This blog was written by Cabot Institute Coordinator Amanda Woodman-Hardy @Enviro_Mand.  You can find out more about the Global Challenges Symposium on the official website.  You can read more about reliable and sustainable micro-hydro-power in Nepal in a blog by Caboteer Joe Butchers.

Reliable and sustainable micro-hydropower in Nepal

Posted on by janet.crompton
Rolling hills of Baglung District

Despite massive potential to generate electricity through large scale hydropower, Nepal often faces power cuts and the national grid only reaches around 65% of the population. Much of the non-grid connected population live in rural, hilly and mountainous areas where grid extension is difficult and costly. Micro-hydropower plants (MHPs), which deliver up to 100kW of electrical power, extract water from rivers and use it to drive a generator before returning the water to the same river further downstream. These systems can provide electricity for lighting and productive end uses that can vastly improve people’s quality of life. Since the 1970s, micro-hydro turbines have been manufactured in Nepal. Now there are around 2,500 MHPs installed across Nepal.

When these systems break or run poorly it has an adverse effect on the quality of people’s lives. Through my research, I am hoping to find methods to improve the reliability and sustainability of MHPs in Nepal. The aim of this project was to see how well systems were maintained and interview the people who run, manage and rely on hydropower plants. I hoped that interviews would help me to understand some of the technical and social challenges that MHPs face.  Whilst in Nepal, I was working with a Nepali NGO called the People, Energy and Environment Development Association (PEEDA) who helped me to identify sites, arrange visits and conduct interviews.

A micro-hydropower plant

During my time in Nepal, Prem Karki (from PEEDA) and I visited a total of 17 sites in the neighbouring districts of Baglung and Gulmi. Prem and I spent 12 days in the field, making our way from one site to the next via bumpy jeep rides and on foot. Nepal’s hills make it suitable for hydropower but also make travelling complicated. Many of the roads we travelled on were unpaved and we saw lots of places where landslides had damaged roads during the monsoon. This showed us how difficult it is to move equipment and materials when plants are under construction. At each site, our visual assessment took us on some nerve jangling walks along canals that snaked around cliff edges to reach the intakes. Prem was responsible for interviewing the plant operator, management representative and consumer at each site so we could understand how plants were maintained, managed and their importance to beneficiaries. The local people were very helpful and interested by our work. We were often given free meals and sometimes even a place to stay!

A winding canal

I was able to collect a large amount of information which I am still processing digitally and mentally! In general, I found that micro-hydro sites are often impressive feats of engineering which can make a big impact on people’s lives by powering homes, businesses and services. In challenging environments where the only means of transportation is manpower, the hard work of local people has led to their construction. Several times, we crawled through hand chiselled caves made solely for a hydro project’s canal. The impact of the projects was clear to see. Every interview respondent said that connection to an MHP had made their life easier.

Furthermore, the micro-hydro projects are invaluable to communities as a whole; they power workplaces, shops, health posts and mobile phone masts. In the town of Burtibang, with a population of around 10,000, every home and business is powered by electricity from micro-hydro projects.

This dependence on micro-hydropower makes its reliability very important. I found the quality of maintenance very variable. Some sites were well cared for with an evident daily effort to keep the plant running as best as possible. Other plants had little evidence of regular maintenance and were showing signs of deterioration. Promisingly, I found that sites with formally trained operators tended to be better maintained than those without.

In terms of sustainability, there was a good standard of management. Energy meters allowed accurate measurement of electricity consumption so that consumers were charged according to their use. Consumers are typically given a short window in which to pay and fined for late payment. At most sites, managers said that there was sufficient money collected for the operation of the plant and maintenance costs.

To maintain reliability and sustainability, there are a range of technical and social issues that MHPs must overcome. There were common technical issues in design. Many turbines were leaking, and plant operators mentioned bearing replacement as one of the most common issues. We also saw a big variation in the quality of  installations particularly for the  civil works. It is disappointing that despite the massive effort expended in construction, some features are not fit for purpose. Socially, we found four sites where the original operator had moved abroad for work meaning the present operator had not been trained. Plant managers also commented on the increasing demand from consumers resulting in pressure on operators to deliver more power. These issues develop for social reasons but result in problems which can harm the reliability of the system.
A micro-hydropower turbine
In my further research, I intend to work closely with a turbine manufacturer during the design, manufacture and installation of a micro-hydro project. I hope to identify opportunities to implement greater quality control to prevent the occurrence of the technical issues mentioned. By working in collaboration with governmental and non-governmental organisations in Nepal, I would like to find innovative ways to ensure the longevity of MHPs. As Nepal develops, the role of micro-hydro will change but I believe it still has an important role to play in rural electrification.
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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Joe Butchers, a PhD student from the Electrical Energy Management Group at the University of Bristol.

Joe Butchers

 

 

How to turn a volcano into a power station – with a little help from satellites

Posted on by janet.crompton
File 20171031 18735 1gapo0c.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1
Erta Ale in eastern Ethiopia. mbrand85

Ethiopia tends to conjure images of sprawling dusty deserts, bustling streets in Addis Ababa or the precipitous cliffs of the Simien Mountains – possibly with a distance runner bounding along in the background. Yet the country is also one of the most volcanically active on Earth, thanks to Africa’s Great Rift Valley, which runs right through its heart.

Rifting is the geological process that rips tectonic plates apart, roughly at the speed your fingernails grow. In Ethiopia this has enabled magma to force its way to the surface, and there are over 60 known volcanoes. Many have undergone colossal eruptions in the past, leaving behind immense craters that pepper the rift floor. Some volcanoes are still active today. Visit them and you find bubbling mud ponds, hot springs and scores of steaming vents.

Steam rising at Aluto volcano, Ethiopia. William Hutchison

This steam has been used by locals for washing and bathing, but underlying this is a much bigger opportunity. The surface activity suggests extremely hot fluids deep below, perhaps up to 300°C–400°C. Drill down and it should be possible access this high temperature steam, which could drive large turbines and produce huge amounts of power. This matters greatly in a country where 77% of the population has no access to electricity, one of the lowest levels in Africa.

Geothermal power has recently become a serious proposition thanks to geophysical surveys suggesting that some volcanoes could yield a gigawatt of power. That’s the equivalent of several million solar panels or 500 wind turbines from each. The total untapped resource is estimated to be in the region of 10GW.

Converting this energy into power would build on the geothermal pilot project that began some 20 years ago at Aluto volcano in the lakes region 200km south of Addis Ababa. Its infrastructure is currently being upgraded to increase production tenfold, from 7MW to 70MW. In sum, geothermal looks like a fantastic low-carbon renewable solution for Ethiopia that could form the backbone of the power sector and help lift people out of poverty.

 

Scratching the surface

The major problem is that, unlike more developed geothermal economies like Iceland, very little is known about Ethiopia’s volcanoes. In almost all cases, we don’t even know when the last eruption took place – a vital question since erupting volcanoes and large-scale power generation will not make happy bedfellows.

In recent years, the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) has been funding RiftVolc, a consortium of British and Ethiopian universities and geological surveys, to address some of these issues. This has focused on understanding the hazards and developing methods for exploring and monitoring the volcanoes so that they can be exploited safely and sustainably.

Teams of scientists have been out in the field for the past three years deploying monitoring equipment and making observations. Yet some of the most important breakthroughs have come through an entirely different route – through researchers analysing satellite images at their desks.

This has produced exciting findings at Aluto. Using a satellite radar technique, we discovered that the volcano’s surface is inflating and deflating. The best analogy is breathing – we found sharp “inhalations” inflating the surface over a few months, followed by gradual “exhalations” which cause slow subsidence over many years. We’re not exactly sure what is causing these ups and downs, but it is good evidence that magma, geothermal waters or gases are moving around in the depths some five km below the surface.

Taking the temperature

In our most recent paper, we used satellite thermal images to probe the emissions of Aluto’s steam vents in more detail. We found that the locations where gases were escaping often coincided with known fault lines and fractures on the volcano.

When we monitored the temperature of these vents over several years, we were surprised to find that most were quite stable. Only a few vents on the eastern margin showed measurable temperature changes. And crucially, this was not happening in synchronicity with Aluto’s ups and downs – we might have expected that surface temperatures would increase following a period of inflation, as hot fluids rise up from the belly of the volcano.

A productive geothermal well on Aluto. William Hutchison

It was only when we delved into the rainfall records that we came up with an explanation: the vents that show variations appear to be changing as a delayed response to rainfall on the higher ground of the rift margin. Our conclusion was that the vents nearer the centre of the volcano were not perturbed by rainfall and thus represent a better sample of the hottest waters in the geothermal reservoir. This obviously makes a difference when it comes to planning where to drill wells and build power stations on the volcano, but there’s a much wider significance.

This is one of the first times anyone has monitored a geothermal resource from space, and it demonstrates what can be achieved. Since the satellite data is freely available, it represents an inexpensive and risk-free way of assessing geothermal potential.

With similar volcanoes scattered across countries like Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, the technique could allow us to discover and monitor new untapped geothermal resources in the Rift Valley as well as around the world. When you zoom back and look at the big picture, it is amazing what starts to come into view.
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This blog is written by William Hutchison, Research Fellow, University of St Andrews; Juliet Biggs, Reader in Earth Sciences and Cabot Institute member, University of Bristol, and Tamsin Mather, Professor of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
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Juliet Biggs is a member of the University of Bristol Cabot Institute.  She studies Continental Tectonics and Volcanic Deformation and has won numerous awards in her field.  Find out more about Juliet Biggs research.

MSc Environmental Policy and Management Course Trip to Warsaw, Poland

Posted on by janet.crompton

Each year, students on the MSc Environmental Policy and Management program receive funding to plan an educational trip in Europe. Previous cohorts have chosen to visit Berlin, Copenhagen, Riga, and Amsterdam. This year, we democratically decided to visit Warsaw. We chose to do so not because the city and Poland are exemplary in environmental management, but rather because they have real challenges facing them in the transition to a low-carbon future.

The energy sector represents the biggest environmental challenge in Poland and government leaders are reported to actively oppose European Union climate change targets (Kowalski, 2016). After its most recent election (2015), the country announced that energy policy would prioritise the exploitation of domestic coal deposits. Indeed, there is a historical and cultural attachment to coal in Poland, as the coal industry was influential in the country’s socio-economic development in the period between World War I and World War II, and during the post-World War II Communist era (Kowalski, 2016). More recently, coal has been promoted as a path to increase Poland’s energy independence, particularly from Russia, by reducing the need for imported fuel.

Poland has consistently been one of the biggest coal producers in the EU (Lukaszewska, 2011). A large majority of the country’s electricity generation (80 – 94%) comes from coal-fired power plants fuelled by domestic hard coal and lignite (Kozlowska, 2017; Lukaszewska, 2011). The dominant position of these fossil fuels in Poland’s energy mix presents a significant challenge in the fight against global climate change. We arranged meetings with the Polish Climate Coalition, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, and Greenpeace Poland to learn more.

Our first meeting was with the Polish Climate Coalition. As our large cohort climbed the stairs to their office, it soon became clear that we would not all fit in and so we turned back and headed for a local café just around the corner. Walking with Krzysztof and Urszula, they seemed apologetic, but they need not have been. We found the experience to be an honest representation of how a grassroots organisation may operate when fighting for causes arguably more important than having a fancy corporate office. The Coalition is an association of 22 NGOs engaged in climate protection and includes Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and ClientEarth. It was established under the outright belief that humans are responsible for climate change.

Over the next 90 minutes, Krzysztof and Urszula provided us with an in-depth overview of the energy sector in Poland. We learned that the dominant driving force for current practice is a flawed interpretation of energy security which focuses on supply in lieu of other considerations, such as tackling fuel poverty and environmental pollution or ensuring stable, long-term access to energy.

The Polish energy sector is seemingly outdated and inadequate in the face of 21st century challenges. It was particularly concerning to hear that the combination of both a dry winter in 2014 and a hot summer in 2015 significantly reduced the water levels in Poland’s rivers. These rivers are the primary source of water for cooling the country’s coal-fired power plants, and in August 2015, power restrictions were imposed on 1,600 of the biggest companies in Poland as a result (Olszwski, 2015). The population face an ever-increasing risk of power blackouts due to the vulnerability of the energy sector from over-reliance on coal. If hot summers persist (temperatures exceeded 24C on the day of our visit in May!), then such vulnerability will surely continue.

One thing became clear in that, despite the major challenges which Poland faces, there are good people like Krzysztof and Urszula who are willing to fight the uphill battle, within a context where motivation must surely be difficult to find.

Upon arrival at the Heinrich Böll Foundation, for our second meeting, we were welcomed into a light, air-conditioned conference room where water and nibbles were laid out for us. While our physical environment was starkly different to our first meeting, we soon realised an overarching theme in Poland.

The Heinrich Böll Foundation is a politically independent ‘green visions’ think tank with 30 offices worldwide. Their work is divided into three programmes and we met with Katarzyna from the Energy and Climate programme in Warsaw, whose work aims to intensify the discourse about the challenges presented by energy transformation and climate change.

Much of Katarzyna’s message reinforced what we had learned in our first meeting. However, it was particularly interesting to enter into a discussion about air pollution toward the end of her presentation. We learned that coal is not only the primary source of electricity production, but is also still burned, alongside rubbish and other discarded materials, to heat homes in the winter, creating an ever-worsening problem with smog in Warsaw and across Poland. We were told that in the winter of 2016 – 2017, smog was so thick that you could not see your hand in front of you. In January 2017, air pollution in Warsaw was so bad that local authorities decided to limit local emissions by making public transport free for a short period. Approximately 45,000 people in Poland die each year from air pollution (Kozlowska, 2017). The total population is around 38 million (“Population, total,” 2017).

Our final meeting was with Greenpeace, and this took us away from the city centre to their office in what was once a very large home. Many of us took advantage of Warsaw’s bike rental scheme, called Veturilo, to make the almost 6-kilometre ride from our hostel along cycle lanes, roads, and even the sidewalk.

The office culture immediately felt distinct to that of the previous two organisations. Staff dressed more casually; unmade bunk beds showed us where visiting volunteers can stay; bumper stickers and sketched environmental messages decorated some walls; and stuffed bees the size of large dogs hung from the ceiling (purportedly they have used the bees for campaigning). The efforts of Greenpeace Poland depend less on paper and pen and more on influential signage and community engagement.

Our contact, Anna, shared stories of human chains to call attention to the rivers that have dried up because of open-pit lignite mining. She taught us about the mining process, showing us on a map of the country where current mines are operating and new ones are planned. The process destroys landscapes, diverts massive volumes of water, and forces displacement of people. The low energy content of lignite means power plants must be built immediately adjacent to the mines. Since opening about 10 years ago, Greenpeace Poland has had some successes. Anna shared her involvement in advocating for the sale of excess renewable energy back to the grid, which ultimately came to pass, at least temporarily. To highlight that the battle for environmental progress is constantly uphill however, the government later reverted this policy, and at the time of writing has not reinstated it.

Despite a certain level of negativity in our meetings, Anna’s anecdote provided some optimism. The temporary success depended on using political divisions and public advertising focusing on the benefits to individuals. Though a small step, it shows that sometimes addressing the self-interest of the general public can be an effective way to combat environmental issues in a country with Poland’s political context.

Due to a lack of climate change education in Poland, environmentalism must be achieved through its benefits to the public rather than through traditional means. Indifference towards environmentalism is something that can be seen in other countries, and to us provided a good indication of how hostile public attitudes can be addressed to allow for environmental and climate protection. One of the authors, Michael, comes from Texas and found parallels between the situation in Poland and that back home. Progress cannot depend on a shared sense of responsibility to address climate change, in which many people do not even believe. Counterproductive financial interests are rampant. However, reframing the conversation to discuss savings from energy efficiency, economic opportunities in renewables, and energy security can achieve gains in the low-carbon transition. In Texas, wind power has boomed not because of political or public will to move beyond fossil fuels, but because of its economic viability.

We are truly grateful to the School of Geography for affording us the opportunity to undertake this trip. Beyond learning more about the energy system in Poland and organisations working to improve it, we became closer as a cohort and had a wonderful time.

The reader can reach out with any questions on the trip or the program to the authors of this blog post: Mark Nichols (mn16169@my.bristol.ac.uk), Allan MacLeod (am12313@my.bristol.ac.uk), or Michael Donatti (md16045@my.bristol.ac.uk).

References
Kowalski, K., 2016. In Poland, efforts to rescue coal industry will likely come up short. [online] Available: https://pl.boell.org/en/2016/09/26/poland-efforts-rescue-coal-industry-will-likely-come-short

Kozlowska, H., 2017. When it comes to air pollution, Poland is the China of Europe. [online] Available: https://qz.com/882158/with-air-pollution-skyrocketing-warsaw-is-severely-hit-by-polands-smog-problem/

Lukaszewska, H., 2011. Poland’s Energu Security Strategy. Journal of Energy Security.

Olszewski, M., 2015. The Polish Energy Drought. [online] Available: https://energytransition.org/2015/09/the-polish-energy-drought/

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