Net-Negative Challenges
To reach net-negative, not only will we need to transition to clean energy rapidly, but at the same time, we will also need to gradually remove the billions of tonnes of atmospheric CO2 already in the air as well as the atmospheric CO2 we will be emitting in the coming years.
Put very simply, we need to remove more atmospheric CO2 than we emit.
We must develop commercial-scale atmospheric CO2 removal technologies, implement large-scale forestation, and pursue reforestation. These are all huge challenges. There are huge gaps to fill. We are not there yet.
Energy Self-Sufficient Households
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed the world’s energy outlook. Energy security is now the highlight of many countries. Being totally energy self-sufficient is one way to ensure energy security. Energy self-sufficiency should start with households.
A strong push to decarbonise the transportation sector will provide added momentum for households to be totally energy self-sufficient.
The transportation sector accounts for around 20% of global carbon emissions and around 75% of the sector’s carbon emissions come from road vehicles. Consequently, every country is moving rapidly to decarbonise its road transport system.
The cost of the electric vehicle (EV) battery, which constitutes about 50% of the cost of each EV, is coming down fast with increased range and improved performance. EV sales are gathering pace globally everywhere. Every major car maker is moving into electric in the coming years. Big-tech firms and start-ups are joining in the EV race. More and more EV models will be available in the EV market competing for sales. In the coming years, EVs, and fuel-cell vehicles (FCV), will dominate our roads when their prices drop to a level on par with internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEV).
In response to this global trend, household rooftop solar systems will increasingly include battery systems to achieve total energy self-sufficiency. This means a household solar system providing electricity, heating, cooling, cooking, and EV battery charging.
Take Australia for example. Australia has one of the highest numbers of rooftop solar systems per capita in the world. More than 30% of Australian households have a rooftop solar system. However, currently, only less than 10% of the Australian household rooftop solar systems have a battery system because of price and affordability. With soaring energy costs, decreasing battery system prices, and increasing EV or FCV ownership, many Australian households may soon find it economically beneficial to install household battery systems to provide for all household energy needs.
Energy self-sufficient households will be free from potential energy price volatility and energy rationing that may potentially happen in certain countries.
As well, EVs with bi-directional charging capability may soon be widely available in the market. Bi-directional charging batteries may double up as a house battery and a mobile battery to allow households to sell their excess energy to the grid, EV charging stations, other households, and other EVs.
This would enable a “sharing economy” for energy!
A country with a high number of energy-self-sufficient households will be well-placed to reach net-negative targets.
Residential property developers may even build a new housing estate exposed to abundant sunlight with rooftop solar systems for the housing estate to be energy self-sufficient as a community. Who knows? Pre-fabricated roofs integrated with solar panel systems may even be available commercially and be delivered to the construction site ready to install to reduce construction costs!
Solar Systems on Buildings and Unused/Underused Spaces
Given that solar panels are becoming cheaper with improved efficiency, the economic values for installing them are growing stronger.
Buildings account for more than 50% of global electricity use. The building industry is installing rooftop solar panels to reduce their carbon footprint. We now find solar panels on building facades too.
Countries and cities are actively looking for unused and underused spaces to install solar panels – Covered car parks, covered walkways, street light posts, bus stops, bus terminals/depots, EV charging stations, shopping malls, train stations, train depots, and public buildings such as libraries, council buildings, hospitals, etc.
Singapore, a small country that has limited land and where 80% of its population lives in public housing blocks, is installing rooftop solar panels on these public housing blocks.
Floating Solar Farms
Many countries are installing floating solar farms on the water surfaces of reservoirs, dams, lakes, rivers, and even on the open seas, etc. Japan has more than 50 floating solar farms.
At the end of 2021, the largest floating solar farm in operation was the 320 MW capacity Dezhou Dingzhuang solar energy park in China. By June 2022, the 2.1 GW capacity Saemangeum floating farm in Korea has taken over as the largest floating solar farm.
More and more floating solar farms, which save valuable land area and cool down water bodies, are being built and they will get bigger and bigger.
Solar and wind farms on farmlands
Natural lands are probably best used for preserving biodiversity.
Fertile farmlands are probably best used for farming but increasingly these lands are having solar farms or wind turbines without significantly impacting their agricultural activities. We are seeking multiple uses for our precious lands. The 453 MW capacity Coopers Gap Wind Farm in Queensland of Australia is on land that is used mainly for cattle grazing and farming.
Huge livestock farms may install solar panels in a way to provide adequate feed and shade for the livestock and yet be totally energy self-sufficient or even be net energy exporters, using their EVs as mobile batteries to transport excess energy to sell to other EVs, other livestock farms, nearby EV charging stations or to the grid if they are connected.
How big are the largest solar and wind farms in operation?
As of 2021, the biggest solar farms in operation were below 5GW capacity. Bhadla Solar Park in India, commissioned in April 2019, is a 2.25 GW capacity solar farm covering an area of 57 km2. Huanghe Hydropower Golmud Solar Park in China, which went online in September 2020, is a 2.2 GW capacity solar farm and has 202.8 MW/MWh of storage capacity. Huanghe Hydropower Golmud Solar Park has a long-term plan to increase its capacity to 16 GW. Pavagada Solar Park in India, operational since December 2019, is a 2.05 GW capacity solar farm covering an area of 53 km2.
Same for wind farms, as of 2021 the biggest wind farms in operation were less than 5 GW capacity. The Gansu Wind Farm in China commenced operations in 2012, is an onshore wind farm that has a current capacity of 8 GW. It is planned to grow in capacity to 20 GW. Jaisalmer Wind Farm in India had installed capacity increased in stages, and its capacity reached 1.6 GW in 2021. Alta Wind Energy Centre in the US commenced operations in 2011 and had a capacity of 1.5 GW by 2014. Muppandal Wind Farm in India commenced operations in 2007 and has an installed capacity of 1.5 GW.
New Solar and Wind Farms in Development are Getting Bigger
The new solar and wind farms in the development stages are getting bigger, such as Australia-Asia Power Link (AAPowerLink) Sun Cable Project and Asian Renewable Energy Hub (AREH).
Australia-Asia Power Link (AAPowerLink) Sun Cable Project
Sun Cable project in the Northern Territory of Australia will be a 17-20 GW solar farm with 36-42 GWh of battery energy storage covering a huge project area of 120 km2.
The world’s first intercontinental electricity grid, Sun Cable plans to supply 3 GW of solar renewable energy via an 800 km land transmission line to Darwin and 4,200 km of underwater transmission line from Darwin to Singapore, passing through Indonesian waters. The project plans to commence construction in 2024, start the supply of electricity to Darwin in 2027, and start full operations by 2029 when the solar farm will export solar power to Singapore.
A project such as Sun Cable could be a blueprint for how large-scale electricity from renewable sources could be exported across international borders.
No doubt, the trend is to build even bigger wind and solar farms to achieve an economy of scale to reduce renewable energy costs.
However, there is a critical missing piece as we continue to increase the size of solar and wind farms. Because of the inherent intermittent nature of solar and wind energy, you don’t get solar energy at night and on a crowdy day. When the wind is not blowing you don’t get wind energy. This has caused a mismatch between the production of solar and wind renewable energies and the consumption demand patterns.
We need an energy buffer – an energy storage system – capable of storing an enormous of energy long enough to close the production and consumption gap.
Hydrogen – The Critical Missing Piece?
Hydrogen is increasingly seen as having the greatest potential to close the energy production and consumption demand gap.
Hydrogen is energy-dense. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. When hydrogen is burnt, it produces water and does not emit any carbon dioxide. It is totally clean and has zero carbon. Green hydrogen, which is produced using renewable energy to break down water into hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis, does not emit any carbon dioxide in the production process.
Being energy-dense, hydrogen can be stored as a standby fuel for hydrogen-ready gas turbines during periods of peak loads. Hydrogen can be an energy carrier for export.
However, hydrogen by itself does not exist naturally under room temperature and energy is needed to produce hydrogen.
Hydrogen Production at Commercial Scale
Many companies are working hard to bring down hydrogen commercial-scale production costs. Industry experts believe green hydrogen must be produced at a cost of around US$1.50/kg to be competitive with other fuel types.
Hysata
Hysata, an Australian start-up, announced in March 2022 that its “capillary-fed electrolysis cell’ could produce green hydrogen from water at 98% cell energy efficiency, significantly better than other existing electrolyser technologies. Hysata believes its technology could bring hydrogen production costs down to the US$1.50/kg range. Hysata is working to scale up the process to produce hydrogen at a commercial scale.
Companies like Hysata could speed up the adoption of hydrogen as a mainstream fuel.
Japan’s Fukushima
Japan’s Fukushima prefecture, where Fukushima nuclear plant was destroyed by Tsunami, plans to transform the area around the previous nuclear power site into a renewable energy hub. It plans to build 11 solar plants and 10 wind power stations by March 2024 and use renewable energy to produce hydrogen. Named Fukushima Hydrogen Energy Research Field (FH2R), this is currently one of the world’s largest hydrogen production facilities. Japan is working to bring down hydrogen production costs at a commercial scale.
Asian Renewable Energy Hub (AREH)
Asian Renewable Energy Hub (AREH) in Western Australia, jointly developed by project partners that include BP and InterContinental Energy, will be a 26 GW solar and wind energy project that will cover a project area of 6,500 km². The solar and wind hybrid power project is still in the development stage and is expected to generate 90 TWh of clean electricity a year, equivalent to one-third of all electricity generated in Australia in the year 2020. Renewable energy will be used to produce approximately 1.6 million tonnes of green hydrogen or 9 million tonnes of green ammonia per year for the domestic Australian market and export to major international users such as Japan and South Korea.
Western Green Energy Hub (WGEH)
Western Green Energy Hub (WGEH) in Western Australia, jointly developed by project partners that include InterContinental Energy, CWP Global, and Mirning Traditional Owners, will be a 50 GW hybrid solar and wind renewable energy project that will cover an even bigger project area of 15,000 km². The project plans to produce 3.5 million tonnes of green hydrogen per year for use in power generation, shipping fuel, minerals processing, and manufacturing domestically and for export. The planned completion is in 2028.
HyDeal Ambition – The Largest Green Hydrogen Project in 2022
As of January 2022, HyDeal Ambition was the world’s largest green hydrogen project. The project plans to produce 3.6 million tonnes of green hydrogen in 2030 with 95 GW of solar and 67 GW of electrolyser capacity, in an integrated upstream, midstream, and downstream system spanning from Spain to France and Germany.
Hydrogen Transport and Storage at Commercial Scale
Hydrogen has a very low boiling point of -253 deg C (compared with -161 deg C for liquefied natural gas (LNG)) and hydrogen molecules are smaller than LNG. Being smaller, hydrogen has a higher risk of leak loss during transport compared to LNG. This presents technological challenges to storing and transporting hydrogen at a commercial scale.
With the different physical properties, could LNG storage, pipelines, and transportation infrastructure still be modified and adapted for hydrogen, or we would need to build new infrastructure from scratch?
Around the world, there are many hydrogen projects underway to build a hydrogen supply chain. Many countries – including Japan, South Korea, China, and Australia – have announced their hydrogen development strategies and roadmaps, as producers, exporters, and users.
Hydrogen Storage – Underground Salt Caverns
Underground salt caverns are artificial cavities created in geological salt deposits at a depth of 500 to 1,500 m. The process is to drill into the salt, inject water to dissolve some of the salt, and then extract the salt water to create a large cavity, which is used to store compressed hydrogen. The stored compressed hydrogen is then extracted for future use when needed.
Some industry experts believe underground storage in salt caverns or porous media is the only feasible way to store a large commercial quantity of compressed hydrogen.
A German study found many feasible salt cavern sites in northern Europe at offshore and onshore locations in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, and Poland.
The German government-funded HYPOS alliance’s first salt caverns project could start filling with compressed hydrogen in 2023 or 2024. Europe has numerous other salt cavern projects in the planning/design phase.
Aces Delta’s Underground Hydrogen Storage Salt Caverns in Utah, US
In August 2022, Aces Delta, a joint venture between Mitsubishi Power Americas and Magnum Development, announced it had contracted WSP USA to build 2 underground hydrogen storage salt caverns with capacities of 150 GWh as part of the Advanced Clean Energy Storage Hub in the US state of Utah. The storage capacity is estimated to be around 150 times the current total US’s installed lithium-ion battery storage base. Aces Delta will convert renewable energy via 220 MW of electrolysers to produce up to 100 tonnes of green hydrogen per day. The plant will initially run on a blend of 30% green hydrogen and 70% natural gas starting in 2025 and will incrementally expand to 100% green hydrogen by 2045.
Can We Build Supersize 100 GW+ Energy Hubs?
Dr. Steve Hurley, of www.explainingsciene.org, calculated that 586,000 km2 of solar panels could generate enough energy to meet the current needs of all the countries in the world. How big is 586,000 km2? It is an area that is just 0.11% of the total surface area of the Earth, or a land area that is about 15% larger than Spain, or about 23% of the state of Western Australia.
Let’s say we go for 1,000,000 km2 to allow for spacing between rows of solar panels and future energy needs. Can we find 1,000,000 km2 of underused land (not natural lands where key biodiversity areas are located) around the world, such as the deserts, to install solar panels to supply the world’s energy needs – replacing all fossil fuels?
The Sahara Desert in Africa is 9,200,000 km2, more than 9 times the required area of 1,000,000 km2. The Arabian Desert in Western Asia is 2,330,000 km2 in size. Kalahari Subtropical Desert in southern Africa is 900,000 km2 in size.
As well, we can incorporate on-shore and off-shore wind farms with these solar farms.
Exploiting the economy of scale by scaling up solar and wind farms and using renewable energy to produce green hydrogen will reduce green hydrogen production costs further.
So, the underused deserts around the world could be the best places to build supersize 100 GW+ solar and wind farms (i.e. 10+ times Sun Cable or Asian Renewable Energy Hub or HyDeal Ambition) in a single location.
A solar farm has a high upfront cost but a low ongoing operating cost. To smoothen the investment funding required over time, we could build supersize solar farms progressively in multiple modules. We could construct easy-deployment solar panel modules to start operation in the shortest time possible so we could receive energy export revenue to offset the required investment funding.
We would need to store hydrogen at times of high solar energy availability and use hydrogen to produce electricity for the electricity grid at times of low solar availability.
The excess hydrogen may be shipped in hydrogen vessels, like LNG vessels, for export.
The hydrogen production facilities may need to be near a water source or in coastal areas where desalination plants may be built, connected by transmission lines from solar and wind farms. Transmission lines may need to be built to link solar and wind farms to these hydrogen production facilities. Hydrogen pipelines may need to be built to deliver hydrogen to purpose-built hydrogen exporting ports.
Such supersize undertaking, if technologically feasible and economically viable, would benefit multiple countries. Energy exporting countries allocating their lands for the supersize renewable energy hubs could build up the whole renewable energy supply chain capabilities domestically creating job opportunities and economic dividends. Energy importing countries would be keen to contribute funding to secure future supply of renewable energy.
We will need to overcome the challenges of producing sufficient quantities of solar panels, wind turbines, and their associated installation parts and components. We will need to overcome the challenges of storage and transport of renewable energy for export.
Natural Carbon Sink – Oceans, Lands, and Trees
The oceans cover around 70% of the world’s surface and absorb an estimated amount of approximately 25% of all CO2 emissions. This makes the oceans the largest carbon sink that plays a crucial role in taking up atmospheric CO2. Scientists are studying ways to preserve the oceans as a healthy carbon sink.
It was estimated that plants and soils together absorb around 30% of the CO2 emitted by human activities each year. Trees and forests play an important role in stabilising soil and reducing air temperature, and humidity, as well as flooding. Tree planting in urban areas will help buildings reduce trapped heat, thus providing a cooler environment for urban residents.
Photosynthesis is an excellent way to take CO2 from the air. Trees absorb CO2 through photosynthesis, emit oxygen in the process, and store carbon in their leaves, trunks, and roots.
Carbon is also stored in forest soils. The more mature the trees and forests, the more carbon they can store. Tree planting is an excellent nature-based climate mitigation solution.
Scientists are now proposing to add organic carbon to agricultural soils to improve crop health, prevent water pollution, and reduce or eliminate the need for synthetic fertilisers which derive from fossil fuels. So, even agricultural lands could play a significant role in removing carbon.
CTrees is a digital platform that uses data from a range of satellites to map and track and use artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyse any change to the world’s forests down to a single tree resolution (for some parts of the world for now) in near real-time.
A digital platform such as CTrees enables readily available, transparent, reliable, and real-time information about forestation and reforestation projects such as “The World Economic Forum’s Trillion Trees Initiative” and “The Bonn Challenge – Global Effort to Restore 350 Hectares of Forest by 2030”.
Investors and financiers may be able to track forestation progress near real-time on such digital platforms. Countries and cities could use such digital platforms to review the progress and effectiveness of their tree-planting projects.
Who knows? In the future, such digital platforms may even provide useful specific information about where and what trees to plant in a country and city to optimise carbon removal.
Atmospheric CO2 Removal Technologies
Atmospheric CO2 Removal is a critical element in our fight against global warming. Unfortunately, currently, atmospheric CO2 removal technologies and facilities cannot cope with over 34 billion tonnes of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere annually.
Atmospheric CO2 removal technologies will receive intensive focus in the next 10 years as the world faces a climate emergency.
Removing atmospheric CO2 requires a lot of energy and must be scaled up to lower its costs to be economically viable. The energy must come from renewable sources. This again points to the need for an urgent transition to renewable energy sources.
Direct Air Capture (DAC)
International Energy Agency (IEA) has estimated that reaching net-zero by 2050 would require the world to scale up DAC to capture more than 85 million tonnes of atmospheric CO2 each year by 2030 and around 980 million tonnes a year by 2050.
The challenges are the low concentration of atmospheric CO2 and the high energy required to separate atmospheric CO2 at a commercial scale. However, DAC costs will come down with research and experience.
Climeworks’s DAC
Climeworks, a company that involves in DAC and is backed by Microsoft, uses fans and filters located inside their collectors to suck in and trap atmospheric CO2 particles to separate them from the air, raise the temperature of the trapped CO2 to about 100°C to release and inject the CO2 into underground bedrock to turn into stone naturally.
Climeworks’ first large-scale DAC project was in Iceland. Starting operation in 2021, the project can remove 4000 tons of atmospheric CO2 each year. Climeworks started its world’s first commercial DAC plant operation in Switzerland in October 2022. This commercial DAC plant is powered by waste heat from a local waste incineration plant and the captured atmospheric CO₂ is delivered to a nearby greenhouse as fertilisers for vegetables. Climeworks plans to build a second plant in Iceland that will have a nominal CO₂ capture capacity of 36,000 tons per year when fully operational.
Climeworks has a long-term plan to remove megatonnes of atmospheric CO2 by 2030 and gigatonnes of atmospheric CO2 by 2050.
1PointFive’s DAC
1PointFive, an affiliate of US oil producer Occidental Petroleum, provides finance to develop a DAC project called “DAC1” in the Permian Basin of the US with its Canadian partner Carbon Engineering. DAC1 will begin operations in 2024 aimed at removing 1 million tonnes of atmospheric CO2 per year.
DAC1 will use DAC technology from Carbon Engineering which features air contactors that pull in atmospheric air to react with a potassium hydroxide solution to bind and separate atmospheric CO2. Through a series of chemical reactions, the process then yields a pure and compressed stream of CO2 that can be stored in geological storage sites permanently. The modular process setup can be scaled up.
Occidental Petroleum plans to install 35 million tonnes of DAC facilities around the world by 2035.
Concluding Remarks
In the end, energy security, water security, food security, climate change, and biodiversity are all interlinked.
When the costs of renewable energy come down, desalination plants, water, and wastewater treatment costs will come down because energy costs constitute more than 50% of the operating costs. Consequently, the lower energy cost would help improve water security.
Similarly, farming, food production, food processing, as well as distribution costs for food will come down if energy costs come down. Consequently, the lower energy cost would help improve food security.
When we reduce the impact of climate change, we help to preserve biodiversity.
The development of low-cost renewable energy will go a long way in tackling not just energy security, but also in turn tackling water security, food security, climate change, and biodiversity.
We do not have solutions to reach net-negative targets yet, but we are seeing many solution pieces taking shape.
We developed COVID-19 vaccines within 18 months after the start of the pandemic. We should be optimistic that we could win again in our climate change fight and clean energy transition.
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