Strong action on biofuels – but can anything stop the rise of coal?

There’s both good and bad news coming through this week when it comes to energy news. On the one hand, we have some positive new EU rules on biofuel use; and on the other hand, we have some very bad news about the growing use of coal. Let’s have a look at both of them.

In Europe, the EU have agreed new targets for biofuels derived from food crops such as maize. There is a general target for 10% of all fuel to be from renewable sources by 2020, but from this year onwards, only 7% can be from food-derived biofuels – previously the entire target was expected to be reached from such fuels. Why is this good? Well, although making fuel out of renewable resources like food crops is a better option for our environment than continually digging up more fossil fuels, it is starting to have a damaging effect on food prices and hunger. By allowing food crops to be used as fuel, there was always a risk of pushing prices up and of prioritizing food for our cars over food for humans. This new target should help to avoid those problems, although it’s not as strong as the original 5% that was suggested.

What will be needed, however, is for more money to be invested in developing alternative biofuels from things like algae. These will have a much smaller environmental and social impact than using food crops, but are currently only in the developmental stage, and the EU is not yet providing enough incentives to encourage further research. They have set an informal target of sourcing 0.5% of their fuel from such sources by 2020, but this is both too small and non-binding.

Now for the bad news. Despite these alternative fuels, coal is now reported to be the fastest growing energy source in the world, and is currently commanding a greater share of the worldwide energy market than it has since the 1970s. The continued use of such an environmentally damaging fuel threatens to wipe out any gains that might be made from new energy technologies, and could push us ever closer to unstoppable climate change. The growth in coal usage is partially being encouraged by the needs of rapidly developing countries like China, but we cannot totally blame them – western countries are also increasing their usage of coal, and are not providing enough help for developing countries to green their energy systems and economies.

So on the one hand, we see politicians aiming for a more enlightened energy policy. On the other, we see market conditions (the high demand for energy coupled with the cheap price of coal) pushing us in the other direction. It leads us to conclude that a more coordinated international energy system may be needed – one which is based on political and social decisions rather than simply the whims of the market. We need to develop a system of international investment in researching and developing new energy technologies that can put an end to coal and oil once and for all. This isn’t going to happen without serious cooperation between states, and it isn’t going to happen if we leave things up to a capitalist market system – instead, cheap fossil fuels will simply continue to be extracted and burned.

The EU’s approach is a good start – they are working together to try to develop a system that benefits European citizens, people of other countries, and still leaves room for businesses to operate and grow within the confines of a planned energy policy. It needs to be extended and made stronger, and applied to all areas of our energy consumption, and similar moves need to be encouraged on a worldwide stage. If we are going to avoid climate change and dig ourselves out of the energy problems we have created, we are going to have to work together, consciously.

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A song of fire and ice

So it seems that yet another form of unconventional fossil fuels looms on the horizon, with the potential to be promoted by governments as the latest solution to our energy crisis, while at the same time destroying fragile environments through its extraction. The culprit this time is a form of gas known as ‘fire ice’, which is locked into the form of ice crystals under the Atlantic ocean, at the point where the seabed changes from shallow to deep. By lowering the pressure on these crystals, or upping the temperature, one cubic metre of fire ice can break down into 160 cubic metres of gas.

The amount of energy contained within fire ice deposits is thus huge – there is potentially more energy available from fire ice than from the rest of the world’s oil, coal, and natural gas supplies combined. And yet, with that energy comes a problem we have been trying to escape for decades now – carbon. There may also be as much carbon in the fire ice deposits as there is in every other organic carbon store in the entire world. Releasing this carbon into the atmosphere by using fire ice for energy would be an unmitigated disaster, completely destroying any attempts at sustainability and making an era of massive climate change a certainty.

The fire ice is also very difficult to extract due to its location far offshore. This means more money will be required to exploit it, and it also increases the dangers – both to those humans doing the extraction, and to the ecosystems of plants and animals that live in the Atlantic and would suffer from this extreme industrial process taking place in their homes. But none of this will likely stop governments and corporations from doing their best to exploit these large reserves of fossil fuel energy.

And that fact shows the madness of our current energy system. Even when fossil fuels are difficult, dangerous, and expensive to extract, we will prioritize them over cheaper, safer, and easier options – like renewable energy based on the bountiful systems the planet has dropped in our laps, wind, tides, the sun, and more. If we insist on digging things out of the ground in order to keep our economy running, then we are getting to the stage where even nuclear power is beginning to look like a better option than fossil fuels (although obviously it would still be a distant second to true renewables) – it is at least carbon free, and while we might complain that it is highly polluting and dangerous to human health, so are fossil fuels, with over 4,000 people a year estimated to be dying from air pollution in London alone.

Rather than creating a new dependence on fire ice or other forms of unconventional fossil fuels like fracked gas or tar sands oil, we need to be exploring how to put into place the radical change to our energy system that is necessary if we are going to live sustainable lives free from the worst impacts of climate change. It seems that a big shock to the system may be necessary before we really start to see any change, unfortunately. In the meantime, NRGLab will continue its own research into new technologies that make our energy use more efficient, more environmental, and – most importantly – cheaper for ordinary people. When people finally have access to cheap and clean electricity, we hope that it will prove to be the shock that is needed to kickstart a new era.

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A Happy New Year – But only if we work on it

A hearty welcome to 2014 to all of our readers! The new year is traditionally a time for reflection and looking both forward and backwards. We look back on the events and changes of the past year and evaluate the positives and negatives. And we look forward to the next twelve months and express our hopes, aims, and goals for the year.

2013 was a difficult year in many parts of the world. Many western countries have governments which are insisting on 'austerity' measures that will supposedly solve the ongoing problems of the financial crisis, but which are actually leading to a society increasingly divided between rich corporations and poor, unemployed citizens. Conflicts like those in Syria and Egypt seem to be intractable, with round of round of attacks and reprisals. And the exploitation of natural resources and the relentless drive for profit rather than environmental protection and human survival continues apace.

The coming year, then, needs to see a reversal in many of these trends – and the sooner the better. Society needs to be made fairer, and the poorest citizens need much greater attention from governments to ensure they can get back on their feet. Currently, too many people are losing too much on a regular basis – their livelihoods, their loved ones, their land, their dignity – and this continual impoverishment can only eventually lead to anger and chaos.

So what do we at NRGLab and the Ana Shell Fund hope to see in 2014? What will we be working to achieve for the next twelve months? One of our primary goals is to see the extraction of fossil fuels – so damaging to communities and destructive to the environment – replaced by a focus on renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies. Our research and development on these topics has come on in leaps and bounds this year, and we will continue to push forward as time goes on.

We hope to see a dramatic change in priorities for governments everywhere, with a vast reduction in two of the most problematic uses of taxpayer money. Too much is being spent on conflict – both in the sense of civil conflicts like those mentioned above, but also through western intervention and the continued low-level wars being waged by the US and its allies in places like Afghanistan, Yemen, and Pakistan. And too much money is given in corporate subsidies – to engineering firms that make warplanes, agricultural companies that are trying to capture the food chain, security companies opening private prisons, and many more. Instead, this money should be diverted to social uses like employment schemes and healthcare, and put into new scientific and technological research that can help make human lives easier, more efficient, and more flourishing.

And we need to see a change in mindset in 2014, away from one which focuses on profit above all, and which categorizes people as 'winners' or 'losers' in the game of life depending on their net worth or the number of things they own. Instead, we should be valuing more traditional concepts like cooperation, fairness, and equality – many of today's corporate chiefs and conservative politicians will tell you that these values are not part of 'human nature', but this is simply wrong. Cooperation and mutual aid are as old as the human spirit itself, and can be seen in many of the family and community values that we support. Rediscovering these values is perhaps the most vital thing we can do to improve our own lives and the lives of others. So perhaps, in the year to come, our personal resolutions should be to ask ourselves at all times what we can be doing to promote cooperation and to help our fellow humans, no matter what race, gender, age, or class they happen to be. And with that, I wish you a happy new year and hope you'll join us for the journey.

NRGLab, Ana Shell Fund, financial crisis, environmental protection, fossil fuels, renewable energy, new year

Extreme extraction

A few weeks ago, during the latest round of international climate negotiations, the Polish delegation (who were hosting the meeting) claimed that climate change might actually be a good thing – particularly because it could melt much of the ice in the so-called northwestern passage between Canada and the Arctic. This, they argued, would make international shipping easier, but would also provide better access to much of the offshore oil that is thought to lie under the Arctic Ocean.

This is obviously a ridiculous position for a nation state to hold, especially one that was supposed to be hosting an international meeting on climate change at the time. However, while Poland's idea was seen as risible, the general idea that we should continue to dig up oil from anywhere that we possibly can holds firm among many people. A large number of countries and companies have no problem with the idea of extracting oil from ever more extreme places.

This is the mindset that has led to the tar sands developments in northern Alberta, Canada. Tar sands are difficult to get out of the ground, and still take a huge amount of processing even once they've been dug up – yet we seem happy to pay the price, as long as we get more oil. It is the mindset that has led companies from Russia and the UK to start drilling in waters in the Arctic Ocean. An oil spill in these regions would be disastrous to local wildlife and incredibly difficult to clean up, but this seems to be of no matter to these corporations – indeed, Russia went as far as arresting 30 people in international waters after they protested against one of the offshore drilling rigs. It seems the power of the state is just as strongly invested as the corporations in the continuation of the oil age.

This is because both the states and the companies desire the continuation of the status quo by any means necessary. They benefit from a society which is hooked on cheap fuel – cheap fuel which supports the production necessary for a consumer society, and helps maintain the dominant position of certain people and certain countries, and the subjection of others. There are a few clear winners from this state of affairs, but there are just as many losers around the world – and I don't just mean the people who will be most affected by the climatic changes caused by burning all those fossil fuels.

The Arctic, and other remote but oil-rich regions like the tar sands area around the Athabasca river in Canada, have people living in them. These people have led simple but dignified lives in these areas for centuries, if not millennia. The Inuit, for example, have built their lives in some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth by following nature's rhythms and catching fish and mammals. This way of life is threatened by oil drilling that will destroy the natural order of ecosystems in the area. Even those of us living more conventional lives lose out from this rush for oil – we pay more and more at the gas pump just to get to and from work, we breathe in more and more pollution from the air around us, and we see more and more government money go on supporting the oil industry rather than providing essential services to people who need them.

This is what NRGLab is struggling against, particularly with our work on alternative energy. We don't believe human civilization should be so reliant on such an outdated form of energy, one which causes such destruction to the environment, and requires such damage to human lifestyles and livelihoods the world over. And we'd love to hear from you if you agree with us, and if you think you have the necessary skills to help fight back.

climate negotiations, Polish delegation, oil spill, Arctic ocean, fossil fuels, oil drilling, NRGLab

Are you being fooled by “renewable” energy?

The green energy movement comes with its own unique language. Words like “renewable” are often thrown around without wondering if people actually understand them. Turns out most of today’s “renewable” technologies aren't all that – well, renewable.

Are you being fooled?

When I say “renewable” energy, I’m talking about energy that doesn’t increase pollution, doesn’t deplete natural resources, and can be produced within the planet’s annual solar budget. By this broad definition, practically none of today’s existing “renewable” energy sources strictly qualify. In some instances, renewable alternatives could never be viable sources of energy without the fossil fuel inputs on which they’re based. In such instances, these alternatives aren’t truly “renewable” due to their fossil fuel dependence.

Take wind turbines, for example. The turbines themselves are made of steel, which is produced courtesy of coal. They’re anchored by concrete, the production of which is a major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions.

Wind turbines, as well as solar panels, are produced with limited rare earth elements. Even crops for fuel production are typically grown with pesticides and herbicides derived from petroleum and fertilizer made from natural gas.
“What about corn-ethanol?” you ask. “Isn’t that all-natural and renewable?”

Well, corn-ethanol is produced using electricity generated from natural gas or coal, and processed with steam derived from natural gas. Biodiesels in general are normally produced using an oil feedstock derived from methanol. Many advanced biofuels depend on hydrogen, which is made almost exclusively from natural gas.

Turns out these “all-natural” sources of energy aren’t so “all-natural” after all.

Technology that consumes limited resources, degrades topsoil, depletes aquifers faster than they can be revitalized, or causes pollution to build up in the ecosystem is frequently called renewable, but it isn’t practically sustainable.

And that’s what the world needs – a sustainable plan for the future.

As with most things in life, we have to make trade-offs when it comes to green energy technology. Generally those trade-offs are economic. We’re forced to consume fossil fuels during the production of renewable alternatives in order to keep consumer prices stable. But renewable energy that depletes resources will ultimately pose the same threat as fossil fuels. It’s time we turned “renewable” into “sustainable.”

NRGLab is heavily invested in making green energy technology sustainable for the entire world. For information on projects like the polycrystalline SH-Box, or the SV-Turbine for the efficient conversion of agricultural waste into useable fuel, visit nrglab.asia.

green energy, renewable energy, NRGLab, natural resources, fossil fuels, energy sources, generate electricity, SH-box

Germany’s push for green energy putting stress on consumers

Germany’s attempt to transition away from fossil fuels and shut down the country’s nuclear power plants has proven more arduous than originally anticipated.

Over 30 wind turbines off the Coast of Borkum Island in the North Sea won’t be operational until next year, and the project is currently running into some costly obstacles. As the newly constructed turbines turn, they remain unconnected to an energy grid in desperate need of expansion. And despite the country’s best efforts, carbon emission levels actually rose last year! (Reserve coal-burning plants were forced to go back online in order to close the gap in energy supply and demand.)

In the meantime, German families are being hit by rapidly increasing electricity prices, to the point where an alarming number can no longer afford to pay their monthly utility bills. Small business owners are growing worried that rising energy costs will essentially put them out of business. Some energy-intensive businesses have even begun to shy away from Germany for fear that they’ll be at a disadvantage on the global market.

“Often times, I don’t go into my living room in order to save electricity,” says Olaf Taeuber, a small business owner in Berlin. “You feel the pain in your pocketbook.”

Taeuber relies on a single five-watt bulb to light his kitchen when he comes home from work. In times of emergency, he switches on a neon tube, which consumes all of 25 watts.

So what you probably use to light your closet, Taeuber uses to light his kitchen!

Taeuber is only one of a number of Germans suffering to survive the country’s ambitious energy reformation.  But because the project has unilateral political support, there has been no publ backlash during the current election campaign.

In the emotional aftermath of the nuclear disaster in Japan back in 2011, Chancellor Merkel, of the conservative and pro-business Christian Democrats, decided to make a push for green energy. It calls for Germany to close all nuclear power plants by the year 2022 and transition almost entirely to alternative energy sources by 2050.

The chancellor’s gamble could prove to be her most lasting domestic legacy – or it could turn out to be an utter failure!

According to government estimates, the final cost of the project is expected land somewhere around $735 billion. Yet as the project’s variables have grown, so too have the costs for consumers.

Can't there be a way to transition towards renewable energy without hurting people and families? NRGLab thinks so. Visit nrglab.asia to see what we've got cooking up in innovative green technology.


green energy, coast of Borklum island, NRGLab, coal-burning plants, Chancellor Merkel, fossil fuels, nuclear power plants

Another oil spill?! This time in Thailand

It’s cleanup Day 6 in Thailand, where one of the country’s largest oil and gas companies has yet to atone for ANOTHER oil spill.

I feel like I’m starting to sound like a broken record – every week, I’m writing about some new oil spill and the havoc it wreaks. When will the world learn?

This past Saturday, a rupture in a pipeline operated by PTT Global Chemical spilled roughly 13,000 gallons (or 50,000 liters) of crude oil into the Gulf of Thailand.

The spill washed up off Samet Island, a resort that draws a million tourists annually to its exotic beaches.

"This is a failure to solve a problem by a company that earns hundreds of billions [of dollars] every year, using the country's natural resources," says Sathit Pitutecha, a member of Thailand’s parliament. "I wouldn't criticize if this was the first time, but it's the fourth time already. Now the people of Rayong have to bear the burden of risk from the industrial sector."

That’s right – it’s the FOURTH spill the company has had to answer for. Back in 2009, a subsidiary of PTT was involved in the Montara oil spill, one of Australia's worst oil disasters.

Thursday, authorities claimed that oil slicks remained onshore. PTT Global Chemical flew oil spill management experts from Singapore to the site, but failed to stop the spill from spreading.

“We've worked day and night to clean up the bay," says Boworn Vongsinudom, President of PTTGC. "It was supposed to be finished, as we aimed, on the third day, but more oil came in from another spot, so we had to take care of it, too."

Stop Global Warming, an environmental advocacy group based out of Thailand, is accusing the company of being ill-informed and ill-prepared for the disaster.

"The transfer of crude oil through the pipeline takes place every day, but when an oil spill happens, PTTGC tackled it with unbelievably limited resources," claims Srisuwan Janya, head of SGW. "This shows their solutions are inefficient and not enough."

PTT is Thailand's largest energy supplier and one of the largest oil and gas conglomerates in Southeast-Asia.

When will the world learn? Fossil fuels are simply too dangerous to lead us into the future. Let’s stop reading about disasters and death, and let’s start reading about technological innovation.

To start, visit nrglab.asia, and check out our slate of alternative energy projects that are sure to take the world by storm. A good storm, that is.