The Utility Strategy Group and FES are to join forces and look forward to holding a series of events in 2010/2011.

Dan Lewis, Chief Executive of FES says;

“FES is very excited to be working together with USG. A highly-respected independent group of industry professionals, over the years, USG have brought together leading thinkers in the energy and utilities sphere and have produced many sterling top quality, thought-provoking events”.

Edward Hyams, Chair of USG says;

“We are delighted that Dan Lewis who has done so much interesting work on energy and organised many high profile think tank events over the last few years has agreed to take on the name of USG together with Future Energy Strategies. FES also brings new capabilities to our evening events. Not least an extensive mailing list, an excellent Advisory Board and a scaleable, integrated IT system.”

This looks awfully similar to another company I came across 5 years ago in 2005, Theodore Bird’s Aerogenerator from Windpower Ltd. – also published in the Guardian in 2008 and reproduced here;

And that’s because it’s the same company but the first image suggests a much simpler design with fewer components which makes sense in these straitened times.

Offshore wind really has a lot of problems like;

1. double the installed cost per megawatt to onshore (£3m v. £1.5m)
2. higher maintenance costs – try getting out to that non-performing turbine in choppy sea conditions
3. the total lack of jack-up barges to install them in the first place
4. there’s no race to finance it – don’t believe the hype

Now back to the theme of the post. I’ve just been reading an excellent book, False Economy by Alan Beattie.  The phrase that sticks in my mind is path dependence. Path dependence, you should understand, is a series of choices made by a species or a company or a person, that can ultimately leads to a dead end. That argues Beattie is what happened to that poster image of the WWF, the Giant Panda. A bear that is incompetent at consuming and reproducing unless in a very narrow environment where it chews bamboo, a low nutrient plant for up to 16 hours a day. Pandas says Beattie, are useless. No wonder they need protection.

Arguably, worldwide, wind turbine manufacturers are stuck on their own Panda-like, subsidy-rich path dependence, the Horizontal Axis wind turbine, classically understood as this;

There’s actually been no serious attempt to build them any bigger than 5 MW in scale since 2005 and  most investors plump for 3 MW turbines. They have reached an evolutionary dead-end. So what’s the alternative?

The case for horizontal axis wind turbines is that they potentially offer;

i) Longer lifespans – up to 40 years rather than 15-25

ii) Higher load factor

iii) Quite low cut-in speeds and much higher cut-out speeds

iv) And much lower financing costs

The proof though is in the pudding – I want to see a big one in action delivering the goods. Let’s not forget that the learning curves of offshore wind 7 years ago were meant to be costs coming down, not doubling as they have done.

And whatever the industry, always be suspicious and ask many questions of someone confidently forecasting falling costs over time thanks to an increase in production – but for the computer and auto industry, it usually doesn’t happen.

A one-stop report for all you need to know on CCS around the world. What is happening, what are the technologies, what are the problems, where are the opportunities?

Complete with tables, charts, and data, this launch paper will provide a timely and authoritative analysis of a technology that has generated plenty of publicity but not enough detail. As featured in the leading trade journal Utility Week and the much-respected  Engineering & Technology Magazine of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.

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Energy analysts, industry stakeholders, investors, policy makers, academics, current and potential customers and suppliers to this nascent industry.

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Executive Summary
Background
Carbon Capture
Political Drivers
Multilateral Problems
Carbon Capture Technology
Carbon Capture – UK
Carbon Capture – ex UK
Transport
Safety
Regulation
Commercial Issues
Financing
The Way Ahead for CCS
Conclusion

Technical Diagrams:

Diagram 1: Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle Process
Diagram 2: Advanced Supercritical Pulverised Coal Boiler/Steam Turbine Diagram 3: Oxyfuel Combustion Process (Used by Vattenfall at Schwarze Pumpe)

Tables:

Table 1: UK Electricity Production between 1970-2007
Table 2: UK Coal and oil-fired plants due to close by 2016
Table 3: UK Nuclear power plants due to close by 2020
Table 4: US/Canada CO2 Emissions and Potential Storage Capacity
Table 5: The World’s Largest Coal Consumers
Table 6: Notable Failed CCS Projects
Table 7: Capital Cost Estimates of Generation Technologies

Boxes:

Box 1 (in Text): Carbon, Carbon Dioxide and Ton(ne)s – Basic Facts
Box 2 (pre Appendix 1): Ireland’s Decarbonisation Challenge

Appendices:

Appendix 1: UK Coal-Fired Plants over 500 MW
Appendix 2: UK Gas-Fired Plants over 500 MW
Appendix 3: 77 Proposed and Planned CCS Plants

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