Hydropower firm eyes rival

BC Hydro Rate Freeze delivers immediate relief on electricity rates in British Columbia, reversing a planned 3% hike, as BCUC oversight, a utility review, and Site C project debates shape provincial energy policy.

Key Points

A one-year provincial policy halting BC Hydro electricity rate hikes while a utility review finds cost savings.

✅ Freeze replaces planned 3% hike approved by BCUC.

✅ Government to conduct comprehensive BC Hydro review.

✅ Critics warn $150M revenue loss impacts capital projects.

British Columbia's NDP government has announced it will freeze BC Hydro rates effective immediately, fulfilling a key election promise.

Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Minister Michelle Mungall says hydro rates have gone up by more than 24 per cent in the last four years and by more than 70 per cent since 2001, reflecting proposals such as a 3.75% increase over two years announced previously.

"After years of escalating electricity costs, British Columbians deserve a break on their bills," Mungall said in a news release.

BC Hydro had been approved by the B.C. Utilities Commission to increase the rate by three per cent next year, but Mungall said it will pull back its request in order to comply with the freeze.

In the meantime, the government says it will undertake a comprehensive review of the utility meant to identify cost-savings measures for customers often asked to pay an extra $2 a month on electricity bills.

The Liberal critic, Tracy Redies, says the one year rate freeze is going to cost BC Hydro, calling it a distraction from the bigger issue of the future of the Site C project and the oversight of a BC Hydro fund surplus as well.

"A one year rate freeze costs Hydro $150 million," Redies said. "That means there's $150 million less to invest in capital projects and other investments that the utility needs to make."

"This is putting off decisions that should be made today to the future."

Recommendations from the review — including possible new rates — will be implemented starting in April 2019.

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Ontario Utilities Hurricane Irma Aid mobilizes Hydro One and Toronto Hydro crews to Tampa Bay, Florida, restoring power outages with bucket trucks, lineworkers, and mutual aid alongside Florida Power & Light after catastrophic damage.

Key Points

Mutual aid sending Hydro One and Toronto Hydro crews to Florida to restore power after Hurricane Irma.

✅ 205 workers, 52 bucket trucks, 30 support vehicles deployed

✅ Crews assist Tampa Bay under FPL mutual aid agreements

✅ Weeks-long restoration projected after catastrophic outages

Hurricane Irma has left nearly 7 million homes in the southern United States without power and two Ontario hydro utility companies are sending teams to help out as part of Canadian power crews responding to the disaster.

Toronto Hydro is sending 30 staffers to aid in the restoration efforts in Tampa Bay while Hydro One said Sunday night that it would send 175 employees after receiving a request from Florida Power and Light.

“I've been on other storms down in the states and they are pretty happy to see you especially when they find out you're from Canada,” Dean Edwards, one of the Hydro One employees heading to Florida, told CTV Toronto.

Most of the employees are expected to cross the border on Monday afternoon and arrive Wednesday.

Among the crews, Hydro One says it will send 150 lines and forestry staff, as well as 25 supporting resources, including mechanics, to help. Crews will bring 52 bucket trucks to Florida, as well as 30 other vehicles, reflecting their Ontario storm restoration experience with large-scale deployments, and pieces of equipment to transport and replace poles.

Hurricane Irma has claimed at least 45 lives in the Caribbean and United States thus far. Officials estimate that restoring power to Florida will take weeks to bring power back online.

“I’m sure a lot of people wish they could go down and help, fortunately our job is geared towards that so we're going to go down there to do our best and represent Canada,” said Blair Clarke, who’s making his first trip over the border.

Hydro One has reciprocal arrangements with other North American utilities to help with significant power outages, and its employees have provided COVID-19 support in Ontario as part of broader emergency efforts. All the costs are covered by the utility receiving the help.

In the past, the utility has sent crews to Massachusetts, Michigan, Florida, Ohio, Vermont, Washington, DC, and the Carolinas, while Sudbury Hydro crews have worked to reconnect service after storms at home as well. In 2012, 225 Hydro One employees travelled to Long Island, N.Y., to help out with Hurricane Sandy.

“This is what our guys and gals do,” Natalie Poole-Moffat, vice president of Corporate Affairs for Hydro One, told CP24. “They’re fabulous at it and we’re really proud of the work they do.”

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Australia's greenhouse gas emissions rose in Q2 as electricity and transport pollution increased, despite renewable energy growth. Net zero targets, carbon dioxide equivalent metrics, and land use changes underscore mixed trends in decarbonisation.

Key Points

About 499-500 Mt CO2-e annually, with a 2% quarterly rise led by electricity and transport.

✅ Q2 emissions rose to 127 Mt from 124.4 Mt seasonally adjusted

✅ Electricity sector up to 41.6 Mt; transport added nearly 1 Mt

✅ Land use remains a net sink; renewables expanded capacity

Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions rose in the June quarter by about 2% as pollution from the electricity sector and transport increased.

Figures released on Tuesday by the Morrison government showed that on a year to year basis, emissions for the 12 months to last June totalled 498.9m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. That tally was down 2.1%, or 10.8m tonnes compared with the same period a year earlier.

However, on a seasonally adjusted quarterly basis, emissions increased to 127m tonnes, or just over 2%, from the 124.4m tonnes reported in the March quarter. For the year to March, emissions totalled 494.2m tonnes, underscoring the pickup in pollution in the more recent quarter even as global coal power declines worldwide.

A stable pollution rate, if not a rising one, is also implied by the government’s release of preliminary figures for the September quarter. They point to 125m tonnes of emissions in trend terms for the July-September months, bringing the year to September total to about 500m tonnes, the latest report said.

The government has made much of Australia “meeting and beating” climate targets. However, the latest statistics show mostly emissions are not in decline despite its pledge ahead of the Glasgow climate summit that the country would hit net zero by 2050, and AEMO says supply can remain uninterrupted as coal phases out over the next three decades.

“Nothing’s happening except for the electricity sector,” said Hugh Saddler, an honorary associate professor at the Australian National University. Once Covid curbs on the economy eased, such as during the current quarter, emission sources such as from transport will show a rise, he predicted.

Falling costs for new wind and solar farms, with the IEA naming solar the cheapest in history worldwide, are pushing coal and gas out of electricity generation, as well as pushing down power prices. In seasonally adjusted terms, though, emissions for that sector rose from 39.7m tonnes the March quarter to 41.6m in the June one.

Most other sectors were steady, with pollution from transport adding almost 1m tonnes in the June quarter.

On an annual basis, a 500m tonnes tally is the lowest since records began in the 1990s, and IEA reported global emissions flatlined in 2019 for context. That lower trajectory, though, is lower due much to the land sector remaining a net sink even as some experts raise questions about the true trends when it comes to land clearing.

According to the government, this sector – known as land use, land-use change and forestry – amounted to a net reduction of emissions of 24.4m tonnes, or almost negative 5% of the national total, in the year to June.

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“The magnitude of this net sink has decreased by 0.6% (0.2 Mt CO2-e) on the previous 12 months due to an increase in emissions from agricultural soils, partially offset by a continuing decline in land clearing emissions,” the latest report said.

For its part, the government also touted the increase of renewable energy, as seen in Canada's electricity progress too, as central to driving emissions lower.

“Since 2017, Australia’s consumption of renewable energy has grown at a compound annual rate of 4.6%, with more than $40bn invested in Australia’s renewable energy sector,” Angus Taylor, the federal energy minister said, while UK net zero policy changes show a different approach. “Last year, Australia deployed new solar and wind at eight times the global per capita average.”

ANU’s Saddler said the main driver had been the 2020 Renewable Energy Target that the Coalition government had cut, and had anyway been implemented “a very considerable time ago”.

Tim Baxter, the Climate Council’s senior researcher, said “the time for leaning on the achievements of others is long since past”.

“We need a federal government willing to step up on emissions reductions and take charge with real policy, not wishlists,” he said, referring to the government’s net zero plan to rely on technologies to cut pollution in pursuit of a sustainable electric planet in practice, some of which don’t exist now.

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Methane Hydrate CO2 Sequestration uses carbon capture and nitrogen injection to swap gases in seafloor hydrates along the Gulf of Mexico, releasing methane for electricity while storing CO2, according to new simulation research.

Key Points

A method injecting CO2 and nitrogen into hydrates to store CO2 while releasing methane for power.

✅ Nitrogen aids CO2-methane swap in hydrate cages, speeding sequestration

✅ Gulf Coast proximity to emitters lowers transport and power costs

✅ Revenue from methane electricity could offset carbon capture

The world is quickly realizing it may need to actively pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to stave off the ill effects of climate change. Scientists and engineers have proposed various carbon capture techniques, but most would be extremely expensive—without generating any revenue. No one wants to foot the bill.

One method explored in the past decade might now be a step closer to becoming practical, as a result of a new computer simulation study. The process would involve pumping airborne CO2 down into methane hydrates—large deposits of icy water and methane right under the seafloor, beneath water 500 to 1,000 feet deep—where the gas would be permanently stored, or sequestered. The incoming CO2 would push out the methane, which would be piped to the surface and burned to generate electricity, whether sold locally or via exporters like Hydro-Que9bec to help defray costs, to power the sequestration operation or to bring in revenue to pay for it.

Many methane hydrate deposits exist along the Gulf of Mexico shore and other coastlines. Large power plants and industrial facilities that emit CO2 also line the Gulf Coast, where EPA power plant rules could shape deployment, so one option would be to capture the gas directly from nearby smokestacks, keeping it out of the atmosphere to begin with. And the plants and industries themselves could provide a ready market for the electricity generated.

A methane hydrate is a deposit of frozen, latticelike water molecules. The loose network has many empty, molecular-size pores, or “cages,” that can trap methane molecules rising through cracks in the rock below. The computer simulation shows that pushing out the methane with CO2 is greatly enhanced if a high concentration of nitrogen is also injected, and that the gas swap is a two-step process. (Nitrogen is readily available anywhere, because it makes up 78 percent of the earth’s atmosphere.) In one step the nitrogen enters the cages; this destabilizes the trapped methane, which escapes the cages. In a separate step, the nitrogen helps CO2 crystallize in the emptied cages. The disturbed system “tries to reach a new equilibrium; the balance goes to more CO2 and less methane,” says Kris Darnell, who led the study, published June 27 in the journal Water Resources Research. Darnell recently joined the petroleum engineering software company Novi Labs as a data scientist, after receiving his Ph.D. in geoscience from the University of Texas, where the study was done.

A group of labs, universities and companies had tested the technique in a limited feasibility trial in 2012 on Alaska’s North Slope, where methane hydrates form in sandstone under deep permafrost. They sent CO2 and nitrogen down a pipe into the hydrate. Some CO2 ended up being stored, and some methane was released up the same pipe. That is as far as the experiment was intended to go. “It’s good that Kris [Darnell] could make headway” from that experience, says Ray Boswell at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, who was one of the Alaska experiment leaders but was not involved in the new study. The new simulation also showed that the swap of CO2 for methane is likely to be much more extensive—and to happen quicker—if CO2 enters at one end of a hydrate deposit and methane is collected at a distant end.

The technique is somewhat similar in concept to one investigated in the early 2010s by Steven Bryant and others at the University of Texas. In addition to numerous methane hydrate deposits, the Gulf Coast has large pools of hot, salty brine in sedimentary rock under the coastline. In this system, pumps would send CO2 down into one end of a deposit, which would force brine into a pipe that is placed at the other end and leads back to the surface. There the hot brine would flow through a heat exchanger, where heat could be extracted and used for industrial processes or to generate electricity, supporting projects such as electrified LNG in some markets. The upwelling brine also contains some methane that could be siphoned off and burned. The CO2 dissolves into the underground brine, becomes dense and sinks further belowground, where it theoretically remains.

Either system faces big practical challenges, and building shared CO2 storage hubs to aggregate captured gas is still evolving. One is creating a concentrated flow of CO2; the gas makes up only .04 percent of air, and roughly 10 percent of the smokestack emission from a typical power plant or industrial facility. If an efficient methane hydrate or brine system requires an input that is 90 percent CO2, for example, concentrating the gas will require an enormous amount of energy—making the process very expensive. “But if you only need a 50 percent concentration, that could be more attractive,” says Bryant, who is now a professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at the University of Calgary. “You have to reduce the [CO2] capture cost.”

Another major challenge for the methane hydrate approach is how to collect the freed methane, which could simply seep out of the deposit through numerous cracks and in all directions. “What kind of well [and pipe] structure would you use to grab it?” Bryant asks.

Given these realities, there is little economic incentive today to use methane hydrates for sequestering CO2. But as concentrations rise in the atmosphere and the planet warms further, and as calls for an electric planet intensify, systems that could capture the gas and also provide energy or revenue to run the process might become more viable than techniques that simply pull CO2 from the air and lock it away, offering nothing in return.

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Rising Greenhouse Gas Concentrations drive climate change, with CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide surging; WMO data show higher radiative forcing, elevated pre-industrial baselines, and persistent atmospheric concentrations despite Paris Agreement emissions pledges.

Key Points

Increasing atmospheric CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide levels that raise radiative forcing and drive warming.

✅ WMO data show CO2 at 407.8 ppm in 2018, above decade average

✅ Methane and nitrous oxide surged, elevating total radiative forcing

✅ Concentrations differ from emissions; sinks absorb about half

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says the increase in CO2 was just above the average rise recorded over the last decade.

Levels of other warming gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, have also surged by above average amounts.

Since 1990 there's been an increase of 43% in the warming effect on the climate of long lived greenhouse gases.

The WMO report looks at concentrations of warming gases in the atmosphere rather than just emissions.

The difference between the two is that emissions refer to the amount of gases that go up into the atmosphere from the use of fossil fuels, such as burning coal for coal-fired electricity generation and from deforestation.

Concentrations are what's left in the air after a complex series of interactions between the atmosphere, the oceans, the forests and the land. About a quarter of all carbon emissions are absorbed by the seas, and a similar amount by land and trees, while technologies like carbon capture are being explored to remove CO2.

Using data from monitoring stations in the Arctic and all over the world, researchers say that in 2018 concentrations of CO2 reached 407.8 parts per million (ppm), up from 405.5ppm a year previously.

This increase was above the average for the last 10 years and is 147% of the "pre-industrial" level in 1750.

The WMO also records concentrations of other warming gases, including methane and nitrous oxide, and some countries have reported declines in certain potent gases, as noted in US greenhouse gas controls reports, though global levels remain elevated. About 40% of the methane emitted into the air comes from natural sources, such as wetlands, with 60% from human activities, including cattle farming, rice cultivation and landfill dumps.

Methane is now at 259% of the pre-industrial level and the increase seen over the past year was higher than both the previous annual rate and the average over the past 10 years.

Nitrous oxide is emitted from natural and human sources, including from the oceans and from fertiliser-use in farming. According to the WMO, it is now at 123% of the levels that existed in 1750.

Last year's increase in concentrations of the gas, which can also harm the ozone layer, was bigger than the previous 12 months and higher than the average of the past decade.

What concerns scientists is the overall warming impact of all these increasing concentrations. Known as total radiative forcing, this effect has increased by 43% since 1990, and is not showing any indication of stopping.

There is no sign of a slowdown, let alone a decline, in greenhouse gases concentration in the atmosphere despite all the commitments under the Paris agreement on climate change and the ongoing global energy transition efforts," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.

"We need to translate the commitments into action and increase the level of ambition for the sake of the future welfare of mankind," he added.

"It is worth recalling that the last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was three to five million years ago. Back then, the temperature was 2-3C warmer, sea level was 10-20m higher than now," said Mr Taalas.

The UN Environment Programme will report shortly on the gap between what actions countries are taking to cut carbon, for example where Australia's emissions rose 2% recently, and what needs to be done to keep under the temperature targets agreed in the Paris climate pact.

Preliminary findings from this study, published during the UN Secretary General's special climate summit last September, indicated that emissions continued to rise during 2018, although global emissions flatlined in 2019 according to the IEA.

Both reports will help inform delegates from almost 200 countries who will meet in Madrid next week for COP25, following COP24 in Katowice the previous year, the annual round of international climate talks.

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Municipal Renewable Energy Procurement surged as cities contracted 3.7 GW of solar and wind, leveraging green tariffs, community solar, and utility partnerships across the Southeast, led by Houston, RMI, and WRI data.

Key Points

The process by which cities contract solar and wind via utilities or green tariffs to meet climate goals.

✅ 3.7 GW procured in 2020, nearly 25% year-over-year growth

✅ Houston runs city ops on 500 MW solar, a record purchase

✅ Southeast cities use green tariffs and community solar

Cities around the country bought more renewable energy last year than ever before, reflecting how renewables may soon provide one-fourth of U.S. electricity across the grid, with some of the most remarkable projects in the Southeast, according to new data unveiled Thursday.

Even amid the pandemic, about eight dozen municipalities contracted to buy nearly 3.7 gigawatts of mostly solar and wind energy — enough to power more than 800,000 homes. The figure is almost a quarter higher than the year before.

Half of the cites listed as “most noteworthy” in Thursday’s release —  from research groups Rocky Mountain Institute and World Resources Institute — are in the region that stretches from Texas to Washington, D.C. 

Houston stands out for the sheer enormity of its purchase: In July, it began powering city operations entirely from nearly 500 megawatts of solar power — the largest municipal purchase of renewable energy ever in the United States, as renewable electricity surpassed coal nationwide.

The groups also feature smaller deals in North Carolina and Tennessee, achieved through a utility partnership called a green tariff.

“We wanted to recognize that Nashville and Charlotte were really blazing a new trail,” said Stephen Abbott, principal at the Rocky Mountain Institute.

And the nation’s capital shows how renewable energy can be a source of revenue: It’s leasing out its public transit station rooftops for 10 megawatts of community solar.

All of these strategies will be necessary for scores of U.S. cities to meet their ambitious climate goals, researchers believe. An interactive clean energy targets tracker shows all 95 clean energy procurements from the year in detail.

Tracker 
Even before former President Donald Trump promised to remove the United States from the Paris Climate Accord, a lack of federal action on climate left a void that some cities and counties were beginning to fill, as renewables hit a record 28% in a recent month. In 2015, the first year tracked by researchers at the Rocky Mountain Institute and the World Resources Institute, municipalities contracted to buy more than 1 gigawatt of wind, solar and other forms of clean energy. 

But when Trump officially set in motion the withdrawal from the climate agreement, the ranks of municipalities dedicated to 100% clean energy multiplied. Today there are nearly 200 of them. The growth in activity last year reflects, in part, that surge of new pledges.

“It takes a while to get city staff up to speed and understand the options, and create the roadmap and then start executing,” Abbott said. “There is a bit of a lag, but we’re starting to see the impact.”

Even in Houston — one of the earliest to begin procuring renewable energy — there has been a steep learning curve as market forces change and prices drop, including cheaper solar batteries shaping procurement strategies, said Lara Cottingham, Houston’s chief of staff and chief sustainability officer.

No matter how well resourced and educated their staff, cities have to clear a thicket of structural, political and economic challenges to procure renewable energy. Most don’t own their own sources of power. Nearly all face budget constraints. Few have enough land or government rooftops to meet their goals within city limits.

“Cities face a situation where it’s a square peg in a round hole,” Cottingham said.

The hurdles are especially steep in much of the Southeast, where only publicly regulated utilities can sell electricity to retail customers, even large ones such as major cities. That’s where a green tariff regime comes in: Cities can purchase clean energy from a third party, such as a solar company, using the utility as a go-between.

Early last year, Charlotte became the largest city to use such a program, partnering with Duke Energy and two North Carolina solar developers to build a solar farm 50 miles north in Iredell County. At first, the city will pay a premium for the energy, but in the latter half of the 20-year contract, as gas prices rise, it will save money compared to business as usual.

“Over the course of 20 years, it’s projected we would save about $2 million,” Katie Riddle, sustainability analyst with Charlotte, told the Energy News Network last year.

The growing size of projects, innovative partnerships like green tariff programs, and the improving economics all give Abbott hope that renewable energy investments from cities will only grow — even with the Trump presidency over and the country back in the Paris agreement.

And when cities meet their goals for procuring renewable energy for their own operations, they must then turn to an even bigger task: reducing the carbon footprint of every person in their jurisdiction with broader decarbonization strategies and community engagement.

“The city needs to do its part for sure,” said Houston’s Cottingham. “Then we have this challenge of how do we get everyone else to.”

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