MAY 22, 2024

Hello! 

In today’s edition:

• Cat visits a (nearly) net-zero natural gas pilot project in Texas.
• A Voices author raises questions about the World Bank’s nuclear positions.
• In our latest Data Dive, Cat underscores China’s dominance in battery making.

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Send your energy photos, story tips and more to news@ciphernews.com.

The NET Power demonstration plant in La Porte, Texas. Photo credit: Cat Clifford, Cipher News.

Inside a (nearly) ‘net-zero’ natural gas plant

BY: CAT CLIFFORD

LA PORTE, TEXAS – Walking around the NET Power pilot facility in La Porte, Texas, 25 miles outside of Houston, I felt like I was walking through a tubular spaceship. The complex seemed like a plate of pipeline spaghetti to the uninitiated. But pipeline spaghetti it is not. To the contrary. The organization and order of what flows where is of the utmost importance.

“If you’re really trying to capture emissions, you really need to redesign the entire process for the way power is generated in the first place,” NET Power CEO Danny Rice told me in an interview after my tour.

Click here to read the full story about Cat’s trip to visit NET Power in the Lone Star State.

Highlights here:

The company Rice leads is working to commercialize its patented technology to produce power from natural gas in a completely redesigned power plant that captures 97% of carbon dioxide emissions and, critically, produces no nitrous oxide or sulfur oxide pollutants.

While this is a demonstration facility and relatively small compared to a full-sized, natural gas plant (25 megawatts compared to a range of 100 to 1,800 megawatts for a commercial plant), it’s an example of innovative efforts in a small but growing segment of the oil and gas industry to find ways to reduce emissions associated with using their products.

Rice and his brother, Toby, have been in the natural gas world for a long time. They founded Rice Energy, a natural gas producer operating out of the Appalachian Basin, in 2008, and sold the business to another U.S. natural gas company, EQT, for $8.2 billion in 2017. Toby is now the CEO of EQT, one of the largest natural gas producers in the United States.

Danny Rice has a vested interest in developing NET Power and proving natural gas deserves a seat at the decarbonization table. But his thesis for NET Power is also probing around a timely, critical and exceptionally hard problem at the crux of the energy transition.

“We need clean, affordable, reliable power,” Rice told Cipher. “Right now, there’s no energy source in the world that can do all three at scale. Right now, there’s tradeoffs.” Wind and solar are clean and affordable, but not reliable at all hours of the day. Nuclear is reliable and clean, but expensive to build. Meanwhile, natural gas, oil and coal have historically been reliable and affordable but not clean. Rice says NET Power will achieve all three goals.

Whether NET Power can deliver this trifecta at scale is tantalizing, but unknown. “We need to pursue technologies like this, because they offer some unusual and attractive benefits — if they work,” John Thompson, technology and markets director at Clean Air Task Force, an environmental advocacy organization. It’s still unknown whether the technology will operate reliably and achieve the emissions targets at commercial scale, Thompson says.

NET Power aims to have its first commercial plant operating in west Texas by the end of 2027.

Read the full article on Cipher’s website.

Lunchtime Reads and Hot Takes

Now Form Energy is using its battery tech to clean up iron and steel — Canary Media

Cat’s take: Innovation begets innovation: Form Energy recently received $1 million in funding from the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to commercialize its clean iron processing pathway.

China’s manufacturing pushed emissions sky high. What’s next? — Dialogue Earth

Bill’s take: Lauri Myllyvirta is one of the best analysts of China’s complicated energy transition, and this is an important deep dive into emissions trends in the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter.

Edison Electric Institute to sue Biden admin over climate rule — POLITICO Pro (subscription)

Amena’s take: The EEI, led by Trump's former Energy Secretary, also persuaded the EPA to scrap carbon limits for existing gas-fired power plants, a major source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

The Moloch Trap of Environmental Problems — Sustainability by numbers

Amy’s take: This concept, which posits that some systemic structures further societal harms with the allure of individual gain, is a novel way to look at the problem of climate change from a macro-economic level. The examples in other arenas are also helpful.

Charging stations are failing to keep up with the EV boom — The Washington Post

Cat’s take: As the article points out, about 80% of EV drivers charge at home. But the look at EV charging infrastructure is timely given the recent turmoil around Tesla's Supercharger team.

The High Costs of Tariffs without End — The Wire China

Bill’s take: The risk of tariffs is more than they’ll delay the adoption of critical green technology in the U.S. It’s that after the delay, U.S. products will be both dirty AND uncompetitive.

A Drug for Cows Could Curb Methane Emissions from Meat and Dairy — Bloomberg

Amy’s take: If proven technologically successful, this could be huge given cows already receive vaccines, but it could also become politically controversial like other recent vaccines have — like Covid-19.

Watch out Brussels, Geert Wilders’ new Dutch government is coming — POLITICO

Anca’s take: Since it's a coalition, the far-right party couldn't push through its demand to rip up the country's climate target. However, even the toning down of climate action is seen with big concern.

Seeking Access to Congo’s Metals, White House Aims to Ease Sanctions — The New York Times

Amena’s take: Key quote: "The compromises that world leaders often acquiesce to when efforts to hold individuals accountable for their actions collide with the political and economic interests of their countries."

Europe’s Spending Billions on Green Hydrogen. It’s a Risky Gamble — Bloomberg

Bill’s take: So great has the hype been that Bloomberg decided one story debunking it isn’t enough, and nor even is two. This is the first of THREE stories on the role of hydrogen in the energy transition.

More of what we're reading:

• Climate change impacts millions in India. But as the country votes, some politicians skirt the issue — AP News
• Shell investors back oil major’s move to weaken climate targets — Financial Times (subscription)
• Biden and Big Oil Had a Truce. Now, It’s Collapsing. — The New York Times

We denote ‘(subscription)’ when publications don’t provide any complimentary articles, but many others may ultimately allow you to read only a limited number each month before subscribing. We encourage those who can afford it to support the journalism you love most!

Time to end the World Bank’s nuclear blind spot

Illustration by Nadya Nickels.

BY: TODD MOSS

Todd Moss is executive director of the Energy for Growth Hub and writes the Eat More Electrons Substack. He can be reached at todd@energyforgrowth.org.

Every credible vision of a high-energy, low-carbon future includes a meaningful role for nuclear power.

That’s why last year more than two dozen countries pledged to triple nuclear power by 2030 as an essential step to meeting their goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And that’s why more than 50 countries — rich and poor, from every continent — have taken concrete steps to include nuclear power in their energy mix by 2050 as a way to tackle carbon emissions while generating jobs and economic growth.

Despite growing interest in nuclear technology, the leading international development agency, the World Bank, refuses to even talk about it.

The bank has made only one nuclear-related loan, for a nuclear power plant in Italy in 1959. The retreat since then has, according to my conversations with staff and multiple members of the board, stemmed from concerns over nuclear safety combined with ideological opposition from a small handful of powerful shareholders within the bank. The World Bank’s latest energy policy acknowledges nuclear will be important for the future of many countries but explains the organization has no nuclear expertise and will, by choice, not add any.

Yet today, the World Bank’s absence on nuclear power could hold many countries back from building out this essential technology — and, ironically, slow the acceptance of important safety and governance standards. Luckily, there’s a simple step to get the bank back on track.

Read the full article on Cipher’s website.

China makes most of the world’s batteries

Source: International Energy Agency • DRC = Democratic Republic of Congo. Graphite refining is only refining of natural graphite to spherical graphite (a processed version of the mineral used in batteries). Mining and processing are based on production data. Cathode, anode and batteries are based on manufacturing capacity data.

BY: CAT CLIFFORD

The energy transition depends on batteries and right now, China dominates almost every stage of the process of making them, a recent report from the International Energy Agency makes clear.

China’s overwhelming dominance of the battery supply chain and other critical components of the clean energy transition like electric vehicles and solar cells motivated the Biden Administration to recently increase tariffs on Chinese imports to help give American manufacturers a chance to better compete.

Batteries are a crucial component of electric vehicles and electricity systems that include variable energy sources like wind and solar. As the world tries to triple its renewable energy capacity by 2030, battery storage capacity will need to increase 14 times current levels to 1,200 gigawatts, IEA says.

The first link in the battery supply chain is mining for critical minerals including lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite. This step is more diversified than later stages. While China is home to more than 90% of graphite mining, the Democratic Republic of Congo is home to more than 60% of cobalt mining and Indonesia has more than 50% of the nickel mining.

Once those metals have been extracted, they must be processed into a usable form for battery production. China’s dominance becomes more obvious here: China is home to almost two-thirds of the lithium processing in the world, virtually all graphite processing, almost 80% of cobalt processing and about a third of nickel processing.

Once the materials are processed, they are manufactured into the specific parts that go into a battery, including cathodes (the positive side of the battery) and anodes (the negative side). China makes almost 90% of cathodes and virtually all anodes, the IEA data shows.

China dominates the final stage of the process as well, producing more than 80% of the final battery cells.

AND FINALLY...
Battery bus

I saw this battery-powered city bus while on a recent trip to Spokane, WA to visit family. This new fleet of zero-emission buses launched last summer, according to The Spokesman-Review. Like a lot of local news, that article focused on the convenience and affordability of the bus, as opposed to its carbon footprint.

Each week, we feature a photo that is somehow related to energy, the thing we all need but don’t notice until it’s expensive or gone. Email your ideas and photos to news@ciphernews.com.

Editor’s note: In addition to supporting Cipher, Breakthrough Energy also supports and partners with a range of entities working to tackle climate change, including nonprofits, corporations, startups and research firms. For more information on Cipher’s editorial policy, click here.