Climate Change and Renewable Energy News and Discussion

Hydrogen is kind of pointless for cars though. At best you would use it to replace diesel in trucks and maybe trains.
But there are a lot of other possible hydrocarbons you could use with fuel cells that in theory would be much easier to store.
There are Methanol Fuel Cells for example.

massive increase in hydrogen and electrolysis capacity achieved in 2023. This is the next solar and EV change for China. Again, needed for energy security

The full year 2023 figures. Astonishing numbers that not only showed 216GW of increase in solar but 75GW of wind


I'm almost just shocked at how much wind increased in that last month

The question that must be raised is if China even needs Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline that Poutine is hoping for. Seems like he is operating under false premises.

Thermal share in overall capacity in nominal units is not much relevant, considering terribly low utilization rate of solar capacity, and also pretty low of wind (only nuclear has higher utilization rate than thermal), so overall electricity generation in GWh/TWh would be much more realistic, and thermal there would have considerably higher share.

mossen said:

The question that must be raised is if China even needs Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline that Poutine is hoping for. Seems like he is operating under false premises.

Click to expand...

Would you rather continue being dependent on LNG imports from Australia, United States, and Qatar which can be blockaded?



Also, China needs something to cover the variability in energy supply from wind and solar. They are already building pumped storage but neither can build it everywhere, nor is it particularly cheap either. The main areas for solar and wind power generation vs hydropower (which could offer pumped storage) are also basically at opposite sides of the country.

mossen said:

The question that must be raised is if China even needs Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline that Poutine is hoping for. Seems like he is operating under false premises.

Click to expand...

according to this, they will be getting to 85 bcm/year through central asian pipeline.


or 80 bcm/year is the capacity if you read interfax
so 55 bcm from a+b+c and 25bcm with line d, 65 bcm of which from Turkmenistan

POS1 + eastern line is 48 bcm

I don't really see the need for POS2. That's probably why nothing has been signed.

The question is how fast you can replace coal with natural gas or how willing they are to do that.

The Chinese gas industry seems to have a different idea than you though.

"A key construction project of the China-Russia east-route natural gas pipeline was completed on Saturday. It will allow Russian gas to cross the Yangtze River to reach Shanghai, laying the foundation for the full completion of the landmark China-Russia energy cooperation project.

The under-river tunnel across the Yangtze River, a key control project of the pipeline, was completed after 28 months of construction, according to PipeChina.

The tunnel has a length of 10.226 kilometers and is designed with three natural gas pipelines with a diameter of 1,422 millimeters each, according to media reports."

Just for reference this is the same pipeline diameter as used in the Yamal gas pipeline which has a capacity of 33 bcm/y. They basically placed pipelines with capacity of 99 bcm/y there. This would not be happening if they did not expect a massive increase in gas flow in the future. It is expensive to dig tunnels and they seem to be planning ahead.

You would not need basically 99 bcm/y capacity just to cover the gas flow from Power of Siberia and extension to Vladivostok. Even of the 48 bcm/y that China is getting most of it is going to be used in Northern China including in Beijing area. So why build this huge pipeline network with three pipes under the Yangtze River that connects Beijing to Shanghai with such massive capacity?



Northern China has its own LNG import terminals, as does the South, and the shortest route from Turkmenistan to Beijing does not pass through Shanghai or vice-versa. So that set of pipes with 99 bcm/y capacity would seem to be made purely for imported Russian gas.

This means they expect a huge increase in Russian imports which even Power of Siberia 2 won't cover. More like two Power of Siberia 2 pipelines.

things change over time. in the past 2 year, wind and solar got a lot cheaper and the economics is just hard for natural gas to beat. I think all the LNG terminals are just a waste of money now.

It really depends on if they want to just go coal -> renewables or coal -> NG -> renewables

either way, I don't see any need for 30 year contracts.

At current rate of renewable expansion, they would not need coal fired plant by 2035.