Shell Peak Oil was 2019. Quo Vadis?

Royal Dutch Shell has announced that it will reduce oil production and that Shell oil production will never top the amount produced in 2019. Hence, Shell peak oil supply was 2019. The company intends to layoff 7-9000 people in the coming 2 years.

So what is next, for the Anglo-Dutch oil giant? Preparing for the retirement home? Not so fast, say many organizations in the Netherlands. Shell is an incredible competent company, that should play a major role in the energy transition. For that purpose it needs to reinvent itself. Shell already said it wants to become “greener”, wants to reduce the carbon-intensity of its products by 35% in 2035. The EU has as its target to increase offshore wind from 12 GW now to 300 GW in 2050 or 10 GW per year. If you realize that Vestas produced 13 GW capacity and Siemens-Gamesa 9 GW, it’s obvious that that goal is realistic. Many want to see that Shell takes over a third manufacturer. With Vestas worth $30B and Siemens-Gamesa $20B, a takeover by Shell would be doable, provided it doesn’t wait too long. Both Vestas and Siemens-Gamesa saw their worth double or more in a single year.

[trouw.nl] – Shell gaat olieproductie verminderen: ‘Nooit meer zo veel als in 2019’
[trouw.nl] – Shell, neem ‘t voortouw en word echt groen

Siemens-Gamesa – “Limit Size Offshore Wind Turbines”

“Enough is enough”, says David Molenaar, CEO of Siemens-Gamesa Renewable Energy Netherlands. The goal of development of offshore wind technology has been achieved to the tune that the market is willing to build offhore wind parks without a dime subsidy. That should be seen as a milestone. With the largest wind turbine in the world on the drawing board, the SG 14-222 DD of 15 MW peak, this might sound strange from a turbine champ like Siemens-Gamesa, but Molenaar wants regulation in place that limits the size of wind turbines.

Instead of developing ever larger turbines, towers and rotor-blades, the industry should concentrate on giving other parts of the industry planning security. Installers for instance want to build ships that will last for decades (editor: and not being forced to upgrade cranes every couple of years). The wind industry should concentrate on being able to guarantee 40 years of operation (editor: rather than 20-25 years).

[technischweekblad.nl] – ‘Begrens de grootte van windturbines’

EnerTwin – Micro Turbine Technology

Micro Turbine Technology (MTT), based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, has worked on a “power station for private homes”, called the EnerTwin, since 2003 and for a couple of years has been successfully selling their multi-patented product, not least in the US.

Their selling item: producing electricity as a by-product of heat-generation. The EnerTwin is a gas-turbine, that apart from natural gas, can be fueled by hydrogen or biogas as well. The company claims that an energy saving cost of up to 25% per year can be realized:

With the EnerTwin, electricity can be generated locally at a cost of €0.06/kWh, rather than the grid price of €0.22-0.30/kWh in several North-West European countries.

MTT is looking for a partner in the US to handle growing US demand for the product.

[mtt-eu.com] – MTT company site
[enertwin.com] – Parallel company site
[ed.nl] – Willy Ahout and his Enertwin

Global Top-13 Green Hydrogen Projects

The Dutch plans are centered around Eemshaven in the North-East

Name	Location	Size (GW)	Date	Cost ($B)
1. Asian Renewable Energy Hub	Australia	14	2028	36
2. NortH2	Netherlands	10+	2040
3. AquaVentus	Germany	10	2035
4. Murchison	Australia	5	2028	10-12
5. Beijing Jingneng Inner Mongolia	China	5	2021	3
6. Helios Green Fuels Project	Saudi-Arabia	4		5
7. Pacific Solar Hydrogen	Australia	3.6
8. H2-Hub Gladstone	Australia	3	2000
9. HyEx	Chile	1.6
10. Geraldton	Australia	1.5
11. Greater Copenhagen	Denmark		2030
12. H2 Sines	Portugal	1	2030	1.5
13. Rostock	Germany	1

Note the great Australian ambitions, complete absence of the US and Japan and merely one Chinese project.

[rechargenews.com] – Gigawatt-scale: the world’s 13 largest green-hydrogen projects

Gravity Light

With gravity and light weights, a pendulum clock can be powered for days. Likewise, a led-light for 20 minutes and 12 kg weight. Works everywhere, anytime.

EU – How to Deploy 450 GW Offshore Wind by 2050

[windeurope.org] – How offshore wind will help Europe go carbon-neutral

[report] – 80p pdf

UK Opts for 100 GW Offshore Wind in 2050

[rechargenews.com] – World’s first national roadmap to net zero by 2050 calls for 100GW backbone of offshore wind

Nel Hydrogen Will Deliver Dutch PosHYdon Electrolysis System

The plan is that a lot of Dutch offshore wind will be transformed into hydrogen at sea, using the extensive fossil fuel pipelines, lying idle on the North Sea floor, to get the hydrogen on shore. Nel Hydrogen of Norway will deliver the required electrolyzers.

[offshorewind.biz] – NEL Hydrogen to Deliver PosHYdon Electrolysis System

Nel Hydrogen electrolyzer

Dutch Renewable Primary Energy Grew with 24% in 2020

[deperslijst.com] – 2020: kwart meer duurzame energie in Nederland
[nu.nl] – Hoeveelheid duurzame energie stijgt in 2020 met een kwart

Perovskite Solar Cells With 29.5% Efficiency

Perovskite solar cells have drawn a lot of academic attention since a decade or so, most of all because it is a cheap technology, efficient not so much.

Until yesterday.

UK-based Oxford PV has announced a breakthrough in achieving 29.5% solar efficiency in a mixed silicon-perovskite solar cell and certified by an external laboratory. That’s big news.

The next step is to get rid of silicon completely, realizing that 35 kg of perovskite generates just as much electricity as 7,000 kilos of silicon. Oh, and silicon is more expensive than perovskite.

Note that in the Arabian desert, solar arrays have been realized that can produce electricity below 2 cent/kWh. And that’s with conventional silicon. Energy problems, what energy problems?

Oxford PV expects to begin to market the new cells in 2022.

Website comment: more proof that the renewable electricity generation problem is gradually being solved, for both wind and solar. The real remaining bottleneck is storage. But with the entire world pursuing that holy grail, rest assured that a satisfactory solution will be found as well.

[oxfordpv.com] – Oxford PV hits new world record for solar cell
[wikipedia.org] – Perovskite solar cell
[pv-magazine.com] – Oxford PV retakes tandem cell efficiency record

*** UPDATE ***

We had missed that on January 30 this year, scientists at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin fuer Materialien und Energie (HZB) had announced a 29.15% conversion efficiency with a perovskite/silicon tandem solar cell. All Oxford PV did was adding another 0.35%.

[renewablesnow.com] – HZB hits 29.15% efficiency with perovskite/silicon tandem cell

Digging deeper:

[helmholtz-berlin.de] – Rekord: Wirkungsgrad von Perowskit-Tandemsolarzelle springt auf 29,15 Prozent

The Germans report that their HZB had achieved several records in the past, like 25.5% by the end of 2018, superseded by Oxford PV with 28%.

We can only applaud this ongoing German-British competition, that is constructive for a change.

[helmholtz-berlin.de] – Perowskit/Silizium Tandemsolarzellen an der Schwelle zu 30 % Wirkungsgrad