CEP Newsletter

Denmark shows us the way, liquid renewables from solar beyond the lab and lots on lithium

In this issue:

Just a couple of weeks after New Zealand announced a deferral of including agricultural emissions into the ETS, Denmark has shown the way by announcing a carbon dioxide tax for farms. Denmark, like NZ, has a large agricultural sector, especially in pork and dairy. The tax will be applied from 2030 and set at DKr300 (NZ$70) per tonne of CO2e, rising to DKr750 (NZ$176) by 2035. The package comes with offsetting tax breaks on income at 60%, meaning the real cost to farmers will be DKr120 (NZ$28) in 2030, rising to DKr300 (NZ$70) by 2035. On introduction, the tax is predicted to increase the price of a kilo of mince by DKr2 (NZ$0.50), around 3%.

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It was recently reported Australian waste operatives experience over 10,000 fires a year caused by lithium batteries. Australia’s Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association is calling for much more education on the importance of proper disposal and more dedicated recycling facilities to make it easier to dispose of batteries safely. The video in the link shows just how easily a fire can start. Should we be looking at something similar?

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As if to reinforce the potential for harm from lithium batteries, we are sorry to report a fire at a lithium battery plant in Korea early this week has cost the lives of 22 workers. What started as a seemingly small explosion, very similar to that in the previous story, started a chain reaction of exploding batteries and fire which very rapidly grew out of control. It is a stark reminder of the need to maintain good practices and follow manufacturer instructions when using and disposing of lithium batteries.

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Despite the occasional negative news story and the need for vigilance, lithium batteries are destined to become more and more prevalent. Lithium is quite widespread but usually in very small traces meaning economically viable extraction tends be concentrated in relatively few areas, most notably South America. Good news for diversity of supply emerged this week with an announcement from German company EnBW of the extraction of >99.5% pure lithium carbonate from geothermal water. The new technology is also much more sustainable than the evaporation technique used for most current extraction that requires very large volumes of water.

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Lithium-ion batteries are the dominant technology for electricity storage, be it in small devices or potentially grid scale. Bloomberg New Energy Finance has put together a comparison of the costs of lithium batteries for long duration storage against other, emerging technologies and it is increasingly the case that lithium is not the only game in town with other technologies looking quite attractive in comparison. Of course, in smaller applications lithium will remain dominant because of its suitability for storage at small scale and weight advantage.

While most of the developments so far in renewable liquid fuels have been based on conversion of organic matter, German company Synhelion has launched the world’s first industrial scale plant that produces renewable liquid fuels from atmospheric CO2. The plant uses concentrated solar energy, generating temperatures up to 1,500C, as its process heat source, water and can use other feedstocks, although atmospheric or captured CO2 are, arguably the most exciting options. While the process is energy intensive, the syncrude produced is 100% renewable. It does, however. need further refining to be converted into kerosene (for aircraft), petrol or diesel.

fuel site

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