BRUSSELS BEHIND THE SCENES
Weekly analysis with Sam Morgan
The battle to decarbonise energy systems and clean up how we keep the lights on is heating up. Momentum is shifting ever more towards clean technologies, as incumbent polluting fuels struggle to keep their green replacements away from their turf.
The clocks have changed and the heat is coming. We are at that point in the year when the impact of climate change is likely to be felt more clearly, as temperature records are set to yet again tumble.
Efforts to halt this downward trend by cleaning up our energy systems continue at a rate of knots. Technologies like solar and wind power are becoming ever more ubiquitous and governments are starting to channel more and more money into their development.
If this were just a matter of making our electricity sources green then we would be in a fairly decent position. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Other fuel sources need to be decarbonised as well.
Thankfully, progress is being made in that domain as well.
BRUSSELS BEHIND THE SCENES includes weekly analysis not found anywhere else, as Sam Morgan helps you make sense of what is happening in Brussels. If you want to receive Brussels Behind the Scenes straight to your inbox every week, subscribe to the newsletter here.
This week, the European Commission released its emissions trading system (ETS) figures for 2023. It showed that power sector emissions had fallen 24% since 2022, largely due to more solar and wind being installed.
A resurgence of nuclear power after an extended period of maintenance, particularly in France, and a better year for hydropower, as droughts had a smaller impact on power capacity, also contributed to that drop.
Cleaner electricity is to be expected though, as it is relatively straightforward to decarbonise power. Stop burning coal and gas, build more turbines, install more solar panels. The path is well signposted, it just needs the right investments.
For heavy industry, it is slightly more complicated, as not every manufacturing technology can be easily swapped out for something electric. Most do have that option but it is more complicated than the power sector’s challenge.
But emissions still dropped by 7% last year. Admittedly, reduced output due to the difficult economic situation and high power prices played a big role but efficiency gains in sectors like cement and steel also played a big part.
As of next year, they will get even more help, as the Commission announced this week that some of those heavy industries will qualify for free carbon permits under the ETS.
If manufacturers elect to produce green hydrogen, ammonia and steel using renewable electricity and new processing technologies, they will be issued with free allowances, which they can then sell on to offset the costs of decarbonisation.
This is a big deal, as it will incentivise firms to make those big capital expenditures on electric arc furnaces for steelmaking and hydrogen-producing electrolysers, safe in the knowledge that they have yet another funding stream to count on.
The ETS may be working wonders for the power and heavy industry sectors, but one area it is failing to rein is in aviation. Intra-EU flights are included in the carbon market and it is bad news on that front.
Emissions rose 10% year-on-year from plane travel, as growth and the sector’s bounceback after the Covid-19 pandemic continued.
But there is hope on the horizon for aircraft emissions. One enigmatic figure may provide the jolt needed to make faster progress towards zero-carbon flight.
Around the world in…
Bertrand Piccard, a Swiss explorer who holds a number of impressive records, is dedicated to showing the potential of clean technologies and ‘defeating the defeatism’ that has crept into the climate debate.
Piccard was the first person to fly solo around the world in a hot air balloon in 1999 with his co-pilot, Brian Jones. He was also the first person to fly around the world in a plane fuelled purely by solar power.
Now he is planning the next instalment of his ‘around the world’ trilogy. Piccard aims to be the first person to fly around the globe in an aircraft powered by hydrogen. The flight is due to take off in 2028.
“It’s a call against pessimism, against defeatism, against this dangerous ideology that there is no future on Earth, that there are no solutions. All of this is completely wrong,” Piccard says in a recent podcast interview.
“Flying around the world, non-stop, in a hydrogen-powered airplane, when everybody thinks it’s impossible, is really important. We have to show that we can do much more than what people think,” he adds.
Design and construction of the plane will last two years and be followed by a further two years of testing before the planned takeoff in 2028.
Back in the 2000s and 2010s, when Piccard was planning the Solar Impulse project – an ultimately successful bid to fly around the world in a plane powered by the sun’s rays – there was a lot of scepticism about the endeavour.
But this time around, with the Climate Impulse project, the sceptics are quieter, clearly silenced by Piccard’s track record of success.
It still will not be easy. Climate Impulse has elected to go with hydrogen over other technology options like electric batteries and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), for a number of reasons.
Batteries get heavier the more range you give them, so their application in long-haul aviation is predicted to be very limited. Piccard expects them to be useful for shorter-range flights but for a round the world trip, they simply are not viable.
SAF can be produced using waste materials like used cooking oil or by combining hydrogen with captured CO2. That makes them chemically identical to conventional jet fuel, meaning there is less need for reengineering of aircraft design.
But as Piccard points out, SAFs can be carbon neutral at best. The captured CO2 is re-released back into the atmosphere when it is combusted in a jet engine. Airlines are already doing this, so it is hardly the grand step forward for clean tech that the Swiss explorer is looking for.
Piccard acknowledges the engineering hurdles that need to be overcome, including but not limited to the storage of hydrogen, which must be kept at a temperature close to zero. It means that the architecture of the plane will have to be radically different.
That is why plane manufacturer Airbus, who is supporting the Climate Impulse project, is taking its time designing a hydrogen-powered airliner that it hopes will be put into operation in 2035.
Entire supply chains need to be set up, plane designs that are radically different from the current generation of aircraft need to be tested and refuelling infrastructure needs to be rolled out at airports. A lot needs to be changed to pull it off.
“I like this paradigm shift, to go into situations where people think it is impossible. Look at all the scepticism, all the people who criticised the beginning of aviation, the beginning of computers, the beginning of the internet, cell phones. Now they all look stupid,” Piccard adds.
BRUSSELS BEHIND THE SCENES includes weekly analysis not found anywhere else, as Sam Morgan helps you make sense of what is happening in Brussels. If you want to receive Brussels Behind the Scenes straight to your inbox every week, subscribe to the newsletter here.
