CLIMATE & ENERGY BUSINESS DENMARK
THIS IS NOT WASTE PAGE 16
TRANSITION
BUSINESS
CITIES
POLICY
To burn or not to burn
Digitalisation’s trillion dollar promise
Keeping it cool with seawater
History lessons in the cost of energy
PAGE 22
PAGE 28
PAGE 42
PAGE 62
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MORE WITH LESS
A world without waste
FORESIGHT 02 AUTUMN / WINTER 2016
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Forty years ago, a course in the history of economic thought was part and parcel of the graduate syllabus for most budding economists. Today, the subject is often not even available as an optional extra. This is perhaps an indication of the (over)confidence many economists have in the existing models of economic thought. Some, however, recognise that blind belief in the status quo is holding up a much needed rethink. There are signs of change on the way. The use of the most essential of all economic indicators—Gross Domestic Product—is under severe attack from an increasing number of economists and organisations, such as the OECD, the World Bank and the UN. They point out that GDP ignores the costs of pollution and of natural resource degradation, among other factors central to well-being and progress. Change is also coming to the guiding principles of investment. In September, BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, warned that failure to factor climate change into investment decisions would leave companies with no choice but to accept lower returns. The company, which manages more than $4.9 trillion in assets, now estimates firms’ exposure to climate change and calculates their emissions as a percentage of sales. Climate-aware portfolios, BlackRock argues, outperform the market in a time of tighter regulations, faster technological change and increasingly frequent disasters caused by extremes of weather. The decision to include a company's exposure to carbon risk in its valuation echoes a warning made by the Bank of England in 2014 when it looked at the risk of a "carbon bubble" for fossil fuel companies. The bank reasoned that to keep global temperatures from rising more than two degrees above pre-industrial levels (they are half way there now) somewhere between two-thirds and four-fifths of the world’s proven reserves of oil, gas and coal would have stay in the ground as unburnable assets. While the linear growth model of the 19th and 20th centuries— powered by fossil fuels—brought with it enormous value to the whole of society, it is not up to the challenges of the 21st century. The linear value chain of "take, make, use, and dispose" will neither accommodate rising demand from a middle class heading for three billion consumers nor the need to keep pollution at reasonable levels. A new model is needed. Slowly but surely a growing body of decision makers is recognising the intrinsic good sense of the circular economy—reduce, reuse and recycle. Companies alert to the inevitable regulatory changes coming their way will stay ahead of them by mitigating supply risks, potentially saving a lot of money.
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E
NORDIC
LABEL AL
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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
FORESIGHT
Content
KNOWLEDGE
TRANSITION
BUSINESS
CITIES
POLICY
IN BRIEF
WASTE INTO WEALTH
THE TRILLION DOLLAR PROMISE OF DIGITALISATION
KEEPING IT COOL
IS IT REALLY CARBON NEUTRAL?
The circular house, King Coal weakening, Delivering on Paris, Black and green utilities, G20 changing course, Greener energy investment Page 6
THE INVISIBLE MADE VISIBLE
Seeing is believing: step change in 3D wind imaging advances the science of wind turbine engineering Page 8
In the circular economy, the Danish town of Kalundborg is the archetype example of industrial symbiosis Page 16
TO BURN OR NOT TO BURN
Incineration of waste to recover energy must create environmental value to be a better choice than landfill Page 22
WELCOME TO RESOURCE CITY
A long disused industrial site is reborn as a highly advanced waste sorting and recycling centre Page 24
A lot of unexploited value lies in the new ability to collect highly detailed data on electricity use Page 28
SMARTPHONE MARKETED AS AGENT OF CHANGE
First there was district heating, now there is district cooling and in Copenhagen it comes from seawater Page 42
EVERY DROP COUNTS
An ethical mobile phone is not a mass produced disposable product of questionable origin
Tough legislation in Denmark has prompted development of highly advanced technology to detect leaks from the water mains
Page 34
Page 46
BIG BUSINESS DRIVES ENERGY MARKET EXPANSION
RAIN, RAIN COME AGAIN
The world’s major corporations are wielding their enormous power to increase supplies of renewable energy Page 38
A new suburb will recycle its own rainwater to use for washing clothes and flushing toilets Page 47
IPCC author questions burning of biomass Page 58
A MORE NUANCED APPROACH TO CARBON ACCOUNTING
Better methodologies for allocating responsibility for carbon emissions would spark greater effort from underperformers Page 60
HISTORY LESSONS IN THE COST OF ENERGY
Plotting past trends in the cost of electricity clearly shows the way forward Page 62
FORCE OF MAN
Geologists claim man is taking over as a force of nature in new epoch Page 65
FORESIGHT
5
Knowledge
In Brief
Global energy investment fell by 8% in 2015, with a drop in oil and gas upstream spending outweighing continued robust investment in renewables, electricity networks and energy efficiency, according to World Energy Investment 2016. In a first-ever detailed analysis of investment across the global energy system, the International Energy Agency said investment in energy supply in the United States fell nearly $75 billion to about $280 billion in 2015, caused by low oil prices and cost deflation. The fall represents half of the total decline in global energy spending that year. Investment of $313 billion in renewable energy accounted for nearly a fifth of total energy spending last year, establishing renewables as the largest source of energy investment.
G20 economies reach eight per cent renewable energy The world’s 20 largest economies, the G20, are slowly shifting away from dependence on fossil fuels. Over the past five years their share of electricity from renewable energy, excluding hydropower, has increased 70%, to 8% in 2015. In the OECD the share of renewables in total primary energy supply reached 9.7% in 2015. Of potentially most significance is the new wind blowing from China. While the country still builds many coal plant, it is also the world’s largest clean energy market, accounting for close to a third of the $329 billion invested in the sector globally in 2015. After being regarded as a green laggard to Europe and the US for 20-30 years China could in 2015 boast a domestic wind turbine manufacturer, Goldwind, that had sold more capacity that year at home and abroad than any other company. Goldwind’s stated main mission is to reduce China’s fossil fuel dependency rather than to increase market share.
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Black and green divide Several of the big energy companies are turning to renewables. German power giant E.ON has placed its bet on a renewable energy future, choosing to split the company into two, Uniper for conventional energy and E.ON for renewables. The boss of oil major Total, Patrick Pouyanne, has said that renewables will make up 20% of the French company’s assets within 20 years. Earlier this year, Statoil launched a green energy investment fund, pledging $200 million to it over the next seven years. Not all energy majors, however, shares the same belief in renewables. American Exxon sees little reason to diversify and is sticking with oil and gas as its core business. Likewise, BP continues in its core business, which it wholly returned to after Lord Browne left the company in 2007. During his reign as BP boss from 1995 to 2007, Browne made a name for himself by rebranding British Petroleum as “Beyond Petroleum.”
King Coal weakening Coal is losing out globally. Several coal stations in planning have been dropped this year. In March, a total of 338 GW of coal capacity was under construction and 1086 GW in development, according to CoalSwarm, an environmental research group. Since then 14% of planned capacity has been dropped, a reduction of 159 GW, equivalent to nearly all coal capacity in Europe. Most of the shelved development was in China and India. In April, the Chinese government suspended 78 GW of pre-construction coal plant proposals, hinting that it may suspend all new coal plant construction until 2018. In India, the power ministry said in June that no new coal capacity was needed in the next three years beyond that already under construction.
FORESIGHT
ILLUSTRATION Anders Morgenthaler
Less but greener global energy investment
The Circular House At long last even the construction industry is beginning to embrace the principles of the circular economy. The first prototype house built from fully re-useable components, each of them digitally tagged with a QR code from window frames to door fixings, was recently showcased at the UK’s London Design Festival. ˮAs an industry we should aim to eliminate waste and design for re-use,ˮ says Stuart Smith of Arup, a global construction industry company with Danish origins. ˮVery few have tried to apply circular economy principles to the built environment,ˮ he adds. ˮOur aim has been to test if this approach could be widely adopted. ˮThe house is designed to be deconstructed with minimum damage, helping to retain the value of each component. Everything used in the construction is included in a ˮbuilding information modelˮ which acts as a virtual materials database to help others design and build using circular economy principles, says Arup. The Circular Building and accompanying Arup report, ˮThe Circular Economy in the Built Environment,ˮ are part of Arup’s push to accelerate the construction industry’s shift to a circular economy.
Delivering on the Paris promise In the wake of the Paris Agreement signed in December 2015 it was also decided to place a greater burden of responsibility on rich countries than poor countries. Industrialised countries are expected to reduce emissions faster than their developing counterparts and to transfer technology to speed the transition of poorer countries to low carbon economies. To facilitate this, the UN has established the Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN). Since CTCN started to process requests in 2014, the demand for its technical assistance has grown steadily from 15 requests in September 2014 to 148 requests in September 2016. This trend is expected to grow much stronger when the Paris Agreement goes into effect in 2020. FORESIGHT
7
Knowledge
WIND MEASUREMENT ADVANCES
TEXT Berit Viuf, Lyn Harrison / PHOTO Lars Just
THE INVISIBLE MADE VISIBLE
8
FORESIGHT
H
arvesting the wind’s energy sounds like a straightforward task. Hoist a rotor into the air and its blades rotate, turning the attached generator, which produces electricity; the windier the selected location, the more electricity generated. Wind, however, is not just wind. It is a powerful swirling force that bounces off objects in its path, accelerates through valleys, decelerates across plateaus, varies in intensity over the ups and downs of undulating landscapes and reacts both imperceptibly and violently to changes in temperature and pressure. Collecting wind measurements that provide meaningful data for analyses is a largely unsolved challenge in the wind power industry. But a discovery by researchers at the wind division of Denmark’s technical university (DTU) is being heralded as a breakthrough that promises to advance wind turbine design, wind turbine micro-siting and wind farm optimisation. The more the wind’s turbulent patterns are understood, the better a wind turbine can be designed to withstand the huge and varying loads it is subject to while keeping material use to a minimum to save on construction costs. As important for achieving the overall aim of high productivity—at least cost—is to know where to precisely place each wind turbine in relation to the effect its surroundings have on the wind, including the effect of other turbines. In addition, if wind patterns across a wind farm can be mapped in fine detail, each and every turbine’s geometry can be adjusted to maximise the operational efficiency of the entire plant over its full working life. FUNDAMENTAL ADVANCE What has been missing from the science of wind assessment is a way to precisely create three dimensional images in real time of spatial wind flows as they approach and pass through a turbine rotor, both close up and at a distance. The solution to this problem devised by the DTU team is a fundamental advance in the use of laser imaging for wind detection and ranging, commonly known as LIDAR. “It’s a huge leap on the way to full understanding of what the wind does at the heights of today’s modern wind turbines. Other places in the world are working on this type of technology, but DTU is the first to have made a serious breakthrough,” says Henrik Stiesdal, a highly respected wind engineering pioneer and former CTO at Siemens Wind Power. LIDAR provides information on wind speed and direction by capturing and measuring the light reflected from particles of dust as they whirl through the air to create 3D wind maps. Portable LIDAR units have been increasingly used in the wind industry
Inspired by IKEA: Torben Krogh Mikkelsen FORESIGHT
9
Knowledge
LIGHT DAWNS The challenge faced by wind flow modellers in their use of laser imaging, detecting and ranging (LIDAR) was to find a way of capturing the entire spectrum of the wind field around a fixed point to create a perfect 3D image of all the flow patterns surrounding a turbine rotor in real time. To measure such a broad wind spectrum simultaneously required that LIDAR scanners, which visualise dust particles whirling through the air, control a laser beam through two prisms and not just one, as has been standard practice. Two prisms on the same axis, however, would cause the focused light cones to distort. A solution to the problem dawned on Torben Krogh Mikkelsen, wind sensing professor at Denmark’s
10
Technical University (DTU), during a shopping trip to a home furnishings store. In an idle moment his eyes hit upon a lamp on which each prism could be mounted to turn around its own axis, avoiding the problem of distortion. “During a run-of-the-mill visit to IKEA with my wife to buy window blinds I saw this small wall light for a child’s bedroom. It was made in such a way that suddenly I could see how to place the prisms so the focused light cones could pass through both prisms at the same time, with the same point of entry and exit,” says Mikkelsen. His sketch of the concept inspired the development of DTU’s field-leading WindScanner solution (main story), now headed for commercialisation.
FORESIGHT
over the past 15 years as an alternative to the installation of meteorological masts equipped with spinning anemometers. Once wind turbines grew so tall that wind measurements at heights of more than 100 metres became a regular demand, deployment of equally tall met masts became ever more impractical. LIDAR units came into their own. For all the advantages of LIDAR, however, the apparatus has only been able to measure speed and direction from one place at a time using a single scanner. The wind could be measured in front of a wind turbine or behind it, but not both and not from all directions. DTU’s solution, dubbed WindScanner, advances the technology by using up to three scanners. THE BIG DIFFERENCE “Our challenge was to find a way of coordinating and controlling several laser beams to move synchronously while pointing in the same direction at the same place. That enables us to measure the whole wind field, which is what is different about our technology,” says DTU's Torben Krogh Mikkelsen. When data from three scanners is combined, wind speed, wind direction and turbulence can be measured to create a perfect 3D image of the otherwise invisible wind. The DTU team has now developed a range of WindScanner models, from a 3D short range device with a reach of over 150 metres that takes several hundred scans a second to a long range WindScanner that takes fewer scans, but can measure the wind at
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Knowledge
Out on a limb At the forefront of wind technology development is the discovery by Denmarkʼs technical university of how to visualise the entire wind spectrum as it passes through a rotor. DTU researchers can now give Vestas a far better understanding of how its experimental multirotor machine reacts to self-generated turbulence— and whether the turbulence is a help or a hindrance to overall performance. ˮA huge leap,ˮ says wind engineering pioneer Henrik Stiesdal (right), about the latest advance in wind measurement science.
distances of up to ten kilometres. Work is ongoing to stretch that reach to up to 30 kilometres, particularly useful for the offshore wind industry. INSTEAD OF A WIND TUNNEL The WindScanner is being put through its paces in a research programme comparing several LIDAR technologies for offshore use being run by the UK’s Carbon Trust, a public-private body set up to drive advances in energy and climate technology. The apparatus is also part of an EU research initiative supported by the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures. In Denmark, a WindScanner is doing duty at the DTU Risø Campus wind turbine test site, replicating the kind of detailed information on the wind’s interaction with its test subject that would previously only have been possible to achieve in a wind tunnel using a scale model. Full scale measurements in real life conditions also add a new dimension to research 12
work. Among the turbines being tested at Risø is an experimental multi-rotor concept from Denmark’s Vestas, which suspends four refurbished 225 kW nacelles on arms jutting from a single tower. It is similar in concept to other such experiments, including the Dutch Quadro design from 1988 that was operated in the Netherlands for well over a decade. Thanks to the WindScanner, the complex wind streams created by the four rotors of the Vestas machine can now be visualised, potentially allowing the concept to be developed to the point of commercial viability. For the WindScanner to reach maturity and commercial viability, it has to be both cheaper and more robust to withstand everyday treatment by engineers. “That’s not a step that DTU can take on its own. It’s up to the wind industry to help out by pressuring suppliers of the apparatus into seeing the commercial perspectives in industrialising it for use by wind turbine manufacturers and wind farm developers,” says Stiesdal. • FORESIGHT
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Big Picture Dawn was breaking as the enormous cloud rolled in over Copenhagen, lit from above by the cold light of a dying moon and from below by the sun’s first golden rays. Minutes later the scene was transformed into a dull grey day in the city as the first heavy raindrops fell. The frequency of cloudbursts in Denmark has grown steadily since records began in 1874. A bad one in 2011 landed insurance companies with a $650 million bill for property damage. Copenhagen's Cloudburst Management Plan includes 300 climate adaption projects over the next 20 years. PHOTO Lars Just
THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure and never more so than in industrial processing. Reuse of waste products in a closed-loop industrial eco-system brings many benefits to participating companies. But it takes a large measure of shared trust to achieve such close symbiosis, as the town of Kalundborg demonstrates
When Jørgen Christensen regularly met with fellow Rotarians back in the 1970s he was not to know that their casual conversations about managing the resources of their respective copanies would lay the groundwork for a town project that today draws attention from around the world. Back then Christensen was plant manager at Novo Nordisk, the world’s biggest producer of insulin. Other members of the Rotary Club, in the town of Kalundborg an hour’s drive west of Copenhagen, had similar management positions. Some were CEOs at the biggest industrial companies in town. It was natural to not only discuss their work triumphs, but also their work concerns. One had too much surplus steam, another needed better alternatives for cleaning its waste water. The companies were all located within a 1.5 kilometre radius and before long ideas emerged 16
on how they could work together on resource sharing and by-product exchange. The local oil refinery, now Statoil, originally agreed to provide excess butane gas to neighbouring Gyproc, a gypsum wallboard manufacturer. Later, steam from the city’s power station was led to Novo Nordisk, which used it to clean tanks, while yeast slurry from the production of insulin could be used as fertiliser by local farmers. And so it began. Without recognising it until many years later, the Rotary Club members were laying the foundation blocks for an industrial future consisting of more than 50 bilateral, commercial agreements between a number of major industries, with the municipality’s utility services integrated into what has become known as the Kalundborg Symbiosis. “It started long before it got a name. Basically, we FORESIGHT
Transparently obvious Light dawned for business leaders in Kalundborg when it became clear that waste products from one industrial process could be put to good use by another company just up the road. Industrial symbiosis in a waste sharing network was born
TEXT Sofie Buch Hoyer / PHOTO Mikkel Russel Jensen
WASTE INTO WEALTH
Transition
FORESIGHT
17
The sharing network
LAKE TISSØ
Kalundborg's industrial life in symbiosis
KALUNDBORG UTILITY
KARA/ NOVEREN
NOVO NORDISK & NOVOZYMES LAND OWNER ASSOCIATION
DONG
GYPROC
STATOIL
NOVO NORDISK
NOVOZYMES
MATERIALS 17. Waste 18. Gypsum 19. Fly ash 20. Sulphur 21. Slurry 22. Bioethanol 23. Sand 24. Sludge 25. C5/C6 Sugars 26. Lignin 27. NovoGro 30 28. Ethanol waste 29. Biomass
WATER 6. Waste water 7. Cleaned waste water 8. Surface water 9. Technical water 10. Used cooling water 11. Deionised water 12. Sea water 13. Drain water 14. Tender water 15. Process water 16. Cleaned surface water
INBICON
ENERGY 1. Steam 2. District heating 3. Power to grid 4. Warm condensate 5. District heating
just set up a number of rational collaborations that all players could benefit from,” says Christensen. The Rotarians knew each other well and their thoughts ran along similar lines, he recalls. “In a lot of places, you see that companies are terribly afraid of talking to each other about business ideas. But we weren’t. There was a mutual trust between us, which made it easy to establish partnerships.” The network that links the companies today is perhaps the longest standing industrial collaboration of its kind anywhere. FULL CIRCLE Turning waste into wealth not only preoccupies industry, but also entire countries. The quest to improve resource productivity, reduce exposure to price volatility and dispense with wasteful practices has given rise to the whole concept of the circular economy and the part to be played by industrial symbiosis. Both the European Union and China have adopted the circular economy as a policy objective. By designing goods and products as integral parts 18
of large industrial ecosystems, they can be turned into resources for reuse at the end of their useful lives, mimicking the circular flow of biological materials in nature. In the circular economy, resources are reused, recycled and recreated in new life cycles instead of following today’s common linear value chain of make, use, and dispose. In theory the new approach could add billions of dollars to the economy (see box page 19). JUST UNDER THE RADAR Trade and exchange is as ancient as the sharing of hunt kills by early societies, says Marian Chertow, who heads the industrial environmental management programme at Yale University. A variety of “symbiosis projects” like that in Kalundborg are quietly evolving under the radar, she says. In Kalundborg, water, heat and energy flow along pipeline networks directly connecting the cooperating companies in a closed loop industrial system that saves money for all involved. “You can’t really see industrial symbiosis. It happens because of private interests among companies. FORESIGHT
NOVOZYMES WASTEWATER & BIOGAS
One of a kind ˮKalundborg Symbiosis is an archetype by which others are judged. It’s really taken us some time to figure out the mechanisms of Kalundborg and fit that into the broader puzzle of what industrial symbiosis is all about,ˮ says Yale’s Marian Chertow
Transition
FORESIGHT
The circular opportunity Economic scenarios 2030
Primary resource costs Other cash-out costs Externalities EU-27, €1000 billion 7.2
-1.8 -25%
1.1 0.2
6.3
1.0
2.0 0.1
5.4
1.9 1.5
3.4 3.0
2.7
CURRENT DEVELOPMENT SCENARIO
REBOUND EFFECT
1.2
ADDITIONAL IMPROVEMENTS
2030
REBOUND EFFECT
1.4
2030
1.8
IMPROVEMENTS
INCITING CHANGE Evidence suggests that industrial symbioses can improve the competitive ability of the participants and bring societal benefits, by frequently internalising pollution costs and building resilience in the local economy. Novo Nordisk has never calculated the total financial benefits of its participation in industrial symbiosis, but the benefits of diverting streams of unwanted by-products and waste energy to nearby enterprises are clear, says the company’s Michael Hallgren. “As an example, the normal and expensive way of getting rid of our nutritious yeast slurry from insulin production is to send it to a treatment plant. Instead, we pass it to biogas plants that use the yeast slurry to produce energy,” he explains. Novo Nordisk is just one of the companies reaping the rewards of a long and dedicated engagement in Kalundborg’s industrial symbiosis. To establish new industrial symbioses that save money and energy, companies may have to change perspective when facing challenges. “You have to be able to see beyond your own nose in order to achieve a shared return on investment. Otherwise, a symbiosis won’t be successful,” Hallgren stresses. Persuading companies to do things differently is what makes it hard to access the trillion-dollar opportunity the circular economy represents, points out Paul Ekins, who heads the sustainable resources institute at University College London. “The whole
purpose of industrial symbiosis is to facilitate that different way of looking at materials, to bring companies in touch with each other who may not normally be in touch and enable them to realise that they have resources, which they are regarding as waste but are of value to other companies,” says Ekins. The really big wins are in manufacturing sectors because they use most materials. Whether looking at energy, water, chemicals, pulping paper or steel, the whole range of materials are opportunities to use resources more effectively and efficiently, Ekins adds. “We can certainly speed up the material sharing networks, either by putting them in geographical proximity with each other, or by having facilitated networks and databases, which is the way it is grow-
TODAY
Source: www.symbiosecenter.dk / McKinsey & Company
KALUNDBORG MUNICIPALITY ALGAE PLANT
One company needs energy, another company has extra steam. So they make a one-to-one deal. That’s not a newspaper headline,” says Chertow. She adds there are many such cooperative initiatives that could be considered industrial symbiosis. They often start as joint ventures and gradually develop into industrial ecosystems. “So when is industrial symbiosis going to scale? My least favourite phrase. The point is that it doesn’t just go to one big scale—it pops up everywhere. We just haven’t had the eyes to see it until now,” she says. The dynamics of industrial symbiosis can differ significantly, a point made in a newly published study by Chertow and colleagues. In China, 106 huge industrial estates are organised to cooperate on resource management with the backing of government financing and authority involvement to guide companies on what to do. Industrial symbiosis often starts among companies in already related sectors, whether or not they are linked by material flows. Those that are most successful are driven by a mix of benefits, including financial return, access to new sources of revenue and cost reduction, says Chertow. “It’s not easy, however, because more often than not a lot of infrastructure has to interact. It’s a big and societal issue.”
CIRCULAR SCENARIO
19
Transition
ing in many countries right now,” says Ekins, who is former chairman of the UK government-funded National Industrial Symbiosis Programme. With 15,000 participants from all industry sectors it is regarded as the country’s most successful effort to improve resource productivity. SPREADING THE WORD On the other side of the world in Western Australia, Kwinana is home to one of the largest concentrations of heavy industry anywhere with material flows between companies to increase operational efficiency and reduce waste and harmful emissions. Utility operations, including power supply and wastewater treatment are part of the process. Led by Curtin University and Kwinana Industries Council, the reuse of waste and sharing of infrastructure has improved material efficiency and the environmental performance of the area’s energy, minerals and agriculture industries. According to Michele Rosano at Curtin University, one of the big challenges in creating more industrial clusters is to replicate the work done by independent facilitation units like Kwinana Industries Council, or the Symbiosis Center Denmark at Kalundborg, par20
“Companies need to see that they have resources they regard as waste that are of value to other companies nearby”
ticularly their promotion of the benefits of symbiotic exchanges to the rest of the country. Moreover, both centres are instrumental in easing the way for material to flow between companies, particularly when issues of commercial confidence arise. A significant obstacle for symbioses is trust and confidentiality. “Competing industries may not want to talk or participate because they simply don’t want to share any confidential information about their operations,” Rosano says. Another obstacle is finance. Obtaining capital to finance cross-company infrastructure projects is difficult and many industrial projects end after the initial funding runs out. “I’ve seen presentations over the years by banks talking about the value of industrial symbiosis but I haven’t seen anyone formalise any proactive initiatives to support it yet,” says Rosano. • FORESIGHT
ENERGY AND RESOURCES RECOVERED FROM YOUR WASTE The modern combustion technology from Babcock & Wilcox Vølund transforms waste into energy and material resources
HEATING
ELECTRICITY
The technology used at the Copenhill, Amager Bakke plant is so efficient that 400.000 tonnes waste a year results in: 99% energy efficiency: District heating for 160,000 households
WATER WASTE
Electricity for 62,500 households 100 million litres of spare water recovered
WASTE-FIRED COMBINED HEAT AND POWER PLANT
METALS
90% reuse of metals 100,000 tonnes of bottom ash reused as road material
ROAD MATERIAL
volund.dk
WASTE DISPOSAL
Several European countries and Japan burn a significant proportion of their waste and recycle much of the rest. In other places, trash tends to end up in landfill sites for want of an alternative solution
TO BURN OR NOT TO BURN The fundamental challenge of waste management is to get as much out of rubbish as possible, with the aim of conserving natural resources. Given that materials are often worth more than energy, partly because they can be transformed into energy but energy cannot be transformed into materials, resource recovery from waste tends to attract more attention than energy recovery from waste. It all depends on the type of waste. If it is a highvalue material easily recovered, such as plastic, glass, metal and newspapers, material recovery is the most sustainable option. Burning rubbish, however, can make sense when the waste materials are low-value, contaminated or not easily recycled. When energy from waste incineration replaces energy produced from fossil fuels, those resources are saved, along with the associated CO2 emitted. Once materials are so degraded from constant recycling that they are of no further use, deriving energy from them is preferable to discarding them at a landfill site. Around 2000 incineration facilities burn garbage in the OECD countries. Japan leads the way with around 1100 waste burning plant (see chart), although 22
the numbers can be deceiving. Most of Japan’s incineration units are small and on average deal with just one fifth of the material that passes through a European counterpart. ENERGY BY-PRODUCTS Heat and power are the main by-products from waste incineration, but other forms of energy, such as gas or biofuels, can also be recovered in small quantities. According to Tore Hulgaard from the waste-to-energy division at Rambøll, a Danish engineering consultancy, to burn or not to burn is not a question with a clear-cut answer. It depends on multiple factors such as waste composition and the nature of the concerned energy system. He points out that the central discussion related to recycling versus incineration is whether it creates value financially, environmentally and in terms of resource management. “It’s as if recycling rates have become targets in themselves. We need to make sure that we don’t generate huge amounts of low-quality recycled products and instead focus on what actually adds value to society and the planet as a whole,” he says. • FORESIGHT
From a typical 3 kg bag of household rubbish, the Amager Bakke waste-toenergy plant can supply a standard Copenhagen residence with six hours of heat and five hours of electricity
Transition
Not going up in smoke
Waste-to-energy facilities in OECD countries
EUROPE 460
NORTH AMERICA 85
JAPAN 1,200
CHINA 35
SOUTH KOREA 35
OECD-countries
CO2 BALANCE OF WASTE TREATMENT AND GENERATION OF ENERGY
CIRCULAR SYSTEMS FOR BIOGENIC AND NON-BIOGENIC MATERIALS
Energy
Coal as energy source Electricity
Oil as energy source
CO 2
WASTE HANDLING
Waste-to-Energy plant
Natural gas as energy source
Source: International Solid Waste Association
CO 2
Avoided
Waste as energy source
PRODUCTS Plastic
CO 2 tonnes 0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
1.6
Wood
RESOURCES
1.8 Oilfield
CO 2 emission by producing 10GJ (2,8 MWh) heat/power and treatment of 1 tonne of waste Landfill/composting of waste (Methane emission excluded) Energy production
CO 2 saved
The spoons represent a constituent of the waste stream and is made of either wood or plastic. In both cases, the output from their incineration as waste is electrical energy and it replaces energy produced by other power stations, which in nearly all cases is derived from oil or other fossil fuels. If the spoon is made of wood the CO 2 emission is considered neutral as it is part of the biogenic circle. In the case of the plastic spoon, the emitted CO 2 replaces CO 2 emitted from power generation using fossil fuels
FORESIGHT
23
ROUND AND ROUND IT GOES
Globalisation has taken its toll on many former industrial power centres in the West. They are often shadows of their former selves. Some have been abandoned. But that leaves space for other ideas to move in, such as Resource City in Denmark
In the Danish town of Næstved, population 80,000, a former paper mill occupying just over half a square kilometre of land has been transformed into a new industrial cluster for recycled goods. From the outside the building resembles an edifice from the early age of industrialisation. Inside it contains some of the most advanced waste sorting equipment yet put to use. Large volumes of glass, cans, waste wood and other materials are sorted and reused in new products. “We have the most advanced glass sorting plant here. Everything from window glass to bottles are being utilised. Even cork and plastics. Nothing is wast24
ed,” explains Kim Lykke from the German-based Reiling Group. Current demand for glass outstrips supply by around one million tonnes globally. That is a lot, given that one cargo shipload of glass amounts to 3000 tonnes. The competition for used glass is fierce, he says. Easy harbour access lay behind the selection of what is known as Resource City for location of the recycling facility. “We had to find a place with a harbour, and here we are close to both the harbour and industry,” Lykke says. He points to local breweries, recycling stations and the Danish recycling system as main suppliers of used glass. FORESIGHT
Can mountain The deposit paid on drinking cans and bottles in Denmark is sufficient incentive for them to be returned at a rate close to 100%
TEXT Sofie Buch Hoyer / PHOTO Lars Just
WELCOME TO RESOURCE CITY
Transition
FORESIGHT
25
Transition
From dereliction to duty Even the once derlict buildings now being used for recycling used glass, cans and other material once had another function before being given new life as Resource City
“Current demand for glass outstrips supply by around one million tonnes globally”
The Danish return system for plastic and glass bottles and more recently aluminium cans integrates a deposit into the sales price at the point of consumer purchase. That deposit is returned if the empty container is taken to a recycling station. At €0.15-0.40 a container, the deposit is large enough to ensure 26
they do make it to the many collection points, which are found at all supermarkets. The system partly accounts for Denmark’s high glass recycling rates. While the EU-average recycling rate for glass is 73%, Denmark scores 98% as the star performer. Reusing old glass in the production of new glass not only reduces raw material consumption, it also saves energy in an energy-hungry process “Glass factories save 30% of their energy using discarded glass instead of making glass from base raw material. This is basically our reason for being,” Lykke says. Reiling is now adding a new unit to the plant with the ability to recycle glass dust. • FORESIGHT
Beer bottles in Denmark are filled and emptied about 35 times before being declared no longer fit for service, melted down and turned into new bottles
PLASTIC IS KILLING US In 2050 there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish. As it turns to microplastic, the plastic is eaten by fish, clam, shrimp, birds. And you. Traditional plastics are associated with chemicals causing cancers, neurological problems and hormone imbalances for both us and the animals we eat. Still... We all love plastic. MAISTIC Bio Group is the only Danish company dedicated to all kinds of certified compostable bioplastics, complying to the leading EU-standard for packaging, EN 13432, defining material allowed in compost matter. MAISTIC cooporate with leading developers and manufacturers around the world to present you with packaging and food service solutions of high quality without traditional plastic.
The most common question we get in MAISTIC is ”Why isn’t all plastic like your plastic? Why isn’t all plastic certified compostable?” It should be. Today MAISTIC solutions can be replace up to 80% of plastic in supermarkets. And maybe your plastic too?
For more information - info@maistic.com / www.maistic.com
FOR NATURE AND YOUR HEALTH
THE WORLD NEEDS SMART ENERGY WE DELIVER SMART SOLUTIONS Global turnkey contractor and operator with a solid track-record within biomass and conventional power plants. Visit us at bwsc.com
Your Global Energy Partner
EASY ELECTRICITY
The brave new world of information technology brings with it the ability to collect, visualise and analyse vast quantities of electronic data on electricity consumption. Put to good use, this new information could unlock trillions of dollars of value in the electricity business by making life easier, cheaper and greener
THE TRILLION DOLLAR PROMISE OF DIGITALISATION
TRILLIONS AT STAKE According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), digitalisation of the electric power industry can provide substantial technical and economic benefits. A WEF 28
analysis prepared with consultancy Accenture predicts that during 2016–2025 the digital transformation can trigger gains of $3.3 trillion in OECD member countries. Of this, the value to the electric power industry is calculated at $1.3 trillion across the entire value chain and a further $2 trillion benefit is provided to society through the creation of 5.3 million jobs and a significant reduction in CO2 emissions. Bosco Astarloa, WEF head of energy technologies, identifies three disruptive trends that have affected the energy industry in recent years: decarbonisation, decentralisation and digitalisation. “Digitalisation is happening faster than we think. We had better be prepared,” he says, based on interviews with 35 power sector CEOs that he met in the run-up to WEF’s annual meeting this year in Davos, Switzerland. THE DIGITAL WORLD More than 20 billion devices are connected to the Internet globally, including electricity meters and sensors in homes, businesses and transformer stations. By 2020, 7.4 billion devices are expected to have been added from the electric power value chain alone. The WEF is convinced the trend in data collection made possible by the Internet will continue, providing unprecedented opportunities for the energy industry. These include improved asset management, FORESIGHT
TEXT Jesper Tornbjerg
More than half of all Danish homes are now equipped with remotely read electricity meters. These customers no longer have to manually report their meter readings to electricity suppliers. By 2020, all manually read meters will be replaced in Denmark and all consumption data will flow automatically from every property to the country’s grid operators and electricity traders after passing through a data hub. With the smart meter rollout complete, electricity and other utility companies will receive vast volumes of data in real time, data that must be put to good use, says Helle Juhler-Verdoner of The Danish Intelligent Energy Alliance, a partnership of utilities and businesses. “We’re in full swing digitalising the utility sector. The remotely readable meters for electricity, heat and water are a vital element for the digitalisation that will unleash masses of opportunity to make life easier, greener and cheaper for customers. By combining infrastructure data with new business models, value can be created for customers and the companies involved,” says Juhler-Verdoner.
Business
Digital potential mapped
Electricity industry value chain themes and initiatives
Asset lifecycle management
Grid optimisation & aggregation
Integrated customer services
Beyond the electron
Generation
METERS FOR THE MASSES The measurement, collection and analysis of data fed back from the point of consumption are crucial to the digital revolution. Over the past ten years, remotely read meters have been in common use in many households and businesses in Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Italy, among other countries. Remote reading makes managing customer databases more efficient and billing more flexible. It facilitates the tracking of customers who steal electricity and minimises transmission losses. In addition to improvements in system operation, digitalisation opens the door to new market opportunities, including commercial demand management, which pays customers to briefly reduce electricity use on demand, saving the utility costly start-up of extra power plant for just an hour or so. Exactly when economic gains will be made from the gathering and analysis of small as well as big data, how large those gains will be and who will benefit is uncertain. Denmark’s decision in 2013 to require all electricity distribution companies (DSOs) to equip customers with meters that could be read remotely, passing the cost through in electricity bills, was based on a social and economic analysis by Energinet.dk, Denmark’s transmission system operator. Energinet.dk predicts that digitalisation will increase competition in the electricity market, driving down prices for consumers. It will also save money for DSOs by alleviating the need for more grid capacity. Further benefits include improved billing and customer complaint handling.
Market operational training
Transmission
Distribution
Smart meters
Source: World Economic Forum
Residental Commercial Industrial
Value unlocked
optimised operation of power grids, intelligent management of energy, clever home automation, and responsive customer dialogue. Like millions of drops of water, small improvements in efficiency will become a flood, buoying up new insights. Astarloa suggests that digitalisation and the increased customer focus that comes with it will transform the electricity sector. “We are witnessing a shift in value creation from conventional centralised production towards solutions at the customer end of the value chain,” he says.
• Increased asset life • Improved productivity • Optimised site decisions
• Real-time optimisation • Demand aggregation • System flexibility • Reduction of loss • Real-time pricing
• Increased asset life • Improved productivity • Optimised site decisions
• Data monetisation • Gateway to other services
FORESIGHT
POWER TO THE CUSTOMER More uncertain is the volume of energy savings that real time monitoring of electricity meters might generate, though experience shows that when consumers are aware of their consumption they are more inclined to save. Currently, consumers can track their consumption only by comparing annual invoices. The new meters will allow them to collect hourly values that can be viewed on a PC or tablet, providing a 29
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better analysis of their consumption habits. The monitoring can also signal any sudden and significant rise in consumption that might indicate a fault. Bjarne Hansen, a 78-year-old retiree from Svaneke on the island of Bornholm, took part in Eco–GridEU, a now completed project on using information technology to increase the efficiency of grid operation for more than 2000 households. Hansen agreed to allow his heat pump to be centrally monitored and controlled in return for getting extensive data on his consumption, which to this day he follows with interest. Hansen regrets that his second house in the village of Rutsker was not part of the EcoGridEU project. If it had been, he would have known that its heat pump was suddenly using an abnormally large volume of electricity. The equipment malfunction led to runaway electricity consumption that cost him €2420. The ability to monitor electricity usage in fine detail provides the option for consumption to be shifted from periods of peak demand to times of low demand, theoretically lowering the required capacity of the whole system. Whether such demand management will deliver economic rewards and how large those might be also remains uncertain. Much depends on local conditions. Demand response as a peak shaving tool is gaining ground in countries such as France, the UK and Finland, where the emphasis is typically on major electricity consumers. EcoGridEU and other research and development projects demonstrate that privately owned heat pumps, electric heaters and electric cars can be controlled remotely, but justifying the business case is often difficult owing to low volume. In a new project, EcoGrid 2.0, nine partners are to demonstrate how 1000 customers can provide grid support services through flexible consumption of electrical heating and heat pumps in response to market signals—and whether this customer-based approach boosts the efficiency of system operation. PAY-BACK TIME At Kamstrup, a Danish supplier of remote metering solutions globally, Jesper Daugaard confirms the relatively long term nature of the return on investment. DSOs expect a payback within seven to eight years, he says. “In reality it takes more like a year and a half or two years for distribution companies to discover that they can reduce network losses with better data. Grid operators are just discovering the value of highresolution data.” Losses can occur through theft. Cooperating with the Danish police, grid operators have uncovered theft of electricity by illicit drug laboratories, but 30
such cases are rare. Losses are mainly from friction on the wires; the further electricity travels the greater the loss. “More importantly for the DSOs’ bottom line is that the large flow of customer data and the many monitoring points embedded in their networks create a detailed picture of the load on their substations and power systems. Until recently this was unknown territory,” says Daugaard. In California a distribution company was considering a $15 million investment in a new substation to meet rising customer demand. The data revealed that the substation was heavily loaded for only one hour, once a year when three customers made unusually high demands on the system during maintenance work. Dialogue with the three customers has led them to spread the exceptional usage over three days, saving the distribution company $15 million. Grid losses affect electricity distribution companies around the world and waste billions of dollars. In an otherwise well-functioning country such as Denmark about 7% of electricity is lost between production and consumption. In other areas of the world, theft of electricity by tapping it from the grid before the meter is endemic. “The combination of data and alarms can also provide economic benefits for DSOs and their clients,” says Daugaard. “Many distribution companies world-
The Danish island of Bornholm and its 40,000 residents exist as an entire miniature society, with a hospital, schools, utility services and various local businesses. Currently, 45 % of the island’s electricity comes from wind, solar and biomass, making it a useful full-scale test facility for independent power supply from variable sources of energy
“A new project will demonstrate how 1000 customers can provide grid support through flexible consumption of electrical heating in response to market signals”
wide have challenges with voltage running too low or too high. If distribution can be disconnected, electrical appliances do not burn out when problems arise.” In Pakistan, an under dimensioned grid means that refrigerators and other electric appliances are in permanent danger of burnout. Better data and the ability to disconnect customers in critical situations improves the quality of the service provided. “Installing meters on the fringes of the grids and making sure they can send alarms or shut consumption down allows much to be done immediately and within 24 hours of a situation,” says Daugaard. “By collecting FORESIGHT
and analysing data over time, the distribution companies can better plan their maintenance and investment.” Daugaard speaks with the authority of practical experience in managing data, to the extent that he was called to Washington DC in spring 2016 to speak to White House officials. IT MAGIC AT WORK The snapshots of conditions drawn by some data reports are so obvious that they trigger an immediate response from distribution companies, but it is only now that advances in IT technology have added serious value by providing a complete overview. Microsoft has made cloud solutions available through its Azure platform and Google Deep Mind has announced an up to 40% reduction in electricity used to cool its data centres thanks to mechanical data analysis, commonly known as machine learning. Such platforms provide new opportunities for innovative technology companies large and small. Norwegian company eSmart Systems is one of them. The firm’s country manager for Denmark, John Haar, welcomes the vast data crunching exercises. “The new systems can find patterns that we can exploit. I expect data analysis with machine learning will be the big game changer,” he says. For three months, a Norwegian DSO received data from eSmart Systems about consumption and weather conditions, plus other indicators. Using analytical software, electricity consumption in the supply area could be predicted 24 hours ahead with 97% accuracy, compared to 80–88% previously, enabling far more efficient matching of supply and demand. “The distribution companies can use these management tools to control heat pumps and electric vehicles, as well as to optimise power-grid operation and investment planning,” says Haar. SEEING IS BELIEVING Visualisation is part of this brave new world. Haar’s colleague at eSmart Systems, Jostein Andreassen brings up a colourful map on his monitor of the stunningly lovely Norwegian archipelago. It locates customers of distribution company Norgesnett Fredrikstad and also identifies trouble spots, showing power outages or ground faults. Meters at the point of consumption report hourly data to Norgesnett, providing continuous information on what is happening on its distribution networks. “We visualise the location of the meters relative to the energy company’s substations,” says Andreassen, who is enthusiastic about the software system’s many new opportunities, including the management of data collected by drones. FORESIGHT
SECOND OPINION Achieving a return on investment from the installation of smart meters in homes, including exploitation of the data they return, is all a question of timing, says Steve Thomas, professor emeritus at the UK’s Greenwich University. “Investing in smart meters before their main benefits can be realised would represent a major opportunity cost, as well as a heavy burden on consumers,” he states in an analysis from 2012. Thomas's conclusion in that analysis—that the tipping point for eventually making smart meters in homes worthwhile will be time-of-day electricity pricing— remains relevant today, he adds. NOT READY Large customers are now able to react to market price signals, but electricity suppliers are nowhere near ready to extend that level of flexibility to millions of smaller customers, says Thomas, with a nod to his own experience of swapping to a new electricity supplier. In Britain that can take weeks, partly because the relevant IT systems are unable to talk to one another. “The power system doesn’t even need to involve small consumers in flexibility markets as yet, so why force upon them the extra costs for meters,” asks Thomas. Meters are only smart if the data they produce is put to good use and consideration has to be given to the several million British consumers who struggle to pay their energy bills, Thomas points out. Energy poverty is a real challenge, he adds, underlining another conclusion from his 2012 analysis: WINNERS AND LOSERS “Inevitably, there will be winners and losers from the introduction of time-of-day pricing. The balance of costs against benefits will identify whether the amount won by winners will be enough to counterbalance the losses made by losers. However, a positive net benefit doesn’t by itself justify the introduction of smart meters. The winners need to be consumers, much more than energy companies; and the losers must not be vulnerable and low-income consumers.”
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Business
In California, better and more detailed data flow saved a distribution company $15 million for a planned new substation to meet rising customer demand when it became clear the station was heavily loaded for only one hour, once a year when three customers made unusually high demands. Dialogue with the three customers solved the problem by rescheduling maintenance work
Instead of deploying technicians to wander through the countryside inspecting transmission lines, grid operators are using remotely controlled inspection drones to return images to them in real time. Using cameras (including the heat-seeking variety) and sensors connected to software, drones identify problems, such as threatening tree branches or incipient damage. Technicians can then be dispatched to a precise location to deal with a known issue. Norgesnett Fredrikstad uses its improved knowledge of network conditions to prioritise its spending. If the same error repeatedly occurs in the same place, it may be high time for a cable or transformer update. Access to instant data allows for efficient preventative action, saving money and avoiding breakdowns in service. Moreover, in times of crisis, for the first time load can quickly be shed from the network in co-operation with customers through temporary disconnection of specific non-essential supply, such us electric floor heating, immersion tanks and heat pumps. “Of course this requires acceptance by customers,” emphasises Andreassen. A BETTER OVERVIEW Norgesnett welcomes the opportunity to work with its customers on energy efficiency. “It is definitely a good investment. We are still in a development phase with eSmart, so the system is not up and running yet, but it will make it possible for us to use information from the smart meters to operate the power grid,” says the distribution utility’s CEO, Eilert Henriksen, He says data are best used by combining the operation of the grid and smart meters in the same IT system. “It gives a better overview of the operational status of the low-voltage grid and speeds up debugging as well as providing information on ground faults and voltage levels at the customer. All of this is controlled from our new operations centre,” says Henriksen. Software from eSmart being developed on Microsoft’s Azure platform must be able to work with that already in use by grid operators and trading companies. Andreassen says the software can also be used by homes, commercial buildings and municipalities to boost energy efficiency. Ambitions for IT deployment in cities include everything from traffic control and street lights to emptying the trash bins. According to eSmart Systems, its software can also aid interaction between distribution companies, electricity traders and their customers. Data is collected on an app so that key information on electricity supply at any moment can be flowed to customers through social media such as Twitter and Facebook. Certain phrases such as “Oops, the power is out” can
32
FORESIGHT
be picked up by a filter and set off an instant alarm at the power system control centre, enabling rapid location of the problem and its fast resolution. VALUE IN DATA Every country operates its own electricity market under its own regulations and eSmart, just like its competitors, is adapting its products to be country specific. The small Norwegian firm recently agreed to carry out a pilot project with The Energy Authority (TEA), an American IT and electricity trading collaboration between 50 public power companies. Together, eSmart Systems and TEA will develop system solutions for handling large volumes of data using artificial intelligence to analyse big data flows. “Through this collaboration we can offer several robust data analysis solutions for energy companies, including data management from smart meters, simplified handling workflow, smart grid management, and targeted customer segmentation and management,” says Joanie Teofilo, CEO of TEA, In coming years, the energy sector wwwill be highly focused on realising the trillions of dollars of value in the energy business that the WEF says is achievable by application of IT technology. Astarloa points out the importance of thinking holistically about management of electricity, heating, cooling, water, sewage, wastewater and transport to shave peaks in demand and thereby reduce overcapacity in the power grid. The convergence of telecommunications, data collection and machine learning with electromechanical technologies is forcing players from different sectors into partnerships to provide new services. “No one can do this alone,” Astarloa stresses. He mentions several innovative alliances that like TEA and eSmart Systems are trying to wring value out of the rapidly developing market, naming Italian utility Enel, car makers Nissan and TESLA, Solar City, cloud service provider Oracle, and electronics giants Philips and Ericsson. “Data from customers will be the main source of value creation by allowing the development of new customer-centred services,” says Astarloa. Unlocking the trillions will require significant changes in regulation and the basic business model of the traditional utility sector. The EU is taking steps in this direction and has promised to publish new market regulations by December. “The front runners? They’re in the US, with some states pursuing very interesting initiatives. California and New York are implementing ground breaking market structures that will blaze a trail for the rest of the world. South Korea and Japan in Asia are the leaders on the technological side,” says Astarloa. •
It’s green – and it’s good business Denmark and Danish companies have shown that environmental policies and economic growth can go hand in hand. As the first country in the world, Denmark has decided to lead the transition to a green growth economy and become entirely independent of fossil fuels by 2050. Today, more than 40 per cent of Danish electricity consumption is covered by wind power. For decades, Danish companies and research institutions have developed solutions to make this transition possible. The solutions are already here and ready to inspire. Find them at www.stateofgreen.com, follow @stateofgreendk on Twitter or State of Green Denmark on LinkedIn.
State of Green is a public-private partnership. The public owners are the Ministry of Business and Growth, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Energy, Utilities and Climate and the Ministry of Environment and Food. The private owners are the Confederation of Danish Industry, the Danish Energy Association, the Danish Agriculture & Food Council and the Danish Wind Industry Association.
E-WASTE REDUCTION
SMARTPHONE BECOMES AN AGENT OF CHANGE
R
ight from the start it was the message that was Fairphone’s chief aim, not the product. In establishing the Dutch company six years ago, the intention of the founders was to draw attention to the social problems, considerable pollution and wasted resources associated with most mobile phones. But when they discovered that not one phone on the market could be identified as a better alternative, a new idea was born. As founder Bas van Abel later said, it was “necessary to change the system from the inside.” He and his small team decided to make a smartphone that caused minimal damage to people and the environment. In that way it could become the symbol for a “fairer electronics” movement. The raw materials had to be as sustainable and recyclable as possible, production as fair to the environment as possible, durability of the phone as good as possible and last but not least it should be as repairable as possible. 34
After two-and-a-half years as a pure campaign organisation Fairphone was founded as a production company in January 2013, with three members of staff. From that point things went fast. Sustainability-aware consumers ordered the first 25,000 phones by December that year and in 2014, 35,000 phones were sent on their way. In December 2015 Fairphone 2 arrived, a technically improved version that was also the first modular mobile phone on the market, with each module replaceable. On nearly all other phones, the failure of one component requires replacement of the entire device. TRAIL BLAZING MODULARITY December alone saw shipment of 22,000 Fairphone 2 models. The hope for this year is to reach 100,000 sales, enough to also make the company seriously economically sustainable, but no more than 140,000 sales. That is the current limit for keeping the supply chain environmentally sustainable. Fairphone inFORESIGHT
TEXT Rasmus Thirup Beck / PHOTO Fairphone
Samsung, Apple, HTC & Co have no doubt taken note of a small Dutch upstart in the mobile phone industry. Though the firm might be a long way from reaching sales in the millions, it has an idea and not least a message that resonates far and wide
Business
Conflict free Gold, tungsten, tantalum and tin are all used in mobile phones and the mining of them is internationally recognised as beig in conflict with human rights in many areas. With the launch of its first phone in 2013, Fairphone was among the first to use only certified conflict-free tin and tantalum from the Congo
tends to grow, just like all other companies, but at a rate that allows suppliers to keep up. To claim the ability to do something nobody else can do is asking to be put under a microscope. The non-profit consumer and environmental protection group, Deutsche Umwelthilfe (German Environmental Aid) has taken a close look at Fairphone. In a report published in September, Electronics Goes Green, Deutsche Umwelthilfe concludes that Fairphone is “on average more sustainable” and “trail blazing” in its modularity. “Fairphone 2 breaks with accepted conventions. Instead of jamming so much technology into a flat frame that it becomes virtually impossible to repair and after two years use is chucked into a drawer or trash can, the Dutch company sells a robust unit where durability is the decisive factor,” states Deutsche Umwelthilfe. In Germany, Fairphone’s largest market, consumer magazine Ökotest similarly gives Fairphone 2 its top mark of “sehr gut.” FORESIGHT
“We've taken the first step, but it'll be a long journey”
INSPIRING AN INDUSTRY Alongside production of Fairphone, the original campaign to make mobile phone manufacturing more sustainable and “fair” continues. It is here that the company’s communications director since September 2014, Daria Koreniushkina, plays a vital role. Unlike other companies, Fairphone’s communications strategy is not aimed at maximising profit, but at influencing and establishing a community that does not necessarily have to buy the company’s product. There are lots of people who have not done so yet, she says, because they have perfectly good phones already. Koreniushkina and her colleagues, part of a 50-strong workforce at the Amsterdam headquarters, 35
Business
are also working to inspire the entire mobile phone business to think in terms of “fair” electronics. The company provides open access to information it has gathered on conflict-free gold mines, the latest sustainable raw materials, new recyclable plastic covers and even the economics behind each Fairphone. The expectation is that the big phone companies will be looking over Fairphone’ shoulders. The company hopes its campaign will influence their choice of materials and production processes. The same hope is attached to smaller start-ups, like Phoneblogs and Puzzlephone, which are all pushing to limit electronic waste associated with their products by making it possible to easily exchange damaged components. A LONG HARD ROAD It will not be an easy task, predicts Carina Ohm, Ernst & Young’s director for Climate Change and Sustainability Services. She and others like her keep an eye on the sustainability efforts made by various business sectors. The telecommunications industry is not a sustainability leader. Fairphone, as she puts it, operates in a “difficult market.” Market research in both Europe and North America shows that consumers upgrade their smartphones with increasing frequency, typically replacing them after one-and-a-half to two years of use. “Our impression is that it’s going faster and faster,” says Ohm. She views Fairphone’s customer group as a niche. Another market trend, the sharing economy, or renting rather than buying, could rebalance the scales. If Fairphone offers a phone for purchase or rent that includes regular hardware updates, it gains a clear competitive advantage, says Ohm. Whatever the strategy chosen, Koreniushkina and her colleagues are digging in for a long and tough battle to reform the mobile phone industry. “We’ve taken the first step, but it’ll be a long journey. We’ve always known that. Even Fairphone itself is a long way from being one-hundred per cent fair and sustainable. But we can see that it works. First we have proved the existence of a market for it. Second we have demonstrated that the entire production apparatus can be influenced,” she says. Fairphone has pilot projects running with a number of important players in the market, including circuit board maker AT&S, which also supplies the big phone companies. If these prove successful, the next step will be easier to take. Deutsche Umwelthilfe actively supports this approach. “The concept ought to lead to changes in the supply chain, the production process and in product design among other mobile phone producers. The big players should fall in line,” it says. Only time will tell if they do. • 36
IFIXIT SURVEY
How fixable is it? Fairphone 2 LG G4 Google Nexus 5x Apple iPhone 6s Apple iPhone 5s Samsung Galaxy s6 Samsung Galaxy s7 HTC One M9
10 8 7 7 6 4 3 2
*Highest possible score Source: ifixit.com, 2015
Each and every part accounted for Most phone makers cannot account for the origin of the materials used in their products. Fairphone has set new standards for transparency in the supply chain and insists on responsibly sourced materials and labour. The phone is built in modules to make individual parts easily replaceable. FORESIGHT
Reused IT – Reuse to Reduce
The smartest – and probably the most efficient – way to reduce emissions, is to reduce production. What better way to do that than by reusing? There is really no reason in turning perfectly good electronics into waste. Refurb has an “end-user to end-user model” that supports reuse as much as possible. We do value recovery by turning waste into profit for our business- and public clients. Then, after a comprehensive refurbishment, we offer a low-cost, high-quality line of preowned IT-equipment for both consumer and business use. Everybody wins – especially the environment. Reuse to reduce cost and emission. Learn more at refurb.dk Contact Refurb at mail@refurb.dk or call us for a non committal offer at +45 7020 3647
RENEWABLE ENERGY
BIG BUSINESS DRIVES MARKET EXPANSION Half of the world’s electricity today is consumed by business corporations. Denmark is co-leading an initiative to clear the way for big companies to take control of their spending on electricity by investing in new renewable energy capacity. Owning capacity that produces power at a known cost means companies gain full visibility on the size of future bills, escape fuel price risk and save money
38
of Denmark and Germany. Given the critical role wind energy manufacturing plays in the Danish economy, with the industry racking up €11.9 billion in sales last year and accounting for about 5% of all exports annually, Denmark’s interest in expanding the market for clean energy technology is no surprise. Tapping into the desire of corporations to actively procure power that meets their environmental and economic goals, rather than be passive recipients of whatever energy is available from their local utility, represents a significant source of new demand. LED BY GOOGLE In North America, corporate procurement has rapidly accelerated, mainly through contracts to buy electricity directly from independent power producers. Already these account for about 5.6 GW of renewable energy projects since 2012, according to the US Business Renewables Centre, excluding onsite rooftop solar installations. Google set the market in motion in 2010 when it agreed to buy the output from 114 MW of new wind capacity in Iowa. Explaining why it took that route, FORESIGHT FORESIGHT
Size matters. Dupont, one of the worldʼs largest companies, says it uses about 27 million MWh a year, enough electricity to power 2.5 million American homes
TEXT Diane Bailey
Large corporations have used their buying power to back the deployment of thousands of megawatts of new renewable energy capacity over the past four years, a phenomenon that until recently has been largely focused on the United States. As companies increasingly look to do the same in other markets around the globe, Denmark is stepping up to help lead a new initiative designed to not only highlight the business case, but also ensure the stream of deals is not interrupted by policy or regulatory barriers. The Corporate Sourcing for Renewables Campaign, launched at June’s Seventh Clean Energy Ministerial in San Francisco, brings together energy policymakers, non-governmental organisations and corporate electricity buyers in a multi-pronged effort to unlock the potential for more companies to power their operations with clean energy. “The private sector accounts for roughly 50% of the world’s electricity consumption and so must play a key role in the ongoing global energy transition,” says Adnan Z. Amin of the International Renewable Energy Agency, a partner in the initiative. The campaign is being co-led by the governments
Business
Green purchasing power
Renewable energy new capacity triggered by corporate demand
3.4
CAPACITY (GW)
3.2
North American corporations have purchased more than 5.6 GW from renewable sources since 2013, unlocking approximately $10 billion of clean energy investments
3.0 2.8 2.6
Salesforce Phillips Corning General Motors Google Bloomberg Switch Apple Google Amazon Owens Corning Equinix Procter & Gamble Equinix HPE Switch Amazon Facebook Cisco Amazon Walmart Dow Chemical Kaiser Permanente General Motors Procter & Gamble Google Apple
2.4 2.2
Source : Rocky Mountain Institute Business Renewables Center
2.0 1.8 1.6
IKEA Yahoo Walmart Microsoft Mars Google IKEA
1.4 1.2 1.0
Facebook Benton Dickinson Microsoft Google Apple
0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2
Digital Realty Walmart Google Iron Mountain 3M Steelcase Lockheed Martin Salesforce
0 2012
2013
2014
2015
rather than buying green energy certificates, the company’s director of operations Gary Desami says Google wants to drive new renewables development not just reshuffle what is already on the grid. “For us it’s been a project we can point to and say we actually made that happen,” he told a gathering of wind professionals in 2014. Since then major US corporations have followed Google’s lead. In 2015 they were behind 3.2 GW of new renewables construction. In wind energy alone, US project developers signed power purchase agreements (PPAs) with non-utility buyers last year for just over 2 GW, more than half of all the new wind capacity contracted in 2015. Just two years earlier, this customer class represented a mere 5% of the market. “We’ve seen incredible evolution and it has happened so fast,” says Marty Spitzer, who oversees US climate and renewable energy policy for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The WWF has been at the forefront of a push to overcome some of the regulatory hurdles and deal complexity that have frustrated companies in their efforts to get the renewable energy they want at the scale they need. Earlier this year, FORESIGHT
2016
WWF helped found the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance (REBA). The network, which includes more than 60 buyers of green electricity and 70 project developers and service providers, is targeting 60 GW of additional corporate procurement in America by 2025. It has also signed on to the Corporate Sourcing for Renewables Campaign, with plans to use lessons learned in the US to accelerate the market opportunity in other countries. “A lot of the corporate buyers that have established themselves as leaders in the space are reaching a point where they’ve met a lot of their needs in the US and now need to move internationally into the other markets where they operate,” says Jacob Susman, vice-president and head of origination with EDF Renewable Energy. MOVING INTO EUROPE The initial push towards a corporate PPA market in Europe is coming from those early movers in the US. Such is the huge complexity of the deals, which take a sophisticated understanding of both energy business dynamics and forward market price projections, that 39
Business
APPLE TASTES DANISH WIND Denmark is at ground-zero in this shift, but a recent taste of the foreign investment that is increasingly going hand-in-hand with access to renewable energy supply is also driving its involvement in the renewables sourcing campaign. Apple is spending €1.7 billion to build two European data centres, one in Ireland and one in Viborg, Denmark. The facilities, expected to start operations next year, will run on 100% renewable energy. The tech giant is not yet revealing the details of its procurement strategy, but it has said the opportunity to “develop energy systems that take advantage of their strong wind resources” is key to its plans for both markets. A central goal of the sourcing campaign is to ramp up the number of companies that, like Apple, have specific goals for renewable electricity use. It is urging the biggest to join RE100, a collection of corporations committed to sourcing 100% of electricity used in their global operations from renewables. RE100 has 65 signatories so far, but an RE analysis shows that if 1000 of the world’s most influential businesses become fully powered by renewable energy, they could decarbonise almost a tenth of all electricity used worldwide, removing more than 1000 Mt of CO2 emissions every year. 40
The top ten clean power players
Biggest US buyers of electricy through long term contracts
Solar
Wind
Biomass & Waste
Google Inc The Pentagon Amazon Web Services Inc Wal-Mart Stores Inc The Dow Chemical Co Equinix Inc Facebook Inc Ikea Group Corp Kaiser Permanente Microsoft Corp
MW 0
200
400
600
800
1000 1200
THE BUSINESS CASE Demonstrating the business case for companies is also part of the sourcing campaign’s strategy. Buying renewables power direct from a generator not only allows global corporations to avoid carbon penalties, present and future, but also to gain long-term energy price stability. Buying from a utility gives them little, if any control over the supply mix or its price. For Mark Vanderhelm, vice-president of energy at Walmart, the world’s biggest retail chain, price is key: “My boss didn’t give me a cheque to write when he said go out and meet the renewable goal. But he did say go out and meet the renewable goal.” One of the great frustrations for corporate buyers is that beyond signing a PPA directly with a wind or solar producer, which may never be possible in regulated markets, there are few obvious and easy ways to get the renewable energy they want. A big part of what the campaign wants to do is work out how to facilitate the emergence of other purchasing models. It plans to identify best practices, regulatory frameworks and supportive policies to help forge markets where corporate procurement can thrive. It will also lean on the work of organisations like REBA in the US, which are looking at green tariffs and subscription-based offerings as ways for corporations to get their hands on a steady supply of green kilowatt hours by exponentially increasing the volume of new capacity built. Even with the progress that’s been made, says Spitzer, there remains a huge untapped opportunity. “We’re really at the beginning of the possibilities.” • FORESIGHT
1400
1600
1800
Source : Bloomberg New Energy Finance
is hard for most companies to take the step. Google’s first deal in Europe was a ten-year PPA for the output of a 72 MW project in Sweden that through the Nordic region’s shared electricity market, is used by a data centre in Finland. It now has seven purchase agreements in Europe driving the construction of more than 500 MW, all of it wind. FTI Intelligence, a global renewable energy advisory firm, estimates that early corporate power purchases in Europe have driven 650 MW of development to date. Although Google is dominant, other companies like Microsoft, Apple and Facebook are moving into the space. “Once there is widespread proof that this business practice works within the EU, it is likely that other European corporates will follow and the market will experience significant expansion,” FTI says in a recent analysis. The main reason the corporate PPA trend in Europe has lagged behind the US is that government regulation of renewables power purchasing in Europe has largely made it unnecessary for generators to contract directly with buyers. With the regulatory approach now changing in order to absorb renewable energy into competitive electricity markets, producers will be looking for ways to secure long-term revenues. That need, FTI predicts, will help boost corporate purchases of renewable energy in Europe to 7 GW by 2020, or close to 10% of the 85 GW of new renewables development forecast for the period.
Are you ready for the shift towards a more energy efficient heat supply? You cannot optimise what you do not measure
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Learn more at kamstrup.com/heatsupply
DISTRICT COOLING FROM SEAWATER
District heating, which combines the production of power with the communal provision of heat along networks of underground pipes, has long been recognised as a more environmentally friendly and cheaper way of heating buildings than doing so individually. But it has taken 100 years for district cooling to gain a serious foothold, despite having the same advantages as district heating
I
n 1877 inventor Birdsill Holly came up with an ingenious idea in the town of Lockport, New York. He would collect the waste heat generated by the town’s many factories and sell it as a commodity much in demand in a part of the world with bitingly cold winters: heating for homes and offices. District heating was born. As a concept it has been adopted in many places in the industrialised world with high population density. Communal heating requires less maintenance, utilises a waste product and is cheaper than onsite “central heating” solutions. Now, 140 years later, the second district energy revolution is under way. This time it is coolant that travels through pipes from a central cooling system and into consumer air conditioning units and computer server coolers. Following a number of private initiatives, Denmark’s first dedicated district cooling company was established in 2008 and its first district cooling system was inaugurated in 2010. That system was excavated by the newly minted district-cooling subsidiary of Copenhagen utility HOFOR, which has delivered gas to the city since 1857, later followed by heat. The
42
communal cooling is even more sustainable than communal heat, since it comes directly from a renewable source: seawater. No coal, oil or gas is required. It was an easy step to take, says HOFOR’s Henrik Lorentsen Bøgeskov. The company was already in possession of the practical experience and equipment needed for the excavation work through its involvement in district heating. As soon as there were potential customers enough it was just a matter of applying for the excavation licence. The cooling resource was available nearby. “We use mainly seawater. It’s cold and that is what we exploit as the coolant. It’s very simple,” he says. Seawater is currently head-and-shoulders above all other resources as the most cost-efficient source of district cooling, especially in Denmark. Another source for communal cooling is groundwater, but it is often used for drinking water and that complicates matters. MAKING MONEY Since 2008 a second Copenhagen utility, Frederiksberg Forsyning, has climbed aboard the seawater FORESIGHT
Compared to traditional onsite air conditioning, a community approach to cooling can reduce CO2 emissions by up to 75%. If 25% of air conditioning in Europe was provided as district cooling, a 50% saving in CO2 emissions could be achieved, equivalent to taking ten million cars off the road, according to industry body Euroheat & Power. Less than 1% of the market for air conditioning is served by district cooling.
TEXT Rasmus Thirup Beck / PHOTO Hofor
KEEPING IT COOL
Cities
Better living Deployment of district cooling also has an aesthetic dimension. It removes the many ugly air conditioning units on the outside of buildings. Where roofs were once filled with machinery, gardens can be established. Inside, more space is created by removing the old individual units.
cooling wave. Together the two companies operate three underground communal cooling plant and deliver air conditioning for people and cooling for servers to an expanding group of customers, including a whole new suburb, Carlsberg Town, several office blocks and a couple of shopping malls. Bøgeskov stresses that it is important to understand that both companies make money as well as helping protect the environment. The economics of seawater exploitation for cooling is the first question asked by interested visitors from all over the world. HOFOR District Cooling made a profit of around €1.3 million in 2015 and Frederiksberg District Cooling, just two years old, nearly €23,000. Their customers saved up to 40% on their former cooling bills, with the exact percentage dependent on the age of each building. The companies are at least as proud of the CO2 savings achieved. District cooling is up to 70% more sustainable than onsite cooling and can make a good contribution to Copenhagen’s goal to become the first CO2-neutral capital city by 2025. Bøgeskov also sees it providing a bonus to his company’s growth. “We’re FORESIGHT
using all our profit to get more customers coupled up so we can save even more CO2,” he says. AN EASY BUSINESS CASE Ramboll, an engineering consultancy, has been involved in various district cooling projects in Denmark, England, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Its job is to crunch data for local and central governments, utilities and construction companies to evaluate if district cooling makes economic sense in each case, says Ramboll’s Anders Dyrelund. Although his enthusiasm does not quite match that of Bøgeskov, more often than not the answer to customers is “yes, district cooling is a smart energy solution” provided the fundamental conditions are met. These are a town centre where the demand, typically from a shopping mall or office blocks, comes from buildings in close proximity to one another, or where it comes from a very large single customer that owns its own buildings, such as a hospital, university or airport. “Density” is the word used by Bøgeskov. Provided there is sufficient density, economies of scale work for communal cooling of buildings, par43
Cities
ticularly where district heating is already deployed. Ramboll is also active in the Middle East for good reason. In hot countries that can afford a pleasant indoor climate the potential is huge. Here district cooling is at least as important as district heating is to Denmark in the cold winter months. In addition, by reducing demand on the grid for air conditioning during the afternoon, district cooling is one of the most effective ways of mitigating selective cuts to supply to protect an overloaded electricity network. “I’ve lived three years in the Middle East and done nothing but build district cooling systems. The business case is not hard to make,” says Niels Henrik Harbo from the industrial consulting company COWI. ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS Like Dyrelund he is more cautiously optimistic than Bøgeskov about the potential in cold regions similar to Denmark, where demand is mainly for “comfort cooling” in summer and to a lesser extent in winter for cooling servers and other industry demand. Harbo says many feasibility studies for customers are for 44
“District cooling is one of the most effective ways of mitigating selective cuts to electricity supply”
projects that fail to be realised for economic reasons, primarily because the required building density is lacking or the capital requirements for both the plant and the distribution cannot be met. “We can’t guarantee in writing that savings can be made, but it is at least competitive and the environmental benefits are obvious,” says Harbo. All three experts agree that the biggest hurdle is the considerable capital cost of establishing the central cooling plant. No matter whether the degree of enthusiasm for the second district energy revolution is red hot or moderate, all three agree it has started. The district cooling market is seeing strong growth. • FORESIGHT
Low carbon cooling Seawater is piped from the harbour into the cooling plant. The water is cold enough in winter to be used directly, but in summer has to be cooled down first. The pumping and cooling processes use some energy, but a lot less less than standard air conditioning
PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY FRANK CHRISTENSEN STUDENT
I WILL MAKE A
S U S TA I N A B L E
FLASHLIGHT T H AT R U N S O N
LEMON JUICE
E N E R GY
Do you dream of creating solutions that has the power to change our society for the better? At KEA we believe that every day is an opportunity to create something new. Not only in theory, but also with an impact in the real world. KEA offers you the framework and the supporting community that will bring your ideas to life. Read more on kea.dk
WATER MANAGEMENT
I
n his 1776 treatise on the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith ponders on the value of goods and the price of goods. One textbook paraphrases his thinking as follows: Why is it that “water, which has so much value in use, has no value in exchange, while diamonds, which have practically no value in use, are exchanged at high prices?” Water may not sell for the price of diamonds, but delivering it to customers does not come cheap. Even so, large volumes are wasted by being sent through leaky pipes. In many large cities the water mains were laid decades ago and corrosion is now rampant. In Denmark’s second largest city, Aarhus, water losses of 6% are registered by local utility Aarhus Water. By comparison, water losses in developing countries often run at 35%. Water pipe leakage costs utilities worldwide around $14 billion a year of which $9 billion is lost in the US alone. A variety of methods are used to discover water losses, ranging from listening manually to the water pipes to advanced monitoring systems, which can detect any noise and send data back to the service unit, through to intelligent water meters, which can help gather detailed flow data and information on potential leaks. Rasmus Bærentzen at Aarhus Water believes a key strength of Danish water management lies in the variety of leak detection measures applied and the strenuous monitoring of the water mains. “We work hard to develop better methods for locating leaks. A new method of ours, which is currently being patented, has the potential to reduce the time spent on locating leaks by 80%. That’s very effi-
46
cient and provides opportunities in other countries, too, where water losses can be as high as 30-70%,” says Bærentzen. Most water utilities in Denmark are working to reduce water losses from leaks, driven by tough legislation: under Danish law, water losses must not exceed 10% before a penalty is applied. For a utility the size of Aarhus Water, which produces 15 million cubic metres of drinking water a year and 87% of all drinking water for the municipality's 320,000 citizens, that would be expensive. “The tough legislation provides us with a clear incentive to be innovative,” says Bærentzen. One approach that sets Aarhus Water apart from other utilities is its decision to create distinct District Metering Areas (DMA) for monitoring water flow in its mains, which includes 1500 kilometres of pipes for drinking water. Detailed data are collected from constant monitoring of delivery and consumption in each area. “In principle we operate a virtual well and through a so-called intelligent water meter measure the water flow through it. The data are sent back to a main computer where balances are calculated. That way we can at all times see how much water is being distributed in each DMA and how water is consumed,” says Bærentzen. If the data crunching reveals large fluctuations in water consumption or huge water losses in one DMA, that could indicate a leak. Work to locate it can begin. Often this is done by closing a valve: if there is a leak, the sound of water continuing to flush through the system is clearly audible. • FORESIGHT
Computerised water meters can be remotely read and provide more detailed data than mechanical meters, which require time consuming manual read-offs and carry the risk of error. Fine data on leaks, blasts, and flow provide the water utility with the information it needs to understand consumer habits and consumption patterns. So-called intelligent water meters can be installed both in homes and on the water mains.
TEXT Karin Jensen / PHOTO Ib Sørensen / VISUALIZATION Loop Architects
EVERY DROP COUNTS
Cities
SMART CITIES
RAIN, RAIN COME AGAIN
W
ith urban populations rapidly increasing, the number of drought-prone areas is expected to increase. Finding solutions to the problem of supplying sufficient water is a growing challenge. Denmark is blessed with relatively high precipitation and rainwater can mitigate water shortages. A new satellite town on the outskirts of Aarhus, Nye, under development for a population of 20,000 north of the city, is taking a new approach to water collection and supply. “At Nye, we collect rainwater onsite and treat it so it is safe to use for toilet flushing and laundry,” says Aarhus Water’s Mariann Bruun. Rainwater is unsuitable for drinking but can be used for other household tasks, which account for 40% of water consumption in a home, says Bruun. “We expect to reuse some twenty cubic metres of rainwater per person per year,” she says. Using rainwater reduces consumption of groundwater, but it comes at a price: a double-pipeline is needed to keep rainwater separated from clean drinking water. When building a whole new suburb, however, costs can be kept down. “It’s much cheaper when doing it from the start and this is what makes Nye special. Nye is the first of its kind in Denmark and probably in the world too,” says Bruun. The technology used is old, but the application is new and the concept can potentially be exported to countries with a shortage of clean water, or to conserve groundwater. “This is not just relevant in Third World countries, but also in southern Europe and the US. What I really like about the Nye-project is that it makes sense to people. Why use clean drinking water to flush the toilet or wash clothes when we have all that rainwater in the backyard?” asks Bruun. •
Saving groundwater On the northern outskirts of Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city, a new satellite town is soon to be built. Its rainwater will be collected in underground reservoirs, partially purefied and then piped to dwellings for household use, although not for human consumption. Drinking water will continue to come from a separate mains supply. The aim is not to save money but to save use of diminishing groundwater reserves.
FORESIGHT
47
Two climbers hang high above. Viewed from the ground they resemble tidy spiders clinging to the skeleton of what was once a giant grain storage silo on the dockside of Copenhagen’s northern inner harbour. In the heat of a summer day the unmistakable thud, thud of demolition in progress floats on the air. Two more climbers assist, swinging high from a crane derrick in the gentle breeze. The silo is being replaced by a residential complex, part of the EnergyLab Nyhavn project to develop energy systems for future cities. The new complex will house a giant battery for sopping up excess electricity on windy days during times of low consumer demand and high power production.
PHOTO Lars Just
PROGRESS
Policy
IS IT REALLY CARBON NEUTRAL? Most international bodies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), treat biomass combustion as a carbon neutral process. Biomass is the most significant renewable energy source, currently making up around 10% of global primary energy distribution compared with just 1% from wind and solar combined, according to the IPCC. Countries are turning to biomass as a means to decarbonise their economies partly because they believe it to be carbon neutral. Bioenergy power generation globally has taken off, with electricity from biomass more than doubling in the past decade. In light of this growth, a relevant question being asked is whether biomass, a renewable energy source, is really carbon neutral. The prevailing opinion has been that as biomass grow, carbon is temporarily removed from the atmosphere and when the biomass decay or is burned, the carbon is released back into the atmosphere. In other words, it is simply a part of the natural carbon cycle. The problem with that reasoning, say its doubters, is that carbon neutrality is not linked to CO2 absorption in the past, but to what happens in future. For biomass combustion to be carbon neutral, all the CO2 released by burning plant matter today would have to be reabsorbed tomorrow by an equivalent amount of new biomass. A MEMO ITEM Replacing short-lived plants and crops is fairly easy but replacing wood is another issue. It can take decades for the reabsorption of carbon by forests and given that trees grow back slowly, that leaves a carbon debt to be compensated for. Currently, carbon emissions from biomass combustion are registered as no more than a as a memo item in energy sector pollution accounting; they are not added to total energy sector emissions, because they are already accounted for in the land and forestry sector, when biomass is removed. This methodology avoids the risk of double-counting, but could be masking a bigger problem. A growing body of research argues that it is wrong to presume that biomass combustion is carbon neu58
tral, says Helmut Haberl, an IPCC lead author on land-use change. “I do not think it will be possible to keep the general assumption of carbon neutrality of biomass alive for long anymore,” he says. Future studies, he adds, will continue to support that view and show carbon neutrality to be a rarity. Moreover, what if the harvested plants had not been used for bioenergy? “In many cases, the land would have sequestered carbon. This carbon sequestration is lost if the land is used for bioenergy,” says Haberl. He stresses that the direct and indirect landuse effects of bioenergy can result in bioenergy being more carbon intensive than fossil fuels. VOLUNTARY HEART-SEARCHING Replacing coal with wood has become a popular choice for energy companies under environmental pressure. Depending on the type of wood burned, however, it can take from five to 50 years before the burned biomass is replaced, or even longer. The scientific community has for years cautioned against treating biomass this way. In 2011, the European Environment Agency’s scientific committee concluded “this mistaken assumption results in a serious accounting error”. The scientific panel advising the US Environmental Protection Agency echoed this by stating “carbon neutrality cannot be assumed for all biomass energy a priori” in a 2012 report. This criticism has only gained in size ever since and several researchers are calling for new regulation. PELLETS AND CHIPS To keep up with the latest knowledge and pre-empt future regulation, the Danish District Heating Association and the Danish Energy Association have introduced an industry-initiated voluntary framework for sustainable criteria of solid biomass (wood pellets and wood chips). Beginning in late summer 2016, all Danish combined heat and power plant exceeding 20 MW will start documenting biomass sustainability. Central to the efforts is ensuring that biomass is not illegally logged and is done in a way that reduces the environmental impacts. The European Commission is expected to propose new criteria for biomass sustainability this year or next. A key issue for the industry is whether the proposal will come through a revision of the Renewables Directive, build on top of the existing criteria for biofuels, or emerge as a separate new policy specifically for biomass. The route taken will determine how fast new regulations are applied. •
FORESIGHT
TEXT Peter Bjerregaard
A BURNING QUESTION
Policy
It is all about timing
The impact on global warming from burning fossil fuels compared with biomass
Biomass is usually assumed to be carbon neutral. This assumption, however, ignores the time lag between CO2 emissions from biomass combustion and the CO2 uptake by vegetation. Burning wood (long turnover) pushes up global temperatures more than burning straw (short turnover), at least in a policy relevant time period Source: Cherubini et. al. (2014)
°C per TtonC 2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0 0
20
40
60
80
TIME (YEAR)
100
120
140
160
180
CO2 from fossil fuels
CO2 from biomass with medium turnover time
CO2 from biomass with short turnover time
CO2 from biomass with long turnover time
200
The curves are a function of time under a 1% per year increase in emissions rates
STATE OF MATTER Bioenergy sources come in three different states: fluid (biofuels), gas (biogas) and biomass (plant matter). Biomass is by far the most prevalent, but also the most complicated to regulate. In the short term it emits significant amounts of carbon, but in the long term its emissions per unit of energy may reach parity with those of fossil fuel emissions
and eventually be carbon neutral as biomass is renewed. Bioenergy can play an important role in replacing more polluting sources of energy. Current carbon accounting rules for biomass emissions, however, fail to reflect the emissions in a policy relevant time period, which for most countries means 34 years. he Paris Agreement struck in Paris last year seeks to limit
FORESIGHT
global temperature increases to “well below” 2C and preferably limit them to 1.5C. This makes the time frame a central consideration. Bioenergy also has other issues, including whether land should be used for bioenergy crops instead of food crops, the increased pressure it puts on sparse water resources, and its threat to biodiversity.
59
Policy
A MORE NUANCED APPROACH TO ACCOUNTING FOR CARBON
A long held principle of economics is that the polluter pays, but allocating financial responsibility for the damage caused is a highly contentious topic, as is how best to reward industry for sustainable behaviour Should the producer of a product pay for the pollution generated in making it, or should the end consumer of that product be held responsible? The answer tends to depend on the perspective of the person asking the question and whether they are in a country that mass produces consumer goods or a country of mass consumption of those goods. What is needed is an equitable system for allocating responsibility that reflect how countries’ policies and economies affect global emissions. Nevertheless international trade, which accounts for about a quarter of global CO2 emissions, did not figure prominently in last year’s Paris Agreement. As countries that signed the agreement are now preparing their climate plans, officially known as nationally determined contributions, a new accounting method has been proposed. The new proposed method of counting CO2 emissions holds the promise of solving not just one, but two of the major hurdles countries face in implementing the plans successfully. First, it focuses on carbon transfers among nations that trade with each other and can be used as an incentive to reduce carbon in exports. Second, it provides new insights into the difficult discussions on allocating responsibility for reducing global emissions, by re-drawing the map of carbon emissions. The two main carbon accounting methods used today are “production-based accounting” (PBA) and “consumption-based accounting” (CBA). PBA, which is used in the UNFCCC, holds countries responsible for the emissions generated within their borders. This penalises large export countries such as China, where almost a third of its emissions are caused by producing goods for other countries. At the same time, it does not account for carbon displacement, often referred to as leakage, where restrictions on heavy industries in one country not only drive related 60
factories and jobs abroad, but also transfer rather than reduce the emissions associated with them. There are clear benefits in a method that promotes innovation at home while lowering the volume of carbon emitted per unit of output, referred to as carbon intensity. CBA represents a country’s carbon footprint. It holds countries responsible for emissions inherent in products consumed, regardless of origin. The problem with this method is that it does not provide incentives for exporting industries to improve their carbon intensity, because responsibility lies with the importers. Neither does it take into account differences in carbon intensity for similar production in different countries. As a result, CBA does not encourage a climate efficient distribution of global production.
“TCBA holds countries causally responsible for what they can influence, both in terms of their production and consumption”
The solution could lie in adoption of a new method: technology-adjusted consumption-based accounting (TCBA). It builds on CBA, but deals with the issue of carbon intensity in exports. Like CBA, TCBA incorporates emissions connected with trade, but it also adjusts for differences in carbon intensity in export sectors of different countries. One of the basic premises of TCBA is that it reflects how good a country’s individual sectors are compared to the world average. This gives an indication of what would happen if a certain commodity was produced elsewhere. In this way TCBA holds countries responsible for what they can influence, both in terms of their production and consumption. REDRAWING THE MAP One of the most persistent and difficult discussions at the UNFCCC is on allocating responsibility for global mitigation. Is it only the responsibility of developed countries or do emerging economies have a responsibility to mitigate as well? TCBA provides nuance to these discussions. FORESIGHT
TEXT Tobias Dan Nielsen
SENSITIVE MATTERS
Policy
Accounting for who is responsible Production-based accounting (PBA) of carbon emissions has long been standard and was used for the Kyoto Protocol, but concern is growing about the soundness of the method. Critics of PBA, indexed at 100, advocate moving to consumption-based accounting (CBA) and technology-adjusted consumption-based accounting. Whether a country wins or loses from the change depends on the carbon intensity of its economy Source: FORESIGHT, based on Kander et al (2015) and 2009 emissions data
From the perspective of winners and losers
More carbon emissions
120
100 86
124
100 102
100
76
126 72
100
116
100
100 58
83
Germany
115 116
China
Japan
In an article published in Nature Climate Change, a team of researchers describes how countries would perform when going from PBA to CBA and from CBA to TCBA (see table). The new TCBA approach indicates that the EU has made significant gains in increasing its carbon efficiency, outpacing that of the United States. It adds nuance to the conventionally held wisdom that developed countries reduce emission by outsourcing dirty industries. China’s emissions would be lower with TCBA than with PBA, but not as low as if CBA was used. This means that China is not penalised for producing goods on behalf of other countries, but is still held responsible for improving its carbon efficiency. As such, TCBA does not give a clear advantage to either developed or developing countries, but adds a more nuanced picture to the debate on allocating responsibility by bringing carbon intensity into the debate. Effectively, TCBA redraws the global emissions map. By continually assessing each country’s performance against a global average of technology advances, TCBA can encourage increased ambition as this average improves. By identifying how individual industrial sectors perform, rather than the country as a whole, TCBA provides a tool for policy makers to FORESIGHT
Denmark
100
UK
USA
Less carbon emissions
facilitate better mitigation in sectors that are underperforming, regardless of whether it is a developed or developing country. In this way, TCBA also serves to increase the focus on technology transfer and capacity building. WINDY EXAMPLE Danish wind generated electricity could be an example of how TCBA changes the accounting of a country’s emissions. Today, Denmark’s export of green electricity is not credited to its carbon account under PBA or CBA, but it may be credited in recipient countries. Under TCBA, green electricity would be accounted for as a low carbon export, with the effect of reducing Denmark’s carbon intensity. Allocating responsibility is a thorny topic, but TCBA arguably presents a more nuanced picture than PBA and CBA provide. As countries prepare for the post-COP21 “era of implementation,” countries need to consider how to boost time and money spent on innovating sustainable business products, especially in the heavy industries. Though no silver bullet, TCBA creates a more comprehensive picture to inform policymakers on how to meet the Paris Agreement. •
61
Policy
HISTORY LESSONS IN WHY EXPENSIVE IS PROVING CHEAP Governments and companies routinely struggle to select the right cost forecast on which to base their energy investment strategies—and often get it wrong. If instead they had looked back at past trends in generation cost, fewer mistakes might have been made. Projections of future electricity generation costs are studied, discussed and debated ad infinitum. In contrast, little, if any attention is paid to the past cost of generating electricity. Ask governments, policy makers, market regulators and power technology suppliers about lessons to be learned from comparing historic trends in the cost of electricity generation by different technologies and their answers are vague, or plain unforthcoming. Search for a chart that compares past electricity costs for today’s major sources of energy—coal, gas, nuclear, land-based wind and solar—and nothing is readily available from the usual sources of energy information, public or private. Yet without knowledge of the past there can be little understanding of the present and without that no accurate perception of which path leads to a viable future. Electricity is no ordinary commodity. It is a product that at the point of delivery is unwaveringly identical, no matter which energy source it comes from; storing it economically in appreciable quantities is an unsolved challenge; and above all, it is a basic need. As such, production of electricity cannot be guided by standard business theory alone. Making the right energy policy decisions also requires plumbing the depths of knowledge that history provides. FUEL PRICE UNCERTAINTY The fluctuations seen in the cost curves for coal and gas generation over the years (see graph) largely reflect movements in fuel prices, oil in particular. Historically, gas and coal prices have followed oil price movements. When the link with oil prices broke in recent years, the cost curves for coal and gas generated electricity start to diverge, particularly from 2010 when the curves reflect data gathered around the time oil prices peaked. When oil prices fall, gas prices tend to get pulled down with them while the 62
price of coal generation is not similarly affected. Another influencing factor on generation costs from 2010 is that energy data gatherers, such as the International Energy Agency, begin to incorporate carbon penalties in fossil fuel generation costs. Coal, being dirtier than gas, incurs a greater penalty, accounting for just over $20/MWh of its generation cost compared with half that for gas. Its cost curve in the graph continues to rise as gas follows the sharp drop in oil prices, at least for the time being. ZERO PRICE RISK The cost of nuclear, wind and solar generation is mainly made up of repayments (with interest) of their respective capital costs spread over each unit of production during the lifetime of the specific facility. The rest of the cost consists of operations and maintenance charges, such as servicing, insurance, land rental, and component repair or replacement, also
PLOTTING THE PAST
Data on historic costs of electricity generation from the various sources of energy are hard to track and difficult to compare. Work commissioned by FORESIGHT plots historical electricity cost in the industrialised world, particularly Denmark, for five main sources of energy, coal, gas, nuclear, wind and solar, going back 25 years or so (see graph). With the exception of nuclear, the curves are of the actual cost for which newly constructed facilities were able to generate electricity at the time. For nuclear, bid prices, or nuclear-industry forecasts are used in the absence of any newly built commercial plant to supply actual cost data. Each technology’s cost of generation is derived from a mix of real-time data reported in Europe and North America, made comparable by assuming the same 5% weighted cost of capital for all. The curves represent a typical mid-range cost of energy for each technology. For all sources, the curves embody the total expenditure involved in generating a unit of power and delivering it to the customer, including grid connection. FORESIGHT
Selecting an appropriate discount rate to achieve a fair comparison of cost over a long period of time requires consideration of a number of factors, not least the origin of available cost data. Verifiable historic data is scarce and hard to come by. For coal, gas and wind, much of the data stems from the International Energy Agency, which in the late 1990s and early 2000s relied mainly on submissions from Denmark for all three technologies. A 5% rate is the value used in Denmark. A more usual rate for cost comparisons is 8%. At that rate the cost of wind, as a more capital intensive technology than coal and gas (where the cost of fuel is paramount), would not undercut its competitors until about ten years later than the mid-1990 period indicated in the graph. The cost of generating electricity is not to be confused with it sales price, which will also include a margin for additional expenses, such as running the power system, and various taxes and levies, the size of which is dependent on fiscal policy from country to country. Generation costs between countries do not vary to the extent that prices do.
TEXT Lyn Harrison
COST OF ELECTRICITY GENERATION
Policy
COAL, GAS, NUCLEAR, WIND AND SOLAR
What goes up and what goes down
Wind (land based)
Nuclear
Gas
Coal
PV
LCOE $/MWh* 120 110 100 90 80 70
Source: FORESIGHT
60 50 40 1985
1990
1995
Year of data publication
2000
2005
2010
2015
*2015 dollars
spread over each kWh. The resulting total, referred to as the levelised cost of energy (LCOE), is a known cost of generation from the outset, in contrast to the fuel price risk inherent in fossil fuel generation. From the late 1990s, mid-range LCOE for a typical wind power facility on land has consistently undercut that of the thermal technologies and today remains lower than typical LCOE for solar PV, its nearest renewable energy competitor on cost. Until relatively recently, coal was the next cheapest after wind, but from about 2012 gas became cheaper than coal and more recently still so has solar PV. Electricity from nuclear plant has cost more than generation from wind, coal and gas for the past 20 years. Although wind power at its typical mid-range cost is clearly shown as the most economic long-term option for society since the mid 1990s it is not necessarily the most commercially favourable to build. The structure of the local or national market and the FORESIGHT
regulations that apply to the business of trading electricity can make development of less economic technologies a better commercial bet. Governments are struggling to restructure markets that account for the changed economic reality brought to them by renewables. Progress is being made, though is hampered in markets encumbered by entrenched fossil fuel interests and which face the risk of stranding investments in legacy assets. Where the signing of long term power purchase agreements is an option for electricity supply, however, wind power is frequently the generation of choice based on its low cost, both in the United States, Latin American countries such as Brazil and Chile, and other windy locations. SECURITY OF SUPPLY AND ITS COST The cost of running a power system is separate to that of generating electricity. It is not included in generation cost. System costs include paying for security of supply, achieved by operating a margin of generating capacity over and above that required to meet peak demand. All generating units can break down for longer or shorter periods of time and need to be taken offline for regular maintenance. A margin of capacity is needed to cover for every eventuality, planned or unplanned. This inherent uncertainty in running a power system has a cost. Sufficient power must be available at all times to balance supply and demand. All plant contribute to the cost of providing it. In the case of wind, its variability of supply incrementally adds to the level of uncertainty and is an extra cost. When wind is supplying 20% of electricity on a system, the cost of the extra time that plant has to run to make up for mismatches in supply and demand is a modest $6/ MWh. For 50% wind it is $8/MWh. Add this “extra uncertainty of supply” cost to wind’s curve in the graph and it does not alter the picture, even when a similar fair share of the cost of providing balancing power is not added to the curves of the other technologies. Nuclear, which unlike wind can trip offline in an instant and is often the largest single unit on a power system, may also incur similar balancing costs to safeguard security of supply. NOSE-DIVING RENEWABLES Wind’s steady fall in cost during the 1980s and into the late 1990s, clearly demonstrated in the graph, is largely a product of learning curve economics, spurred by tough competition between a plethora of wind turbine suppliers in Europe and the US. A sudden rise in wind’s generation cost in 2005 63
Policy
(the only hike in wind’s cost yet seen) was caused by a number of converging factors. Demand for wind turbines had outstripped supply, prices had risen for steel and copper globally and competition had been reduced after a spate of mergers and acquisitions among wind turbine manufacturers. All three factors served to push up wind turbine prices, which in turn pushed up generation cost. Not much more than a year went by, however, before the market settled and wind’s cost continued down the learning curve, albeit less steeply than in the early years. Solar PV’s rapidly falling cost curve after the technology became commercial mirrors that of wind in its early years.
LAST WORD History is a guide, no more, no less. What it tells us, however, is that over 25 years, the cost of electricity from nuclear plant in the industrialised world has increased with every new facility proposed. For the fossil fuel technologies, irregular swings in gas and coal prices are the norm and make the cost of coal and gas generation decidedly unpredictable: fuel price risk is real and that uncertainty has a very real cost. In contrast, given stable commodity prices, the cost of land based wind has steadily declined and that trend is being mirrored by solar PV, the newest technology to become commercial. It would be hard for anybody to mistake the history lesson embedded in our graph. •
NUCLEAR AND OFFSHORE WIND
Close race for cheapest carbon savings
Nuclear
Offshore Wind
OFFSHORE WIND MEETS NUCLEAR
LCOE $/MWh* 180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40 1985
1990
1995
2000
Year of data publication
64
2005
2010
*2015 dollars
2015
Offshore wind and nuclear power are electricity generating technologies with large demands for capital investment. To get built they both require governments to commit to underpinning their respective markets over the long term. For this reason, the electricity production costs of each are often held up for comparison. The cost of offshore wind, a relatively new and highly challenging technology, has until recently tended to go up as much as down and a clear trend has yet to emerge. In contrast, nuclear power has been around for far longer. Its cost trend continues an inexorable upward trajectory. The recent spike in nuclear’s cost (see graph) reflects the cost British consumers will have to pay for power generated by the proposed Hinkley Point nuclear plant in England, should it be built. The purchase price pledged by government for Hinkley’s
FORESIGHT
output is £92.5/MWh (in 2012 money) for a lengthy period of 35 years. The price realised for offshore wind, a still developing technology, by a recent UK government auction is £114/ MWh, but paid for just 15 years. If the fixed purchase price for Hinkley power was paid for 15 years, not 35, it would need to rise to £115/MWh to make ends meet for its investors. In comparison, winning bids this year provided by Denmark’s DONG Energy for power sales for coming offshore wind farms indicate generation cost at under £90/ MWh, for 15 years. Moreover, the £92.5/kWh for Hinkley output is from 2012 and inflation linked, meaning that in 2016 money it has already risen to £97/MWh, according to some commentators. Neither is offshore wind blessed with the £2 billion in loan guarantees that the UK government has poured into easing the financing of Hinkley Point, a sum not included in the cost for which it can generate electricity.
Policy
A COPERNICAN MOMENT
FORCE OF MAN Human impact on Earth is so profound that humans should be seen as a geological force. This is the conclusion that an international working group of geologists presented at the International Geological Congress in Cape Town earlier this fall. After seven years of deliberation, they now say that the current Holocene Epoch we are living in—and have been for the last 12,000 years—should be replaced by a new Epoch. The new proposed time period is called The Anthropocene, or “the age of man.” FORESIGHT talked to professor Colin Waters of University of Leicester, who is the secretary of the Anthropocene Working Group that proposed this move. Q: What is the most important evidence supporting the notion of the Anthropocene? The important aspect of the Anthropocene concept is that there are a host of key environmental signals that show a broad coincidence of environmental changes. These are witnessed in sediments, glacial ice, corals and trees, even cave deposits, all happening during the mid-20th century—not just one signal. If we look at novel materials, we could identify the appearance of plastics and aluminium in geological successions and a significant increase in the abundance of black carbon and fuel ash (from fossil fuel combustion), nitrogen (twice the abundance a century ago), carbon dioxide (a third higher than during pre-industrial times), methane (double pre-industrial concentrations), radionuclides from atmospheric fallout (plutonium and radiocarbon are good markers) and homogenisation of animal and plant species across the globe. This is partly due to invasive species and partly through transfer of functional species, such as crops and domesticated animals.
TEXT Peter Bjerregaard
Q: The working group has given a very clear recommendation to the International Geological Congress to adopt the Anthropocene as a new Epoch. What is the process from here? Firstly, the Anthropocene Working Group will need to formulate a formal proposal, published in a peer-reviewed journal. This will require our review and selection of potential Global Boundary Stratotype Section or Point (commonly known as “Golden Spike”) showing how the primary and secondary signals range through the succession, and particularFORESIGHT
ly across the boundary that will be chosen to mark the base of the Anthropocene. When completed, we would submit the proposal to the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS). The SQS membership must vote on the proposal, and if positive (a supermajority of 60% or more in favour) it would then go to the International Commission on Stratigraphy to vote. Again, if positive, the issue goes to International Union of Geological Sciences who either ratify the proposal, send it back for more work, or reject it altogether. Q: When do you think we will have to rewrite our geological textbooks? Typically, for other parts of the geological column this process can take decades. However, we are initially looking at two to three years to make a decision on the environmental signal that should be used for the formal definition. But we would hope to carry out analysis of many signals within a small number of sections in different environments in various parts of the planet. This would show how the signals can be correlated globally. Once we have formulated our proposal, the official route of ratification is also a slow process. Importantly, there is no advantage to submitting a proposal too early, so it shouldn’t be time constrained. •
NEW TIMES
The notion of the Anthropocene was first popularised in 2000 by Paul Crutzen, when he at a conference blurted out that we were no longer in the Holocene, but rather in the Anthropocene. This became the main topic of conversation in the following coffee break. Crutzen, who won a Nobel Prize for discovering the effects of ozone-depleting compounds, had for a long time thought that the balance of forces on Earth had changed significantly. In his Nobel acceptance speech in 1995, Crutzen said that it was utterly clear to him “that human activities had grown so much that they could compete and interfere with natural processes.” The idea that the Holocene (meaning ''recent whole'') was over and a new geological age had begun was not new to him. The concept of the Anthropocene was. After coining the term, he went on publish his idea in a short essay in Nature, titled “Geology of Mankind”. “It seems appropriate to assign the term ‘Anthropocene’ to the present, in many ways human-dominated, geological epoch,” he observed. Soon, the concept began migrating into other academic journals. If adopted, the Anthropocene is very likely to keep migrating—from scientific discussion to the general public. 65
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