Published: 17 May 2021, 11:26
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Lessons will be learnt from the construction of other prisons in the UK currently such as HMP Five Wells in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire (pictured) to help cut carbon in both construction and operation. Image: gov.uk.
The Ministry of Justice is to develop thousands of solar panels across four new prisons being built in England.
It has announced that the new sites will be ‘all-electric’, utilising heat pumps instead of gas for heating, a range of energy efficiency measures such as smart lighting and solar technology in order to reduce energy demand.
Over the next 60 years, this is expected to cut £100 million in energy costs, as well as reducing carbon emissions by 85% compared to other prisons already under construction.
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In efforts to prevent a repeat of the February disaster that left millions without electricity, Texas policymakers continue to disagree over the cause and appropriate mitigation efforts. The blackouts from the storm led to spikes in power prices and the deaths of at least 151 people.
Republican leadership was quick to criticize renewables for the role they played in the blackouts, with Gov. Greg Abbott, R, claiming on national television that renewables caused the outages. They cannot be dispatched by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and therefore cannot be relied upon, said state Sen. Kelly Hancock, R, who chairs the Senate Business and Commerce committee. Hancock sponsored Senate Bill (SB) 1278, which would impose reliability costs on intermittent generation.
Dive Brief:
HyDeal Los Angeles, a green hydrogen initiative launched in Los Angeles on Monday, aims to bring the cost of hydrogen fuel to $1.50/kg by 2028. At that price, electricity from hydrogen-fired turbines would run about $35/MWh, estimates the Green Hydrogen Coalition, which launched the cooperative initiative.
In the project s first phase, set to take place over the next three months, the partners plan to identify potential industrial-scale applications for green hydrogen in the LA Basin and develop an infrastructure plan to connect them to hydrogen production and storage. Our hypothesis is, in a strategically targeted location, if you can aggregate offtakers you can scale up faster, said Janice Lin, founder and president of the Green Hydrogen Coalition. You can afford the infrastructure and reduce cost substantially.
It’s a real conundrum for management teams in oil and gas companies: In a world in which a much-boosted “energy transition” to renewables seems inevitable to take place at some point in the future, should you attempt to transition your company’s asset portfolio and strategic mission along with it?