As @nctnico pointed out it is not about oils of rapeseed or palms but ethanol. EU discourages to use grain and corn for ethanol production in favor of Cellulosic ethanol made out of fibrous parts of plants/trees. Problem with Cellulosic ethanol manufacturing currently is high price of enzymes needed to break cellulose into simple sugars. Technology is not there yet. AFAIK big plants of Cellulosic ethanol were shut down in US and Germany.
As @nctnico pointed out it is not about oils of rapeseed or palms but ethanol. EU discourages to use grain and corn for ethanol production in favor of Cellulosic ethanol made out of fibrous parts of plants/trees. Problem with Cellulosic ethanol manufacturing currently is high price of enzymes needed to break cellulose into simple sugars. Technology is not there yet. AFAIK big plants of Cellulosic ethanol were shut down in US and Germany.
Which just goes to show, the directive as it stands will do for now to stem the bleeding. There is nothing they can really grow at the moment which flies under it.
There currently isn't any fast growing energy dense high oil percentage non food/feed crop for them to transition to. It's strange they said food or feed crop at all in the new directive, but it will do for now.
As @nctnico pointed out it is not about oils of rapeseed or palms but ethanol. EU discourages to use grain and corn for ethanol production in favor of Cellulosic ethanol made out of fibrous parts of plants/trees. Problem with Cellulosic ethanol manufacturing currently is high price of enzymes needed to break cellulose into simple sugars. Technology is not there yet. AFAIK big plants of Cellulosic ethanol were shut down in US and Germany.
You have strange perspective of "will do for now". When you actually read the document, you will see that set for 2020 maximum 7% limit of biofuels, bioliquids and biomass fuels produced from food or feed crops is *bigger* than current 5.2% *total* share of all types of biofuels (2018 data).
There currently isn't any fast growing energy dense high oil percentage non food/feed crop for them to transition to. It's strange they said food or feed crop at all in the new directive, but it will do for now.
As @nctnico pointed out it is not about oils of rapeseed or palms but ethanol. EU discourages to use grain and corn for ethanol production in favor of Cellulosic ethanol made out of fibrous parts of plants/trees. Problem with Cellulosic ethanol manufacturing currently is high price of enzymes needed to break cellulose into simple sugars. Technology is not there yet. AFAIK big plants of Cellulosic ethanol were shut down in US and Germany.Not quite true. There have been a dozen or so companies which tried to make Cellulosic ethanol. Several of these failed for various reasons (couldn't get the factory up to an economically viable production level, didn't get the process going at all, etc). AFAIK there are currently 2 to 4 companies which are producing cellulosic ethanol on an industrial scale. The technology is defenitely there however the economics do depend on the oil price which is too low at the moment.
BTW One of the problems with palm oil is that the producing countries want to keep selling the stuff. Indonesia for example has threatened to file a complaint to the WTO against the EU for protecting the EU's internal market. So to a certain level the EU has to buy more of this stuff than it actually wants for political reasons.
couldn't get the factory up to an economically viable production level, didn't get the process going at all, etc
And the start of the ban is in the documents you linked to.
I have linked to that before in other threads.
As far as I remember, the total cost was 150 kEUR with federal subsidies of 100kEUR.
But I wonder why Solmove needed so long. It didn't work since March, and I don't think the TÜV needed 5 months until August to create a report. Otherwise it would have been much more expensive than 4500 EUR. For this money the TÜV might have worked 1 or 2 days for it.
The drama continues. I updated the first posting, see date February 3, 2020 and May 31, 2020. I guess Solmove will lose the lawsuit and go bankrupt soon.
Man so much money wasted on these types of projects. They could have easily built a regular solar array with that money and it would actually be producing way more. But a normal boring install is not hip and trendy enough to get government funding.
their biggest problem is due to the modules not being as water tight as they should. This is a not a major obstacle to overcome but with their customer withdrawing they have a cash flow problem.
Spend the same money for roof mounted solar cells, and get 10x more power, for 10x more years.
their biggest problem is due to the modules not being as water tight as they should. This is a not a major obstacle to overcome but with their customer withdrawing they have a cash flow problem.
I would say the biggest problem is that it just doesn't make sense. Dave explained this multiple times in his videos. The cost is too high, and efficiency too low, compared to for example roof mounted solar cells.
nobody can say solar roadways are financially viable or not
their biggest problem is due to the modules not being as water tight as they should. This is a not a major obstacle to overcome but with their customer withdrawing they have a cash flow problem.
I would say the biggest problem is that it just doesn't make sense. Dave explained this multiple times in his videos. The cost is too high, and efficiency too low, compared to for example roof mounted solar cells.The error in Dave's reasoning is the assumption that there is enough roof space to begin with all around the world. Since this assumption is false (for various reasons) it is good to look for alternative places to put solar panels. For example: in the NL there is not enough roof space available to produce a significant amount of electricity (not because I think so; this has been determined by a study using a tool to determine what kind of output to expect from a roof and simply adding all the roofs available in the NL). Not saying solar roadways are the solution but I'm simply not seeing a definitive answer that it is a no go. So far getting a good enough road surface seems problematic. Until that is hashed out nobody can say solar roadways are financially viable or not. There is not enough evidence to support either standpoint. It is simple as that.
BTW building roofs over ways has been debated already. In short: If it where such a good idea we'd start seeing them by now but in reality putting a roof over a road opens a whole can of worms making it incredibly expensive. More expensive compared to integrating the solar panels in the road surface.
their biggest problem is due to the modules not being as water tight as they should. This is a not a major obstacle to overcome but with their customer withdrawing they have a cash flow problem.
I would say the biggest problem is that it just doesn't make sense. Dave explained this multiple times in his videos. The cost is too high, and efficiency too low, compared to for example roof mounted solar cells.The error in Dave's reasoning is the assumption that there is enough roof space to begin with all around the world. Since this assumption is false (for various reasons) it is good to look for alternative places to put solar panels. For example: in the NL there is not enough roof space available to produce a significant amount of electricity (not because I think so; this has been determined by a study using a tool to determine what kind of output to expect from a roof and simply adding all the roofs available in the NL). Not saying solar roadways are the solution but I'm simply not seeing a definitive answer that it is a no go. So far getting a good enough road surface seems problematic. Until that is hashed out nobody can say solar roadways are financially viable or not. There is not enough evidence to support either standpoint. It is simple as that.
BTW building roofs over ways has been debated already. In short: If it where such a good idea we'd start seeing them by now but in reality putting a roof over a road opens a whole can of worms making it incredibly expensive. More expensive compared to integrating the solar panels in the road surface.