Probing Low Carbon Electricity with Dr. James Merrick

In this episode of the Entropy Podcast, Francis Gorman speaks with Dr. James Merrick about the challenges and opportunities in achieving low carbon electricity in Ireland and globally. They discuss Ireland's 2030 emissions reduction targets, the role of technology in addressing climate change, and the impact of agriculture on emissions. The conversation also explores the importance of small countries in leading climate initiatives, innovative projects in electrical systems, and the need for a rethinking of grid design to accommodate renewable energy sources. Finally, they touch on future innovations in energy generation and the translation of academic theory into practical solutions.

Takeaways

• Ireland's commitment to a 51% reduction in greenhouse gases is ambitious but may only achieve a 29% reduction.
• Economic growth in Ireland has outpaced emissions reductions, showcasing a positive trend.
• Decoupling economic growth from emissions is a significant achievement.
• Small countries can show leadership in climate initiatives despite global challenges.
• Agriculture's role in emissions is complex and requires nuanced understanding.
• Technological advancements in agriculture can help reduce emissions.
• The grid design needs to adapt to the increasing use of renewable energy sources.
• Local energy solutions can mitigate the strain on the grid.
• Nuclear power should be reconsidered as a viable option for decarbonization.
• Innovative projects can lead to more efficient energy generation and consumption.

Transcript

Francis Gorman (00:02.307)
Hi everyone, I'm Francis Gorman, this is the Entropy Podcast episode 5 and I'm joined with Dr. James Merrick Geal Research. James, how do you do?

James Merrick (00:10.072)
Very well, thanks, Francis. Pleasure to join you and join your esteemed list of guests on your podcast.

Francis Gorman (00:16.153)
Thanks, James. It's great to have you on. James, you have particular expertise in the supply and use of low carbon electricity. Quite topical at the moment is the 2030 commitments we made around our carbon reduction in Ireland. We committed to a 51 % reduction in greenhouse gases, but it looks like we'll only achieve a 29 % reduction during that time frame. Based on your expertise and your observations of this space,

we're gonna pay a significant amount of money in fines for not hitting those targets. What's your perspective and can technology play a role in helping us solve these problems?

James Merrick (00:55.854)
Thanks, Francis. There's multiple layers I'd like to talk about there. Maybe I'll give a word on the Irish context and maybe bring it out to the global context and we'll come back to the Irish again. I think there's a lot to celebrate in the 29%. That would be one aspect of maybe the news coverage that doesn't get there because our economy has been really successful. So when these projections are made, maybe there's various mathematical models used.

various analyses. OK, let's assume some economic growth. Let's assume what sort of emissions might be looking there and then what can we do relative to that. But our economic growth has probably been faster than expected at the time. So the fact that we have reduced our emissions to that scale and with the level of growth Ireland has had is quite an achievement. I am so I know I think there's quite a lot positive there.

would be my first comment on the Irish situation and the because, know, it's maybe looking back to the global context, when I first got involved in this area was when I was studying for my masters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And back then it was a real question. Could you have economic growth at all without emissions reductions? Like, could they be decoupled? And so the fact that

we have seen this decoupling is a big achievement and globally, maybe not quite as striking as has been achieved in Ireland currently. But it is a, yeah, so that's the first point and maybe through their perspective on technology and how it can help us do more. Also at that time and after MIT, I had the opportunity to work.

at the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto in California. A great team there. And we were looking at all these big questions, building models around them. the, you know, again, look, OK, if wind and solar hit certain cost projections, how much can they how much of a role can they play in the system? It was quite abstract.

James Merrick (03:16.174)
You know, we had various pilot projects, a little solar plant here or a wind farm here in California. There was some stuff built in the 80s in California. It was but it was all kind of pilot stage. And now we're in a world in 2010, so say 2010, 2024 now we're in a world where turbines are now three or four megawatts each. We could talk about, you know, some of the visual aspects there. But and solar power has got so much cheaper.

It's a very positive story. Like what I would say from 2010, between 2009, the sort of maybe earlier, the sort of projections was the world was on a course for six degrees of warming on the path we were on. Now we're probably on a path less than that. I'm going to just make up a number, three or four degrees on our current path. Now people have done detailed analysis of that, but it's better and we can go more. The Paris agreement, the...

that's kind of underlying the European and Irish climate goals. We want to hit two degrees and that's, there's good reasons for that. But yeah, so I'm quite positive and I'm quite positive how technology has developed. So that's a long answer and yeah.

Francis Gorman (04:33.495)
And when we look at that, James, suppose Ireland is a speck on the map of the the of worlds we live in. We have burn baby burn coming out of the US at the moment. We've we've bombs and mass levels of destruction happening in Gaza and Ukraine. Are our efforts.

James Merrick (04:40.419)
Yes.

Francis Gorman (04:55.789)
going to be in vain? Do we need everyone to toe the one one tied here in order to actually have any level of success or are we going to are we going to put blood, sweat and tears, probably pay huge fines but at the detriment of ourselves because we actually can't enact change as a micro economy versus the larger perspective of world order at the moment.

James Merrick (05:23.022)
It's a great point, Francis, and it's a key point of the climate challenge and why it makes it such a sticky problem is that the costs of reducing emissions are here and now, while the benefits are spread over future generations and across the world. so no country can solve it and so on, not even the United States can solve it and so on, or not even China can solve it and so on.

So it's it's so I do get a little frustrated. I listen to. In the Irish context, sometimes. Where I've been lucky to be kind of into sort of global conversations and when you come back to it can sound very parochial, it's as if if we don't hit certain target, the world's going to end, you know, it's we could.

I think all a small country can do is, because if every small region, every big country is made up of small regions, a very small region say, well, we can't change it, so we do nothing. Then we end up with a big problem where nobody was anything. So that's clearly the coordination challenge. But I think a small country, what a small country can do strategically is show leadership. so I think the Irish example is actually a good example now of economic growth and emissions reductions.

But I think, yes, like this concept of sacrifice. not, we need to, we need to sacrifice. need to, we need to.

at all costs reduce our emissions. Yeah, what I'm really saying is kind of economic self-harm is not going to be an example or it will follow. And all we can do is a small country, it's set a good example.

Francis Gorman (07:08.811)
Economic self harm. I like I like that sediment and that probably leads me into my next question We both grew up on dairy farms and I'm from an agricultural background the agricultural sector in Ireland seems to be getting a lot of the stick in terms of The lead cause of our emissions. I believe it's over 30 % on official figures in that area. Have you got a perspective in in?

in terms of that narrative and if technology or adoption of practices can play a role in helping to reduce that or if it needs to be reduced at all.

James Merrick (07:41.346)
Yeah, I do have perspective. So I would say that.

James Merrick (07:50.616)
So when I was living in the States and kind of in those climate change, energy system, technology conversations, and then I arrived back in Ireland and some of the others talk about Belgian cows, I found it bizarre, know, because it's a sort of a parochial issue that we don't have the industrial base. We know that all the economic problems of Ireland in the early 20th century. And so we didn't have this industry.

So it's almost a it's a kind of artifact that we have such a high level of emissions from agriculture as opposed to industry like other countries have had. it's I feel it's it's sort of a parochial, outsized role in our conversation here. And there is an element of.

You know, methane is a, well, you could spend hours talking with the methane cycle and its role in the carbon cycle and biogenic methane versus methane emitted by the extraction of fossil fuels. So it's complex, but I think it is fair to say biogenic methane is different than

than the extraction burning of fossil fuels in terms of the... So, you know, maybe a simple way of putting it is like how many cows are natural? know, so it's how many natural cows... If there was no humans in the world, how many cows would be out there belching? And so the argument is all those humans, we drink milk, so we have more cows and because there's more belching...

that's attributable to humans. maybe the big point is there's just a lot of accounting you have to do on the dairy side or on the agricultural side. That makes me a little nervous because you make some assumption about the conversion rate between methane and carbon dioxide and all of a sudden you can be doing drastic actions based on the conversion rate as opposed to based on the actual global climate problem. And so that's the challenge.

James Merrick (10:00.79)
I think the New Zealand government has recently done a new report on the methane side that I think I a lot of time for. think it's a sensible, seems to be at a surface level, a sensible approach where they just separate methane from carbon dioxide rather than bunch them together. It seems they're going to separate them and deal with them separately, given all the different dynamics. And on the technology side, I think there's been, again, there's a positive story.

If you look around the fields, this kind of low-efficient slurry spreading has become a lot more popular. It's partly a regulation story, but partly an economic story where the farmers get more value out of the nutrients, there's less waste. so it's, and I think there's more to come on that side too. it's...

Yeah, so like I the broader theme I have is a lot more to do to a former election slogan is out there. I think I think once there's progress, I think we can be happy and not get too worried. know, maybe there's an element that, the end of the world is coming. You know, I.

I don't see that. think think a wise person would say like if we don't hit two degrees, then it's good to hit two point five degrees. We don't hit five. So every bit counts. And and the targets and goals are great. But maybe I'll just drop. I'll drop. I'll drop another. I'll drop another line. And, another thing in the Irish narrative that is bugs me is that we are the carbon.

budget where you are legally legally is enshrined in law. We're going to break the law if we don't hit it. But at the end of the day, if the government breaks the law, it's not ideal. But what is the redress? they can always go into part, they'll someday and have a one line bill. We have now increased the carbon budget by 2x and we're no longer breaking the law. know, there's, there, there, you know, I think, I think, I think

James Merrick (12:14.991)
I think, yeah, maybe another broader point I'd like to make is there's an interesting interplay between...

James Merrick (12:26.094)
It's a common and old thing in environmental economics, going back to the acid rain, going back to the 70s, is kind of market based policies versus regulation based policies. where an element was, there's an argument that I'm sympathetic to is that the local actors in the ground are the ones with the information.

They're the ones who know the value of different activities. so once they internalize the cost of pollution, then they can make the trade-offs. And so you need markets, you need government policy to put a price on pollution. But then you let kind of individuals work things out. But when you're kind of assessively top down, there's just a lot of information the top-down decision makers don't know.

And so that again can make me nervous because you can kind of have red tape then, drives all this economic, can drive a lot of economic harm unintentionally.

Francis Gorman (13:25.933)
Very good perspective there, James. And I think that's conversation we could probably talk about for quite some time and in some depth. But maybe the key takeaway is we might need to separate agriculture from core industrial and take a different metric or measurement against it whilst understanding the wider scale problems that need to be addressed at a global economic level, not just at a singular.

level as you pointed out there. yeah, not really, really key takeaways. And I think it's a topic that's going to get louder as we get closer to 2030. So, you know, we're we're five and a bit years out now in terms of that that drop dead date. I would like to see more inward investment rather than outward fine paying activity, if that makes sense. So, you know, I think if we're going to do something about it, we should do it for the betterment of society. Do it as that that

leader as you said earlier and not just throw that money away in fines at the end of the day.

James Merrick (14:26.35)
Yes, I'll have to read that report that came out this morning as we spoke from the Fiscal Advisory Council and the Climate Change Advisory Council because, yeah, the fines, there'll be a lot of politics around those fines in 2030, whether they happen or not.

And maybe there's an element where they're going to be ring fenced for low carbon investments. So it's hard to know. there is an element of it. And are we going to be, I suppose my kind of high level thought, their thought I would have is.

I'd be surprised if any of our European fellow member states do any better, significantly better than us. So if everybody has that level of fines, is everyone, you know, are they all just going to come to an agreement? Okay, we've done our best and let's just keep trying to do, keep doing our best. So, you know, who knows, but there will be politics involved.

Francis Gorman (15:23.001)
space to watch. James, you've been involved in a lot of exciting projects across the states and your one in particular caught my eye. It was the development of a large scale state of the art optimization model for the US electrical system that is now a key analysis tool of national and regional electric and climate policy options. That sounds fascinating in and of itself. Can you talk to me a little bit about that project, please?

James Merrick (15:49.57)
Yeah, that was, I suppose I built a mini version of a model, such a model as part of my master's thesis at MIT and the team at the Electric Power Research Institute had funding to build this tool. And so yeah, I joined the team and some great people there and we built it out and it's.

You know, I subsequently went to do my doctorate next door at Stanford and the team has continued to develop and do good work with the model. You know, it's the model is it's the sort of tool that's used in helping to calculate these targets because it's like, should we aim for 20 % reductions or 50 % reduction or 30 % reductions? So how do you make, how do you come up with these numbers?

and the models can help. so you kind of, you gather, what you do is gather data, try and get your understanding the existing state of the system. And then you have various projections and then the optimization component is okay, given all these constraints, what's the least cost way of getting where we would like to get to? And, you know, I find them, they're great tools and they can be very insightful, but...

there is a danger that can be used as godlike authorities. And they're certainly not because when you're in the weeds, billing them, know all the assumptions. There's a lot of assumptions. So they're helpful tools. What I would say about the model, that model in particular, was particularly cutting edge was the treatment of variable renewables. And it's an important point on the technology is that traditionally power systems have been designed around

dispatchable technologies. So on one side you had electricity demand, which was considered a given, like there was a certain shape to it. And on the other side, you had the supply technologies. And traditionally was this model, you had sort of base load power, which around the world was typically coal, hydro, nuclear, and then...

James Merrick (18:12.736)
So there would be high capital costs, but low operation costs. then for the sort of other, then there's all these periods where there'd be higher electricity demand and it doesn't make economic sense to have a big expensive plant just running for a few hours a year. So then you would, tradition was you'd have low capital costs, high operating cost plants meeting those hours. And that was typically a gas fired unit.

There's been some blurring of that over the years with gas prices coming down. but my big point is enter wind and solar, which you don't you have you have different you have different economics where you at that point you had high capital costs, zero operating costs. Now the capital costs will come down a lot. But it's it's this interesting element where they essentially OK, there's various maintenance, but but in the big picture to cause zero to run once once they're built. But also you can't control them.

like the wind blows when the wind blows, the sun shines when the sun shines. You can forecast these things. There are correlations with load. But it's it's a fundamental change in how you plan a power system to. There was also a question which has been largely solved by power electronics was that wind turbines, for example, are.

you know, how would they maintain the frequency of the grid? But the paratronics is an interface between the turbine and the grid. that has kind of become a solved problem, which was also there was question marks about as recently as 2010. Yes. So what I'd say, yeah. So what I want to say about it, so on the model, what was important there was we had some nice ways of treating and capturing those correlations between

electricity demand, wind and solar. now, you know, in recent years, been a big shift. Electricity demand is not this fixed thing where because people now have home batteries, people have electric cars, people have heat pumps. So the shape of electricity demand, it was kind of the same shape for the last few decades, for a number of decades there in Western countries. And now it's shifting. And so when you're planning a power system, I'm trying to get back to my

James Merrick (20:29.496)
What I was trying to make the point was trying to make was the economics of generation does depend a lot on the shape. But now the shape is a moving target. A, the shape is a moving target. A and B renewables have this. When they're available, they're It's free in the product that provides you to pay all this capital already. when they're gone, they're not they're not you need something else. So it's it's it's a.

So the model tried to capture all those things essentially.

Francis Gorman (21:00.409)
When we look at the Irish grid per se, and I think touching on your point there, the shift towards wider adoption of electrical driven appliances, it heat pumps, vehicles, et cetera. So is that creating a strain on the grid? Is the design of the grid fit for purpose or do we need very much like our water systems to have a drastic rethink of how we create

micro segmentation that you have the likes of industry farms, know, places that have a lot of roof space, et cetera, running X amount of their daily load on solar per se or wind sharing that with local community rather than feeding back into the grid. Do we need a rethink or is the grid as it stands appropriate for that shift in?

peaks that we're now seeing with a move towards a more electrical driven future.

James Merrick (22:02.862)
Yeah, it's a great question. And I suppose there's something that's been pressing on our minds after the recent storm Eowyn. And there's a large academic literature and there's probably a lot of demo pilot projects on microgrids, which essentially would be that where if the broader grid goes, you could have a little local grid could automatically kick into place. there's a lot of elegance to that idea. I think

Yeah, think some vulnerabilities were shown after the recent storm. But I get the impression, like I can speak to some local experience where there's a line runs through a local forest and everybody knows when there's a storm that line would go. know, the vegetation, when you look at the different options for making the grid more resilient, there's a lot of talk about undergrounding lines, changing the pole material from wood to steel or something.

They're quite expensive. Like vegetation management is a lot cheaper. that's where it starts before a huge amount. I think there has been talk about it, but that would be where I would start. I think there's a very big point on the broader transmission system. So you have a separation between distribution grids, which bring power around your local communities, and then transmission grids, which can transfer power high voltage long distances.

And if there was one thing from 2010, say if I again, when I look back and think about what I was looking forward, I would be surprised. I am surprised. I would be surprised then that the transmission created has not been built out faster because we, you know, there's a lot of numbers today that I hope I'm getting approximately right, but I'm not going to have exactly right on top of my head. But I believe last year, 12 % of our wind power was spilled, essentially.

There was no...

Francis Gorman (24:02.187)
When you say spill-gens, you mean waste as in nowhere to put it because the grid can't handle that. Okay.

James Merrick (24:06.87)
Yeah, yeah and that number is increasing and so every time new wind turbines are coming that's happening and basically it can't get out and that's either it can't get out of its local area is typical problem or can't get out of the country. Now there's a big new interconnection to France under construction at the moment which will help but even within the local island it's

because when you look at the cost of transmission lines versus the cost of all these turbines and the cost of everything else in the power system, it's actually quite low. Like it makes the cost benefit and now it's the benefit to cost ratio is really high on transmission lines. And so I would have been surprised looking for looking back and there's some nice graphics from Scotland of recent weeks where there's all these wind farms in Scotland just turned off because they can't get the power down to London essentially. And it's like.

Yeah, there's lots of proposals, lots of talk. But yeah, so that's the one that bugs me that it's really sad to see like low carbon, zero cost marginal power just being lost. So it's OK, it's only a fraction, but it's an increasing fraction and it should be worked on. And then there's a market design element.

where, like for example, in Britain, is, and in Ireland, there's one price for the whole country. But really, at that time, in Scotland, power in Scotland was free, essentially, because it was being to build, while in London, power was very expensive because of these transmission blockages. So there's an argument that market design could incentivize, maybe make the transmission easier to build because of dynamics and prices, but then you're...

weighing it against politicians, perhaps very rightly saying, we don't want one part of our country having a cheaper power than the other because that's going to create all sorts of problems. it's like a lot of these. So where am I going with that is, yeah, the big theme is, you know, again, I've mentioned 2010 a few times, but 2010, you're kind of building these models, simulating these systems, wondering what it's going to be like. Now, we've kind of hit a point where they're happening to being built out and...

James Merrick (26:29.964)
Yeah, there's technical solutions to some of these problems and then there's kind of market design, regulatory, political solutions to just make it all work. Yeah. So again, I'm pretty positive and things are moving in the right direction, but there's work to do still.

Francis Gorman (26:46.498)
Do you see a level of innovation happening in the next couple of years? And when I look out at kind of the

across the sea. I believe Japan, China have already started taking different approaches to electrical generation at almost a unit level. So what I mean by that is I've seen examples where they use people power. So people going through a train station, that door that you go to to enter the train is actually a mini wind turbine that they're turning it and creating power from just people flow through these these terminals.

the floor plates are kinetic energy so that the pressure of people standing on the floor walking en masse is also generating power for these stations etc.

Ireland is very traditional in terms of we look wind and solar. Should we be thinking a little bit outside of the box? we be looking at high traffic areas such as roadways, such as shopping centers, hospitals, train stations, places where actually people can be part of the solution in terms of our general movement can actually create the output needed to generate electricity.

James Merrick (27:55.406)
I'm all for all those ideas. Yeah. A similar idea and that I'm really pro is rooftop solar, for example. you know, but maybe when you look at the big kind of grid perspective, a lot of those ideas seem expensive for small, for relatively small gains in a world where you can coordinate everything and build transmission. But in a world where you can't, it increase.

it increases the value of those local initiatives. If you can't get the wind power from Scotland down to London, if you can, okay, for whatever reason it's taking too long, if you can have your local generation in London on the shoot station, it gets around, it's wonderful because it gets around all the years of delays. So that would be one perspective. so my family, Dairy Farm recently installed solar panels and but

one going back to agriculture sustainability but but like the role of the battery uh it's seeing it it's again seeing it in real time it's it's it's it really is so important you know again that's sort of local thing where in an ideal world okay you could why need a battery someone else can use the power somewhere else in the grid but the reality is that's getting all the macro design the price is right for that it's simpler if you can just keep the power yourself and use it when the sun goes down

So it's those local initiatives are wonderful. I'll mention China actually. So one thing they're doing in China that I learned recently, looking at some numbers is they're still building a lot of hydropower, which we did a Shannon scheme in the 20s. There's actually a proposal in silver mines, which I didn't learn about until recently also, but.

So that, know, hydropower is this sort of thing where it can be terribly socially disruptive. yeah, so it's trying to try to have different dynamics. We'll put it that way and they can they can build these things. The other thing that's striking in China is in Korea is their nuclear power build out is continuing. And like the Korean, the new Korean nuclear plants, they're four times 4X

James Merrick (30:20.372)
cheaper than the power plant under construction in England at the moment, nuclear power plant, Hinckley power, Hinckley point I think it's called. And I don't think the Koreans are compromising on safety there. That's the kind of South Korea has developed, prosperous economy now. But it's just whatever factors they're able to build a nuclear power for four times softer. And I suppose that's the last part of your question, Francis.

For, know, it's a question I'd ask all environmentalists and it's like, what's your view on nuclear power? If you think climate change is the end of the world, maybe nuclear power is somewhere you want to think about too, because one of the fastest decarbonizations, if you look at the historical record, was when the French built out their nuclear fleet in the 70s and 80s. So it's, you know, at the moment, the problem with nuclear power is,

If we get all the red tape with permitting and things, but once you get the permit for nuclear power plant, it takes 15 years to build it seems in Europe. Well, if you get a permit for a wind plant, it's up in two years and operating a solar plant, maybe even one year. it's it's it's so nuclear has that. Yeah. So it's it's that's OK. So yeah, you have and you have to there's a lot of a lot of community has to have a lot of in the in the safety and things. Well, yeah. So so there's lots of challenges and.

But I personally, kind of, know, we probably in Ireland, were in Chernobyl and it's nuclear power seemed like a really bad idea. But like coal, coal burning coal, like we did money point instead of building a nuclear plant in Carnot Point. Like how many cases of asthma did that cause? Like it's not it's not it wasn't it wasn't a zero cost solution. So so so there's lots of trade offs in all these things. Yeah.

Francis Gorman (32:14.871)
Yeah, I think I watched the documentary Bill Gates talking about this. I'd much rather live beside a nuclear plant with clean energy than a coal mine that, you know, is polluting the air and, you know, causing all sorts of societal issues for the people who live around it. So I think that is, again, a debate to have. But everyone's mind does go back to nuclear meltdown and all of the horror stories and the iodine tablets being sent out in the...

James Merrick (32:40.674)
Yeah.

Francis Gorman (32:40.749)
the late 90s to every household in Ireland, just in case, you know, that didn't help the hearts and minds of winning those conversations. So, yeah, really interesting, James. We're nearly up on time. I've just one last question to finish up on if that's OK. You've studied at top institutes, so you mentioned MIT and Stanford, but you've engaged at very practical level in terms of engineering problems like machine fault prediction, et cetera.

How do you translate cutting edge academic theory into solutions that actually make sense on the ground? What would your advice be?

James Merrick (33:16.622)
It's a great question, Francis. So it was part of my journey was post Stanford to try and apply these mathematical models to like real projects in terms of instead of planning policy for the next 30 years, but actual, can we build a tool that can make money now or make something more efficient now? it's...

It's, well, it's a great question. What, how to make successful, you know, I.

Yeah, it's probably different, just different angles. I'd say what I found useful is listening, is, you know, you can't just be getting out on the ground and talk to people who are doing the work and trying to understand the actual problems. And you try and map the you bring your kind of knowledge of the academic work and try and Map, you kind of do this mental mapping between the problems on the ground.

and what the tools can possibly help with. that's, yeah, so that's the approach I followed and it has worked pretty well. I might just mention one of my latest tools is with a colleague, Roland McGovern, is to...

try and help speed up the permitting process using these wave of large language models to try and help with all the paperwork. So I prefer the numbers, but sometimes the paperwork is a blocker. So we're trying to see, we try and move the needle there too? Well, I think the US market has been decimated in the last few weeks. I think environmental impact assessments in the States are going to go from 5,000 pages to five pages.

Francis Gorman (35:02.627)
You're going to sell it to Dodge.

James Merrick (35:15.74)
And so, yeah.

Francis Gorman (35:19.257)
We won't open that kind of worm. So, James, look, was really nice having you on. Thanks so much for taking the time to sit down with me. Thank you.

James Merrick (35:19.99)
You

James Merrick (35:24.984)
Thanks so much, Francis. Great to talk to you.