Guest Speaker: Olav Orheim
Dr. Olav Orheim is a distinguished glaciologist, climatologist and polar expert who has spent more than thirty years studying the effects of global warming.
Dr. Orheim, was Head of Research at the Norwegian Polar Institute's (NPI) Antarctic Section from 1972 to 1993, before becoming the NPI's Managing... Profile
Discussion - March 2008
Carbon Capture and Storage has been proposed as a way to reduce greenhouse gases and slow down global warming, but are there other strategies that could be more effective?
6 Comments from our contributors
Loading ...
Twitter
RSS
LinkedIn
Youtube
Flickr
Twitter
LinkedIn
Youtube
Flickr
RSS
Executive
Bellona Europa
said: On 19/02/2008
The Climate Challenge
Increasing energy efficiency and energy production from renewable sources have the potential to reduce GHG emissions in the long-term. But today, eighty per cent of the world’s energy consumption is based on fossil fuels – and one third of the world’s population does not have adequate access to electricity. In this context, implementing energy efficiency measures and switching from fossil fuel to renewable energy at a realistic pace will not be sufficient to meet the required reduction in CO2 emissions required over the next half century.
Emissions must be cut rapidly, and, therefore, Carbon Capture and Storage technology is a bridge to a future society where energy production will be based on renewable energy. In Europe, CCS can contribute to reducing CO2 emissions with more than fifty per cent by 2050, if implemented at a wide scale. As such, CCS has the potential to avoid dramatic climate changes and sustain quality of life while maintaining secure power generation for the coming decades.
Safety of CCS Technology
The proposed way forward is to capture the CO2 and to store it underground, where it could be stored safely for, thousands, or even millions of years. Power plants and heavy industry equipped with this technology would essentially not emit CO2. In the North Sea, one million tones of CO2 has been stored per year since 1996. The stored CO2 has been monitored in order to detect any potential leakages. Monitoring CO2 stored under ground – and under the sea bed, is a straight forward industrial operation and has been done for decades in Europe, the US and in Australia. There is much less risk connected to storing CO2 than to storing natural gas – which is done at a large scale all over Europe today.
Proper Regulatory and Policy Framework
The establishment of a legal framework to ensure environmentally safe storage capacity of CO2 is a prerequisite for deploying CCS technology. It will therefore be important to ensure a proper regulatory and legal framework to foster establishment of new CCS projects.
An important precondition for allowing CCS technology to be implemented is general public acceptance. Broad public understanding of the role of CCS in mitigating climate change will therefore be a prerequisite to large scale deployment.
Several CO2 capture and storage projects have already been announced in Norway, the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Poland. Experience gathered from such projects will be valuable for future projects and it will spur planning and development of additional new projects.
No existing and future funding aimed at accelerating production of renewable energy sources must go to financing implementation of CCS technology.
Founder
Battery Electric Vehicles
said: On 20/02/2008
According to the IPCC Special Report on CO2 Capture and Storage, CCS is one of the techniques that could and should be used to mitigate Climate Change. It has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by 21 to 45% by 2050. Although the techniques exist and have been safely tested at small scale, large scale application requires further technical development and adaptation of existing legislations. For further information, please consult http://www.greenfacts.org/en/co2-capture-storage/.
The question whether some other mitigation strategies could be more effective is of little relevance: in its Fourth Assessment Report on Climate Change, the IPCC clearly states that CCS has to be rapidly developed and widely implemented in order to stabilize then reduce CO2 concentrations, together with many other strategies such as energy savings, renewable energies and, assuming constraints are lifted, nuclear energy. For further information, please see consult http://www.greenfacts.org/en/climate-change-ar4/.
Executive Director
CER
said: On 20/02/2008
The most effective strategy leading to a downsizing of overall greenhouse gas emissions and thus contributing to slowing down global warming is a strategy of energy saving and utilization of renewables. This generally applies to all economical segments but in particular to the transport sector which is the only one with growing volume of greenhouse gases. Despite multiple initiatives the transport sector is projected to remain the fastest growing segment when it comes to CO2 emissions.
Thus, in almost all Member States, the transport sector will have a crucial role in limiting greenhouse gas emission. In EU15, transport emissions have increased by 26% on 1990 levels. The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts a rise of 37% in energy consumption from 2004 to 2030 (IEA Outlook 2006) and this will not be reduced much by less carbon intensity.
There is therefore an urgent need for a sustainable transport policy reflecting this worrying tendency. The economy should be less transport intensive, transport must be more energy efficient and the least polluting transport modes have to be supported.
The low emitting rail sector is confident that the clear differentiated targets both for limiting greenhouse gas emissions and for the share of renewable energy will speed up political initiatives favouring sustainable transport modes.
Railways’ share of final transport energy consumption is less than 2%, compared to 84% for road in the EU25. Electric traction, which involves 15% of renewable energy sources, accounts for 80% of rail production. In addition, although the sector is very energy efficient, railway companies are already planning up to 20% cut on their 1990 emissions levels by 2020.
As stated: if the targets for lowering greenhouse gas emissions should be effectively met, then the economy growth should decouple from transport demand and transport sector has to be more energy efficient. Consequently one of the changes we need to see is greater modal shift towards more efficient and renewables consuming forms of transport.
In order to reach this goal companies will have to pay fully for the costs of pollution they incur. It is therefore utmost important to achieve such a level of the Eurovignette Directive revision that would allow Member States to set charges that correct current market failures.
Project Manager
EastWest Institute
said: On 25/02/2008
State-driven ‘environmentally-friendly’ policy incentives and international inter-governmental consensus on tackling global warming are essential for mitigating negative trends in the global climate change. Various ‘green’ or low-carbon energy technologies are important, but alone they can do much to stop global warming – there is a clear need in the strategic policy guidance provided by the governments. A proper global policy plus a set of commercially viable technologies is the best answer.
It can be argued that environmental protection and fight against global warming cannot be pursued through a set of purely technological solutions such as CCS used by the private sector to mitigate negative effect on the global environment – indeed ‘ready’ technological solutions free market forces cannot be sufficient for altering negative trends in the global climate change. Clear ‘price signaling’ from governments on use of renewable energy should be a key basis of any the international climate protection plan. These price signals will drive the pace of change to renewables and facilitate transfer to more environmentally friendly energy mix. It is mostly up to the states (or intergovernmental organizations) to decide on concrete measures and targets such as ‘price signaling’, the role of the civil nuclear power, use of renewable and low carbon energy, and implementation of concrete environmentally – friendly technical solutions. Indeed, global policymakers should come together and agree on the next steps to tackle current and future climate change and resource access challenges, while the markets will implement it on the tactical level. Shell’s CEO rightfully underlined that “companies can suggest possible routes to get there, but governments are in the driver’s seat.”
There should be a clear cost – benefit analysis for every technological solution proposed based on the assessment of the damage prevented and costs of implementation for any particular technology. It seems that the best solution, which takes into account current economic reality, will be a mix of improved carbon energy plus CCS, low-carbon energy, renewable and civil nuclear.
Policy Officer
EUREC Agency
said: On 29/02/2008
There are many strategies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow down global warming much more cheaply than CCS. Many of them in fact have a negative cost: they would deliver a net economic benefit to society even in a world where carbon emissions are not constrained.
Work by McKinsey (http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/ccsi/pdf/
Cost_Curve_for_Greenhouse_Gas_Reduction.pdf) has shown that improved building insulation, vehicle efficiency and more efficient versions of the appliances we use in our homes or offices are the lowest of the low-hanging fruit.
Changes in the way we generate power are more costly options. The motivation for investing in new forms of power generation is the prospect that some additional cost to electricity consumers incurred now will save money in the long run. Investing in renewable energy, particularly forms of renewable energy for which the fuel is free-of-charge (sunlight, wind, the movement of water) seems the best way to make this prospect become reality, since the only way their generation cost can move (and is moving) is down.
The outlook for CCS is more complicated. More coal would be consumed by a CCS power plant than a plant with the same capacity not equipped with CCS technology and this coal is forecast to cost more. A tonne of coal, costing around 40 EUR at present could cost 65-70 EUR in 2020 and upwards of 85 EUR in 2050 (http://www.energyblueprint.info/fileadmin/media/documents/PressReleases/
FutureInvestment.pdf).
European Affairs Adviser
LOGOS Public Affairs
said: On 06/03/2008
In my personal opinion, any strategy that has been proposed as being part of the Climate Package deserves our full attention and support. As I believe the technology for Carbon Capture and Storage could be implemented in a very short time span, industry – which has been instrumental in proposing this technique – should be given a chance to prove to the policy-makers and the general public that its use will contribute to the overall goal of reducing CO2 emissions globally.
The debate which is now taking place concerning CCS reminds me about the problem of nuclear waste: everyone could agree that nuclear energy itself has huge advantages, but the problem lies in what to do with the waste. Also in this debate, environmentalists are opposed to pragmatists, and this results in a piecemeal approach whereby some EU Member States embrace nuclear energy, while others are frantically trying to completely live without it. Is this the “common stand” we want the EU to take regarding climate change and energy security?
I believe that those who are propagating the use of CCS as one of the measures to help us save our planet should receive at least the benefit of the doubt and the possibility to go ahead with the development of the proper technology. Whether the end result will be to pump captured CO2 in solid rock foundations where it can never get out (as opposed to leave it going freely into the air), or we will find acceptable uses for this captured CO2 (I seem to recall some voices proclaiming that CO2 could be used in closed air-conditioning circuits, for example in new cars), or even find a technique to ‘neutralise’ it in the near future, every initiative that has a solid scientific basis should receive political support to prove itself!
I know this might not address “other strategies” as you put in your question…but this really amounts to a very wide topic…and I am not right now going to comment on bio-fuels, as you know what issues have been recently raised regarding its sustainability and effect on food prices…