World Energy Congress in Istanbul 9-13 October 2016 (photo World Energy Congress)
The World Energy Council gave out a clear message at the World Energy Congress that took place this week in Istanbul: the world needs to move away from fossil fuels much faster than it is doing today. That contrasted sharply with the message given out by most of the high-level speakers from government and business at the Congress, who stressed that the world needs more oil and gas. Mohammad Barkindo, the new Secretary General of oil cartel OPEC even warned that oil should not be âdiscriminatedâ against. Energy Postâs editor in chief Karel Beckman reports on the clashing visions in Istanbul.
The World Energy Congress is not just any event. Taking place every three years, organised by the World Energy Council, it is one of the biggest energy conferences in the world, and one of the most âhigh-levelâ – if you regard energy ministers and CEOâs of multinationals as âhigh-levelâ.
This year, in the troubled city of Istanbul, for the first time even a number of presidents showed up – those of Turkey, Russia, Venezuela and Azerbaijan – though the attendance was disappointing with around 2,000 delegates, only a third of the number at the previous Congress in Seoul in 2013. Fear of terrorist attacks no doubt prompted many to stay away.
“The biggest obstacle in achieving the climate goal is the rapid and successful transitioning of global transport to low carbon solutions”
Whether the World Energy Council should be happy with the presidential attention it got in Istanbul is another matter. Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip ErdoÄan, Ilham Aliyev and NicolĂĄs Maduro are a questionable quartet not just from a human rights perspective, but from an energy perspective as well. Three of them represent countries that depend heavily on income from fossil fuels. The fourth, Turkey, is positioning itself as a gas and oil transit hub â and last year announced plans to double its coal power capacity from 34 GW in 2014 to 60 GW in 2019. Their presence at the Congress â and their messages â contrasted starkly with the message the World Energy Council was trying to bring out: the necessity of what it calls a âGrand Transitionâ away from fossil fuels.
Stranded assets
On the first day of the Congress, the World Energy Council gave out an official statement with a wake-up call to the fossil fuel sector, under the heading of âthe New Realities for Energyâ. It said, among other things: âWe havenât done enough to decarbonise our economies: the world will have to accelerate the decarbonisation of the global GDP to a rate of 6%/yr in order to remain within the carbon budget associated with 2C global warming. This will take considerable effort since with current trends we could reach and surpass the carbon budget between 2045 and 2055, even with optimistic assumptions on energy intensity reductions. The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) agreed at COP21 provide about 1/3rd of the required ambition level.âÂ
Amin Nasser, CEO Saudi Aramco (photo World Energy Congress)
World Energy Council pointedly added that the âbiggest obstacleâ in achieving the climate goal is âthe rapid and successful transitioning of global transport to low carbon solutions.â
Christoph Frei, Secretary General of the World Energy Council, made the point even clearer in an interview that appeared in a newspaper distributed at the Congress. âIf you look at how much we have in proven reserves globallyâ, he said, âthis equates to about 2800 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. The carbon budget we have [to maintain global temperature rise to within two degrees Celsius] is 1,000 gigatonnes.â
Amin Nasser, CEO of Saudi Aramco, the worldâs biggest oil producer, said his company would invest $300 billion over the next ten years in new oil and gas projects
This Grand Transition, said the World Energy Council statement, âwill impact the economic foundation of both nation states and businessesâ and âlead to a ârebalancing across regions and sectors: ⊠The next decade will begin to define the winners and losers of the energy transformationâ.
For some these messages might not seem very shocking, but their significance lies in where they come from.
The World Energy Council can lay claim to being the voice of the established global power sector. Founded in 1923, when Scotsman Daniel Dunlop organised the first World Power Conference in London, attended by 1700 delegates from 40 countries, it is now a UN-accredited body with almost 100 national member committees whose members are made up of representatives from business, government and academia. Its âpatronsâ and âglobal partnersâ include companies such as EDF, Engie, GE Power, Korea Electric Power Company, Siemens, Tokyo Electric Power Company, Abengoa, Enel, DNV GL, Eon, National Grid and Repsol.
Thus, its statement on the âNew Energy Realitiesâ carries some weight. It was the first time, to my knowledge, that the World Energy Council explicitly and officially adopted the harsh language of âstranded assetsâ (also known as the Carbon Bubble).
Great plans
Yet this was not the language of the presidents and ministers nor of most of the captains of industry at the Congress, who came mainly from the oil and gas industry rather than â as one might expect â Â the power sector.
They spoke almost with one voice, about the need of course to expand renewable energy â Vladimir Putin even mentioned the importance of smart grids (!) â but above all about their great plans for new oil and gas projects. President Maduro referred to a great gas project in the north of Venezuela and invited âinvestorsâ to come to his country to boost its oil and gas production. Putin emphasized that Russia âwill continue to invest in oil and gas developmentâ.
The executives of the oil companies at the Congress spoke in similar terms. Amin Nasser, CEO of Saudi Aramco, the worldâs biggest oil producer, said his company would invest $300 billion over the next ten years in new oil and gas projects. Bod Dudley, CEO of BP, said âWe need to keep investing for future growth and that means making big choices to sanction big projectsâ. BP has recently made a number of large investments in gas projects: the Tangguh LNG plant in Indonesia, the Khazzan tight gas project in Oman and the Shah Deniz 2 project in Azerbaijan.
There was no hint that the oil and gas producers are worried about âstranded assetsâ. They did not express any intention to steer their investments away from fossil fuels nor did they seem to feel that the Paris Agreement will require them to do so. Mohammad Barkindo, the brand new Secretary General of oil cartel OPEC, even called on policymakers not to âdiscriminateâ against oil. He said oil should be seen as a âfuel of choiceâ and added that âWe should not use the Paris Agreement to discriminate against any energy source.â
Bob Dudley, CEO of BP (photo World Energy Congress)
How the world can reduce greenhouse gas emissions without âdiscriminatingâ against oil, he did not explain.
The oilmen all had a ready justification for their business-as-usual stance: the world will need more energy, they said, and this can only be delivered in the form of fossil fuels. They all made reference to the people in the world who have âno access to energyâ. They based their view of the inevitability of fossil fuels on projections and scenarios from institutions like the International Energy Agency (IEA) and indeed the World Energy Council itself, which, it is true, state that most of the worldâs energy needs will be met by fossil fuels for many decades into the future.
Amin Nasser of Saudi Aramco said, for example, that âthe share of fossil fuels will still be 75% in 2040â and oil production would need to grow to 104 million barrels per day (from 90 million today) to meet demand. Dudley of BP said that âeven if renewables were to grow faster than any fuel has done, they are unlikely to contribute more than 15% of the total energy mix by 2015â.
Energy 2.0
The view of our energy future that Nasser unfolded was typical. He said that âbusiness as usualâ is not an option â not because of the climate, but because âexisting oil fields are depleting fastâ and âit is increasingly difficult to find new oilâ.
Hence, he said, we need ânew roadmapsâ, a ânew business model that we will all need to embraceâ, which he called âEnergy 2.0.â This consists of three elements. First, he said, we must make continued investment in new oil and gas projects. Second, the oil industry needs to cut cost relentlessly. Third, it needs to invest in âcleaner oilâ.
For the longer term (presumably that would be business model Energy 3.0), âtechnical progressâ would lead to a greater share of renewable and alternative energies, said Nasser. But that is still a long way away.
“It is up to us , the oil industry, to determine the future of energyâ
Nobody asked whether all this new investment in oil and gas would lead to more âstranded assetsâ in the future or what might happen if Saudi Aramco and the other oil producers would spend their hundreds of billions of dollars on other forms of energy than oil and gas.
To be sure, the oil companies are investing in alternatives. Dudley of BP, for example, referred to the companyâs activities in wind power in the US and biofuels in Brazil, bragging that among oil companies BP was probably the biggest investor in renewables.
But a look at BPâs website shows that these investments are very small compared to their fossil fuel business. BPâs American wind power businesses encompasses all of 14 wind farms (2200 MW), enough to âpower all the homes in a city the size of Philadelphiaâ. In Brazil, BP has invested some half a billion dollars in its biofuels business over a number of years. To compare: the companyâs capital expenditure in 2015 alone was $20 billion.
Patrick Pouyanné, CEO Total (photo World Energy Congress)
Since oil company Total bought battery maker Saft in July for $1.1 billion and acquired 60% of solar power player SunPower in 2011 for $1.4 billion, Dudleyâs claim that BP is the largest investor in renewable energy among oil companies seems doubtful. But the bigger point is that at present all oil companies are far from converting themselves into renewable energy companies.
Going after coal
The oil companies do have another narrative which they talked about in Istanbul and which is a bit more credible: they are changing from oil into natural gas companies. Gas of course is less CO2-intensive than oil. For example, Saudi Aramcoâs investment of over $300 billion in the next decade will mostly go to gas, CEO Nasser said. BP is also putting most of its money into gas.
According to Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the IEA, âthere are fossil fuels and fossil fuels. Coal and oil should be discouraged. Natural gas will continue to play an important role in even our most stringent climate scenarios.â
Maarten Wetselaar, Director Integrated Gas and New Energies for Shell, said that âwe should go after coal firstâ. To replace coal, he said, will require a lot of gas and oil. Wetselaar also said he did not regard electric cars as a threat for the oil industry for a long time to come. The main challenge for the oil industry today, according to Wetselaar, is to cut costs.
“I donât see mega-power companies emerging like the oil companies”
Asked whether they are worried about the impact new climate legislation will have on their business, in the wake of the Paris Agreement, none of the oil executives answered affirmatively. Patrick PouyannĂ©, CEO of Total, came closest by frankly admitting that âour industry is responsible for 40% of greenhouse gas emissonsâ, implying that the industry would need to change quite drastically.
PouyannĂ© made a telling remark in this context. He said it is âup to us [i.e. the oil industry] to determine the future of energyâ. We have the money, the technological know-how and the people to do so, he said.
But that is exactly the zillion-dollar question, which the oil sector seems reluctant to face: is it up to them?
They still think it is. At the World Energy Congress it was clear that they canât think of themselves as the losers in this race â but maybe thatâs because the real winners that will determine our energy future were not present in Istanbul. They may be altogether different people.
Mega-power companies
The World Energy Congress did provide other perspectives from that of the oil industry. At one plenary debate about âInnovative business modelsâ the tone was very different. Here the panellists â which included Johannes Teyssen, CEO of Eon,
Johannes Teyssen, CEO EON (photo World Energy Congress)
Jean-Bernard LĂ©vy, CEO of EDF and Michael Bell, CEO of US-based tech company Silver Spring Networks â seemed to be speaking an altogether different language. The new energy economy âis all about sharingâ, said Teyssen. âOpen platforms. Forget control.â
Christoph Frei, the World Energy Councilâs Secretary-General, said in an interview for the Congress daily paper that âby 2060 electricity is going to be the new oilâ.
According to Teyssen, this future world, dominated by electricity, will look very different from the world of today, dominated by oil producing states and multinational oil companies. âI donât see mega-power companies emerging like the oil companiesâ, he said. But then he was not on the same panel with his colleagues from the oil and gas industry.
[adrotate group=”9″]
Interesting read. It is very clear by now that no change at all will come from the oil and gas industry. The most change will come from the demand side and not the supply side, Tesla among others will lead the way into the future which will be electric.
They just need some hard punch into face. Something similar to that what happened to coal&nuclear utilities in last 5 years.
We can’t have Sustainable Development, if we can’t find a next level of Peace.
We don’t find a next level of Peace, if we don’t improve on our Leadership approaches
Geo-politics, Energy, Sustainable Development and Peace – are very much linked.
If we aspire Peace and Sustainable development- we better get our Energy sector in order.
Suggest you also have a look at a most recent master thesis report on this matter:
http://www.slideshare.net/wyakab/tilman-bauer-2016-erasmus-university-rsm-thesis-2
As an independent physicist and energy expert, the two key messages that need to be understood are:
1 – There is zero scientific proof that wind and solar are a net societal benefit, and
2 – There is zero scientific proof that wind or solar make any consequential reduction in CO2.
Proceed from those facts.
(See WiseEnergy.org for more details.)
Speaking as an engineer – you assert “facts” – but don’t give any numbers. Your point 1 does not define “societal benefit” – so I categorise it as a meaningless assertion. Point 2: I don’t need science – just a bit of numeracy to show your “fact” is 100% nonsense. Taking on-shore wind & using GE data: carbon payback (i.e. replacing the carbon used in the energy to make the WT) is 3 months, energy pack (the energy used to make the WT) is 5 months. This assumes a 22% capacity factor for the WT. Note that a WT will last for around 25 years. “consequential reduction in CO2” – Denmark, UK (even!), Spain, …. growth in RES has led to a decline in CO2 emissions from power generation.
Balanced opinion considering reduction of par capita carbon emission is solicited.
Thank you for sharing this eloquent article. Our times, including the geo-politics of power and emotions, are demanding. We truly need to see new energy architecture and investment models that help to ascertain sustainable developmemt and sustainable societies. The present trend in our leading oil and gas sector is not yet adequately directed towards that. Lets build some new bridges before we see ourselves in unnecessary trouble. The time to do so is now. My practice is well prepared and helpto change the general tone of voice and habit. Lets go.
“President Maduro referred to a great gas project in the north of Venezuela and invited âinvestorsâ to come to his country to boost its oil and gas production”
Comedy gold: meanwhile in Chile in tech’ neutral auctions for power generation – fossil generation won 0MW (yes zero). The lowest cost was wind. Or the “merchant” i.e. zero subsidy PV developments in Chile. Or in Europe the wind & PV developments (zero subsidy) in Spain and Portugal. Or South Africa – a soon-to-be-released gov’ study – cheapest generation – on-shore wind. Numbers? Eskom (coal) ZAR1.10/kWh, average selling price (ASP) electricity ZAR 0.87/kWh, ASP (on-shore wind – REIPP – current round) ZAR 0.62/kWh & future wind round probably ZAR 0.55. Yes I can see that fossil gen’ in South Africa has a future….. NOT & this in a country where coal is very cheap.
Mohammad Barkindo Sec’ Gen’ OPEC, “don’t discriminate against oil…. oil should be seen as a fuel of choiceâ – ok Mo’ (can I call you Mo?) it’s like this – if RES is cheaper (see above) then my choice is to use the cheapest fuel source in this case RES. If I’m a poor African in my hut & the choice is kerosene (poor light & fumes which will kill me) or PV+LED+bright light+no fumes & it is cheaper than kerosene – which am I going to chose? Tell me Mo’ are you familiar with ostriches?
“The oilmen: ….the world will need more energy & this can only be delivered in the form of fossil fuels… all made reference to the people in the world who have âno access to energyâ Yup – they are right – everybody should have access to energy – including poor people in Africa – & they will – through cheap, clean RES. Lots of companies active – right now – problem for Mr Big Oil – they ain’t oil companies.
Moving to Arabia & Amin Nasser: “oil production would need to grow to 104 million barrels per day (from 90 million today) to meet demand” – tell me Amin – how is demand for oil & gas evolving in Arabia – getting close to the point where Arabia no longer exports oil&gas are we? – hence the need to expand production?. I do hope your piggy bank is well stocked.
The oil n gas guys are like junkies heading towards the re-hab’ clinic they hope to get a couple more trips in before reality hits home.
I think it’s important to keep in perspective some facts about the energy transition
1. Renewables are fuel saving technologies only. They require another power generation to be available as backup. The only exception to this is biomass combustion
2. In Europe today , fully 63% of renewables is Biomass combustion, which is not a good idea
3. No modern economy has developed on the back of intermittent renewables. Fossil fuel electricity generation is the inevitable default in the absence of competitive nuclear
4. No amount of finger-pointing at the fossil fuel industry will change the path of developing countries who want acccess to abundant , cheap energy.
5. BP’s annual statistical review of energy makes sober reading – energy demand , largely met by fossil fuels , continue to grow for the next few decades. There is little point trying to convince a scientific audience that it will be otherwise.
6. The countries you hold up as examples do indeed have abundant resources of renewables. The fact that the sticker price of an intermittent fuel-saving technology is cheaper than that of a reliable fossil or nuclear generation technology is irrelevant.
7. It would be great if the world could navigate a path from fossil fuel dependence to zero carbon zero pollution sources at competitive prices that would allow poorer countries to develop . The reality is that renewable technologies have a major technical challenge that prevent this while nuclear technologies have a major societal challenge .
8. We are only at the very start of the biggest transition in human history ( 7 Billion + growing now want access to cheap energy ) . No one knows where this transition will take us , but it is clear that it will take many decades and there may be many false starts.
9. Green NGO’s and environmentalists can have a big influence on the path the world takes and how successful and quick this transition is. Disseminating accurate information is a key part of all our responsibities. To date the green movement has been far from helpful in this regard.
10. Society will need all the tools at its disposal – cleaner fossil fuels , renewables , nuclear and all the stuff we have yet to invent. It s irresponsibile of any of us to exclude any technology .
“3. No modern economy has developed on the back of intermittent renewables. ” – strawman argument – power generation (at any scale) using renewables is less than 26 years old – fossil power generation (using steam turbines) is around 116 years old. Modern economies developed on the back of fossil gen’ – & are starting to make the transition to RES. Note the word “transition”.
“No amount of finger-pointing at the fossil fuel industry will change the path of developing countries who want acccess to abundant , cheap energy” – you need to up your game – taking just one example: South Africa – gov’ report finds that on-shore wind is around 50% cheaper than fossil-based generation (I’ve posted on this already). Finger-pointing? nope – just facts. RES is cheaper than fossil for developing countries. Fact.
The first argument: “Renewables are fuel saving technologies only. They require another power generation to be available as backup”, is simply wrong.
Clearly solar and wind don’t just “save fuel”, they produce electricity. Not always, that’s true, but any power generation source can fail. Baseload power stations also require backup in case of failure.
Your confuse power production with continuous, never-failing power production. Two different notions.
Correction therefore :- “Renewables are fuel-saving power generation technologies ” They require another power generation source to be available due to their intermittent nature. All systems can fail and require a certain amount of redundancy for this reason.
The issue of a generator failure is different to intermittency due to weather. Capacity factors of various technologies reflect the later.
The difference is between reliable, dispatchable electricity , and intermittent electricity generation . ” fuel saving ” refers to the fact that because of renewables intermittency , you end up with 2 technologies on the system to do the job that one despatchable technology can do. You end up burning less gas, coal or whatever fuel is used as backup, but you pay for the capital costs for both.
The capital costs are receouped via subsides and increasingly , via capacity payments. In the U.K. subsidies are clearly spelt out in the levy control framework or LCF. To end 2016 this has cost ÂŁ16B with a further ÂŁ30B forecast to 2021 to support the UK’s various renewables electricity tariffs ( FiT, RO and now CfD’s ) . A further ÂŁ2B of Capacity payments are forecast to 2020.
Diarmaid:
Good comments.
One note: due to the fact that there are two types of gas generators, your statement about “You end up burning less gas” may not be true. The Bentek report concluded that more gas might be burned augmenting wind energy with gas, than gas just by itself â again because there are two types of gas facilities.
The reference to biomass combustion comprising 63% of EU renewables should be further qualified. Many of these capacities have been realized decades ago, while the prospects for further expansion are limited. In the best case, Germany might double the current level of biomass and biofuel energy usage to about 16% of primary consumption. Wind and solar power today contribute scarcely 4%, implying more than a twenty-fold capacity increase to achieve full decarbonization of the energy system. These technologies would ultimately have to supersede biomass as well, since the CO2 emissions from the combustion of biogenic fuels persist for decades in the atmosphere. During that time, nearly one third of the carbon dioxide emitted from all sources of combustion – fossil and biogenic fuels alike – is absorbed irretrievably by the world’s oceans to produce carbonic acid. To that extent, biomass exhibits no decarbonization potential. Its ranking as a renewable energy may impede the development of fully CO2-neutral options. As a final note, methane produced from wind energy in power-to-gas process chains correspondingly increases fossil fuel usage, countervailing the contribution of wind power to the decarbonization of other sectors.
After I left this conference I didnÂŽt know how to put this trip in an illusionary world into words. You did. Thank you for this brilliant and precise report.
In these dynamic and uncertain times, I notice great optimism in each of the sectors when they speak to and with their own industry.
WEC is one of the few events bringing all energy sectors together – important!
Perhaps it can be done more often than today?
I have been associated with conventional as well as non-conventioal energy production and business for over three decades now.I have been NIOC representative in World Petroleum Congresses, WPC and the World Energy Congress.
Having mentioned that, fossil fuels have been marginalise and out of context in all WEC congresses,while new sources of energy and non-conventional sources have been undermined in WPC Congresses.
It is not that in Istanbul Congress, oil was under pressure.WPC is oil and gas oriented and members and participants are more tradional in their approach towards energy production,distribution and consumption.
Well written article! I am not at all concerned about bold regressive expressions at this relatively small WEC event. Who cares what vested interests are projecting for the future? What counts are the massive and swiftly increasing disruptive forces of low cost renewables, smart energy use and wide spread climate pressure…..
Dear Mr.Van Son,
I appreciate your comment.Thank you very much.
Best regards,
fereydoun