We need to cut global methane emissions from fossil fuels by 75% by 2030 to be on target to limit warming to 1.5°C. That equates to 90 Mt of the current total of 120 Mt of annual fossil fuel methane emissions. The IEA says 80 Mt can be avoided through the deployment of known and existing technologies, often at low – or even negative – cost. And the 75% cut needs $170bn in spending to 2030, a very achievable sum given it represents less than 5% of … [Read more...]
Danone to cut its methane emissions 30% by 2030: 58,000 dairy farms across 20 countries
Danone has pledged to cut its methane emissions by 30% by 2030 in its fresh milk supply. That makes it only one of three of the world’s top sixty livestock producers to have set a target. Methane has driven 28% of human-caused climate change, with almost a third of that from livestock. The key strategies are “improving herd and feed management, reducing manure-related emissions, and developing innovative methane inhibitor solutions.” The big … [Read more...]
Biogas from dairy farms: what incentives can make it commercially viable?
Anaerobic digesters are used to turn cow manure into useable methane fuel. But the raw cost of that gas is ten times the market price. On the plus side, emissions are being avoided. So how do you create the incentives that are fair and make it commercially viable? In California, dairy biogas has risen from almost non-existence five years ago to delivering half of all natural gas used for transportation in the state. Aaron Smith at the Energy … [Read more...]
Five major outcomes from COP28 (and next year’s is in Azerbaijan, another oil and gas producer)
Mark Maslin, Priti Parikh and Simon Chin-Yee at UCL lay out the five major outcomes from the latest COP28 climate summit in the UAE, a major oil and gas producer. Though in the run up there was great hope for a new climate agreement on the phasing out of all fossil fuels, that never happened. Phase out turned into a “transition away from.” The authors note that the first ever mention of fossil fuels in an international climate agreement was only … [Read more...]
When 0.2% Methane leakage can make Gas dirtier than Coal
Around the world gas is replacing coal to reduce emissions. But even small amounts of methane leakage in the gas life-cycle can make emissions on par with or even worse than coal, explain Shannon Hughes and Deborah Gordon at RMI. They present their calculator that shows if West Virginia state's gas methane leakage rate is just 1.4% their emissions equal the coal it replaces. Texas Permian LNG exported to China only needs a leakage rate of 0.2% to … [Read more...]
Carbon Capture rates of 60% sound impressive. But rising carbon prices could still make you commercially unviable
Mainstream scenarios state the unavoidable need for continued use of fossils through to 2050. For the world to stay within its carbon budget, that means the unavoidable need for carbon capture and plugging “fugitive” leaks. Chris Bataille at the Center on Global Energy Policy flags up the danger that new CCS projects with seemingly impressive capture rates of up to 60% may nevertheless become commercially unviable as carbon prices rise: that … [Read more...]
Oil & Gas can meet 2030 net-zero target for only $600bn, quickly recouped. But it’s still not happening, warns IEA
The IEA summarises its 33-page report “Emissions from Oil and Gas Operations in Net Zero Transitions”. The IEA says the oil and gas sector needs ÂŁ600bn up front to meet its 2030 target of a 60% reduction in emissions. That’s only 15% of the sector’s record 2022 energy-crisis windfall income. A small price increase and savings should recoup that money “quickly”, says the IEA. The IEA not only maps a way to limit the global average temperature rise … [Read more...]
The U.S. is moving faster than the EU on Methane regulations. Why?
Ben Cahill at the Center for Strategic and International Studies takes a deep dive into U.S. and EU progress on regulating methane emissions. It’s vitally important because methane has more than 80 times the warming potential of CO2 in its first 20 years in the atmosphere. In his assessment, Cahill explains why the U.S. is likely to move much faster than the EU. Unlike the U.S., the EU is a big importer of gas so needs its rules complied with by … [Read more...]
The problem with CO2e: we need separate emissions data for each climate pollutant (methane, soot, etc.)
Currently, we measure non-CO2 emissions by converting their impact into the CO2 equivalent over a 100-year period. The problem is that other pollutants can have their worst impact well within 100 years, like methane (the first 20 years is when the impact of methane is worst). Though CO2 has caused the most warming, other short-lived pollutants have contributed nearly half of the total, particularly methane, black carbon from soot, and some … [Read more...]
Should U.S. DOE risk funding methane-based Hydrogen production when CCS is still not proven?
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is allocating $8bn for building regional clean hydrogen hubs. Decisions on who to fund are being made now and will be completed by the end of this year. Any methane-based hydrogen project that achieves a 95% carbon capture rate will be sufficiently “clean” to qualify for the federal funding. But, as Suzanne Mattei, David Schlissel and Dennis Wamsted at IEEFA explain, the few “at scale” CCS projects now running … [Read more...]
COP 27: a way forward for methane, fossil fuel (not just coal) phase-out, and U.S.-China competition?
COP 27 was never expected to have the impact that COP 26 did, and that’s how it turned out, explain Ben Cahill, Sandeep Pai and Taiya Smith at CSIS. But there are three issues that can have long term positive impacts if carried forward successfully. The first is some good news on methane emissions. The U.S., the EU, Japan and other countries announced an important producer-consumer effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions from traded gas, while … [Read more...]
EU gas post-Russia: out-of-date regulations are preventing new gas flows from west to east, not infrastructure
### REGISTER NOW ### for our vitally important 2-panel event “The Energy Crisis and Russian Aggression Against Ukraine – Key Challenges for the Central European Energy Sector”, on Thursday December 8, 13:00 – 17:00 CET (Address: Rue Belliard 40, 1040 Brussels). High-profile confirmed speakers include Kadri Simson, European Commissioner for Energy, EC; Leszek JesieĹ„, Chairman of the Board, CEEP; Jerzy Buzek, MEP and former president of the … [Read more...]
What does the “global carbon budget” mean? Have we got 9 years left?
Piers Forster and Debbie Rosen at the University of Leeds and Robin Lamboll and Joeri Rogelj at Imperial College London, writing for Carbon Brief, look at the carbon budget estimates of the Global Carbon Project and the IPCC, the methodology and the inevitable uncertainties. They compare it to their own latest report from the CONSTRAIN research project. Where the GCP and the IPCC estimate nine years left of carbon emissions at current emission … [Read more...]
Clean Turquoise Hydrogen: a pathway to commercial readiness
Whereas blue hydrogen from methane produces CO2, the by-product of turquoise hydrogen is pure carbon. The obvious advantage is you can make your hydrogen without the need for expensive new infrastructure to transport and store any CO2. Turquoise hydrogen is only at the start-up phase, so Schalk Cloete summarises his co-authored paper that looks at various scenarios to estimate the cost of producing the hydrogen (using molten salt pyrolysis) and, … [Read more...]
Methane emissions reach unexpected new highs. Is climate change causing a runaway effect?
Simon Redfern at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore summarises his co-authored study that says methane emissions are four times more sensitive to climate change than that estimated in the latest IPCC report, which was only published in February 2022. The study follows the observation that, despite the pandemic stalling the world economy, methane emissions have reached new highs. Not because methane emissions have risen but because … [Read more...]