The Oil & Gas sector has a role to play in the energy transition, and not just by winding down operations. That’s because they will, by most projections, continue to be a major part of the energy mix through to 2050. But their activities must transition too, explain Bart Valkhof, Pedro Gabriel Gomez Pensado and Wan Sayuti at the World Economic Forum. The sector must therefore work out which strategies and investments can produce the lowest … [Read more...]
How the global ”carbon budget” is calculated, and predictions improved
What is the world’s remaining “carbon budget”? Or, how much more CO2 can the Earth take before we know we’ll miss our 1.5oC (and 2oC) goals for 2050. Making those calculations is not easy and IPCC benchmark estimates inevitably include levels of uncertainty in the final answer. Kasia Tokarska at the ETH Zurich Institute and Damon Matthews at Concordia University summarise their research that narrows down that uncertainty, making life a little … [Read more...]
The top Clean Energy developments of 2020
The world is still a long way off the pathway to meeting our emissions goals. But 2020 saw a number of major steps in the right direction. Laurie Stone at RMI presents a list of what has been achieved and which trends and new policy commitments are pointing us towards a much needed faster transition. They include coal’s decline, wind and solar’s growing competitiveness (even compared to gas), the promise of green hydrogen, bans on gas/petrol … [Read more...]
Satellite monitoring of Methane leaks makes policing them more effective
Satellites, drones, and airplanes should be used to detect methane leaks across the million active wells and hundreds of thousands of miles of pipelines across the U.S. That’s because without proper monitoring it’s extremely hard to find leaks, let alone regulate them. Meredith Fowlie at UC Berkeley’s Energy Institute at Haas describes their paper that uses such data to, first, show that 2.3% of upstream natural gas production is leaking. That’s … [Read more...]
Five key metrics investors need to steer Oil and Gas firms into decarbonisation
If the oil and gas industry won’t commit to meaningful strategies and milestones to decarbonise, investors must make them, say Ben Ratner at the Environmental Defense Fund and Erin Blanton at Columbia University. Already, Covid has shown how vulnerable the sector is to unexpected change. If the sector refuses to factor in rising decarbonisation ambitions and policies across the globe that vulnerability will continue for decades. At the same time, … [Read more...]
Imported U.S. LNG: what’s its true climate footprint?
Importing LNG from the U.S., to replace coal, makes sense for Europe only if the total emissions including those throughout the chain of production are lower than the alternatives. Julian Wettengel at CLEW looks at reports that say the total methane emissions from the world’s largest oil and gas field – the Permian Basin in West Texas – are particularly high and may push it over that threshold. Flaring, venting and leakage are the main cause. … [Read more...]
The outlook for Powerfuels in aviation, shipping
The development and commercialisation of powerfuels is in its very early stages. Powerfuels are synthetic gaseous and liquid fuels produced from green electricity. The plan is to use them when there is no viable alternative, like aviation and shipping. The big hurdle is cost, currently in the range of €3-5/litre, or five to ten times the price of fossil fuels. Dolf Gielen and Gabriel Castellanos at IRENA and Kilian Crone at the German Energy … [Read more...]
Methane emissions underestimated by 25-40%, says new study
The methane in our atmosphere comes from natural biogenic (plants, animals) and fossil sources. By telling the difference we can know how much we humans are responsible for. It matters because methane is a potent greenhouse gas, second only to CO2. Previous “bottom-up” estimates came from multiplying the number of sources (livestock, natural gas operations, landfills) by their likely emissions. Robert McSweeney at Carbon Brief describes a new … [Read more...]
BP’s zero-carbon pledge: three major challenges
This month BP, one of the world’s largest oil and gas firms, announced its ambition to be a net zero emissions company by 2050. The promise extends to cutting the emissions of its customers too; after all, they’re the ones who are actually burning the fuel, not BP. So it aims to reduce the carbon intensity of its products by 50% by 2050 or sooner. Jules Kortenhorst, Tyeler Matsuo and Raghav Muralidharan at Rocky Mountain Institute take a look at … [Read more...]
Canada is launching methane emissions rules for Oil and Gas
January 2020 marked the first time the Canadian government has targeted methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. They’ve committed to reduce oil and gas methane emissions by 40% to 45% below 2012 levels by 2025. Reducing methane emissions is considered one of the most cost-effective ways to cut global emissions. Methane equates to around 5.4% of the country’s total emissions of 716 Mt CO2-eq. The IEA estimates global methane emissions from … [Read more...]
Gas infrastructure leaks methane: fix it, or accelerate to clean energy
Natural gas, because it’s low-carbon, is being used as a bridge fuel away from the old fossil fuel world. But there are two main problems. The infrastructure leaks methane (the main component of the gas) which is 25 times more potent than CO2 over a 100-year period (and 86 times over a 20-year period!). And, crucially, nobody is properly measuring those leaks. That means policy makers are growing the gas mix without knowing by how much it’s … [Read more...]
Fossil fuel politics is changing: Big Oil, automakers split on Trump lowering standards
Cara Daggett at Virginia Tech has noticed a positive change in corporate support for the Transition. In the past, Big Oil and automakers would have opposed any limits to business-as-usual. But today, major oil companies, including BP and Royal Dutch Shell, are opposing U.S. President Trump’s intention to further deregulate methane emissions. That’s because they’ve invested heavily in natural gas as a bridge fuel for a clean future, which would … [Read more...]
New gas-to-methanol technology OxE could end oil well “flaring”
Oil wells also release natural gas. But it’s burnt off on site whenever the economics of collecting and piping it don’t add up (gas can’t use the existing petroleum infrastructure). What if it could be converted into methanol, says Nichole Liebov at the University of Virginia. She describes a new process called oxyesterification (OxE) that converts methane (the main constituent of natural gas) into methanol cost effectively at low temperatures … [Read more...]
IEA clean energy progress report: Only 7 technologies/sectors on track, 38 not
Of the 45 energy technologies and sectors assessed in the IEA’s latest Tracking Clean Energy Progress (TCEP) report, only 7 are on track with the IEA’s Sustainable Development Scenario (SDS). It’s their latest and most comprehensive assessment of clean energy transitions. “On track” includes energy storage, EVs and solar PV. But buildings, car, flaring and methane emissions are still rising. This year’s TCEP puts much greater emphasis on … [Read more...]
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