Block’s Indicator of Sustainable Growth

By Ray Block

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said on July 9 2009 that investment in energy efficiency and clean technologies would need to increase four-fold, if the promise of keeping the rise in global average temperature to no more than two degrees Celsius is to be achieved.

Two degrees Celsius was the promise of the G-8 and 17 major economies conference in l’Aquila (July 9).

IEA says: “This means US$ 400 billion more every year over the next 20 years…Limiting the temperature increase to around 2 degrees C will require that CO2 emissions be reduced by at least 50 per cent by 2050.”

“To realise this scenario, the IEA has found that emissions would need to be limited to 26 gigatonnes (Gt), (26 billion tonnes) by 2030, versus our expectation that they will reach 41 Gt, if policies don’t change. Improvements in energy efficiency would account for the bulk of this emissions reduction, 54 per cent, followed by more renewable energy and nuclear power, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) after 2020.”

As you can see, CCS plays a crucial role in this bright new world of  limiting carbon emissions, with the promise of  at least 20 fully integrated industrial- scale CCS demonstration projects worldwide by 2010, with implementation by 2020.

Given the IEA’s belief for the continuing importance of coal in world primary energy demand at least to 2030, “if we do not develop several large scale integrated CCS demonstration projects within the next decade, “we won’t be able to deploy the technology in time to prevent CO2 from exceeding allowable limits. If that happened, our only alternative would be to develop and deploy novel technologies to remove CO2 from the air, which would be enormously expensive and may not succeed.

“Time is running out. Strong leadership now is essential to prevent this.” The international bank, HSBC in their take on the medium term outlook for power generation, gives support for renewables, and some equipment makers, but turns thumbs down on coal and CCS, which they dismiss as “King coal is dead in developed markets, a fact which the rather empty promise of CCS technologies will do nothing to change.” (Wall Street Journal July 10 2009)

A very promising, if expensive CCS project involves a British joint venture Hydrogen Energy International between BP Alternative Energy and Rio Tinto in Kern County, California. This was mentioned in the trade paper, Carbon Capture Journal (July 2 2009). The US Department of Energy is making available a subsidy of $308 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The project involves the design, construction and operation of an advanced pre combustion power plant, using an integrated gasification combined cycle(IGCC) power equipment. Blends of coal and petroleum coke combined with non potable water is to be converted into hydrogen and C02, with the C02 separated from the hydrogen using the methanol based Rectisol process. The CO2 will be transported by pipeline to nearby oil reservoirs, where it will be injected for storage and for enhanced oil recovery. 2 million tonnes of CO2 will be captured and stored.