Using publicly available figures from Vestas, a large manufacturer of wind turbines, WCA has calculated the amount of coal used in the production of offshore and onshore wind turbines as demonstrated by our new infographic below:
CCS is a critical mitigation technology
Benjamin Sporton, WCA Policy Director
A striking article appeared in today’s edition of ECO, the daily newsletter of the Climate Action Network. It contained an article criticising inclusion of CCS technology in the Clean Development Mechanism. In one of the paragraphs it states:
“In the World Energy Outlook 2011, the IEA projects that only 1% of the total fossil fuel capacity will be equipped with CCS by 2035. In other words, CCS is irrelevant when it comes to climate mitigation.”
Yes the WEO says CCS take-up will be slow under the International Energy Agency’s New Policies Scenario (which is used by ECO), but it plays a critical role in the IEA scenario focused on achieving the global target of 450ppm. According to the IEA’s 450 Scenario, and you can find this in figure 6.4 of the WEO, CCS grows “from only 3% of total abatement in 2020 to 22% in 2035″.
Surely what this demonstrates is the need for increased international action to deploy CCS if the world is to achieve the 450ppm target. That’s why mechanisms such as the Clean Development Mechanism and the Green Climate Fund as well as action by national governments are so important to support the deployment of CCS – not least because according to IEA figures, action on climate change will be 70% more expensive without CCS.
CCS is a crucial CO2 mitigation technology, without which it will be much harder and much more expensive to reach global climate targets. CCS is certainly not “irrelevant” to climate mitigation, it’s essential.
Progress for CCS in the CDM?
Benjamin Sporton, WCA Policy Director
Yesterday was the first meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA). The meeting covered a broad range of issues, one of which is the inclusion of CCS in the CDM, which has been debated for a number of years. Last year’s COP in Cancun saw in-principle agreement to include CCS in the CDM subject to the development of a set of rules, known as modalities and procedures. As I mentioned in a previous post, those rules are being debated here in Durban. At the opening of SBSTA four countries spoke in support of achieving an outcome on the issues. There’s also a general feeling that the draft rules prepared by the UNFCCC Secretariat deal quite well with all the issues that needed to be addressed, and so could be agreed.
From the political perspective, there is also a block of countries who in the past haven’t supported the inclusion of CCS in CDM, but have been keen to see progress on forestry issues, known as REDD+. In the past, progress on these two issues has been tied together with a consensus being established to support progress on both issues together. Like those countries passionate about CCS in the CDM, there is very strong desire to see more progress on the REDD+ in this two week negotiation period. So it might once again be possible to see progress on both issues here in Durban.
Inclusion of CCS in the CDM would be a big win for the Durban conference given that expectations are so low at the moment. It would provide a means of supporting deployment of a technology in developing countries that is expected to contribute as much as 20% of the global CO2 mitigation effort.
Zuma opens climate talks
Benjamin Sporton, WCA Policy Director
Today saw the official opening of negotiations by South African President Jacob Zuma. A number of distinguished speakers addressed delegates including the Angolan Vice-President, President of Chad and outgoing COP President, Patricia Espinosa. Many emphasised familiar themes about the need for action and a balanced fair and credible outcome. The speeches by the Angolan Vice-President and President of Chad had strong words for the developed world, arguing they are responsible for climate change and must live up to their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol and take stronger action into the future.
South African President Jacob Zuma, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres and others at the opening of COP17/CMP7 (Source: UNFCCC)
Addressing the low expectations for the conference that clearly shows amongst delegates, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres channelled Nelson Mandela’s famous saying… “it always seems impossible until it is done”. Her opening remarks almost showed a sense of despair as to where the negotiations process is at, as she called on delegates to put aside politics and finish the task from Cancun and complete work on the technology mechanism and the framework for the Green Climate Fund.
President Zuma’s speech set the scene for the extensive work program facing delegates over the next two weeks, running through an extensive list of issues to be dealt with. Importantly though he summed by underscoring that climate and development actions can support each other arguing that “solving climate change cannot be separated from the struggle to eradicate poverty”. That message is already a key theme of the talks here in Durban.
Finally, a more solemn part of the day’s proceedings marked the sudden passing earlier this month of the chair of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), Mama Konate. He had chaired SBSTA during many of the debates on the inclusion of CCS in the CDM and was widely respected amongst delegates and the broader climate change community.
Stronger action on CCS needed
Aleksandra Tomczak, European Specialist
Last week it was announced that the Longannet CCS project would not be going ahead. Longannet was the only remaining contender in the UK CCS competition. Shortly after this decision was made public, the UK Parliament Energy and Climate Change Committee published a report which also said that CCS technology is unlikely to be commercially available before 2020.
The UK’s Energy and Climate Change Secretary reassured that the UK government is still committed to demonstrating CCS and that the £1billion earmarked for CCS will be spent on alternative projects. However, this does not change the fact that four years after the CCS competition was formally launched, the number of contenders went down from four to nil and the prospects for having four demonstration plants in the UK by 2020. This will make it even more challenging to ensure commerically viable CCS plants are available in the future.
Unfortunately the UK is not the only EU country where CCS is facing hard times. In Germany, the Parliament never adopted the long-awaited CCS law and there is still no legal framework for storing CO2. In Poland, the company in charge of the EU-funded CCS demonstration plant in Belchatow said it would not go ahead with the investment unless more public money is found to build and operate the plant.
Globally, there are still only eight large scale integrated CCS projects and this number has not changed for the past few years. This is not surprising given that the R&D spending gap for CCS is larger than for any other low-carbon power generation technology. Renewable energy projects around the world benefit from feed-in-tariffs and other forms of generous support that CCS does not get. Yet, according to the IEA’s analysis of the next four decades of decarbonisation, CCS should provide greater CO2 emissions reductions than renewables if we are to tackle global CO2 emissions in the most cost effective manner.
We should have around 100 CCS projects operating by 2020 to meet the international climate objectives. If governments are serious about climate change it is also about the right time to get serious about funding CCS and get those first demonstration plants up and running.
EC bets on coal to alleviate energy poverty at its borders
Aleksandra Tomczak, European Specialist
EU Commissioners for Energy and Enlargement recently sent a letter to the World Bank President to support the Bank’s involvement in the construction of a new coal-fired power plant in Kosovo. EU support comes at a time when the World Bank is revising its energy strategy and is considering plans to limit its involvement in financing coal power plants. However, the case of Kosovo proves that there is still a need for international financial institutions to finance coal projects in countries with acute energy poverty problems and energy security challenges.
Kosovo is facing major energy poverty challenges as power outages are reported 90 days a year and 80% of local entrepreneurs see energy shortages as the main problem in business development. The growing population of Kosovo and increasing energy consumption mean that electricity demand in 2033 is expected to be over 60% higher than today. Currently Kosovo relies on two brown coal power plants to generate its electricity. Some of the generation units were built in the 1960s and given the age of the plant, average efficiency is as low as 25-28%. Kosovo has no natural gas infrastructure or resources but local studies show that it could have one of the world’s greatest brown coal reserves. That’s why brown coal lies at the centre of the new Kosovo Energy Strategy for 2019, with the key objective to build a new brown coal plant.
The new plant will use the best available technology and is planned to be 42% efficient. Given the currently low efficiency rates, replacing the existing power plant with modern technology will allow CO2 and particle emissions to be reduced by over a third. Renovation and replacement of the existing electricity generation infrastructure has so far benefited from the financial support of the World Bank, the European Commission and the United States Agency for International Development. It is imperative that this region receives continued support from these institutions. Without it, Kosovo will not have access to the most advanced coal technologies which are necessary to provide a reliable and affordable source of electricity, generated in line with the EU’s environmental standards.
CCS in the CDM – time to get moving
Benjamin Sporton, WCA Policy Director
Last week I attended a workshop on the inclusion of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The workshop was set up following the decision at last year’s COP16 climate conference in Cancun that CCS should be included in the CDM provided a set of rules (known as modalities and procedures) could be agreed to.
Getting agreement on these rules is the last step on the long road to get CDM eligibility for CCS projects. With a range of experts invited to present at the workshop, three things were clear:
- CCS is an essential technology if the world is going to meet its emissions reduction targets.
- CCS is ready to be deployed now, this view was backed up by a speaker from the Natural Resources Defense Council in the US; and
- Issues that opponents of including CCS in the CDM have raised as problems can easily be addressed in the modalities and procedures.
In the months leading up to the next round of climate negotiations at COP17 in Durban, South Africa the UNFCCC Secretariat will have the task of developing rules for the inclusion of CCS in the CDM. Their task should be made easier by the view of the participants that the rules for CCS should simply be added to those that already exist for the CDM, rather than starting from scratch all over again.
Opening the workshop, the UAE Special Envoy for Energy and Climate highlighted that only about seven of the 80 CCS projects around the world are currently taking place in developing countries – and that there are very few CDM projects in Africa. With the significant development issues being faced in Africa, access to clean energy will be key to poverty eradication. Africa also has significant coal reserves and including CCS in the CDM will help support the deployment of cleaner coal technologies across the continent.
This workshop showed the importance of deploying CCS in the developing world and that the real challenges are economic rather than technical or legal. That means when we get to Durban at the end of the year it will be imperative for real progress to be made on this issue, get the modalities and procedures signed off, and support deployment of this key technology in countries that need access to clean energy.
FT Energy Leaders Summit
Milton Catelin, Chief Executive, WCA
I was fortunate enough to participate on a panel at the FT Energy Leaders Summit in London a couple of weeks ago. The panel was focused on “energy solutions for today and tomorrow” and also included the DG of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IREA), the President/CEO of US-based NRG Energy, the CEO of the FutureGen Alliance, and the Chairman of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (AEA). There’s usually a lot of rhetoric at these things and not a lot of unanimity amongst the panellists who often simply tout for their own energy source.
What was interesting on this occasion was the degree of consensus among the panellists.
After being asked to imagine the world 30 years from now, no panellists saw a successful outcome on climate change arising from the current Kyoto Protocol negotiations. One panellist even indicated that he thought the Kyoto Protocol negotiation process had for all intents and purposes died in Copenhagen (2009) and had not really made any positive strides for many years in any case. All panellists envisaged a large uptake of renewables over the period but none except the IREA representative imagined a sharp decline in either coal or nuclear. All, except the IREA representative, agreed on the basic value proposition of coal and nuclear when it came to base load electricity.
For my part I suggested a successful global effort on both climate change and poverty eradication needed investment in coal, power plant efficiency improvements, and carbon capture and storage and pointed out that:
• The IEA had estimated that climate change efforts would be 70% more expensive and probably unsuccessful without CCS.
• Governments need to be both more aggressive and more thoughtful in low carbon investments – government funding on low carbon technologies needed to match government rhetoric on climate change, and investments in expensive renewable options needed to be at least equalled by investments in other areas such as CCS.
• UN Millennium Development Goals needed to be revisited. Why aspire to improve access to information technology (internet, mobile phones) but not to electricity?
The Summit was not without a remedial education element. Many of the supposedly well-informed audience were quite surprised to learn that coal consumption grew by 7.6% last year, making it yet again the world’s fastest growing fuel. (Gas grew by 7.4%, oil by 3.1%, nuclear by 2% and hydro by 5.3%.) Virtually no-one knew that coal’s share of global energy consumption last year was its highest (29.3%) since 1970.
WCA launches Energy Poverty and Sustainable Development Policy Statement
Benjamin Sporton, WCA Policy Director
Access to energy is a key challenge facing the world’s poor.
In its 2010 World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency noted that there are currently 1.4 billion people across the globe that lack access to electricity. Without dedicated policy action, the IEA only expects that number to reduce marginally to 1.2 billion by 2030.
International action on access to energy is therefore desperately needed. Access to modern energy is key to sustainable economic and social development. It’s for these reasons that the World Coal Association recently adopted its Energy Poverty and Sustainable Development Policy Statement.
The world faces a huge challenge in meeting the energy needs of both developed and developing countries – and all available sources of energy will be needed to meet that challenge. For many countries coal is a logical choice to meet these energy needs because it is widely available, safe, reliable and relatively low cost. But if the world is to meet its global greenhouse emissions reduction goals while meeting the ever-growing demand for energy, then advanced coal technologies such as high-efficiency low emission power generation and carbon capture and storage must be supported by governments and international institutions. Recognising the key role of coal in supporting energy access and economic and social development across the globe, the policy statement calls for global action to finance the development of CCS and the deployment of advanced coal technologies in the developing world.
In the lead-up to the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development and 2012 being declared the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All, including a global goal of universal access to modern energy by 2030 as part of the outcomes of that conference is essential.
European Commission’s 2050 low-carbon roadmap fails to inspire
Aleksandra Tomczak, European Specialist
This week’s meeting of European environment ministers in Luxembourg saw Poland block the European Commission’s proposed 2050 low-carbon road map. Poland’s environment minister said he expected greater solidarity within Europe and an understanding of the situation of specific member states.
Poland generates over 90% of its electricity from coal and the industry plays an important role in its economic development. A recent report by the World Bank showed that the current EU climate policy would reduce the country’s GDP by 2% points each year for the next 10 years and could bring a loss of employment of up to 7.4% between 2015 and 2030.
Within the EU, Poland has consistently argued for priority to be placed on economic growth and industrial development. As one of the fastest growing economies in the EU and the only country to have maintained its economic growth throughout the economic crisis, Poland is the EU’s version of China.
The rejection of the 2050 low-carbon roadmap shows that the European Commission’s (EC) climate policy fails to bridge the integrated priorities of economic development and climate action. The rejected roadmap raises the question of the EU’s capacity to lead on climate change. If the EC fails to propose an emissions reduction roadmap that would bring on board a growing economy with a large industrial sector within its political boundaries, how does it expect to inspire large emerging economies to follow its example in the global fight against climate change?
Instead of satisfying itself with setting targets, the European Commission should come up with a plan on how to minimise the costs of mitigating climate change. Improving the efficiency of coal-fired power plants, ensuring that all new power plants are as efficient as possible, investing in CCS and other innovative low-carbon technologies – these should be the new areas of focus for policy makers who are serious about climate change.