Methane emissions from hydroelectric dams

SSRN, 2021

The main fossil fuels oil, coal, and gas provide ~80% of global energy. In the next few years, "renewables" may meet only half the additional growth in global electricity demand or only about 20% of primary energy demand growth. The remaining increased energy demand will need to be matched by increased conventional energy generation. Coal and gas together account for 50% of primary energy and 60% of electricity. Therefore, the authors examine the global warming potential for both fuels. The surprising conclusion is that surfaced-mined coal appears "better for the climate" than the average natural gas and all coal appears beneficial over LNG. Therefore, current CO 2-only reduction policies and CO 2 taxes are leading to misguided consequences and the switch from coal to gas, especially LNG, will not have the desired impact of reducing predicted future global warming, quite the contrary. With IPCC's global warming potential of CH 4 over 20 years, a ~2% a higher loss of methane across the value chain prior to combustion of gas vs. coal will lead to "climate parity" of coal with gas. Analyzing IEA information, natural gas value chains have high methane and undocumented CO 2 losses. On global average, natural gas emits ~20% more CO 2 eq than surface-mined coal. This difference increases as the use of shale gas and LNG expands. Global GHG policies need to include documented changes in measured airborne CO 2 eq to avoid spending large amounts of public funds on ineffective or sub-optimal policies. I.e., most global funds, international banks, conglomerates, and insurances have publicly announced that, mostly for climate protection reasons, they will abandon coal but will continue to support LNG and pipeline natural gas projects which are all required to power human life. This is likely to have unexpected consequences. The potential effects of anthropogenic global warming should not be discounted or played down. However, the undisputed benefits of increased CO 2 concentrations in the atmosphere because of its photosynthetic and growth effects (fertilization) on plants need to be considered in energy policy decisions as well. The authors suggest sponsoring ultra-super-critical power plants, whether fossil fuel fired, nuclear, or renewable, at no cost to developing nations to reduce their emissions while also providing essential and reliable energy to encourage industrial growth. Such "technological" gifts could replace less efficient existing plants or even provide new power plants that have far higher emission reduction factors thereby supporting economic and environmental activities in both developing and developed nations.

Energy Policy, 2012

2016

Humanity now faces a dangerous dilemma: on one hand leading scientists predict that if we continue to burn coal, gas and oil the environmental consequences are likely to be catastrophic (e.g. Hansen et al., 2013); on the other hand many economists argue that if we stop using fossil fuels our industrial civilization will run out of energy and collapse (e.g. Canes, 2015). Although renewable technologies are beginning to compete with fossil fuels in the production of electricity, electricity is only 20% of energy use (IEA, 2014). In other areas—e.g. most heating, industrial production and transport—renewable alternatives are either non-existent or not yet cost-competitive. Because the global economy still requires fossil fuels, any efforts to quickly cut carbon pollution will reduce output. This is an enormous problem as most people—especially those struggling to get by in developing countries— are not prepared to accept lower standards of living. In addition fossil fuel producing coun...

Climate Policy, 2018

This article analyses the trends in primary demand for fossil fuels and renewables, comparing regions with large and small domestic fossil fuel reserves. We focus on countries that hold 80% of global fossil fuel reserves and compare them with key countries that have meagre fossil fuel reserves. We show that those countries with large domestic fossil fuel reserves have experienced a large increase in primary energy demand from fossil fuels, but only a moderate or no increase in primary energy from renewables, and in particular from non-hydro renewable energy sources (NHRES), which are assumed to represent the cornerstone of the future transformation of the global energy system. This implies a tremendous threat to climate change mitigation, with only two principal mitigation options for fossil-fuelrich economies if there is to be compliance with the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement: (1) leave the fossil fuels in the ground; and (2) apply carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. Combinations of these two options to exploit their respective possibilities synergistically will require strong initiatives and incentives to transform a certain amount of the domestic fossil fuel reserves (including the associated infrastructure) into stranded assets and to create an extensive CCS infrastructure. Our conclusion is that immediate and disruptive changes to the use of fossil fuels and investments in non-carbon-emitting technologies are required if global warming is to be limited to well below 2°C. Collective actions along value chains in business to divert from fossil fuels may be a feasible strategy. Key policy insights. The main obstacle to compliance with any reasonable warming target is the abundance of fossil fuels, which has maintained and increased momentum towards new fossil-fuelled processes.. So far, there has been no increase in the share of NHRES in total global primary energy demand, with a clear decline in the NHRES share in India and China.. There is an immediate need for the global community to develop fossil fuel strategies and policies.. Policies must account for the global trade flow of products that typically occurs from the newly industrialized fossil fuel-rich countries to the developed countries.

2007

Given South Africa's fossil fuel history, so intimately connected to apartheid, there should be no surprise at the legacy of uneven access to clean energy by class, gender, race and geography. That this legacy continues and in some ways is exacerbated-notwithstanding 'Free Basic Electricity' promises-is worthy of explanation. At the core is Eskom's pressure to commercialise, liberalise and partially privatise, resulting in persistent shortages as well as economic strategies that remain energy-consumptive and capital-intensive (such as the Coega project). This means it is even more inexcusable to find South Africa's contributions to CO2 emissions and global warming rank amongst the world's worst. *** If in coming decades floods periodically inundate the eastern third of South Africa and droughts are unbearable in the western two-thirds, and if the main ports of eThekwini, Cape Town, Richard's Bay, Buffalo City and Mandela Metropole (including the new Coega complex) are gradually submergedperhaps four meters below present sea levels in a century-once sufficiently large sections of Antarctica, the Arctic Circle and Greenland melt, where might South Africans turn to hurl the blame? Mainly to Gauteng politicians and capitalists, that's where. State policymakers and allied corporations active in the last two decades of the 20 th century and first of the 21 st drove the country's energy systems into unprecedented contradictions and crises. Perhaps none is more threatening than Eskom's contribution to climate change, amplified by the African National Congress government's 2004 policy which aims to commodify the air as a mitigating strategy. For those concerned about global warming, there are two approaches to consider in this chapter: a radical approach (i.e., going to the problem's roots) which would entail a genuine transformation of energy, industry and transport; or the prevailing neoliberal strategy which entails the status quo plus gimmicks such as the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment, 2005

Palgrave Handbook on Managing Fossil Fuels and Energy Transitions edited by Geoffrey Wood & Keith Baker, 2019

A predominant framing within much climate literature is that the cause of climate change is free market capitalism. In this chapter, using a range of international case studies from the world’s largest greenhouse gas polluting nations, I demonstrate how rather than the working of the “free” market underpinning the climate crisis, instead fossil fuel subsidies, government protection and favourable policies prop up the fossil fuel industry against competition and drive much of the climate crisis. Instead of free market capitalism versus the climate, we have an extensive regime of fossil fuel welfare versus the climate. As such, I argue that even proponents of free market capitalism should be opposed to the current fossil fuel welfare regime. The chapter then discusses how we could create a more prosperous low carbon future at a lower cost than how much we currently subsidise fossil fuels. Studies show that by redirecting the welfare we give to the fossil fuel industry to a more socially and ecologically just future, we could greatly improve social and ecological welfare and meet the Paris Climate Agreement target of keeping warming to 1.5°C.

Chemistry - An Asian Journal, 2011

Currently, over 80 % of the energy used by mankind comes from fossil fuels. Harnessing coal, oil and gas, the energy resources contained in the store of our spaceship, Earth, has prompted a dramatic expansion in energy use and a substantial improvement in the quality of life of billions of individuals in some regions of the world. Powering our civilization with fossil fuels has been very convenient, but now we know that it entails severe consequences. We treat fossil fuels as a resource that anyone anywhere can extract and use in any fashion, and Earths atmosphere, soil and oceans as a dump for their waste products, including more than 30 Gt/y of carbon dioxide. At present, environmental legacy rather than consistence of exploitable reserves, is the most dramatic problem posed by the relentless increase of fossil fuel global demand. Harmful effects on the environment and human health, usually not incorporated into the pricing of fossil fuels, include immediate and short-term impacts related to their discovery, extraction, transportation, distribution, and burning as well as climate change that are spread over time to future generations or over space to the entire planet. In this essay, several aspects of the fossil fuel legacy are discussed, such as alteration of the carbon cycle, carbon dioxide rise and its measurement, greenhouse effect, anthropogenic climate change, air pollution and human health, geoengineering proposals, land and water degradation, economic problems, indirect effects on the society, and the urgent need of regulatory efforts and related actions to promote a gradual transition out of the fossil fuel era. While manufacturing sustainable solar fuels appears to be a longer-time perspective, alternatives energy sources already exist that have the potential to replace fossil fuels as feedstocks for electricity production.