Lower Carbon Future? Try Natural Gas.

 Tony Hayward of BP,  unable to find space in UK newspaper pages busily proposing outdated solutions to obsolete energy shortage scenarios has been reduced to writing op-eds for The Washington Post.

...shaping our energy future will be more complex than simply using less fossil fuel and more alternatives. Getting to a lower-carbon world while also providing the increasing energy needed to power a growing economy requires a more nuanced approach.The issue, then, is not a choice between fossil fuels and alternatives but, rather, what combination can achieve the fastest carbon reduction at the lowest possible cost using available technology?

Hayward then goes to the usual arguments about how gas can replace coal, CCS is unproven and doesn't work yet and ramping nuclear up won't be quick.  He doesn't deny they'll ever happen but:

..providing the increasing energy needed to power a growing economy requires a more nuanced approach.

Renewable energy sources -- wind, solar, biofuels -- have an important role, and BP, the energy company I head, is investing significantly in all. Still, the shift to alternatives can't happen overnight.

Meanwhile here in the UK, it's going to be nuclear's day today, which is pushing an expensive, divisive and long winded solution to a problem of energy security that no longer exists. 

Comments

[MCrab]

Nick, you really need to get your head around the fact that natural gas is not carbon free. It emits a whopping 450 gCO2/kWh. If we do as you suggest, we will end up with this carbon spewing form of energy supplying 80% of our electricity. This is not going to substantially change the carbon intensity of UK electricity which currently stands at about 500 gCO2/kWh. By contrast, across the channel France's nuclear plants have been giving it sub 100 gCO2/kWh for the past twenty years.

Gas has its place in supplying intermediate and peak load electricity. Perhaps in future it may also displace expensive oil in powering our cars and lorries. Any excess, however, would from a climate change perspective be far more effectively employed by displacing generation in a coal dominated grid such as Poland's. Nostalgia for the nineties dash-to-gas should not blind us to the fact that its gains have already been reaped in the UK.

[Andy]

Nick realizes that Natgas is not carbon free.
I suspect you conflate the solutions proposed for America (specifically the Pickens Plan) as a specific proposal for the UK. There is still plenty of room for substituting natgas for coal in America.

Certainly nuclear power has advantages in CO2 reduction, and the French have realized those advantages, but for the next 10 years or so, natgas is the only practical substitute for coal power plants.

[MCrab]

Let me be clear Andy, I enjoy reading the NoHotAir blog and think Nick does sterling work in getting out the information that shale gas is a game changing technology. Furthermore, I believe that this abundance of natural gas is a good thing.

Anyone who's read the publications of the IPCC knows just how difficult it will be for humanity to keep CO2 below 550 ppm, let alone 450 ppm. Natural gas displacing coal undoubtedly provides a huge wedge in the effort to achieve this. In a UK context, however, a new dash-to-gas will not significantly reduce our CO2 emissions while our nuclear stations are retired. Worse, it locks us in to a mid-carbon intensity grid for decades.

That is ultimately what I object to. Use of gas for UK baseload means building plants that will last 3-4 decades. That's a lot of carbon. You can, Nick, have too much of a good thing.

[Guru]

As Andy said I propose natgas as practical, in the sense of affordable and imminently deliverable.

I also am not advocating gas as a permanent solution, and we do have to be careful about that. In the future. But for now, gas can be a bridge fuel from a high carbon coal intensive world to a lower carbon one far quicker, cheaper and easier than either nuclear or CCS. The thing is to replace coal generation (and why in Poland but not the UK?) with gas and to use gas as backup to wind.

Big immediate savings from gas in carbon can also come from distributed generation which will solve the massive transmission losses involved from centrally located power plants of any type.

So I always propose gas as a bridge: Bridge to where we dont exactly know but just some possibilities in the next thirty years or less are hydrogen, stored electricity, nuclear fusion, tidal, oilgae etc etc.

Apart from the incredible expense, and the fact that the reality is far less rosy and easy than made out, I am not against nuclear on principle. But the reality is that Olkiluoto in Finland has over run massively in both cost and timescale. History says the UK ones would be similar. Ive yet to hear about a nuclear plant being delivered on time or under budget, although if you know of one please tell me , thats the kind of conventional wisdom is wrong story I specialise in!

Finally, surely nuclear cant be 100% carbon pure either? Uranium mining and processing and transport at one end must have an impact while at the other end there is processing and storage of the waste. For example, check out this report on BNFL Sellafield, who bucked the trend and increased emissions last year. Not as clean as one might think( thanks www.sandbag.org.uk)

Fellside CHP Plant

British Nuclear Group Sellafield Limited

Cumbria

Ranked #83 in United Kingdom on 2008 emissions

Annual Allowance424,3782008 Emissions453,394

[Guru]

Gas alone is not good for the future, and there can be a risk that well get stuck with it, but its a better choice in the short term.

If we increased 2020 targets now, it would help gas and the planet at the same time. We must be sure that gas should only be a bridge, but were running out of time (and money!)

I dont think we should forego the near to mid term by being overly concerned about a future that we may not be able to afford, and might not even show up...