Guest Blog: Myths about Fracking, Oswaldo Lucon, Senior Advisor, Energy & Climate Change, Brazil
Guest Blog: Myths about fracking, Oswaldo Lucon, Senior Advisor, Energy & Climate Change, Brazil
While “myths” about fracking are being debated, the authoritative IEA document “World Energy Outlook 2011- Special Report on Unconventional Gas”, in its page 91, regarding climate change and the environment, states the following: “Energy-related CO2 emissions in the Golden Rules Case reach 36.8 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2035, an increase of over 20% compared with 2010 but lower than the 2035 baseline projection by 0.5%. (…) The Golden Rules Case puts CO2 emissions on a long-term trajectory consistent with stabilising the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse-gas emissions at around 650 parts per million, a trajectory consistent with a probable temperature rise of more than 3.5 degrees Celsius (°C) in the long term, well above the widely accepted 2°C target. This finding reinforces a central conclusion from the WEO special report on a Golden Age of Gas (IEA, 2011b), that, while a greater role for natural gas in the global energy mix does bring environmental benefits where it substitutes for other fossil fuels, natural gas cannot on its own provide the answer to the challenge of climate change. This conclusion could be changed by widespread application of technologies such as carbon capture and storage, which could reduce considerably the emissions from the consumption of gas (and other fossil fuels); but this is not assumed in the period to 2035.”
Oswaldo Lucon is a senior adviser on Energy and Climate Change to the São Paulo State Government, Brazil. He authored several publications on Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development, and is since 1995 a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
More at http://www.amazon.com/Oswaldo-Lucon/e/B003JITHOU/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1345040214&sr=1-2-ent
at 10:44 pm
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at 10:48 am
Dear Oswaldo and colleagues,
no surprise that WWF shares the major concerns on the environmental implications of shale gas and shale oil and not only on the carbon footprint.
However, Oswaldo unfortunately forgot one additional sentence in footnote of this IEA report on page 92 that is linked to the last sentence he quotes: “…..but this is not assumed in the period t0 2035″
The footnote says: “There is the possibility that the capacities for CO2 storage might be affected by hydraulic fracturing. A recent study …..estimated that 80% of the potential area to store CO2 underground in the US could be prejudiced by shale and tight gas development…..”
This means basically that the IEA – and here on the occasion of the US – considers a real and new challenge to gas as a “transition” fuel towards renewables. Many gas companies also do strong advocacy for a long-term (post-2020) effective decarbonisation of power sector – not based on renewables but based on CCS gas. If the IEA is right in its caution to add any (!) CCS for its gas scenario until 2035 and if additional geo-science confirms for other regions in the world as well that hydraulic fracturing creates a leaky Swiss cheese-like underground unsuitable for CO2 storage at all, than a focus on fossil gas as a long-term ‘low carbon’ fuel with high rates of carbon capture (and storage) – not only replacing high-carbon coal and oil but also competing with renewables in the future – is meaningless and even counterproductive. Without CCS a focus on gas will be more of a disaster for the climate than a “Golden Age” and in this respect – I am not proposing it but this needs to be calibrated – CCS with coal might be more ‘climate-friendly’ than any focus on fossil gas which anyway loses its perceived low-carbon advantages in many regions compared to coal when including upstream methane exploration and distribution losses….
And we have not yet talked about the costs of CCS in power sector, both gas and coal, which are fairly prohibitive presently when compared with steadily decreasing costs of renewable power.
We know why we are convinced that for a 2050 long-term sustainable and climate-friendly energy supply only 100% Renewables apply….
Dr Stephan Singer
Director Global Energy Policy
WWF
at 12:10 pm
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at 10:03 am
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at 10:04 am
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