Carbon capture is expected to play a pivotal role in the race to net zero emissions. But not everyone agrees

PUBLISHED TUE, JUL 20 2021
Sam Meredith@SMEREDITH19

CNBC

KEY POINTS

The world is confronting a climate emergency, and policymakers and chief executives are under intensifying pressure to deliver on promises made as part of the landmark Paris Agreement.

Proponents of carbon capture technologies believe they can play an important and diverse role in meeting global energy and climate goals.

The topic is divisive, however, with climate researchers, campaigners and environmental advocacy groups arguing that carbon capture technology is not a solution.


A detail of the pilot carbon dioxide (CO2) capture plant is pictured at Amager Bakke waste incinerator in Copenhagen on June 24, 2021.
IDA GULDBAEK ARENTSEN | AFP | Getty Images

LONDON — Carbon capture technology is often held up as a source of hope in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, featuring prominently in countries’ climate plans as well as the net-zero strategies of some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies.

The topic is divisive, however, with climate researchers, campaigners and environmental advocacy groups arguing that carbon capture technology is not a solution.

The world is confronting a climate emergency, and policymakers and chief executives are under intensifying pressure to deliver on promises made as part of the landmark Paris Agreement. The accord, ratified by nearly 200 countries in 2015, is seen as critically important in averting the worst effects of climate change.

Carbon capture, utilization and storage — often shortened to carbon capture technology or CCUS — refers to a suite of technologies designed to capture carbon dioxide from high-emitting activities such as power generation or industrial facilities, that use either fossil fuels or biomass for fuel.

The captured carbon dioxide, which can also be captured directly from the atmosphere, is then compressed and transported via pipeline, ship, rail or truck to be used in a range of applications or permanently stored underground.

There are a number of reasons why carbon capture is a false climate solution. 

The first and most fundamental of those reasons is that it is not necessary. 

 

Carroll Muffett  

CHIEF EXECUTIVE AT THE CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW

Proponents of these technologies believe they can play an important and diverse role in meeting global energy and climate goals.

Carroll Muffett, chief executive at the non-profit Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), is not one of them. “There are a number of reasons why carbon capture is a false climate solution. The first and most fundamental of those reasons is that it is not necessary,” he told CNBC via telephone.

“If you look at the history of carbon capture and storage, what you see is nearly two decades of a solution in search of a cure.”

‘Unproven scalability’


Some CCS and CCUS facilities have been operating since the 1970s and 1980s when natural gas processing plants in south Texas began capturing carbon dioxide and supplying the emissions to local oil producers for enhanced oil recovery operations. The first one was set up in 1972.

It wasn’t until several years later that carbon capture technology would be studied for climate mitigation purposes. Now, there are 21 large-scale CCUS commercial projects in operation worldwide and plans for at least 40 new commercial facilities have been announced in recent years.

A report published by CIEL earlier this month concluded that these technologies are not only “ineffective, uneconomic and unsafe,” but they also prolong reliance on the fossil fuel industry and distract from a much-needed pivot to renewable alternatives.

Employees near the CO2 compressor site at the Hawiyah Natural Gas Liquids Recovery Plant, operated by Saudi Aramco, in Hawiyah, Saudi Arabia, on Monday, June 28, 2021. The Hawiyah Natural Gas Liquids Recovery Plant is designed to process 4.0 billion standard cubic feet per day of sweet gas as pilot project for Carbon Capture Technology (CCUS) to prove the possibility of capturing C02 and lowering emissions from such facilities.
Maya Siddiqui | Bloomberg | Getty Images

“The unproven scalability of CCS technologies and their prohibitive costs mean they cannot play any significant role in the rapid reduction of global emissions necessary to limit warming to 1.5°C,” the CIEL said, referring to a key aim of the Paris Agreement to limit a rise in the earth’s temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

“Despite the existence of the technology for decades and billions of dollars in government subsidies to date, deployment of CCS at scale still faces insurmountable challenges of feasibility, effectiveness, and expense,” the CIEL added.

Earlier this year, campaigners at Global Witness and Friends of the Earth Scotland commissioned climate scientists at the Tyndall Centre in Manchester, U.K. to assess the role fossil fuel-related CCS plays in the energy system.

The peer-reviewed study found that carbon capture and storage technologies still face numerous barriers to short-term deployment and, even if these could be overcome, the technology “would only start to deliver too late.” Researchers also found that it was incapable of operating with zero emissions, constituted a distraction from the rapid growth of renewable energy “and has a history of over-promising and under-delivering.”

In short, the study said reliance on CCS is “not a solution” to confronting the world’s climate challenge.

Carbon capture is ‘a rarity’ in Washington

Not everyone is convinced by these arguments, however. The International Energy Agency, an influential intergovernmental group, says that while carbon capture technology has not yet lived up to its promise, it can still offer “significant strategic value” in the transition to net zero.

“CCUS is a really important part of this portfolio of technologies that we consider,” Samantha McCulloch, head of CCUS technology at the IEA, told CNBC via video call.

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VIDEO 17:35

The big problem with capturing carbon is that it simply doesn’t pay

The IEA has identified four key strategic roles for the technologies: Addressing emissions from energy infrastructure, tackling hard-to-abate emissions from heavy industry (cement, steel and chemicals, among others), natural gas-based hydrogen production and carbon removal.

For these four reasons, McCulloch said it would be fair to describe CCUS as a climate solution.

At present, CCUS facilities around the world have the capacity to capture more than 40 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year. The IEA believes plans to build many more facilities could double the level of CO2 captured globally.

“It is contributing but not to a scale that we envisage will be needed in terms of a net-zero pathway,” McCulloch said. “The encouraging news, I think, is that there has been very significant momentum behind the technology in recent years and this is really reflecting that without CCUS it will be very difficult — if not impossible — to meet net-zero goals.”

Electricity pylons are seen in front of the cooling towers of the coal-fired power station of German energy giant RWE in Weisweiler, western Germany, on January 26, 2021.
INA FASSBENDER | AFP | Getty Images

Meanwhile, the American Petroleum Institute, the largest U.S. oil and gas trade lobby group, believes the future looks bright for carbon capture and utilization storage.

The group noted in a blog post on July 2 that CCUS was a rare example of something that is liked by “just about everyone” in Washington – Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike.

Where do we go from here?

“Frankly, tackling climate change is not the same as trying to bring the fossil fuel industry to its knees,” Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, told CNBC via telephone.

“If the fossil fuel companies can help us get to net zero then why wouldn’t we want them to do that? I think too many environmental groups have conflated their dislike of oil and gas companies with the challenge of tackling climate change.”

VIDEO01:27

Swiss RE CEO: Carbon capture ‘could be as big’ as oil and gas industry

When asked why carbon capture and storage schemes should be in countries’ climate plans given the criticism they receive, Ward replied: “Because if we are going to get to net zero by 2050, we have to throw every technology at this problem … People who argue that you can start ruling out technologies because you don’t like them are those who, I think, haven’t understood the scale of the challenge we face.”

The CIEL’s Muffett rejected this suggestion, saying proponents of carbon capture technologies are increasingly reliant on this kind of “all of the above” argument. “The answer to it is surprisingly easy: It is that we have a decade to cut global emissions in half and we have just a few decades to eliminate them entirely,” Muffett said.

“If on any reasonable examination of CCS, it costs massive amounts of money but doesn’t actually reduce emissions in any meaningful way, and further entrenches fossil fuel infrastructure, the question is: In what way is that contributing to the solution as opposed to diverting time and energy and resources away from the solutions that will work?”

BHP Is Said to Mull Oil Exit in Retreat From Fossil Fuels

Thomas Biesheuvel, Dinesh Nair and Ruth David
Tue., July 20, 2021, 

WHATS MISSING IS THEIR INVESTMENTS IN POTASH

(Bloomberg) -- BHP Group is considering getting out of oil and gas in a multibillion-dollar exit that would accelerate its retreat from fossil fuels, according to people familiar with the matter.

The world’s biggest miner is reviewing its petroleum business and considering options including a trade sale, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the talks are private. The business, which is forecast to earn more than $2 billion this year, could be worth an estimated $15 billion or more, one of the people said.

BHP’s energy assets make it an outlier among the world’s biggest miners -- rival Anglo American Plc has already exited thermal coal under investor pressure and BHP is trying to follow suit. The company has long said the oil business was one of its strategic pillars and argued that it will make money for at least another decade. But as the world tries to shift away from fossil fuels, BHP wants to avoid getting stuck with assets that more become more difficult to sell, the people said.

The deliberations are still at an early stage and no final decision has been made, the people said. A spokesman for BHP declined to comment.

The move comes as oil supermajors grapple with how to respond to investor pressure over climate, in some cases by shrinking their core production and adding renewable energy assets.

BHP wants to exit while it can still get a good price for the assets, aiming to repeat a 2018 sale of its shale business to BP Plc for $10.4 billion, the people said. And unlike big-oil rivals, BHP doesn’t depend on profits from the energy business, which are dwarfed by the company’s giant iron ore and copper units.

The timing could be good for an oil exit. The economic recovery from Covid-19 has transformed the fortunes of oil producers, with Brent oil futures having rallied about 60% in the past year.

By contrast, the company’s efforts to get out of thermal coal so far have been disappointing, after early bids for mines in Australia came in lower than the company’s own valuations last year.

Getting out of both thermal coal and petroleum would help BHP make its case to investors as a company geared toward commodities of the future. The miner is also expected to sanction a giant potash mine in Canada next month, which could make it a key supplier of the crop nutrient once production begins. BHP is scheduled to report annual results on Aug. 17.

BHP has been in oil and gas since the 1960s, and has assets in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Australia. It produced 102.8 million barrels of oil equivalent in the year ending June 30.

“BHP is an outlier in the mining sector for its petroleum business and this is often cited in our investors discussions as a point of detraction,” said RBC Capital Markets analyst Tyler Broda. “With rising ESG pressures facing the industry, but also as this business potentially enters into a re-investment phase, we can see why management might be contemplating an exit.”

Broda estimates the business is worth about $14.3 billion.

(Updates with analyst comment in final two paragraphs.)


©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

IEA Warns CO2 Emissions Set to Climb to 'All-Time High' as Rich Nations Skimp on Clean Energy

The Paris-based agency slammed rich governments for promising to "build back better" but refusing to "put their money where their mouth is."


Behind a lake, steam rises from the cooling towers of the Jänschwalde lignite-fired power plant of Lausitz Energie Bergbau AG on December 2, 2020 in Brandenburg, Germany. (Photo: Patrick Pleul/Picture Alliance via Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON

COMMON DREAMS

July 20, 2021

The International Energy Agency warned Tuesday that global carbon dioxide emissions are on track to soar to record levels in 2023—and continue rising thereafter—as governments fail to make adequate investments in green energy and end their dedication to planet-warming fossil fuels.

In a new report, IEA estimates that of the $16 trillion world governments have spent to prop up their economies during the coronavirus crisis, just 2% of that total has gone toward clean energy development.

Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, slammed what he characterized as the hypocrisy of rich governments that promised a green recovery from the pandemic but have thus far refused "to put their money where their mouth is." Research published last month revealed that between January 2020 and March 2021, the governments of wealthy G7 nations poured tens of billions of dollars more into fossil fuels than renewable energy.

On top of being "far from what's needed to put the world on a path to reaching net-zero emissions by mid-century," Birol said that the money allocated to green energy measures thus far is "not even enough to prevent global emissions from surging to a new record."

"Governments need to increase spending and policy action rapidly to meet the commitments they made in Paris in 2015—including the vital provision of financing by advanced economies to the developed world," Birol continued. "But they must then go even further by leading clean energy investment and deployment to much greater heights beyond the recovery period in order to shift the world onto a pathway to net-zero emissions by 2050, which is narrow but still achievable—if we act now.”

The IEA's analysis—which examines roughly 800 policies implemented throughout the coronavirus crisis by more than 50 countries—finds that "full and timely implementation" of the economic recovery measures would result in CO2 emissions surging to an "all-time high" in 2023 and continuing to rise in the following years, more than wiping out the pandemic-related emissions drop.

"While this trajectory is 800 million tonnes lower in 2023 than it would have been without any sustainable recovery efforts," the analysis notes, "it is nonetheless 3,500 million tonnes above" what's necessary to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

The Paris-based agency's latest findings come just months after it said world governments must immediately halt all new investments in oil and gas projects in order to avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis, which is wreaking havoc across the globe in the form of catastrophic flooding, deadly heatwaves, drought, and wildfires.

Birol plans to present the IEA's new report to the leaders of G20 nations, which—according to research published Tuesday morning—have handed more than $3.3 trillion in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry since the Paris climate accord was finalized in 2015.

"The action taken by these countries up until this point is a far cry from what is needed," Antha Williams, the environment lead at Bloomberg Philanthropies, which helped conduct the subsidy research, told The Guardian. "As a host of climate emergencies intensify around the world, the continued development of fossil fuel infrastructure is nothing short of reckless. We need more than just words—we need action."

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

CO2 emissions set to hit record levels in 2023 and there’s ‘no clear peak in sight,’ IEA says

PUBLISHED TUE, JUL 20 2021
KEY POINTS

The new findings from the IEA come after it said the planet’s demand for electricity was set for a strong rebound this year and next.

“Despite increased climate ambitions, the amount of economic recovery funds being spent on clean energy is just a small sliver of the total,” Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, states.



querbeet | E+ | Getty Images

Only a small chunk of governments’ recovery spending in response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been allocated to clean energy measures, according to the International Energy Agency, with the Paris-based organization forecasting that carbon dioxide emissions will hit record levels in 2023.

Published on Tuesday, the IEA’s analysis notes that, as of the second quarter of this year, the world’s governments had set aside roughly $380 billion for “energy-related sustainable recovery measures.” This represents approximately 2% of recovery spending, it said.

In a statement issued alongside its analysis, the IEA laid out a stark picture of just how much work needed to be done in order for climate related targets to be met.


“The sums of money, both public and private, being mobilised worldwide by recovery plans fall well short of what is needed to reach international climate goals,” it said.

These shortfalls were “particularly pronounced in emerging and developing economies, many of which face particular financing challenges,” it added.

Looking ahead, the Paris-based organization estimated that, under current spending plans, the planet’s carbon dioxide emissions would be on course to hit record levels in 2023 and continue to grow in the ensuing years. There was, its analysis claimed, “no clear peak in sight.”

Commenting on the findings, Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, said: “Since the Covid-19 crisis erupted, many governments may have talked about the importance of building back better for a cleaner future, but many of them are yet to put their money where their mouth is.”

“Despite increased climate ambitions, the amount of economic recovery funds being spent on clean energy is just a small sliver of the total,” he added.

The IEA’s analysis and projections are based on its Sustainable Recovery Tracker, which was launched on Tuesday and “monitors government spending allocated to sustainable recoveries.”

The tracker takes this information and then uses it to estimate “how much this spending boosts overall clean energy investment and to what degree this affects the trajectory of global CO2 emissions.”

For his part, Birol said governments needed to “increase spending and policy action rapidly to meet the commitments they made in Paris in 2015 — including the vital provision of financing by advanced economies to the developing world.

“But they must then go even further,” he added, “by leading clean energy investment and deployment to much greater heights beyond the recovery period in order to shift the world onto a pathway to net-zero emissions by 2050, which is narrow but still achievable — if we act now.”

Birol’s reference to the Paris Agreement is notable but unsurprising. The shadow of the accord, which aims to “limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels,” looms large over discussions about net-zero goals.

Cutting human-made carbon dioxide emissions to net-zero by 2050 is seen as crucial when it comes to meeting the 1.5 degrees Celsius target.

The new findings from the IEA come after it said the planet’s demand for electricity was set for a strong rebound this year and next after dropping by approximately 1% in 2020.

Released last week, its Electricity Market Report forecasts that global electricity demand will jump by nearly 5% in 2021 and 4% in 2022, as economies around the world look to recover from the effects of the pandemic.

The report notes that although electricity generation from renewables “continues to grow strongly” it can’t keep up with increasing demand.

Renewables were, the intergovernmental organization noted, “expected to be able to serve only around half of the projected growth in global demand in 2021 and 2022.”

At the other end of the spectrum, electricity generation based on fossil fuels was “set to cover 45% of additional demand in 2021 and 40% in 2022.”

Indeed, the reality on the ground shows just how big a challenge achieving climate-related goals will be in the years ahead.

Energy companies are still discovering new oil fields, for example, while in countries such as the U.S., fossil fuels continue to play a significant role in electricity production.

At the global level, the IEA’s research published last week expects coal-fired electricity generation to rise “by almost 5% in 2021 and a further 3% in 2022, after having declined by 4.6% in 2020.”

“As a result, coal-fired electricity generation is set to exceed pre-pandemic levels in 2021 and reach an all-time high in 2022,” it adds.

It will cost as much as $1 trillion to repair Canada's energy infrastructure to handle intense weather

New paradigm means grid operators will need to draw energy from a constantly changing array of sources to meet demand

Author of the article: Gabriel Friedman
Publishing date:Jul 14, 2021 • 

A welcoming sign is seen on the door of the Hillcrest Community Centre where they can cool off during the extreme hot weather in Vancouver, British Columbia. PHOTO BY DON MACKINNON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES


The record heat wave that swept across Western Canada in late June caused hundreds of fatalities and left houses and infrastructure smouldering in ashes.

Though less easily observed, it is also causing a stir on the electrical grid, as regions that could reliably expect electrical demand to peak during the coldest days of winter suddenly find that blazing summer temperatures are surpassing previous peak demand levels.

In Alberta, on June 29, electrical demand reached a new summer peak of 11,721 megawatts — eight megawatts shy of the all-time record set this past January. Meanwhile, Fortis B.C., which services 180,000 customers in that province’s southern interior, reported electrical demand hit an all-time record of 764 MW on June 30, shattering the previous record set more than a decade earlier in December 2008.

Indeed, across Western Canada, the electrical grid faces new challenges as oppressive summer heat waves invert historical electricity consumption patterns. At stake is not just added costs of generating additional electricity, but also potential power outages, which can lead to the loss of human life.

“What happened in Alberta and B.C. last week was completely consistent with what we found would happen,” said Nicholas Rivers, a professor of University of Ottawa’s School of Public and International Affairs and Institute of the Environment.

In 2019, Rivers and Blake Shaffer, an economics professor at the University of Calgary, reviewed 20 years of Canada’s hourly electricity data to predict how climate change will affect electricity consumption patterns.

A BC Hydro sub station in Vancouver.

PHOTO BY ARLEN REDEKOP/POSTMEDIA NEWS FILES

Their paper, “Stretching the Duck: How rising temperatures will change the level and shape of future electricity consumption,” concludes that colder places will increasingly see greater demand in the summers as heat waves intensify. Meanwhile, climate change is likely to also lead to more mild winters, lessening demand during that season.

“We can expect strains on infrastructure including electricity markets,” Rivers said, adding that failures of energy pipelines and transmission pipelines are all more prone to fail during extreme temperatures, such as heat waves.

In the study of Canadian hourly electricity data and how consumption patterns will change as climate change takes place, Rivers and Shaffer predict that overall electricity consumption will only increase four per cent — with rising summer demand offset by declining winter demand.

The shift is significant, however, because as heat waves become more common, the grid must be able to accommodate the increased strain or else power outages could take air-conditioning offline, putting lives at risk.

Air-conditioning penetration is expected to skyrocket across the country from around 60 per cent today, to more than 90 per cent by the end of the century.

That surge is already happening in B.C., where air conditioning use has grown from 26 per cent of households in 2010 to 40 per cent in 2021, according to B.C. Hydro, the main electricity supplier for the region

.

A resident transports an air conditioner during a heat wave in Vancouver.

 PHOTO BY TREVOR HAGAN/BLOOMBERG

During the heat wave, it shattered peak electricity demand records on three consecutive nights in a row, reaching 8,651 MW — about 30 per cent higher than a typical June day, according to BC Hydro spokeswoman Mora Scott.

“The primary drivers were people turning to AC and fans to keep cool, plus refrigeration units have to work harder in hot temperatures to keep their contents cool,” Scott wrote via email.

Of course, the impact of air-conditioning is highly dependent on the nature of the grid: For example, in Alberta, residential demand accounts for only 13 per cent, compared to 81 per cent for industrial and commercial. Thus, the health of the economy may be more dispositive of overall demand in that province.

Still, the recent heat wave shows how extreme weather has a large effect on the grid.

Normally, it is difficult if not impossible to attribute any one event to climate change, but World Weather Attribution, an international group of 27 scientists from prestigious universities including Princeton, Oxford and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), aims to change that by releasing studies on weather events shortly after they happen.

The group released a report that found the heat wave in the Pacific Northwest in late June was so far outside the range of historically observed temperatures, that it “was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.”

The study is yet not peer-reviewed but utilizes peer-reviewed methodology.

“In the most realistic statistical analysis the event is estimated to be about a 1 in 1,000 year event in today’s climate,” the report found.

It added that if the globe warms by two degrees Celsius, such weather events can instead be expected to occur every five to ten years.

The damage from such events is often obvious: In British Columbia and Alberta, hundreds of fatalities were reported as a result of the heat

The fire in Lytton also left rail lines used by Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. and Canadian National Railway Ltd. damaged, which disrupted the transport of grains, commodities and various parts of the industrial supply chain.

Vancouver’s Teck Resources, for example, has reduced its estimated metallurgical coal production for the quarter by 300,000 to 500,000 tonnes because damage to the rail lines in Lytton meant it couldn’t export out of lower B.C. port terminals

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A wildfire burns above the Fraser River Valley near Lytton, British Columbia, on Friday, July 2, 2021. PHOTO BY JAMES MACDONALD/BLOOMBERG FILES

On Monday, the Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development released a report that found one-third of Canada’s core infrastructure is in poor condition and not resilient to the impacts of climate change.

The estimated cost to repair the “infrastructure gap” ranges from $150 billion to $1 trillion, depending on what changes are made, according to the IISD.

“The numbers are quite crazy,” said Darren Swanson, an associate at IISD in Winnipeg. “It just highlights the fact that there will be investment needed and that climate change is wreaking havoc on infrastructure itself, so the timing is quite urgent in terms of building resiliency.”

Climate change is wreaking havoc on infrastructure itself, so the timing is quite urgent in terms of building resiliency

DARREN SWANSON

The report lays out in detail some of the ways that climate change is already damaging infrastructure, such as when forest fires destroy transmission lines, or cause overheating in data centres, or when extreme precipitation causes flooding that buries substations and transmission lines.

The effect of such heat on the electrical grid draws less attention than coal exports or forest fires, but may be more consequential especially as Canada revamps its power generation in an effort to decarbonize the economy.

Operating an electrical grid requires constantly matching supply with demand.

For decades, grid operators have used a baseload framework, in which fossil fuel generated electricity, such as natural gas and coal, produced a steady amount of electricity.

In contrast, renewable sources such as solar or wind are considered variable because their power generation depends on the weather and is not steady

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Renewables such as wind turbines have a high upfront capital cost, but are inexpensive to operate. PHOTO BY MIKE HUTCHINGS/REUTERS FILES

Sara Hastings-Simon, a professor at the University of Calgary’s Schools of Physics and Astronomy and Public Policy, said grid operation is changing. She noted extreme weather events, like heat waves and cold snaps, actually limit the power generation capacity of traditional baseload sources.

“It’s sort of like this paradigm shift happening in ways of operating a grid as we have different resources on it,” she said.

As more renewables comes online and more fossil fuels are phased out of the grid, it will have an impact on costs: Renewables have a high upfront capital cost, but are inexpensive to operate, Hastings-Simon said, whereas fossil fuel plants have higher operation costs because they require fuel purchases.

As the upfront costs of wind and solar power decline, it becomes cost effective to integrate more and more of them, even if you’re not using them all the time, she said.

The changing cost patterns could upend traditional grid operation patterns. A more connected grid that covers a greater geographic region would allow operators to more reliably source power from renewables: as the sun or wind declines in one area, it may increase in another.

The new paradigm may shift to more of an orchestra, in which grid operators, draw energy from a constantly changing array of sources to meet demand.

At the same, consumption patterns are shifting and many historical winter peaking regions are seeing ever-greater demand in the summer.

“The gap has been narrowing, and actually, it’s been narrowing faster than the grid operator has expected,” said Hastings-Simon.

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Revisiting the New Alberta Advantage: Oilsands' net-zero initiative not nearly enough

By Markham Hislop | Opinion | July 20th 2021

THE NATIONAL OBSERVER

CEOs must work harder to put the oilsands on a path to long-term environmental and financial sustainability. Photo by Wikimedia Commons



The Oil Sands Pathways to Net Zero Initiative, announced June 9, may well lower greenhouse gas emissions from bitumen extraction and help Canada meet its own net-zero-by-2050 goal. Unfortunately, that is not enough. Climate change is only one of three significant risks facing the industry. The others are peak oil demand and at least $31 billion of environmental liabilities for 37 toxic northern Alberta tailings ponds. CEOs coming to Ottawa cap in hand for $50 billion of subsidies may be Canada's last chance to address all three issues and put the oilsands on a path to long-term environmental and financial sustainability. The opportunity must not be missed.

My 2019 book, The New Alberta Advantage: Technology, policy and the future of the oil sands, also focused on emissions' reduction. The energy transition was in a lower gear then, and transformative change seemed another decade or two away. Lowering emissions in anticipation of global carbon pricing policies seemed smart: address climate change and gain a competitive advantage over high-carbon heavy crudes from competitors like Venezuela and Mexico. Arguing that "when the energy transition is complete and the last drop of heavy crude oil is refined or processed sometime this century, it will be an Alberta drop" seemed reasonable.

But just as the book was hitting the presses, the energy transition grabbed a higher gear and accelerated. Even experts who lived and breathed the transition were caught off-guard as technology milestones expected in 2030 arrived a decade early.

Electric transportation in particular — cars and trucks, buses, delivery vans, commercial vehicles, bicycles, robo-taxis, automated shuttles and much more — has experienced dramatic advances. The signs are all around us. Automakers are all in on electric. Transit authorities are ditching diesel buses. Battery costs are plummeting while new technologies like solid-state (uses a solid electrolyte instead of liquid, which enables longer range and greater safety) promise a major improvement only a few years from now. And every new EV sales forecast from BloombergNEF features a steeper curve than the last one.


Since ground transportation consumes just under half of global oil supply, the electrification of transportation is the biggest determinant of peak oil demand. The International Energy Agency (IEA) thinks peak oil will arrive in the late 2020s or early 2030s, while other forecasters think it will happen earlier. The next question is the shape of the decline curve: Will it be steep or shallow? Speedier electrification suggests peak oil demand will arrive sooner than the IEA predicts and the decline will be more rapid.

But we don’t really know. The 2020s are shaping up to be the disruptive decade of this energy transition. A good bet is that when 2030 arrives, most of our current assumptions about the future of oil will prove to be quite conservative.

What people are reading

Annamie Paul is fighting to change the narrative, but the numbers are clear
By John Woodside | News, Politics, Ottawa Insider | July 19th 2021

Yet, the companies of the Oil Sands Pathways to Net Zero initiative assure us that "all internationally recognized forecasts indicate fossil fuels will continue to be an essential requirement through 2050 and beyond as part of a diversified energy mix." They are misleading Canadians. For example, consider the IEA, often cited by industry supporters.

"The IEA doesn’t have a long-term forecast," economist Tim Gould, who supervises the agency's modelling analysis, told Energi Media. "We differentiate between the near-term horizon, those stretch out typically for five years, but once you start looking beyond that, you move into scenario territory."

In May, the agency added a much-discussed net-zero-by-2050 scenario in which oil consumption falls from 100 million to 30 million barrels per day by mid-century. Global governments ratcheting up climate policy, a feature of the past two years, combined with intense technology disruption suggests the net-zero-by-2050 outcome is not far-fetched.


Therefore, it is fair to argue the risk posed to the oilsands by the electrification of transportation is substantial. But electric transportation isn't the only risk in play.

What if the net-zero pathways initiative fails?

CEOs of fossil fuel companies coming to Ottawa cap in hand for $50 billion of subsidies may be Canada's last chance to put the oilsands on a path to long-term environmental and financial sustainability, writes @politicalham, host of @EnergiMedia.


Oilsands companies are asking the Alberta and Canadian governments for tens of billions because they need to "de-risk" the early stage technologies they hope to deploy — scaling up carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and small modular reactors, to name the big ones. Economist Jason Dion calls these technologies "wild cards." They show promise and their development should receive public support, but most won't be commercial until after 2030, if they ever are.

And the sector's historical record isn't encouraging.

While the industry boasts about a 20 per cent reduction in emissions per barrel from 2009 to 2019 — from 87 to 70 kilograms of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) per barrel — that still leaves diluted bitumen among the most carbon-intense crude oils in the world. And buried in the IHS MarkIt data is a concerning trend for in-situ production, with 2018 in-situ production intensity rising by one per cent and cyclic steam stimulation by nine per cent.



Source: IHS MarkIt

While the companies of the pathways initiative try to focus public attention on falling emissions intensity, the real story is the rise of absolute oilsands emissions over less than a decade, from 69 to 80 megatonnes of CO2e annually, according to the 2020 IHS MarkIt study “The GHG intensity of Canadian oil sands production: A new analysis.” The culprit here is the doubling of heavy crude production from 1.5 million to three million barrels per day. When emissions drop by 20 per cent, but supply grows by 100 per cent, the math doesn’t work in the oil companies’ favour.

With production set to grow another 650,000 barrels per day by 2030, the record suggests total emissions will rise again.

Keep in mind that this analysis is based upon the authoritative work of IHS MarkIt economist Kevin Birn. Other researchers, such as the Pembina Institute, estimate emissions intensity and absolute emissions to be higher.

There is a third significant risk to be considered: the oilsands' enormous environmental liabilities. Despite considerable investment over the years, there is still no credible technology to reclaim the 1.3 trillion litres of toxic waste in northern Alberta's 37 tailings ponds. Oilsands liabilities are conservatively estimated at $31 billion, but only $900 million has been deposited with the provincial government to pay for clean up. And the current Alberta government is actually relaxing already lax regulations that look great on paper but have yet to yield tangible results.

Despite three significant risks — imminent market destruction, climate and emissions, and environmental liabilities — there are two reasons why the oilsands could still have a sustainable long-term future.

One, bitumen is now a competitive barrel because production costs have plummeted. Most break-evens are below $40 per barrel of West Texas Intermediate. Suncor, for example, claimed in its 2021 investor presentation that its break-even averaged $35, forecast to be $28 by 2025. The oilsands are now viable during periods of low prices or market volatility.

And when prices are high, as they are now at over $70, the industry is a free cashflow machine. Suncor, CNRL, Cenovus and Imperial Oil expect to return tens of billions to shareholders over the next four years via dividends and share buybacks.

Two, and perhaps most importantly, Alberta Innovates thinks that in five to seven years, bitumen will be used to manufacture cheap and plentiful carbon fibre. The value of a barrel of bitumen will double or triple, according to the provincial agency’s estimates. The Bitumen Beyond Combustion program has also identified other higher-value uses for bitumen, including activated carbon and asphalt for road building.

Consequently, the oilsands stand at a crossroads.

The industry can implement its net-zero by 2050 plan to mitigate climate risk, embark on an energy transition strategy that sees it pivot to non-combustion applications for bitumen and finally begin to properly reclaim the tailings ponds. This would set up a post-combustion future that could be long (perhaps past 2100), environmentally sustainable and prosperous for the companies, workers and taxpayers.

Or the CEOs can do the minimum — decarbonization — and roll the dice.

The Canadian government will determine the path taken by the oilsands. Premier Jason Kenney and his United Conservative Party government, continuing their uncritical and unwavering support for the hydrocarbon industry, signed on early to the pathways initiative. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government did not. Ottawa was noticeably absent from the announcement.

Yet, the oil companies involved in the pathways initiative said in their press release that federal financial support is critical to the initiative’s success: “We look forward to continued collaboration with both the federal and Alberta governments to create the regulatory and policy certainty and fiscal framework needed to ensure the economic viability of this initiative.”

The price Trudeau should insist upon for federal participation is that the pathways initiative address all three risks: climate, peak oil and environmental liabilities. His message should be that it’s all or nothing. The Oil Sands Pathways to Net Zero Initiative is a rare opportunity for the Canadian government to influence positive structural change in the oil and gas industry in a way that revives investment, creates jobs, increases tax revenue and helps Canada meet its climate targets.

That opportunity to reshape the Alberta Advantage must not be missed.

Markham Hislop is a Canadian energy and climate journalist and hose of the Energi Talks podcast.

The strange life of Ethel Catherwood, the only Canadian woman to win an individual Olympic gold in athletics

Saskatoon’s Ethel Catherwood found stardom on Labour Day of 1926, with one jump in Regina that changed everything.

© Provided by National Post Ethel Catherwood


Kevin Mitchell 


She was 16 years old, and had just leaped higher than any woman, ever. It was “epoch-making,” as a Saskatoon reporter noted in his dispatch out of the provincial track championship.

Curious eyes turned her way, and she regretted it later. The whole thing.

So much flowed from that world-record high jump by a precocious teenager: Fame, headlines, an Olympic gold medal, spurned movie offers, a secret marriage, public divorce, bitterness, a life wrapped in mystery and — later — seclusion.

“Go away!” she told Toronto Star journalist Rosie DiManno, who showed up at her California door one day in the mid-1980s.

“This woman, with a red wig askew atop her head, was bent over with age. And rage,” DiManno later wrote of that encounter — a failed interview attempt that ended with the writer clambering over a chain-link fence to escape the Olympian’s Doberman.

Catherwood was tired of attention.

She’d been showered in it, once upon a time, and she remains a trivia oddity as Olympians head to Tokyo: Catherwood is the only Canadian woman to win an individual athletics gold medal. Nearly a century has passed without a repeat of that 1928 high-jump victory in Amsterdam.

The medal itself has seemingly vanished. Catherwood discarded it at some point in her later life, along with the rest of her laurels.

But before all that, sportswriters typed unabashed love letters to her on their Underwoods. They praised her body, her face and sometimes — with slightly less fervour — her considerable athletic prowess.

Women’s sport was still viewed with suspicion in many circles. Pierre de Coubertin, who founded the modern Olympics, didn’t feel women belonged there. He again made his objections public in July 1928, as Catherwood completed her final Olympic preparations. She was one of six Canadian women forming this country’s first female athletics team.

Leaving for the Olympics from Union Station in Toronto are Myrtle Cook (far left) and Ethel Catherwood (with handbag) flanked by Jane Bell, left and Bobbie Rosenfeld (with white hat)

Catherwood was fast becoming an international sensation — a “gorgeous Canadian beauty who had the boys at the 1928 Olympic Games goggle-eyed,” one writer put it a few years later.

“A flower-like face of rare beauty above a long, slim body simply clad in pure white,” the Toronto Star’s Lou Marsh famously wrote at the 1927 national championships, where Catherwood had her first mass media experience. “She looked like a tall, strange lily and was immediately christened by the crowd The Saskatoon Lily.”

Catherwood was the talk of the town during her Toronto trek. Writers delved into her story. No woman had ever defeated her. She had eight siblings. She’d never seen a sailing vessel until she got to Toronto; she’d never seen apples growing on a tree, or picked fruit from an orchard.

She wrote (or, possibly, dictated) bylined, first-person stories for the Star about what it was like to be Ethel Catherwood. ‘Saskatoon Lily’ stuck as a permanent nickname.

“It is just like home here,” she told an interviewer, “except when I go out to practice, and then photographers and crowds gather. I would much rather have some place where I could be alone when I am jumping, for people do look at me enough at the meet.”

Many years later, with Catherwood dead and gone, StarPhoenix feature writer Bob Florence summarized her essence.

“She was a small-town girl,” he wrote. “She was dirt roads and tumbleweed, not brass bands and ticker tape.”

Catherwood, born in North Dakota, spent her childhood in tiny Scott, Sask. She was raised on country fairs and back-yard jumps. Her dad, once an accomplished sprinter, put his kids through their paces most summer evenings, and Ethel entered meets that ran in tandem with livestock judging and baked goods. Her prize-ribbon collection swelled.

The family moved to Saskatoon in 1925, where the 5 foot, 10 1/2-inch Catherwood starred on Bedford Road Collegiate’s basketball team with a looping, one-handed shot. She scored a city-record 49 points one night, eight months before her gold-medal showing at the Olympics.

On the baseball diamond, she played a loping centre field and hit for a high average. She won the Northern Saskatchewan Winter Carnival beauty contest — earning the title of Miss Prince Albert 1927 — and collected both a cup and a gold medal.

The first time she picked up a javelin, she set a Saskatchewan record with a throw of 95 feet, six inches. Shortly after that, she busted the Canadian standard by throwing 114 feet, seven inches, and later stretched that mark another four feet.

Joe Griffiths, Saskatoon’s famed track and field coach, was the first to discover her; the first to see Catherwood’s transcendent athletic greatness. He trained her in a makeshift high-jump pit behind his house, picking her up each day in his Model T, coaxing her ever-higher.

Joe Griffiths, who ‘discovered’ Ethel Catherwood when she was 17 and coached her to break the world high-jump record, helps her with her coat. Photo by Dick Bird, Courtesy of Saskatoon Library

Catherwood was good at everything she tried, and because of that outrageous talent, she trained only as hard as she needed to. She required challenges, and the Olympics provided the biggest target of her athletic life.

She moved to Toronto in early 1928, and stepped up preparations.

Olympic teammate Bobbie Rosenfeld later told Ron Hotchkiss, author of ‘The Matchless Six,’ that Catherwood “did no great amount of training” — that her perfect day was “to lie abed with a box of rum-and-butter toffee and a ukulele, eating and strumming.”

When Catherwood won the gold medal in Amsterdam while setting a world record, she was hoisted onto shoulders: A “slim, blue-eyed fairy, who high jumps five feet three inches,” wrote Olympic correspondent Negley Farson.

There was no question this time what kind of reception she’d receive when she returned to Saskatoon.

Catherwood had been snubbed by Saskatoon’s city council the year before, after returning from that conspicuous record-breaking excursion to Toronto and a presumed Olympic berth.

A local service club had paid for Catherwood’s journey and made her an elaborate jumping outfit — white, with ‘Saskatoon Elks’ displayed in purple across the breast, and a purple cloak.

Canada’s 1928 Olympics sweetheart Ethel Catherwood wearing the cape of her benefactors, the Saskatoon Elks Club, poses with coaches Percy Williams, left, and George Young. Photo courtesy of Saskatoon Public Library

Despite resident pleas, Saskatoon council voted 6-5 not to offer civic recognition of her exploits when she returned.

Alderman Mills opined that jumping over a bar would help neither science nor womanhood. When Alderman Underwood protested that the publicity Catherwood provided the city was worth celebrating, Mills shot back:

“Was it mentioned in South Africa? I got a letter from South Africa today and there was not a word about it.

“I think it is a want of proportion. We would just be encouraging a false sense of proportion.”

There was no such snubbing in 1928 when she landed back in Saskatoon, gold medal in tow. An international superstar returned to her prairie city, backed by adulation, speeches, gifts, photos. They declared a civic holiday; kids got out of school early; a Moth biplane did a fly-over as the throng sang ‘O Canada.’

And then, Ethel Catherwood lived the rest of her life.

© 8 Ethel Catherwood. Photo by George Freeland, Courtesy of Saskatoon Library

She secretly married, then sought to divorce, a Toronto bank clerk. The news broke in December 1931, two years after the initial coupling. It was embarrassing, sensational, and landed in newspapers across North America. The story got even bigger when Catherwood conceded that she was leaving her once-secret husband for another man, American Byron Mitchell.

“I’d like to know who my son-in-law is,” Catherwood’s confused mother told a Saskatoon reporter.

She divorced Mitchell, too, a couple of decades later, citing extreme cruelty and adultery.

He sometimes beat her, she testified; he hit her on the head with a highball glass; he forced her to listen to his poetry.

Catherwood was, according to that 1953 wire report, “a comely brunette of 45” — her physical appearance getting unashamed media play even in divorce court.

She worked as a stenographer. Receded into isolation. Estranged herself from family; refused to appear at team reunions and hall-of-fame celebrations. Grew ever more mysterious.

“It was an unfortunate period of my life,” Catherwood told Today Magazine’s Earl McCrae in 1980, when he attempted to interview her via phone about those heady days as the world’s greatest jumper. “I was never an athlete. I was a natural. It was no big thing. I went, I did it, and quite frankly, I’m sick and tired of the whole thing. I haven’t thought about it in years and I don’t want to think about it. Okay?”

Ethel Catherwood, third from left, with group of Canadian Olympic hopefuls, was “the most photgraphed girl at the Olympic Games” in 1928, according to the Toronto Telegram. Courtesy of Saskatoon Library

She hung up the phone, after noting that she had “no (bleeping) interest in being interviewed.”

Catherwood died of bone cancer in September 1987, in Grass Valley, Ca. The press didn’t get wind of her death for eight months, which must have prompted a chuckle on the other side of the grave from the Saskatoon Lily.

“A dream in repose and a sweetheart in action,” the Toronto Star called her, many decades before she chased one of their reporters off her property with a Doberman.

“You’ve no idea just how popular she was,” a Bedford Road friend, Elda Shannon, told The StarPhoenix after news of Catherwood’s death broke into the wider world.

“Perhaps too much success is not always a good thing,” sister Beatrice Van Nice said in 1961.

Everybody had a take, but nobody had an answer. The story died with Ethel Catherwood, her protective Doberman, and the finality of a slammed phone.

That, we presume, is exactly how she wanted it.

The life and death of Alex Decoteau: Saskatchewan's first Olympian, Canada's first Indigenous police officer

The Waiting Games: How the Tokyo Olympics will be more of a mental challenge than a physical one

How Volcanoes Produce 'Drumbeat' Earthquakes

Volcanologists have never understood why some volcanoes produce mysterious, regular tremblers — until now.

The Physics arXiv Blog

By The Physics arXiv Blog

Jul 19, 2021


(Credit: Artyom Bezotechestvo/Shutterstock)

In 2011, the Kizimen volcano in the Kamchatka peninsula of the Russian Far East began to erupt in an unusual way. After almost a century lying dormant, the ground began to shake with a series of earthquakes that formed a powerful, regular drumbeat.

Drumbeat earthquakes are rare although geologists have occasionally recorded them. However, this one was strange because the beat was steady for days but over time changed to a lower frequency with a more powerful “beat”.

That’s a puzzle. Volcanologists have various theories to explain how volcanoes cause earthquakes but these do not account for the drumbeat effect at Kizimen.

Now Parovik Roman at the Vitus Bering Kamchatka State University in Russia and a couple of colleagues have developed a model that explains this strange behavior and how different beats can emerge from the same volcano.

Volcanologists have long known that the movement of magma and high pressure gases through fissures forces the ground apart with explosive force. This process creates the quakes that volcanoes are known for. However, it does not explain the drumbeat effect.
Stick-Slip Model

So Roman and colleagues turned to a basic idea in earthquake science – the stick-slip model, which explains how most conventional earthquakes occur. The model consists of a block sitting on a surface being pulled with a gradually increasing force. At first, friction prevents the block from moving but when the force overcomes friction, the block suddenly slips. This is equivalent to the sudden movement of the earth in an earthquake.

Roman and colleagues says something similar can happen inside volcanoes as magma forces its way to the surface. In this case, the head of the flow can solidify so that the pressure builds until it gives way, allowing the liquid magma to burst through. This sudden shift creates an earthquake.

The process leads to a drumbeat effect when the solidification followed by bursting repeats regularly. At the Kizimen volcano in 2011, this was happening every 14 seconds in March but by October the frequency had slowed considerably to once every few minutes.

What causes the frequency to change? Roman and colleagues says that the viscosity of magma can change over time. And when the flow becomes thicker and stronger, the rate at which it solidifies changes too.

The researchers created a mathematical model that accounts for all these details and then compared it to the earthquake data generated by the volcano throughout 2011.

It turns out that the rate of solidification, or freezing, is a particularly important factor in the period of the drumbeats. “The freezing coefficient of the block had the greatest influence on the oscillations,” says Roman and colleagues. Magma that freezes more readily creates a more effective block requiring more force to overcome. This slows down the frequency of the drumbeat but makes it more powerful, just as observed at Kizimen.

That’s an interesting result that gives greater insight into the behavior of certain volcanoes and the strange drumbeat earthquakes they produce.

It also suggests a new way to analyze volcanoes by studying the frequency of the earthquakes they produce and how this is changing. This new way to peer inside volcanoes could help understand how conditions are changing within.


That could be useful — volcanologists need all the help they can get to study their charges Ref: Mathematical Model of the Stick-Slip Effect for Describing the "Drumbeat" Seismic Regime During the Eruption of the Kizimen Volcano in Kamchatka :

arxiv.org/abs/2107.00827

 

Yellowstone rattled by swarm of more than 140 earthquakes in past day, geologists say

by Maddie Capron

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

A swarm of more than 141 earthquakes is rattling Yellowstone National Park, geologists said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said Friday that an ongoing earthquake swarm that began at 5:52 p.m. Thursday is centered beneath Yellowstone Lake. There have been 40 earthquakes bigger than a magnitude 2, and two have been above a 3.0 magnitude, USGS said.

In the past day, there have been 10 earthquakes with a 2.5 magnitude or greater, according to USGS. The largest was a 3.1-magnitude quake that shook beneath Yellowstone Lake at 8:12 a.m. Mountain Time.

The earthquake swarm is nothing to worry about, geologists said.

"Earthquake sequences like these are common and account for roughly 50% of the total seismicity in the Yellowstone region," USGS said on Twitter. "This swarm is similar to one that occurred in about the same place during December 2020."

Some people, however, still worry earthquakes in Yellowstone are a sign that the "supervolcano" that lies beneath the park will soon erupt, which could have regional and global consequences.

"Such a giant eruption would have regional effects such as falling ash and short-term (years to decades) changes to global climate," USGS said on its website. "Those parts of the surrounding states of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming that are closest to Yellowstone would be affected by pyroclastic flows, while other places in the United States would be impacted by falling ash (the amount of ash would decrease with distance from the eruption site)."

The USGS doesn't think an eruption at Yellowstone is likely for thousands of years. Even with the current swarm, the alert level at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory is green, which is normal.

Earthquakes in Yellowstone typically happen in swarms, according to the park. Swarms happen in many places where there is volcanic activity and occur for a number of reasons. The most common is when water gets into faults in the Earth's crust, according to USGS.

Nearly 100 earthquakes swarm Yellowstone in 24 hours. Here's what experts are saying

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©2021 Idaho Statesman.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

July 8 earthquakes felt in Whitehorse

Quakes were caused by the same tectonic feature that caused more violent 2017 shaking.

A series of earthquakes just south of the BC-Alaska border (in orange) were felt as far away Whitehorse on July 8.(Earthquakes Canada Image)

• JIM ELLIOT
• Jul. 15, 2021 8:00 a.m.
• LOCAL NEWS

 
 
 
 
 
 

Faintly rumbling ground and clattering dishes in Whitehorse on July 8 were caused by a tectonic event that began millions of years ago.

Early in the afternoon, some Whitehorse residents felt the quake and took to social media to describe the shaking. It was also picked up on an Earthquakes Canada seismograph.

Taimi Mulder, an earthquake seismologist with the Geological Survey of Canada, said the initial quake was detected at 1:49 p.m. with its epicentre just south of the British Columbia border in Alaska, about 28 kilometre from Pleasant Camp. Its magnitude was measured at a 4.4.

Mulder said the initial quake was followed by a series of more than 10 aftershocks, three of which were magnitude 3 or greater.

Quakes in the area are common and Mulder said one that could be felt in Whitehorse is not unheard of. She said the most recent major event in the area was a pair of magnitude 6.3 quakes on May 1, 2017.

Those quakes disrupted power to over 8,000 residents of the Southern Lakes area and parts of Whitehorse. It also forced the brief evacuation of a Whitehorse office building. Mulder said she heard the story of a hiker in the Tatshenshini-Alsek Park in B.C. who faced a few scary moments as the mountain shook beneath their feet.

The July 8 quake was not nearly as strong as the 2017 tremors, but Mulder said it was caused by the same complex tectonic history. Beneath the Yukon and Southeast Alaska, the Pacific plate of the earth’s crust is subducting, or slowly sliding beneath the North American plate. She said many of the earthquakes in the area are related to this ancient subduction.

Mulder said the crumpling of plates during this subduction is one of the causes of the soaring mountains along the coast. Even before the Pacific plate began to be forced under the North American plate, Mulder said another tectonic feature called the Kula plate subducted beneath Alaska and the Yukon completely between 40 and 60 million years ago.

Contact Jim Elliot at jim.elliot@yukon-news.com

Why green hydrogen — but not grey — could help solve climate change

Green hydrogen has unprecedented support from business and political leaders. But several challenges remain. (Shutterstock)

July 15, 2021 9.29am EDT

What if you could drive your car for 1,000 kilometres on a single tank of fuel and with zero emissions? That is just one example of what is possible in a hydrogen economy.

After decades of development, hydrogen and renewable electricity are poised to revolutionize the global energy system, enabling climate-friendly solutions. When combined with digital technologies, they will trigger economic growth as transportation, telecommunications and civil infrastructures become smart and interconnected.

In a post-pandemic world, several countries have included hydrogen fuel in their national recovery strategies. Canada and the United Kingdom have incorporated net-zero targets and disclosures to climate risk into national legislation. By identifying hydrogen’s role explicitly, the world is creating an international market for related zero-carbon solutions.

I have worked on hydrogen energy systems since 1993, and I have never seen such rapid changes in hydrogen policy, markets and technologies.

Get your news from people who know what they’re talking about.Sign up for newsletter
Carbon intensity is colour blind

Hydrogen is a zero-carbon fuel, and it comes in three basic colours: grey, blue and green.

Grey hydrogen can be produced inexpensively using coal or natural gas, but it has a significant carbon footprint. Most of the grey hydrogen produced today is made by a process called steam methane reforming, which generates between nine kilograms and 12 kilograms of carbon dioxide for each kilogram of hydrogen produced. Grey hydrogen can turn “blue” when most of these carbon emissions are captured and, for example, sequestered underground.

Green hydrogen is more expensive to produce, but it can be manufactured with zero emissions using renewable electricity to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. Globally, less than two per cent of hydrogen is produced this way.

The basic colours of hydrogen. Cleaner hydrogen produces less carbon dioxide, but it is more expensive. (Walter Mérida/Data: PEMBINA, IEA), Author provided

Many other colours have been added to the palette, but the focus on colour is a distraction. What really matters is the carbon intensity of the production process — that is, the tonnes of carbon produced for each tonne of hydrogen.

Hydrogen can be burned like any other fuel in cars, ships and airplanes, but because it does not contain carbon, it will not produce CO2 emissions. More importantly, it can also power fuel cells that convert hydrogen into clean electricity directly. This feature will trigger a revolution in portable, urban and autonomous power over long distances.

Challenges to widespread hydrogen adoption include the lack of a refuelling and distribution infrastructure, embryonic and evolving safety standards, and high costs. Most of these challenges are being addressed as the number and scale of demonstration projects increases.
A global market

The Hydrogen Council, a global industry group, estimates that by 2050 hydrogen will represent 18 per cent of the energy delivered to end users, avoid six gigatonnes of carbon emissions annually, enable US$2.5 trillion in annual sales and create 30 million jobs globally.

This month, British Columbia announced it would be the first province in Canada to introduce a hydrogen strategy to reduce emissions and create jobs. Other, similar strategies already exist elsewhere in the world. Canada may be late to the game, but it still has a chance to become a hydrogen powerhouse.

In the wake of a 750-billion euro recovery plan, the European Commission unveiled “A hydrogen strategy for a climate-neutral Europe.” Its investments in water electrolysis alone could be 24 billion to 42 billion euros by 2030. Hydrogen was also the focus of the first Energy Earthshot announced in June by the U.S. Department of Energy, and national hydrogen strategies have been developed by Japan, Germany, South Korea and Australia.

Read more: Australia is at a crossroads in the global hydrogen race – and one path looks risky

Canada unveiled its Hydrogen Strategy in December 2020. The government says that the clean fuel sector could be worth $50 billion, create 350,000 green jobs and help Canada reach its net-zero targets by 2050. In June, Canada launched a $1.5-billion Clean Fuels Fund to increase domestic capacity to produce low-carbon fuels, including hydrogen.

In March, Canada and Germany signed a co-operation agreement to explore hydrogen development. Germany’s nine-billion euro hydrogen strategy estimates that it will import 80 per cent of the hydrogen it requires.

Largest green hydrogen projects under consideration as of December 2020. Their completion will depend on finding adequate market conditions. (Walter Mérida/Data: Recharge News), Author provided

More recently, Canadian energy companies made several announcements, including plans for a $1.3-billion hydrogen energy complex in Edmonton.

Beyond guilt-free driving, hydrogen may enable Canada to respond to the global demand for solutions as the world embarks on a transformational energy transition.
Canada’s opportunity

Canada could become a leading blue and green hydrogen exporter.

Our country has been a global leader in hydrogen technologies for more than a century. Commercial products based on these technologies are running cars, buses and trains around the world.

Canada is the world’s fourth-largest producer of hydro power and Ontario hosts one of the largest operating nuclear plants in the world. Both sources of zero-carbon electricity can enable green hydrogen production. Canada also has the right geology for large-scale carbon sequestration to transform grey hydrogen into blue.

British Columbia, Manitoba, Québec and Ontario could export green hydrogen made using hydro or nuclear electricity. Alberta can repurpose its oil and gas infrastructure and labour force to produce blue hydrogen at globally competitive prices

Scaling up investment and increasing domestic hydrogen demand will be critical to trigger local economic development, maintain Canada’s leadership and respond to global market signals

.

Air Products recently inaugurated a hydrogen fuelling station in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Like the national hydrogen strategies unveiled by Germany, Japan and South Korea, these initiatives are creating an international market for hydrogen — especially green hydrogen. Many countries including Chile, Australia and Saudi Arabia are reacting to satisfy the predicted demand.
Steps in the right direction

At the end of June, Canada’s Senate approved Bill C-12, writing our national greenhouse gas emissions targets into law. The carbon tax and clean fuels initiative represent additional steps to create the incentives and regulatory certainty needed to promote private investment. In Budget 2021, Canada also proposed a tax credit for investments in carbon capture, use and storage technologies.

Informed by a similar measure in the United States, the tax credit will explicitly “support hydrogen production.” A public consultation is open until Sept. 7, providing an opportunity to refine and harmonize the role of hydrogen in Canada’s energy transition.

Beyond powering clean cars, the links between hydrogen and renewable electricity can decarbonize seasonal energy storage, steel manufacturing, urban and industrial heating and aviation. Such links will trigger a revolution in the digital technologies required to monitor, control, trace and certify smart and sustainable energy systems.

By leading the way in hydrogen and digital technologies, Canada has a golden opportunity to pivot from a resource economy to a low-carbon economy in a single generation.

Author

Walter Mérida
Associate Dean of Research for Applied Science, University of British Columbia
Disclosure statement
Walter Mérida receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Western Economic Diversification Canada, Natural Resources Canada, the B.C. Knowledge Foundation, and MITACS. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Canadian Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association, and the Climate Change Advisory Board for Toronto Dominion Insurance.
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