Category: Biofuels

How quickly can a synthetic aviation fuel industry emerge?

dchone May 15, 2023

In late April, the European Parliament and EU Member States reached agreement on new mandates for sustainable aviation fuels through to 2050. Under the final agreement, the percentage of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) that must be blended with kerosene will start at 2% by 2025, moving to 6% by 2030, 20% by 2035, 34% by 2040, and reaching 70% by 2050. A dedicated sub-target for synthetic fuels derived from green hydrogen will also come into force from 2030. Although the final wording and requirements for these mandates have yet to be released, the headline numbers are clear even if the detail isn’t – starting at 1.2%, the synthetic fuel requirement will be scaled up to 5% by 2035, reaching 35% by 2050.

SAF is going to require a huge effort and should rightly be the immediate focus of attention, largely because of the state of technology and the amount of effort that has gone into preparing the groundwork for a SAF industry. But while the overall SAF target is challenging, given the small quantities produced today, the synthetic fuel mandate looks daunting. In EU parlance, synthetic fuels are renewable liquid and gaseous transport fuels of non-biological origin, meaning liquid or gaseous fuels which are used in the transport sector other than biofuels or biogas, the energy content of which is derived from renewable sources other than biomass. In the aviation industry this presumably means two types of fuel;

Hydrogen as a direct fuel derived from renewable energy sources.
Synthetic kerosene (also known as an e-fuel), produced by combining hydrogen derived from renewable energy sources (via electrolysis of water) and carbon from the atmosphere (via direct air capture or DAC), with the energy required for the capture and final synthesis also coming from renewable sources such as wind and solar PV.

For 2030, hydrogen as a direct fuel is a non-starter given that the planes don’t yet exist and probably won’t do so until 2040 at the earliest, although we might see some small commuter versions before that. So for 2030 and probably 2035, this mandate is really only about e-fuels. The synthesis of such a fuel is discussed in detail in a paper by Kraan et al., An Energy Transition That Relies Only on Technology Leads to a Bet on Solar Fuels, Joule (2019), with the energy schematic they developed shown below. This is to produce one barrel of fuel (5.5 GJ solar fuel on the right of the schematic).

The illustration above presumes feasibility and the availability of a wide range of thechnologies at large scale. In reality, that isn’t the case today. Clearly solar PV and synthesis technologies exist at scale, but Direct Air Capture (DAC) is still to be demonstrated at scale (i.e. 1 million tonnes per annum or more) and hydrogen electrolysis is only just reaching the sort of scale required for synthetic fuel production. As such, the discussion below should be viewed in that context and not just be a question of quickly building the necessary facilities.

In 2023 we can expect EU aviation fuel consumption to be somewhere around 1 million barrels per day, which includes both internal EU demand and international aviation bunkers for flights departing from the EU, for passenger and freight movements. So a 1.2% synthetic fuel mandate means the production of at least 12,000 barrels per day of e-fuel within seven years, or over 4 million barrels (600 kt) produced in 2030.

Jet fuel is mainly carbon in terms of weight, so 600 kt is about 500 kt carbon and 100 kt of hydrogen. This amount of hydrogen (but in practice more is needed) will require multiple 200 MW electrolyser projects, each similar to the project recently announced by Shell in Rotterdam that will produce 60,000 kg per day of green hydrogen, currently Europe’s largest such project. The Shell project will begin operation in 2025 after two years of construction, along with offshore wind capacity built in the Hollandse Kust Noord area.

The 500 kt carbon equates to nearly 2 million tonnes of atmospheric carbon dioxide capture in 2030, which is a scale of capture that doesn’t currently exist in the world. However, Occidental and its subsidiary 1PointFive announced in late 2022 they plan to begin detailed engineering and early site construction for their first large-scale DAC facility with start-up expected in late 2024. Upon completion, the DAC plant will be the world’s largest of its kind and is expected to capture up to 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.

However, the provisions of the EU Directive on these types of fuels allows for other sources of CO₂ to be used, but in some cases for a limited time period. Up until 2041 it will be possible to use CO₂ from sources such as industry where allowances have already been surrendered against such emissions. It is also permissible to use the captured CO₂ from the production or the combustion of biofuels, bioliquids or biomass fuels. These provisions mean that an immediate relaince on DAC as a source of carbon for synthetic fuels isn’t required.

Producing sufficient hydrogen and capturing enough carbon dioxide is energy intensive and is just the start. These then must be combined to make the synthetic fuel, which takes even more energy and more hydrogen than the molecular weight of jet fuel points to. For example, a hydrogen based reaction is required to convert the carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide, which is required for the subsequent synthesis reaction. If the facilities designed to do this make use of Fischer-Tropsch technology, jet fuel won’t be the only product. Its yield might be as much as 67% (with the other 33% being lighter and heavier hydrocarbons, but this will require an optimised catalyst), which means that for the above jet fuel requirement the picture becomes more complex and bigger. The required production of synthetic fuels rises to 18,000 barrels per day, of which 12,000 is jet fuel.

The synthesis plants are not simple projects either, although the underlying technology is tried and tested in facilities such as the Shell gas-to-liquids synthesis plant in Qatar. That unit takes natural gas and breaks it down into hydrogen and carbon monoxide (synthesis gas) before recombining these into longer chain hydrocarbon molecules such as for jet fuel. That facility operates on a very large scale, producing some 150,000 barrels per day of product (of which some is suitable for jet fuel use). Building smaller versions is possible, although even the first Shell synthesis pilot plant, built 30 years ago in Malaysia and still operating today, produces 14,700 barrels of oil product per day. Even smaller scale gas-to-liquids is also possible, with Petrobras operating such a unit in a remote location as a pilot for the conversion of associated gas from oil production into useful liquids.

Given the rapid scale up of the synthetic fuel mandate (4x from 2030 to 2035), the sensible approach will be for the EU to build reasonably large from the start. A first facility might be the size of the Shell Malaysia unit (the illustration shows an 18,000 b/d unit but this is still small by global refining standards), but would also require about 3 GW of green hydrogen capacity and three million tonnes per annum of DAC. Apart from the synthesis unit which is arguably smaller than the desirable scale for modern refining, the hydrogen and DAC units are unprecedented in size. However, both hydrogen and DAC are scalable technologies, with the latter currently deployed on a modular basis, and as noted above DAC isn’t an immediate requirement.

Building an 18,000 b/d synthesis facility, 3 GW of hydrogen electrolyser capacity and 3 MT per annum of DAC combined with large scale renewable energy production (say 6 GW of offshore wind) is a formidable project, costing many billion euros and taking years in terms of planning, approvals, financing and construction. Such a project will also stretch the available technologies, given that DAC in particular doesn’t yet operate at scale anywhere. But the EU needs to start at least five such projects over the coming 2-5 years, not just to meet the synthetic fuel mandate of 2030, but also with an eye on the 2035 mandate and beyond.

Creating a 21st century energy hub in Singapore

dchone February 17, 2022

About a year ago the Shell Scenario Team released the Energy Transformation Scenarios, which looked in detail at possible pathways the world might take in this century as society responds to climate change and other pressures. The scenarios were built on earlier work that focused on the more immediate changes that society could see in the 2020s as a result of the pandemic. But the global story is just the tip of the iceberg; there is a wealth of national and regional detail below the surface of the Energy Transformation Scenarios thanks to the team’s energy modelling capacity.

One region that is of particular importance to the energy system is Asia and within the region Singapore is a key oil products supply and distribution hub. Given its unique geographical location and history as a major trading port, Singapore supplies some 20% of global marine bunkers, 3% of aviation fuel and exports a sizeable portion of the oil products used throughout the region.

*Singapore is a major oil products supply hub today (Source: Shell analysis of various data sources)*

But as the energy system shifts and oil products are replaced with electricity and fuels such as hydrogen, how might Singapore adapt to the transformation and what might this mean for its role as an oil products supply and distribution hub? To help people think about these key questions for Singapore, Shell has released a new Scenario Sketch, Singapore: A 21^st Century Energy Hub. The Sketch makes extensive use of the regional and country data within the Energy Transformation Scenarios, setting out three possible scenarios for the region.

These scenarios are not forecasts, predictions or plans, but possible pathways that could emerge if certain trends take hold. Only one scenario meets the goals of the Paris Agreement, which implies that very deliberate steps will need to be taken to ensure the goals are met. Scenarios can help craft our thinking about the future and catalyse the actions required to shape a particular outcome.

The three scenarios are known as Waves, Islands and Sky 1.5 and they reflect the underlying trends that can be seen across society as a result of the pandemic.

Waves: A focus on wealth and economic recovery, but this results in a late start to the rapid transition required to reach net-zero emissions around the middle of the century. Rather, the energy required to support growth in the 2020s comes from conventional sources. The transition is rapid from the 2030s, with a clear focus on ending fossil fuel use rather than directly managing emissions. Net-zero emission is reached around the end of the century.
Islands: National sentiment shifts inwards and security issues prevail. The transition slows along with economic growth. Although the transition eventually takes hold, net-zero emissions is not reached until well into the 22^nd century.
Sky 1.5: The pandemic leads to structural change across society, significant green investment and a realisation that the broader health and well-being of society is fundamental. In this scenario the goals of the Paris Agreement are met.

All three scenarios see the role of electricity expanding, for example in transport, the further emergence of biofuels and the introduction of hydrogen as an energy carrier for certain applications. But the time lines are very different. However, these shifts in the energy system all challenge the supply and distribution model that Singapore has established for oil products and tend to favour local production. This is certainly the case for electricity, but may also be true for biofuels where feedstocks are available on a local level and hydrogen should electrolysers become the preferred mode of production. However, hydrogen supply may also lend itself to a distribution model if significant renewable electricity is available in a particular area, although this is not currently the case for Singapore.

The more immediate change for Singapore comes in the aviation and marine sectors, where airlines and shipping companies are beginning to plan and implement strategies to make use of sustainable fuels and develop possible roadmaps for hydrogen as a future energy carrier. Although progress is slow in Islands, both Waves and Sky 1.5 see early developments. This opens up the prospect of Singapore leading the way in supplying such fuels, maintaining its role as a supply hub.

In Sky 1.5 another opportunity emerges for Singapore through Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. A feature of Sky 1.5 is significant activity to develop carbon removals, both through reforestation and carbon capture and storage technologies. The use of removals to balance continued use of fossil fuels in some sectors is an important part of the global strategy for limiting warming to below 1.5°C in 2100, but catalysing the investment required for removals and directing the benefit to emitters requires a carbon trading market to emerge. With it’s strong history as a commercial and financial centre, Singapore could lead the way here, particularly as the region holds significant opportunity for removals and Singapore itself is a centre for the two sectors that may make greatest use of them, namely aviation and marine.

*Singapore could become a major carbon trading hub*

A feature that does emerge across the stories is just how long Singapore may find itself as an important regional distributer of oil products, even as the transition gather pace. The Asian region is still developing rapidly, with some 2 billion people (ASEAN and China) moving from modest to middle income and making use of a broader range of energy services in the process. Immediate growth in the region will draw heavily on existing energy sources and services, given their availability and scalability. Only in the fastest of transitions is this trend overcome with new energy sources scaling quickly enough to match new demand.

Where Singapore stands as an energy hub in 2050 and beyond has yet to be established. But now is the time for the bold decisions necessary to create the best possible future. Scenario analysis is a useful tool for understanding new trends and directions. We hope this publication helps inform readers about an otherwise uncertain future and positions them for the journey ahead.

Also check out the scenario infographic here.

Shell’s scenarios, including this Singapore Sketch, are not intended to be projections or forecasts of the future and they are not Shell’s strategy or business plan. When developing Shell’s strategy, our scenarios are one of many variables that we consider. Ultimately, whether society meets its goals to decarbonise is not within Shell’s control. This Singapore Sketch is based entirely on the data and findings of the Shell Energy Transformation Scenarios, released in February 2021. Please read the full cautionary note at: http://www.shell.com/investor and http://www.sec.gov

A very different pathway forwards for India

dchone March 31, 2021

As COP 26 approaches, the UK government (as President of the COP) and the UNFCCC are encouraging as many countries as possible, in accordance with Paragraph 36 of the Paris Agreement Decision Text, to communicate mid-century, long-term low greenhouse gas emission development strategies. These should ideally include a net-zero emissions goal for the same time period as such ambitious national contributions are required from all countries to meet the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement. To date, about 30 such strategies have been posted on the UNFCCC website.

For India, a mid-century goal of net-zero emissions points to a fundamentally different development pathway to one that might have been imagined just a few years ago. While the busyness and intensity of traffic and commerce in Indian cities like Mumbai and Delhi give the impression of a country bound to fossil fuels, the reality is very different. With around 1.4 billion people in total and a large rural population engaged in agricultural activities, per capita CO₂ emissions – at 1.8 tonnes per person in 2015 – are around a ninth of those in the USA and around a third of the global average of 4.8 tonnes per person.

However, overall, India is now the planet’s third-largest emitter of CO₂, behind China and the USA. Some costs of the country’s dynamic growth are increasingly visible, namely major congestion in urban centres and declining air quality.

The emissions focus should be on where India might go, rather than where it has been. For example, there are about 3 billion tonnes of steel in use within the country, in buildings, cars, appliances, pipelines and industrial plants. But as India aspires to be a developed economy, that number will likely rise to around 15 billion tonnes. Every other country has built its steel infrastructure with coal as the energy source, but if India does the same that could add another 24 billion tonnes of CO₂ to the atmosphere globally, based on production emissions of about 2 tonnes of CO₂ per tonne of iron. A good proportion of this would come from smelters in India, many of which may not have even been built yet. This is 6% of the IPCC 1.5°C carbon budget globally and would create a significant emissions spike, even considering efficiency improvements in smelting and optimised recycling. It will also add to the local environmental stresses that people in India feel each and every day. So a different smelting pathway should be considered and that is just one aspect of India’s future national development.

Similarly, the Indian electricity sector is largely based on coal fired generation, but here there are visible signs of change as solar and wind become the preferred choices for new generation capacity. By 2020, India had all but met its Nationally Determined Contribution goal of 40% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030 (solar, wind, nuclear, hydro, biomass). Whether its cars, trucks, housing, factories or commercial buildings, the story is largely the same; what is yet to come far exceeds what is already there.

This points to a strategic emissions focus for India that is very different to countries with substantial legacy infrastructure. Rather than needing to dislodge the status quo, India has the opportunity to embark on a different development pathway based around cleaner energy technologies and efficiency. These future choices will be important, not just at the national level when making important infrastructure decisions, but also in homes. At the household level, ownership of domestic appliances such as washing machines, refrigerators and air conditioners is relatively low, varying between 15% and 30%, depending on the appliance. As the country develops over the coming 30 years, appliance ownership may well head towards the 90% level seen in much of the world. Once in use these appliances will consume energy, so the choice of model and efficiency rating will be important. These appliances could add 300-500 terrawatt-hours a year to electricity demand, nearly a third of that generated in 2019, but lower efficiency choices might double this amount.

But what might such a development pathway look like? Over recent months the Shell scenario team and Shell India have worked with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) of India to illustrate what the future could hold. In this collaboration the team developed a Net-Zero Emissions (NZE) scenario, the principle focus of the work, to examine whether adequate opportunities exist to fully decarbonise the energy sector; areas where India’s energy sector does not have enough choices for full decarbonisation by 2050 are also highlighted. From a second scenario, Towards Net-Zero (TNZ), barriers to change that might emerge are revealed. Energy efficiency, electrification and a switch towards decarbonised fuels are the three main pillars of India’s energy strategy, with the need for a transformative move towards renewable electricity, hydrogen and bioenergy as key fuels. This analysis indicates that the industrial and heavy transport sectors are likely to face limits in achieving full decarbonisation, primarily due to technological constraints which leave residual emissions in the system. This necessitates the need for carbon removal options to achieve net-zero emissions, including both technical and natural solutions.

An overview of the pathway reveals both radical and very rapid change. For example, in India today, there is a successful programme of solar PV installation under way, but by 2030 as solar starts to dominate the generation mix in the NZE scenario, it will need to be matched by large-scale energy storage to manage intermittency. More than 1,000 gigawatts of solar PV, 700 GW of which with matching storage, needs to be installed through the 2020s, far exceeding the amount of solar PV installed over the last decade. This level of deployment is challenging, even in global terms. In 2019 global solar module production was about 140 GW, but growing at some 20% per year. Even if growth continues at this rate through the 2020s, the demand in India for modules under NZE would still equate to 20% of global supply. Embodied within the pathway is a monumental challenge, but one that is worth aiming to achieve.

The scenario analysis was released last week and can be found here. The analysis incorporates both the pathway forwards and the policy framework required to get there.

Note: Scenarios don’t describe what will happen, or what should happen, rather they explore what could happen. Scenarios are not predictions, strategies or business plans. Please read the full Disclaimer here.

Accelerating the US energy transition

dchone January 21, 2021

Today a new energy transition is gaining pace in the US, built on the back of the falling costs of wind, solar and batteries. But what might a rapid transition to net-zero CO2 emissions look like in the US?

A Climate-Neutral EU by 2050

dchone May 5, 2020

As the EU works to reset its emission reduction goals to align more closely with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement, a question arises around the scale and scope of the energy transition required. What will it look like? How fast should it proceed? Which technologies need to be accelerated to achieve the desired outcome? To help answer these and provide a perspective on the transition, my colleagues in the Shell Scenario team have produced a scenario sketch of the journey forward, arriving in 2050 with a net-zero emissions energy system (NB: The pathway was formulated in late 2019 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and therefore does not include the energy system disruption being seen in 2020).

From a policy perspective, the EU has been addressing the climate issue for at least 15 years, with the EU Emissions Trading System in place since 2005. The 2020 energy situation arises from the 2007 climate and energy package, which included three key targets:

20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions (from 1990 levels)
20% of EU energy from renewables
20% improvement in energy efficiency

The targets were set by EU leaders in 2007 and enacted in legislation in 2009. They are also headline targets of the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Within this, the EU Emissions Trading System is the EU’s key tool for cutting greenhouse gas emissions from large-scale facilities in the power and industry sectors, as well as the aviation sector. The ETS covers around 45% of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions. In 2020, the target is for the emissions from these sectors to be 21% lower than in 2005.

The year 2020 represents a halfway point from 1990 to 2050, during which 20% of the hard deployment work has been done, but with a number of key technologies available at scale that hardly existed or didn’t exist around the turn of the century. Solar PV and Electric Vehicles are two examples (although solar PV did exist in 2000, it was expensive and small scale). That leaves just 30 years for the remaining 80% reduction, which must also include bringing to scale several other technologies which are yet to be deployed in the EU. This is a tall order and the scenario sketch illustrates how extraordinarily stretching it will be.

The additional key technologies that must move quickly to scaled deployment are as follows;

Clean hydrogen production via electrolysis of water or removing and storing the carbon from natural gas;
Hydrogen fuel cell road transport for heavy goods (see chart below).
Carbon capture and storage in various industrial settings – e.g. steel, cement, petrochemicals.
Biomass power plants fitted with carbon capture and storage (as a negative emissions technology).
Air transport that utilizes hydrogen as a fuel – in the sketch first flights are imagined in the mid-2030s.
Advanced biofuels for planes, ships and heavy road transport (see chart below).
Grid scale electricity storage.
Electrification of light and heavy industry processes.
Use of hydrogen in homes for heating and cooking.
Some technologies that appear late in the sketch will need intensive development over the medium term. Hydrogen as a fuel for industrial facilities, but particularly iron ore smelting, is a good example.

On the assumption that development and demonstration of all the above proceeds rapidly, deployment kicks in for most during the 2030s. But in the 2020s the energy technologies that have been nurtured over the last twenty years must be accelerated. For example, by 2030 solar must be quadruple current deployment, wind nearly triple current deployment and nuclear must be growing again, not declining.

In the 2030s the really hard work starts, with carbon capture and storage moving from first demonstration in the EU by 2025 to 40 medium sized facilities (one million tonnes CO2 stored per annum) by 2030 and over 100 by 2035. New technologies such as hydrogen fuel cell trucks must become ubiquitous during the 2030s, with at least 600,000 vehicles on the road by the end of that decade.

All of the above will require both technology development incentives and deployment policies. The analysis assumes a rising carbon pricing mechanism – whether explicit or implicit – to more than €200 per tonne of CO2 equivalent by 2050 to deliver and sustain the emission cuts and CO2 management necessary for the EU to reach climate neutrality. But even the EU ETS will need to change, as I discussed in a recent post.

While carbon pricing is an efficient lever for reallocating resources and driving behavioural change, it will not be enough on its own. A sectoral approach to policy which brings clean technologies, fuels and products to market, as well as their deployment and diffusion at scale, must urgently be developed. It is essential that policy should help provide consumers and businesses with low-carbon alternatives to adopt.

In the sketch, 2050 marks a point of climate neutrality for Europe, helped by the development of large scale carbon sinks through reforestation. But this isn’t the end of the transition, merely a point of significance. The hydrogen economy will continue to grow, electrification of industry will expand and efficiency gains will continue to be made. As was illustrated in the Sky Scenario, Europe will likely shift to become a net-negative emission economy during the second half of the century, a necessary requirement to ensure global net zero emissions and a 1.5°C limit on warming.

Download the EU Sketch here.

The third runway by the numbers

dchone March 4, 2020

Last week the project proposal for a third runway at Heathrow in London was put on hold after a successful court challenge based on climate concerns. The courts sided with the plaintiffs who argued that the proposal did not adequately demonstrate how its overall emissions impact would be managed given that the UK has now adopted a target of net-zero emissions in 2050. While the emissions from the project itself are modest, with cement probably being the largest component, the ongoing emissions from aviation expansion as a result of the project could be considerable on a cumulative basis over many years.

At this point I should note that the third runway at Heathrow has been a contentious project since it was first proposed and there are many reasons put forward as to why it should or should not be built. My focus here is on the expected expansion of aviation in and out of the United Kingdom and the resultant emissions. Aviation has grown rapidly over the half century since the introduction of the widebody Boeing 747 (by which point it had grown considerably since the first intercontinental jet services some twenty years prior), to the extent that there are now over four billion passenger flights per year globally.

Of course airlines, airports and aviation companies are responding to a strong demand signal from consumers (the UK is an island). In order to drive change consumers also need to understand their own externalities and be prepared to manage them, most likely by a cost passed through with the ticket purchase.

A 2017 UK Department of Transport assessment of aviation showed growth for both capacity constrained and unconstrained scenarios, with the low constrained case showing a 60% rise through to 2050 and the high unconstrained case showing a doubling of demand.

Heathrow consumes about 20-25 million litres of Jet-A1 every day, so a third runway would increase this by 50%, or some 10-12 million litres per day.

A double check based on aircraft efficiency and expected distance of travel gives a similar number. If we assume that the runway operates for 18 hours per day with a flight interval of 90 seconds, with 50% of the time being used for take-off, that implies 360 additional departing flights every day. If we then assume that every flight is dedicated to longer haul, say New York or Dubai, then that means about 37,000 litres of fuel per flight based on the improved efficiency for modern aircraft of about 2.2 litres per 100 km per passenger, 300 passengers and some 5,500 km of travel, or a total of just over 13 million litres per day.

The consumption of 13 million litres of Jet A-1, 365 days a year, will result in the release of about 12 million tonnes per year of carbon dioxide when combusted. So the question that needs to be asked is how the mitigation of 12 million tonnes per year will be organised such that it has reached net-zero by 2050.

The answer lies with the sector itself, not just the airlines that own the planes or the companies that make them or the airport that is building the runway or the fuel providers that sell Jet A-1. All these parties will have to collectively own the problem and set about solving it. There are already the beginnings of some answers, but efforts will need to be accelerated such that the question posed through the court in relation to the net-zero goal of the UK can be confidently answered. For example;

Various processes have been developed to produce bioJet, including those which use municipal waste as the feedstock. These are now starting to scale in some locations.
Air capture of carbon dioxide is emerging as a possible solution for sectors such as aviation. This would involve removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at a rate equivalent to its emission and committing to geological storage, delivering net-zero emissions. The DRAX power station in Yorkshire is piloting one form of this technology and Carbon Engineering is building a large scale version of a different approach.
There is some development underway for short haul electric planes, but long haul will need a very different solution. In my last post I discussed the option of hydrogen in aviation.

All the above are still in their early stages of development and deployment, with bioJet looking to be the most promising immediate option. Nevertheless, over the coming thirty years it should be possible to bring UK aviation emissions to net-zero through some combination of the above.

But who should be responsible for implementing the strategy? Within the aviation industry, a framework already exists under which all this could be managed.

The airlines have already agreed and are now beginning to implement the CORSIA framework under the auspices of ICAO. This sets out a journey through to 2035 which will see global aviation emissions limited to current levels. It includes a facility to balance emissions through a trading arrangement where they cannot be directly mitigated through fuel changes, although the final rules of this have yet to be agreed and will involve Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. In almost any aviation scenario there will be unmitigated aviation emissions in 2050. CORSIA will need to evolve further after this first phase to be aligned with the emerging net-zero goals in many countries with major aviation hubs. The trading arrangement will eventually need to focus on removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in combination with geological storage.

This form of emissions challenge to projects and development may well become more frequent, not just from campaigners but also from regulators, as the governments they represent grapple with the task of getting to net-zero emissions. There will likely be a real shift in focus from the projects themselves and their subsequent operation (i.e. Scope 1 plus Scope 2 emissions), to the broader impact they have on societal emissions (i.e. Scope 3 emissions). That will place more onus on project developers to think through and then manage the broader implications of their actions.

Powering remote activities

dchone March 28, 2019

Over the past three weeks I have been on a voyage from Cape Horn to the Cape of Good Hope, specifically Ushuaia to Cape Town. With good weather for most of the trip, we were fortunate to stop in the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and Tristan da Cunha (some pictures below). Each of these have communities ranging from a few people to two thousand in the case of Stanley and each has found its own solution to providing energy. Of course the other remote activity out here is the need of the ship itself which will have travelled for some 20 days without refuelling and carried 400 passengers and crew across the South Atlantic.

The Falkland Islands has the major settlement of Stanley, a couple of very small towns, a military garrison and numerous remote farms. The Islands have settled on wind power to displace diesel generators, achieving an average of 35-40% displacement and a peak of 54%. Rural wind power has also been a success for the remote farms. The next step is to look at the potential offered by modern energy storage technologies, although flywheels have been used since 2010 for some storage in association with the wind turbines. Given the geography and climate, neither solar or hydro have been a success, apart from some niche applications. But the Falkland Islanders also have a history of burning peat for heat, although this is in decline. Kerosine and diesel are the most common fuels used today.

South Georgia is completely different. Since 2008 South Georgia’s two settlements Grytviken and King Edward Point (KEP) have been powered by hydro electricity. On the slopes above Grytviken there is a dam, originally built by the whalers at the turn of the 20th century. The dam increased the capacity of Gull Lake to feed water to the first hydroelectric power plant in 1914. The electricity produced then was mainly used for lighting the whaling station. The plant was expanded in 1928 to reduce the station’s reliance on imported coal for steam to power the factory. The electricity produced was then used to power winches and other factory equipment. The new turbine house has been built just off the pathway from the settlement to Shackleton’s grave, with the only visible sign of it as a generating station being the small stream of water seemingly running from under the building and into the bay.

Tristan da Cunha has a single settlement of about 270 people and an export factory to process the fish and lobster that are caught around the island. Although much of the electricity system was replaced about a decade ago after a fire, an entirely diesel based system was rebuilt. In recent years some changes have taken place with the installation of a few home solar water heaters, saving on bottled LPG which is used to heat water in Tristan houses. A small solar farm was also constructed west of the fishing factory. It consists of 26 solar panels, aligned to face the northern midday sun and each capable of generating 250 watts, so a combined capacity of 6.5kW. The connection to Tristan’s electricity grid was made on 30th April 2015. There are further plans for change, but the logistics of getting equipment to Tristan is enormously challenging. The island can only be approached by sea and few ships stop there. As we discovered on a second stop there (to pick up a local government person so we could land on Inaccessible Island), weather can quickly close the port and conditions can persist for days. But the case for further change is strong, given the community dependency on the import of diesel fuel and LPG. The eventual solution for Tristan may be a combination of parts. Although there is excellent wind, it can be ferocious at times, bordering on hurricane conditions, which perhaps isn’t ideal for turbine operation. Solar can also be challenging, with thick cloud shrouding the island at times. And although there is ample rainfall, collecting this and channelling it through a hydro plant would also be very difficult given the geography.

This then brings the focus to the key dependency for all remote activities, the transport to get there and transport once there. As was the case for our vessel, all these locations are completely dependent on long distance, self-powered transport and that remains almost entirely powered by liquid fuels coming from petroleum. While renewables are starting to provide local energy solutions for remote activities, the energy for the transport associated with such activities has no immediate zero emission alternatives. Synthetic fuels, either from a biomass / biowaste starting point or formulated from hydrogen and carbon dioxide offer a simple drop-in possibility, but the bio-alternatives are still relatively small scale and the pure synthesis route is still at the pilot plant stage of development. It should be noted that large scale synthesis of fuels from hydrogen and carbon monoxide does exist, but the starting points are coal (SASOL in South Africa) or natural gas (Shell in Qatar). For a net-zero emission synthetic fuel, the hydrogen would need to be produced by electrolysis of water using renewable energy and the carbon extracted from the air as carbon dioxide.

Apart from synthetic fuels, the best prospect for change is perhaps hydrogen itself, in that there is good experience containing and carrying it and fuel cells can power even large motorised vessels such as ships. Nuclear exists on ships in the military, but after an attempt to demonstrate the feasibility of nuclear powered commercial ships in the 1960s, nothing more has come from this form of propulsion. The challenge will lie with the providers of heavy transport; shipping companies, airlines and aerospace companies and large road haulage entities. Perhaps like the remote activities themselves, different solutions will emerge over time for the various requirements faced. Some remote locations may even be well placed to provide hydrogen in that they could have an abundance of renewable electricity to put towards hydrogen production via electrolysis. Scotland’s Orkney Islands are starting to experiment with such a route forward, as recently reported by the BBC.

Albatross chick on West Falkland

King penguins on South Georgia

A king penguin colony on South Georgia

King penguins on South Georgia

Me on Tristan da Cunha

The worlds most remote inhabited island, Tristan da Cunha

Northern rockhopper penguins on Gough Island

Fur seal on Gough Island

Fur seals on Gough Island

Inaccessible Island

Birds returning in the evening to Nightingale Island

Achieving the balance

dchone April 11, 2018

The Paris Agreement calls for a “balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of the century.” This emphasis on “a balance” – or what is also referred to as “net-zero emissions” in the case of the energy system – is a critical development because it recognises that surface temperature warming is directly related to the cumulative total of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted to the atmosphere.

As climate change is a key issue to deal with and it is a cumulative problem, there is a need for the energy system to get to net-zero emissions to bring a halt to the rising level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. However, the time period society has to achieve this is less than it will take to find and/or scale up alternatives for all energy services, goods and products for 7.5 billion people that are currently provided by fossil fuels. In other words, society needs to fill an important gap between when we need to get to net-zero emissions and when we can actually get to zero emissions. The former is around 2070 to meet the goal of the Paris Agreement, whereas the latter may not be until sometime in the 22nd century.

That gap will be filled by “sinks”, which includes;

Geological storage of CO2 with carbon capture and storage (CCS);
Increasing the carbon stock in products held by society (i.e. carbon capture and use or CCU);
Increasing the carbon uptake of the biosphere through land management practices such as reforestation.

CCS and CCU will include;

Direct capture and storage applied in large point source emitting facilities such as cement plants and smelters;
Energy facilities operating with a sustainably produced biomass feedstock resulting in net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere when capture and geological storage is applied;
The production of various products, such as plastics, from fossil fuels or biomass.

All of the above feature in the new Shell scenario, Sky – but sharing the understanding of how they fit into the energy system and what can be achieved was one of the communication challenges behind the Sky scenario publication that was recently released.

Sky reaches net-zero emissions in the energy system by 2070, resulting in stabilisation of atmospheric CO2 and a limit on warming of around 1.75°C in 2100, or well below 2°C as called for by the Paris Agreement. By the time 2070 is reached, the global power generation system is largely renewables and nuclear, but fossil fuel use in certain modes of transport and heavy industry remains significant, albeit declining. The remaining fossil fuel emissions must be dealt with to achieve the goal of net-zero emissions.

To help scenario readers understand the change and see how emissions are managed, we developed a chart that illustrated the carbon flows in Sky as time went by. The sequence starts in 2020 and includes visual elements to help the reader understand what is going on. For starters, we used strata to show;

The upper lithosphere where fossil fuels are found;
Surface based energy activities;
The atmosphere.

In the 2020 illustration above, fossil fuel production results in 35.2 Gt of CO2 emissions, from a potential of 37.8 Gt based on actual extraction. The materials produced include bitumen for roads and petrochemicals that don’t end up as energy products (e.g. combustion of plastic waste). The biofuel energy system is also shown, which results in a loop as CO2 is absorbed by plants, then released again as the biofuel is manufactured and finally used for energy. At this stage there is no real interaction between the systems.

By 2050, the scene is very different. CCS has emerged at scale, both directly in fossil fuel applications such as industrial facilities using natural gas in furnaces and indirectly in the bio-energy system, where geologically stored carbon amounts to permanent removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. By 2050, BECCS (bioenergy with CCS) has also emerged at scale – this is the use of biomass for energy service provision, although principally for the generation of electricity, but linked with CCS.

BECCS is illustrated in the diagram below and is a technology that exists in parts today but hardly as a whole. For example, biomass is used to make ethanol (corn and sugarcane) at large scale in both the USA and Brazil and is a major energy source (woodchips) for the power generation sector in Sweden. CCS also functions at some forty sites around the world, but the combination of bioenergy with CCS is very limited. One such example is the Arthur Daniels Midland ethanol plant in Illinois, USA which stores one million tonnes per year of CO2. As this CO2 is from the ethanol process itself, it is, in effect, drawdown of CO2 from the atmosphere.

By 2070 the energy system has reached net-zero emissions, primarily through a scale-up of the bioenergy with CCS sector when compared with 2050.

Finally, by 2100, the energy system is net-negative, drawing 6.4 Gt of CO2 per year from the atmosphere. Fossil fuel use has declined further to 13.7 Gt equivalent of CO2, but this is all captured through one of the mechanisms discussed above.

As BECCS does not exist at scale today, there are always questions about this pathway forward. However, bioenergy does exist at scale and CCS has been demonstrated many times at scale in early projects, so the combination of the two is entirely plausible. A competing future technology for drawdown of CO2 from the atmosphere is direct air capture linked with CCS (DACCS), but this doesn’t exist today other than at pilot plant size. Experience has shown that the time taken for energy and energy related technologies to move from pilot plant to meaningful commercial scale (i.e. >1% of system size, so in the case of DACCS, >200 big installations around the world) is measured in decades rather than years. For this reason, the drawdown pathway selected in Sky utilized BECCS rather than DACCS, but the latter should not be ruled out from future consideration.

Closing another technology door?

dchone February 1, 2018

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have now released 2017 temperature data, showing the year to be the third warmest on record, but also the warmest in a non-El Nino year. The story resulted in a flurry of articles across the media world.

The New York Times published a story which attempted to summarize current efforts to reduce global emissions. Their take on the issue is akin to the Hans Christian Andersen parable, The Emperor’s New Clothes, where the Emperor was tricked into believing that his new clothes were the finest available, when in fact he was wearing nothing at all. The New York Times notes;

Inveigled by three decades of supposed diplomatic progress — coupled with falling prices of wind turbines, solar panels and batteries — the activists, technologists and policymakers driving the strategy against climate change seem to have concluded that the job can be done without unpalatable choices. And the group is closing doors that it would do best to keep open.

The choices they are referring to are nuclear, various forms of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and geoengineering. Readers of my posts over many years, and my recent book, Putting the Genie Back will recognise my particular passion for the second on this list, the role of CCS. As I see it, no matter which way you do the maths, the climate problem doesn’t resolve itself without some form of large scale carbon capture. Building carbon capture and storage capacity offers a further option which gets little attention today but may well be vital for the next generation; the prospect of climate restoration, or removal of additional quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the 22nd century to bring the temperature back towards pre-industrial levels.

But as if on cue with the NYT story, researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) published a paper in Nature Climate (subscription required) which questions the implementation of BECCS in emissions mitigation. BECCS, or bio-energy with CCS, is conventional CCS applied on power plants operating with a biomass feedstock as their energy source. The geologically stored CO2 has been removed from the atmosphere via the carbon contained in the biomass. The Guardian also published a similar story.

BECCS plays a critical role in many climate models and the scenarios developed with them, in that it offers a route to remove emissions from ongoing use of fossil fuel in sectors where the technology pathway for zero emissions either doesn’t exist or is in its infancy. Aviation is one such example; there is no line of sight today to alternative fuels or means of propulsion for aviation, except for a drop-in hydrocarbon substitute produced via a biofuel route. A large-scale alternative to current aviation fuel or a brand-new propulsion system for planes will take decades to fully develop and deploy.

BECCS is also used extensively in the scenarios published as part of the IPCC 5th Assessment Report and are expected to feature in the IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C, coming out later this year.

The concern raised by the PIK researchers is that large scale growth of suitable biomass for power stations would disrupt other earth systems, breaching various planetary boundaries such as freshwater availability. They conclude that socio-economic pathways requiring substantial BECCS bear the risk of triggering potentially irreversible changes in the Earth system through extensive land-use change, water use, alteration of biogeochemical flows and compromising biosphere integrity.

While it is important to fully understand the impact and risks of various energy pathways, simply removing yet another mitigation option from the table isn’t helpful for a discussion that is running very short of possible routes forward. The broader use of biomass for energy, together with nature based solutions, including reforestation, changes in agricultural practices and restoring degraded land is very likely to figure in our energy future, so should be looked at more holistically. For example, looking at various practices around the world today offers great potential, when comparing the range of crop yields from what is otherwise similar land. Introducing best practices more widely could allow significant scope for bio-energy production without impairing other systems.

Biofuels in Antarctica

dchone December 21, 2017

As you enjoy the Christmas festivities, perhaps toast the people on the South Pole Energy Challenge (SPEC). In mid-November, my friend Robert Swan and his son Barney Swan started a walk across Antarctica to get to the South Pole sometime in January. With them is videographer Kyle and guide Martin. Traversing Antarctica is an extraordinary journey to embark upon and a feat of physical endurance that few people could attempt. But Rob has set the team an even more remarkable challenge; they will make this journey powered entirely by renewable energy. Their goal is to highlight the role that renewable energy can play in a 21^st Century energy system that leads to no net release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

That energy will come from two sources; a solar energy system adapted for the conditions by NASA and a supply of advanced biofuels. The latter was developed solely for this trip by Shell, using a technology that turns solid waste into biofuels, produced at the Shell Technology Centre in Bangalore, India. On a standard polar expedition, each person uses around 200-250 millilitres of jet aviation fuel per day. This fuel is used sparingly for heat, to melt ice to provide water and for cooking. SPEC is pioneering a different approach to managing the energy needs for polar expeditions. Using passive solar thermal systems, a NASA designed ice melter, and advanced biofuels the team will attempt to use a renewable energy mix to sustain their water, heating and cooking needs. Additionally, they will be using solar technology to charge lithium batteries that will power their camera and communication devices.

The story behind this and the relationship with Shell goes back over a century to the Scott Antarctic Expedition of 1912. Rob initially approached Shell for expedition funding in the 1980s, when he set out to walk to South Pole for the first time. This was the beginning of his own relationship with Antarctica, which he intends to see preserved as a pristine continent sized ecosystem. For that journey, Rob convinced Shell that as the company had sponsored the original Scott expedition, he was a worthy recipient to continue that practice. In a like for like manner, Shell supplied fuel for the expedition ship, as they had supplied fuel for the Scott expedition.

The 1912 expedition became part of the early Shell legend of supplying fuel for all purposes under all conditions and at the time featured in various Shell advertisements. One such example is shown below.

The company was subsequently involved in other expeditions, including the Shackleton Expedition.

The 2017 Swan Expedition continues, although in the run-up to Christmas the team was faced with a difficult decision. Despite grueling conditions, including extreme winds and freezing temperatures, they reached the half way point just after mid-December, but the pace had not been as hoped. With the longest day of the year behind them the team will begin to lose sunlight leading to extreme cold, which now leads to something of a race against time to ensure the trek is successfully completed before the short expedition season closes. Under these circumstances, Robert decided to return to Base Camp at Union Glacier to allow the team to move along at a faster pace. He will however meet back up with the SPEC team at the 89th parallel to complete the last 60 miles of the expedition to arrive at the Geographic South Pole.

Robert will continue to play a lead role in the expedition and is determined to ensure that the rest of the team, together with his son Barney, complete this historic challenge. They’re doing it to raise awareness of the need for more and cleaner energy, and continue the Antarctic legacy set by Robert in the 1980s and continued through his 2041 Foundation.

These are two great ambitions that Shell is proud to be part of. So am I. Back in 2009 Robert invited me to speak about climate change to participants on his annual 2041 Expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula. Since then, people from Shell have been involved in every expedition, either as participants or as climate and energy speakers. Following the SPEC Expedition, Robert and Barney will be back on the Antarctic Peninsula in late February with a large group of young people, all eager to learn about SPEC and to better understand the climate issue. ClimateForce 2018 will kick off a series of new climate change initiatives for the father and son team and I am proud to say I will be there at the start of yet another adventure.

Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2018.