Category: United Kingdom

Is it time to open up the EU ETS again?

dchone January 20, 2022

As the new year gets going, the EU is facing much higher energy prices than it has had to contend with in the recent past, topped off with an escalating carbon price driven both by the energy price and the ambitious decarbonisation plans of the EU Commission. Starting in late 2020 at a price of around €20, the purchase of an EU allowance (EUA) in the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) now costs between €80 and €90 per tonne of CO₂.

The current allowance price in the EU ETS provides a significant incentive to reduce emissions, including investment in substantial mitigation technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS). As such, this is a welcome and critically important change from over a decade of prices below €20 and a low of €3 where the system did little to encourage the energy transition. For much of the 2010s the ETS was awash in allowances, with the surplus brought about by the financial crisis and subsequent EU recession, the influx of units from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol and the overlaying of other policies in the ETS sector, a practice that erodes the need for a specific carbon price and will undermine its impact.

We are now in a world where the EU ETS is driving substantial mitigation action, which is exactly what it is supposed to do. The question that arises is what comes next? One way of answering that question is to look at a scenario analysis of the EU net-zero emissions goal, such as in the Shell EU Sketch released by the Shell Scenario team a bit over a year ago.

A deeper look at the Shell EU Sketch highlights the ambition of the Fit for 55 (FF55) goal. Even in the scenario, the reduction planned under FF55 for the EU ETS sector isn’t fully met in 2030, but instead requires another five years of effort. In addition the energy transformation in the EU is not yet fully matching that of the Sketch. Take for example the build rate of CCS facilities in the Sketch versus the real world. At the rate of change in the Sketch, some 40 major (~ 1 mtpa each) CCS facilities need to be operating by 2030 and over 100 by 2035. The EU has finally started developing CCS clusters, but not yet fast enough to meet these goals. This implies that during the 2020s the EU ETS could see further price escalation if project activity does not fully match the reduction goals of the system.

The Fit for 55 package of measures and targets is extraordinary ambitious, contributing to the global reductions required to avoid passing 1.5°C of warming and setting up the EU for a landing at net-zero emissions in 2050. It does need a meaningful carbon price to usher in the transition, but in the Shell EU Sketch it rises to around €60 by 2030 and €200 by 2050 (but on a much smaller level of emissions than today). The current price of an EU allowance should usher in real change for industry and industrial processes, which is needed, but a continuing steep up-trend may also be a sign of a system that is becoming overly constrained by the rate of reduction required compared to the rate at which projects can be implemented.

When the EU ETS first started the Kyoto Protocol was coming into force and we all imagined a world of interconnected cap-and-trade systems, ambitious clean energy projects in developing countries and a resultant liquid global carbon market. With substantial demand coming from the Kyoto signatory countries with targets and good supply from clean energy projects, the resultant carbon market would be of sufficient size to deliver cost savings to all participants. Importantly, major price spikes could be managed. Almost none of this happened.

In the process, the EU ETS was designed with external hooks to make use of the mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol (CDM and Joint Implementation or JI) and to connect with other systems. With the prospect of an Australian ETS about a decade ago the EU began early negotiations with the Australian Government to link the systems, but a change of government in Australia put an end to the Australian efforts. With the US leaving Kyoto and other countries making little use of the mechanisms, the EU ETS was left as the only real buyer of emission reduction units (CER) from the CDM. So it was flooded with them, contributing to the 2008 price collapse. The EU rightly closed the doors and it wasn’t until 2020 when they were partly reopened with a link to the Switzerland ETS.

Industry will be feeling the competitive pressure and rising fuel bills for citizens opens the door to voter anger when it comes to elections if the EU ETS price continues to rise without adequate relief valve mechanisms. The Market Stability Reserve (MSR) would offer some reprieve as it starts releasing banked allowances, but a longer term solution could also be found through Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. The EU ETS could open itself to projects executed under the 6.4 mechanism and transferred into the EU ETS via 6.2, along with the necessary corresponding adjustments to the counterparty country nationally determined contribution (NDC). I discussed the corresponding adjustment mechanism in my last post of 2021. The transfer provision under 6.2 also provides an opportunity to link with other trading systems, such as the recently created UK ETS.

Making use of Article 6 will be a very different experience to that with the CDM. This is a mechanism that operates between two nationally determined contributions (NDC), each with its own plan to reduce emissions, but each plan must be converted to a carbon budget for the period of the NDC in order to use Article 6. The rules for doing this were thrashed out in Glasgow and can be found in III.B of the decision. When the transfer between NDCs is executed, a corresponding adjustment must be made to the respective carbon budgets. This means that the selling country must make up the amount of the sale through additional actions within their NDC, which ensures that the overall reduction goals of the respective NDCs are maintained. Under the CDM, no such provision existed.

With robust Article 6 accounting standards, the EU can have confidence that environmental integrity is preserved and that real reductions are delivered through the ETS. This was always a concern with the CDM. However, there is a fine balance to be achieved when creating a relief valve in that a sharp fall in the carbon price is not helpful for investment. As such, the EU might initially look to trade with a very limited number of countries, such as those with similar ETS structures. The UK, New Zealand and South Korea could all fall into this category.

By opening up the ETS the EU will promote confidence in international carbon trading, which will become an increasingly important part of the mitigation toolkit as the world gets closer to net-zero emissions. This is because remaining emissions and the availability of sinks to balance won’t always be in the same jurisdiction. But most importantly, a larger trading system will lower overall costs for the same reduction goals or alternatively may promote greater ambition, which is certainly needed and was called for in the Glasgow Climate Pact. This will benefit everyone.

The lesser told story of COP26

dchone November 18, 2021

The much anticipated but delayed COP26 has come and gone, with many articles and commentary focussing on whether 1.5°C is still alive. I commented on this at the start of COP26 and although some additional enhanced NDC pledges have been made since then and there is a new goal to end deforestation by 2030, the situation remains largely unchanged. Apart from one thing! COP26 delivered an agreement on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

Article 6 was the last piece of the Paris Agreement to be negotiated back in 2015 and true to form it has become the last piece of the rule book to be completed. So why has it proved so contentious and why does it help keep 1.5°C alive?

The Article outlines ways in which some Parties can choose to pursue voluntary cooperation in the implementation of their nationally determined contributions (NDC), but the sub-sections 6.2 and 6.4 have been negotiated primarily as carbon market instruments, designed to allow trading between Parties, through linking of emissions trading systems and cross border investment in mitigation and removals to create tradable carbon credits. Simply put, carbon markets and trading of carbon units unleashes a commercial engine that can operate on a scale far surpassing the limits of local domestic action. It helps align the energy transition with other global commercial activities, offering the potential for lower overall costs to society which in turn can enhance ambition. Trade is a powerful tool that is at the heart of the global economy and carbon trading can serve to unlock mitigation opportunities that would otherwise be neglected. As I discussed in a recent post, a potential future standstill in global emissions is brought to net-zero through Article 6 cooperative action between countries and the aviation sector developing carbon removal opportunities in various parts of the world. Trade requires price discovery, so indirectly Article 6 helps in the development of liquid carbon markets and carbon pricing, although these don’t emerge from Article 6 itself but from national systems which are open to Article 6 transfers.

The newly agreed rules behind 6.2 are simple but powerful and importantly bring clarity to the issue of environmental integrity. Article 6.2 allows transfers between counties in carbon designated units, thus impacting the NDCs of the buyer and the seller. The buyer is able to meet NDC goals more cost effectively and the seller receives an income stream for domestic mitigation activities. This may seem like a straightforward approach to mitigation, so why has it proved so difficult to negotiate?

The rule for a transfer between Parties requires an adjustment to the related NDCs which brings with it a need to account for each NDC in carbon budget terms. Over time, this drives the Paris Agreement to operate more like a rigorous cap-and-trade system rather than a collection of national mitigation activities presented as a list of actions. With national actions based on a carbon budget architecture, transparency is vastly improved and actions are increasingly focused on mitigation rather than simply supplying more clean energy. The two may align but are not necessarily the same. With so much at stake, negotiators have been careful to get the rules right. Further, carbon budgets are easy to add up and derive a global total, which then puts pressure on the Parties when that budget exceeds the available capacity of the atmosphere for a given temperature limit. Ultimately, it may also open up the highly contentious question of who can use the remaining budget. While the Paris Agreement isn’t operating like this today, widespread use of Article 6 could accelerate such a development.

Article 6 also brings with it a mechanism to assign common units to a mitigation project, carefully defining it in terms of tradable carbon credits. These would be issued by a Supervisory Body operating as part of the Paris Agreement implementation. While 6.2 is essentially a bilateral transfer approach, 6.4 is a multilateral mechanism, introducing a notional Paris carbon currency. However, transfer of these units between countries will still follow the rules of 6.2. Article 6.4 follows on from the similar Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol, but with a clearly quantified transfer approach.

Both 6.2 and 6.4 are voluntary in that attainment of NDCs can be realised without them, but when used they bring the power of trade to the job of mitigation. Analysis of the benefits of such an approach by the University of Maryland found that international cooperation under a well-functioning Article 6 of the Paris Agreement could save as much as $250 billion per year by 2030. Translating this back into the potential for greater mitigation becomes tangible and meaningful in the already very narrow window of opportunity for limiting warming to 1.5°C.

Glasgow doesn’t mean job done on Article 6, but it does set the stage for activities to commence. The onus is now on national governments to encourage the use of these mechanisms, by allowing their mitigation activities to be open to Article 6 transfers. This could start with well-developed systems such as the EU ETS recognizing 6.4 units, particularly if they are associated with carbon removal projects which the EU will need to meet its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. Successful implementation could also allow the EU to consider an earlier NZE goal if required to keep 1.5°C in play. But given that the Article 6 rule book was finally agreed in the United Kingdom, perhaps the British government might be the ones to step up and allow Article 6 to flourish within the new UK ETS. After all, in the wake of Brexit trade has become the topic of the day in the UK.

Article 6 has been a hard won policy development, but it’s completion in Glasgow makes COP26 a success, even as some commentators have pronounced some disappointment with the precise wording of the Glasgow Climate Pact. We should thank the negotiators for their efforts over many years and reward their long nights at various COPs with rapid and successful implementation.

Electric vehicles and 2030

dchone December 7, 2020

Over a decade ago in one of my very first posts in this blog, I responded to what appeared to be a working assumption in government that there would be between 1 and 2 million electric cars on the road in the UK by 2020. It was hard to imagine that this would be the case and harder to calculate a pathway that would deliver such an outcome. I noted at the time that after a dozen years and some significant stimulus, the number of hybrid vehicles on UK roads had risen to 300,000. So here we are in late 2020 and the number of battery electric vehicles on the road in the UK is around 200,000. There are plug-in hybrids in addition to this, roughly doubling the total population of plug-in vehicles to just under 400,000.

In recent weeks the UK government has significantly stepped up its ambition regarding passenger electric vehicle deployment, with a decision to ban the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles in 2030, albeit with some relaxation to 2035 for plug-in hybrid vehicles. The announcement prompted me to look back at the decade old post and to look at how the numbers stack up this time around.

With a population of some 67 million people, the UK has about 33 million cars or just under one car for every two people. This ratio has been rising slowly over the past few years, even as new car sales have edged downwards so we might expect something like 37 million cars in the UK fleet by 2030 for a population of 70 million. Assuming there isn’t a mad rush for internal combustion engine vehicles (ICE) in the years just prior to 2030, then in 2030 we could see some 2.6 million cars sold; more than in 2019 but only reaching the levels seen in 2015 and 2016 despite having 15-20% more cars on the road in total.

This means that in 2030, 2.6 million cars with a battery must be available for UK buyers. They could be pure battery electric (BEV) or plug-in hybrid (PHEV). While the PHEVs are popular today, will that still be the case in 2030? It could be that manufacturers are already abandoning that class of vehicle to simplify production lines, with a focus on ICE production for legacy markets and BEV production for the future. After all, there would be no place for the PHEV in the UK after 2035.

The UK buys about 3.5 – 4.0 % of global passenger vehicle production, so the purchase of 2.6 million vehicles would notionally require 70 million BEVs in production globally, or all passenger vehicle production. However, with a leading policy position on BEV uptake and local vehicle production of some 1.3 million vehicles per annum, the UK could be commanding a relatively higher percentage of the BEV market. This has been the case in Norway in recent years. Of course, other jurisdictions are also declaring earlier dates for the BEV transition, so there could be competition for the available vehicles. But let’s assume the UK can command 8% of BEV production in 2030, which would imply the need for global BEV production of 35 million vehicles in 2030.

Current global BEV production is 2-2.5 million per year, or 3.2% of total passenger vehicle production. That will need to grow by a factor of at least fifteen in ten years for the UK to meet its goal. If there is a limitation in the supply chain for BEVs it is most likely to be the battery. It won’t be the car body, wheels, suspension, electronics, steering system or even the motor (but it is a very different component to ICE) as the capacity for these exists today in one form or another. But large scale Li-Ion battery production is a new and growing industry that requires new supply chains, new sources of critical minerals like cobalt and new processing facilities to make compounds such as lithium hexafluorophosphate.

Cobalt supply might be challenging as most global production comes from one country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is an important component of Li-Ion battery chemistry although battery manufacturers are taking steps to minimize the requirement. Early battery cathodes contained nickel, manganese and cobalt in equal proportions, but companies such as LG Chem are close to producing cathodes with 80% nickel and only 10% cobalt. Tesla’s first Model S, launched in 2012, was built with an average of 11 kg of cobalt per vehicle, but according to Benchmark Minerals that was down to about 4.5 kg in its successor car, the Model 3, which launched in 2018. Nevertheless, if production were to hit 35 million vehicles in 2030 and each vehicle required 5 kg of cobalt, that still amounts to 175,000 tonnes of cobalt. Current global cobalt production capacity is 150,000 tonnes but it is a widely used mineral.

BEVs aren’t the only products competing for Li-Ion batteries. By 2030 we should be seeing a variety of haulage trucks in the market, more electric buses, a continued escalation of consumer devices running on batteries and a surge in demand for grid scale battery packs to help manage renewable intermittency. While battery recycling will be a large industry in the decades ahead, this won’t be the case in 2030 as society will only just be starting the recycle the batteries being produced today, which represent a tiny fraction of 2030s demand.

Other factors will also come into play, but the size of the battery in every car will be important. Early BEV models were relatively small with limited range and had battery storage of around 25 kWh – the Nissan Leaf is a good example. That’s because batteries were very expensive. Today with battery prices falling rapidly, one Nissan variant known as the Leaf e+ has a 62 kWh battery pack. A review of multiple models from several manufacturers shows battery sizes heading towards 75-100 kWh. So let’s assume the average 2030 car has an 80 kWh battery with a range of around 500 kms.

Global Li-Ion battery manufacturing capacity today is around 400 GWh, or enough to make 6 million BEVs with a 62 kWh battery onboard. However, half that capacity is being split between consumer electronics, larger vehicles such as electric buses and home or grid energy storage. In the 2030 world of 80 kWh battery packs and production of at least 35 million vehicles, nearly 3 TWh of battery manufacturing capacity will be needed just for the BEVs. That might mean 5 TWh in total to cater for all the other applications. And therein lies the potential issue.

There is no doubt that battery manufacturing capacity is ramping up rapidly, but where might we be in 2030? A recent analysis by Wood Mackenzie looks at the current project pipeline for new manufacturing facilities and expects a quadrupling to 1.3 TWh by 2030. The same article that discusses the analysis also notes that this is not the most bullish forecast. Bloomberg New Energy Finance expects 1 TWh of battery production capacity by 2025, while Benchmark Minerals expects 1 TWh of capacity by 2022/2023, 1.35 TWh by 2025, and 2.5 TWh by 2030, with China’s CATL accounting for 332 GWh and Tesla, the fourth-largest producer, with 148 GWh of capacity in 2030. Based on current forecasts, nobody is expecting 5 TWh of capacity by 2030, although it is also fair to say that few in 2010 expected solar PV manufacturing capacity to be 160 GW per year by 2020.

So the bottom line for the UK government and its ambitious plans means that not only must the UK command an outsize proportion of the BEV market, but that Li-Ion battery production is at least double the most ambitious current estimates for 2030.

Finally, assuming the needed rapid growth in BEV sales takes place and the UK reaches 100% sales by 2030, the number of vehicles on the road in that year would still be less than 10 million, out of a total of perhaps 37 million. It will take another decade or more beyond 2030 to turn over the whole fleet, which makes the recently announced 2030 goal of a 68% reduction against 1990 all the more difficult.

What to make of Article 6 at COP25?

dchone December 18, 2019

I spent a week at COP25 in Madrid, with great hope that the negotiators would land the Article 6 text and complete the so-called Paris ‘rule book’. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be the case and the longest COP to date was closed with little to show for the immense amount of effort that was put into it, from the Chilean Presidency, the Spanish hosts and the thousands of attendees. But the COP didn’t end with nothing, in that we do have near completed text for Article 6, albeit entirely bracketed, reflecting the lack of final agreement. Brackets are normally used to surround individual words or short passages of text that remain contentious, but in this case they surrounded the Article 6 guidance in its entirety.

In a world where there is increasing pressure (and need) to get to an effective state of zero emissions, the ability to use the market to deliver such outcomes by “trading” emission reductions and sinks between countries and sectors, becomes critical. I illustrated this in a recent post which stepped through the transition illustrated below.

Despite a goal of zero, 300 units of CO2 emissions still remain in hard to abate sectors.

Article 6 delivers an overall reduction, with a net-zero emissions outcome.

The final Madrid text reflects a great deal of effort by the Parties, albeit many of the same issues resurfaced during the discussions and highlighted the differing perspectives, and understanding, of Parties on the role and application of Article 6. This will require all Parties to work hard to bridge differences to see an agreement in 2020.

The entirely bracketed Article 6.2 text looks very good in that it covers the key requirements for a transfer. The definition of the internationally transferred mitigation outcome (ITMO) is sound and importantly includes removals, a clear requirement over the longer term and a necessity for net-zero emissions (see above illustration). The guidance on corresponding adjustments adopts a carbon budget approach to the methodology, which provides the highest standard for environmental integrity of the transfer. The text also provides for Article 6.4 emissions reduction units (6.4ERs) to be transferred via this process.

The 6.2 guidance asks participating Parties to cancel some ITMOs to ensure overall mitigation in global emissions, but importantly this is not a requirement for use of the process. In some instances it may be practical for participating Parties to agree on such a step, but in others it is unlikely to happen. For example, the net flow of allowances between two linked emission trading systems (e.g. Switzerland and the EU) will be an ITMO relative to the respective Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) within which the trading systems sit, but deciding which allowances to remove from the system when hundreds or even thousands of private entities might be involved is both impractical and self-defeating for the link, in that if there is a penalty for trading with a cross-border entity against a domestic entity, then domestic trades will prevail and the synergy of the link will be lost.

Despite the big brackets and the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA) only noting the guidance on Article 6, it is very likely that the 6.2 text will be used by Parties as it currently stands. Switzerland and the EU may well be the first Parties to do so as they link their respective trading systems from 1.1.2020. Use of the current 6.2 text may also help legitimize it in the case of the CMA never actually agreeing it.

While the 6.2 guidance was largely (but not completely) without contentious points within the bracketed text, this was not the case for 6.4, where many of the issues going into the COP remained unresolved as it finally closed on Sunday, resulting in the big brackets around everything – remember, in UN parlance, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Unlike 6.2 transfers where Parties can simply start using the text on a bilateral basis, this cannot be the case for 6.4 because it is a centrally administered mechanism with a supervisory body, which cannot exist until all Parties agree to the text. So while there is text that looks to be complete, we are still some distance away from it being agreed and the mechanism beginning to function. This means that some countries looking for foreign direct investment through the mechanism as a means of achieving mitigation will have to wait. It may also mean that they pursue other energy infrastructure projects which could lead to lock-in of a higher emitting system. Nobody wins through such a delay.

Some of the points that remain to be agreed in 6.4 are also issues that shouldn’t really be open for debate; not in a world looking for a successful implementation of the Paris Agreement.

The issue of actions taking place outside the bounds of the NDC is one, when in reality the NDCs need to quickly shift to cover all emitting activities. This should be the first requirement for the agreement that was reached in Madrid that all NDCs are resubmitted next year. As such, there would be no actions taking place outside the bounds of the NDC, which makes the provision entirely superfluous.
A second issue is related to the transition of remaining units (CERs and AAUs) from the mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol, with the request from some Parties that they can be utilized and transferred under the Paris mechanism. For existing projects with future issuance, this shouldn’t be an issue in that any use of the units will be balanced by the necessary corresponding adjustments required under the transfer process of 6.2, although some Parties argued that these projects are outside the scope of current NDCs, to the extent that corresponding adjustments wouldn’t be required. But for vintage units there is a clear reason not to allow future use which sits in the IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C. That report established the current level of warming and reset the carbon budgets for various levels of future warming, with a 1.1.2018 baseline. For example, limiting warming to 1.5°C with a 67% chance has a carbon budget of 420 Gt from 1.1.2018. The Paris Agreement is increasingly being formulated around the finding of the report. As such, events prior to that date are now irrelevant, including any units that may have been created.

There was still no agreement on a share of proceeds from the use of Article 6.4 or on how an overall mitigation in global emissions is determined, key issues for some Parties that reflects the importance of demonstrating the potential of trade to deliver emissions reductions. A simple analysis of the use of Article 6 shows that it alone delivers mitigation that wouldn’t otherwise occur, as I illustrated in the recent post referenced above. Unfortunately, some negotiators didn’t see this point and the call for surrender of units continued, with a minimum haircut of 2% appearing in the bracketed text. Penalties such as this will do nothing to promote the use of the mechanism, but only deter investment.

So there we have it, a fortnight of negotiation that very nearly resulted in a good Article 6 ‘rule-book’. But it didn’t and that is unfortunate for all concerned, but particularly for the successful implementation of the Paris Agreement. Let’s hope that Parties can quickly reconvene around the final Madrid text and bring it to a conclusion, perhaps even before COP26 in Glasgow, in that the formulation of mid-century development strategies and more ambitious NDCs for that COP is in part dependent on the availability of Article 6 transfers.

Why is Article 6 so contentious?

dchone July 8, 2019

The Parties to the UNFCCC convened in Bonn through the second half of June to continue discussions relating to the Paris Agreement, but particularly to make progress on the rule-book for Article 6 of the Agreement that remained held over from COP24 in Katowice.

Article 6 relates to cooperative approaches, but is largely being negotiated as the foundation element of cross-border carbon trading between Parties or private entities (e.g. companies) within the jurisdiction of those Parties. Only Article 6.8, which is specifically defined as a non-market mechanism is being dealt with differently. The remainder of Article 6, i.e. provisions 6.2 to 6.7, deal with the prospect of cross border trade of mitigation outcomes, broadly defined in terms of tons of carbon dioxide.

Article 6 is simple in concept but has proven difficult to negotiate. The concept is that Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) may be best achieved by cooperating with another Party, essentially in the same way as facilities within a cap-and-trade system trade allowances as a route to minimising the cost of compliance; i.e. facilities balance their needs by reviewing their own options to reduce emissions or purchasing allowances from other facilities that can more readily make reductions against some allocation they may have received from the government or bought in government auctions. The overall cap on the system doesn’t directly play a role for each facility, but indirectly governs the entire system and allows it to function and for reductions to proceed against a financial metric.

The challenge, is that the Paris Agreement is not based on allowance allocation, cap-and-trade architecture or carbon units, but only on a willingness to reduce emissions at national level against a nationally determined plan. However, to enter into a cooperative arrangement, some form of accounting must be implemented such that it is transparent to the cooperating Parties and others that there is no double counting of emissions and no relaxation of NDC goals. That accounting requires carbon unitization of the activities taking place and more importantly unitization of the NDCs themselves such that it is apparent to all what is going on.

While Article 6 is a purely voluntary framework and Parties are free to sidestep it and simply deliver their NDC goals, many Parties are keen to use the provisions of the Article to lower costs and attract inward investment in emission reduction activities. But it takes the cooperating Parties into the world of emissions accounting, which is where the controversy starts. Parties making use of Article 6 will inevitably be drawn into carbon budgets as the pressure on transparency and environmental integrity grows.

In Bonn the Parties spent a good portion of the time attempting to resolve numerous issues that remained from COP24. Almost all are related to accounting, issues that vanish entirely if carbon budgets begin to be applied to NDCs, as the United Kingdom has done through legislation. But a budget, however it is implemented, implies a limit of some sort, an idea that numerous Parties are not yet prepared to entertain. There are good reasons behind this, including the concern that development brings with it significant industrial activity, almost all of which is based on the use of fossil fuels, but in many cases, coal.

But a budgetary approach brings a quantitative simplicity to Article 6 that is impossible to match through qualitative assessment, as was the case for the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol. Specifically, applying a clear and transparent numerical approach resolves issues related to additionality, overall reduction in global emissions, corresponding adjustments, double counting, transfer to CORSIA, NDC coverage and the handling of CERs and AAUs left over from Kyoto Protocol days.

But a robust numerical approach with carbon budget implications leads Parties into a world they sought to avoid under the Paris Agreement, yet it is one that must inevitably emerge so as to apply a climate lens to the energy transition and guide it to net-zero emissions. As Parties negotiate the terms of Article 6, there are perhaps two clear ways forward. One is to compromise on all aspects of the needed accounting regime, but risk ending up with an approach that does little to foster cooperative action and then operates at a small scale as a niche activity. It is hard to see how this serves anyone well. The other is to recognise that this is a voluntary mechanism and to implement the required accounting, which Parties will gradually adopt and use as they are ready.

The world in which carbon dioxide is meticulously and transparently accounted for also leads to carbon pricing. Little wonder it remains contentious and is taking significant time and effort to resolve.

Getting to net-zero emissions in the UK

dchone May 9, 2019

Last week the Climate Change Committee (CCC) in the UK released its much anticipated report which is recommending that the government revise its emissions goal to net-zero in 2050. The Committee notes that this is an appropriate UK contribution towards the global need of meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. The recommendation also follows in the wake of the IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C, which identified 2050 as the year in which the global economy should attempt to reach net-zero emissions in order to limit warming to 1.5°C with a 66% probability.

The recommendation is a shift from the current UK target which would see the country reach an 80% reduction by 2050, in support of which the country is broadly on track to deliver the first 3 interim carbon budgets to 2022. However, as it looks past 2022 the CCC notes there is insufficient early development of some technologies for the heavy lifting ahead. Examples of this include carbon capture and storage (CCS) and hydrogen for a variety of uses.

Nevertheless, the state of technology development, deployment and availability has shifted since the time of the first UK target back in 2008. The cost of wind and solar has dropped significantly, offshore wind is now a viable proposition, many electric car models are available and while not in the UK, some 20 CCS facilities are now running in various parts of the world. All of the technologies required to do the job set out by the CCC are in plain sight, although a number still require significant UK development for deployment in this country. The CCC report is also very clear on this issue.

2050 is just over thirty years away and that same time period reflecting backwards marks the time that I first arrived in the UK with Shell. In the next 30 years the whole energy system will need to shift to achieve net-zero emissions, but how does that compare with the changes seen over the last 30 years. While two thirds of that period has not been covered by the Climate Change Act and its carbon budgets, all but three years have been covered by the UK ratification of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The Sankey diagrams below reflect the change over the period, although the most recent from the IEA are 2016, so they won’t show the last two years of renewable energy development.

Overall primary energy consumption has fallen, with the most visible change being the shift away from coal and towards natural gas in power generation. Both bioenergy and renewables have also added to the generation mix. Nuclear plays an important and steady base load function. Natural gas is now the dominant contributor to the current power generation sector and in the past year there have been periods where coal has not played a role at all. Back in 1989 coal made up most of the generating capacity. Oil demand within the UK has hardly changed over thirty years (slightly up) although production has halved.

As noted above, one feature that has surged since 2016 is the proportion of renewable energy in the generation mix. Recent figures from BEIS show that wind and solar have now exceeded nuclear on a quarterly basis.

In the final energy system, the changes are more nuanced. The overall share of electricity has moved from 16.7% of final energy to 20.4%, or a shift of 3.7% points in 27 years. The global rate of change is tracking at 2% points per decade, so the UK is well short of that pace of transition. A net zero emissions economy would likely need electricity to be the major component of final energy, say around 60%, so the UK rate of change will need to shift from 1.37% points per decade to around 11% points in each of the coming decades.

Transport hasn’t shifted at all in the past 30 years, with oil use in transport slightly increasing. Electricity is just starting to creep into this mix, but pure electric vehicles have reached only 0.7% (2018) of new car sales. Worryingly, the total number of petrol and diesel cars registered in the UK in 2018 was unchanged from 2013, a period which has seen the first major push to get consumers to go electric. Reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 will not just mean seeing all new purchases as electric, but seeing all new purchases from about 2035 onwards as electric. It can take up to 15 years to completely turn over the entire on-the-road fleet, although a future government could presumably accelerate this process with a buy-back-and-scrap scheme.

In the industrial sector, energy consumption has dropped by nearly a third, presumably through efficiency improvements as industrial output has hardly changed (see chart below). Importantly, electricity use has stayed largely the same. This means that the sector is gradually electrifying, although again the pace of change is below that required.
UK Industrial Production (1970-2019).

Then there are the tricky bits, where the UK has made only limited progress. The CCC notes that radical change is needed in home heating, including a shift to hydrogen and heat pumps, with support from much better home insulation. But residential natural gas use has marginally increased in 30 years, despite significant improvements in boiler efficiency and the use of electricity instead of gas for new apartment buildings. One highlight in this area is the recent milestone of one million homes now being supplied with biomethane.

The overall change in 30 years has been one of continually falling greenhouse gas emissions, with much of the gain coming from natural gas replacing coal and a fall in industrial energy use. While the impetus for change over the last 30 years was perhaps not as great as it is now, the overall shift is symptomatic of typical energy system dynamics; rapid adjustment has never been a feature, primarily due to the large capital stock involved. Outside the energy sector change over the same period has been dramatic. In 1989 there was no internet, no social media, hardly a mobile phone to be seen and televisions were defined more by their depth than their width. So can the UK reach these sorts of transition rates and achieve the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050?

In the power generation sector, zero emissions should be entirely achievable in that time frame. Renewables are surging and new nuclear capacity is now under construction (although even getting that started took a decade). Similarly, with the models on offer or on their way, passenger vehicles could be entirely electric and various cities across the UK have demonstrated that electric buses are now a viable option. But there is no real sign of change for heavy goods vehicles, shipping or aviation. Perhaps the biggest challenge sits with the use of natural gas in homes and industry. It is easy to use, clean, provides a very high heat load and is backed by extensive infrastructure. Hydrogen and electrification are potential pathways forward, but as noted the electrification rate of change has to shift by nearly an order of magnitude. For hydrogen there are promising signs of change with the government now funding a major programme on supply and conversion of existing facilities away from natural gas.

Finally, there is carbon capture and storage (CCS), which may be a simpler solution in many applications than attempting to dislodge natural gas. CCS in combination with direct air capture (still a nascent technology) may also be needed to balance out emissions in sectors such as aviation. Even the production of hydrogen may be easiest at scale from natural gas, which would then also require CCS. The UK has tried and tried again with CCS, but there is still no operational facility to show for all the efforts made. Yet the UK is both pipeline dense and geologically gifted in terms of storage potential, so deployment could proceed given the right incentives to begin.

The Climate Change Committee have put forward a bold recommendation, but it is not without immense challenge. It ought to be possible to achieve the 2050 goal of net-zero emissions, but it won’t happen without some significant nudging by the government in a number of key areas. Policy decisions over the coming five years may well set the scene for the next twenty, so there is everything to play for.

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

What does the carbon dioxide shortage tell us about the energy transition?

dchone June 28, 2018

Much has been made in the UK media over the last week or so regarding the shortage of carbon dioxide as an industrial gas. The supply issues are now so acute that some retailers are restricting sales of beer and soft drinks, abattoirs are closing, frozen food shipments that rely on dry ice are being disrupted and food manufacturers are struggling with storage of short shelf-life goods. The shortage is not restricted to the UK, but has also appeared in some parts of Europe.

The problem has arisen from the coincidental shutdown of several sites that produce carbon dioxide as a by-product. These are typically hydrogen manufacturing units, where the hydrogen is then used to produce ammonia for industrial and agricultural use. Ammonia is an important material in the food chain due to its use as a fertilizer in the form of urea. The latter is made by reacting ammonia with carbon dioxide (yet another use). The reason for the shutdowns is that summer is the low period for fertilizer demand, but this year there has been some unfortunate timing as the shutdowns have coincided with technical difficulties at facilities that have remained running.

The hydrogen required for the ammonia plants is made by steam reforming of natural gas (or coal) to produce synthesis gas, a combination of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. A further step, known as the water-gas shift reaction, increases the yield of hydrogen at the expense of carbon monoxide, with carbon dioxide also being produced.

The link from natural gas (or coal) through to beer and even pig slaughter (where carbon dioxide is used to stun the animals first), illustrates the complexity of the energy system and the way in which fossil fuels end up in the supply chain of all goods and services. A transition away from fossil fuels must also find alternatives for all of these uses. In my book, ‘Putting the Genie Back: Solving the Climate and Energy Dilemma’, I discussed the pervasive nature of fossil fuels in the global economy, not from the perspective of products we know well, such as gasoline, but rather products like ammonia.

While our immediate contact with fossil fuels is the gasoline we put in our cars or the natural gas we burn in our homes, there is more, much more. This includes the unappealing, somewhat messy but nevertheless essential chemical plants where products such as sulphuric acid, ammonia, caustic soda and chlorine are made (to name but a few). Combined, about half a billion tonnes of these four products are produced annually. Manufactured by energy-intensive processes operating on an industrial scale, but concealed from daily life, these four products play a part in the manufacture of almost everything. Even the ubiquitous can of soft drink relies on sulphuric acid; the chemical is used to give the aluminium can the shiny look that is expected before opening it and consuming the contents. These core base chemicals rely in turn on various feedstocks, many of which come from the fossil fuel industry. Sulphuric acid, for example, is made from the sulphur found in oil and gas and removed during refining and treatment processes. Although there are other viable sources of sulphur, they have long been abandoned for economic reasons. And of course there is ammonia!

In thinking through the energy transition required to fully address the climate issue, the end game is zero emissions, which means that there is no further accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The Paris Agreement achieves this by calling for a balance between sources of emissions and sinks during the second half of the century, or what is referred to for the energy system as net-zero emissions. In the Shell Sky scenario, which meets the goals of the Paris Agreement, this is achieved in 2070. In Sky, there isn’t an alternative pathway developed, commercialized and scaled for every use of fossil fuels in just 50 years, far from it. Rather, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is deployed as the mechanism to allow the multitude of uses to continue until alternatives are fully in place. When Sky reaches net-zero in 2070, emissions from the continuing use of fossil fuels are countered by direct application of CCS or indirect removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But the story doesn’t end in 2070, for example by 2100 in Sky industrial CCS has declined compared to 2070 as hydrogen has grown as an alternative.

The process of commercialising and scaling alternatives for all the uses of fossil fuels will likely take us well into the 22^nd century. Some alternatives are emerging today, such as the use of solar PV to generate electricity, but as clearly demonstrated in recent days, the dependency on fossil fuels remains pervasive and entrenched in our society.

Note: Scenarios are not intended to be predictions of likely future events or outcomes and investors should not rely on them when making an investment decision with regard to Royal Dutch Shell plc securities. Please read the full cautionary note in http://www.shell.com/skyscenario.

Making the most of hydrogen

dchone February 24, 2017

As hydrogen refueling stations begin to appear, including one from Shell opening near London, Toyota makes its Mirai hydrogen fuel cell vehicle more widely available and iron ore smelters even look to hydrogen as an alternative reducing agent (rather than coal) that doesn’t involve carbon, it would appear that this important energy carrier is beginning to show its potential.

The final energy (i.e. energy we use) mix in use today is less than 20% electricity, in large part dictated by the need to transport, store and use energy well away and disconnected from the point of production. Vehicles are a common example of this, with the requirement to power them on the move. While electricity storage is coming of age with batteries, hydrogen offers an alternative route forward that provides much of the flexibility we have come to rely upon with liquid fuels.

Hydrogen also offers the possibility of providing intense heat very quickly in a confined area, such as required by various industrial processes. For these reasons, and as society looks to shift away from direct use of fossil fuels for the purpose of carbon dioxide mitigation or simply needs to augment the energy system with other carriers, hydrogen shouldn’t be ignored.

Hydrogen production comes via three routes. The first is as a by-product from some industrial processes (e.g. chlorine manufacture). When I first started work in a Shell refinery I was assigned to follow the operation of the platformer, a unit which increases the octane number of naphtha by creating cyclic ring compounds (aromatics). These have a lower hydrogen content than straight chain molecules, so hydrogen is a byproduct. For the most part this source of hydrogen is in full use, either within other processes in refineries or in neighbouring facilities.

The second is steam reforming of natural gas, which produces hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Most industrial hydrogen in the world today is produced via this route. The carbon dioxide is relatively pure and can be used or captured and stored, making the process very carbon efficient. In the Shell refinery in the Netherlands some carbon dioxide from its hydrogen manufacturing unit is sold to local greenhouses to provide the enhanced growing conditions that they need. In Alberta, Canada, one million tonnes per annum of carbon dioxide from the Shell Scotford Refinery hydrogen unit is captured and geologically stored.

Finally, hydrogen can be produced by electrolysis of water, an experiment almost everybody has done in chemistry class at school. This route has renewable energy enthusiasts very excited as it can provide a ready use of electricity when wind and solar production exceeds demand, a situation many grids may face as renewable energy penetration reaches very high levels. But this process suffers from a relatively low efficiency, with only a few percent of global hydrogen being produced via this route. Generating hydrogen by electrolysis is only (optimally) about 60% efficient and the use of this hydrogen in a car is (optimally) also only about 60% efficient, so two thirds of the energy input is lost. This can be improved to some extent if heat recovery methods are employed.

The economics of the electrolysis route can be difficult, particularly if it relies on renewable energy surpluses, which won’t always be available. That would leave the electrolyzer idle or having to use purpose generated electricity. Further, most current electrolyzers vent the oxygen that is made, which is effectively waste energy and explains why the process can only be 60% efficient if hydrogen is the only product being made.

The global oxygen industry is very large; today it is around 500+ million tonnes per annum, with the metallurgical industry being the largest consumer. Oxygen is typically manufactured by cryogenic distillation of air. In the context of a hydrogen economy based on electrolysis rather than steam reforming of natural gas, oxygen production would be significant. According to Toyota, the Mirai consumes 0.76 kg H2 per 100 km. Using these numbers as a basis, a 200 million vehicle hydrogen fuel cell fleet might consume 23 million tonnes of hydrogen per annum, which when produced by electrolysis would also generate around 180 million tonnes of oxygen, or around one third of the current demand. This of course presumes it can be efficiently captured and transported.

Significant production of oxygen may also benefit another facet of an energy system striving for net-zero emissions. Biomass could be used for power generation, but in an oxygen combustion system (i.e. combusting the biomass with pure oxygen rather than with air which is 79% nitrogen). This means that the waste gas would be mainly carbon dioxide, which in turn would lead to easier capture and storage. This could then be an important negative emission technology in the net-zero sum for the economy as a whole.

The hydrogen economy offers many new opportunities and it is good to see that it is starting to move forward. The Shell hydrogen refueling station that opened in Cobham, uses an on-site electrolyzer to produce its hydrogen, with the electricity coming from a certified green source. It is the first of three hydrogen stations Shell plans to open in the UK in 2017.

Carbon pricing in 2016

dchone January 16, 2017

Given that 2016 marked the first full year of climate policy development after COP21 in Paris and was the year in which leaders lined up to sign and then ratify the Agreement, one might have expected a deluge of new carbon pricing policy initiatives. Rather, the picture was mixed, although there were some notable advancements. Three stood out in particular;

The Chinese government confirmed that 2017 would see the start of its nationwide emissions trading system. This will supersede the various regional pilot systems and should emerge as the largest ETS in the world once it is up and running. The system is likely to commence in the second half of this year, probably at the start of Q4.
The Canadian Government announced that carbon pricing would apply on an economy wide basis from 2018 onward. This could be implemented at provincial level, but if not the Federal Government would intervene and apply it through a taxation based mechanism. For provinces with an explicit price-based system, the carbon price should start at a minimum of $10 per tonne in 2018, and rise by $10 per year to $50 per tonne in 2022. Provinces with cap-and-trade need: (i) a 2030 emissions reduction target equal to or greater than Canada’s 30 percent reduction target; (ii) declining (more stringent) annual caps to at least 2022 that correspond, at a minimum, to the projected emissions reductions resulting from the carbon price that year in price-based systems.
The international aviation industry announced an offset mechanism to limit growth in commercial aviation emissions, effectively bringing a carbon price into that sector.

There were other developments and in the map below Australia has moved from blank to a light shade of green. This is because its Safeguard Mechanism started. It will require Australia’s largest emitters to keep emissions within baseline levels such that the country’s other efforts to reduce emissions (e.g. the Emissions Reduction Fund) aren’t eclipsed by emissions growth from existing facilities. The safeguard will apply to around 140 large businesses that have facilities with direct emissions of more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalence (t CO2-e) a year. This will cover around half of Australia’s emissions. The entity with operational control of a facility will be responsible for meeting safeguard requirements, including that the facility must keep net emissions at or below baseline emissions levels. The mechanism will apply broadly to a variety of business entities, including corporations, partnerships, trusts, and local councils. Baselines will reflect the highest level of reported emissions for a facility (hence the light green) over the historical period 2009 to 2014 Entities with a baseline can comply by ensuring emissions are below that level or by buying Australian Carbon Credit Units.

But the year was not entirely marked by positive progress. In particular, there was the resounding defeat of Washington State’s Initiative 732, which sought to implement a tax on carbon emissions in exchange for cuts to existing taxes. Washington State rejected the idea of a carbon tax by 59 percent to 41.

So we end 2016 with some 23% of greenhouse gas emissions (including China) covered by some form of carbon pricing (Source: World Bank: State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2016), operating at an average level of something like US$10 per tonne of carbon dioxide. It has taken 20 years to reach this point, with the Kyoto Protocol marking the starting point. To even match the market based Oceans outlook offered by the Shell New Lens Scenarios, carbon pricing needs to cover some 80% of the global economy at a level of $30 or more by 2036, i.e. in under 20 years. That scenario reaches net zero emissions within this century, but has been assessed by MIT as having the impact of limiting warming of the climate system to around 2.7°C, somewhat above the ambition of the Paris Agreement despite the net-zero outcome.

One can only conclude that much remains to be done in 2017 and beyond.

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“The New Lens Scenarios” and “A Better Life with a Healthy Planet” are part of an ongoing process – scenario-building – used in Shell for more than 40 years to challenge executives’ perspectives on the future business environment. We base them on plausible assumptions and quantification, and they are designed to stretch management thinking and even to consider events that may only be remotely possible. Scenarios, therefore, are not intended to be predictions of likely future events or outcomes, and investors should not rely on them when making an investment decision with regard to Royal Dutch Shell plc securities.

It is important to note that Shell’s existing portfolio has been decades in development. While we believe our portfolio is resilient under a wide range of outlooks, including the IEA’s 450 scenario, it includes assets across a spectrum of energy intensities including some with above –average intensity. While we seek to enhance our operations’ average energy intensity through both the development of new projects and divestments, we have no immediate plans to move to a net-zero emissions portfolio over our investment horizon of 10-20 years.