IEA report puts doubt into carbon capture

If a report released Tuesday by the IEA is correct, then the $2 billion committed by the Alberta government toward the development of carbon capture and storage is nothing more than a drop in the bucket.

The IEA estimates it will cost as much as $10 trillion US between 2010 and 2030 for the world to keep carbon dioxide emissions below 450 parts per million and temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

While that level of investment might be enough for even the most ardent climate change advocate to throw their hands up and surrender, there’s a little bit of good news to be found in the report.

The IEA also says that emissions for this year have decline three per cent as a result of the global economic recession, suggesting that if the right policies are put in place, the $10 trillion might well be used for something other than fixing the world’s emissions.

The problem is that in the charts produced as part of the report, the vast majority of power generated around the world will still be coal- fired electricity, without CCS as part of the system. Moreover, it shows that by 2030 the amount of power generated in China using nuclear plants will almost equal what is generated by coal. Like it or not, coal looks like it will remain the fuel of choice for base load power, which means the world has to do a better job managing emissions from other sources in order to decrease the overall numbers.

It’s also interesting to note that fossil fuels – namely gasoline – will still be the way the world fuels its cars in 2030. This underpins the argument that despite the best of intentions, oil, where it comes from and what the supply curve looks like will still be an important part of the word economy even though some are suggesting the sun is setting on the oil industry.

If the IEA is right on the amount emissions have decreased in the last year, the question has to be asked whether the answer to decreasing emissions is closer at hand than many believe it to be – without having to invest billions of dollars in new CCS technology that may or may not work at scale. It could just be that the world needs to be consistently mindful in all aspects of its energy consumption in order to achieve the 450 ppm target and thus avoid spending billions on technology that could very well be nothing more than a white elephant.

Tags:  IEA, report