Governments to discuss opportunities to reduce non-CO2 greenhouse gases

The Technical Expert Meetings will focus on carbon capture, storage and use, and the so called non-CO2 gases like methane and hydroflurocarbons (HFCs)—replacement gases in products like refrigerants that are friendly to the ozone layer but are powerful global warming gases.

Governments to Discuss Carbon Capture Storage and Use

The technology of Carbon, capture, storage and use is being discussed by governments and relevant stakeholders at a Technical Expert Meeting in Bonn next week, as part of a series of experts meetings on areas with high potential to curb emissions.

According to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, carbon capture and storage is one area of climate action which is crucial to achieving the internationally agreed goal of staying below a maximum two degrees Celsius temperature rise.

The International Energy Agency describes carbon capture as a “necessity for world hooked on fossil fuels” and points to the high cost and simultaneous lack of incentive policies are delaying deployment of technology – issues which are being addressed at the Bonn meeting.

Part of the problem with heat trapping carbon dioxide is that it is invisible. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development has published a video graphically illustrating the amount of carbon dioxide emitted worldwide every day, and what it would look like if filled into bubbles in Manhattan.

The technology for carbon capture is available today, and can be applied to any large–scale emissions process, including coal-fired power generation, gas and oil production, and manufacture of industrial materials such as cement, iron, steel and pulp paper.

Carbon capture and storage, also called carbon capture and sequestration, aims to prevent large amounts of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere.

This involves capturing CO2 produced by large industrial plants, compressing it for transportation and then injecting it deep into a rock formation, where it is to be permanently stored.

CCS involves three major steps:

• Capture: The separation of CO₂ from other gases produced at large industrial process facilities such as coal and natural gas power plants, oil and gas plants, steel mills and cement plants.
• Transport:Once separated, the CO₂ is compressed and transported via pipelines, trucks, ships or other methods to a suitable site for geological storage.
• Storage:CO₂ is injected into deep underground rock formations, often at depths of one kilometre or more. 

A novel approach that has EU support is being piloted in Iceland called CarbFix in which CO2 from a power plant is being mineralized in volcanic fields into basalt.

Carbon dioxide can also be deployed in industrial processes – termed as carbon capture and use (CCU) – by recycling carbon dioxide to make plastics and other products.

For example, the US company Novemer, backed by a Department of Energy grant, has developed catalysts that use CO2 and carbon monoxide in combination with propylene oxide or ethylene oxide to create sustainable polymer panels.

Other companies have come up with innovative solutions. Newlight Technologies makes smartphone cases partly using recycled CO2. DyeCoo Textile Systems, partner of both Nike and Adidas, DyeCoo uses carbon dioxide under extreme pressure so that it can be used as a substitute for water in dyeing textiles.

Image by Global CCS Institute

The world’s first power station with large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) was inaugurated in October in Canada. The project also involves carbon capture and use: around 90% of the carbon from the plant will be injected into nearby oilfields to enhance oil recovery, with the rest pumped into a saline aquifer underground.

A number of additional projects are planned around the world. But the wide-spread deployment of CCS will depend on governments putting an adequate price on carbon and the cost of technology considerably dropping.

Useful sources of information on carbon, capture, storage and use:

Global CCS Insitute

Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum

Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate

International Energy Agency

You can read here how Texas plans to capture, then reuse carbon, and here how U.S. utilities could be required to install CCS technology in all newly built, coal-fired power plants, according to a proposed rule from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Governments to discuss opportunities to reduce non-CO2 greenhouse gases

Although CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes contributed about 78% of the total greenhouse gas emission increase from 1970 to 2010, there are a number of other greenhouse gases, which also fuel climate change.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, annually, since 1970, about 25% of human-caused emissions have been in the form of non-CO2 gases.

Non-CO2 gases, in the form of short-lived climate pollutants, including methane, black carbon (soot), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and nitrous oxide (N2O) are responsible for a substantial portion of the increase in global temperatures. International efforts to reduce these pollutants can have immediate impact and slow the increase in global temperatures expected over the next 35 years by as much as 0.6°C while benefiting people’s health and the production of food.

The good news is that reduction opportunities exist and that efforts to tackle these gases are increasing. The Technical Expert Meeting on non-CO2 gases will discuss these reduction opportunities and will attempt to share best practices on the matter. The meeting will also endeavor to come up with next steps.

Here is a brief overview of the gases, their sources and what is currently already being done to reduce them.

Methane

Methane is a by-product of a range of industrial and agricultural processes, such as fossil-fuel extraction, livestock farming, or waste management. According to the IPCC, methane is 34 times stronger a heat-trapping gas than CO2 over a 100-year time scale. Researchers from Cornell University in the US have predicted that unless emissions of methane (and black carbon) are reduced immediately, the Earth will warm by 1.5°C by 2030 and by 2.0°C by between 2045 and 2050, whether or not carbon dioxide emissions are reduced.

Methane in fossil-fuel extraction

When petroleum crude oil is extracted and produced from onshore or offshore oil wells, raw natural gas associated with the oil is produced to the surface as well. Vast amounts of such associated gas are commonly flared as waste or unusable gas.

Flaring and the burning of associated gas from oil drilling sites is a significant source of methane emissions. Encouragingly, there are a range of new technologies that can reduce methane emissions.

Emissions control technologies targeting methane, with particular focus on oil and coproducing wells, liquids unloading, leaks, pneumatic devices and compressors offer cost-effective ways to substantially reduce methane emissions.

New technologies in the use of compressors can capture emissions and route them back to the process.  Dry-seal designs can control emissions in centrifugal compressors. These compressors have lower emissions, require less maintenance and are more energy-efficient than wet-seal compressors. Even with wet-seal systems, it is possible to capture emissions from seal oil and route the recovered gas back to the compressor or another process, or burn the gas.

Flaring at Prudhoe Bay oil field, Alaska (1993), Source: Grid Arendal

Additionally, the international community is beginning to take action. At Secretary-General BAN Ki-moon’s recently held Summit on Climate Change, a number of initiatives were launched to reduce both waste-related and industrial methane emissions.

Multinational oil and gas companies joined forces with governments and international organizations to cut the emissions of methane.

One such initiative is the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership, which gives companies a systematic, cost-effective way to reduce their methane emissions and transparently demonstrate the impact of their actions to stakeholders.

Another initiative that was announced is the oil and gas climate initiative that brings together a diverse group of national and international oil companies, which compose a significant share of global oil and gas production, committed to be “part of the climate solution”. They aim to build a platform to share best practices within the industry, address key climate risks, and catalyse meaningful action and coordination on climate change. While in its beginning phase, the initiative aims to focus in areas where work is underway, such as energy access, renewable energy, energy efficiency, reduction of gas flaring and methane emissions, among others – followed by regular reporting on ongoing efforts.

Methane from waste and agriculture

The decomposition of organic waste in landfills produces a gas which is composed primarily of methane. Methane is produced because rubbish dumps are anaerobic – there is no air getting into them down below. Thus any organic matter is decomposed by anaerobic bacteria which produce methane. This gas escapes and accelerates climate change.

Solid waste landfills are the third-largest human-caused source of methane, making up about 11 per cent of estimated global methane emissions.

Given the growing amounts of waste and landfills world-wide, this is a growing problem. The World Bank estimates that ten years ago there were 2.9 billion urban residents who generated about 0.64 kg of MSW per person per day (0.68 billion tonnes per year). Today these amounts have increased to about 3 billion residents generating 1.2 kg per person per day (1.3 billion tonnes per year). By 2025 this will likely increase to 4.3 billion urban residents generating about 1.42 kg/capita/day of municipal solid waste (2.2 billion tonnes per year).

Yet landfill gas, like wind and solar, can be a renewable source of energy. In agriculture, the main sources of methane are from livestock enteric fermentation, livestock waste management, rice cultivation, and agricultural waste burning. Livestock waste recovery offers a viable opportunity to utilize methane. The Asia Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO offers an excellent overview for utilizing methane as a renewable source of energy.

But there are more initiatives being taken in agriculture. Changes to livestock management can dramatically reduce methane emissions. In Australia, nutrition research is showing that there can be win-win scenarios for the industry and the environment if we can redirect the breakdown of plant material in a way that reduces the amount of methane produced while improving the amount of energy or weight gain that animals get from their feed.

Internationally, the problem is also being increasingly recognized. One such example is the Global Methane Initiative (GMI), which was launched in 2004.

GMI is an international public-private initiative that advances cost effective, near-term methane abatement and recovery and use of methane as a clean energy source in four sectors: agriculture, coal mines, municipal solid waste, oil and gas systems, and wastewater. These projects reduce GHG emissions in the near term and provide a number of important environmental and economic co-benefits such as:

• Stimulating local economic growth
• Creating new sources of affordable alternative energy
• Improving local air and water quality, with associated public health benefits
• Increasing industrial worker safety

Yet governments and companies are realizing the importance of tackling non-fossil fuel-related methane. At the Secretary-General’s summit, more than 25 cities committed to develop and carry out quantifiable plans of action to reduce short-lived climate pollutants from the waste sector by 2020. The network is anticipated to expand to 50 cities by next year with the goal of 150 cities by 2020, and eventually to include 1,000 cities.

Fluorinated gases

Fluorinated gases, or F-gases, like hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs, perfluorocarbons or PFCs and sulphur hexafluoride or SF6, are new industrial gases used in several applications from industrial refrigeration to sport shoe ‘air soles’.

F-gases replaced the ozone-depleting CFCs and HCFCs in the 1990s. They are non-ozone depleting, have low toxicity levels and low flammability. However, they are extremely potent greenhouse gases, meaning that increasing concentrations of F-gases have the potential to significantly accelerate climate change.

According to the German Federal Environment Agency, F-gases are100 to 24,000 times more harmful to the climate than CO2. Under a business-as-usual scenario, the contribution of fluorinated greenhouse gases to climate change is projected to triple from nearly 2% to around 6% of total greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050. The agency provides an excellent overview of the main uses of F-gases:

HFCs:

• stationary and mobile refrigeration and air-conditioning applications (as refrigerant)
• insulating materials/foam plastics (as blowing agent)
• aerosols (as propellant gas)
• in the production of HCFCs (formation of HFC-23 as by-product)
• in semiconductor production (as etching gas)
• as a fire extinguishing agent, and
• as a solvent

For more detailed information on HFCs, please read the United Nations Environment Programme’s assessment of the threat of not controlling HFCs.

PFCs:

• in semiconductor production (as etching gas)
• in circuit board production (as etching gas)
• in refrigeration systems (as refrigerant)

SF6

• in electrical equipment (as insulating gas and arc-quenching gas)
• in aluminium foundries (as cleaning gas)
• in magnesium foundries (as cover gas)
• in semiconductor production (as etching gas)
• in high-voltage electronic devices (electron microscopes, x-ray equipment etc.)
• in car tyres (as filling gas)
• in noise-insulating windows (as insulating gas)
• in the production of photovoltaic cells (as etching gas)
• in the production of optical fibres (for fluorine doping)
• as a tracer gas, and
• as a leak detection gas.

There is good news. There are ways and means to replace these gases in industry and transport.

Momentum to reduce these gases is growing.

At the Secretary-General’s summit, More than 20 countries and 10 international organizations announced their support to begin formal negotiations of an amendment to phase down the production and consumption of HFCs under the Montreal Protocol, while emissions accounting and reporting would remain under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They stressed the need to begin formal negotiations in November 2014.

Supporters of the Joint Statement on Phasing Down Climate Potent HFCs also committed to promote public procurement of climate-friendly low, global-warming-potential (GWP) alternatives and welcomed complementary private sector-led efforts, including the formation of a Global Cold Food Chain Council and a Global Refrigerant Management Initiative on HFCs, with a goal of reducing global emissions by 30 per cent to 50 per cent within 10 years.

Nitrous oxide

Nitrous Oxide (N₂O) is almost 300 times more harmful to the climate system than carbon dioxide.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, its sources are the following:

• Agriculture. Nitrous oxide is emitted when people add nitrogen to the soil through the use of synthetic fertilizers. Agricultural soil management is the largest source of N₂O emissions. Nitrous oxide is also emitted during the breakdown of nitrogen in livestock manure and urine.
• Transportation. Nitrous oxide is emitted when transportation fuels are burned. Motor vehicles, including passenger cars and trucks, are the primary source of N₂O emissions from transportation. The amount of N₂O emitted from transportation depends on the type of fuel and vehicle technology, maintenance, and operating practices.
• Industry. Nitrous oxide is generated as a byproduct during the production of nitric acid, which is used to make synthetic commercial fertilizer, and in the production of adipic acid, which is used to make fibers, like nylon, and other synthetic products.

Nitrous oxide’s largest source is from fertilizer production for agricultural purposes.

Nitric acid (HNO₃) is the raw material for nitrate fertilizers. During the production process of this kind of fertilizer, ammonia is burned. One undesirable side effect is that during this combustion process fractions of ammonia will be released as nitrous oxide.

Next to obvious climate benefits, reducing nitrous oxide also has key economic benefits. A study by UNEP points out that an across-the-board improvement in nitrogen use efficiency of 20 per cent would cost around US$12 billion annually, but would save around US$23 billion in annual fertilizer costs alone. Additional environmental, climate and human benefits could be worth an estimated US$160 billion per annum.

The good news is that solutions exist.

One example lies in different farming methods.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) FAO promotes organic agriculture as an alternative approach that maximizes the performance of renewable resources and optimizes nutrient and energy flows in agro-ecosystems.

Life cycle assessments show that emissions in conventional production systems are always higher than those of organic systems, based on production area. Soil emissions of nitrous oxides and methane from arable or pasture use of dried peat lands can be avoided by organic management practices.

The FAO found that many field trials worldwide show that organic fertilization compared to mineral fertilization is increasing soil organic carbon and thus, sequestering large amounts of CO₂ from the atmosphere to the soil. Lower greenhouse gas emissions for crop production and enhanced carbon sequestration, coupled with additional benefits of biodiversity and other environmental services, makes organic agriculture a farming method with many advantages and considerable potential for mitigating and adopting to climate change.

Other recent research has found that using no-till and rotation practices in farm fields can significantly reduce field emissions of nitrous oxide.

Another example is N2O prevention technology.

The application of N2O prevention technology in the industrial fertilizer production enables extensive reductions of greenhouse gas at relatively small costs. The required investments depend on the size and the type of the plant as well as the selected prevention technology.