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Some argue that the solution is nuclear, a cost-effective way of producing electricity without any CO2 emissions. But the nuclear alternative faces a major hurdle in that people remain unconvinced about long-term, safe solutions for disposal and management of nuclear waste, according to Claude Mandil, director of the International Energy Agency, in The Australian Financial Review (1/3/2007, p.14).

Nuclear path can’t be only solution: The nuclear avenue is cost-effective only when producing electricity, and even if waste issues were solved, the nuclear path could not be the only solution.

Coal’s CO2 problems: Some argue that fossil fuels, and in particular coal, could solve the problem. True, coal is inexpensive and widely distributed. But its use emits enormous amounts of CO2.

CO2 dump idea "seems promising": However, a new technological avenue seems promising: capturing CO2 in the stacks of large coal users and storing it in deep geological layers. Australia is playing a leading role in demonstrating the viability of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and in overcoming the many technical challenges that remain.

CO2 dumps only feasible in limited areas: Still, even its strongest proponents acknowledge CCS is feasible only with concentrated uses of fossil fuels, not when the use is scattered among individual consumers such as in transportation.

APEC meeting crucial for energy policy: The APEC energy ministers’ meeting is of great importance as the role governments have to play in achieving such a truly sustainable energy system will be crucial. They have to let market mechanisms work but they have to supplement market mechanisms when they do not work.

Possible policies: This may involve funding research and development, using norms and standards when consumers do not receive the price signals, ensuring that the investment climate is appropriate and explaining to citizens, who would like energy availability but dislike energy production facilities, that it is not possible to have the first without having the second.

The Australian Financial Review, 1/3/2007, p. 14

An international panel of scientists recently concluded that it’s "very likely" that manmade pollution primarily from the burning of fossil fuels is warming the world. In the Northwest, that’s expected to mean warmer weather, higher sea levels, less snow and more forest fires.

Citing a leadership void at the national level, the governors — who were attending the annual winter meeting of the National Governors Association in Washington, D.C. — announced their plan.

The initiative is not without precedent. In 2003, a coalition of Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states teamed up to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Eleven states are now part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Also that year, Washington, Oregon and California created the West Coast Global Warming Initiative, which had more modest goals and seemed to lose steam when two of the three governors involved left office.

In the meantime, California has charged ahead, firmly establishing itself as a national leader on global warming issues. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed an executive order pledging carbon dioxide cuts 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. The state also has approved tough emissions standards for vehicles, which were adopted by Washington. And it approved emission caps that will come into effect as early as 2012 for some pollution sources.

In Washington, carbon dioxide from transportation amounts to about half of the total emissions.

"The real work that must happen in this arena is we need fewer cars and cleaner cars," Poulsen said. "Until we get more serious about public transit we’re only going to make a dent in the problem."

Grant Nelson, governmental affairs director for the Association of Washington Business, was pleased that the business community would have input into the process thanks to a stakeholders group that the governor is forming.

Critics have questioned the efficacy of city- and state-level global warming measures, concerned that plans to cut pollution could hurt the economy while providing little environmental benefit.

The initiative is being designed so that additional states and provinces can sign on, said Kathleen Drew, Gregoire’s climate policy expert. Leaders in British Columbia have expressed interest in the plan, she said. And it could provide a framework for a national program for combating climate change.

"We want to make sure that we’re part of a larger system," Drew said. "We can’t do it on a state-by-state basis, we’re just too small."

P-I reporter Lisa Stiffler can be reached at 206-448-8042 or lisastiffler@seattlepi.com.

© 1998-2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Drilling has begun on a well at Nirranda in Victoria’s south-west. Carbon dioxide gas will be pumped underground as part of a geosequestration trial being done by CO2CRC.

The Howard Government’s strong and continuing support for fossil fuels, and especially coal, seems to be a pragmatic policy. After all, coal is cheap, reliable and Australia has plenty for its own energy needs and export sales for decades to come. The downside is that burning coal, particularly brown coal, is the most intensive producer of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, that fuels global warming. Australia’s chief scientist (Dr Robin Batterham), has recently argued for a 50-80 per cent reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 which is considered necessary by the scientific community to avoid “dangerous” interference with our climate.

However, Australia’s energy demand is expected to soar by half over the next 15 years and the Australian Greenhouse Office estimates that our total emissions will actually rise by between 126 and 140 per cent by 2020, relative to 1990 levels. Given the recent ratification of the Kyoto Protocol without Australia, the Howard government will be under intense international pressure to address greenhouse gas emissions beyond Kyoto. It has therefore pinned considerable hope on the “silver bullet” technology it promotes in its energy policy, “Securing Australia’s Energy Future”, in the form of carbon geosequestration.

The idea is simple. You capture emissions from the smokestacks of power stations and other large stationary sources, separate out the carbon dioxide then pump it underground to seal it away in deep saline aquifers, depleted oil reservoirs and uneconomic coal seams. Since coal and natural gas generate the great majority of our electricity needs, the advantage of geosequestration is that we could foreseeably continue to use our abundant fossil-fuel reservoirs while burying most of the offending emissions – a seemingly win-win solution. So alluring is this prospect that the Government says it will commit $500 million over the next decade to help develop these technologies through private investment
 

Although the scheme certainly has long-term potential, closer scrutiny shows the emission reductions over the short-to-medium term to be very modest indeed. For example, based on the Government’s own estimates, existing generators are projected to cover 97 per cent of our electricity needs by 2010 and 75 per cent by 2020. Given that geosequestration is economically feasible only for new electricity generation plants, this means that only 3 per cent of our electricity needs can use this technology by 2010, and only 25 per cent by 2020. And since the electricity sector contributes only a third of our overall greenhouse gas emissions, geosequestration could only reduce the total by at best 1 per cent by 2010 and 8 per cent by the year 2020. So even if we take that path, rising energy demands mean that by 2020 Australia’s emissions will still be at least about 118 per cent of 1990 levels.

The Government will need to do much more to defuse the climate change issue. The first and most obvious option is to boost the proportion of electricity generated by renewable sources (wind, solar, hydro, biomass or geothermal) which are being heavily promoted in Japan and Europe. Economically and environmentally, it makes sense to become an international market leader in this expanding global market. Our Mandatory Renewable Electricity Target of 2 per cent falls well behind the target of 10 per cent by 2010 for other developed countries, such as the UK and Canada.

Substantial cuts in emissions are possible in the transport sector as well. We can’t capture exhaust fumes from moving motor vehicles, but hybrid petrol and electric vehicles are available and have been launched with great commercial success. Hybrids not only halve the amount of greenhouse gases coming from the tailpipe but also halve the amount of petrol going into the tank. Governments elsewhere, including the UK, Japan and Canada, have introduced tax credits – valued at up to A$3,500 per car – on these technologies as consumer incentives. Even the US Government has introduced a US$2,000 tax-deduction, but Australia has no such sweeteners. The Federal and State governments could lead the way in promoting hybrid cars, considering they lease about 100,000 new vehicles every year. Both greenhouse gases and taxpayer running costs will drop by up to half for each of these efficient cars, and demand for any oil imports will fall accordingly – a win-win scenario.

In the late 1990s, British Petroleum (BP) pledged to cut its emissions by 10 per cent by 2010 and has already achieved this goal, all the while setting record profits. If a fossil-fuel company can achieve an economically viable drop in emissions, surely the Australian government could aim to do the same. The government must look far more seriously at other practical and economical ways to cut emissions in the short term, beyond simply burying our wastes underground. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with the silver bullet, it’s just that a much more diverse array of bullets are needed.

A new report titled "The Endless Energy Project" reveals that the Canadian province of British Columbia could be self sufficient in energy by 2025, using a combination of hydro-electricity, domestic and neighbourhood fuel production and electricity generation. The report identified that 14 per cent of domestic energy can be generated in the home by fitting all new buildings with the capacity to capture wind, solar and bio-mass from the home. It also projected increasing localisation of energy sources to reduce losses and capture the energy from bio-mass entering the waste stream. British Columbia generates a significant portion of its electricity frin hydrioeklectric schemes.