Deep Emission Reductions Research Articles

Impacts of Groundwater Constraints on Saudi Arabia's Low-Carbon Electricity Supply Strategy.

Balancing groundwater depletion, socioeconomic development and food security in Saudi Arabia will require policy that promotes expansion of unconventional freshwater supply options, such as wastewater recycling and desalination. As these processes consume more electricity than conventional freshwater supply technologies, Saudi Arabia's electricity system is vulnerable to groundwater conservation policy. This paper examines strategies for adapting to long-term groundwater constraints in Saudi Arabia's freshwater and electricity supply sectors with an integrated modeling framework. The approach combines electricity and freshwater supply planning models across provinces to provide an improved representation of coupled infrastructure systems. The tool is applied to study the interaction between policy aimed at a complete phase-out of nonrenewable groundwater extraction and concurrent policy aimed at achieving deep reductions in electricity sector carbon emissions. We find that transitioning away from nonrenewable groundwater use by the year 2050 could increase electricity demand by more than 40% relative to 2010 conditions, and require investments similar to strategies aimed at transitioning away from fossil fuels in the electricity sector. Higher electricity demands under groundwater constraints reduce flexibility of supply side options in the electricity sector to limit carbon emissions, making it more expensive to fulfill climate sustainability objectives. The results of this analysis underscore the importance of integrated long-term planning approaches for Saudi Arabia's electricity and freshwater supply systems.

Toward a club of carbon markets

This paper proposes the creation of a club of carbon markets (CCM), to promote deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by supporting the development, harmonization, and increased ambition of domestic carbon markets. To achieve its aims, the club would establish common or reciprocal standards for environmental market infrastructure, transparency and environmental integrity; offer mutual recognition of members’ emissions units; allow participating jurisdictions to share experience and gain assistance in building institutional capacity; and promote domestic and cross-border investment in low-carbon development. Using a suite of incentives, including some from the trade arena, a club of carbon markets could serve as a powerful attractive nucleus for broadening the participation of jurisdictions in climate mitigation, much as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) served as the nucleus for broadening trade in products and services. A carbon markets club could be launched under UNFCCC auspices, but a more promising avenue might be to pursue the creation of the CCM as a complement to but outside the UN talks.

Effect of O2 Concentration on Corrosion Rate of Steels in Supercritical CO2

The carbon capture and storage (CCS) in geological reservoirs is now considered to be one of the main options for achieving deep reductions in CO2 emissions. Generally, the purity of captured CO2 is only about 95% and can contain trace gases such as O2, CO, SOx and NOx. In the presence of a water phase, these trace gases can contribute to the corrosiveness of high pressurehigh temperature CO2 (supercritical CO2) systems. In this study, corrosion experiments of supercritical CO2 with various amounts of O2 were carried out to study the effect of small concentrations of O2 on the corrosion rate of two kinds of carbon steels C75 and X65 and three kinds of stainless steels 13Cr, 2205 and 904L in aqueous supercritical CO2 at 80 °C under 12 MPa. The decay kinetics of small starting O2 concentrations were investigated and used for the experiments with continuous replenishment of used-up O2. The results indicated that constant O2 concentrations in supercritical CO2, even trace of O2 (1.50×10), could enhance the corrosion rate of carbon steels tremendously (more than 100 mm/a). Under this condition, even the corrosion rate of 13Cr stainless steel obviously increased. However, surprisingly, with high O2 concentrations seemed to exhibit passivation effect and the corrosion rates for carbon steels and 13Cr stainless steel were relatively low. The 2205 and 904L stainless steels were unaffected by addition of O2 and showed high resistance (< 0.01 mm/a) to the aqueous supercritical CO2 corrosion.

Possible energy futures for Brazil and Latin America in conservative and stringent mitigation pathways up to 2050

Latin America has a unique position to address climate change impacts due to its many mitigation opportunities and its growing economy. This paper applied two global and one regional integrated assessment models to assess the energy and emissions trends in Brazil and the rest of the Latin American region up to 2050 based on a set of scenarios consistent with current trends and with the 2°C global mitigation target. The models show that to achieve this target, deep CO2 emission reductions are needed. The power sector offers the greatest mitigation opportunities. The implementation of CCS, in combination with fossil fuels and bioenergy, and hydro, biomass and wind energy are identified in this study as the most promising low-carbon options for the region. The realistic implementation of these options will depend, however, on their capability to overcome the present technical, economic, environmental and social challenges. Besides, an appropriate policy framework to stimulate the transformation of the energy system is also important. Brazil is the first country in Latin America to adopt a national voluntary mitigation goal by law. However, the assessment of the effectiveness of this goal up to now becomes difficult due to the vague targets established.

Understanding constraints to the transformation rate of global energy infrastructure

A massive transformation of the global energy supply system is required if deep reductions in atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions are to be achieved. A top–down review of historical data and energy forecasts provides a perspective on the magnitude of the challenge. Global engineering capability has expanded significantly over the last two decades, accommodating more than 100 GW/year increase in electricity generation infrastructure. However, business‐as‐usual demand forecasts to 2050 will require more than double the global rates of energy project execution. Transforming to a low‐carbon energy supply mix requires 30–70 GW/year of additional infrastructure, due to the increased reliance on intermittent renewables, and the earlier‐than‐expected replacement of existing coal power plants. Although all power systems share many similar subsystems that will need to be delivered regardless of the technology type, meeting the extra demands for engineering design, construction and/or supply chains may not be possible. The discussion focuses only on physical limitations of electricity generation, specifically around the timing and scale of retiring and/or replacing coal‐fired power generation capacity to meet the International Energy Agency's two‐degree scenario. We ignore the economics and politics of the transition scenarios and the transformation of the transportation and industrial sectors. What is clear is that the longer the delay in starting a significant transformation, the greater the challenge will become. Decision makers must understand the constraints to technology transitions to deliver effective policy. A broad international consensus is not required, instead reaching agreements and developing economically sustainable pathways to technology transitions in the United States, China, and India is more likely to be successful and the only means for significantly curbing global emissions. WIREs Energy Environ 2016, 5:33–48. doi: 10.1002/wene.177This article is categorized under: Energy Systems Economics &gt; Systems and Infrastructure Energy and Climate &gt; Systems and Infrastructure Energy Policy and Planning &gt; Systems and Infrastructure Energy Research &amp; Innovation &gt; Economics and Policy

Tracking development paths: Monitoring driving forces and the impact of carbon-free energy sources in Spain

The evolution of the national development path has gravity in determining the future emissions outcomes of all nations. Deep reductions in emissions require a focus not just on energy and mitigation policy but on factors underlying this development. The Kaya identity has been recommended to track national progress with respect to sustainability and carbon emissions in the development path. This study applies an extended Kaya identity to the energy-related carbon emissions of Spain. Implemented through a divisia index decomposition annually from 1990 to 2011, it highlights the impact of factors such as affluence and energy intensity. A marked departure from previous studies is the separation of the effects of the carbon-free energy sources; both renewables and nuclear as fundamental mitigation measures. The results show that affluence and population have acted to increase emissions and energy intensity was increasing until recent years. Fuel substitution has acted to decrease emissions but while renewable energy has reduced emissions with the increasing importance of biomass, wind and solar, the decline in share of nuclear has acted to increase emissions. Implications for the development path and policy are discussed and lessons are relevant both for industrialised and industrialising nations.

Decentralised Energy Futures: The Changing Emissions Reduction Landscape

The world is witnessing an energy revolution as renewables become more competitive and energy security becomes a high priority for an increasing number of countries. This development is changing the point along the supply chain ripe for reducing emissions. Whereas carbon capture and storage (CCS) coupled to coal or gas power production offers the potential to decarbonise the current centralised power systems, this relies on a significant increase in electrification to achieve deep emission reductions beyond the power sector, including industrial emissions and transportation. At the same time there is a trend towards decentralised industrial processes, e.g., driven by cost reductions in decentralised production systems and miniature processing plant. New strategies for reducing emissions from decentralised industrial and energy emission point sources will be increasingly important. This paper evaluates different emission reduction strategies that may be relevant to a decentralised energy and manufacturing future, including increased electrification, energy storage, renewable energy and renewable feedstock. Systemic opportunities or barriers and considerations of policy and decentralised decision-making are examined.

Attitudes and behaviours of private sector landlords towards the energy efficiency of tenanted homes

The UK׳s housing stock generates approximately 27% of the country׳s total annual carbon emissions. In light of the legally binding targets to reduce carbon emissions, new housing is subject to a tightening of regulations governing energy demand and efficiency resulting in a gradual improvement in carbon emissions. The question is how to achieve the deep carbon emission reductions from existing domestic properties, of which 75% will still be in use in 2050. Government has sought to provide incentives to homeowners to improve the energy efficiency of their households, and mandate improvements in socially rented housing using a range of fiscal measures, most recently the ‘Green Deal’. There has however been little consideration of the 18% of UK households who privately rent their home, a tenure that is growing fast. The aim of this research is to investigate the factors that influence private sector landlords when considering energy efficiency improvements to their tenanted homes. The results indicate that government policy has consistently failed to engage private sector landlords in the issue of energy efficiency and thus measures must be taken to understand the motivations of landlords in order to design effective incentives and interventions.

Low carbon standard and transmission investment analysis in the new multi-region US power sector model FACETS

This paper presents a new US multi-region energy systems model built in the TIMES modeling system: the Framework for Analysis of Climate-Energy-Technology Systems (FACETS). The model is designed to analyze energy technology options and policy scenarios across sectors and regions, including the increasingly important interactions between state, regional, and federal policies. FACETS contains a realistic representation of key infrastructure, while retaining the flexibility to explore deep carbon emission reductions and other large changes from the baseline energy system. It is built using a unique, flexible multi-region approach so that the geographic relationships that drive the costs of energy technology transitions can be captured. Significant enhancements to the Veda-TIMES system and a GIS-results viewer permit the massive data handling needed to represent these relationships and interpret results. An analysis of a federal clean energy standard (CES) and investment in the transmission grid is presented.

CO2 deserts: implications of existing CO2 supply limitations for carbon management.

Efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change will require deep reductions in anthropogenic CO2 emissions on the scale of gigatonnes per year. CO2 capture and utilization and/or storage technologies are a class of approaches that can substantially reduce CO2 emissions. Even though examples of this approach, such as CO2-enhanced oil recovery, are already being practiced on a scale >0.05 Gt/year, little attention has been focused on the supply of CO2 for these projects. Here, facility-scale data newly collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was processed to produce the first comprehensive map of CO2 sources from industrial sectors currently supplying CO2 in the United States. Collectively these sources produce 0.16 Gt/year, but the data reveal the presence of large areas without access to CO2 at an industrially relevant scale (>25 kt/year). Even though some facilities with the capability to capture CO2 are not doing so and in some regions pipeline networks are being built to link CO2 sources and sinks, much of the country exists in "CO2 deserts". A life cycle analysis of the sources reveals that the predominant source of CO2, dedicated wells, has the largest carbon footprint further confounding prospects for rational carbon management strategies.

Costs and Benefits of the Transition to Low-carbon Economyin Russia: Perspectives up to 2050

This paper investigates costs and benefits associated with low-carbon economic development pathways realization to the mid XXI century. 30 scenarios covering practically all “visions of the future” were developed by several research groups based on scenario assumptions agreed upon in advance. It is shown that with a very high probability Russian energy-related GHG emissions will reach the peak before 2050, which will be at least 11% below the 1990 emission level. The height of the peak depends on portfolio of GHG emissions mitigation measures. Efforts to keep 2050 GHG emissions 25-30% below the 1990 level bring no GDP losses. GDP impact of deep GHG emission reduction - by 50% of the 1990 level - varies from plus 4% to minus 9%. Finally, very deep GHG emission reduction - by 80% - may bring GDP losses of over 10%.

Strengthening the climate action movement: strategies from histories

Background: Since many governments lack the motivation to lead deep emission reduction initiatives, the climate action movement must strengthen its campaigns.Method and results: This paper offers strategies for the movement derived from historical analysis of mechanisms that achieved effective social change in the past. Common elements of climate action with past social change movements, together with some differences, are identified.Conclusion: Although technologies, strategies and tactics vary, climate action groups can agree to support a shared common goal: effective climate mitigation, that can be accomplished not only through outward-oriented tactics, but also by forms of climate activism that are prefigurative – that is, based on action within local communities. Furthermore, the diverse campaigns that take place on a variety of scales and spaces, conducted by heterogeneous groups, should be integrated by establishing national and international hubs to facilitate coordination and communication.

Deep CO2 emission reductions in a global bottom-up model approach

Most studies that explore deep GHG emission reduction scenarios assume that climate goals are reached by implementing least-cost emission mitigation options, typically by implementing a global carbon tax. Although such a method provides insight into total mitigation costs, it does not provide much information about how to achieve a transition towards a low-carbon energy system, which is of critical importance to achieving ambitious climate targets. To enable sensible deep emission reduction strategies, this study analysed the effectiveness of 16 specific mitigation measures on a global level up to 2050, by using an energy-system simulation model called TIMER. The measures range from specific energy efficiency measures, like banning traditional light bulbs and subsidizing electric vehicles, to broader policies like introducing a carbon tax in the electricity sector. All measures combined lead to global CO2 emission reductions ranging between 39% and 73% compared to baseline by 2050, depending on the inclusion of sectoral carbon taxes and the availability of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and nuclear power. Although the effectiveness of the measures differs largely across regions, this study indicates that measures aimed at stimulating low-carbon electricity production result in the highest reductions in all regions.Policy relevanceThe results of the calculations can be used to evaluate the effects of individual climate change mitigation measures and identify priorities in discussions on global and regional policies. The type of fragmented policy scenarios presented here could provide a relevant bottom-up alternative to cost-optimal implementation of policies driven by a carbon tax. We identify overlapping and even counter-productive climate policy measures through an analysis that presents the policy effectiveness by region, and by sector. The set of 16 policy measures addresses the largest emitting sectors and represents options that are often discussed as part of planned policies.

Thinking globally and siting locally – renewable energy and biodiversity in a rapidly warming world

Increasing greenhouse gas emissions are projected to raise global average surface temperatures by 3˚–4 °C within this century, dramatically increasing the extinction risk for terrestrial and freshwater species and severely disrupting ecosystems across the globe. Limiting the magnitude of warming and its devastating impacts on biodiversity will require deep emissions reductions that include the rapid, large-scale deployment of low-carbon renewable energy. Concerns about potential adverse impacts to species and ecosystems from the expansion of renewable energy development will play an important role in determining the pace and scale of emissions reductions and hence, the impact of climate change on global biodiversity. Efforts are underway to reduce uncertainty regarding wildlife impacts from renewable energy development, but such uncertainty cannot be eliminated. We argue the need to accept some and perhaps substantial risk of impacts to wildlife from renewable energy development in order to limit the far greater risks to biodiversity loss owing to climate change. We propose a path forward for better reconciling expedited renewable energy development with wildlife conservation in a warming world.

Designing policy for deployment of CCS in industry

Attaining deep greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions in industry in order to support a stringent climate change control target will be difficult without recourse to CO2 capture and storage (CCS). Using the insights from a long-term bottom-up energy systems model, and undertaking a sectoral assessment, we investigated the importance of CCS in the industrial sector. Under climate policy aimed at limiting atmospheric concentration of GHGs to 650 ppm CO2e, costs could increase fivefold when CCS is excluded from the portfolio of mitigation option measures in the industry sector as compared to when CCS is excluded in the power sector. This effect is driven largely by the lack of alternatives for deep emission reductions in industry. Our main policy conclusion is that a broader recognition of CCS in industrial applications in both current policy discussions and research, development, and demonstration funding programmes is justified. In recognition of the heterogeneity of the many types of industrial production processes, the size and location of industrial CO2 sources, the specific need for CCS-retrofitting, and the exposure of most industrial sectors to international trade, policies aimed at supporting CCS must distinguish between the different challenges faced by the power and industrial sectors.

A comparison of greenhouse gas emissions in the residential sector of major Canadian cities

One of the most significant sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Canada is the buildings sector, with over 30% of national energy end-use occurring in buildings. Energy use must be addressed to reduce emissions from the buildings sector, as nearly 70% of all Canada’s energy used in the residential sector comes from fossil sources. An analysis of GHG emissions from the existing residential building stock for the year 2010 has been conducted for six Canadian cities with different climates and development histories: Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax. Variation across these cities is seen in their 2010 GHG emissions, due to climate, characteristics of the building stock, and energy conversion technologies, with Halifax having the highest per capita emissions at 5.55 tCO2e/capita and Montreal having the lowest at 0.32 tCO2e/capita. The importance of the provincial electricity grid’s carbon intensity is emphasized, along with era of construction, occupancy, floor area, and climate. Approaches to achieving deep emissions reductions include innovative retrofit financing and city level residential energy conservation by-laws; each region should seek location-appropriate measures to reduce energy demand within its residential housing stock, as well as associated GHG emissions.

The political feasibility of potent enforcement in a post-Kyoto climate agreement

To be effective, a post-Kyoto climate agreement must secure significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions by all (key) emitters. Potent participation and compliance enforcement will be required to make it in every key emitter’s best interest to participate in, and comply with, an agreement which specifies deep emissions reductions for all its signatories. This article considers the conditions under which potent enforcement would likely be politically feasible. Based on assessments of the current political landscape, and on the sets of constraints that characterize negotiations over enforcement systems, the article firstly finds that neither type of enforcement would be politically feasible if agreement is sought among all key emitters. Secondly, because participation enforcement is perceived as less legitimate than compliance enforcement, the coalition of countries prepared to accept the former is likely smaller than the coalition prepared to accept the latter. Thirdly, participation enforcement likely places stricter requirements on the coalition’s membership and size. Thus, while compliance enforcement should in principle always be politically feasible among some coalition, reaching agreement on participation enforcement is less likely. To the extent that participation enforcement is politically feasible, however, an agreement which enforces the cooperation of all key emitters may be attainable.

A Frequency-domain Diagnosis Tool for Early Leakage Detection at Geologic Carbon Sequestration Sites

Abstract Carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration have the potential to enable deep reductions in global carbon emissions if high storage efficiency can be achieved. A major hurdle to industrial-scale implementation of geological carbon sequestration (GCS) projects is the potential migration of fluids from the storage formations and the resulting legal and financial liabilities. The capability to accurately identify pathways by which stored CO2 could leak, has leaked, or is leaking from the targeted storage zone is thus of paramount importance to site licensees and regulators. Many monitoring, verification, and accounting (MVA) techniques have been devised over the years, however, pressure-based leakage detection remains one of the most sensitive and cost-effective technique for early detection of fluid migration from storage formations. It has consistently received the highest score in terms of benefit/cost ratio and it provides the greatest potential for leakage detection with broad areal coverage. Although much has been done in the area of forward modeling of leakage scenarios, the more challenging problems of pressure inversion for leakage detection, monitoring network design, and applications to operational GCS monitoring deserve more attention. Given the advent of permanent downhole gauges, which are real-time pressure and temperature monitoring systems installed at the bottom hole of reservoir wells, a salient question is how to leverage these infrastructure investments to reduce GCS risks caused by leakage from storage formations. Traditional well testing techniques impose constant injection rates and have been mainly applied to inferring reservoir formation properties. In contrast, the harmonic pulse testing (HPT) technique employed by this study induces sinusoidal flows into the reservoir through a pulser well, and pressure oscillations are collected at one or more observation wells. In this sense, HPT bears similarity to many geophysical techniques. The main difference is its low cost. By systematically varying pulsing frequencies, HPT can stimulate larger reservoir volumes than the conventional well testing techniques do and generate more useful information. Leakage will cause different pressure

CCS for Trade-exposed Sectors: An Evaluation of Incentive Policies

Abstract Several of the world's most carbon-intensive industries have no current alternatives to CCS for deep emissions reduction because much of the CO2 is unavoidably generated by their production processes, not only from fuel use. As a consequence, many models of global decarbonisation foresee a potentially critical role for CCS. The importance of CCS in industrial applications is not matched by existing policy attention and in some key sectors technological progress is slow. CCS suffers from several market failures that confront other low-carbon technologies. In contrast to the power sector, the trade-exposure of the manufacturing and hydrocarbon sectors that would need to deploy CCS exacerbates these market failures and poses significant challenges for policy that creates the foundations for long-term climate change mitigation. Smart policy design will be able to facilitate a transition to a situation in which CCS is actually used to decrease costs, specifically those associated with greenhouse gas abatement. In a world that seriously confronts the climate challenge the first firms that install CCS will reap the benefits of reducing their marginal production costs and in the long run consumers will benefit from lower prices. In addition, producers and users of fossil fuels in sectors where marginal abatement costs could be very high, such as transport, will benefit from some relief from emissions costs as CCS in industrial applications creates headroom within a declining carbon budget. This paper attempts to address two specific questions that policy makers will need to tackle in order to design such policies: how could technology development be accelerated to ensure its availability for deployment in the 2020s?; how might incentive policies be designed to support commercial CCS investments in trade-exposed sectors?.

Long-Term Transport Energy Demand and Climate Policy: Alternative Visions on Transport Decarbonization in Energy Economy Models

Abstract Decarbonizing transport will be necessary to limit global warming below 2 °C. Due to persistent reliance on fossil fuels, it is posited that transport is more difficult to decarbonize than other sectors. To test this hypothesis, we compare long-term transport energy demand and emission projections for China, USA and the world from five large-scale energy-economy models. We diagnose the model's characteristics by subjecting them to three climate policies. We systematically analyze mitigation levers along the chain of causality from mobility to emissions, finding that some models lack relevant mitigation options. We partially confirm that transport is less reactive to a given carbon tax than the non-transport sectors: in the first half of the century, transport mitigation is delayed by 10–30 years compared to non-transport mitigation. At high carbon prices towards the end of the century, however, the three global models achieve deep transport emission reductions by >90% through the use of advanced vehicle technologies and low-carbon primary energy; especially biomass with CCS (carbon capture and sequestration) plays a crucial role. The extent to which earlier mitigation is possible strongly depends on implemented technologies and model structure. Compared to the global models, the two partial-equilibrium models are less flexible in their reaction to climate policies.