Clean fossil fuels 'will power world into next century'
Telegraph | News | Clean fossil fuels 'will power world into next century'
By Charles Clover Environment Editor in Montreal
(Filed: 08/12/2005)
Fossil fuels will still be generating most global electricity at the end of this century, but new technology will be pumping the carbon emissions underground, an energy expert forecast yesterday.
Mark Jaccard told the climate change conference of 180 countries in Montreal that the cost of new clean coal power stations was likely to be roughly the same as nuclear or renewable energy, but more publicly acceptable.
Britain has launched an energy review that will examine such carbon capture, and Gordon Brown has announced a partnership with Norway to look into pumping carbon dioxide from power stations into North Sea oil wells.
However, the United Nations intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC), which has released a report on carbon capture and storage, says the new technology is expensive and will never be taken up using voluntary measures alone - as Washington has advocated in talks on global warming.
Prof Jaccard told The Daily Telegraph: "If humanity is serious about huge carbon emission cuts this century, zero-emission fossil fuels will dominate nuclear, renewables and energy efficiency."
He has worked out that Britain would need not only to replace its existing nuclear power stations but to double their number if it were to generate enough electricity and to fuel its transport - whether by charging electric cars or by making hydrogen or biofuels - by nuclear means alone.
He said: "It is one thing to build a nuclear power plant on an existing site, but imagine building 15 new ones."
In his book, Sustainable Fossil Fuels - the Unusual Suspect in the Quest for Clean and Enduring Energy, Prof Jaccard takes into account the risks to nuclear power plants from terrorism before concluding that 60 per cent of the world's power will still come from fossil fuels at the end of the 21st century, compared with 85 per cent today.
The IPCC, the world's leading body on climate change research, says government intervention in the market would be a vital factor.
Bert Metz, the Dutch co-chairman of the IPCC's working group on mitigation, said carbon-capture technology would not come into widespread use without a trading system that placed value on the saved carbon - such as the Kyoto treaty set up - or other forms of government regulation that President George W Bush has rejected as damaging to the US economy.
"Without clear incentives, there will not be an application of this technology," said Dr Metz.
Clean coal technologies are already viable in Norway because the oil and gas industries pay a carbon tax.
The IPCC report says the most developed way of burying carbon dioxide is in the geological strata where the fossil fuels are found.
The past year has been the costliest ever for weather-related natural disasters, the insurance industry told the conference yesterday.
Preliminary estimates by the Munich Re Foundation put economic losses in 2005 at more than $200 billion (�115 billion) with insured losses at more than $70 billion. Until now, 2004 had been considered the most costly year with respective figures of $145 billion and $45 billion.
This year's figures were pushed up by the highest number of hurricanes or storms since records began in 1850, and the strongest hurricane recorded. Insurers say they are part of a trend linked to climate change as a result of human-made emissions.
cclover@telegraph.co.uk
By Charles Clover Environment Editor in Montreal
(Filed: 08/12/2005)
Fossil fuels will still be generating most global electricity at the end of this century, but new technology will be pumping the carbon emissions underground, an energy expert forecast yesterday.
Mark Jaccard told the climate change conference of 180 countries in Montreal that the cost of new clean coal power stations was likely to be roughly the same as nuclear or renewable energy, but more publicly acceptable.
Britain has launched an energy review that will examine such carbon capture, and Gordon Brown has announced a partnership with Norway to look into pumping carbon dioxide from power stations into North Sea oil wells.
However, the United Nations intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC), which has released a report on carbon capture and storage, says the new technology is expensive and will never be taken up using voluntary measures alone - as Washington has advocated in talks on global warming.
Prof Jaccard told The Daily Telegraph: "If humanity is serious about huge carbon emission cuts this century, zero-emission fossil fuels will dominate nuclear, renewables and energy efficiency."
He has worked out that Britain would need not only to replace its existing nuclear power stations but to double their number if it were to generate enough electricity and to fuel its transport - whether by charging electric cars or by making hydrogen or biofuels - by nuclear means alone.
He said: "It is one thing to build a nuclear power plant on an existing site, but imagine building 15 new ones."
In his book, Sustainable Fossil Fuels - the Unusual Suspect in the Quest for Clean and Enduring Energy, Prof Jaccard takes into account the risks to nuclear power plants from terrorism before concluding that 60 per cent of the world's power will still come from fossil fuels at the end of the 21st century, compared with 85 per cent today.
The IPCC, the world's leading body on climate change research, says government intervention in the market would be a vital factor.
Bert Metz, the Dutch co-chairman of the IPCC's working group on mitigation, said carbon-capture technology would not come into widespread use without a trading system that placed value on the saved carbon - such as the Kyoto treaty set up - or other forms of government regulation that President George W Bush has rejected as damaging to the US economy.
"Without clear incentives, there will not be an application of this technology," said Dr Metz.
Clean coal technologies are already viable in Norway because the oil and gas industries pay a carbon tax.
The IPCC report says the most developed way of burying carbon dioxide is in the geological strata where the fossil fuels are found.
The past year has been the costliest ever for weather-related natural disasters, the insurance industry told the conference yesterday.
Preliminary estimates by the Munich Re Foundation put economic losses in 2005 at more than $200 billion (�115 billion) with insured losses at more than $70 billion. Until now, 2004 had been considered the most costly year with respective figures of $145 billion and $45 billion.
This year's figures were pushed up by the highest number of hurricanes or storms since records began in 1850, and the strongest hurricane recorded. Insurers say they are part of a trend linked to climate change as a result of human-made emissions.
cclover@telegraph.co.uk
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