* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download CCS - Panda
Climate change and poverty wikipedia , lookup
2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference wikipedia , lookup
Citizens' Climate Lobby wikipedia , lookup
Economics of climate change mitigation wikipedia , lookup
Energiewende in Germany wikipedia , lookup
Climate change mitigation wikipedia , lookup
Years of Living Dangerously wikipedia , lookup
European Union Emission Trading Scheme wikipedia , lookup
Carbon governance in England wikipedia , lookup
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report wikipedia , lookup
Climate change in Canada wikipedia , lookup
Politics of global warming wikipedia , lookup
German Climate Action Plan 2050 wikipedia , lookup
Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme wikipedia , lookup
Fossil fuel phase-out wikipedia , lookup
Low-carbon economy wikipedia , lookup
Carbon capture and storage wikipedia , lookup
Carbon capture and storage (timeline) wikipedia , lookup
Mitigation of global warming in Australia wikipedia , lookup
FREEZING CLIMATE CHANGE WWF POSITION STATEMENT – EU CLIMATE & ENERGY PACKAGE WWF briefing on the EU’s Carbon Capture and Storage legislative proposal November 2008 This briefing summarises WWF’s response to the 2008 Commission’s legislative proposal, the debate of the EU parliament with the Council on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and related questions. background facts on the threats to the climate of emissions from unabated coal burn “If we burn most of the available coal without CO2 capture, even with the lowest estimates of available coal reserves, it will be impractical if not impossible to avoid passing climate tipping points with disastrous consequences.”1 “The European Union relies heavily on coal. Solid fossil fuels, i.e predominantly coal, presently account for approximately 18% of all energy consumption and around 30% of electricity consumption”2. In addition coal is responsible for about 60% of all conventional fossil fuel power generation in EU3. Almost half of all coal (about 120 million tons of oil equivalent) burned in the EU is imported from countries outside of Europe. In addition, the importation of coal is growing as is the global price of coal. For example today with the price around $US 60/ton the EU is paying about twice as much for imported coal than it was a few years ago4. “In the EU27, around 950 million tons of CO2 were emitted from coal-fired power stations in 2005. This represents […..] 24% of EU CO2 emissions across all sectors”5. Because of the comparably low generation costs and in the absence of strong coal-containment policies, the IEA ‘reference scenario’ estimates overall new-build power capacity additions in the EU to be around 870 GigaWatt (GW) between today and 2030. Much of this would replace existing and ageing power capacity and under this scenario much of it would be coal. This compares to about 730 GW electric capacity in the EU 27 today. In other words, in about 25 years the EU27 could turn over almost its entire power capacity. This new capacity would require almost €1.5 trillion of investment, equivalent to 13% of the annual GDP of the EU6. If only one quarter of those projected new power stations were to be coalbased without CCS and considering the life-time of new plants of at least 40 years Europe will have find it very difficult to achieve its long-term climate goals of cutting emissions by more than 50% below 1990 levels by mid century. There is almost 200GW of coal fired capacity in the EU27 today. According to Prognos, about three quarters of this capacity is over 25 years old and one third will be replaced (likely with unabated coal) between now and 2015, with another 50 GW being replaced by 20257 WWF European Policy Office 168 avenue de Tervurenlaan Box 20 B-1150 Brussels Hansen, J. (2007). Letter to Gordon Brown from Jim Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies EU Commission I (2007): Commission Staff Working Document – Impact Assessment for the Commission Communication on “Sustainable Power Generation from fossil fuels: Aiming for near Zero emissions from coal after 2020” 3 DG TREN (2007): EU Energy and Transport in Figures 4 EU Commission II (2007): Commission Staff Working Document – EU Energy Policy Data 5 see: EU Commission I (2007) 6 IEA (2006): World Energy Outlook 2006 7 Prognos AG (2006): The future of coal, Part 1 1 2 Tel: +32 2 743 88 00 Fax: +32 2 743 88 19 E-mail: [email protected] www.panda.org/eu 1 Average CO2 emissions from existing unabated coal fired power stations in EU (>1000g CO2/ kWh)8 and of new coal-fired power stations (680 – 900gCO2/kWh) could be reduced to 90 – 150 gCO2/kWh with effective CCS9. Indeed retrofitting all existing coal-fired power stations in the EU with CCS based on unabated emission levels could reduce European CO2 emissions by about 20%. In addition carbon capture technologies are likely to substantially reduce conventional air pollution (e.g. sulphur dioxide) by 80 – 90% and subsequent health impacts compared to a normal coal fired power station that is already subject to mandatory flue gas desulfurization requirements in EU10. In other words, given that developed nations need to reduce their emissions by up to 95% by 205011 in order to play their fair role in keeping global average temperature rise well below 2 degree global warming - the EU cannot allow a single new coal-fired power station to be built that is not fitted with functioning carbon capture and storage from the outset. However, provided current gas price hikes and debates on import dependency for gas remain, and as natural gas exploration (similar to oil) is likely to peak in a few years, the default choice of conventional fuel will unfortunately be coal. Indeed this has been signaled by Denmark who recently withdraw its moratorium on building new coal power stations. This intention to return to coal burn is particularly alarming from a climate change perspective. Much of this resurgence of unabated coal in particular is being justified on the grounds that new stations will by “carbon capture ready” at some point in the future. However, in practice this claim is rarely backed up by any substantive technical, financial or regulatory commitments, with no guarantees over when, if at all, CCS would be fitted. Any decision or lack of intervention that allows the build of new unabated coal-fired plants in the EU, with only vague promises of “CCS readiness”, would in fact lock the EU into yet more carbon-intensive energy infrastructure. Moreover, it would send a worrying signal to the rest of the world that the use of unabated coal is acceptable in a carbon-constrained world and in a post-2012 global deal attempting to avert dangerous man-made climate change. WWF urges all policy makers to effectively legislate a moratorium on new unabated coal fired power stations in order to prevent high carbon emitting business-as-usual coal. • Coal and the urgency of addressing climate change To prevent catastrophic climate change we must keep the global average temperature rise compared to pre-industrial temperatures as far below 2 degrees centigrade as possible. To have a high chance of doing so the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment report suggests that industrialized countries should take on domestic greenhouse gas reduction targets of between 25% and 40% below 1990 levels by 2020. The purchase of carbon offset credits from developing countries such as those generated via the CDM should be in addition to and not instead of domestic GHG emissions reductions in line with the range given above. Indeed, this 25-40% range was endorsed by all EU Member States at the international climate conference in Bali at the end of 2007. In line with staying below 2 degrees the IPCC also showed that global emissions need to be reduced to around zero well before to the end of the century. This means that industrialized countries including the EU need to achieve this objective of zero-emissions by around 2050 or earlier. At present the power sector is responsible for an estimated 37% of global energy-related CO2 emissions and for a similar share in the EU, with most of this from burning coal. WWF is working to ensure the EU power sector becomes largely decarbonised well before 2050 and to ensure a downward trajectory in CO2 emissions such that there is a significant cut in emissions by 2020. We consider that this must be done without resorting to nuclear power, which we regard as a fundamentally unsustainable technology. As studies have shown, prioritising decarbonisation of the power sector is the most effective way of reducing carbon emissions from any given industrialised nation. Like any infrastructure change and development, cleaning up the EU power sector and energy system is see: EU Commission (2007); if including heat production from coal, overall average is 0.8 kgCO2/kWh (IEA, 2007: CO2 Emissions From Fossil Fuels) IPCC (2006): Technical Summary, IPCC Special Report on Carbon Capture and Storage Rubin, Rao & Chen (2005): quoted by Commission (2007), as above. 11 Declaration on Climate Change (2008): 1st SA-EU Summit 25 July 2008, Bordeaux, France 8 9 10 2 FREEZING CLIMATE CHANGE going to cost money, be it new investments required for research and development, capital and operational costs. However, the more money governments, industry and citizens invest today, the cheaper it will be to tackle climate change than if we delay action and put off the investments required into the alternative technologies, such as renewables, energy demand reduction, combined heat and power and CCS. The costs of inaction far outweigh the costs of action. THE CCS DIRECTIVE AND LOW-CARBON DEVELOPMENT • Carbon Capture Storage (CCS) - legislative proposal WWF is strongly supportive of the EU Commission’s proposals for additional support mechanisms for CCS, Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency which sit alongside the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). There is no tension between the different regulatory approaches. These proposals recognize that the carbon price won’t be high enough to deliver investment in the low carbon choices in the power sector in time to avoid dangerous climate change (this requires that emissions peak and start to decline in the next 10 years). However, although we welcome the proposals on CCS announced by the Commission earlier this year WWF believe they don’t go far enough and need strengthening. In addition, although WWF believes that it will be necessary to retrofit all existing conventional coal and probably gas-fired stations with CCS in the next decade, CCS for new-built coal is only one option out of many others when planning new capacity. Priority should be given to highly-efficient gas fuelled combined heat and power plants, renewable energy and demand side energy saving options. In light of this WWF’s priority recommendations to strengthen the CCS legislative proposals are as follows: • Immediately set a general emission performance standard (EPS) for all new electricity and heat producing plants, and by no later than 2020 for all existing generation units at 350g CO2/kWh12. This legally binding limit would provide a level-playing field for all actors. Those who could not comply with the proposed EPS would need to either invest in other generation technologies or foster demand-side options. Old installations would have to be closed unless by 2020, at the latest, they were fitted with CCS. Other CO2 emission limits for the EPS such as those proposed by the European Parliament of 400g or 500 g CO2/kWh are too high as they would allow some oil and inefficient natural gas powered stations. • The proposed EPS should be reviewed regularly in light of the best available science and over time strengthened towards <150 g CO2/kWh13. • The EPS must be introduced as a non-tradable CO2 emission standard for each power station individually independent of size and age. Co-firing of biomass in coal-fired power stations can account for meeting the objectives under the EU renewable energy obligations but its gross emissions to the atmosphere must still be accounted for. • The proposed EPS alongside a regular review should also be introduced for other nonenergy producing large point polluters such as steel smelters, cement and clinker production and also other energy-intensive installations which are covered under the EU ETS. 350 g CO2/kWh as a limit will not allow any coal power electricity (and heat) production unless CCS is applied but will allow for highly efficient natural gas and combined heat and power (IPCC, WG III, ‘Energy’; 2007://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg3/ar4-wg3-chapter13.pdf). Current utilities’ coal-based electricity and heat production in EU 27 is about 808 g CO2/ kWh (IEA, 2007). 13 Carbon capture technologies may allow for residual emissions of between 40 – 150 g CO2/kWh for both modern natural gas and modern coal-fired power stations (IPCC, 2006; Special Report on CCS). 12 3 In light of this WWF’s priority recommendations to strengthen the CCS legislative proposals are as follows: • ‘Early auctioning’ by Member States of an earmarked part of the pollution permits under the EU ETS the revenues from which should feed into a fund for the financing of welldefined pilot and research and development CCS technologies both inside and outside EU14. In this respect WWF rejects allocating free emissions credits worth about €10 billion for CCS activities from the EU ETS new entrants reserves as proposed by the European Parliament. • Analysis and identification by independent scientific institutions of: a) those CCS technologies that need the financial support for pilots in the EU from revenues from the ‘Early auctioning’ process and b) CCS support needed for developing coal-rich nations from the revenues from the general auctioning of EU ETS allowances. • Public financing only for the adequate selection, monitoring and scientific oversight of the carbon storage sites. • Public co-financing together with private industrial capital for the publicly controlled and infrastructure needed to transport CO215. • No public financing for fossil-fuel-based carbon capture as this is an industrial activity and should be mandatory for all power stations that cannot meet the proposed EPS. An exception should be made with emissions captured from burning biomass. Here, public support may be necessary as this contributes not to low-carbon but negative carbon emissions. • Mandatory permanent (‘in time’) monitoring for all storage sites to ensure the geological storage of CO2 is safe and permanent, plus binding remediation plans in case of leakage and possible closure in case of non-compliance. • Public consultation at EU and Member State levels on the role of coal for electricity generation (if any) given the near and long-term future of the EU will be carbon-constrained and also the delivery of the new EU 2020 20% Renewable Energy target. • Mandatory assessment, before building any new fossil fuel power plant, of the potential for other ways to meet energy needs - via demand side measures, supply efficiency (such as combined heat and power) and renewable energy. Standards? close down as they would become uneconomic. WWF strongly supports the principal of a ‘technologyneutral’ cap and trade regime as embedded in the EU ETS. In principal a strong cap on large point polluters such as coal fired power stations should deliver the right incentives to make them cleaner, for investment that replaces carbon-intensive power generation and industrial production or for them to However, the current Commission proposal on how the EU ETS will be revised post 2012 is extremely unlikely to deliver the right incentives to stop the move to new unabated coal power. This is because the level of the cap proposed combined with the level of ‘flexibility’ companies will have to purchase CDM credits in conjunction with the perceived CO2 price of €39/t CO2 Why Emissions Performance Such a “CCS development fund” from earmarked auctioning revenues which was administered by the Commission or another neutral body is a much better instrument to support CCS development and preparation for the market than the proposed free allowances for the various CCS-promoting industrial actors from the EU ETS new entrant reserve. The former option allows for clear and transparent definition as to which technologies are funded where and who is the beneficiary whereas the latter option blows an unnecessary hole into the architecture of the EU ETS and paves the way for all kind of other low-carbon technologies to also benefit from this kind of preferential treatment. Also, the fund-option contains the ‘polluter-pays’ principal – important for the political hygiene of the EU ETS and overall societal CCS acceptance. 15 This is to avoid that a new potential “CO2 grid” is monopolized by a few early incumbents of the CO2 transport infrastructure and keep out industrial CCS newcomers. 14 4 • FREEZING CLIMATE CHANGE by Commission will likely not trigger investments into CCS. Various estimates of different CCS technology component costs at the point of commercialisation vary from well below €50/t CO2 to over €100/t CO2. One may question the motivation for some of these likely inflated price estimates by industrial ETS actors but the fact remains that the current proposal of the EU ETS will not challenge unabated coal in a robust way that will allow the EU to take the lead globally in helping to decarbonise the power sector as rapidly as possible. In this respect the proposed EPS is a necessary band aid for the EU ETS as long as emission caps are not set sufficiently to stop unabated coal. WWF’s assessment of the CCS proposal from the EU Commission is as follows: Good: Bad: √ Relatively solid legal framework for dealing with the technicalities of CCS storage and liability. √ Plan for 12 demonstration projects. √ EU ETS allowances must be surrendered if any leakage of CO2 from CCS occurs. √ Financial provisions for liability. X: No mandatory cap on emissions from new fossil fuel power plants. X: No retrofitting of CCS to highly polluting old power stations. X: No mandatory, independent verification of storage safety. X: No independent public funding for selection, oversight and monitoring of carbon storage. X: No mention of strong legal provisions in the EU’s current definition of ‘CCS ready’ (only land and engineering issues are included). X: No support for individual components or full chain of CCS technologies in coal-rich developing countries. X: No prioritization/differentiation of the 12 demonstration projects regarding technology needs. There are several different ways in which governments and industry can deal with coal burn and the CO2 pollution it is responsible for. To date few countries and states have already adopted practical policies to tackle coal in this critical period before CCS is demonstrated. For example: • • 16 Norway does not allow any new conventional fossil fuel (including gas) power stations onto the grid without CCS, and New Zealand has a moratorium on new fossil fuel plants. The current UK Labour Government also has experience of introducing moratoria in the power sector. When they were elected in 2007 they introduced a moratorium on new gas-fired power stations in order to protect UK coal interests. The State of California has adopted a minimum CO2 emission performance standard for every significant new power plant investment of 500gCO2/kWh16. Although the limit on emissions is too high in WWF’s view, the socalled ‘California Standard’ works with market dynamics as it allows the market to choose which technology to deploy, it encourages investment in CCS, renewables and CHP and discourages unabated coal. It also works alongside cap and trade, energy efficiency and renewables targets. Overall it sets a clear framework that makes a carbon choice, but avoids specific technology choices. A similar proposal has been made by the opposition Conservative Party in the UK. • A strong minority of >130 parliamentarians supported an EPS of 350gCO2/kWh for all new build power stations in the EU in the context of http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/published/FINAL_DECISION/64074.htm 5 the debate on the Liberalisation of the Electricity and Gas Markets in the European parliament in spring 2008. Amendments to the proposed new CCS Directive to include an EPS were also tabled by the parliament’s Environment Committee. Indeed in the vote by Committee on this Directive in October 2008 MEPs voted to support an EPS of 500gCO2/kWh which would apply to all new plant from 2015. Support for an EPS of 450gCO2/kWh was narrowly missed with 29 MEPs voting for this and 31 against. The rapporteur of the CCS Directive is a strong supporter of an EPS and it is hoped that the urgency of the climate problem will lead the EU Parliament and eventually the Council to endorse a pollution limit of 350gCO2/kWh. • In a similar vein the EU Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) was introduced to deal with air pollution from sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions from power stations but excluded carbon dioxide. It set a standard for power stations to meet and a timetable for closure if they chose not to meet the standard (opting in or opting out). The legislation principle could be extended to CO2 emissions. However, important lessons need to be learnt by the EU if it were to agree on such a CO2 pollution limit under the CCS Directive (or any other legislative piece in the EU) so that power companies and Governments are not again able to delay decisions and allow weak enforcement. WWF believes the introduction of an EPS is an urgent priority for the EU and all its Member States. It would work with the energy and carbon markets, and act as a backstop to make sure the EU does not forget the real world science and imperatives of climate change mitigation in the effort to have a more elegant policy mechanism. • Additional requirements for the power sector in the context of CCS installment 1. Strategic Environmental and Economic Assessments There needs to be a mandatory assessment, before building any new fossil fuel power plant, of the potential for other ways to meet energy needs – e.g. via demand side measures, supply efficiency (such as CHP) and renewable energy. WWF believes the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive and SEA’s themselves are a very useful tool. We consider a new fleet of unabated coal-fired power stations in EU Member States would warrant application of a full-scale SEA. WWF believes such a mandatory assessment must be carried out before building any new fossil-fueled power plant in the EU. 2. Selection of CCS pilot financing A source of some public funding certainly should come from the revenues that will accrue to governments from the auctioning of pollution allowances in the EU ETS. In the context of the 12 (or more) CCS demonstration plants, the EU needs to prioritize and select key CCS technologies for financial research and development support from the revenues of the auctioning of the pollution permits from the EU ETS including innovative post- and precombustion technologies, biomass CCS, transport and regional storage options. Moreover, WWF strongly urges the EU to embrace financial support for all industrial CCS components in carbon-rich developing countries including through technical support for geological carbon storage surveys in regions including the OPEC Middle East, China, India and South Africa. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Delia Villagrasa EU Climate Project Coordinator WWF European Policy Office Tel: +32 2 740 09 35 E-mail: [email protected] www.panda.org/eu