When 2007 carbon dioxide emissions are analyzed by fossil fuel, coal is the largest source (12.5 billion metric tons), followed by liquid fuels (11.3 billion metric tons) and natural gas (5.9 billion metric tons). World carbon dioxide emissions from the consumption of liquid fuels increase by 27.5 percent, or an average of 0.9 percent per year, from 2007 to 2035, with all the increase coming from non-OECD countries. Total carbon dioxide emis-sions from liquid fuel use in OECD countries decline
Table 19. Emissions mitigation goals announced by selected countries (million metric tons carbon dioxide)
Country Reduction goal Countries with goals for total emissions reductions
United States . . . . To 17 percent
below 2005 level by 2020
4,959 5,851 5,986 893 -1.4%
European Union . . To 20 percent
below 1990 level by 2020b
3,323 4,042 4,386 719 -2.1%
To 30 percent
below 1990 level by 2020c
2,907 4,042 4,386 1,135 -3.1%
Japan . . . To 25 percent
below 1990 level by 2020
788 1,114 1,262 325 -3.6%
Brazil . . . By 36 to 39 percent relative to projected level in 2020
347 534 394 187 -1.0%
Russia . . . To between 15 and 25 percent below 1990 level by 2020
1,780 1,648 1,664 — —
Countries with goals for carbon dioxide intensity reductions China . . . To between 40 and 45 percent
below 2005 level by 2020
9,810 9,057 6,284 — —
India . . . To between 20 and 25 percent below 2005 level by 2020
2,314 1,751 1,399 — —
aIt is assumed that country goals are applied proportionally to energy-related carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases.
bUnilateral goal.
cRequires other countries to achieve similar reductions.
Source: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, web site http://unfccc.int/meetings/items/5276.php.
126 U.S. Energy Information Administration / International Energy Outlook 2010
Will carbon capture and storage reduce the world’s carbon dioxide emissions?
The pursuit of greenhouse gas reductions has the potential to reduce global coal use significantly.
Because coal is the most carbon-intensive of all fossil fuels, limitations on carbon dioxide emissions will raise the cost of coal relative to the costs of other fuels.
Under such circumstances, the degree to which energy use shifts away from coal to other fuels will depend largely on the costs of reducing carbon dioxide emis-sions from coal-fired plants relative to the costs of using other, low-carbon or carbon-free energy sources.
The continued widespread use of coal could rely on the cost and availability of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies that capture carbon dioxide and store it in geologic formations.
Widespread deployment of CCS would facilitate the use of coal in the presence of greenhouse gas policies aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Without CCS, reducing carbon dioxide emissions probably would require a significant curtailment of global coal use. The primary use of CCS is thought to be in coal-fired electricity generation, where most of the world’s coal is consumed. In addition, there could be CCS applications for specific types of industrial facili-ties and natural-gas-fired power plants.
The CCS technology has three components:
•Capture, defined as the physical removal of carbon dioxide that would otherwise be emitted into the atmosphere. In the case of coal-fired power plants, capture could be accomplished by removing carbon dioxide from the waste stream after combustion (post-combustion capture) or by gasifying the coal and removing carbon dioxide before combustion (pre-combustion capture). In another process (oxy-combustion), combustion occurs in a high-oxygen environment, producing a higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the waste stream, which makes carbon capture easier.
•Transportation, which will be needed to move car-bon dioxide from power plant sites to suitable stor-age sites. Given the quantities of carbon dioxide that are likely to be captured from coal-fired power plants, pipelines appear to be the most likely mode for transporting the captured gas to geologic sequestration sites.
•Long-term storage, which requires permanent sequestration of carbon dioxide to prevent cap-tured emissions from entering the atmosphere. The ability to handle large amounts of carbon dioxide injections varies, depending on the geologic charac-teristics of a particular site, such as the depth, thick-ness, and permeability of a given formation.
Currently, deep saline aquifers and depleted oil and gas fields are seen as the most likely candidates for long-term storage. Other types of formations also are being examined.
Different technical pieces of the CCS process have already been shown to operate successfully. For exam-ple, carbon dioxide emissions have been captured from some industrial sources for decades by the food and beverage industry, oil producers, and other industries.
Approximately 3,000 miles of carbon dioxide pipelines already are in service in North America.b There are four sequestration sites operating on a commercial scale in the world today,calthough they capture only a fraction of the amount of carbon dioxide that will be needed for a significant reduction in emissions from coal-fired power plants. These four sites are also used for enhanced oil recovery, a process where carbon dioxide is used to improve oil recovery from wells.
Despite the fact that examples of individual segments of the CCS process have been successful, no project on the scale needed to capture and sequester significant amounts of carbon dioxide from a typical commercial coal-fired power plant has been demonstrated to date.
Therefore, there is significant uncertainty about the ultimate cost and feasibility of CCS. Recent cost esti-mates for integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) coal-fired power plants with capture—a pre-combustion technology that is being considered in several countries—have been in the range of $120 to
$180 per ton of carbon dioxide for first-of-a-kind facili-ties, although costs are likely to decline significantly over time.dPost-combustion capture technology costs, especially those applied to existing units, are even more uncertain, and information will not be available until demonstration projects are further along in the process.eCosts for sequestration and storage have been (continued on page 127)
aInternational Energy Agency,Near-Term Opportunities for Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage(Paris, France, 2007), p. 3.
bCongressional Research Service, Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Pipelines for Carbon Sequestration: Emerging Policy Issues(Washington, DC, 2007), p. 4, web site www.ncseonline.org/nle/crsreports/07may/rl33971.pdf.
cThe four sites are Sleipner Gas Field in the North Sea (Norway), Snøhvit Gas Field in the Barents Sea (Norway), Weyburn Enhanced Oil Recovery Project (North Dakota, USA), and In Salah Gas Field (Algeria).
dM. Al-Juaied and A. Whitmore, “Realistic Costs of Carbon Capture & Storage” (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Energy Technol-ogy Innovation Policy), Discussion Paper 2009-08 (July 2009), web site http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/2009_AlJuaied_
Whitmore_Realistic_Costs_of_Carbon_Capture_web.pdf. This study indicates that costs could potentially be reduced to a range of the
$35 to $70 per ton as the technology matures.
ePost-combustion capture demonstration projects at existing plants are being conducted currently at Mountaineer Power Plant in New Haven, West Virginia, and scheduled at Antelope Valley Plant in Beulah, North Dakota.
in the early years of the projection and remain just below 2007 levels in 2035 (Figure 108).32China has the highest rate of growth in carbon dioxide emissions from liquid fuel use, at 2.9 percent per year, corresponding to its growing demand for liquid fuels in the transportation and industrial sectors. Although the United States remains the largest source of petroleum-related carbon dioxide emissions throughout the period, with 2.6 lion metric tons in 2035, China comes close with 2.2 bil-lion metric tons in 2035.
Global carbon dioxide emissions from natural gas com-bustion worldwide increase by 45 percent, or an average of 1.3 percent per year, to 8.6 billion metric tons in 2035, with the increase for OECD countries averaging 0.7 per-cent per year and the increase for non-OECD countries averaging 1.9 percent per year (Figure 109). Again, China shows the most rapid growth of emissions in the Reference case, averaging 5.0 percent annually. How-ever, China’s emissions from natural gas combustion were only 0.1 billion metric tons in 2007, and in 2035 they Will carbon capture and storage reduce the world’s carbon dioxide emissions? (continued)
estimated to be approximately $10 to $15 per ton of carbon dioxide,fbut as more research is conducted at specific sites, the cost estimates could change consider-ably, depending on location.
Other issues surrounding CCS projects include identi-fying who will be responsible for the sequestered car-bon dioxide, establishing clear regulatory jurisdiction over pipeline construction, and overcoming potential public opposition to CCS facilities that could be a bar-rier to widespread deployment of the technology.
Because of these uncertainties and the fact that large-scale demonstration projects are expected to be very expensive, the private financial community is likely to view initial investments in CCS as risky.
Because the first CCS projects are likely to face these barriers, the governments of several nations have pledged significant amounts of funding for CCS research and development and demonstration projects (see table below). Ultimately, in an economy where greenhouse gas emissions are constrained, CCS could have to compete with other carbon mitigation strate-gies, such as the use nuclear power and renewable energy sources, if it is to be deployed on a large scale.
The outcomes of current demonstration projections will play a key role in future decisions. Many govern-ments are hopeful that current or proposed demonstra-tions could lead to commercially applicable CCS technology within a decade.g
fJ.J. Dooley, R.T. Dahowski, C.L. Davidson, M.A. Wise, N. Gupta, S.H. Kim, and E.L. Malaone,Carbon Dioxide Capture and Geologic Stor-age(Battelle Memorial Institute, April 2006), p. 36, web site www.battelle.org/news/06/CCS_Climate_Change06.pdf.
gWhite House Council on Environmental Quality, "Presidential Memorandum—A Comprehensive Federal Strategy on Carbon Cap-ture and Storage" (Washington, DC, February 3, 2010), web site www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/presidential-memorandum-a-comprehensive-federal-strategy-carbon-capture-and-storage.
hEuropa, “List of 15 Energy Projects for European Economic Recovery,” Memo/09/542 (Brussels, Belgium, December 9, 2009), web site http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/09/542&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage
=en.
iAustralian Government, Department of Resources Energy and Tourism, “Clean Energy Initiative” (May 13 2009), web site www.
ret.gov.au/Department/Documents/CEI_Fact_Sheet.pdf.
Government funding for CCS projects around the world
Country Project
European Union . . . In December 2009, the EU announced that 1 billion Euros ($1.47 billion) in grants would be allocated to six CCS projects on the continent.h
United States . . . The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, enacted in early 2009, provides $3.4 billion for additional research and development work on advanced fossil energy technologies. A significant portion of the funding was allocated to the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), which is coordinating the U.S. Department of Energy’s CCS programs.
China . . . In China, a $1 billion 650-megawatt “GreenGen" IGCC project is under construction and scheduled to be on line in 2012. The United States and China have entered into a technology-sharing agreement on CCS.
Australia . . . In May 2009, the Australian Government announced that $2.425 billion (Australian) will be allocated to the “CCS Flagship” program over the next 10 years.i
32TheIEO2010estimate for U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from liquids combustion, taken from EIA’sAnnual Energy Outlook 2010, does not include emissions from biofuels. However, due to modeling limitations,IEO2010does include carbon dioxide emissions from biofuels combustion outside the United States. In theIEO2010Reference case, biofuels make up 1.5 percent of total world liquids consumption out-side the United States by 2035. These non-U.S. biofuels add about 0.2 billion metric tons to total world carbon dioxide emissions.
total only 0.5 billion metric tons—equivalent to 4 percent of China’s total energy-related emissions and 6 percent of the world’s total emissions from natural gas combus-tion. The much lower growth rate in U.S. emissions from natural gas use, averaging 0.3 percent per year, still results in 1.3 billion metric tons of emissions in 2035, which is almost triple the amount from China in 2035.
World carbon dioxide emissions from coal combustion increase by 56 percent, or 1.6 percent per year on aver-age, from 12.5 billion metric tons in 2007 to 19.4 billion metric tons in 2035. Total coal-related emissions from non-OECD countries were already greater than those from OECD countries in 1990, and in 2035 they are more than 3 times the OECD total (Figure 110), in large part as a result of increases in coal use by China and India.
China accounts for 78 percent of the total increase in the world’s coal-related carbon dioxide emissions from 2007 to 2035, and India accounts for 7 percent. For China alone, coal-related emissions grow by an average of 2.6 percent annually, from 5.2 billion metric tons in 2007 to 10.6 billion metric tons (or 55 percent of the world total) in 2035. India’s carbon dioxide emissions from coal com-bustion total 1.4 billion metric tons in 2035, accounting for more than 7 percent of the world total. In the United States—the world’s other major coal consumer—coal-related carbon dioxide emissions rise more slowly, by 0.3 percent per year, to 2.4 billion metric tons (12 percent of the world total) in 2035.