Carbon Management: A Call to Action for the U.S. and China

As President Obama prepares to set foot on Chinese soil for the first time today, the United States and China, the globe's leading greenhouse gas producers, are engaged in a classic standoff over climate change. The United States wants to see China agree to cap its accelerating level of carbon emissions before it acts. China wants the U.S. to lead by example on climate change and share technology and expertise to help reduce the costs of its efforts, and minimize any impact on its growth agenda. Although many nations are taking action on climate change, meaningful global impact will be impossible without collaboration from the U.S. and China in advance of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December.

One critical path for the two nations to pursue is carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). CCS is a process that captures greenhouse gas emissions from industrial processes before they enter the atmosphere and stores them permanently underground. CCS technology has the potential to mitigate emissions from coal-fired power plants and help nations to achieve the reductions in global greenhouse gases that energy efficiency, conservation and renewable energies are unlikely (or unable) to meet on their own. This technology has significantly advanced over the past decade, and components have proven commercially successful in projects around the world.

Why should the U.S. and China form an unprecedented partnership to collaborate on this technology now? Both countries continue to rely heavily on coal for power generation (2030 projections are 50% and 73% for the U.S. and China, respectively). And while renewable energy sources are projected to rise in the next two decades (almost doubling in the U.S. and more than tripling in China), they will only provide a fraction of the power coal provides. Without a major change in global energy policies and practices that directly address coal, worldwide CO₂ emissions are projected to increase by 39 percent from 2006 to 2030. And a U.S.-China partnership would help China reduce costs of abatement, while building American expertise and positioning the U.S. as a leader in a new job-rich carbon management industry.

To take advantage of this, the U.S. and China must overcome considerable technological, financial, and regulatory hurdles facing widespread commercial CCS expansion. A new report I co-authored last week with leaders of the Asia Society and Center for American Progress, "A Roadmap for U.S.-China Collaboration on Carbon Capture and Sequestration," identifies a feasible, three-pronged approach which the U.S. and China could follow to achieve such an outcome.

Sequester the pure CO₂ streams on existing commercial coal-fired industrial plants in China. Today, commercial scale sequestration is almost exclusively deployed around enhanced oil recovery - pumping CO₂ into mature oil wells to improve production. To meet global CO₂ emissions objectives, broader geological storage options must be made economically viable. China has installed more than 100 industrial coal gasifiers that produce, as a byproduct, pure streams of CO₂ that are vented directly into the atmosphere. Emissions from these gasifier plants are more straightforward and less costly to capture than emissions from combustion plants.

Invest in research and development to retrofit older power plants. Because existing coal-fired plants must be either shut down or retrofitted for CCS to reduce or eliminate their CO₂ emissions, the U.S. and China should identify plants in both countries for large-scale retrofit demonstrations. These projects would help develop and test new capture technologies to improve effectiveness and lower costs. To support these efforts, the countries should open a joint R&D center for CCS technologies, a move which already has the support of the U.S. Energy Department, which just granted $44 million to projects to develop CCS technology.

Catalyze markets for CCS. The U.S. and China will have to provide financial incentives for private capital to invest in carbon capture and sequestration projects. The U.S. should consider developing government-backed public finance structures, such as risk insurance or guarantees of CO₂ prices for a set amount of successfully abated carbon similar to those proposed by the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.

All of these moves will take time and effort. They also represent a first-generation approach to dealing with carbon-emitting power and industrial plants. But the plants are not going away anytime soon. We must break the cycle of inertia and start the process of driving down the cost of compliance that stands in the way of progress toward climate objectives. The U.S. and China have the motivation to act now. And as environmental scientists and citizens around the globe watch, the clock is ticking.

Scott Daniels leads the global chemicals-energy and sustainability practices at Monitor Group

 

Comments

[joevecchio]

Yes, CHINA wants America to lead by example...­. Start with the 60 million 19mpg vehicles liberals drive daily.

Thank you Scott for talking with me. You are a fair man.. I appreciate it.

Sincerely,
Joe Vecchio writer/director - why i left the democratic party and joined alqaeda. an energy satire about liberal energy hypocrisy. borodinobullett.com joe's cafe.
all new higher budget film coming out in 2012. called VOTING FOR "DUMIES" PT 3. lazy liberals, sinful conservatives. see this film before you vote again.

Why isn't Gore ( and David BLOOD and G.I.M. ) and the Clinton Initiative Fund NOT helping Syracuse NY find funding for the AR electric car co? Why are they asking the US federal gov. for 50 million.

[joevecchio]

If liberal democrats would have just bought a 45mpg Geo Metro made by GM, instead of the 20 mpg car they "chose" to drive ( Biden's 18mpg truck, Rachel Maddow's 18mpg Truck, etc, we would cut co2 gas by approx 500 m.m.tons per year. If the 50 million liberals, like myself who voted for GORE, would have supported and bought 45mpg cars instead of the V6 minivans, luxury cars and suvs that they bought in record numbers, we would cut co2 more cheaply and quickly than Cap and Trade. I went to a Sierra Club meeting and i didn't film one 35mpg car. WHY? Went to a democratic fundraiser and I filmed the same... Forget about CHINA. WHY not report on the behavior of us LIBERALS? Too afraid your friends and family will reject riding in a subcompact?

Joe Vecchio u-tube/Lea­vingTheDem­ocrats .......

[ceolas]

(continued)

The argument, commonly made, that
“Energy reduction and Carbon emission reduction in electricity production and distribution is too slow and expensive for all concerned,
we must also act on consumption, banning products that don’t meet defined efficiency standards”
doesn’t hold up:

1. Because the lowering of emissions from electricity generation and distribution can be addressed in several ways
( http://ceolas.net/#em1x )
not all of which need take time, and some of which need organizational skills rather than money.
Grid interconnections can relatively rapidly spread low emission electricity from a specific source.

2. Because there are numerous disadvantages to consumers of efficiency-defined bans.
( http://ceolas.net/#cc211x )

3. Because energy and emission savings from such bans are not as great as assumed anyway.
( http://ceolas.net/#cc214x )

4. Because -while it should not be needed- appropriate and temporary taxation on products that would otherwise be banned, not only raises funds for relevant environmental projects, it quickly limits and redirects consumption for the time required, with more adaptability regarding scope and application than bans.
( http://ceolas.net/#gg5x ) .

[ceolas]

Good to raise the notion of dealing with fossil fuels
- not just condemning their use

"Clean" energy doesn't have to mean not using oil coal or gas
- eg Georgia Tech development of carbon capture and storage for cars, or
similar Schwarze Pumpe (coal) and Lacq (gas) prototypes in Europe.

Better than fuel efficiency regulation is fuel-neutral emission tax on cars,
leaving consumer choice but reducing emissions along with gaining government income for renewable projects etc
Any government worried about oil use can simply tax it.

For similar reasons,
it's wrong to have energy efficiency regulations on buildings,
dishwashers, light bulbs etc

(continued)

[vippy]

I can't take anything serious when the cost will be born by the taxpayer! I agree we need to clean up
our environment and it starts with the individual. Corporations producing a product should not be allowed to gunk up our rivers and air. But to charge the farmers for their cow's emission is taking it way too far.

[dobermanmacleod]

The above article is out of date, because there is a new clean energy technology the author isn't aware of yet. This independently verified clean energy technology produces electricity at the astonishingly low cost of 1 cent per kilowatt hour. As reported by both CNN and the New York Times:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1iqa0dSJO0

Check out above link to a 2 and a half minute youtube video of a CNN report. What are the odds that the independent testimony below is fraudulent (not bloody likely unless you are a paranoid conspiracy theorist)? Here is a silver bullet technology: clean cheap and abundant energy.

In a joint statement, Dr. K.V. Ramanujachary, Rowan University Meritorious Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Dr. Amos Mugweru, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, and Dr. Peter Jansson P.E., Associate Professor of Engineering said, "In independent tests conducted over the past three months involving 10 solid fuels made by us from commercial­ly-availab­le chemicals, our team of engineering and chemistry professors, staff, and students at Rowan University has independently and consistently generated energy in excesses ranging from 1.2 times to 6.5 times the maximum theoretical heat available through known chemical reactions.­"

Also, check out this article: http://www.nytimes.com/external/venturebeat/2008/10/21/21venturebeat-blacklight-power-bolsters-its-impossible-cla-99377.html

Brad Arnold
St Louis Park, MN, USA
[e-mail]
www.myspace.com/dobermanmacleod

[jeanrenoir]

America is just as much a pitiful, helpless former giant in terms of the fantasy of greening the world as it is in its helplessness against the Taliban and Bin Laden with the Pakistani nukes the Taliban will soon give him. Since China is now our banker, we have absolutely no leverage with China on anything, least of all carbon emissions. How can anyone have actually been naive enough to a) fail to reaize long ago that the emissions of China and India would dwarf those of America and Europe combined in a fairly short time; now China's the biggest polluter on earth, significantly ahead of even us; and b) fail to realize that there would be NOTHING we could do to force China and India to "clean up their act," given the unstoppable political imperative in both countries to grow their economies and create as much wealth as fast as possible? The whole "Green" movement in the West has been a typical Boomer journey by yellow submarine, in which wishful fantasizing replaced tough-minded grappling with the facts on the ground. How in the world can anyone seriously argue that, given the impossibility of stopping China and India from emitting more gases than America and Europe ever thought of emitting, there is any possiblity that we can significantly slow global warming. When will people in America and Europe get real and move into a realistic coping mode rather than a fantastic preventive mode?

[Joe Ryan]

If the U.S. wants to drive the green economy of the future it should stop allowing imports of substandard products destined for the landfill; thus recreating a manufacturing base based upon making quality products that are fixable. Make all manufacturers provide repair parts - available at a reasonable cost - for any product they want to sell in the U.S. Other countries with consumerism problems and limited landfill space would buy American, because we would be the only nation not selling unrepairable junk. The future is in making products that don't have to go directly to a landfill (which wastes all the carbon produced in the manufacturing process). My plan would result in less malls and retail stores, and lots more repair shops and recreational venues. My plan would result in pressure on China to improve human rights and worker rights, as no nation will be able to produce goods for our market that were made by people devoid of rights. America could usher in a new way of life for the people of the world, which would include the 6 hour workday that the people of the world have earned and deserve. Let's get off the 'making and buying shoddy products slavery treadmill' without jumping on another. Why does the left ONLY push a carbon tax as the ONLY solution worth discussing? Push sensible ideas by supporting me, Joe Ryan for Congress in 2010. Environmentalism from the bottom up, not corporate-top down.