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Carbon capture and storage
(2009)
Considering the traditional coal-based energy infrastructure in the German state North Rhine-Westphalia the question arises how to face the needs of embanking climate change. To reduce greenhouse gas intensive electricity generation in the Ruhr area, the introduction of carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an option of particular relevance. The paper investigates and discusses possibilities of setting up a CCS infrastructure in NRW. It shall clarify whether, and possibly how, highly efficient conventional fossil fired power plants could be refitted with CO2 capture to flexibly react to potentially changing climate policy conditions and to keep up with the market.
Several countries with large coal deposits but limited domestic oil reserves show high interest in coal-to-liquid (CtL) technologies, which could reduce crude oil imports by converting coal into liquid hydrocarbon fuels. After decades of successful large-scale operating experiences in South Africa, CtL activities in the United States, China and Germany have been fanned by the high oil price in the last years. However, CtL indicates negative techno-economic and resource-related features, such as high capital costs, high greenhouse gas discharges and high water consumption. Therefore, the technology's diffusion strongly depends on a favourable framework of policies and strong technology advocates. Daniel Vallentin analyses interdependencies between technical and non-technical parameters affecting the diffusion of CtL technologies in the United States, China and Germany. Applying the inter-disciplinary technological system approach, he identifies factors which determine the market prospects of CtL in these countries, including costs, the geographic distribution of coal reserves, actor constellations and technology, energy and climate policies. At the end of his study, he derives general conclusions with regard to driving forces and barriers for CtL diffusion. As the investigated countries are major consumers of energy and belong to the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases, their strategies in substituting crude oil based fuels are of utmost global relevance. Therefore, Vallentin's study is recommended to experts, planners, decision-makers, and politicians in the field of climate and resource protection.
The barriers to linking greenhouse gas cap-and-trade schemes are assessed, based on an analysis of existing and emerging trading schemes, including those in the USA, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the EU. The feasibility of different forms of linking and the time frames for their implementation are examined. In particular, the barriers to direct bilateral linking are considered. It was found that only a few direct bilateral links will be viable in the short term, due to the divergent policy priorities of different nations and regions, reflected in critical design features, such as costcontainment measures. However, in the short term, cap-and-trade markets will very likely be indirectly linked via unilateral links to the CDM or new crediting mechanisms, which may be adopted within a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol. In order to ensure a harmonization of critical design elements in the mid to long term, early institutional cooperation may become necessary. Necessary policy steps and the appropriate institutional framework for such harmonization and, overtime, further integration of trading schemes are briefly delineated.
This paper presents the strategy for a large EU-funded Integrated Project: EXIOPOL ("A New Environmental Accounting Framework Using Externality Data and Input-Output Tools for Policy Analysis"), with special attention for its part in environmentally extended (EE) input-output (IO) analysis. The project has three principal objectives: (a) to synthesize and further develop estimates of the external costs of key environmental impacts for Europe; (b) to develop an EE IO framework for the EU-27 in aglobal context, including as many of these estimates as possible, to allow for the estimation of environmental impacts (expressed as LCA themes, material requirement indicators, ecological footprints or external costs) of the activities of different economic sectors, final consumption activities and resource consumption; (c) to apply the results of the work to external costs and EE I-O for illustrative policy questions.