Jeroen van der Veer, the chief executive of the oil company Royal Dutch Shell, discussed emissions and biodiversity offsets with the IHT’s James Kanter.
Posts Tagged ‘CO2’
Oxfam says energy giants Shell and E.ON are threatening the lives of millions of poor around the world
Energy firms threaten poor – Oxfam
Energy giants Shell and E.ON are threatening the lives of millions of poor around the world, a charity said.
Their “high-polluting policies” have been attacked in an Oxfam report ‘Forecast for Tomorrow’ that says they are contributing “to the UK pushing global emissions to dangerous levels for the world and catastrophic levels for the poor.”
The controversial Kingsnorth coal-fired power station, proposed by E.ON, attracted particular criticism, with Oxfam warning it will have the combined carbon output of 30 developing countries.
Likewise, Shell’s plans to treble investment in the Canadian oil sands which Oxfam says is three-times more polluting than conventional oil production.
The charity produced its own mock weather forecast for the large energy companies and has placed a majority of dark clouds and heavy rain showers over E.ON and Shell.
Oxfam chief executive Barbara Stocking said: “We must switch to low-carbon and greater energy efficiency if we are to begin to stem the devastating impacts of climate change already being felt by millions of poor people around the world, despite them being the least responsible… companies like E.ON and Shell must reconsider their potentially destructive plans.
Last year, Oxfam said it responded to escalating numbers of climatic crises, including some of the most severe floods in Africa in three decades and similarly devastating floods in South Asia and Mexico.
According to the charity, the total number of natural disasters has quadrupled in the last two decades – most of them floods, cyclones and storms – with the number of people affected having increased from 174 million to an average of over 250 million a year.
A spokesman for E.ON said: “We’ve got three challenges: to keep people’s lights on, to keep costs low and reduce damage to the environment. We’re investing £6 billion on renewable energy projects up to 2010. The carbon capture storage we are proposing at Kingsnorth will take 95 per cent of the carbon from the burnt coal and store it under the sea.”
A spokesman for Shell said: “The CO2 disadvantage of oil sands, from the source to the end user, is only 15 per cent and not 300 per cent as Oxfam has said – it needs to stop misleading people. We are only one of a number of players developing the oil sands, just as the UK developed its, now dwindling, north sea oil resources.”
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http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hrucPO-r-v18f75WMQhEfO7qAwRw
Another science blog sponsored by Shell, greenwash champions
Shell exec speaks on carbon dioxide capture and storage
Photo: Hamad Saber
John Barry: We know that the C02 concentration in the atmosphere has gone up measurably in recent years. We also know that it’s not what’s happened so far that is the problem. It’s what’s going to happen over the next 100 years if we don’t start to manage the problem.
That’s John Barry with Shell. He leads one of Shell’s efforts to manage carbon dioxide emissions – thought to be changing Earth’s climate. He spoke of carbon dioxide capture and storage.
John Barry: Carbon dioxide capture and storage is one of the technologies that offers the most promise for making a difference to CO2 emissions in the short to medium term – I’m thinking 10 or 20 years. A hundred years out, maybe there will be technologies we haven’t thought of today.
He said the best hope of capturing CO2 is at what he called point sources.
John Barry: Think of oil refineries in my own business. They use a lot of energy to make the fuel we use to drive our vehicles. You actually have a hope of capturing that CO2 at the point source, using some sort of a chemical technology to capture the carbon dioxide and take it to a point where you can store it safely, deep underground.
So the idea is to filter the carbon out of the exhaust from a power plant with a chemical before it reaches the smokestack. The CO2 gas is then sent via pipeline under thousands of feet underground or below the sea floor, in a sense back where it came from. Or the carbon can be captured before anything is burned in newer plants that first convert coal into a gas, where the CO2 is more easily separated out. Either way, Barry is hopeful about carbon capture and storage.
John Barry: That’s potentially one of the most promising technologies, because about a third of the emissions today are coming from things like power stations, where this sort of technology might be applicable and might make a radical difference to the CO2 emissions from those power stations.
Barry said Shell is in an early stage of rolling out full scale projects after proving each part of the technology over many years, and spoke of efforts underway in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere.
He also pointed to the FutureGen in the US and the European Technology Platform for Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Power Plants as efforts underway now to build coal-fueled, near-zero emissions power plants.
John Barry: We’ve done some calculations, and we think that rolling out carbon capture and storage, from about 2020 onwards on a large scale, will avoid about 230 gigatonnes, or 230 billion tonnes.
That’s close to eight years worth of CO2 emissions at today’s levels.
This podcast was made possible in part by Shell – encouraging dialog on the energy challenge.
Our thanks to:
John Barry
Shell International
Exploration and Production
Vice President for Unconventional Oil and Enhanced Oil Recovery
Written by JORGE SALAZAR, DEBORAH BYRD
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Jan van der Eijk of Shell on ‘three hard truths’
AN EARTHSKY EXTENDED PODCAST 29 June 08
Listen or download (to the right) to hear this 12-minute presentation
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Image credit: Greg Foley
Jan van der Eijk is Chief Technology Officer for Shell. He spoke with EarthSky’s Jorge Salazar about what he called the ‘three hard truths’ of meeting the world’s energy needs.
To subscribe to this and other free science podcasts, visit the subscribe pageat earthsky.org.
This podcast was made possible in part by Shell – encouraging dialog on the energy challenge.
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Harold Vinegar on retrieving oil via in-situ upgrading
Image Credit: Shell
“I think the unconventionals will play a major role in the world’s energy future. I think they have to,” said physicist Harold Vinegar of Royal Dutch Shell.
Those “unconventionals” are reserves of oil that can’t be easily pumped to the surface. Dr. Vinegar spoke of their potential for the coming century with EarthSky’s Jorge Salazar – and about a new way to recover unconventional oil by drilling holes and placing heaters underground.
This podcast was made possible in part by Shell – encouraging dialog on the energy challenge.
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Carl Mesters on gas-to-liquids technology
GTL bus trial around Shanghai, China 2007. (Photo: Shell)
Carl Mesters is an internationally recognized chemist and Chief Scientist for Chemistry and Catalysis for Shell.
Masters spoke with EarthSky’s Jorge Salazar from his office in the Netherlands, about creating synthetic fuels from natural gas. This process is known as gas-to-liquids technology.
To subscribe to this and other free science podcasts, visit the subscribe page at earthsky.org.
This podcast was made possible in part byShell – encouraging dialog on the energy challenge.
RELATED
Lee Schipper looks ahead at transportation choices
Image Credit: N-O-M-A-D
Expert Lee Schipper describes transportation in the years ahead as “a gradual shift toward people and goods needing to go less distance to enable us to lead enriched lives.”
In this Clear Voices for Science podcast, Schipper speaks to EarthSky’s Lindsay Patterson about the way we humans move around now – and how that might change as the 21st century progresses.
Now a Visiting Scholar at Berkeley, Schipper is a former director of research for EMBARQ – the World Resources Institute Center for Sustainable Transport.
This podcast was made possible in part by Shell – encouraging dialog on the energy challenge.
http://www.earthsky.org/clear-voices/52705/john-barry-on-carbon-capture-and-storage
Shell Developing Cutting-Edge Green Technologies
Shell is also developing a number of alternative energy sources, and is the largest distributor of bio-fuels and one of the biggest investors in wind energy, investing in new technology such as second generation biofuels, thin film solar and hydrogen.
Click to continue reading “Shell Developing Cutting-Edge Green Technologies”
Shell urges Rudd to protect LNG
Shell Australia chairman Russell Caplan and the company’s global head of gas power Linda Cook said yesterday they would continue to work with the federal Government to ensure the interests of the emissions-intensive, trade-exposed (EITE) sector were catered for in the carbon trading regime.
Shell says world can stabilize greenhouse gas levels
Thirst for energy will double in the first half of the century, but increased biofuel production and carbon storage could help the world stabilize greenhouse gas levels by the 2020s, oil giant Shell said on Wednesday.
Click to continue reading “Shell says world can stabilize greenhouse gas levels”
Exxon Rejects Proposals Backed by Rockefellers
“Exxon Mobil is acting like a dinosaur now, not adopting to a changing environment,” a New York shareholder, Stephen Viederman, said.
Click to continue reading “Exxon Rejects Proposals Backed by Rockefellers”
The world’s oceans at risk from rising acidity
A significant increase in the acidity of the Pacific Ocean has been detected by scientists, who believe it could upset the delicate balance of marine ecosystems and lead to their collapse.
Click to continue reading “The world’s oceans at risk from rising acidity”
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