Fossil Fuels: Leave Them in the Ground

Is natural gas replacing coal? That was the first question posed by Stephan Singer, Director of Global Energy Policy at WWF at the Unconventional Gas and Oil Summit in Warsaw, Poland.

In Poland, he purported that shale gas might just add to supplies of natural gas, but not replace coal.

“In the case of an agreement in the UN globally to cap carbon, the issue of unconventional gas is less of an issue for us. The conventional threats of shale gas: fracking, freshwater use, toxic chemicals, etc. in theory could be legislated properly – I agree that it could be done,” said Mr. Singer, who asked a greater question:

“How much CO2 can we emit in a below 2-degree world? How much carbon is already ‘in the pipeline’?”

Presenting results from a study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), according to various low carbon scenarios to stabilize the atmospheric concentration of CO2, the average of the low carbon scenarios required zero emissions by sometime between 2060 and 2080.

“Of course if you go to higher stabilization scenarios, then you have more emissions to emit,” he added, explaining what those scenarios meant for temperature, that they would likely result in above 2-degree global warming.

He showed a red oval which was located under almost all of the emissions scenarios and said, “This is where we need to be, below 400 ppm, to have the high likelihood to stay below 2-degree global warming.”

Cumulatively, where global CO2 stood didn’t look or sound good, either, according to his presentation.

Singer explained, “What is not important is the amount of emissions at a point in time; what’s important is how much carbon is accumulated in the atmosphere.”

At current emission rates, in the next 20 years it looked likely that 1,000 gigatons of CO2 would be emitted, he said.

“We can’t afford another 20 years of current emissions, forgetting that we are currently increasing our emissions. If I compare this with the conventional fossil fuel recoverable reserves, economically and technologically, then you see 20 times the potential emissions of today will surpass the proven oil reserves, surpass the proven gas reserves and will be roughly below the total coal reserves,” explained Mr. Singer.

Showing a red column on the chart, he said: “The total of fossil fuels gives you currently available proven, economically, ecologically fossil fuel reserves.”

It was twice as high as the “carbon budget” bar graph next to it which represented a carbon emissions budget for 2010-2050.

“If we want to stay below 2-degree global warming, there’s a certain likelihood that about 50% of the proven reserves remain in the ground, unless we apply carbon capture storage,” he said.

His presentation read “Regarding all fossil fuel conventional and unconventional resources, about 95% need to stay untouched, mainly coal.”

Singer added: “There is too much carbon already in the pipeline. When staying below 2-degree global warming, most of both reserves and resources –again both –conventional and unconventional ones need to remain untouched.”

He said it was a matter of physics and atmospheric science.

In terms of the “solution” – renewables – he said there had been a revolutionary decline in costs, in particular the cost of global PV silicon production.

“Photovoltaic was seen as a very costly technology 4-5 years ago, but in some areas of the world already approaching parity – not in all areas,” he commented.

He showed graphically how other renewables technologies were approaching becoming cost competitive. Mr. Singer also noted a Bloomberg report that contended there would be a 10-fold capacity increase for renewables by 2030, mainly for wind and solar, according to a “business as usual” development scenario.

Mr. Singer also had a projection from Siemens, which showed what would happen if the costs for wind continued to decrease, that wind generation in the global energy mix could reach roughly 15,000 bn kWh by the year 2030.

“For us,” he said of WWF, “the future will be clean, renewable energy, whether fossil fuel companies like it or not. The crucial debate will be just about the speed of renewable energy development. Fossil fuels’ long-term investments will provide liabilities and stranded investments. Shareholders will notice….unless societies decide to ditch climate targets, which I don’t think will happen.

“Natural gas certainly will be transition fuel, but no more than that,” concluded Stephan Singer.