From the Editor: ‘Evolution not transition’ concept lacks urgency [Gas in Transition]
The energy trilemma is a longstanding concept popularised more than a decade ago by the World Energy Congress. It states simply that energy provision needs to meet three, often competing, demands: security, affordability and sustainability.
As climate science has developed and the need to address climate change has become more urgent, issues of sustainability have grown in importance and become, for many countries, the pre-eminent element of the energy trilemma, in many cases dominating policy agendas.
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However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent loss of pipeline gas exports to Europe coalesced into an energy crisis with worldwide consequences. Europe paid top dollar to secure scarce LNG imports last year and still faces an uncertain winter this year, while many developing economies reduced LNG imports or went without.
This led to a greater reliance on coal and, in many cases, particularly in South Asia, blackouts and gas shortages. Security of supply and affordability, at least for a while, became the most pressing concerns of governments.
Meeting baseload demand is the first order of priority
For many in the gas industry, the shortages highlight the need for increased investment. Larger supplies of LNG would have moderated prices and provided developing economies with a cleaner burning fuel than coal. For them, it demonstrated the dangers of a disorderly energy transition, one in which a decline in fossil fuel investment would reduce supply before cleaner sources of energy become available, leading to shortages and an energy world wracked by volatility and uncertainty.
To address this, industry figures, such as Karen Harbert, President of the American Gas Association, are calling for ‘evolution not transition’, an awkward rewording of the phrase ‘evolution not revolution,’ but one which recognises that the energy transition does imply a revolution in the way in which energy is both produced and consumed, even if it does not adopt the word directly.
Harbert’s argument is that world energy demand will continue to rise, not least driven by an ever-expanding global population. To meet this, and lift the millions of people without access to electricity or clean cooking fuels out of energy poverty, more natural gas will be needed, and the most versatile and flexible means of getting natural gas to the markets where it is needed is LNG.
What it ignores is that the energy crisis did not occur because of the promotion of energy transition policies, but because of the impacts of pandemic and war and the vulnerabilities created by dependence on energy imports.
Ukraine invasion was a ‘wake-up’ call
The ‘evolution not transition’ approach was echoed by other gas industry figures at the LNG2023 conference in Vancouver, Canada. The Ukraine crisis was a “wake-up call,” according to Meg O’Neill, CEO of Australian oil and gas company Woodside Energy.
“We can’t blindly pursue just one of the three elements of the energy trilemma,” she said.
The implication again is that the ‘blind pursuit’ of energy transition goals alone is a destabilising influence.
But underlying this is a belief that the climate goals set by governments are not realisable in a world of growing energy demand.
The International Energy Agency, in its net zero carbon scenarios, posits a 2050 world in which energy demand is significantly lower than it is today, not larger. This, according to Greg Ebel, president and CEO of Canadian energy services company Enbridge, is because, “this is the only way they can make the numbers add up.”
For him, “there is no future from an energy perspective without natural gas. It is a destination fuel,” and an essential element in meeting growing world demand for baseload energy.
Slow approach to sustainability
Yet if the pursuit of one element of the energy trilemma is misguided, as O’Neill argues, it also implies that no element should be ignored. And there is certainly an industry consensus that gas has to become cleaner. However, there is not much on the table to show how this will be achieved.
For O’Neil, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is the most immediate solution for making natural gas and LNG more sustainable; “absolutely, it will be part of the solution”, she says. CCS needs to increase 100-fold by 2050, she adds, noting that Woodside is also actively looking at potential uses for CO2 which are more constructive than just burying it in the ground.
These pre-commercial ideas are broad, for example using CO2 to make sustainable aviation fuels, ethanol, fertilisers or animal feed. They will take time to develop, she says, again coming back to the theme of evolution.
However, climate activists – also present in Vancouver, albeit only in small numbers and not as paying delegates – would argue that the gas industry simply wants to buy time in the hope that it can develop technologies which prolong the use of its product. What happens, they ask, if these new technologies fail to work or are not economically viable?
They are legitimate questions. The time frame for climate mitigation has been set at 2050. This is in some, but only some, respects an arbitrary date. It may not have pin-point precision, but it reflects a point at which climate scientists believe climate change will become irreversible. It is only 27 years away, and, it must be said, evolution is a notoriously slow process.