Global Business Embraces Global Warming

#146437Sat 02/08/08 13:15

June 20, 2008 (Bloomberg) -- Alcoa Inc., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and 97 other companies are urging world leaders to devise a plan for fighting global warming by setting greenhouse-gas targets for all nations and creating an international carbon market.

A new climate-change treaty is needed with incentives to capture and store carbon dioxide and protect forests, the 99 companies said in a statement prepared by the World Economic Forum, a Geneva-based business coalition.

...an extra $45 trillion must be invested in clean-air technologies, the Paris-based International Energy Agency said this month.

Willie Walsh (British Airways CEO) ...is one of 16 corporate leaders who developed the proposals. The group, representing 10 percent of the market value of the world's listed companies, also is led by Jeroen Van der Veer (Shell CEO), Alain Belda (Alcoa Chairman), and James Rogers (Duke Energy CEO).

Caio Koch-Weser, vice chairman of Deutsche Bank:

"We see enormous opportunity here for the global financial industry". An emissions treaty enforced beyond 2012 might produce "the makings of the global carbon market, with carbon almost as a currency 10 years from now.''

"We need strong leadership from governments to enable the business community to take advantage of opportunities," British Airways' Walsh said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSGm18AJaMkk

http://www.ieagreen.org.uk/index.html

#172290Sat 02/08/08 13:41

more info on the climate crisis at

www.heatisonline.org

100 months to save the planet

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/01/climatechange.carbonemissions

#146437Sun 03/08/08 19:07

Largest Cleantech Industry is…Carbon Credits at $63 Billion

Clean Technica (30 July 2008)
http://cleantechnica.com/2008/07/30/largest-cleantech-industry-is%e2%80%a6carbon-credits-at-63-billion/

Emerging out of thin air, it has already surpassed solar and wind as the largest cleantech industry. Carbon credits were worth a staggering $63 billion in 2007 and $59 billion in the first half of 2008 alone.

Europe has dominating the carbon market since its creation less than five years ago. EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) was responsible for 70% of the trading in the first half of this year, totaling $47 billion. This dollar amount is likely to increase as the cost of carbon credits soars and with the inclusion of aviation emissions in 2012.

Obviously an industry of this amount of rapid growth opens many business opportunities. Companies are needed to provide verified emissions offsets, energy efficiency audits, greenhouse gas emission audits, and to design carbon software. This industry has gained considerable interest from venture capitalists.

If the U.S. and China create large-scale carbon trading systems, the sky is the limit for growth in the carbon trading industry.
--

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_credit

#146437Sat 18/04/09 17:18

CO2 for Enhanced Oil Recovery (CO2-EOR)

Enhanced Oil Recovery is a generic term for techniques for increasing the amount of crude oil that can be extracted from an oil field. Using EOR, 30-60 %, or more, of the reservoir's original oil can be extracted compared with 20-40% using primary and secondary recovery. Enhanced oil recovery is also called improved oil recovery or tertiary recovery (as opposed to primary and secondary recovery).

Gas injection is presently the most-commonly used approach for enhanced recovery. A gas is injected into the oil-bearing stratum under high pressure. That pressure pushes the oil into the pipe and up to the surface. In addition to the beneficial effect of the pressure, this method sometimes aids recovery by reducing the viscosity of the crude oil as the gas mixes with it. Gases commonly used include CO2, natural gas or nitrogen.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has estimated that full use of 'next generation' CO2-EOR in United States could generate an additional 240 billion barrels of recoverable oil resources. Developing this potential would depend on the availability of commercial CO2 in large volumes, which could be made possible by widespread use of carbon capture and storage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_oil_recovery

#146437Sat 25/04/09 12:33

Carbon Capture and Sequestration

Description: Reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is vital to the preservation of the world's climate and of huge importance to the Wyoming economy given its heavy reliance on carbon based industries. One GHG emission reduction system with enormous potential is called Carbon Capture and Sequestration. This system is based around a premise of reducing the amount of CO2 emitted by carbon (Coal or Natural Gas) fueled power stations to almost zero by extracting the CO2 and storing it underground in depleted oil and gas reservoirs or saline aquifers.

Benefits to producers: CO2 miscible flooding is an extremely productive EOR method that uses pressurized CO2 to flush oil from the reservoir. However, the CO2 that is used must first be purchased and this cost limits the profitability of the technique. Reducing this cost by developing more efficient and economical capture methods means that certain field reservoir combinations where CO2 flooding was previously not considered could become potentially profitable.

http://eori.gg.uwyo.edu/CCS.asp
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The Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute (University of Wyoming) is a center of excellence and a depository of knowledge regarding the implementation of Enhanced Oil Recovery techniques in Wyoming.

#146437Sun 26/04/09 08:27

No new coal-fired power stations will be built in Britain from now on unless they capture and bury at least 25% of greenhouse gases immediately and 100% by 2025, the climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, announced today.

Demanding carbon capture and storage (CCS) on all new coal plants is expected to cost around £1bn for each plant and increase energy bills. Government and energy companies are in talks over how these will be funded but it is expected to come from a levy on all fossil fuel electricity generation in Britain. This could put 2%, or roughly £8 per household a year, on a consumer's electricity bills by 2020. Other funding alternatives being considered are to pay the energy companies according to how much carbon they store underground.

Guardian -- April 23, 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/23/clean-coal-energy-policy

#146437Sat 27/06/09 11:15

April 2009, Newt Gingrich pushes for carbon capture and storage; quote:

Green coal and carbon sequestration is the most important single breakthrough we can make… Enhanced oil recovery -- as a component of carbon sequestration -- could lead to up to a 100 billion barrels of additional oil coming out of existing [US] fields.

#146437Mon 28/09/09 18:38

Windfall Profits and EU Carbon Trading

During 2005, the price of electric power in the EU rose dramatically, leading to charges that power producers were receiving windfall profits. In other words, although they received their emissions permits for free, they were still charging more for electricity as if they had incurred costs for the permits. The resulting "windfall" profit has seemed unfair to some[39].

This criticism is partly misleading, since most of the rise in energy prices was not due to the passing on of permit costs. Nonetheless, careful study has shown that producers were able to pass on a significant fraction of the "market cost" of permits to power consumers, thus reaping so-called windfall profits[40].

The issue is complicated by the fact that windfall profits are limited to deregulated electricity markets and the EU is in a transitional phase where many of its markets are still regulated.

39. Emissions trading: lessons learnt from the 1st phase of the EU ETS and prospects for the 2nd phase - Climate Policy (2006)

40. CO2 Cost Pass Through and Windfall Profits in the Power Sector - Climate Policy (2006)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_emissions_trading_scheme