Category: Climate change

On 18th February, Professor Myles Allen, the “physicist behind net zero”, spoke to Jim Al-Khalili on the BBC radio’s The Life Scientific. Professor Allen has a simple solution to climate breakdown. We just need to get the large oil companies to clean up their mess.

It works like this. For each 1 tonne of carbon sold in the form of liquid oil or natural gas, an oil company should be required to capture and store 3.67 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This amount of CO2 contains 1 tonne of C. On the basis that the end use of the oil or gas will almost certainly lead to a release of CO2, this rule would ensure that net emissions fall to zero. Simple. Additionally, we should get the oil companies to hoover up at least some of the excess CO2 that has accumulated since the Industrial Revolution.

Myles Allen comments that he recently raised the idea in front of a group of young recruits at a large oil company, amongst whom the sentiment was, apparently, that this vacuum cleaning exercise is possible on a global scale. The technology exists, and it would be so much simpler and more effective than relying on eight billion people’s individual life decisions.

Practical issues

There is, however, a however. Three howevers in fact: scale, cost, and timing.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is not a new idea. In 2007, the Labour government of Tony Blair launched a competition, with a subsequent budget of £1 billion, to support a number of CCS demonstration projects in the UK. The aim was to work with private companies in the power sector to get CCS up and running. The eight projects were whittled down to four, then two, then one … and in 2011 the competition was finally cancelled without any projects to show for it.

The current Conservative government has promised in its election manifesto to spend £800m on CCS. Just a few days ago (4th March), Nicholas Stern urged the government to use this money to encourage private sector investment. Is history repeating itself 13 years later (albeit with a smaller budget than previously)? Why would a CCS public/private partnership work now when it didn’t before?

There are currently no CCS projects in operation in the UK power sector. Most people in the industry expect little action before 2030. In their technical report from May 2019, the UK Committee on Climate Change developed an ambitious pathway for achieving ‘net zero’ by 2050. As part of this pathway, the CCC envisages 176 MtCO2 captured by CCS in 2050 (almost all of the progress being after 2030). That’s about one-third of our current annual greenhouse gas emissions, according to the CCC, to be captured in 2050, i.e. thirty years from now.

Scaling up the CCC’s target by the UK’s share of global primary energy consumption in 2019 (1.4% according to the BP Statistical Review) implies the world would capture 12.6 billion tCO2 in 2050.  That might be around one fifth of the total emissions in 2050 (say 10 billion people emitting 6 tCO2 per annum on average) – if we decide that ‘business as usual’ for the world’s citizens is fine because CCS is coming to the rescue.  There are a few simplifications here, but it’s fair to say the CCC ambition for CCS falls a long way short of curbing emissions to the atmosphere.  It would appear that the CCC’s net zero trajectory is far too slow for CCS to be a comprehensive solution in time, which is ironic given that it appears vastly ambitious in light of government inaction.

The CCC estimates the cost of CCS to be circa 100 £/tCO2 (they give a range of 50-160 £/tCO2).  So that would imply a cost of around £6 trillion in 2050, or £600 per annum per person on the planet.  Presumably we would want to remove another 1000 billion tCO2 or so to get back to pre-Industrial levels, at a CCC-implied further cost of £100 trillion, or around £10,000 one-off payment per person. Those of us living in rich countries might have to pay a few times the global average, for both the one-off payment and on-going annual expense. Think thousands of pounds per person, each year, in today’s money values.

Other physicists, including David Mackay in Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air, have estimated the energy requirement for CCS to work. From first principles, it appears that the global vacuum cleaner would add around 20% to global primary energy consumption. 

I am concerned that the viability of CCS at scale has not been proven, that it is expensive, and that it may be too late to the party. I am concerned that people are quick to think ‘nothing to do with me’ if someone proposes a technological miracle.  And even if it transpires that CCS is the best option we’ve got, everyone will end up paying for it.  I foresee tabloid headlines along the lines of Fat Cat Oil Execs Cause Pensioners To Die In Their Homes.

There is, of course, a clear appeal in forcing a relatively small number of large companies to take action, instead of trying to persuade a significant chunk of the world’s population to change its behaviour. But we need to be honest about the scale, timing and cost of CCS. Meanwhile, reducing consumption and travel, and changing diet, are either free or cost-saving, do not rely on unproven technology, can be implemented immediately, and can be reversed when our Technological Saviour finally shows up.

“Gameau defaults to the position of inspiring people rather than alarming or overwhelming them. You leave the film wanting more, not less, of these sorts of productions.” Film review of 2040 (directed by Damon Gameau, Australia, 2019) by The Guardian newspaper

There is a majority view that positivity is important if you want to effect change.

Nearly 80 years ago, Winston Churchill inspired the British people with a speech that offered “blood, toil, tears, and sweat … many, many months of struggle and suffering”. In 1849, Garibaldi rallied his troops in Rome with the promise of “hunger, thirst, forced marches, battle, and death”. And in a similar vein a modern leader might propose “fire, floods, feuds, and famine … many years of environmental decay, conflict and adaptation”.

But it’s a little hard to imagine. Gameau’s vision – of a fume-free, noise-free green idyll, brought about by the combined forces of clever technology, community spirit and female emancipation – is more in keeping with the modern zeitgeist, and the it-will-be-all-right speeches of today’s politicians.

I largely share The Guardian’s enthusiasm, and recommend 2040 to those who have not yet seen it. I only wish it was more realistic.

Displacement

The film begins with a defensive claim: that all of the carbon emissions caused by its production (largely from the director jet-setting around the world) have been offset by ‘certified carbon credits’. It’s clearly a point that bothers Gameau, as the same claim is made at the end, only this time with a further announcement that additional funds have been donated to pro-active tree-planting in his native Australia.

Carbon offsetting is helpful but there is an essential dishonesty in the message that by spending a few extra pounds on a flight we can carry on with ‘business as usual’. We need to take the measures involved in offsetting – which in large measure would happen anyway, this is the problem known as ‘additionality’ – and also reduce flying, at least until such time as miracle planes have been invented that emit only small amounts of greenhouse gases.

The (non-)additionality of offsetting is one instance of the displacement problem: as climate breakdown escalates, firms will fall over themselves to claim that they are ‘green’ – that their own energy is from nice wind and solar, that they are planting lots of trees, that if only other firms could be as eco-friendly as they are the world would be fine. Essentially many of these green actions have already happened (e.g. the firms are sourcing electricity from renewable power stations that have already been built), or would happen anyway, one way or the other; the eco-friendly firms are attributing them to their own account and displacing others from doing so in the process. Not all actions fall into this category – some are genuinely additional – but we have to be wary of any claims that appear to be an excuse for business as usual. The claims are growing fast.

Too good to be true?

Unless you believe that progress is only possible if we are fortified by delusion, it is worth asking whether some of the film’s claims are too good to be true. For instance, the utopia of shared autonomous electric vehicles doesn’t quite address questions such as: a) how will everyone travel to work in rush hour?; or b) what are the resource implications of the large number of batteries required?; or c) how much energy will be required in data centres to support the constant streaming requirements for the autonomous vehicles? Perhaps there is a harder reality here – that we need to travel less full stop, whether for work or pleasure (bicycles excepted).

We do need a grown-up discussion about the psychological desires behind travel, and the dubious rationalisations given to justify it.

Are we really going to solve food problems by geo-engineering the oceans to grow seaweed? Or is the prosaic advice to eat a largely plant-based diet more realistic as well as less appealing?

Putting solar panels on everyone’s roof yields bigger dividends in relatively sunny countries than in northern Europe. Certainly they won’t provide all of a home’s energy needs (especially heating) as implied by the film. Nor do they provide much security when it is simultaneously cold and dark. Which isn’t to say they aren’t useful, but rather that the problem is much bigger than the film admits. Once again, lower consumption in western countries is part of the answer.

And even if the idyllic world were to come about, it will not be as early as 2040. If humanity stops using fossil fuels within twenty years, then many people will die in consequence, such is our reliance upon them. Yes we need to wean ourselves off, but in a way that is controlled and responsible.

At the risk of being out of step with the zeitgeist, I suggest that some hardship is unavoidable.