E3G

Taming King Coal - the EU’s energy policy

By Nick Mabey

Europe has willed the end but not the means to deliver the CCS demonstration programme. Unless a way is found to rebuild momentum at EU level it is likely that companies will look to invest in other projects and other areas. In short, Europe has put itself between a rock and a hard place. 

That’s the argument E3G Chief Executive Nick Mabey makes in a leader article published in Issue 3 of Carbon Capture Journal. The text of his article follows below. It’s also available in the pdf version of the full issue of the journal.

Taming King Coal - the EU’s energy policy

In March 2007 EU Heads of Government called for the deployment of technologies for the capture and storage of CO2 (CCS) in new European power plants by 2020, and welcomed the European Commission’s intention to establish a mechanism to stimulate the construction and operation by 2015 of up to 12 CCS demonstration plants. 

The EU is now in the process of adopting legislation providing for the geological storage of CO2. So far, so good; but the current EU demonstration strategy will not produce CCS as a deployable large scale low carbon power option before 2020. 

Europe’s goals

Preserving European climate security means limiting global temperature rises to 2°C. Europe cannot meet this multilateral goal, or achieve internal energy security without aggressive EU leadership on CCS. 

Global energy scenarios which stabilise greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations around 450ppm CO2 equivalent – giving a 50% chance of remaining below 2°C – assume large scale deployment of CCS starting during the period 2015-20. Each year of delay, according to recent scenarios analysis by Shell, potentially raises the final stabilisation concentration by at least 1ppm. 

Delay also risks lock-in to high emissions technologies. The next 25 years will see utilities in Europe build up to 850GW of new power stations, more than the US and nearly as many as China. Even if the EU meets its challenging renewable energy targets, over 75% of this investment will be in coal or gas fired power stations. 

With gas prices high, and fears about dependence on Russian supplies rising, nearly 40GW of new coal power stations are planned by 2012 alone; mainly in Germany, Poland and Eastern Europe. 
Unless these stations can be technically and economically retro-fitted with CCS, they risk having been inefficient investments – becoming costly stranded assets worth billions of Euros, or long term climate liabilities which reduce Europe’s ability to transform into a low carbon economy.

Europe is the only major power seriously committed to delivering the 2°C target. The price of such leadership is that Europe needs to develop CCS technologies or the US, China and India will carry on investing in dirty coal and undermining European climate security.

When we recognise that developing CCS is not an option but a necessity, the question becomes “if not us, then who?”