Net-zero or real-zero

A statement by Fortescue Mining's Chief Climate Scientist
From Climate Integrity

The net-zero by 2050 target that many countries have adopted sounds wonderful, until you dig into it.  The goal of net-zero is to balance emissions with net withdrawals of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, in other words to stop atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases (Co2, methane, NOx) from rising.  That's logical, isn't it?  

Only, it hasn't worked out this way.  Polluters have bought "offsets" to "reduce" their net emissions.  But what are these "offsets"?   A village in a poor country promises not to cut down a forest, and the net emissions "saved" by this are bought by an industrial company, which can then claim its own net emissions have "fallen".   Only, when we investigate, we find that the villagers have in fact cleared the forest.  Or an Ozzie farmer promises not to clear some land, which he was not going to clear anyway, and that counts as an "offset".  Or trees will be planted on previously cleared land, and since trees absorb carbon dioxide, this can be monetised as an "offset".  Never mind that at the next bushfire, all the carbon embedded in the trees will be released back into the atmosphere.  

Meanwhile, actual emissions haven't fallen.

When the idea of net-zero was bruited, polluters fell upon it with cries of glee.  They could keep their existing operations unchanged, but still gain kudos by claiming how green they were.  An Ozzie oil company claimed its petrol and diesel were "green" because it bought "offsets" equal to the CO2 that would be produced when the petrol was burned.  An Australian electricity utility claimed its electricity was "zero-carbon" because it bought "offsets".

You get the picture.

The problem is that real withdrawal of CO2 from the atmosphere is expensive — unless you capture the CO2 directly from the flues of coal- or gas-fired power stations, and bury it deep underground, and even that adds  +-$90/MWh to the cost of the electricity produced.  (That's a 2018 costing; it's certainly much higher now.)  If the carbon dioxide produced really is stored in deep caverns, and doesn't leak back into the atmosphere, then this will genuinely reduce atmospheric carbon emissions, and so qualifies as a genuine carbon offset.   And yet, for the cost of adding CCS (carbon capture and storage) to coal/gas power stations, you could have a battery-solar farm at a lower cost per MWh, which can provide carbon-free baseload power. 

Hence the increased interest in real-zero.  Zero actual emissions, not some accounting fudge with pretend reduced emissions.  What a novel idea!

So let's suppose we target real-zero by 2050.  How fast would emissions have to fall each year to get there?  Well, emissions would have to fall by 12% a year, compound.  I don't want to shatter your hopes, but that is not going to happen.  It's true that China's emissions have prolly peaked.  But as for an imminent steep decline?  India's emissions are still rising, even though renewables provided all of the increase in electricity demand last year thanks to a cooler than normal summer.

+-30% of emissions comes from electricity generation, and +-15% from land transport.  If we could stop emissions from these two sectors by 2050, that would translate into a compound annual decline of 2.5%.   This should be easy to achieve.   EVs are heading rapidly towards 100% of car, light and heavy truck and bus sales.   By 2050, the existing ICEV fleets will have been transitioned to EVs.   By 2050, most of the world's electricity grids will be nearing 100% renewables, as wind, solar and battery costs continue to fall.

But a 45% cut in emissions by 2050 is not enough.  The rise in global temperatures is proportional to the level of emissions.  Halving emissions will halve the temperature increase, but recently the rise in temperature has accelerated, from 0.2 C to 0.3C per decade.   We want to cut the decadal rise to 0.1 degrees C, or less, to give us more time to transition to a zero-carbon economy.

Suppose, instead of 2.5% per annum, we were to target 5% per annum?  That would cut emissions by 70% by 2050, reducing the decadal temperature rise to 0.1 C.  In addition to electricity generation and transport, we would need to cut emissions in industry (iron, steel, chemicals, cement), and replace oil and gas heating with heat pumps. 

Even if net-zero was a sensible target, it's 24 years away.  How many of the politicians earnestly assuring us that they really, really mean to reach this fabled land will still be around to explain their failure by then?  We need an annual target.  And I submit that the annual target should be 5%.  2.5% per annum will be easy.  5% will require an effort.  But it will also mean we could limit the increase in global temperatures to 2 degrees C by 2050.

These would be the long-term 2050 targets:

✔️ 100% of electricity from renewables;

✔️ 100% of car, light truck, heavy truck and bus fleets electric;

✔️ All water and space heating via heat pumps, or electric (not oil/gas);

✔️ Steel made via hydrogen/methane/electric arc;

✔️ Electrification of industry;

✔️ A carbon tax on domestic production, and a carbon border tax on imports from countries which do not have a carbon tax.

Is this doable?  Yes, but it will involve standing up to lobbies.  

What about agriculture?  By 2050, by far the biggest percentage of emissions will be from producing meat and dairy and the land clearing that goes with that.  At that point, taking on the agricultural lobbies will be unavoidable.  Maybe we should be starting right now.  You don't need to wait for legislation.  Just stop eating meat.

Kicking fossil fuel out of industry

 From Just Have a Think

Gives an interesting perspective of just how fossil fuels are used in industry, and how we can replace almost all uses with green electricity.  As so often, up-front costs are key.  And as always, a decent carbon price would encourage a more rapid transition to carbon-free industry.

There are 4 main "sectors" where we need to de-carbonise, and they each require different solutions.  The emissions from each sector are not equal, but it helps to break down the problem like this.

1.  Electricity generation.  This is, globally, the sector with the biggest share of emissions, but that varies a bit depending on the country.  The solutions here are obvious, and happening, though not as fast as is needed.
2. Transport.  A mixed bag.  Land transport is moving rapidly towards zero carbon; air and sea transport still has a long way to go.
3. Industry.  This includes steel and cement production, and chemicals and paper.  This video discusses various solutions.
4. Food.  A combination of methane emissions by grazing animals, and deforestation to produce beef.  As big as electricity generation by many analyses, but the hardest to reduce, because people have an emotional relationship with their food.  Politicians interfere at their peril, so shy away.  Yet it is abundantly clear that something will have to be done.

Reducing your personal emissions

The big sources of CO2 emissions: electricity generation (±30%); land transport (±20%), agriculture & land clearing(±25%, but agriculture much worse than that because of methane); iron and steel (±7%); cement (±8%).   These are global totals; your country's might differ.  Canada, e.g., has plenty of hydro.

So, to reduce your personal emissions by at least 50%:

1. Become vegetarian
2. Buy your electricity from a genuine green supplier, not one that uses offsets to 'reduce' their emissions, which are mostly (alas) scams
3. Replace your car with an EV, but if that's too expensive, a simple old hybrid still reduces emissions (urban driving) by 40-50% and costs only $2 K more than a petrol car
4. Put solar panels on your roof if you can
5. Use trains instead of planes to travel long distance

and ... 

Vote for a party with a real emissions policy, as opposed to parties which are just greenwashing, which will :

1. Push steel companies to produce steel using green hydrogen/methane. 
2. Subsidise EVs and electric buses/trains
3. Eliminate fossil fuel subsidies
4. Introduce a price on carbon
5. Tax imports from countries which don't cut emissions.

The only emissions which will be very hard to reduce will be from cement.  But there are ways around that too.

 

Source: BBC
Note that only the CO2 emissions saved by a vegan diet in this chart are given.
Methane (a greenhouse gas 80 times as potent as CO2) is excluded.

Sweden pushes for real green steel

 From CleanTechnica

HYBRIT and H2 Green Steel have launched projects in Sweden with a target to manufacture 10 million tonnes (mt) of fossil fuel-free crude (green) steel per year by 2030. Success, of course, depends on the numbers adding up, or rather, the numbers going down.

To make green steel, you need green hydrogen; to make green hydrogen, you need cheap renewable energy. HYBRIT and H2 Green Steel believe this will come from wind power at a LCOE of $30 per megawatt-hour. With the trajectory of costs for renewable energy going ever downward, it is likely they will be able to achieve this.

Add to the mix the increasing costs of carbon and the pressure to decarbonize, and you have a winner. It is expected that a carbon credits will be available to green steel producers of around $85 per ton. 

Sweden is a relatively small producer of steel and this target of 10 mt is three times what is currently being produced in the Scandinavian country. However:  “The country boasts Europe’s largest iron ore reserves and excellent renewable energy resources — two primary prerequisites for the production of green hydrogen and decarbonized crude steel,” writes Wood Mackenzie principal analyst Sohaib Malik.

“According to Malik, at a levelled cost of electricity at $30 per megawatt-hour, wind power is a highly economical source of power generation in Sweden today. Meanwhile, further cost reductions are expected with better financing structures for onshore wind, lower capex for onshore and offshore installations, technological optimization for asset management and state support for offshore grid infrastructure.”

Another part of the green steel mix that needs to be factored in is the method for the production of green hydrogen — in this case, alkaline electrolysis technology. The costs associated with this are expected to halve by 2030, enabling a levelled cost of $1 per kilogram of green hydrogen using onshore wind power.

Photo by David Becker on Unsplash

A solar oven to make cement and steel

 From Mashable

Heliogen is a secretive startup developing a promising solar technology that relies on transforming sunlight into extreme heat.

Using mirrors to reflect light into a single point achieved temperatures just three times lower than the surfaces of the sun. That extreme heat can be used to produce cement, glass, or steel – industries that are heavily reliant on fossil fuels.

See the video here.

The world's first fossil-free steel vehicle

 From Forbes

The 21st century has no shortage of companies claiming “world’s first” status for their products. Few stand up to sustained scrutiny. So when Volvo today unveiled an autonomous vehicle produced using fossil-free steel, how big a deal was it?

Short answer: pretty big. Though the devil is in the detail.

Volvo CEO Martin Lundstedt presented the four-wheeled, autonomous and fully electric machine at a press conference in Copenhagen alongside counterparts from Swedish steel makers SSAB and Ovako, who are collaborating with Volvo in an effort to bring to market vehicles that are manufactured with minimal greenhouse gas emissions. SSAB CEO Martin Lindqvist said at the launch: “Having the world’s first actual vehicle made using SSAB’s fossil-free steel is a true milestone. Our collaboration with Volvo Group shows that green transition is possible and brings results.”

The vehicle in question is a load carrier, designed for use in quarrying and mining, and capable of working in convoy with other autonomous vehicles to pick up and transport material around a pre-programmed route. Powered by an electric motor, the vehicle produces no emissions when in operation. 

But as the title suggests, the most groundbreaking aspect of the vehicle is that the steel used in its construction was produced without using fossil fuels. That steel is, in fact, the same material reported on by Forbes Sustainability in August, when Swedish steelmaker SSAB, along with energy company Vattenfall and iron ore miner LKAB, teamed up to deliver the world’s first shipment of fossil fuel-free steel, replacing the coal traditionally used in the steelmaking process with green hydrogen derived from electrolysis.

That really was a big deal. While emissions from the energy sector and direct emissions from transport are relatively easy to reduce—usually by abandoning combustion in favor of electrification—getting coal out of steel production was thought to be a more complex challenge. Yet with their new technology, SSAB and its partners appeared to have cracked it. 

“When we have been talking about ‘fossil free’ in the transport sector, we have been focusing a lot on emissions from the vehicles in use. But it's clear to us and to everyone else that we also need to address the carbon footprint from the production of our vehicles,” Volvo Group’s Chief Technology Officer Lars Stenqvist told me via video link. “That's why it's so important now to team up with everyone in the value chain and collaborate in order to drive out all the fossil fuel also used in the production of components, parts and also running our production facilities.”

There is, however, a caveat to the “fossil free” claim—namely that not all of the steel in the vehicle is, in fact, fossil fuel-free. While the bucket and major parts of the chassis do hail from Volvo’s coal-free collaboration with SSAB, parts such as the electric motor were made with conventional materials by a supplier, the name of which Stenqvist could not divulge.

So note Volvo’s wording: the firm describes the vehicle as having been made using fossil fuel-free steel; nowhere is the claim made that the steel used to make it is entirely fossil fuel-free.

Nevertheless, Stenqvist said the vehicle represents a breakthrough for low-emissions vehicle production.

“I don’t have the percentage exactly, but the majority of the steel in this vehicle is fossil free,” he said, further divulging that of the carrier’s 8-ton-plus total weight, 3 tons were produced from fossil fuel-free steel. Factoring in the weight of the tires, various plastics and non-ferrous components in such an electric vehicle, the “majority” claim sounds reasonable enough.

“For a chief technology officer it’s a fantastic day,” Stenqvist continued. “For me it was rather obvious that [choosing the load carrier to be the first fossil-free vehicle] was a good choice because it was in the forefront of all these technologies: full electric, fully autonomous and based on fossil-free steel. I mean that mix is unbeatable.”