In praise of CHP

Combined Heat and Power (CHP) is about making use of some of the waste heat produced by power stations. The CHP idea became popular in the UK in the 1970s. In theory, with CHP, the overall energy conversion efficiency could be raised from the 30-35% or so typical of the then dominant large coal fired plants, to 70-80%. Large CHP plants, feeding city-wide district heating (DH) networks, were enthusiastically promoted as an idea in the 1970s by some radical local councils (notable Newcastle and Sheffield) and by trade union and labour movement groups like SERA- and indeed by the Open University: if you did an OU energy course then you could hardly miss it.  Even the then chief scientist, Walter Marshall, was a fan- he chaired the definitive study on CHP, but, as head of the CEGB, he backed nuclear (US PWRs) even more. In the event, after an attempt to push a big PWR programme (only one was build - at Sizewell), Maggie Thatcher opted instead for privatization, which put nuclear and coal-fired CHP mostly out of the running, with the dash for gas being one result: North Sea gas was plentiful and cheap and combined cycle gas turbines were quick and cheap to build, and could use gas reasonably efficiently, with conversion efficiencies of up to 50% being claimed. Although that still means half the heat energy is wasted.

Some smaller CHP plants have been developed for industrial complexes, where there were large on-site heat demands, but unlike in central and northern Europe, where its use is widespread, CHP/DH was hard to promote for large-scale urban use in the UK, given that it always seemed to have cheap energy sources (coal and then North Sea gas), so upgrading the efficiency of its uses didn’t seem that urgent. And ‘socialistic’ community heat provision didn’t tie in well with privatisation and liberalisation.  Now, with fuel sources less available and climate issues mounting, it’s back on the agenda- this time also pushed from the political right!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/11185960/We-waste-more-heat-than-we-pay-for-to-keep-homes-warm.html#disqus_thread

One idea (borrowed from Russia) is to use nuclear plants to provide the heat. For example, the old Leningrad Nuclear plant, on the outskirts of (what is now called) St Petersburg, supplies heat to the city.  Like all conventional single-cycle stream raising plants, nuclear plants currently waste about two thirds of the heat they produce.  In theory some of that could be used for heating cites. And if mini nukes (Small Modular Reactors) were developed, they could be in or near cites, feeding heat to local users. That seems pretty fanciful and risky. Gas is the obvious interim option, and many CHP/DH systems on the continent use biomass (straw) and some community DH networks use solar, with interseasonal heat stores, and these flexible systems are seen as one way to balance variable wind. Denmark aims to get 40% of its extensive DH network fed with solar heat by 2050. By contrast, do we really want mini-nukes in or near cites? 

Building CHP/DH systems isn’t cheap. They only make sense where there are big local heat loads and supplying them in existing cities means digging up the streets to lay heat mains. But once you have installed the DH infrastructure, then you can feed in heat from whatever is the best current source. It’s a very good, very flexible, long-term investment.   And energy costs can then be competitive, as was demonstrated in Woking, which has installed medium sized gas-fired CHP plants feeding its local heat grid and ‘private wire’ power networks. 

Taking heat out of a gas turbine system, usually at slightly earlier stage than in normal CCGT operation, so as to get higher temperatures, does decrease the efficiency of electricity production slightly, but the ratio of heat to power can be adjusted to match demand. That can help CHP/DH with heat stores to balance variable renewables. When there is surplus electricity on the grid, e.g. from wind or PV, the CHP power output can be reduced and heat output can be increased and stored if necessary, until needed.  When there is a shortage of renewable electricity, the proportion of CHP power output can be increased and if more heat is also needed it can be drawn from the store.

Small CHP plants, and domestic scaled micro CHP units especially, tend to be less efficient than large community scaled units, since the latter can use large efficient heat stores and can service the averaged-out heat and power demands from many users, rather then the much more variable demands of individual consumers. Collective heat provision does of course present some problems. Some early DH systems were unreliable, sometimes offering a poor service, especially for users at the far end of the network. In which case collective billing became an issue- and providing heat meters is expensive.  Regular maintenance is essential. Lack of that is one reason why Russia’s old centralized heating systems have got a bad reputation.  Modern DH systems are better, using lower temperature heat in larger pipes, rather than high temperature steam.

DH grids can be extensive, with heat running through miles of pipes, and the heat can be supplied from plants a long distance away without significant energy loses. Oslo’s district heating network is fed via a 12.3 km pipe from a waste burning plant in the city outskirts. In Denmark there is a 17km link from a CHP plant to the city of Aarhus. Helsinki’s scheme is part of a1150 MWe and 3600 MWth CHP/DH system, supplying over 93% of Helsinki’s heat, including a plant linked in via a 30km pipe in a tunnel, while in the Czech Republic heat is delivered cross-country by a 200 MW capacity heat main to Prague from a power station 65 km away. Whether that would make sense, or be acceptable, in densely populated countries like the UK is unclear, though, if inner city mini nukes were not acceptable, there might be no alternative if the nuclear plant option was taken… But if that is avoided, inner city CHP/DH, increasingly using green energy sources like biogas from wastes, could be come a major option. That is certainly the main focus of the Thousand Flowers 2050 UK scenario produced recently by a group of UK academics, which has 44GW of mainly smaller scale community based CHP:  

www.realisingtransitionpathways.org.uk/realisingtransitionpathways/news/distributing_power.html

For a recent exhaustive EU report see: http://setis.ec.europa.eu/system/files/JRCDistrictheatingandcooling.pdf

For a UK overview: : www.heatandthecity.org.uk/resources/newsletter

And for a global view: www.iea-dhc.org/home.html

Clean coal- does such a thing exist?

 

Ideally, to protect the climate, we should avoid all processes that produce carbon dioxide gas (CO2). But some of the CO2 produced by burning fossil fuel can be captured (chemically) from power plant exhausts and stored (e.g. in empty undersea oil and gas wells), at a cost. This is one of the ideas behind the label 'clean coal'.  But it’s not that clean. And it's also complicated.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), as it’s called, is not very efficient and may not be a long-lasting solution (the CO2 may eventually escape), but it does allow you to cut the net emissions from continued fossil fuel use by about 60-70% (not 80-90% as some claim, since the various CCS processes use energy and supplying that adds more emissions). Coal CCS is usually harder and more expensive than gas CCS. That’s partly because, in most modern plants, to get high efficiency, the coal has to be gasified as a first stage.

Gasifying coal at high temperatures was how we made 'town gas' before North Sea gas became available. In some modern coal fired power plants designs, some of the hydrogen gas in the output from the gasification process can be extracted (chemically) and used as a clean-burn fuel (then there is no CO2 production). The rest can be burnt as normal e.g. in a gas turbine, but, if coupled with CCS to deal with the CO2 that is produced by gasification and subsequent full combustion, then you have a low carbon option.  In some new so called pre- combustion plants, CO2 extraction is carried out at the gasification stage, while in others oxygen is injected prior to combustion to increase the proportion of CO2 in the resultant flue gases, to make its capture more efficient.

As can be seen, whether pre or post combustion, carbon capture is complex stuff, usually requiring a radical redesign of plant, and extra stages in plant operations, adding perhaps 50% to the cost of power generation. It also requires costly new pipe infrastructure to convey the captured CO2 gas to a storage well, usually with intermediate pumping stations to sustain gas pressure and then injection equipment at the well head.

Most environmentalists don't see CCS as anything more than an expensive interim option and the risk is that it will be used as an excuse to downplay the proper answer to halting emissions - a switch to renewables. But this simple anti-CCS line can be complicated by some other possible options which might make the development of CCS more useful long term, such as Biomass Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage  (BECCS).  

In the case of biomass combustion, the CO2 produced is nearly balanced by the CO2  absorbed when the biomass is growing (not quite since there are harvesting, transport and processing energy requirements). Even so its nearly carbon NEUTRAL over time. Adding CCS would make it carbon NEGATIVE- actually taking CO2 out of the atmosphere. Be warned though, it all depends on the type of biomass used.  Biomass stores CO2, so you don't want to interrupt that too much or for too long, or have CO2 in the air for long times before it is reabsorbed by new plant growth. So using trees is a very bad idea- most take a long time to grow fully and then can store CO2 for a long time (before they die, rot or catch fire). A key carbon sink. Fast growing energy crops (e.g. using short rotation coppicing) are much better as a fuel source, since replanting can start reabsorbing CO2 fast. Using farm (crop/animal) and household (human/food) bio-waste to make biogas is even better still. The supply is continually available and using wastes to make a bio-fuel is much better than leaving them to rot, potentially releasing methane into the atmosphere in an uncontrolled way, a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2. And BECCS, biomass use with CCS, could take it one step further.

However there’s also another approach: Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU). This uses some of the captured CO2 (from fossil fuel or biomass combustion) to make new synthetic fuel, synfuel or synthetic natural gas (SNG). To do that you need a source of hydrogen. You can get it by processing biomass (or of course fossil fuels) at high temperatures OR via the electrolysis of water- and, if using electricity from wind turbines or PV solar cells, it is carbon neutral, and the same (almost) if it’s from suitable biomass feed stock.  You then have a choice. There is a non-CCU route. The hydrogen gas can just be used as a fuel itself, and, if used to run a fuel cell or a gas turbine, you can get carbon neutral electricity back- there is no CO2 produced when hydrogen is used as a fuel.  So if the electricity initially used was from surplus wind or PV solar output, and you store the hydrogen until power is needed (e.g when wind/PV production is low), you have a way of dealing with the variable output from wind and solar plants, with no CO2 emissions.

Alternatively, as in the modern Power to Gas (P2G) systems being developed in Germany, the hydrogen gas can be converted to methane (CH4) using captured CO2. So that is CCU. It’s much easier to use CO2 from power plant exhausts than to try to capture it from the air (there's not much in the air despite all our efforts!)  But burning the resultant methane (to make electricity, or for heating, or in a car) produces CO2 again, although, overall Power to Gas conversion (even using CO2 from power plants) can, like CCS, be near carbon neutral, depending on the original source. Though if the synthetic methane gas is used for electricity production, so that you can capture the resultant CO2 (again), you can make electricity production carbon NEGATIVE  (especially if the CO2 came from biomass combustion), although each time you repeat this process you get diminishing returns - it's overall conversion efficiency is low. And of course it can’t be done (easily!) with car exhausts or with domestic gas-fired central heating boilers. Using fossil fuel to make hydrogen feed stock for CCU synfuel production would of course not be carbon neutral, since some CO2 would be produced, but if this was captured and the synfuel was used to make electricity with CCS, then it could be.  

As can be seen there may be some clever new biomass (or even fossil fuel) to synfuel options, with low or even negative carbon implications. Does this mean we can still use coal? If so, where would it come from? Most of what the UK now uses is imported (about half of it from Russia) although we do still have some open cast strip mines. But that's very environmentally unappealing. Some coal (or more likely) gas CCS may happen eventually and coal gasification for hydrogen production is ready now (at a cost) and might just be condonable in extremis! It’s certainly better environmentally than just burning coal in conventional plants. But if we must burn coal, then burning it in Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plants is arguably even better: the overall energy conversion efficiency can be 80% or more, since you can make use to the otherwise wasted heat, assuming there is a big heat load reasonably nearby.  CHP plants can be very flexible- the ratio of heat to power output can be varied to help balance varying grid supplies and demand. Though that may make it hard to use CCS with them. However that may not matter too much, since the net CO2 emissions per useful kWh of heat and power output will be low, compared with conventional power only fossil fired plants. It would be even lower if they are gas fired, as most of the new CHP plants are, and even lower if they are biomass fired, depending on the biomass source. 

So there are some options for cleaner coal use, but they all have limitations and costs and none avoid all emissions. To do that you need renewables like wind and solar. Developing CCS, CCU and CHP initially for fossil fuel might be seen as a way to pioneer low carbon or even negative carbon technologies for subsequent use with biomass, but the use of biomass can be problematic, depending on the source. Wind and solar (and possibly wave and tidal power), are arguably less problematic, and if you want green gas, then the Power-to-Gas idea, using surplus wind and/or solar derived electricity, is a way forward-  for heating, transport, or, with storage, for (later) power generation to balance the grid.

For more see ‘Renewable Gas’, Jo Abbess, Palgrave.

More on CHP in my next post in this Renew Extra series.    

Greening Gas

 

Gas (methane) is a useful fuel. It is easy to store and can be transmitted long distances with low energy losses. And it’s cleaner to burn than coal. Moreover, relatively cheap and flexible gas-fired power plants are useful for providing grid balancing for variable renewables. However, natural gas won’t last forever, even with a shale gas input, and in any case, as a fossil fuel, we ought to be reducing its use to avoid carbon emissions. So what’s the alternative?

The most obvious non-fossil ‘renewable gas’ is that produced directly from biomass i.e. biogas, biomethane generated via anaerobic digestion of biomass and wastes, and used as a fuel. Biomass can also be gasified at high temperatures or converted into liquid biofuels via medium temperature pyrolysis. You can also make synthetic methane using other renewable sources e.g. by using wind-derived electricity to electrolyse water to make hydrogen and then convert that to methane using carbon dioxide from the air or from power plant exhausts. This ‘wind-to-gas’ idea is being developed in Germany for grid injection and also for vehicle fuel production. There is also some interest in this idea in the UK: http://www.gridgas.co.uk/partners.html

However these two ‘green’ sources of non-fossil methane will take time to expand. The multiple-stage wind-to-gas option is going to be expensive and some see biomass as being relatively limited given land-use constraints.  Wider use of food and agricultural wastes may change that (though we ought to reduce these wastes at source), and if it is (effectively free) surplus wind power that is being used to make syngas, then the costs are lower.  Even so it will take time.

So what can be done in the interim?  Well there is a range of low-carbon fossil gas conversion options which may been seen as transitional technologies, making use of fossil fuels, but laying the basis for a low carbon energy system. There are a number of industrial processes, including waste management processes, which can be used to make low carbon synfuels and hydrogen gas from, initially, fossil fuels or some wastes, but which might also later use 100% biomass. The gasification or pyrolysis of fossil fuels can produce a range of fuels which, and if the process is combined with carbon capture, can be low carbon overall, and in time the fossil feedstock can be replaced with biomass, making it potentially carbon negative. One even more advanced idea is to use green hydrogen (e.g. from wind powered electrolysis) to upgrade biogas to higher value synfuel, thus reducing the biomass land area/kWh needed.

What we are seeing with ideas like this is clever ‘green chemistry’, playing with carbon and hydrogen to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, initially using fossil energy and fossil feed stocks, but increasingly using renewable sources and feedstocks, including biomass and even carbon from the air, to make low carbon renewable fuel as an alternative to fossil gas.  Biomethane production via AD is of course quite widespread and there is some hydrogen production via gasification. Germany may be leading, but the UK government also seems keen to press ahead. In its report on energy networks last year it said ‘‘innovative alternatives to natural gas, such as biomethane, low carbon hydrogen and gas from anaerobic digestion plants are potential ways of maintaining the existing gas grid while reducing our reliance on fossil fuel gas.’

www.gov.uk/government/publications/delivering-uk-energy-investment-networks-2014

There are of course limits.  As noted above, land-use is a key issue. Biomass is land (and water) hungry. Its large-scale production for energy use may undermine natural carbon sinks and local biodiversity and possibly lead to conflicts with food production. Especially if we are talking about large plantations producing biofuels for vehicle use.  Producing renewable gas would however only be a subset of biomass use and many of the techniques being developed for its production and use are less environmentally aggressive than those for mass-burn power production e.g. using forest-derived wood pellets to fire large converted coal plants. For example, AD biogas production can be done at a range of scales and with a range of farm and other wastes.  Some environmentalists worry that the interim continued use of fossil fuels, albeit at least partly decarbonised via CCS or other carbon cycling approaches, will delay the development of fully renewable systems, but the pragmatic view is that these interim approaches will lay the basis for a fully sustainable biomass based system later on. The debate goes on, although usually focused on specific projects. For example, while some environmentalists are often concerned about emissions from some waste combustion plants, gasification and pyrolysis are usually seen as a less problematic. It may all come down to need to proper, and convincing, regulation.

As can be seen, it’s a complex field, still under development, but the potential does seem to be there for non-fossil gas to replace at least some fossil gas long term and for clever green chemistry and biology to allow for the production of interim cleaner synfuels. 

For an overview of all the options and a review of some pioneering examples, in the food industry waste management field especially, see ‘Renewable gas’, Jo Abbess, Palgrave. She doesn't cover AD in so much detail. For that see a Routledge  book, ‘Bioenergy Production by Anaerobic Digestion’ Edited by Nicholas E. Korres, Padraig O'Kiely, John A.H. Benzie, Jonathan S. West,  and ‘Anaerobic Digestion - Making Biogas - Making Energy’, The Earthscan Expert Guide, by Tim Pullen.  Stewart Boyle’s ‘The Sleeping Giant Awakes’ is also worth looking at.

Climate Uncertainties

 

There are uncertainties and conflicting views on some of the interactions involved in the climate system. Much has been made of the apparent slow down in average global temperature rises in recent years. Indeed some sceptics claim that this refutes all the climate models, with some pointing to a 17 year or more period when the running average did not indicate a rise. Explanations have been offered, for example suggesting that the heat has been absorbed in the depths of the oceans, but there is much debate about causes and effects, with some saying that the temperature pause may last for up to 20 years.  www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28870988 and  http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2006/2006_Hansen_etal_1.pdf

The debate goes on. For example, here are two more or less diametrically opposed accounts of the impacts of water vapour on warming, as relayed in the media. One says humidity levels in the upper atmosphere are increasing, as predicted by the climate models, the other say they are falling, and disproves the models:

www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/aug/13/global-warming-moistening-the-atmosphere  and www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2014/08/20/declining-relative-humidity-is-defying-global-warming-models/

 

And this adjusts the story to fit! http://theconversation.com/study-vindicates-climate-models-accused-of-missing-the-pause-29477 Though this seems like one of the best explanations for the ‘pause’ so far: http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Geoscientist/July-2015/Steps-and-cycles

Then again it is always possible that new explanations for at least some of the warming may emerge e.g: http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news-stories/article/astronomy-paper-implies-solar-role-in-climate-change.html  as well as new thinking on the basics: http://euanmearns.com/the-vostok-ice-core-temperature-co2-and-ch4/

However new ideas, debate and conflicts are the lifeblood of science, which moves through periods of doubt and then consensus. At present, the vast majority of climate scientists- up to 97%- are said to believe in human induced climate change: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article (though see: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421514003759)

This contrasts strongly with the results of a UK public opinion survey by ComRes for the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a non-profit initiative with an Advisory Board including MPs, Peers and leading academics, which found that only 11% of their sample were aware of the strength of the scientific consensus, while 47% thought either that most climate scientists reject the idea that human activities are the main driver of climate change (11%), or that scientists are evenly split on the issue (35%). www.comres.co.uk

For its part though, the Global Warming Policy Foundation quoted an American Meteorological Society poll of their membership, which showed only 52% felt that global warming was mostly man-made. http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=c920274f2a364603849bbb505&id=c1d9a193f3&e=7dd8204640

Moreover nearly three-quarters of UK Conservative MPs did not accept that climate change has been proven to be caused by human activity, according to a Populus poll of 119 MPs from all parties. www.thegwpf.com/overwhelming-majority-of-conservative-mps-are-climate-sceptics/ 

What about the public? 500,000 or so people took part in climate protests around the world in 2014, including 300,000 in the USA, and big marches in London and Melbourne. In a Populus UK public opinion poll, 73% wanted world leaders to agree a global deal and 66% thought action must happen now, only 20% felt it could wait a few years. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/public-want-urgent-global-action-to-tackle-climate-change

However the barrage of contrarian views, as relayed by the media, seems to have had a  major impact in some countries, the US in particular, where global warming and responses to it are very politicised issues. Given that the USA has experienced many severe weather-related shocks in recent years, this may be surprising, but it remains the case that no one weather event can necessarily be directly liked to climate change. 

There is a huge social and political science agenda here- concerning how views are formed and changed.   www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629614000073

This debate also obviously involves climate scientists. Those who are professionally convinced that climate change is real and significant can get somewhat annoyed by the campaigns mounted by contrarian groups, especially if these groups are backed, as it is sometimes alleged, by fossil fuel interests. There may be a temptation to enter the fray, and certainly some do make public statements. On the other side of the fence, some scientists (a small number) have joined or support contrarian groups and risk approbation from their colleagues and the media.  

For example, the UK-based Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), set up by Lord Lawson, is well known for its often strident lobbying on energy/climate issues, backed up by reports from academics evidently sympathetic to its views, overseen by an Advisory Council. It recently made much of the resignation of one such, who claims to have been subject to peer pressure to distance himself from the GWPF.www.thegwpf.org/the-bengtsson-affair-and-the-global-warming-policy-foundation/

The climate debate has certainly been bitter at times, with on one hand, skeptics alleging that the official IPCC stance is unduly politically shaped and, on the other, attacks being made on contrarians. Sometimes this can involve attempts to discredit individuals and their work. Since academics of all types and persuasions can and do align themselves with lobby groups, and go public, they do risk charges of bias.  That’s arguably fair enough- it comes with the territory. But personal attacks are surely much less justifiable. Although identifying political and institutional affiliations may be valid, in general critics should play the ball, not the man (or woman). While many do not see GWPF and similar groups as making a helpful contribution, the debate has to continue, with heretical and ‘outlier’ views playing their part. That surely is how good science is done. Though there must be limits! It’s pretty clear that the world is not flat…

However getting the right balance can be hard. A 2014 report by the UK Science and Technology Select Committee said that the Government was failing to clearly and effectively communicate climate science to the public. The Chair of the Committee said: ‘The Government's hands-off approach to engaging with the public and the media, relying heavily on scientists as the most prominent voice, has a resulted in a vacuum that has allowed inaccurate arguments to flourish with little effective challenge. Science is the ultimate sceptic, challenging theories and opinion and ready to abandon or adapt as the available evidence changes. Genuine scepticism should be embraced by the climate science community. Dogma on either side of the debate should be revealed as such.’ 

The Committee also accused the BBC of misleading the public about climate change, creating a ‘false balance’ by allowing unqualified climate sceptics too much air time and giving opinion the same weight as fact.

There certainly have been some odd notions expressed in the media, as well as claims of inaccuracies by some participants: e.g. in relation to the cost of climate change: www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/Media/Commentary/2014/March/Errors-in-estimates-of-the-aggregate-economic-impacts-of-climate-change.aspx 

See also: www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2014/04/calculating-damages-how-much-will-climate-change-cost/?

The debate on policy, and on the science, continues… with James Lovelock saying ‘It’s just as silly to be a denier as it is to be a believer. You can’t be certain’. Is he right?

Climate and Energy Targets

The joint announcements of new emission policies and energy targets by China and the USA last year set the scene for the next and some say crucial, if not final, round of UN FCCC climate talks in Paris later this year- COP 21.

Following on from its earlier announcement of a target of cutting emissions from existing power plants by 30% from 2005 levels by 2030, the USA’s proposals was for an at least 26% overall emission cut by 2025, and maybe 28%. That was matched by China’s commitment to stabilise emissions by around 2030.  These new policies raised hopes that the rest of world might now adopt progressive policies. Chinese President Xi JinPing said ‘we agreed to make sure that international climate change negotiations will reach an agreement in Paris’. Though it had not yet set a specific target, he said China would seek to cap its emissions by 2030 and would make ‘best efforts to peak early’.  To that end, a new target was set of getting 20% of China’s energy from non fossil sources by 2030, up from around 13% now, with renewables dominating.

However some saw the Chinese commitment as minimal, given that it was now a major emitter:  http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/11/12/climatechange-china-usa-kemp-idUKL6N0T22IU20141112 Indeed some US Republicans felt that China was being let off the hook, while the US made punishing commitments: www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-congressional-leaders-denounce-us-china-deal-on-climate-change/2014/11/12/ff2b84e0-6a8d-11e4-a31c-77759fc1eacc_story.html

Moreover, 2030 is some way off, and some worried that this commitment would require little more than what would happen anyway, as fossil reserves depleted and non fossil options expanded: https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2014/11/17/clinton-well-gore-went-to-kyoto-obama-went-to-beijing That is very unclear: China’s economy is still expanding fast (7% p.a), so it will have to take positive action- and it is pushing renewables very hard.  Indeed it leads the world. http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2639170/china_leads_the_world_in_green_energy_despite_us_senate_leader_do_nothing_claims.html

And, although it will clearly have its work cut out to hold emissions down, politically the new climate policy is surely it’s a step forward for China, especially given its worries about global imbalance issues and the view that the historically heavy polluters, who so far have benefited from be able to pollute without constraint, should bear the brunt of the responsibility for reducing emission now and for helping other to do so:  www.businessinsider.com/afp-china-insists-wealthy-countries-should-improve-emission-targets-2014-9  

Those issues haven’t gone away and resurfaced at the COP 20 UN gathering in Peru last December: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/12/02/us-climatechange-lima-emissions-idUKKCN0JG2LQ20141202. And while some in the West welcomed  the Chinese-US moves, there were some views from outsiders that were less favorable. 

The Indian Down to Earth environmental lobby organisation argued that the US-Chinese accord was in fact a stitch up – it was too limited and left the rest of the world out. Its editorial focused on ‘carbon per capita’, which, while perhaps reflecting a degree of social equity, of course favours China with its huge population, and disguises the fact that it absolute emission are, and will still be, higher than any other country. But even on that basis the deal is seen as unfair. The editorial  suggested that the deal meant that  ‘the US and China have agreed to “equalise” their emissions by 2030. Both countries would have “equal” per capita emissions in 2030. The US would reduce emissions marginally from its current 18 tonnes per capita and China would increase from its current seven-eight tonnes. Both the polluters would converge at 12-14 tonnes per person per year. This is when the planet can effectively absorb and naturally cleanse emissions not more than two tonnes per person per year.’

So it's ‘contract and converge’ on a per capita basis, but without a low enough carbon target. Moreover, the editorial continues, perhaps a little disingenuously, the deal in effect lays claim to a large share of global future emission rights: ‘the cake is carved up in such a manner that each country would occupy equal atmospheric space by 2030. We know that countries have a cumulative share of emissions in the atmosphere. The US-China deal makes it clear that both the countries individually get 16 per cent of the atmospheric space by 2030. The problem is that the occupier gets it all. This deal has defined equity as good for the US and China, but bad for the planet. At this level of emissions, the world will definitely cross the 2°C mark and go towards 4-5°C, unless India, Brazil, South Africa and all the rest of the emerging world stop their emissions right now.’

Well yes, it does inevitably put pressure on others to come up with plans and ideally better plans, so to a degree it is unfair, expecting poorer countries to do more than rich countries.  The Editorial concludes ‘it is not in our interest to believe that the US-China deal is good for the world. It sets the world on a dangerous path where all countries will want their right to pollute. It is in our interest to demand that the US and China must reduce emissions at the scale and pace needed to ensure that the world stays below the danger mark. It is in our interest to demand that we will all accept limits, but based on equity’. www.downtoearth.org.in/content/us-china-climate-deal-maker-or-breaker

India of course also has a large population, and although its economy is not yet expanding on the same scale as China, it is moving ahead and so are its emission. But it seems reluctant to limit expansion of coal use, and, though it is now pushing renewables hard (with a 170GW by 2022, 15% target), it's also pushing nuclear hard. A mixed bag

What about Europe?  The EU has set a new target of a 40% cut in emissions by 2030, far more than either the USA or China.  So it might be seen as a more equitable effort, although that was conditional on other countries also setting high targets.  Some may, others wont- notably Australia, which is in the process of abandoning most of its climate policies.  With COP 21 coming up soon in Paris, we will no doubt get to see what happens. Russia and Canada have offered to make 30% cuts by 2030, Japan 26%.

  

What’s the bottom line?  The US policy is helpful (though opposed by the right), the EU commitment is welcome (though opposed by some member states) and China is making changes (if only slowly). But the problem is significant. China had previously committed to cutting its carbon intensity i.e. CO2 /GNP, by 40-45% by 2020, compared to 2005 levels (a 29% cut had already been achieved), but that would still have allowed for continued growth in absolute emissions- which will rise to very high levels. Reuters was told that emissions were likely to peak at around 11bn tonnes CO2 equivalent, up from 7-9.5bn t CO2e now, by 2030. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/09/china-climatechange-idUKL4N0OQ0WB20140609 But even if they are stabilised at that level, as is now proposed, and then reduced a bit, they will still be way ahead of the emissions from all other countries.  It’s good to see some progress, with China’s emissions apparently falling (by 5%) in the first four months of 2015, but there is a long way to go. http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/05/14/china-coal-consumption-drops-further-carbon-emissions-set-to-fall-by-equivalent-of-uk-total-in-one-year

That certainly seems to be the message from the weak target recently agreed by the G7 group of industrial countries, to try to phase out fossil fuel use globally by the end of the century…Let’s hope COP 21 can do a bit better.