The current US energy policy debate includes at least two areas of great interest to pipeliners: biofuels and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). President Barack Obama this month designated more loan guarantees and economic stimulus money for biofuels research. He also said an interagency group would explore ways to get more ethanol-fueled cars produced and more ethanol fueling stations built.
However, these announcements were accompanied by a preliminary assessment that corn ethanol wouldn’t meet the 20% greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction from gasoline mandated 2 years ago by Congress.
Obama’s administration is funding science in the first instance that can help create alternative methods of producing ethanol or the alternatives to ethanol that the preliminary environmental assessment suggests might be necessary.
These actions might appear to be activist; the government leading the US and global energy markets in a direction they might not otherwise go. Rhetoric such as this makes for good political talking points, but one doesn’t need to look too far down the energy food chain to find evidence to the contrary.
Shell and sustainability
In its 2008 Sustainability Report, Royal Dutch Shell PLC says it will spend the next few years stepping up its efforts in sustainably sourced transport biofuels with good carbon dioxide performance, elevating its work in this area above wind and solar to be the primary focus of its renewable energy activities. Shell Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer points out the need for government support in encouraging technological development of renewable energy, while noting that even governments can’t subsidize renewable on the scale needed to change the world’s energy mix.
The Shell report goes on to link an increased emphasis on renewable energy with efforts to control GHG emissions, calling for these efforts to be accelerated despite the recession.
Shell’s call for government action is even more strident in the context of GHG reduction and CCS. Its preferred sustainability scenario sees governments “aggressively promoting” fuel efficiency, lower CO2 fuels, and CCS. Further, Shell sees the emergence of an internationally recognized price for emitting GHGs as necessary to reaching sustainable energy goals. In this scenario, 50% of the world’s power is produced from renewable energy by 2050.
In the shorter term, Shell sees investment in CCS and renewables as helping generate employment.
Changes into action
Parties in a position to affect this sort of change aren’t just talking about the changes, they are actually making them. In 2008 Shell launched CO2SINK in Ketzin, Germany–Europe’s first project to inject CO2 underground onshore. It will store up to 60,000 tonnes of CO2 in a saltwater aquifer over the next 2 years. Shell designed the pilot project to find the most cost-effective ways to store CO2 in aquifers and help governments design effective safety regulations.
National Grid, meanwhile, is planning a pipeline network to move CO2 generated in the UK to storage beneath the North Sea. The company cites its expertise in running natural gas pipeline networks regarding its abilities to build and operate the £2 billion project to support future power plants fitted with CCS technology.
In North America, Enhance Energy received a grant from the Canadian government in March 2008 to help develop a $300 million (Can.) CO2 pipeline the company says will initially move 5,000 tonnes/day into storage via a 240-km, 24-in. OD high-vapor pressure pipeline. Enhance says this first line of the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line will connect industrial complexes northeast of Edmonton to crude fields east of Clive, Alta. Depending on timing of regulatory approvals, construction will start early-2010 with initial service by 2012. Design throughput of the pipeline is 40,000 tonnes/day.
A wide range of research also continues on addressing problems regarding transport of biofuels through pipelines. At the NACE Corrosion 2009 conference (Atlanta, Mar. 22-26) companies and organizations presented papers on stress corrosion cracking characteristics of ethanol on steel.
The sheer volume of projects and research undertaken by established industry participants such as Shell, National Grid, ConocoPhillips, Colonial Pipeline Co., and Petroleo Brasilerio SA suggests their recognition of not just the need but the potential economic benefits of addressing CCS and biofuels.
Maybe their smaller brethren would do well to take notice. And maybe current policy initiatives reflect reality to the same degree they’re trying to shape it. In any event, pipelines will be heavily involved in both endeavors.