WRAP UP

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
12/21/12

AT DOE

The U.S. has at least 2,400 billion metric tons worth of potential CO2 storage resources in saline formations, oil and gas reservoirs and unmineable coal seams, the National Energy Technology Laboratory concluded this week. In its atlas of the country’s carbon utilization and storage resources released on Dec. 19, the Department of Energy lab said those ideal formations, which include 280 billion metric tons of storage capacity in depleted oil and gas fields—prime real estate for enhanced oil and gas recovery operations—can store hundreds of years’ worth of greenhouse gas emissions. NETL said it compiled the atlas with input from DOE’s seven regional carbon sequestration partnerships and 10 site characterization projects. The document is a more focused look of another atlas published by DOE in May that examined the CO2 storage potential for the entirety of North America.

ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT

Recent energy forecasts have predicted a sharp decline for U.S. coal generation in the coming decades, but the International Energy Agency estimates that the fuel source’s share of the global energy mix will rise steadily, closing in on oil as the top energy source by 2017. In its annual medium-term coal market report released Dec. 18, IEA estimates that coal demand will increase in every region of the world except the U.S. through 2017, where the fuel source is being pushed out by natural gas. The lion’s share of that demand will be driven by China and India, IEA says. “Thanks to abundant supplies and insatiable demand for power from emerging markets, coal met nearly half of the rise in global energy demand during the first decade of the 21st Century,” IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said in a statement. “This report sees that trend continuing. In fact, the world will burn around 1.2 billion more tonnes of coal per year by 2017 compared to today—equivalent to the current coal consumption of Russia and the United States combined.” Van der Hoeven added that the report is based on the “troubling” assumption that carbon capture and storage technology will not be commercially available through 2017. “CCS technologies are not taking off as once expected, which means CO2 emissions will keep growing substantially,” she said.