Dow Jones: Shell exec says carbon capture must be global priority

According to a Sept. 4 Dow Jones article, a top Shell executive thinks developing commercially viable carbon capture and storage technology should be a major priority for companies and governments all over the world because renewable energy sources will not be able to replace oil and gas quickly enough.

“Without CCS, fossil fuel use would have to be cut by more than half,” Malcolm Brinded, Shell’s executive director of exploration and production, was quoted as saying in the article. Brinded spoke at the Offshore Europe conference in Aberdeen.

Nuclear energy sources would have to grow at twice the current rate, and “thousands more wind turbines would be needed,” Brinded said.

Plus, a new vehicle fleet would have to run mainly on biofuels and electricity, with gasoline and diesel fuel “almost completely phased out,” he was quoted as saying.

CCS, which Dow Jones reported “could reduce emissions from major industrial sources of carbon dioxide such as power stations by up to 90 percent, is necessary to smooth the transition to more widespread renewable energy.”

Cap-and-trade systems similar to the European Union’s Emission Trading Scheme are the best way to encourage low carbon technology development in the long term, Brinded said.

Robert Olsen, director of production at ExxonMobil, disagreed with Brinded. He doesn’t think cap and trade is the solution because the price of carbon in the European Emissions Trading Scheme is too unpredictable to encourage major, long-term investments in the technology, the news service reported. Olsen thinks a carbon tax is the answer — something that would give energy companies a more uniform, predictable cost of carbon. According to Dow Jones, Brinded also said governments should support carbon capture technology in its early stages because market forces were not going to initially justify investments.

—Petroleum News