Renewable green energy

Irecently became aware of specific studies done on the progress and expected progress of key transport technologies and associated costs, and significant cost reductions in renewable green energy.

For clarity, green energy is all forms of energy that are renewable and do not produce any carbon emissions in the production of the energy.

I was heartened to hear CBC’s interview with Mark Carney, who became the UN Special Envoy on Climate Action on March 15. In that interview Carney indicated that British Petroleum had committed to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 for their company, for both the supply and demand sides of carbon fuels. This includes associated down-stream emissions.

As a result, I felt it essential that I provide an update to my previous column, “Fix supply side, fix climate change,” which ran March 31. Because of the scope of this subject I will split it into two parts. This is Part 1 and covers the oil industry. Part 2 is scheduled to run Thursday.

The current changes and thus impacts in progress and the best UN approach and recommended solutions to carbon fuel producing industries are as follows:

I believe that to meet their commitment, BP would modify specific fuels they produce in their refineries by focusing on the cleaner fuels. This would be accomplished by process variations between the fluid catalytic cracker/hydro cracker and crude oil distillation/vacuum distillation units.

An example would be a transition to a higher production of asphalt, which is cleaner because it is not burned. These transitions may meet all of BP’s initial commitments. They may also need to include in process and direct air carbon capture.

I believe that BP would also redefine their business as an “energy business” rather than an oil business. BP should also progressively transition out of the carbon fuel industry into carbon neutral industries to maintain growth for their stock holders.

These transitions would be made over the next 30 years.

The article “Green Hydrogen Projects

Set to Skyrocket,”, May 26, 2020, can be found online at The Energy Mix.

Green hydrogen energy developments, which produce hydrogen directly from water by electrolysis with green power, is in the process of revolutionizing green energy. The article indicates “electrolysis projects – particularly large ones – tripling between October 2019 to March 2020.”

I believe the value of green hydrogen is mainly in replacing oil industry products for use in vehicles, likely in competition with electrical vehicles. It would likely be more competitive for use in mobile heavy equipment such as farm and construction equipment, non-electrical trains and ocean vessels.

In addition, green renewable diesel fuels and jet fuels from recycled cooking oils, plant oils and animal fats are also becoming competitive.

The transition to green energy also means that energy sources can often be located close to where they are needed, and significantly reduce the world’s transportation of carbon fuels, and thus further reduce GHG emissions.

The UN would need to promote the logical forecast of the financial impacts of electrical motors and electrical autonomous vehicles relative to internal combustion motors as presented in the YouTube Video “Rethinking the Future – Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation” from April 2018.

This, I believe, will immediately halt development of most or all new oil facilities, and quickly result in most of the oil industry to agreeing to match BP’s commitment to reach net-zero emissions.

Bill Stollery is a retired construction manager rliving in Penticton. The aspiring author wrote “How We Can Save the World.”