Mobil Report Says Time, Technology and Global Participation Needed
19 August 1999
Mobil Report Says Time, Technology and Global Participation Needed to Stabilize Atmospheric CO2 Concentration
FAIRFAX, Va.--August 18, 1999--Reducing worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) cannot succeed unless all countries and all industries join in the effort, concludes a newly released Mobil Technology report, "Climate: Technology and Carbon Dioxide Emissions -- a Global Review and Assessment.""As a technology based company," Michael P. Ramage, Chief Technology Officer, Mobil Corporation, explained, "we wanted to take a realistic look at what can be done in a reasonable time frame, using advanced technology, to reduce emissions of CO2,, the most significant manmade greenhouse gas.
"But we didn't want to stop there," he added. "We also wanted to consider what would happen over the next century -- to 2100 -- as economies grow, energy use increases and emissions build."
For the foreseeable future, if developed countries widely implemented advanced technology they could reduce CO2 emissions by some 8 billion tons annually by 2030. But the net effect on the world would be small -- less than 20 percent of the 45 billion tons that are projected to be emitted in 2030. The reason: energy use -- primarily fossil fuels -- in developing countries will more than double over the next 30 years as their economies grow and prosper.
"Sheer growth in developing countries simply overwhelms the emission reductions that developed countries can achieve with advanced technology," Ramage notes. "And by the end of the 21st century, developing countries are projected to contribute up to 80 percent of the world's CO2 emissions."
Nevertheless, the study identifies several positive things that can be done now that will have a positive effect on emissions, including:
-- Deregulation and privatization of the electric power generation industry globally to create market conditions that drive energy efficiency.
-- Greater use of cogeneration to take advantage of waste heat from power generation.
-- Capturing CO2 from major sources like power plants and injecting it permanently underground in empty oil and gas reservoirs. Stepped up basic research and development will be needed to lower the cost and demonstrate the environmental soundness of this technology.
The report shows where developed countries are likely to make inroads on reducing emissions:
-- In transportation, if Europe, Japan and the U.S. rapidly adopted hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles in coming years, automotive emissions could be brought back to 1990 levels. However, the overall impact from these steps on the world's transportation emissions would be tiny -- roughly 7 percent of what is projected for 2030. The reason -- global transportation emissions will double in 30 years, largely because of an increase in the number of vehicles in developing countries and the continued growth in aviation, shipping and trucking.
-- In the electric power generation sector, renewable energy fuels -- notably solar -- could play a bigger role if technology breakthroughs can bring down costs. Building more efficient power plants and switching to lower-carbon fuels (e.g., natural gas) could cut developed nations' CO2 emissions by as much as 40 percent from what they would have been over the next 30 years.
-- The industrial sector in developed countries is already generally energy efficient. Continued use of advanced technology and greater use of co-generation, which captures waste heat from power-generation, can provide further gains.
-- There is less reduction forecast in the residential/commercial sectors because buildings have relatively long life spans (50 to 100 years) and energy-saving technologies for new construction as well as retrofitting are costly.
By the end of the 21st century, as global growth continues and CO2 emissions increase, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will build. What effect that will have on our climate is uncertain.
"The report, though," Ramage points out, "indicates time is on our side. The world has time to adapt -- to first determine whether stabilization is necessary, and then, if so, to develop a roadmap to reach stabilization at the least possible cost."
In the long run, the report says, "the path to stabilizing emission levels will likely involve substantial cost, affect living standards, trigger global regulation of energy resources and require the participation of every nation."
Highlights of the report have appeared in Mobil's op-ed advertisements which appear weekly in The New York Times, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. The ads are available on Mobil's Web site: www.mobil.com/opeds.
Download the Mobil Technology report from: www.mobil.com/climate.
For more news and information about Mobil, please see us on the World Wide Web at www.mobil.com/news.
