News
Publish date: August 28, 2008
Written by: Ola Innset
News
Greenpeace has previously been firmly opposed to CCS technologies as part of the solution to the climate challenge. However they have now made a joint statement with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Friends of the Earth and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) stating that all new coal fired power plants in Great Britain must be built with CCS technology.
A positive development
“This positive development can turn out to be important for the ongoing discussion in key EU countries like Poland, Germany and Denmark, where governments have yet to clarify their positions on how to implement CCS technology in Europe and the rest of the world. The discussions in the European Parliament and the Ministerial Council will also be affected by Greenpeace’s new attitude,” said Paal Frisvold of Bellona Europa.
“Greenpeace has been very critical to CCS, and has pointed to many relevant perspectives. It has raised several important questions regarding storage safety and choice of technologies, and we are pleased that they have now finally come down to a clear standpoint that CCS is necessary.”
Emission standard performance
Greenpeace underlined in their statement that the focus must be on renewable energies and energy efficiency, but that no coal powered plant must be built without CCS, and that both new and existing power plants by 2020 must have an emission standard performance of 350 grams CO2 emitted per KWh produced.
“In practice this means mandatory implementation of CCS from 2020, which is fully in line with what has been argued for,“ said Frisvold.
Photo: (Foto: Anne Karin Sæther/Bellona)
“But all calculations show that we will also be forced to use fossil fuels with CCS technology in order to reach the target set by the (UN International Panel on Climate Change) of an 85 percent reduction of green house gas emissions by 2050.”
The Bellona Scenario shows what technologies that must be implemented in to reach the 85 percent target by 2050. Read more about the scenario here.
Recent attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant "mark the beginning of a new and gravely dangerous front of the war," the UN atomic agency's director general said last week.
After years of inaction, Germany is working on its Carbon Management Strategy to resolve how CCS can play a role in climate action in industry. At the end of February, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action published first key points and a proposal to amend the law Kohlenstoffdioxid Speicherungsgesetz (KSpG). Bellona Deutschland, who was actively involved in the previous stakeholder dialogue submitted a statement in the association hearing.
In the midst of a global discussion on whether natural gas should be used as a transitional fuel and whether emissions from its extraction, production, transport and use are significantly less than those from other fossil fuels, Russia has developed ambitious plans to increase its own production of liquified natural gas (LNG) in the Arctic – a region with 75% of proven gas reserves in Russia – to raise its share in the international gas trade.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our main focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution risks and climate change.