BAKU, Azerbaijan, Sept.23
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
While the oil and gas industry has historically had a high carbon footprint (from production, processing, and combustion), it also has a major role in enabling other industries become carbon neutral – oil and gas industry technology and competence are required for CCS deployment, Trend reports citing Germany-based DNV GL.
“Looking to the longer term, the oil and gas industry’s raison d’être may slowly change from providing cheap and versatile fuels to meet global energy needs, to be the world’s carbon waste disposal agent as CO2 storage-site operators. Projects storing CO2 emissions that do not stem from their own company operations can represent negative emissions in the storage company’s GHG accounting. With time, the oil and gas industry – as we know it – may go carbon negative. This will require principles and methods for accounting and exchange of emissions reductions between companies participating in the value chain of CCS projects,” the company said in its report.
“In 2050, we forecast that hydrogen will supply 23 percent of end-use demand for gaseous fuels. This includes consumption of hydrogen and natural gas, but not use for production of electricity and other carriers. Hydrogen will account for almost half of end-use gas demand in Europe in 2050, 43 percent in Greater China, 37 percent in OECD Pacific, and a fifth of such demand in North America. These regions will see far and away the greatest reductions in emissions to 2050, and will account for most emissions abated by CCS.
“It is difficult to use electrical substitutes in hard-toabate sectors such as steelmaking and other heat-intensive industrial processes, jet-powered aircraft, and the ships, trains, and trucks that rely on the high torque of diesel engines. In the future, some of these applications will be powered by natural gas, which is cleaner burning than other fossil fuels but is still a major source of emissions. This is where hydrogen can play a key role. We see this in our forecast. From almost no demand today, demand for hydrogen as an energy carrier (for energy end use – not hydrogen used as a chemical feedstock) emerges in the late 2020s to begin scaling in the mid-2030s due to demand from the transport sector, mostly from larger vehicles. Moderate demand from buildings adds to this, and is then buoyed significantly by demand from manufacturing in the 2040s, with transport demand continuing to increase throughout. Together, Greater China (40 percent) and Europe (22 percent) will account for 62 percent of hydrogen demand in 2050,” the company said.
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