Capturing Time: BP And The Future
Source: djibnet.com
It’s the year 2050. We’re already living off the equivalent of 3 planets, our landfill back gardens have doubled up as an outdoor brothel for ravens, and for the 2050 Antarctica World Cup Final in the new concrete Pine Island stadium, lovingly named after the glacier that retreated into the Amundsen sea way back in 2018, we’re huddling around a single television. Frantically austere provisions for our declining energy security means that the tea we boiled water for this morning well exceeded our energy quota, and the odd long-haired guy living in the flat downstairs is the only one left with enough electricity on his meter to fuel the first half of the game at least. Everyone agrees that it’s just not as exciting as it was in the old days anyway, when there were more countries taking part.
It’s an image that could have easily been lifted off a page of a JG Ballard novel; a view of a surreal landscape embodying the inconvenient truths of our historical pathologies. But there is something about the year 2050 that has created so much discussion and so many scenarios that no-one can even know what 2050 will mean. 2050 seems to have become so historical, despite being completely suspended in a future time. In an age where we lack a perpetual motion machine, tuned to the tone of One Planet Living, churning out fully efficient and renewable energy sources to all of the 9 billion people expected to inhabit our Earth, companies like BP have been developing other mechanisms that fulfil the premise of successfully satisfying our needs at an economic level, as well as reducing the amount of CO2 that escapes into the atmosphere.
I attended a recent conference, where BP Chief Scientist Ellen Williams delivered the talk ‘Making Energy Sustainable’, presenting some of the many strategies BP have put in place to address these visions and play a constructive role in the challenge for notably meeting the worlds growing demand for energy and dealing with CO2 emissions. The energy challenge against a state of inertia is global and extremely complex. Fueling the global economy while simultaneously reducing the amount of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases being emitted isn’t exactly easy, with geopolitical and environment trends in constant flux. Our decreased energy security is a major concern for many reasons; energy demand is expected to increase 40% by 2030; half of the world’s in-demand natural gas located in just three countries, with a staggering 80% of global oil reserves coveted by just 10 countries. Oil’s current geography is illustrated in the diagram below. Well, for now at least; these oil reserves will last for only 45 more years.
Source: NG Oil & Gas MENA
Actually, this isn’t even half the issue. As Ellen mentions, the primary issue isn’t that these resources will ‘run out’, but that there has come a time when the peaking of world oil production will make hydrocarbons increasingly more difficult to get to. Carbon emission reduction and renewable zero carbon energy sources are high on earth’s agenda, but where we don’t all live like Bill Dunster in our off-grid utopias there is a need to mitigate the increasing concentration of CO2 that makes its way to the atmosphere, which, alongside it’s potent sidekick methane, is having an increasingly disastrous effect on our global annual temperature and the acidification of our oceans. But where the implementation of zero carbon technologies can decrease further emission, the excess of CO2 emissions through industrial and other processes, is a big deal.
DON’T MENTION THE SPILL
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Source: ITOPF
Before engaging with recent research and developments into BP’s mitigation technologies, the presentation slide switches to an image of the Gulf of Mexico. Between the bright BP greens and trickling graphs and forecasts, the almost uncomfortable juxtaposition of the spill of 4.9 million barrels of oil with the recent trends in oil production suddenly made things a little bit awkward. Of course, someone from BP coming in to give a talk couldn’t not mention the oil spill somewhere, and if they didn’t, the concluding discussion could have soured into an abrasive House of Commons pantomime. Ellen handled the skepticism by highlighting that it has had such a transformative effect on the company as a whole that they want all their current environmental efforts to also help rebuild the trust that they know they have lost since the accident. See BP’s full response here.
EXHIBIT A: CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE
‘CCS’ was the introduction and explanation of BP’s work on the decarbonisation of large portions of the world’s energy supply. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is yet another example of the increasingly ecologically informed model of design. Shoving CO2 back into the soil isn’t some eerily landfill-like technology, nuanced by an out and sight out of mind attitude. Our oceans act as a ‘sink’ that naturally captures CO2. Ironically, this is also another problem; the increase in CO2 emissions has created a cocktail of acidification of our oceans and a weakening of their absorbing properties by as much as 50%. CCS is a process that describes the capturing of most of the carbon dioxide emissions from a power plant or major industrial project and storing the CO2 deep underground. It is not a new phenomenon; BP followed up PTRC’s CCS trials in Weyburn, Canada, and since have been researching and working on CCS for over 10 years. Most notably, the British Petroleum giants and have been involved in a pilot study of its potential in the Salah gas field in Algeria since 2004, successfully storing over 1 million tonnes of CO2 every year in geological formations underground. Here, Ellen tells us, it is stored safely and permanently, providing assurance that secure industry scale geological storage of CO2 is possible for the mitigation of climate change. It starts to sound a little precarious and unnervingly landfill-esque, but when you consider that global emissions of carbon dioxide through energy use alone are rising at the fastest rate since 1969, a tested technology in burial techniques is one partial remedy that may give us more time to work with.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Source: whatsupwiththat.com
Well, definitely not as easy as burying your Dad in a sandcastle that’s for sure. CCS is staged into 5 processes: pre-combustion capture, post-combustion capture, oxyfuel combustion capture, CO2 transportation and then to the key final part, CO2 storage. The pilot studies conducted in Algeria have revealed alternative mechanisms by which carbon storage is made possible, but the general principle is the same; the CO2, after being injected deep underground (usually 800metres in depth), is absorbed and then trapped in the many porous spaces of rock. Fluid CO2 however tends to rise, but when this happens, it is trapped by an impermeable layer in the formation known as caprock. If you’re like myself and prefer pictures to words, BP have made a short interactive animation of exactly how CCS works here.
Sounds promising? However, like most new technologies kitted out in full superhero outfits ready to combat these woes of 2050, CCS is pretty pricey. BP is an economic powerhouse and could be one of the few companies willing to splash out and make a timely contributing to postponing the 2050 effect. Where those who make references to the Gulf spill may scoff at BP’s efforts, it is the power of these major producers in the development of renewables and technologies and their forward looking attitude of what needs (and it is a real need) to be done, that could hold off the 2050 syndrome for a little bit longer.
I knew nothing about carbon capture. BP isn't all bad it seems... Really great article Hayley! Keep it up. That said, Waddell makes a very strong point above. Suddenly trusting in Big Oil is a risky business. They are profit driven - but if they can churn out a profit and ensure a positive purpose, I'm all for it.
Beautiful sounding ideas from BP that seem to ignore their history and anti-environment behavior. It also seems a bit naive to suddenly have faith in promised acts of benevolence and concern for the environment from any of the Big Oil operators. If the promises as reported are real, then the profit must be immense and what is promised to be saved and protected may have some very high hidden costs that include other aspects of our environment and human health. Yes, I am inherently suspicious about anything of promise from Big Oil other than their own promise of increased profits. Similarly comparisons of the scope of oil spills across the globe in my mind simply underscores the horror produced at the beckoning of greed. Greed that is ours to have elegant transport and greed of theirs for the profits our greed feeds. Fossil fuels first, are not unlimited, Additionally new "fracking" techniques to recover sketchy fuel sources offers more serious damage to both the environment and human health. Serious and tragic accidents to nuclear power systems like Chernobl and Fukashima (sp?) simply feed ammunition to those who seek to prolong our dependence on any aspect of fossil fuels. If Big Oil truly intends to offer innovative alternatives to polluting fossil fuel production and use then yes, show us the way and what resource is to be used. Switching to other resources without dramatically changing methodologies and sensitivity to humankind's needs for safe energy and a clean environment simply shifts 2050 to 2100, but the end of the story will still spell tragedy.
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