ENERGY TECHNOLOGY FOR A GREENHOUSE GAS CONSTRAINED FUTURE

ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES SEMINAR

ENERGY TECHNOLOGY FOR A GREENHOUSE GAS CONSTRAINED FUTURE

Haroon S. Kheshgi
Corporate Strategic Research, ExxonMobil
Research & Engineering Company, USA

Wednesday, September 29, 2004
ABSTRACT


What technologies will be necessary to satisfy both people's demand for affordable energy, and mitigate the risk of climate change? Energy demand is forecast to double within the next half century, even with improvements in energy efficiency at historic rates. It may be found that the risk of climate change justifies, over the same time, the reduction of net CO2 emissions worldwide to a fraction of current levels. In a recent review (Hoffert et al., 2002), we survey the status of emission-free energy technologies that could be deployed globally to provide the massive energy demand of the future. Possible candidates for primary energy sources include terrestrial solar and wind energy, solar power satellites, biomass, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, fission-fusion hybrids, and fossil fuels from which carbon has been sequestered. Non-primary power technologies that could contribute include efficiency improvements, hydrogen production, storage and transport, superconducting global electric grids, and geoengineering. All of these approaches currently have severe deficiencies that limit their readiness for global deployment. A broad range of intensive research and development is needed in the near-term to produce technological options that could, in the long-term, both address the risk of climate change and provide affordable energy for economic development. Yet over the past decades, funding for energy R&D has declined worldwide.

The development of low-emission energy technology is only one component of an overall response to climate change. Research to assess the risk of climate change and to better plan society's response remains a critical pursuit. Some near-term reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases can be accomplished economically through many actions including improvements in efficiency, fuel switching, protection of forests and agricultural soils, and addressing emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases and soot that might also be a strong warming agent. With growing markets come ever more opportunities for global deployment of existing and new efficient technologies that address one priority of the developing world. Significant improvements in energy technologies are an essential component of future world development and an essential component of society's response to climate change and should be encouraged. Through innovative improvements in energy technology, there is reason for optimism, but only if effective efforts to improve energy technology get underway.