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Lofty Energy Abatement Plans Possible With Restrictions

By Daniel Stouffer

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 02Aug2010 Word count: 575 Viewed: 281 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Environmentalists could argue that the European Union is far further down the winding road to energy abatement and carbon emission reduction than anywhere else in the world. The EU holds an 80% reduction in emissions is achievable by the year 2050, only 40 years from now. It is felt that the largest change must come in the power generation sector and the major changes will drive considerable savings in many other sectors, as a consequence.

Highly respected analysts, McKinsey & Co. argued within their energy abatement curve documentation that alternative energy concepts must be embraced immediately. This includes nuclear, onshore and off shore wind turbines, Hydro, solar, biomass and geothermal. Traditional fossil fuel usage must be brought to near zero for power generation purposes.

Environmentalists could argue that the European Union is far further down the winding road to energy abatement and carbon emission reduction than anywhere else in the world. The EU holds an 80% reduction in emissions is achievable by the year 2050, only 40 years from now. It is felt that the largest change must come in the power generation sector and the major changes will drive considerable savings in many other sectors, as a consequence.

The power sector must be "fully decarbonized" relatively quickly if energy abatement plans will result in emissions reduction of 80% by 2050. Other major sectors of the economy must ditch the use of fossil fuels and replace with biofuel or alternatively generated electricity. Where fossil fuel cannot be "avoided," carbon capture and storage, or sequestration must be a feature of power generation plants.

As we all tend to live in the current time and find difficulty in making projections far into the future, there is a danger that we are collectively burying our heads in the sand when it comes to the concept of reducing our emissions and funding energy abatement by such high and lofty goals. If we use history as a guide, we can see that alternative energy implementation has often taken a generation or more to move from concept to reality and as such, the stakes are high. Is it possible to convert our major power generation plants to almost carbon neutral within a couple of generations? Should we put all our faith in the energy abatement concepts or should we rely on a heavy taxation in one way or the other to drive down carbon emissions? The reality probably lies somewhere in the middle and puts additional stress on the politicians trying to consider cap and trade or carbon taxation during 2010.

Carbon capture and storage is by itself quite a complicated concept and rather expensive to implement. The process itself requires a large amount of additional energy and as such, requires additional fuel use, associated with significantly high costs. The CO2 itself would be stored deep within the ocean or underground as mineral carbonates.

Energy abatement should be high on the list of priorities for everybody, including corporate decision-makers. They simply cannot sit back and wait for Congress to make decisions which have an impact on the cost of energy that they consume. They should look at alternative energy sources, significant projects to increase efficiency, software and services to adequately monitor energy use and carbon emissions.

Although the independent European Climate Foundation has basically ratified the European Union's aims, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting energy abatement through the year 2050, it points out that action must be taken now and that delays of only a few years could have significant repercussions.

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