Zero Emission

Zero Emission
12/23/08

Producing energy without carbon waste means first capturing and then storing this carbon. Processes exist which nonetheless need to be developed and above all put into practice. A pioneer in this area, Professor Philippe Mathieu began his work in 1992, at the Rio Summit!

Professor Philippe Mathieu, of the University of Liège’s Faculty of Applied Sciences, was in 2004 called upon to join some 800 IPCC experts (in total around 2,500 scientists, with either consultancy or reviewing roles, have participated in producing 3 volumes of each report). He thus contributed to the writing up of the 4th report of this United Nations body, which was created 20 years ago. A report which, published in 2005, earned every IPCC member the right to the joint Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. But it was as early as 1992, at the time of the Rio Summit, that Professor Mathieu began his work on the methods of producing and using energy without emitting greenhouse gases, in particular CO₂. He imagined a ‘zero-emission’ process, which was the strong precursor of a vast research area known today under its Anglophone acronym CCS: Carbon Capture and Storage. A pioneering work which earned Liège the right to host, in 1995, the first international seminar on Zero Emission Power Plants. Gathering together at Val Benoît, around thirty specialists from the world over thus contributed to the rapid blossoming of a cycle of vast international conferences now organised by the International Energy Agency (IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme) and which are held every year under the title ‘Green House Gas Control Technologies’. The ninth of its kind has just taken place in Washington. Professor Mathieu is continuing this work today (1).

Up until now the only concrete decision, taken by just one part of the world’s decision makers, those of the developed countries, has been the Kyoto Protocol, whose objective is to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 5% within 20 years, in other words by 2008-2012, in comparison with its 1990 levels, with Europe binding itself to 8% and Belgium to 7.5%. This experiment, far from convincing up until today, represents very little in terms of the size of the challenge. ‘If we want to limit average global temperature rise to 2°, with 2100 as a horizon date, in comparison with the pre-industrial period, we will have to reduce emissions by between 50% and 85% by the year 2050,’ says Professor Mathieu, hammering home his message.

King Coal is back!

Philippe Mathieu cites several possible solutions, all of which are necessarily only partial. To achieve such an objective we will have to put all of our technological arsenal to work. We could fall back on nuclear energy: whilst it emits practically no greenhouse gases, it has been officially ruled out by the Kyoto Protocol – and by the Belgian Parliament – but it has in the mean time been rehabilitated by the European Union and is experiencing a new boom on a global scale. We could also develop renewable energies, but we know that they only have limited potential, that their conversion yields are low and that they are costly. None is today profitable without subsidies or public support. There is also natural gas, a fossil fuel which emits less greenhouse gases than others, but its availability and the high costs involved raise questions about how secure its supplies are in the long term.

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