For those of you who have access to The Economist newspaper's website, there is a good analysis of natural gas role in the energy transition, on page 51 of the print addition, or at this link:
Interesting to learn that Shell has said that its oil production peaked in 2019, but that it plans to expand its natural gas business with annual investments of $4 billion. The French oil major, Total, expects its crud-oil output to decline over the next decade, but for the share of natural gas to rise from 40% to 50% of its sales. And in February, Qatar Petroleum announced plans for the largest natural gas liquefaction project to date.
Much of the rest of the article discusses various uncertainties that will affect the future demand for natural gas, namely demand and competing technologies, particularly for electric power generation.
As for policy, The Netherlands and several Californian cities have banned providing natural gas connections in new buildings. Britain is expected to do so from 2025.
I am going to push back on Owen in a friendly but somewhat vigorous manner.
First, three of the four largest provinces in Canada, Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia already have very clean electric grids unlike say most of the US or Germany. So given these jurisdictions have a relative abundance of clean electricity I don't see any good reasons not to move further down the road of electrification. Thus say funding from the Federal government of Canada to electrify the commuter rail networks of Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver all makes a lot of sense as do increased incentives for electric vehicles.
Now of course there is the "fourth" province of Canada that is Alberta which is where Owen lives and works. Alberta's electricity grid is emitting 22 times as many CO2 emissions as Ontario which is shall we say a really big problem for that particular province made even worse that Alberta considerably smaller than BC, Ontario, and Quebec combined and can easily be "outvoted" in Canada's Federal political system.
Second, while Owen talks about nuclear fusion, Ontario, Canada's largest province while having some very large hydro facilities such as in Niagara Falls is also the world's second most nuclear-dependent jurisdiction in the world. Yet the oil and gas industry in Canada and Alberta, in particular, has never been particularly enthusiastic towards nuclear power viewing Federal support from Ottawa towards the industry as just being pork directed towards vote-rich Ontario. Yet Alberta itself has had little interest over decades in building nuclear power plants itself sitting on a sea of gas, oil, and coal thus essentially seeding to Ontario the main base of the nuclear industry in Canada.
So if I heard more enthusiasm from Owen about keeping the existing nuclear fleet in Ontario going(such as the Pickering Plant outside of Toronto) and building new fission-based reactors either in Ontario, Alberta, or preferably both I would treat Owen's viewpoint with a bit more enthusiasm myself. In Canada's political system nuclear power is basically a joint Federal/provincial enterprise so if people In Alberta said Canada as a country needs to keep the Pickering plant operating that actually has an impact Canada-wide. Yet again I have never heard much enthusiasm coming out of Alberta for this idea. You sometimes get the feeling Alberta wants Pickering to close so they can sell more natural gas to Ontario.
Gareth implicitly shows that the 5 billion people in developing countries will not be able to pay the cost of transitioning completely away from fossil fuels any time soon. The needed "government intervention" will occur in the U.S. and EU, but their GHG output is already declining. Also, the world's population is projected to begin declining in 2050, helping reduce the GHG production, and indeed that decline poses a major global economic challenge.
I'd only add a word to the end of the title: "Why we can't electrify everything ... Yet". I think eventually the world will (counting hydrogen as, essentially, "liquid electricity"), or at least 90% of energy use that currently is not electrified.
For those of you who have access to The Economist newspaper's website, there is a good analysis of natural gas role in the energy transition, on page 51 of the print addition, or at this link:
https://www.economist.com/business/2021/04/22/oil-supermajors-mega-bet-on-natural-gas
Interesting to learn that Shell has said that its oil production peaked in 2019, but that it plans to expand its natural gas business with annual investments of $4 billion. The French oil major, Total, expects its crud-oil output to decline over the next decade, but for the share of natural gas to rise from 40% to 50% of its sales. And in February, Qatar Petroleum announced plans for the largest natural gas liquefaction project to date.
Much of the rest of the article discusses various uncertainties that will affect the future demand for natural gas, namely demand and competing technologies, particularly for electric power generation.
As for policy, The Netherlands and several Californian cities have banned providing natural gas connections in new buildings. Britain is expected to do so from 2025.
I am going to push back on Owen in a friendly but somewhat vigorous manner.
First, three of the four largest provinces in Canada, Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia already have very clean electric grids unlike say most of the US or Germany. So given these jurisdictions have a relative abundance of clean electricity I don't see any good reasons not to move further down the road of electrification. Thus say funding from the Federal government of Canada to electrify the commuter rail networks of Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver all makes a lot of sense as do increased incentives for electric vehicles.
Now of course there is the "fourth" province of Canada that is Alberta which is where Owen lives and works. Alberta's electricity grid is emitting 22 times as many CO2 emissions as Ontario which is shall we say a really big problem for that particular province made even worse that Alberta considerably smaller than BC, Ontario, and Quebec combined and can easily be "outvoted" in Canada's Federal political system.
https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/CA-AB
Second, while Owen talks about nuclear fusion, Ontario, Canada's largest province while having some very large hydro facilities such as in Niagara Falls is also the world's second most nuclear-dependent jurisdiction in the world. Yet the oil and gas industry in Canada and Alberta, in particular, has never been particularly enthusiastic towards nuclear power viewing Federal support from Ottawa towards the industry as just being pork directed towards vote-rich Ontario. Yet Alberta itself has had little interest over decades in building nuclear power plants itself sitting on a sea of gas, oil, and coal thus essentially seeding to Ontario the main base of the nuclear industry in Canada.
So if I heard more enthusiasm from Owen about keeping the existing nuclear fleet in Ontario going(such as the Pickering Plant outside of Toronto) and building new fission-based reactors either in Ontario, Alberta, or preferably both I would treat Owen's viewpoint with a bit more enthusiasm myself. In Canada's political system nuclear power is basically a joint Federal/provincial enterprise so if people In Alberta said Canada as a country needs to keep the Pickering plant operating that actually has an impact Canada-wide. Yet again I have never heard much enthusiasm coming out of Alberta for this idea. You sometimes get the feeling Alberta wants Pickering to close so they can sell more natural gas to Ontario.
Gareth implicitly shows that the 5 billion people in developing countries will not be able to pay the cost of transitioning completely away from fossil fuels any time soon. The needed "government intervention" will occur in the U.S. and EU, but their GHG output is already declining. Also, the world's population is projected to begin declining in 2050, helping reduce the GHG production, and indeed that decline poses a major global economic challenge.
Is this strategic agnosticism? Or is it belief in proportion to evidence?
I'd only add a word to the end of the title: "Why we can't electrify everything ... Yet". I think eventually the world will (counting hydrogen as, essentially, "liquid electricity"), or at least 90% of energy use that currently is not electrified.