ALBERT

Description: Sizeable reserves of shale gas are known to exist in France, Germany, Poland, Romania, and the United Kingdom. However, it is unclear how much of this gas is recoverable. Shale gas could deliver benefits to EU member states, but there are also valid concerns and environmental risks.

Description: The use of carbon dioxide as a feedstock for a broad range of products can help mitigate the effects of climate change through long‐term removal of carbon or as part of a circular carbon economy. Research on capture and conversion technologies has intensified in recent years, and the interest in deploying these technologies is growing fast. However, sound understanding of the environmental and economic impacts of these technologies is required to drive fast deployment and avoid unintended consequences. Life cycle assessments (LCAs) and techno‐economic assessments (TEAs) are useful tools to quantify environmental and economic metrics; however, these tools can be very flexible in how they are applied, with the potential to produce significantly different results depending on how the boundaries and assumptions are defined. Built on ISO standards for generic LCAs, several guidance documents have emerged recently from the Global CO2 Initiative, the National Energy Technology Laboratory, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory that further define assessment specifications for carbon capture and utilization. Overall agreement in the approaches is noted with differences largely based on the intended use cases. However, further guidance is needed for assessments of early‐stage technologies, reporting details, and reporting for policymakers and nontechnical decision‐makers.

Description: With the development of new extraction technologies, the world’s vast unconventional natural gas reservoirs have now become accessible. But their exploitation is also a source of controversy due to the environmental impact of these technologies. What are the risks? And what role can unconventional natural gas play in future?

Description: Die vorliegende Studie beinhaltet einen Vergleicheiniger diesbezüglich relevanter Länder: der USA,Deutschland, der Niederlande und Russland. Nebeneiner kritischen Überprüfung des jeweiligen nationalenStatus quo (z. B. im Hinblick auf Datenbeschaffung,Überwachung etc.) konzentriert sie sich auf dieausgeprägten Unstimmigkeiten bezüglich der in jedemeinzelnen Gassegment gemeldeten Gasverluste.Von besonderer Bedeutung sind dabei die USA, wodie Schätzungen der Upstream-Gasleckraten (Exploration,Förderung, Produktion) wesentlich höherausfallen als die entsprechenden Raten in Europa. An Überprüfungen dieser Art mangelt es nach wie vorweltweit, obwohl das Bewusstsein für dieses Problemzunimmt, was wiederum verschiedene Initiativen internationalerInstitutionen [Wirtschaftskommissionfür Europa der Vereinten Nationen (United NationsEconomic Commission for Europe, UNECE)], NGOs[Bündnis für Klima und saubere Luft (Oil & Gas MethanePartnership, Climate and Clean Air Coalition,CCAC)] und Gasbetreiber (Marcogaz) belegen. Umdie ehrgeizigen internationalen Ziele zu erreichen, dieim Pariser Klimaabkommen festgeschrieben wurden,müssen die politischen Entscheidungsträger in Zusammenarbeitmit der Erdgasindustrie zeitnah angemesseneMaßnahmen ergreifen, die darauf abzielen,die Methanemissionen, deren Auswirkungen auf dieglobale Temperatur ähnlich besorgniserregend sindwie die von Kohlendioxid, empirisch zu überprüfenund zu reduzieren.

Description: Bei der Gasförderung in den USA gelangen wesentlich größere Mengen des Treibhausgases Methan in die Atmosphäre, als die aktuellen Berechnungen vermuten lassen, so das Ergebnis einer neuen Studie. Grund für die Lecks ist mangelnde Überwachung – nicht nur bei der kontroversen Fracking-Methode, sondern unabhängig von der eingesetzten Technik zur Gasgewinnung. Lorenzo Cremonese vom IASS schreibt in seinem Standpunkt über Möglichkeiten, das Problem einzudämmen.

Description: This worked example is part of a series of examples that are designed to provide practical guidance to the application of the Techno-Economic Assessment and Life Cycle Assessment Guidelines for CO2 Utilization. This worked example provides guidance on best practices and potential pitfalls in the production of a LCA inventory utilizing one or more sources of primary/secondary data. The worked example highlights the dangers of “picking and mixing” data by showing how derived results can vary significantly resulting in inconsistencies and uncertainty when considering direct comparisons for products/services and functions. The worked example considers a CO2 to nitrogen rich fertilizer pathway, with 18 inventories produced for assessment.

Description: This report presents a framework for the systematic monitoring of the global hydrogen economy. It suggests data sources and indicators to systematically survey the most important trends and developments of a future global hydrogen economy. Monitoring based on this framework could provide an important knowledge base for the continuous review of policy measures related to the German and European hydrogen policy.

Description: Im folgenden Bericht wird ein Konzept für ein systematisches Monitoring der globalen Wasserstoffwirtschaft vorgestellt. Der Bericht stellt Datenquellen und Indikatoren zur systematischen Erfassung der wichtigsten Trends und Entwicklungen im Rahmen einer globalen Wasserstoffwirtschaft vor. Ein entsprechendes Monitoring könnte einen wichtigen Beitrag zur kontinuierlichen Überprüfung von Politikmaßnahmen im Rahmen der deutschen und europäischen Wasserstoffpolitik leisten.

Description: Germany and the United Kingdom have domestic shale gas reserves which they may exploit in the future to complement their national energy strategies. However gas production releases volatile organic compounds (VOC) and nitrogen oxides (NOx), which through photochemical reaction form ground-level ozone, an air pollutant that can trigger adverse health effects e.g. on the respiratory system. This study explores the range of impacts of a potential shale gas industry in these two countries on local and regional ambient ozone. To this end, comprehensive emission scenarios are used as the basis for input to an online-coupled regional chemistry transport model (WRF-Chem). Here we simulate shale gas scenarios over summer (June, July, August) 2011, exploring the effects of varying VOC emissions, gas speciation, and concentration of NOx emissions over space and time, on ozone formation. An evaluation of the model setup is performed, which exhibited the model’s ability to predict surface meteorological and chemical variables well compared with observations, and consistent with other studies. When different shale gas scenarios were employed, the results show a peak increase in maximum daily 8-hour average ozone from 3.7 to 28.3 μg m–3. In addition, we find that shale gas emissions can force ozone exceedances at a considerable percentage of regulatory measurement stations locally (up to 21% in Germany and 35% in the United Kingdom) and in distant countries through long-range transport, and increase the cumulative health-related metric SOMO35 (maximum percent increase of ~28%) throughout the region. Findings indicate that VOC emissions are important for ozone enhancement, and to a lesser extent NOx, meaning that VOC regulation for a future European shale gas industry will be of especial importance to mitigate unfavorable health outcomes. Overall our findings demonstrate that shale gas production in Europe can worsen ozone air quality on both the local and regional scales.

Description: To realize their full sustainability potential, carbon dioxide utilization technologies (carbon capture and utilization/CCU) presently require policy support. Consequently, they require acceptance among a variety of stakeholders in industry, policy making, and in the public sphere alike. While CO2 utilization is already a topic of discourse among these stakeholders, there is a lack of common terminology to describe such technologies. On the contrary: The present article shows that terminology in the field of CO2 utilization technologies is currently used inconsistently, and that different designations such as CCU, CCUS, or CDR convey different meanings and contexts. These ambiguities may cause communication problems with regard to policy making, funding proposals, and especially in public discourse. In order to initiate and accompany a goal-oriented and knowledge-based debate on CO2 utilization technologies in the future, actors in the field are asked to question their own choices of terminology and to assess its accuracy. Acronyms and technical abbreviations are the chief cause of potential misunderstandings, and so should be avoided whenever possible or else include a brief explanation. Consistent and precise use of terminology will facilitate transparent dialogue concerning CO2 utilization in the future.