Lars Schernikau and Bill Smith received peer reviews for ‘The ‘climate impact’ of fossil fuels in today’s energy systems
- The article is available in the electronic journal SSRN https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3968359 and published at SAIMM.
- The low resolution version is attached, the SSRN website has a high resolution version.
Dr. Lars Schernikau, energy economist, entrepreneur and commodities trader explains in a short 18-minute video about a new peer-reviewed research paper he and Professor William H. Smith on Earth and Planetary Science at Washington University in St. Louis on “The ‘Climate Impact’ of Fossil Fuels in Today’s Energy Systems”.
Lars and Bill Smith analyzed new information released by the IPCC and IEA over the past year on methane and carbon dioxide. Several analyzes confirm what we already knew, i.e. about half of the CO2 released into the atmosphere actually does not get into the air and therefore cannot contribute to global warming… it is naturally absorbed and contributes to the greening of the Earth (also confirmed by NASA). All sources are cited in the article including links.
The other analytical results were quite surprising, which even the authors did not expect. However, for this, the “IPCC Global Warming Potential GWP” needs to be accepted (see Lars YouTube video for a short introduction). A brief summary of the main points from the paper:
Energy policy needs to take into account the full environmental impact of the emissions and zero emissions of energy systems. Focusing solely on combustion will lead to undesirable economic and environmental impacts.
- The life cycle includes production, processing, transportation, operations and recycling
- zero-emission environmental impacts including energy inputs, material requirements, space requirements, animal/vegetable life, health/safety, etc.
All energy systems should be analyzed for this full life cycle impact on the environment, including conventional and “renewable energy” systems, to determine priorities and compare that preference with the economic impact of transitioning from one system to another.
Applying this logic to the coal and gas value chain and including only reported methane (CH4) and CO2 emissions, it turns out that surface-mined coal is “better for the climate” than average natural gas. tanks, especially LNG
- 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘓𝘕𝘎 𝘓𝘕𝘎 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘨𝘢𝘴, 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘺 … 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘶𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺 … 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘐𝘗𝘊𝘊 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐𝘌𝘈)
It is not a matter of favoring coal over gas or vice versa, but analyzing what the IPCC and IEA reported numbers mean. With a large portion of green house heating coming from methane (mostly natural gas and from agriculture), we can begin to see the world differently.
These are fairly open-ended analysis results that lead to significant adjustments in energy policy, especially in the wake of COP26’s anti-coal agenda. Logically, based on this information, taxation of CO2 and most decarbonization efforts (see ESG indices in large corporations or banks) have no modeled environmental advantage and lead to unexpected market deviations
scholarly peer-reviewed research articles available online at SSRN’s electronic journal, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3968359
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