China will likely be the first country to commercialize clean-coal technology, allowing the nation to capitalize on its coal dependence and direct government influence over industry, the CEO of Houston-based Synthesis Energy Systems said Sunday on Platts Energy Week.
“China will commercialize cleaner coal, probably faster than any other country,” said Robert Rigdon, head of Synthesis, which has developed advanced coal-gasification projects at two plants in China. The technology converts low-quality coal into relatively clean, synthetic natural gas and has the ability to capture carbon (CO2) emissions.
Such technologies are less economically viable in the U.S., where near-record levels of natural gas and oil production are putting downward pressure on domestic prices of those commodities.
“Because of the way their system works … they can direct industry to go in certain directions, then the cleaner coal technologies will get built,” Rigdon said of the Asian superpower. “I don’t think we’re going to see any big opportunities in the U.S. immediately, particularly because we have a very different energy landscape with our oil and gas pricing in the U.S. today.”
His comments came the same week that Beijing and Washington pledged to work toward ambitious emission-reduction targets for CO2 and the other greenhouse gases (GHGs) widely blamed for climate change.
China set the goal of peaking its emissions by 2030 and increasing the use of non-fossil fuels, and the U.S. said it would aim to cut GHG emissions by 26-28% from 2005 levels by 2025. China and the U.S. together account for 45% of the world’s CO2 emissions.
But backing up these commitments with policy in Washington will likely face stiff headwinds.
Throughout his term in office, President Barack Obama has often been at loggerheads with Republicans in Congress over climate and energy issues, a situation that will likely only worsen. Republicans won the Senate in national elections earlier this month, meaning Obama must convince the Republican majorities in both chambers before any legislation can be passed to address climate change.
Obama has often turned to executive orders and agency regulations to limit GHG emissions, but with only two years left in office, implementing new rules could be difficult.
Getting the U.S. private sector on board without new federal policies stemming from Washington and Beijing’s climate agreement could be difficult as well.
In another segment, Martin Meehan, the chief executive of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), said that the market has been waiting for policy certainty. GRI is a Netherlands-nonprofit that helps companies and countries track their climate-change performance and develop economic strategies based on those findings.
“This has been the obstacle in the marketplace that has really kept the market from moving on, for better or worse,” Meehan said.
“Uncertain policy is not a really good friend of markets,” he said.
Other Program Highlights
Also Sunday, Greg Ogborn, director of North American Purchasing at Sunny Delight, explained why the company closely watches the petrochemicals market.
In “Market Spotlight,” Jack Weixel, director of energy analysis for Bentek Energy, shared some of the key fundamentals that could have an impact on the shale industry amid declining oil prices. Bentek is an analytics and forecasting unit of Platts.
Platts Energy Week airs at 8 a.m. U.S. Eastern time Sunday mornings on WU.S.A9 in greater Washington, D.C., and in Houston on KUHT, a PBS affiliate, as well as on other PBS stations in cities throughout the U.S., including Anchorage, Billings, Houston, Juneau, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Raleigh and Wichita. For online viewing, the program is accessible at www.plattstv.com.
The program features interviews with leading figures from government, industry, markets, think tanks and the financial community. Host Bill Loveless is an editorial director at Platts who brings 30 years of energy journalism experience to the anchor chair. The program also features veteran energy news editor and Platts Energy Week Senior Correspondent Chris Newkumet.
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