Featured, Power
By Anthony Isibor
PROFESSOR Bart Nnaji, Founder and Chairman, Geometric Power Group, has sad that the call to abandon fossil fuel is mostly driven by economics and politics rather than environmental considerations.
Speaking at the inaugural Dele Momodu Annual Lecture in Lagos recently, Prof. Nnaji observed that in the last few years, the West, particularly Western Europe, had been mounting relentless pressure on other countries of the world to embrace cleaner energy through solar, wind, and other forms of renewable energy like hydropower.
The West, according to him, has been asking mostly developing nations to abandon coal in particular, referring to it as the greatest environmental pollutant through carbon emission.
They have even added natural gas to the list of fuels that should be banned to make the world limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Centigrade by 2030, as required by the Paris Accord on Climate Change of 2015.
However, these pressure which had been mounting, took a twist n 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent series of sanctions on Russia by the west, Moscow had in return, took punitive actions against Western countries like Germany, which depended largely on gas imports from Russia.
Prof. Nnaji noted that due to this action by Russia, Germany, the largest European economy, decided to revive coal-fired plants that it had resolved, under Angela Merkel, to close down. “Though there were no imminent threats of power shortages in Germany, Berlin chose to reverse its policy on coal plants rather than risk in any way the chance of its people suffering any form of electricity crisis.
Germany was not alone. “The United Kingdom, which had prided itself on shutting down its coal-fired power plants and on building large wind farms, decided to resuscitate its coal plants. Why? It didn’t want its citizens to suffer the 2022 heatwave unduly,” Prof. Nnaji said.
He added also that France when faced with winter which could hurt its people, chose to extend the lifespans of its coal-fired plants even though electricity from coal was responsible for only 0.6% of national electricity production,. “The French government had to extend the lifespans of coal-fired plants just to protect its people. This is the country where 196 states, including Vatican City, signed the famous Paris Accord on Climate Change under the United Nations auspices!
“The United States is proud that several of its coal-fired plants have been decommissioned. Coal used to account for 50% of America’s electricity, but the figure has now reduced to about 17.8% and it is expected that it may decline to 4% by 2030. Environmentalists are delighted at the rapid decline. But it would appear that the decline has not been driven by as much commitment to environmental protection as by economics, even though the Joe Biden administration has a special envoy on climate change. It is easier and cheaper to run a natural gas-fired plant than a coal-fired one, thanks to enhanced shale gas production and other issues. In fact, fossil fuels make up 60% of the total fuel to power since gas contributes more than 42% of fuel to power in America.
“The Donald Trump administration used to celebrate the ubiquity of coal all over the United States; its affordability; the convenience of its storage and use; the ease of its transportation; its generous use by steel, aluminium, and cement manufacturers; its extensive use by railway firms; the millions of American workers who depended on it; its host communities; several American businesses that relied on it directly and indirectly; and its key role in America’s industrial history.
“There is something that we should know from the Americans as they deactivate their coal plants: a great concern for the common good. The United States Department of Energy has been looking for ways to fill the gap created by the declining coal plants. It thinks that converting the coal plants to nuclear plants will result in additional $275m annually in economic activities in the host community. It wants the affected coal plants replaced by nuclear power plants. This is to ensure that the electricity workers retain their jobs, and the host communities remain economically active. There is the argument that repurposing the plants from coal-fired to nuclear will reduce the cost of building brand new stations by 35%. A nuclear plant requires a fraction of the fuel needed by, say, a coal plant to produce the same amount of power. But its waste water is dangerous and the primary raw material used for nuclear energy is uranium, which is mined and, therefore, constitutes environmental degradation,” he added.
Prof. Nnaji also revealed that it is not only nations that have displayed self-interests in the dialogue over fossil fuels, big oil and gas companies like Shell, Exxon Mobil, TotalEnergies, Chevron, and British Petroleum have also showed self-interests.
He noted that Exxon-Mobil and Chevron did not claim to be as committed to cleaner energy as their European counterparts.
According to him, Shell, under Ben van Beurden’s leadership, tried to sell itself as a leader in the vanguard of the campaign for clean energy and paid a price for it. While it was posting huge profits, its stock performance on the exchanges was flat, unlike those of Chevron and ExxonMobil. Investors were not sure whether Shell was an oil and gas firm or one dealing in renewables.
“All this changed with the assumption of office of Wael Sawan, the Lebanese-Canadian, as its chief executive in January 2023. Sawan has left no one in doubt that his loyalty is not to environmentalists but to shareholders. Shell has resumed heavy investments in oil and gas. It has reduced its climate ambitions by scaling down its goal of reducing the net carbon intensity of its energy products from 20% to 15 % by 2030. Its investments in renewables came down from $3.5 billion in 2022 to $2.7 billion in 2023.
“Shell is not alone. The other British superpower petroleum company, BP, has taken similar steps. Its investments in low-carbon energy are seven times less than its investments in fossil fuels, while those of Shell are five times lower. TotalEnergies of France in April of 2023 announced a reduction of its climate ambitions from 35%-40% in emissions in 2030 to 20%30% the same period.
“The Shell CEO has an interesting explanation for the new ongoing huge investments in oil and gas by the petroleum majors: the world needs energy security. I believe he really meant the Western nations,” he added.
A.
-May 21, 2024 @ 16:50 GMT|
Tags: Anthony Isibor Dele Momodu Annual Lecture Professor Bart Nnaji
