Shell Australia looks at power in emissions trade
Date: 01-Feb-00
Country: AUSTRALIA
Shell said it was introducing permits, each worth 100 tonnes of carbon
dioxide or its methane equivalent, that would be traded within the
company.
The permits would be based on 98 percent of the emissions issued in
1998, committing each company participant to make a two percent
reduction by 2002.
Shell Australia senior economist Paul D'Arcy said power generation was
one of the options for meeting the target at the Geelong refinery.
"For us it is a learning exercise. We are looking at what the abatement
opportunities are and making decisions about whether we buy permits to
cover our emissions or cut our emissions by changing the way we
operate," he told Reuters.
"Becoming more efficient with energy use and capturing some of the
emissions and using that heat as power is one of the ways that is most
promising for any refinery for reducing emissions." But D'Arcy said the
economic environment probably precluded major investment in
co-generation.
"Some major co-generation is quite expensive and in the current refining
environment in Australia that is hard to contemplate," he said.
Shell Australia chief executive officer Peter Duncan said in a statement
the scheme would help the company contribute to the debate on an
Australian national emissions trading scheme.
The Australian Greenhouse Office has released four discussion papers on
emissions trading and is due to report to the Federal government on the
issue in early 2000.
D'Arcy forecast it was unlikely that emissions trading would be
introduced nationally before 2008.
"We don't realistically expect to see a national emissions trading
scheme in the next few years. It is just so complicated it is hard to
imagine it coming up quickly," he said.
