A Visible Reduction in Emissions

The COVID-19 lockdown has shown what we can do, but will we be able to maintain this balance without stopping the entire world? Do LNG and Bio-LNG offer a path towards clean energy?

By Emilio Weber*

The year 2020 will be remembered in the history books as the year that COVID-19 brought the world to a standstill, but it will also be remembered as the moment the planet was able to take a deep breath. Whilst lockdown measures around the world stopped millions of people from working, with serious economic consequences for many countries, the crisis also brought about other changes that should give us hope for the future.

One of these was the change in the environment. Who wasn’t surprised to notice a clearer sky, less noise and even the return of wildlife to urban areas? In New Delhi, as in other cities with high levels of pollution, thick clouds of nitrogen dioxide had dulled the sky with its reddish-brown colour. However, in the week between 18th and 26th March, concentrations of NO₂ fell more than 15-fold, and levels of fine particles (PM_2.5) dropped by almost 70%. The lockdown in India began on the 24th March and lasted for 21 days.¹

Variation in polluting emissions in New Delhi as a consequence of the lockdown

*Particulate Matter 2.5 or PM2.5 are very small particles in the air with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers (approximately 1 ten-thousandth of an inch) or less. It is one of the six categories of air pollution defined by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and is a mixture that can include organic chemical substances, dust, soot and metals. These particles can come from all manner of combustion, such as from vehicles, trucks, factories, wood-burning and agricultural burning.

To better understand these daily figures, it’s worth pointing out that the maximum daily concentration of PM_2.5 accepted by the World Health Organization (WHO) Air Quality Guidelines (2005) and Directive 2008/50/CE of the European Union on ambient air quality is 25.²

Photos of the Gateway of India in New Delhi with data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) of India from their measurement station on Lodhi Road, Delhi (https://cpcb.nic.in/).

Besides these NO₂, NOx and PM_2.5 emissions (which are responsible for respiratory diseases, kidney problems and cancer), our atmosphere also contains increasingly high concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO₂), which is one of the main causes of global warming.

Decarbonising: dream or reality

As a result of the lockdown and the slowdown in economic activity, global CO2 levels have been reduced to the same levels recorded in 2006³. In fact, compared to the previous year, April saw a reduction of 17%.

However, sadly, if we don’t implement systemic and ecologically sustainable policies globally, gas emissions will quickly recover and be equal to or higher than pre-lockdown levels. This was what happened after the 2008 financial crisis, when CO₂ emissions reduced by 2.1% in 2009 but increased by 4.5% the following year, reaching an all-time high.⁴

All this evidence shows us that reversing the damage to our environment is not some unrealistic fantasy and is something that we can do but frequently ignore in the pursuit of very short-term gains, for example, by continuing to use coal or not using incentives to stop gas flaring.

Coal still makes up almost 30% of the global energy mix⁵ and demand for it is growing in Asia. Meanwhile, natural gas is burnt when it could be used as a lower-emission alternative for generating electricity or as a substitute for coal or liquid fuels.

Without stopping the world: long-term benefits with LNG and Bio-LNG

Currently, natural gas is a commodity which is becoming an increasingly popular option around the world, and treatment and liquefaction technologies have solved the previous constraints on scale, making it more mobile, portable and scalable. As a result, the transportation of gas no longer solely depends on pipelines and seaports, being possible to transport it to any location in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG) using trucks equipped with cryogenic ISO tanks.

By using LNG, a truck’s CO₂ exhaust emissions are reduced by 20%, but if the truck consumes Bio-LNG, these emissions actually become carbon negative. Bio-LNG uses the same modular treatment and liquefaction technology but is obtained from sewerage waste and sludge. As a result, by using Bio-LNG, the overall carbon footprint is reduced. And since both options eliminate particulate matter (PM_2.5), nitrogen oxide (NO_x) and sulphur oxide (SO_x) emissions, it’s clear that whatever we do with natural gas will put us on the right path towards cleaner air.

In summary, all of us have seen how air quality has improved in recent months because of reduced emissions. This is no longer just a debate about energy and climate change to be had between experts. Are we really going to just ignore this unexpected environmental experience when we already have the technology and clean energy to make it a permanent reality?

*The author is the Commercial Vice-president at Galileo Technologies for Asia and the Pacific

Notes:

[1] Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), part of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of the Indian Government, https://cpcb.nic.in/.
[2] European Court of Auditors, Special Report on Air Pollution: Our health still insufficiently protected, 2018.
[3] Corinne Le Quéré, Robert B. Jackson, Matthew W. Jones, Adam J. P. Smith, Sam Abernethy, Robbie M. Andrew, Anthony J. De-Gol, David R. Willis, Yuli Shan, Josep G. Canadell, Pierre Friedlingstein, Felix Creutzig & Glen P. Peters, Temporary reduction in daily global CO2 emissions during the COVID-19 forced confinement, 19 May 2020.
[4] British Petroleum, BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2020, 69th Edition.
[5] IEA World Energy Balances 2019, https://www.iea.org/subscribe-to-data-services/world-energy-balances-and-statistics.