More than 80% of the CO2 from fossil fuels is emitted when energy products are used. Our customers emit six to seven times more CO2 using our products than we do making them – more than 750 million tonnes of CO2 in a typical year. We encourage the efficient use of energy and provide technologies and fuels to help.
Lower CO2 electricity
We delivered more than 1.44 million barrels of oil equivalent of natural gas per day in 2006. That was more than 40% of our total upstream production. If all that gas were used to generate electricity, it would be enough to power approximately 180 million homes. Because natural gas contains less carbon than coal and can be turned more efficiently into power, a gas-fired power plant produces about half the CO2 emissions of a conventional coal-fired station. This is true even if extra energy is needed to liquefy the gas and transport it.
Coal is the world’s most abundant fossil fuel. Today it meets nearly 40% of total electricity demand and its use is expected to continue to grow. Shell companies do not produce coal, but we do have a patented technology for gasifying it. When used together with a combined-cycle power plant, our technology increases conversion efficiency. More electricity is produced from every tonne of coal, reducing CO2 emissions by up to 15% compared to the latest conventional coal-fired power plants. The process produces relatively pure, high-pressure CO2 that is easier to capture and store. This technology has been chosen by the ZeroGen project. It is also an important part of our Clean Coal Energy Alliance, formed in 2006 with Anglo American plc, one of the largest coal producers.
We are actively supporting a European Union (EU)-China dialogue that is trying to make it possible for European companies to use the EU Emissions Trading Scheme to equip new coal-fired Chinese power plants to capture and store CO2.
Lower CO2 transport
The large-scale rollout of hydrogen-powered vehicles is uncertain and at least 10–20 years away. That means transport will continue to rely mainly on oil for many years to come. In the meantime, reductions in GHG emissions in the transport sector will need to come mainly from blending biofuels into petrol and diesel, from technologies to improve the fuel efficiency of conventional fuels and vehicles, and from efforts to manage people’s demand for transportation.
We are one of the world’s leading distributors of today’s transport biofuels and are developing a new generation of lower CO2 biofuels with partners. We continue to upgrade our refineries to produce lower sulphur petrol and diesel. These fuels not only help reduce local air pollution, they also allow car makers to roll out more fuel-efficient (hence less CO2 emitting) engines.
For example, our new Fuel Economy formula, available in 19 countries, reduces fuel consumption at no extra cost for drivers. In 2006, the Shell Fuel Economy World Record Challenge winners set the world record for fuel efficiency, using a version of this fuel and fuel-efficient driving techniques.
Every year we host the Shell Eco-marathon contest in Europe (and in 2007 in the USA) challenging students to design and build the most energy-efficient vehicle possible. In 2006, the contest was won by a car with average fuel efficiency of 2,885 km for the equivalent of one litre of fuel. In 2005–2006 we ran Fuel Stretch Campaigns in 19 countries to help drivers use less fuel and reduce CO2 by teaching more efficient driving techniques.