Moniz Wants to Turn More Focus to Clean Alternative Fuels, Negative Emissions

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September 16, 2021

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by Jasmin Melvin (S&P Global Platts) Biofuels, electrofuels and hydrogen touted as fuel options; Carbon dioxide removal seen as necessary decarbonization step — Full electrification of the economy is simply not an attainable goal, former US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said at an industry forum Sept. 15, as he advised policymakers and the private sector to turn more attention to low-to-no-carbon fuels and carbon-negative technologies.

“I believe when you think this through that you reach the conclusion that while electricity and electrification are the lead horse in the decarbonization race, we also need a fuel,” Moniz said during a fireside chat at Siemens Energy’s North America Energy Week conference.

The economy in general and particularly the hard-to-decarbonize sectors, such as the transportation, industrial and agricultural sectors, will need a fuel source, and there are a number of possibilities if sufficient attention is paid to the issue, Moniz asserted.

Among those possibilities are biofuels, which Moniz said “have been a promise for a long time without fulfilling the promise,” as well as newer fuel alternatives such as an emerging class of carbon-neutral electrofuels produced with hydrogen and hydrogen itself.

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Moniz warned that statements about full electrification of the economy were deflecting from the need to innovate to usher in significant volumes of low-to-no-carbon fuels at a low cost.

But even with electrification and a green fuel option, the US cannot fully decarbonize the economy, he argued, insisting that direct air capture and other carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies will be necessary to eliminate carbon from dilute sources, namely the atmosphere and the upper layers of the ocean.

He took issue with “detractors who view [CDR] as a focus on offsets and … a bad thing.”

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“And we should not equate negative carbon technologies just with direct air capture, which is getting a lot of attention and I think is very important, but there are many, many other pathways to negative carbon.”

A concerted effort must be made to make those pathways “viable, starting by the end of this decade and growing to a very substantial contribution by midcentury,” he said. READ MORE

Federal Policy Blueprint (Carbon Capture Coalition)

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