January Forum: Shale Gas:
A Golden Age or a Gilded Cage?
27 January 2014
16:00 – 17:00
Room: 4.214, University Place
Speaker: John
Broderick, Research Fellow in Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research,
University of Manchester
Following
the previous NRN presentation on economic methods for accounting for time in
health care policy, this forum will discuss what policy researchers can learn
from the case of shale gas and the tools used to assess its impact, and vice
versa.
The
International Energy Agency has heralded the 21st Century as a “Golden Age of
Gas” due to recent unconventional resource discoveries and new extraction
technologies. As a lower carbon fossil fuel, gas is presented as a “transition”
energy source although this perspective neglects the rate, scale and extent of
decarbonisation required to give a good chance of avoiding dangerous climate
change. This is illustrated through a cumulative emissions budget approach
looking at energy policy to 2050.
Persistently
low gas prices and weak EU ETS caps also have the potential to undermine the UK
and EU transition to renewable energy sources and jeopardise climate mitigation
targets. Using simple net present value calculations, we estimate that 7GW of
gas CCS powerstation capacity, plus shale gas well infrastructure,
would require the same investment as 12GW of offshore wind capacity or 21GW
onshore.
This event is open to all PGRs
and Postdoctoral researchers to attend. There is no need to register. Just turn
up and feel free to pass this onto anyone who may be interested in attending.
We look forward to seeing you at
the event.
Kind regards,
The NRN coordinators