The issue of greenhouse gas emissions has been at the forefront of environmental concerns for the past decade. A number of treaties, agreements, and voluntary programs have been proposed to reduce emissions - some of which have been the subject of intense debate and disagreement. Most notable among these proposals has been the Kyoto Protocol. Signed in 1997 by the United States and other industrialized countries, the Kyoto Protocol is a major international treaty imposing binding emission reduction targets on the developed world. However, the U.S. Senate never ratified Kyoto, and the Administration recently announced its intention of dropping out of the international negotiations surrounding the Protocol. Nonetheless, the general scientific consensus, that global warming is a real, significant issue, is not in dispute. The Administration is calling into question only the appropriate response to this issue, while explicitly recognizing the need for some response. Regardless of whether this response takes the form of a domestic voluntary program, an international treaty, or something in between these two extremes, it is likely that it will incorporate "market mechanisms" in some form or other. Most of the various emission reduction responses that have been proposed over the past few years include such mechanisms. The development and implementation of these mechanisms, designed to facilitate low-cost solutions to environmental problems, is part of a broader trend away from the command-and-control regulations of the past, and towards increased flexibility in meeting regulatory requirements. This new market-based approach has worked its way into greenhouse gas emission reduction programs and proposals, using the guidelines provided by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and developed into a new concept: credits for emission reduction projects undertaken beyond a country's borders. Perhaps the greatest challenge for this new concept is the development of a protocol, or set of protocols, for estimating the emission reductions associated with projects. There is considerable concern among various groups surrounding the accuracy of the emission reduction estimates upon which credits would be awarded. In addition, others, particularly any potential project developer, want protocols that can be implemented within reasonable costs. Nonetheless, all parties generally recognize the need for accuracy of credits and agree on the need for a standard approach or set of procedures for estimating project-level emission reductions. A number of such approaches have been proposed and the purpose of this report is to evaluate some of the key proposals. Specifically, the report presents a series of hypothetical case study analyses designed to test each proposed approach in the context of potential real world projects. The case studies have been selected to cover a broad range of sectors and project types. The goal is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, and based on the case study analyses, recommendations for improving and refining the different approaches are developed. Four different approaches are evaluated in this report: The approach officially proposed by the U.S. at the recent (COP-6) negotiations surrounding the Kyoto Protocol; The European Union's "Positive Technology List"; The U.S. National Energy Technology Laboratory's (NETL) technology matrix concept (the "full" technology matrix); A hybrid approach combining elements of the technology matrix with the official U.S. approach (the "hybrid" technology matrix). Each case study project is evaluated using each of the above four approaches. The results for each approach are analyzed, compared and contrasted; these critical analyses in turn reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches in the context of a variety of different project types.

Stabilization of atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, of which CO2 is the most important, ....at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system...1 is a widely accepted policy goal. When concerted actions start to be taken to achieve this goal, fossil generating stations, as large point sources of CO2, may be required to make disproportionately large emission reductions because doing so will be cost effective. At present natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) is the technology of choice for providing new electric generating capacity in the U.S. for reasons that include environmental performance, thermal efficiency, high availability compared to renewables, and relatively low capital cost. Relatively low specific carbon emissions (kg C or kg CO2/kWh) compared to coal generators is another attraction of NGCC. Yet NGCC cannot be the only response of the electric power industry to the challenge of global warming even if affordable supplies of natural gas were assured into the indefinite future. Climate modelers estimate that upwards of 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from current levels will be needed to stabilize atmospheric composition. That is a greater reduction than could be achieved even if all coal -fired units were replaced with state-of-art NGCC. This paper invites serious consideration of fossil fueled electricity generation technologies that capture nominally 90% of CO2 emissions and use the CO2 to conduct enhanced oil recovery. Carbon sequestration of this kind represents a fundamentally different approach to reducing carbon emissions that has potential not less than traditional approaches such as improvement of thermal efficiency of generation, improvement of end use efficiency, and use of renewables. There is no immediate prospect for commercial deployment of fossil generation with CO2 capture and sequestration, however, because with no value assigned to reducing carbon emissions, such processes are more expensive than conventional fossil generation. One approach to overcoming this problem is to investigate use of a carbon tax or carbon emission cap. This study takes a different approach. It considers how the economics of natural gas- and coal-based generation with carbon capture would fare if a market for the collected CO2 is assured for practice of EOR. Coal-based IGCC with CO2 capture and sequestration would yield only one fifth the specific carbon emissions (kg C or kg CO2 /kWh) as would state-of-art NGCC. California appears to be a good venue for consideration of IGCC+S: there is need for additional generating capacity and an unserved market for CO2 that could be used to conduct enhanced oil recovery. In this paper, a probabilistic analysis is conducted to determine Required Selling Price of Electricity (RSPOE) and expected rate of return on common stock equity for three fossil generating technologies: NGCC, NGCC+S (NGCC with capture and sequestration), and IGCC+S. Variables treated probabilistically are the costs of natural gas and coal fuels, and the values of electricity and CO2 products. Predictions of prices prepared by the Energy Information Agency are used together with measures of price variability based on historic price fluctuations. Installation of new generating plant is assumed to occur in 2010 and operate for a 20 year book life to 2030. It is shown that when CO2 can be sold at historically realized prices for use in enhanced oil recovery (EOR), IGCC+S is expected to be profitable with no subsidy for avoidance of CO2 emissions. Expected profitability of NGCC is greater than that of IGCC+S, but so is the uncertainty of RSPOE and expected rate of return on common stock equity, due principally to uncertainty of natural gas price. NGCC+S exhibits both a higher RSPOE and higher uncertainty of RSPOE than either of the other technologies.

The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking. In 2003, the world consumed just under 80 million barrels per day (MM bpd) of oil. U.S. consumption was almost 20 MM bpd, two-thirds of which was in the transportation sector. The U.S. has a fleet of about 210 million automobiles and light trucks (vans, pick-ups, and SUVs). The average age of U.S. automobiles is nine years. Under normal conditions, replacement of only half the automobile fleet will require 10-15 years. The average age of light trucks is seven years. Under normal conditions, replacement of one-half of the stock of light trucks will require 9-14 years. While significant improvements in fuel efficiency are possible in automobiles and light trucks, any affordable approach to upgrading will be inherently time-consuming, requiring more than a decade to achieve significant overall fuel efficiency improvement. Besides further oil exploration, there are commercial options for increasing world oil supply and for the production of substitute liquid fuels: 1) Improved Oil Recovery (IOR) can marginally increase production from existing reservoirs; one of the largest of the IOR opportunities is Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), which can help moderate oil production declines from reservoirs that are past their peak production: 2) Heavy oil / oil sands represents a large resource of lower grade oils, now primarily produced in Canada and Venezuela; those resources are capable of significant production increases;. 3) Coal liquefaction is a well-established technique for producing clean substitute fuels from the world's abundant coal reserves; and finally, 4) Clean substitute fuels can be produced from remotely located natural gas, but exploitation must compete with the world's growing demand for liquefied natural gas. However, world-scale contributions from these options will require 10-20 years of accelerated effort. Dealing with world oil production peaking will be extremely complex, involve literally trillions of dollars and require many years of intense effort. To explore these complexities, three alternative mitigation scenarios were analyzed: Scenario I assumed that action is not initiated until peaking occurs. Scenario II assumed that action is initiated 10 years before peaking. Scenario III assumed action is initiated 20 years before peaking. For this analysis estimates of the possible contributions of each mitigation option were developed, based on an assumed crash program rate of implementation. Our approach was simplified in order to provide transparency and promote understanding. Our estimates are approximate, but the mitigation envelope that results is believed to be directionally indicative of the realities of such an enormous undertaking. The inescapable conclusion is that more than a decade will be required for the collective contributions to produce results that significantly impact world supply and demand for liquid fuels.

The transportation sector accounts for a large and growing share of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Worldwide, motor vehicles emit well over 900 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year, accounting for more than 15 percent of global fossil fuel-derived CO2 emissions. In the industrialized world alone, 20-25 percent of GHG emissions come from the transportation sector. The share of transport-related emissions is growing rapidly due to the continued increase in transportation activity. In 1950, there were only 70 million cars, trucks, and buses on the world's roads. By 1994, there were about nine times that number, or 630 million vehicles. Since the early 1970s, the global fleet has been growing at a rate of 16 million vehicles per year. This expansion has been accompanied by a similar growth in fuel consumption. If this kind of linear growth continues, by the year 2025 there will be well over one billion vehicles on the world's roads. In a response to the significant growth in transportation-related GHG emissions, governments and policy makers worldwide are considering methods to reverse this trend. However, due to the particular make-up of the transportation sector, regulating and reducing emissions from this sector poses a significant challenge. Unlike stationary fuel combustion, transportation-related emissions come from dispersed sources. Only a few point-source emitters, such as oil/natural gas wells, refineries, or compressor stations, contribute to emissions from the transportation sector. The majority of transport-related emissions come from the millions of vehicles traveling the world's roads. As a result, successful GHG mitigation policies must find ways to target all of these small, non-point source emitters, either through regulatory means or through various incentive programs. To increase their effectiveness, policies to control emissions from the transportation sector often utilize indirect means to reduce emissions, such as requiring specific technology improvements or an increase in fuel efficiency. Site-specific project activities can also be undertaken to help decrease GHG emissions, although the use of such measures is less common. Sample activities include switching to less GHG-intensive vehicle options, such as electric vehicles (EVs) or hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). As emissions from transportation activities continue to rise, it will be necessary to promote both types of abatement activities in order to reverse the current emissions path. This Resource Guide focuses on site- and project-specific transportation activities. This National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) publication, "Battery-Powered Electric and Hybrid Electric Vehicles to Reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions: A Resource Guide for Project Development" provides national and international project developers with a guide on how to estimate and document the GHG emission reduction benefits and/or penalties of battery-powered and hybrid-electric vehicle projects. This primer also provides a resource for the creation of GHG emission reduction projects for the Activities Implemented Jointly (AIJ) Pilot Phase and in anticipation of other market-based project mechanisms proposed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Though it will be necessary for project developers and other entities to evaluate the emission benefits of each project on a case-by-case basis, this primer will provide a guide for determining which data and information to include during the process of developing the project proposal.

Over the last decade, concern about the issues of global climate change and rising greenhouse gas emissions has grown significantly. This concern has spurred an elaborate series of international meetings and agreements seeking to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. In 1992, at Rio de Janeiro, more than 160 countries, including the United States, signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The signatories were in agreement regarding the potential negative effects of climate change under a business as usual future. Under the Convention, the developed countries (referred to as Annex I countries) were assigned primary responsibility for addressing the climate change issue. However, at the first two Conferences of Parties1 called to discuss methods for implementing the Convention, a strong debate ensued regarding what policy instruments should be used to curb global climate change, and what, if any, targets and timetables should be set for achieving emission reductions. Most Annex I nations announced a series of voluntary targets and initiatives for meeting emission reduction goals. By 1996, it had become clear that greenhouse gas emission levels in most Annex I countries were rising despite voluntary efforts to reduce emissions. A consensus for firmer targets and timetables was building. At the Third Conference of Parties, held in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997 a series of firm emission reduction targets were agreed to by the Parties. Developed countries agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2008-2012. While the resulting "Kyoto Protocol" was signed in 1997 by the United States and other industrialized countries, it was never ratified by the U.S. Senate, and the Administration recently announced its intention of dropping out of the negotiations surrounding the Protocol. Nonetheless, the general scientific consensus that global warming is a real, significant issue is not in dispute. The Administration is calling into question only the appropriate response to the issue, while explicitly recognizing the need for some response. Regardless of whether this response takes the form of a domestic voluntary program, an international treaty, or something in between these two extremes, it is likely that it will incorporate "market mechanisms" in some form or another. The concept of flexible, market-based mechanisms is an essential element to the Convention and the Kyoto agreement. Market mechanisms are designed to facilitate low-cost solutions to environmental problems. This new concept awards credits for emission reduction activities undertaken beyond a country's borders. In order to estimate emission reductions arising from such market-based emissions reduction projects, the emissions generated by the project itself must be measured and subtracted from some baseline representing what emissions would have been in the absence of the project. The technology matrix, originally proposed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in the report Developing Emission Baselines for Market-based Mechanisms: A Case Study Approach, is a potential method for estimating the baseline. It consists of a selected list of greenhouse gas abating technologies, along with emission rate benchmarks for each technology. In this document, a technology matrix was developed for ten selected technologies, for the countries of India and Ukraine. The basic technology matrix development approach was the same for all of the stated technologies, and for both countries. For a technology to "qualify" for the selected list of greenhouse gas abating technologies, it must first be subjected to a rigorous test to demonstrate that projects utilizing the technology are "additional" to those that would have been implemented under "business as usual" circumstances.

The transportation sector accounts for a large and growing share of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Worldwide, motor vehicles emit well over 900 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year, accounting for more than 15 percent of global fossil fuel-derived CO2 emissions. In the industrialized world alone, 20-25 percent of GHG emissions come from the transportation sector. The share of transport-related emissions is growing rapidly due to the continued increase in transportation activity. In 1950, there were only 70 million cars, trucks, and buses on the world's roads. By 1994, there were about nine times that number, or 630 million vehicles. Since the early 1970s, the global fleet has been growing at a rate of 16 million vehicles per year. This expansion has been accompanied by a similar growth in fuel consumption. If this kind of linear growth continues, by the year 2025 there will be well over one billion vehicles on the world's roads. In a response to the significant growth in transportation-related GHG emissions, governments and policy makers worldwide are considering methods of addressing this trend. However, due to the particular make-up of the transportation sector, regulating and reducing emissions from this sector poses a significant challenge. Unlike stationary fuel combustion, transportation-related emissions come from dispersed sources. Only a few point-source emitters, such as oil/natural gas wells, refineries, or compressor stations, contribute to emissions related to the transportation sector. The majority of transport-related emissions come from the millions of vehicles traveling the world's roads. As a result, successful GHG mitigation policies must find ways to target all of these small, non-point source emitters, either through regulatory means or through various incentive programs. To increase their effectiveness, policies to control emissions from the transportation sector often utilize indirect means to reduce emissions, such as requiring specific technology improvements or an increase in fuel efficiency. Site-specific project activities can also be undertaken to help decrease GHG emissions, although the use of such measures is less common. These activities include switching to less GHG-intensive vehicle options, such as natural gas vehicles (NGVs). As emissions from transportation activities continue to rise, it will be necessary to promote both types of abatement activities in order to reverse the current emissions path. This Resource Guide focuses on site- and project-specific transportation activities. To date, only a few projects deploying NGV technologies have been developed and implemented with the explicit intent of reducing GHG emissions and participating in international GHG reduction initiatives. Therefore, experience with quantifying, evaluating, and verifying GHG emission reductions from natural gas vehicle projects is almost non-existent. This is a problem as there are many issues unique to the transportation sector, which should be resolved before adequate guidelines can be developed for evaluating transportation-related projects. Issues that will require further analysis and guidance include: 1. Methods for accurately estimating emission reductions for a dispersed number of sources; 2. Procedures for determining project boundaries and relevant GHG emission sources; 3. Options for minimizing transaction costs of validating, monitoring, verifying, and certifying potential emission reductions; and 4. Guidance on using a full fuel-cycle or tailpipe emission analysis to estimate project emissions. The main purpose of this manual is to provide information on quantifying and documenting GHG emission reductions from NGV projects. Moreover, to provide potential project developers with an overview of project opportunities, the manual also includes information on NGV technology cost and availability and discusses the future of the alternative fuel vehicle (AFV) industry as a whole.