The monetary advantage of options in Malaysia that might maintain methane, a significant part of pure fuel and potent greenhouse fuel, throughout the power system as a gasoline supply would outweigh its prices, discovered a research by researchers on the Sarawak campus of Swinburne College of Know-how.
Among the many options that might generate essentially the most earnings are rerouting methane again into gasoline programs as a substitute of burning or releasing it into the environment, in addition to changing management programs that launch methane with those who use compressed air. As much as 93 per cent of methane emissions discount will be achieved at a value of round US$3.7 million for such abatement choices, in line with the research.
“A few of these strategies of abatement basically generate income as a result of pure fuel is a income,” mentioned Dr Viknesh Andiappan, affiliate professor on the Swinburne College of Know-how Sarawak campus, who was co-investigator for the research.
The analysis, which was certainly one of 2 research funded by United States-based non-profit the Environmental Protection Fund (EDF) to research methane emissions in Malaysia, was introduced to trade representatives and the media on Tuesday.
Pure fuel consists of greater than 90 per cent methane, a greenhouse fuel that doesn’t keep within the environment for so long as carbon dioxide, however traps 80 occasions extra warmth. Malaysia was certainly one of greater than 100 nations to signal the World Methane Pledge in 2021 at COP26, below which signatories dedicated to take voluntary motion to collectively scale back world methane emissions by at the very least 20 per cent by 2030 from 2020 ranges.
Researchers on the Swinburne College of Know-how’s Sarawak campus used information gathered on methane emissions in Malaysia’s oil and fuel sector to develop a marginal abatement price curve for the trade. The ‘adverse’ prices within the classes on the left point out the chance for elevated income per tonne of methane abated. Picture: Swinburne College of Know-how and Environmental Protection Fund
Nevertheless, there are important gaps in information on Malaysia’s methane emissions, the opposite research funded by EDF discovered – a discovering that Andiappan informed Eco-Enterprise may change the estimated monetary beneficial properties decided within the analysis by his group. Scientists from the Nationwide College of Malaysia (UKM) and Science College of Malaysia (USM) revealed that analysis on methane emissions in Malaysia has to this point been biased in the direction of agriculture, land use and waste, overlooking different sectors.
Crucially for the oil and fuel sector, this research discovered that Malaysia in its 2022 biennial replace report to the United Nations relied closely on default world emissions components by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change (IPPC) for methane emissions, “which can compromise the accuracy of emissions estimates,” it mentioned. This type of information, utilizing non-country-specific emissions components, is categorised by the IPCC as Tier 1, however utilizing Tier 2 methodology, which is predicated on country-specific components, is thought of ‘good follow’.
Andiappan acknowledged this limitation within the Swinburne research, and informed Eco-Enterprise that the monetary beneficial properties from methane abatement may very well be extra precisely calculated if the researchers had entry to extra particular information on methane emissions in Malaysia’s upstream oil and fuel sector. Though the research engaged trade stakeholders and made changes for his or her suggestions on precise abatement prices, the researchers had used the IPCC’s Tier 1 methodology to estimate that Malaysia’s upstream oil and fuel sector emits a complete of 306,040 tonnes of methane every year. Nevertheless, utilizing the Worldwide Power Company (IEA’s) Tier 2 emissions issue led the researchers to the next estimated methane emissions for the trade at 363,810 tonnes per 12 months.
“To at the present time, we nonetheless do not know how these scaling components come about. We are attempting our greatest to know it, as a result of if we had that data, we may scale (the methane emissions information) accordingly,” Andiappan mentioned. For the latest research, nevertheless, the researchers selected to make use of the IPCC technique for additional evaluation because it was “extra holistic”, he mentioned.
Reporting commonplace wanted
Past the oil and fuel trade, Malaysia has solely reported country-specific Tier 2 emissions information for 2 subsectors: palm oil mill effluent (POME), which is wastewater from palm oil processing mills, and non-dairy cattle farming, mentioned Dr Yusri Yusup, affiliate professor in meteorology, atmospheric science and environmental engineering at USM.
Worryingly, the analysis found that utilizing the Tier 2 values resulted in a bigger quantity of methane emissions being reported. “Which means after we use Tier 1 values, which many of the power, waste and industrial sectors use, we’re possible underestimating methane emissions,” mentioned Yusri.
When country-specific Tier 2 emissions components had been used to estimate Malaysia’s methane emissions as a substitute of generic Tier 1 emissions components, researchers discovered that estimated methane emisssions had been greater. Picture: The Nationwide College of Malaysia, Science College of Malaysia and Environmental Protection Fund
Like their counterparts at Swinburne, researchers from USM and UKM additionally engaged oil and fuel trade gamers to hunt extra exact methane emissions information however discovered that few had been prepared or capable of share it. “That’s not sudden,” Yusri mentioned. “[Even] from the federal government, we maintain listening to that there’s a lack of stakeholder involvement from the trade on the subject of creating country-specific threat components, and that this may very well be because of the confidentiality of information.”
He identified that there’s already an trade initiative advocating for extra granular emissions reporting: the Oil and Fuel Methane Partnership (OGMP) 2.0, a UN Setting Programme initiative aimed toward bettering the accuracy and transparency of emissions reporting within the sector. The partnership right this moment counts greater than 130 of the world’s largest oil producers as members, together with Malaysian nationwide oil firm Petronas, which joined in 2022,
The OGMP 2.0 requires corporations to decide to yearly reporting their methane emissions utilizing essentially the most correct, science-based strategies versus generic emissions components, however makes use of a 5-level system versus the IPCC’s three tiers.
“Typically it will get complicated as a result of the OGMP has completely different dimensions of reporting,” Yusri mentioned, including that the partnership additionally doesn’t presently require public disclosure of information. “Firms publish the report, however [the data] is aggregated…so it’s not at a stage the place it may be itemised for the Malaysian authorities to make use of in its biennial replace report,” he informed Eco-Enterprise.
To deal with this information hole, in addition to these of the oil and fuel sector, Yusri known as for a regulatory framework that might require the trade to use and disclose emissions primarily based on a typical commonplace. “The very first thing that we should always deal with primarily based on our research is that there’s nonetheless no established regulatory act or pointers for necessary greenhouse fuel emissions reporting,” he mentioned.
“There’s a dire want for [these] pointers to be made necessary, so that everyone is on the identical web page once they report and we will provide you with an total image,” mentioned Yusri.
