本文转自《E&ENEWS》发表的题为“Big Oil to the rescue? Drillers bury CO2 for a price”的报道。

作者：John Fialka

日期：2019.01.08

原文链接：https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060111171?tdsourcetag=s_pcqq_aiomsg

This floating wind turbine, the world's first, has been used off the coast of Norway to improve the technology since 2009. Equinor ASA

自2009年以来，世界上第一台浮动风力涡轮机已在挪威沿海地区使用，以改进该技术. Equinor ASA

The first of a three-part series.

三部曲系列中的第一部

Many of the world's largest oil and gas companies are buying their way into renewable energies, developing carbon dioxide capture and storage facilities, and exploring battery technologies for electric vehicles.

许多世界上最大的石油和天然气公司正在购买可再生能源，开发二氧化碳捕获和储存设施，以及探索电动汽车的电池技术。

Some of them straddle the globe to offer energy products in as many as 70 nations. On this stage, they are using their substantial financial and scientific clout to stake out strong positions in the low-carbon energy world.

其中一些跨越全球，在多达70个国家提供能源产品。 在这个阶段，他们利用其巨大的财务和科学影响力，在低碳能源领域占据强势地位。

One of the most ambitious portfolios is held by Equinor ASA, a company you may have never heard of. It's the newly renamed Statoil in Norway. It didn't use "oil" in its name to signal a growing emphasis in all energy markets.

最雄心勃勃的投资组合之一由Equinor ASA持有，这是一家您可能从未听说过的公司。 这是挪威最新改名的挪威国家石油公司。 它并没有在其名称中使用“石油”来表明所有能源市场日益受到重视。

"We are developing as a broad energy company, it has become natural to change our name," explained Eldar Sætre, the company's CEO.

“我们正在发展成为一家广泛的能源公司，改变我们的名字已经很自然了，”该公司首席执行官EldarSætre解释道。

Over the past four years, Equinor has taken ownership positions in projects all over the world. Its most ambitious joint venture is an alliance with five international oil majors to set up a carbon capture use and storage (CCUS) project in Teesside, an industrial area in northeast England. It will include a natural-gas-fired power plant equipped with technology to collect and concentrate its CO2 — and gases from other plants — for burial in a mineral formation under the North Sea.

在过去四年中，Equinor已在全球各地的项目中担任所有权。其最雄心勃勃的合资企业是与五家国际石油巨头结盟，在英格兰东北部工业区Teesside建立碳捕集使用和储存（CCUS）项目。它将包括一个天然气发电厂，该发电厂配备了收集和浓缩其二氧化碳的技术 - 以及来自其他工厂的气体 - 用于埋藏在北海下的矿物地层中。

Equinor's strategy has been to jump from existing businesses into related low-carbon ventures. It has already used its experience developing offshore oil and gas fields to make the leap into building offshore wind farms. It currently supplies wind power to the United Kingdom, including the world's first floating wind turbines and "Batwind," the first major battery facility to store wind power. It has an offshore wind farm serving Germany and plans to build "Empire Wind," a facility off Long Island, N.Y., that would power more than a million homes in the state.

Equinor的战略是从现有业务跃升为相关的低碳企业。它已经利用其开发海上石油和天然气田的经验，实现了建设海上风电场的飞跃。它目前向英国供应风力发电，包括世界上第一台浮动风力涡轮机和“Batwind”，这是第一个储存风力发电的主要电池设施。它有一个服务于德国的海上风电场，并计划在纽约州长岛建造“帝国风”，这将为该州100多万户家庭提供电力。

According to an E&E News review of investment activities of major oil companies, Equinor's moves are not that unusual. Majors represent some of the most cash-rich and science-oriented companies on Earth, and they are moving at various speeds to reduce their financial exposure to the risks of climate change.

根据E＆E新闻对主要石油公司投资活动的评估，Equinor的举动并不罕见。 专业代表地球上一些现金最丰富，最具科学意义的公司，他们正在以各种速度发展，以减少他们面临气候变化风险的财务风险。

While future oil sales are expected to decline because of growing concerns about CO2 emissions, the introduction of carbon taxes and the eventual emergence of electric cars, the demand for electric power from solar and wind is projected to rise by at least 400 percent by 2040, according to a recent report by Exxon Mobil Corp.

由于对二氧化碳排放的担忧日益增加，碳税的引入以及电动汽车的最终出现，预计未来的石油销量将下降，预计到2040年，太阳能和风能对电力的需求将至少增加400％， 根据埃克森美孚公司最近的一份报告

For a company whose leaders had been viewing the oil business from Norway's pallid sunlight for over 50 years, does selling solar-generated electric power look like a great business to get into?

对于一家公司，其领导人已经从挪威的苍白阳光中看到石油业务超过50年，销售太阳能发电电力看起来像是一个伟大的企业进入？

It seems to.

Equinor was already pumping oil and gas from offshore fields it owns near Brazil last year when it bought a 40 percent share in Scatec Solar, a company that sells solar power and builds and operates solar farms in relatively sun-rich Brazil.

去年，Equinor已经从其在巴西附近拥有的海上油田开采石油和天然气，当时它收购了Scatec Solar 40％的股份，Scatec Solar是一家销售太阳能并在相对阳光充足的巴西建造和经营太阳能农场的公司。

Irene Rummelhoff, vice president of Equinor's "New Energy Solutions" division, called it a "sensible first step into the solar industry" that will provide "scaleable and profitable growth opportunities" in the future, according to a press release.

Equinor的“新能源解决方案”部门副总裁Irene Rummelhoff称，这是“迈向太阳能行业的明智的第一步”，未来将提供“可扩展且有利可图的增长机会”。

In its annual statement, Equinor says it expects to invest 15 to 20 percent of its capital expenditures in new energy solutions by 2030. There are more than 120 CCUS projects in the world, according to Equinor. Most of them, especially those in the U.S., are operated by oil companies that collect CO2 and pump it into existing oil and gas fields. They use the pressure of CO2 to push more oil and natural gas out of the ground.

Equinor在其年度声明中称，预计到2030年，它将投资15％至20％的资本支出用于新能源解决方案。据Equinor称，全球有超过120个CCUS项目。 他们中的大多数，特别是美国的，都是由收集二氧化碳并将其泵入现有石油和天然气田的石油公司经营。 他们利用二氧化碳的压力将更多的石油和天然气推出地面。

Equinor's experience started with a tax problem.

Equinor的经验始于税务问题。

Statoil, the predecessor to Equinor, had discovered two big natural gas fields underneath the North Sea. Carbon dioxide, which is often found in natural gas, amounted to 2.5 percent in one of them. That's fine. But the CO2 content of the second field was 9 percent. That's a problem because Norway imposes a stiff tax on CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, and Statoil had to figure out how to avoid the tax to make the new gas field profitable.

Equoor的前身Statoil在北海下面发现了两个大型天然气田。 天然气中常见的二氧化碳占其中一种的2.5％。 没关系。 但第二场的二氧化碳含量为9％。 这是一个问题，因为挪威对大气中的二氧化碳排放征收高额税，而且挪威国家石油公司必须弄清楚如何避免税收以使新气田获利。

So it found a way to remove, compress and inject 6.5 percent of the CO2 into a sandstone formation under the sea. Since then, about 15.5 million metric tons of CO2 has been injected into the sandstone without any signs of leakage.

因此，它找到了一种方法，将6.5％的二氧化碳去除，压缩并注入海底的砂岩地层。 从那时起，约有1550万公吨的二氧化碳被注入砂岩，没有任何泄漏迹象。

That led to another potential business. The capacity of the formation, called the Utsira Formation, is huge. It's 820 feet thick and capped by a rock formation that appears to make it leakproof.

这导致了另一个潜在的业务。 形成的能力，称为Utsira组，是巨大的。 它有820英尺厚，上面有一块岩层，似乎可以防漏。

The plan turned into "Northern Lights," a project proposed by Equinor, Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Total SA, to develop a storage facility that would remove and collect CO2 from various industries in Europe. The oil companies would transport the gas by ship to a terminal northwest of Bergen, Norway, and then use an existing pipeline to inject it into the Utsira Formation.

该计划变成了“北极光”，由Equinor，荷兰皇家壳牌有限公司和道达尔公司提出的一个项目，旨在开发一个储存设施，用于从欧洲各个行业中去除和收集二氧化碳。 石油公司将通过船舶将天然气输送到挪威卑尔根西北部的一个终端，然后使用现有管道将其注入Utsira地层。

"This is a solution for many industries wanting to reduce emissions, but who have no way of storing their CO2," Sverre Overå, a project director in Equinor, said in a recent company report. "We would like to see a moderate price for handling CO2 on behalf of others. The ambition is clear that this will ultimately become an industry that can support itself."

“这是许多希望减少排放但却无法储存二氧化碳的行业的解决方案，”Equinor项目总监SverreOverå在最近的一份公司报告中表示。 “我们希望看到代表其他人处理二氧化碳的价格适中。目标很明显，这将最终成为一个可以支持自己的行业。”

The Teesside project in England was the first to be chosen for the majors' experiment with CCUS. That decision was made in November. Stuart Haszeldine, professor of carbon capture and storage at the University of Edinburgh, explained that "producing more electricity from renewable energy is a good thing, but that won't be enough on its own" to limit global warming. "We will have to capture and store far more CO2 if we want to curb climate change in time."

英格兰的Teesside项目是第一个被选为CCUS专业实验的项目。该决定于11月作出。爱丁堡大学碳捕集与封存教授Stuart Haszeldine解释说，“用可再生能源生产更多电力是一件好事，但这本身并不足以限制全球变暖”。 “如果我们想要及时遏制气候变化，我们将不得不捕获和储存更多的二氧化碳。”

The problem, as he describes it, is the lack of a business plan to commercialize the collection, burial or reuse of CO2. "Right now, carbon capture and storage is too expensive and unprofitable for many players," Haszeldine said.

正如他所描述的那样，问题在于缺乏将二氧化碳的收集，埋藏或再利用商业化的商业计划。 “现在，碳捕获和存储对于许多玩家来说太昂贵且无利可图，”Haszeldine说。

The professor said that storing CO2 can be done in a very safe way. "CO2 occurs naturally in large underground deposits in many places around the world, where it has been stored geologically for many millions of years." Norway, he noted, has found a place where it can store 1,000 years' worth of its emissions.

该教授说，储存二氧化碳可以非常安全的方式进行。 “二氧化碳在世界上许多地方的大型地下沉积物中自然产生，在地质上储存了数百万年。” 他指出，挪威已经找到了一个可以储存1000年排放量的地方。

Climate scientists have predicted that if a commercial way to support CCUS is achieved, projects like Teesside and Northern Lights could be a giant safety valve. Right now, global emissions exceed the target required to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius by 2050.

气候科学家预测，如果实现支持CCUS的商业方式，像Teesside和Northern Lights这样的项目可能是一个巨大的安全阀。 目前，全球排放超过了到2050年将变暖控制在2摄氏度以下所需的目标。

One scenario is called "going negative." That involves burning fuels such as wood or liquid "biofuels" now under development to make electricity. The resulting CO2 would be collected and reused or buried.

一种情况称为“消极”。 这涉及燃烧目前正在开发的木材或液体“生物燃料”等燃料以发电。 产生的二氧化碳将被收集并重新使用或埋藏。

The concept — if the economics prove out — could begin to lower existing levels of CO2 from the Earth's atmosphere.

这个概念 - 如果经济学证明 - 可以开始降低地球大气中现有的二氧化碳水平。

From Equinor's point of view, described in its "Energy Perspectives of 2018," majors see similar challenges on the horizon as the world approaches 2020. It predicts that nations may follow one of three diverging pathways just ahead. The most effective one, from a climate point of view, is named "Renewal," which calls for strong government policy coordination and support for projects that can help meet the global 2 C limit.

从Equinor的观点来看，在其“2018年的能源展望”中描述，当世界接近2020年时，专业人士看到了类似的挑战。它预测各国可能会在未来的三条不同路径中出现其中一条。 从气候的角度来看，最有效的一个被称为“更新”，它要求强有力的政府政策协调和对有助于满足全球2 C限制的项目的支持。

The second one, called "Reform," relies on world markets and technological developments to push for innovations. Equinor notes that support for carbon capture and storage remains "minuscule."

第二个称为“改革”，依靠世界市场和技术发展来推动创新。 Equinor指出，对碳捕获和储存的支持仍然“微不足道”。

Finally, there's "Rivalry." And it may already seem familiar to the Trump administration. It poses a world where nations clash and decisions are made based on "other political priorities" apart from climate change.

最后，还有“竞争”。 特朗普政府似乎已经熟悉了。 它构成了一个国家冲突的世界，决策是基于除气候变化之外的“其他政治优先事项”。

Equinor notes that the world's two largest carbon emitters changed their policy positions after President Trump's promise to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement by 2020. "China emerged as a cautious climate policy co-leader prior to the Paris conference, and is now — with the U.S. no longer running for leadership — widely expected to assume an even more central role."

Equinor指出，在特朗普总统承诺在2020年之前将美国赶出巴黎协议之后，世界上两个最大的碳排放国改变了他们的政策立场。“在巴黎会议之前，中国成为一个谨慎的气候政策共同领导者，现在 -  随着美国不再竞选领导 - 人们普遍认为这将扮演更重要的角色。“

The Norwegian company's view is that China is "not in position to fill the void left by the U.S.," but it expects that China will become part of a new coalition with the European Union and Canada to help shape the world's emerging climate change policies.

挪威公司认为，中国“无法填补美国留下的空白”，但预计中国将成为与欧盟和加拿大建立新联盟的一部分，以帮助制定世界新出现的气候变化政策。