Emission Control: Al Gore releases data showing oil and gas emissions are much higher than they seem

Emission Control is Stockhead’s fortnightly take on all the big news surrounding developments in renewable energy.

Climate TRACE, a global non-profit coalition tracking the world’s real-time greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, has published a new report showing emissions from oil and gas fields – as well as their production facilities – is about three times higher than what they claim.

The detailed inventory, launched by Al Gore at the UN Climate Summit in Egypt on Wednesday, used evidence from studies of satellite-detected emissions from practices like flaring and methane leakage in places like Russia, Turkmenistan, the US, and the Middle East.

It found half of the world’s 50 largest sources of GHG emissions were oil and gas operations – and many are significantly underreported.

Oil and gas production can leak methane, a greenhouse gas about 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

According to Climate TRACE, the data shows oil and gas emissions are much higher than they seem, due to limited reporting requirements and consistent underestimates of methane emissions from both intentional flaring as well as leaks.

As it stands, countries are required to report their own greenhouse gas emissions under the current United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change System (UNFCCC) however the report finds that as of the end of October, no nation has submitted a complete accounting of its emissions for 2021 to the UNFCCC.

In fact, 52 countries have not submitted any emissions inventories covering the past 10 years.

“The climate crisis can, at times, feel like an intractable challenge – in large part because we’ve had a limited understanding of precisely where emissions are coming from,” former US vice president and Climate TRACE founding member Al Gore says.

“This level of granularity means that we finally have emissions data that enable us to act decisively.

“It also means we can prioritise efforts to achieve the deep cuts in greenhouse gas pollution we need to prevent the most catastrophic impacts of the climate crisis.”

Here’s how ASX renewable energy companies are tracking:

CODE	COMPANY	PRICE	% TODAY	% WEEK	% MONTH	% YEAR	MARKET CAP
AVL	Aust Vanadium Ltd	0.031	-3%	0%	-16%	29%	$128,633,977
BSX	Blackstone Ltd	0.145	4%	-9%	-26%	-75%	$66,251,532
DEL	Delorean Corporation	0.089	2%	11%	29%	-58%	$18,767,720
ECT	Env Clean Tech Ltd.	0.016	-6%	14%	-6%	-30%	$29,176,279
FMG	Fortescue Metals Grp	16.78	-2%	7%	-3%	15%	$52,711,879,396
PV1	Provaris Energy Ltd	0.059	0%	-5%	13%	-62%	$32,348,547
GNX	Genex Power Ltd	0.18	0%	-12%	-16%	-10%	$249,331,885
HXG	Hexagon Energy	0.016	0%	14%	-6%	-86%	$8,206,654
HZR	Hazer Group Limited	0.635	-5%	4%	13%	-60%	$114,197,308
IFT	Infratil Limited	7.63	-2%	-5%	6%	-3%	$5,634,604,894
IRD	Iron Road Ltd	0.12	-4%	-11%	-17%	-44%	$99,982,663
LIO	Lion Energy Limited	0.038	-5%	6%	3%	-62%	$17,044,409
MEZ	Meridian Energy	4.2	1%	-4%	-2%	-12%	$5,270,898,190
MPR	Mpower Group Limited	0.021	0%	0%	0%	-70%	$6,167,769
NEW	NEW Energy Solar	0.975	2%	-2%	1%	20%	$307,764,467
PGY	Pilot Energy Ltd	0.0165	3%	3%	3%	-73%	$9,783,006
PH2	Pure Hydrogen Corp	0.245	4%	-2%	-8%	-66%	$81,824,663
PRL	Province Resources	0.082	-1%	0%	-2%	-47%	$98,063,931
PRM	Prominence Energy	0.001	0%	-33%	-50%	-86%	$2,424,609
QEM	QEM Limited	0.19	0%	0%	-16%	-14%	$25,159,096
RFX	Redflow Limited	0.035	0%	3%	-3%	-39%	$62,398,814
SKI	Spark Infrastructure	0	0%	-100%	-100%	-100%	$5,036,718,784
VUL	Vulcan Energy	7.57	-4%	3%	4%	-31%	$1,126,615,466
CXL	Calix Limited	4.69	5%	10%	-21%	-24%	$784,329,688
KPO	Kalina Power Limited	0.019	-5%	-5%	0%	-32%	$30,303,916
RNE	Renu Energy Ltd	0.067	-11%	60%	76%	-18%	$27,342,451
NRZ	Neurizer Ltd	0.105	-9%	-9%	-9%	-13%	$125,492,339
LIT	Lithium Australia	0.049	-2%	0%	-11%	-65%	$61,059,584
TNG	TNG Limited	0.088	-3%	10%	5%	-16%	$126,346,058
SRJ	SRJ Technologies	0.43	0%	0%	0%	0%	$38,345,359
NMT	Neometals Ltd	1.02	-2%	-9%	-8%	-12%	$577,614,529
MR1	Montem Resources	0.04	0%	0%	0%	-50%	$12,893,190
FGR	First Graphene Ltd	0.145	0%	16%	32%	-26%	$83,532,345
EGR	Ecograf Limited	0.33	-1%	0%	-3%	-46%	$150,861,709
EDE	Eden Inv Ltd	0.006	-8%	-8%	-14%	-70%	$17,622,988
CWY	Cleanaway Waste Ltd	2.73	0%	-1%	-2%	-9%	$6,076,980,328
CPV	Clearvue Technologie	0.185	-5%	-3%	-12%	-33%	$41,546,964
CNQ	Clean Teq Water	0.38	4%	3%	-23%	-60%	$18,708,088
M8S	M8 Sustainable	0.01	0%	43%	67%	-55%	$4,909,085
EOL	Energy One Limited	4.5	0%	-2%	-8%	-30%	$134,617,716
LNR	Lanthanein Resources	0.033	-3%	3%	-15%	22%	$32,736,069
FHE	Frontier Energy Ltd	0.54	1%	15%	27%	315%	$134,184,006
LPE	Locality Planning	0.053	-4%	-2%	-12%	-66%	$9,661,780

Standout renewable energy news this week

ORIGIN ENERGY (ASX:ORG)

The biggest renewable energy news this week centres on the huge $18.4bn takeover bid for Origin Energy by Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management and private equity firm MidOcean Energy.

The two entities are offering $9 a share for Origin – a price Origin hasn’t hit since 2018, after raising their bid twice since an initial approach back in August at $7.95 a share.

News sent shares in ORG flying 33.22pc and compares with a 5.28 closing price on Wednesday, November 9.

Origin says it has entered into a confidentiality and exclusivity agreement with the Consortium and “intends to grant the Consortium the opportunity to conduct due diligence”, enabling it to put forward a binding proposal.

While due diligence is expected to complete within eight weeks, ORG says if the Consortium makes a binding offer at $9 per share, it intends to “unanimously recommend that shareholders vote in favour of the proposal.”

RENU ENERGY (ASX:RNE)

This green hydrogen stock surged 108pc on Wednesday after securing a $100 million investment from Australian health and community services dominated super fund HESTA for its green hydrogen projects.

HESTA chief investment officer Sonya Sawtell-Rickson said the company continues to look for opportunities like this to invest in innovative technologies and businesses that will support the transition to a low carbon future.

“Investments like this will help create jobs and support communities, while delivering attractive risk-adjusted returns for our members,” she said.

The fund has more than 950,000 members (over 80% are women) and manages over $68bn in assets invested around the world.

The RNE Group will be responsible for the delivery and operation of the green hydrogen projects, securing debt and grant funding, and will be entitled to a fee for originating and progressing the projects.

“Our task now is to advance to definitive agreements as soon as possible and progress commercial discussions with our project partners for green hydrogen offtake,” RNE CEO Greg Watson says.

CALIX (ASX:CXL)

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) announced $947,035 in funding to CXL on Tuesday, allow the company to evaluate the feasibility of a low emissions method for reducing iron.

A $1.96 million pre-Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) study will scope the design for a proposed demonstration scale Hydrogen Direct Reduced Iron (HDRI) production plant, utilising Calix’s proprietary ZESTY-tech (Zero Emissions Steel Technology).

The proposed plant will be capable of producing 30,000t per year of HDRI as a feedstock for steel production.

As it stands, the majority of global steel production uses carbon intensive blast furnace technology which requires coking coal at numerous stages of the production process.

In this case, HDRI is a suitable feedstock for electric arc furnaces as it produces steel using only electricity.

When powered by renewables, electric arc furnaces can reduce the emissions from this stage of the process to virtually zero.

“Decarbonising heavy industries like steel is a big challenge, and a big opportunity, and ARENA is looking to support companies like Calix that are developing potential solutions,” ARENA CEO Darren Miller says.

“For Australia and the world to meet our net zero targets, we’ll need to develop new ways of making materials the world relies on.”

Steel is among the most carbon intensive industries, accounting for more than seven per cent of global CO2-e emissions. Miller added Australia is well positioned to be a leader in this space.

“With abundant renewable energy resources and the world’s largest iron ore deposits, we have a unique opportunity to decarbonise an industry that is critical to the global economy.”

FORTESCUE METALS GROUP (ASX:FMG)

On the sidelines of COP27, FMG’s green machine, Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) revealed a couple of announcements including joining forces with the Government of Kenya to eliminate fossil fuels from the country’s fertiliser supply chain, and plans to work with Kazakhstan to unlock its green energy potential.

According to new research out of BloombergNEF (BNEF), renewable energy investment in Africa trails far behind the rest of the world despite the continent’s abundance of natural resources, rapidly growing electricity demand and improving policy frameworks.

The research firm finds that only $2.6 billion of capital was deployed for new wind, solar, geothermal or other renewable power-generating projects in 2021, the lowest in 11 years.

FFI and the Government of Kenya will work together to develop by 2025 a 300MW capacity generation green ammonia and green fertiliser facility.

This will be followed by feasibility studies for two further projects that could scale up renewable electricity generation for green industries by up to 25GW, which could ultimately produce up to 1.7 million tonnes of green hydrogen per year for export.