Helping customers reduce emissions

Our products are helping our customers to reduce CO2 emissions from transport and produce lower CO2 electricity.

Lower CO2 transport

Raising fuel economy
Transport uses over half the world’s crude oil production and accounts for around a quarter of  greenhouse gas emissions. As one of the largest providers of transport fuels, we are working to help drivers use less energy and reduce emissions.

In March 2009, we launched a new fuel economy formula in The Netherlands, called Shell FuelSave. We now offer fuel economy formulas in 21 countries around the world and will add other countries later in 2009. Our Fuel Economy formula fuels contain blends of advanced additives and cleaning agents that help drivers improve their fuel efficiency. When these fuels are combined with changed driving habits, results of the Shell FuelSave Challenge have shown reduced fuel consumption and thereby lower CO2 emissions.

Biofuels
We are serious about building a substantial business in biofuels. This involves building capacity in sustainable current generation biofuels, and investing in technologies that, if they turned out to be commercial, could help overcome the remaining hurdles to large-scale use of more advanced biofuels.

Advanced biofuels, made from things like straw and algae, do not compete with food or threaten rainforests. And, unlike some of today’s sources such as corn-based ethanol, they can offer significant CO2 savings on a “well-to-wheel” basis compared to petrol or diesel. In 2008, we increased our stake in the Canadian company Iogen Energy to 50%. It uses enzymes to turn straw into ethanol, which can be blended into gasoline. Like Brazilian sugarcane, Iogen’s technology offers “well-to-wheel” CO2 emission reductions of up to 90% compared with conventional diesel or petrol.

Lower CO2 electricity

In both our Energy Scenarios, by 2050 the world will be using at least three times more electricity than today. To develop more electricity with lower emissions, we are investing steadily in natural gas, promoting coal gasification technology, and operating our existing wind farms reliably and safely.

More natural gas
A natural gas-fired power plant emits on average half the CO2 of a modern, coal-burning plant to produce the same amount of electricity. In 2008 we continued to develop a range of big, integrated natural gas projects, like Ormen Lange off the coast of Norway and Qatargas 4. We also increased our capacity in liquefied natural gas (LNG) by nearly 25% in 2008 and early 2009, compared to 2007, with the completion of Sakhalin II in Russia and the fifth LNG unit at the North West Shelf project in Australia.

Coal gasification
Nearly 40% of the world’s electricity currently comes from burning coal. In India and China coal provides approximately 80% of power. So the potential benefits from cleaner coal technology could be huge. Shell scientists have developed proprietary coal gasification technology that converts coal into a cleaner-burning synthesis gas, which can then be used for power generation or to make chemicals or fertilisers. Gasification results in lower local air emissions and water use than conventional coal technologies. The process also creates a concentrated, high-pressure stream of CO2 that can be captured and subsequently sequestered underground. By the end of 2008, we had sold 26 licences worldwide to use our coal gasification technology, making us an industry leader.

Renewable electricity
We have been a wind-power developer for a decade. In 2008, the 264MW Mount Storm onshore wind power project in the USA (50% Shell share) was brought into operation. We have an interest in wind projects with an overall capacity of about 1,100MW (Shell share 550MW). This share is enough to power nearly a quarter of a million homes.