How can we speed up the energy transition as part of our response to the climate change challenge? The essential tools for enabling rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are well known, but implementing these vectors of decarbonisation is challenging, partly for economic reasons and partly due to social resistance.
Philip Ringrose (Norwegian University of Science and Technology), Lasse Amundsen (Equinor), and Martin Landrø (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) argue in the paper Accelerating the energy transition using emerging geoscience skills (published in First Break, Volume 42, Issue 10, October 2024) that geoscientists have a critical role to play in meeting these challenges:
(a) they need to engage technically to enable low-carbon emissions projects to proceed, and
(b) they need to communicate and explain the risks and benefits of emerging projects to our society in a more effective way.
After reviewing recent progress in reducing global CO2 emissions, the authors highlight the following points in the paper:
- The vital role of geoscientists in low-carbon projects
- Effectively communicating the risks and benefits of CO2
- Practical examples of CO2 storage monitoring
- Overcoming economic and social barriers to decarbonisation
Read the full paper here
