TPT March 2016

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MARCH 2016 111
G LOBA L MARKE T P L AC E
The Paris-based autonomous agency did find that total carbon
dioxide emissions from coal will go down by almost 6 gigatons
from 2014 to 2040, largely because low prices will accelerate
the shift to cleaner gas for producing electricity.
Over the same period, however, inexpensive fossil fuels will
undercut sales of electric vehicles. How? By boosting the cost
of renewable-power subsidies; encouraging the use of oil for
chemical feedstocks; and, most critically, making the payoff
less attractive for people considering efficiency upgrades. Also
by 2040 – provided that governments stick to the pollution-
cutting pledges formalised in Paris – energy-related emissions
would be just 0.3 per cent higher, an additional three gigatons.
But, here again, in a cheap-oil era a counterforce will likely
emerge. Nations would forgo improvements in cars, trucks,
aircraft and other equipment. A key risk, the IEA warned, “is
that the world locks in a less efficient and less climate-friendly
capital stock that commits to higher long-term emissions.”
Given that oil producers are unlikely to accept the pain of low
prices for a quarter-century, this may seem an improbable
scenario. But if cheap fossil fuels are here to stay, Mr
Nussbaum wrote, it will be up to governments to hold the line
on the promises made in Paris.
› “Many analysts would take the classical view that a long
period of low oil prices would prompt higher demand,” Bill
Hare, chief executive officer at Climate Analytics, a Berlin-
based research group, told BloombergBusiness. “It depends
very much on what governments do to counteract that.”
Science
An atomically thin material has outsize
potential for soaking up oil spills
Working together, materials scientists from Drexel University
(a private research university in Philadelphia) and Deakin
University, in the Australian state of Victoria, have developed
a material – boron nitride nanosheet – that can absorb up to
33 times its weight in oils and organic solvents. As reported
on 1 December in R&D (Rockaway, New Jersey), the sponge-
like material is made up of flakes just several nanometres
(one billionth of a metre) in thickness and with tiny holes. This
form enables the nanosheet to, in effect, increase its surface
area per gram to the size of five and a half tennis courts, with
obvious significance for limiting the environmental impact of
massive oil spills.
The nanotechnology team at Deakin’s Institute for Frontier
Materials has been working on boron nitride nanomaterials
for two decades. Researchers from Drexel’s College of
Engineering helped to functionalise the new material, which
started as boron nitride powder (“white graphite”). The Drexel
team also discovered that boron nitride nanosheet is flame-
resistant – meaning that it could also find uses in electrical
and heat insulation.
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