Viewing the hosting City Island State as an ideal role model for self-sufficiency on as many resources as possible I had been being assuming ambitious interest to replace some Fossil resources’ use by tapping into the potentials of Terrestrial Carbon Recycling from its wastes. A place owing its remarkable rise to very effective practices one would assume might have nothing to throw away! Certainly no spaces for landfills Singapore  contemplates to try stretching capacity of its incineration by bio-digesting fermentable fractions of its waste and recycle everything possible! Well, except the most consumed item, Carbon! It is just poorly used and disposed to CO2 in energy recovery from waste. Two years ago I had been encouraged by Mr. Kwok Wai Choong, deputy Director of Singapore’s National Environment Agency stressing at ISWA Beacon Conference 2015 in Malaysia that looking at the uncovered cost overruns of current practice diligence would require to explore new Technologies before deciding to extend incineration capacities.

Minister Masagos Zulkifli (Environment & Water Resources Singapore) cited the City Island State’s Clean Energy Eco-System generating 6.2bln GDP with 65k jobs. Industry consuming 67% of Energy, was only responsible for 60% of Green House Gases owed to efficiency efforts like phasing out old motors. These efforts extend on transportation (smart telematics), compulsory EV reloading in every new building development which will require an extra 1GW additional peak capacity, plus 15% compared to now. But Singapore lacks land for large scale deployment of RE. Within its limited possibilities its Solar Nova initiative will make use of floating PV on Tengeh Reservoir to fourfold achievable contributions from buildings to 350MW peak, all planned to include storage. Elsewhere RE has become the fastest growing source of energy in the region. For example he mentioned India holding out to target 60% RE by 2045.

But Singapore considers itself the world’s largest Oil & Liquefied Natural Gas bunker Harbor hub with lots of refining.  Recent diplomatic turmoil against Qatar supplying 50% of the LNG to the region are left vested to be mediated by Shell, being most dominantly present in both places. Which finally explains why a meeting with representatives from Singapore’s Economic Development Board earlier this year had ended so suddenly when Carbon Recycling was perceived as a crude oil substitute Technology. EDB confessed to never can support a new development potentially conflicting any interests of Shell!

Concerning the Paris Agreement the US role model was admitted to count for the Asian decision makers psychologically. Although the targets are kept up ambitiously everybody feels more comfortable in case of not meeting them and relies on the broad consensus on Natural Gas‘ cleanliness by doubling Carbon Effficiency of coal or oil. For heavy and solid fuels derived power it is actually even more, given Natural Gas allowing intermitted use on demand. Although I had picked up the idea of Carbon Efficiency from Guobao Zhang, Committee Nat’l Energy Commission & former National Energy Admin. Minister of China at the 4th Asian IAEE held in Beijing three years ago the first time, this had not been a subject throughout 40th IAEE conference.

In spite of remarkably strong presence from Japan who already is the largest LNG consumer in the region, particularly after nuclear shut down following Fukushima incident. Meanwhile two nuclear power stations have returned into operation again and further 5 being scheduled to come back over the next 2 years. In spite of Japan’s Hydrogen roll-out initiative Hydrogen appeared just a side-topic. Astonishingly though, as Singapore had made ambitious announcements to implement Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology into its transportation sector. Being world’s second largest harbor behind Shanghai there’d be a tremendous potential for Clean Air initiatives through compulsory Fuel Cell Electricity use by ships during sitting in or around the harbor. But Clean Air seems just more of a Chinese priority where it prevails even absolute emission concerns.

Renewable Hydrogen from waste derived Recycled Carbon might be an opportunity for the City Island State’s Clean Energy Eco-System extension as a role model in financially self-sufficient waste valorization for Clean Air measures in harbor and dense city traffic environments.