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Peak Everything
Posted on September 2nd, 2010 No commentsFrom a conversation with the Claverton Energy Research Group over the leak of a German military study into Peak Oil :-
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,715138,00.html
“09/01/2010 : ‘Peak Oil’ and the German Government : Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis : By Stefan Schultz…”
Hi Clavertonians,
My view on Peak Oil is that it is the tip of the iceberg – and I know that’s a totally inappropriate metaphor.
The art of petrogeology dictates that right on the heels of Peak Oil is Peak Natural Gas, and there is strong evidence for Peak Coal. In the US for example, I understand there is very little good hard anthracite left.
My position is that – since the “conventional” Fossil Fuels are depleting, there are strong moves towards the “unconventionals”, the shale gas, the deepwater oil, the smoky “half peat”, the Lake Baikal hydrates, the frozen subsea wastes of the Arctic [don't forget the Tar Sands !] and so on. People argue for “stop-gap” energy resources, but they carry with them huge risks not only to the Climate, but also the the Economy with the step-change in EROI/EROEI [Energy Return on Energy Invested - that is - how much energy do you need as input to get energy as output] and the “clean-up” costs.
My take on this is that pretending that Peak Conventionals doesn’t exist leaves a veil in front of most peoples’ minds – they believe in the Power of Technology to supply all their Fossil Fuel needs, now and into the future – it’s just that the actual location and form and dirtiness of these new resources will be different than in the past.
And here’s the rub – we need to encourage people to think about the “alternatives”, or rather, the “solutions”.
The only way forward is Renewable, Sustainable Energy resources, because of Peak Oil, Peak Natural Gas and so on, and if people do not learn about that, they will not understand the privation for most people that will surely come with Peak Conventionals.
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Spill, Baby, Spill
Posted on August 23rd, 2010 No commentsIt’s OK to spill.
That’s the message handed to Royal Dutch Shell in the form of their fine for spilling oil in the Niger Delta – only 10% of their spillage will be counted :-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/22/shell-niger-delta-un-investigation
Environmental fines don’t work – because the oil and gas and coal companies have well-paid and persistent lawyers :-
Money can’t buy you a clean environment. Take note.
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Rethink Fossil Fuels
Posted on August 23rd, 2010 No commentsWe all love the inputs, but what about the outputs ?
Fossil Fuels have been providing an easy life and easy pickings for the citizens and enterprises of the industrialised world for some time.
People love their jet-fuelled lives. One man will move one kilometre from his home to a restaurant in two and a half metric tonnes of steel and glass believing he is admired for his larger-than-car-sized car. He will wear sunshades, and oil-slicked hair (if he has any) and sport a tan from his recent holiday over the ocean. A life of glory and feeling good about himself.
But what about the emissions ? What, indeed, about the environmental devastation at the places the Fossil Fuels (and metal and glass) were mined and refined and manufactured ?
What do we leave behind ?
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Climate Change Denial, Everywhere
Posted on August 20th, 2010 No commentsHere follows an extract of a conversation I have had with members of the Claverton Energy Research Forum, which I have cut-and-paste into a more easy-to-read fashion below the fold :-
As you can see, there are Climate Change sceptic-deniers everywhere, even in the most knowledgeable and respectable circles.
Countering Climate Change denial from so-called “sceptics” takes a lot of time and energy, and is a bump-in-the-road nuisance/irritation distraction from the main priority for human civilisation, which is how to stop being addicted to Fossil Fuels.
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This Is Not A Riot
Posted on August 18th, 2010 7 comments[ UPDATE FROM JOABBESS.COM : ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND, EDINBURGH, CLIMATE CAMP SITE HAS BEEN TAKEN. ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION FROM process@climatecamp.org.uk, Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 9:59 PM : "Site taken! People needed NOW! At 9.15PM tonight Climate Camp took the site on RBS HQ. Get on site as fast as you can! Defence help urgently needed. Come to RBS Gogarburn Gardens, off Gogar Station Rd. More info later. x" ]
Al Gore has been telling all the young people, and well, all of us, really, to protest, in public, to make a downright law-unabiding nuisance of ourselves :-
“Gore calls for major protests on government’s climate change inaction…In a post on his personal blog headlined “The Movement We Need”…”
Well, it won’t work to call people out onto the street. Most people are too busy credit-crunching, wage-slaving or favour-scraping to be able to commit to a short-term, potentially self-defeating public display of annoyance, frustration and shrill demands.
And if people do come out to the big protests, it won’t achieve much. News reports can be swept into the trash. Activists can be swept into holding facilities. Politicians can conveniently ignore anything that isn’t violent.
Drop the loud-hailers and home-made placards, I say, and do something more…focussed.
The Climate Camp want to target the Royal Bank of Scotland for financing Coal power plants and Tar Sands oil projects, which are very bad things to be doing, and smacks of huge corporate irresponsibility, considering the bank is largely owned by the British taxpayer, and I say, if you can’t make the camp (and I can’t for reasons which I shall not go into just now), do something about money in other ways instead.
What’s your money doing ? Which oppressive regimes in oil-rich countries is it supporting ? Which Fossil Fuel companies trashing your Environment do your bank support ? Why not switch your money to an ethical financial organisation ? Why don’t we all try to do this at the same time ? “Crowd-banking” could have an impact, you never know until you try.
Let’s pick, say, Monday 23rd August 2010. And let’s all spend our way out of Climageddon together on that day. Transfer your money to an ethical bank, or pledge to do so. Phone your bank and tell them you’re leaving for a sustainable bank.
Other actions possibly useful :-
1. Refuse to buy Fossil Fuels for a day.
2. Refuse to use any hot water for one day (most hot water is produced by burning Fossil Fuels). It’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere – come on – a cool shower won’t hurt you.
3. Don’t spend any money on anything that had Petroleum-based plastic or Natural Gas-based chemicals in its production – which would rule out 85% of non-food purchases, I reckon.
4. If you’re working for a company or an organisation who have anything to do with the Energy industry, make a point of asking your boss, or their boss, or the Chief Executive or something what the company/organisation intends to do about moving the whole business to Renewable Energy.
5. One short telephone call could have you moving from burning Coal for your home electricity to a Green Energy account.
This is not a riot – but it is an emergency, and the response should match the scale of the problem.
Our Climate – Not for Sale.
Bloody Oil from Felix Gonzales on Vimeo.
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Say No To Coal
Posted on August 17th, 2010 No comments
Banks + Coal = Climate Chaos
People + Information = Social Change
Just say no. No to Coal. And then no to all the other Fossil Fuels.
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Oil Salesmen
Posted on August 16th, 2010 No comments
Advertising imitating Life…but just which photograph is the fashion shoot ?
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Christiana Figueres : The Elusive Saucepan
Posted on August 7th, 2010 No commentshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWsQscb6lfM
http://unfccc.int/files/press/news_room/application/pdf/100806_speaking_notes.pdf
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has just held its regular half yearly conference to further the working parties of the Kyoto Protocol :-
http://unfccc.int
http://unfccc.int/2860.phpA number of Press commentators have been critical of proceedings, indicating that there has not been much progress at Bonn, and in fact the conference could show some ground having been lost :-
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c9213b40-a180-11df-9656-00144feabdc0.html
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“Kill Kill Kill This”
Posted on August 5th, 2010 No comments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TINzvWrtjYI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyutuErxPo8
Carol Browner, Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy in the United States of America, has been all over the Media, announcing the policy to “kill kill kill this” BP nightmare story, telling the world that a turning milestone point has been reached :-
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/PDFs/OilBudget_description_%2083final.pdf
Have they decided that BP have been punished enough now for the Gulf of Mexico oil gusher, and the reputation of the company needs to be rehabilitated sharply in order to protect the Economy ?
I made the mistake of taking in a BBC TV news bulletin on the matter. I heard several talking heads say it’s “good news” that roughly three quarters of the accountable oil from the spill has “disappeared” :-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10870159
Breaking this story is “good news” for the stability of pension funds, maybe. But what is the real extent of the real damage to the real world, the world of oceans and fish and plankton ? Will the world be watching as the researchers scavenge data and clues to the marine ecotastrophe that is still unfolding ?
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Australia’s Non-Green Stimulus
Posted on July 25th, 2010 No commentsBack in the heady, long-gone days of 2009, The Oil Drum web log hosted a discussion about Australia being highly vulnerable to oil shortages :-
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5477
“Aleklett: Australia highly vulnerable to oil shortages : June 11, 2009 : ASPO International president, Professor Kjell Aleklett of the Global Energy Systems group at Uppsala University has been in Australia over the past week, presenting lectures in Adelaide and Sydney on peak oil…warned that Australia will be one of the first countries hit hard by oil shortages as oil production peaks within the next three years. Kjell Aleklett, a physicist from Uppsala University in Sweden, says Australia’s relatively underdeveloped public transport system leaves the country more vulnerable to a downturn in energy production. “Australia is very sensitive to such developments,” Professor Aleklett told the Herald. “Much of your industry and transit is dependent on oil, and supplies will decline.” Professor Aleklett addressed the NSW [New South Wales] electric car task force and the Federal Government’s Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics yesterday…”
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WBGU : Equity, Today : Agreement, Never
Posted on July 24th, 2010 No commentsFile under : “That’s never going to ever happen if the United States of America have anything at all to do with it”.
The illustrious German Advisory Council on Global Change, the WBGU, or “Wissenschaftliche Beirat der Bundesregierung Globale Umweltveraenderungen” in longhand, have done some excellent work on proposals for a global Carbon framework.
As part of their 2009 paper entitled in English “Solving the climate dilemma: The budget approach” they came to some useful conclusions, but also some startlingly unworkable recommendations :-
http://www.wbgu.de/wbgu_sn2009_en.pdf
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David Mitchell Curbs Enthusiasm
Posted on July 8th, 2010 No commentsPLEASE IGNORE THE ADVERTISEMENT AT THE START OF THIS VIDEO. Video Credit : The Guardian
It’s great to see David Mitchell tucking into a big bite of the “Voluntary Behaviour Change” posse’s pie.
Let’s be honest : nobody wants to stop consuming and burning, but we’re going to have to if the Big Energy companies don’t change the way they provide us with power and fuel.
Yes, guilt is so old-fashioned. You can’t tell the public to change their consumption behaviour, trying to make them feel personally responsible for Climate Change, whilst still providing them with environmentally damaging products.
All electricity should be Renewable, all heating systems Carbon-neutral, all manufactured products Low Carbon.
Until that day, governments will continue to hire Public Relations consultants to convince the public to make different choices, and continue to fail to make any converts.
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Burning Things Is Wasteful
Posted on June 18th, 2010 No comments
Centre for Alternative Technology
Burning things wastes a lot of energy – even burning waste.
1. Plain Old Inefficiency
The systems and infrastructure for the generation and distribution of electricity in the United Kingdom is extremely poor, nigh on immorally wasteful. See the diagram above from the Zero Carbon Britain 2030 report :-
There are so many things that could be done to improve on that enormous loss of energy, and save on Carbon Dioxide Emissions at the same time.
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James Delingpole : Following The Money
Posted on February 9th, 2010 16 commentsWhat makes James Delingpole tick ? Why does he take up such an unsupportable position ? Why is he prepared to risk appearing completely absurd ?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100025341/climategate-mad-sunday/
I have been rubbing my chin and hmmming quietly to myself, as I to try to understand it, and I think I might have a thread of an idea : money, or rather, the use of money…
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Make Copenhagen Treaty “Meaty”
Posted on December 18th, 2009 No comments
Phone your leader : http://bit.ly/6PNXMq
Sign the Greenpeace Petition : http://bit.ly/5k9aDj
Sign the Avaaz Petition : http://bit.ly/5sUuf1
There’s one thing we know : the Earth does not compromise. Politicians might think that they can compromise with the Science; and worse still, the Climate Change Deniers might think that they can compromise the public mind, but in the end the Data will have the final say.
One day, the fringe, radical opinion will be called upon by those at the centre of the debate. Not a debate about whether the climate is changing or not, but the negotiations about who will do what.
Some currently argue that the West was won (and the North) by the immoral earnings from the deep South (and the far East) : the industrialised countries have accrued their wealth on the basis of historical and continuing exploitation of the systems of trade and finance, to garner to their store all the material resource riches of the whole world.
This historical inequality, this chute of nature, taking food, minerals, fuels sliding Northwards and Westwards : for this the rich should pay : Carbon rights should not be “grandfathered” : the rich should not assume they have the free right to continue polluting as they have in the past. The rich should pay up on their historical debt.
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What Is “Clean Development” ?
Posted on December 15th, 2009 No comments
The idea behind “clean development” is simple : promoting the clean development of developing countries so that they don’t make the same dirty development mistakes that the developed countries did when they were developing.
So, let the developing countries develop, but avoid the dirty part. Instead of burning Coal to make electricity, let them burn Natural Gas, or BioMethane (poo power); or let them make wind turbines, and hydropower dams and efficient biomass stoves.
There was to be a fund to finance Clean Development Mechanism projects, and it was supposed to be aimed at developing countries.
However, the negotiations around the CDM have taken more than one twist. Today, discussions were held about whether to permit Carbon Capture and Storage technologies to be included as “clean development”.
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Carbon Hunters
Posted on November 22nd, 2009 1 comment“Where there’s muck, there’s brass”, as some people in England say. Waste and pollution can be big moneymakers for some, as local and national government bodies strive to ensure a safe, clean environment for their citizens.
Dealing with Carbon pollution is, however, in a different league of Big Dirt than the municipal waste stream, litter picks and recycling efforts. It’s even in a much larger landscape than Energy supply infrastructure and global fuel distribution systems.
Carbon emissions are in everything we do, practically, from texting to flying; from cooking to holidaying; from home comfort to laundry.
We can have school poster competitions that influence dog walkers to clean up after their pooches and hounds, but it’s not going to be so easy to cut the Carbon from our entire civilisation.
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Stop Consuming For Christmas
Posted on November 16th, 2009 No commentshttp://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10617
I know a couple of people who are not eating because of Climate Change.
It’s not that their country is experiencing drought, flood, famine, storm, trade disruption, economic seizure or war.
It’s because they believe in Climate Justice.
We have consumed, and we will be consumed.
All our Fossil Fuel burning and plunder from the forests and intensive agriculture has eaten up the Earth’s ability to maintain its cool.
The sky will rain down disaster, plague, heatwaves, hurricanes. The sea will rise up and drown our cities.
We have eaten too much, and now it is time to stop.
Just in time for Christmas.
http://www.buynothingday.co.uk
What Would Jesus Buy ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGi21YQFjMM
Rights. Fair shares. It’s time for a Global Carbon Budget.
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Would You Trust This Man ?
Posted on November 9th, 2009 1 comment
Ed Miliband is today assuring us that New Nuclear Power will be safe, and that we will all have a say in the planning process – so tantalising us with the idea that we will be able to influence the outcome.
I don’t believe either of these things.
Nuclear Power is inherently dangerous, operationally unreliable, dirty, wasteful, expensive and any public money used to support it in any way will prevent us from pursuing truly sustainable Energy.
New Nuclear won’t work without Government subsidy, either for the construction of the plants themselves, or guaranteed customer pricing, or the insurance to cover the failure of projects to complete (or radioactive accident). The Government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change can expect to find any New Nuclear direct public funding, price fixing, subsidy or tax breaks in court.
No, it won’t be me personally taking the Government to court.
Nuclear Power is a dinosaur technology, and judging by the number of countries that have signed up for new fleets of reactors, the Uranium fuel to run the plants being planned will be exhausted within the lifetime of the plants. With supplies of fuel running out, early decommissioning means the plants will never pay back on the investment.
Sounds like a high risk strategy to me, even before looking at the risks of radioactive explosions.
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The Carbon Capture Begging Bowl
Posted on November 5th, 2009 No commentsColin Challen MP [Member of the United Kingdom Parliament], the author of “Too Little, Too Late : The Politics of Climate Change” has told the nascent Carbon Capture industry to stop bleating for funding, effectively a bailout for the Coal industry :-
“CCS industry should support itself, claims MP : Wednesday 04 November 2009 : Labour MP Colin Challen believes the CCS industry should fund itself : A Labour MP has called on the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) industry to stop giving a “sob story” about needing government investment and instead fund new projects itself. Colin Challen, the MP for Morley and Rothwell, made the comments at today’s (November 4) Energy and Climate Change Committee meeting at Westminster, which was held as part of its inquiry into low carbon technologies. Responding to calls from industry body representatives for more government help in developing CCS plants, Mr Challen said: “It seems to me that research and development (R&D) has plummeted to a fraction of what it was. This industry has had billions of pounds out of the consumers’ pockets but yet we get this sob story about needing more money.” However, the director of technology and external affairs at Alstom – which builds integrated power plants – Philip Sharman, argued that utility companies have been investing in CCS, but said that the larger scale projects would need government help…”
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E.On Is Stalking Me
Posted on October 21st, 2009 No comments
Image Credit : Baby Creative
Over the last couple of years, almost everything I have been involved with, the E.On Energy supply company has sought to get its big coal-dust grubby hands on. It seems. The latest twist in this saga involves the Claverton Energy Research Group.
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Burn the Evidence
Posted on October 12th, 2009 No comments
Sometimes you can learn a snippet of useful information from television. It’s rare, and fleeting, but can have impact.
The other night on terror-vision, I watched the sumptuous Fahrenheit 451, a film made in 1966 by Francois Truffaut, based on the science fiction book by Ray Bradbury. I forget which channel it was on. Who cares ? All television is the same in the end.
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Claverton Energy Conference 8
Posted on October 5th, 2009 No commentsThe Claverton Energy Group will be holding its 8th Conference from 23rd to 25th October 2009 at the headquarters of Wessex Water, Claverton Down in Bath, England.
Advances in Energy technologies old and new will be presented amongst a wide-ranging and influential forum of engineers. The focus, as ever, will be the development of new infrastructure, within the context of the urgent need to de-Carbonise Energy supply.
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A Subsidy By Any Other Name
Posted on September 27th, 2009 No commentsThere’s the real world. And then there’s “Daily Telegraph world”, a fantasy mindscape, it seems to me.
In yet another piece that seems to be written for the sole purpose of attacking wind power, massaged in under the banner of standing up for the fuel poor :-
is this outstanding piece of reporting about Atomic Energy in the United Kingdom :-
“Nuclear, by contrast, is unsubsidised.”
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Big Energy : Fighting for Survival
Posted on August 22nd, 2009 No commentsThe Carbon game’s up : within 40 to 70 years the Petroleum empires will be gone. Even with massive new investment, Hydrocarbon production will be peaking. With supplies of Crude Oil, Natural Gas, and yes, even Coal, starting to fall away, a crucial sub-plot will begin to play out.
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