Roger Pielke Jr : “Sloppy Work”

Just when you thought it was safe to read The Guardian again, they only go and publish an opinion piece by none other than Roger A. Pielke Jr, justly famed for Climate Change scepticism :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/04/ipcc-major-change-needed

“Major change is needed if the IPCC hopes to survive : Well before the recent controversies, the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was marred by an unwillingness to listen to dissenting points of view, an inadequate system for dealing with errors, conflicts of interest, and political advocacy. The latest allegations of inaccuracies should be an impetus for sweeping reform : Roger A Pielke Jr : guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 March 2010 10.58 GMT : It has been a rough couple of months for the climate science community. Last November someone stole or released over 1,000 e-mails from the University of East Anglia. The e-mails revealed that some scientists were so entrenched in battle with their scientific and political opponents that they lost their perspective, going so far as to suggest improperly influencing the scientific process of peer review and evading legal requirements to disclose their data upon request. Climate science took another hit soon thereafter when it became apparent that the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contained a number of embarrassing errors and an unacceptable amount of sloppy work, such as its erroneous prediction that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035, rather than in several centuries or more. The IPCC’s handling of the allegations of errors have compounded its problems…”

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Green Energy : Stuck in the Sidings

If you can imagine the engine for new, renewable and sustainable Energy systems as a train which should by now be thundering down the tracks, get this : it left the depot only to get stuck in the sidings.

Enough of the locomotive metaphors, already. On to the analysis. Here’s an excerpt from Catherine Mitchell’s fine book “The Political Economy of Sustainable Energy” (2008, 2010) :-

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Undue Influence at Copenhagen

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a United Nations body set up under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to research and advise the global Climate Change negotiations.

Climate Change deniers and sceptics accuse the IPCC of being under government control. That is not the case. All parties and sectors are involved in the IPCC, and the research is adopted by governments, not dictated by them.

There is however a significant Trojan Horse effect from allowing the large Energy, Engineering and Mining corporations to be involved.

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What Is “Clean Development” ?

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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When 100% Becomes 25%

I don’t know about you, but I would have thought that zero should mean zero. Zero tolerance on smoking in restaurants shouldn’t allow one corner of La Dolce Vita, Peckham to have a smoking table.

No, there isn’t an Italian dining establishment called “La Dolce Vita” in Peckham. I made that bit up. But I’m not making this bit up – the Zero Carbon Homes standard will only mandate a 25% reduction from ordinary energy efficiency standards :-

http://www.greenbuildingpress.co.uk/article.php?category_id=1&article_id=414

That means that new residential buildings will still emit 75% of the amount permitted today. Seventy-five is not even close to zero, in my book. Even I learned that much at school. Seems like a misnomer to call them “Zero Carbon Homes”.

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Cut To The Chase

So this big plan for international Carbon Trading, how long will it take to set up all the national and regional markets ? And how long will it take to get some kind of serious reduction in Carbon Emissions using the market ?

Well, judging by this week’s slalom race on the melting Climate piste, I’d say it will be a good few years yet before a functioning international Carbon market will be viable, and a good few years after that that it will start to deliver any real reductions in emissions.

That could easily take us past 2015, the year that Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre knows we have to peak our emissions or face Climageddon (unless we can produce negative emissions. Yeah. Right.) :-

http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/programme.php
Presentation Slides : http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/ppt/10-1anderson.pdf
Presentation Audio : http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/audio/10-1anderson.mp3

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Urgently Seeking Experienced Journalists

Someday, all journalists who report on Climate Change and Energy will not only have relevant Science and Technology training, but they will also be allowed the time to fact-check corporate-sponsored-academic-research Press Releases before being asked to publish articles written around those Press Releases.

I absolutely adore Alok Jha writing for the The Guardian newspaper. He’s young, smart, good-looking, intelligent, and studied Physics at Imperial College, London. He writes well. His heart is clearly in the right place. Some of the things the The Guardian publish with his name under them could, however, be a little more incisive.

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ExxonMobil Errs On Television

http://www.media.exxonmobil.com/media/microsite/index1.html?contentID=04B

It’s there, right in the script, an outright fallacy. If you were in converstion with your friend on the sofa you would have missed it.

ExxonMobil have been playing an advertisement on British television about algae. Apparently there’s green algae, red algae, golden… While the rest of the world is trying to get rid of pond scum, they’re growing it. To make biofuel. Green, Low Carbon driving fuel.

And it’s not competing with the world’s food supply. Hurrah !

And it eats up Carbon Dioxide, the narrator narrates in passing… “Algae are very beautiful… they absorb CO2 so they help solve the Greenhouse problem as well.”

Is that a hooray, also ? No, it’s not.

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Carbon Capture : Dead Technology Walking

The IPCC’s best guess was that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) could not be developed quickly enough to make much of a contribution on Carbon Dioxide Emissions Reductions before about 2030 :-

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg3/ar4-wg3-spm.pdf
Figure SPM.9

The Carbon Capture and Storage Association chief says that CCS is only an “elastoplast technology” – patching the gap between Coal burning and new Low Carbon Energy :-

http://www.joabbess.com/2009/03/26/carbon-capture-and-storage-merely-an-elastoplast-technology/

And now, the “competition” for Carbon Capture in the United Kingdom appears to have stalled :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/carbon-capture-and-storage

The Nuclear Begging Bowl Fights Back

We told you all along : New Nuclear will be expensive, and the privatised Energy suppliers will not be interested in financing them on their own. Too big a risk.

All that capital tied up in projects that could roll on for years and years and years with no guarantee of a decent generation capacity at the end.

Building infrastructure with no assurances of a return on investment – well, in this Economic climate, it’s not going to happen. New Nuclear will need public sector finance – yet another bailout.

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Bad China : David Miliband’s Radio Myth

Heads up to MediaLens for pointing me in the direction of this broadcast of an interview with the British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nkxz6

“Free Thinking – David Miliband : Last broadcast on Tuesday 3rd November 2009, 21:15 on BBC Radio 3. In an interview given in front of an audience at The Sage Gateshead as part of the 2009 Free Thinking festival, Foreign Secretary David Miliband talks to Philip Dodd about his family background, his life in politics and his vision for democracy – both home and abroad. A rising star in the Blair government, Miliband has become a government heavyweight under Gordon Brown. He is among the youngest foreign secretaries in history.”

Somewhere during the interview David Miliband utters what I consider to be a myth. He said something along the lines of “…China…building four coal-fired power plants a month…or a week.”

Is there any truth in this ? And how could we verify it ? And why does pointing at China let American and European Coal expansion off the hook ?

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Everyone Should Read This (2)

[ PREVIOUS ARTICLE : http://www.joabbess.com/2009/11/02/everyone-should-read-this/ ]

Since the book “Climate Cover-Up : The Crusade to Deny Global Warming” by James Hoggan does not appear to be available in the United Kingdom as of now, I have taken the liberty of transcribing a brief passage about Carbon Capture and Storage.

The thrust of the passage, and in fact two whole chapters of the book, which everybody should read, is that

(a) even with Carbon Capture, Coal will never be “Clean” and

(b) that there has been a deliberate propaganda campaign amongst the public and in the corridors of power to promote Carbon Capture even though it cannot clean up Coal.

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The Carbon Capture Begging Bowl

Colin 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 :-

http://www.newenergyfocus.com/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=1&listcatid=32&listitemid=3178&section=Carbon

“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…”

A Path to True Enlightenment

One of my relatives takes the Scientific American magazine on subscription, postal strike notwithstanding, so I was privileged to be able to read an article in the November 2009 edition even before it hits the shelves in WH Smith at the major train stations in London, or Waterloo at least, where I looked for my own copy yesterday evening.

An uplifting, positive plan to green the world’s energy, composed by two Marks, one Delucchi, one Jacobson, both in American academia, yet not dreamers; their practical brains fully switched on and their souls engaged.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/susenergy2030.html

“A Path to Sustainable Energy by 2030″ contains some excellent mythbusting material as well as practical proposals for turning over all our Energy supply to truly sustainable sources.

A full-colour PDF is available online :-

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/sad1109Jaco5p.indd.pdf

Everyone Should Read This

Kevin Grandia of DeSmogBlog in Canada, kindly sent me a copy of the new publication “Climate Cover-Up” for review last week, which plopped through my letterbox, postal strike notwithstanding, on Tuesday.

It took me until yesterday evening to read the whole of James Hoggan’s book in snatches on the train and Tube, and it contained information about Climate Change denial that made my hair curl.

Everyone should read this book.

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Carbon Capture : Over-run, over-budget, over-rated

[ UPDATE : Extra links at the end. ]

Looks like some people are waking up to the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) spin : it’ll be late, costly and still nobody can promise it will all work…but it’s a superb opportunity to ask for handouts from the State :-

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2009/s2727172.htm

“Clean coal more costly than first thought : Bronwyn Herbert reported this story on Thursday, October 29, 2009 : TONY EASTLEY: The vision of clean coal powering our future electricity has copped a blow, with new costings revealing that the technology won’t be viable for 20 years. The Federal Government’s own global carbon capture and storage institute says clean coal power generation won’t be commercially worthwhile unless the carbon price hits at least $60 a ton and that’s not expected until 2030. Clean coal advocates want the Government to lend a hand to make the first commercial size plants affordable…”

E.On Is Stalking Me

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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The Investment Bump

Image Credit : Bankside Press

The big problem with re-tooling for the new Low Carbon world is not so much about changing Energy consumption behaviour, although that plays a part.

It’s not even really Energy supply behaviour, although that is probably more significant.

No, the key to the door to the greener future is investment behaviour.

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Claverton Energy Conference 8

The 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.

http://www.claverton-energy.com/8th-claverton-energy-group-conference-2325th-october-wessex-water-bath-ba27ww.html

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All Shook Up

Image Credit : A Sound of Thunder Movie

Students of Chaos Theory well know what is known as the Butterfly Effect – apparently small changes in system forcings result in major outcomes.

We’ve heard repeatedly about rising sea levels resulting from Global Warming, but there are more bugs crawling out of the woodwork now.

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Coal : Burning the Future

Here’s one for all my States-side buddies, because nobody in Euroland will get to see this for a while (please correct me if I’m mistaken) : the trailer for the film “Burning the Future”. It’s all about the toxic, dirty nature of Coal Energy :-

http://burningthefuture.semkhor.com/page.asp?s=burningthefuture&content_id=14092

Big Energy : Fighting for Survival

The 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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Clean Coal : Dirty Joke

Seven reasons why “Clean” Coal is dirty, dangerous and wicked, but not funny in the slightest.

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Pouncing on the Pussycat Parade

He may prowl like a cat and purr like a cat, and make out he’s soft and sweet in interviews, but Peter Mandelson’s ideological positioning gives him the impression of him more resembling a pawn, an eel or a rat, and gives me a shudder of disgust; and I’m glad to hear the Climate Rush non-Pussycat Dolls have seen fit to pounce on him :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/10/mandelson-climate-protest-vestas

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New Scientist : China Propaganda

Am disappointed and a touch surprised to find Government propaganda in the New Scientist magazine.

The thread of the official answer to “what to do about China ?” is “sell them Carbon Capture and Storage”. The way it’s packaged is : “we need to help China reduce their emissions”. As if “we” had a right or responsibility to correct China !

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