Jo Abbess » Peak Oil

The UK’s Energy Crisis

Jo — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:24:58 +0000

What annoys me most about the Solar Power Feed-in Tariff saga is not that the UK Government suddenly pulled the plug on the full rate for household-sized systems, or that they set the cut-off date before they finished their consultation, or even that that the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) dragged out a legal appeal process.

Despite the truly pitiful sight of a Minister of State being sent out to bat with a miniaturised teaspoon to defend the indefensible decision, and despite the energy industry stooges that have placements inside DECC and are clearly affecting policy, no, the thing that really gets me is the focus on budgets instead of targets.

Here’s a summary from the Government’s own “long term trend” figures for energy consumption in Great Britain :-

Nobody can swear to me that the last few years are not just a glitch caused by economic instabilities, and that the re-localisation of manufacture in future in a recovering economy will not push this demand continually higher according to the trendline.

What are we using to supply this energy ? Here’s a summary :-

Despite the near exponential rise in renewable energy, it’s starting from a small base. The increase in energy consumption is being satisfied by a sharp rise in the supply of Natural Gas – something which the UK is producing increasingly less of these days. And for those who think that shale gas production would help, no, only a few percent of demand could be satisfied. This is an import-led energy supply, and the trend should ring alarm bells, but clearly doesn’t even tickle the ears of the average person in the street.

Electricity demand growth remains healthy, despite problems with unreliable supply from nuclear electricity (refered to as “outages” in the DECC Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES) reports) :-

Now, in the future, with an envisioned massive rise in renewable energy, higher electricity use would be reasonable, as long as other energy consumption reduced. But the growth in electricity consumption charted here is not people driving more electric cars or using electric heating instead of Natural Gas-fired comfort. This is higher consumption, pure and simple, not “energy switching” over to electricity.

As an aside – the sum total of these figures indicates that the nation as a whole is not engaged in significant energy conservation, despite decades of campaigning.

All these trends add up to a very slight loss in dependency on fossil fuels for the UK’s energy :-

This is the critical trend. North Sea oil and Natural Gas production is falling like a large rock, and no amount of technological advancement and re-stimulating the drilling sector is turning this around. This means that without a rapid decrease in fossil fuel dependency, the United Kingdom is going to start haemorrhaging wealth.

Goodbye, First World.

This is why is it essential to ramp up renewable energy deployment by whatever means at our disposal.

Greg Barker MP bleating about keeping to budgets is not helping.

The Last Battle

Jo — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:29:27 +0000

The “Statue of Liberty” or Saint John’s Lamb of God ?

Britain’s real enemy is not Iran.

The real enemy is the mismanagement of the Earth’s energy resources.

The last battle is to overcome the misdeeds of those who have commandeered and wasted the Earth’s energy resources – and that includes ourselves.

It should not be a violent dispute, for aggression and the use of weapons are morally unjustifiable. But all the same, it will be a genuine, Titanic, struggle.

As C. S. Lewis portrays with so much resonance, it matters little under which flag or title we serve or belong – what matters is our allegiance to the precepts of divine honour, holy devotion and right dealings with other people :-

“Why did the faithful Taarkan end up getting to come into Narnia ? Usually Lewis writes allegorically so is he trying to tell us something when a worshipper of Tash is allowed to enter the new Narnia ? Any thoughts ? …It wasn’t the name that mattered, but rather the conduct of the Taarkan and how he chose to see and do things. He didn’t believe in the cruelty and underhanded ways his countryman were doing things, but rather in honour and a code of conduct. So even though the Taarkan thought he was worshipping Tash, the whole time he was actually worshipping Aslan [Turkish for "Lion"] through his thoughts and deeds. So when the time came for the end of the world and judgement, he was placed where his heart had always led him.”

For those who recognise the twin threats from climate change and energy depletion, we realise that there is hard work ahead. Our natural aim is to protect ourselves; and the moral consequence is that we are obliged to protect the other – because both climate change and energy depletion are global problems.

Climate change hits the poorest the hardest – already, significant changes in rainfall and weather patterns have created long-term drought, encroaching coastal and inland inundation, crop losses and enforced migration. And it’s only going to get worse. It’s so terrible we could not even wish it on our enemies – it teaches us that nobody is an enemy.

To solve climate change, we need to change our energy systems. Some hail the depletion of hydrocarbon and coal energy resources as a gift that will help us resolve the emissions problem and prevent dangerous climate change, by making a virtue of necessity – but the situation is not that simple.

The reaction of the world’s authorities, wealth controllers and corporate proprietors to the winding down of fossil fuel energy resources has so far been complex, and there are many indications that warfare, both military and economic, has been conducted in order to secure access to energy.

This may be the way of the lion in us all, but it is not the way of The Lamb. The Lamb sacrifices all that others value so that he is qualified to bring about a new universal regime of peace and responsible autonomy – a kingdom of priests, pastors with mutual respect.

We are called to become good stewards of each other and the Earth. The gentle Lamb of God will judge our hearts.

The Book of the Revelation to Saint John the Divine, Chapter 4 :-

“…I looked and saw a door that opened into heaven. Then the voice that had spoken to me at first and that sounded like a trumpet said, “Come up here ! I will show you what must happen next.” Right then the Spirit took control of me, and there in heaven I saw a throne and someone sitting on it. The one who was sitting there sparkled like precious stones of jasper and carnelian. A rainbow that looked like an emerald surrounded the throne. Twenty-four other thrones were in a circle around that throne. And on each of these thrones there was an elder dressed in white clothes and wearing a gold crown. Flashes of lightning and roars of thunder came out from the throne in the center of the circle. Seven torches, which are the seven spirits of God, were burning in front of the throne. Also in front of the throne was something that looked like a glass sea, clear as crystal…And as they worshiped the one who lives forever, they placed their crowns in front of the throne and said, “Our Lord and God, you are worthy to receive glory, honour, and power. You created all things, and by your decision [and for your pleasure] they are and were created…”

The Book of the Revelation to Saint John the Devine, Chapter 5

“In the right hand of the one sitting on the throne I saw a scroll that had writing on the inside and on the outside. And it was sealed in seven places. I saw a mighty angel ask with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals ?” No one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or see inside it. I cried hard because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or see inside it. Then one of the elders said to me, “Stop crying and look ! The one who is called both the `Lion from the Tribe of Judah’ and `King David’s Great Descendant’ has won the victory. He will open the book and its seven seals.” Then I looked and saw a Lamb standing in the center of the throne…The Lamb looked as if it had once been killed. It had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, sent out to all the earth. The Lamb went over and took the scroll from the right hand of the one who sat on the throne. After he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders knelt down before him. Each of them had a harp and a gold bowl full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people. Then they sang a new song, “You are worthy to receive the scroll and open its seals, because you were killed. And with your own blood you bought for God people from every tribe, language, nation, and race. You let them become kings and serve God as priests, and they will rule on earth.”"

Leaders of the powerful nations – put aside your death-hastening technology.

Let there be a low carbon energy peace on a climate-stable Earth.

Additional Readings

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%203:7-9&version=NIV

“…Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles [non-Jewish people] by faith, and announced the gospel [good news of God's love and forgiveness] in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith…”

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%203:26-29&version=NIV

“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized [ritual bathing] into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile [non-Jewish person], neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Thou_My_Vision

“Thy love in my soul and in my heart -
Grant this to me, O King of the seven heavens.

O King of the seven heavens grant me this -
Thy love to be in my heart and in my soul.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Spirits_of_God

[ UPDATE : No, I have not taken leave of any of my senses. I was in church, All Saints in Highams Park, London E4, and many thoughts arose as I contemplated the stained glass window, with its Suffering Servant Messenger King/Lord/Master, rainbow, Alpha, Omega, Noah's dove with the sprig of olive; and listened to the reading from Revelations 4; and sang "Be Thou My Vision" with the congregation; and considered what Epiphany the world needs at this time of intense war propaganda. There are those who declare themselves as Christian who claim that war with Iran is prophesied. This may be a fringe view, but the narrative infects major political discussion in the United States of America : "The problem, of course, is that rhetoric can have political effects that narrow the options available to decisionmakers. If you've publicly declared Iran's nuclear program sufficiently threatening to warrant initiating a potentially catastrophic war and then sanctions fail to achieve their defined goal, you may have a hard time walking back from that threat." ]

Eco-Socialism #1 : Public Service, Private Profit

Jo — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 13:45:24 +0000

Public infrastructure and utilities are the skeleton of the national economy; the spokes of the wheel; the walls of the house.

Private corporations can in many cases put muscle on the body, a tyre on the bike, and furnish the rooms, but without the basic public provision, private enterprise cannot thrive.

Without taxes being raised – asking everybody for their appropriate contribution – there would be no guaranteed health service, education system, roads, water supplies, power networks.

Federal or central government spending is essential, and often goes without question or inspection – including subsidies, cheap government loans, tax breaks and even rule-bending and regulatory exemption for specific sectors of the economy. This policy lenience also applies to private companies that take on the provision of public utilities.

This explicit, but often glossed-over, support for public services means that private business can rely on this national infrastructure. Small businesses can rely on a power supply and waste disposal services, for example. Large businesses can rely on a functioning postal service and road network.

It is questionable whether for-profit enterprise would be able to survive without the basic taxation-funded provision of public services and utilities.

I can understand why governments feel the need to get public spending off the balance sheet, and outsource public utilities to the private sector.

There is a lingering belief that private enterprise makes public services more efficient; makes manufacturing more reliable; makes construction better quality.

In some cases, this belief in privatisation is justified. Where companies can genuinely compete with each other, there can be efficiencies at scale. However, the success of privatisation is not universal.

Many parts of a developed economy are monolithic – there is no real competition possible. You get electricity through your power socket from a variety of production companies – you cannot choose. The road between your house and your office is always the same road – you don’t choose between different tarmac suppliers. Your local hospital is your local hospital, regardless of who owns and runs it – you have no choice about who that is – and the government contract tendering process is not something open to a public vote.

Added to this lack of competition, in some cases, it is impossible to make a profit by operating a public service by a private concern.

There should be no rock under which private business can hide when it claims to be operating profitable train and bus services – without public subsidies, public transport cannot be run at a profit.

Liability for daily operations may have been outsourced to the British private train companies, but not the full cost of the services. Costs for locally-sourced services cannot be driven down because they cannot be made fully open to global competition.

By contrast, the globalisation of labour has been making manufacturing industry significantly cheaper for decades.

In order for globalised trade to work, finance has to be liberated from its nation-bound shackles, and so along with the globalisation of labour to nations where it’s cheapest, there has been the globalisation of finance, to the tax regimes less punitive.

The globalisation of trade is a two-way bargain between those that want to see the development of primitive economies and those who want to create wealth for their companies and their shareholders.

Globalisation has created a booming China, for example, and filled the pockets of any Western company that imports from China.

However, the tide of globalisation has reached the shore, and the power of the waves is being stilled by solid earth realities. Labour costs in previously under-developed economies are starting to rise significantly, as those economies start to operate internal markets as well as maintain export-led growth.

It could soon be cheaper to have manufacturing labour in the United States of America than China. But when that happens a curious problem will arise. Manufacturing industry has been closed down in the so-called industrialised countries – as companies have taken their factories to the places with the cheapest labour and the most lax tax.

Wealth creation potential in developed countries has been destroyed. And it is for this reason that Western governments feel the urgent need to privatise everything, because their economies are collapsing internally, and public budgets may no longer be able to sustain current government spending.

However, privatisation doesn’t work for everything. It doesn’t work for health, education, water, public transport. The European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a vehicle to compensate for agricultural sectors than cannot make a profit. I would contend privatisation doesn’t work for the energy supply and distribution sector either – but for a special reason.

Normally, it is possible to run energy stations at a profit. The privatised sector inherited power stations and grid networks that were fully functioning, and the sales of power and Natural Gas were almost pure profit.

However, much energy plant needs to be lifecycled after decades of use – replacements are in order, and this demands heavy public investment, in the form of subsidies, or pricing controls, or tax breaks or some such financial aid, in order to avoid crippling the private companies.

Like the rail network, there is direct public investment in the power grids. This is to support new access for new energy plant. However, I think this doesn’t go far enough. I would argue that much more public tax-and-spend is required in the energy sector.

In future, most electricity generation needs to become low carbon and indigenous. The primary reason for this is the volatility of the globalised economy – it will no longer be possible to assume that imports of coal, Natural Gas and oil for power station combustion can be afforded – especially in economies like the United Kingdom, where much wealth creation has been destroyed by de-industrialisation.

It used to be easy to ignore this – as the North Sea was so productive in oil and Natural Gas that the UK was a net energy exporter. This is no longer the case.

To avoid the risk of national impoverishment, energy independence is dictated, spelled out by a deflating British economy and by the depleting North Sea reserves.

The easiest and fastest way to a power supply that is low carbon is by healthy investment in wind power and solar power. Yet with the turbulence in the global economy, spending on renewable energy has also been rocky.

Now is the time for the UK Government to stop tickling corporate underbellies to get them to invest in British energy, and to start collected tax revenues to spend explicitly on the energy revival.

It can be “matched” funding – the Renewables Obligation, for example, has drawn in massive levels of private investment into wind power. And the feed-in tariff scheme for solar photovoltaics had, until recently, been pulling in high levels of personal individual and private company investment.

This is the kind of public-private financing that works – create a slightly tilted playing field to tip the flow of money towards new energy investment, and watch the river flow.

Without public money ploughed into public infrastructure in non-profitable areas such as public transport and energy, private enterprise will not be able to make a contribution – they would quickly bankrupt themselves.

The result of capping public subsidies for renewable energy is a halt to renewable energy deployment. Those who resist wind farms are in effect destroying the country. Those who cap public subsidies for solar power want to break the nation.

We need socalist financing of new energy technology deployment, for the future wealth of our country.

Tom Heap : Panoramic Nonsensity

Jo — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:39:57 +0000

Date: 9 November 2011
From: tim b
To: jo abbess

Hi Jo,

Just picked up on your blog following leads on Tom Heap – I’m writing a piece for my website (www.biggreenbang.co.uk) on the panorama / KPMG saga – just wanted to say what a great blog it is~!! Don’t find so many to-the-point sites in the UK – have picked up on guys like Joe Romm in the States but you seem to have your finger right on the pulse in the UK!

…Should explain that my site has been initiated by a load of IT techie nerds who are already working in telecoms and are about to launch a zero carbon mobile phone company (by a combination of using low carbon technology, buying into renewable power and carbon offsetting) They are committed to putting part of their profits into green projects and are setting up BGB in the hopes that it will be a vehicle for making sustainability issues available to a wider public – they have ambitions to develop it as a community resource too – They obviously hope to get spin-off business for their mobile phone network but I believe their motives are genuinely good and they seem to be giving me a fairly free rein!

look forward to hearing from you

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

Date: 10 November 2011
From: jo abbess
To: tim b

Hi Tim,

Good luck with the Panorama research.

Another person to follow on this is Christian Hunt at Carbon Brief :-

http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/11/looking-into-panoramas-sources
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/11/kpmg-not-sure-if-written-report
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/11/another-correction-from-the-mail-group-on-energy-bills

…Keep the green flag flying !

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

Date: 11 November 2011
From: tim b
To: jo abbess

Hi Jo,

Thanks for getting back,

I would like to send you a link to the article but for some strange reason its not been published yet – not so much research on Panorama as a general review of Knowns and Unknowns that a report based on figures from and unpublished draught press release throws up!! – It was a Carbon Brief piece that made me take the tack i took.

What I was really interested in was the cut of Tom Heap’s jib – I picked up on your site because I Googled his name – and lo and behold you critiqued the Beeb’s Climategate coverage saying, “some of the mistakes made by the reporter, Tom Heap, were laughable”.

My deeply sceptical mind started to wonder – especially given his Countryfile role, if he’s not one of the “farmer boy climate sceptics” (living in rural XXXXXXXXX with lots of Telegraph reading Hooray Henrys – I meet lots of them!) That is pure speculation on my part but even if it’s just a case of a young ambitious journalist trying to make a name for himself (and aware that good sceptic record will be a great career move for anyone wanting to work for Murdoch, The Mail, The Express… its a long and tragic list!) – he’s hardly generous with information!

…We are still sticking the nuts and bolts of the site together at the moment – my responsibility is writing relevant stories – and my background in environmental issues goes right back to the early days of the Sullom Voe oil terminal in the Shetland Islands (1970′s) I’ve been immersed in this stuff most of my adult life – starting out as a “back to the land idealistic greeny” and ending up a cynical old man – but still believing that this is the most improtant issue we have ever faced!

best wishes

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

Date: 11 November 2011
From: jo abbess
To: tim b

Hi Tim,

Don’t grow old and cynical. Instead, grow wise and excited about the prospects for positive change.

It won’t be your generation that fixes climate change with renewable energy, sustainable agriculture and a steady-state economy. It won’t be my generation, either – I’m older than many of the “senior” figures in the UK Government.

We owe it to the next generations to share our hope, knowledge and encouragement; and believe in them.

Scotland will have wind and marine power to replace the oil and gas economic compromise with the English. Wales and Ireland can become energy-independent and shake off Westminster. There will be more sanity, more loft insulation and peace.

I would suggest caution in trusting the BBC for energy news. The BBC people that actually know anything about energy appear to be sidelined by those rolling with the “national interest” programme, supporting UK energy companies and their tainted arguments; not realising that it’s in the interests of the energy business to transition out of carbon. I am looking forward to work by Fair Pensions and other organisations on how companies, and banks, can only survive by investing in renewable energy.

…Stay in touch,

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

Date: 15 November 2011
From: tim b
To: jo abbess

Hi Jo,

Fear not – Old and Cynical is a bit of a pose – having reached 60 this year I feel entitled to a degree of curmudgeonlyness – I am indeed excited by the positives, but I’m aware of the extent of change that is needed and the scale of resistance. I suppose the old cynical bit comes from an acute awareness of the political trickery and media manipulation being used by the energy industry in particular – The ST/Panorama thing is a case in point – they’ve sucessfully run a well publicised negative story with a headline figure of £34 billion savings on a report that still (as far as I know today) remains unpublished. The manipulation of media, astroturfing and funding of front organisations in the USA by the likes of Koch and Exxon has led to a political fantasy world over there – with climate denial held as orthodoxy by the right. There’s evidence this ultra neo-con agenda is influential in the current [UK] government.

Liam Fox’s Atlantic Bridge charity had close ties with ALEC – a well funded influence peddling machine that gets its money from similar sources – (check out ALEC Exposed for a bit more insight) – two of its trustees [William] Hague and George Osborne (and especially Osborne) are leaders of the climate denial lobby within the Cabinet (Osborne’s father-in-law – is David Howell – and he’s apparently a prominent Climate Change denier). The gulf between the Government’s promises on carbon targets etc and its actions is growing at a rate – and it doesn’t seem beyond the realms of possibility that a beleaguered David Cameron would offer a withdrawal of support for renewables against a get out of jail card on Europe.

I’m not saying that the Panorama report is deliberate manipulation – but I don’t think it’s a possibility that should be ruled out. The technique of “reporting” on unpublished reports has popped up a few times this year – if memory serves me correctly the [Daily] Mail ran a whole load of spurious headlines on the costs of the new Electricity Reform Bill on pure speculation.

So yes, agreed that we have to be positive and hopeful – but feel we have to keep an eye and a voice on the “rich old white men” who seem to be determined to use no holds barred dirty tricks to stop a move towards a decarbonised world – as for it being future generations that will be the ones who change things – well The [International Energy Agency] IEA are saying we have 5 years to get on top of carbon emissions – not a body exactly renowned for making provocative extravagant claims. One of the things they highlight is that future carbon consumption is locked in by the investments we make today – build a coal power plant and we’re locked into burning coal for the next 40 years etc – I’m sure you are a aware of these issues as I am – so I feel I have to disagree about leaving it to younger generations – we are all in this together and my year old grandson has no voice – I have to speak for him!

Good grief – all this stuff sounds terribly like a conspiracy theory – I’ve fought against believing it but the evidence train is so strong that it has to be taken seriously

best wishes

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

Date: 15 November
From: jo abbess
To: tim b

Hi Tim,

As Cameron says, “calm down, dear”. You’re not a conspiracy theorist – you’re just doing some critical thinking.

It is now clear that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will be ineffectual in delivering a workable carbon treaty. The International Energy Agency and the US Energy Information Administration are powerless. The G20 Governments are incompetent. Carbon taxation and carbon trading are dead in the water – because they are based on faulty economics. The Climate Finance Fund for mitigation and adaptation will be as poorly funded as the international aid programmes. Deforestation will continue apace.

Stupid old white men do not have an evil agenda – they seriously believe they are doing the right thing (especially if it ups their share price). However, they do have an agenda – business as usual – and this does need to be critiqued.

There is no prospect of “business as usual” for a number of reasons – Peak Oil being one of them. We could discuss different opinions about the causes of Peak Oil for several weeks, but the data is in. The “business as usual” approach to tackling Peak Oil is a ramshackle plan to drill more, in more places, including the Arctic; to do Coal-to-liquids, Gas-to-liquids projects; to try to coax algae to produce biodiesel, a whole range of ethanol and methanol projects. All of these will fail. Where was the Arctic physically during the Permian ? Paleogeography indicates there’s not much oil in the Arctic. Algae breed messily and slowly. Coal is also peaking. Gas is going to peak in 2030 – 2035.

The problem with these problems is that most people are not paid to see them, or they are paid not to see them, which is why you have the climate change denial lobby, and the renewable energy rubbishing lobby.

My view on these matters is that there is no evil, just incompetence. And this needs to be continually shown to the light with sanity and clarity.

Keep on at it (and do keep in touch – although I rarely enter into lengthy correspondence),

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

Date: 15 November 2011
From: jo abbess
To: tim b

Hi Jo

…should emphasise that I don’t believe the evidence points to a conspiracy theory. Rather the opposite – its so strong it’s clearly not a conspiracy theory. A year ago I would have thought the notion that corporate power in the [United] States was systematically funding the stuff it funds ridiculous – now I feel a bit silly not knowing it was going on!

As for “not being evil” – Well I guess that depends how evil is defined – in my demonology spreading deliberate lies in order to knowingly pursue a path that will cause harm to others ranks fairly high on “the things I would define as evil” scale. Pursuing a course that gives a favourable balance sheet but putting the global eco-system at risk definitely justifies the tag! Having said that, I’m not concerned with moral judgements so much as trying to explore ways of getting a broader mass of people to recognise the biggest obstacle to the kind of paradigm shifts we need to make are political rather than technological – it’s as if we are fighting against a Goebbels style propaganda campaign but no one even knows its happening. I suppose part of the point of BGB is to try and introduce these notions to the “wanna be green by means of farmers markets and good recycling” to the harder nosed side of the issues in as gentle way as possible.

cheers

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

Carbon Capture and Syngas

Jo — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 01:48:39 +0000

Back in the 1970s they were expecting global cooling – of the economy. There were oil shocks and shocking prices, and petrochemists beavered away, sweating over test tubes the size of football fields, whisking up synthetic fuels.

It was not the first time that the world had tried to synthesise liquid vehicle fuel. Hitler famously did it during the Second World War, and had it not been for Bergius and Fischer-Tropsch, Nazi Germany would have collapsed much sooner under the anvil of global economic sanctions. I mean, the history books insist the multi-pronged military assault was responsible for the Victory in Europe, but the final push would never have succeeded without the suspension of energy trade.

Various syngas and synfuel projects have continued in various places, mostly America, and although the first plants used coal and Natural Gas to make other things, these days the emphasis is on biomass.

We can expect to see a dramatic rise in the amount of Biogas and Bio-syngas produced over the next few decades, along with renewably-sourced hydrogen. It will all get fed into the global syngas refineries, and out will pop power, vehicle fuel and chemistry.

But as soon as Natural Gas peaks, and tighter gases like Shale Gas with it, we can expect to see pressure on geoengineering projects to run in reverse. You see, carbon-rich gases are essential for the operation of bio-refineries, and so it will pay to collect the waste gases from any power station. And if those gases have been stuffed underground, we can expect people to want to extract them again.

So, the oil, gas and coal companies have been pressuring governments, central banks and international bodies for funds to do Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) projects. And we’ve fallen for it – offering bailout money to the energy companies to allow them to continue to burn coal and capture the carbon and store it somewhere.

And then, in twenty or twenty-five years time, the oil, gas and coal companies will come back for public funding to extract the carbon dioxide out of the ground again, so that they can give us all – no, sell us all – lots of synthetic fuels, because the petroleum fossil oil will be significantly depleted by then.

Yet another reason not to publicly fund CCS, I’d say.

Solar FIT to Bust #5

Jo — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 12:11:58 +0000

Germany can do it, but not the British. The Collected Republic of the People can install solar power with great will and nerve, but not Johnny English.

Let’s be clear here – the people in Scotland have a vision for future Renewable Energy, and so do many people in Wales and Ireland, but it appears English governance listens to fuddy duddy landowners too readily, and remains wedded to the fossil fuel industry and major construction projects like nuclear power, and carbon capture and storage.

What precisely is wrong with the heads of policy travel in Westminster ? Do they not understand the inevitable future of “conventional” energy – of decline, decimation and fall ?

It really is of no use putting off investment in truly sustainable and renewable power and gas. There are only two paths we can take in the next few decades, and their destination is the same.

Here’s how it goes. Path A will take the United Kingdom into continued dodgy skirmishes in the Middle East and North Africa. Oil production will dance like a man with a stubbed toe, but then show its true gradient of decline. Once everybody gets over the panic of the impending lack of vehicle fuel, and the failure of alternatives like algal biodiesel, and the impacts of a vastly contracted liquid fuel supply on globalised trade, then we shall move on to the second phase – the exploitation of gas. At first, it will be Natural Gas. But that too will decline. And then it will be truly natural gases. As gas is exploited for vehicles, electricity will have to come from coal. But coal, too, is suffering a precipitous decline. So renewable energy will be our salvation. By the year 2100, the world will run on renewable electricity and renewable gas, or not at all.

Meanwhile we will have had wars, rumours of wars, and just plain bomb-dropping, and lots of ancient civilisations will have bit the uranium-laced dust, and Scotland will have long since made a break for economic and political freedom. And we will have locked ourselves into dangerous climate change through our wanton burning of fossil fuels.

Path B – the logical long-term option and where we’re headed anyway – is to bypass climate change, bypass warfare and bypass idiocy and go straight to renewables.

But can the English Government work this out ? Can they see beyond their Cost Benefit Analyses and their short-termism and the calls to cut regulation and targets ? Can they imagine what life will be like in 30 years – and can they be made to be accountable to the future citizens of this country ?

We need to stimulate the development of renewable energy in the United Kingdom. It will take tax breaks, direct funding, subsidies. The Feed-in Tariff for solar power is essential in the current economic environment, to build a long-lasting electricity generation asset. If the British Government truly takes the prosperity of this country seriously, they need to plan for a significant deployment of renewable energy. We don’t know what the price of fossil fuels will be in five years time, ten years time. But we know that sunshine will always be free.

Renewable Gas : Balanced Power

Jo — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 12:11:58 +0000

People who know very little about renewable and sustainable energy continue to buzz like flies in the popular media. They don’t believe wind power economics can work. They don’t believe solar power can provide a genuine contribution to grid capacity. They don’t think marine power can achieve. They would rather have nuclear power. They would rather have environmentally-destructive new oil and gas drilling. They have friends and influence in Government. They have financial clout that enables them to keep disseminating their inaccuracies.

It’s time to ditch the pundits, innuendo artists and insinuators and consult the engineers.

Renewable Gas can stand in the gap – when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine and the grid is not sufficiently widespread and interconnected enough to be able to call on other wind or solar elsewhere.

Renewable Gas is the storing of biologically-derived and renewably-created gases, and the improving of the gases, so that they can be used on-demand in a number of applications.

This field of chemical engineering is so old, yet so new, it doesn’t have a fixed language yet.

However, the basic chemistry, apart from dealing with contaminants, is very straight-forward.

When demand for grid electricity is low, renewable electricity can be used to make renewable hydrogen, from water via electrolysis, and in other ways. Underused grid capacity can also be used to methanate carbon-rich biologically-derived gas feedstocks – raising its stored energy.

Then when demand for grid electricity is high, renewable gas can be used to generate power, to fill the gap. And the flue gases from this combustion can be fed back into the gas storage.

Renewable gas can also be biorefined into vehicle fuels and other useful chemicals. This application is likely to be the most important in the short term.

In the medium-term, the power generation balance that renewable gas can offer is likely to be the most important application.

Researchers are working on optimising all aspects of renewable gas and biorefinery, and businesses are already starting to push towards production.

We can have a fully renewable energy future, and we will.

The European Union Question #2

Jo — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:07:37 +0000

Image Credit : Debbie Portwood

Unbelievably, yesterday, people in the British Government sacrificed their careers rather than vote with David Cameron’s three line whip against a Referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union. I say “unbelievably”, but I know full well why it happened. Democracy is broken in Britain, and there is every reason to point the finger of blame and accusation at the media, for their continued massacre of the issues in political debate. They should be observers and reporters; but instead they are influencers and arbiters.

Here’s how it goes : the Daily Mail, to take just one example, raises the outrage level, and repeats arguments that have little substance. People act on the basis of what they read in the papers and see on TV, and they develop poor reasoning, and do things like sign an ePetition. The thing gets publicly debated, partly in the media of course. And then finally the democratic representatives, the Members of Parliament, have to make a choice to stand with the stirred-up outrage or instead, vote with sanity.

A vote on Europe would be a disaster. The wording would be over-simplistic and hide the true agenda. It would be too easy to sway people to vote for the worst option.

Remember the Referendum on the Alternative Vote ? It was the only thing that could have broken the stranglehold of First-Past-the-Post politics. Instead, seats are going to stay safe – the party that holds an area’s vote will continue to take the vote. Democratic contests cannot happen in safe Constituencies, particularly if the boundary lines are changed to fit the demographics. The First-Past-the-Post system in easy-to-hold political wards – that’s one way in which democracy has been killed. If a seat is safe, no will in the world can create a political debate in a Constituency.

But why did people vote against the Alternative Vote ? Because of the media-assisted rubbishing of the idea.

David Cameron makes the point that a third of the population, if asked, would ditch the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union. They would have very little foundation for doing so, but they would vote for it, just like they demanded weekly refuse collections, and immigration controls, and an 80 miles an hour speed limit, because the newspapers and the television and the radio told them to.

The people have been manipulated, so democracy doesn’t work.

Every mechanism for enabling democracy appears to have withered away.

Campaign organisations and charities are usually given the task of convincing the public to vote with their ethics, with knowledge and with empathy. But with the recession, grants have dried up, so there are not the funds, the staff or the resources to get good things done.

Demonstrations and protests and marches are routinely blacked out of media presentations of political activity.

Writing letters to your democratic representative can be like shouting into an empty well.

Signing online petitions is useless. Signing real petitions is doubly useless.

What forums do people have to debate issues with real information at their fingertips ? What channels do groups of well-informed citizens have to take their well-considered and researched demands to their democratic representatives in sufficient strength to justify their MPs taking the issues on to the Parliament and raising them in the House (of Commons) ?

What ways can citizens use to do politics in their local town ? With Councillors bowled over with insane levels of trivia, can they be expected to engage with genuine informed citizen concerns ?

The news is awash with some inexplicable language :-

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/86398,news-comment,news-politics,eu-debate-exposes-camerons-cack-handed-leadership-
“The eurozone crisis may eventually call for a new treaty, and in that case a referendum is already a legal requirement. It would make sense at that moment to repatriate powers to Britain.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2053011/EU-referendum-David-Cameron-shows-strain-biggest-Tory-mutiny-Europe.html
“‘We’re not going away’ say rebels as PM insists UK will have to wait years to claw back powers from Brussels”

What sovereign powers are these people talking about ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15425256
“Education Secretary Michael Gove insisted on Tuesday that the time was not right for a referendum to take place. He told the BBC: “The most important thing is to make sure we get powers back, so we take more decisions here about employment, about growth, about jobs. These are critical issues. “At the moment David Cameron is battling in Europe in order to make sure that we can have those decisions taken here. It may be that in the future as a result of the battle David Cameron is fighting for Britain that a referendum may be needed, but my judgement is that we need to get those powers back.”"

What on Earth could he possibly mean ? Employment Law ? The right for businesses to make everybody into serfs by increasing working hours at will, reducing wages at will, and demanding high flexibility of the workfoce ? Or maybe Human Rights ? Denying people their human rights so they can be deported or put in inhumane private prisons ?

The right to abandon renewable energy targets, just when we need to seriously develop sustainable power as the North Sea oil and gas are in firm decline ? The right to abandon environmental regulation ? The right to set taxes too low for the rich and too high for the poor ? The right to deny people a living wage and a roof over their head because they can’t work, because there are no jobs for them to slave away at ?

Is it all about banking, then ? Or industrial policy ? I seriously don’t know what Michael Gove’s real agenda is, but I suspect it has something to do with continuing with the neoliberal privatisation agenda – putting all social goods into private hands for profit.

What has Europe ever done for us ? Britain’s involvement in the European Union project has been right at the centre, in agreeing excellent labour law, human rights, technological performance, business accountability, renewable energy. The European project is a British project. Why would anybody want to leave ?

In my humble view, the Conservative Party should expel the Eurosceptic rebels. They do no good to the Coalition Government, and they offer no progress in democratic advancement.

And, I would suggest, the Conservative Party ask the media to inject some reality and pragmatism into their presentation of European Union issues. It’s not the 1970s or the 1980s any more, Mr Newspaper Editor. Like it or not, the European Common Market and its safety and success are in the British national interest.

We’re never going to solve environmental problems like climate change without working hand-in-hand with Europe. And we are definitely not going to address the energy crisis without staying in the Common Market.

It’s time for David Cameron to ditch the dinosaurs.

The European Union Question

Jo — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 11:04:01 +0000

David Cameron was on one screen, and CBeebies was on another. I was on the treadmill at the gym, interval training, pacing at the same rhythm as the blaring RnB, and reading the teletext translation of the Parliamentary debate.

I smiled at Ed Miliband’s nasally-charged bluster. I rolled my eyes at the interventions from the Conservative dinosaurs.

The Tories are the living example of the Bad Apple Theory, I thought to myself. One bad apple, or in their case, a clutch of Eurosceptics, spoils the crop.

The Conservative Party of the United Kingdom harbours a number of corporatists and the stooge friends of corporatists, and this is their basic argument – deregulate and private companies will be more productive and save the economy from implosion. It’s the same argument that nursed the financial services market that went ahead and created derivatives of risk, and produced toxic credit progeny in abundance and caused the collapse of the banks which caused the current economic doldrums. Great job !

We’ve got the Coalition Government’s Red Tape (Cutting Of) initiative in full-swing, as well as the Eurosceptics. Their argument is – the European Union is a hyperquagmire and over-regulates and stifles business and innovation, so the United Kingdom should secede. What they fail to acknowledge is that European Union legislation and regulation have created excellent conditions for trade, unifying the standards of production across the Common Market, and drawing on skillsets and technologies from across the region, has advanced productivity and standards of living for all.

The United Kingdom is actually a major contributor to the development of the European Union, including social and economic progress, and it would be unhelpful to pull back from wielding that kind of influence – we could lost out if we don’t have a say in European-level policy development.

There’s no valid reason for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. Europe as a zone is the largest trade partner with the United Kingdom, for example. In, or out, the United Kingdom and the Eurozone depend on each other.

The die-hard Eurosceptics are also frequently against renewable energy. Their argument is that European Union rules on increasing the levels of renewable energy are putting a strain on energy companies, and ruining the economy. Actually, I think the casino banking ruined the economy. But renewable energy can only secure it.

Renewable energy is why we need Europe. With a pan-European supergrid, making use of all renewable electricity generation, the United Kingdom can both contribute and receive benefit. When our wind stops blowing, we will need Spain’s solar juice, for example.

But there’s another key reason why the United Kingdom needs Europe. Trees. Or more precisely, usable fuelwood, energy crops and agroforestry waste. Biomass is going to play an extremely important role in the future of energy, and that’s not because of the European Union renewable energy targets.

With North Sea oil and gas production taking a dive, and no clear picture on if this can be offset in any way, the United Kingdom will be forced to increase the proportion of renewable energy in our economy, target or no target. And that’s because of the cost of importing fossil fuels.

In the near future, there may well be global energy price controls placed on Natural Gas because it’s such an important fuel, particularly as we are at Peak Oil. But even if Natural Gas prices stay level, or even level-ish, since we will have to import progressively more Natural Gas, the country will start to feel a big fat pinch. We will start to feel penniless without a biomass energy strategy – and that means trade with Europe – because we haven’t been growing enough of our own trees lately.

It’s true that oil and gas companies and coal-burning power stations will lose out from increasing renewable energy penetration into the United Kingdom’s energy sector, but they are not the businesses of the future. If their shareholders are worried, they should jump ship to wind power and solar power investment.

Somebody has to tell the Conservative Eurosceptics to quit whingeing and accept the inevitable – European and renewable, or poor. And while we’re at it, we should join the Euro.

The Problem of Powerlessness #2

Jo — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 23:26:58 +0000

On Wednesday, I received a telephone call from an Information Technology recruitment consultancy. They wanted to know if I would be prepared to provide computer systems programming services for NATO.

Detecting that I was speaking with a native French-speaker, I slipped into my rather unpracticed second language to explain that I could not countenance working with the militaries, because I disagree with their strategy of repeated aggression.

I explained I was critical of the possibility that the air strikes in Libya were being conducted in order to establish an occupation of North Africa by Western forces, to protect oil and gas interests in the region. The recruitment agent agreed with me that the Americans were the driving force behind NATO, and that they were being too warlike.

Whoops, there goes another great opportunity to make a huge pile of cash, contracting for warmongers ! Sometimes you just have to kiss a career goodbye. IT consultancy has many ethical pitfalls. Time to reinvent myself.

I’ve been “back to school” for the second university degree, and now I’m supposed to submit myself to the “third degree” – go out and get me a job. The paucity of available positions due to the poor economic climate notwithstanding, the possibility of ending up in an unsuitable role fills me with dread. One of these days I might try to write about my experiences of having to endure several kinds of abuse whilst engaged in paid employment : suffice it to say, workplace inhumanity can be unbearable, some people don’t know what ethical behaviour means, and Human Resources departments always take sides, especially with vindictive, manipulative, micro-managers. I know what it’s like to be powerless.

I’m an open, honest, well-meaning person, and I’m quite sociable, unless I’m trying to focus on something complicated, when I need to be left alone. I like informality and equality, enjoy being able to offer pragmatic solutions, good advice and insight; am capable of managing difficult situations and negotiating progress in a spirit of co-operation. I can work under some stress, as long as it isn’t every day, or in a hostile environment; and I can do good research and detailed work, for example in computer systems programming. I can work with a wide variety of people, as long as they’re minded to be constructive. I like to train people to do the best they can, and do better than before, and I like to build teams that are mutually supportive. Simple is good. Direct is best. I try to create efficiency, I can facilitate business process, manage change and I’m always trying to work myself out of a job.

Unfortunately, there are some people out there who do not understand me, who somehow see me as a threat, and who actively campaign against my aims and methods, sometimes by attempting to isolate me. It slowly dawns on me – a look here, a word there, a conversation I’m not party to. I get the sensation of alienation. I can look in a person’s face and see the antipathy. I don’t know why, but I know what. People can be cruel and ruthless. You cannot expect easy co-operation, especially in a hierarchy, where my competencies always seem to challenge the power base. I really don’t want to put myself through that again. I shouldn’t have to undergo torture in order to earn a living. Rejection, I can handle – what I fear is dejection.

“What you need to do”, says my relative, “is take a job for another ten years or so. A good solid career. You should take a role in the field you have studied.” I reply with, “The trouble is, I now know enough about a great number of organisations I couldn’t possibly bring myself to work for.” My assessment, of course, puts me in the category of judgmental, and makes me fairly unemployable. I’m pretty certain that even those organisations who have a similar approach to mine wouldn’t want to work with me.

Another relative suggests I need to do something practical, says that I can’t spend all my life thinking. There’s only so many roles for thinkers. There’s only so much space for intellectual inquiry. Yes, that’s true. We’ve had enough thinking. The economists told us to price carbon. Everybody else is resisting a price on carbon. High carbon emitters continually lobby against being penalised. It will never work. The economists told us to trade carbon. That has been spectacularly unsuccessful in a number of ways, including the failure to create verifiable, sustainable carbon credits; and the fraud and theft of carbon credits.

The economists told us to price pollution, to make the polluters pay. And the polluters end up passing the costs along the value chain to the end consumers. They don’t stop polluting, they just make their consumers forfeit.

The technologists from the oil and gas industry told us to do things like Carbon Capture and Storage, and other geoengineering. Watch how the number of carbon capture projects grows ! The pace is slower than a drugged snail’s. Why ? Entropy, man. It’s always going to be cheaper to prevent carbon emissions in the first place than re-capture the carbon from the air. And the price of re-capture can be expected to be stellar – it’s all in the chemistry. The only thing that got captured was your intelligence. You were captured by the idea and it failed you.

The policymakers keep blaming the consumer, and telling us all we will enjoy lowering our energy use. The citizens are fighting back, by paying no attention at all to the messaging of restraint; and campaigning against high energy prices.

Nope, I can’t make a career working for an environmental organisation, as life would be defined completely by negatives : antagonism is not an attitude I can keep up. Environmentalists keep making unreasonable, unfeasible demands. They demand change, but don’t offer a pathway to a positive future. It seems that, for the most part, environmentalists can achieve nothing of note. I’m inclined to think that those who control the purse strings control the changes that have to be made – the insurers, the investors, the highly capitalised companies.

But I don’t want to work for a multinational, transnational corporation. Their prime directive is to make a profit to satisfy the demands of their shareholders. They don’t care about carbon unless it is to take care of their bottom line. I could never work for a fossil fuel oil and gas company, even if they have an “alternative energy” section, because they are outright compromised, and are carrying huge carbon liabilities. I’m not sure if there are any ethical finance or banking outfits that I could fit into. I don’t know if there are any renewable energy technology corporations that would be prepared to hire me.

I am an awkward one. Don’t hire me. You’ll only want to fire me. Don’t give me any money to perform a function – there’s nothing I can achieve if people aren’t prepared to work with me. Am I playing hard to get ? Giving the wrong impression ? Once again, I have to strike out on my own. I rather get the idea I will need to create my own job. What is worthwhile doing ?

I’ve been studying the management of climate change, a sort of hybrid discipline between business management studies and climate change policy – taking in climate change science and developments in energy. We’ve learned about carbon management, carbon pricing in all its forms, and the rocky seas of energy policy. We’ve heard that technology and innovation can solve the problem. We’ve heard that renewable energy can save the day. We’ve been exposed to the diversity of proposals for climate change mitigation and adaptation, and the institutions, organisations and government departments that are tasked with handling climate change.

There are things that need to be done : the full weight of the world’s production capability and purchasing power needs to be directed towards sustainable and renewable energy, energy conservation, universal building insulation, joined up systems of low carbon transportation, low carbon agriculture, low carbon economic development… All new investment should be directed towards creating low carbon energy assets, energy efficiency and energy conservation.

There are ways to make things happen. You do something yourself. You ask somebody else to do it. You pay somebody to perform a function. You create obligations, and a system of accountability. If you’re the Governor of Texas and you’re desperate for rainfall to break the long, hot drought, you beseech the heavens for divine intervention. You wait for the passage of time and the unfolding of events to whisper the suggestion of change…

And then there’s the power of influence. It’s a constant surprise – the genuinely influential don’t realise how hard it is for others to emulate their role. There are in fact very few people who can influence for the better.

I don’t want to have influence. I don’t want to be famous for bending minds. I don’t want to be admired for being seductively convincing. What I offer is the truth as I see it – flat and un-adorned. However, honesty is not lucrative; and pragmatism doesn’t sell. People don’t seem to like straight talking or plain speaking.

I don’t have influence, but I don’t want influence. I don’t want to be someone that other people revere and follow. I don’t want to be a leader. I just want to put the facts and figures and methods out there for others to recognise – to witness to inevitable changes, and our changing responsibilities and accountabilities.

I don’t have power. I don’t want power. I am without artifice. I don’t want to be a sales person or be forced to fabricate with public relations. I’m not trying to prove anything – I’m just trying to show it.

People say I should take employment in order to pursue my goals and aims. I don’t know if there is any form of employment, currently, that would allow me to pursue my goals and aims. I cannot think of any role that anyone would want filled that would grant me the kind of authority I would need to pursue my goals and aims. And anyway, I don’t want to offer a service of labour to a paternalistic organisation in exchange for some kind of accredited authority; permission to get done what needs to be done.

I cannot do anything about the appallingly bad media coverage of climate change science, the crisis in energy and policy. There are not enough hours in the day to effectively counter their poorly-constructed and often unfactual narratives. I don’t have the energy to go against all this stupidity and propaganda. The channels of mass communication lack the necessary staff with the skillsets to relate the full scale of climate change to their communities of audiences. I disagree with almost all economists and many of the industrial corporations about how to handle climate change. I cannot completely align myself with any single political party or grouping – the Members of Parliament and many civil servants struggle with science and technology. They are mostly non-scientists, non-engineers.

I often find myself considering a company or an organisation and thinking, “I can’t work for these people. They’ll have me doing something useless”, or “I can’t work with these people. Their pitch is all blather. Their intellectual framework is tilted, on weak foundations, and liable to fracture.” I cannot live a lie. I cannot live with a lie.

I have adopted a position of powerlessness, but it is problematic. My communication skills are constrained by my repudiation of power.

I cannot produce anything much by communicating, as I don’t want you to believe without evidence and knowledge, and I don’t need you to agree with me just because I say something. You will probably dismiss my thoughts on the basis of my position, and I can’t make the message stick; but then, in a democracy of thought, I shouldn’t force you to accept anything I say.

I don’t want to convert you, recruit you, make you change your mind. But somebody has to say these things – give us all the opportunity to reflect and maybe come to our senses.

What should be said. What has to happen.

All I can do is keep saying what needs to be said and keep saying what has to happen, what will happen; whilst critiquing all the confusion, distortion and disinformation. That’s all I can do. I’m not very successful at communicating these things, but it’s still all I can do. All I can do is not enough. But it’s all I can do.

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