I rubbed my eyes, but the logo didn’t disappear. The Independent newspaper article had a graphic explaining that the article was “in association with Shell” :-

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/newenergyfuture/a-climate-for-european-action-2068570.html

Further clue : the author was Tom Burke, “Mr Clean Coal” to those of us that know of him.

The article was great, up until the paragraph :-

“Without deploying carbon capture and storage technologies for coal and gas, Europe has no workable climate policy…”

Well, we knew Tom Burke was going to say that, didn’t we ?

But why was the article “in association with Shell” ? Is this the start of advertising masquerading as opinion articles ?

What could possibly link Royal Dutch Shell to Carbon Capture and Storage ? The “Enhanced Oil Recovery” (EOR) angle, possibly – Shell offering to pump Carbon Dioxide down into its depleting oil and gas wells in an attempt to raise the pressure on the remaining hydrocarbon, to squeeze it out.

Also – if Shell are going to diversify out of Petroleum and Natural Gas, they need to be doing something to do with Energy – how about offering to pump Carbon Dioxide underground on behalf of the Coal-burning power plant companies, as Coal will be the only fuel left in North-West Europe after the North Sea is significantly depleted of Oil and Gas… ?

Are you beginning to get with the programme here ? This article is ostensibly about the transition to the Low Carbon Economy – but is really all about selling the idea that Royal Dutch Shell should be paid to pump Greenhouse Gas underground – “The EU has already committed several billion euros to meeting this challenge…” as the article points out.

So…is Carbon Capture and Storage actually an excuse for the failing oil and gas companies to beg for public money for “green stimulus” ?

Is CCS just a springboard for a massive bailout of Shell, BP and ExxonMobil ?

Carbon Capture and Storage is always going to be expensive – capturing and pumping Carbon Dioxide underground will take make the plants burn more Coal fuel – and although there are a number of small-scale projects around the world, CCS may never make the jump to being a widely-used technology.

However, I’m sure BP, Shell and ExxonMobil would love to have government and EU money thrown at them to dig big holes and build big pumps and pipelines – that’s their current bread-and-butter in engineering.

When Tom Burke writes, “Only when the ratio of low carbon to high carbon energy investments is clearly changing in Europe and the United States will the rest of the world take our talk of climate change seriously”, although that’s a good piece of logic, underneath it all, what he’s really urging is public money budgets being poured into the new energy systems that the industrialised countries needs.

But, where’s the capital ? Surely BP, Shell and ExxonMobil, who have been making packets of varying sizes in the last decade, can put some of their own money into New Energy ?

It can’t be that all the Oil and Gas institutional pension fund shareholders are going to pull all their funds out tomorrow ? I doubt it.

A recession is a great time to start a new phase of investment, while shareholders are not expecting huge returns on prior holdings, as the general market is depressed.

We don’t need Carbon Capture and Storage, as other solutions to avoid Carbon Dioxide emissions to air will be much more efficient :-

http://rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2010/September/DoWeReallyNeedCarbonCaptureStorage.asp

Carbon Capture and Storage applied to the tailpipes of coal-burning power plants is simply going to eat more Coal fuel, and there are signs that the supply of good quality Coal is stressed – so CCS could get progressively more expensive.

Plus, mining dirtier and dirtier Coal to feed into power plants fitted with Carbon Capture and Storage facilities will create increasing local environmental pollution.

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.

You can almost, but not quite, bypass the Climate Change problem (crisis, predicament, catastrophe) in arguing for the new energies based on a set of simple arguments about conventional Fossil Fuels. The risks of Peak Conventionals surely have to be linked in with the risks of abrupt Climate Chaos, in my mind, when finding ways to communicate and discuss policy options.

Do the energy companies have the right to expand into unconventionals, when this risks the general economic health of the industrialised countries (and the Climate) ? There are limits to what private enterprise should be permitted to innovate, we all accept that.

If the only way forward for Big Energy is yet more risk-prone marine options and very dirty, energy-wasting mixed sedimentary deposits, then people might need to know this in order to understand they need to politically ask for it to stop.

Just a thought (stream),

jo.

reply from Andrew Smith

“…You can almost, but not quite, bypass the Climate Change problem (crisis, predicament, catastrophe) in arguing for the new energies based on a set of simple arguments about conventional Fossil Fuels…”

Except that the peak conventional argument is also the argument used for unlocking EOR, shale, tar sands: all dirty, energy-inefficient, environmentally destructive, climate-disastrous …

So a peak of production in conventional fossil fuels cannot fix the climate on its own: it may make things worse, if it allows the expansion of unconventional fossil fuels.

Andrew

The whole thread of the conversation can be found here :-

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/energy-discussion-group?pli=1

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/energy-discussion-group/browse_thread/thread/7d69724bad647d1f

Dr Gregor Czisch’s meisterwerk is being translated into English for publication this Summer :-

Scenarios for a Future Electricity Supply: Cost-Optimised Variations on Supplying Europe and Its Neighbours with Electricity from Renewable Energies

You would never know from the plainspeaking title just how exciting this is : seriously cheap Energy and peacemaking collaboration all in one shot !

The management consultants PriceWaterhouseCooper (couldn’t they think of a more speakable name ?), have just published their own view on Europe and North Africa combining to provide a one hundred percent renewable Energy solution :-

http://www.pwc.co.uk/sustainability/

http://www.pwc.co.uk/eng/publications/100_percent_renewable_electricity.html

Mark Delucchi (one half of the “two Marks” Jacobson and Delucchi) is coming to London, England for a presentation on Zero Carbon Transport Futures in May :-

http://futurity.org/earth-environment/totally-clean-and-green-by-2030/

http://www.claverton-energy.com/pipermail/claverton-group_claverton-energy.com/2010-March/003805.html

http://www.its.ucdavis.edu/people/faculty/delucchi/index.php

Meanwhile, investors crowd into the DESERTEC project :-

http://www.gsjournal.com/2010/03/first-solar-joins-the-desertec-industrial-initiative/

http://www.scienceknowledge.org/?p=6309

http://theenergycollective.com/TheEnergyCollective/56974

And of course, the Centre for Alternative Technology will be launching Zero Carbon Britain 2030 in June 2010 :-

http://www.zerocarbonbritain.com/content/blogcategory/1/35/

Britain could be a Renewable “Titan” :-

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/britain-could-be-wind-and-wave-titan/

http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=7933596&story_id=15311437

There’s money in them there sloshing waves and swirling winds :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/13/manchester-report-bonds

There’s a remarkable amount of synergy going on with all the moves towards Renewables.

For decades we have been spoonfed Science Fiction about the future of flight and space exploration as if it were fact.

Richard Branson (“Sir”, if you insist) has drawn us to his vision for commercial passenger space flight :-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8400353.stm

Yet his participation in the Industry Taskforce for Peak Oil and Energy Security leads him back down to Earth :-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/oil/7203172/Britain-faces-oil-crunch-within-five-years-Richard-Branson-warns.html

“Britain faces ‘oil crunch’ within five years, Richard Branson warns : An oil crunch more serious than the financial crisis threatens to strike Britain within five years, Sir Richard Branson and other business leaders have warned. : Published: 10 Feb 2010″

http://www.ecorazzi.com/2010/02/09/richard-branson-warns-of-peak-oil-in-five-years/

“…While theories differ on when the world will experience the hard hitting times of peak oil, Virgin boss Richard Branson is boldly predicting that will happen in the next five years. In the foreward to a new report being released shortly, Branson urges UK leaders to be proactive rather than reactive to peak oil. “The next five years will see us face another crunch – the oil crunch. This time, we do have the chance to prepare. The challenge is to use that time well,” Branson will say. “Our message to government and businesses is clear: act,” he says in a foreword to a new report on the crisis. “Don’t let the oil crunch catch us out in the way that the credit crunch did.” According to one consultant, the current worldwide recession has only delayed the inevitable. “The next major supply constraint, along with spiking oil prices, will not occur until recession-hit demand grows to the point that it removes the current excess oil stocks and the large spare capacity held by Opec,” said Chris Skrebowski. “However, once these are removed, possibly as early as 2012-13 and no later than 2014-15, oil prices are likely to spike, imperiling economic growth and causing economic dislocation.”…”

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5g8M712Y7XdnGaTVbH_BRDqr2iB1g

“Branson warns UK over ‘oil crunch’ : The UK risks being hit by painful hikes in the cost of food, heating and travel because it is unprepared for surging oil prices, Sir Richard Branson and other business leaders have warned. Their report, entitled “The Oil Crunch – a wake up call for the UK economy”, warns the world is running out of oil and predicts shortages and price spikes as soon as 2015. It said the challenges facing the UK would exceed those presented by the financial crisis and said the poorest in society were most vulnerable to potentially significant increases. The report said Government must acknowledge the risks to the economy and to produce contingency plans for transport, retail, agriculture and alternative power. “Unless we do so, we face a situation during the term of the next government where fuel price unrest could lead to shortages in consumer products and the UK’s energy security will be significantly compromised,” it said. The report was compiled by the Industry Taskforce for Peak Oil and Energy Security, a group of private British companies whose members include Sir Richard; Brian Souter, chief executive of Stagecoach; Scottish & Southern Energy boss Ian Marchant and Philip Dilley, chairman of consultancy firm Arup. Virgin Group founder Sir Richard – whose airline and rail businesses are sensitive to volatility in the cost of crude – said businesses and Government should work together to prepare the economy. “UK competitiveness will be hampered unless we can develop viable, affordable and secure long term sources of alternative energy,” he said. While the report did not address climate change directly, it stressed “massive areas of overlap” between the issues of depleted resources and pollution. It said transportation was particularly vulnerable to rising oil prices, with businesses from supermarkets to manufacturers reliant on delivery networks. The group said alternative methods of powering vehicles – for example electrification of the railways – should be explored and infrastructure developed.”…”

If the Energy infrastructure and the benevolent governmental tax regimes required to support and maintain the aviation and space industries can no longer be justified, then the future of flight is probably airships rather than supersonic jets :-

http://www.airships.net/blog/movie-lady-hay-graf-zeppelin-farewell

http://www.idfa.nl/industry/Festival/films-2009/film.aspx?id=068e6e30-75cb-4727-b852-c6be7363155a

“…Constructed entirely of archive footage, Farewell is the story of English journalist Lady Grace Drummond-Hay. In August of 1929, two months before the stock market crash would plunge the world into the Great Depression, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst added Drummond-Hay to the passenger list of the Graf Zeppelin as the only female. This impressive airship would be the very first to make a voyage around the world. For this prestigious project, a symbol of hope and progress, Hearst was looking for someone who wanted to write about the trip “from a female perspective.”…”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/07/branson-warns-peak-oil-close

“Branson warns that oil crunch is coming within five years : Virgin chief and fellow business leaders call for action : Energy crisis threatens to be more serious than credit crunch : Terry Macalister : guardian.co.uk, Sunday 7 February 2010″

Branson: Get ready for oil crunch within 5yrs”

“Tuesday, February 9, 2010 : Business & Finance : p43 : The world is hurtling towards an oil crisis as demand rises and supplies fall, business leaders will warn tomorrow. Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson will say the world has five years at most to plan for an ‘oil crunch’ creating bigger problems than the credit crunch…”

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=499344

“Britons may face soaring costs for food, heating and travel because the country is unprepared for surging oil prices, Sir Richard Branson and other business leaders warned today. Their report, entitled ‘The Oil Crunch – a wake up call for the UK economy’, warns the world is running out of oil and predicts shortages and price spikes as soon as 2015. It said the challenges facing the UK would exceed those presented by the financial crisis and said the poorest in society were most vulnerable to potentially significant increases…”

“Oil and gas will remain the mainstay of the “Energy mix”. We’ve said that publicly…”

So they’re telling the world what to believe, are they ?

“…The fact is, given that developing countries will develop as rapidly as they can, [and Fossil Fuels are the only option readily available], Fossil Fuels will remain a [large factor in the global economy]. Renewable Energy will probably account for between 5% and 6% by 2030. The real [opening] is for [Natural] Gas, the transition…cleaner burning fuel…new resources…shale gas in the US…”

I posed the question of falling EROEI to the representative of the UK’s largest company formerly known as British Petroleum :-

“About a Century ago for American petroleum, you invested one unit of Energy for every 100 units returned; this has slowly dropped until it’s about 30 units for every unit input. Shale gas is hard to mine. You put more energy in for the same return…”

The BP man did not understand. He thought I meant you put more Energy in overall for the Energy returned, which would be ridiculous. I explained I meant you need to use more Energy to get gas from shale than with “conventional” sources of Natural Gas.

BP Guy got the point, sort of : “The cost of supply is not solely down to a function of the technology. Yes, Energy is used as an input, to make the gas available to the market. Yes, we are going into more challenging technologies. [It's like we assert] if you have an economic price of Carbon all these sorts of issues would then become apparent and Renewable Energy would become more competitive. [Carbon pricing would] help us all make rational decisions…the same argument as [critiquing the exploitation of] oil sands. Let’s say the price of Carbon is universally [applied] – then business will only invest in projects that are economically viable…”

Talk about skirting the issue. The issue is not cost, or even relative cost. The issue is : Fossil Fuels are depleting.

“Unconventional” Fossil Fuels are more energy-intensive to mine and could become unviable under peaking scenarios – especially if there were a Carbon Emissions rationing mechanism – so they should not be relied upon.

In fact, the very fact that the Oil and Gas “Majors” are diving into “unconventional” Fossil Fuels should be the clearest of indications that Fossil Fuels are depleting – past the peak of production, but also past the peak of supply in the Earth’s crust.

All the recent oil and gas wells are really, really deep. They’re scraping the bottom of the geological barrel.

The timeframe for Peak Fossil Fuels could be right upon us, staring us in the face.

We need to have a darn sight more Renewable Energy on-stream before 2030.

Yet BP continue to live in denial.

Instead of calling it for what it is : Fossil Fuel Depletion, the CEO Tony Hayward introduces us to his fantasy narrative of “Peak Demand”, just so the shareholders don’t get scared, I suppose :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/04/tony-hayward-bp-interview

“I personally – and BP – have never believed we will see peak oil because of supply. We always believed we would see peak oil because of demand. There will come a time – I believe it is beyond 2020 – when because of the changes in the energy portfolio, because of the drive for energy efficiency, because of the introduction of biofuels, demand for oil will peak.”

Could it be that he’s started this line of argument because the Biofuels projects aren’t working ?

For years the large oil and gas companies have promised us they will do better. BioDiesel didn’t work out, so they’ve been promising us BioTechnology from Genetically Modified bacteria to make “second generation” BioFuels from non-food crops and food crop waste.

This green dream could well have imploded.

All we read in the Press is that the Biofuels projects have a fine and dandy future, but that could just be to keep the Carbon bean counters and the shareholders happy.

These new plants could well be merely showy window-dressing. Nobody can tell us about potential production volumes :-

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2236895/bp-biofuels-grass