Hot Start
by Jo Abbess
04 February 2010
An assessment of the technology and policy for de-Carbonising the Energy systems of developed societies
1. The Aligned and Related Risks from Climate Change and Peak Fossil Fuels
1a. Key Conclusions
The Low Carbon Transition in Energy in developed countries is inevitable (Climate Change Act, 2008; EU Package, 2008; UNFCCC Kyoto Protocol, 1997); yet policy thinking and decision-making seems to still focus on the debateable “how to do it” rather than the more essential “how long do we have ?” If the window of opportunity for industrialised society to de-Carbonise proves to foreshorten rapidly, then the next few decades could be a story of economic collapse, unless there is concentrated, concerted endeavour (Sustainable Business, 2010).
1b. Discussion
A simplistic first-order risk assessment of the coincident onset of Climate Change (Four Degrees and Beyond, 2009; Nature Web Log, 2009) and Peak Fossil Fuels (Heinberg R., 2009; IEA, 2008a; Jakobsson K. et al., 2009; Macalister T., 2009b; Rutledge D. B., 2010; UKERC, 2009) powerfully suggests they should be treated collectively, as an urgent “blended threat” (Symantec, n.d.) to developed countries (Gjelten T. 2009; Post Carbon Institute, 2008). Consideration of the short timescales involved (Perkins J. L., 2009; Royal Society, 2009) offers a strong case for a rapid and deliberate transition to Low Carbon Energy (DECC, 2009; Energy Enviro Finland, 2009). For the core OECD nations, where Energy consumption is high, implementing the transition to Low Carbon Energy principally means increasing electricity generation from natural, renewable sources and, where necessary, altering the manufacture of products such as vehicles to use the new Renewable Electricity, a highly flexible Energy vector (Monbiot G, 2006; Socolow R. H. and Pacala S. W., 2006). In the industrialised economies, the overwhelming majority of social and manufacturing systems and services are directly dependent on Fossil Fuels (IEA 2009a, 2009b). The major Energy agencies and suppliers assume the continued wide use of Fossil Fuels even when new Low Carbon Energy Technologies are in place (EIA, 2009a; Ramavarman T., 2010; WEC, 2009); society cannot afford gaps in provision (EAC, 2005; Patterson W., 2007 p.82). It's a “warm start”, in Information Technology terms, (The Free Dictionary, n.d.; Your Dictionary, n.d.) implementing a new operating system without having to restart the economic machine. Depleting Fossil Fuels and current Carbon Energy infrastructure will be used as a “springboard” for developing the first phase of self-renewing Sustainable Energy systems. The infrastructure required cannot be built using current Renewable Energy output – the “bootstrap problem” : you cannot pick yourself up by your bootstraps. The conundrum is that even as Fossil Fuels will power the step up to Renewable Energy, Fossil Fuels should be used less copiously overall, as Climate Change considerations imply restraint in their use. Given the potential application of sharp Carbon control measures globally in the next couple of decades (Stern N., 2009a, 2009b, 2009c), the rapid development of Renewable Energy technologies is dictated, and implies a massive increase of Fossil Fuel Carbon Energy “invested” in developing the Energy sector. This effectively signals a diversion of Fossil Fuel Carbon Energy away from other sectors to the goal of developing the Renewable Energy infrastructure, committing a good proportion of our Primary Energy and Electricity to engender the kind of massive and complete “revolution” we need to see in Energy (Astyk S., 2008; Monbiot G., 2008). Electricity sector growth, the largest component of “green” Energy, mandates mass Energy efficiency in the Economy at large, perhaps even contraction in other sectors. The need to divert Carbon Energy and material resources such as steel, concrete and glass into building the Carbon-free Energy infrastructure overrides any consideration of cost comparison between technologies (Green R., 2009; Patterson W., 2007 p.87). It suggests Carbon Energy and material resource-intensive expensive technologies are a distraction : a new Nuclear Power programme to replace defunct plant, or Carbon Capture and Storage for “Clean” Coal are both “stop-gap” technologies without long-term prospects (Abbess J., 2009a; MacKay D. J. C., 2008 p. 158, p. 164, p. 169, p. 174). In managing this resource appropriation, the boundary conditions need to be scoped : what is the time period necessary to accomplish this feat of de-Carbonising the Energy Supply ? Under a Global Carbon Budget is there enough Fossil Fuel sanctioned in order to kick-start Renewable Energy systems ? Will stringent Energy Conservation measures be needed ? Will the implemented fiscal policy work fast enough or extend widely enough to effect the totality of change required within the desired timeframe ?
2. Questioning the Size and Accessibility of Fossil Fuel Reserves
2a. Key Conclusions
We will not be using Fossil Fuels forever; in fact, supply stress may appear within two decades (Lozanova S., 2008), a development with strong implications for the Low Carbon Energy Transition. An ongoing risk assessment of the scarcity becoming seen in the mined fuel supply chain is urgently needed. Much industry data is considered “company confidential”; a lack of transparency which replicates itself into the IPCC Assessment Reports. There are risks to further development of centralised and complex Energy plant, given depletion scenarios for the “easy” Energy of conventional Fossil Fuels and Uranium. Construction and engineering could be beleaguered by shortages or Carbon Permit costs under any Climate Change regime.
2b. Discussion
Some Energy analysts (Brecha R. J., 2008; Fleming D., 2008; Hirsch R. L. et al., 2005; Howden D., 2007; Hoyos C., 2008; Kavalov B. and Peteves S. D., 2007; Leng R. A., 2010; Zittel W. and Schindler J., 2007a) have called into question the IEA (WEO), WEC and IAEA projections and calculations of “economically viable” conventional Fossil Fuel and Uranium reserves (IAEA, 2008), foundational information for IPCC Working Group III, who discuss Mitigation of Climate Change through the Energy supply (IPCC, 2007). Although the numbers are nowhere near verifiable, this work suggests establishing ongoing analysis to assess risks that official figures are unreliable. As corollary, a deeper ongoing assessment is required regarding the Energy security risks from an increasing fraction of Coal or Nuclear generation in the supply, and the Climate risks of the exploitation of unconventional Fossil Fuels (Aleklett K., 2010; Fleming D., 2007; Heinberg R., 2007; Kharecha and Hansen, 2008; Nature, 2009; Simmons M., 2009; van Leeuwen J. W. S., 2006). There’s no doubting that Fossil Fuel fields are stretched. Some petroleum oil wells are already near the bottom of the “active” organic lithosphere, the layer affected by Carbon sequestration from biological deposition over geological timescales (Mufson S., 2009); at these depths the temperatures cause a degradation of the oil and a high Natural Gas component (IOEC, 2007; Head I. M. et al., 2003). Some project that all seven oil-producing regions are close to depletion, past their peak (Hirsch R. L., 2007). Although oil exploration is projected to expand in hope of discoveries, new finds of oil are marginal in size : despite the excitable business press, “large” fields could have very low production “flow rates” that would meet only tiny percentages of demand (BBC, 2006; Hoyos C. and McNulty S., 2008; Macalister T., 2009a; Science Daily, 2008; The Oil Drum, 2007; USA Today, 2009; Vail J., 2006). Petroleum oil discoveries have been falling since the mid-1960s (Zittel W. and Schindler J., 2007b). The last remaining “elephants” are mostly in “sensitive” places subject to under-development (Aleklett K., 2009; Robelius F., 2005; Simmons M., 2002). Mining geologists enjoy the prospect of new Fossil Fuel finds in the melting polar regions, yet nobody has good numbers on potential (Crooks E., 2009). Strangely, there seems to be real reluctance of the major Oil and Gas corporations and Coal companies to diversify out of Fossil Fuels. Expanding production of “unconventional” Fossil Fuels such as Tar Sands will require a higher investment of Energy compared to the Energy return, so global socio-economic concerns may well move against this (Crooks E., 2010b; FairPensions, 2010; Greenpeace, 2009). If a stable “Carbon Price” sought by Oil & Gas Majors and the UNFCCC alike, cannot be established, even Gas Shale may become uneconomic (Lean G., 2010; Thorn T., 2009; The Sunday Times, 2009). The risk persists that if a tight global Carbon Budget is set, total Energy available in industrialised countries could become constrained, because Sustainable Energy systems have not developed rapidly enough. Global management of markets to keep costs of Fossil Fuels relatively affordable would jeopardise entirely the exploitation of such potentially costly unconventionals as undersea Methane Hydrates, deep degraded oil and petroleum matrix strata. The combination of Peak conventional Fossil Fuels and a Climate Change Mitigation framework could create a regime of scarcity; in particular, an earlier-than-expected peak in good quality Coal could make Carbon Capture and Storage projects for “Clean Coal” untenable, since they are expected to consume somewhere between a 10% and 40% extra Coal fuel in their operation (Greenpeace, 2008; IPCC, 2005; Owen E. and Stimpson J., 2009). More strategically, Peak Oil could terminate the renaissance in Nuclear Power, as Energy from Carbon fuels underpin the full complex lifecycle of fission technologies. Peak Uranium from ground mines is itself a risk, as flow rates of the collection of secondary sources of Uranium would be low (MacKay D. J. C., 2008; Mullins J., 2009). Under Energy austerity measures, or resources being consecrated to Renewables projects, complex Energy systems could flounder. An extra layer of fragile complexity is attached to incompletely developed high technology, such as Nuclear Fusion Power, and Generation IV Nuclear Fission reactors. It cannot yet be known if these technologies will succeed, be generally reliable for base load, or be supportable in a Carbon-constrained economy (Crooks E., 2010a). Given the “brittle” nature of current Nuclear Power (Boselli M., 2009; CAT, 2007; NucWatch, 2009; The Connexion, 2010), its random cost and “stretchy” build time, economic factors besides disaster insurance should be included in risk assessment of decisions to adopt these technological designs.
3. The Great Planning Transition
3a. Key Conclusions
It is not possible to replace Fossil Fuel-supported Energy systems with Renewable Energy systems on a like-for-like basis. Making the Low Carbon Energy Transition will require an enormous shift in policy, planning and engineering, but offers significant advantages. Large centralised Energy systems, developed as a public good in the last Century, require high inputs and fail to account for all outputs. They depend on a high one-time-through consumption of raw materials, close engineering maintenance, waste disposal and well-maintained infrastructure. By contrast to the high complexity of “traditional” centralised Energy systems, most Renewable Energy Technologies are simplistic, flexible and closed-loop, cradle-to-cradle, the notable exception being Solar Photovoltaics. The economics of Renewable Energy can really improve over time because the “fuel” is free, making self-replication of the Energy systems viable. The material resources would be cheap, as many elements can be recycled. Developing this self-renewing infrastructure would be a real investment, compensating for the lower Energy densities of the sources. Climate Change offers a direct threat to fixed-site centralised Energy systems, for example Nuclear plants by the sea and oil rigs at sea, but Renewables are flexible, although Wind Power and some Solar technologies are simply not viable in towns and cities, where the vast majority of the human population reside, so long-distance electricity transmission is still necessary.
3b. Discussion
Renewable Energy has a different nature to the burning of Fossil Fuels. It churns and turns instead of burns. It comes as diffuse sources of Energy, which means that plant must be dispersed. There are issues of variability and intermittency to circumnavigate, and the implied geographical spread dictates high-level cooperation between peoples – a recognised factor in Electricity supergrid proposals (Claverton, 2009a; Czisch G., 2010; Jacobson M. Z. and Delucchi M. A., 2009; Sibley L., 2009). A diverse, widely-spread Renewable Electricity network could be used to promote international accord. Interaction between Europe, North Africa and a post-Fossil Fuel Middle East could result in a unified economic region of mutual dependency and cooperation. Renewable Energy technologies offer reduced risks of resource conflict due to indigenous supply, security of social development and economic security. A “Permaculture” approach to the Low Carbon Energy Transition will design out waste and losses, turning outputs into inputs. Energy technologies must evolve; the best choice is re-development that is genuinely sustainable, that self-perpetuates after the first push to develop it; flexible, fast-to-build and “fast-to-grid”. The “fuels” for Renewable Energies are naturally self-sustaining, effectively free of charge; but equally relevant, many raw materials of a Renewable Energy system can be recycled, re-used. Glass and metal can be re-cast as self-perpetuating resources. Even concrete plinths can be put to new uses. Ground used for Wind Farms can be re-utilised, in distinct contrast to, say, Coal ash repositories, Tar Sands ponds and Nuclear reactor sites. Most ingredients of Renewable Energy technologies are widely abundant in the geological strata, and the actual mechanisms of the technologies are simple, non-complex, and require minimal maintenance. Research into cheap, recyclable photovoltaic technologies is in progress, but Solar Energy can already be gathered resource-efficiently with glass mirrors in Concentrating Solar Power. Alongside the shift in Energy, the quest is on for less complex, more sustainable products and more efficient production methods. Smaller is more beautiful. Surrounding every Energy technology is social and provisional infrastructure. The experience of using large, centralised complex units such as Nuclear Fission Power showed limitations and dependences in engineering, maintenance and decommissioning. Applying the same failed technologies and compromising approach to the new Energy infrastructure is a “mismatch for the problem” : the “Golden Hammer” anti-pattern (Brown W. J. et al. 1998), repeating mistakes from the past, using the wrong tools for the job. Fortunately, requirements for complex components in Renewable Energies are sparse : the engineering for supergrid HVDC and tidal systems would not necessarily be high risk, for example, trans-Atlantic ocean cables have been in place for decades with low overheads. Climate Change affords some risk to permanent Energy facilities in the way Energy systems are currently organised, predominantly on low-lying ground near water, in terms of long-term sea-level rise and changes in rainfall patterns. By contrast, Renewable Energy technologies are not restricted to a tight geographical territory. For example, if a wind turbine has been found to be in the wrong place, it can be easily moved. Plus, development time can be short : it can take less than five years for a new large wind farm to be providing power to the UK National Grid. Despite this flexibility, Renewable Energy generation is limited in built-up urban areas (The Independent, 2010), guaranteeing the future for grid-delivered electricity. Combined Heat and Power requires extensive public works to install heating grids, and could still be based on Fossil Fuel combustion. Hydropower is not generally possible in low-lying urban areas with high population density, and Biomass combustion for home energy would require extensive home renovation programmes and development of wood product fuel distribution systems.
4. Policy Frameworks and the Falling Value of Money
4a. Key Conclusions
Policymakers envision reduction in the Carbon Intensity of Energy as a slow descent, employing the language of incremental targets, but there are distinct problems with this scenario. The lack of a risk assessment of the value of money is a serious anomaly. There must be a step-change in Energy provision to avoid new capacity becoming additional rather than replacement. Carbon is a negative commodity, so it is unclear if a Carbon Market will diffuse very far into the Global Economy, as nobody wants to buy it. Competitive factors could mean that Carbon Emissions Pricing, whether through taxation or marketisation causes investment resistance as actors struggle as a priority to off-load Carbon charges and stranded “sub-prime Carbon assets” (Laumer J., 2008). A mechanism to cost the “environmental bads” externalities through Carbon Pricing is unlikely to be sufficient to incentivise the deployment of Renewable Energies, and may well simply lead to universal inflation as Carbon is so pervasive in the economy, thereby levelising any disincentive effect after a time (Komanoff C., 2009; New Zealand Herald, 2007).
4b. Discussion
Policy experts hold to the pragmatic view that transition to Sustainable Energy can be effected by a fiscal framework, incentivising piecemeal, gradual change through creating artificial price gradients towards the desired Low Carbon Energy investment and supply (Bodansky D. et al., 2004; Carbon Capping and Pricing Policies, 2010; IPCC, 2007; Lewis J. and Diringer E. 2007; Kosonen and Nicodeme, 2009; Pew Center, 2008; Stern N., 2009a, 2009b; Tickell O., 2008). However, since Economic Growth and Fossil Fuel use have remained tightly coupled (EIA, 2009b; Meyer A., 2004; PA, 2010; Stern D. I., 2003), the contraction of the use of Fossil Fuels under a Global Carbon Budget essentially dictates de-growth (décroissance), or at best a steady-state Economy (Davey B., 2009; nef, 2009; Turner G., 2008; SDC, 2009), unless there is a rapid and deliberate Low Carbon Energy Transition. The process of de-Carbonising the Economy could cost of the order of 1% or 2% per annum (Jowit J. and Wintour P., 2008; Stern N., 2006) which could eat up any economic growth (Hopkins K., 2010; UN 2009). This could be compounded by rising Climate Damages (Langston R., 2010; Phalnikar S., 2010), making the value of the whole Economy fall sharply away. The prevailing myth of continual progress (Kurzweil R., 2001) declines to mention that modern civilisation largely depends on the free availability of cheap, dense Carbon Energy sources in wealth creation, and that Fossil Fuels are at risk of depletion, or restriction and Carbon Pricing under a Global Carbon Budget. This scarcity could not be corrected by cost. Carbon Energy will be used to power the Low Carbon Energy Transition, but if Fossil Fuel resources are constrained, this could cause a tourniquet on economic activity and actually hold back the Low Carbon Energy Transition. Less Transition would mean less Energy supply overall (Moriarty P. and Honnery D., 2009), and so less purchasing power for money. This issue may well compound the ongoing economic “readjustment”, in turn impacting on ability to invest further in the Transition. Are there signs of “Peak Build” in construction and “Peak Metals” in rare Earth element mining (Cohen D., 2007; Mobbs P., 2010) ? Synergistic effects, a “Peak Everything” in economic and resource exploitation (Cleveland C. J. and Ruth M., 1996; nef, 2008; Michaelis L., 2008), would risk completion of the Low Carbon Energy Transition. Accentuating subsidies and tax breaks for Renewable Energy includes “The Spanish Windmill Problem”, officially known as the “Rebound Effect” and other names (Herring H., 1998; Orford L., 2010). Spain rapidly ramped up its Wind Power provision, but simultaneously, electricity consumption rose (Global Wind Energy Council, n.d.; Index Mundi, 2009; Wind Power Monthly, 2009). This virtually free Wind Energy resource was effectively additional to Fossil Fuel provision, not replacement for it (Radan S., 2010; Willstedt H., 2009). The “shareholder effect” creates a barrier to new investment without some guarantees of high short-term return. Companies and organisations looking for quick wins, “low-hanging fruit”, often plump for Energy Efficiency measures, either reducing the energy intensity of their processes, or through Energy Conservation. Energy efficiency is its own destroyer : some efficiency measures are one-time-only, and efficiency gains offer an increasing return on investment to shareholders, locking in expectation of similar future returns. To reach beyond a first plateau of achievement (Doppelt B., 2000; Interface n.d.), new technology or Low Carbon Energy supplies are needed. It is hard to justify the increased spending needed in order to climb to a new efficiency level. The global shift towards the privatisation of utilities has shown that there can be gaps in levels of new investment, in repair, maintenance and switching (of fuel and systems) (Beder S., 2005; Estrin S. et al., 1990; Renewable Energy Focus, 2008). State-fostered Energy is not necessarily better (Esparza P., 2009; Suggett J., 2010). Maintaining existing Energy plant and infrastructure will require major funds, as lack of interim investment mean some is coming to end of life (Pagnamenta R., 2008; Patterson W. 2007 p. 56; Science and Technology Committee 2003). Even without the Energy “revival” for new Renewable Energy infrastructure, revitalised investment is required (IEA, 2003, 2008b, 2008c; ADB, 2009). It will always cost more to build new Energy systems than to patch up existing ones, even in a Carbon Emissions pricing framework. The Oil and Gas companies have too much invested in Carbon – they cannot justify to their shareholders to expend capital on Solar and Wind Power (NPR, 2009). Pension Funds invest in those organisations in charge of the current arrangements for Energy provision : these companies are naturally dis-inclined to risk losing share price value by de-Carbonising. It is not clear if a fixed Carbon Price, as a flat tax or floor price in a Carbon Trading system (Stern N., 2009a, 2009b, 2009c; Tickell O., 2008; EU, 2009), or even a floating value in a Capped Market, would alter that underlying inertia. Even reallocating the balance of taxation from income to Carbon (Green Fiscal Commission, n.d.) may not create incentives to invest in Clean Energy. Some analyse that markets cannot deliver the new green Energy (Helm D., 2009; Stern N., 2009a, 2009b, 2009c; Webb T., 2010), which offers validity in moving from punitive anti-Carbon charging to rewarding good behaviour. Getting over this Green Energy “Investment Hump” in the private sector has led to calls for public money in a number of areas (Pagnamenta R., 2009). A grand “bailout” for the Energy industry holds clear risks of spending on failing or over-costly technologies such as new Nuclear and “Carbon Capture and Storage” (CCS) (Abbess J., 2009b; EP, 2008a, 2008b; EurActiv, 2009; Foley S., 2004; Goodall C., 2009; Justin, 2009; Lawson J., 2006; Lea R., 2009). If public money is used to revitalise the Energy system, justified to navigate uncertainties surrounding the Economy, then should components of the outcome remain under state ownership ? Is there a case to be made for re-asserting a “natural monopoly” over the National Grids for electricity and gas, especially with plans for the Europe-wide Supergrid ? Climate Change is recognised as a market failure (Stern N., 2009a), but the current paradigm for the Transition out of Carbon Energy is generally expected to rely on market platforms, using various policy instruments. How realistic is it that this will create the mass incentive to invest in the new infrastructure ? Given the soft value of Carbon under the EU ETS, it seems unlikely a Carbon Pricing framework alone can tip Energy suppliers into a new phase of investment in good time. Carbon Pricing could actually be a negative incentive to invest, as it depletes profits to continue to pay for Carbon, if costs cannot be passed to customers. Most analyses have relied on cost projections to select technologies – but these costings are unreliable, as with different types of Energy you are not comparing like with like, especially as Renewables Energy systems are new developments : most have not yet been built. What is required is an explicit directional push to get this fledgling flying, giving positive value to Renewable Energy to recognise the long-term advantage from having fully de-Carbonised Energy and self-renewing infrastructure. This implies regulation and subsidy, for example, Government obligations and tariff support for new wind and tidal farms, or retaining tax breaks for Fossil Fuel Energy that is used solely for the construction of new infrastructure (Eilperin J., 2009). Currently there is little evidence that effective competition exists between Carbon and Renewable Energies, implying a lack of appropriate incentivisation, with a resulting lack of innovation. To minimise development time, it is optimal to re-use parts of the existing Energy system, such as pipeline and wire grids. Cost is then relative to the state of the investments already made.
5. The Technology
5a. Key Conclusions
Technology futures may not be shinier; the technicalities of orchestrating the Low Carbon Energy Transition are more intractable than any technological development will be to “keep the lights on” (Cobb K., 2009; Great British Refurb, 2009; OFGEM 2010). We already have most, if not all, of the technologies we need, using current best practice; plus, there are limited environmental risks from Renewable Energy technologies. The public narrative of trust in innovation for the development of new technologies needs to be treated to some caveats. Some technologies may well not be sustainable after 2030. Some technologies will not be able to scale up for delivery in the 2030 critical timeframe (Cookson C., 2010; IPCC, 2007), due to a combination of a lack of research investment, ineffective incentive schemes and non-universal policy reach. A strong hand on Energy Conservation via demand reduction, may be the fastest, cheapest policy. The removal of inefficiencies from the processes of Energy production and use can enable a natural cap in Carbon Emissions and ensure optimal future provision. Making use of the infrastructure we already have, Renewable Energies can be developed in stages and linked together, with outputs becoming inputs (Abbess J. 2009c) and with solutions absolving other problems.
5b. Discussion
Research and Development spend is often several orders of magnitude smaller than subsidies into Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Energy (Business Green, 2010; Wynn G. and Doyle A., 2009). Even so, most of the physical mechanisms for Energy production and delivery in the new Low Carbon economy are known and scoped. The technology is all very “doable”, and it is unlikely a radical new way of harnessing Energy will appear : it seems that Energy Technology discovery, like Fossil Fuel discovery, has “peaked”. Evolutionary step-wise development of Renewable Energy Technologies is likely to follow an improvement S-Curve (Bowden M. J., 2004; Schilling M. A. and Esmundo M., 2009; van der Merwe C., 2009), but technology “hops” will have progressively less relevance to the task of Low Carbon Transition. The issue is more one of deployment than development : to delay would be futile as well as dangerous. Things such as fuel switching are easy pickings (Abbess J., 2009b; IPCC, 2007). Some cost-neutral, even cost-negative initiatives could provide a large proportion of what is needed (McKinsey & Company, 2009). Despite “Peak Technology”, there does need to be continued Research and Development into cheap Solar Energy. But even so, deployment of proven Solar has a better risk profile than CCS or Nuclear Power – in terms of the very basic assessment of “how long do we need to wait to see if it works ?” Some proposed new energy technologies break the Laws of Physics, but more worryingly, some proposed new technologies, when implemented, are found to fail on emissions reduction criteria (Biofuelwatch, 2007). Some proposed technologies face limited lifespan, for example the anomaly in Waste-to-Energy (incineration) plans, confronting European Union Directives on minimisation of packaging and landfill waste. The municipal waste stream collapses, under economic contraction and material consumption changes, and so do prospects of power from waste, an outcome untreated by MacKay (2008). A pincer effect may affect Coal-fired generation, where CCS is not widely implemented before new power stations are required (IPCC, 2007), barring Coal as a fuel for thermal generation. A social system without inefficiencies in the use of material resources or Energy would be a sustainable matrix, with two-way electricity networks allowing microgeneration (Galbraith K., 2009), and avoided traffic (Simms A. et al., 2009). The challenge is to rein in the acceleration in transportation, re-localise manufacture and agriculture, and yet still retain the virtues of international trade. Governments insist they are not in the business of “picking winners”, yet considering how slow markets are moving, there is a logical case for barring some practices, such as burning Coal or exploiting unconventional Fossil Fuels (or both). Given the timeframe, it’s important to re-use what we’ve already got, including extensive and well-maintained Natural Gas and electricity grids, which can incorporate Renewables directly. Development of Renewable Electricity and Renewable Gas from sources such as Wind Power, Concentrated Solar Power, BioMethane (BioGas) and Wind Power-reformed Hydrogen is a logical, low-cost fit (CAT 2010). Turning outputs into inputs, agricultural and domestic wastes can be harvested to produce BioMethane via Anaerobic Digestion, which could be burned for electrical generation, or used to top up the National Grid gas network, where it could replace something like 20% of current Natural Gas consumption (Abbess J., 2009c). Excess Wind Power from slack demand can be used to reform Hydrogen via electrolysis, which could be fired for electricity generation at peak times, or used to supplement local gas grids, with other renewably-sourced gases (the new “Town Gas”) (NREL, 2009), avenues not discussed by MacKay (2008). Various kinds of new Energy Storage, such as low technology underground compressed air and other gases will help smooth out the Electricity supply from intermittent and time-varying Renewables, significantly reducing the backup generation capacity required for Wind Power, which is anyway low, contrary to some views (Sinden G., 2005). Wind Power could have a deep penetration into the UK’s electricity network (Abbess J., 2009d; Claverton, 2009b), but given the real risk of a significant “Energy Gap” in the UK’s near-term future, electricity demand reduction in the short-term is crucial; and could also form part of the long-term strategy. Domestic solutions for alternative Energy are subject to a psychological price threshold, easy loans under £2,000 would cover the best initial plan : insulation, insulation, insulation; followed in terms of expense and building fabric upheaval fabric by : air (sometimes ground) source heat pumps, Biomass burner installation and Solar Thermal roof-mounted systems. Community management of food chilling, communal cooking and bathing facilities would optimise electricity and grid gas use. The urban infrastructure would be more Energy-efficient with deployment of greywater systems, rainwater harvesting, urban farming, cart or bicycle provision deliveries, re-localisation of work to home, using Internet retail extensively, prolific cycleways, moped-safe routes and extra walkways, plus massively ramping up all forms of Public Transport such as light rail. Greening electricity is convoluted, but heat is the largest fraction of Energy. Fixing the heat problem for buildings could be managed with robust public programmes to make full use of ambient Energy, which would then offer grid gas capacity for electricity generation, and would soak up some anticipated Energy demand increase (BBC, 2009).
References
Acronyms
IEA International Energy Agency
EIA Energy Information Administration (United States Government)
WEO World Energy Outlook
WEC World Energy Council
IAEA International Atomic Energy Association
IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (under UNFCCC)
UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
EU ETS European Union Emissions Trading Scheme
Abbess J. 2009a
“Carbon Capture and Storage – merely an ‘Elastoplast’ Technology”
report on a talk by Lord Ron Oxburgh, honorary president of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, at the Tenalps Energy and Environment 2009 conference.
https://www.joabbess.com/2009/
(Accessed 26 March 2009)
Abbess J. 2009b
‘An Irritating Truth : Which technical solutions offer the best potential for decreasing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions over the next 50 years?’ article on IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Working Group 3, Chapter 4 ‘Energy Supply’
‘Because of the sheer number of variables in the Climate Change decision matrix, authorities need to be decisive. Fuel-switching in electrical power generation, efficiency in Energy supply and Renewable Energy technologies are clearly winners where big gains
are possible. The irritating truth is that the technical solutions are not
necessarily ‘big hitter’ new technologies, but firm and rapid decision-making, and universal intervention in Energy supply. Policy has to rapidly firm up to become a reliable regulatory framework in order to make progress on reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions. This requires strong political will.’
https://www.joabbess.com/2009/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Abbess J. 2009c
‘Renewable Gas versus Nuclear Renaissance’
by Jo Abbess
writing on Claverton Energy
Research Group website
28 December 2009
‘Professor David J. C. MacKay, newly Chief Scientist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), whom many of you know has written a splendid book called ‘Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air’, is slightly infamous for his optimistic stance on
the potential of new Nuclear Power.’
‘When dipping into the details of his publication this ‘holiday’ week, I realised that the much-hyped ‘renaissance’ of Fission generation is perhaps more apparition than fact, and that this ectoplasmic future painted for us depends on the promotional skill of large mining and project construction companies more than the potential for actual delivery.’
‘I did a crude, back of the Christmas card calculation and concluded that BioMethane offers a similar ballpark of Energy provision to the new ‘fleet’ of Nuclear reactors planned in the United Kingdom, and without all the delay and risk of project failure and spiralling costs…’
https://www.claverton-energy.
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Abbess J., 2009d
“Wind Power : Superior Variability”
by Jo Abbess
17 August 2009
https://www.joabbess.com/2009/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
ADB 2009
https://www.adb.org/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
https://www.adb.org/Documents/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
‘The Energy Outlook for Asia
and the Pacific’
The Asian Development Bank
ISBN 978-971-561-804-5
https://solarfeeds.com/energy-
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
‘Asia Pacific Must Invest Up To $9.7 Trillion by 2030 to Meet Predicted Energy Demands’
06 November 2009
‘A new report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) claims the Asia Pacific region must invest between $7 and $9.7 Trillion into the energy sector by 2030.’
‘Titled The Energy Outlook for Asia and the Pacific, the report has been launched at the Pacific Energy Summit and projects regional energy demand to grow 2.4% every year between 2005 and 2030, outpacing the world average of 1.5%. Predicted to be out of the
economic downturn sometime in 2010, the gross domestic product for Asia and the Pacific will climb, which also means an increase in energy demand…’
Aleklett K. 2009
‘Global Energy Resources – The Peak Oil View’
University of Aberdeen
05 March 2009
https://www4.tsl.uu.se/~
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
‘Iraq’s oil and the future’
by Kjell Aleklett
15 November 2008
in Aleklett’s Energy Mix,
via Energy Bulletin
https://www.energybulletin.net/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Aleklett K. 2010
‘The Peak Oil Year 2009’
https://www.peakoil.net/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
Astyk S. 2008
‘A New Deal or a War
Footing? Thinking Through Our Response to Climate Change’
11 November 2008
‘…That is, underlying the assumptions of a Gore-style New Deal is the idea that we can do temporary bail outs because our consumption is going to go back up – only this time we’ll be consuming green products, including our electric cars. There are several problems with this – the obvious one being that it isn’t clear what will fund our ability to buy these new cars in the coming years. The assumption is that the new green jobs will do so – and perhaps that’s true, but
there’s a ‘turtles all the way down’ quality to this analysis – the new deal will give us the ability to make these shifts, and the money will then only be spent for good (despite the fact that historically, the more we spend, the more we consume)….I’m not convinced anyone knows how that might happen.’
‘The less obvious problem is this – investment and purchase of all these things includes an enormous front-load of fossil fuels. And as far as I know, no one knows whether a comprehensive investment in these resources might not actually push us over the edge of a climate tipping point.’
‘In order to understand this, I think we have to divide the kinds of changes we make into two categories – the first are those that require a large initial investment, usually of both money and fossil energies, and that provide a later payback of those investments. Think of it as the mortgage-model of addressing fossil fuel usage – the bank pays a lot of money upfront to the house seller, and then you gradually pay back the investment over time. We assume that the investment is a good one if, in the long term, we get more out of it than we put in.’
‘But consider this in the context of Al Gore’s proposal, and James Hansen’s observation that we have less than a decade to make significant inroads into addressing global warming. What Gore is proposing is a massive investment of fossil fuels – these are used at every stage of the manufacture of wind turbines, concentrated solar thermal plants and geothermal plants. Most insulations are made from fossil fuels, with fossil fuels. Cars use tons of fossil fuels in manufacturing at every stage from mining of metals to welding
of materials.’
‘In the very long term, we can imagine having enough fossil energy to use wind to weld the cars and run the mining equipment – but we’re a very, very long way from that kind of payback – at this point, we’ll be using enormous quantities of fossil fuels across the board to piggyback us to renewable energies. And we’ll be using them to meet all of our other needs in the meantime. The assumption is that it is a good idea to have one long, last party, if that gets us to lower energy usage in the first place – but the question is, does it get
us to the lowest total energy usage we could get to? Or are there are other approaches that have less risk of long term harm, and that ultimately reduce our fossil fuel usage further – such as getting out of private cars altogether and focusing heavily on energy consumption.’
https://sharonastyk.com/2008/
(Accessed 24 January 2010)
https://sharonastyk.com/2008/
(Accessed 24 January 2010)
BBC 2006
”Huge oil find’ in Gulf of Mexico’
by staff writer, writing on
BBC News online
06 September 2006
‘Three companies led by US-based Chevron say they have found an oil field under the Gulf of Mexico that could boost US reserves by more than 50%. Drilling at a test well yielded “a flow rate of more than 6,000 barrels of crude oil per day”, Chevron said. The discovery may rival the biggest US oil field in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Experts caution that the true size of the oil field is not yet known and it will be a long time before any of the oil there enters the market. “In the last 15 years, there’ve been so many great projects that started out and then petered out,” Matt Simmons, the head of a group of energy
investment bankers, told Reuters news agency. Recently in the Gulf of Mexico, “there’s been a lot more bitter disappointments than phenomenal surprises”, he said.’
https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
BBC 2009
“Housing tops Brown’s
policy plans”
29 June 2009
“The policy document unveiled by Mr Brown in the House of Commons is called “Building Britain’s future” although many proposals relate to England only as a result of devolution in areas such as health and education. Among pledges he told MPs investment in housing would be trebled to £2.1bn, funding 110,000 new affordable homes to rent or buy over the next two years and creating 45,000 jobs in construction. MAIN PROPOSALS : 110,000 affordable homes by 2011…”
https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Beder S. 2005
“Critique of the Global Project to Privatize and Marketize Energy : Envisioning a Renewable Public Energy System”
by Sharon Beder
Korean Labor Social Network
on Energy (KLSNE)
Seoul, South Korea, June
2005, pp. 177-185.
“Dozens of governments have embarked on the pathway to electricity deregulation and privatisation since the mid-1990s. It has become the accepted wisdom amongst governments and opinion leaders despite the consequent price rises and disasters that have followed in its wake: the series of blackouts that have been experienced from
California to Buenos Aires to Auckland; the government bailouts of electricity companies that have been necessary in California and Britain; the need for electricity rationing in Brazil; and the fact that it has become too expensive for millions of people from India to South Africa. Electricity deregulation and privatisation is referred to as ‘liberalisation’ by its advocates who use the term to disguise what is in essence a massive shift of ownership and control of electricity from public to private hands, in the name of economic efficiency
and in the cause of private profits. ‘Liberalisation’ has meant that
maintenance teams that were once fully staffed have been dramatically cut leading to frequent equipment failures. It has meant that privately owned electricity conglomerates are able to blackmail governments into bailouts and high prices with threats of blackouts. And it has meant that the planning function of electricity authorities that once ensured adequate generating reserves for times of peak demand, and kept infrastructure up to date in developed countries, have been abandoned to market forces. Because of market forces electricity prices are based, not on the cost of production, but on how desperately consumers want electricity and this has led to sky-rocketing prices whenever private companies have been able to
limit supply in times of high demand…”
https://herinst.org/sbeder/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
https://www.herinst.org/sbeder/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
https://herinst.org/sbeder/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Biofuelwatch 2007
“Agrofuels : Towards a
reality check in nine key areas”
June 2007
https://www.biofuelwatch.org.
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Chapter 1
‘Do agrofuels really mitigate climate change? : Agrofuels and Climate Change A recent report from the International Energy Agency predicts that transport fuel consumption will increase faster than the amount of fossil fuels which can be replaced by agrofuels. Another concern is that the production of agrofuels requires large inputs of fossil fuels – in fertiliser production, refineries and agricultural machinery and for transport, something which is rarely considered in calculating emissions savings. There is strong evidence that any
emission savings from reduced fossil fuel combustion are undone by far greater emissions from deforestation, peat drainage and burning, other land use change, soil carbon losses and nitrous oxide emissions. According to the Stern Review, agriculture and deforestation contribute 14% and 18% respectively of the
greenhouse gases associated with global warming. However this includes neither emissions resulting from soil degradation nor
emissions from peat oxidation or fires…’
See also :-
https://www.foodfirst.org/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
https://www.gaiafoundation.org/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
=
Bodansky D. et al. 2004
Pew Center on Climate Change
‘INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE EFFORTS BEYOND 2012: A SURVEY OF APPROACHES’
by Daniel Bodansky with contributions from Sophie Chou, Christie Jorge-Tresolini
PEW CENTER ON GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE
December 2004
https://www.pewclimate.org/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
https://www.pewclimate.org/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Boselli M., 2009
‘EDF to publish nuclear
outages per unit in 2010’
23 November 2009
‘* To publish projected data per output unit by mid-2010 * To publish unplanned outages within 30 minutes of event’
‘PARIS, Nov 23 (Reuters) – French electricity producers will start publishing projected output data per unit of production by mid-2010 and unplanned outages and restarts by end-2010, the French electricity producers’ union (UFE) said on Monday. The French energy regulator, the European Commission and traders have put increasing pressure on state-owned EDF (EDF.PA), the former power monopoly, to boost the data transparency of its 58 nuclear reactors.’
https://uk.reuters.com/article/
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
Bowden M. J. 2004
“Moore’s Law and the Technology S-Curve”
by Murrae J. Bowden
published in Current Issues
in Technology Management, Issue 1 Volume 8
Winter 2004
https://howe.stevens.edu/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Brecha R. J. 2008
‘Emission scenarios in the face of fossil-fuel peaking’
https://campus.udayton.edu/~
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
Brown W. J. et al. 1998
‘AntiPatterns: Refactoring Software, Architectures, and Projects in Crisis’
William J. Brown, Raphael C.
Malveau, Hays W. “Skip” McCormick, Thomas J.
Mowbray
20 March 1998
ISBN-10: 0471197130
ISBN-13: 978-0471197133
https://www.amazon.com/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
‘If patterns are good ideas that can be re-applied to new situations, ‘AntiPatterns: Refactoring Software, Architectures, and Projects in Crisis’ looks at what goes wrong in software development, time and time again. This entertaining and often enlightening text defines what seasoned developers have long suspected: despite advances in software engineering, most software projects still fail to meet
expectations–and about a third are cancelled altogether.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
(Accessed
31 January 2010)
Business Green 2010
“UK government launches £125m Environmental Innovation Fund’
26 January 2010
‘New government-backed clean tech investment fund to target start–ups committed to improving resource efficiency’
‘The government has today formally launched the UK Innovation Investment Fund (UKIIF), with the first closing of a new £125m fund for investing in cutting-edge environmental technologies.’
‘The UKIIF was announced last June and was followed by the appointment of Hermes Private Equity and the European Investment Fund as managers for two new funds, one focusing on low carbon technologies and the other addressing life sciences, low carbon, digital technology and advanced manufacturing.’
‘The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills announced today that it has closed the first round of funding for the Hermes Environmental Innovation Fund, raising £125m, including
£50m of government funding and £75m from private sector investors.’
‘The new fund will now begin investing in small growing businesses, startups and spinouts, including pre-profit and pre-revenue stages of development that are primarily focused on improving resource efficiency.’
https://www.businessgreen.com/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Carbon Capping and Pricing Policies 2010
A brief outline of some key proposals
MAJOR FRAMEWORKS
Contraction and Convergence
https://www.gci.org.uk/
Tradable Energy Quotas
(TEQs)
https://www.teqs.net
TEQs Forum
https://www.powerswitch.org.uk/
OTHER APPROACHES
Cap and Share
https://www.capandshare.org
(https://www.feasta.org)
Cap & Dividend
New Rules Project
https://www.newrules.org/de/
Carbon Share
https://carbonshare.org
British Columbia Carbon Tax
:
https://www.sbr.gov.bc.ca/
Sky Trust
https://www.climatedividends.
Kyoto2
https://www.kyoto2.org
(Oliver Tickell)
EcoEquity
Greenhouse Development
Rights : Tom Athanasiou and Paul Baer
https://www.ecoequity.org
Climate Solutions (extract)
:-
https://onthecommons.org/files/
CAT 2007
‘Zero Carbon Britain – an alternative energy strategy’
Centre for Alternative Technology
Chapter 14 : Nuclear
‘It has nevertheless been decided to exclude new nuclear capacity from the model, for reasons of its unique political and technological ‘brittleness’ in the face of potential instabilities in the 21st century. Nuclear power poses many uncertainties, but in this scenario, it is rejected on the perhaps less obvious basis of energy security.’
https://www.zerocarbonbritain.
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
CAT 2010
NOT YET PUBLISHED
‘Zero Carbon Britain 2’
April 2010
Provisional findings :-
https://www.zerocarbonbritain.
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Cohen D. 2007
“Earth’s natural
wealth: an audit”
by David Cohen
writing in New Scientist
magazine, Issue 2605
23 May 2007
“…Platinum is a vital component not only of catalytic converters but also of fuel cells – and supplies are running out. It has been estimated that if all the 500 million vehicles in use today were re-equipped with fuel cells, operating losses would mean that all the world’s sources of platinum would be exhausted within 15 years. Unlike with oil or diamonds, there is no synthetic alternative: platinum is a chemical element, and once we have used it all there is no way on earth of
getting any more. What price then pollution-free cities?”
“It’s not just the world’s platinum that is being used up at an alarming rate. The same goes for many other rare metals such as indium, which is being consumed in unprecedented quantities for making LCDs for flat-screen TVs, and the tantalum needed to make compact electronic devices like cellphones. How long will global reserves of
uranium last in a new nuclear age? Even reserves of such commonplace elements as zinc, copper, nickel and the phosphorus used in fertiliser will run out in the not-too-distant future. So just what proportion of these materials have we used up so far, and how much is there left to go round?”
“Perhaps surprisingly, given how much we rely on these elements, we can’t be sure. For a start, the annual global consumption of most precious metals is not known with any certainty. Estimating the extractable reserves of many metals is also difficult. For rare metals such as indium and gallium, these figures are kept a closely guarded secret by mining companies. Governments and academics are only
just starting to realise that there could be a problem looming, so studies of the issue are few and far between…”
https://www.newscientist.com/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Diagram “How Long Will It Last” :-
https://www.newscientist.com/
(Accessed 03 February
2010)
Claverton 2009a
Claverton Energy Research Group
“European Supergrid and 100% Renewable Energy”
House of Commons presentation
18 June 2009
https://www.claverton-energy.
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Claverton 2009b
Claverton Energy Research Group
“Wind Energy Variability and Intermittency in the UK : New Reports”
written by Claverton Energy
Research Group specialists
posted on the Claverton
Energy website posted by Jo Abbess
17 August 2009
https://www.claverton-energy.
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Cleveland
C. J. and Ruth M. 1996
https://www.informaworld.com/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
‘Interconnections Between the Depletion of Minerals and Fuels: The Case of Copper Production in the United States’
Cutler J. Cleveland and Matthias
Ruth, Department of Geography, Boston University
DOI:
10.1080/00908319608908775
Published in: Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery,
Utilization, and Environmental Effects, Volume 18, Issue 4 June 1996 , pages
355 – 373
Previously published as:
Energy Sources (0090-8312, 1521-0510) until January 2006
‘Abstract : Analyses of the relationship between natural resources and economic development frequently neglect the interdependency between the depletion of one resource and the depletion of other resources. Of particular interest is how energy resource extraction is affected by the depletion of nonfuel minerals due to the important role of energy in upgrading minerals to a useful state. Although this
relationship has been described in theoretical terms, there is little detailed empirical support. To quantify the relationship between the depletion of mineral and fuel resources, we develop a dynamic model that is based on physical, technological, and economic data. Our analysis quantifies the relationship between the depletion of copper in the United States and the depletion of fossil fuel and uranium energy resources stimulated by the increase in demand for refined copper that is forecast for the next 50 years. The model calculates the increase in the energy cost of extracting energy due to the depletion of copper. The results of the model indicate that this feedback is significant. The energy cost of producing a refined ton of copper
increases 23% over the 50-year simulation period due to the diminution in ore grade and diminishing returns to technical change. The increase in the energy cost for copper increases the production of fossil and uranium fuels, which diminishes their quality and increases their energy cost.’
Climate Change Act 2008
Published by United Kingdom HMSO
https://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/
(Accessed 24 January 2010)
‘It is the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure that the net UK carbon account for the year 2050 is at least 80% lower than the 1990 baseline.’
Cobb K. 2008
https://resourceinsights.
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
“The net energy cliff”
Kurt Cobb
writing in Resource Insights
web log
14 September 2008
“Charles Hall, the father of the energy return on investment (EROI) concept, once told me that our current society would probably not be able to function if the EROI for the entire society slipped below five. What does that mean? First, a quick review. It takes energy to get energy. EROI is a measurement of how efficient a process, an enterprise or a society is in obtaining energy. EROI is usually
expressed in a ratio, say, 20 to 1. That would mean that the process being studied produced 20 units of energy for every one unit expended. As it turns out, that’s about what conventional crude oil returns. Hall estimates that the United States is currently running on an EROI of just under 40 to 1. This looks like a fairly substantial margin of safety over the 5 to 1 that might lead to societal breakdown. But worrisome developments in the oil, natural gas and coal fields may send us rushing toward that figure. A post earlier this year on The Oil Drum suggests that the EROI for natural gas in North America is dropping like a stone. This is, in part, reflected in the price of natural gas which is up fourfold in this decade. It is also reflected in the number of wells and the number of total feet drilled just to maintain production. We are having to drill faster and deeper just to stay even. The recent uptick in U. S. supplies may represent a small flattening of the EROI decline, but those supplies are the product of furious drilling and huge exploration expenditures…”
Cookson C. 2010
‘Nuclear fusion may be worth the long wait’
Financial Times : Special
Report : Clean Energy
18 January 2010
https://media.ft.com/cms/
(Accessed 20 January 2010)
Crooks E. 2009
“Shell postpones Arctic drilling plan”
by Ed Crooks
7 May 2009
writing in Financial Times Energy web log
https://blogs.ft.com/energy-
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
“Royal Dutch Shell has confirmed it is not planning to drill off Alaska’s north coast this summer, in an admission that the controversy that has dogged its Arctic exploration plans has set back its ambitions for another year.”
“In a statement, Shell said it had told the US Minerals Management Service that it had withdrawn its Plan of Exploration for the Beaufort Sea for 2007-09, meaning that it will miss the short window for drilling in the area this summer.”
“The move is really only a formal acceptance of a position that was generally understood already: drilling this year was going to be too difficult. Shell insists, however, that this is a setback, not a defeat. In the Arctic, one of the last great frontiers for oil and gas exploration, it is playing the long game.”
“…As Mr van der Veer put it: “I think what is a very interesting development, not necessarily this year, but for the coming decade and after that, is the Arctic. This is the north of Canada and north of Alaska. We think there is a lot of oil and gas over there. We do think that from a safety point of view and from an environmental point of view, you can work safely there…”…”
Crooks E. 2010a
https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/
‘Nuclear power: Wonder of new technology may be a dangerous diversion’
By Ed Crooks
15 January 2010
‘Nuclear power is an industry that is perpetually in thrall to dreams of a better tomorrow. From the earliest claims that electricity would be ‘too cheap to meter’, there have always been engineers holding out the prospect of technological breakthroughs that would transform energy production. Today there are plenty of those putative advances
competing for attention, from the proposed small-scale reactors that would fit in a garden shed, to Iter, the €10bn ($14.5bn) international research project into nuclear fusion, based in France. The technologies that have the most immediate promise are ‘fourth-generation’ reactors: designs intended to offer advantages over current state-of-the-art third-generation models in terms of
fuel efficiency and waste production. James Hansen, the Nasa physicist who has become a campaigner for action on climate change, is a strong advocate of fourth-generation nuclear power. None of these new reactors is likely to be available for deployment this decade. However, one version of the technology is now being put forward for political support as a ‘timely’ answer to the question of what to do with US nuclear waste, because it can use the waste
created by today’s reactors as a source of fuel. Yet for some in the nuclear industry, the lure of the fourth-generation reactor is a distraction. They worry that a focus on technologies of the future risks diverting investment from reactors that can be deployed today…’
Crooks E. 2010b
‘Shell to look beyond tar sands’
By Ed Crooks in London
Published: January 24 2010
https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
‘Shell to shift away from tar sands as chief targets conventional fields’
By Ed Crooks in London
Published: January 25 2010
https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
Czisch G. 2010
“Scenarios for a Future Electricity Supply: Cost-Optimised Variations on Supplying Europe and Its Neighbours with Electricity from Renewable Energies”
by Gregor Czisch
NOT YET PUBLISHED
Institution of Engineering
and Technology
07 August 2010
ISBN-10: 1849191565
ISBN-13: 978-1849191562
“This book pursues the fundamental idea of using renewable energies in a rational economic way to come to a climate friendly electricity supply. An electricity network for the whole of Europe and parts of the neighbouring continents Africa and Asia is found to
be the most cost effective solution. The sources of renewable and partly decentralised electricity generation could be connected in a comprehensive power supply, to meet the electricity needs of the whole region. Gregor Czisch examines which options will lend themselves in the future, from both a technical and an economic viewpoint, to meeting European electricity requirements. He shows that extremely promising and affordable options exist in the use of renewable energy in all its diversity in a system facilitating international cooperation. In this book, Czisch examines different scenarios for a CO2-neutral electricity system under different political, technological and economic conditions for Europe and its closer surroundings. The aim was to find in each variation the economically optimal solution, whereby the supply area
embraces approximately 1.1 billion inhabitants and an electricity consumption of roughly 4000 Terawatthours per annum (TWh/a).”
Dagdeviren H. 2007
“Privatisation of electricity and water – Is it still worthwhile?”
Hulya Dagdeviren
Conference on POVERTY AND
CAPITAL
2 – 4 July 2007
Global Poverty Research
Group and Brooks World Poverty Institute Conference
held at Hulme Hall, University of Manchester
”Finally, the mania for privatisation has meant that large scale projects such as hydropower had to be abandoned in favour of new the technologies employed by IPPs, such as Combined Cycle
Turbines. Cheaper and cleaner generation with hydro plants are
unattractive for private investors because recovering investment costs takes much longer and financing investments is more difficult.’
https://www.sed.manchester.ac.
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Davey B. 2009
‘After Copenhagen’
by Brian Davey
21 December 2009
‘Copenhagen was supposed to be the last chance for humanity on an assumption that emissions in the future would continue to grow as they have in the past. But what if the future is one of contraction and disorganisation anyway?’
‘In the lead up to Copenhagen it was repeatedly said that this was ‘the last chance to save the climate’. This idea was constructed on an assumption about ‘business as usual’. If emissions continue to grow on current trends then, with little time left to put on the brakes and decarbonise the global economy at a sufficient rate, the task appears to be totally unfeasible.’
‘With many scientists credibly arguing that we are already over the safe limit for greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere this may be true. There is now a good case that we need to go beyond decarbonising in the economy to actually finding technologies and processes to take CO2 that is already in the atmosphere out again.’
‘So is the situation now quite hopeless? Perhaps so… but perhaps not. A reason for being at least a little bit hopeful is the questionable assumption of what ‘business as usual’ will be like. The common assumption is that the global economy will continue to grow as it has done over the last few decades. But is this assumption true in the light of peak oil and peak gas?’
‘In the last year global emissions did not grow. As the economy slid into a recession emissions fell with them. One way of constructing the events of the last year are that rising energy prices played a major role in undermining many peoples ability to service their debts. A reckless financial system was undermined. Of course there was more to the financial crisis and the recession than merely a rise in energy and food prices but that was surely an important part of the crisis.’
https://www.opendemocracy.net/
(Accessed 20 January 2010)
DECC 2009
United Kingdom Government Department of Energy and Climate Change
‘The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan’
https://www.decc.gov.uk/en/
(Accessed 16 July 2009)
https://www.decc.gov.uk/Media/
(Accessed 16 July 2009)
https://www.decc.gov.uk/en/
‘Press Release – UK at
forefront of a low carbon economic revolution’
15 July 2009
(Accessed 16 July 2009)
Doppelt B. 2000
‘Overcoming the Seven Sustainability Blunders’
by Bob Doppelt
from The Systems Thinker,
Vol. 14, No. 5
“In response to growing environmental and social equity problems, hundreds of private and public ‘sustainable development’ initiatives have blossomed across the globe since the mid-1980s. Despite the increased activity, most experts would agree that progress toward sustainability has been, at best, modest. But why have so few
organizations successfully adopted effective sustainability measures? And when companies do launch such efforts, why do so many plateau after a short time, fall short of making the jump from rhetoric to action, or even fail? To learn the answers to these questions, I spent three years researching how more than
25 public and private organizations have approached the issue of sustainability (for details about this study, see my forthcoming book Leading Change Toward Sustainability: A Change Management Guide for Business, Government, and Civil Society, Greenleaf Publications, UK)…”
https://www.pegasuscom.com/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
EAC 2005
UK House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee
‘Keeping the Lights On : Nuclear, Renewables and Climate Change’
’71. A key argument put forward by the nuclear industry is that a new generation of nuclear power stations is vital in order to address the potential shortfall in generating capacity resulting from the decommissioning of old coal and nuclear plant. As we have set out above, some 20GW of new electricity generating capacity will be
required by the end of 2015, and possibly as much again required by 2025.’
’72. All the evidence the Committee received indicated that a new series of nuclear power stations could not be built in time to address the need for new capacity by 2016 or even earlier. Those arguing against nuclear power tended to provide more pessimistic
assessments such as the timescale for nuclear new build which Tom Burke set out in his evidence to us:’
‘Government decision in 2008;
2 years to draw up detailed
design specification (to 2010);
2 years for the Nuclear
Installations Inspectorate to approve the design (2012);
3 years for a public inquiry
resulting in construction start in 2015;
5 years construction (to
2020);
1 year operational testing
(to 2021);
commencement of commercial
generating (2021).[100]’
https://www.publications.
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
https://www.publications.
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
EIA 2009a
United States Energy Information Administration
‘Annual Energy Outlook 2009 : With Projections to 2030’
https://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
EIA 2009b
United States Energy Information Administration
International Energy Outlook 2009
Release Date: May 27, 2009
Chapter 8 – Energy-Related
Carbon Dioxide Emissions
‘Economic growth is the most significant factor underlying the projections for growth in energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the mid-term, as the world continues to rely on fossil fuels for most of its energy use. Accordingly, projections of world carbon dioxide emissions are lower in the IEO2009 low economic growth case and
higher in the high economic growth case.’
https://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
Eilperin J. 2009
“G20 Leaders Agree to Phase Out Fossil Fuel Subsidies”
by Juliet Eilperin
writing in The Washington
Post online
25 September 2009
https://www.washingtonpost.com/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Esparza P. 2009
“Dark truth about Latin American energy”
20 November 2009
by Pablo Esparza
writing in BBC Mundo online
https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
“Several Latin American countries have recently been hit by major power shortages, raising concerns that the region is facing a serious energy crisis. In some countries, like Venezuela and Ecuador, blackouts have become increasingly regular. But there have also been other less frequent outages as far afield as Cuba and Brazil.
Earlier this month tens of millions of people in Brazil and Paraguay had dinners by candlelight due to a massive blackout in both countries. The authorities in Brazil said the problem was caused by a severe storm which hit transmission lines that take power from the hydroelectric Itaipu dam on the border with Paraguay. But if that was a one-off electricity cut, in neighbouring Venezuela, most provinces have had power shortages nearly every day in the last few weeks. In Ecuador, President Rafael Correa was forced to introduce emergency measures earlier this month to deal with an energy crisis there. Cuba too is facing similar troubles. Reports say the authorities are
planning “extreme” measures which are said to include the closure of
some factories to save fuel. Experts are now asking how is this possible in a region with such an abundance of natural resources? Some governments have blamed the energy crisis on global warming. Countries like Venezuela and Ecuador are experiencing their worst droughts in 40 years. A drought in Ecuador has led to big reductions in water at the Paute dam. This has led to a huge
reduction in water levels at hydro-electric plants which supply electricity. The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, says the drought is being caused by the climatic effect of the El Nino weather phenomenon. Venezuela has seen a 40% increase in demand for energy in the last 10 years, and President Chavez says this too is contributing to the problem. He also thinks Venezuelans are wasting
energy and especially water which is in short supply…”
Estrin S. et al. 1990
https://www.informaworld.com/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
‘Conflicting aims in electricity privatization’
Authors: Saul Estrin; Alan Marin; Michael J. P. Selby
‘Abstract : Electricity
supply in the UK provides an example of the conflicts governments face in privatizations, between raising maximum revenue and ensuring satisfactory industrial structure and behaviour. The discussion involves modern share valuation theory as well as the particular problem of the nuclear sector.’
Energy Enviro Finland 2009
“EU to speed up transition to eco-efficient economy”
21 October 2009
“The EU environment ministers are in agreement about speeding up the transition to an eco-efficient economy for increased welfare and reduced environmental impact.”
https://www.energy-enviro.fi/
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
EP 2008a
European Parliament
“EU Emission Trading
Scheme: use permit revenues to fund climate change protection, says Environment Committee”
07 October 2008
“Voting Tuesday on the revision of the EU’s Emission Trading System, the Environment Committee backed Commission plans to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from most industrial sectors by 21% from 2005 levels by 2020 and phase out free emission permits, leading to full auctioning, with an exception for energy-intensive sectors. MEPs want permit auction revenues to be used for climate change protection measures.”
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
EP 2008b
European Parliament
“Air pollution, greenhouse gas emission: allowance trading system of the Community (amend.
Directive 2003/87/EC)”
Reference : COD/2008/0013
“Clean technologies: up to 300 million emission allowances will be set aside for the financing of clean technologies (estimated value EUR 6 to 9bn). They will contribute to the funding of up to 12 demonstration projects in carbon capture and storage and
also innovative renewable energy projects.”
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
EU Package 2008
Final versions of some documents : 5 July 2009
Legislative Package includes
:-
Directive 2009/28/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources
Directive 2009/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2003/87/EC so as to improve and extend the greenhouse gas emission allowance trading scheme of the
Community Decision No 406/2009/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the effort of Member States to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to meet the Community’s greenhouse gas
emission reduction commitments up to 2020 Regulation (EC) No 443/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council setting emission performance standards for new passenger cars as part of the Community’s integrated approach to reduce CO2 emissions from light-duty vehicles (5 June 2009)
Directive 2009/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the geological storage of carbon dioxide
Directive 2009/30/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 98/70/EC as regards the specification of petrol, diesel and gas-oil and introducing a mechanism to monitor and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and amending Council Directive
1999/32/EC as regards the specification of fuel used by inland waterway vessels and repealing Directive 93/12/EEC
https://ec.europa.eu/
[Accessed 24 January 2010]
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/
[Accessed 24 January 2010]
https://www.euractiv.com/en/
‘Energy and climate change: Towards an integrated EU policy’
Published: Tuesday 23 January 2007
Updated: Monday 6 July 2009
See ‘Links’
(Accessed 24 January 2010)
EU 2009
European Union
“Emissions trading: public consultation on future EU ETS auctioning rules launched”
04 June 2009
“From 2013 at least half of the allowances under the EU ETS will be auctioned instead of being allocated to businesses free of charge. A smooth introduction of auctioning is therefore of crucial importance for the continued efficient functioning of the EU ETS and for protecting confidence in the market for emission allowances.”
“The consultation covers all aspects of auctioning that may be relevant for the future Regulation. It seeks views notably on the timing, size and frequency of auctions, auction design and regulatory aspects relating to issues such as pre-registration of participants, collateral, payment and delivery, information disclosure and monitoring. It also addresses the question of the number of auction processes that could be used and the appropriate degree of coordination between Member States.”
https://europa.eu/rapid/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
EurActiv 2009
“EU mulls €7 billion subsidy for carbon capture”
30 June 2009
“The European Commission yesterday (29 June) estimated that up to €7 billion could be made available to fund carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology from the EU’s emissions trading scheme (EU ETS). Meanwhile, renewables projects would get around €5 billion…”
https://www.euractiv.com/en/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
FairPensions 2010
‘FairPensions joins with investors and NGOs to take action on the ‘dirtiest possible’ fuel’
‘FairPensions, working with a coalition of investors and NGOs, has succeeded in co-ordinating a shareholder resolution to be discussed at Shell’s 2010 Shareholder meeting (Royal Dutch Shell plc AGM, May 18th).’
https://www.fairpensions.org.
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
Fleming D. 2007
‘The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy’
https://www.
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
https://www.
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
Fleming D. 2008
Posted on The Oil Drum web log :-
‘New Nuclear Reactors For The UK: Is This Really A Good Idea?’
by David Fleming
posted by Chris Vernon on 04 January 2008
https://europe.theoildrum.com/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
Foley S. 2004
‘Rebel investors attack
British Energy rescue’
By Stephen Foley
26 July 2004
‘Rebel investors have launched a campaign to scrap the proposed £5bn rescue deal at British Energy, the nuclear power generator, which would leave shareholders owning just 2.5 per cent of the company. Rebel investors have launched a campaign to scrap the
proposed £5bn rescue deal at British Energy, the nuclear power generator, which would leave shareholders owning just 2.5 per cent of the company…!
https://www.independent.co.uk/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Four Degrees and Beyond 2009
International Climate Conference
28 – 30 September 2009
Hosted by the Environmental Change Institute, Oxford
Presentation Slides and Audio Recordings
https://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/
(Accessed 24 January 2010)
https://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/
‘Regional climate changes at 4+°C’
Presentation from Dr Richard Betts
(Accessed 24 January 2010)
Galbraith K. 2009
“Electric Cars and a Smarter Grid”
by Kate Galbraith
writing in Energy &
Environment, New York Times
17 February 2009
“Electric cars and a smart electric grid have a bright future, according to panellists at a roundtable discussion on the subject that I attended last Friday in Boston. ‘I would say that electricity is a vastly superior fuel for the light vehicle fleet,’ said Willett Kempton, a professor and alternative energy specialist at the University of Delaware. And in a true smart grid, electric cars will not only be able to draw on electricity to run their motors, they will also be able to do the reverse: send electricity stored in their batteries back into the grid when it is needed. In effect, cars would be acting like tiny power stations. ‘Most days, most cars are going to have lots of extra battery capacity,’ said Mr. Kempton, noting that on average, American automobiles get
driven for just one hour each day. Electrifying the entire vehicle fleet would provide more than three times the U.S.’s power generation, he said. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates interstate transmission of electricity, is on board with the idea.’Vehicle-to-grid is, I believe, the salvation of the automotive industry in the United States,’ declared Marc Spitzer, an agency commissioner who was also on the panel…”
https://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Gjelten T. 2009
Pentagon, CIA Eye New Threat: Climate Change
14 December 2009
Tom Gjleten writing in the NPR, National Public Radio online
https://www.npr.org/templates/
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
Global Wind Energy
Council n.d.
‘Spain : Total Installed Capacity’
https://www.gwec.net/index.php?
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Goodall C. 2009
“The wider lessons from nuclear power cost inflation”
by Chris Goodall
writing for CarbonCommentary online
22 October 2009
“The Guardian newspaper of Monday 19 October broke the story that the UK government is preparing to guarantee a minimum price for carbon dioxide emissions to encourage the development of nuclear power stations. Putting a high cost on greenhouse gas emissions from power stations will force up the wholesale price of electricity,
ensuring a better financial return for nuclear power stations (and for
renewables such as wind). The decision to create a floor price for carbon demonstrates that the full costs of nuclear technology are probably well above today’s wholesale electricity prices. We may well need nuclear power but we are going to pay heavily for it. The government’s optimistic noises from 2006 to the middle of this year about the commercial viability of nuclear power have turned out to be wrong.”
“More generally, this note argues that the failure to incentivise nuclear construction in the current liberalised electricity regime may oblige the UK to introduce high guaranteed ‘feed-in’ payments for all low-carbon generators, including the very largest power stations. Guaranteed tariffs may be a more effective instrument for incentivising low carbon generation than the carbon dioxide price.”
https://www.carboncommentary.
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Great British Refurb 2009
https://www.greatbritishrefurb.
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
“Retrofit rethink: Kevin talks to Inside Housing magazine”
03 November 2009
“Kevin McCloud was interviewed by Inside Housing Magazine about the Great British Refurb campaign last week.”
“Q: Tell us about your Great British Refurb campaign…”
“A: The campaign is partly about grant aid, partly about tax and partly about getting the skills and accredited workers. We’re aiming to get half a million homes refurbished to green standards by 2020, so we’re there for the long haul. Clearly, getting informed policy into government white papers is a key part of the campaign. Whether or not you actually get there by a certain date is less important than
having a target to form an objective for industry, as well as raising public awareness.”
“Q: Do you think there is much public awareness of the need to retrofit?”
“A: I think it is on people’s radar – partly because of the lack of energy security, partly because of the high cost of maintaining and running homes that are leaking energy. Fossil fuel allowed people to be profligate. If you have to grow your own fuel – and we grow fuel for our wood burners – then you have to chop it down first, then you
have to chop it up. Between the hedgerow and the fire there about four wheelbarrow journeys. It really teaches how valuable the energy that goes into the fuel is!”
Green Fiscal Commission n.d.
“The focus of the Commission’s work has been greening the UK tax system – that is moving taxes from ‘goods’ like labour, to ‘bads’ like environmental damage. The key to a green tax shift is that it is revenue neutral – tax cuts on ‘goods’ must be balanced by equivalent tax increases on ‘bads’.”
“The Commission does not have a view on what level of overall taxation is appropriate but considers that a significant shift from taxing ‘goods’ to ‘bads’ could make a important contribution to the cost-effective resolution of environmental problems.”
https://www.
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Green R. 2009
https://www.economics.bham.ac.
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Richard Green
‘Climate-change mitigation from renewable energy: its contribution and cost’
writing in the book
“The Economics and Politics of Climate Change”
edited by Dieter Helm and Cameron Hepburn
Oxford University Press
ISBN 978-0-19957-328-8
Figure 14.1 Table 14.3
Greenpeace 2008
‘False Hope : Why carbon capture and storage won’t save the climate’
https://www.greenpeace.org/raw/
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
Greenpeace 2009
‘Shifting Sands: How a changing economy could bury the tar sands industry’
Publication Date: 27 Jul 2009
https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
Head I. M. 2003
‘Biological activity in the deep subsurface and the origin of heavy oil’
Ian M. Head, D. Martin Jones & Steve R. Larter
NRG petroleum group, School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
https://www.permedia.ca/pdf/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
‘At temperatures up to about 80 °C, petroleum in subsurface reservoirs is often biologically degraded, over geological timescales, by microorganisms that destroy hydrocarbons and other components to produce altered, denser ‘heavy oils’. This temperature threshold for hydrocarbon biodegradation might represent the maximum temperature boundary for life in the deep nutrient-depleted Earth. Most of the world’s oil was biodegraded under anaerobic conditions, with methane, a valuable commodity, often being a major by-product, which suggests alternative approaches to recovering the world’s vast heavy oil resource that otherwise will remain largely unproduced.’
‘The deep biosphere’s origin and survival is intimately linked to the large scale tectonic processes that form, deform and destroy sedimentary basins. Observations of petroleum systems shed light on several key processes in deep biosphere evolution. Plate tectonics form and destroy sedimentary basins, accumulating organic carbon and converting it into mobile petroleum, which may migrate hundreds of kilometres before being consumed by microorganisms in transit or following accumulation in reservoirs. Mineral diagenesis and water flow in deep sediments control key nutrient supply to the petroleum biosphere, with low nutrient levels in petroleum reservoirs resulting in low metabolic rates and lower maximum temperatures for the survival of life. It appears from the distribution of biodegraded oils that temperatures near 80 °C represent the base of heterotrophic life in the crust, and this temperature may well be the base, in
oligotrophic sediments, of all life in Earth. Uplifted reservoirs heated above 80–90 °C generally do not have biodegraded oils, indicating that they are effectively isolated from the surface over geological timescales, and thus the deep biosphere must be populated through burial processes, its organisms being inherited from the surface and sustained over geological timescales.’
Heinberg R. 2007
‘Peak coal: sooner than you think’
https://www.onlineopinion.com.
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
Heinberg R. 2009
‘Blackout : Coal, Climate and the Last Energy Crisis’
Publisher: New Society
Publishers (July 1, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0865716560
ISBN-13: 978-0865716568
p. 21
‘On one hand, as more coal is discovered, as the price goes up, or as new mining machines are developed, coal reserves expand. On the other hand, as we extract and use enormous amounts of coal each year, we draw down those reserves. One might expect that overall
reserve figures would change fairly slowly and in a predictable fashion. In fact, as we will see, reserves figures for several nations have collapsed in recent years; and over the past few decades, centuries’ worth of coal has disappeared from global reserves…’
Helm D. 2009
‘Nuclear Power, Climate Change, and Energy Policy’
by Dieter Helm
writing in the book
“The Economics and Politics of Climate Change”
edited by Dieter Helm and Cameron Hepburn
Oxford University Press
ISBN 978-0-19957-328-8
Dieter Helm argues for a variety of public subsidy, including fixed price contracts and disaster insurance, used to underwrite new Nuclear Power.
Herring H. 1998
‘Does Energy Efficiency Save Energy: The Implications of accepting the Khazzoom-Brookes Postulate’
by Horace Herring, EERU, the Open University
Draft 3. April 1998
https://technology.open.ac.uk/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
‘See also : Jevons paradox,
Energy conservation, Rebound effect (conservation)’
Hirsch R. L. et al. 2005
‘Peaking Of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management’
https://www.oilcrisis.com/us/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
https://www.mnforsustain.org/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
Hirsch R. L. 2007
‘Peaking of World Oil Production: Recent Forecasts’
Robert L. Hirsch
DOE/NETL2007/1263
05 February 2007
Table II
‘Important Recent Peak Oil
Forecasts Ranging to 2012 (5 years)’
https://www.fraw.org.uk/
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
Hopkins K. 2010
‘World Economic Forum warns of further economic crises ahead : Government debt levels and slowdown in China are highlighted as major threats by WEF’
Kathryn Hopkins
Writing in The Guardian online
14 January 2010
https://www.guardian.co.uk/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Hoyos C. 2008
“Running on empty? Fears over oil supply move into the mainstream”
By Carola Hoyos
writing in the Financial Times
19 May 2008
“For years…Most of the world’s oil executives, government ministers, analysts and consultants reject the “peak oil” theory – the notion based on the 1950s work of Marion King Hubbert, a Shell geologist, that crude production will soon enter terminal decline. They say it understates remaining reserves, plays down the contribution of technological advances and ignores the role of market forces in
shaping future supply.”
“But with the oil price at a record $126 a barrel, more than 1,000 per cent higher than a decade ago, fears of the end of the hydrocarbon age have seeped into the mainstream. Many in the industry itself now accept that supply constraints are shaping the price as much as rampant demand. Calls for greater investment to ease these
constraints formed the crux of many of the discussions at last month’s meeting in Rome between energy ministers of the world’s main oil producers and consumers. A few weeks later, analysts at Goldman Sachs and elsewhere, as well as ministers of the Opec oil cartel, predicted that prices could reach $200 within two years.”
“So are the peak oilists right? A series of recent events certainly appears to lend credence to those who argue that the world’s ageing oilfields are being sucked dry amid China’s and India’s determination to lift themselves out of poverty and the west’s reluctance to give up the luxuries of modern oil-dependent life.”
“The fact that Russia’s oil production declined almost half a percentage point in April, the first drop in a decade, was shocking enough news from the world’s second biggest oil producer, whose output was growing at a rate of 12 per cent just five years ago. But Russian oil executives have gone a step further: Leonid Fedun,
vice-president of Lukoil, told the Financial Times the country’s production may have already reached its peak.”
“Just days later Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil producer and by far the largest exporter, confirmed it had put on hold plans to increase the kingdom’s production capacity. Ali Naimi, Saudi energy minister, said the demand forecasts he was reading did not warrant an expansion past the 12.5m b/d capacity Saudi Arabia’s fields
will reach next year, following a laborious investment of more than $20bn (£10.3bn, €12.9bn). King Abdullah, the country’s ruler, put it more bluntly: “I keep no secret from you that, when there were some new finds, I told them, ‘No, leave it in the ground, with grace from God, our children need it’…”
https://us.ft.com/ftgateway/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Hoyos C. and McNulty S. 2008
‘Arctic holds 90bn barrels of oil and gas equal to Russia’s reserves’
24 July 2008
‘The Arctic holds as many as 90bn barrels of undiscovered oil and has as much undiscovered gas as all the reserves known to exist in Russia, US government scientists have said in the first state assessment of the region.’
https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/
(Accessed 27 January 2010
subscription behind paywall)
Comment on Financial Times piece :-
https://www.odac-info.org/node/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
United States Geological Survey (USGS) outline opinion :-
https://energy.usgs.gov/arctic/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Press Release from USGS :-
https://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/
’90 Billion Barrels of Oil and 1,670 Trillion Cubic Feet of Natural Gas Assessed in the Arctic’
23 July 2008
Campaign website referencing Financial Times material :-
https://royaldutchshellplc.com/
European Union view on exploiting the Arctic :-
https://www.odac-info.org/node/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Howden D. 2007
‘World oil supplies are set to run out faster than expected, warn scientists : Scientists challenge major review of global reserves and warn that supplies will start to run out in four years’ time’
By Daniel Howden
writing in The Independent newspaper online
14 June 2007
‘Scientists have criticised a major review of the world’s remaining oil reserves, warning that the end of oil is coming sooner than governments and oil companies are prepared to admit. BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy, published yesterday, appears to show that the world still has enough “proven” reserves to provide 40 years of consumption at current rates. The assessment, based on officially reported figures, has once again pushed back the estimate of when the world will run dry. However, scientists led by the London-based Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, say that global production of oil is set to peak in the next four years before
entering a steepening decline which will have massive consequences for the world economy and the way that we live our lives…’
https://www.independent.co.uk/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
IAEA 2008
Annual Review 2008
The Year in Review
‘Uranium Supply Issues’
‘The 22nd edition of the OECD/NEA–IAEA’s “Uranium 2007: Resources, Production and Demand” (the ‘Red Book’), published in 2008, reported an increase in uranium resources, reflecting recent growth in exploration activities worldwide. The report noted that resources would last 83 years at the current rate of consumption. This compares favourably to reserves to production ratios of 30 – 50 years for other commodities (e.g. copper, zinc, oil and natural gas). However, demand is projected to grow, and resources in the ground need to be mined. Existing, committed, planned and prospective uranium production facilities could satisfy requirements in the Agency’s high projection until about 2025. For the longer term, preliminary results show sufficient uranium resources in the ground.
However their accessibility will depend on a range of financial considerations and public acceptance of nuclear power.’
https://www.iaea.org/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
https://www.iaea.org/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
IEA 2003
International Energy Agency
Press Release
04 November 2003
‘World Energy Investment Outlook Sees Need for $16,000 billion of Energy Investment through 2030, Highlights Major Challenges in Mobilising Capital’
’04 November 2003 Paris — “If present trends continue, the world will need to invest $16 trillion over the next three decades to maintain and expand energy supply,” Claude Mandil, Executive Director of the Paris-based International Energy Agency, said today. This number, much larger in real terms than the comparable figure for the past thirty years, is equivalent to 1% of annual global GDP over the period. “Without new policy actions, world energy demand will rise by two-thirds between now and 2030, and the world economy will falter if these energy supplies are not made available.” Mr. Mandil made his remarks in introducing the World Energy Investment Outlook (WEIO), a major new IEA study, at the Oil and Money Conference in London…’
https://www.iea.org/press/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
IEA 2008a
International Energy Agency
World Energy Outlook 2008 –
Presentation to the Press
12 November 2008
https://www.iea.org/speech/
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
page 1
“…supply-crunch…”
page 12 “…The era of
cheap oil is over…”
IEA 2008b
International Energy Agency Fact Sheet
‘ENERGY TECHNOLOGY PERSPECTIVES 2008: FACT SHEET – THE BLUE SCENARIO : A sustainable energy future is possible – How can we achieve it?’
‘Total additional investment needs for the period 2010-2050, on top of the investments in the Business-as-usual scenario, amount to USD 45 trillion. Total learning investments (investment needed to get to a mature technology) for the next 20 years alone are USD 1.75 trillion, and another 5.25 trillion between 2030 and 2050. A massive increase of energy technology Research, Development and Demonstration (RD&D) is needed in the coming 15 years, in the order of USD
10-100 billion per year. These financing needs may be affordable, but important burden sharing issues exist.’
https://www.iea.org/techno/etp/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
IEA 2008c
International Energy Agency
Energy Technology
Perspectives 2008
presentation at Tokyo launch
https://www.iea.org/techno/etp/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
https://www.iea.org/techno/etp/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Green Facts report :-
https://www.greenfacts.org/en/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
https://www.greenfacts.org/en/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
IEA 2009a
International Energy Agency
World Energy Outlook 2009
Executive Summary
“Fossil fuels remain the dominant sources of primary energy worldwide in the Reference Scenario, accounting for more than three-quarters of the overall increase in energy use between 2007 and 2030.”
https://www.worldenergyoutlook.
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
=
IEA 2009b
International Energy Agency
World Energy Outlook 2009
Excerpt
https://www.worldenergyoutlook.
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
=
Index Mundi 2009
‘Spain Electricity – consumption’
https://www.indexmundi.com/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Interface n.d.
Global EcoMetrics
“Interface began its journey to sustainability by focusing on the elimination of waste. At Interface, we define waste as anything that does not provide value to the customer. This includes traditional forms of waste such as off-quality and scrap, as well as nontraditional forms of waste such as overuse of materials,
inventory losses, etc.”
Energy Use
Total energy used at carpet manufacturing facilities (per unit of product) is down 44% since 1996.
NOTE : Recent Energy use has levelled out.
https://www.interfaceglobal.
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
IOEC 2007
https://www.ioec.com/news.aspx?
Temperatures 30,000 feet below the ocean floor can reach 400 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to turn oil into natural gas.
IPCC 2005
‘IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage’
Edited by Bert Metz,
Ogunlade Davidson, Heleen de Coninck, Manuela Loos, Leo Meyer
Prepared by Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
‘4. The net reduction of emissions to the atmosphere through CCS depends on the fraction of CO2 captured, the increased CO2 production resulting from loss in overall efficiency of power plants or industrial processes due to the additional energy required for capture, transport and storage, any leakage from transport and the fraction of CO2 retained in storage over the long term. Available technology captures about 85–95% of the CO2 processed in a capture
plant. A power plant equipped with a CCS system (with access to geological or ocean storage) would need roughly 10–40% [4] more energy than a plant of equivalent output without CCS, of which most is for capture and compression.’
‘[4] The range reflects three types of power plants: for Natural Gas Combined Cycle plants, the range is 11–22%, for Pulverized Coal plants, 24–40% and for Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle plants, 14–25%.’
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
IPCC 2007
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Fourth Assessment Report
Working Group III
Mitigation of Climate Change
Chapter 4 : Energy Supply
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/
(Accessed 25 June 2009)
=
Jacobson M. Z. and Delucchi M. A. 2009
“A Path to Sustainable Energy by 2030”
Scientific American
November 2009
“Wind, water and solar technologies can provide 100 percent of the world’s energy, eliminating all fossil fuels. HERE’S HOW”
by Mark Z. Jacobson
and Mark A. Delucchi
https://www.stanford.edu/group/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
https://www.stanford.edu/group/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Jakobsson K. et al., 2009
Published in Energy Policy
Volume 37, Issue 11,
November 2009, Pages 4809-4818
“How reasonable are oil production scenarios from public agencies?”
Energy Policy, Volume 37,
Issue 11, November 2009, Pages 4809 – 4818
https://www.tsl.uu.se/uhdsg/
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
“It thus appears likely that crude oil production will start to decline before 2030. An imminent peak in production cannot be ruled out.”
https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
Jowit J. and Wintour P. 2008
‘Cost of tackling global climate change has doubled, warns Stern’
‘· Author of landmark report says 2% of GDP is needed : · Inaction would mean far greater economic damage’
Juliette Jowit and Patrick Wintour
writing in The Guardian newspaper online
26 June 2008
https://www.guardian.co.uk/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
‘The author of an influential British government report arguing the world needed to spend just 1% of its wealth tackling climate change has warned that the cost of averting disaster has now doubled. Lord Stern of Brentford made headlines in 2006 with a report that said countries needed to spend 1% of their GDP to stop greenhouse
gases rising to dangerous levels. Failure to do this would lead to damage costing much more, the report warned – at least 5% and perhaps more than 20% of global GDP. But speaking yesterday in London, Stern said evidence that climate change was happening faster than had been previously thought meant that emissions needed to be reduced even more sharply. This meant the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would have to be kept below 500 parts per million, said Stern. In 2006, he set a figure of 450-550ppm. “I now think the appropriate thing would be in the middle of that range,” he said. “To get below 500ppm … would cost around 2% of GDP.”…’
Justin 2009
“EDF and nuclear subsidies: how times change”
by Justin
writing on the Greenpeace
“Nuclear Reaction” weblog “Blogging the meltdown of the nuclear
industry”
01 June 2009
https://weblog.greenpeace.org/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Lozanova S. 2008
“Peak Coal as Early as 2025”
by Sarah Lozanova
writing on CleanTechnica website
24 April 2008
“…The European Commission’s Institute for Energy in 2000 estimated global supplies of coal to last 277 years. In 2007, that number was lowered to 155 years. This forecast may sound like plenty of time to adjust to meeting our energy needs in from
other sources, but how accurate are these numbers really? The National Academy of Sciences Report on Coal, from June 2007 isn’t very encouraging. A 2007 report issued by Energy Watch anticipates global coal reserves to peak as soon as 2025. Policy-makers have been using forecasts issued by the International Energy Agency, which relies on official reserves figures. It is certainly hard
to create effective policy when reserve estimates vary so widely…
https://cleantechnica.com/2008/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Kavalov B. and Peteves S. D. 2007
‘The Future of Coal’
Institute for Energy (IFE),
prepared for European Commission Joint Research Centre
https://ie.jrc.ec.europa.eu/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
Komanoff C. 2009
“Bipartisan Senate Bill Could Breathe Fresh Air into Climate Debate”
by Charles Komanoff
writing on Carbon Tax Center website
12 November 2009
“CTC’s Carbon Tax Impact Model suggests that the economic incentives from this price trajectory will only lead to a 7.5% drop in U.S. CO2 emissions from 2005 levels in 2020. (And 2020 emissions would actually be 1.5% greater than the likely depressed 2009 figure). Reportedly, Cantwell’s staff believe that the clean-energy investment provisions in the bill will make up the to for the 20% goal, suggesting that they view the permit mechanism more as a funding source than an inducement to cut carbon directly.”
https://www.carbontax.org/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Kosonen and Nicodeme 2009
‘The Role of Fiscal Instruments in Environmental Policy’
Katri Kosonen and Gaetan Nicodeme
https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/
https://ideas.repec.org/r/ces/
Kurzweil R. 2001
‘The Law of Accelerating Returns’
by Raymond Kurzweil
07 March 2001
‘An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense “intuitive linear” view. So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century — it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate). The “returns,” such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There’s even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity — technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light.’
https://www.kurzweilai.net/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
https://www.newscientist.com/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
https://www.newscientist.com/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Langston R. 2010
“FSA issues insurance guidelines for climate change”
by Rob Langston
writing for FTAdviser online
21 January 2010
“The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has issued new insurance guidelines on the effect of climate change, as it anticipates higher and more frequent building and contents claims. The regulator said changing weather patterns could cause a surge in claims prompting it to issue new guidance for general insurers. It said the aim was to ensure consumers received clear and accurate information about what is covered and any significant exclusions. A spokesperson for the regulator said: “Climate change poses risks to all businesses through physical damage to assets, long-term damage to growth prospects and short-term business disruption. “For the insurance industry, the challenges are even greater as changes in climate could also result in higher and more frequent claims through flooding, windstorms or forest fires.””
https://www.ftadviser.com/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Laumer J. 2008
“Time To Ditch Those Sub-Prime Carbon Assets”
by John Laumer, Philadelphia
writing on TreeHugger online
15 February 2008
“Nobel laureate Al Gore advised Wall Street leaders and institutional investors Thursday to ditch their “subprime carbon assets” – businesses too reliant on carbon-intensive energy – or prepare for huge losses down the road.”
https://www.treehugger.com/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Lawson J. 2006
“Chain reaction: the UK nuclear industry”
by Jane Lawson
July/August 2006
Ethical Consumer Issue 101
But in summer 2005, starting with a pro-nuclear article in the Independent by James Lovelock, a steady stream of articles started
appearing suggesting that the nuclear industry, with its ‘clean’ energy, was an essential part of the fight against climate change.
Since then it has become apparent that, in spite of two government-commissioned reports rejecting it on practical, economic and environmental grounds, nuclear has high level government backing as an energy source. It is now widely expected that new nuclear power stations will be recommended as a part of the UK’s future energy strategy when the government publishes its Energy Review this summer.
But nuclear power will only be viable if the government provides subsidies and changes the current regulatory framework.
Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that BNFL wants to fast-track the planning process by pre-licensing reactors before sites are selected, and restrict the scope of local planning enquiries so that issues such as security, safety and
environmental impact are discussed behind closed doors.[1]
And for new nuclear reactors to be profitable, the companies need a guaranteed price for their electricity and/or the introduction of a Nuclear Obligation, which would oblige all electricity companies to sell a certain amount of nuclear-generated electricity.
They are also looking for assurances that they will not be left with a huge bill for disposing of their own nuclear waste. Unsurprisingly, the government’s current subsidy is already helping to fund a well-thought out PR strategy to give the nuclear industry what it wants.
https://www.ethicalconsumer.
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Lea R. 2009
“The hidden carbon cost of nuclear”
by Robert Lea
writing in The Evening Standard
16 November 2009
‘…De Rivaz this week made it plain what EDF’s nuclear plans mean for the nation: not only national energy security but thousands of jobs and scores of contracts for British companies. But there is now a caveat. In a studied aside, de Rivaz added: ‘There is a large consensus that recognises the importance of a strong carbon price…a strong carbon market will facilitate decarbonisation by discouraging investment in carbon polluting plant and therefore promoting investment in low carbon technology.’ What de Rivaz is talking about is the tradeable market in carbon emissions. Companies receive allowances for the carbon dioxide they emit. In
the generating industry those like nuclear that emit negligible carbon can sell their allowance (a permit or a credit) to those polluting companies that need to buy them like say dirty coal-fired generators which exceed their allowance. The money a nuclear generator will make in the future from selling carbon permits effectively underwrites the present cost of building the reactor. The
problem is that the price of carbon has halved during the recession: weakened economies are producing less carbon and the demand for carbon credits is being outstripped by the supply. What de Rivaz is demanding is a floor to the carbon price, a threshold under which it must not fall. The threat is implicit: whether it is agreed at the upcoming climate change summit in Copenhagen or unilaterally by a British government, unless EDF gets guaranteed carbon prices
it can not possibly commit to build reactors in Britain. This is nothing so tawdry as an EDF demand for a taxpayer subsidy. But a demand for a carbon price floor is a backdoor tax on the consumer. Guaranteed carbon prices mean the cost of producing electricity at gas-powered and coal-fired power stations goes up and given that gas and coal currently produce around 80% of the country’s
electricity, it is the consumer that ends up paying the price. It is a national carbon tax by any other name. If you take in environmental considerations and the unspecified but massive cost of treating toxic waste, the financial cost of nuclear is already and alarmingly beginning to tot up…’
https://www.thisislondon.co.uk/
nuclear.do
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Lean G. 2010
‘Natural gas could provide a fossil-fuel miracle : New drilling and refining techniques for natural gas have
opened up a vast new supply, says Geoffrey Lean.’
By Geoffrey Lean
Published: 7:57PM GMT 15 Jan 2010
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Leng R. A. 2010
‘The impact of resource depletion is being overshadowed by the threat of global warming’
14 January 2010
By R A Leng AO, D Rur Sc
‘The increased public and political focus on global warming has diverted discussion away from world resource depletion, particularly the depletion of fossil fuel energy with its potentially disastrous impact on world food production. According to its own internal whistleblowers, the International Energy Agency appears to have
falsified information on world fossil fuel depletion– on the grounds that telling the truth that world energy resources may already have peaked in production and are exceeded by demand, could cause skyrocketing oil prices and stampede the world into a new recession.’
‘Depletion of finite resources such as oil, gas, useable water or minerals is likely to impact on world GDP well before the worst impacts of global warming. The two together are likely to constrain world food production seriously, particularly in countries with high
population densities or insufficient fertile lands. Food security in these countries is behind the huge ‘land and water grab’ by foreign nationals that is now occurring across the developing world…’
https://www.sciencealert.com.
(Accessed 20 January 2010)
========
Lewis J. and Diringer E. 2007
‘POLICY-BASED COMMITMENTS IN A POST-2012 CLIMATE FRAMEWORK’
Pew Center May 2007
https://www.pewclimate.org/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
https://www.pewclimate.org/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Macalister T. 2009a
‘Giant oil find by BP reopens debate about oil supplies’
‘Discovery could be as large as Forties field in North Sea and comes hard on heels of 8.8bn barrel find by Iran’
by Terry Macalister,
industrial correspondent, writing in The Guardian newspaper online
02 September 2009
https://www.guardian.co.uk/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
Macalister T. 2009b
‘Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower : Exclusive: Watchdog’s estimates of reserves inflated says top official’
9 November 2009
Terry Macalister writing in The Guardian online
https://www.guardian.co.uk/
[Access 15 January 2010]
‘Now the “peak oil” theory is gaining support at the heart of the global energy establishment. “The IEA in 2005 was predicting oil supplies could rise as high as 120m barrels a day by 2030 although it was forced to reduce this gradually to 116m and then 105m last year,” said the IEA source, who was unwilling to be identified for fear of reprisals inside the industry. “The 120m figure always was nonsense but even today’s number is much higher than can be justified and the IEA knows this.’
‘”Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further. And the Americans fear the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access
to oil resources,” he added.’
MacKay D. J. C. 2008
‘Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air’
Professor David J. C. MacKay
https://www.withouthotair.com/
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
https://www.inference.phy.cam.
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
page 158
Chapter 23 “Sustainable fossil fuels?”
https://www.inference.phy.cam.
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
https://www.inference.phy.cam.
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
page 164
https://www.inference.phy.cam.
page 169
https://www.inference.phy.cam.
All the expense is up-front, so it’s inappropriate to calculate the cost as being spread over the entire lifetime of the plant – after all, the project may fail and the investment may be lost.
“Building a nuclear power station requires huge amounts of concrete and steel, materials whose creation involves huge CO2 pollution. The steel and concrete in a 1 GW nuclear power station have a carbon footprint of roughly 300 000 t CO2.”
page 174
https://www.inference.phy.cam.
“Japanese researchers have found a technique for extracting uranium from seawater. The price estimate of $100 per kg is from Seko et al. (2003) and [y3wnzr]; the estimate of $300 per kg is from OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (2006, p130). The uranium extraction
technique involves dunking tissue in the ocean for a couple of months; the tissue is made of polymer fibres that are rendered sticky by irradiating them before they are dunked; the sticky fibres collect uranium to the tune of 2 g of uranium per kilogram of fibre.’
NOTE WELL : Potentially a very slow rate of extraction from seawater. Number of kilograms of tissue to produce yearly 280 000 tons = 280 000 * 1000 / 2 = 140 000 000 tons. Imagine the maintenances and administration of that !
McKinsey & Company 2009
“Pathways to a Low Carbon Economy”
Version 2 of the Global Greenhouse Gas Abatement Cost Curve
January 2009
https://solutions.mckinsey.
https://solutions.mckinsey.
(Not Accessed 31 January
2010 since it requires user registration)
https://www.wwf.se/source.php/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
See graph : “Exhibit 1”
See also :-
https://climateprogress.org/
“McKinsey 2008 Research
in Review: Stabilizing at 450 ppm has a net cost near zero.”
by Joseph Romm
29 December 2008
on the ClimateProgress web
log
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
“The McKinsey Global Institute has done some of the most comprehensive and credible recent analyses on energy efficiency potential and carbon mitigation cost curves (see ‘Must read McKinsey report shatters myths on cost of curbing climate change’). They
have summarized their work in ‘2008 Research in Review,’ so this is a good opportunity to create one universal link for their work.”
“One core MGI factoid you can use: Nearly 40% of the U.S. emissions reduction potential by 2030 is from energy efficiency.”
“MGI is best known for its comprehensive cost curve for global greenhouse gas reduction measures, which concluded measures needed to stabilize emissions at 450 ppm have a net cost near zero — the same conclusion as the International Energy Agency and IPCC.”
See also :-
https://www2.lse.ac.uk/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Meyer A. 2004
“GCI Briefing : “Contraction and Convergence””
by Aubrey Meyer
presentation material for HM Treasury in the UK Government
Diagram “GWP, Carbon Lockstep”
https://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Michaelis L. 2008
“Triple crunch ! Credit, commodities and climate”
by Laurie Michaelis
writing in The Friend Vol 166 No 42
17 October 2008
https://www.exacteditions.com/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
https://www.livingwitness.org.
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
========
Mobbs P. 2010
“Face up to natural limits, or face a 70s-style crisis : Why the depletion of Britain’s energy resources represents a fundamental shift – for better or worse – in the operation of the UK’s economy”
by Paul Mobbs
writing in The Ecologist
January 2010
“Recent gas shortages may have made politicians focus on energy security once more, but the deeper systemic problems of Britain’s energy economy go far deeper than the limited capacity of our gas importation system. Energy represents far more to the economy than just a fuel source; understanding the biophysical limits on our
future use of energy, and how this affects the general economy, is essential if we are to create a strategic vision that can address the ecological crises of the Twenty-First Century…”
Shortened and dereferenced article on The Ecologist’s website :-
https://www.theecologist.org/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Longer, referenced and illustrated version online :-
https://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Monbiot G. 2006
‘Heat : How to Stop the Planet Burning’
28 Sep 2006
ISBN-10: 0713999233
ISBN-13: 978-0713999235
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Heat-
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
https://www.monbiot.com/
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
Monbiot G. 2008
“The planet is now so vandalised that only total energy renewal can save us : It may be too late. But without radical action, we will be the generation that saved the banks and let the biosphere collapse”
George Monbiot writing in The Guardian online
25 November 2008
“The costs of a total energy replacement and conservation plan would be astronomical, the speed improbable. But the governments of the rich nations have already deployed a scheme like this for another purpose. A survey by the broadcasting network CNBC
suggests that the US federal government has now spent $4.2 trillion in response to the financial crisis, more than the total spending on the second world war when adjusted for inflation. Do we want to be remembered as the generation that saved the banks and let the biosphere collapse?”
“This approach is challenged by the American thinker Sharon Astyk. In an interesting new essay, she points out that replacing the world’s energy infrastructure involves “an enormous front-load of fossil fuels”, which are required to manufacture wind turbines, electric cars, new grid connections, insulation and all the rest. This could push us past the climate tipping point. Instead, she proposes, we must ask people “to make short term, radical sacrifices”, cutting our energy consumption by 50%, with little technological assistance, in five years.”
“There are two problems: the first is that all previous attempts show that relying on voluntary abstinence does not work. The second is that a 10% annual cut in energy consumption while the infrastructure remains mostly unchanged means a 10% annual cut in total consumption: a deeper depression than the modern world has ever experienced. No political system – even an absolute monarchy – could
survive an economic collapse on this scale.”
“She is right about the risks of a technological green new deal, but these are risks we have to take. Astyk’s proposals travel far into the realm of wishful thinking. Even the technological new deal I favour inhabits the distant margins of possibility.”
“Can we do it? Search me. Reviewing the new evidence, I have to admit that we might have left it too late. But there is another question I can answer more easily. Can we afford not to try? No, we can’t.”
https://www.monbiot.com/
(Accessed 24 January 2010)
https://www.guardian.co.uk/
(Accessed 24 January 2010)
Moriarty P. and Honnery D. 2009
‘What energy levels can the Earth sustain?’
03 March 2009
Published in: Energy Policy,
Volume 37, Issue 7, July 2009, Pages 2469-2474
https://www.peakoil.net/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
‘Abstract: Several official reports on future global primary energy production and use develop scenarios which suggest that the high energy growth rates of the 20th century will continue unabated until 2050 and even beyond. In this paper we examine whether any combination of fossil, nuclear, and renewable energy sources can deliver such levels of primary energy—around 1000 EJ in 2050. We find that too much emphasis has been placed on whether or not reserves in the case of fossil and nuclear energy, or technical potential in the case of renewable energy, can support the levels of energy use forecast. In contrast, our analysis stresses the crucial importance of the interaction of technical potentials for annual
production with environmental factors, social, political, and economic concerns and limited time frames for implementation, in heavily constraining the real energy options for the future. Together, these constraints suggest that future energy consumption will be significantly lower than the present level.’
https://www.sciencedirect.com/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
https://nyc.theoildrum.com/pdf/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
https://www.mendeley.com/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Mufson S. 2009
https://www.washingtonpost.com/
03 September 2009
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
“BP Finds ‘Giant’ Oil Source Deep Under Gulf of Mexico : Extreme Conditions Mean It Will Be Years Until Production”
By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 3, 2009
“BP said Wednesday that it made a “giant” oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico, and analysts said that the find deep below the sea floor raised hopes that further exploration in the region could help sustain U.S. offshore oil production.”
“The discovery, known as Tiber, was made 250 miles southeast of Houston and was “in the same league” as other big fields BP has discovered in the Gulf of Mexico, BP spokesman Daren Beaudo said. The company would not make any estimates on the amount of oil its latest find could yield, but the biggest platform in those other fields, Thunder Horse, is producing as much as 300,000 barrels a day.”
“The exploration well used to find the Tiber field was the deepest vertical well ever drilled, according to Guy Cantwell, communications director at Transocean, the offshore drilling company that owns the rig. Working conditions were challenging, he said. The rig, the Deepwater Horizon, dangled about a million pounds of well
casing while floating in 4,132 feet of water, and then drilled another 30,923 feet below the sea floor. Temperatures at the sea floor were about 35 degrees, while the temperature of fluids in the well miles below was 250 degrees…”
Mullins J. 2009
New Scientist (2009)
“Nuclear fuel: are we heading for a uranium crunch?”
25 November 2009 by Justin Mullins
https://www.newscientist.com/
(Accessed 08 January 2010)
Nature 2009
https://www.nature.com/climate/
Nature Web Log 2009
Climate Feedback – the climate change blog
“4 Degrees and Beyond: How soon is it coming?”
28 September 2009
https://blogs.nature.com/
[Accessed 15 January 2010]
“Depending on the strength of the feedbacks, 4 degrees of average warming could be reached well before 2100 – as early as 2060 in a worst case scenario, and in the 2070s according to the team’s best guess.”
=
nef 2008
New Economics Foundation
“Triple Crunch : Joined-up solutions to financial chaos, oil decline and climate change to transform the economy”
04 November 2008
“A pamphlet of articles from new economists seeking joined up solutions for the interlinked challenges we currently face. The global economy is facing a ‘triple crunch’. It is a combination of a credit-fuelled financial crisis, accelerating climate change and an encroaching peak in oil production. These three overlapping events
threaten to develop into a perfect storm, with potential consequences not seen since the Great Depression. As this pamphlet goes to press the global financial system is in meltdown, the consequences of which are, as yet, unknown. The system may well save itself this time. But unless fundamental changes are made to the global economy the resurrection will only be temporary. And the
consequences of the next crisis will be beyond our control. We are at a unique historical moment. Grasp it, and we could rebuild a more stable, equitable system able to withstand the coming crises.”
https://www.neweconomics.org/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
nef 2009
New Economics Foundation
‘The Great Transition : A tale of how it turned out right’
19 October 2009
https://www.neweconomics.org/
(Accessed 20 January 2010)
https://www.neweconomics.org/
(Accessed 20 January 2010)
New Zealand Herald 2007
“Carbon tax could pose inflation headache”
08 November 2007
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Owen E. and Stimpson J. 2009
Ministers urged to develop clear carbon capture policy
29 October 2009
By Ed Owen, Jo Stimpson
writing in New Civil Engineer
https://www.nce.co.uk/home/low-
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
NucWatch 2009
‘UK’s BE sheds 2.4 GW nuclear capacity in unplanned outages’
05 January 2009
(Platt’s)
‘British Energy has taken offline four nuclear power units, totalling some 2.4 GW of power capacity, in four unrelated unplanned outages, company spokeswoman Sue Fletcher said Monday. ‘The latest BE unit to come offline was the 610 MW Hinkley Point B-4 plant in
the early hours of Monday morning, Fletcher said. The spate of unscheduled outages began 08:00 Friday, when the 555 MW Dungeness B21 tripped and was taken offline. At about 15:00 Friday, the 610 MW Hinkley Point B-3 unit tripped. The 635 MW Torness-2 unit was then taken offline at about 16:30 Saturday.’
https://www.nucwatch.com/
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
NPR 2009
‘BP Cuts Back Its Alternative Energy Division’
09 July 2009
‘…”Beyond Petroleum” has been a multimillion dollar ad campaign for British Petroleum. In it, the company spent the past several years touting its alternative energy plans. But now the oil giant is trimming back the division, according to Financial Times reporter Ed Crooks….’
https://www.npr.org/templates/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
NREL 2009
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
“Wind-to-Hydrogen Project”
29 September 2009
“NREL, in partnership with Xcel Energy, launched a wind-to-hydrogen (Wind2H2) demonstration project at the National Wind Technology Center in Boulder, Colorado. The Wind2H2 project links wind turbines to electrolyzers, which pass the wind-generated
electricity through water to split it into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen can then be stored and used later to generate electricity from an internal combustion engine or a fuel cell. The goal of the Wind2H2 project is to improve the system efficiency of producing hydrogen from renewable resources in quantities large enough and at costs low enough to compete with traditional energy sources
such as coal, oil, and natural gas…”
https://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
OFGEM 2010
Office of Gas and Electricity Markets
Project Discovery
Options for delivering secure and sustainable energy supplies
Date of publication: 3 February 2010
Overview
“This document presents the conclusions from Project Discovery, Ofgem’s year-long study of whether the current arrangements in GB are adequate for delivering secure and sustainable electricity and gas supplies over the next 10-15 years. We have identified a number of concerns with the current arrangements and have concluded that
significant action will be called for given the unprecedented challenges facing the electricity and gas industries. We are keen to work with consumers, industry and government to find the best way forward. Prompt action will reduce the risk to energy supplies and environmental objectives, and can help reduce costs to consumers.
We have put forward for consultation a wide range of possible policy measures, ranging from improvements in pricing and/or obligations on suppliers to deliver specific levels of supply security, through to models that mandate or secure specific investments in new generating capacity and gas infrastructure.”
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Orford L. 2010
‘Jevons’ Law: Enforcing the Age of Energy Decline – Part 1’
Lionel Orford
writing in The Oil Drum
posted by Gail the Actuary
11 January 2010
https://www.theoildrum.com/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
‘This is a guest post by Lionel Orford. Lionel is a professional electrical engineer with an interest in peak oil and sustainability. This past year he has been researching and developing a book with the working title, “Peak Capitalism: Our Opportunity to Choose between Transformation and Collapse.” His web site can be found at this link.’
‘In his 1865 book ‘The Coal Question: An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of our Coal-Mines,’ English economist William Stanley Jevons made
the observation ‘Of the Economy of Fuel’ that when improvements in technology make it possible to use a fuel more efficiently, the consumption of the fuel tends to go up, not down.’
‘This is known as Jevons’ Paradox. It occurs because as the efficiency of a type of machinery is improved, it becomes profitable for many more customers and feasible to apply it to new applications. This results in rapid growth of the number of machines
in use and consequently, an increase in fuel consumption overall.’
Pagnamenta R. 2008
“National Grid chief Steve Holliday: blackouts will be common in 7 years”
Robin Pagnamenta
writing in The Times
22 December 2008
“Britain could face regular blackouts within seven years if the Government does not intervene in the energy market to ensure that more power stations are built, the head of National Grid says today.”
“In an interview with The Times, Steve Holliday, chief executive of the company that operates the power and gas transmission network, said that Britain was facing an acute shortage of generating capacity because a string of ageing nuclear and coal-fired plants were due to be retired from service.”
“The warning came after Ofgem, the energy industry regulator, said on Friday that it was to consider fresh incentives to encourage the development of renewable energy schemes in Britain.”
“Mr Holliday said that National Grid’s own analysis indicated that, under a business-as-usual scenario, Britain would fail to attract enough investment in new plants and would lack sufficient generating capacity to meet peak demand around 2015…”
https://business.timesonline.
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Pagnamenta R. 2009
‘Make state-run banks invest in renewable energy, urges ex-BP chief Lord Browne’
Robin Pagnamenta, Energy and Environment Editor
writing in The Times online
06 July 2009
‘State-controlled banks such as Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group should be forced to invest in renewable energy schemes, helping to kickstart a transition to a lower-carbon economy, Lord Browne of Madingley writes today.’
‘In an exclusive interview with The Times, the managing partner of Riverstone Holdings, the private equity firm, and former chief executive of BP says that the Government’s commitment to
build 25 gigawatts of offshore wind generating capacity by 2020 — equivalent to a fortyfold increase from present levels — is an ‘ambitious but achievable’ target.’
https://business.timesonline.
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Patterson W. 2007
‘Keeping the Lights on: Towards Sustainable Electricity’
by Walt Patterson
Publisher: Earthscan
Publications Ltd (1 Jul 2007)
ISBN-10: 1844074560
ISBN-13: 978-1844074563
p. 56
‘An asset to produce or deliver electricity earns revenue only when it is functioning…If you can’t sell its output you can lose a lot of money, very fast…Accordingly, in a competitive framework, traditional large-scale generating stations, long-term investments,
become acutely risky…’
p. 82
‘Needless to say, where traditional and what we might call ‘post-traditional’ or ‘transitional’ electricity systems already exist, any radical change is going to be both piecemeal and gradual. Around the world, electrical loads in thousands of gigawatts expect to have electricity available as before, without interruption or dislocation. In many instances significant interruption could threaten lives. The very continuity of electricity use makes any change in system characteristics, especially technical characteristics, demanding and difficult, even when the whole system except the loads belongs to a single owner and operates as a monopoly. For a post-traditional, transitional system, maintaining the system in continuous stable operation while changing technical characteristics multiplies the difficulties. For those in charge, the simplest answer is not to change…’
p.87
‘When the choice is between technologies so fundamentally different as, say, gas-fired combined cycles and photovoltaics, the use of such purported cost comparisons becomes egregiously tendentious. In any case, moreover recent studies suggest that traditional techniques to estimate the anticipated cost of electricity from a proposed
generator may be inherently and seriously flawed…Engineering economics fails to apply a premium to account for the risk that, over the life of the generator, fuel prices and fuel taxes may vary from those used to estimate the cost of electricity [in the planning stage].’
https://www.waltpatterson.org/
(Accessed 25 January 2010)
Perkins J. L. 2009
‘Energy Resource Depletion and Carbon Emissions : Global Projections to 2050’
Dr John L Perkins
National Institute of Economic and Industry Research, Melbourne, Australia
UN Project LINK
United Nations Conference
Centre, Bangkok, Thailand
28 October 2009
‘In consideration of global warming issues, it is generally assumed that longterm depletion of global fossil fuel resources will come too late to have any bearing on policies designed to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions. It is argued here that this assumption is incorrect. It does not account for the geographical distribution of fossil fuel deposits, local depletion in particular countries, and the bearing this will have on global fuel transportation and distribution. Consideration of these factors indicates that depletion should have a bearing on choice of appropriate carbon pollution mitigation policies.’
https://home.alphalink.com.au/~
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
Pew Center 2008
Pew Center on Climate Change
‘Modeling Post-2012 Climate Policy Scenarios’
https://www.pewclimate.org/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
https://www.pewclimate.org/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Phalnikar S. 2010
“Insurance giant warns of rising costs due to climate change”
edited by Sonia Phalnikar
from newsfeeds
writing in Deutsche Welle
01 January 2010
“A report by German insurance company Munich Re says 2009 was a year of relatively few natural disasters. But it warns that climate change remains a threat in 2010 and beyond, impacting on insurance costs…”
https://www.dw-world.de/dw/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Post Carbon Institute 2008
‘The Real New Deal : Energy Scarcity and the Path to Energy, Economic, and Environmental Recovery’
https://www.postcarbon.org/
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
Executive Summary “Our continued national dependence on fossil fuels is creating a dangerous vulnerability to both long-term fuel scarcity and catastrophic climate change.”
PA 2010
“UK carbon emissions fell by 2% in 2008, figures show : The UK exceeded its Kyoto target to cut emissions by 12.5% on 1990 levels, but will not meet the goal of 20% by 2010”
Press Association report in
The Guardian newspaper online
02 February 2010
“The UK’s greenhouse gas emissions fell by almost 2% in 2008, official figures showed today. The final estimates for the year showed a fall of 1.9% in the group of six greenhouse gases and a drop of 2% for the most common of them, carbon dioxide. According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the decrease is the
result of continuing to switch from coal to natural gas for making electricity, combined with lower consumption of fossil fuels in industry and transport…”
https://www.guardian.co.uk/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
Radan S. 2010
Renewable Energy will not be a Threat to Oil Firms
Silvia Radan writing in the Khaleej Times
18 January 2010
‘ABU DHABI — The UAE plans to generate seven per cent of its energy requirement from renewable sources such as solar and wind power by 2030. Majid Al Mansouri, secretary-general of Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD), told Khaleej Times that renewable energy
will not be a threat to oil-producing companies. ‘Oil companies will not slow down or reduce production,’ he said. ‘The renewables would instead supply the energy from the annual growth in demand,’ he added. Al Mansouri was speaking on the sidelines of the World Future Energy Summit (WFES) which got underway in Abu Dhabi on Monday…’
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/
(Accessed 20 January 2010)
Ramavarman T. 2010
“World must unite to produce renewable energy”
T. Ramavarman writing in the Khaleej Times
20 January 2010
‘All countries, including oil-producing nations, must unite to develop renewable energies and reduce carbon emissions, said the head of IRENA [International Renewable Energies Association], on Tuesday.’
‘Helene Pelosse, the Interim Director-General of IRENA, speaking to Khaleej Times on the sidelines of the World Future Energy Summit on Tuesday, said all oil producing, and consuming countries, were united on the need to develop renewable energies on a large scale.’
‘…’But the oil producing countries should urgently take the initiative in develop renewables without waiting for their fossil fuel reserves to dry up.’
”They may have considerable reserves now, but they should realise that those reserves are going to dry up one day or the other.’
”But solar energy and other renewables will be with use for millions of years. Also there are issues of carbon emission and global warming.’
”Are they going to wait till the global temperatures to go up to unbearable levels before embarking on renewable energy programmes?”
‘…Pelosse said IRENA accepted that different countries will have varying levels of renewables and other forms of fuels in their future energy mix, and it was difficult to prescribe a uniform energy mix for all the countries.’
‘However she said all the countries agreed that the share of renewables should be increased as quickly as possible. Pelosse said she was optimistic that discussions by world leaders at the energy summit this week would contribute to strengthening follow-up action
on the recently concluded Copenhagen Climate Summit.’
‘…She maintained that subtle differences among the countries taking part in the summit will not slow the momentum that has been gained in strengthening global efforts to identify and develop sustainable forms of energies and reduce dependence on high carbon-emitting and finite fossil fuel sources…’
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/
(Accessed 24 January 2010)
Renewable Energy Focus 2008
“Power to the People?”
19 August 2008
“The fragility of our energy infrastructure and an emphasis on climate change provide new business opportunities for materials science. Fortunately, the impact on domestic users, business, and public services was limited, but what is of additional concern is
that this event occurred at a time of year when electricity consumption was not excessive and there were no extreme weather events contributing to the problem. The fact is, the UK is paying for its lack of major investment in its electricity generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure over the last 30 years. This is against a background where the UK and global energy
landscape is changing dramatically. Climate change is now widely accepted and the drive to reduce CO2 emissions has never been fiercer or taken more seriously. We face record oil prices fast approaching $150 per barrel, and fuel poverty and security of supply are now a reality…”
https://www.
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Robelius F. 2005
‘Giant Oil Fields of the World’
Presentation : AIM
Industrial Contact Day
Monday 23rd May 2005
Fredrik Robelius
https://www.peakoil.net/
(Accessed 20 January 2010)
Royal Society 2009
https://royalsociety.org/
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
https://royalsociety.org/
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
“Preventing dangerous climate change : The need for a global agreement”
December 2009
‘There is no such thing as ‘safe’ climate change. Even the global temperature increase to date (about 0.75°C) is contributing to effects that are impossible to adapt to in some regions, notably small low-lying islands and coastal areas…A maximum global temperature increase of 2°C since preindustrial times has been adopted by many
nations as a goal to prevent dangerous climate change. If global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are reduced at 3-4% per year after 2020, it has been estimated that there is a fifty-fifty chance of limiting global temperature increase to roughly 2°C; but only if GHG emissions begin to decline within the next decade. By 2050, emissions would need to be down to near 50% of their 1990 levels, with continuing reductions in the second half of this century.’
========
Rutledge, D. B. 2010
Professor David Rutledge
California Institute of Technology (CalTech)
“Hubbert’s Peak, The Coal Question, and Climate Change”
https://www.its.caltech.edu/~
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
https://rutledge.caltech.edu/
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
=
Science Daily 2008
Science News
‘Huge Amount Of Fossil Fuels In Arctic: 90 Billion Barrels Of Oil And 1,670 Trillion Cubic Feet Of Natural Gas’
24 July 2008
https://www.sciencedaily.com/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
SDC 2009
Sustainable Development Commission
‘Prosperity Without Growth ?’
March 2009
https://www.sd-commission.org.
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
‘Prosperity Without Growth : Economics for a Finite Planet’
video of Tim Jackson
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Schilling M. A. and Esmundo M. 2009
“Technology S-curves in renewable energy alternatives: Analysis and implications for industry and government”
Melissa A. Schilling and Melissa Esmundo,
Energy Policy Volume 37,
Issue 5, May 2009, Pages 1767-1781
https://www.sciencedirect.com/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
“Abstract : Plotting the performance of a technology against the money or effort invested in it most often yields an S-shaped curve: slow initial improvement, then accelerated improvement, then diminishing improvement. These S-curves can be used to gain insight into the relative payoff of investment in competing technologies, as well as providing some insight into when and why some technologies overtake others in the race for dominance. Analyzing renewable energies from such a technology S-curve perspective reveals some surprising and important implications for both government and industry. Using data on government R&D
investment and technological improvement (in the form of cost reductions), we show that both wind energy and geothermal energy are poised to become more economical than fossil fuels within a relatively short time frame. The evidence further suggests that R&D for wind and geothermal technologies has been under-funded by national governments relative to funding for solar
technologies, and government funding of fossil fuel technologies might be excessive given the diminishing performance of those technologies.”
Science and Technology Committee 2003
House of Commons Science and Technology Committee
Session 2002-03 Fourth Report
The published report was ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 26 March 2003
https://www.publications.
“Select Committee on Science and Technology Fourth Report”
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
https://www.publications.
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
‘PRIVATE SECTOR RD&D’
’70. Before privatisation in the early 1990s British Gas and the Central Electricity Generating Board had corporate RD&D facilities that conducted a large amount of energy RD&D. This has declined dramatically. According to the Tyndall Centre, in the 1970s
and 1980s, public expenditure of RD&D was typically several hundred million pounds, and much of this would have been conducted in these laboratories. For example, British Gas typically spent around £70 million before privatisation. Lattice, which took over most of British Gas’s research functions spent £14 million in the 15 months to March 2002. In 2000 nine companies invested a total of just over £130 million in RD&D. The ‘nuclear’ companies, BNFL and British Energy, contributed just under half of the total expenditure in the sector. The ERRG suggested that privatisation and a more market-oriented business strategy has resulted in less of energy RD&D conducted by UK industry. This view is supported by several witnesses. The Advanced Power Generation Technology Forum, a Foresight Associate Programme, comments that privatisation has had a “negative effect” on RD&D, claiming that the generation companies “are increasingly risk averse”. Professor Ian Fells from the New and Renewable Energy Centre in Newcastle argues that the liberalisation of the energy market has “wholly malign” effect on RD&D. The Institution of Electrical Engineers agrees, stating that with
exception of some RD&D to meet the Renewables Obligation, there is no incentive. The evidence from the Building Research Establishment (BRE) in relation to energy efficiency is similarly forthright:
“Privatisation of the gas and electricity utilities has resulted in a catastrophic loss of a number of major centres of expertise in the UK associated with energy utilisation research. Energy price reductions, although advantageous to the economy, have had the effect of reducing interest in developing new energy sources and improving energy efficiency”.
71. The Government disagrees, attributing this decline in expenditure to the maturation of a range of important technologies and a shift to energy providers in the North Sea and the renewables sector. In this case the reduction in expenditure might have been expected, yet a discussion paper produced for the Government’s PIU noted in 2001 that “It was … anticipated that a liberalised market might be more open to innovation in meeting customer needs than a monopoly”.
However, it said that “Liberalisation introduced commercial competition to the R&D process and with it, improved efficiency in the allocation of resources. However, there were costs associated with this and R&D budgets have seen substantial reductions. Moreover, there is some evidence that increased competition has shortened the time horizons for R&D expenditure creating a focus on short-term commercial goals rather than long-term investment.”. We are puzzled by the Government’s assertion that privatisation and liberalisation has not led directly to a decline in energy RD&D—it has led to a dramatic decline, by far the largest decline in all OECD countries. The forces that drove innovation in the past are at least as
strong as they ever were and it seems hard to believe that the Chief Scientific Adviser’s energy group and several of our witnesses are so ill-informed. We are concerned that the Government is poorly placed to stimulate energy RD&D investment in industry if it is in a state of denial over its causes.
72. More efficiently run private enterprises may have streamlined their RD&D effort and improved its focus. Brian Count of Innogy told us that research conducted by the CEGB (Central Electricity Generating Board) was muddled and that it “developed many ranges of steam technology and … almost nothing of that is world competitive”. The PIU concluded in 2001 that “The CEGB’s system of innovation was inefficient with significant levels of research funding being wasted through lack of proper controls and monitoring and inadequate financial commitments by manufacturers”. The fall in private sector RD&D expenditure has been higher than would have been expected from simply improving its focus. We conclude that there has been a real and damaging reduction in the amount of private energy RD&D spend since privatisation and liberalisation of the market.
Sibley L. 2009
“Al Gore: Super grid is critical to combating the climate crisis”
by Lisa Sibley
Cleantech Group
20 November 2009
https://cleantech.com/news/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Sinden G. 2005
https://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Graham Sinden
Environmental Change Institute
presentation to PRASEG 25
October 2005
slide 17
Simmons M. 2002
‘The World’s Giant Oilfields’
White Paper, January 9, 2002
https://www.simmonsco-intl.com/
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
Simmons M. 2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
“$300 oil ?” Matt Simmons interviewed on TVO 10 November 2009
https://www.
‘MATT SIMMONS: OIL INDUSTRY NEEDS A SHOCK, OIL SUPPLY IS AT RISK’
January 24th, 2010 at 6:45
by CB
Transcripts of recent speeches :-
https://www.simmonsco-intl.com/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
Simms A. et al. 2009
“The Consumption Explosion : The third UK Interdependence Report”
from New Economics Foundation
authored by Andrew Simms, Victoria Johnson, Joe Smith and Susanna Mitchell
with additional
contributions from: Fred Pearce, Lindy Sharpe and Aniol Esteban
September 2009
ISBN 978 1 904882 62 6
https://www.neweconomics.org/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
Socolow R. H. and Pacala S. W. 2006
‘A Plan to Keep Carbon in Check’
by Robert H. Socolow and Stephen W. Pacala
https://www.rivernetwork.org/
(Accessed 17 November 2009)
https://www.rivernetwork.org/
(Accessed 17 November 2009)
Stern D. I. 2003
‘Energy and Economic Growth’
April 2003
David I. Stern
Department of Economics,
Sage 3208, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 110 8th Street Troy,
NY, 12180-3590, USA
‘The principal finding is that energy used per unit of economic output has declined, but that this is to a large extent due to a shift in energy use from direct use of fossil fuels such as coal to the use of higher quality fuels, and especially electricity. When this shift in the composition of final energy use is taken into account energy use and the level of economic activity are found to be tightly coupled. When these and other trends are taken into account the prospects for further large reductions in the energy intensity of economic activity seem limited. The implications for environmental quality and economic sustainability are discussed.’
https://www.localenergy.org/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Stern N. 2006
‘The Economics of Climate Change : The Stern Review’
Nicholas Stern
Cabinet Office – HM Treasury
ISBN-13: 9780521700801
https://www.cambridge.org/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
https://www.occ.gov.uk/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
https://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
https://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
https://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
‘Using the results from formal economic models, the Review estimates that if we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts
is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20% of GDP or more. In contrast, the costs of action – reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change – can be limited to around 1% of global GDP each year.’
https://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Stern N. 2009a
“Blueprint for a Safer Planet: How to Manage Climate Change and Create a New Era of Progress and Prosperity”
by Nicholas Stern
Publisher: The Bodley Head
Ltd (2 April 2009)
ISBN-10: 1847920373
ISBN-13: 978-1847920379
pages 146, 147
“The structure of a global deal – the key elements”
https://www.nature.com/climate/
Stern N. 2009b
“The Global Deal : Climate Change And The Creation Of A New Era Of Progress And Prosperity”
by Nicholas Stern
Chapter 8 “The Structure of a Global Deal”
Publisher:
PublicAffairs,U.S.; 1 edition (7 April 2009)
ISBN-10: 1586486691
ISBN-13: 978-1586486693
Stern N. 2009c
by Nicholas Stern
“KEY ELEMENTS OF A GLOBAL DEAL ON CLIMATE CHANGE’
The London School of Economics and Political Science
by Nicholas Stern
https://www.occ.gov.uk/
(Accessed 8 January 2010)
Suggett J. 2010
‘Venezuelan Electricity Minister Resigns, Electricity Rationing in Capital Suspended’
15 January 2010
by James Suggett
https://www.venezuelanalysis.
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
‘Mérida, January 15th 2010 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered the suspension of programmed power outages in the capital city on Wednesday, and asked for the resignation of his minister for electricity, citing errors in the management of the country’s plan to conserve energy amidst a nation-wide electricity shortage. ‘Only in Caracas, I have ordered the suspension of electricity outages, because this government has to be capable of recognizing and rectifying errors committed,’ Chavez announced late on Wednesday night, only one day after the scheduled power outages had begun in the heavily populated, sprawling capital…’
Also, on the structure of the market :-
https://www.entrepreneur.com/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
https://www.iadb.org/sds/doc/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Sustainable Business 2010
‘Investor Conference At UN Calls For Quick Climate Change Action’
15 January 2010
https://www.
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
‘On the heels of international climate treaty talks in Copenhagen, the world’s largest investors Thursday released a statement calling on the US and other governments to move quickly to adopt strong national climate policies that will spur low-carbon investments to reduce emissions causing climate change.’
‘The investor statement was announced at the Investor Summit on Climate Risk, a meeting of 450 global investors at the United Nations that included UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, United States Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern, billionaire investor
George Soros and former Vice President Al Gore.’
‘Saying ‘we cannot wait for a global treaty,’ U.S., European and Australian investor groups representing $13 trillion in assets called on U.S. Congress and other global decision-makers ‘to take rapid action’ on carbon emission limits, energy efficiency, renewable
energy, financing mechanisms and other policies that will accelerate clean energy investment and job creation. Investors made clear today that there are competitive advantages for countries with comprehensive climate and energy policies…’
Symantec n.d.
https://www.symantec.com/
‘Blended Threat’
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
The Connexion 2010
https://www.connexionfrance.
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
‘Blackout warning for Brittany’
January 05, 2010
‘HOMES in Brittany have been told to cut their electricity usage to a bare minimum tonight due to a “real and imminent” risk of power cuts. The region has been placed on red alert by electricity supplier EDF and the préfecture – a warning that could last until the end of this month. Homes and businesses have been sent emails and text messages advising them to reduce their energy consumption particularly during the peak hours of 17.00 to 20.00 this evening. The region was first put on alert in mid-December, along with Paca, but power cuts then were avoided. Brittany only produces 8% of the electricity it uses, with the remaining 92% brought in from neighbouring regions. This is not a problem until a prolonged
period of cold weather, when energy use across France increases by about 2,100 megawatts for every 1°C that the temperature drops. For more information on reducing your power consumption and for power alerts in the Brittany area visit www.ouest-ecowatt.com. France is having to import large amounts of power from overseas this winter for the first time because a number of nuclear reactors are out of action due to maintenance work. Météo France is expecting snow to
affect travel conditions today across Brittany, Basse-Normandie and parts of the Pays de la Loire…’
The Free Dictionary n.d.
https://encyclopedia2.
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
The Independent 2010
https://www.independent.co.uk/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
“British engineers slam home wind turbines as ‘eco-bling'”
23 January 2010
‘Installing wind turbines and solar panels in people’s homes is “eco-bling” that will not help meet Britain’s targets on cutting carbon emissions, engineers warned Wednesday.’
‘In a new report by the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE), Professor Doug King said it was better to adapt buildings to make them more energy efficient than try to offset energy use with “on-site renewable energy generation.”‘
The Oil Drum 2007
https://www.theoildrum.com/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
‘Tupi, the new kid in town’
posted by Luis de Sousa
22 November 2007
The Oil Drum: Europe
‘On the morning of November 12th a friend called me saying that the largest oil field in the world had just been found off Brasil. I then explained to him what the largest oil field in the world was like, and how implausible that information was. In fact since the late hours of the previous day the media was reporting ‘the largest world oil find in the last 20 years”. Once again our energy problems were over, goodbye 90 dollar oil and so on. Déja vu? Didn’t this all happen last year with the Jack field in the Gulf of Mexico?’
The Sunday Times 2009
‘Shale gas blasts open world energy market’
American firms have cracked the technology to tap vast new reserves
November 1, 2009
https://business.timesonline.
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
Tickell O. 2008
‘Kyoto2 : How to Manage the Global Greenhouse’
by Oliver Tickell
https://www.kyoto2.org/docs/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Oliver Tickell proposes global Carbon Auctions of Carbon Permits to those wishing to feed Fossil Fuels into the Energy supply system.
Thorn T. 2009
‘Shale Gas: Savior or Treadmill?’
By Terence Thorn
writing in Energy Tribune
Posted on Jan. 05, 2009
https://www.energytribune.com/
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
Turner G. 2008
‘A Comparison of the Limits to Growth with Thirty Years of Reality’
CSIRO
ISSN: 1834-5638
https://www.fraw.org.uk/
(Accessed 30 January 2010)
UKERC 2009
The United Kingdom Energy Research Centre
“Global Oil Depletion”
Launched 08 October 2009
https://www.ukerc.ac.uk/
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
Presentation 7 October 2009
:-
https://www.ukerc.ac.uk/
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
Full Report :-
https://www.ukerc.ac.uk/
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
UN 2009
United Nations
‘World Economic Situation and Prospects 2009’
‘The world economy is expected to shrink by 2.6 per cent in 2009, after an expansion of 2.1 per cent in 2008 and nearly 4 per cent per year during the period 2004-2007. While a mild recovery is expected in 2010, risks remain on the downside. Developing countries are disproportionately hard hit by the crisis.’
https://www.un.org/esa/policy/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
========
UNFCCC Kyoto Protocol 1997
https://unfccc.int/kyoto_
https://unfccc.int/resource/
(Accessed 24 January 2010)
from Article 2
“Enhancement of energy efficiency in relevant sectors of the national
economy;”
“Research on, and promotion, development and increased use of, new and renewable forms of energy, of carbon dioxide sequestration technologies and of advanced and innovative environmentally sound technologies;”
“Progressive reduction or phasing out of market imperfections, fiscal
incentives, tax and duty exemptions and subsidies in all greenhouse gas emitting sectors that run counter to the objective of the Convention and application of market instruments;”
USA Today 2009
‘BP finds huge oil field deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico’
03 September 2009
https://www.usatoday.com/money/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
‘The well, 250 miles southeast of Houston, was discovered after BP drilled one of the world’s deepest exploration wells. It went down 35,000 feet, a distance on par with the cruising altitude of many domestic flights.’
‘BP hasn’t released specifics on the size of the field. But if it turns out to be truly “giant,” it’ll contain more than 500 million barrels of recoverable oil, according to definitions by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The last giant discovered in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico was Thunder Horse in 1999. It’s also operated by BP…’
‘While a big find, the field’s potential production won’t constitute more than a “drop in the bucket” when it comes to U.S. oil consumption, says Perry Fischer, editor of trade journal World Oil in Houston. The U.S. consumes 20 million barrels of oil a day.’
NOTE WELL : 35,000 feet = 10.668 km
Vail J. 2006
‘EXTRA: Oil Discovery Saves Civilization!’
05 September 2006
‘EXTRA: Oil Discovery Saves Civilization! For 35 days. In 2013. Except for decline in other fields. Maybe. The huge news today is that Chevron, Norway’s Statoil, and Devon Energy have jointly discovered our collective salvation in the “Jack 2” deepwater oil platform in the
Gulf of Mexico. CNN, Fox, and ABC have all been carrying this as the top story all day. MSNBC and CBS have relegated it below the much more significant story of the Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin’s death–where it belongs. Before we discuss conspiracy theories of why this news is coming out now, let’s first look at the facts in the absence of cable-news hype. This larger field, of which Jack 2 is just a small part, may someday yield between 3 and 15 billion barrels of recoverable crude. It won’t even start to produce oil until 2013, if
everything goes according to schedule. Then, it (the entire tertiary GOM zone) may eventually produce 400,000 barrels per day. That’s about how much Mexico’s Cantarell field declined in production this year. And how much it will decline next year. And the year after. Ultimately, 3 billion barrels of oil will fuel the world–at current consumption levels–for about 35 days…’
https://www.jeffvail.net/2006/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
van der Merwe C. 2009
“SA expects S-curve growth for renewables sector”
by Christy van der Merwe
writing in Creamer Media’s
Engineering News online
9th October 2009
https://www.engineeringnews.co.
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
van Leeuwen J. W. S. 2006
Energy from Uranium
Oxford Research Group
July 2006
Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen
‘Uranium peak
• The currently known recoverable uranium resources will be depleted in about 50 years, if the world nuclear capacity remains at the current level.
• The easily discoverable and easily mineable uranium resources are already known and in production.
• The mines with relatively rich uranium ores currently in production will get depleted in about 28 years.
• During the years after 2034 the specific CO2 emission of the nuclear process chain will rapidly rise, if the world nuclear capacity remains at the current level and if no new large uranium resources will be discovered, which are as easily accessible and mineable
as the current rich ores.
• During the same years after 2034, under the same conditions, the net energy production of the nuclear system will decline and fall off the energy cliff by the year the currently known resources will get depleted.’
https://www.stormsmith.nl/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
A rebuttal of a dismissive report by the World Nuclear Association :-
https://www.stormsmith.nl/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
Webb T. 2010
“Ofgem: UK cannot trust energy companies to keep the lights on : Regulator says free market approach will leave UK short of energy supplies by 2015”
by Tim Webb
writing in The Guardian newspaper online
03 February 2010
https://www.guardian.co.uk/
(Accessed 03 February 2010)
WEC 2009
World Energy Council (2009)
Survey of Energy Resources
Interim Update 2009
https://www.worldenergy.org/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Willstedt H. 2009
‘Here comes the sun rising : Spain 2009: Renewable power goes up while emissions and electricity prices go down’
By Heikki Willstedt, Energy
Expert WWF/Spain
https://assets.wwf.es/
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
Wind Power Monthly 2009
https://www.windpowermonthly.
(Accessed 17 January 2010)
‘Peak wind rising in Spain’
01 May 2009
‘Spanish wind power has hit another all-time production record with as much as 11.2 GW of the country’s nearly 17 GW of wind power feeding power to the grid at the same time during the morning of March 5, reports system operator Red Eléctrica de España (REE).
At the time, demand was running at 37.9 GW, with wind supplying 29.5% of electricity required. Earlier that day when demand was about 24 GW, wind penetration hovered for several hours at around 40%, peaking at 42% in the early hours of the morning. The Spanish power system’s ability to cope with that level of wind power demonstrates that the decision to unplug large volumes of wind power back in November when penetration reached 38% was made in error, says the Spanish wind power association. REE has admitted it was a mistake
(story right). The highest wind penetration yet recorded for the whole of Spain is 43%, achieved on November 24 when 9.25 GW was helping meet demand of 21.26 GW.’
Wynn G. and Doyle A. 2009
“G20 fossil fuel subsidy push may aid climate talks”
Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle
25 September 2009
writing for Reuters news wire
https://www.reuters.com/
(Accessed 31 January 2010)
“LONDON/OSLO (Reuters) – A draft G20 commitment to end fossil fuel subsidies in the “medium-term,” pushed by U.S. President Barack Obama, could be a step to help a new U.N. climate deal in December. The Group of 20 meeting in Pittsburgh planned to agree on Friday to phase out subsidies on oil, gas and coal, and so curb global greenhouse gases by about a tenth by 2050, said a draft text seen by Reuters. Scrapping fossil fuel support could highlight cheap emissions cuts for developing nations, chiefly responsible for such handouts, and so aid U.N. talks meant agree a new climate pact in Copenhagen in December. “It could be a critical element for Copenhagen from the side of what developing nations might do,” said Helen Mountford, head of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development’s climate, biodiversity and development division. “Phasing out fossil fuel subsidies…is one of the few options where there are win-win benefits both for the economy and the environment,” said Mountford. A phase-out would also enable nations such as Russia, which has high fossil fuel subsidies, to hold greenhouse emissions low, she said. The U.N.
climate talks are stuck on how to split cuts in carbon emissions between rich and poor countries and are due to resume in Bangkok Monday. Scrapping subsidies could also push up world economic growth, U.N. studies suggest. Chinese President Hu Jintao won praise Tuesday by committing to limit emissions growth by a “notable” amount — a highlight at a U.N. climate summit in New
York where other leaders made vaguer pledges to agree a new climate pact. Fossil fuel subsidies are costly, add to global warming and lead to more wasteful use of limited fossil fuel supplies, but may also improve energy access for millions of people off grid, who would otherwise depend on dung or wood for heat and cooking. A phaseout may be achieved within a decade, according to International Energy Agency chief economist Fatih Birol. “In
some countries it can take five to six years depending on the level of
subsidies and the sensitivities of the countries,” he told Reuters, adding that subsidies now often benefited middle-income families, not the poor. Birol estimated fossil fuel subsidies paid by non-OECD countries at $310 billion, chiefly in Iran, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and India. That compared with various estimates for low-carbon subsidies, for nuclear, wind, solar and biofuels at about $40 billion annually…”
Your Dictionary n.d.
https://www.yourdictionary.com/
(Accessed 15 January 2010)
Zittel W. and Schindler J. 2007a
‘Coal: Resources and Future Production’
Dr. Werner Zittel, Ludwig
Bölkow Systemtechnik GmbH
Jörg Schindler, Ludwig
Bölkow Systemtechnik GmbH
https://www.energywatchgroup.
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
Commentary :-
https://www.energybulletin.net/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
https://energybulletin.net/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
https://europe.theoildrum.com/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
https://www.capandshare.org/
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
‘The timing and rate of decline of coal output is less clear. For years, the consensus was that there was abundant coal but in April 2007, Werner Zittel and Jorg Schindler released a report Coal: Resources and Future Production which concluded that the world’s coal reserves had been over-estimated and that global coal production was likely to peak around 2025 at 30% above present production levels. It would then decline and from 2060 onwards, the fall would be about 2% a year. However, as with oil and gas, the amount of energy the coal would be able to provide would decline even faster than the actual output because of the increased effort required by the mining process. Most politicians and climate campaigners have been reluctant to accept the idea that the world’s oil and gas supplies
will peak soon. However, the energy crisis and its climate counterpart both indicate that humanity has to cap its fossil fuel use immediately and then reduce its consumption by at least 3% a year. This is the minimum initial level at which the annual caps have to fall. Fossil fuel depletion adds a powerful argument to the climate campaigners’ cause.’
Zittel W. and Schindler J. 2007b
‘Crude Oil : The Supply Outlook’
Report to the Energy Watch Group
October 2007
EWG-Series No 3/2007
Figure 1
History of oil discoveries
(proved + probable) and production
(peak global petroleum oil discoveries in mid-1960s)
https://www.energywatchgroup.
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
Source Data (paid for) IHS
Energy 2006 :-
‘Petroleum Exploration and Production Statistics (PEPS)’
IHS Energy, Geneva and London 2006
https://energy.ihs.com/Search.
(Accessed 27 January 2010)
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