Categories
Academic Freedom Acid Ocean Babykillers Big Picture Carbon Capture Climate Change Dead Zone Deal Breakers Disturbing Trends Economic Implosion Energy Autonomy Energy Change Energy Disenfranchisement Energy Insecurity Evil Opposition Feed the World Fossilised Fuels Global Warming Incalculable Disaster Mad Mad World Marine Gas Mass Propaganda Methane Management Military Invention Modern Myths Natural Gas No Blood For Oil Orwells Peace not War Policy Warfare Political Nightmare Regulatory Ultimatum Renewable Energy Renewable Gas Renewable Hydrogen Renewable Methane Renewable Resource Resource Curse Stop War The Data The Power of Intention The Price of Gas The Price of Oil The Right Chemistry The War on Error Toxic Hazard Unconventional Foul Western Hedge

Russia Sours

I have a theory. But I don’t have access to the data to confirm or deny it. The data is in the hands of the oil and gas companies, and private oil industry data concerns, who charge a lot of money for access to the data. Some data might become public soon, as the International Energy Agency, the IEA, have made a commitment to opening up their databases, but I don’t know when this will be.

The data I would need to assess my theory regards the chemical composition of Natural Gas from a range of fields and wells, and its evolution over time. Although some data about chemical quality exists in the public domain, such as crude assays for various petroleum oils, and is published in various places, such as Eni’s annual review, and a handful of academic research papers regarding prospects for gas in some regions or countries, there is little to go on for a global view from gas analyses.

The European Union has announced a plan to “get off” Russian fossil fuel dependency (addiction), but I would contend that they would need to do it anyway, regardless of the incentive to “cancel” Russian oil and gas in sanction over Russia’s unspeakable acts of terror and aggression in their invasion of Ukraine. My view is that the rationale for an early exit from Russian fossil fuel supplies is all to do with the chemistry.

Gas fields and oil basins deplete, that we all know. The easy, good stuff gets emptied out first, and then the clever engineers are commissioned to suck out the last remaining dregs. So-called “sweet spots”, where easy, good stuff has accumulated over the ages, are quickly pumped dry, and investors and management push for the assets to be sweated, but it’s a game of diminishing returns.

If you look for a mention of problem contaminants, such as sulfur compounds and heavy metals, the publicly, freely-available literature is quite thin on the ground – even general discussion of the global overview – in other words, it is noticeable by its absence.

Natural Gas with high levels of inherent carbon dioxide has started to merit explicit mention, because of climate change mitigation efforts, but even there, there is not much in terms of basins, fields and wells by numbers and locations, and over timespans.

There was quite a lot of discussion about the procedure of reinjection of acid and sour gases, starting in the early 1990s or so, pumping unwanted molecules from contaminated or sub-standard Natural Gas back underground, after separation at or close to the well head. This was partly to answer climate change concerns, but also to enhance further oil and gas recovery from emptying wells. This has been known mostly by the term EOR – enhanced oil recovery. Bad gas was being pumped, then filtered, and the bad fraction was being pumped back down to build up pressure to get more gas and oil out.

There has also been a lot of very public discussion of the project to mitigate gas venting and gas flaring, as a potentially easy win against environmental damage – including climate change burden. Unburned Natural Gas has been routinely vented to the atmosphere from locations where gas was not the principal product from wells, or where it has been costly to install gas capture equipment. Unburned Natural Gas vented to air leeches methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, two of which are climate change-sparking greenhouse gases, and the other, a local toxin to all forms of life. But flaring unwanted Natural Gas is only marginally less dangerous, as it still emits carbon dioxide to air, as well as sulfur dioxide, and potentially some nitrogen oxides (and sometimes, still, some hydrogen sulfide) : and sulfur dioxide interferes with local temperatures through localised greenhouse cooling; sulfur dioxide is also a local environmental pollutant; and both sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, in addition to the carbon dioxide, lead to acidification of air, water and soils. Obviously, it would be better to capture any currently unwanted Natural Gas, and make use of it in the economy, processing it somewhere in a way that can reduce the environmental disbenefits that would have come from venting or flaring it in the field.

However, discussion about venting and flaring of Natural Gas and the attempts to stem it centre on the potency of emissions of fossil methane as a short-term greenhouse gas, and there is little discussion of the emissions of fossil carbon dioxide and fossil sulfur compounds that are part of that unwanted Natural Gas.

Trying to drill down into the geography and localised basin- and field-specific gas composition is near-nigh impossible without insider access to data, or some kind of large budget for data. Public reports, such as the financial and annual reports of companies, focus on levels of Natural Gas production, but not the amounts of rejected molecules from the production yield – the molecules of hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide and nitrogen and so on that don’t make it into the final gas product. Keeping up production is discussed in terms of sales revenue and investment in exploration and production, but not in terms of the economic costs of bad chemistry.

Over time, oil and gas production companies must explore for new reserves that they can bring to production – often within their already-tapped resource base – because old fields empty, until well production starts slowing down, and become uneconomic to continue pumping. But running down the reserves, and having to find new locations within basins and fields to drill new wells is not the only issue. Oil and gas are not monolithic : resources vary in terms of accessibility, temperature, pressure, geology, but also chemistry – even within fields; and over time and operating conditions – which can even be seasonal.

Contaminants can be concentrated in one particular area, or at one particular pre-historic geological stratum or layer : the formation of the sediments. Not only that, but over time, oil and gas wells can sour, that is, production can experience increasing levels of hydrogen sulfide and other sulfur compounds. They can also show increasing production levels of inert non-combustible or acid-producing chemical species, mainly carbon dioxide and nitrogen.

As drilling goes deeper, the more likely inert, sour and acid gases are to occur, as the deposits will have had more time to mature, and reach temperatures where gas generation from organic matter is more likely than oil generation : the “gas window” depends on such things as temperature, pressure and time. And more gas can signal more non-useful molecules.

The deeper you go, the higher the risk of your Natural Gas being contaminated with hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide and nitrogen; as the deposits have cooked for too long. The presence of significant levels of sulfur compounds is credited to rock-oil and rock-gas chemical interactions known as TSR – thermochemical sulfate reduction – between hydrocarbons and sulfate-bearing rocks.

In addition, drilling a well can lead to BSR – bacterial sulfate reduction – where bacterial life starts to work on sulfate present in any water as the hydrocarbons are raised from the depths and depressurise and cool.

The closer to the source rocks drilling goes, the black shales, high in organic matter, from which all hydrocarbon oils and gases originate, the higher the risk of pumping up heavy metals where there are metal sulfides clustered.

Although wells can sour over time, especially if acid gas is reinjected to dispose of it, fields can even be highly acid or sour right from the get-go. For decades, some sour and acid resources were listed as proven reserves, but were considered too uneconomic to mine. But during the last decade or so, increasing numbers of sour gas projects have commenced.

The engineering can be incredible, but the chemistry is still wrong. With new international treaties, sulfur cannot be retained in fuels, so where does it end up ? Rejected sulfur atoms largely end up in abandoned pyramids of yellow granules, or on the sulfur market, and a lot is used to make sulfuric acid, a key industrial chemical, used for such things as the production of fertilisers, explosives, and petrochemicals. But after the sulfuric acid is used, where does the sulfur end up ? As sulfate in water, that drains to the sea ? And what about the granulated sulfur from the mega sour gas projects ? Some of that is used as soil treatment, as a fertiliser, either directly, or as part of ammonium sulfate. But after it is used, what happens to the sulfur ? Does it become sulfate in water, that courses to the ocean ? And what happens to it there ? How much is fossil sulfur going to contribute to ocean anoxia through BSR generation of hydrogen sulfide ?

Sulfur atoms don’t just disappear. It will take many millenia for the mined fossil sulfur to be incorporated back into sedimentary sulfides or rocks. As increasingly sour oils and gases are increasingly used, the question of the perturbation of the global sulfur cycle (as well as the global sulfur market) becomes relevant.

At what point will the balance tip, and high sulfur deposits of fossil fuels become untenable ?

In addition to management of the fossil sulfur mined during the exploitation of chemically-challenged Natural Gas, there are other important considerations about emissions.

Satellite monitoring of “trace” greenhouse and environmentally-damaging gases, such as sulfur dioxide and methane, is constantly evolving to support international calls for emissions reduction and control. For example, analyses of methane emissions from the oil and gas industry have pinpointed three geographical areas of concern for the locations of “ultra-emitters” : the United States, the Russian Federation and Turkmenistan. A lot of methane emissions from the oil and gas industry could be stemmed, but the question needs to be asked : is it worth opening up new gas fields, with all the infrastructure and risks of increased methane and other emissions ? And if the major explanation for methane emissions in gas drilling are connected to end-of-life fields, what incentives could be offered to cap those emissions, given the lack of an economic case, at so late a stage in the exploitation of assets ?

And so, to Russia.

A great variety of commentators have been working hard to put forward their theories about why Russia chose to launch a violent, cruel and destructive military assault on Ukraine in early 2022. Some suppose that Russia is looking to build out its empire, occupying lands for grain production and transportation routes, gaining control over peoples for slave labour, removing the irritant of social or political threat. Arguments about the ownership of territory, rightfully or wrongfully. Historically revisionist or revanchist philosophies are identified in the output from Russian voices and political narrative. However, there does not appear to be a truly justifying rationale for a war arising from these pseudo-historical caricatures. Even if the territory of Ukraine could be deemed, by some internal Russian legal process, to belong to some concocted Greater Russian Federation, it would require a lot of magical thinking to believe it would gain traction in the wider sphere.

Some see Russia’s actions as vindictive or retaliatory, but to assert this with any validity would require explaining what has really changed to justify the recent major escalation in one-sided aggression from Russia, action that has lasted for some time, principally since 2014.

What can really be driving Russia’s murderous marauding, the bombing of civilian districts, wanton infrastructure destruction, people snatching, torture basements and all forms of intimate, personal aggression and attack ?

I decided to do some reading, and I went back to 2004/2005 to do so, and then realised I should have gone back further, to the time of Vladimir Putin’s “ascension” to the Presidency of the Russian Federation.

Putin appears to have control issues, and seems to want to impress his will on absolutely any person and any organisation he comes across, up to and including whole countries. The means are various, and the medium also. There is continual “hybrid” warfare; and the evidence suggests that Russia has interfered with foreign democracy, for example, by playing the joker in the memetic transfer of ideologies and “fake news” through social media; used blackmail in “diplomacy”; used strong-arm tactics in trade and investment; and locked international energy companies into corrupting, compromising deals.

By far the most injurious behaviour, however, has been the outright military assaults he has ordered to be launched on lands and people groups, both inside and around the outside of Russia. I will leave the details to expert military historians and human rights organisations, but the pattern of the annihilation visited on many areas of Ukraine since early in 2022 is not new. There appears to be no dialogue possible to restrain Putin’s sadistic army of Zombies (Z) and Vampires (V).

But just what made this happen ? What was really behind Putin’s decision to launch an invasion on Ukraine ? It wasn’t to de-Nazify. That’s just weak and quite bizarre propaganda, that cannot hold together. He knows there are far fewer ultra-right wing cultists in Ukraine than in Moscow. The “war” wasn’t to protect Russian speakers. Many people in Ukraine speak several languages, and none of them have been safe from the rampaging hordes of Russian “orcs”. The invasion wasn’t to defend the Putin-styled Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, as people there don’t feel defended from anything nasty the Russians seem to visit on everybody they invade, or the military responses of the Ukrainian forces, something the Russians could have anticipated. If Russia really cared about the people in the Donbas, they wouldn’t have brought troops there. The warfare isn’t benefitting or supporting any pro-Russian factions or Russian-speakers in Ukraine, and the only thing that looks like Nazis are the Russian Nasties.

It has come into focus for me from my reading that there seem to be three major, real, potential or probable reasons for Russia seeking to have overt, administrative, and if necessary, military control of the southern, littoral part of Ukraine; and my reading suggests that this is an outworking of the maritime policy of the Russian Federation going back at least 20 years.

I intend to give a list of my resources for reading later on, but for now, let’s begin with a Tweet thread from Dmitri Alperovitch, which really resonated for me :-

https://mobile.twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1520333220964933632

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1520333220964933632.html

He makes the point that with Russian forces control the coastal area of Ukraine, and its ports and seafaring routes, they will have a stranglehold on the economy of Ukraine. If the Russians deny grain and other agricultural exports, or deny the proceeds from export sales, then the Ukrainian economy will be seriously damaged. In addition, the continual bombing and mining of agricultural lands means that crops are already at risk this year in Ukraine, which will add to these woes. There is already some discussion about the effects on the importers of Ukrainian grain in particular, as it has been a “bread basket of the world”.

It is easy to see from maps of the fighting that controlling the coastal ports must have been a major part of the reason for the Russian invasion, but the triggering of conflict is surely not just about control of the trade routes in and out of Ukraine, as a means to squeeze the country into submission.

It’s clear from my reading so far that Russia has an historical and significant ambition to control more of the maritime routes in that region. Russia clearly didn’t like the awkwardness of having to share the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. They’d rather just run all of it, apparently. Russia appears to regard rulership of the “warm seas” to the south of Federation lands as vital to their aims. There are mentions of improving the waterway routes from the Caspian, through the Black Sea, out to the Mediterranean, to permit military vessels to exert control in the region, and to enable Russian trade. The Russians built a contested bridge to Crimea, but they may end up building vast new canals as well. Are you listening yet, Turkey ?

This is grandiose enough, but this is still not the end of Russia’s aims in taking over the coast of Ukraine, it could transpire.

What floats on top of the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, the Mediterranean Sea and the Caspian Sea is important enough, but what lies beneath is far more important, I am beginning to find in my reading.

There has been a couple of decades or so of development of newly-discovered oil and gas resources around the Caspian Sea. Russia even acted quite collaboratively initially with the other countries bordering co-littorally. Although it hasn’t been very happy since in some parts of the region. Due to Russian military carpet-bombing and martial illegalities, in some cases.

But despite oil- and gas-aplenty, for example, in the Kashagan, fossil fuel deposits there are really rather sour, that is, loaded with sulfur compounds; particularly hydrogen sulfide, which is corrosive, explosive and needs to be removed before the fossil fuels can be utilised. That, coupled with the anoxic and difficult conditions of the undersea mining, mean that Russia has looked elsewhere to build up new proved resources, as they have become necessary.

There was much talk of Russia going to drill in the Arctic; but even with melting ice from global warming, conditions north of the Arctic Circle are tough, and the offshore prospects are likely to be costly. Yes, they might end up trying to keep their rights to trade LNG from the far North, but the “cold seas” make for harsh economic conditions.

After years of stagnating Natural Gas production in Russia, more gas fields have been opened up in the Yamal Peninsula, but they only have a half life of approximately ten to fifteen years, perhaps. And judging by other gas fields, some parts of them could be extremely contaminated with sulfur compounds, which would lead to extra costs in cleaning the products up for sale and piping out for export.

And then came the Mediterranean and Black Sea seismic surveys and gas prospecting. What was found ? Sweet, sweet gas. Little in the way of sulfur contamination, and continental sea conditions, as opposed to stormy oceans. There are many countries that border both bodies of water that have been rapidly developing Natural Gas projects, eager to jump right in and tap as much as they can from fields, presumably before other countries tap into the same fields from another entry point.

There is some evidence that the primary goal for Russia in invading Crimea in 2014 was to secure control of Ukraine’s Natural Gas production projects in the Black Sea. Ukraine had been at the mercy of Russia’s energy “policy” for decades (which seems to consist mostly of what looks like : threat, supply cuts, blackmail, extortion, compromise, false accusation, unjustifiable price hikes), and now it was about to start developing a new sizeable domestic resource, and could conceivably become energy-independent. It could have been too much for Vladimir Putin to bear, thinking that Ukraine could become the masters and mistresses of their own energy destiny. He wanted the sales of that Natural Gas for himself, and deny Ukraine control over their own economy. Hence what has been described as the “theft” of energy company, oil and gas rigs, other utility holdings and the EEZ maritime exclusive exploitation zone out at sea. Oh Chornomornaftogaz !

If Russia establish control of the whole of Southern Ukraine, recognised or no, they will almost inevitably be seeking to exploit as much of the Black Sea Natural Gas as they can. It will be cleaner than Caspian gas, cheaper than Arctic gas, and easier to export as ship-laden LNG.

So, I ask again, why did Russia invade Ukraine ? To take advantage of ten to fifteen years of sweet, cheap Black Sea Natural Gas ? Is that really what this is actually about ?

The European Union has declared that they will wind down their use of Natural Gas, and develop Renewable Gas instead over the next decade. There will be a divorce from Russian gas, because of this policy, and as a reaction to the invasion of Ukraine.

I would argue however, that this policy is needed not just because of climate change, and not simply as a reaction to unjustifiable horrors of aggression. The future of gas sourced from Russia is either sour or stolen, and so the European Union has no choice but to wean itself away.

To support my theory, I would need to have access to gas composition analysis by the major oil and gas companies of Russia, and the countries surrounding the Caspian, Black Sea, Sea of Azov and Mediterranean Sea, and the companies working on oil and gas projects onshore and offshore in the region.

I have made a few enquiries, but nothing has emerged as yet.

Categories
Academic Freedom Alchemical Assets not Liabilities Bait & Switch Be Prepared Behaviour Changeling Big Picture Big Society British Biogas Carbon Capture Carbon Commodities Carbon Pricing Carbon Recycling Carbon Taxatious Change Management Climate Change Coal Hell Conflict of Interest Corporate Pressure Cost Effective Dead End Dead Zone Delay and Deny Design Matters Direction of Travel Divest and Survive Dreamworld Economics Emissions Impossible Energy Change Energy Revival Engineering Marvel Extreme Energy Fossilised Fuels Freemarketeering Gamechanger Geogingerneering Green Gas Green Investment Green Power Growth Paradigm Hydrocarbon Hegemony Hydrogen Economy Low Carbon Life Mad Mad World Major Shift Marvellous Wonderful Mass Propaganda Modern Myths Money Sings Natural Gas Nudge & Budge Oil Change Orwells Paradigm Shapeshifter Peak Coal Peak Emissions Peak Energy Peak Natural Gas Peak Oil Pet Peeves Petrolheads Policy Warfare Political Nightmare Price Control Protest & Survive Public Relations Realistic Models Regulatory Ultimatum Renewable Gas Renewable Resource Resource Curse Solar Sunrise Solution City Sustainable Deferment Technofix The Myth of Innovation The Power of Intention The Price of Gas The Price of Oil The Right Chemistry The Science of Communitagion The War on Error Wind of Fortune

Why Shell is Wrong

So, some people do not understand why I am opposed to the proposal for a price on carbon put forward by Royal Dutch Shell and their oil and gas company confederates.

Those who have been following developments in climate change policy and the energy sector know that the oil and gas companies have been proposing a price on carbon for decades; and yet little has been achieved in cutting carbon dioxide emissions, even though carbon markets and taxes have been instituted in several regions.

Supporters of pricing carbon dioxide emissions urge the “give it time” approach, believing that continuing down the road of tweaking the price of energy in the global economy will cause a significant change in the types of resources being extracted.

My view is that economic policy and the strengthening of carbon markets and cross-border carbon taxes cannot provide a framework for timely and major shifts in the carbon intensity of energy resources, and here’s a brief analysis of why.

1.   A price on carbon shifts the locus of action on to the energy consumer and investor

A price on carbon could be expected to alter the profitability of certain fossil fuel mining, drilling and processing operations. For example, the carbon dioxide emissions of a “tank of gas” from a well-to-wheel or mine-to-wheel perspective, could be made to show up in the price on the fuel station forecourt pump. Leaving aside the question of how the carbon tax or unit price would be applied and redistributed for the moment, a price on carbon dioxide emissions could result in fuel A being more expensive than fuel B at the point of sale. Fuel A could expect to fall in popularity, and its sales could falter, and this could filter its effect back up the chain of production, and have implications on the capital expenditure on the production of Fuel A, and the confidence of the investors in investing in Fuel A, and so the oil and gas company would pull out of Fuel A.

However, the business decisions of the oil and gas company are assumed to be dependent on the consumer and the investor. By bowing to the might god of unit price, Shell and its confederates are essentially arguing that they will act only when the energy consumers and energy investors act. There are problems with this declaration of “we only do what we are told by the market” position. What if the unit price of Fuel A is only marginally affected by the price on carbon ? What if Fuel A is regarded as a superior product because of its premium price or other marketing factors ? This situation actually exists – the sales of petroleum oil-based gasoline and diesel are very healthy, despite the fact that running a car on Natural Gas, biogas or electricity could be far cheaper. Apart from the fact that so many motor cars in the global fleet have liquid fuel-oriented engines, what else is keeping people purchasing oil-based fuels when they are frequently more costly than the alternative options ?

And what about investment ? Fuel A might become more costly to produce with a price on carbon, but it will also be more expensive when it is sold, and this could create an extra margin of profit for the producers of Fuel A, and they could then return higher dividends to their shareholders. Why should investors stop holding stocks in Fuel A when their rates of return are higher ?

If neither consumers nor investors are going to change their practice because Fuel A becomes more costly than Fuel B because of a price on carbon, then the oil and gas company are not going to transition out of Fuel A resources.

For Shell to urge a price on carbon therefore, is a delegation of responsibility for change to other actors. This is irresponsible. Shell needs to lead on emissions reduction, not insist that other people change.

2.   A price on carbon will not change overall prices or purchasing decsions

In economic theory, choices about products, goods and services are based on key factors such as trust in the supplier, confidence in the product, availability and sustainability of the service, and, of course, the price. Price is a major determinant in most markets, and artificially altering the price of a vital commodity will certainly alter purchasing decisions – unless, that is, the price of the commodity in question increases across the board. If all the players in the field start offering a more expensive product, for example, because of supply chain issues felt across the market, then consumers will not change their choices.

Now consider the global markets in energy. Upwards of 80% of all energy consumed in the global economy is fossil fuel-based. Putting a price on carbon will raise the prices of energy pretty much universally. There will not be enough cleaner, greener product to purchase, so most purchasing decisions will remain the same. Price differentiation in the energy market will not be established by asserting a price on carbon.

A key part of Shell’s argument is that price differentiation will occur because of a price on carbon, and that this will drive behaviour change, and yet there is nothing to suggest it could do that effectively.

3.   A price on carbon will not enable Carbon Capture and Storage

Athough a key part of Shell’s argument about a price on carbon is the rationale that it would stimulate the growth in Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), it seems unlikely that the world will ever agree to a price on carbon that would be sufficient to stimulate significant levels of CCS. A price on carbon will be deemed to be high enough when it creates a difference in the marginal extra production cost of a unit of one energy resource compared to another. A carbon price can only be argued for on the basis of this optimisation process – after all – a carbon price will be expected to be cost-efficient, and not punitive to markets. In other words, carbon prices will be tolerated if they tickle the final cost of energy, but not if they mangle with it. However, CCS could imply the use of 20% to 45% extra energy consumption at a facility or plant. In other words, CCS would create a parasitic load on energy resources that is not slim enough to be supported by a cost-optimal carbon price.

Some argue that the technology for CCS is improving, and that the parasitic load of CCS at installations could be reduced to around 10% to 15% extra energy consumption. However, it is hard to imagine a price on carbon that would pay even for this. And additionally, CCS will continue to require higher levels of energy consumption which is highly inefficient in the use of resources.

Shell’s argument that CCS is vital, and that a price on carbon can support CCS, is invalidated by this simple analysis.

4.   Shell needs to be fully engaged in energy transition

Calling for a price on carbon diverts attention from the fact that Shell itself needs to transition out of fossil fuels in order for the world to decarbonise its energy.

Shell rightly says that they should stick to their “core capabilities” – in other words geology and chemistry, instead of wind power and solar power. However, they need to demonstrate that they are willing to act within their central business activities.

Prior to the explosion in the exploitation of deep geological hydrocarbon resources for liquid and gas fuels, there was an energy economy that used coal and chemistry to manufacture gas and liquid fuels. Manufactured gas could still replace Natural Gas, if there are climate, economic or technological limits to how much Natural Gas can be resourced or safely deployed. Of course, to meet climate policy goals, coal chemistry would need to be replaced by biomass chemistry, and significant development of Renewable Hydrogen technologies.

Within its own production facilities, Shell has the answers to meet this challenge. Instead of telling the rest of the world to change its economy and its behaviour, Shell should take up the baton of transition, and perfect its production of low carbon manufactured gas.

Categories
Academic Freedom Bait & Switch Behaviour Changeling Big Number Big Picture Big Society Change Management Climate Change Climate Chaos Conflict of Interest Corporate Pressure Dead End Dead Zone Demoticratica Design Matters Direction of Travel Divide & Rule Energy Change Energy Insecurity Energy Socialism Financiers of the Apocalypse Fossilised Fuels Gamechanger Green Investment Green Power Hydrocarbon Hegemony Landslide Low Carbon Life Mad Mad World Major Shift Mass Propaganda Media Meltdown Money Sings National Energy National Power Nudge & Budge Orwells Paradigm Shapeshifter Policy Warfare Political Nightmare Protest & Survive Public Relations Pure Hollywood Regulatory Ultimatum Science Rules Social Capital Social Change Social Chaos Social Democracy Stirring Stuff The Data The Power of Intention The Science of Communitagion Unutterably Useless Utter Futility Vain Hope Vote Loser

On Not Setting The Proper Tone

So, I turned up for a national Climate Change campaigning and lobbying day some years ago. I had offered to steward at the event. My attire concerned one of those close to the organising team. After all, there were Members of Parliament due to attend, and Gentlemen and Ladies of the Press. “I don’t think it’s quite setting the right tone.” she commented.

Well, I want to know what the right tone is, exactly. And I don’t think anybody else does, either. How do we make change happen ? Really ?

I’ve just received another email missive from The Climate Coalition asking me to Tweet tomorrow about the Carbon Budget.

“As you may remember, back in 2011 we successfully fought for the government to deliver on its climate targets by adopting the Committee on Climate Change’s (CCC) recommendations on the 4th Carbon Budget…”

I mean, that’s a bit of a claim to start with. I very much doubt that anything that the Climate Coalition (or Stop Climate Chaos, as they were known in 2011) did had any bearing on the UK Government’s policy- or decision-making.

“…That decision is currently up for review and we need to make sure the government sticks to the ambition it showed 3 years ago, starting with a Twitter love in this Thursday.”

I beg your pardon ? How can The Climate Coalition make sure the UK Government does anything ? By Tweeting ? OK, so The Climate Coalition is an umbrella organisation of over 40 organisations, ostensibly representing over 11 million people, but it doesn’t have any real political weight, or any serious influence with The Treasury, who are normally the ones resisting the development of the green economy.

“…We’ve heard rumours that this is currently being negotiated in government, with at least some arguing for weaker targets. We don’t know yet which way it’ll go, so David Cameron and Nick Clegg might just need a bit of support from us to make the right decision and stick to our current targets…”

So this is what it’s all about – a show of support for the UK Government !

So, tell me, why should I join in, exactly ? I won’t be having any kind of genuine impact. It’s just a token flag-waving exercise.

I know I’m not setting the right tone, here. I’m challenging the proposals for action from one of the country’s largest collective groups with a clear position about climate change. But that’s because it’s a washout – there is nothing to be gained by responding to this appeal to Tweet.

I mean, if they called for the whole 11 million people to do something actually meaningful, like withdraw their labour for one hour a day, or refuse to use household appliances for 8 hours a week, or all demand a meeting with the fossil fuel producing companies asking them what their plan is to decarbonise the energy supply, then I suppose that might be something worth trying.

But Tweeting ? In support of a Government decision that they ought to make anyway based on the existing Climate Change Law and the science ? Why would they need me to join in with them on that ?

Categories
Academic Freedom Advancing Africa Alchemical Artistic Licence Assets not Liabilities Bait & Switch Be Prepared Behaviour Changeling Big Number Big Picture Big Society Carbon Army Carbon Capture Carbon Commodities Carbon Pricing Carbon Rationing Carbon Recycling Carbon Taxatious Change Management Climate Change Climate Chaos Climate Damages Conflict of Interest Contraction & Convergence Corporate Pressure Dead End Dead Zone Deal Breakers Demoticratica Design Matters Direction of Travel Disturbing Trends Divide & Rule Dreamworld Economics Droughtbowl Earthquake Eating & Drinking Economic Implosion Electrificandum Energy Autonomy Energy Calculation Energy Change Energy Crunch Energy Denial Energy Insecurity Energy Revival Energy Socialism Engineering Marvel Evil Opposition Extreme Energy Feed the World Feel Gooder Financiers of the Apocalypse Floodstorm Food Insecurity Foreign Interference Foreign Investment Fossilised Fuels Fuel Poverty Gamechanger Global Warming Green Gas Green Investment Green Power Growth Paradigm Human Nurture Hydrocarbon Hegemony Incalculable Disaster Insulation Libertarian Liberalism Low Carbon Life Mad Mad World Major Shift Marvellous Wonderful Mass Propaganda Media Meltdown Money Sings National Energy National Power Near-Natural Disaster Neverending Disaster Not In My Name Nudge & Budge Optimistic Generation Orwells Paradigm Shapeshifter Peace not War Peak Coal Peak Emissions Peak Energy Peak Natural Gas Peak Oil Pet Peeves Petrolheads Policy Warfare Political Nightmare Protest & Survive Public Relations Pure Hollywood Realistic Models Regulatory Ultimatum Renewable Gas Renewable Resource Revolving Door Social Capital Social Change Social Chaos Social Democracy Solar Sunrise Solution City Stirring Stuff Sustainable Deferment Technofix Technological Sideshow The Myth of Innovation The Power of Intention The Price of Gas The Price of Oil The Right Chemistry The Science of Communitagion The War on Error Toxic Hazard Tree Family Unconventional Foul Unqualified Opinion Unsolicited Advice & Guidance Unutterably Useless Utter Futility Vain Hope Vote Loser Western Hedge Wind of Fortune Zero Net

Positively Against Negative Campaigning

How to organise a political campaign around Climate Change : ask a group of well-fed, well-meaning, Guardian-reading, philanthropic do-gooders into the room to adopt the lowest common denominator action plan. Now, as a well-fed, well-meaning, Guardian-reading (well, sometimes), philanthropic do-gooder myself, I can expect to be invited to attend such meetings on a regular basis. And always, I find myself frustrated by the outcomes : the same insipid (but with well-designed artwork) calls to our publics and networks to support something with an email registration, a signed postcard, a fistful of dollars, a visit to a public meeting of no consequence, or a letter to our democratic representative. No output except maybe some numbers. Numbers to support a government decision, perhaps, or numbers to indicate what kind of messaging people need in future.

I mean, with the Fair Trade campaign, at least there was some kind of real outcome. Trade Justice advocates manned stall tables at churches, local venues, public events, and got money flowing to the international co-operatives, building up the trade, making the projects happen, providing schooling and health and aspirations in the target countries. But compare that to the Make Poverty History campaign which was largely run to support a vain top-level political attempt to garner international funding promises for social, health and economic development. Too big to succeed. No direct line between supporting the campaign and actually supporting the targets. Passing round the hat to developed, industrialised countries for a fund to support change in developing, over-exploited countries just isn’t going to work. Lord Nicholas Stern tried to ask for $100 billion a year by 2020 for Climate Change adaptation. This has skidded to a halt, as far as I know. The economic upheavals, don’t you know ?

And here we are again. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which launched the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports on climate change, oh, so, long, ago, through the person of its most charismatic and approachable Executive Secretary, Christiana Figueres, is calling for support for a global Climate Change treaty in 2015. Elements of this treaty, being drafted this year, will, no doubt, use the policy memes of the past – passing round the titfer begging for a couple of billion squid for poor, hungry people suffering from floods and droughts; proposing some kind of carbon pricing/taxing/trading scheme to conjure accounting bean solutions; trying to implement an agreement around parts per million by volume of atmospheric carbon dioxide; trying to divide the carbon cake between the rich and the poor.

Somehow, we believe, that being united around this proposed treaty, few of which have any control over the contents of, will bring us progress.

What can any of us do to really have input into the building of a viable future ? Christiana – for she is now known frequently only by her first name – has called for numbers – a measure of support for the United Nations process. She has also let it be known that if there is a substantial number of people who, with their organisations, take their investments out of fossil fuels, then this could contribute to the mood of the moment. Those who are advocating divestment are yet small in number, and I fear that they will continue to be marginal, partly because of the language that is being used.

First of all, there are the Carbon Disclosers. Their approach is to conjure a spectre of the “Carbon Bubble” – making a case that investments in carbon dioxide-rich enterprises could well end up being stranded by their assets, either because of wrong assumptions about viable remaining resources of fossil fuels, or because of wrong assumptions about the inability of governments to institute carbon pricing. Well, obviously, governments will find it hard to implement effective carbon pricing, because governments are in bed with the energy industry. Politically, governments need to keep big industry sweet. No surprise there. And it’s in everybody’s interests if Emperor Oil and Prince Regent Natural Gas are still wearing clothes. In the minds of the energy industry, we still have a good four decades of healthy fossil fuel assets. Royal Dutch Shell’s CEO can therefore confidently say at a public AGM that There Is No Carbon Bubble. The Carbon Discloser language is not working, it seems, as any kind of convincer, except to a small core of the concerned.

And then there are the Carbon Voices. These are the people reached by email campaigns who have no real idea how to do anything practical to affect change on carbon dioxide emissions, but they have been touched by the message of the risks of climate change and they want to be seen to be supporting action, although it’s not clear what action will, or indeed can, be taken. Well-designed brochures printed on stiff recycled paper with non-toxic inks will pour through their doors and Inboxes. Tick it. Send it back. Sign it. Send it on. Maybe even send some cash to support the campaign. This language is not achieving anything except guilt.

And then there are the Carbon Divestors. These are extremely small marginal voices who are taking a firm stand on where their organisations invest their capital. The language is utterly dated. The fossil fuel industry are evil, apparently, and investing in fossil fuels is immoral. It is negative campaigning, and I don’t think it stands a chance of making real change. It will not achieve its goal of being prophetic in nature – bearing witness to the future – because of the non-inclusive language. Carbon Voices reached by Carbon Divestor messages will in the main refuse to respond, I feel.

Political action on Climate Change, and by that I mean real action based on solid decisions, often taken by individuals or small groups, has so far been under-the-radar, under-the-counter, much like the Fair Trade campaign was until it burst forth into the glorious day of social acceptability and supermarket supply chains. You have the cyclists, the Transition Towners, the solar power enthusiasts. Yet to get real, significant, economic-scale transition, you need Energy Change – that is, a total transformation of the energy supply and use systems. It’s all very well for a small group of Methodist churches to pull their pension funds from investments in BP and Shell, but it’s another thing entirely to engage BP and Shell in an action plan to diversify out of petroleum oil and Natural Gas.

Here below are my email words in my feeble attempt to challenge the brain of Britain’s charitable campaigns on what exactly is intended for the rallying cry leading up to Paris 2015. I can pretty much guarantee you won’t like it – but you have to remember – I’m not breaking ranks, I’m trying to get beyond the Climate Change campaigning and lobbying that is currently in play, which I regard as ineffective. I don’t expect a miraculous breakthrough in communication, the least I can do is sow the seed of an alternative. I expect I could be dis-invited from the NGO party, but it doesn’t appear to be a really open forum, merely a token consultation to build up energy for a plan already decided. If so, there are probably more important things I could be doing with my time than wasting hours and hours and so much effort on somebody else’s insipid and vapid agenda.

I expect people might find that attitude upsetting. If so, you know, I still love you all, but you need to do better.


[…]

A lot of campaigning over the last 30 years has been very negative and divisive, and frequently ends in psychological stalemate. Those who are cast as the Bad Guys cannot respond to the campaigning because they cannot admit to their supporters/employees/shareholders that the campaigners are “right”. Joe Average cannot support a negative campaign as there is no apparent way to make change happen by being so oppositional, and because the ask is too difficult, impractical, insupportable. [Or there is simply too much confusion or cognitive dissonance.]

One of the things that was brought back from the […] working group breakout on […] to the plenary feedback session was that there should be some positive things about this campaign on future-appropriate investment. I think […] mentioned the obvious one of saying effectively “we are backing out of these investments in order to invest in things that are more in line with our values” – with the implicit encouragement for fossil fuel companies to demonstrate that they can be in line with our values and that they are moving towards that. There was some discussion that there are no bulk Good Guy investment funds, that people couldn’t move investments in bulk, although some said there are. […] mentioned Ethex.

Clearly fossil fuel production companies are going to find it hard to switch from oil and gas to renewable electricity, so that’s not a doable we can ask them for. Several large fossil fuel companies, such as BP, have tried doing wind and solar power, but they have either shuttered those business units, or not let them replace their fossil fuel activities.

[…] asked if the [divestment] campaign included a call for CCS – Carbon Capture and Storage – and […] referred to […] which showed where CCS is listed in a box on indicators of a “good” fossil fuel energy company.

I questioned whether the fossil fuel companies really want to do CCS – and that they have simply been waiting for government subsidies or demonstration funds to do it. (And anyway, you can’t do CCS on a car.)

I think I said in the meeting that fossil fuel producer companies can save themselves and save the planet by adopting Renewable Gas – so methods for Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) or “carbon recycling”. Plus, they could be making low carbon gas by using biomass inputs. Most of the kit they need is already widely installed at petrorefineries. So – they get to keep producing gas and oil, but it’s renewably and sustainably sourced with low net carbon dioxide emissions. That could be turned into a positive, collaborative ask, I reckon, because we could all invest in that, the fossil fuel companies and their shareholders.

Anyway, I hope you did record something urging a call to positive action and positive engagement, because we need the co-operation of the fossil fuel companies to make appropriate levels of change to the energy system. Either that, or they go out of business and we face social turmoil.

If you don’t understand why this is relevant, that’s OK. If you don’t understand why a straight negative campaign is a turn-off to many people (including those in the fossil fuel industry), well, I could role play that with you. If you don’t understand what I’m talking about when I talk about Renewable Gas, come and talk to me about it again in 5 years, when it should be common knowledge. If you don’t understand why I am encouraging positive collaboration, when negative campaigning is so popular and marketable to your core segments, then I will resort to the definition of insanity – which is to keep doing the same things, expecting a different result.

I’m sick and tired of negative campaigning. Isn’t there a more productive thing to be doing ?

There are no enemies. There are no enemies. There are no enemies.

——-

As far as I understand the situation, both the […] and […] campaigns are negative. They don’t appear to offer any positive routes out of the problem that could engage the fossil fuel companies in taking up the baton of Energy Change. If that is indeed the main focus of […] and […] efforts, then I fear they will fail. Their work will simply be a repeat of the negative campaigning of the last 30 years – a small niche group will take up now-digital placards and deploy righteous, holy social media anger, and that will be all.

Since you understand this problem, then I would suggest you could spend more time and trouble helping them to see a new way. You are, after all, a communications expert. And so you know that even Adolf Hitler used positive, convening, gathering techniques of propaganda to create power – and reserved the negative campaigning for easily-marginalised vulnerable groups to pile the bile and blame on.

Have a nicer day,

—–

The important thing as far as I understand it is that the “campaigning” organisations need to offer well-researched alternatives, instead of just complaining about the way things are. And these well-researched alternatives should not just be the token sops flung at the NGOs and UN by the fossil fuel companies. What do I mean ?

Well, let’s take Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). The injection of carbon dioxide into old oil and gas caverns was originally proposed for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) – that is – getting more oil and gas out the ground by pumping gas down there – a bit like fracking, but with gas instead of liquid. The idea was that the expense of CCS would be compensated for by the new production of oil and gas – however, the CCS EOR effect has shown to be only temporary. So now the major oil and gas companies say they support carbon pricing (either by taxation or trading), to make CCS move forward. States and federations have given them money to do it. I think the evidence shows that carbon pricing cannot be implemented at a sufficiently high level to incentivise CCS, therefore CCS is a non-answer. Why has […] not investigated this ? CCS is a meme, but not necessarily part of the carbon dioxide solution. Not even the UNFCCC IPCC reports reckon that much CCS can be done before 2040. So, why does CCS appear in the […] criteria for a “good” fossil fuel company ? Because it’s sufficiently weak as a proposal, and sufficiently far enough ahead that the fossil fuel companies can claim they are “capture ready”, and in the Good Book, but in reality are doing nothing.

Non-starters don’t just appear from fossil fuel companies. From my point of view, another example of running at and latching on to things that cannot help was the support of the GDR – Greenhouse Development Rights, of which there has been severe critique in policy circles, but the NGOs just wrote it into their policy proposals without thinking about it. There is no way that the emissions budgets set out in the GDR policy could ever get put into practice. For a start, there is no real economic reason to divide the world into developing and developed nations (Kyoto [Protocol]’s Annex I and Annex II).

If you give me some links, I’m going to look over your […] and think about it.

I think that if a campaign really wants to get anywhere with fossil fuel companies, instead of being shunted into a siding, it needs to know properly what the zero carbon transition pathways really are. Unequal partners do not make for a productive engagement, I reckon.

—–

I’m sorry to say that this still appears to be negative campaigning – fossil fuel companies are “bad”; and we need to pull our money out of fossil fuel companies and put it in other “good” companies. Where’s the collective, co-operative effort undertaken with the fossil fuel companies ? What’s your proposal for helping to support them in evolving ? Do you know how they can technologically transition from using fossil fuels to non-fossil fuels ? And how are you communicating that with them ?

——

They call me the “Paradigm Buster”. I’m not sure if “the group” is open to even just peeking into that kind of approach, let alone “exploring” it. The action points on the corporate agenda could so easily slip back into the methods and styles of the past. Identify a suffering group. Build a theory of justice. Demand reparation. Make Poverty History clearly had its victims and its saviours. Climate change, in my view, requires a far different treatment. Polar bears cannot substitute for starving African children. And not even when climate change makes African children starve, can they inspire the kind of action that climate change demands. A boycott campaign without a genuine alternative will only touch a small demographic. Whatever “the group” agrees to do, I want it to succeed, but by rehashing the campaigning strategies and psychology of the past, I fear it will fail. Even by adopting the most recent thinking on change, such as Common Cause, [it] is not going to surmount the difficulties of trying to base calls to action on the basis of us-and-them thinking – polar thinking – the good guys versus the bad guys – the body politic David versus the fossil fuel company Goliath. By challenging this, I risk alienation, but I am bound to adhere to what I see as the truth. Climate change is not like any other disaster, aid or emergency campaign. You can’t just put your money in the [collecting tin] and pray the problem will go away with the help of the right agencies. Complaining about the “Carbon Bubble” and pulling your savings from fossil fuels is not going to re-orient the oil and gas companies. The routes to effective change require a much more comprehensive structure of actions. And far more engagement that agreeing to be a flag waver for whichever Government policy is on the table. I suppose it’s too much to ask to see some representation from the energy industry in “the group”, or at least […] leaders who still believe in the fossil fuel narratives, to take into account their agenda and their perspective, and a readiness to try positive collaborative change with all the relevant stakeholders ?


Categories
Assets not Liabilities Big Number Big Picture Big Society Biofools Biomess British Sea Power Burning Money Carbon Army Carbon Capture Carbon Pricing Change Management Climate Change Climate Chaos Climate Damages Coal Hell Conflict of Interest Corporate Pressure Cost Effective Dead End Dead Zone Demoticratica Design Matters Direction of Travel Disturbing Trends Dreamworld Economics Efficiency is King Electrificandum Emissions Impossible Energy Autonomy Energy Change Energy Denial Energy Insecurity Energy Revival Energy Socialism Engineering Marvel Environmental Howzat Food Insecurity Forestkillers Fossilised Fuels Genetic Modification Geogingerneering Green Investment Green Power Growth Paradigm Health Impacts Hide the Incline Human Nurture Incalculable Disaster Insulation Major Shift Mass Propaganda Media Money Sings National Energy National Power Neverending Disaster No Pressure Nuclear Nuisance Nuclear Shambles Optimistic Generation Peak Coal Policy Warfare Political Nightmare Price Control Protest & Survive Public Relations Realistic Models Regulatory Ultimatum Renewable Resource Resource Curse Resource Wards Solution City Technofix Technological Fallacy Technological Sideshow Technomess The Price of Gas The Price of Oil The War on Error Tree Family Ungreen Development Western Hedge Wind of Fortune

Mind the Gap : BBC Costing the Earth

I listened to an interesting mix of myth, mystery and magic on BBC Radio 4.

Myths included the notion that long-term, nuclear power would be cheap; that “alternative” energy technologies are expensive (well, nuclear power is, but true renewables are most certainly not); and the idea that burning biomass to create heat to create steam to turn turbines to generate electricity is an acceptably efficient use of biomass (it is not).

Biofuelwatch are hosting a public meeting on this very subject :-
https://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2013/burning_issue_public_event/
“A Burning Issue – biomass and its impacts on forests and communities”
Tuesday, 29th October 2013, 7-9pm
Lumen Centre, London (close to St Pancras train station)
https://www.lumenurc.org.uk/lumencontact.htm
Lumen Centre, 88 Tavistock Place, London WC1H 9RS

Interesting hints in the interviews I thought pointed to the idea that maybe, just maybe, some electricity generation capacity should be wholly owned by the Government – since the country is paying for it one way or another. A socialist model for gas-fired generation capacity that’s used as backup to wind and solar power ? Now there’s an interesting idea…




https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03cn0rb

“Mind the Gap”
Channel: BBC Radio 4
Series: Costing the Earth
Presenter: Tom Heap
First broadcast: Tuesday 15th October 2013

Programme Notes :

“Our energy needs are growing as our energy supply dwindles.
Renewables have not come online quickly enough and we are increasingly
reliant on expensive imported gas or cheap but dirty coal. Last year
the UK burnt 50% more coal than in previous years but this helped
reverse years of steadily declining carbon dioxide emissions. By 2015
6 coal fired power stations will close and the cost of burning coal
will increase hugely due to the introduction of the carbon price
floor. Shale gas and biomass have been suggested as quick and easy
solutions but are they really sustainable, or cheap?”

“Carbon Capture and Storage could make coal or gas cleaner and a new
study suggests that with CCS bio energy could even decrease global
warming. Yet CCS has stalled in the UK and the rest of Europe and the
debate about the green credentials of biomass is intensifying. So what
is really the best answer to Britain’s energy needs? Tom Heap
investigates.”

00:44 – 00:48
[ Channel anchor ]
Britain’s energy needs are top of the agenda in “Costing the Earth”…

01:17
[ Channel anchor ]
…this week on “Costing the Earth”, Tom Heap is asking if our
ambitions to go green are being lost to the more immediate fear of
blackouts and brownouts.

01:27
[ Music : Arcade Fire – “Neighbourhood 3 (Power Out)” ]

[ Tom Heap ]

Energy is suddenly big news – central to politics and the economy. The
countdown has started towards the imminent shutdown of many coal-fired
power stations, but the timetable to build their replacements has
barely begun.

It’ll cost a lot, we’ll have to pay, and the politicians are reluctant
to lay out the bill. But both the official regulator and industry are
warning that a crunch is coming.

So in this week’s “Costing the Earth”, we ask if the goal of clean,
green and affordable energy is being lost to a much darker reality.

02:14
[ Historical recordings ]

“The lights have started going out in the West Country : Bristol,
Exeter and Plymouth have all had their first power cuts this
afternoon.”

“One of the biggest effects of the cuts was on traffic, because with
the traffic lights out of commission, major jams have built up,
particularly in the town centres. One of the oddest sights I saw is a
couple of ladies coming out of a hairdressers with towels around their
heads because the dryers weren’t working.”

“Television closes down at 10.30 [ pm ], and although the cinemas are
carrying on more or less normally, some London theatres have had to
close.”

“The various [ gas ] boards on both sides of the Pennines admit to
being taken by surprise with today’s cold spell which brought about
the cuts.”

“And now the major scandal sweeping the front pages of the papers this
morning, the advertisement by the South Eastern Gas Board recommending
that to save fuel, couples should share their bath.”

[ Caller ]
“I shall write to my local gas board and say don’t do it in
Birmingham. It might be alright for the trendy South, but we don’t
want it in Birmingham.”

03:13
[ Tom Heap ]

That was 1974.

Some things have changed today – maybe a more liberal attitude to
sharing the tub. But some things remain the same – an absence of
coal-fired electricity – threatening a blackout.

Back then it was strikes by miners. Now it’s old age of the power
plants, combined with an EU Directive obliging them to cut their
sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions by 2016, or close.

Some coal burners are avoiding the switch off by substituting wood;
and mothballed gas stations are also on standby.

But Dieter Helm, Professor of Energy Policy at the University of
Oxford, now believes power cuts are likely.

03:57
[ Dieter Helm ]

Well, if we take the numbers produced by the key responsible bodies,
they predict that there’s a chance that by the winter of 2-15 [sic,
meaning 2015] 2-16 [sic, meaning 2016], the gap between the demand for
electricity and the supply could be as low as 2%.

And it turns out that those forecasts are based on extremely
optimistic assumptions about how far demand will fall in that period
(that the “Green Deal” will work, and so on) and that we won’t have
much economic growth.

So basically we are on course for a very serious energy crunch by the
winter of 2-15 [sic, meaning 2015] 2-16 [sic, meaning 2016], almost
regardless of what happens now, because nobody can build any power
stations between now and then.

It’s sort of one of those slow motion car crashes – you see the whole
symptoms of it, and people have been messing around reforming markets
and so on, without addressing what’s immediately in front of them.

[ Tom Heap ]

And that’s where you think we are now ?

[ Dieter Helm ]

I think there’s every risk of doing so.

Fortunately, the [ General ] Election is a year and a half away, and
there’s many opportunities for all the political parties to get real
about two things : get real about the energy crunch in 2-15 [sic,
meaning 2015] 2-16 [sic, meaning 2016] and how they’re going to handle
it; and get real about creating the incentives to decarbonise our
electricity system, and deal with the serious environmental and
security and competitive issues which our electricity system faces.

And this is a massive investment requirement [ in ] electricity : all
those old stations retiring [ originally built ] back from the 1970s –
they’re all going to be gone.

Most of the nuclear power stations are coming to the end of their lives.

We need a really big investment programme. And if you really want an
investment programme, you have to sit down and work out how you’re
going to incentivise people to do that building.

[ Tom Heap ]

If we want a new energy infrastructure based on renewables and
carbon-free alternatives, then now is the time to put those incentives
on the table.

The problem is that no-one seems to want to make the necessary
investment, least of all the “Big Six” energy companies, who are
already under pressure about high bills.

[ “Big Six” are : British Gas / Centrica, EdF Energy (Electricite
de France), E.On UK, RWE npower, Scottish Power and SSE ]

Sam Peacock of the energy company SSE [ Scottish and Southern Energy ]
gives the commercial proof of Dieter’s prediction.

If energy generators can’t make money out of generating energy,
they’ll be reluctant to do it.

[ Sam Peacock ]

Ofgem, the energy regulator, has looked at this in a lot of detail,
and said that around 2015, 2016, things start to get tighter. The
reason for this is European Directives, [ is [ a ] ] closing down some
of the old coal plants. And also the current poor economics around [
or surround [ -ing ] ] both existing plant and potential new plant.

So, at the moment it’s very, very difficult to make money out of a gas
plant, or invest in a new one. So this leads to there being, you know,
something of a crunch point around 2015, 2016, and Ofgem’s analysis
looks pretty sensible to us.

[ Tom Heap ]

And Sam Peacock lays the blame for this crisis firmly at the Government’s door.

[ Sam Peacock ]

The trilemma, as they call it – of decarbonisation, security of supply
and affordability – is being stretched, because the Government’s
moving us more towards cleaner technologies, which…which are more
expensive.

However, if you were to take the costs of, you know, the extra costs
of developing these technologies off government [ sic, meaning
customer ] bills and into general taxation, you could knock about over
£100 off customer bills today, it’ll be bigger in the future, and you
can still get that much-needed investment going.

So, we think you can square the circle, but it’s going to take a
little bit of policy movement [ and ] it’s going to take shifting some
of those costs off customers and actually back where the policymakers
should be controlling them.

[ KLAXON ! Does he mean controlled energy prices ? That sounds a bit
centrally managed economy to me… ]

[ Tom Heap ]

No surprise that a power company would want to shift the pain of
rising energy costs from their bills to the tax bill.

But neither the Government nor the Opposition are actually proposing this.

Who pays the premium for expensve new energy sources is becoming like
a game of pass the toxic parcel.

[ Reference : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_potato_%28game%29 ]

I asked the [ UK Government Department of ] Energy and Climate Change
Secretary, Ed Davey, how much new money is required between now and
2020.

08:06

[ Ed Davey ]

About £110 billion – er, that’s critical to replace a lot of the coal
power stations that are closing, the nuclear power stations that are [
at the ] end of their lives, and replace a lot of the network which
has come to the end of its life, too.

So it’s a huge, massive investment task.

[ Tom Heap ]

So in the end we’re going to have to foot the bill for the £110 billion ?

[ Ed Davey ]

Yeah. Of course. That’s what happens now. People, in their bills that
they pay now, are paying for the network costs of investments made
several years, even several decades ago.

[ Yes – we’re still paying through our national nose to dispose of
radioactive waste and decommission old nuclear reactors. The liability
of it all weighs heavily on the country’s neck… ]

And there’s no escaping that – we’ve got to keep the lights on – we’ve
got to keep the country powered.

You have to look at both sides of the equation. If we’re helping
people make their homes more inefficient [ sic, meaning energy
efficient ], their product appliances more efficient, we’re doing
everything we possibly can to try to help the bills be kept down,

while we’re having to make these big investments to keep the lights
on, and to make sure that we don’t cook the planet, as you say.

[ Tom Heap ]

You mention the lights going out. There are predictions that we’re
headed towards just 2% of spare capacity in the system in a few years’
time.

Are you worried about the dangers of, I don’t know, maybe not lights
going out for some people, but perhaps big energy users being told
when and when [ sic, meaning where ] they can’t use power in the
winter ?

[ Ed Davey ]

Well, there’s no doubt that as the coal power stations come offline,
and the nuclear power plants, er, close, we’re going to have make sure
that new power plants are coming on to replace them.

And if we don’t, there will be a problem with energy security.

Now we’ve been working very hard over a long time now to make sure we
attract that investment. We’ve been working with Ofgem, the regulator;
with National Grid, and we’re…

[ Tom Heap ]

…Being [ or it’s being ] tough. I don’t see companies racing to come
and fill in the gap here and those coal power plants are going off
soon.

[ Ed Davey ]

…we’re actually having record levels of energy investment in the country.

The problem was for 13 years under the last Government
[ same old, same old Coalition argument ] we saw low levels of investment
in energy, and we’re having to race to catch up, but fortunately we’re
winning that race. And we’re seeing, you know, billions of pounds
invested but we’ve still got to do more. We’re not there. I’m not
pretending we’re there yet. [ Are we there, yet ? ] But we do have the
policies in place.

So, Ofgem is currently consulting on a set of proposals which will
enable it to have reserve power to switch on at the peak if it’s
needed.

We’re, we’ve, bringing forward proposals in the Energy Bill for what’s
called a Capacity Market, so we can auction to get that extra capacity
we need.

So we’ve got the policies in place.

[ Tom Heap ]

Some of Ed Davey’s policies, not least the LibDem [ Liberal Democrat
Party ] U-turn on nuclear, have been guided by DECC [ Department of
Energy and Climate Change ] Chief Scientist David MacKay, author of
the influential book “Renewable Energy without the Hot Air” [ sic,
actually “Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air” ].

Does he think the lights will dim in the second half of this decade ?

[ David MacKay ]

I don’t think there’s going to be any problem maintaining the capacity
that we need. We just need to make clear where Electricity Market
Reform [ EMR, part of the Energy Bill ] is going, and the way in which
we will be maintaining capacity.

[ Tom Heap ]

But I don’t quite understand that, because it seems to me, you know,
some of those big coal-fired power stations are going to be going off.
What’s going to be coming in their place ?

[ David MacKay ]

Well, the biggest number of power stations that’s been built in the
last few years are gas power stations, and we just need a few more gas
power stations like that, to replace the coal
, and hopefully some
nuclear power stations will be coming on the bars, as well as the wind
farms that are being built at the moment.

[ Tom Heap ]

And you’re happy with that increase in gas-fired power stations, are
you ? I mean, you do care deeply, personally, about reducing our
greenhouse gases, and yet you’re saying we’re going to have to build
more gas-fired power stations.

[ David MacKay ]

I do. Even in many of the pathways that reach the 2050 target, there’s
still a role for gas in the long-term, because some power sources like
wind and solar power are intermittent, so if you want to be keeping
the lights on in 2050 when there’s no wind and there’s no sun, you’re
going to need some gas power stations there
. Maybe not operating so
much of the time as they do today, but there’ll still be a role in
keeping the lights on.

[ KLAXON ! If gas plants are used only for peak periods or for backup to
renewables, then the carbon emissions will be much less than if they are
running all the time. ]

[ Tom Heap ]

Many energy experts though doubt that enough new wind power or nuclear
capacity could be built fast enough to affect the sums in a big way by
2020.

But that isn’t the only critical date looming over our energy system.
Even more challenging, though more distant, is the legally binding
objective of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in 2050.

David MacKay wants that certainty to provide the foundation for energy
decisions, and he showed me the effect of different choices with the
“Ultimate Future Energy App”. I was in his office, but anyone can try it online.

[ David MacKay ]

It’s a 2050 calculator. It computes energy demand and supply in
response to your choices, and it computes multiple consequences of
your choices. It computes carbon consequences. It also computes for
you estimates of air quality, consequences of different choices;
security of supply, consequences; and the costs of your choices.

So with this 2050 calculator, it’s an open source tool, and anyone can
go on the web and use the levers to imagine different futures in 2050
of how much action we’ve taken in different demand sectors and in
different supply sectors.

The calculator has many visualisations of the pathway that you’re choosing
and helps people understand all the trade-offs… There’s no silver
bullet for any of this. If I dial up a pathway someone made earlier,
we can visualise the implications in terms of the area occupied for
the onshore wind farms, and the area in the sea for the offshore wind
farms, and the length of the wave farms that you’ve built, and the
land area required for energy crops.

And many organisations have used this tool and some of them have given
us their preferred pathway. So you can see here the Friends of the
Earth have got their chosen pathway, the Campaign to Protect Rural
England, and various engineers like National Grid and Atkins have got
their pathways.

So you can see alternative ways of achieving our targets, of keeping
the lights on and taking climate change action. All of those pathways
all meet the 2050 target, but they do so with different mixes.

[ Tom Heap ]

And your view of this is you sort of can’t escape from the scientific
logic and rigour of it. You might wish things were different or you
could do it differently, but you’re sort of saying “Look, it’s either
one thing or the other”. That’s the point of this.

[ David MacKay ]

That’s true. You can’t be anti-everything. You can’t be anti-wind and
anti-nuclear and anti-home insulation. You won’t end up with a plan
that adds up.

[ KLAXON ! But you can be rationally against one or two things, like
expensive new nuclear power, and carbon and particulate emissions-heavy
biomass for the generation of electricity. ]

[ Tom Heap ]

But isn’t that exactly kind of the problem that we’ve had, without
pointing political fingers, that people rather have been
anti-everything, and that’s why we’re sort of not producing enough new
energy sources ?

[ David MacKay ]

Yeah. The majority of the British public I think are in favour of many
of these sources, but there are strong minorities who are vocally
opposed to every one of the major levers in this calculator. So one
aspiration I have for this tool is it may help those people come to a
position where they have a view that’s actually consistent with the
goal of keeping the lights on.

[ Tom Heap ]

Professor MacKay’s calculator also computes pounds and pence,
suggesting that both high and low carbon electricity work out pricey
in the end.

[ David MacKay ]

The total costs of all the pathways are pretty much the same.
“Business as Usual” is cheaper in the early years, and then pays more,
because on the “Business as Usual”, you carry on using fossil fuels,
and the prices of those fossil fuels are probably going to go up.

All of the pathways that take climate change action have a similar
total cost, but they pay more in the early years, ’cause you have to
pay for things like building insulation and power stations, like
nuclear power stations, or wind power, which cost up-front, but then
they’re very cheap to run in the future.

[ KLAXON ! Will the cost of decommissioning nuclear reactors and the
costs of the waste disposal be cheap ? I think not… ]

So the totals over the 40 or 50 year period here, are much the same for these.

[ Tom Heap ]

The cheapest immediate option of all is to keep shovelling the coal.
And last year coal overtook gas to be our biggest electricity
generation source, pushing up overall carbon emissions along the way
by 4.5%

[ KLAXON ! This is not very good for energy security – look where the
coal comes from… ]

As we heard earlier, most coal-fired power stations are scheduled for
termination, but some have won a reprieve, and trees are their
unlikely saviour.

Burning plenty of wood chip [ actually, Tom, it’s not wood “chip”, it’s
wood “pellets” – which often have other things mixed in with the wood,
like coal… ] allows coal furnaces to cut the sulphur dioxide and nitrous
oxide belching from their chimneys to below the level that requires their
closure under European law.

But some enthusiasts see wood being good for even more.

16:19

[ Outside ]

It’s one of those Autumn days that promises to be warm, but currently
is rather moist. I’m in a field surrounded by those dew-laden cobwebs
you get at this time of year.

But in the middle of this field is a plantation of willow. And I’m at
Rothamsted Research with Angela Karp who’s one of the directors here.

Angela, tell me about this willow I’m standing in front of here. I
mean, it’s about ten foot high or so, but what are you seeing ?

[ Angela Karp ]

Well, I’m seeing one of our better varieties that’s on display here.
We have a demonstration trial of about ten different varieties. This
is a good one, because it produces a lot of biomass, quite easily,
without a lot of additional fertilisers or anything. And as you can
see it’s got lovely straight stems. It’s got many stems, and at the
end of three years, we would harvest all those stems to get the
biomass from it. It’s nice and straight – it’s a lovely-looking, it’s
got no disease, no insects on it, very nice, clean willow.

[ Tom Heap ]

So, what you’ve been working on here as I understand it is trying to
create is the perfect willow – the most fuel for the least input – and
the easiest to harvest.

[ Angela Karp ]

That’s absolutely correct, because the whole reason for growing these
crops is to get the carbon from the atmosphere into the wood, and to
use that wood as a replacement for fossil fuels. Without putting a lot
of inputs in, because as soon as you add fertilisers you’re using
energy and carbon to make them, and that kind of defeats the whole
purpose of doing this.

[ KLAXON ! You don’t need to use fossil fuel energy or petrochemicals or
anything with carbon emissions to make fertiliser ! … Hang on, these
are GM trees, right ? So they will need inputs… ]

[ Tom Heap ]

And how much better do you think your new super-variety is, than say,
what was around, you know, 10 or 15 years ago. ‘Cause willow as an
idea for burning has been around for a bit. How much of an improvement
is this one here ?

[ Angela Karp ]

Quite a bit. So, these are actually are some of the, if you like,
middle-term varieties. So we started off yielding about 8 oven-dry
tonnes per hectare, and now we’ve almost doubled that.

[ Tom Heap ]

How big a place do you think biomass can have in the UK’s energy
picture in the future ?

[ Angela Karp ]

I think that it could contribute between 10% and 15% of our energy. If
we were to cultivate willows on 1 million hectares, we would probably
provide about 3% to 4% of energy in terms of electricity, and I think
that’s kind of a baseline figure. We could cultivate them on up to 3
million hectares, so you can multiply things up, and we could use them
in a much more energy-efficient way.

[ KLAXON ! Is that 4% of total energy or 4% of total electricity ?
Confused. ]

[ Tom Heap ]

Do we really have 3 million hectares going a-begging for planting willow in ?

[ Angela Karp ]

Actually, surprisingly we do. So, people have this kind of myth
there’s not enough land, but just look around you and you will find
there’s lots of land that’s not used for cultivating food crops.

We don’t see them taking over the whole country. We see them being
grown synergistically with food crops.

[ KLAXON ! This is a bit different than the statement made in 2009. ]

[ Tom Heap ]

But I’d just like to dig down a little bit more into the carbon cycle
of the combustion of these things, because that’s been the recent
criticism of burning a lot of biomass, is that you put an early spike
in the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, if you start burning a lot
of biomass, because this [ sounds of rustling ], this plant is going
to be turned into, well, partly, CO2 in the atmosphere.

[ Angela Karp ]

Yes, I think that’s probably a simple and not totally correct way of
looking at it. ‘Cause a lot depends on the actual conversion process
you are using.

So some conversion processes are much more efficient at taking
everything and converting it into what you want.

Heat for example is in excess of 80%, 90% conversion efficiency.

Electricity is a little bit more of the problem. And there, what
they’re looking at is capturing some of the carbon that you lose, and
converting that back in, in carbon storage processes, and that’s why
there’s a lot of talk now about carbon storage from these power
stations.

That I think is the future. It’s a question of connecting up all parts
of the process, and making sure that’s nothing wasted.

20:02

[ Tom Heap ]

So, is wood a desirable greener fuel ?

Not according to Almuth Ernsting of Biofuelwatch, who objects to the
current plans for large-scale wood burning, its use to prop up coal,
and even its low carbon claims.

[ Almuth Ernsting ]

The currently-announced industry plans, and by that I mean existing
power stations, but far more so, power stations which are in the
planning process [ and ] many of which have already been consented –
those [ biomass ] power stations, would, if they all go ahead,
require to burn around 82 million tonnes of biomass, primarily wood,
every year. Now by comparison, the UK in total only produces around
10 million tonnes, so one eighth of that amount, in wood, for all
industries and purposes, every year.

We are looking on the one hand at a significant number of proposed,
and in some cases, under-construction or operating new-build biomass
power stations, but the largest single investment so far going into
the conversion of coal power station units to biomass, the largest and
most advanced one of which at the moment is Drax, who are, have
started to move towards converting half their capacity to burning wood
pellets.

[ Tom Heap ]

Drax is that huge former, or still currently, coal-fired power station
in Yorkshire, isn’t it ?

[ Almuth Ernsting ]

Right, and they still want to keep burning coal as well. I mean, their
long-term vision, as they’ve announced, would be for 50:50 coal and
biomass.

[ Tom Heap ]

What do you think about that potential growth ?

[ Almuth Ernsting ]

Well, we’re seriously concerned. We believe it’s seriously bad news
for climate change, it’s seriously bad news for forests, and it’s
really bad news for communities, especially in the Global South, who
are at risk of losing their land for further expansion of monoculture
tree plantations, to in future supply new power stations in the UK.

A really large amount, increasingly so, of the wood being burned,
comes from slow-growing, whole trees that are cut down for that
purpose, especially at the moment in temperate forests in North
America. Now those trees will take many, many decades to grow back
and potentially re-absorb that carbon dioxide, that’s if they’re
allowed and able to ever grow back.

[ Tom Heap ]

There’s another technology desperate for investment, which is critical
to avoiding power failure, whilst still hitting our mid-century carbon
reduction goals – CCS – Carbon Capture and Storage, the ability to
take the greenhouse gases from the chimney and bury them underground.

It’s especially useful for biomass and coal, with their relatively
high carbon emissions, but would also help gas be greener.

The Chancellor has approved 30 new gas-fired power stations, so long
as they are CCS-ready [ sic, should be “capture ready”, or
“carbon capture ready” ].

Jon Gibbons is the boss of the UK CCS Research Centre, based in an
industrial estate in Sheffield.

[ Noise of processing plant ]

Jon’s just brought me up a sort of 3D maze of galvanized steel and
shiny metal pipes to the top of a tower that must be 20 or so metres
high.

Jon, what is this ?

[ Jon Gibbons ]

OK, so this is our capture unit, to take the CO2 out of the combustion
products from gas or coal. In the building behind us, in the test rigs
we’ve got, the gas turbine or the combustor rig, we’re burning coal or
gas, or oil, but mainly coal or gas.

We’re taking the combustion products through the green pipe over
there, bringing it into the bottom of the unit, and then you can see
these big tall columns we’ve got, about 18 inches diameter, half a
metre diameter, coming all the way up from the ground up to the level
we’re at.

It goes into one of those, it gets washed clean with water, and it
goes into this unit over here, and there it meets an amine solvent, a
chemical that will react reversibly with CO2, coming in the opposite
direction, over packing. So, it’s like sort of pebbles, if you can
imagine it, there’s a lot of surface area. The gas flows up, the
liquid flows down, and it picks up the CO2, just mainly the CO2.

[ Tom Heap ]

And that amine, that chemical as you call it, is stripping the CO2 out
of that exhaust gas. This will link to a storage facility.

What would then happen to the CO2 ?

[ Jon Gibbons ]

What would then happen is that the CO2 would be compressed up to
somewhere in excess of about 100 atmospheres. And it would turn from
being a gas into something that looks like a liquid, like water, about
the same density as water. And then it would be taken offshore in the
UK, probably tens or hundreds of kilometres offshore, and it would go
deep, deep down, over a kilometre down into the ground, and basically
get squeezed into stuff that looks like solid rock. If you go and look
at a sandstone building – looks solid, but actually, maybe a third of
it is little holes. And underground, where you’ve got cubic kilometres
of space, those little holes add up to an awful lot of free space. And
the CO2 gets squeezed into those, over time, and it spreads out, and
it just basically sits there forever, dissolves in the water, reacts
with the rocks, and will stay there for millions of years.

[ Tom Heap ]

Back in his office, I asked Jon why CCS seemed to be stuck in the lab.

[ Jon Gibbons ]

We’re doing enough I think on the research side, but what we really
need to do, is to do work on a full-scale deployment. Because you
can’t work on research in a vacuum. You need to get feedback –
learning by doing – from actual real projects.

And a lot of the problems we’ve got on delivering CCS, are to do with
how you handle the regulation for injecting CO2, and again, you can
only do that in real life.

So what we need to do is to see the commercialisation projects that
are being run by the Department of Energy and Climate Change actually
going through to real projects that can be delivered.

[ Tom Heap ]

Hmm. When I talk to engineers, they’re always very passionate and
actually quite optimistic about Carbon Capture and Storage. And when
I talk to people in industry, or indeed read the headlines, not least
a recent cancellation in Norway, it always seems like a very bleak picture.

[ Jon Gibbons ]

I think people are recognising that it’s getting quite hard to get
money for low carbon technologies.

So – recent presentation we had at one of our centre meetings, was
actually a professor from the United States, Howard Herzog. And he
said “You think you’re seeing a crisis in Carbon Capture and Storage.
But what you’re actually seeing is a crisis in climate change
mitigation.”

[ KLAXON ! Priming us for a scaling back of commitment to the
Climate Change Act ? I do hope not. ]

Now, Carbon Capture and Storage, you do for no other purpose than
cutting CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, and it does that extremely
effectively. It’s an essential technology for cutting emissions. But
until you’ve got a global process that says – actually we’re going to
get on top of this problem; we’re going to cut emissions – get them to
safe level before we actually see people dying in large numbers from
climate change effects – ’cause, certainly, if people start dying,
then we will see a response – but ideally, you’d like to do it before
then. But until you get that going, then actually persuading people to
spend money for no other benefit than sorting out the climate is
difficult.

There’s just no point, you know, no country can go it alone, so you
have to get accommodation. And there, we’re going through various
processes to debate that. Maybe people will come to an accommodation.
Maybe the USA and China will agree to tackle climate change. Maybe
they won’t.

What I am fairly confident is that you won’t see huge, you know,
really big cuts in CO2 emissions without that global agreement. But
I’m also confident that you won’t see big cuts in CO2 emissions
without CCS deployment.

And my guess is there’s about a 50:50 chance that we do CCS before we
need to, and about a 50:50 chance we do it after we have to. But I’m
pretty damn certain we’re going to do it.

[ Tom Heap ]

But we can’t wait for a global agreement that’s already been decades
in the making, with still no end in sight.

We need decisions now to provide more power with less pollution.

[ Music lyrics : “What’s the plan ? What’s the plan ?” ]

[ Tom Heap ]

Dieter Helm, Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Oxford
believes we can only deliver our plentiful green energy future if we
abandon our attitude of buy-now pay-later.

[ KLAXON ! Does he mean a kind of hire purchase energy economy ?
I mean, we’re still paying for nuclear electricity from decades ago,
in our bills, and through our taxes to the Department of Energy and
Climate Change. ]

[ Dieter Helm ]

There’s a short-term requirement and a long-term requirement. The
short-term requirement is that we’re now in a real pickle. We face
this energy crunch. We’ve got to try to make the best of what we’ve
got. And I think it’s really like, you know, trying to get the
Spitfires back up again during the Battle of Britain. You know, you
patch and mend. You need somebody in command. You need someone
in control. And you do the best with what you’ve got.

In that context, we then have to really stand back and say, “And this
is what we have to do to get a serious, long-term, continuous, stable
investment environment, going forward.” In which, you know, we pay the
costs, but of course, not any monopoly profits, not any excess
profits, but we have a world in which the price of electricity is
related to the cost.”

[ KLAXON ! Is Dieter Helm proposing state ownership of energy plant ? ]

29:04

[ Programme anchor ]

“Costing the Earth” was presented by Tom Heap, and made in Bristol by
Helen Lennard.

[ Next broadcast : 16th October 2013, 21:00, BBC Radio 4 ]

Categories
Assets not Liabilities Bait & Switch Be Prepared Behaviour Changeling Big Number Big Picture Big Society Breathe Easy Burning Money Change Management Coal Hell Conflict of Interest Corporate Pressure Dead End Dead Zone Deal Breakers Delay and Deny Demoticratica Design Matters Direction of Travel Divide & Rule Dreamworld Economics Economic Implosion Emissions Impossible Energy Change Energy Denial Energy Insecurity Energy Revival Energy Socialism Foreign Investment Fossilised Fuels Fuel Poverty Green Investment Green Power Hydrocarbon Hegemony Insulation Mass Propaganda Media National Energy National Power Nuclear Nuisance Nuclear Shambles Nudge & Budge Optimistic Generation Orwells Paradigm Shapeshifter Policy Warfare Political Nightmare Price Control Public Relations Regulatory Ultimatum Social Capital Social Change Social Chaos Social Democracy Stirring Stuff Sustainable Deferment The Power of Intention The Price of Gas The Science of Communitagion The War on Error Ungreen Development Vote Loser Wind of Fortune

High Stakes Energy Chutzpah





Image Credit : Carbon Brief


After Gordon Brown MP, the UK’s former Prime Minister, was involved in several diplomatic missions around the time of the oil price spike crisis in 2008, and the G20 group of countries went after fossil fuel subsidies (causing easily predictable civil disturbances in several parts of the world), it seemed to me to be obvious that energy price control would be a defining aspect of near-term global policy.

With the economy still in a contracted state (with perhaps further contraction to follow on), national interest for industrialised countries rests in maintaining domestic production and money flows – meaning that citizens should not face sharply-rising utility bills, so that they can remain active in the economy.

In the UK, those at the fringe of financial sustainability are notoriously having to face the decision about whether to Eat or Heat, and Food Banks are in the ascendance. Various charity campaigns have emphasised the importance of affordable energy at home, and the leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband MP has made an energy price freeze a potential plank of his policy ahead of the push for the next General Election.

The current Prime Minister, David Cameron MP has called this commitment a “con”, as his political counterpart cannot determine the wholesale price of gas (or power) in the future.

This debate comes at a crucial time in the passage of the UK Energy Bill, as the Electricity Market Reform (EMR), a key component of this legislation has weighty subsidies embedded in it for new nuclear power and renewable energy, and also backup plants (mostly Natural Gas-fired) for periods of high power demand, in what is called the “Capacity Market“. These subsidies will largely be paid for by increases in electricity bills, in one way or another.

The EMR hasn’t yet passed into the statute books, so the majority of “green energy taxes” haven’t yet coming into being – although letters of “comfort” may have been sent to to (one or more) companies seeking to invest in new nuclear power facilities, making clear the UK Government’s monetary commitment to fully supporting the atomic “renaissance”.

With a bucketload of chutzpah, Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) and Electricite de France’s Vincent de Rivaz blamed green energy policies for contributing to past, current and future power price rises. Both of these companies stand to gain quite a lot from the EMR, so their blame-passing sounds rather hollow.

The Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph have seemed to me to be incendiary regarding green energy subsidies, omitting to mention that whilst the trajectory of the cost of state support for renewable energy is easily calculated, volatility in global energy markets for gas and oil – and even coal – are indeterminable. Although “scandal-hugging” (sensation equals sales) columnists and editors at the newspapers don’t seem to have an appreciation of what’s really behind energy price rises, the Prime Minister – and Ed Davey MP – have got it – and squarely placed the responsibility for energy price rises on fossil fuels.

The price tag for “green energy policies” – even those being offered to (low carbon, but not “green”) nuclear power – should be considerably less than the total bill burden for energy, and hold out the promise of energy price stabilisation or even suppression in the medium- to long-term, which is why most political parties back them.

The agenda for new nuclear power appears to be floundering – it has been suggested by some that European and American nuclear power companies are not solvent enough to finance a new “fleet” of reactors. In the UK, the Government and its friends in the nuclear industry are planning to pull in east Asian investment (in exchange for large amounts of green energy subsidies, in effect). I suspect a legal challenge will be put forward should a trade agreement of this nature be signed, as soon as its contents are public knowledge.

The anger stirred up about green energy subsidies has had a reaction from David Cameron who has not dispensed with green energy policy, but declared that subsidies should not last longer than they are needed – probably pointing at the Germany experience of degressing the solar power Feed-in Tariff – although he hasn’t mentioned how nuclear subsidies could be ratcheted down, since the new nuclear programme will probably have to rely on state support for the whole of its lifecycle.

Meanwhile, in the Press, it seems that green energy doesn’t work, that green energy subsidies are the only reason for energy bill rises, we should drop the Climate Change Act, and John Prescott MP, and strangely, a woman called Susan Thomas, are pushing coal-fired power claiming it as the cheaper, surer – even cleaner – solution, and there is much scaremongering about blackouts.




https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/john-prescott-its-coal-power-2366172

John Prescott on why it’s coal power to the people

12 Oct 2013

We can’t just stand back and give these energy companies money to burn.

It’s only 72 days until Christmas. But the greedy big six energy companies are giving themselves an early present. SSE has just announced an inflation-beating 8.2 per cent price rise on gas and electricity.

The other five will soon follow suit, no doubt doing their best to beat their combined profit from last year of £10billion.

Their excuse now is to blame climate change. SSE says it could cut bills by £110 if Government, not the Big Six, paid for green energy ­subsidies and other environmental costs, such as free loft insulation.

So your bill would look smaller but you’d pay for it with higher taxes. Talk about smoke and mirrors.

But Tory-led governments have always been hopeless at protecting the energy security of this country.

It’s almost 40 years since Britain was hit by blackouts when the Tories forced the UK into a three-day week to conserve energy supplies.

But Ofgem says the margin of ­security between energy demand and supply will drop from 14 per cent to 4 per cent by 2016. That’s because we’ve committed to closing nine oil and coal power stations to meet EU ­environmental law and emissions targets. These targets were meant to encourage the UK to move to cleaner sources of energy.

But this government drastically reduced subsidies for renewable energy such as wind and solar, let Tory energy ministers say “enough is enough” to onshore wind and failed to get agreement on replacing old
nuclear power stations.

On top of that, if we experience a particularly cold winter, we only have a reserve of 5 per cent.

But the Government is committed to hundreds of millions pounds of subsidies to pay the energy ­companies to mothball these oil and coal power stations. As someone who ­negotiated the first Kyoto agreement in 1997 and is involved in its replacement by 2015, it is clear European emissions targets will not be met in the short term by 2020.

So we have to be realistic and do what we can to keep the lights on, our people warm and our country running.

We should keep these oil and coal power stations open to reduce the risk of blackouts – not on stand-by or mothballed but working now.

The former Tory Energy minister John Hayes hinted at this but knew he couldn’t get it past his Lib Dem Energy Secretary boss Ed Davey. He bragged he’d put the coal in coalition. Instead he put the fire in fired.

We can’t just stand back and give these energy companies money to burn. The only energy security they’re interested in is securing profit and maximising taxpayer subsidies.

That’s why Ed Miliband’s right to say he’d freeze bills for 20 months and to call for more ­transparency.

We also need an integrated mixed energy policy – gas, oil, wind, nuclear and, yes, coal.




https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/yoursay/letters/10722697.Bills_have_risen_to_pay_for_policy_changes/?ref=arc

Letters

Bills have risen to pay for policy changes

Tuesday 8th October 2013

in Letters

THE recent Labour Party pledge to freeze energy bills demonstrated how to have a political cake and eat it. The pledge is an attempt to rectify a heinous political mistake caused by political hubris and vanity.

In 2008, the then energy minister, Ed Miliband, vowed to enact the most stringent cuts in power emissions in the entire world to achieve an unrealistic 80 per cent cut in carbon emissions by closing down fully functioning coal power stations.

He was playing the role of climate saint to win popularity and votes.

I was a member when Ed Miliband spoke in Oxford Town Hall to loud cheers from numerous low-carbon businesses, who stood to profit from his legislation. I was concerned at the impact on the consumer, since it is widely known that coal power stations offer the cheapest energy to consumers compared to nuclear and wind.

So I wrote to Andrew Smith MP at great length and he passed on my concerns to the newly-formed Department of Energy and Climate Change that had replaced the previous Department of Energy and Business.

This new department sent me a lengthy reply, mapping out their plans for wind turbines at a projected cost to the consumer of £100bn to include new infrastructure and amendments to the National Grid. This cost would be added to consumer electricity bills via a hidden green policy tariff.
This has already happened and explains the rise in utility bills.

Some consumers are confused and wrongly believe that energy companies are ‘ripping them off’.

It was clearly stated on Channel 4 recently that energy bills have risen to pay for new policy changes. These policy changes were enacted by Ed Miliband in his popularity bid to play climate saviour in 2008. Energy bills have now rocketed. So Ed has cost every single consumer in the land several hundred pounds extra on their bills each year.

SUSAN THOMAS, Magdalen Road, Oxford




LETTERS
Daily Mail
14th October 2013

[ Turned off: Didcot power station’s closure could lead to power cuts. ]

Labour’s power failures will cost us all dear

THE Labour Party’s pledge to freeze energy bills is an attempt to rectify a horrible political mistake. But it might be too late to dig us out of the financial black hole caused by political vanity.

In 2008, then Energy Minister Ed Miliband vowed to enact the most stringent cuts in power emissions in the world to achieve an unrealistic 80 per cent cut in carbon emissions by closing down coal power stations. He was playing the role of climate saint to win votes.

I was in the audience in Oxford Town Hall that day and recall the loud cheers from numerous representatives of low-carbon businesses as his policies stood to make them all rather wealthy, albeit at the expense of every electricity consumer in the land.

I thought Ed had become entangled in a spider’s web.

I was concerned at the impact on the consumer as it’s widely known that coal power stations offer the cheapest energy to consumers.

I contacted the Department of Energy and Climate Change and it sent me a lengthy reply mapping out its plans for energy projects and wind turbines – at a projected cost to the consumer of £100 billion – including new infrastructure and national grid amendments.

It explained the cost would be added to consumer electricity bills via a ‘green policy’ tariff. This has now happened and explains the rise in utility bills.

Some consumers wrongly believe the energy companies are ripping them off. In fact, energy bills have risen to pay for policy changes.

The people to benefit from this are low-carbon venture capitalists and rich landowners who reap subsidy money (which ultimately comes from the hard-hit consumer) for having wind farms on their land.

Since Didcot power station closed I’ve suffered five power cuts in my Oxford home. If we have a cold winter, we now have a one-in-four chance of a power cut.

The 2008 legislation was a huge mistake. When power cuts happen, people will be forced to burn filthy coal and wood in their grates to keep warm, emitting cancer-causing particulates.

Didcot had already got rid of these asthma-causing particulates and smoke. It emitted mainly steam and carbon dioxide which aren’t harmful to our lungs. But the clean, non-toxic carbon dioxide emitted by Didcot was classified by Mr Miliband as a pollutant. We are heading into a public health and financial disaster.

SUSAN THOMAS, Oxford




https://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2013/october/ceos-demand-reform-of-eu-renewable-subsidies/78418.aspx

CEOs demand reform of EU renewable subsidies
By Dave Keating – 11.10.2013

Companies ask the EU to stop subsidising the renewable energy sector.

The CEOs of Europe’s ten biggest energy companies called for the European Union and member states to stop subsidising the renewable energy sector on Friday (11 October), saying that the priority access given to the sector could cause widespread blackouts in Europe over the winter.

At a press conference in Brussels, Paolo Scaroni, CEO of Italian oil and gas company ENI, said: “In the EU, companies pay three times the price of gas in America, twice the price of power. How can we dream of an industrial renaissance with such a differential?”

The CEOs said the low price of renewable energy as a result of government subsidies is causing it to flood the market. They called for an EU capacity mechanism that would pay utilities for keeping electric power-generating capacity on standby to remedy this problem.

They also complained that the low price of carbon in the EU’s emissions trading scheme (ETS) is exacerbating the problem…




https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2458333/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Press-freedom-life-death-matter.html

Well said, Sir Tim

Days after David Cameron orders a review of green taxes, which add £132 to power bills, the Lib Dem Energy Secretary vows to block any attempt to cut them.

Reaffirming his commitment to the levies, which will subsidise record numbers of inefficient wind farms approved this year, Ed Davey adds: ‘I think we will see more price rises.’

The Mail can do no better than quote lyricist Sir Tim Rice, who has declined more than £1million to allow a wind farm on his Scottish estate. ‘I don’t see why rich twits like me should be paid to put up everybody else’s bills,’ he says. ‘Especially for something that doesn’t work.’

Categories
Academic Freedom Bait & Switch Be Prepared Behaviour Changeling Big Society Change Management Climate Change Climate Chaos Conflict of Interest Corporate Pressure Cost Effective Dead End Dead Zone Demoticratica Design Matters Direction of Travel Disturbing Trends Divide & Rule Efficiency is King Electrificandum Energy Autonomy Energy Change Energy Denial Energy Insecurity Energy Revival Engineering Marvel Evil Opposition Freemarketeering Gamechanger Global Warming Green Investment Green Power Human Nurture Hydrocarbon Hegemony Insulation Low Carbon Life Major Shift Mass Propaganda National Energy National Power No Pressure Not In My Name Nudge & Budge Paradigm Shapeshifter Policy Warfare Political Nightmare Public Relations Pure Hollywood Realistic Models Regulatory Ultimatum Resource Curse Resource Wards Revolving Door Smokestorm Social Capital Social Change Social Chaos Social Democracy Solution City Stirring Stuff Sustainable Deferment Technofix Technological Fallacy Technological Sideshow Technomess The Power of Intention The Science of Communitagion The War on Error Unqualified Opinion Unsolicited Advice & Guidance Unutterably Useless Utter Futility Vain Hope Voluntary Behaviour Change Vote Loser Wasted Resource Western Hedge

The Art of Non-Persuasion

I could never be in sales and marketing. I have a strong negative reaction to public relations, propaganda and the sticky, inauthentic charm of personal persuasion.

Lead a horse to water, show them how lovely and sparkling it is, talk them through their appreciation of water, how it could benefit their lives, make them thirsty, stand by and observe as they start to lap it up.

One of the mnemonics of marketing is AIDA, which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Action, leading a “client” through the process, guiding a sale. Seize Attention. Create Interest. Inspire Desire. Precipitate Action. Some mindbenders insert the letter C for Commitment – hoping to be sure that Desire has turned into certain decision before permitting, allowing, enabling, contracting or encouraging the Action stage.

You won’t get that kind of psychological plasticity nonsense from me. Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and ethics should be applied to every conversion of intent. In fact, the architect of a change of mind should be the mind who is changing – the marketeer or sales person should not proselytise, evangelise, lie, cheat, sneak, creep and massage until they have control.

I refuse to do “Suggestive Sell”. I only do “Show and Tell”.

I am quite observant, and so in interpersonal interactions I am very sensitive to rejection, the “no” forming in the mind of the other. I can sense when somebody is turned off by an idea or a proposal, sometimes even before they know it clearly themselves. I am habituated to detecting disinclination, and I am resigned to it. There is no bridge over the chasm of “no”. I know that marketing people are trained to not accept negative reactions they perceive – to keep pursuing the sale. But I don’t want to. I want to admit, permit, allow my correspondent to say “no” and mean “no”, and not be harrassed, deceived or cajoled to change it to a “yes”.

I have been accused of being on the dark side – in my attempts to show and tell on climate change and renewable energy. Some assume that because I am part of the “communications team”, I am conducting a sales job. I’m not. My discovery becomes your discovery, but it’s not a constructed irreality. For many, it’s true that they believe they need to follow the path of public relations – deploying the “information deficit model” of communication – hierarchically patronising. Me, expert. You, poor unknowing punter. Me, inform you. You, believe, repent, be cleaned and change your ways. In this sense, communications experts have made climate change a religious cult.

In energy futures, I meet so many who are wild-eyed, desperate to make a sale – those who have genuine knowledge of their subject – and who realise that their pitch is not strong enough in the eyes of others. It’s not just a question of money or funding. The engineers, often in large corporations, trying to make an impression on politicians. The consultants who are trying to influence companies and civil servants. The independent professionals trying to exert the wisdom of pragmatism and negotiated co-operation. The establishment trying to sell technical services. Those organisations and institutions playing with people – playing with belonging, with reputation, marketing outdated narratives. People who are in. People who are hands-off. People who are tipped and ditched. Those with connections who give the disconnected a small rocky platform. The awkwardness of invested power contending with radical outsiders. Denial of changing realities. The dearth of ready alternatives. Are you ready to be captured, used and discarded ? Chase government research and development grants. Steal your way into consultations. Play the game. Sell yourself. Dissociate and sell your soul.

I have to face the fact that I do need to sell myself. I have to do it in a way which remains open and honest. To sell myself and my conceptual framework, my proposals for ways forward on energy and climate change, I need a product. My person is often not enough of a product to sell – I am neuro-atypical. My Curriculum Vitae CV in resume is not enough of a product to sell me. My performance in interviews and meetings is often not enough of a product. My weblog has never been a vehicle for sales. I didn’t want it to be – or to be seen as that – as I try to avoid deceit in communications.

Change requires facilitation. You can’t just walk away when the non-persuasional communications dialogue challenge gets speared with distrust and dismissal. Somehow there has to be a way to present direction and decisions in a way that doesn’t have a shadow of evil hovering in the wings.

“A moment to change it all, is all it takes to start anew.
To the other side.”


Why do I need to “sell” myself ? Why do I need to develop a product – a vehicle with which to sell myself ?

1. In order to be recognised, in order to be welcomed, invited to make a contribution to the development of low carbon energy, the optimisation of the use of energy, and effective climate change policy.

2. In order to put my internal motivations and drive to some practical use. To employ my human energy in the service of the future of energy engineering and energy systems.



Categories
Academic Freedom Advertise Freely Bait & Switch Be Prepared Big Picture Big Society Carbon Army Carbon Capture Climate Change Conflict of Interest Contraction & Convergence Corporate Pressure Dead End Dead Zone Deal Breakers Delay and Deny Demoticratica Disturbing Trends Divide & Rule Dreamworld Economics Emissions Impossible Energy Change Energy Denial Energy Insecurity Energy Revival Financiers of the Apocalypse Fossilised Fuels Freemarketeering Gamechanger Global Warming Green Investment Growth Paradigm Human Nurture Hydrocarbon Hegemony Incalculable Disaster Landslide Libertarian Liberalism Low Carbon Life Major Shift Mass Propaganda Media National Energy National Power Neverending Disaster No Blood For Oil No Pressure Not In My Name Optimistic Generation Paradigm Shapeshifter Peak Emissions Peak Energy Peak Oil Petrolheads Policy Warfare Political Nightmare Protest & Survive Realistic Models Regulatory Ultimatum Renewable Resource Revolving Door Social Capital Social Change Social Chaos Solution City Stirring Stuff Sustainable Deferment The Data The Power of Intention The War on Error Wasted Resource Western Hedge

George Monbiot : Peak Agitation

My electronic mail inbox and Twitter “social media” timeline are full of people sparking and foaming about George Monbiot’s latest kow-tow to American academia. Apparently, he has discarded the evidence of many, many researchers, energy engineers and market players and poured luke-warm, regurgitated scorn on the evidence and inevitability of “Peak Oil”.

The level of agitation contradicting his stance has reached a new peak – in fact, I think I might claim this as “Peak Agitation”.

Here is just one example from Paul Mobbs, author of “Energy Beyond Oil”, and a multi-talented, multi-sectoral educator and researcher.

I initially read it in my inbox and nearly fell of my chair gobsmacked. When I had recovered from being astonished, and asked Mobbsey if I could quote him, perhaps anonymously, he wrote back :-

“No, you can quite clearly and boldly attach my name and email address to it ! And perhaps ask George for a response ?”

Sadly, George Monbiot appears to have jammed his thumbs in his ears as regards my commentary, so he is very unlikely to read this or become aware of the strength of opposition to his new positioning. But anyway – here’s for what’s it’s worth (and when it comes from Paul Mobbs, it’s worth a great deal) :-


Re: Peak oil – we were wrong. When the facts change we must change.

Hi all,

I’ve sat patiently through the various emails between you all — mainly to
take soundings of where you’re all at on this matter. In addition, over the
last few days I’ve separately received four dozen or so emails all asking
to “take on” Monbiot. I wasn’t going to reply because I’ve so many more
pressing matters to take care of, but given the weight of demands I can’t
avoid it.

I don’t see any point in “taking on” Monbiot; the points he raises, and the
debate that he has initiated, are so off beam compared to the basis of the
issues involved that it there’s no point proceeding along that line of
thought. You can’t answer a question if the question itself is not
understood!!

Let’s get one thing straight — present economic difficulties are not simply
to do with “oil”, but with the more general issue of “limits to growth”.
That’s a complex interaction of resource production, thermodynamics,
technology, and relating all of these together, economic theory. Reducing
this just to an issue of oil or carbon will fail to answer why the trends
we see emerging today are taking place. Instead we have to look towards a
process which sees energy, resources, technology and human economics as a
single system.

The problem with this whole debate is that those involved — Monbiot
included — only have the vaguest understanding of how resource depletion
interacts with the human economy. And in a similar way, the wider
environment movement has been wholly compromised by its failure to engage
with the debate over ecological limits as part of their promotion of
alternative lifestyles. Unless you are prepared to adapt to the reality of
what the “limits” issues portends for the human economy, you’re not going
to make any progress on this matter.

Monbiot’s greatest mistake is to try and associate peak oil and climate
change. They are wholly different issues. In fact, over the last few years,
one of the greatest mistakes by the environment movement generally (and
Monbiot is an exemplar of this) has been to reduce all issues to one
metric/indicator — carbon. This “carbonism” has distorted the nature of
the debate over human development/progress, and in the process the
“business as usual” fossil-fuelled supertanker has been allowed to thunder
on regardless because solving carbon emissions is a fundamentally different
type of problem to solving the issue of resource/energy depletion.

Carbon emissions are a secondary effect of economic activity. It is
incidental to the economic process, even when measures such as carbon
markets are applied. Provided we’re not worried about the cost, we can use
technological measures to abate emissions — and government/industry have
used this as a filibuster to market a technological agenda in response and
thus ignore the basic incompatibility of economic growth with the
ecological limits of the Earth’s biosphere. As far as I am concerned, many
in mainstream environmentalism have been complicit in that process; and
have failed to provide the example and leadership necessary to initiate a
debate on the true alternatives to yet more intense/complex
industrialisation and globalisation.

In contrast, physical energy supply is different because it’s a prerequisite
of economic growth — you can’t have economic activity without a
qualitatively sufficient energy supply (yes, the “quality” of the energy is
just as important as the physical scale of supply). About half of all
growth is the value of new energy supply added to the economy, and another
fifth is the result of energy efficiency — the traditional measures of
capital and labour respectively make up a tenth and fifth of growth. As yet
mainstream economic theory refuses to internalise the issue of energy
quality, and the effect of falling energy/resource returns, even though this
is demonstrably one of the failing aspects of our current economic model
(debt is the other, and that’s an even more complex matter to explore if
we’re looking at inter-generational effects).

The fact that all commodity prices have been rising along with growth for
the past decade — a phenomena directly related to the human system hitting
the “limits to growth” — is one of the major factors driving current
economic difficulties. Arguably we’ve been hitting the “limits” since the
late 70s. The difficulty in explaining that on a political stage is that
we’re talking about processes which operate over decades and centuries, not
over campaign cycles or political terms of office. As a result, due to the
impatience of the modern political/media agenda, the political debate over
limits has suffered because commentators always take too short-term a
viewpoint. Monbiot’s recent conversion on nuclear and peak oil is such an
example, and is at the heart of the report Monbiot cites in justification of
his views — a report, not coincidentally, written by a long-term opponent
of peak oil theory, working for lobby groups who promote business-as-usual
solutions to ecological issues.

Likewise, because the neo-classical economists who advise governments and
corporations don’t believe in the concept of “limits”, the measures they’ve
adopted to try and solve the problem (e.g. quantitative easing) are not
helping the problem, but merely forestall the inevitable collapse. For
example, we can’t borrow money today to spur a recovery if there will be
insufficient growth in the future to pay for that debt. Basically, whilst you
may theoretically borrow money from your grandchildren, you can’t borrow
the energy that future economic growth requires to generate that money if
it doesn’t exist to be used at that future date. Perhaps more perversely, a
large proportion of the economic actors who have expressed support for
limits are not advocating ecological solutions to the problem, they’re
cashing-in by trying to advise people how to make money out of economic
catastrophe.

Carbon emissions and resource depletion are a function of economic growth.
There is an absolute correlation between growth and carbon emissions. I
don’t just mean that emissions and the rate of depletion fall during
recessions — and thus “recessions are good for the environment”. If you
look at the rate of growth in emissions over the last 50 years, the change
in energy prices has a correlation to changes in carbon emissions as the
price of fuel influences economic activity. That’s why carbon emissions
broke with their historic trend, halving their previous growth rate, after
the oil crisis of the 1970s; and why they then rebounded as energy prices
fell during the 90s.

The idea that we can “decarbonise” the economy and continue just as before
is fundamentally flawed. I know some of you will scream and howl at this
idea, but if you look at the research on the interaction between energy and
economic productivity there is no other conclusion. Due to their high
energy density and relative ease of use, all fossil fuels have an economic
advantage over all the alternatives. That said, as conventional oil and gas
deplete, and “unconventional” sources with far lower energy returns are
brought into the market, that differential is decreasing — but we won’t
reach general parity with renewables for another decade or two.

Note also this has nothing to do with subsidies, or industrial power —
it’s a basic physical fact that the energy density of renewables is lower
than the historic value of fossil fuels. On a level playing field, renewable
energy costs more and has a lower return on investment than fossil fuels.

We do have the technology to develop a predominantly renewable human
economy, but the economic basis of such a system will be wholly different to
that we live within today. Unless you are prepared to reform the economic
process alongside changing the resource base of society, we’ll never
see any realistic change because all such “ecological” viewpoints are
inconsistent with the values at the heart of modern capitalism (that’s not
a political point either, it’s just a fact based upon how these systems
must operate). E.g., when the Mail/Telegraph trumpet that more wind power
will cost more and lower growth/competitiveness, they’re right — but the
issue here is not the facts about wind, it’s that the theory/expectation of
continued growth, which they are measuring the performance of wind against,
is itself no longer supported by the physical fundamentals of the human
economy.

The present problem is not simply “peak oil”. Even if volumetric production
remained constant, due to the falling level of energy return on investment
of all fossil fuels the effects of rising prices and falling systemic
efficiency will still disrupt the economic cycle (albeit at a slower rate
than when it is tied to a simultaneous volumetric reduction). Allied to the
problems with the supply of many industrial minerals, especially the
minerals which are key to the latest energy and industrial process/energy
technologies (e.g. rare earths, indium, gallium, etc.), what we have is a
recipe for a general systems failure in the operation of the human system.
And again, that’s not related to climate change, or simple lack of energy,
but because of the systemic complexity of modern human society, and what
happens to any complex system when it is perturbed by external factors.

The worst thing which can happen right now — even if it were possible,
which is entirely doubtful — would be a “return to growth”. The idea of
“green growth”, within the norms of neo-classical economics, is even more
fallacious due to the differing thermodynamic factors driving that system.
Instead what we have to concentrate upon is changing the political economy
of the human system to internalise the issue of limits. At present, apart
from a few scientists and green economists on the sidelines, no one is
seriously putting that point of view — not even the Green Party. And as I
perceive it from talking to people about this for the last 12 years, that’s
for a very simple reason… it’s not what people, especially the political
establishment, want to hear.

Rio+20 was an absolute failure. In fact what annoyed me the most was that
the media kept talking about the “second” Rio conference, when in fact it
was the third UNCED conference in the Stockholm conference in ’72. If you
contrast 1972 with 2012, the results of this years deliberations were worse
than the policies sketched out in the 70s ! Seriously, the environment
movement is being trounced, and as I see it that’s because they have lost
the intellectual and theoretical rigour that it possessed in the 70s and
80s. Rather than having a clear alternative vision, what they promote is
“the same but different”. Once environmentalism became a media campaign
about differing consumption options, rather than an absolute framework for
evaluating the effects of consumption, it lost its ability to dictate the
agenda — because its the ability to look forward and observe/anticipate
trends unfolding, however unwelcome those truths might be, which gives
groups political power.

Politicians have lost control of the economy because their materialist
ambitions no longer fit to the extant reality of the economic process. This
outcome was foreseen over 40 years ago by economists like Georgescu-Roegen
and Boulding but ignored, even amongst many liberals and especially the
left, for political reasons. These same principles, based around the issue
of limits, were also the founding reality of the modern environment
movement — but over the last 20 years the movement has lost this basic
grounding in physics and economics as it has moved towards an
aspirationally materialist agenda (green consumerism/sustainable
consumption, etc.).

Unless you’re prepared to talk about limits to growth, and the fact that
the economic theories developed over two centuries of unconstrained
expansion now have no relevance to a system constrained by physical limits,
then you will not solve this problem. Just as with Monbiot’s “change” on
the issue of nuclear, his failure is a matter of basic theory and
methodological frameworks, not of facts or data. Unfortunately people keep
throwing data at each other without considering that the framework within
which those facts are considered and understood has changed, and that
consequently their conclusions may not be correct; and until the movement
accepts that the rules governing the system have changed we’ll not make
progress in advancing viable solutions.

To conclude then, Monbiot’s mistake isn’t about peak oil, or climate
change, it’s a failure to internalise the physical realities of the
“limits” now driving the human system. Unless you consider the interaction
of energy, economics and pollution, any abstractions you draw about each of
those factors individually will fail to tell you how the system as a whole
is functioning. Those limits might dictate the end of “growth economics”,
but they DO NOT dictate the end of “human development”. There are many ways
we can address our present economic and environmental difficulties, but that
cannot take place unless we accept that changing our material ambitions is
a prerequisite of that process.

Let’s be clear here. The principles which drive the economy today would be
wholly alien to Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and others who first laid down
the rules of the system two centuries ago. Likewise Marxism and similarly
derived ideas have no validity either because they were generated during an
era when there were no constraining limits. There is no “going back” to
previous theories/ideologies on this issue because we face a scenario today
which humans society — with the exception of those ancient societies who
experienced ecological overshoot (Rome, Mayans, Easter Islanders, etc.) —
have never had to face before.

We have to move forward, to evaluate and understand is the role of
ecological limits within the future human economic process and how this
changes our advocacy of “solutions”. That debate should be at the heart of
the environment movement, and the issue of limits should lead all
discussions about all environmental issues — not green/sustainable
consumerism and other measures which seek to reassure and pacify affluent
consumers. That said, especially given the demographic skew within
membership of the environment movement, we have to begin by being honest
with ourselves in accepting the “limits agenda” and what it means for the
make-up of our own lives.

In the final analysis, you cannot be an environmentalist unless you accept
and promote the idea of limits. That was at the heart of the movement from
the early 70s, and if we want to present a viable alternative to disaster
capitalism then that is once again what we must develop and promote as an
alternative.

Peace ‘n love ‘n’ home made hummus,

P.

.

“We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government,
nor are we for this party nor against the other but we are
for justice and mercy and truth and peace and true freedom,
that these may be exalted in our nation, and that goodness,
righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity with
God, and with one another, that these things may abound.”
(Edward Burrough, 1659 – from ‘Quaker Faith and Practice’)

Paul’s book, “Energy Beyond Oil”, is out now!
For details see https://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/ebo/

Read my ‘essay’ weblog, “Ecolonomics”, at:
https://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/ecolonomics/

Paul Mobbs, Mobbs’ Environmental Investigations
email – mobbsey@gn.apc.org
website – https://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/index.shtml

Categories
Academic Freedom Assets not Liabilities Bad Science Bait & Switch Big Society Climate Change Climate Chaos Conflict of Interest Corporate Pressure Dead End Dead Zone Deal Breakers Delay and Deny Demoticratica Direction of Travel Disturbing Trends Divide & Rule Evil Opposition Fair Balance Freak Science Gamechanger Global Heating Global Singeing Global Warming Hide the Incline Human Nurture Hydrocarbon Hegemony Incalculable Disaster Libertarian Liberalism Major Shift Mass Propaganda Media Money Sings Near-Natural Disaster Neverending Disaster No Pressure Non-Science Paradigm Shapeshifter Petrolheads Policy Warfare Political Nightmare Public Relations Regulatory Ultimatum Revolving Door Science Rules Scientific Fallacy Social Capital Social Change Social Chaos Sustainable Deferment The Myth of Innovation The Power of Intention The War on Error Toxic Hazard Unconventional Foul Ungreen Development Unnatural Gas Unqualified Opinion Unsolicited Advice & Guidance Unutterably Useless Utter Futility Vote Loser

The Really Inconvenient Truth For The GWPF – Debunking GWPF Briefing Paper No1

This article was written by M. A. Rodger and was originally posted at DeSmogBlog and is syndicated by an informal agreement and with the express permission of both the author and DeSmogBlog, without payment or charge.

This is the sixth post in a series examining the UK-registered educational charity and climate denial 'think-tank' Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). Previous posts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) have identified very serious shortcomings and it is now make-or-break time for the GWPF's reputation.

GWPF Briefing Paper No1 – The Really Inconvenient Truth' will be a good test for this because “the GWPF is proud to publish this dispassionate but devastating critique of UK climate change policies, and of the alleged basis on which those policies rest.”

So says the foreword written by Lord Lawson of Blaby, the founder of the GWPF. Such a statement pretty much overrules the disclaimer that appears on the cover of these Briefing Papers (that views expressed are those of the author not the GWPF).

So will GWPF pride come before a fall?

REALLY INCONVENIENT AND REALLY TRUE?

The author of Briefing Paper No1 is Lord Andrew Turnbull, a retired senior civil servant and a GWPF Trustee. Turnbull has a “unique authority” for the task according to Lord Lawson. But a “unique authority” may not be adequate because the subject of Briefing Paper No1 encompasses not just UK climate change policy, but also the entirety of the work of the UN IPCC. Now that is a whole lot of subject-matter!

The Really Inconvenient Truth which Turnbull attempts to convey is that the basis for UK climate policy is shaky because it rests solely on the IPCC's findings. “The propositions of the IPCC do not bear the weight of certainty with which they are expressed,” he says.

However Turnbull is at pains to describe what he is attempting in Briefing Paper No1. He wishes only to point out the doubts and flawed procedures that exist. He does not seek to “replace“ the IPCC “propositions” with alternative propositions.

That is what he says. But what does he then do?

The gargantuan task Turnbull tackles in Briefing Paper No1 requires a seriously focused analysis but there is none of that here. Briefing Paper No1 is a sweeping account of the subject that strongly advances alternative “propositions.

In essence, Turnbull's message is that “the IPCC view is a narrowly-based and over-simplified one … downplaying the role of natural forces.” The alternative view he advances sees a less dramatic climate change that would allow the world to adapt without reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Turnbull concludes (quoting the GWPF's inaugural lecture) that the IPCC view “is impossible to accept.”
Logic dictates this is a call for its “replacement.

As already mentioned, Briefing Paper No1 analyses IPCC work in its entirety. It thus covers the science, the climatic impacts and the policy responses.

These will be examined here in reverse order – kind of upside-down.

1 POLICY RESPONSES

Turnbull argues at some length for what he calls “no regret” mitigation policies to reduce CO2 emissions, policies which would not impact greatly on the UK economy. Yet Turnbull is entirely disinterested in the CO2 reductions that such minimal policies would achieve. It really does beg the question why he argues for any mitigation policies at all.

Indeed he talks briefly of preferring “adaptation” policies, pointing to the Institute of Civil Engineers who allegedly think that too little attention is paid to “adaptation.” Confusingly, Turnbull gives no source for this allegation. So is he referring to the UK's Institute of Civil Engineers? It is strange if he is. Their policy statements on climate change are unequivocal and wholly opposite to Turnbull's allegation. This is true even in their 2008 statement Adapting the UK to Climate Change (whose title may have given rise to Turnbull's confusion, perhaps a new take on 'judging a book by its cover.').

2 CLIMATIC IMPACTS

Turnbull deals quickly with the IPCC work on climatic impacts. He calls it shabby and quotes twice the Inter Academy Council (IAC) Report 2010 on the IPCC. This time Turnbull's source is referenced so there is no mistaking Turnbull's misinterpretations.

Turnbull makes here two accusations.

Firstly he says the IAC strongly criticise the IPCC WG2 for using non-peer-reviewed material. On this Turnbull is wrong. The IAC say using such “gray” literature is “relevant and appropriate” and is only criticising particulars of how it is used!

Turnbull's second quote (from the IAC Executive Summary) is about the IPCC's use of unsupported or unclear probability assessments within the WG2 Summary for Policy Makers. Any reader of this WG2 Summary will see it is only a summary. It's probability statements are shoddy work but not the shabby underhand work of deception that Turnbull describes.

This second IAC quote is used to back up Turnbull's otherwise unsupported accusations of “a consistent pattern of cherry-picking, exaggeration, highlighting extremes and failure to acknowledge beneficial effects.” Here Turnbull is entirely at odds with the IAC report which never makes any such comment or anything remotely in this vein.

Indeed the IAC begins its conclusions “The Committee concludes that the IPCC assessment process has been successful overall and has served society well” showing Turbull's intemperate tirade against the IPCC WG2 is entirely preposterous!

3 THE SCIENCE

On the science, Turnbull concludes that the IPCC “sees calamity just around the corner, producing calls for dramatic and early CO2 reduction.” This is a blunt but fair assessment.

Yet Turnbull goes on to make many strong but largely unsupported accusations against the IPCC science. He says it ignores 'huge controversy', relies on 'unproven assumptions' since it ' ignored' certain possibilities. He says its findings have been 'strongly challenged' and cites “some scientists … many scientists” who hold alternative views. And for good measure Turnbull also rounds on the Hockey Stick curve, as did GWPF Briefing Paper No3.

None of this has any substance to it. The “many scientists” (in fact one misguided scientist working outside his specialism) was debunked  in Part 5 of this series.

As for the “some scientists,” again only one of these is named – climate 'skeptic' Professor Richard Lindzen (who is a member of the GWPF's Academic Advisory Council). It is difficult to support the idea that Lindzen's work has been ignored by the IPCC. Lindzen's work contributed to the 2007 IPCC report within two different chapters and he was even a Lead Author in the 2001 IPCC report on the very chapter relevant to Turnbull's comments.

While Turnbull makes no reference to any particular piece of work by Lindzen (and there continues to be a lot of that), it is safe to say that the available work relevant to Turnbull's discussion had been already shown as entirely flawed scientifically well before Briefing paper No1 was published.
 

THE REALY INCONVENIENT TRUTH FOR TURNBULL & THE G.W.P.F.

Be it in the science, the climate impacts or the policy responses, there is but one good word that can be said about GWPF Briefing Paper No1 – it is consistent.

It is consistent in being always wrong!

The same appears to be the case generally with GWPF Briefing Papers which have all now been reviewed by this series – consistently wrong and entirely flawed.

The 'debunking' process could be continued to other GWPF publications, searching for the merest hint of some improvement in its reporting, some publications that might show at least some merit. But enough is enough.

GWPF is a UK-registered charity. If a UK charity uses controversial materialsuch material must be factually accurate and have a well-founded evidence base” (emphasis added). Yet all GWPF Briefing Papers have been shown to be riven with controversial material that is in no way factual or well-founded in evidence.

This is made worse because the charitable “purpose” of the GWPF is to “advance the public understanding of global warming and of its possible consequences, and also of the measures taken or proposed to be taken in response to such warming” (emphasis added).

For an educational charity to be spreading so much untruth and error is surely unacceptable, even scandalous. It is evidently a significant non-compliance that impacts on the public trust in UK charities generally. On this basis, a formal complaint will now be made and pursued with the UK Charity Commission.

There does also remain one as-yet unasked question.

Why would a bunch of respected and otherwise sensible people make such fools of themselves in this manner?

Categories
Academic Freedom Bad Science Bait & Switch Behaviour Changeling Big Society Climate Change Climate Chaos Climate Damages Conflict of Interest Dead End Dead Zone Deal Breakers Delay and Deny Demoticratica Disturbing Trends Divide & Rule Energy Denial Freak Science Global Heating Global Warming Hide the Incline Human Nurture Mass Propaganda Media Neverending Disaster Non-Science Paradigm Shapeshifter Policy Warfare Political Nightmare Protest & Survive Public Relations Realistic Models Regulatory Ultimatum Science Rules Scientific Fallacy Screaming Panic Social Capital Social Change Social Chaos Social Democracy Sustainable Deferment The Data The War on Error Unutterably Useless Utter Futility Vain Hope Voluntary Behaviour Change

Engagement Can Be Tiring

Image Credit : Skeptical Science

This is a record of a short email exchange.

I feel it encapsulates some of the difficulties of communicating climate change science when there are a large number of people in the conversation who have a destructive agenda.

They may have different reasons for attacking the process of science learning by the general population, but they unite on strategies that belittle people and spread doubt.

At the same time, there are people with accurate knowledge who take different positions about how much emphasis they should place on the risks posed by climate change.

We need to get our act together and form a united front, surely ?

Categories
Academic Freedom Advertise Freely Bait & Switch Be Prepared Behaviour Changeling Big Picture Big Society British Biogas British Sea Power Climate Change Conflict of Interest Corporate Pressure Cost Effective Dead End Dead Zone Delay and Deny Demoticratica Design Matters Direction of Travel Divide & Rule Economic Implosion Energy Autonomy Energy Change Energy Revival Feel Gooder Fossilised Fuels Gamechanger Green Investment Green Power Hide the Incline Human Nurture Hydrocarbon Hegemony Low Carbon Life Major Shift Marvellous Wonderful Mass Propaganda Media Money Sings National Energy National Power Oil Change Optimistic Generation Paradigm Shapeshifter Petrolheads Policy Warfare Political Nightmare Protest & Survive Public Relations Regulatory Ultimatum Renewable Gas Renewable Resource Social Change Social Democracy Solar Sunrise Solution City Stirring Stuff Sustainable Deferment The Power of Intention Voluntary Behaviour Change Vote Loser Wasted Resource Wind of Fortune Zero Net

Apocalyptic Apoptosis

Image Credit : Carl-A. Fechner, fechnerMedia

The Evangelist : “Climate change is so serious, we need to tell everybody about it. Everybody needs to wake up about it.” The Audience “We have heard this all before. Do pipe down.”

The Social Engineer : “Everybody should be playing their part in acting on climate change.” The Audience : “This story is too heavy – you’re trying to make us feel guilty. You’re damaging your message by accusing people of being responsible for causing climate change.”

The Social Psychologist : “By making such a big deal out of climate change, by using Apocalyptic language, audiences feel there is no hope.” The Audience : “Climate change is clearly not a big deal, otherwise the newspapers and TV would be full of it all the time.”

The Post-Economist : “Climate change is caused by consumption. We need to reduce our consumption.” The Audience : “We don’t want to be told to live in cold caves, eating raw vegetables by candlelight, thanks.”

The Defeatist : “It’s already too late. There’s nothing we can do about it. All I can do is sit back and watch it happen.” The Audience : “Isn’t that being a little too negative ? If you think there’s nothing that can be done, what hope have we got ?”

The late, great Hermann Scheer said that “Today’s primary energy business will vanish – but it won’t give up without a fight…the greatest and the worst environmental pollution of all is when countless so-called energy experts keep on trying to talk society out of even contemplating this scenario [of 100% renewable energy] as a possibility for the near future – because that is what makes society apathetic and unmotivated…”

So who or what is making us passive and unmoved ?

Is climate change really our fault ? Or is it something we’ve inherited because of the irresponsible energy companies ?

Are we responsible for responding to climate change or is it somebody else’s responsibility ?

Categories
Advancing Africa Bad Science Bait & Switch Big Picture Climate Change Climate Chaos Climate Damages Dead End Dead Zone Delay and Deny Disturbing Trends Divide & Rule Droughtbowl Emissions Impossible Environmental Howzat Extreme Weather Fair Balance Feel Gooder Forestkillers Freak Science Freshwater Stress Global Heating Global Singeing Global Warming Hide the Incline Incalculable Disaster Mass Propaganda Media Non-Science Paradigm Shapeshifter Policy Warfare Political Nightmare Public Relations Realistic Models Science Rules Scientific Fallacy Sustainable Deferment The Data The War on Error Tree Family Unqualified Opinion Water Wars

Debunking the GWPF Briefing Paper No2 – The Sahel Is Greening


Image Credit : Global Warming Policy Foundation

This article was written by M. A. Rodger and was originally posted at DeSmogBlog and is syndicated by an informal agreement and with the express permission of both the author and DeSmogBlog, without payment or charge.
This is the second in a series of posts on the educational charity and climate sceptic “think-tank” Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). The first post examined GWPF”s organisation and its principles (or lack of them). Here we examine GWPF”s Briefing Paper No2 – The Sahel Is Greening by Philipp Mueller who is the Assistant Director of the GWPF. Coverage of the greening Sahel has been in the media for a decade now, so this cannot be too controversial a subject, can it?

GWPF BRIEFING PAPER No2 – SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SUBJECT
Mueller explains what this Briefing Paper No2 is about in the first three sentences.

“Global warming has both positive and negative impacts. However, very often only the negative consequences are reported and the positive ones omitted. This article will show an example of a positive effect of warming.” 

Mueller then sets out to show how the Sahel is enjoying a “positive impact” of global warming.

Yet already here is a glaring omission. Despite this being an ideal opportunity to list out all the other “positive impacts”, Mueller fails even to hint at what any of the others might be. Never mind. We still have the Sahel. Or do we?

THE GREENING OF THE SAHEL – MUELLER”S VERSION
Mueller”s account can be summarised thus:

Between the 1950s and 1980s reducing rainfalls across the Sahel (the region of Africa immediately South of the Sahara Desert) caused severe drought and famine. But, according to Mueller, since the early 1980s this process has gone into reverse with the Sahel greening, harvests more plentiful and the Sahara shrinking.

The reason for this improvement is more than simply increasing rainfall. The climate of the Sahel region is delicate. Additional rainfall results in higher levels of vegetation. This induces yet more rain while reducing soil erosion. However, there is more at work than just this one “feedback” mechanism. Mueller says the extra factor that might be responsible is “the rise of atmospheric CO2 levels.” It seems the elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 let plants grow better, especially in arid regions. Clever stuff, that!

Mueller does not leave it there. He discusses the cause of the underlying increase in rainfall citing papers that suggest the rainfall was due to a warmer climate in the Sahara or a warmer North Atlantic, a process “partially caused by greenhouse gas emissions.”

Mueller”s shrinking Sahara is not unprecedented. In the past the Sahara, far from being a desert, was once a grass-covered savannah. This was over 6,000 years ago during the Holocene Climate Optimum (when temperatures were 2-5 deg C hotter than now according to Mueller but not according to others) and also during two other times in last 120,000 years.

Mueller says the future isn”t certain. The Sahel may become wetter or it may become drier. But, he concludes, today the Sahel is undoubtedly wetter and suddenly Mueller becomes far more certain about those speculative causes of the greening of the Sahel.  “The increase in rainfall, which was probably caused by rising temperatures, and rising CO2 concentrations, might even – if sustained for a few more decades – green the Sahara. This would be a truly tremendous prospect.”

This account makes bold statements but can it all be true?

DO PIGS FLY?
Mueller”s account contains many omissions and misrepresentations. The list is so long that the full account of Mueller”s errors are appended to the bottom of this post and just a summary is presented here.

After droughts end, things grow greener. That is natural. The Sahel has a delicate climate and research shows that increased human emissions were more likely the cause of the initial drought rather than the cause of the re-greening. The recovery is also very patchy. Drought and famine, declining crops as well as encroaching deserts continue to plague parts of the Sahel, to the point that the description “greening” remains a subject for debate. Mueller”s rosy account fails to tell us any of this.

It is wild speculation to assert that any recovery in the Sahel is a result of global warming and to dangle the prospect of a future green Sahara is the exact opposite of the message provided by Mueller”s reference on the matter. However welcome the re-greening of parts of the Sahel, it cannot be relied on.

Mueller does mention this in passing but he fails to mention the confident scientific finding that any re-greening will eventually be reversed in the future. So if this greening of the Sahel is the prime example of the “positive impacts” of global warming, it is no surprise that Mueller fails to list any of the others.

CONCLUSION
GWPF Briefing paper No2 is an entirely flawed document. The views it expresses are those of the author (as the disclaimer on the cover says), not those views of the GWPF. Yet the author works with a “distinguished team of GWPF Academic Advisors.” Further, it remains a wonder that a registered charity whose task is to educate the public on global warming could ever put its name on such a report. If this is representative of GWPF Briefing Papers as a whole, it would be a cause of grave concern.

A second GWPF Briefing Paper will be the subject of the next post in this series. Hopefully it will prove to be more factual in nature than Briefing Paper No2.

APPENDIX – Details of Omissions & Misrepresentations within Mueller”s paper.

A1 – OMISSION
Mueller”s account began with mention of a drought between the 1950s & 1980s. This drought requires greater consideration than just a mention. Would we not expect a region to become greener in the period following a drought? Strangely, while Mueller discusses theories for the greening, he fails to mention the causes of the initial drought and its continuing legacy. This is not some minor event. The drought has been described as “…among the most undisputed and largest recent climate changes recognized by the climate research community.”

The causes of the drought have slowly become better understood. Rising population and over-grazing by livestock was the first theory but studies now show the drought resulted from changes in ocean surface temperatures Folland et al (1986) Giannini et al (2003)which are likely due in part to the sulphate aerosol pollution of Europe and North America Rotstayn & Lohmann (2002) Biasutti & Gainnini (2006) and thus it is the cleaning of emissions from power stations that has likely allowed the rains to return.

Mueller remains entirely silent about the potential role of sulphate aerosols in causing the drought and the subsequent greening. It is difficult to understand his silence as these findings are well known. Perhaps the potential role of human pollution in causing a “devastating drought” sits too uncomfortably with the intended message of “positive impacts” from global warming.

A2 – OMISSION
To emphasis his “positive impact”, Mueller tells us the greening is “a very welcome and very beneficial development for the people living in the Sahel.” What Mueller omits to tell us is that conditions have yet to return to the levels seen in the 1950s and that drought and famine still stalk the Sahel. His rosy reporting is even used by one sceptical commentator as proof that the continuing drought in the Sahel is but a “pseudo-catastrophe.”

Climatology may not provide the best reports of the events but the Sahel drought is reported in newspapers and the humanitarian aid networks. “In 2005, drought and famine hit the Sahel, claiming many lives. The pattern was repeated in 2010 with the crisis most acute in Niger. And now the early warning signs are there for problems again in 2012.” For Mueller to entirely miss such prominent reporting in the age of the internet is truly remarkable!

A3 – OMISSION
It is also remarkable how Mueller writes of improving agricultural outputs across the Sahel. Mueller cites the findings of Chris Reij in a small region of Burkina Faso and also Olsson (2008), from where he quotes half a sentence about improved agricultural output in Burkina Faso and Mali.

What Mueller totally misses in Olsson”s paper is the preceding sentence and the following half sentence which says – “After many years of dwindling food production in the Sahel, only two countries show signs of improved agricultural performance. …while the other Sahelian countries show decreases in their production.” So Mueller omits to mention the situation in the other nine countries of the Sahel, instead concentrating on the two countries where the evidence doesn”t directly contradict his theorizing.

A4 – MISREPRESENTATION
To reinforce his greening Sahel message Mueller strays geographically. He embellishes part of a Heartland Institute report that quotes a second-hand report from geologist Stephan Kropelin.

This concerns greening within the deserts of Western Sahara, a much-troubled country that is in Africa but definitely not part of the Sahel! It is from the same Heartland report that Mueller times the start of the greening as “since the early 1980s” when if he had read the other more reliable references he cited he would have known the greening began in 1994.

The entirety of the Sahel is not greening as Mueller would have us believe. It is patchy and there remains enough areas still suffering encroaching desert to make the term "greening" debatable. Somehow Mueller fails to notice.

A5 – MISREPRESENTATION
Mueller does manage to notice that there are signs of greening even in some areas where rainfall is still decreasing. Mueller asserts this might well be due to increased levels of atmospheric CO2. To support his CO2 claim Muller cites Sherwood Idso who has long espoused such theories and claims certain forest studies show evidence of it

But when it comes to the greening of the Sahel, Idso makes clear the CO2 link is only speculation and makes do with pointing out where researchers fail to mention his brave theorising.
There is one logical problem with Mueller”s claim which may be why Idso does not pursue a similar argument. It is difficult to reconcile patchy Sahel greening with a widespread (indeed worldwide) phenomenon like rising CO2 levels. The most likely reason for patchy greening (other than patchy rainfall) is very, very, widely discussed and observed on the ground. It is farmers changing their methods of cultivation, something Mueller fails to even mention, preferring instead to advance his ridiculous CO2 claim

A6 – MISREPRESENTATION
The prehistoric green Sahara of the mid-Holocene with its lakes and rivers is used by Mueller to reinforce his argument that global warming may trigger a return to such conditions and so provide a truly tremendous “positive impact” from global warming. Again he manages to misrepresent the words of others. On this matter Mueller concludes “(Professor Martin) Claussen has considered the likelihood of a greening of the Sahara due to global warming and concluded that an expansion of vegetation into today”s Sahara is possible as a consequence of CO2 emissions.”

This is an exceedingly bizarre interpretation of the source document! Claussen”s quote actually says “some expansion of vegetation into today”s Sahara is theoretically possible”,(end quote, emphasis added) words too pessimistic for Mueller so he changed them.

Not only does Mueller misquote Claussen, he wholly ignores the explicit warning that Claussen makes against any belief in a future green Sahara. “But he(Claussen) warns against believing the mid-Holocene climate optimum will be recreated.” This source document continues by pointing to the continuing tree-loss in the Sahel and the shrinkage of Lake Chad; this despite the improved levels of rainfall.

Indeed, Claussen is not alone in dismissing a green Sahara.  Yet Mueller”s report concludes that a green Sahara is a distinct possibility, the exact opposite of the very authority that he claims is supporting his conclusions.

A7 – OMISSION
Finally, Mueller is silent about one “negative impact” of a greening Sahel. He intimates that any greening due to global warming will be permanent but this is incorrect. Climatology shows that the Sahel has a very sensitive climate such that it can be stated “with confidence” that “any greening of the Sahel and Sahara in the near future will eventually be reversed.”  The greening is unreliable. It is thus hardly an encouraging example of a “positive impact” from global warming.


 

Categories
Advancing Africa Advertise Freely Alchemical Animal Kingdoom Bee Prepared Behaviour Changeling Big Picture Big Society Biofools Climate Damages Corporate Pressure Dead Zone Demoticratica Direction of Travel Droughtbowl Eating & Drinking Emissions Impossible Environmental Howzat Extreme Weather Faithful God Feed the World Feel Gooder Food Insecurity Foreign Investment Forestkillers Fossilised Fuels Freemarketeering Freshwater Stress Genetic Muddyfixation Geogingerneering Growth Paradigm Health Impacts Human Nurture Low Carbon Life Major Shift Marvellous Wonderful Media Nudge & Budge Oil Change Paradigm Shapeshifter Peak Emissions Peak Energy Peak Natural Gas Public Relations Social Change Solution City Sustainable Deferment Technological Fallacy Technological Sideshow Technomess Toxic Hazard Tree Family Ungreen Development Virtually Vegan Water Wars

Living Life and LOAFing It

CHRISTIAN ECOLOGY LINK
PRESS RELEASE

Living Life and LOAFing It – Green Christians ask churches to “Use your LOAF !” on sourcing sustainable food

In the run up to Easter, Christian Ecology Link is asking supporters to think and act on how they source food for their church communities, with the aim of reducing the impact of unsustainable agriculture on their local area, and the wider world.

CEL have launched a new colour leaflet on the LOAF programme principles in time for Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras), or Pancake Day, on 21st February 2012.

Categories
Babykillers Climate Change Climate Damages Coal Hell Conflict of Interest Corporate Pressure Dead Zone Demoticratica Divide & Rule Dreamworld Economics Droughtbowl Eating & Drinking Emissions Impossible Energy Autonomy Energy Change Energy Denial Energy Insecurity Energy Revival Evil Opposition Extreme Weather Faithful God Feed the World Financiers of the Apocalypse Floodstorm Food Insecurity Fossilised Fuels Freemarketeering Human Nurture Hydrocarbon Hegemony Incalculable Disaster Major Shift Military Invention Money Sings National Energy National Power Neverending Disaster No Blood For Oil Not In My Name Paradigm Shapeshifter Peace not War Peak Coal Peak Emissions Peak Energy Peak Natural Gas Peak Oil Stop War Wasted Resource Western Hedge

The Last Battle

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

Britain’s real enemy is not Iran.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Additional Readings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Babykillers Carbon Army Carbon Capture Coal Hell Dead End Dead Zone Disturbing Trends Emissions Impossible Energy Change Energy Insecurity Energy Revival Environmental Howzat Evil Opposition Fossilised Fuels Gamechanger Genetic Modification Geogingerneering Human Nurture Hydrocarbon Hegemony Incalculable Disaster Major Shift Military Invention No Blood For Oil Not In My Name Nuclear Nuisance Nuclear Shambles Oil Change Peace not War Peak Energy Resource Curse Resource Wards Tarred Sands Technomess Toxic Hazard Unconventional Foul Unnatural Gas Western Hedge

The toxic legacy of mined energy

We are stardust ? Well, not quite. As carbon-based lifeforms we’re actually the offspring of a young sun, composed of the lighter elements, with a low concentration of a few transition metals essential for our health and vitality. Irn Bru, anyone ?

The actual products of exploding old stars that got lodged in the crusty skin of the accreting Earth are often quite toxic to us. Over millions of years, heavy and radioactive elements, being of no use to the ecosystem, have been deposited at the bottom of lakes, seabeds, and ended up lodged in seams of coal, and caverns of petroleum oil and Natural Gas. Uranium ores and other nasties have been overlain by forests and deserts, and only rarely vent, like radon, from Vulcan’s infernal lairs.

And what do humans do ? We dig this stuff up to burn or fission for energy, and when we do it creates toxic waste, that hurts us, and the life around us. Why are we surprised that mercury from the coal power industry is killing fish and harming children ? Why is it a shock that the tailing ponds from mining tar and oil sands are devastating pristine wilderness and waterways ?

Categories
Climate Change Climate Chaos Climate Damages Dead Zone Disturbing Trends Extreme Weather Faithful God Firestorm Freshwater Stress Global Heating Global Singeing Global Warming Incalculable Disaster Near-Natural Disaster Social Capital Social Change Social Chaos Wildfire

Texas travel advisory

[ UPDATE : Texas Governor proclaims three days of prayer for rain ]

Texas ? My advice is – don’t go there. Not only does it have numerous social problems, it’s also in the midst of a hellfire makeover, caused by extensive drought :-

https://www.statesman.com/news/local/fires-rage-through-much-of-texas-more-than-1418294.html

“Fires rage through much of Texas; more than 1 million acres burned : April 20, 2011 : Several massive wildfires in North and West Texas continued to rage Tuesday, racing through parched fields and woods and adding to a sweeping acreage toll that has reached almost 1.2 million in less than two weeks. A wildfire spanning four counties west of Fort Worth near Possum Kingdom Lake has consumed nearly 150,000 acres, destroyed 150 homes and a church, and forced hundreds to flee since it began Friday, Texas Forest Service spokesman Marq Webb said. The fire, which nearly doubled in size in a day, is one of more than 20 active fires that the Forest Service is fighting statewide in an April that has been plagued by a fierce drought, high temperatures and gusting winds – conditions that have allowed wildfires to ignite and spread quickly in several parts of the state, including Austin…”

The situation is so bad, that the God Squad has been moved to participate, some in practical ways and some in the spiritual department. People are dying, but meanwhile, some in the Heavenward crowd are in denial about Climate Change. Seems that some tombstone-headed American Christians would rather crucify their country than admit that Global Warming Science is right.

State policy on fighting fire seems rather contrary to the trends – and that’s probably because “big government” social budgets needs to be cleansed of too much “red tape”.

Will Texas become uninhabitable, with terrain where nothing can grow; the domain of wind farms, solar fields and duststorms ?

It may be Easter, but it’s not a Good Friday. Happy Scorched Earth Day 2011 !

Categories
Acid Ocean Be Prepared Big Picture Breathe Easy British Sea Power Climate Change Coal Hell Corporate Pressure Cost Effective Dead Zone Direction of Travel Eating & Drinking Emissions Impossible Energy Change Energy Revival Engineering Marvel Feel Gooder Fossilised Fuels Geogingerneering Global Warming Green Investment Growth Paradigm Human Nurture Low Carbon Life Major Shift Money Sings Oil Change Optimistic Generation Peak Emissions Renewable Resource Science Rules Social Change Solar Sunrise Stirring Stuff Technological Sideshow The Data Transport of Delight Wind of Fortune

Dearth of the Oceans

An incomplete recording of the BBC Horizon programme “The Death of the Oceans ?” narrated by David Attenborough is below.

It’s about Global Warming, of course (and overfishing, and sonar making whales deaf – which is the bit that’s missing at the end). But it’s also about Global Warming’s evil twin – Ocean Acidification.

Believe what you will about the Anthropogenic component of Global Warming, and I know some of you resist the Science as if it were a hairy, sweaty, alcoholic dentist threatening to pull your teeth without Novocaine, but there’s no way you can deny that the increasing concentration of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, most of it a direct result of humankind’s burning of Fossil Fuels, is turning the Oceans into a giant bucket of fizzy soda, and is threatening marine life, which is a huge risk to the whole of Life on Earth.

The only solution is to stop burning so much Coal, Oil and Gas. Really, that’s the only way.

Oh, you can fight this inevitability with every brain circuit you have, trying to force others to believe that everything’s still OK, that the Earth is not dangerously heating up, that Life on Land and in the Oceans is not on the cusp of mass extinction, and that Progress is just fine, and Economic Recovery, or Shiny New Technology, or Geoengineering will save us, but one day you will understand. You will accept. The global systems of production, transport and agriculture have to change. The Carbon-based Industrial Age will be gone in only a few decades, only a couple of hundred years after it started.

You can relax. Everything will be fine – eventually. When we have Wind Farms on every ridge top, Solar Power plants in every desert, Geothermal stations in our Town Halls, Combined Heat and Power running on Biomass in every street, Marine Power-gathering machines, Organic food, small electric cars, useful 24 hours-in-a-day networks of electricity-powered public transportation. The time is coming for the new human world to be born – and it will be green, clean and less energy-hungry than before.

It’s going to be a bit of a traumatic birth and the Climate Medics are working hard in the delivery suite, but soon, very soon, Green Investment will see the light of day – those who are wealthy will, as one, put their finances towards Renewable Energy and Energy-efficient machines and Energy Demand Management, real assets, with real returns on investment, and the future will be secured.

Part 1/4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4rloPBrA6w

See at top for video.

Part 2/4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdn1RpqKziE

Part 3/4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKPNcQyljds

Part 4/4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIKOKG3L3zo

Categories
Acid Ocean Animal Kingdoom Dead Zone Disturbing Trends Environmental Howzat Fossilised Fuels Global Warming Peak Emissions Science Rules The Data Toxic Hazard

Michaelmas Gracie

Welcome to little Gracie, born at Michaelmas.

By the time this child is five years old, the world should have agreed to control Carbon Dioxide emissions.

Net greenhouse gas emissions to air should have peaked, and be on the decline by the time this child starts school.

It’s up to us to care for our children.

If we don’t take steps to stop the ocean becoming increasingly acidic, we will have destroyed part of the food chain, and people will go hungry in greater numbers than they do now :-

https://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&ARTICLEID_CHAR=F50CF08B-237D-9F22-E86BA2E071920760

“August 2010 : Scientific American Magazine : Threatening Ocean Life from the Inside Out; August 2010; Scientific American Magazine; by Marah J. Hardt and Carl Safina : …As researchers, we were concerned about the underappreciated effects of changing ocean chemistry on the cells, tissues and organs of marine species. In laboratory experiments at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, Havenhand had demonstrated that such changes could seriously impede the most fundamental strategy of survival: sex. Ocean acidification—a result of too much carbon dioxide reacting with seawater to form carbonic acid—has been dubbed “the other CO2 problem.” As the water becomes more acidic, corals and animals such as clams and mussels have trouble building their skeletons and shells. But even more sinister, the acidity can interfere with basic bodily functions for all marine animals, shelled or not. By disrupting processes as fundamental as growth and reproduction, ocean acidification threatens the animals’ health and even the survival of species. Time is running out to limit acidification before it irreparably harms the food chain on which the world’s oceans—and people—depend.”

And global warming will only make the problem worse :-

https://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n2/full/ngeo420.html

Letter : Nature Geoscience 2, 105 – 109 (2009)
Published online: 25 January 2009 : doi:10.1038/ngeo420

“Long-term ocean oxygen depletion in response to carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels”

Gary Shaffer, Steffen Malskær Olsen & Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen

“Abstract : Ongoing global warming could persist far into the future, because natural processes require decades to hundreds of thousands of years to remove carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning from the atmosphere. Future warming may have large global impacts including ocean oxygen depletion and associated adverse effects on marine life, such as more frequent mortality events, but long, comprehensive simulations of these impacts are currently not available. Here we project global change over the next 100,000 years using a low-resolution Earth system model, and find severe, long-term ocean oxygen depletion, as well as a great expansion of ocean oxygen-minimum zones for scenarios with high emissions or high climate sensitivity. We find that climate feedbacks within the Earth system amplify the strength and duration of global warming, ocean heating and oxygen depletion. Decreased oxygen solubility from surface-layer warming accounts for most of the enhanced oxygen depletion in the upper 500 m of the ocean. Possible weakening of ocean overturning and convection lead to further oxygen depletion, also in the deep ocean. We conclude that substantial reductions in fossil-fuel use over the next few generations are needed if extensive ocean oxygen depletion for thousands of years is to be avoided.”

Categories
Be Prepared Big Picture British Sea Power Burning Money Climate Change Climate Chaos Corporate Pressure Dead Zone Emissions Impossible Energy Change Energy Revival Financiers of the Apocalypse Fossilised Fuels Global Singeing Global Warming Growth Paradigm Incalculable Disaster Low Carbon Life Major Shift Marine Gas Oil Change Peak Oil Petrolheads Protest & Survive Public Relations Resource Curse Social Change Solar Sunrise Tarred Sands Toxic Hazard Unconventional Foul Unnatural Gas Wind of Fortune

Go Beyond Oil

https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gt9FazoUMIDxODUKwX2TF5LxndsQ

“Protesters condemn ‘dirty oil’ at World Energy Congress : (AFP) : 14 September 2010 : MONTREAL — Hundreds of protesters demonstrated in the streets of Montreal Sunday, calling for an end to “dirty, risky” oil exploration, ahead of a global gathering of energy experts. A dozen protesters covered in molasses staged a “Black Tide Beach Party,” while dozens of others carried banners that read “Too dirty, too risky, go beyond oil.” A blond baby boy smeared in brown sticky molasses wailed in his activist father’s arms, while protesters used megaphones to slam the provincial Quebec government of Jean Charest for inviting oil companies to the five-day World Energy Congress at the sprawling Palais de Congres. Some 5,000 participants from industry, government and academia, were expected to attend the conference, slated to officially open Sunday evening. The event is expected to tackle global energy issues, such as improving access to energy in the world’s poorer regions and the role of new technologies in ensuring a sustainable energy future. Many protesters directed their anger at BP over a devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year. But Julien Vincent, a campaigner for Greenpeace International, said BP was only part of the problem. “British Petroleum is one part of a big industry that’s got an abysmal safety record and an abysmal record in terms of its obligations toward protecting communities,” he told AFP. “You also have oil from Shell dripping out over Nigeria right now. You have oil spills that have taken place in China that have flooded ports,” he added. “The entire industry needs to be told to sit back and listen up.” …”

https://www.wecmontreal2010.ca/en.html

Categories
Animal Kingdoom Be Prepared Big Picture Dead Zone Energy Revival Environmental Howzat Fossilised Fuels Incalculable Disaster Low Carbon Life Marine Gas Oil Change Peak Oil Petrolheads Protest & Survive Regulatory Ultimatum Renewable Resource Resource Curse Toxic Hazard Unconventional Foul Unnatural Gas

Gunk Zero

What happened to all that deepwater crude gusher oil, so visible from space, spreading like a magical sheen on the surface of the waters in the Gulf of Mexico ?

It’s now lying as a 5cm layer of gunk on the sea floor, that’s what. That’s where you’ll find Ground Zero for BP’s careless “blame the cement” spill mess-tastrophe :-

https://www.desdemonadespair.net/2010/09/oil-layers-two-inches-thick-coat-gulf.html

If ever there were an advertisement for the campaigns to end the age of fossil fuels, this, I think, is it.

Categories
Acid Ocean Advertise Freely Animal Kingdoom Be Prepared Big Picture Climate Change Corporate Pressure Dead Zone Emissions Impossible Environmental Howzat Fossilised Fuels Global Warming Incalculable Disaster Neverending Disaster Oil Change Protest & Survive Public Relations Resource Curse Social Change Toxic Hazard Unconventional Foul Unnatural Gas

Liberate Tate : Pouring Oil on Troubled Relationships

https://www.youandifilms.com/2010/09/crude-2010-oil-painting-protest-over-bp-sponsorship-in-tate-modern-turbine-hall-liberate-tate-calls-for-footprint-of-art-museum-to-be-free-from-big-oil/

https://twitter.com/liberatetate

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B2JesScn-l6lM2E2OTU2MGEtZmEzYy00NDZmLWE0YWMtYzY4Zjg5YmUxZTVi&sort=name&layout=list&num=50&pli=1