Category: The War on Error

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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.

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JODI Oil and BP #7

I both love and loathe Geography at the same time. I squirm at the irregularities – not the Slartibartfastian squiggly coastlines – but the way that people of differing cultures, languages and political or religious adherences refuse to occupy territory neatly, and deny being categorised properly. Actually, no, that’s just a joke. I love diversity, and migration, and long may culture continue to evolve. I find the differing mental geographies of people intriguing – such as the rift between the climate change science community and those few shrill shills resisting climate change science; for some reason often the very same people ardently opposed to the deployment of renewable energy. How to communicate across psychological boundaries remains an ongoing pursuit that can be quite involving and rewarding sometimes, as the entrenched antis diminish in number, because of defections based on facts and logic. One day, I sense, sense will prevail, and that feels good.

So I like divergence and richness in culture, and I like the progress in communicating science. What I don’t like is trying to map things where there is so much temporal flux. The constantly rearranging list of Membership of the European Union, for one good and pertinent example; the disputes over territory names, sovereignty and belonginess. When it comes to Energy, things get even more difficult to map, as much data is proprietary (legally bound to a private corporation) or a matter of national security (so secret, not even the actual governments know it); or mythical (data invented on a whim, or guessed at, or out of date). And then you get Views – the different views of different organisations about which category of whatever whichever parties or materials belong to. In my struggle to try to understand petroleum crude oil production figures, I realised that different organiations have different ways of grouping countries, and even have different countries in similar-sounding groups.

So I decided that as a first step towards eliminating categorisation overlaps or omissions, I should establish my own geography which was flexible enough to accommodate the Views of others, and permit me to compare their data more knowingly. Here are my first versions :-

1. Country Regional Grouping
I have given up to three levels of geographical detail, and an alternative grouping for most of the main land masses. Here it is in Excel spreadsheet format (.XLS). And here it is as a Comma-Delimited text file (.CSV).

2. Country Regional Comparison
I have compared the definitions of territorial regions between the following organisations and agencies : JODI (Joint Organisations Data Initiative), BP plc (the international company formerly known as British Petroleum), OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), EIA (United States of America, Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration), IEA (International Energy Agency of the OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) and the United Nations (UN). Here it is as an Excel spreadsheet (.XLS). And here it is as a Comma-Delimited text file (.CSV).

There are some differences. Surprisingly few, in fact, if you only consider countries with significant oil production. I did find quite a lot of spelling mistakes, however, even in documentation that I assume was partially machine-generated.

The result is that I can be fairly confident that if I separate out data for China, Mexico, Israel and Turkey and a few other less significant countries when I compare data sources, any large divergence in numbers will have to be down to the different ways that people count oil rather than the way they categorise territories.

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JODI Oil and BP #6

This is my first attempt to reconcile the 2015 global oil production data from five different publicly available sources : JODI Oil, BP, OPEC, EIA and IEA, and truth be told, it’s ugly.

I can feel I’m going to need to redo every step, just in case I made an error in assumption or copying figures into my spreadsheet(s).

I’m also going to need to contact each of the agencies for one reason or another, in particular to request a country-by-country full breakdown of the data, as it is impossible in some cases to compare the regional country groupings used by each agency.

In order to do this comparison, it has been necessary to read the “fine print” in the data reports and database information from the agencies, to try to understand how each of them treats each territory it holds data for, and which geographical region it assigns to which data for each country. A couple of notes here should show how complicated it can get : for example, BP considers Mexico to be a part of “OECD Americas” and “North America”, but OPEC considers it to be in “OECD Americas” and “Latin America”; the EIA consider Estonia to be a part of “Eurasia” in recent data downloads, whereas BP considers it a part of “OECD Europe” in the Statistical Review of World Energy 2016; and OPEC includes data from Indonesia in its total of OPEC oil production for 2015 in the Annual Statistical Bulletin 2016, but Indonesia only rejoined OPEC on 1st January 2016.

Let me just explain the content of the results spreadsheet – available in .XLS Excel Spreadsheet format and .CSV Comma-Delimited Fields format.

1. JODI Oil Data
I downloaded this data in late May 2016, and ran it through a C programme to group the country data roughly according to the BP schema.

2. Missing JODI Data
Where country data was missing in JODI, I filled in the gaps by pulling out the figures from the EIA Crude Oil (including Lease Condensate) data. I chose this data set because a comparison of figures between JODI Oil and EIA for the United States showed they were close. This I call “Adjusted JODI” data.

3. Regrouped Adjusted JODI Data
I re-grouped the Adjusted JODI data to match the regional groupings of the other data sets – essentially pulling “OECD Asia Pacific” and “Other Asia” data into the same group.

4. OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin
I took the data for OPEC oil production from the OPEC ASB 2016 Table 3.5 and for the rest of the world from OPEC ASB 2016 Table 3.7. I then compared OPEC and JODI Oil data by subtracting the JODI data from the OPEC ASB data. Since some of the countries were not specifically named, and belonged to different regions in the JODI analysis, the results are not completely accurate. It was not possible to split “Eastern Europe and Eurasia” into “Europe” and “Eurasia” countries.

5. Adjusting OPEC ASB data for OPEC countries
The OPEC data for OPEC countries does not report Lease or Field Condensates in the main crude oil figures – these are lumped in with NGL figures, which also include NCF – non-conventional fossil fuels. The OPEC data for non-OPEC countries appears to include NCF in the main crude oil figures. The JODI Oil data do not appear to include NCF. So for the regions where there were significant NCF showing in the EIA data, I added these on to the JODI figures to permit a clearer comparison to the OPEC data.

6. IEA Oil Market Report (OMR)
I took the 2015 data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) OMR of 13 July 2016 and compared them to the Adjusted JODI data. The difference for the OPEC figure seemed very large, and this appeared to be because NCFs were included for the OPEC data, but not in the other figures. So I subtracted the OPEC NGLs figure from the IEA OPEC total, and instead added in the NGLs figure from the EIA data for the comparison with JODI.

7. EIA Data
I compared the Crude Oil plus Natural Gas Processing Liquids (NGPLs) data from EIA with JODI.

8. BP Data
I compared the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2016 page 8 for oil production in thousands of barrels per day with the JODI data. I needed to move some of the countries between regions for the comparison, but this was not possible as they were not explicitly mentioned in the BP data – splitting “Europe and Eurasia” into “OECD Europe”, “Eurasia” (Former Soviet Union or FSU) and “Other Europe”.

My main conclusion so far is that anybody basing analysis on any of these data sets should be very wary. Some of the numbers look suspect. Also, the total production of hydrocarbons may be larger than previously, but it’s an apples and oranges problem : NGLs are not the same as crude oil, and cannot give the same amount of refined oil products.

In my next post, I’m going to explain all the acronyms I haven’t explained this time, and delve further into regional geography.

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JODI Oil and BP #4

In my seemingly futile and interminable quest to reconcile the differences between the data provided by the JODI Oil organisation and BP as revealed in part by the annual BP Statistical Review of World Energy, I have moved on to looking at production (primary supply), found a problem as regards Africa, and had some confirmation that a major adjustment in how the data is collected happened in 2009.

First – the problem with Africa. The basket “Other Africa” for oil production is far less in the BP data than it is in the JODI Oil data – shown by negative figures in the comparison. For 2015, this is approximately 65% in scale (-3800 KBD) of the summed positive difference between the BP and JODI figures for the named countries (5884 KBD). This reminds me that there was a problem with the refined oil product consumption figures for “Other Africa” as well. Without a detailed breakdown of individual country accounts from BP it is almost impossible to know where these differences arise, it seems to me, or begin to understand why these differences are so large. Maybe I should just ask BP for a full country breakdown – if they’d ever deign to communicate this kind of information with me. Standing by my email Inbox right now… Could be here some time…

It is fairly clear from the comparison for North America that a major shift in understanding by either BP or JODI Oil took place in 2009, as the oil production data converge significantly for that year onwards. There was similar evidence of this in the refined oil products consumption data.

As with the consumption data, the production data for the Middle East region is strongly divergent between BP and JODI. I did read something potentially useful in the JODI Oil Manual, which I would recommend everyone interested in energy data to read. In the notes for Crude Oil, I read : “One critical issue is whether the volumes of NGL, lease or field condensates and oils extracted from bituminous minerals are included. All organisations exclude NGL from crude oil. If condensates are able to be excluded, it should be noted to the JODI organisation(s) of which the country/economy is a member. Most OPEC member countries exclude condensates.” Now, I guess, the struggle will be to find some data on condensates. Of which there are a variety of sources and nomenclature, be they light liquid hydrocarbons from oil and gas production or oil and gas refining/processing/cryoprocessing. There may be faultlines of comprehension and categorisation, such as about who considers NGPL or Natural Gas Plant Liquids from Natural Gas processing plants to be in the category of NGLs – Natural Gas Liquids, and therefore effectively in the bucket of Crude Oil.

I’m no closer to any answers on why BP oil data doesn’t align with JODI Oil data. And it looks like I’ve just opened a whole can of condensate wormy questions.

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JODI Oil and BP #3

So after the mystery of why JODI Oil regional refinery products demand data (oil products consumption) is so different from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy for 2016, I took a look at the individual country data supplied by BP and compared it to the JODI Oil numbers.

The first thing that struck me was that there are many items of data that are very similar between the BP and JODI Oil data; and yet there are also a good number that are significantly different – and the vast majority of these show BP reporting much higher oil consumption than JODI. This means that the definitions that BP and JODI are using for oil products consumption must correlate in many cases, when countries make their reports. But it also means that there are some understandings of oil consumption that BP has that do not have cognates in the JODI Oil reports.

The second thing that struck me was that each region in BP apart from North America is showing a total much higher than JODI Oil. Only some of the countries are specifically named in the BP report, and other countries are lumped into the bucket of “Other” within each region. Each “Other” figure is much higher in the BP report than in the JODI Oil data. Part of the reason is clearly going to be because some countries have not been reporting to JODI Oil, or not reporting reliably. For example, for South and Central America, JODI Oil data for Bermuda, Cuba, El Salvador, Haiti and Suriname are all zeroes; and JODI Oil data for Bolivia has zeroes for NOV2015 and DEC2015 (other months average at 63 KBD). But these could all be expected to be low oil products producers; so it is unclear to me where BP thinks consumption is occurring outside of the individually-named countries.

The “Other Africa” line is much higher in BP than in JODI, which looks dubious. I have not looked at this closely, but this might relate to countries such as Nigeria who produce and also consume a lot of oil.

The most significant differences : countries where no JODI Oil data is available : Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Israel, Bangladesh, Pakistan; and also countries with medium-to-high BP oil consumption data compared to JODI : Brazil, Venezuela, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation, all the named Middle East countries, South Africa, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam.

It could be that in some cases the BP data is for all oil consumption – from national refineries and imports; whereas the JODI Oil data is for consumption from a nation’s own refinery. I would need to check this in more detail, but at first glance, the BP oil consumption data for the Middle East is much more divergent from the JODI Oil data than for other regions, and this does not make sense. I know that refinery product self-consumption is increasing in Middle East countries that are in strong economic development, but not all Middle East countries are experiencing increasing national demand, and I cannot imagine that oil products imports are so high in this region as to explain these differences between BP and JODI Oil data.

Another thing to note is that Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) (formerly known as the “Former Soviet Union”) data divergence accounts for most of the data divergence in the “Europe & Eurasia” region; and that BP oil consumption data for the Russian Federation (which forms a part of CIS) is much higher than the data given to JODI.

I now have too many questions about how and from whom all this data is sourced, how categories of liquid hydrocarbons are delineated, and doubts about how anybody could check the reliability of any of this data. Without more information, I cannot analyse this data further; but maybe looking at oil consumption is not that illuminating. There appears to be a small and steady increase in annual oil demand and consumption over the recent period – this is indicated by both BP and JODI Oil data. The real issues for my analysis are whether oil production is capable of sustainably satisfying this demand-with-small-annual-increases, so my next step is to move to look at liquid hydrocarbons production data.

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JODI Oil and BP #2

Previously, I was comparing data from the annual BP Statistical Review of World Energy with the annual averages of JODI Oil data, and when I cast my eye over a table of differences, it was easy to spot that something happened in 2009 – the data from the two sources jumped to more closely correlate. For some countries and product types, if it didn’t happen in 2009, it happened in 2010; but since then some data lines have begun to diverge again. Either somebody was lying prior to 2009 (and by “lying”, I mean, making errors in reporting on hydrocarbon refinery), or something changed in the definitions of the sub-categories of hydrocarbon products from petrorefineries. At this stage, I cannot tell if the corrections were done by BP or by JODI Oil, but the corrections show a step change. This intrigued me, so, here follow a few diagrams and some summary notes.



The example of North America is dominated by a correction in the data for the United States of America (whether the correction was in the JODI Oil data, or in the BP data) for the “Others” category. Since 2009, the data lines have been coming progressively closer, until it seems they are reporting from either the same sources, or using the same industry data to base their calculations on.


Data from South and Central America as a whole is rather random when compared between BP and JODI – however there is a clear correction in the category “Others” in 2009, and perhaps a further correction to both “Light distillates” and “Others” in 2011. Since then, the trend is for BP and JODI data to diverge.




The 2009 correction for the “Europe and Eurasia” region (an artefact) is mainly due to the big correction for the European Union in 2009 for “Light distillates” and “Others”. The data for CIS undergoes a smaller correction, and this is in 2010, for “Fuel oil” and “Others”.


The “Others” category is also adjusted for the Middle East in 2009.


There are minor corrections in the data for Africa in both 2009 and 2010, and recently a large divergence for “Middle distillates”.




Asia Pacific data is corrected for “Light distillates”, “Middle distillates” and “Others” in 2009, reflecting corrections in both China and Japan data.




Corrections in 2009 for OECD data are the main reason for the differences between BP and JODI to snap shut; whilst Non-OECD data still remains divergent.

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Forty Years of Silence

I thought I’d dip into an energy textbook today, not realising that I would encounter a new angle on a story of forty years of silence and denial that’s been shocking climate change commentators.

Ever since Inside Climate News published a report on the company Exxon and the history of its global warming research (“Exxon : The Road Not Taken”), strong reaction has continued to accumulate, on a spectrum from disbelief, to disappointment to deep cynicism.

In the United States, almost predictably in that uniquely litigious culture, various lawsuits are accumulating with the large oil and gas companies as their targets, and Exxon is the latest defendant. It is a matter of political, social and environmental import to have the facts where there is suspected misleading of the public on matters of science. In this case, if proved, those misled would include shareholders in the company.

And it’s not just a question of global warming science here – Exxon’s alleged readiness to obscure basic physics and the implications of carbon loading of the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning may have also resulted in an obscuring of the scientific realities underlying their own corporate viability.

You see, Exxon’s business interests rely on their continued ability to find and dig up oil and gas. Now last year was a difficult one, as depressed crude oil and Natural Gas commodity prices put some of Exxon’s resources “off-books”, so their reserves replacement – topping up their bankable assets – was only 67% of their previous end-of-year. It could be easy to connect the dots on this one – some of the gas they could pump is just too costly right now to get to. But what if Exxon are finally meeting another kind of Nemesis – of their own making – because they’re working on faulty geophysical data, which they produced themselves ?

So, let’s start where I did, with Chapter Eight “Basin stratigraphy” of the reference book “Basin Analysis” by Philip A. Allen and John R. Allen, 3rd edition, published by Wiley Blackwell, ISBN 978-0470673768.

The chapter introduces many important concepts regarding how sedimentary basins formed in deep Earth time – sediments of organic matter that have in some cases become reservoirs of fossil fuels. It talks about how strata get laid down – the science of “process stratigraphy”. Much of the logic relies on the phenomenon of the rising and falling of sea level relative to land masses over geological cycles, correlating with significant swings in climate. The book mentions early work by Exxon scientists : “Using seismic reflection results, a team of geologists and biostratigraphers from Exxon constructed a chart of relative sea level through time (Vail et al., (1997b), updated and improved by Haq et al. (1987, 1988)).” The chapter goes on to critique one important working assumption of that original work – that all sedimentary similarities must be an indicator of synchronicity – that is, that they happened at the same time. The text goes on to read, “In summary, we follow Carter (1998) in believing that the Haq et al. (1997) curve is a ‘noisy’ amalgam of a wide range of local sea-level signals, and should not be used as a global benchmark…its use as a chronostratigraphic tool by assuming a priori that a certain stratigraphic boundary has a globally synchronous and precise age, which it is therefore safe to extrapolate into a basin with poor age control, is hazardous.”

Why is this important ? Because all of the understanding of petroleum geophysics relies on the stratigraphic charts drawn up by these scientists. And yet, even at their inception, there was corporate “confidentiality” invoked. According to a paper from Anthony Hallam, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 1984, 12: 205-243 : “Most important, details of the evidence supporting the eustatic claims of the Exxon group (Vail et al 1977) are not published, and hence their claims cannot be checked directly”. What ? A data set relied on not only by everybody in the fossil fuel energy industry, but also all geologists and even climate change scientists, has a fault line in the evidence ? Why would Exxon want to obscure the origin of this data ? Did they need to keep quiet about their stratigraphy science because it revealed too much about climate change ? Are there problems with the science, but that even they didn’t find out ? And is there then the possibility that they have relied too much on faulty 40 year old research in fossil fuel exploration and discovery ?

Exxon might be starting to be more transparent – as this set of charts from 2010 reveals, “A Compilation of Phanerozoic Sea-Level Change, Coastal Onlaps and Recommended Sequence Designations”, Snedden and Liu, 2010, AAPG Search and Discovery, in which the text includes, “The magnitudes of sea-level change in this chart follow the estimation of Haq and Schutter (2008) and Hardenbol et al. (1998). However, there is little consensus on the range of sea-level changes, though most believe that the sea-level position during most of the Phanerozoic was within +/- 100 meters of the present-day level.”

To me, it remains an intriguing possibility that the whole oil and gas industry has been working with incomplete or misaligned data, in which case, can we really believe that there are another four or five good decades of good quality fossil fuels to exploit ?

Other PDFs of interest :-
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bilal_Haq2/publication/23297207_A_Chronology_of_Paleozoic_Sea-Level_Changes/links/55daff3708aeb38e8a8a3702.pdf?inViewer=0&pdfJsDownload=0&origin=publication_detail
https://curry.eas.gatech.edu/Courses/6140/ency/Chapter10/Ency_Oceans/Sea_Level_Variations.pdf
https://www.mantleplumes.org/WebDocuments/Haq1987.pdf
https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.earth.20130201.11.pdf

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The Lies That You Choose

I have had the great fortune to meet another student of the Non-Science of Economics who believes most strongly that Energy is only a sub-sector of the Holy Economy, instead of one of its foundations, and doesn’t understand why issues with the flow of commodities (which include energy resources) into the system is critical to the survival of the global economy, and that the growth in the Services Industries and Knowledge Economy cannot compensate for the depletion of freshwater, fossil fuels and other raw resources.

This person believes in Technology, as if it can fly by itself, without seeming to understand how Technological Innovation is really advanced by state investment – a democracy of focus. This otherwise intelligent learner has also failed to grasp, apparently, that the only way that the Economy can grow in future is through investment in things with real value, such as Energy, especially where this investment is essential owing to decades of under-investment precipitated by privatisation – such as in Energy – investment in both networks of grids or pipes, and raw resources. And this from somebody who understands that developing countries are being held back by land grab and natural resource privatisation – for example ground water; and that there is no more money to be made from property investment, as the market has boomed and blown.

How to burst these over-expanded false value bubbles in the mind ? When I try to talk about the depletion of natural resources, and planetary boundaries, people often break eye contact and stare vacantly out of the nearest window, or accept the facts, but don’t see the significance of them. Now this may be because I’m not the best of communicators, or it may be due to the heavy weight of propaganda leading to belief in the Magical Unrealism always taught in Economics and at Business Schools.

Whatever. This is where I’m stuck in trying to design a way to talk about the necessity of energy transition – the move from digging up minerals to catching the wind, sunlight and recycling gases. If I say, “Look, ladies and laddies, fossil fuels are depleting”, the audience will respond with “where there’s a drill, there’s a way”. As if somehow the free market (not that a free market actually exists), will somehow step up and provide new production and new resources, conjuring them from somewhere.

What are arguments that connect the dots for people ? How to demonstrate the potential for a real peak in oil, gas, coal and uranium production ? I think I need to start with a basic flow analysis. On the one side of the commodity delivery pipeline, major discoveries have decreased, and the costs of discovery have increased. The hidden underbelly of this is that tapping into reservoirs and seams has a timeline to depletion – the point at which the richness of the seam is degraded significantly, and the initial pressure in the well or reservoir is reduced to unexploitable levels – regardless of the technology deployed. On the other end of the commodities pipeline is the measure of consumption – and most authorities agree that the demand for energy will remain strong. All these factors add up to a time-limited game.

Oh, you can choose to believe that everything will continue as it always seems to have. But the Golden Age of Plenty is drawing to a close, my friend.

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Cumbria Floods : Climate Defenceless

I fully expect the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, will be more than modicum concerned about public opinion as the full toll of damage to property, businesses, farmland and the loss of life in Cumbria of the December 2015 floods becomes clear. The flooding in the Somerset Levels in the winter of 2013/2014 led to strong public criticism of the government’s management of and investment in flood defences.

The flood defences that were improved in Cumbria after the rainstorm disaster of 2009 were in some cases completely ineffective against the 2015 deluge. It appears that the high water mark at some places in Cumbria was higher in the 2015 floods than ever recorded previously, but that cannot be used as David Cameron’s get-out-of-jail-free clause. These higher flood levels should have been anticipated as a possibility.

However, the real problem is not the height of flooding, but the short recurrence time. Flood defences are designed in a way that admits to a sort of compromise calculus. Measurements from previous floods are used to calculate the likelihood of water levels breaching a particular height within a number of years – for example, a 1-in-20 year flood, or a 1-in-200 year flood. The reinforced flood defences in Cumbria were designed to hold back what was calculated to be something like a 1-in-100 year flood. It could be expected that if within that 100 years, other serious but not overwhelming flooding took place, there would be time for adaptation and restructuring of the defences. However, it has taken less than 10 years for a 1-in-100 year event to recur, and so no adaptation has been possible.

This should suggest to us two possibilities : either the Environment Agency is going about flood defences the wrong way; or the odds for the 1-in-100 year flood should be reset at 1-in-10-or-so years – in other words, the severity profile of flooding is becoming worse – stronger flooding is more frequent – which implies acceptance of climate change.

The anti-science wing of the Conservative Party were quick to construct a campaign against the Environment Agency in the South West of England in early 2014 – distracting people from asking the climate change question. But this time, I think people might be persuaded that they need to consider climate change as being a factor.

Placing the blame for mismanagement of the Somerset Levels at the door of the Environment Agency saved David Cameron’s skin in 2014, but I don’t think he can use that device a second time. People in Cockermouth are apparently in disbelief about the 2015 flooding. They have barely had time to re-establish their homes and lives before Christmas has been cancelled again for another year.

Will the Prime Minister admit to the nation that climate change is potentially a factor in this 2015 waterborne disaster ?

I remember watching in in credulity as the BBC showed the restoration of Cockermouth back in 2010 – it was either Songs of Praise or Countryfile – I forget which. The BBC were trying to portray a town getting back to normal. I remember asking myself – but what if climate change makes this happen again ? What then ? Will the BBC still be mollifying its viewers, lulling them back into a false sense of security about the risks of severe climate change ? What if there is no “normal” to get back to any more ? Is this partly why the Meteorological Office has decided to name winter storms ?

Can future climate-altered floods be escaped – or are the people of Britain to remain defenceless ?

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Energy Security : National Security #4

Previously, I summarised and sketched the situation regarding Europe’s policy of developing the “Southern Gas Corridor”, to provide Natural Gas supplies from resources that are not the Russian Federation and its satellite countries. My conclusion from a British perspective was that the United Kingdom should be very cautious in widening its military engagement in the region to include a proposed bombing campaign against Syria. Increasing violence in the region will harm energy transport projects and damage existing infrastructure. By way of example, renewed conflict between the Turkish government and the Kurdish Workers’ Party or PKK has been suggested as the incentive behind recent destruction of gas pipelines, events that have suspected of being assisted by Russian “forces”, an alliance that appears to have a history.

The British Prime Minister David Cameron has recently made his case for an air campaign in Syria, and it is to this that I turn. It is a political document, and so naturally enough contains language that is contestable. For example, in the first paragraph, the Prime Minister writes, “Whether or not to use military force is one of the most significant decisions that any government takes. The need to do so most often arises because of a government’s first duty: the responsibility to protect its citizens.” The UK is already using military force across the border from Syria, in Iraq, as the document outlines later on, so it is curious that David Cameron feels he has to appeal to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee regarding very similar action in Syria. There is a significant level of evidence to reasonably argue that attacking Islamic State with an air campaign will lead to reprisal attacks in the UK from Islamic State sympathisers, so air strikes against Syria might damage national security in Britain.

To understand this, you would need to understand the appeal that Islamic State philosophy has to a small group of deluded, desperate, brainwashed activists. For those who aren’t Islamic State adherents, it would be hard to understand the “death cult” fundamentalism enshrined in its philosophy, so it would be impossible to understand why there would be anyone prepared to sympathise with Islamic State and wish to support it by the use of massacre and suicide. But if you want to understand how provocation of Islamic State by aerial bombardment could precipitate violent responses on the streets of Europe, all you need to do is look at the evidence from Paris and Brussels coming in the last few weeks. When all the talk was about young people being seduced by the insane rhetoric of Islamic State and running away to fight in Syria, it all seemed harmless enough – although tragic and bewildering for their families. But now European nationals have returned home as secret trained suicide bombers, and recruited their peers and sometimes siblings and other relatives to the Islamic State cause, it’s no longer a sad tale of teenage and twenty-something obsession. To extend the British air campaign into Syria won’t fix this problem, neither will closing borders.

When David Cameron says, “it is … vital that the Government can act to keep this country safe”, he says it in defence of the use of violent attack or “force”, but there are obviously more human, humane, cheaper, cyber, public relations, political ways to keep the UK safe. He writes, “Throughout Britain’s history, we have been called on time and again to make the hardest of decisions in defence of our citizens and our country”, but it appears that he hasn’t learned any lessons from the last century, especially the last 21 years. Every time that the UK has been involved in a major aerial bombardment campaign, things have gone badly, either for British armed forces, or British nationals – not to mention the citizens of other countries, who in some cases, if they’ve survived being carpet bombed, have been documented as starting to hate Britain because of British warfare. It’s a short step from hating Britain to sympathising with a rhetoric of anti-British violence, so it could be relatively rationally explained that British air campaigns of the last few decades have weakened our defences.

David Cameron writes, “Today one of the greatest threats we face to our security is the threat from ISIL. We need a comprehensive response which seeks to deal with the threat that ISIL poses to us directly, not just through the measures we are taking at home, but by dealing with ISIL on the ground in the territory that it controls. It is in Raqqa, Syria, that ISIL has its headquarters, and it is from Raqqa that some of the main threats against this country are planned and orchestrated.” However, bombing Islamic State on the ground in the territory it controls won’t diminish the threats to the United Kingdom from Islamic State trained or inspired “operatives” and disciples who have never even travelled to the Middle East, and in fact, it is unlikely that any of the people living in the territory that Islamic State inhabits would have anything to do with violent attacks against the United Kingdom, inside the United Kingdom. The suicide bombers in Paris were not Syrian or Iraqi. And although Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, it is unclear how Syrian and Iraqi leaders in Islamic State could have orchestrated them. What good would bombing Islamic State in Syria and Iraq do in making Britain safer ?

David Cameron writes, “We must tackle ISIL in Syria, as we are doing in neighbouring Iraq, in order to deal with the threat that ISIL poses to the region and to our security here at home”, but you can’t fight an ideology with guns or silence their extremism with bombs. He also writes, “We have to deny a safe haven for ISIL in Syria. The longer ISIL is allowed to grow in Syria, the greater the threat it will pose”, but the question is, a threat to whom and what ?

This is beginning to sound like the propaganda that was once designed to oppose the man who is still the official leader in Syria, Bashar al-Assad. And in fact, David Cameron’s appeal includes him later, when he says British aims should be to “secure a transition to an inclusive Government in Syria that responds to the needs of all the Syrian people and with which the international community could co-operate fully to help restore peace and stability to the whole country. It means continuing to support the moderate opposition in Syria, so that there is a credible alternative to ISIL and Assad.”

Later again, he writes, “Some have argued that we should ally ourselves with Assad and his regime against the greater threat posed by ISIL, as the ‘lesser of two evils’. But this misunderstands the causes of the problem; and would make matters worse. By inflicting brutal attacks against his own people, Assad has in fact acted as one of ISIL’s greatest recruiting sergeants. We therefore need a political transition in Syria to a government that the international community can work with against ISIL, as we already do with the Government of Iraq.” There is also the comment, “Assad regime’s mass murder of its own people”.

So it seems there has not been a reversal : Assad is still not in favour, despite Assad’s military campaign against Islamic State. Let’s just recap here on the “killing his own people” concept, an accusation levelled at the leaders of both Iraq and Libya before the UK bombed them. In Syria’s case, Assad’s repression of anti-government elements was accepted by the “international community” for some time, until the crackdown on the “Arab Spring” protests which lead to a civil war – during which, arguably, Assad’s forces committed crimes against humanity.

But if you think about it, since the “Arab Spring” was possibly largely a result of the exercise of Internet-fed “soft power” by American intelligence agencies and their allies, it would be logical and reasonable for Assad to attempt to quell it, and to attempt to keep social stability. So how does that make Assad a bad person ? And what justifies the international community demanding that he be removed from power ? And why were no representatives of the Syrian government or any of the Syrian opposition parties – “anti-Assad forces” – invited to the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) in Vienna at the end of October 2015 ? David Cameron should not include the removal of Assad from leadership in his appeal to bomb Islamic State in Syria. The parties in the Syrian civil war need to come to a negotiated settlement, but this is a separate issue to the question of the UK fighting the influence of Islamic State by bombing in Syria.

If Assad is not good enough for Syrian leadership, and the anti-Assad forces are not good enough for Syrian leadership, and Islamic State is not good enough for playing any part in Syrian governance, then what is David Cameron really arguing for ? The clue may lie in this, “putting Britain’s full diplomatic weight, as a full member of an international coalition, behind the new political talks – the Vienna process. It means working through these talks to secure a transition to an inclusive Government in Syria that responds to the needs of all the Syrian people and with which the international community could co-operate fully to help restore peace and stability to the whole country. It means continuing to support the moderate opposition in Syria, so that there is a credible alternative to ISIL and Assad. It means using our aid budget to alleviate the immediate humanitarian suffering. It means insisting, with other countries, on the preparation of a proper stabilisation and reconstruction effort in Syria once the conflict has been brought to an end. And it means continuing, and stepping up, our effort here at home to counter radicalisation.”

Aside from the humour in trying to identify who is “moderate” in the Syrian conflict, since all the opposition groups appear to be belligerent and divisive, there is a commitment within a commitment here. What David Cameron is apparently arguing for is not only the involvement of British forces in an air campaign – but also an occupied Syria – occupied by the armed forces of the economically and politically powerful nations of the world. It’s worked so well in Iraq, of course (not), that it deserves to be replicated (not).

But hang on – this is not Britain’s agenda – this is an American agenda – and it should be resisted.

It would be very costly, not only economically, but also in terms of Britain’s reputation abroad. It could spark further hatred of the United Kingdom, and could lead to further acts of terror and sabotage in Europe. Do we really want to risk that ?

How about a genuinely non-violent response to Islamic State ? Instead of interference with the state of Syria – which could well become destabilising – just look at Iraq and Libya.

A common factor with Iraq and Libya is that energy production, storage, transmission, distribution and supply has obviously been affected by the warfare and uprisings in Syria – and it seems that Islamic State have been selling Syrian oil to finance their resistance to all the other militaries in the region. Some of that money could have been used to finance terrorism in other countries, as well.

An American-led occupation of Syria would obviously assist in stabilising the energy sector, and ensuring safe passage for gas and oil, for example in pipelines and power grids. But Europe’s desire for Natural Gas from non-Russian sources should not be any kind of reason for the UK to bomb and occupy Syria.

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Energy Security : National Security #3

Although the Autumn Statement and the Spending Review are attracting all the media and political attention, I have been more interested by the UK Government’s Security Review – or to give it is full title : the “National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015”, or (SDSR), document number Cm 9161.

Its aim is stated in its sub-heading “A Secure and Prosperous United Kingdom”, but on matters of energy, I would suggest it fails to nail down security at all.

In my analysis, having dealt with what appears to be a misunderstanding about the nature of hydrocarbon markets, I then started to address the prospect of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) imports from the United States.

My next probe is into the global gas pipeline networks indicated by this mention of the “Southern Gas Corridor” in Section 3.40 : “…measures to protect and diversify sources of [energy] supply will become increasingly important, including the new Southern Corridor pipeline, US liquid natural gas (LNG) exports, further supplies of Australian LNG, and increased supply from Norway and North Africa.”

First of all, and perhaps of secondmost importance, the “Southern Gas Corridor” is more of a European Union policy suite than an individual pipeline. In fact, it’s not just one pipeline – several pipelines are involved, some actual, some under construction, some cancelled, some renamed, some re-routed, and some whose development is threatened by geopolitical struggle and even warfare.

It is this matter of warfare that is the most important in considering the future of Natural Gas being supplied to the European Union from the Caspian Sea region : Turkmenistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Azerbijan. Oh, and we should mention Uzbekistan, and its human rights abuses, before moving on. And Iraq and Syria – where Islamic State sits, brooding.

Natural Gas is probably why we are all friends with Iran again. Our long-lasting dispute with Iran was ostensibly about nuclear power, but actually, it was all about Natural Gas. When Russia were our New Best Friend, Iran had to be isolated. But now Russia is being a tricky trading partner, and being beastly to Ukraine, Iran is who we’ve turned to, to cry on their shoulder, and beg for an alternative source of gas.

So we’ve back-pedalled on the concept of waging economic or military conflict against Iran, so now we have a more southerly option for our massive East-to-West gas delivery pipeline project – a route that takes in Iran, and avoids passing through Georgia and Azerbaijan – where Russia could interfere.

The problem with this plan is that the pipeline would need to pass through Syria and/or southern Turkey at some point. Syria is the country where Islamic State is currently being bombed by the United States and some European countries. And Turkey is the country where there has been a revival of what amounts pretty much to civil war with the Kurdish population – who also live in Iraq (and the edges of Syria and Iran).

Russia is envious of the southerly Southern Gas Corridor plan, and jealous of its own version(s) of the gas-to-Europe project, and influence in Georgia and Azerbaijan. So perhaps we should not be surprised that Russia and Turkey have had several military and political stand-offs in the last few months.

We in the United Kingdom should also be cautious about getting dragged into military action in Syria – if we’re thinking seriously about future energy security. Further destabilisation of the region through military upheaval would make it difficult to complete the Southern Gas Corridor, and make the European Union increasingly dependent on Russia for energy.

In the UK, although we claim to use no Russian gas at all, we do get gas through the interconnectors from The Netherlands and Belgium, and they get gas from Russia, so actually, the UK is using Russian gas. The UK gets over half its Natural Gas from Norway, and Norway has been a strong producer of Natural Gas, so why should we be worried ? Well, it appears that Norwegian Natural Gas production may have peaked. Let’s re-visit Section 3.40 one more time : “…measures to protect and diversify sources of [energy] supply will become increasingly important, including the new Southern Corridor pipeline, US liquid natural gas (LNG) exports, further supplies of Australian LNG, and increased supply from Norway and North Africa.”

The problem is that nobody can fight geology. If Norway has peaked in Natural Gas production, there is little that anyone can do to increase it, and even if production could be raised in Norway through one technique or another (such as carbon dioxide injection into gas wells), it wouldn’t last long, and wouldn’t be very significant. Norway is going to continue to supply gas to its other trading partners besides the UK, so how could the UK commandeer more of the Norwegian supply ? It seems likely that “increased supply from Norway” is just not possible.

But back to the Southern Gas Corridor. It is in the United Kingdom’s security interests to support fresh gas supplies to the European Union. Because we may not be able to depend on Russia, we need the Southern Gas Corridor. Which is why we should think very, very carefully before getting involved in increased military attacks on Syria.

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Energy Security, National Security #2

The UK Government’s Security Review (SDSR), published 23rd November 2015, regrettably shows traces of propaganda not supported by current data.

For example, the report states in Section 3.40 that : “…measures to protect and diversify sources of [energy] supply will become increasingly important, including the new Southern Corridor pipeline, US liquid natural gas (LNG) exports, further supplies of Australian LNG, and increased supply from Norway and North Africa.”

I have already addressed my recommendation that the writers of this report should be more careful to distinguish between Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) which is a methane-rich product that can substitute for Natural Gas; and Natural Gas Liquids (NGLs) which is a methane-poor product that cannot substitute for Natural Gas.

However, assuming that the writers of the report are talking about cryogenically stored and transported Natural Gas-sourced energy gases, there is a problem in assuming that the United States will be exporting any large amounts of LNG to Europe any time soon. In fact, there are several problems.

Just because the business and political press have been touting the exciting prospect of US LNG exports, doesn’t mean that the data backs up this meme.

First of all, although American Natural Gas production (gross withdrawals from oil and gas wells) continues to grow at a rate that appears unaffected by low Natural Gas prices, the production of shale gas appears to have plateau’d, which might well be related to Natural Gas prices.

Secondly, although exports of Natural Gas as a whole and exports of Natural Gas by pipeline remain healthy, LNG exports have fallen since the heady days of 2010-2011.

Next, although the oil and gas industry proposed lots of LNG export terminals, only a handful are being constructed, and there are already predictions that they will run under-capacity, or won’t get completed.

And further, as regards potential future LNG customers, although China is rejecting LNG imports for a variety of reasons, mostly to do with falling economic growth rates, none of that LNG currently comes from the United States. And China is planning to develop its own onshore Natural Gas and will take LNG from the Australia/Indonesia region.

The bulk of US LNG exports go to Taiwan and Japan, and Japan is unlikely to restart many nuclear power plants, so Japan will continue to need this gas.

On top of all this, the United States is a very minor LNG exporter, so major change should be considered unlikely in the near term.

And it any LNG is heading for Europe, it will probably end up in France, perhaps because they need a better backup plan for their turbulent nuclear power plants.

All of which adds up to a puzzled look on my face. How can the British Government reasonably expect the commencement of significant quantities of American LNG exports to arrive in the UK ? The only reason they believe this is because there has been American propaganda, promulgated through media of all kinds, for the last five or so years, to convince the world that the USA can achieve greater energy independence through the “explosion” in shale gas production.

It’s a story told by many successive US Governments – that the US can achieve greater energy independence, but the reality is very, very different.

The UK Government should not believe any narrative of this nature, in my view, nor include it in national security analyses.

…to be continued…

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Energy Security, National Security #1

Our assiduous government in the United Kingdom has conducted a national security review, as they should, but it appears the collective intelligence on energy of the Prime Minister’s office, the Cabinet Office and the Foreign Commonwealth Office is on a scale of poor to dangerously out of date.

No, LNG doesn’t stand for “liquid natural gas”. LNG stands for Liquefied Natural Gas. I think this report has confused LNG with NGLs.

Natural Gas Liquids, or NGLs, are condensable constituents of gas-prone hydrocarbon wells. In other words, the well in question produces a lot of gas, but at the temperatures and pressures in the well underground, hydrocarbons that would normally be liquid on the surface are in the gas phase, underground. But when they are pumped/drilled out, they are condensed to liquids. So, what are these chemicals ? Well, here are the approximate Boiling Points of various typical fossil hydrocarbons, approximate because some of these molecules have different shapes and arrangements which influences their physical properties :-

Boiling Points of Short-Chain Hydrocarbons
Methane : approximately -161.5 degrees Celsius
Ethane : approximately -89.0 degrees Celsius
Propane : approximattely -42.0 degrees Celsius
Butane : approximately -1.0 degrees Celsius
Pentane : approximately 36.1 degrees Celsius
Heptane : approximately 98.42 degrees Celsius

You would expect NGLs, liquids condensed out of Natural Gas, to be mostly butane and heavier molecules, but depending on the techniques used – which are often cryogenic – some propane and ethane can turn up in NGLs, especially if they are kept cold. The remaining methane together with small amounts of ethane and propane and a trace of higher hydrocarbons is considered “dry” Natural Gas.

By contrast, LNG is produced by a process that chills Natural Gas without separating the methane, until it is liquid, and takes up a much smaller volume, making it practical for transportation. OK, you can see why mistakes are possible. Both processes operate at sub-zero temperatures and result in liquid hydrocarbons. But it is really important to keep these concepts separate – especially as methane-free liquid forms of short-chain hydrocarbons are often used for non-energy purposes.

Amongst other criticisms I have of this report, it is important to note that the UK’s production of crude oil and Natural Gas is not “gradually” declining. It is declining at quite a pace, and so imports are “certain” to grow, not merely “likely”. I note that Natural Gas production decline is not mentioned, only oil.

…to be continued…

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Andrea Leadsom : Energy Quadrilemma #2

Last week’s Energy Live News conference on 5th November 2015 was an opportunity to hear Andrea Leadsom, Minister of State for Energy at the UK Government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) speak without notes, and she did a fine job of it. She must really believe what she said, or have been well-conditioned to rehearse what I considered to be a mix of practical reality and nonsense. The nonsense ? Well, for one thing, it appears that the UK Government still adheres to the crazy notion that nuclear power can rescue the country from blackouts.

After commenting on the previous day’s events in connection with the power grid, Andrea Leadom went on to discuss electricity transmission and demand side reduction measures. “Our policy mix is diversity.”, she said, “There is also the issue of transmission networks.” She didn’t say the word “electricity” before the word “transmission”, but that’s what she meant. She is clearly infected with the “energy is electricity” virus – a disease that makes most civil servants and government officials believe that the only energy worth talking about is electricity. Whereas, primary electricity providing energy for the UK amounts to less than 9% of the total. Compare this to the contribution of petroleum oil to the UK economy – at over 36% of primary input energy, and Natural Gas at 33%, and coal at just over 15.5%.

Andrea Leadsom admitted that – as regards electricity transmission networks went – “it was built for two generations ago, when you had a few [centralised] generators. Today, this has massively changed and [the grid] needs to continue to change, to enable local[ised] electricity generation. The other bit that’s vital is to look at our demand side. We’re not going to solve the energy problem by generating more power. Measures that the Government put in place very early to meet needs – demand reduction as well as energy efficiency…” I don’t know which government she was talking about, because the current Conservative Government have promised to support large industrial users of electricity with generous special assistance and the current organogram of DECC doesn’t even mention efficiency. The previous Coalition Government axed very successful home insulation schemes, and adopted the badly-formulated Green Deal, probably the worst policy for energy efficiency. Perhaps the Minister is referring to the efficiency of energy in use, rather than the reduction of energy use by efficiency ? There, I’d have to say that the government has done little to impact energy efficiency, as most of the initiatives that have been taken have been industry-led – commercial companies taking on projects like converting all their lighting. It is true however, that some public sector organisations have pursued energy efficiency, as, for example, the Government departments themselves have to show they are acting on energy use.

Andrea Leadsom continued, “The potential for domestic battery systems, and smart [meters], where it will be changes for you [the consumer]. We want technologies to be able to stand on their own two feet as soon as possible. Development policy needs to make sure that renewable energies succeed but at the lowest cost to consumers.” And here’s where the quadrilemma comes into focus : you need to spend capital, in other words, invest, in order to deploy new technologies. You can’t expect anything new to take off without support – whether that support comes from government subsidies or private or sovereign wealth funds or large independent investor funds. People talk about choice : if people want green energy, then green energy will be supplied. Most end users of energy say they want renewable energy, so you’d be forgiven for thinking that the choice has been makde, and that renewable energy technologies will roll out without any market intervention. The problem is that if you keep thinking that the “consumer” in the new energies market is the end user of power, heat and fuel, you’re missing the investment point. The “consumers” of new energies in the economy are the energy distributors. And they won’t buy new technologies with their own capital if they can avoid it. The reason is they need to keep their bargain with their shareholders and provide the highest returns in the form of dividends as possible. Capital investment is set at a low priority. And with any capital invested, there is the downside that, for a while at least, that capital is locked up in development of new energy plant, so almost inevitably, energy prices for consumers will rise to compensate the shareholders. You don’t get something for nothing. The enabler of last resort in energy has been assumed to be the government – who have offered a range of subsidies for renewable energy technologies. This has essentially been a bailout of the energy companies, but it seems clear that, apart from the new nuclear power programme, subsidies are now to be terminated. What, one might be tempted to ask, will precipitate new renewable energy investment, now that the subsidy programme for green power is being abandoned (and the potential for a green gas programme has been contracted) ?

Andrea Leadsom answered critics next, “There hasn’t been a U-turn on onshore wind [power development]. There was a level of concern regarding onshore development – we want[ed] to let local communities decide.”, although they didn’t like it when people in communities protested shale gas development, “We can’t simply say that onshore wind is the lowest cost – or put the cost onto consumers.” Leadsom clearly hasn’t understood the lack of capital investment from the privatised energy industry. Any correction to unpick that lack of investment will inevitably raise energy prices for British consumers – and Brits already pay the highest amount for electricity in Europe. She continued, “The trilemma poses huge issues, but offers huge opportunities.”

Then it was time for questions from the floor : “[Question] : Do you get the impression that some feel let down – [by your government] cutting green energy support ? [Answer] : We’ve been completely clear about de-carbonisation at the lowest cost. In May 2015 there was the decision about the Levy Control Framework,” [the instrument that caps the total amount added to consumer bills arising from the impact of government policy in any one year – expected to be held to ransom by new nuclear power subsidies over the next decade or so], “Those policy costs must paid by consumers, and they were expected to significantly exceed the limits by 2020,” [due to new nuclear power development, rather than new renewable energy projects], “We had to act. We remain committed to de-carbonisation – but it must be at the lowest cost.”

“[Question] : Your government was part of putting in place sweeteners to the energy industry for the purpose of incentivising investment for the last four years. The evidence is this [has worked] to stimulate investment, and they are now being withdrawn from renewable energy. Do you understand the frustration ? [Answer] : You can’t simply take the view that because industry says ‘we’re almost there’ that you need to unfairly burden the consumer. Deployment has exceeded projections…” and this is where Andrea Leadsom demonstrated that she had failed to understand. The projections of renewable energy development required to meet decarbonisation targets were partly based on projections of new nuclear power development. Assumption were made about the growth of new nuclear, within the context of the Levy Control Framework, and so the projections for renewable energies were made to be dependent on that, and consequently, the ambitions for renewable energy deployment were arbitrarily low. There was no “Path B” calculated, which would have taken into account the failure, or problems with the new nuclear power programme and given another level of projection for renewable energy.

Andrea Leadsom continued answering, “We’ve had lots of constructive discussion with industry,” but one wonders which parts of the renewable energy industry she means, and whether that only includes the very large players – as she certainly hasn’t consulted voters or consumers, “looking at other ways rather than throwing money at it [renewable energy]. [Question] : At the start your government colleagues said ‘there will be no subsidies for nuclear’. Now, clearly, there are [loan guarantee payments, Contracts for Difference and so on]. [Answer] : No, there’s been no U-turn on that. Hinkley Point C is a private investment, being funded by partners,” [ignoring the financial ill-health of EdF and Areva], “There will be no cost to the British billpayer until it generates”, [which is not quite accurate, because if the project fails, the government will reimburse the financiers], “You don’t want project risk.” And it is here that I nearly left the room. The design of Hinkley Point C is inherently risky, from safety and construction points of view. And the permission for the project to go ahead should never have been given, as the design is unproven. For the project to never even get built, or if it does get built, never be able to generator power, is the ultimate in project risk ! We need to increase British energy security, not risk it with big new nuclear power plant projects !

Questionners in the room continued, “[Question] : Does Her Majesty’s Treasury now control DECC ? [Answer] : No. It’s fantastic to have a Conservative-led DECC…[for policy direction] I would say demand-led subsidies without cost to the consumer.” Well ? Wouldn’t a “demand-led subsidy without cost to the consumer” amount to a return to the original Renewables Obligation ? Where electricity suppliers had to guarantee that a certain proportion of their supply was green power, and provide the certificates to prove it ? And there was no subsidy support to get this done ?

“[Questionner hammering the point] : Are you [in DECC] saying this is what we want, and George [Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Treasury] says no ? [Answer] : All departments have to take cuts in public spending in order to get the economy back on track. We’re working constructively with the Treasury. [As far as past policies go it was a case of] if you throw money at it it will solve it – [but this is] not necessarily [so].” One of the reasons that subsidies for energy companies is a failed policy is because the situation has become one where the energy companies compete not to spend capital by blackmailing the government for subsidies. Nothing changes without subsidy, because the government has not stood firm and ordered mandated regulatory compliance with decarbonisation. In addition, it would need an agreement throughout the European Union to get change on this front – because energy companies would refuse to invest in the UK if the UK stop handing out subsidy candy for renewables.

“[Question from LSE] : Our students are considering careers in renewable energy. [Your government is] handing out £26 billion of fossil fuel subsidies. How will government develop at transition to renewables ? [Answer] : I disagree with you that the renewable energy section of the energy industry is cutting back. There is a massive pipeline of projects including offshore projects [in wind power”, [but smaller scale community and onshore projects have been rejected, which amounts to big energy companies winning all the rights to develop renewables], “What I would really like to see is [the development of] people moving between sectors. [The oil and gas industry has majored in] Aberdeen, [where there is also a] burgeoning offshore wind sector [so people could retrain].”

Then, Andrea Leadsom took a question about the costs of nuclear power, “[Question] : Hinkley Point C – when it finally operates – will be getting £92.50 per MWh [indexed with inflation]. Is this too much ? [Answer] : No. [Nuclear power is] absolutely reliable”, [not it isn’t – I’d recommend a look at performance of the current fleet of nuclear power plants in the UK], “It’s vital to the economy to have reliable sources of baseload power. It’s cheaper than offshore wind. Nuclear is absolutely key to it. France and our old fleets are now producing very, very cheap electricity…” Andrea Leadsom was clearly in a state of spiritual trance, because these are highly contestable factoids. The French government has just had to bail out their nuclear electricity industry, and their policy has turned away from nuclear for future power needs. Andrea Leadsom obviously doesn’t include the costs of decommissioning nuclear power plants and the disposal of the last 60 years of radioactive nuclear waste and radioactive waste nuclear fuel when she talks about the costs of nuclear power. This is a public subsidy that will need to be continued, because nobody else will handle this as there is no profit to be made from it. Well, some companies have tried to make a profit from nuclear waste and waste nuclear fuel in the UK, but it has always ended badly. We cannot just leave radioactive waste on the beach to burn away. We need to actively manage it. And that costs money that isn’t even an investment.

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Nobel Chutzpah Prize 2015

The problem with climate change “deniers” and low carbon energy “sceptics” is that they cannot read.

Here’s Jo Nova, claiming that the United Nations and the World Bank are demanding $89 trillion “to fix climate”.

She writes, “The ambit claims know no bounds. Who else would ask for $89,000,000,000,000? If the evil “more developed” nations pay for their carbon sins, the bill for those 1.3 billion people works out at $70,000 per person by 2030 (babies included).”

A simple little diagram from the actual report and a little text, shows she is entirely wrong :-

From Section 2.1 “Infrastructure investment and global growth” :-

“The global economy will require substantial investments in infrastructure as the population and the middle class grow. An estimated US$89 trillion of infrastructure investment will be required through 2030, based on data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and analysis for the Commission (see Figure 1). This is chiefly investment in energy and cities. This estimate for the required investment is before accounting for actions to combat climate change.”

That’s before accounting for actions to combat climate change, Ms Nova. Before. I know it’s probably clanging against your internal cognitive fences, but the fact is, the world needs to spend a heap of capital in the next 20 to 30 years reviving, replacing and renewing energy systems infrastructure. That spending has to happen regardless of whether it’s low carbon spending.

And let’s read the note on Figure 1 more carefully :-

“INCLUDING OPERATING EXPENDITURES WOULD MAKE A LOW-CARBON TRANSITION EVEN MORE FAVOURABLE LEADING TO A FURTHER REDUCTION OF US$5 TRILLION, FOR OVERALL POTENTIAL SAVINGS OF US$1 TRILLION”

So, Jo Nova, the world will actually be better off if it decides to make all new energy expenditure low carbon.

Jo Nova, when will you be updating your web post ?

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Nuclear Power Is Not An Energy Policy

The British Government do not have an energy policy. They may think they have one, and they may regularly tell us that they have one, but in reality, they don’t. There are a number of elements of regulatory work and market intervention that they are engaged with, but none of these by itself is significant enough to count as a policy for energy. Moreover, all of these elements taken together do not add up to energy security, energy efficiency, decarbonisation and affordable energy.

What it takes to have an energy policy is a clear understanding of what is a realistic strategy for reinvestment in energy after the dry years of privatisation, and a focus on energy efficiency, and getting sufficient low carbon energy built to meet the Carbon Budget on time. Current British Government ambitions on energy are not realistic, will not attract sufficient investment, will not promote increased energy efficiency and will not achieve the right scale and speed of decarbonisation.

I’m going to break down my critique into a series of small chunks. The first one is a quick look at the numbers and outcomes arising from the British Government’s obsessive promotion of nuclear power, a fantasy science fiction that is out of reach, not least because the industry is dog-tired and motheaten.

Click to Read More ! “Nuclear Power Is Not An Energy Policy”
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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.

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The Price on Carbon

Although The Guardian newspaper employs intelligent people, sometimes they don’t realise they’ve been duped into acting as a mouthpiece for corporate propaganda. The “strapline” for the organisation is “Owned by no one. Free to say anything.”, and so it seemed like a major coup to be granted an interview with Ben Van Beurden of Royal Dutch Shell, recorded for a podcast that was uploaded on 29th May 2015.

However, the journalists, outoing editor Alan Rusbridger, Damian Carrington and Terry McAllister probably didn’t fully appreciate that this was part of an orchestrated piece of public relations. The same day as the podcast was published, Shell, along with five other oil and gas companies wrote a letter to officials of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Favourable copy appeared in various places, for example, at Climate Central, The Daily Telegraph and in the Financial Times where a letter also appeared.

In the letter to Christiana Figueres and Laurent Fabius of the UNFCCC, Shell and fellow companies BP, BG Group, Eni, Total and Statoil, wrote that they appreciate the risks of the “critical challenge” of climate change and that they “stand ready to play their part”. After listing their contributions towards a lower carbon energy economy, they wrote :-

“For us to do more, we need governments across the world to provide us with clear, stable, long-term, ambitious policy frameworks. This would reduce uncertainty and help stimulate investments in the right low carbon technologies and the right resources at the right pace.”

“We believe that a price on carbon should be a key element of these frameworks. If governments act to price carbon, this discourages high carbon options and encourages the most efficient ways of reducing emissions widely, including reduced demand for the most carbon intensive fossil fuels, greater energy efficiency, the use of natural gas in place of coal, increased investment in carbon capture and storage, renewable energy, smart buildings and grids, off-grid access to energy, cleaner cars and new mobility business models and behaviors.”

The obvious problem with this call is that the oil and gas companies are pushing responsibility for change out to other actors in the economy, namely, the governments; yet the governments have been stymied at every turn by the lobbying of the oil and gas companies – a non-virtuous cycle of pressure. Where is the commitment by the oil and gas companies to act regardless of regulatory framework ?

I think that many of the technological and efficiency gains mentioned above can be achieved without pricing carbon, and I also think that efforts to assert a price on carbon dioxide emissions will fail to achieve significant change. Here are my top five reasons :-

1. Large portions of the economy will probably be ringfenced from participating in a carbon market or have exemptions from paying a carbon tax. There will always be special pleading, and it is likely that large industrial concerns, and centralised transportation such as aviation, will be able to beat back at a liability for paying for carbon dioxide emissions. Large industrial manufacture will be able to claim that their business is essential in sustaining the economy, so they should not be subject to a price on carbon. International industry and aviation, because of its international nature, will be able to claim that a carbon tax or a market in carbon could infringe their cross-border rights to trade without punitive regulatory charges.

2. Those who dig up carbon will not pay the carbon price. Fossil fuel producers will pass any carbon costs placed on them to the end consumers of fossil fuels. A price on carbon will inevitably make the cost of energy more expensive for every consumer, since somewhere in the region of 80% of global energy is fossil fuel-derived. Customers do not have a non-carbon option to turn to, so will be forced to pay the carbon charges.

3. A price on carbon dioxide emissions will not stop energy producers digging up carbon. An artificial re-levelising of the costs of high carbon energy will certainly deter some projects from going ahead, as they will become unprofitable – such as heavy oil, tar sands and remote oil, such as in the Arctic. However, even with jiggled energy prices from a price on carbon, fossil fuel producers will continue to dig up carbon and sell it to be burned into the sky.

4. A price on carbon dioxide emissions is being touted as a way to incentivise carbon capture and storage (CCS) by the authors of the letter – and we’ve known since they first started talking about CCS in the 1990s that they believe CCS can wring great change. Yet CCS will only be viable at centralised facilities, such as mines and power plants. It will not be possible to apply CCS in transport, or in millions of homes with gas-fired boilers.

5. A price on carbon dioxide emissions will not cause the real change that is needed – the world should as far as possible stop digging up carbon and burning it into the sky. What fossil carbon that still enters energy systems should be recycled where possible, using Renewable Gas technologies, and any other carbon that enters the energy systems should be sourced from renewable resources such as biomass.

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Amber Rudd : First Skirmish

As if to provide proof for the sneaking suspicion that Great Britain is run by the wealthy, rather than by the people, and that energy policy is decided by a close-knit circle of privileged dynasties, up bubbles Amber Rudd MP’s first whirl of skirmish as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change : her brother Roland is chairperson of a lobbying firm, Finsbury, which is seeking to get state approval for a controversial gas storage scheme at Preesall, near Fleetwood, on behalf of the developers, Halite Energy of Preston, Lancashire.

Whilst some claim there is a starkly obvious conflict of interest for Rudd to take part in the decision-making process, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) could have denied it, but have instead confirmed that the potential reversal of a 2013 decision will be made, not by Rudd, but by Lord Bourne.

New gas storage in the United Kingdom is a crucial piece of the energy infrastructure provision, as recognised by successive governments. Developments have been ongoing, such as the opening of the Holford facility at Byley in Cheshire. Besides new gas storage, there are anticipated improvements for interconnectors with mainland Europe. These are needed for raising the volume of Natural Gas available to the British market, and for optimising Natural Gas flows and sales in the European regional context – a part of the EC’s “Energy Union”.

An underlying issue not much aired is that increased gas infrastructure is necessary not just to improve competition in the energy markets – it is also to compensate for Peak Natural Gas in the North Sea – something many commentators regularly strive to deny. The new Conservative Government policy on energy is not fit to meet this challenge. The new Secretary of State has gone public about the UK Government’s continued commitment to the exploitation of shale gas – a resource that even her own experts can tell her is unlikely to produce more than a footnote to annual gas supplies for several decades. In addition, should David Cameron be forced to usher in a Referendum on Europe, and the voters petulantly pull out of the Europe project, Britain’s control over Natural Gas imports is likely to suffer, either because of the failure of the “Energy Union” in markets and infrastructure, or because of cost perturbations.

Amber Rudd MP is sitting on a mountain of trouble, undergirded by energy policy vapourware : the promotion of shale gas is not going to solve Britain’s gas import surge; the devotion to new nuclear power is not going to bring new atomic electrons to the grid for decades, and the UK Continental Shelf is going to be expensive for the Treasury to incentivise to mine. What Amber needs is a proper energy policy, based on focused support for low carbon technologies, such as wind power, solar power and Renewable Gas to back up renewable electricity when the sun is not shining and wind is not blowing.

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Renewable Gas : A Presentation #2

So, this is the second slide from my presentation at Birkbeck, University of London, last week.

When making an argument, it is best to start from consensus and well-accredited data, so I started with government analysis of the energy sector of the economy in the United Kingdom. Production of Natural Gas in the UK is declining, and imports are rising.

I did not go into much detail about this chart, but there is a wealth of analysis out there that I would recommend people check out.

Despite continued investment in oil and gas, North Sea production is declining, and it is generally accepted that this basin or province as a whole is depleting – that is – “running out”.

Here, for example, is more DECC data. The Summary of UK Estimated Remaining Recoverable Hydrocarbon Resources, published in 2014, had these numbers for UK Oil and Gas Reserves :-

billion barrels of oil equivalentLowerCentralUpper
Oil and Gas Reserves4.58.212.1
Potential Additional Resources1.43.46.4
Undiscovered Resources2.16.19.2

The summary concluded with the estimate of remaining recoverable hydrocarbons from the UK Continental Shelf (offshore) resources would be between 11.1 and 21 billion barrels of oil equivalent (bboe).

Other data in the report showed estimates of cumuluative and annual oil production :-

billion barrels of oil equivalentCumulative productionAnnual production
To date to end 201241.30.6 (in 2012)
To date to end 201241.80.5 (in 2013)
Additional production 2013 to 20307.00.44 (average 2014 to 2030)
Additional production 2013 to 20409.10.21 (average 2031 to 2040)
Additional production 2013 to 205010.40.13 (average 2041 to 2050)

Another source of estimates on remaining oil and gas resources, reserves and yet-to-find potential is from the Wood Review of 2014 :-

billion barrels of oil equivalentLow caseMid-caseHigh case
DECC reference122235
Wood Review1224

So it’s clear that British oil and gas production is in decline, and that also, reserves and resources to exploit are depleting. The Wood Review made several recommendations to pump up production, and maximise the total recoverable quantities. Some interpreted this as an indication that good times were ahead. However, increased production in the near future is only going to deplete these resources faster.

OK, so the UK is finding the North Sea running dry, but what about other countries ? This from the BP Statistical Review of Energy, 2014 :-

Oil – proved reserves
Thousand million barrels
At end 1993
At end 2003
At end 2012
United Kingdom4.54.33.0
Denmark0.71.30.7
Norway9.610.19.2

Natural gas – Proved Reserves
Trillion cubic metres
At end 1993
At end 2003
At end 2012
United Kingdom0.60.90.2
Denmark0.10.1
Netherlands1.71.40.9
Norway1.42.52.1
Germany0.20.20.1

Oil and gas chief executives may be in denial about a peak in global crude oil production, but they don’t challenge geology on the North Sea. Here’s what BP’s CEO Bob Dudley said on 17th February 2015, during a presentation of the BP Energy Outlook 2035 :-

“The North sea is a very mature oil and gas province and it will inevitably go through a decline. It peaked in 1999 at around 2.9 millions barrels per day and our projections are that it will be half a million barrels in 2035”.

That’s “inevitably” regardless of the application of innovation and new technology. New kit might bring on production sooner, but won’t replenish the final count of reserves to exploit.

So what are the likely dates for Peak Oil and Peak Natural Gas production in the North Sea bordering countries ?

Norway : by 2030.

The Netherlands : peaked already. Due to become a net importer of Natural Gas by 2025.

Denmark : net importer of oil and gas by 2030.

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Only Just Getting Started

In the last couple of years I have researched and written a book about the technologies and systems of Renewable Gas – gas energy fuels that are low in net carbon dioxide emissions. From what I have learned so far, it seems that another energy world is possible, and that the transition is already happening. The forces that are shaping this change are not just climate or environmental policy, or concerns about energy security. Renewable Gas is inevitable because of a range of geological, economic and industrial reasons.

I didn’t train as a chemist or chemical process engineer, and I haven’t had a background in the fossil fuel energy industry, so I’ve had to look at a number of very basic areas of engineering, for example, the distillation and fractionation of crude petroleum oil, petroleum refinery, gas processing, and the thermodynamics of gas chemistry in industrial-scale reactors. Why did I need to look at the fossil fuel industry and the petrochemical industry when I was researching Renewable Gas ? Because that’s where a lot of the change can come from. Renewable Gas is partly about biogas, but it’s also about industrial gas processes, and a lot of them are used in the petrorefinery and chemicals sectors.

In addition, I researched energy system technologies. Whilst assessing the potential for efficiency gains in energy systems through the use of Renewable Electricity and Renewable Gas, I rekindled an interest in fuel cells. For the first time in a long time, I began to want to build something – a solid oxide fuel cell which switches mode to an electrolysis unit that produces hydrogen from water. Whether I ever get to do that is still a question, but it shows how involved I’m feeling that I want to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty.

Even though I have covered a lot of ground, I feel I’m only just getting started, as there is a lot more that I need to research and document. At the same time, I feel that I don’t have enough data, and that it will be hard to get the data I need, partly because of proprietary issues, where energy and engineering companies are protective of developments, particularly as regards actual numbers. Merely being a university researcher is probably not going to be sufficient. I would probably need to be an official within a government agency, or an industry institute, in order to be permitted to reach in to more detail about the potential for Renewable Gas. But there are problems with these possible avenues.

You see, having done the research I have conducted so far, I am even more scornful of government energy policy than I was previously, especially because of industrial tampering. In addition, I am even more scathing about the energy industry “playing both sides” on climate change. Even though there are some smart and competent people in them, the governments do not appear to be intelligent enough to see through expensive diversions in technology or unworkable proposals for economic tweaking. These non-solutions are embraced and promoted by the energy industry, and make progress difficult. No, carbon dioxide emissions taxation or pricing, or a market in carbon, are not going to make the kind of changes we need on climate change; and in addition they are going to be extremely difficult and slow to implement. No, Carbon Capture and Storage, or CCS, is never going to become relatively affordable in any economic scenario. No, nuclear power is too cumbersome, slow and dodgy – a technical term – to ever make a genuine impact on the total of carbon emissons. No, it’s not energy users who need to reduce their consumption of energy, it’s the energy companies who need to reduce the levels of fossil fuels they utilise in the energy they sell. No, unconventional fossil fuels, such as shale gas, are not the answer to high emissions from coal. No, biofuels added to petrofuels for vehicles won’t stem total vehicle emissions without reducing fuel consumption and limiting the number of vehicles in use.

I think that the fossil fuel companies know these proposals cannot bring about significant change, which is precisely why they lobby for them. They used to deny climate change outright, because it spelled the end of their industry. Now they promote scepticism about the risks of climate change, whilst at the same time putting their name to things that can’t work to suppress major amounts of emissions. This is a delayer’s game.

Because I find the UK Government energy and climate policy ridiculous on many counts, I doubt they will ever want me to lead with Renewable Gas on one of their projects. And because I think the energy industry needs to accept and admit that they need to undergo a major change, and yet they spend most of their public relations euros telling the world they don’t need to, and that other people need to make change instead, I doubt the energy industry will ever invite me to consult with them on how to make the Energy Transition.

I suppose there is an outside chance that the major engineering firms might work with me, after all, I have been an engineer, and many of these companies are already working in the Renewable Gas field, although they’re normally “third party” players for the most part – providing engineering solutions to energy companies.

Because I’ve had to drag myself through the equivalent of a “petro degree”, learning about the geology and chemistry of oil and gas, I can see more clearly than before that the fossil fuel industry contains within it the seeds of positive change, with its use of technologies appropriate for manufacturing low carbon “surface gas”. I have learned that Renewable Gas would be a logical progression for the oil and gas industry, and also essential to rein in their own carbon emissions from processing cheaper crude oils. If they weren’t so busy telling governments how to tamper with energy markets, pushing the blame for emissions on others, and begging for subsidies for CCS projects, they could instead be planning for a future where they get to stay in business.

The oil and gas companies, especially the vertically integrated tranche, could become producers and retailers of low carbon gas, and take part in a programme for decentralised and efficient energy provision, and maintain their valued contribution to society. At the moment, however, they’re still stuck in the 20th Century.

I’m a positive person, so I’m not going to dwell too much on how stuck-in-the-fossilised-mud the governments and petroindustry are. What I’m aiming to do is start the conversation on how the development of Renewable Gas could displace dirty fossil fuels, and eventually replace the cleaner-but-still-fossil Natural Gas as well.

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Renewable Energy : Google Blind

In an interesting article by two Google engineers, Ross Koningstein and David Fork, "What It Would Really Take to Reverse Climate Change : Today’s renewable energy technologies won’t save us. So what will?", the authors concluded from their modelling scenarios that :-

"While a large emissions cut sure sounded good, this scenario still showed substantial use of natural gas in the electricity sector. That’s because today’s renewable energy sources are limited by suitable geography and their own intermittent power production."

Erm. Yes. Renewable electricity is variable and sometimes not available, because, well, the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, you know. This has been known for quite some time, actually. It’s not exactly news. Natural Gas is an excellent complement to renewable electricity, and that’s why major industrialised country grid networks rely on the pairing of gas and power, and will do so for some time to come. Thus far, no stunner.

What is astonishing is that these brain-the-size-of-a-planet guys do not appear to have asked the awkwardly obvious question of : "so, can we decarbonise the gas supply, then ?" Because the answer is "yes, very largely, yes."

And if you have Renewable Gas backing up Renewable Power, all of a sudden, shazam !, kabam ! and kapoom !, you have An Answer. You can use excess wind power and excess solar power to make gas, and you can store the gas to use when there’s a still, cold period on a wintry night. And at other times of low renewable power, too. And besides using spare green power to make green gas, you can make Renewable Gas in other ways, too.

The Google engineers write :-

"Now, [Research and Development] dollars must go to inventors who are tackling the daunting energy challenge so they can boldly try out their crazy ideas. We can’t yet imagine which of these technologies will ultimately work and usher in a new era of prosperity – but the people of this prosperous future won’t be able to imagine how we lived without them."

Actually, Renewable Gas is completely non-crazy. It’s already being done all over the world in a variety of locations – with a variety of raw resources. We just need to replace the fossil fuel resources with biomass – that’s all.

And there’s more – practically all the technology is over a century old – it just needs refining.

I wonder why the Google boys seem to have been so unaware of this. Maybe they didn’t study the thermodynamics of gas-to-gas reactions at kindergarten, or something.

Thanks to the deliberate misinterpretation of the Google "brothers" article, The Register, James Delingpole’s Breitbart News and Joanne Nova are not exactly helping move the Technological Debate forward, but that’s par for the course. They rubbished climate change science. Now they’ve been shown to be wrong, they’ve moved on, it seems, to rubbishing renewable energy systems. And they’re wrong there, too.

Onwards, my green engineering friends, and upwards.

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UKERC : Gas by Design

Today I attended a meeting of minds.

It’s clear to me that the near-term and mid-term future for energy in the United Kingdom and the European Union will best be centred on Natural Gas and Renewable Electricity, and now the UK Energy Research Centre has modelled essentially the same scenario. This can become a common narrative amongst all parties – the policy people, the economists, the technologists, the non-governmental groups, as long as some key long-term de-carbonisation and energy security objectives are built into the plan.

The researchers wanted to emphasise from their report that the use of Natural Gas should not be a default option in the case that other strategies fail – they want to see a planned transition to a de-carbonised energy system using Natural Gas by design, as a bridge in that transition. Most of the people in the room found they could largely agree with this. Me, too. My only caveat was that when the researchers spoke about Gas-CCS – Natural Gas-fired power generation with Carbon Capture and Storage attached, my choice would be Gas-CCU – Natural Gas-fired power generation with Carbon Capture and Re-utilisation – carbon recycling – which will eventually lead to much lower emissions gas supply at source.

What follows is a transcription of my poorly-written notes at the meeting, so you cannot accept them as verbatim.

Jim Watson, UKERC = [JW]
Christophe McGlade, University College London (UCL) = [CM]
Mike Bradshaw, Warwick Business School = [MB]

[JW] Thanks to Matt Aylott. Live Tweeting #FutureOfGas. Clearly gas is very very important. It’s never out of the news. The media all want to talk about fracking… If we want to meet the 2 degrees Celsius target of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, how much can gas be a part of this ? Is Natural Gas a bridge – how long a ride will that gas bridge be ?

[CM] Gas as a bridge ? There is healthy debate about the Natural Gas contribution to climate change [via the carbon dioxide emissions from burning Natural Gas, and also about how much less in emissions there is from burning Natural Gas compared to burning coal]. The IPCC said that “fuel switching” from coal to gas would offer emissions benefits, but some research, notably McJeon et al. (2014) made statements that switching to Natural Gas cannot confer emissions benefits. Until recently, there have not been many disaggregated assessments on gas as a bridge. We have used TIAM-UCL. The world is divided into 16 regions. The “climate module” seeks to constrain the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius. One of the outcomes from our model was that export volumes [from all countries] would be severaly impacted by maintaining the price indexation between oil and gas. [Reading from chart on the screen : exports would peak in 2040s]. Another outcome was that gas consumption is not radically affected by different gas market structures. However, the over indexation to the oil price may destroy gas export markets. Total exports of natural gas are higher under the 2 degrees Celsius scenario compared to the 4 degrees Celsius scenario – particularly LNG [Liquefied Natural Gas]. A global climate deal will support gas exports. There will be a higher gas consumption under a 2 degrees Celsius deal compared to unconstrained scenario [leading to a 4 degrees Celsius global temperature rise]. The results of our modelling indicate that gas acts as a bridge fuel out to 2035 [?] in both absolute and relative terms. There is 15% greater gas consumption in the 2 degrees Celsius global warming scenario than in the 4 degrees Celsius global warming scenario. Part of the reason is that under the 4 degrees Celsius scenario, Compressed Natural Gas vehicles are popular, but a lot less useful under the 2 degrees Celsius scenario [where hydrogen and other fuels are brought into play].

There are multiple caveats on these outcomes. The bridging period is strictly time-limited. Some sectors need to sharply reduce consumption [such as building heating by Natural Gas boilers, which can be achieved by mass insulation projects]. Coal must be curtailed, but coal-for-gas substitution alone is not sufficient. Need a convincing narrative about how coal can be curtailed. In an absence of a global binding climate deal we will get consumption increases in both coal and gas. In the model, gas is offsetting 15% of coal by 2020, and 85% by 2030. With Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), gas’s role is drastically reduced – after 2025 dropping by 2% a year [of permitted gas use]. Not all regions of the world can use gas as a bridge. [Reading from the chart : with CCS, gas is a strong bridging fuel in the China, EU, India, Japan and South Korea regions, but without CCS, gas is only strong in China. With CCS, gas’s bridging role is good in Australasia, ODA presumably “Offical Development Assistance” countries and USA. Without CCS, gas is good for Africa, Australasia, EU, India, Japan, South Korea, ODA and USA.]

In the UK, despite the current reliance on coal, there is little scope to use it as a transition fuel. Gas is unlikely to be removed from UK energy system by 2050.

[Question from the floor] The logic of gas price indexation with the oil price ?

[CM] If maintain oil indexation, exports will reduce as countries turn more towards indigenous at-home production of gas for their domestic demand. This would not be completely counter-balanced by higher oil and therefore gas prices, which should stimulate more exports.

[Point from the floor] This assumes logical behaviour…

[Question from the floor] [Question about Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)]

[CM] The model does anticipate more CCS – which permits some extra coal consumption [at the end of the modelling period]. Gas-CCS [gas-fired power generation with CCS attached] is always going to generate less emissions than coal-CCS [coal-fired power generation with CCS attached] – so the model prefers gas-CCS.

[to be continued…]

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European Referendum : Corpse Factory

So I was in a meeting on a dateless date, at an organisation with a nameless name, with some other unidentifiable people in the room with me. For some reason I had been invited, I cannot think why. Ah, yes, I can. I was invited to attend because, apparently, I am a “campaigner”. I am, allegedly, somebody who buys into the notion that communications should serve the purpose of directing public attention and support towards a particular outcome, decided in advance by a political elite. And it seems, if I believe something is right, and that a message needs communicating, I will take action, but never invoice, because I am a believer. Well let me tell you right here and now, I am not that person. I may have that reputation, but really, I despise propaganda : the deliberate formation of a murmur of Tweet starlings, or the collective wall-to-wall newspaper coverage of the same story, the scandal story hauled out to scare the horses and herd them to the salt water shore, the faux narrative of collective political or social will for change.

I want to believe that even though I am occasionally paid to communicate a story (but most often not), that my narrative, and importantly my agenda, is my own. I will not be co-opted. I shall not be defined by storytelling, I shall not be paid for spreading information – for if I were to be telling money-backed tales, I may end up peddling lies. And I do not want lies to be spoken. I am an ontologist. My ontology is :-

SO
IT IS
AS
IT IS.

and not

IT IS
AS
IT IS,
SO…

There is no “therefore” in what I write. When I say “should”, like, “we should adopt renewable energy”, it’s your choice as to whether you agree with me. You shouldn’t read anything and be swayed or directed, except by the force of reason based on evidence. I am the photographer, the recorder, but not the public relations consultant. And I am especially not an unsalaried volunteer. I paint the future using my own perspective, my own understanding, my own research, my own best judgement, but I am not telling people what to think. Although I go slightly beyond merely noting and analysing what is happening, to articulate possible futures, I am not a persuader.

I do not want to write the script for the actions of the readers or listeners. I do not want to precipitate a revolution, or dehydrate the horses before leading them to the river bank. I want to describe rather than proscribe or prescribe. I want to scribe the way I see things, I do not do it in order to create waves or push buttons or light beacons. The facts should speak for themselves, and if anybody consumes my communication, they should be free to act as they feel fit, or suits. I am not a paid-for, paid-up, in-the-pocket campaigner. I am not spun round other peoples’ fingers like a talking puppet. I am a free person.

So, there I was in this meeting, and the people in the room were discussing an event that is likely to take place. It appears from some analysis that the next British Government could well be another Coalition Government, with the Conservative Party having only a shaving of a majority for rule. And when they have crossed the i’s and dotted the t’s and formed a currently impossible political marriage, which I’m guessing will involve the Green Party as well as the Liberal Democrats, then they will need to live up to their promise to hold a referendum on British participation in the Grand European Experiment – economic union with other European countries.

But nobody talks about Europe. Except to complain. In the meeting I attended, the hosts of the meeting were consulting for ways to highlight the Europe Question, and to give it a pro-Union light.

For me, it’s facile. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is just a bunch of mediocre-sized islands off the coast of the European continent. Something like 80% of UK trade is with European countries, because Europe is our gateway to the rest of the global market, and you always do the most trade with your neighbours. It’s natural. Can anybody seriously suggest we ditch the Common Market – the agreements that European countries have come to to ensure common standards of goods and services, common terms and conditions of trade and common legal processes regulating trade ? So we want to reserve some kind of sovereignty over some kinds of decisions ? Why ? The UK is heavily involved in the central European institutions and governance bodies. We have massive input. We vote for MEPs. Why should things not go our way ? And even if things don’t go perfectly our way, will the negotiated compromises be so bad ? Subsidiarity – making decisions at the lowest/best/most appropriate level of administration – that’s still going to keep a lot of British control over British affairs. Surely the UK suffers a greater risk of interference from any pan-Atlantic trade deal that it does from Europe ?

The UK have made commitments. Our Parliament has agreed that we need to work on climate change, social justice and economic stability. We have implicitly agreed that to address climate change we need Energy Change and environmental regulation; to achieve social justice we need human rights, justice, health, education and a benefits system; and for economic stability we need economic stimuli – for example, in national infrastructure projects. In terms of climate change and Energy Change there is so much we need to do. If we stay in Europe, all of this will be so much easier. Within the European project for energy market harmonisation is the work on standards to achieve gas and electricity grid harmonisation. The improvement and augmenting of interconnections between countries, and the provision of wider energy storage, will enable the balanced use of renewable energy. Governments need to create incentives for deploying renewable energy. Governments need to create mechanisms to leverage and facilitate renewable energy deployment. Without Europe, outwith Europe, it will cost us more, and be more complex. Within Europe, it will be easier.

So, in the meeting I attended, I put forward my vision : if the UK stays in Europe, it will be easier to handle problems of energy – improving and replacing infrastructure and plant, co-ordinating the uptake of new renewable energy technologies and dealing with emerging energy security issues. Why, the North Sea, as everybody knows, is draining dry, and we can only build certain levels of relationship with countries outside the European Union, such as Russia. If the UK left the EU, the EU would be competitors with the UK for Russian Natural Gas, for example. I said I thought that energy security was a good thing to explain to people and a good reason to raise support for UK’s continued participation in Europe.

So, somebody else in the meeting, who shall remain faceless and nameless, poured very cold water on this idea. They seemed to disbelieve that the UK faces risks to energy security. Instead, they suggested that the pro-Europe argument should be based on how the UK can “keep our place at the table”. How out of touch can one get, I thought to myself ? This kind of patrician argument is not going to wash. Appealing to some non-existent pride in the UK’s continued role as stakeholder in the European project is going to go down like a lead balloon. It’s a vote loser, for sure.

What most people care about first is money. Their money. Any appeal to their pockets is going to help. We live in tough times – thanks to Government austerity policy – and we still cannot get a handle on public borrowing and spending. Because of the Government’s austerity policy.

So how about we cast it like this : your energy is going to get much more expensive if the UK abandons the European community of nations. Plus, your lights could genuinely go out, unless you, the people, either as taxpayers or billpayers, fork out for new energy investments that the energy companies haven’t made for 20 years. Because of privatisation. Without taking part in the European energy market harmonisation, and the European development of new and renewable energy infrastructure, plant and networks, your bills could significantly rise/spiral out of control. If European companies were required to sell energy assets back to the UK, because the UK pulled out of Europe, we would be in a very fine mess indeed. Do you really want this kind of chaos ? Energy policy in the UK is already bad enough.

The facts are available to those who search : British production of oil and gas from the North Sea is declining at something like 6% a year. The UK became a net energy importer between 2004 and 2006 (depending on how you define it). The Netherlands will become a net Natural Gas importer in the 2020s. Norway’s Natural Gas will reach a peak some time in the 2020s. It’s no good thinking that because the UK is a “gas hub”, and that British finance can currently spin up gas imports to the UK, that this situation is going to remain true. Within 10 to 15 years, I think that the UK will face significant competition for Natural Gas supplies with other European countries. Better to be in the debating chamber, surely, rather than scratching at the wind-and-rain-splattered window from outside ? So can the UK forge a gas alliance with countries outside the European Union, and apart from Norway ? A gas import alliance that sticks ? And that isn’t demolished by competition from the rest of the European Union for gas supplies that come through pipes sitting in European Union territory ? OK, the UK might want to leave full European Union membership, and join Norway in the European Economic Area, but will this guarantee beneficial import status for Natural Gas from countries that supply the full members of the European Community ?

I said, instead of trying to talk about direct opposites – either Inside Europe or Outside Europe – let’s talk about how things can be helped by wider co-operation. The European Union was founded on energy treaties – coal and nuclear energy (and steel), and now Europe needs to move to a union forged on renewable power and Natural Gas – and later Renewable Gas – and it’s going to be so much easier to do if the UK stays at the party.

The North Sea needs re-developing. Not for oil, but for wind power. This is going to happen best with full cross-border co-operation. Already, the UK has agreed to play a large part in the “North Sea Offshore Grid” wind power project in league with Ireland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, The Netherlands, Belgium and France. And Luxembourg, strangely, although it doesn’t have a coast. Unlike new nuclear power, which could be decades in construction, offshore and onshore wind in Europe can be quick-build. If you want new power, you pick wind and solar. And, despite policy fumbles, this is happening. Actually, in the end, who really cares about subsidies for renewable energy, when the most capital-heavy organisations in the world start backing renewable power ? In some ways, I don’t care who brings me low carbon energy, and I don’t care if I have to pay for it through my tax or my bills, I just want it to happen. OK, offshore wind power is for the big boys, and you’re never going to get a diversity of suppliers with this project, and the dreams of decentralised energy are vapours, whisked away by giant engineering firms, but at least renewable energy is going to happen. One day people will realise that for the newspapers to rehearse the arguments of High Net Worth Individuals, and for sheep-like energy ministers to complain about onshore wind power and solar farms, is just a way to keep small electricity generators out of the energy markets, and allow the incumbent energy players to keep making profits. But when the need for a multiplicity of small energy installations becomes critical, I think this tune will change.

I can see all this. But, because I am not a spin meister, or spin meistress, or a campaigner, I’m not going to be crafting fine messages to share with my networks on this particular subject. I did start (see below), but then I thought better of it. I dislike the use of social media, web logging and journalism to push an agenda. The trouble is, I know that the people who are vehemently against the European endeavour have so many trigger arguments tested and ready to deploy, such as : immigration, regulations, budgetary demands. None of these stand up to scutiny, but they are very easy props on which to deploy Corpse Factory scares and scandals, up there with the War on Terror. The pro-European segment of the population always stays so silent. If there were to be a Referendum on Europe today, I can pretty much guarantee a kneejerk exit. The British public act collectively by reflex. They never re-analyse their position. They mob, gang and plunder.

I don’t think pro-Europe organisations know how to sell Europe. But they shouldn’t need to “sell” Europe. European membership should be an obvious best choice. So why should I try to talk up Europe ? I couldn’t have any influence, as one lone voice, against the Daily Mails, Daily Expresses and Daily Telegraphs of this world. And anyway, it’s not really my fight to fight. I don’t have a job title that reads “arch propagandist”. I am not that person. It does not become me. I prefer straight-talking, not mind-bending.

I won’t get invited back. That’s just fine. I am not a volunteer campaigner. I’m not a political pusher. I’ve only played the role of “evangelist” on climate change, renewable energy and good policy because sometimes there is little else I can think of that might help or make a difference. But I don’t have any influence. And I don’t want any. I am just going to continue telling it the way I see it. Giving my perspective. I cannot guarantee any outcomes. And anyway, I prefer democratic engagement over salesmanship. Don’t ask me to sell your ideas, your policies, your projections. I don’t want to.

Full membership of the European Union is the logical option for the United Kingdom, no matter how many tired dead donkey corpses the rabid tabloid media keep digging up to appall us all. Sooner or later, we also need to consider joining the Euro currency, and I predict we will, but I’m not your convincer on that argument, either.


“What has Europe ever done for us ?”

Common Climate : Common Cause : Common Market

On climate change, the United Kingdom has secured the Climate Change Act, legislation with broad-based support across all political parties. The UK shares the concerns of other European countries about the potential risks and impacts from climate change in our geographical region. Society-level change in response to climate change includes energy change – changing the sources and use of energy – and changing policies for land use to include planting forests and energy crops. Within the European Community, the UK has worked to secure region-wide legislation on renewable energy, energy efficiency, waste control and air quality. All of these contribute to the response to climate change, and have developed action on climate change into a common cause. In addition to regulatory change, the European Community is seeking to develop trading mechanisms to enable carbon dioxide emissions control, and it working to develop a common market in carbon.

Common Future : Common Purpose : Common Interest

Common Values : Common Opportunities : Common Voice

Common Security : Common Goals : Common Networks

Common Infrastructure : Common Society : Common Protection

Common Standards : Common Framework : Common Development

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This Too Will Fail

I will probably fail to make myself understood, yet again, but here goes…

The reasons the United Nations Climate Change process is failing are :-

1.   The wrong people are being asked to shoulder responsibility

It is a well-rumoured possibility that the fossil fuel industry makes sure it has sympathisers and lobbyists at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conferences. It is only natural that they should want to monitor proceedings, and influence outcomes. But interventions by the energy sector has a much wider scope. Delegates from the countries with national oil and gas companies are key actors at UNFCCC conferences. Their national interests are closely bound to their fossil fuel exports. Many other countries understand their national interest is bound to the success of energy sector companies operating within their borders. Still others have governments with energy policy virtually dictated by international energy corporations. Yet when the UNFCCC discusses climate change, the only obligations discussed are those of nations – the parties to any treaty are the governments and regimes of the world. The UNFCCC does not hold oil and gas (and coal) companies to account. BP and Shell (and Exxon and Chevron and Total and GDF Suez and Eni and so on) are not asked to make undertakings at the annual climate talks. Governments are hoped to forge a treaty, but this treaty will create no leverage for change; no framework of accountability amongst those who produce oil, gas and coal.

2.   The right people are not in the room

It’s all very well for Governments to commit to a treaty, but they cannot implement it. Yes, their citizens can make a certain amount of changes, and reduce their carbon emissions through controlling their energy consumption and their material acquisitions. But that’s not the whole story. Energy has to be decarbonised at source. There are technological solutions to climate change, and they require the deployment of renewable energy systems. The people who can implement renewable energy schemes should be part of the UNFCCC process; the engineering companies who make wind turbines, solar photovoltaic panels, the people who can build Renewable Gas systems. Companies such as Siemens, GE, Alstom. Energy engineering project companies. Chemical engineering companies.

3.   The economists are still in the building

In the United Kingdom (what will we call it if Scotland becomes independent ? And what will the word “British” then mean ?) the Parliament passed the Climate Change Act. But this legislation is meaningless without a means to implement the Carbon Budgets it institutes. The British example is just a minor parallel to the UNFCCC situation – how can a global climate treaty be made to work ? Most of the notions the economists have put forward so far to incentivise energy demand reduction and stimulate low carbon energy production have failed to achieve much. Carbon trading ! Carbon pricing ! All rather ineffective. Plus, there’s the residual notion of different treatment for developed and developing nations, which is a road to nowhere.

4.   Unilateral action is frowned upon

Apparently, since Climate Change is a global problem, we all have to act in a united fashion to solve it. But that’s too hard to ask, at least to start with. When countries or regions take it upon themselves to act independently, the policy community seem to counsel against it. There are a few exceptions, such as the C40 process, where individual cities are praised for independent action, but as soon as the European Community sets up something that looks like a border tax on carbon, that’s a no-no. Everybody is asked to be part of a global process, but it’s almost too hard to get anything done within this framework.

5.   Civil Society is hamstrung and tongue-tied

There is very little that people groups can achieve within the UNFCCC process, because there is a disconnect between the negotiations and practical action. The framework of the treaty discussions does not encompass the real change makers. The UNFCCC does not build the foundation for the architecture of a new green economy, because it only addresses itself to garnering commitments from parties that cannot fulfill them. Civil Society ask for an egg sandwich and they are given a sandy eggshell. If Civil Society groups call for technology, they are given a carbon credit framework. If they call for differential investment strategies that can discredit carbon dependency, they are given an opportunity to put money into the global adaptation fund.