Tag: Energy

Stern Remarks #1 : The S-Curve on Technology Progress

Post author By Jo
Post date May 27, 2009
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[ Comments on “A Blueprint for a Safer Planet” by Nicholas Stern ]

So, I might be promoting sales of Nicholas Stern’s book with this post, but actually I think we should all read this book, just to be conscious of how Neoliberal Economics hasn’t evolved to encompass reality, even if it thinks it has.

There are many statements, assertions and hopes about the progress and possibilities of technology in Nicholas Stern’s book “A Blueprint for a Safer Planet : How to Manage Climate Change and Create a New Era of Progress and Prosperity”.

Tags Climate Change, coal, Energy

Big Picture Burning Money Carbon Capture Carbon Commodities Climate Change Cost Effective Emissions Impossible Nuclear Nuisance

The Eleven Year Time Horizon

Post author By Jo
Post date May 26, 2009
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[ UPDATE – part of my argument about Coal got garbled. I have bolded changes.]

McKinsey Carbon Cost Abatement Curve

Over the Late Spring Bank Holiday Weekend, I had the unintentional opportunity to spend some recreational time with someone employed by the Government of the United Kingdom. I am not going to divulge details.

This person had clearly been to Brainwashing School and was on-message consistently, even in the relaxed and non-formal setting. They repeated, almost verbatim, rationales I have been hearing for several years.

Tags Climate Change, Energy

Big Picture Contraction & Convergence Peace not War

The Architect of Contraction & Convergence advises…

Post author By Jo
Post date May 26, 2009
No Comments on The Architect of Contraction & Convergence advises…

[ UPDATE : For increased clarity, I have bolded a little update. ]

After I posted my report on Peak Oil :-

https://www.joabbess.com/2009/05/26/peak-oil-contraction-the-truth-is-out-there

I e-mailed Aubrey Meyer asking for his opinion. Within the hour my telephone start vibrating annoyingly, and it was Aubrey Meyer himself on the line, the architect of the Contraction and Convergence framework, with his usual, welcome, non-stop advice and guidance about where the policymakers are at, or not. I’d only anticipated an e-mail in reply, so it was a veritable honour to get a voice-to-voice. He’s normally too busy dispatching political stupidity to call little old me.

Tags Climate Change, Contraction & Convergence, Energy

Climate Change Contraction & Convergence Peak Oil

Peak Oil Contraction – The Truth is Out There

Post author By Jo
Post date May 26, 2009
No Comments on Peak Oil Contraction – The Truth is Out There

It sometimes seems that truth is not only stranger than fiction, it’s out there, somewhere, way beyond our active recall.

We all know from our early years education that Petroleum Oil is a finite resource, unless we were home-schooled by Creationists.

Tags Climate Change, Energy, Global Warming

Big Picture Climate Change Emissions Impossible Obamawatch

The Drive of your Life

From now on, all road trips will get leaner, cleaner and greener.

That’s the astonishing and very welcome news from Team Obama in the United States :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/19/obama-carbon-emissions-auto-industry

Tags Climate Change, Energy, Fuel, transport, Transportation

Big Picture Carbon Commodities Peak Oil

Oil Change

Post author By Jo
Post date May 19, 2009
No Comments on Oil Change

We didn’t look for this oil change in the world’s economic motor, but it’s happening all the same, and the future will definitely run less smoothly than the past, sorry to say.

Tags Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Energy

Bait & Switch Big Picture Burning Money Carbon Capture Climate Change Technological Sideshow

The Weyburn Warning : Carbon Capture and Enhanced Oil Recovery

Post author By Jo
Post date May 17, 2009
2 Comments on The Weyburn Warning : Carbon Capture and Enhanced Oil Recovery

UPDATE : I have been advised to be more precise about what Beulah actually is. The update is bolded for your convenience.

The Weyburn Oil Field field in Saskatchewan, Canada has been the centre of attention for several good reasons over the last few years.

Some of the grease-brained petroleum engineers had a brilliant idea one day : how about trying to pump extra oil out of the field by injecting waste gas into it ?

Tags Climate Change, Energy, Oil

Big Picture Burning Money Carbon Army Climate Change Social Change Vote Loser

The End of Socialism

The British political system is currently reeling from a scandal so far-reaching and so widely-spread that it seems hard to know what shape it will take in the future.

Government Ministers and their opposite numbers in the other Parties are being thrown from their ranks, and even their “safe seats”, back home in their Constituencies.

Tags Climate Change, Energy, Social Provision

Big Picture Burning Money Carbon Commodities Climate Change Emissions Impossible Low Carbon Life Technological Sideshow Utter Futility

In Bed With Nicholas Stern

Post author By Jo
Post date May 15, 2009
2 Comments on In Bed With Nicholas Stern

Everywhere I’ve gone for the last couple of weeks, I’ve taken Nick Stern with me. Or rather, his bright blue book with the “World Class” title “A Blueprint for a Safer Planet”.

Tags Climate Change, Energy, Stern

Big Picture Carbon Commodities Climate Change Cost Effective

Ahead of the McKinsey Curve

Post author By Jo
Post date May 8, 2009
1 Comment on Ahead of the McKinsey Curve

I remember the second time I saw this graph. It was shown to me by that enthusiastic young guy Guy Shrubsole, who waved a printed copy under my nose and asked me if I’d seen it and knew what it meant. I had and I did :-

https://climatechange.cbi.org.uk/uploaded/climatereport2007mckinseyapp.pdf

Tags abatement, Carbon Capture and Storage, CCS, Climate Change, coal, Energy, mitigation, Nuclear

Big Picture Burning Money Carbon Capture Climate Change Contraction & Convergence Cost Effective Nuclear Nuisance Technological Sideshow

DO-Tech, NOW-Tech

To answer Climate Change we must have strategies for new Low Carbon Energy investment.

The technologies we need to deploy are those that are already proven, and can be installed in the fastest possible time. What we can DO, and DO NOW.

This is DO-Tech, NOW-Tech : and it effectively rules out new rounds of Nuclear Energy, which is slow-to-grid. It also rules out the almost entirely hypothetical Carbon Capture and Storage.

Tags Carbon Capture and Storage, CCS, Climate Change, Energy, Nuclear, Wind Power

Climate Change Eating & Drinking Health Impacts Low Carbon Life Social Change

Sharing Energy

Post author By Jo
Post date April 29, 2009
1 Comment on Sharing Energy

At our best, we humans, when faced with crisis, we club together and act collectively. We invent new shared ways of doing, being and providing for ourselves. We pay attention to the needs of others. We give. We receive. We share. We eat together.

Tags Climate Change, Consumption, Energy, Food, Peak Oil

Climate Change Low Carbon Life

New Scientist : The Process to End Car Advertising

Post author By Jo
Post date April 25, 2009
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I couldn’t believe it : the New Scientist magazine in my hands didn’t have a car advertisement on the back cover, on the inside cover, or opposite the editorial !

Tags advertising, cars, Climate Change, Energy

Big Picture Carbon Army Carbon Commodities Climate Change Cost Effective Social Change

The Good Energy Lady

The green “trade show” UK Aware was held at the exhibition centre Olympia 2, West London, England on 17th April.

I was talking with the lady from Good Energy. First of all we discussed their proposal to offer a dual fuel tariff, and the fact that there is still no green gas available to domestic customers.

Tags Carbon Pricing, Climate Change, Energy, insulation, Renewable Heat

Climate Change Meltdown

US Energy Secretary “very, very” Scared

Post author By Jo
Post date April 19, 2009
No Comments on US Energy Secretary “very, very” Scared

Steven Chu is a grown up. He has an education, he doesn’t have a mental health problem, he’s not a member of a fringe environmental campaigning group and he doesn’t have anyone pointing any weapons at him.

But he admits in public that he finds Climate Change “very, very scary”.

Tags Climate Change, Energy

Climate Change Obamawatch

Glass Dome USA

Hands up, all of you who’ve seen The Simpsons Movie ?

[ I can hear choral singing in the background and see white clouds on a blue, blue sky; but it’s not the title sequence for the “propaganda” film “The Great Global Warming Swindle”. ]

Tags Carbon Dioxide, Climate Change, Energy, EPA, health

Big Picture Carbon Commodities Climate Change

The Carbon Bank of England

Post author By Jo
Post date April 16, 2009
No Comments on The Carbon Bank of England

Debating about Carbon policy outside the Bank of England this rainy London afternoon, was, I thought, rather appropriate.

My opponent was weaving the great Al Gore, James Hansen, ExxonMobil line, “so…why don’t we just have a flat Carbon Tax ?”

Tags Carbon, Climate Change, coal, Energy

Bait & Switch Big Picture Burning Money Climate Change

Retooling, Retreat and Retrenchment

Post author By Jo
Post date April 7, 2009
No Comments on Retooling, Retreat and Retrenchment

The green figleaf is well and truly fluttering off into the windy landscape for Royal Dutch Shell. They’re an oil and gas company, with some petrochemistry on the side, and to prove it, they announced on 17th March 2009 that they were pulling their last tiny percentage points out of Renewables :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/26/fred-pearce-greenwash-shell-exxon
“Greenwash: Shell betrays ‘new energy future’ promises”

Tags Climate Change, Energy, Renewable

Burning Money Climate Change

Shell’s Day in Court

I’ve just been to a very nice little shindig with refreshments at the offices of Amnesty International in London.

We were treated to speeches and wine and Nigerian poetry and rap. And there was dancing.

What was it all for then ? And what does it have to do with Climate Change ?

Tags Climate Change, development, Energy

Burning Money Climate Change Cost Effective Vote Loser

Making the Polluter Pay

A question repeatedly occurs to me. “Why are the cigarette manufacturers still in business ?”, I ask myself, when I look at how much effort, money and time goes into helping smokers become non-smokers.

Tags Carbon, Carbon Taxation, Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Energy

Burning Money Climate Change Cost Effective Technological Sideshow

Shiny Imaginary Friends – The Dream of Carbon Capture and Storage

Post author By Jo
Post date April 4, 2009
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This week has seen a flurry of “Yes, We Can” news articles about the Carbon Capture and Storage technology, or CCS.

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/solution-to-the-carbon-problem-could-be-under-the-ground-1660002.html

“Solution to the carbon problem could be under the ground : Hope for the fight against climate change as study finds greenhouse gas can be buried without fear of leaking : By Steve Connor, Science Editor : Thursday, 2 April 2009 : Carbon dioxide captured from the chimneys of power stations could be safely buried underground for thousands of years without the risk of the greenhouse gas seeping into the atmosphere, a study has found.”

Tags Carbon Capture and Storage, Climate Change, coal, Economy, Energy

Big Picture Climate Change Contraction & Convergence

Carbon Rationing – A Chance Interview with Andrew Ross at the G20 Climate Camp

Post author By Jo
Post date April 1, 2009
1 Comment on Carbon Rationing – A Chance Interview with Andrew Ross at the G20 Climate Camp

Down at the G20 Climate Camp today, I had the opportunity to meet up with people I know from Climate Change work all over the UK and beyond.

Don’t be tempted to dismiss the Campers as sensationalism-seeking wildcats : we’re talking about a collection of some of the finest Science, Policy and Society minds there are, with a bit of the Press mixed in for good voyeuristic effect.

Tags Add new tag, Carbon Control, Climate Change, Economy, Energy, Fossil Fuels, Renewable Energy, Scotland

Big Picture Burning Money Climate Change Contraction & Convergence Media Meltdown Peace not War Social Change Technological Sideshow

G20 Climate Camp – Expect the Best Crackdown Yet

Post author By Jo
Post date March 31, 2009
No Comments on G20 Climate Camp – Expect the Best Crackdown Yet

STOP PRESS : Just received a text “Big Brother is turning off CCTV for the day. Don’t forget to bring your own. Please forward this text.” What can go on when nobody is watching ?

I’ve just been at one of several G20 Climate Camp convergence spaces this evening to get the full briefing.

I expected Police presence on the door, and yes, once again they were illegally photographing people coming and going from a public meeting.

Tags Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Economy, Energy

Climate Change Cost Effective

Never Mind the Wind Rush

Jonathan Leake, writing in the Sunday Times on 29th March 2009 betrays a certain ignorance, and casual disregard for sound European Renewables policy :-

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5992864.ece
“Consumers beware the costly spin of wind turbines”

Tags Climate Change, Economy, Energy, Wind Energy, Wind Power

Climate Change Media Peace not War Social Change

G20 Action : Your Options : Amuse or Annoy

Post author By Jo
Post date March 30, 2009
No Comments on G20 Action : Your Options : Amuse or Annoy

The “protest community” have a very stark choice about options for non-violent direct action and other forms of demonstration this week. Either you do something to entertain and amuse people, or you do something to annoy.

At a stretch you might even manage to do both, but for the most part it is an either-or situation. Do you hold a street party in fancy dress, or do you try to blockade something, lock on and shut it down ?

Do you publish a newspaper pulling apart current Economic, Energy and Climate policy ? Or do you set up a tent outside the London Climate Exchange and refuse to leave ?

Tags Climate Change, demonstration, direct action, Economy, Energy, Fossil Fools, non-violence, protest, Social Change