Posted on October 26th, 2012 No comments
There’s good renewable energy and poorly-choiced renewable energy. Converting coal-burning power stations to burn wood is Double Plus Bad – it’s genuiunely unsustainable in the long-term to plan to combust the Earth’s boreal forests just to generate electricity. This idea definitely needs incinerating.
Gaynor Hartnell, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Association recently said, “Right now the government seems to have an institutional bias against new biomass power projects.” And do you know, from my point of view, that’s a very fine thing.
Exactly how locally-sourced would the fuel be ? The now seemingly abandoned plan to put in place a number of new biomass burning plants would rely on wood chip from across the Atlantic Ocean. That’s a plan that has a number of holes in it from the point of view of the ability to sustain this operation into the future. Plus, it’s not very efficient to transport biomass halfway across the world.
And there’s more to the efficiency question. We shouldn’t be burning premium wood biomass. Trees should be left standing if at all possible – or used in permanent construction – or buried so that they don’t decompose – if new trees need to be grown. Rather than burning good wood that could have been used for carbon sequestration, it would be much better, if we have to resort to using wood as fuel, to gasify wood waste and other wood by-products in combination with other fuels, such as excavated landfill, food waste and old rubber tyres.
Co-gasifying of mixed fuels and waste would allow cheap Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) or Carbon Capture and (Re)Utilisation (CCU) options – and so if we have to top up the gasifiers with coal sometimes, at least it wouldn’t be leaking greenhouse gas to the atmosphere.
No, we shouldn’t swap out burning coal for incinerating wood, either completely or co-firing with coal. We should build up different ways to produce Renewable Gas, including the gasification of mixed fuels and waste, if we need fuels to store for later combustion. Which we will, to back up Renewable Electricity from wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower and marine resources – and Renewable Gas will be exceptionally useful for making renewable vehicle fuels.
Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage : the wrong way :-
Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage : the right way :-
“The potential ability of gasifiers to accept a wider range of biomass feedstocks than biological routes. Thermochemical routes can use lignocellulosic (woody) feedstocks, and wastes, which cannot be converted by current biofuel production technologies. The resource availability of these feedstocks is very large compared with potential resource for current biofuels feedstocks. Many of these feedstocks are also lower cost than current biofuel feedstocks, with some even having negative costs (gate fees) for their use…”
http://www.energy.siemens.com/fi/en/power-generation/power-plants/carbon-capture-solutions/pre-combustion-carbon-capture/pre-combustion-carbon-capture.htmAssets not Liabilities, Big Picture, Bioeffigy, Biofools, British Biogas, British Sea Power, Carbon Capture, Carbon Commodities, Change Management, Coal Hell, Dead End, Direction of Travel, Disturbing Trends, Efficiency is King, Electrificandum, Energy Insecurity, Forestkillers, Fossilised Fuels, Geogingerneering, Green Power, Low Carbon Life, Mad Mad World, National Energy, National Power, Renewable Gas, Solar Sunrise, Solution City, Technofix, Toxic Hazard, Tree Family, Ungreen Development, Unutterably Useless, Western Hedge, Wind of Fortune
Posted on August 27th, 2012 No comments
The human race – we have to solve energy together. And to do that, we need to harness all our personal, purposeful, positive energies, and let me tell you, personally, I feel electric – and I’m only just getting warmed up.
So let’s hear less of the nonsense from authoritatively-accredited people who want to put a dampener on green energy, who say that saving energy cannot, simply cannot be done, sigh, sigh, sigh, collective groan. We have so much energy together, we can do this.
We have the will power, the staying power, the investment power, and we will navigate the obstacles in our path.
Let’s not waste any more time on expensive trinkets, and iddy-biddy fancies with high unit costs and low compatibility to the future. Yes, I’m talking nuclear power. I’m talking the nobody-really-wants-to-do-it-and-nobody-thinks-it-can-be-cheap-enough-to-work-at-scale Carbon Capture and Storage. And yes, I’m talking carbon markets – tell me again, where are they now ? Oh yes, still in the starting blocks.
And don’t even start to talk about pricing carbon to me – in this world of rollercoaster, highly volatile energy prices, what on Earth could costing or taxing carbon actually achieve ? And fusion power ? Nah, mate, forget it. It’s been 50 years away for the last 50 years.
Shale gas, oil from shales, tar sands, coal bed methane collection and underground coal gasification are once-abandoned messy ideas from way back. They’re still messy, and they’re still retro, and they’re not going to get us anywhere. If the United States of America want to completely ruin their lithosphere, well, that’s up to them, but don’t come around here toxifying our aquifers and poisoning our European trees !
What we need is marine energy, geothermal energy, hydropower, solar power, wind power, and Renewable Gas, because gaseous fuels are so flexible and store-able and can come from many, many processes. And we need the next optimistic generation of leaders to push through the administration ceiling and get green energy policy really rolling, attracting all the green investment will.
If I were a power plant, I would be cranking out the current and making everything shine very, very brightly just now.
Academic Freedom, Assets not Liabilities, Be Prepared, Big Number, Big Picture, British Biogas, British Sea Power, Carbon Capture, Carbon Commodities, Carbon Pricing, Carbon Taxatious, Demoticratica, Design Matters, Direction of Travel, Efficiency is King, Energy Change, Energy Revival, Feel Gooder, Gamechanger, Gas Storage, Geogingerneering, Green Investment, Green Power, Low Carbon Life, Major Shift, National Energy, National Power, Nuclear Nuisance, Nuclear Shambles, Optimistic Generation, Paradigm Shapeshifter, Policy Warfare, Political Nightmare, Realistic Models, Renewable Gas, Renewable Resource, Solar Sunrise, Solution City, Stirring Stuff, Technofix, The Power of Intention, The Price of Gas, The Price of Oil, Wind of Fortune
Posted on March 29th, 2012 1 comment
Panic buying of vehicle fuel in the United Kingdom before a possible Easter weekend tanker driver strike has commenced.
The Coalition Government appears to be fanning the flames of anxiety, perhaps glad to deflect media attention from sliding-overturned-tanker type Hollywood crash scenes from their special version of crony capitalism.
“You mean to say that business people can pay money to have dinner with the leaders of the Conservative Party ?Well, strike a light !”
“…Asked whether motorists would be well-advised to rush to the petrol stations and fill up their tanks in the wake of last night’s vote for industrial action, a Number 10 spokeswoman said: “I think people should draw their own conclusions.”…She added: “Businesses and those who rely on vehicles for their work should ensure contingency plans are in place. It is always prudent.” …”
For me, the fuel strike of 2000 was spectator sport, as I was Working In Mainland Europe at the time. I was told it was Apocalyptic, in the nicest, visionary sense of the word – a reminder of how quiet roadways used to be and could be again, but also, how scary it was for the house-bound who rely on social services.
Supermarkets, naturally, became emptied. We were three meals from anarchy.
I would have thought it would be in everybody’s best interest to calm things down, sort out a deal with the people threatening strike action, but no, the Government appear to be bowling blindly on, perhaps incompetently provoking a massive traffic crisis by giving advice about stockpiling petrol and diesel.
Posted on March 26th, 2012 No commentsAcademic Freedom, Advertise Freely, Bait & Switch, Be Prepared, Behaviour Changeling, Big Picture, Big Society, British Biogas, British Sea Power, Climate Change, Conflict of Interest, Corporate Pressure, Cost Effective, Dead End, Dead Zone, Delay and Deny, Demoticratica, Design Matters, Direction of Travel, Divide & Rule, Economic Implosion, Energy Autonomy, Energy Change, Energy Revival, Feel Gooder, Fossilised Fuels, Gamechanger, Green Investment, Green Power, Hide the Incline, Human Nurture, Hydrocarbon Hegemony, Low Carbon Life, Major Shift, Marvellous Wonderful, Mass Propaganda, Media, Money Sings, National Energy, National Power, Oil Change, Optimistic Generation, Paradigm Shapeshifter, Petrolheads, Policy Warfare, Political Nightmare, Protest & Survive, Public Relations, Regulatory Ultimatum, Renewable Gas, Renewable Resource, Social Change, Social Democracy, Solar Sunrise, Solution City, Stirring Stuff, Sustainable Deferment, The Power of Intention, Voluntary Behaviour Change, Vote Loser, Wasted Resource, Wind of Fortune, Zero Net
Posted on January 10th, 2012 2 comments
To all Renewable Energy Deniers,
Things are getting so much better with renewable energy engineering and deployment – why do you continue to think it’s useless ?
We admit that, at the start, energy conversion efficiencies were low, wind turbine noise was significant, kit was expensive. Not now. Wind and solar farms have been built, data collected and research published. Design modifications have improved performance.
Modelling has helped integrate renewable energy into the grids. As renewable energy technologies have been deployed at scale, and improvements and adjustments have been made, and electricity grid networks have adapted to respond to the variable nature of the wind and the sunshine, we know, and we can show you, that renewable energy is working.
It’s not really clear what motivates you to dismiss renewable energy. Maybe it’s because you’re instinctively opposed to anything that looks like it comes from an “envionmentalist” perspective.
Maybe because renewable energy is mandated to mitigate against climate change, and you have a persistent view that climate change is a hoax. Why you mistrust the science on global warming when you accept the science on everything else is a continuing mystery to me.
But if that’s where you’re coming from when you scorn developments in renewable energy, you’re making a vital mistake. You see, renewable energy is sustainable energy. Despite any collapse in the globalised economy, or disruption to fossil fuel production, wind turbines will keep spinning, and solar panels will keep glowing.
Climate change has been hard to communicate effectively – it’s a huge volume of research, it frequently appears esoteric, or vague, or written by boffins with their heads in the clouds. Some very intelligent people are still not sure about the finer points of the effects of global warming, and so you’re keeping good company if you reserve judgement on some of the more fringe research.
But attacking renewable energy is your final stand. With evidence from the engineering, it is rapidly becoming clear that renewable energy works. The facts are proving you wrong.
And when people realise you’re wrong about renewable energy, they’ll never believe you again. They won’t listen to you when you express doubts about climate change, because you deny the facts of renewable energy.
Those poor fools who have been duped into thinking they are acting on behalf of the environment to campaign against wind farms ! Wind energy will be part of the backbone of the energy grids of the future.
We don’t want and we can’t afford the concrete bunkers of deadly radioactive kettles and their nasty waste. We don’t want and we can’t afford the slag heaps, dirty air and melting Arctic that comes from burning coal for power. We don’t want and we can’t afford to keep oil and Natural Gas producing countries sweet – or wage war against them to keep the taps open.
Instead we want tall and graceful spinners, their gentle arms waving electricity from the breeze. We want silent and dark photovoltaic cladding on every roof.
Burning things should only be done to cover for intermittency in wind and sunshine. Combustion is very inefficient, yet you support combustion when you oppose renewable energy.
We must fight waste in energy, and the rising cost of energy, and yet you don’t support the energy resources where there is no charge for fuel. Some would say that’s curmudgeonly.
When you oppose renewable energy, what is it you’re fighting for ? The old, inefficient and poisonous behemoths of coal hell ? We who support renewable, sustainable energy, we exchange clunky for sleek, toxic for clean. We provide light and comfort to all, rich and poor.
When you oppose renewable energy, you are being unbelievably gullible – you have swallowed an argument that can ruin our economy, by locking us into dependency on energy imports. You are passing up the chance to break our political obedience to other countries, all because wind turbines clutter up your panoramic view when you’re on holiday.
You can question the net energy gain from wind power, but the evidence shows you to be incorrect.
If you criticise the amount of investment and subsidy going into renewable energy, you clearly haven’t understood the net effect of incentivisation in new technology deployment.
Renewable energy has a positive Net Present Value. Wind turbines and solar panels are genuine assets, unlike the liabilities that are coal-fired power stations and nuclear reactors.
Renewable energy deployment will create meaningful, sustainable employment and is already creating wealth, not only in financial terms, but in social welfare terms too.
Renewable energy will save this country, so why do you knock it ?
Quizzically yours,Advancing Africa, Assets not Liabilities, Bad Science, Bait & Switch, Big Number, Big Picture, Big Society, British Sea Power, Burning Money, Climate Change, Coal Hell, Delay and Deny, Design Matters, Direction of Travel, Divide & Rule, Efficiency is King, Electrificandum, Energy Change, Energy Denial, Energy Insecurity, Energy Nix, Energy Revival, Energy Socialism, Engineering Marvel, Foreign Interference, Fossilised Fuels, Fuel Poverty, Global Warming, Green Investment, Green Power, Growth Paradigm, Health Impacts, Hide the Incline, Human Nurture, Hydrocarbon Hegemony, Major Shift, Money Sings, National Energy, National Power, National Socialism, No Blood For Oil, Not In My Name, Nuclear Nuisance, Nuclear Shambles, Oil Change, Optimistic Generation, Paradigm Shapeshifter, Peace not War, Peak Coal, Peak Emissions, Petrolheads, Policy Warfare, Political Nightmare, Protest & Survive, Renewable Resource, Resource Wards, Science Rules, Social Capital, Social Democracy, Solar Sunrise, Solution City, Stirring Stuff, Stop War, Sustainable Deferment, Technofix, The Data, The Power of Intention, The War on Error, Toxic Hazard, Wasted Resource, Western Hedge, Wind of Fortune
Posted on December 30th, 2011 No comments
On my Christmas journey, on the train from Brussels, Belgium, to the Dutch border, besides the wind turbines, I counted the number of solar electric rooftop installations I could see. My estimate was that roughly 300 kilowatts of solar could be seen from the track.
There has been an explosion of deployment. The renewable energy policies that are behind this tide of photovoltaics in Flanders seem to be working, or have been until recently.
On my journey back from Holland to England, I pondered about the polders and the low-lying landscape around me. I don’t know what river it was we crossed, but the river was only held in place by narrow banks or dikes, as it was higher than the farmland around it – waterlogged fields in some places – where parcels of land were divided by stillwater ditches instead of hedges or fences.
“Oh no, we don’t have “Mary Poppins” on Dutch TV any more at Christmas every year like we used to. We’re going to see the film “The Storm”…” said my host. Curiouser and curiouser. “De Storm” is a film that harks back to an actual historical event, the major North Sea flooding in 1953. “I remember what it was like afterwards,” says an older English relative, “I visited Belgium and Holland with my aunt and uncle just after the flooding – he wanted to visit the family war graves. We stayed in Middelburg. You could see how high the water reached. There were tide marks this high on the side of the houses, and whelks left stuck on the walls.”
The film attempts to nail down the coffin casket lid of bad weather history. By telling the narrative of major, fearful floods of the past, people are distracted from the possibility that it may happen again. History is history, and the story tells the ending, and that’s a finish to it.
However, for some people, those people who know something of the progress of the science of global warming, this film is like a beacon – a flare on a rocky landing strip – lighting the way to the future crash of the climate and the rising of sea levels, which will bring havoc to The Netherlands, Dutch engineers or no Dutch engineers.
We have to be prepared for change, major change. If you or anyone you know has Dutch relatives and friends, think about whether you can invite them to live with you in future if things get really bad. One or two really bad storms combined with excessive tides and a few centimetres of sea level rise could be all it takes to wreck the country’s ability to organise water and destroy a significant amount of agricultural land.
“I’ve been studying Climate Change science”, I told another host. “You believe in Climate Change ?”, he asked, somewhat incredulously. “It’s 200 years of science”, I replied, smiling, “but we probably shouldn’t discuss it. I don’t think it would be very productive.”Acid Ocean, Be Prepared, Big Number, Big Picture, Big Society, British Sea Power, Climate Change, Climate Chaos, Climate Damages, Dead End, Design Matters, Disturbing Trends, Eating & Drinking, Energy Change, Energy Revival, Energy Socialism, Engineering Marvel, Extreme Weather, Floodstorm, Food Insecurity, Freak Science, Freshwater Stress, Geogingerneering, Global Warming, Hide the Incline, Human Nurture, Incalculable Disaster, Major Shift, Near-Natural Disaster, Neverending Disaster, Paradigm Shapeshifter, Rainstorm, Realistic Models, Science Rules, Screaming Panic, Solar Sunrise, Solution City, The War on Error, Water Wars, Wind of Fortune
Posted on December 8th, 2011 No comments
Something not completely dissimilar to a hurricane or a typhoon has been gusting at incredibly high speeds through the lowlands of Scotland today – and further afield. Meanwhile, in Durban, South Africa, the world’s governments struggle to make sense. A healthy economy is a carbon-emitting economy – because industrial energy causes high carbon emissions. What needs to happen is that the energy production businesses start to diversify their portfolio – increasing the amount of energy they produce from renewable, sustainable low carbon resources, whilst decreasing the amount of fossil fuel energy they supply.
It can’t be left to individual “big hitters” to kick-start the renewable energy revolution – it requires transnational, international, multi-national and national energy companies to start to displace carbon from their products.
If they don’t, they will face mass disinvestment, as ethical concerns rise up the agenda of investor groups and funds. So, BP, Shell and Exxon Mobil – if you don’t start switching from selling us hydrocarbons to selling us renewable energy, your businesses will under-compete. You have been notified.British Biogas, British Sea Power, Climate Chaos, Corporate Pressure, Dead End, Emissions Impossible, Energy Change, Energy Revival, Extreme Weather, Financiers of the Apocalypse, Fossilised Fuels, Green Investment, Hydrocarbon Hegemony, National Energy, National Power, Solar Sunrise, Solution City, Wind of Fortune
Posted on November 15th, 2011 No comments
Germany can do it, but not the British. The Collected Republic of the People can install solar power with great will and nerve, but not Johnny English.
Let’s be clear here – the people in Scotland have a vision for future Renewable Energy, and so do many people in Wales and Ireland, but it appears English governance listens to fuddy duddy landowners too readily, and remains wedded to the fossil fuel industry and major construction projects like nuclear power, and carbon capture and storage.
What precisely is wrong with the heads of policy travel in Westminster ? Do they not understand the inevitable future of “conventional” energy – of decline, decimation and fall ?
It really is of no use putting off investment in truly sustainable and renewable power and gas. There are only two paths we can take in the next few decades, and their destination is the same.
Here’s how it goes. Path A will take the United Kingdom into continued dodgy skirmishes in the Middle East and North Africa. Oil production will dance like a man with a stubbed toe, but then show its true gradient of decline. Once everybody gets over the panic of the impending lack of vehicle fuel, and the failure of alternatives like algal biodiesel, and the impacts of a vastly contracted liquid fuel supply on globalised trade, then we shall move on to the second phase – the exploitation of gas. At first, it will be Natural Gas. But that too will decline. And then it will be truly natural gases. As gas is exploited for vehicles, electricity will have to come from coal. But coal, too, is suffering a precipitous decline. So renewable energy will be our salvation. By the year 2100, the world will run on renewable electricity and renewable gas, or not at all.Babykillers, Be Prepared, Big Number, Big Picture, Biofools, British Biogas, British Sea Power, Carbon Capture, Climate Change, Climate Damages, Corporate Pressure, Cost Effective, Delay and Deny, Demoticratica, Direction of Travel, Energy Change, Energy Insecurity, Energy Revival, Foreign Interference, Fossilised Fuels, Geogingerneering, Green Investment, Green Power, Hydrocarbon Hegemony, Incalculable Disaster, National Energy, National Power, No Blood For Oil, Not In My Name, Nuclear Nuisance, Nuclear Shambles, Oil Change, Peace not War, Peak Energy, Peak Oil, Petrolheads, Policy Warfare, Political Nightmare, Regulatory Ultimatum, Renewable Gas, Renewable Resource, Resource Curse, Resource Wards, Solar Sunrise, Solution City, Stop War, Sustainable Deferment, Technofix, Technological Fallacy, Technological Sideshow, The Power of Intention, The War on Error, Transport of Delight, Unnatural Gas, Western Hedge
Posted on November 7th, 2011 1 commentBritish Biogas, British Sea Power, Carbon Capture, Climate Change, Cool Poverty, Global Heating, Global Warming, Green Investment, Health Impacts, Heatwave, Human Nurture, Major Shift, National Energy, National Power, Nuclear Nuisance, Nuclear Shambles, Renewable Gas, Solar Sunrise, Solution City, Wind of Fortune
Posted on November 5th, 2011 1 comment
People who know very little about renewable and sustainable energy continue to buzz like flies in the popular media. They don’t believe wind power economics can work. They don’t believe solar power can provide a genuine contribution to grid capacity. They don’t think marine power can achieve. They would rather have nuclear power. They would rather have environmentally-destructive new oil and gas drilling. They have friends and influence in Government. They have financial clout that enables them to keep disseminating their inaccuracies.
It’s time to ditch the pundits, innuendo artists and insinuators and consult the engineers.
Renewable Gas can stand in the gap – when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine and the grid is not sufficiently widespread and interconnected enough to be able to call on other wind or solar elsewhere.
Renewable Gas is the storing of biologically-derived and renewably-created gases, and the improving of the gases, so that they can be used on-demand in a number of applications.
This field of chemical engineering is so old, yet so new, it doesn’t have a fixed language yet.
However, the basic chemistry, apart from dealing with contaminants, is very straight-forward.
When demand for grid electricity is low, renewable electricity can be used to make renewable hydrogen, from water via electrolysis, and in other ways. Underused grid capacity can also be used to methanate carbon-rich biologically-derived gas feedstocks – raising its stored energy.
Then when demand for grid electricity is high, renewable gas can be used to generate power, to fill the gap. And the flue gases from this combustion can be fed back into the gas storage.
Renewable gas can also be biorefined into vehicle fuels and other useful chemicals. This application is likely to be the most important in the short term.
In the medium-term, the power generation balance that renewable gas can offer is likely to be the most important application.
Researchers are working on optimising all aspects of renewable gas and biorefinery, and businesses are already starting to push towards production.
We can have a fully renewable energy future, and we will.Bait & Switch, Big Picture, Biofools, British Biogas, British Sea Power, Conflict of Interest, Corporate Pressure, Delay and Deny, Demoticratica, Direction of Travel, Divide & Rule, Drive Train, Electrificandum, Energy Change, Energy Revival, Engineering Marvel, Environmental Howzat, Feel Gooder, Financiers of the Apocalypse, Fossilised Fuels, Gamechanger, Gas Storage, Green Investment, Green Power, Hydrocarbon Hegemony, Hydrogen Economy, Major Shift, Marvellous Wonderful, Mass Propaganda, Media, Methane Management, National Energy, National Power, Not In My Name, Nuclear Nuisance, Nuclear Shambles, Oil Change, Optimistic Generation, Peak Emissions, Peak Energy, Peak Oil, Policy Warfare, Political Nightmare, Public Relations, Regulatory Ultimatum, Renewable Gas, Renewable Resource, Resource Wards, Shale Game, Social Capital, Social Change, Solar Sunrise, Solution City, Stirring Stuff, The Power of Intention, The War on Error, Toxic Hazard, Transport of Delight, Wind of Fortune, Zero Net
Posted on June 21st, 2011 2 comments
[ UPDATE : SKEPTICALSCIENCE HAVE DEBUNKED STEVE McINTYRE. ]
Steve McIntyre, probably the only person on the planet who might grumble about the cost of Barack Obama’s suit rather than his all-American wars, has suddenly become an expert energy engineer, it seems.
This month, he’s taking aim at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, regarding their special report on Renewable Energy, questioning the contributions of an engineer, Sven Teske, and basing his objections on the fact that Teske works for Greenpeace :-
Flinging any kind of pseudo-mud he can construe at the IPCC is not Steve’s newest of tricks, but it still seems to be effective, going by the dance of the close cohort of the very few remaining loyal climate change “sceptics” who get published in widely-read media :-
He even pulled the turtleneck over Andrew Revkin’s eyes for a while :-
And Mark Lynas has been joining in, in his own nit-picky way :-
The few comebacks have been bordering on the satirical, or briefly factual, with the exception of Carbon Brief’s very measured analysis of the IPCC’s communication expertise :-
Leo Hickman’s being bravely evenhanded :-
It’s not a total surprise that New Scientist and The Economist wade in deep :-
Sven Teske’s explanation has not been accepted by Mark Lynas, although it seems really OK to me :-
The Daily Mail digs out the usual emotive terms :-
Steve McIntyre is playing out the “Princess and the Pea” narrative, complaining about a few wrunkles in a process of international collaboration, and distracting us from looking at the actual report, which I would encourage you most warmly to do :-
It is full of the most incredible case studies and intriguing engineering discoveries. It makes cautious, conservative calculations, and looks at conditions and caveats in a very transparent manner. For a work that relied on the contributions of over 120 people and managed to compose a document so helpful and illuminating, I’d say it’s a work of profound achievement, and should be read in every school and university. Four scenarios from a collection of 164 are studied in depth to compare their strengths and weaknesses – and the conclusion of the SRREN team is that :-
“Close to 80 percent of the world‘s energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century if backed by the right enabling public policies…”
Somehow, though, Steve McIntyre believes otherwise. I suppose it’s not completely fair to berate him, because he might be suffering from a delusion, given that he seems to believe his opinion trumps that of over a hundred of the world’s authorities on what is possible in Renewable Energy technologies; and I’m the last person who would criticise somebody for having a mental illness.
I’m wondering, however, since he often sticks his nose up at IPCC matters, and since the world is suffering from stress in the supply of fossil fuels, whether he has a “Plan Beak” for the world’s energy crisis ?
Come on Steve McIntyre, tell us what your plan is to provide energy for humanity. Don’t tell me you believe that Nuclear Power is the way forward. I just won’t believe you, and a large number of the citizens of the UK, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and help us all, even Switzerland, would share my doubts.
As everybody can clearly see from the Columbia University graph at the top of this post, the IPCC are right about emissions, and the global warming data shows they’re right about that too. Why should they be wrong about Renewable Energy ?
I mean, I detect there are a few issues with the way the IPCC organises itself, and the style of its reports, but hey, where’s the viable alternative ? I don’t see one, anywhere. And don’t go pointing me to groups with pretensions.
We may just have to get used to complex international bodies, formed of complex, intelligent people, and learn how to read their complex, intricate reports with care and attention. And not get distracted by grumpy semi-retired mining consultants.Bad Science, Bait & Switch, Big Picture, British Biogas, British Sea Power, Conflict of Interest, Delay and Deny, Demoticratica, Design Matters, Direction of Travel, Divide & Rule, Emissions Impossible, Energy Change, Evil Opposition, Fossilised Fuels, Freak Science, Green Investment, Green Power, Hide the Incline, Hydrocarbon Hegemony, Major Shift, Marvellous Wonderful, Mass Propaganda, Media, Non-Science, Not In My Name, Nuclear Nuisance, Nuclear Shambles, Obamawatch, Peace not War, Peak Energy, Peak Oil, Public Relations, Realistic Models, Renewable Gas, Renewable Resource, Scientific Fallacy, Solar Sunrise, Solution City, Sustainable Deferment, Technofix, Technological Fallacy, Technological Sideshow, Technomess, The Data, Unqualified Opinion, Wind of Fortune
Posted on June 5th, 2011 No comments
James Delingpole hardly ever sets his delicate foot in Wales, the country he archaically refers to as “the Principality”, apart from, ooh, about ten days a year when he holidays there, but nonetheless, feels he has some kind of inherited ex-colonial right to be affronted that large electricity generation and transmission infrastructure are going to be built there :-
He gets top marks for being rather offensive himself – achingly rude, in fact, about the Welsh Assembly, besides his getting untethered about the wind farms and pylons for the transmission cables :-
“…The wind farms are bad enough on their own. But to make matters far worse [...], in order for these bird-crunching, bat-chomping, view-blighting, rent-seeking monstrosities to be connected to the grid a huge 400kv power line is going to be constructed all the way from Montgomeryshire through some of Britain’s most spectacular scenery to the equally beauteous Shropshire…”Behaviour Changeling, Big Picture, British Sea Power, Climate Change, Climate Chaos, Climate Damages, Delay and Deny, Demoticratica, Disturbing Trends, Divide & Rule, Droughtbowl, Economic Implosion, Emissions Impossible, Energy Change, Energy Insecurity, Energy Nix, Energy Revival, Energy Socialism, Engineering Marvel, Environmental Howzat, Fossilised Fuels, Green Investment, Green Power, Heatwave, Low Carbon Life, Major Shift, Marvellous Wonderful, National Energy, Nuclear Nuisance, Nuclear Shambles, Optimistic Generation, Peak Emissions, Policy Warfare, Political Nightmare, Protest & Survive, Regulatory Ultimatum, Renewable Resource, Social Change, Social Chaos, Solution City, The Power of Intention, Voluntary Behaviour Change, Western Hedge, Wind of Fortune George Monbiot, James Delingole
Posted on February 6th, 2011 No comments
Can we glimpse the future of energy ?
Ambient, sustainable energy is all around us, and sooner or
later we will find the ways to make use of it for the good of all.
The following is an appropriately edited transcript of a
conversation on the Claverton Energy Research Group
forum online, and was written by Nick Balmer, a consultant
in renewable energy.
…The huge scale of the possible changes for all concerned is
causing all of the current Titans in the [energy] industry to deploy
the full force of the media [and their] PR [public relations] in an
attempt to manipulate the public and policy towards their own way
of thinking, or in such a way as to protect their own vested interests.
The great thing is that these issues are being aired out in the open,
and groups like [Claverton Energy Research Group forum] allow
people with knowledge of these affairs to debate these issues openly.
The big problem is that each of us has only a very detailed
understanding of some small fraction of the total issue.
Most of the public and government only has a very slight knowledge
of the total issue, and has had only limited access to ways to find out
in detail what is going on.
As Egypt is demonstrating today, everybody now has a voice and as
Wikileaks shows, sooner or later everything will come out into the
All of us are struggling to come to terms with this explosion of
access to knowledge.
It is quite clear that lots of bubbles are being burst as a result of
the Global Financial implosion and the huge expansion in available
Just as banking and property has been shown to be an unaffordable
Ponzi scheme and to be vastly over-inflated, UK energy policy is now
coming under huge scrutiny.
We can now compare our energy systems with other countries.
Due to the huge geological accident of fate, since the 1700′s in coal,
and 1970′s in oil and gas, we have been extremely fortunate in being
able to live way beyond the lifestyle standards of most of the World.
We have not had to adapt.
Other countries that didn’t have this advantage had to change over
Places like Denmark, Austria, Germany [and so on] have made huge
changes because they had less energy from fossil resources.
Now we have reached the peak or crunch point, we find ourselves well
behind those countries that had to adapt earlier.
Everybody is concentrating on the Capital cost of deploying per
MW [megawatt] and overlooks the cost of fuels.
The cost of fuels over time is massively more important than the
CAPEX [capital expenditure on investment].
So even if windfarms cost 20 times per MW or GW [gigawatt] more to
build than nuclear or coal or gas, in the scheme of things,
[wind power] is always going to win, because the fuel is free and
unlimited for centuries to come.
Similarly [solar power technologies], or even more effective,
household insulation and cutting energy use.
And yet the media and government are blinded by the barrage of PR
and media from the energy vested interests who are working with
every muscle to stop this coming out into the open.
I often meet financiers in my work trying to promote and support AD
[anaerobic digestion of biological waste for the production of
renewable methane], biomass, solar and wind projects.
I am always struggling to prove to them that I have an offtake [return
on investment] and the fuel supply. This is often really hard to do
[but] I only have to do this for seven to 12 years to make my business
cases stack up.
I was really depressed at the end of one such presentation and
discussion, when one broadly sympathetic banker who had turned me
down said that he was having even worse problems with largescale
How do you predict the price and supply of coal forward for 25 years
or more ?
It has jumped 17% in recent months.
How do you prove that you are going to have offtake for huge power
stations in future years ?
Demand dropped 8% in 2009.
How do you raise the equity or debt for a billion [pound] project when
banks don’t want to lend more than £30 million each ? Imagine how
many banks that would take ?
We have reached a tipping point in our economy, sustainability and
Yes, the existing mega-power companies are fighting as hard as
Mubarak today to hold onto power, but they represent the past just
as surely as he does.
Those companies can rejuvenate themselves, unlike the Egyptian
If they don’t, there are an increasingly large number of smaller and
more active players coming into the market.
The average household pays somewhere around £1,300 a year for
its heating and lighting.
The companies that come forward with a way to do that for £1,000 is
going to capture the market very quickly.
I have friends in Austria who only pay 65 Euros for services that I
pay £1,400 for.
They do this through insulation, triple glazing, solar and biomass energy.
Most [UK] households have less than £400 per year discretionary
disposable income. This prevents them making changes to their houses
they desperately want and know they need to make. This can
drop their energy demands hugely.
If somebody can unlock that Gordian Knot the benefits would be
enormous as there are something like 27 million households.
At a time when household debt is at an all-time high, incomes are
shrinking, and 40% live on ether government salaries, state
pensions or benefits.
Energy is a very high part of these households’ outgoings – if you
pay £1,300 a year and your house only brings in £11,000 to £20,000
A 50% increase in the £1,300 could bring great distress, and
possibly even civil unrest here.
The increases fossil power [companies] need to make their systems
bankable will increase energy bills. This will feed straight through into
government liabilities because 40% of us live on government payouts.
If government can drop the cost of heating and lighting quite easily
by £100 to £500 per household per year while at the same time
provide employment for hundreds of thousands of White Van men
cutting energy uses, doesn’t this make far more sense than building
unsustainable power stations that will have to be [bankrolled] by the
government, who will then have to buy back electricity at a price our
communities cannot stand ?
Project a similar calculation onto transport fuels and you get even
At $80 a barrel [of oil] industry is shrinking and relatively few
renewable fuel business cases work. At $100 a barrel most renewable
fuels can compete.
At $120 a barrel almost any alternative beats oil, and that is before
you start to look at issues like fuel security and the environment.
Although the battle is one of David and Goliath, or the Dinosaur and
those early mammals, between the new energy industries and the
existing vested energy industries, [it] has only one outcome.
It is only a matter of the co-lateral damage along the way.
Like Mubarak, it is clear they must go. Are they going to go
gracefully, or are they going to smash the place up first ?
Renewable Energy ConsultantBe Prepared, Big Picture, British Sea Power, Burning Money, Carbon Commodities, Carbon Taxatious, Corporate Pressure, Cost Effective, Direction of Travel, Economic Implosion, Emissions Impossible, Energy Change, Energy Insecurity, Energy Revival, Engineering Marvel, Financiers of the Apocalypse, Fossilised Fuels, Green Investment, Green Power, Low Carbon Life, Major Shift, Marvellous Wonderful, Methane Management, Money Sings, Oil Change, Optimistic Generation, Peace not War, Peak Emissions, Peak Energy, Peak Oil, Political Nightmare, Public Relations, Renewable Resource, Social Change, Solar Sunrise, Stirring Stuff, Wind of Fortune, Zero Net
Posted on November 20th, 2010 No comments
Green jobs, green energy, greening communities.
Forget Nigel Lawson and his struggle to keep the British energy system in the privatised 1980s by denying the realities of Climate Change.
The lords (and sadly, some of the ladies) of this land want to stay rich from their shares in fossil fuels and mining. They’ll say anything to protect the value of their holdings.
But where’s your new North Sea Oil and Gas, Nigel ? Do you want to bankrupt this country by forcing us to ramp up our imports of energy as the North Sea production falls away ?
The chief executives of the “traditional” energy companies of these islands are just trying to keep themselves in a job when they decry wind power, biogas, marine energy projects.
No, Vincent de Rivaz of EdF, we don’t want expensive, inflexible and toxic Nuclear Power. No, Dorothy Thompson of Drax, we don’t want dirty coal continuing to heat up the world, poison fish and raise coughing kids. No, Rupert Soames of Aggreko, we must maintain the Renewable Energy obligations we have agreed at the European level, and raise the bar even higher, to protect the economy going into an uncertain future, by having homegrown energy.
We need an energy evolution in this country.
And so, what is needed is a social movement – involving ordinary, working people, unions, communities, academics, trained professionals from the engineering trades, local political activists and faith communities.
This is the emergence of Green Power.Be Prepared, British Sea Power, Burning Money, Carbon Army, Climate Change, Energy Change, Energy Revival, Engineering Marvel, Global Warming, Green Investment, Green Power, No Pressure, Nuclear Nuisance, Nuclear Shambles, Optimistic Generation, Peak Energy, Petrolheads, Political Nightmare, Protest & Survive, Regulatory Ultimatum, Renewable Resource, Social Change, Technological Sideshow, Toxic Hazard, Wind of Fortune Aggreko, Big Energy, Biogas, coal, Dorothy Thompson, Drax. Global Warming Policy Foundation, EdF, Energy, Green Power, GWPF, Marine Energy, Mining, New Nuclear, Nigel Lawson, North Sea, North Sea Oil and Gas, Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Old King Coal, Rupert Soames, Solar Energy, Vincent de Rivaz, Wind Energy
Posted on October 12th, 2010 2 comments
An incomplete recording of the BBC Horizon programme “The Death of the Oceans ?” narrated by David Attenborough is below.
It’s about Global Warming, of course (and overfishing, and sonar making whales deaf – which is the bit that’s missing at the end). But it’s also about Global Warming’s evil twin – Ocean Acidification.
Believe what you will about the Anthropogenic component of Global Warming, and I know some of you resist the Science as if it were a hairy, sweaty, alcoholic dentist threatening to pull your teeth without Novocaine, but there’s no way you can deny that the increasing concentration of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, most of it a direct result of humankind’s burning of Fossil Fuels, is turning the Oceans into a giant bucket of fizzy soda, and is threatening marine life, which is a huge risk to the whole of Life on Earth.
The only solution is to stop burning so much Coal, Oil and Gas. Really, that’s the only way.
Oh, you can fight this inevitability with every brain circuit you have, trying to force others to believe that everything’s still OK, that the Earth is not dangerously heating up, that Life on Land and in the Oceans is not on the cusp of mass extinction, and that Progress is just fine, and Economic Recovery, or Shiny New Technology, or Geoengineering will save us, but one day you will understand. You will accept. The global systems of production, transport and agriculture have to change. The Carbon-based Industrial Age will be gone in only a few decades, only a couple of hundred years after it started.
You can relax. Everything will be fine – eventually. When we have Wind Farms on every ridge top, Solar Power plants in every desert, Geothermal stations in our Town Halls, Combined Heat and Power running on Biomass in every street, Marine Power-gathering machines, Organic food, small electric cars, useful 24 hours-in-a-day networks of electricity-powered public transportation. The time is coming for the new human world to be born – and it will be green, clean and less energy-hungry than before.
It’s going to be a bit of a traumatic birth and the Climate Medics are working hard in the delivery suite, but soon, very soon, Green Investment will see the light of day – those who are wealthy will, as one, put their finances towards Renewable Energy and Energy-efficient machines and Energy Demand Management, real assets, with real returns on investment, and the future will be secured.
See at top for video.Acid Ocean, Be Prepared, Big Picture, Breathe Easy, British Sea Power, Climate Change, Coal Hell, Corporate Pressure, Cost Effective, Dead Zone, Direction of Travel, Eating & Drinking, Emissions Impossible, Energy Change, Energy Revival, Engineering Marvel, Feel Gooder, Fossilised Fuels, Geogingerneering, Global Warming, Green Investment, Growth Paradigm, Human Nurture, Low Carbon Life, Major Shift, Money Sings, Oil Change, Optimistic Generation, Peak Emissions, Renewable Resource, Science Rules, Social Change, Solar Sunrise, Stirring Stuff, Technological Sideshow, The Data, Transport of Delight, Wind of Fortune Acid Ocean, BBC, BBC Horizon, Climate Change, David Attenborough, deaf whales, Global Warming, Green Investment, Horizon, Marine census, Marine life, overfishing, sonar, sonar deaf
Posted on October 5th, 2010 2 comments
James Delingpole follows in a long line of commentators with zero engineering experience in pouring scorn on a technology that could quite possibly save our skins :-
I don’t know what he harbours in his heart against wonderful wind turbines, but he seems to be part of a movement who delight in their failure. Just ask the Internet to show you “exploding wind turbines”.
For example :-
Clearly, you need to be in full protective fatigues when battling this kind of bad press…in fact “fatigue” is exactly the right word to come back at Mr Delingpole’s cracked warning (of cracks in wind turbine bases).Bad Science, Bait & Switch, Big Picture, British Sea Power, Climate Change, Climate Chaos, Cost Effective, Design Matters, Divide & Rule, Energy Change, Energy Revival, Engineering Marvel, Fossilised Fuels, Global Warming, Low Carbon Life, Non-Science, Nuclear Nuisance, Nuclear Shambles, Public Relations, Renewable Resource, Science Rules, Social Change, Social Chaos, Stirring Stuff, The Data, Unqualified Opinion, Wasted Resource, Wind of Fortune A matter of design, aesthetics, as safe as wind turbines, Climate Change, Delingpole, Design Matters, Don Quixote, electrical engineering, electrical generation, Energy, Energy Change, Energy Engineering, Energy Evolution, Energy Revival, Energy Revolution, engineering, Engineering teething problems, James Delingpole, Jems Delingpole, landscape adornment, material fatigue, Mechanical Failure, metal fatigue, New Energy, Renewable, Renewable Energy, Renewables, Safe Wind, Sustainable Development, Sustainable Energy, Wind Energy, Wind Farm, Wind is good, Wind Power, Wind Safe, Wind Turbine
Posted on September 29th, 2010 No comments
I don’t know about you, but I’m missing David Miliband from the political fish-eat-fish top table already.
If he were to ask me, which he won’t, but anyway, if he did, I would recommend that he starts reading up about Energy production and supply, over the next 18 months or so before he gets invited, acceptingly, back into the Shadow Cabinet of the UK Government.
If he were to spend his time on the train between South Shields and Westminster looking into energy security matters, into crustal petrogeology, the Middle East oil fields, Wind Power, solar and marine options, he could make a strong comeback into the limelight – as opposed to the “lemon” light he’s been cast into, thrust into, so far.
If he becomes acquainted with the ways and wiles of engineering and fossil fuels over the next few years, the viability of Renewable Energy solutions, the transport explosion phenomenon and how to control it, then he will be able to offer solid assistance to his younger brother Teddy – who appears to be mistakenly sold on the idea of new nuclear power.
And if Ed Miliband were to ask, (again, which he won’t), I’d say – atomic energy cannot save us; carbon capture technology cannot save us; algae biodiesel can only trickle, even Frankenstein GM algae biodiesel; Peak Oil is almost definitely here; efficiency of use alone cannot save us. We have to go right out for a non-combustion, Renewable Energy future.Big Picture, British Sea Power, Carbon Capture, Carbon Rationing, Climate Change, Divide & Rule, Energy Change, Energy Revival, Fossilised Fuels, Genetic Muddyfixation, Geogingerneering, Global Warming, Growth Paradigm, Low Carbon Life, Major Shift, Media, Nuclear Nuisance, Nuclear Shambles, Oil Change, Peace not War, Peak Energy, Political Nightmare, Public Relations, Regulatory Ultimatum, Renewable Resource, Social Change, Stirring Stuff, Technological Sideshow, Unsolicited Advice & Guidance, Wind of Fortune Algae Biodiesel, Atomic Energy, Atomic Power, British Sea Power, Carbon Capture, David Miliband, Ed Miliband, Edward Miliband, Energy, Geoengineering, Geothermal, marine power, Middle East, Miliband, Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, offshore wind, onshore wind, peace in our time, Renewable Energy, Solar power, Sustainable Energy, Teddy Miliband, Tidal Power, Wave Power, Wind Farms, Wind Power, World Peace
Posted on September 17th, 2010 No comments
“Protesters condemn ‘dirty oil’ at World Energy Congress : (AFP) : 14 September 2010 : MONTREAL — Hundreds of protesters demonstrated in the streets of Montreal Sunday, calling for an end to “dirty, risky” oil exploration, ahead of a global gathering of energy experts. A dozen protesters covered in molasses staged a “Black Tide Beach Party,” while dozens of others carried banners that read “Too dirty, too risky, go beyond oil.” A blond baby boy smeared in brown sticky molasses wailed in his activist father’s arms, while protesters used megaphones to slam the provincial Quebec government of Jean Charest for inviting oil companies to the five-day World Energy Congress at the sprawling Palais de Congres. Some 5,000 participants from industry, government and academia, were expected to attend the conference, slated to officially open Sunday evening. The event is expected to tackle global energy issues, such as improving access to energy in the world’s poorer regions and the role of new technologies in ensuring a sustainable energy future. Many protesters directed their anger at BP over a devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year. But Julien Vincent, a campaigner for Greenpeace International, said BP was only part of the problem. “British Petroleum is one part of a big industry that’s got an abysmal safety record and an abysmal record in terms of its obligations toward protecting communities,” he told AFP. “You also have oil from Shell dripping out over Nigeria right now. You have oil spills that have taken place in China that have flooded ports,” he added. “The entire industry needs to be told to sit back and listen up.” …”Be Prepared, Big Picture, British Sea Power, Burning Money, Climate Change, Climate Chaos, Corporate Pressure, Dead Zone, Emissions Impossible, Energy Change, Energy Revival, Financiers of the Apocalypse, Fossilised Fuels, Global Singeing, Global Warming, Growth Paradigm, Incalculable Disaster, Low Carbon Life, Major Shift, Marine Gas, Oil Change, Peak Oil, Petrolheads, Protest & Survive, Public Relations, Resource Curse, Social Change, Solar Sunrise, Tarred Sands, Toxic Hazard, Unconventional Foul, Unnatural Gas, Wind of Fortune Bearish Petroleum, Beyond Petroleum, Blatant Pollution, BP, British Petroleum, Bullish Petroleum, Energy Change, Oil, Petroleum, Renewable Energy
Posted on September 14th, 2010 No comments
Unlike the United Kingdom, where political sensibility can quash the most logical enactment of energy policy, plans for progress voiced so tentatively you can bearly feel a ripple, or hear it over the whispering swoosh of a new wind turbine blade, over in Deutschland, what they say, they intend to happen, and they’re making serious proposals about how that’s going to be done :-
“09/07/2010 : Green Visions : Merkel’s Masterplan for a German Energy Revolution : By Stefan Schultz : Giant windparks, insulated buildings, electric cars and a European supergrid: the German government on Monday unveiled an ambitious but vague blueprint to launch a new era of green energy for Europe’s largest economy. SPIEGEL ONLINE has analyzed the plans…”
It appears to be time to wave bye-bye to German coal, incidentally, even as a strong commitment to renewable, sustainable energy is put on the table.
I wish the British Government could take a long hard look at themselves in the mirror of the future and realise what a bunch of dithering duffers they appear to be.
What we need is a proper Energy Policy, chaps, and since you’re in the hot seat you better come up with it. Elected or not, our ministers and officials need to get up out of their deep leather chairs, extinguish their pipes, don their working breeches and get digging for Britain, and I don’t mean Shale Gas or Old Coal.Big Picture, British Sea Power, Carbon Capture, Coal Hell, Energy Revival, Financiers of the Apocalypse, Fossilised Fuels, Low Carbon Life, Marine Gas, Nuclear Nuisance, Nuclear Shambles, Oil Change, Peak Energy, Peak Oil, Political Nightmare, Regulatory Ultimatum, Renewable Resource, Solar Sunrise, Tarred Sands, Technological Sideshow, Unconventional Foul, Unnatural Gas, Wind of Fortune coal, Deutschland, EC, Energy Policy, Energy Storage, EU, Europe, European, European Energy Policy, Geothermal, Germany, Hydropower, marine power, Power Storage, Renewable, Renewable Energy, Renewable Energy Systems, Renewable Energy Technology, RES, RWE, Sea Power, Solar power, Tidal Power, UK, UK Energy, UK Energy Policy, United Kingdom, Wave Power, Wind Power
Posted on September 13th, 2010 No comments
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the backbone of the British Civil Service (the unelected slice of governance), the people who helpfully retrieve UK citizens from Indonesian prison cells, Colombian drug kidnaps or Egyptian terrorists, or even France if you lose your passport, all your money, all your plastic, your keys and your mobile phone whilst on a picnic, (yes, Sarah, I’m talking about you), have trouble detecting Climate Change in the extreme weather events currently going on :-
“Is climate change responsible for natural disasters? : 09 September 2010 : Extreme rainfall in Pakistan and high temperatures in Russia have recently raised questions about how much climate change could be to blame. Without strong scientific evidence it is difficult to know whether climate change is a factor and if we can expect more of these types of events in future. Our understanding is that climate change is likely to increase the frequency of such extreme heat and rainfall events and while we can’t relate these recent events directly to climate change, they are a reminder of how damaging extreme climate events can be and why we should be concerned to limit the level of climate change…”
But, fortunately, being rational, they are going to set about finding out :-
“…A group of scientists from some of the world’s leading meteorological organisations, including the UK’s Met Office got together for a discussion on the Attribution of Climate-related Events (ACE). FCO staff in Houston have been supporting this as part of an initiative between the Met Office, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) and US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). UK and US scientists will work together with the UK Met Office, NOAA and NCAR to carry out attribution experiments to better enhance their understanding of the scientific basis to climate events. Another of the ACE’s aims will be to provide clear statements on the meaning and implications of the scientific findings of natural disasters so policy leaders and governments can make informed judgments…”
Expect the Climate Change sceptics to go wild (or at least a little flagrant) about this one !
Posted on September 8th, 2010 No comments
An e-mail trail with a certain amount of political content…
from: Kate Shepherd
date: Tue, Aug 10, 2010
subject: Climate Week
It was lovely to speak with you today about Climate Week and I’d be grateful if you could pass on the information to the rest of your team.
Climate Week, 21st – 27th March 2011, is a new national occasion on climate change, backed by the Prime Minister, Al Gore and Kofi Annan. During Climate Week, thousands of events will be run by organisations from every part of society to highlight the positive steps being taken to help prevent climate change.
I have attached a document for further information, the document includes a list of supporters of Climate Week, which range from every part of society: from the Chief Fire Officers Association to the Women’s Institute, the Girl Guiding UK to several Regional Development Agencies.Advertise Freely, Bait & Switch, Be Prepared, Big Picture, British Sea Power, Burning Money, Carbon Capture, Climate Change, Coal Hell, Corporate Pressure, Energy Revival, Environmental Howzat, Financiers of the Apocalypse, Fossilised Fuels, Global Warming, Growth Paradigm, Incalculable Disaster, Low Carbon Life, Marine Gas, Media, Meltdown, Nuclear Nuisance, Nuclear Shambles, Peak Energy, Peak Oil, Petrolheads, Political Nightmare, Protest & Survive, Public Relations, Regulatory Ultimatum, Renewable Resource, Resource Curse, Solar Sunrise, Tarred Sands, Unconventional Foul, Unnatural Gas, Wind of Fortune Al Gore, Atomic Energy, Atomic Power, Churchill, Climate Camp, David Cameron, EdF, Electricite de France, Firemen, Fossil Fuels, France, Germany, Girl Guides, Gordon Brown, Kevin Steele, Kofi Annan, Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Oil Bank of Scotland, Oyal Bank of Scotland, RBS, Royal Bank of Scotland, Vincent de Rivaz, Winnie, Winston Churchill, Womens Institute
Posted on September 4th, 2010 No comments
Even only semi-regular perusers of this little web log will be astonished, galled and maybe even venomously upset to discover that for once, and probably only the once going on past evidence, I actually agree with Christopher Booker :-
“The Clean Development Mechanism delivers the greatest green scam of all : Even the UN and the EU are wising up to the greenhouse gas scam, “the biggest environmental scandal in history”, says Christopher Booker. : By Christopher Booker : Published: 28 Aug 2010 : …The way the racket works is that Chinese and Indian firms are permitted to carry on producing a refrigerant gas known as HCF-22 until 2030. But a by-product of this process is HCF-23, which is supposed to be 11,700 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2. By destroying the HCF-23, the firms can claim Certified Emission Reduction credits worth billions of dollars when sold to the West (while much of the useful HCF-22 is sold onto the international black market). Last year, destruction of CFCs accounted for more than half the CDM credits issued, in a market that will eventually, it is estimated, be worth $17 billion. Of the 1,390 CDM projects so far approved, less than 1 per cent accounts for 36 per cent of the total value. Even greenies have become so outraged by this ridiculous racket that the Environmental Investigation Agency has described it as the “biggest environment scandal in history”…”
I would commend Mr Booker to get his chemical acronyms sorted out, by substituting “HCF” with “HFC”, or “HCFC”, but apart from that, which was fairly easy to unpick, it is quite an honourable description of the problem.
None of the money-based “flexible mechanisms” sewn into the Kyoto Protocol appear to be working, and that’s because they are (a) money-based and (b) not economy-wide.Big Picture, British Sea Power, Burning Money, Carbon Commodities, Climate Change, Corporate Pressure, Cost Effective, Disturbing Trends, Emissions Impossible, Energy Revival, Financiers of the Apocalypse, Fossilised Fuels, Global Warming, Growth Paradigm, Low Carbon Life, Marvellous Wonderful, Oil Change, Regulatory Ultimatum, Renewable Resource, Social Change, Solar Sunrise, Utter Futility, Vain Hope, Wind of Fortune Carbon Credit, Carbon Dioxide, CDM, CERs, Certified Emissions Reductions, China, Chindia, Christopher Booker, Clean Development Mechanism, flexible mechanism, Fossil Fuels, Greenhouse Gases, HCFC-22, HCFC-23, HFC, HFC-22, HFC-23, India, Kyoto Protocol, Montreal Protocol, refrigerant
Posted on September 2nd, 2010 No comments
From a conversation with the Claverton Energy Research Group over the leak of a German military study into Peak Oil :-
“09/01/2010 : ‘Peak Oil’ and the German Government : Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis : By Stefan Schultz…”
My view on Peak Oil is that it is the tip of the iceberg – and I know that’s a totally inappropriate metaphor.
The art of petrogeology dictates that right on the heels of Peak Oil is Peak Natural Gas, and there is strong evidence for Peak Coal. In the US for example, I understand there is very little good hard anthracite left.
My position is that – since the “conventional” Fossil Fuels are depleting, there are strong moves towards the “unconventionals”, the shale gas, the deepwater oil, the smoky “half peat”, the Lake Baikal hydrates, the frozen subsea wastes of the Arctic [don't forget the Tar Sands !] and so on. People argue for “stop-gap” energy resources, but they carry with them huge risks not only to the Climate, but also the the Economy with the step-change in EROI/EROEI [Energy Return on Energy Invested - that is - how much energy do you need as input to get energy as output] and the “clean-up” costs.
My take on this is that pretending that Peak Conventionals doesn’t exist leaves a veil in front of most peoples’ minds – they believe in the Power of Technology to supply all their Fossil Fuel needs, now and into the future – it’s just that the actual location and form and dirtiness of these new resources will be different than in the past.
And here’s the rub – we need to encourage people to think about the “alternatives”, or rather, the “solutions”.
The only way forward is Renewable, Sustainable Energy resources, because of Peak Oil, Peak Natural Gas and so on, and if people do not learn about that, they will not understand the privation for most people that will surely come with Peak Conventionals.Be Prepared, Big Picture, British Sea Power, Burning Money, Climate Change, Coal Hell, Corporate Pressure, Cost Effective, Delay and Deny, Disturbing Trends, Emissions Impossible, Energy Revival, Financiers of the Apocalypse, Global Singeing, Global Warming, Growth Paradigm, Low Carbon Life, Marine Gas, Nuclear Nuisance, Nuclear Shambles, Oil Change, Peace not War, Peak Energy, Peak Oil, Petrolheads, Political Nightmare, Protest & Survive, Public Relations, Regulatory Ultimatum, Resource Curse, Social Change, Solar Sunrise, Tarred Sands, The Data, Unconventional Foul, Unnatural Gas, Wind of Fortune Peak Conventional Fossil Fuels, Peak Conventionals, Peak Fossil Fuels, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy, Sustainable Energy, unconventional fossil fuels
Posted on August 20th, 2010 No comments
Here follows an extract of a conversation I have had with members of the Claverton Energy Research Forum, which I have cut-and-paste into a more easy-to-read fashion below the fold :-
As you can see, there are Climate Change sceptic-deniers everywhere, even in the most knowledgeable and respectable circles.
Countering Climate Change denial from so-called “sceptics” takes a lot of time and energy, and is a bump-in-the-road nuisance/irritation distraction from the main priority for human civilisation, which is how to stop being addicted to Fossil Fuels.Bad Science, Be Prepared, Big Picture, British Sea Power, Burning Money, Carbon Capture, Climate Change, Coal Hell, Delay and Deny, Divide & Rule, Energy Revival, Faithful God, Fossilised Fuels, Geogingerneering, Global Singeing, Global Warming, Growth Paradigm, Low Carbon Life, Non-Science, Nuclear Nuisance, Nuclear Shambles, Peak Energy, Peak Oil, Regulatory Ultimatum, Renewable Resource, Resource Curse, Science Rules, Screaming Panic, Social Change, Solar Sunrise, Technological Sideshow, The Data, Unconventional Foul, Unnatural Gas, Wind of Fortune Claverton, Claverton Energy, Claverton Energy Research Forum, Climate Change, delayer, denial, denier, Emotional Investment, Financial Climate, Financial Investment, Financial Redirection, Global Warming, have you read the IPCC report ?, IPCC, obstruction, Sceptics, Skeptics, timewasters, timewasting
Posted on August 15th, 2010 No comments
Of course, Pat Michaels is “right-wing”, but that’s not what I meant.
Some folk will be surprised that I agree with anything that Patrick Michaels says, as he is consistently inaccurate about the Science of Global Warming.
However, he is right that a Carbon Tax is the wrong way to proceed.
Carbon pricing, whether by direct taxation or by a trading scheme, effectively creates a double disincentive for change.
We have a large number of companies and organisations that are highly dependent on the use of Fossil Fuels. Carbon pricing will make these companies and organisations less financially efficient, and they will try anything they can to pass on the costs of Carbon to their consumers and clients, in order to remain profitable.
Carbon Taxation will therefore stimulate cost offsetting, but not Carbon reductions.
Moreover, if companies that make and sell energy are forced to pay for Carbon, they will have less funds available to deCarbonise their businesses; less capital to invest in new lower Carbon technologies.
Carbon Pricing will not alter the patterns of emissions significantly, if at all.
We have to face facts : the economists are largely wrong about environmental taxation. Record fines and levies demanded of Fossil Fuel companies in the last ten years have not stopped the spills, the leaks, the poisonings of waterways; nor have they helped the companies change course and start to develop Renewable Energies.
The pricing of large scale environmental pollution is a failed disincentive.Advancing Africa, Bait & Switch, Be Prepared, Big Picture, British Sea Power, Carbon Commodities, Climate Change, Corporate Pressure, Cost Effective, Emissions Impossible, Energy Revival, Environmental Howzat, Global Warming, Growth Paradigm, Low Carbon Life, Peak Energy, Regulatory Ultimatum, Renewable Resource, Science Rules, Social Change, Solar Sunrise, Toxic Hazard, Wind of Fortune, Zero Net Carbon Taxation, Carbon Trading, China, Climate Change, Climate Change Policy, CNN, coal, Economic Policy, economics, environmental economics, environmental pollution taxation, Environmental taxation, Fareed Zakaria, Gavin Schmidt, Global Warming, Green Investment, Jeff Sachs, Pat Michaels, policy, pollution taxation