Bishop Hill Number 10 discusses shale gas
May 18, 2012 Energy: gas This exchange from the House of Commons yesterday on the subject of shale gas is quite interesting.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton, Labour): Will not the biggest impact on reducing domestic energy bills be achieved by bringing shale gas online as quickly as possible?
Edward Davey (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Employment Relations, Consumer and Postal Affairs), Business, Innovation and Skills; Kingston and Surbiton, Liberal Democrat): I do not think so. We had a seminar at No. 10 recently, which the Prime Minister participated in, along with myself and the Business Secretary. We heard from experts in the shale gas industry who had been working in America and looking at the major opportunities in places such as Ukraine and China. They were clear that it would take some time for shale gas to be exploited in the UK. They were also clear that we needed strong regulation to proceed and that the shale gas reserves in this country are not quite as large as some people have been speculating.
I'm intrigued by a group of shale gas experts who would be demanding strong regulation and who claim that it will take a long time to do anything and that reserves are not as large as thought. This sounds rather like the Deutsche Bank report on shale. I've glanced at this report in the past and I must say I raised my eyebrows at the suggestion that there would be delays caused by lack of equipment. I mean, can't more equipment be manufactured?
I wonder who Number Ten's experts were?
Reader Comments (66)
Greenpiss?
Bish, how about a FOI request to name (and shame) ?
John
Already done
are you not taking this the wrong way - i think it may take a while to get the equipment. Planning will be a nightmare with strong regulation required to push through shale gas ahead of opposition from groundwater worriers to newt lovers and the like. And of course the reserves are not as large as *some* people have been speculating. But still the only way gas bills will go lower
Yeah that sounds strange they have selected a shale gas expert insisting on strong regulation - smells like an alarmist. That kind of answer at best just shows the lack of imagination in this government when they can see actual transformation on the other side of the pond and since it doesn't take too much thought to see what is possible. At worst this kind of crap triggers my working class anti- Tory feelings. I can imagine the Tories not being too keen on enabling the little people getting cheap fuel too quickly. They're more adept at greasing the wheels in the less tangible subsidies and finance welfare for their rich buddies in the city.
And what is more he did not answer the question.
Will, or will not, bringing shale gas on line as quickly as possible, have a the biggest effect on reducing domestic energy bills? Grrr.
Surely the point of such a new resource is EXACTLY that you need to build equipment - this is one of the fantastic things about it, surely? You create jobs for people far and wide. Think of all the jobs we could have in factories designing and buildnig all this equipment!
@Al
The daft thing about newt botherers is newts are prety rare in europe but not so rare in the UK, with some areas having more than enough to make a tasty alternative to frogs legs, not that I've ever broken the law and harmed a newt or a newts habitat (should satisfy the legal aspect)
Newst can be moved without a problem, you just need to obtain a license from Natural England and get the timing right (newts can't be disturbed in winter). When they emerge from hibernation, the temperature and moisture must be just right or they simply don't bother getting out of bed. Global warming should be good for newts!
Just imagine the Greenpeace slogan.
Looking at the parliamentary exchange I see Davy is just another full on green mantra robot. The rhetoric is down pat - he is every bit the same as Huhne was.
This Stringer question was the only one to push him to respond out of his comfort zone it seems. The rest from him is bollox about the alleged "grean deal" - do they really think this is like the "New Deal"!? How do you create a new deal with no innovation?
This little nugget confirms my initial prejudice about the Tories wanting the little people to have to lump it:
You see? Covert social engineering is the answer. Forcing us little people idiots to change our silly extravagant ways and take up the slack to help accommodate the green deal i.e. the governments shutting down power stations and not being interested in cheap energy.
I hate 'em.
The Euro and the EU bureaucracy were to depend on the income stream from carbon trading and neo-colonialist carbon offset plantations to underpin bonds thus making the first supranational currency not dependent on democratically-accountable taxation.
This is all in the air. Yesterday Cameron told Europe to choose: develop a way to share the pain and the financing of the less efficient economies by Eurobonds and central economic planning, which would mean no need for carbon trading, or dump the Euro. As our present government is essentially a branch office of the eurocracy, to have authorised shale gas would trigger the end of the present Euro plan with no clear successor.
So, for the moment it's plaster the UK with windmills to make us a windy milch cow for Brussels. If Brussels makes a decision, we'll probably go immediately for shale gas. And as Deutsche Bank, it is desperate: http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/deutsche-bank-is-this-the-man-whose-actions-will-destroy-the-wests-economic-and-fiscal-fabric/
In my view, it's a holding pattern with political events in Germany, the survival of Merkel, a vivid backdrop.
Are you sure it wasn’t a séance?
Who better to help with the manipulation and distortion of the scientific process to arrive at a predetermined conclusion as dictated by their ideology than to commune with their mentor - Trofim Denisovich Lysenko
I'm sure it wasn't that hard to find expert witnesses who would tell them what they wanted to hear.
They only have to pick up the phone to their friends in Greenpeace.
Amazing, isn't it? Everybody gets their knickers in a twist about David Cameron (as much as I can't stand him) discussing policy with News of the world. But no one in the media gives a hoot about Greenpeace activists writing the 2008 Climate Change Act, and effectively controlling British energy policy.
BBC News Lancashire
I guess that we won't see any of the gentlemen above referenced as experts in the field!
I am fairly certain that if you were to FOI where this current bunch get their advice from on the current Greek problem it would be the Classics faculty at Cambridge.
Clueless, the lot of them.
FoI No10 eh?
This is going to be really interesting to see who's briefing who... I wonder if they had any Powerpoints on GasLand at this little innovation panel conclave.
I'd bet DEFRA / DECC watermelons are well represented.
I do wonder if they're trying to get a policy in place before the wheels from the main anti-fracking bandwagon go bouncing off into the hedges and the policy of colluding with greenies and "big energy" to contrive a ransoming of "utility stuff" to the population is exposed even more starkly than it is at present.
Stuck-record @9:04 AM
too right - replete with a full compliment of liar detecting alarm bells clanging away.....
Another issue readers might wish to mull over is that the WWF, Greenpeace etc. are stuffed full of the UK elite using their connections to government to put in place policies which will get them rich,.
This has been the case for 15 years now since NuLaber, our first Mafia-controlled government.
So, policy decisions are unashamedly made for the commercial benefit of participants.
May 18, 2012 at 8:13 AM | The Leopard In The Basement
"At worst this kind of crap triggers my working class anti- Tory feelings."
Feelings you may have, but they need relabelling. There are no Tories in the current British Cabinet! They have all bought into the fantasy world of the EU, green taxes, windmills and climate change.
Tell me, have the policies of any our ministers of energy and climate change had any effect on our climate? Have they been cost effective? And I don't mean profitable for those with windmills on their land or photovoltaic solar panels on their roofs!
It's another AGW miracle!
Exactly as a cheap "fossil" alternative got discovered, suddenly its situation is found out to be so bad, we _have_ to go back to Greenpeace's and the WWF's preferred energy solutions (aka "fuel poverty").
Given that our masters are dedicated to making energy as difficult and expensive as possible, the prospect of plentiful cheap supplies on our doorstep must be anathema!
Leopard,
This isn't a question about Tory competence. The reality is that there is absolutely no difference between Labour and the Tories. Whether we like it or not they are both one and the sane! Which is a real pity because it has always been labour who have pushed the socialisation and total reliance on Government and the Tories the opposite.
The real pity here is that Caneron could guarantee a second ABD third term in office today if GE would just put energy security and cost reduction as the main priority for this country while ditching the "Green Stitch up" at the sane time.
Sadly, all we really have in Government is a much handsomer version of the Leader of the Labour party.
Mailman
Sorry, iPhone and fat fingers don't go together!
Regards
Mailman
@ Mailman
I have a mental list of issues and courses of action where the parties have agreed to prevent democracy by ignoring what the electors want and unanimously agreeing a quite different policy among themselves.
Roughly it goes:
- grammar schools
- the death penalty
- climate change
- benefit scroungers
- EU membership
- immigration
- legalisation of soft drugs
...and so on. In all these areas the public largely thinks one thing but the political class thinks another.
The most obnoxious manifestation of this at the moment is the fact that no party has any plans to reduce the deficit. Instead, they all simply plan to keep taxing me more and more so as to continue current spending levels. There is no party committed to reducing public spending at all, never mind by the 25% or so required simply to balance the books.
DNFTT
1. It exists within our national boundaries.
2. Technology for extraction exists.
3. Lots of luverly tax.
4. Reduces unemployment.
5. Easily distributable though current gas grid.
6. Doesn't fit current ideology of hard and short lives for proles.
That'll be a no then.
Zed
"that's all so convincing"
Are you saying that he made it up, or that it doesn't bother you?
J4R
One thing that would help is a reduction in our reliance on imported fuel. What has to happen for the penny to drop?
My money is on a bluff with the shale gas near-moratorium a sop to the greenies. The real battle is elsewhere with Greek-origin Euro notes apparently being quietly withdrawn from circulation. [Ward's Slog].
May 18, 2012 at 9:27 AM | Robert Christopher
I'm not sure that bothers me either way;)
I think I've developed from a lefty youth to a more free market libertarian without ever finding the Tories appealling in the intervening time ;)
So, whether rightly or wrongly, my prejudices about Tory disdain for the working class remains intact. I once thought they may have been better than the awful elites in Labour but they turned out indistinguishable when it comes to this latent enviro bollox philosphy. It is only their pseudo-reasonings that changes, their end effect ensures the same damage to the dis-enfranchised majority. They have the same cross party attendant dislike of risking any accountability or democratic discussion about the possible long term encroaching damage to the infrastructure they are doing. I sometimes wonder what a new political party would look like that could leverage and raise this cross society issue, I think it would make large inroads if it could define itself as being more than just against something and being for sanity and development - and no, I don't think UKIP!
Personally, I think the planned endgame is a personal energy tax. Since it is impossible not to use energy, this would be a tax you cannot possibly avoid, and would in effect be a sort of hybrid wealth-cum-poll tax.
With a bit of loading added to those classes that all politicians either hate, envy, or both (anyone except themselves on the 40% tax rate, basically), this will effectively be a tax on human existence. It is this, after all, to which greens really object. Its beauty is that it can be dressed up meanwhile as noble and pious concern for the environment, supported by consensus psyence, rather than as the shameful hatred for the kulaks that it really is.
Oddly, I think it will be completely robust to the eventual and certain exposure of climate psyence. Once a personal energy tax is introduced, even if the "scientific" basis for it is exploded, the argument "Which schoolzanospitals will you close to fund its withdrawal?" will still work.
Pseudoscience-driven fascism will run its course, just as its previous forms always have. Based on how long it took for eugenics to go from being fringe lunacy to accepted consensus science to public policy and back again, however, we are probably about half way through this fad cycle, with Al Gore's movie being the equivalent of the Reichstag fire.
The worrying thing is that it took WW2 to expose and end eugenics, not least because it was generally uncontroversial across the whole political spectrum - from Hampstead socialists like H G Wells to the postwar government of Sweden to Heinrich Himmler. One worries what sort of comparable apocalyptic shambles will be required to ring down the curtain on this one.
TLITB
I am in the same place; it used to be that Labour stood up for the little guy against exploitative employers, but now that the state is the biggest employer, it has seen and enjoyed the perks of being the lord of the manor in a semi-feudal big state. It is no more a working man's party than the Conservatives, who are basically the same thing except they despise different people.
Aside from Thatcher, who IMHO was barely a conventional Conservative at all but more like a radical libertarian, every PM since Churchill has been more or less a socialist.
Please do not feed the troll. It just gives our gracious host more work to do in deleting all it's posts and all of the replies.
Ed Davey is titled as follows
'Edward Davey (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Employment Relations, Consumer and Postal Affairs), Business, Innovation and Skills; Kingston and Surbiton, Liberal Democrat)'
Thought that was his previous job...now Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
Strange.....
Latimer; very curious especially considering that the cost of imported energy will rise all the time when you devalue the currency and the supposed Lib Dem solution, the windmills, can't work.
Look for the unexpected and the little clues which in hindsight were the obvious harbingers..........
ZDB and follow-on comments removed. DNFTT please.
Please do not feed the troll. It just gives our gracious host more work to do in deleting all it's posts and all of the replies.
+1
If you see a Zed post use the contact button to inform the Bish and they will be removed in short order. When they are removed quickly Zed disappears for longer periods as she does not get the attention she seeks.
Hi steveta! Investigating IPCC science fraud, the latest of which is 'Trenberth's missing heat' for which there's no evidence but it'll be the focus of AR5. is a doddle by comparison with delving into our elite Mafia using governmental pull to make billions from property, renewables and people trafficking.
Check out the removal from the Law Society of its right to self-discipline following an investigation to which I provided key evidence, also the resignation in 2004 of the immigration minister; it's all provable.
The experts who predicted the future re: shale gas in the UK?
Dart throwing chimps.
I happened to listen to a part of the debate on Climate Change replayed at 4am UK time 18/5/2012. I am a devout insomniac.
The only sane comment I heard came from Edward Leigh the former chairman of the public accounts committee who said that before the UK spent a matter of £ trillion on climate change should not any doubting views also be explored. He also raised the point that James Lovelock had recanted.
I was appalled the Climate Change Ministers quoted as their firm authority the IPCC and the Stern review. Hopefully by now the fact that both have been discredited would have percolated through the corridors of power. This is clearly not so. The ministers were also proud that the UK was leading the way to oblivion and that other nations would be bound to follow the example.
As far as I can make out Hansard has not yet published the debate but it could well be worth review in due course.
"DNFTT"
Sorry, Bish. It just spouts such nonsense sometimes...
I think the Bish hit the target with the Deutsche Bank analysts
J4R
"apocalyptic shambles"
Lights and computers going out/down might do it. Much as I would enjoy the schadenfreude, I can't say I'm exactly looking forward to it.
While the UK dithers (and will soon shiver) others are moving ahead at warm speed 10:
http://newnostradamusofthenorth.blogspot.com.es/2012/05/ohio-says-yes-to-shale-gas-revolution.html
It'd be interesting to know if politicians actually use the internet to research around any issues. In the past I seem to recall seeing documents along the lines of impact assessments requiring evidence/statements that policy alternatives have been considered.
For example typing "shale gas expert" into google uk gives fourth hit as:
COMMENTS SOUGHT ON RECOMMENDATIONS FROM INDEPENDENT EXPERTS ON SHALE GAS AND FRACKING
http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn12_047/pn12_047.aspx
Apparently there is still a week to go for independent experts to put their views in - I wonder if the no10 group's views will turn out to be representative?
It'd also be interesting to know how large the no10 group believe the uk shale potential to be.
On the other hand John Redwood approvingly quites Cameron as:
"David Cameron made a speech on the economy. ... said that more reform was needed in energy: “It means recognising the risks to the recovery from rising and volatile energy prices and working together to ensure energy security”."
You would think you could trust the Prime minister wouldn't you.
Deutschebank has too much invested in the AGW scam to be a credible adviser on this matter
Ed Davey is due to be on Sunday Politics I think. I've directed them to this thread.
"I'm intrigued by a group of shale gas experts who would be demanding strong regulation and who claim that it will take a long time to do anything and that reserves are not as large as thought."
If we were in a war where fossil fuels were in short supply because of blockades etc you can be pretty sure it would be brought on stream very quickly.
"if politicians actually use the internet"
LOL..
The problem we face is that many of the lefty elite bought into the CAGW scam and have put their money where their mouth is. The prime example is certain pension funds [e.g. BBC, Met. Office] who invested in Hedge Funds specialising in renewables and carbon trading [which is why you have to look carefully in their returns to get the evidence].
An example of such a manager is Grantham who funds climate propaganda at Imperial and LSE: heavyweight Establishment driving the system, UK windmills as the core of 'sustainable Europe'. However, for 'sustainable Europe' read power system failure, vast expense and high prices for the proletariat, also no CO2 saving above ~10% penetration.
To establish why it went so wrong you must realise that for ~20 years the aim has been to restore the privately-educated to the commanding positions in UK society. Because few have a proper scientific education [and those like Matt Ridley who do are sceptics], what we had was anti-technocracy, government by people without the technical ability to make decisions in this area but who believe themselves to be superior. Some call it arrogance.
There’s a second string to this self-deception: climate science grew more from environmental science and geography than physics, and as it’s scientifically very demanding, few had the intellectual ability to assert dominance over the likes of Mann and Hansen, aggressive self-seekers willing to distort data and science to fulfil their needs.
So, the aristos and the second raters are learning the awful truth which is that the IPCC science was taken over in 1995 by non-science and the windmill programme was poorly thought out and is now leading to grid failure in Germany and the same here. The message that we must also flood the Lake District and the Sea Lochs must have been a shock to nice Mr Cameron. As a professional engineer, my mantra is ‘No Surprises’; the aristos and the second raters failed to identify the fraudsters and cocked up the technology. As for the heavyweights Houghton and Lovelock, the former made a big mistake whereas the latter did not have the physics to realise that mistake at the time.
deutschebank must be really chuffed at the performance of their pet investment project
see
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/17/the-global-renewable-energy-index-is-crashing/