Sunday
Jul082012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Mission impoverish
Jul 8, 2012 Economics Energy: gas Christopher Booker laments the insanity of the UK government's policy on shale gas, with the headline summing things up rather well
You can’t have shale gas – it might halve your bills
It is an extraordinary thing when the main political parties agree that the way ahead is a the impoverishment of the electorate and transfers of wealth from the poor to the rich.
Reader Comments (183)
Yet absolutely nothing will change.
However,
our 'leaders' will still wonder why they are being led to the gallows should it ever come to that....They really will.
We should publish from now on the names of all the people who will die of cold because they could not afford heating their homes.
The argument seems to be that we must hit some EU renewables target by 2020.
But what if we did fail to meet the EU's target? Would they expel us?
If so, that seems like an extremely good course to take. Double Bubble - WinWin!
Thanks to current energy policies in Scotland fuel poverty has risen from 1 in 4 households in 2007 to 1 in 3 households in 2009 and the once beautiful countryside is being decimated by wind turbines.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/TrendFuelPoverty
Time for a "challenger" Party
The disconnect between governments and their citizens seems destined to end in real/violent revolution, or war, on an international scale--hence I have warned about a third World War (what with other, independent signs of that which may be seen). It is coming because scientifically unsupportable and aggressively divisive dogmas are ascendant in the world today, most especially inside science itself. Stopping it depends upon literally throwing the incompetent scientists promulgating the wrong-headed "consensus" out on their ears, "soonest" as the British say. But nobody has all the answers, to replace that incompetent climate science (nor all the other incompetent science fields, working determinedly but increasingly vainly at the edge of human knowledge), and neither governments nor the citizenry will consider revolutionary change--in their belief in the "scientific consensus"--without such a complete replacement, of falsity with sure truth, in every detail. Ergo, because science today does not have the answers it is widely supposed to have, modern civilization is on an increasingly downward slope. Only the inertia of still-advancing technology has kept the illusion of progress going thus far. The science shamans are shams, just as the original shamans became, long ago and far away now. The next two centuries are all too likely to be hard for everyone, even the rich (who can lose it all in one financial breakdown, as we have been sternly shown in the last few years). And yes, it is insanity, as I have been saying for some time. If you want to blame someone, blame Darwin, the Great Amateur who got it all wrong and inaugurated the modern "undirected evolution" paradigm--the climate can only be subject to "runaway", if it was not designed to be stable. And the truth is, it is stable (and, as only my unprecedented research and discoveries--marrying modern knowledge with worldwide ancient testimonies, in finest detail--can assure everyone, it was also designed).
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
Mr Booker’s article addresses Britain and (1) the EU, and (2) shale gas.
On the first, he immerses himself in the detail of the relevant treaty and does not address enforcement. Surely, parliament can simply refuse to implement (or maybe block the implementation of) any provision that Brussels may wish to inflict on us. I do not then see what the EU can do about it. British politicians would seem to have an option that Mr Booker does not describe, and, IMHO, are likely to avoid the stark choice he offers by adopting such more subtle measures.
Given these doubts, I wonder if the government will find some adroit means to stop digging and start to refill the hole it is now digging for shale gas.
The rhetoric we hear may differ – expect for (1), a fanfare, and for (2), obfuscation.. But in both cases the objective will be short term electoral advantage.
Judging by a story in today's Sunday Times, there appears to be a concerted campaign by some influential parties against the exploitation of shale gas,
The government's own recent inquiry into the safety of fracking concluded that it can be done safely. No doubt this was a serious blow to some interested parties, who have now chosen to muddy the waters further by attacking Browne.
The article goes on:
Dirty tricks?
More than one Green over the years has said that the greatest imaginable tragedy would be the discovery of a clean, cheap, unlimited supply of energy. There is always an ideology at the bottom of most arguments which are claimed to be based on the facts.
Ecclesiastical Uncle,
For anything to happen to the EU would require politicians with backbones! Same goes for the exploitation of shale gas!
Sadly however, we have no politicians with a spine!
Mailman
Perhaps someone should direct Mr Booker to Doug Proctor's discussion of shale gas here on BH at:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/5/21/cuadrilla-were-not-at-no-10-seminar.html#comment18191452
He might learn something.
Because the solubility rapidly increases with partial pressure, methane in deep well water is very common and treated as standard by spraying it in air.
The Director of the film 'Gasland' admits the stunt was staged. I suspect these complainants also staged their claims.
I had a column about the shale gas revolution and what it should do for fertiliser prices in Farmers Weekly some time ago:
http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/04/02/2012/131182/Shale-gas-could-expose-fertiliser-firms.htm
(Forgive my shameless self-publicism, BH!)
The sort of idiocy that Booker described is not unusual for our present bunch of politicians. Despite the record wet weather of the past few months (which was not predicted by the Met Office) they still think that because of global warming we should prepare for droughts. Fair enough, we should be prepared for such eventualities even if global warming has halted, but the politicians' way of preparing for water shortages is not to fix leaks or build more reservoirs - it is to encourage us to use less water. Water rates are already very high in many parts of Britain.
At least the politicians are consistent. They want ordinary people to have high energy bills and high water bills.
This 'muddying of the waters' can be laid at the door of one man, Australian David Hone of SHELL.
Hone is both their Senior Climate Change Adviser and Chairman of the International Emissions Trading Association, two hats that should never be worn by the same man.
Yesterday he published the last of the series of obscenely expensive articles under the title 'Age of Energy' in the Daily Telegraph,(under the 'chairmanship' of the DT's 'environment correspondent' Geoffrey Lean), wherein he had persuaded Cameron's policy adviser Oliver Letwin to do his bidding.
Googling the various 'Age of Energy' articles you will see where Hone has chaired meetings at the House of Commons and presumably 10 Downing Street, from which SHELL'S rival Lord Browne of Madingley (late of BP, now with Cuadrilla) was excluded.
A visit to David Hone's SHELL blog reveals a man who admires Hansen and is totally obsessed with 'Carbon Trading'.
One is tempted to assume that when Shell quietly pulled out of their involvement with the London Array and offshore wind generally, they entered the $178,000,000,000 Carbon Trading game with gusto.
This would have shown up handsomely in the balance sheet on a rising market but as Jo Nova tells us - 'The bad news for Carbon Traders is about to hit the fan in the next report in 2013. The market for CDM's has dropped to its lowest level since 2004.'
Methinks Hone is now a very desperate man who will do almost anything to keep up the price of 'Carbon' !
This article in The Sunday Times seems out of character for Danny Fortson. He previously wrote an article exposing how KPMG burried a report which showed that UK emission targets could be met without renewable energy and for only £24 billion. He does not sound like the kind of guy who would want to bury shale?
Dung
Journalists tend to print stories that are handed to them. Very good journalists dig deeper and never print without a second opinion.
One has to ask 'cui bono' ?
Lord Browne was once known as the 'Sun King' of British industry, one needs to ask who stands to benefit from such a nasty underhand attack ?
Somebody quite desperate I would suggest !
Sorry to bang on about it
Everyone is talking using Fracking to get Shale Gas from Pourous Rock.UK about 18 months worth.
But instead use Shale Gas Fracking technology to drill deep into the UK underground coal seems and extract Methane Natural Gas from the Coal
Send a drill on the end of a pipe down to get the Energy out of the ground not Arthur Scargills miners
Some of them sacked miners will be getting new jobs piping gas not shovelling Coal.
Rest of us get cheaper Heating Bills
Gas cheaper to transport to market only need a pipe thats long enough not Lorries and Trains
And unlike Coal is in its most Combustable State. Gas the Atoms are already free to move to Oxyidize
Burns at the most efficiently .less Cost less CO2 bags more energy.
Interesting stuff on Hone - Toad, thanks for that insight.
On the hatchet job being done on Browne - have Obama-esque tactics seeped in on the wind to over here?
This smear campaign, both against Cuadrilla and Browne, smacks of a desperation of puerility and is so unsubtle - that it has to have behind the fingerprints of HMG and Green agitprop a whiff of US coaching perchance?
Athelstan
You're welcome. Just google 'David Hone Shell Lovelock' and you'll see him 'coaching' the old man, before he recanted of course, and googling 'Age of Energy' you'll find him bragging about chairing meetings at the House of Commons.
I wonder if SHELL are fully aware of the undue influence he has been able to exert in their name.
We are all suffering from this one man's extreme 'green' ambition and obsession with the 'Carbon Market'.
He certainly has Letwin and Geoffrey Lean doing his bidding.
It is clear that climate environmentalism is developing more and more of the characteristics of religious bigotry. As a boy I was brought up in a non-conformist sect and as I got older I became aware that for many members of that sect the only way to heaven was through adherence to the differentiating beliefs of that sect. It was almost a case of a sinner who uttered the right incantation could go to heaven but a saint whose religious formulae were different was dammed. Thousands of the green anointed can fly half way round the world to Rio or Kyoto but woe betide a pensioner who can afford to switch on the second bar of their electric fire.
The UK’s Kytoto CO2 emissions in the base year of 1990 were 766.4 million tons of CO2 equivalent; in 2011 they were 549.3 (provisional figures.) Of the current emission 147.3 Mt are from coal. Replace that by shale gas and the Kyoto basket emission would drop to 475.7 Mt – a reduction of almost 40%. What is more, gas turbines can respond more quickly than coal fired stations to fluctuations in wind speed. If smaller CO2 emissions are the way of saving the planet why are the greens not trumpeting our achievements and pressing for shale? Because they are religious bigots and the remarkable achievements were achieved by people who pray to the wrong saints or genuflect in the wrong direction.
I’ve yet to read Delingpole’s book on watermelons (those who are green on the outside but red inside) but it’s a strange form of socialism which condemns old people to a cold early death to satisfy a bigoted belief in a sole method of global salvation.
How hard could it be to blow up 3500 pylons? They can not watch all of them ^.^
Jamspid 6:34: The NCB pioneered in situ gas extraction from coal measures in the Shropshire coalfields many decades ago. But the project got killed off for 'political reasons' (probably by the NUM and the Labour party). Now China is the leader in this area.
Political ambitions in the energy sector have a long and sorry history.
It started with the nationalisation of the coal industry under the Attlee Labour administration in 1947. A huge amount of public purse was wasted and a disastrous redundancy of close on a million men, excluding the steam railmen affected in a similar nationalisation causing similar massive haemorrhaging of state money.
Again in 1977, following on the spectacular oil industry North Sea oil and gas discoveries, Westminster could not keep its sticky fingers out any more and so created the disasterous British National Oil Corporation (BNOC) in 1977 under Secretary of State for Energy Mr. Anthony Wedgewood Benn, giving BNOC 51 % participation, (and liability) in every new licence. The Hansard record of the 2nd reading debate makes for amusing reading in hindsight
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1977/nov/18/participation-agreements-bill
Subsequently dropped like a hot potato due to the costs, BNOC was floated as Britoil in 1982 and finally taken over by BP in 1988.
The present mess, interfering via public subsidies for the least cost-efficient intermittent energy and penalising conventional fuelstock, continues the tradition of gross, even grotesque political incompetence in the energy sector.
Anyone know what happened to Booker's partner Richard North's RSS feed. It appears to have died the death, even though the blog carries on.
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
Mailman
I agree. My prognostications about avoiding the issues on the EU and shale gas arise because the electoral process we have institutionalized in this country have caused sheep to represent us in parliament. But these particular sheep depend upon the vote, and there must be votes in withdrawal from the EU and cheaper energy. Certainly, these could be garnered by actually leaving the EU and pouring resources and rhetoric into shale gas, but the timid creature our government is will, I expect (and maybe even hope), find it easier to disobey some minor restrictive EU directive, and trumpet that to the proles; and quietly boost shale gas and accelerate its development while continuing to mouth vacuous green slogans.
But, of course, once the EU door is ajar all sorts of things will then be able to squeeze through and so long as they do the business about energy, does it really matter what they shout?
One can only assume that these spineless dimwits in Parliament think there is more votes in it for them to NOT leave the EU and to not exploit our natural resources than there is to go the other way.
Regards
Mailman
Ecclesiastical Uncle
I wish I could share your confidence about the future behaviour of the UK political class on this matter.
Off topic: i just googled for 'bishop hill' (which is how i go to this blog often at work, and shows up at the top), but this blog isn't listed anymore. Is it just me?
I'm not British, just wondering; does the British still have nukes and do the British know the location of Brussels?
Re: Jul 9, 2012 at 2:56 AM | Ecclesiastical Uncle
Unfortunately I share oldtimer's doubts about the future behaviour of our political class .
It appears to me there are both vested interests and conflicts of interest involved. Our politicians will be looking to possible future career paths and many already have alternative careers outside parliament.
A great shame (but not surprising) that Elizabeth Filkin wasn't retained in her position as Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards!
http://www.nohotair.co.uk/nha-in-the-media
Check this site out -No Hot Air
Check out this guy Nick Grealy
Knows all there is to know about Shale.
He is Mr Shale Gas
On his media page you need to download Silverlight Player
He interviewed by UK Parlimentary Energy select committee.
Chaired by Mr Back to Basics himself Tim Yeo .
Nick Grealy is in front of the committee biggin up Shale Gas but hes impressive becauses he not arrogant and smug.
Hes calm capable senisble matter of fact
He gets out the Swimming pool to go to the toilet.
At 11 49 00 Tim Yeo tries to have him about Shale and Carbon Emissions.
Nick Grealy just shoots him down no problem.
Paraphase "basically if the UK immediatley swithed to Shale and Coal bed Methane we cut 50 %
Carbon Emisssion by 2020".No windmills to spoil the view and shred the birds required.
Leaves Yeo totally stumped .
Localised gas generation from localised gas field will shut Drax B .Not stupid Green Piss chaining themselfs to the outside fence.
And Nick Grealy says the only UK Shale Drilling Site in Blackpool up and running is worth £380 Million in Corporation Tax per year. He says basically DrilL anywhere on Earth deep enough and you will hit Shale.
Nick Grealy .You know who the daddy is now Tim
TDK, Richard North switched from 'Blogger' to here a while ago, perhaps the RSS feed hasn't caught up?
http://www.eureferendum.com/Default.aspx
Marion
The sad thing is that their "alternative" careers outside parliament used to be the day job and being an MP was something you did as a public service, albeit you got paid for it.
One of the strengths of the British parliamentary system was that there wasn't a political class and that MPs had a life outside politics from which they could bring a fantastic range of expertise to bear. From opposite sides of the House you were getting alternative philosophical views on the same problem or the employer/employee aspects of business and economic affairs.
Now they are clones of each other with the career path being university>intern>political researcher>think tank>political aide>MP. Clegg is the prime example. At least one could (at a push) argue that Cameron has some experience of being in a job outside the Westminster hothouse.
It's hardly surprising that most of them have no understanding of how to behave in the real world; they never actually grew up.
> Perhaps someone should direct Mr Booker to Doug Proctor's
> discussion of shale gas here on BH at:
> http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/5/21/cuadrilla-were-not-at-no-10-seminar.html#comment18191452
> He might learn something.
Proctor's main points were very US oriented and were....
1) Shale gas will drive prices so low that the drilling companies will go bust
2) After the initial volume production you'll have to drill more wells with ever decreasing returns.
Answering them.
1) We use much more gas in the UK so the volume isn't as likely to flood the market. Haivng said that the drilling companies are big boys and it's up to them to decide if they'll get a return on drilling.
2) This is true of any finite resource.
AFAIR he didn't come up with any points that made drilling in the UK sound like a bad idea.
Nial
jamspid
i agree entirely, but with even the Royal Society giving Shale Gas the all-clear we have to ask two questions.
1. Who stands to lose most if fracking goes ahead ?
2, Are they in a position to exert sufficient influence to stop it ?
The answer to question 1, is the 'Carbon Traders'.
In the USA the widespread extraction of Shale Gas has seen CO2 emissions FALL, meaning that the Carbon Taxing scam is well & truly stuffed.
The answer to question 2 is YES. Shell Oil are so deep into 'Carbon Trading' through their man David Hone that they cannot afford to let Shale Gas succeed.
SHELL are attempting to strangle the Shale Gas bonanza by insisting on Carbon Capture & Storage, a process which we all know cannot possibly work.
See Saturday's Telegraph 'Age of Energy' where the Chairman of SHELL UK bangs on about CCS.
SHELL OIL have spent an absolute fortune on the 'Age of Energy' series, which they've now abandoned after the RIO debacle.'
Certainly Oliver Letwin, Cameron's policy adviser 'listens' to David Hone. We also know how many pies have Tim Yeo's fingers in them.
@ Jamspid, I see that Tim Yeo is now attempting to revive the PCA idea (h/t JunkScience and Tom Nelson)
http://tinyurl.com/85ek25b
And:
Poverty is such great fun, isn't it. Lucky constituents! And then maybe lucky all the rest of us!
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
Mailman, oldtimer, Marian
Our politicians are totally at the voters’ mercy. The vote can be made to count. By contrast, what can the EU and those who wish us to freeze to death actually do? It will, then, all be OK in the end, it must be … or at least I hope so … maybe … Oh Dear.
Alternatively, maybe we should revolt, blood on the streets and the like and strip the politicians of their pay. Go back to conviction politicians who are not part of the system but represent us in rows with it …or at least I fear so … maybe … Oh Dear.
Evolution’s experiment with intelligence does not seem to be a success.
Re: Jul 9, 2012 at 12:02 PM | Mike Jackson
"Now they are clones of each other with the career path being university>intern>political researcher>think tank>political aide>MP."
Quite - which leads one to speculate rather as to what 'experience' they bring to their very lucrative 'consultancy' roles outside Parliament!!
I don't get it. Shouldn't Mr Yeo refrain from any input into government policy on climate change, renewables and energy due to potential conflict of interest?
"Yeo is chairman of Univent plc, Chairman of TMO Renewables and non-executive chairman of Eco City Vehicles plc and AFC Energy plc." [Wikipedia]
Nial:
Where does that factoid come from? From Wiki, US consumption is about 6 times that of the UK or Germany.
But even so, you make the point for me: if shale gas would not have such an impact on the UK gas market (which I imagine is true, but for other reasons, such as limits to the practicality of drilling) it would not move the price much. So Booker's idea that it might halve the price of gas is wrong. But then
won't stir the blood of the Telegraph reader so much, so he is better off not knowing. He'd have to think up another skapegoat to blame for high fuel prices.
Chis M
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5767
CARBON TRADING
This is quite the most obscene financial activity of our age and Tim Yeo suggests we should all be doing it.
However like all so-called 'markets' it can come down as well as up.
In this case it is difficult to see how a 'market' can be created in something which doesn't exist except in the minds of the speculators.
We shall never know how much of his own money Tim Yeo has 'invested' in this scam, that's his personal risk, but when companies like SHELL OIL 'invest' they are using shareholders funds.
So as David Hone Shell's very own Climate Change Adviser, who doubles as chairman of the International Emissions Trading Association, sees SHELL's 'holding' in the $178,000,000,000 scam halve in value, we can imagine a very worried man.
A WORD OF PRAISE FOR THE BISH (If I may)
The original Booker piece is now buried under childish stupidity.
Firstly two topics not totally related are being 'discussed' at the same time, and far worse we see a new (?) phenomenon 'counter-counter-trolling'.
Readers are left in the dark as to who is taking the mickey out of whom and the whole thread is lost.
Thank goodness Andrew will occasionally call 'order, order' to prevent the discussion disappearing under uncontrolled trollery.
How Booker and Delingpole must envy him !
Yet again, BitBucket, I fail to understand what point you are making.
Booker's point is very clear: there is a vested interest in keeping the energy prices high and in impeding the development of shale gas which ought to have the effect of reducing energy prices.
Your point appears to be that you don't like his turn of phrase.
My point would be that he is entitled to make his argument using colourful language if he wishes without having to adapt his language to pacify every passing troll.
21% of US electricity is generated using gas compared to 45.5% in the UK so Nial was correct in the argument he was making — as I am sure you fully understand.
Or maybe you don't.
Or more likely don't want to.
The volume of shale gas available for UK consumption, not to mention methane extraction from coal seams (a technology that has far more going for it than either the Alice-in-Wonderland dream of CCS or the long-superseded technology of wind power) or the oil reserves under north-west England and the Irish Sea, ought to make the UK not only energy self-sufficient for decades (or longer) but able to determine the price.
In addition, the first two — as the US has demonstrated — will have the effect of reducing CO2 emissions should anyone believe that to be agood idea (personally I don't).
So what's not to like?
Specifically, what don't you like about it and why not?
Mike, Nial said We use much more gas in the UK .... He suggests that because we "use much more gas" (for whatever) shale gas will not have such an effect as in the US. If he is right then Booker's halving of gas prices is clearly wrong and no more need be said.
However, Nial didn't mention how the gas is used, and it doesn't really matter. Wiki figures for US and UK are 646k and 91k (million cubic meters). US GDP and population are around 6 times those of the UK, so we seem to use about the same, relatively speaking. In this case, one might expect shale to have a similar effect on gas prices in the UK as in the US, and hence Booker's price-halving is correct. I don't care how he expresses it.
This is why I suggested earlier that Booker should look at Doug Proctor's discussion of shale, as he might learn that the price decline is not sustainable. He might also learn that an awful lot of drilling is needed to maintain production (due to drop-off rates) and consider that fact in the UK context. The US is big and nobody will notice much if you drill thousands of holes. The UK is small and people will not put up with it (my guess).
I haven't really given it much thought, but in principle, I don't object. From what I have read, I don't imagine it would be a game changer, but reducing our gas imports would seem a good thing if it can be done without negative side effects. My worries would be around polluting the aquifers with whatever is pumped down. A high proportion of injection wells and other wells leak, many immediately after construction, others later. If just water and sand were injected I would be relaxed about it. Since that is not the case, I would suggest the companies involved should be compelled insure themselves against ALL of the costs involved if their drilling does cause a problem. Quantifying the cost of 'restoring' an aquifer might be a challenge. And apart from that, they need to compensate the local communities that they disrupt (traffic, noise etc) financially. Having said all that, I wouldn't want it done in my neighbourhood ;-)
What Nial actually said was
Which is not how you chose to interpret it, is it?You're claiming thatBut that's not what Nial is saying, is it?As for not objecting "in principle", you are trotting out all the tired old arguments that have already been answered half-a-dozen times already to most people's satisfaction, except those who don't want cheap energy or at least don't want the people to have cheap energy.
Whether it is a "game changer" or not, time will tell. You seem quite keen to dismiss the whole idea. In favour of what, I wonder.
None of this has anything to do with Booker's choice of words in his article which is what appeared to be exercising you.
Mr Bucket
Quote from this thread:
From a discussion thread:
Well as far as I am concerned Bucket you know SFA about fracking. You said ;
If you stopped imagining and guessing you would know that Cuadrilla have one had shale gas well operating for almost 20 years near Blackpool (Elswick). Drilling usually takes place just once, fracking (which does not involve drilling) may take place 2 or 3 times in the first few months but then a well can operate for 30 - 50 years with no further action.
Coincidentally Centrica has just been given approval for a huge offshore wind project so the last thing they need is downward pressure on prices; likewise their nuclear interests.
From a post on GWPF, one US utility has just cut its power prices to 8.8 US cents per kWh (approx 5p) which is 40% below their 1990 prices in real terms. And that is less than half of typical UK rates.
On the economics, a major factor in the US prices is that, in many areas, the gas is a co-product of oil and/or gas liquids. As these are far more valuable, the gas is virtually dumped - especially now that flaring is restricted.
@TDK:
http://www.eureferendum.com/feed/rss-feed.xml