Bishop Hill ECC committee on shale gas
Apr 26, 2013 Energy: gas The House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee has issued its report on shale gas, concluding that exploration should be encouraged.
...if companies can demonstrate that they can meet the required standards the Government should encourage exploratory shale gas operations to proceed in order to improve current estimates, providing that public concern over environmental impacts is recognised and taken into account.
However, they also conclude that various market-fixing mechanisms should be put in place to ensure that gas is not too successful and note that regulation should be so tight as to prevent any nasty shale gas revolution taking place here (or words to that effect).
I can't see this as doing much to stop the delays within government. Ed Davey seems determined to keep things moving forward as slowly as possible, if at all. He has even chosen to sit on the British Geological Survey report on shale resources, which was due to be published months ago. What possible interest could he have in withholding it we wonder?
Meanwhile the rest of the world moves on, leaving the UK floundering in last place. As an indictment of the UK's rapid descent into banana republic territory, this quote from Nick Grealy quite took the biscuit:
US investors I know who were enthusiastic about [shale gas in] the UK last year recently told me that after all the dither in the UK they’re putting their money in Argentina, where government regulation is considered to be more stable.
Reader Comments (123)
David,
Call me old fashioned but I still like to end any correspondence I write (be it email, text msg, anonymous blog post etc) like I was taught at school...even if it is just ending with my internet nickname :)
On the flip side I get equally annoyed at people who start their postings with @...as if in this age of twitter dumbness people can't work out when they are being addressed! Again, just call me old school :)
Regards
Mailman
JF
'... I can imagine a brown envelope reason with the nuclear suppliers trying to get a fixed price contract at double the charges that we could get from shale gas ... '
You may find this link interesting, re the topic of possible conflict of interest:
http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/Ed_Davey
@ Apr 26, 2013 at 8:10 PM | BitBucket
"...(As an aside, if Cuadrilla had to build a gas distribution network to all consumers, they would think again about their profitability. That network exists, its costs written off over decades, but that could be seen as a historic subsidy all the same. That might seem silly, but it just goes to show that subsidies are not always apparent unless you look closely and take a long perspective.)..."
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BitBucket, so I take it that you consider that wind is being subsidised by being allowed to use the national grid.
Is it not the case that shale gas being allowed to use the gas pipeline infra-structure that is already in place is just the same as wind being allowed to use the national grid as already in place such that both are on a lvel playing field? The only new cost in the case of shale, is the pipeline from the shale site to existing distribution depots, and in the case of wind, the power lines from the windfarm to the electricity distribution centre.
One should not forget that wind is not a new technology. It has been around for centuries.
There will be no significant improvement in the efficiency extracted from wind since gennerator design is an old and well trod technology. Likewise propeeelor/blade design. Short of using super conductivity/magnetism or the like, there can be no significant improvements. Further there can be no future economies of scale. Each turbine, by necessityis an individual unit requiring its own concrete base, and requires individual cranage to erect. They cannot be placed near together because of wind shaddow. This is not a situation like the transistor radio where hundreds, then thousands, then millions of transistors were incorporated into one intergrated chip. The short comings of wind cannot be solved since the prime short coming is its natural variation and that when demand is at its highest in winter, the Uk is often under a blocking high when there is little if any wind. At best, it produces only about 25% of its installed capacity, and during blocking highs, this drops to about 1 to 3% (I monitored wind on a daily basis a couple of winters back and for a period of about 5 or 6 weeks it was only producing between 1 to 3% of installed capacity, with the very occassional day as high as 8%). If wind is to contibute about 16GW then we need at least 64GW of installed capacity. just imagine how many wind turbines are required. Even then conventional back up is required to cober the times when the is not blowing wind.
There is no case for wind as noted in my earlier post.
Dodgy Geezer, you're right of course, there are many instances of the herd instinct that you can witness even in business, or that most obvious one, fashion in clothes. Not to put too strong a point on it (which is not true I am) these scientists are advising the government that unless we cut CO2 emissions at some future point their computers tell them there will be disasters. That is criminal. I don't say the scientists are criminals, they are believers who haven't stood back and examined what a monumental crisis their advice will bring about if we continue with the CCA. During the course of this dispute I've moved position on environmentalists from their being a bunch of lovey dovey eccentrics to their being human haters on a massive scale who won't give a FF how many people die of cold provided they halt our civilisation in its tracks.
I have a little book of quotes going back to the 70s that show that from Ehrlich's early pronouncements onwards this has been the philosophy of a significant number of influential (well-connected and well-heeled) individuals, the intellectual descendants of Malthus and Galton and, as I have said elsewhere, of the original Fabians.
A question that is frequently asked (I used to ask it myself till I had a small revelation) is why anyone continues to listen to Ehrlich since he is invariably wrong. The answer is that in the eyes of his followers he cannot be wrong. Some of his pronouncements might be a little off the mark or the timing might be slightly inaccurate but in essence what he says about the future of mankind is the way it has to be if the planet is not to be destroyed, and on, and on, and ....
I'm in danger of repeating myself but my experience with eco-activists is that they really genuinely do want to recreate New Lanark (at least my local version did). In essence they want to crawl back into the womb. They cannot cope with the modern world which they see as nasty and brutish, unlike the 18th century when life was wonderful and simple and (as those of us who have studied it know) ..... nasty and brutish!
@mailman
'@' is a perfectly reasonable sign to use in a blog that is effectively just a flat file and can contain hundreds of different postings by many different people.
"However, they also conclude that various market-fixing mechanisms should be put in place to ensure that gas is not too successful and note that regulation should be so tight as to prevent any nasty shale gas revolution taking place here". Forgive me if I'm going over old ground here, I haven't read all the comments but isn't that so typical?. God forbid there should be a runaway success without their control and oversight. Time to face facts, these people don't like independent human endeavor. They claim the free market never works and constantly sabotage it. Intellectual dishonesty and moral cowardice.
BB,
Thanks for providing a find example of just how insane AGW fanatics are. Using existing gas pipelines to distribute gas recovered via fracking is no more a subsidy than windmills using the existing power grid.
You climate kooks are not really serious about energy supply nor are you informed about much of anything.
It appears that CO2 obsession requires the sacrifice of critical thinking skills.
The bottom line is that the Committee, through gritted teeth, having desperately tried but failed to find a plausible excuse to scupper it, have to reluctantly concede that they would like to know quite how much of this tantalising and potentially economic domestic energy resource we actually have and that testing should resume, following which they reserve the right to legislate regulate and tax it up to the eyeballs, (apart from the odd juicy facilitating trougher opportunities for 'expert' consultancy services), but that all exploratory and extended production testing costs will of course be borne by the speculative licencee. At which point, the licencee, already stretched to the rarified saintly heights of the patience of Job, and having addressed several quarterly Board Meetings already placating frustrated corporate VPs, despite the promising geological potential, will be gloomily reassessing the wisdom of embarking on the whole venture in the first place. Third World political risk being safer.
The same simple reason Shale has taken off in the US and not in the UK
Personal Mineral Rights.In America you dont just own the land you also own everything thats under it.
Gas, Oil, Gold Silver ,Cooper, Coal and Water
If we had Personal Mineral Rights in the UK then Matt Damon would come knocking Door to Door and Tescos would be renting out Drilling Rigs And everyone would be looking Shale in their Back Gardens.And British would all be rich like JR and the Beverly Hillbillies.
Mike J
By a remarkable coincidence, just about the time you were posting your comment about Ehrlich, I was pondering quite spontaneously and nowhere near a computer how is it that there's this guy, who's completely, hopelessly, hilariously wrong in his pontifications and predictions, but treated like some sort of guru, and even elected to the Royal Society (not that that's much cop nowadays). And there was the answer.
Mike, I've got some quotes too, but the one I'd like to lay my hands on was a recent one where someone was giving a talk to around 200 environmentalist during which he asked them, what if we found an abundant source of energy that was CO2 free would they approve of us carrying on living the life we do now, by a show of hands only two or three agreed out of 200.
As James Delingpole pointed out in Watermelons, you're going to have to compete with China on cheap energy or cheap labour. Which do you prefer?
Geronimo,
Doesn't a 99% agreement suggest that the question might not have been understood? I don't doubt that the bias against continuing on is there, but 99%??
BBC1 - Room 101 Episode 12.3 - Chris Packham, who describes himself as "TV presenter and naturalist Chris Packham is a wildlife expert, photographer and author with a passionate concern for conservation and the environment" nominated the entire human race to be put into room 101.
Charming.
Apologies if this has already been mentioned but last night's 'Any Questions' on Radio 4 was another example of the BBC's apalling bias. The green eco-loon Caroline Lucas was given total freedom to spout her lies by the Chairman. He let her have the last word during the section about shale gas fracking. To say you would be hard pushed to put more lies and misinformation in one short burst is putting it mildly. Thankfully, apart from one burst of applause, the response from the audience (a hand-picked BBC one) was somewhat muted.
Marginally off-topic but still relevant to the concept of AGW being a 'religion'...
We have, staying with us at the moment, a South American student. Devout Catholic. Intelligent; he's an engineer. In a conversation over dinner recently, he said: 'I GUARANTEE that there's a God..'
I'll leave that one with you...
Mike Jackson, you want to ensure that the costs are acceptable while excluding any costs that count against your
preferred outcome - this was discussed at length on the discussion, "A Question of PR"; it seems pointless to repeat it here.
On subsidies, I'm not sure if you are saying that gas should be subsidised if the necessary regulation makes it too
expensive to extract. You say that the only rationale for subsidising energy generation is if the method is inherently
expensive but the output essential and go on to mention nuclear in the affirmative and wind/solar, negative; but not
gas.
On gas piping, yes of course the electricity grid and the roads, education system, law and order, courts, etc are all
part of the support that a modern society affords to companies. They are an effective subsidy - companies setting up in
countries where these things don't exist must pay for them in some way from their own budgets. But most of these
subsidies apply equally to all industries and are therefore ignored. That doesn't mean they don't exist but it does
make it rather difficult to recognise their existence. (And no I'm not talking about VAT).
On fracking, if it really is so safe, there will be no problem with the companies insuring themselves to cover any
eventuality. This insurance will be dirt cheap because fracking is so safe.
On government paying for construction and decommissioning of all power stations, you are sounding like a socialist. Been
in France too long, perhaps.
jferguson,
All that a source of energy such as that would do is enable us to continue making war on the planet when what we have to do is move to a more sustainable and holistic lifestyle in harmony with nature, with less interest in stuff and more interest in spiritual values and biodiversity.
I believe that's the thinking behind it. A lot of it is to do with a romantic primitivism, going back to a Hollywood version of the Middle Ages.
I have a vague recollection that someone, (maybe Ehrlich) said, on hearing about the cold fusion claims of the late 80s, "This would be like putting a machine gun into the hands of a child".
It doesn't surprise me at all that the idea of a cheap, plentiful, completely pollution free source of energy is something regarded with horror in some circles, as it would completely sidestep the point.
Mike Fowle
Great minds and all that! As I said, it came as a bit of a revelation because I couldn't believe that anybody could continue to listen to such drivel when it had been proved time and again to be drivel. Then I realised that Ehrlich was a hero to the neo-Malthusian, eugenicist "cult" and that a bit like Peter Cook on his mountaintop he just had to say "same time next week" and they'd all be back hanging on his every word regardless.
geronimo
I know what you're referring to and I came across it again not all that long ago but I can't remember who it was and it isn't in my "filing system" — at least not anywhere that makes it immediately recoverable.
I'll post details if I find them. Assuming it's correct it's a bit of a killer for the eco-nuts but just confirms what many of us have maintained for years. They speak with forked tongue; it's not CO2; it's not "fossil fuels"; it's the idea of having cheap energy.
I do have a couple of quotes that I haven't used (at least not recently!):
From Ehrlich himself: "Giving society cheap, abundant energy . . . would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun."
And this from Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute "Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover the source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it."
I'm not quite sure what his point is: complex technology can only ever be the product of the human mind (and the opposable thumb). To describe it as "an assault on human dignity" is bizarre. Does he walk everywhere, go around naked and live in a cave? If not he is obviously prepared to take advantage of the very thing he despises while insulting every inventor that ever lived.
BB
GIve us a break. I said nothing about excluding any costs. The post was also quite clear on the subject of subsidies. If you can't read plain English that's hardly my fault but if you insist on misunderstanding (deliberately as far as I can see) what is written there is not much point in trying to discuss with you.
Which bit of "we are not about to run out of fossil fuels for at least 20 generations so why would we subsidise inefficient forms of energy generation?" do you fail so magnificently to understand?
cosmic,
i think i'm familiar with the argument. My concern was that 99% agreement in a group of 200 seems unlikely. Maybe 70%?
in 1987 we were hosts to a couple about to take over the superintendency of a nearby national park. the discussion evolved to the point of their revealing that they were against development of every kind. I was not entranced by this concept, making my living in the construction industry.
it turned out they also thought there were too many people.
I suggested that southbound migrants into Florida might be processed through several gates and every third family stood up against a wall and shot.
There was a long pause, followed by words to the effect that a program like that could be politically difficult.
I found out later from a mutual friend that they thought I was serious.
I should add that they did not live in the park, but a "gated" community with minimum lot size of 1/2 acre.
inherited money. government salary wouldn't have paid for it.
Geronimo; that quote you mention was from a radio programme, if memory serves. I picked it up at the time but am not sure how to find it again.
I think the interviewee was a consultant whose business was advising on how to lobby effectively, recounting her experience with a group of green activists. I'll keep looking for it - I have a vague idea that it has been mentioned on here before.
Found it!
It was a Radio 4 programme called " ANALYSIS: ARE ENVIRONMENTALISTS BAD FOR THE
PLANET?", broadcast on 25-01-2010 and hosted by Justin Rowlatt.
The key comment came from Solitaire Townsend Co-founder and Chief Executive of Futerra Sustainability Communications:
<< ROWLATT: A couple of years ago I was given a very
unusual job. I became the BBC’s Ethical Man. My
family and I were asked to spend an entire year
exploring what we could do to tackle global
warming. We gave up the car, stopped flying for a
year, turned down the thermostat - everything we
could think of to cut our carbon emissions. Because I
thought that was what tackling global warming was
all about. But the more time I’ve spent talking to
people in the green movement, the more I’ve come to
suspect that cutting carbon emissions isn’t the top
priority for all green campaigners. What worries me
is that the political objectives of some greens seem to
override their interest in solving global warming.
Solitaire Townsend runs a city PR firm, but one
which specialises in communicating a single issue:
sustainability.
TOWNSEND: I was making a speech to nearly 200
really hard core, deep environmentalists and I played
a little thought game on them. I said imagine I am the
carbon fairy and I wave a magic wand. We can get rid
of all the carbon in the atmosphere, take it down to
two hundred fifty parts per million and I will ensure
with my little magic wand that we do not go above
two degrees of global warming. However, by waving
my magic wand I will be interfering with the laws of
physics not with people – they will be as selfish, they
will be as desiring of status. The cars will get bigger,
the houses will get bigger, the planes will fly all over
the place but there will be no climate change. And I
asked them, would you ask the fairy to wave its
magic wand? And about 2 people of the 200 raised
their hands.
ROWLATT: That is quite shocking. I bet you were
shocked, weren’t you?
TOWNSEND: I was angry. I wasn’t shocked. I was
angry because it really showed that they wanted
more. They didn’t just want to prevent climate
change. They wanted to somehow change people, or
at very least for people to know that they had to
change. >>
The other participants were:
Professor Mike Hulme Founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Professor of Climate Change, University of East Anglia
Lord Anthony Giddens Sociologist
John Gummer MP
John Sauven Greenpeace director
Jonathan Porritt former chairman of Friends of the Earth, the Green Party and the Sustainable Development Commission
Andrew Simms policy director of the New Economics Foundation
MikeH
That's it! Thanks.
jferguson,
"My concern was that 99% agreement in a group of 200 seems unlikely. Maybe 70%?"
======================================
Depends how you select and prepare the audience.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA
Mike Jackson, that is right, you said nothing about excluding costs, because you are ideologically unable even to confirm that such costs exist (externalities associated with oil production, for those who did not read the PR discussion, otherwise known apparently as collateral damage).
Do not feed the troll.
Mike Jackson,
Surely in the west the infrastructure was paid for at least in part by industry? As far as I'm aware in the UK railways were developed by private enterprise, the fact that after nationalisation various governments proved once again that running a whelk stall is beyond them is not relevant. Nor is the subsidy currently provided by government for passenger rail services as this is a long term political objective to force the masses into public transport, I for one would like the rail network to sink or swim without government interference financially.
The fuel taxes and road rent paid by both companies and private individuals more than covers the cost of building and maintaining the highways in the UK. So in fact industry (or what's left of it) is subsidising government rather than the other way round?
@geronimo:
"..there are many instances of the herd instinct that you can witness even in business, or that most obvious one, fashion in clothes. Not to put too strong a point on it (which is not true I am) these scientists are advising the government that unless we cut CO2 emissions at some future point their computers tell them there will be disasters. That is criminal. I don't say the scientists are criminals, they are believers who haven't stood back and examined what a monumental crisis their advice will bring about if we continue with the CCA. During the course of this dispute I've moved position on environmentalists from their being a bunch of lovey dovey eccentrics to their being human haters on a massive scale who won't give a FF how many people die of cold provided they halt our civilisation in its tracks..."
You missed out the obvious example of the herd instinct - war.
Goering covered it quite well when he pointed out that neither the average German, nor the average Englishman wanted to go to war with each other. The best they could individually get out of it was that they would come home alive. But it was easy for the leaders to make a speech, call for action, and troop millions off to their deaths.
MacKay is full of example of people doing the most stupid things because other people are doing them. Countries have bankrupted themselves before by going collectively mad, and they will do so again - the Darien scheme, for instance.
Looking back at history, the Global Warming fiasco doesn't look so bad as some of the other messes we have got ourselves into. I wonder if we'll ever learn? But at least understanding that humans do this ALL the time, and that it's not an unusual situation would be a start...
@SandyS
"...So in fact industry (or what's left of it) is subsidising government rather than the other way round?..."
Um...what would it mean for 'government to subsidise industry'? Government creates no wealth. All the money government spends has been created by industry. There is no other source, so far as I know...
Don: DNFTT
Historians of the future (the one with cheap energy and abundant leisure time) will view BB as the Rosetta Stone to understanding why lunacy prevailed in western civilisation for a brief but all-pervading period.
MikeH wrote:
quote
Solitaire Townsend
unquote
The correct way of referring to the delectable Miss Townsend is as 'the fragrant Solitaire'. Her PR firm, Futerra, is currently making old people freeze to death, starving the poor in the Third World as food prices rise while the West burns wheat and corn in its cars, and is advocating cutting down rainforests to grow palm oil.
I always call her 'the fragrant Solitaire' because the contrast between her person and her influence are wonderfully dissonant. I hope one day she'll notice.
JF
BB
Do not tell me what I am ideologically able or unable to do. You know eff all about me or my ideology or my beliefs.
Arrogant prat!
I wonder if the BGS survey results will come out after the local elections. It might be seen as good politics to delay until then. It seems to me that the government has to address and try to manage the concerns about fraccing. I view the appointment of Peter Lilley to the policy advisory team of Cameron as important.
Things may be changing. See here:http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=59f8bbdd-5d41-4b99-9ba7-1e8ef6e3e109 and here:http://www.utilityproducts.com/news/2013/04/27/minister-calls-shale-gas-a-game-changer-for-ireland.html and here:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9473917/Climate-committee-chairman-Tim-Yeo-under-pressure-over-industry-links.html
Mike Jackson, your descent into insults shows, more clearly than anything I could say, the weakness of the position you maintain and your lack of confidence in that position.
Oh please...spare us the theatrics BB.
Regards
Mailman
Is BitBucket the new Zebedee? Same old garbage, on and on.
Dodgy,
I know that it is all our money, some others (aka trolls) seem to think it is magiced out of the ether. I find it is easier to use their terminology. Please note that I did say in that posting that politicians / governments couldn't run the proverbial whelk stall; that includes all spending of all revenues.
MikeH,
That Townsend quotation is so revealing for what drives so many (not all, but many) in green activism. Of course some will say that's not about the science per se, but it is indicative of what drives Michael Mann types to distort and hype the science -- they want to change "society" and people, and climate crisis seemed to be a useful tool (remember also the notorious quotation from former US Senator Tim Wirth on riding the climate issues whether or not the science proves correct, to achieve socio-political goals these people desire for other reasons).
If I may repeat it for emphasis, I think this quotation provided above by MikeH is a powerful illustration of the mindset that drives much of Alarmism over climate issues (emphasis added):
Ahh, humanity should NOT be "saved" from climate catastrophe if it does not require fundamental transformations of all of our economic, cultural, and political lives! The real goal is to further a quasi-religious movement and ideology, not to avert actual climate catastrophes.
The interesting thing to me is that UK leadership would rather build windmill towers that will letter the landsape for miles in all directions, kill birds and bats, produce low power unreliably, than seize the opportunity of natural gas from fracking.
Hunter
You can add to that list
Disproportionately tax the poor by unnecessarily driving up energy prices in a futile attempt to save a world that does not need saving.
Dodgy Geezer, you said that "all the money government spends has been created by industry", but unless you define the whole economy to be "industry", that is not really true. If by "industry" you mean manufacturing, then it is about 10% of the economy (about the same as France I believe) and so most of the money government spends has certainly not been "created" by manufacturing industry. Subsidy from government to manufacturing is hence largely subsidy from the non-industrial sectors.
The quote from Townsend which I put up earlier was an excerpt from a much longer transcript of the radio programme. There were some similarly eye-opening comments from other participants.
Maybe someone who is less of a techno-numpty knows how to provide a link to the transcript?
"Mike Jackson, your descent into insults shows, more clearly than anything I could say, the weakness of the position you maintain and your lack of confidence in that position"
BB, As much as I feel sorry for you, I sincerely hope that your immediate family don't suffer over much from your delusional ideations.
You're clearly not an unintelligent person but, to me for what it's worth, you come over as a contrarian bigot.
I wish you well BB but please, please look in the mirror more closely next time and use your considerable IQ to, at least, question your idealogical 'no-surrender' and 'always-attack' beliefs.
As much as I believe that you're no ZBD, you are sailing close to the wind by repeated, and often successful, attempts to de-rail a thread.
You seem impervious, or uncaring, to the irony that similar tactics when applied 180 degrees on a 'warmist' (is that the right word) site- would be rendered invisible by the simple expedient of selective moderation.
If that doesn't set a wee alarm-bell ringing inside your head, as it did in mine, then agreement seems, somewhat, problematic:(
@bb
"...Dodgy Geezer, you said that "all the money government spends has been created by industry", but unless you define the whole economy to be "industry", that is not really true...."
I define 'industry' to mean value-added work. The 'whole economy' by now comprises one part creating wealth, one part spending it, and a government sitting in the middle taking wealth from the first sector and giving it to the second. Minus its cut, of course...
"I define 'industry' to mean value-added work. The 'whole economy' by now comprises one part creating wealth, one part spending it, and a government sitting in the middle taking wealth from the first sector and giving it to the second. Minus its cut, of course..."
+10
RoyFOMR, thanks for the compliment: contrarian bigot is about as good as I can expect here. But derailing the thread...? My first comment on Apr 26, 2013 at 2:07 PM was bang on-topic. My subsequent comments have responded to what others have said in response to me. I have insulted nobody. I have posted 7 times, to Mike Jackson's 10; and 53 other people have contributed. I fail to see how I am derailing anything.
MikeH: "Maybe someone ... knows how to provide a link to the transcript?"
Here it is.