Bishop Hill The Krebs recycle
Mar 20, 2014 Energy: gas Lord Krebs, the zoologist who has found his way to the helm of the UK's climate change adapation efforts as head of the CCC Adaptation Subcommittee, has been interviewed in The Conversation.
With the incredible success of fracking in the US, many people in UK are very excited about the possibility of fracked gas. Areas that have historically had very large coal reserves are also associated with natural gas.
But there’s huge uncertainty about the amount of gas — anywhere from a year to decades; it’s not going to be easy to get out unlike in the US, because the rocks are highly fragmented; and some of the places where gas is likely to be abundant are densely populated or sites of natural beauty.
I'm not aware of Lord Krebs ever having voiced concern about placing the considerably more intrusive wind turbines in densely populated areas - see one example here.
Perhaps readers can point me to occasions that I've missed.
But what about his other point - that in UK shales the rocks are heavily fragmented, making it hard to extract gas from. I'm slightly bemused by this idea. Even Greenpeace seem to give considerable weight to the idea that UK shales are likely to be better than those in the USA. Readers will recall that the faulting idea originated with geophysicist David Smythe, now retired to the South of France to be an eco-activist. Smythe's claims have been given a good going over by James Verdon and it seems that faulting in the USA has been no barrier to shale gas extraction.
It's depressing to see Lord Krebs channelling the wilder claims of an eco-activist in this way, but to tell the truth it's not unexpected from the Committee on Climate Change.
Bishop Hill
I gather that Smythe is appearing at the Dart CBM inquiry today, arguing against such developments.
Reader Comments (27)
It's hard to see why any honest reasonable person would say anything other than 'Let's find out.'
Lord Krebs was the head of the Food Standards Agency Assume its the same guy .
He opposed Organic Farming said it was a waste of money just a Life Style Fad.
So whats his opinion on Bio Fuels then.
Maybe time for Josh to do a "Krebs Cycle"?
So Krebs falls into the usual 'either he's incompetent or lying' category we've come to expect from Govt advisors.
On second thought, there's always the possibility it is both.
Could Putin wish for a better ally than Lord Krebs ?
Last time I checked the whole point of fracking (hydraulic fracturing) was to fragment the strata so gas could escape. That being the case heavily fragmentetd shale beds would seem an advantage rather than a negative.
Keith
Bishop,
I don't think I saw Lord Krebs at the planning meeting I attended to object to these within the Derby City boundary. I can't find any pictures of just how built up the area round them is. I know there is quite a lot of industry in the area including Rolls Royce and Associates who are involved in the reactors for nuclear submarines. There is nothing else at 130m high though.
They are located at about 52.9125°N 1.4196°W
I hope the QC for Dart at the inquiry is well briefed. He should be able to take Smythe's evidence apart amd make him look like an idiot.
If Krebs claims were true he should be happy as there no way they would frack given their is little gas and its hard to get to.
He only has to worry if he is in fact wrong , in which case they will frack and his green mates are going to be 'dissopinted '
so which is it ?
Sandy S
I wouldn't like to be standing nearby that one in Derby when the blade blows off. I thought that legally they had to be a certain distance from occupied premises?
Messenger: The Government Guidance on wind turbine siting says this;
Thus there is no legal requirement, although the turbine owner would be liable if he hadn't done a proper risk assessment of the siting.
"born April 11, 1945": it was common in schools in his era that the brighter boys did maths and the dimmer did biology. Whether that applied to him, of course, I have no idea. Still, a background in maths/physics/chemistry might, on average, prove more useful in thinking about Global-Warming-We're-All-Going-to-Burn -in-Hell than a background in dickiebirds. There again, a background in psychology might prove more useful yet.
Gummer
The question I would add to your very interesting point is does the Good Lord have any financial interests therein?
Not stating anything you understand?
Just alleging. ....
Wouldn't want there to be anymisunderstanding.
They are making this garbage up as a way to delay if not kill the benefits of the UK's natural resources from benefiting its people.
Instead they work tirelessly to continue to feed off the public trough with their insider enrichment on wind power at tax payer's expense.
So they are injuring the people the UK by denying them something good- natural gas- and imposing a contrived useless scheme- wind power- and charge it to the the common people.
We have similar deceptive parasites working in the US, sadly.
Systematic bias with your tax money again from The Conversation.
- The idea is it provides a platform for experts, so only accepts articles from Universities.
- Lord Monckton wrote a rebuttal article to The C defaming him, but it won'tpublish it on the grounds he is not working at a university.
- The writer of the above article is a forester working at a university supported climate institute so his articles are accepted, and he chooses to air the views of the non-expert zoologist/activist/politician Lord Krebs.
- I think we can take it that no skeptics will be similarly given a platform ..so that is systematic bias, paid for by the taxpayer.
Hangon what's this anti-bias statement at the side of the article ? is it worth anything ??
..well then he does work for org that would benefit from article- To top that that disclosure is worthless if Lord Krebs benefits in any way.
Jamspid,
Krebs is right on the money with his take on organic farming - there's no doubt that it's a lifestyle fad with no demonstrable benefit to food quality and has a very mixed impact on the environment, e.g. prolonging the use of long obsolete and hugely toxic metal compounds as fungicides when much safer synthetic (and therefore ideologically evil) alternatives exist. Its inherent inefficiency also means that it uses much more land for equivalent food outputs, and as every greenie will tell you, the less land in agriculture, the better.
It's a vanishly rare combination - more than 97% of climate alarmists (allegedly 'pro-science', of course), are also viscerally opposed to science being used to secure their food supplies. Ignorance will provide...
I shall risk being called a conspiracy nutcase with this post. Nevertheless.
Geo-politically, Putin's actions in the Crimea and the prospect of further sanctions being imposed by the EU on the Russian Federation (and Moscow's expected/likely retaliation by restricting the supply of gas to the west) gives the EU an excellent excuse to reverse their open opposition to fracking within the EU while saving face in the name of medium to long term energy security.
I am afraid this is another example of a scientist not wishing to criticize another scientist outside his sphere of expertise. Lord Krebs is an extremely good biologist, but to get to where he is politically (as opposed to academically) he has to respect other scientists in their own sphere and not be skeptical of them. As with Paul Nurse, the people at the top are not able to criticize the CAGW alamists because to do so would negate the whole specialization/compartmentalization that the academic hierarchy is composed of.
One could almost say that having biologists at the top of these various bodies was a good tactic simply because they have a deserved reputation to call on, but no mandate to criticize.
In the FT:
"UK Budget 2014: The missing shale gas revolution
"George Osborne in his Budget speech on Wednesday talked, correctly, about US industrial energy costs being half those of the UK. The situation has deteriorated rapidly over the past five years. His proposed response is worth quoting directly:
“We need to cut our energy costs. We’re going to do this by investing in new sources of energy: new nuclear power, renewables, and a shale gas revolution.”
"This must be a speechwriter’s joke. A line written in where the content bears absolutely no relationship to reality."
http://blogs.ft.com/nick-butler/2014/03/19/uk-budget-2014-the-missing-shale-gas-revolution/?
Messenger
Raynesway which is very close to the site is part of Derby ring road and carries a lot of traffic at peak times. I think the most likely accident will involve a car and flying ice. With a bit of luck the ice will land in one of their own sewage treatment facilities on site and involve a lot of work and inspections to put right.
Mar 20, 2014 at 2:02 PM | Unregistered Commenter Rob
"Lord Krebs is an extremely good biologist"
A bit of an exaggeration. My wife, as a research assistant in Oxford, occasionally helped him. No one there thought too much of him as a scientist, except that he was a nice guy.
A lot more has to do with who his father was, Hans Krebs of the Krebs cycle.
Two of those bloody great bird-mincers have sprung up on the edge of Derby (On Rolls-Royce land?). Not seen them turn once when I've driven past!
Krebs is certainly a very good biologist but,like May and Beddington and others,he is a modeller. That is the link to the position he and they have adopted on AGW.
John Krebs presided over the Food Standards Agency through an epic bout of incompetence, blundering, waste and cover up around 2003 that was the subject of a Panorama program - which has been expunged from the archives. The matter being a bit closer to Kreb's expertise that "climate adaptation"...
I'm reminded of the watery (as in 51% H2O) chilled "fresh" chicken (with added cow, pig, buffalo and "alien protein") episode back in 2003 sparked by Felicity Lawrence's book "Not on The Label".
BBC's Panorama still had some vestigial investigative remit back then and they did to my mind a pretty good job of nailing the story.
What was really notable about the program was the abject, woeful, miserable performance of the Food Standards Agency - in particular the utterly toe-curlingly poor performance of David Statham - Director of Enforcement and Standards at the Food Standards Agency. A transcript of some stuff here. The performance of the FSA was so poor that it seems the Panorama piece was deemed unsuitable for archiving and shredded. I've spoken with Felicity and she was pretty miffed as she'd have liked a copy...
Putting John Krebs in as head of the CCC Adaptation Subcommittee is a triumph of "status"/jobs for the boys over expertise that ranks up there with Chris Smith at the helm of The Environment Agency. Krebs is an academic politician / manager.
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<timeout..>
I'd add that the FSA's performance was so execrably poor that it was genuinely difficult to watch. I expect no better from the CCC Adaptation Committee. - given a look at the biogs of the crew.... - they might as well cut to the chase and co-opt Bob Ward.
Oh and if Prof Smythe drops by - here's a hint mate 3D seismic "as you go" with a separate source - there you go, only require pipe+matches...
FYI the argument about the "wrong kind of shale gas structure" has been used at least twice, to my recollection, in response to my posts on the John Redwood blog - and by the same anonymous poster - in relation to the UK. It must be one of the "arguments" in the current anti-fracking propaganda campaign.