Bishop Hill Mike Hill: light
Apr 2, 2015 Energy: gas Greens Some interesting developments on the Mike Hill front. In this post I will discuss an email received from Hill's wife, saying that I have maligned her husband. I am happy to bring her points to readers' attention.
She raises a number of specific issues, which I will address one at a time.
1.Articles to which you refer do not indicate a job application to Cuadrilla.
The letter in question was reproduced at Guido Fawkes blog. On a close reading I think one could make a case that this was not an "application", but was more by way of an "elevator pitch". I'm not sure anyone is going to get too excited over the distinction though.
2.Mark Miller was not CEO of Cuadrilla in March 2013 as per Guido Fawkes article. Francis Egan took the position of CEO from 9th July 2012. Inferences in Guido article are set in incorrect context.
The distinction is irrelevant. Miller was heading the Bowland Shale operations at that time. That he was not CEO has no bearing on the central question: Did Hill ask Cuadrilla for a job?.
3.Mike Hill is an nominated expert advisor to the Technical Working group for the Best Available Techniques Reference Document for Management of Waste from Extractive Industries co-ordinated by the JRC of the EU Commission. He does not pretend to be an adviser at all. This is libel.
Guido reproduces a tweet from Hill in which he says "I am an engineer...advised the UK Gov, the RS and EU...", and another in which he claimed to have "advised DECC/EU". However, the EU are quite clear that Hill is not an adviser, as the addendum to this article makes clear. They also state that his involvement in the technical working group mentioned was "as a representative of civil society". According to Guido's article, DECC have said that Hill does not advise them either. It's possible that there is some lawyerly distinction being made here between "being an adviser" and "having advised". I think readers will have to make their own minds up here.
4.Mike is cited in the Royal Society report to which he makes reference.
I am cited in reports of the House of Commons. This does not make me a parliamentary adviser, nor would I claim to have advised them.
5. Mike has advised the DECC and is seeking an apology from them. He has had numerous meetings with senior civil servants and ministers and to suggest otherwise is a misrepresentation by others.
This is discussed above.
6. Gemini Control and Automation Ltd. has NEVER made filters. The company makes filter cloths and these have only ever, without exception supplied the pharmaceutical industry.
Happy to have this clarified. I wonder if the filter cloths can be used in unconventional oil and gas extraction operations too.
Reader Comments (47)
Why didn't Mike HIll himself make his complaint to the Bishop?
I take it that the statement from his wife was due to the fact that his mother is unavailable.....
Too busy advising people who have never heard of him...
It does rather remind me of the hotel proprietor who became the model for Basil Fawlty after the Monty Python team had stayed there. After his death, his wife took up cudgels against the programme makers, saying that he wasn't at all like Cleese's portrayal, but then loads of his former clientele rejoined with "Oh yes he was!"
Perhaps she's a lawyer
@jamesp
Nice one, but bang goes another keyboard!
More on Mike Hill. From 2012
http://www.countingcats.com/?p=12517
Sorry, Oswald. I get mine from here, if it helps...
I advised the Science and Technology committee of the HoC. That makes me an adviser and the fact that they didn't take a blind bit of notice matters not at all. I'll put in in my CV, next to Oxfordshire housewife.
I am glad she cleared up those important points......my contempt for her husband is now only 97% of what it was formerly.
He's a parliamentary candidate, so I imagine he's busy.
"Gemini Control and Automation Ltd. has NEVER made filters"
At least we've cleared up who GCAL are, then. Their website is down at the moment (hmm) but they confirm they do not just supply the pharmaceutical industry. By strange coincidence, they're also involved with Oil and Gas...
As a yottie, I have moaned about the wind strength. Sure enough, it has changed.
Can I claim to be an expert advisor, with influence over Gaia? My own sense of self importance would be enhanced, and of course I could charge an increased hourly rate as a result.
It would be a win/win scenario, apart from the sad losers who chose to employ me based on my supply of absolutely Fresh Air.
"This is libel"
Only if it's not true.
"Mike Hill is an nominated expert advisor [...]He does not pretend to be an adviser at all."
Uh?
I think that he has a very good case here. Or rather his wife does.
He may well have advised. And if his advice is referred to in any document in any way then he is clear of the charges. They may not have taken his advice but they will have acknowledged it and thus agreed it was worth considering.
To me this seems more like a well-spun puffed up CV issue rather than a false CV.
Royal Society & Royal Academy of Engineering
Report on Fracking, June 2012
http://www.shalegasoffice.co.uk/downloads/all/d5776aee1401797912.pdf
AUTHOR
Michael Hill is a Chartered Electrical Engineer. He studied Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Loughborough University following sponsorship by Marconi Avionics Ltd. and his successful apprenticeship. Mike worked in oil and gas as a wireline engineer and then as the engineer on seismic survey crews in the 1990s. He's now a director of a small engineering consultancy specialising in process automation of oil and gas rig equipment.
Since, March 2010 Mike has been researching regulations into onshore exploration and development.
He has written several papers on regulating shale gas and has also been published in local and national medial including The Guardian, The Times and Private Eye. Mike has also worked on news articles with the BBC, Bloomberg, RTL (German TV) and the Dutch national broadcaster
He has consulted/advised/given evidence to: The Dept. of Energy and Climate Change (U.K. Gov.), The European Commission (DGENV), Office for Unconventional Gas and Oil, the local councils (FBC,WBC, LCC), The Royal Society, the UK Regulators (HSE, EA), NGOs (FoE, COOP, RAFF, EKAF, REAF, FFF), the British Geological Survey and the industry. He has spoken at numerous conferences, Q&A Panels, public meetings, professional
Martin A, with an impressive CV like that, it can't be the MP's salary that motivates him.
But no comment on the content of the letter, where her husband pledges his belief in taking a sensible technical approach to the issue of fracking and pillorying the fracking protestors.
Yeah and if yers don't behave - 'am gonna send round......... my big brother and his gang..........
ya boo sucks and you're all waycists anyway.
Martin
Published in Private Eye, eh? But perhaps not in the way that he would like you to think.. :-)
"researching regulations into onshore exploration and development"
No doubt there's more money in that than in actual engineering.
Well I'm not an adviser either, but I've got some advice for him and her...
As a consultant I have been paid to write reports advising governments, industry organizations and commercial developers. However, I never name my clients on my CV - only companies/institutions for whom I was an employee are listed. Perhaps I am too modest in this approach and it would not be too difficult for anyone to find out who I had worked for, but it remains one of the things which I consider confidential to my client.
"This is libel"
Only if it's not true.
Apr 2, 2015 at 1:33 PM jamesp
Or if it's untrue but not defamatory. "jamesp is widely acknowledged as an authority on the lives of the Egyptian pharaohs" could be untrue for all I know, but it would hardly be regarded as libellous.
Well on that thinking I am now a advisor to the Anglesey council a recycling expert and top road safety campaigner ! as I just told the bin man to stop leaving litter on the road !
This guy appears to be more Walter Mitty than Walt himself. There's one thing for sure, anyone employing this chameleon in future will be wasting their time, because as far as I'm concerned his credibility will always be under suspicion.
Re-reading her response #3, I think she is in fact saying he is an advisor.
What she contends is libel is the statement that he "pretends" to be an advisor.
So, a rigger put out of work by Mr Hill's activities, could approach him, tell him to 'F@ck Off', and apparently henceforth claim to ' .... be an adviser to Mr M Hill PPC'.
splitpin
Thank you for the thought, but my connection with the Pharoahs is only because of my sceptic tendencies, as according to some, I am in ‘de Nile’.
I’ll get my dreamcoat...
I came across a lot Mike Hills in my time as a regulatory scientist. They are the sort who can't hold down a salaried job, or are so convinced of their superior knowledge in their field that they are worth more a regular salary and become 'consultants' (AKA hired guns).
One time you see them, they're contracted to industry and trying to convince you that compound X is so safe that you can bathe in it; the next time, they're working for the greenies and telling you that compound X is so dangerous that it will kill you and all your relatives if you so much as look at it.
"Best Available Techniques Reference Document for Management of Waste from Extractive Industries"
Sounds like a good cure for insomnia. I wonder what they extract..? :-)
He (and his wife) seem a little confused about the difference between being an "advisor to some group" and "giving evidence to" or being "consulted by" the same group. The former is a significant position of authority (significance being related to the body concerned) whereas the latter is commonplace and can be applied to Fellows of the Royal Society and Activist Campaigners like Greenpeace.
If Mr Hill is claiming to be an advisor to the Commission on the basis of being a participant in a BREF group he is simply deluded. Taking that as a criterion I have been an advisor to the UN, UNEP, UNECE, EU, FDA, EPA, UK Parliament (Lords & Commons), UK Royal Commissions and many of the Member State Governments of the European Union for over 40 years. Strangely this does not appear on my CV...
Presumably Mrs Mike Hill has full confidence that her husband has never maligned any individual, company or trade body, representing an opinion that differed with his self interest.
Couples who live in glass houses, shouldn't.
Found this:
http://votehill.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/PR12-Time-for-an-Independent-.pdf
He says; "I am a UK and EU recognised expert in fracking but the key is that I recognise that I am not an expert in everything."
WTF is a 'recognised expert'? It certainly is not an official term either in the UK or EU.
Meanwhile Ken Cronin (UKOOG) has been busy debunking the Medact paper to which Hill contributed extensively:
http://www.ukoog.org.uk/about-ukoog/press-releases/146-shale-gas-industry-says-medact-report-fails-to-understand-uk-regulatory-system-and-lacks-credibility
From the under construction GCAL website:
So to say they have never sold filters to Oil and Gas may be correct. They certainly seem to have a vested interest.
In my professional life we used to 'breed' SMEs - Subject Matter Experts. The problem, always, was to filter (not from DCAL) out those who had done a job for six months 20 years ago and still thought they were experts in their field. Rather like my neighbour who, 50 years ago was a butcher's boy for all of six months or so. Now, every discussion on meat (for the bbq, say) is led by him and his insistence of how much he knows about meat - and I don't.
"Having numerous meetings with ..." reminds me of the status of the mythical "Energy Storage Technology" which renewable fanatics trot out as the reason why intermittency is not a problem. The status of the myth seems to rely on companies that intend to make this technology having had numerous meetings with potential customers.
If you think windmills look bad, just wait till you see the giant flywheels proposed to store the energy.
I am reminded of the saying "when in a hole stop digging".
Has a member of his worships family replied to Hill's wife?
"Management of Waste from Extractive Industries".
Is this evidence that Hill (and presumably his wife) may be an expert advisor on extracting the urine?
"Thank you for the thought, but my connection with the Pharoahs is only because of my sceptic tendencies, as according to some, I am in ‘de Nile’." --jamesp
Eww. Something sphinx in here. I think it was that pun.
@ Salopian at 6:17 PM
"WTF is a 'recognised expert'?"
When someone self-proclaims they are a 'recognised expert', they patently aren't the former; and, rarely are the latter.
"an email received from Hill's wife, saying that I have maligned her husband" Isn't this just a Hill family matter?
Mike Haseler,
As a recognised (as in "hi, Paul") expert (as in I occasionally watch the gardener) in subsoil extraction technology, I can add the corrollary: and don't give the shovel to your wife to continue digging.
You may appreciate the Irish working definition of a "consultant": someone more than five miles from home carrying a briefcase.
Mrs. Hill either does not know her husband well in the sense of reality, or she knows him very well indeed.