Bishop Hill Will removing cost make things cheaper?
Sep 10, 2015 BBC Energy: gas Greens ;)
The Today programme decided that it would invite two anti-capitalist greens on to discuss shale gas. I suppose we should at least be grateful that they picked two greens who had some minor disagreement, with Bryony Worthington wanting a domestic shale gas industry to develop and Friends of the Earth boss Craig Bennett adopting a zero-tolerance approach to any future development (audio posted below). Roger Harrabin's website report on the item also has a quote from Matt Ridley.
Worthington's view is that it's a waste to compress gas in Qatar, ship it thousands of miles and then decompress it again in the UK.
The important thing is to minimize the carbon emissions from gas. That means if we can get our own fracked gas, it's better to use that than importing gas that's been compressed at great energy cost somewhere else.
No doubt we should rest assured that removing this "great energy cost" from the equation will have no impact on gas prices in the UK.
Reader Comments (36)
To be fair to the BBC, the interviewer did at least pose the question to the FoE moron that "You have painted yourself into an ideological corner?". That's progress.
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If people like Worthington and Bennett really cared so deeply about the planet and thier idea that CO2 is so bad, they should not use the electricity (mostly generated by fossil fuels) necessary for broadcasting such anti capitalist cr*p
Anybody with those academic qualifications who voiced a contrary opinion would be laughed out of the studio (and, one could argue, quite rightly). Why are we listening to what she has to say?
Re-posted from unthreaded:
You get this circular reasoning a lot from 'environmental specialists' like Harrabin . B is true because of A and A is true because of B.
Lady Worthington is a peer and Labour's environmental spokesman because she is a professional climate and energy analyst.
Lady Worthington is a professional climate and energy analyst because she is a Peer and Labour's environmental spokesman.
Take A or B away and the argument fails because Ms Worthington is really a green activist and a poster child for a political campaign.
Its a measure of how our polity has failed when people like Baroness Worthington become part of the 'political elite' hahaha
Mike Jackson @ 10.17. "climate and energy analysis" is not a profession, with objective and measurable standards, it is a service assessed by its users. You can earn good money telling people what they want to hear or providing analyses which meet the clients requirements. If the requirement is accurate forecast of future states the providers accreditation and performance is of some matter. If it is to provide a supporting narrative or pretend a false authority a different skill set is required.
The significance of this interview is in the final exchange.
After Bryony has stated categorically that :- "We will continue to use fossil fuels", she is asked :-
"Is this your last window of opportunity in which you can say this, because after Sunday there's a very good chance that Labour Policy will be different ?", followed by :-
" And if they hold their position and either Jeremy Corbyn or Andy Burnham is elected, you'll ZIP YOUR MOUTH ?"
So not only will the architect of the Climate Change Act be silenced but we have the Piers and Jeremy Show to look forward to.
Popcorn Time !
So where does that leave the Climate Change Act? Ms Worthington was the architect of this Act and it imposes a legally binding 80% reduction in CO2 by 2050.
If you accept that - then the FoE guy is right - you can't use gas as part of the solution. So what is Ms Worthington's position on the CCA. Does she still support it> Or is she admitting it's a stupid, unachievable and undesirable goal?
She's been nobbled as well as nobled.......:o)
Too late for her personal honour though.
<< No doubt we should rest assured that removing this "great energy cost" from the equation will have no impact on gas prices in the UK.>>
Correct. The cost structure of UK shale gas will be very different to that of Qatari LNG, or pipeline supply from the continent/Norway for that matter. True it will not have to bear hefty compression/liquefaction and transport costs but the costs of getting it out of the ground will be much higher than that of huge conventional fields in Qatar, Russia, etc..
The acid test is whether it will be economic at the prevailing market price.
The secondary argument is that any comparison should take into account the benefits of local production in terms of jobs, tax revenue and security of supply.
Baroness Worthington's position is impossible to maintain if you keep to the 80% reduction in CO2 by 2050.
Baroness Worthington's position is impossible to maintain if you stick to the line expressed by Corbyn and Burnham.
But Baroness Worthington's position has been expressed,. Why?
It doesn't help Baroness Worthington to stick her head over the parapet now. She's effectively offered her resignation from the Labour shadow cabinet and burnt her bridges with her old FOE buddies.
So let's wait and see what's really going on here. This looks to me like a start of a planned U-Turn straight after the election.
If I recall correctly, I think the cost to cryogenicly liquefy natural gas, transport it across oceans then warm back to gas where it is sold is around $5 per million BTU. These transportation costs exceed the cost of natural gas in North America ($2.63/million BTU) but combined with the cost of the gas itself are been less than natural gas cost in Europe until the last month or two.. So yes there is a lot of cost and energy to be save by developing domestic sources because you save the cryogenic step from imports. However, gas transported through pipelines doesn't have these high costs.
Bennett accused Worthington of becoming a Westminster insider and adopting an establishment view. Yes,Mr Friend of the Earth,being confronted by the practicalities of maintaining your high energy middle class life style of choice without using fossil fuels is rather sobering. I disagree that it was not balanced, this greatest feature of left wing politics is that it reasily fractures, much like shale and the opposing sides hate each other more than their collective enemy.
Worthington and Bennet (any relation to our Natalie? - shudder) are the epitome of the parasite - getting a very good living from the public purse for an idealised world view that has no hope of coming to pass. FFS, Bennet went so far as to claim we need a zero carbon society! And while working to that end he's able to milk us for a never-ending pay check.
"We will continue to use fossil fuels".
Yes, Bryony actually says that in the interview.
Supposing that Karl Marx, rather than Deng Xiaoping had said :- "To grow rich is wonderful" we would be asking ourselves "Why ?' "Why now ?".
The Grauniad has yet to comment (unless I've missed something) but this will not help their "Keep it in the Ground" campaign.
Is there anything more pleasurable than watching a Green-on-Green "confrontation" ?
As a professional climate and energy analyst, Worthington knows that numbers and other thingies, coloured in with nice red and green colours, are always correct. The ship in the photo is black, and therefore it is not a very nice ship, with sensitive feelings. The sales rep from Friends of the Earth obviously hadn't seen the photo, and normal joined up BBC stupidity will resume shortly.
Being protected by her Lodge as the females and males realise that the elite dumbkopfs like Cameron were deceived by Scientology Lite, aka Common Purpose.
Since Rupert is in a buying mood for all things green, I wonder what his chances of buying the BBC are? If he offered to cover their pension fund deficit, I'm sure they'd give him a sympathetic reception. Lolly does tend to trump the most noble posturings. I know, I know, a whimsical idea.
Pointman
Alternatively, Worthington may have made a her own review of the economics of climate change. She was up for a big salary as prime Minister Miliband's leader of the DECC, and all the perks that would entitle her to.
The political climate has changed, and spouting text-book green crap no longer pays the sort of money she was hoping to get accustomed to. To re-engage with humanity, she needs to stop digging a whole for herself, and get others to drill for shale instead. She can then portray herself as being blue/green not red/green, and be a champion of the people and business, who was right all along.
We'll need a lot more of those LNG tankers next year if three large coal stations close in March. A proper cold spell next winter, and the wretched Tory (yes, Conservative!) carbon tax could go down as one of the most calamitous policies in recent history.
The problem with the likes of FoE / Bennett is they're completely unrealistic about solutions to (so-called) problems. He can wish for 'renewables' all day long but that doesn't mean they're either deliverable or practical. He also refused to acknowledge the role fracking has played in reducing CO2 emissions, particularly in the US.
He's a fantasist and isn't interested in negotiating. Ignore.
Jordan
And especially if anything goes pop before the end of March.
With another cold winter in the pipeline and Eggborough and Longannet going full blast and nobody really caring all that much about maintenance beyond essentials, it just needs one little error to take Longannet off-line in the middle of a blocking high in the last week of December ...
According to this recent article the next energy revolution is ... LNG
http://www.nationalinterest.org/feature/revealed-the-next-energy-revolution-13775
"...and then decompress it again..."
This just means they run the liquified petroleum gas through ambient or water bath vaporizers prior to shoving it through the supply pipeline, I presume.
Piper Paul -- my point about importing LNG was that the cost of liquifying and transportation alone is double the cost of domestically produced natural gas.
The energy cost of liquefaction is about 15%, with a further 4-6% for fuel consumption and heel loss for the LNG tanker for typical voyages to the UK. In addition, the plant, loading facilities (British Gas is paying $2.25/MMBtu for this at Sabine Point) and tanker have to be paid for, along with the manpower and maintenance costs, and the regasification terminal and connecting pipelines.
mikeh:
While its true that Qatar's South Pars gas field (shared with Iran) is a relatively low cost source, most of it lies offshore, and so requires offshore platforms, albeit in less stormy waters than the North Sea: Southern North Sea fields (i.e.in fairly shallow water are probably a good comparator for cost. Pipeline costs soon escalate into quite serious money as distance increases, and depending on the nature of the terrain/seabed through which they pass. That is why LNG is more competitive over longer distances. UK shale gas has the benefit of being right next door to existing gas processing plants and markets: no need for hundreds of miles of pipeline to coastal LNG facitilites or markets. The actual wellhead costs of shale gas in the UK remain to be evaluated, and while there clearly will be some associated with stricter regulation than in the USA (e.g.all fluids to be held in double skinned tanks, not open ponds, proper treatment disposal of waste water - no deep injection disposal permitted etc.), there is every prospect that they will be on a par with (or possibly even lower than) most of US production, because the Bowland shale is a thick stratum, allowing the same well to be re-used to access different levels within it. The UK industry has long experience in the North Sea and Wytch Farm with operating from confined locations and using horizontal drilling.
"The current FoE position is that more fossil fuel exploitation will further destabilise the climate."
Don't you just love the group-speak move the argument on as if truth has been well established & all we're doing now is addressing the issues? They haven't, won't, & can't, put in plain sight any fact-based scientific evidence that such a situation has occurred!
PIperPaul:
Regasification at South Hook requires the water to be "tepid" - i.e.it is heated by burning some of the gas. It then has to be pressurised for export - perhaps extra pressure when they are using the pipeline as buffer stock. Grain uses waste heat from a CCGT plant.
There's now a transcript of the Worthington/Bennett conversation, here:
https://sites.google.com/site/mytranscriptbox/2015/20150910_r4
Another conversation worth listening to is this Greenpeace Energydesk interview with Jeremy Corbyn:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LcVU52b-KM
It doesn't add up; I think we're on the same page. From my limited understanding UK shale has a good chance of coming in cheaper than imports, LNG or pipeline, if it ever gets a fair crack of the whip. I was just pointing out that the cost structures are not comparable and, as always, cost and price of anything are unrelated in open markets.
It's all so drearily provincial with UK branch offices of FoE / WWF / Greenpiece et al all drivelling away (on BBC / in Guardian / Indy) about the horrors of a few percentage points and some seriously wonky sums and even wonkier chemistry / geology / economics - that they can't even evidence properly - it's just toecurlingly poor stuff.
I take no crumb of comfort that Bryony "has seen the light" - the woman's a fool and applauding her for spotting something obvious is futile.... and very unlikely to change her behavior.
What I want to know is - if saving the planet is where they're at .... - why aren't they chaining themselves to the railings outside the Nigerian Embassy - after all....
Nigeria simply flares more gas in around one month than the UK uses in one year for all purposes.
Is that too Waycist perchance?
If they are really worried about greenhouse gases (GHGs), should they also not be campaigning as hard against cattle and livestock farming - it seems to contribute as much as the transport sector .
"•The livestock sector plays an important role in climate change. It is estimated to emit 7.1 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-eq) per annum, representing 14.5 percent of all human-induced emissions."
http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/resources/en/publications/tackling_climate_change/index.htm
Sep 11, 2015 at 6:34 AM | Unregistered Commenterukindian
They do - FCRN is but one: www.fcrn.org.uk/
Slightly off-topic, but I like to warble on a topic I have some interest in – the ship in the photo is the Galea, which is actually a LPG carrier (of Singapore register), not the LNG of the discussion. While the tanks being carried by the Galea are similar to those on LNG carriers, and would be able to cope with a small amount of containment pressure above ambient, the gases are not usually compressed but chilled to liquid (hence the name, “LPG”), and carried at temperatures not lower than about -40°C (unless she is also capable of carrying ethane, at about -60°C; not likely, but I don’t know how that could be verified), while LNG is carried at around -160°C. Big difference. LPG carriers are equipped to reliquify their cargo; however, many, if not most, LNG carriers let the cargo in their heavily-insulated tanks keep cool by removing the boil-off and using it in their engines.
Anyhoo…
The gist of it is that the cost of chartering one of these ships is probably around 100,000 USD per day, possibly considerably more; given that the passage from Qatar to the UK for one of these ships would be at least 20 days, during which they would have to pay the security costs for transiting the pirate-infested waters of the Indian Ocean and the costs of transiting the Suez Canal (aka “Marlborough Canal”, in view of the amount of cartons needed during transit), and the facilities where they load and discharge would have similar scales of costs in establishment and management, it should surely be quite obvious that the drilling and extraction of this gas from local sources has to be more cost-effective than transporting it in from afar.
"...it should surely be quite obvious that the drilling and extraction of this gas from local sources has to be more cost-effective than transporting it in from afar."
If only it were that simple. Yet an imported Spanish cabbage is cheaper than a British home grown one.
Hmmmm.... okay, you got me there, Ivor.