All that is Goldenberg does not glitter

Suzanne Goldenberg enjoys (if that's the right word) a certain reputation among BH readers and her latest offering will do nothing but enhance (if that's the right word) her position in our estimation.

America's carbon dioxide emissions last year fell to their lowest levels since 1994, according to a new report.

Carbon dioxide emissions fell by 13% in the past five years, because of new energy-saving technologies and a doubling in the take-up of renewable energy, the report compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) for the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) said.

The reduction in climate pollution – even as Congress failed to act on climate change – brings America more than halfway towards Barack Obama's target of cutting emissions by 17% from 2005 levels over the next decade, the Bloomberg analysts said.

The Bloomberg report is here.  It actually says little about emissions, but as far as I can see it says nothing like what Ms Goldenberg suggests it does on the subject of renewables. try this for example:

The reductions in coal generation, ascendancy of gas, influx of renewables, expansion of CHP and other distributed power forms, adoption of demand-side efficiency technologies, rise of dispatchable demand response, and deployment of advanced vehicles are all contributing to the decline in carbon emissions from the energy sector (including transport), which peaked in 2007 at 6.02Gt and have dropped by an estimated 13% since.

And as the report also makes clear, the big change in the energy mix has been the rise of gas:

Total US installed capacity of natural gas (442GW) plus renewables (187GW) is now at 629GW (58% of the total power generating mix) – up from 605GW (56%) in 2011 and 548GW (54%) in 2007. Between 2008 and 2012, the US nearly doubled its renewables capacity from 44GW to 86GW (excluding hydropower, which itself is the single largest source of renewable power, at 101GW as of 2012).

Mistress of understatement

Prof Catherine Mitchell, who is professor of energy policy at Exeter, has written a critique of Dieter Helm's book (which I must get hold of soon).

I enjoyed the wonderful understatement on shale gas:

Helm’s final piece of the jigsaw, which he sees as the outcome of his solutions, is for gas to displace coal and to be the short to medium term transitional fuel until these ‘future’, including renewable energy, technologies kick in. This requires abundant global gas and although we know the recent shale gas finds have increased the global gas resource we still do not know what either its environmental or economic costs will be, particularly if large swathes of the globe move to gas. This policy therefore risks security and (increasing) price problems; including greater numbers of fuel poverty.

Click to read more ...

Climate tummy tickling

The Labour party has called for all new gas-fired power stations to be fitted with carbon capture and storage (CCS) after 2020. As the Independent reports, this will double the price of the electricity they produce.

Labour has put itself on a fresh collision course with the Government over its dash-for-gas policy, proposing that after 2020 all new gas-fired power plants be forced to install technology to reduce their carbon emissions that will double the cost of the electricity they produce.

Oh yes, and carbon capture and storage has not actually been made to work in the UK yet - they think maybe they'd like to get a demonstrator up and running in a few years' time.

I think it's fair to say this announcement represents a case of tickling the tummies of some swing voters rather than a serious policy proposal.

Less daft

The Scottish Conservatives have announced their new energy policy, which seems, on the face of it, to be not quite as foolish as what has gone before.

Wind farms should be substantially cut and fossil fuels such as shale gas should be exploited, according to a review of Scottish Conservative energy policy.

The shake-up calls for councils to be given the power to halt all wind farm applications for a year and suggests homeowners should be compensated for loss value because of turbines.

They are also advocating construction of new nuclear power stations. However, belying their reputation as a party of small government and free markets they still intend to pump money into renewables.

Could do better.

Obama BAU

Having got the hopes of the faithful up with an AGW-bashing speech at his inauguration, President Obama seems to be resiling from the climate crusader position he persuaded everyone he was going to adopt. Here are his spokesman's remarks at the first White House press conference of the second term:

Q    And then just quickly on climate change.  The President was pretty extensive in his remarks on climate change in his inaugural address yesterday.  What was he trying to signal about where climate change would fall on his priority list in a second term, and is there any upcoming action that you can point to that he's going to take on that topic?

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BP talking down shale

BP is still desperately talking down the prospects for shale gas in the EU.

Europe has various problems: environmental concerns, outright bans on fracking, a lack of infrastructure and a long tradition of not minding so much having to import things.

If true, this is probably just as well for BP, who are pinning their hopes on bringing in gas to the UK from Russia. Frankly though, I find it hard to believe that any of these alleged problems need to be game changers. If shale gas starts to flow and the resource is as big as it looks it might be, the economics will start to look like an imperative.

Update on Jan 17, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Related news at Conservative Home:

“The relative price of coal and gas is crucial to the health of European utilities. At the beginning of November 2012, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a research firm, power utilities in Germany were set, on average, to lose €11.70 when they burned gas to make a megawatt of electricity, but to earn €14.22 per MW when they burned coal.”

Hmm. I wonder which route they will take?

Shale Mili

David Miliband*, the Labour party's king in exile, has been given space in the Mail on Sunday (of all places) to take a look at the year ahead. He had some somewhat surprising things to say:

And if [the government] need inspiration they should look to the good news story of 2013: the recovery of our old ally, the U.S. It is a very lucky country.

Just when you think the price of oil is too high to sustain their standard of living, shale gas promises an energy boom. We’re not just talking cheaper prices; suddenly the U.S. is set to become the world’s largest energy exporter.

Strangely, he doesn't even mention the possibility of a similar shale boom in the UK, but reading between the lines this is surely what he means. I sense a big change in the offing.

This doesn't mean that the insanity of wind farms will stop of course. The big three political parties are wedded to the idea of expensive sops to green sentiment and will willingly squander billions to that end.

[sp. amended 8am, 31.12.12]

Yeo's speech

Tim Yeo has given a speech in London on energy policy (Telegraph coverage here). Here is the text.

Two hundred and fifty years ago, Britain sparked the first industrial revolution.

By harnessing the force of fossil fuels like coal;

Enterprising British engineers were able to deliver astounding innovations in industry and travel;

Creating huge wealth and prosperity as they forged the modern world.

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Guitar groups are on the way out

This were the legendary words with which Decca Records rejected the Beatles after an audition in 1962. I couldn't help thinking of this when I read Nick Grealy's post this morning on the subject of the size of the UK shale gas resource. Reporting on a presentation made by DECC at a conference earlier this year, Grealy reveals that the Bowland shale may actually be dwarfed by some of its neighbours.

In the Bowland Basin, the total Bowland-Hodder unit is interpreted to reach a thickness of up to 1900 m (6300 ft), but the interval may be much thicker within the narrow, fault-bounded Gainsborough, Edale and Widmerpool basins (Figs. 4 & 5; up to 3000 m / 10000 ft, 3500 m / 11500 ft, and 2900 m / 9500 ft respectively). 

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Really desperate times

With ministers expected to annouce a go-ahead for Cuadrilla today, the green movement is in overdrive, wailing and gnashing their teeth. Fiona Harvey gets her retaliation in first:

Household energy bills will be about £600 higher per year by the end of the decade if the UK relies increasingly on gas, the government's climate advisers warned on Thursday.

But the Committee on Climate Change found that bills would only be £100 higher than today's average dual fuel bill of about £1,300, if the country concentrated on renewable power generation, such as wind power.

The CCC estimates use the DECC assumption that wholesale gas prices will rise by 27% and that gas will continue to be loaded with extra costs. Given that Poyry are now saying that exploiting the Bowland Shale alone will reduce gas prices by 2-4% (a figure that is likely to be on the low side), I would say Ms Harvey is a bit behind the times.

Funny that.

Update on Dec 13, 2012 by Bishop Hill

Ed Davey's statement is here. It is important to note that the government has authorised exploration, not production.

Desperate times

Updated on Dec 12, 2012 by Bishop Hill

Updated on Dec 13, 2012 by Bishop Hill

Are Greenpeace getting a bit desperate over shale gas? In an article at their Energy Desk site, ex-BBC man Damian Khaya looks at differences between shale gas in the UK and the US.

1) They have more gas than we do.

The US has a bounty of shale gas. In 2011 US Energy Information Agency (EIA) estimated that they have a total recoverable reserve of 862trn cubic feet. By contrast the estimate for the UK was 20trn cubic feet.

That works out as 2.7trn cubic feet of shale per million Americans, versus about 0.3 per million Brits. Some suggest the UK shale reserve is around double the EIA estimate, but the point remains.

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ECC on shale

The Energy and Climate Change Committee were back on the subject of shale gas yesterday, hearing from two panels of witnesses - one for and one against (video here). This is an improvement for the ECC who have tended to want to hear only the green side of the debate, with only token voices against (see the windfarm inquiry for example).

The stars of the show were Francis Egan, CEO of Cuadrilla, and Professor Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre. Egan was measured and sensible and even managed to put over his frustration with bureaucratic delays at DECC without looking exasperated. This was the kind of man you'd want running things. I don't think I'd twigged that the figure of 200TCf shale gas resources is for Lancashire, not the UK. The UK will be much bigger.

Anderson meanwhile was the archetypal academic - somewhat eccentric, full of interesting bits and pieces, but with the unfortunate feature of having swallowed the global warming story whole. If you accepted this rather dogmatic position, then he had some sensible things to say, for example noting that it was probably better to extract gas in the UK than have the Russians extract it for us.

There was a measure of agreement on one issue: that there's a great deal we don't know. Just how much gas will flow from the Beast of Blackpool is anyone's guess, although Egan said that the geology looks good. There really is only one way to find out and that's to drill.

So let's get fracking and find out what we've got.

More shale nonsense

The Telegraph gets the whole reserves versus resources thing wrong. Again.

The British Geological Survey estimate there are 5.2 trillion cubic feet (150 billion cubic metres) of shale gas under the UK, 50 per cent more than conventional gas reserves and enough to power Britain for decades.

However it is not clear how much of that gas will actually be accessible.

The 150bcm figure is reserves. The bit we know is accessible at current prices. The resource figure is much bigger.

This mistake is repeated so often one starts to wonder if it is, well, a mistake.

Gas prices are on the up

The big six gas suppliers in the UK have all now raised their prices, with Eon the latest to break the bad news:

Four million households who get their gas or electricity from E.ON will face higher bills in the new year after the energy giant became the last of the big six to put its prices up.

The firm has announced it will put gas prices up by an average of 9.4% on 18 January, while electricity prices will rise by an average of 7.7%...

Chief executive, Tony Cocker, blamed the increase on rising wholesale energy and network costs, the cost of increasing the use of renewable energy, and the cost of implementing the government's social schemes which provide free or subsidised insulation.

Here's a graph (source) of wholesale costs against retail costs (click for larger). Retail is in red, wholesale in blue.:

It is hard to avoid the fact that wholesale prices are well below their 2008 peak, while retail prices continue to rise. I don't think wholesale prices are the problem.

The beast of Blackpool

Updated on Dec 9, 2012 by Bishop Hill

The big news of the weekend is the announcement that the Bowland Shale is even bigger than we thought.

The shale gas deposit around Blackpool is 50 per cent bigger than previously estimated, The Times has learnt. The news will put more pressure on ministers who are due to lift the ban on extraction as early as next week, to support what could prove to be a gas bonanza for Britain.

Click to read more ...