Fossil fuel Mann

Michael Mann has tweeted that he is in fundamental agreement with Roger Pielke Jr on the subject of shale gas, with :

I'm pretty much in agrent w/ @RogerPielkeJr on signif of dramatic recnt drop in U.S. CO2 emissions.

I always thought Mann was against fossil fuels, but perhaps I'm mistaken. The sudden outbreak of climate detente has been prompted by their comments in this interview.

Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, said the shift away from coal is reason for "cautious optimism" about potential ways to deal with climate change. He said it demonstrates that "ultimately people follow their wallets" on global warming.

"There's a very clear lesson here. What it shows is that if you make a cleaner energy source cheaper, you will displace dirtier sources," said Roger Pielke Jr., a climate expert at the University of Colorado.

While Pielke is also quoted as saying that shale is only an interim fix, we should probably welcome this outbreak of realism.

Fracking for heat

An article in E&E Greenwire reports that a start-up company in the USA is about to test the use of fracking techniques to access geothermal energy sources:

The company has finished setting up seismic sensors on U.S. Forest Service land near the base of Newberry Volcano, a national monument site about 20 miles south of Bend, Ore. The volcano hasn't erupted in 1,300 years and shows no signs of activity today, but the Earth's heat finds its way to the surface in other ways.

Part of the area's allure to visitors comes from the hot springs at Paulina Lake and East Lake, where the water is warm but not too warm for bathing. About 2 miles underground, though, the temperatures climb above 600 degrees Fahrenheit -- about as hot as the Geysers, where a set of power plants in Northern California generate 1,300 megawatts of electricity, more than at any other hot spot on Earth.

AltaRock will inject 24 million gallons of water at roughly 46 degrees Fahrenheit into these hot rocks to build a large network of small cracks. If all goes according to plan, the company will be able to circulate water through the rock and suck it out of newly drilled wells, scalding hot and ready for use in an eventual power plant.

The eyes of environmentalists all around the world will be lighting up at a new threat to be protested, a new scare to bring in the donations.

Mission impoverish

Christopher Booker laments the insanity of the UK government's policy on shale gas, with the headline summing things up rather well

You can’t have shale gas – it might halve your bills

It is an extraordinary thing when the main political parties agree that the way ahead is a the impoverishment of the electorate and transfers of wealth from the poor to the rich.

It won't work because we won't let it

Via Leo H, here's a press release from University of Leicester geographer, Mike Bradshaw. It announces a speech he's giving today at the Royal Geographical Society conference in Edinburgh.

“There is a high degree of risk and uncertainty associated with every element of the UK’s energy strategy – whether that’s energy efficiency, renewable energy, or carbon capture and storage. “Coming together these could result into an ever greater reliance of gas, at a time when its price is likely to increase because of growing demand from countries including China and India.” Some commentators present shale gas extraction as the solution to these future gas and energy security issues. Yet, Professor Bradshaw does not agree, commenting that significant levels of exploitation are unlikely for many years, due to substantial logistical and environmental challenges. “Shale gas is unlikely to be a game-changer in the UK” concluded Professor Bradshaw.

If I remember the Deutsche Bank report correctly, the logistical challenges are merely a shortage of horizontal drilling rigs in the UK, something that can, no doubt, be fixed by manufacturing more of them. The bigger question is, of course, over the "environmental challenges" and the efforts by greens to prevent anyone from even trying to exploit shale resources.

Green light for fracking

The joint report of the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering has given the green light to fracking going ahead in the UK.

The Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society said in a report published on Friday that the UK's current regulatory systems were sufficient for shale gas fracking if they were adequately enforced, but also said that closer monitoring of shale gas exploration sites should be put in place, in order to ensure their safety.

Guardian report here.

Frackonomics

Doug Proctor points me to this article about the economics of shale gas. Considering it is on a website called Smartplanet, it's argued in a pretty sane and sensible manner, concluding that $2/mcf is a function of oversupply rather than the true cost of shale gas.

I don't have a problem with this argument actually. Figures in the range of $5-7/mcf are often quoted for the range in which fracking operations become economic, perhaps more outside the US where the shales are more readily exploited than in the UK. This would still be much cheaper than the kinds of prices we pay for gas now and there are energy security considerations in favour of shale too.

Click to read more ...

Royal Society to investigate fracking

I'm rather late to this story, but it seems that the Royal Society is to prepare a report on shale gas:

The Royal Society is carrying out a short review jointly with the Royal Academy of Engineering of the major risks associated with hydraulic fracturing (also known as ’fracking’); including, geological risks, such as seismicity, and environmental risks, such as groundwater contamination.

Click to read more ...

Shale gas slashes US carbon emissions

The FT is reporting a dramatic drop in US carbon dioxide emissions, apparently because of the increasing use of natural gas in its economy.

The shale gas boom in the US has led to a big drop in its carbon emissions, as power generators switch from coal to cheap gas.

According to the International Energy Agency, US energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, fell by 450m tonnes over the past five years – the largest drop among all countries surveyed.

The evidence that shale gas will help ease the worries of those who fret about global warming now seems overwhelming. I think this is where we find out how many of them are serious about global warming and how many of them are just anti-capitalists.

Let's see what the Guardian makes of it shall we?

Cuadrilla were not at No 10 seminar

As we saw yesterday, some details of those of those invited to the Downing Street seminar on prospects for shale gas in the UK have now been revealed. The involvement of only the oil and gas majors, whose investments in conventional gas are threatened by shale developments made the seminar look decidedly dodgy.

No Hot Air blog has now obtained a comment from Cuadrilla Resources, the company that is at the forefront of efforts to develop a shale gas industry in the UK.

No, we were not invited. Nor were we consulted about potential shale gas production in the future. I was surprised to see negative statements from people who have never seen our core data or open hole log data. They may consider getting their facts in line next time since this is such an important issue to the country.

This makes the the seminar look like a sham. I wonder which civil servants were responsible for issuing the invitations?

The world gas market

In Ed Davey's interview on the Sunday Politics yesterday, UK Energy Secretary Ed Davey said that high energy prices in the UK were driven by world gas prices.

However, this is not actually true. As was pointed out to me some time ago, there is not actually a global market for natural gas, it being rather difficult to transport.

The following graph (source) demonstrates the point.

The difference between the low gas prices in the US and the higher prices in Europe seems to be due to the US having exploited its shale reserves while in Europe we haven't.

I think Mr Davey wants to keep it that way.

Number 10 discusses shale gas

This exchange from the House of Commons yesterday on the subject of shale gas is quite interesting.

Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton, Labour): Will not the biggest impact on reducing domestic energy bills be achieved by bringing shale gas online as quickly as possible?

Edward Davey (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Employment Relations, Consumer and Postal Affairs), Business, Innovation and Skills; Kingston and Surbiton, Liberal Democrat): I do not think so. We had a seminar at No. 10 recently, which the Prime Minister participated in, along with myself and the Business Secretary. We heard from experts in the shale gas industry who had been working in America and looking at the major opportunities in places such as Ukraine and China. They were clear that it would take some time for shale gas to be exploited in the UK. They were also clear that we needed strong regulation to proceed and that the shale gas reserves in this country are not quite as large as some people have been speculating.

I'm intrigued by a group of shale gas experts who would be demanding strong regulation and who claim that it will take a long time to do anything and that reserves are not as large as thought. This sounds rather like the Deutsche Bank report on shale. I've glanced at this report in the past and I must say I raised my eyebrows at the suggestion that there would be delays caused by lack of equipment. I mean, can't more equipment be manufactured?

I wonder who Number Ten's experts were?

Non-hydraulic fracking

One of the arguments that is put forward against shale gas fracking is that it uses large quantities of water and that these are toxic. Matt Ridley put these arguments to bed in the excellent report he wrote for GWPF, but there has been a new development that may make the whole dispute redundant anyway.

A planned shale gas drilling project in New York state has drawn global attention for its aim to make use of a waterless form of hydraulic fracking – a new technique designed to reduce the pollution associated with controversial natural gas drilling processes.

According to an industry report, the project is focused on using a technology that pumps a thick gel made from propane into the ground as opposed to using traditional methods of hydraulic fracking that make use of a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals to extract natural gas reserves from deep shale formations. Unlike traditional technologies, the gel from the new liquefied propane gas (LPG) fracking method reverts to vapor while still underground, and as a result returns to the surface in a recoverable form.

A sting in the tail

According to a report from the BBC, the Environment Agency looks set to give its blessing to shale fracking in the UK.

However there is also what looks like a sting in the tail.

[Environment Agency boss] Lord Smith is expected to insist, however, that power firms should be required to capture the carbon emissions from burning gas and store them in underground rocks to prevent them contributing to climate change - something power firms are not currently obliged to do.

Given that millions (billions?) have been spent trying to make CCS work without any success, it does rather look to me as if this could be an attempt to kill off shale gas completely.

FT on shale gas

The FT has a good review article on shale gas today. It's pretty balanced overall, but marred by the presence of Josh Fox, the director of Gasland. I wonder if the article's author, Sylvia Pfeifer, was unaware that his movie has been shown to be a fraud.

The article closes with this quote from Lord Browne, the former head of BP.

It is always a good idea to explore for and develop resources within national borders. It increases security, tax take, jobs and it might even reduce power prices,” says Lord Browne. “Nothing is perfect. This is pretty good.

Only might reduce power prices? Shale has caused power prices to crash in the US. It will be a stunning indictment of the political classes in the UK if they manage to engineer things over here in such a way that shale produces no changes in prices at all. I'm sure that is their intention though.

Channel Four on fracking

Channel Four TV covered the fracking story last night, but rather managed to blot its copybook by including the "flaming faucet" clip from the movie "Gasland".

Since this has long since been shown to be a fraud - there was methane present in the water long before fracking commenced - I queried the station's science editor, Tom Clarke, via Twitter. He didn't object:

Agreed. Included to show heated opposition to fracking in US. Which there is. Should have mentioned it was a campaign film.

To which I responded that they should have mentioned that it was misleading. I actually think this is a sufficiently big mistake that they should issue a correction, but I don't suppose this will be forthcoming.