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Bishop Hill Jun 4, 2008 Energy Climate Resistance crunches the numbers on the Guardian's claim that microgeneration is the future for our energy needs, and discovers, shock horror, that the Graun is once again talking tosh.
This is well worth a read, and lest anyone says that bloggers never produce anything original, includes some proper investigative journalism.
Link.
Bishop Hill May 8, 2008 Energy Economist Indur Goklany, writing at the Cato Institute site, takes a long hard look at second generation biofuels - so-called cellulosic ethanol, which is going to replace fossil fuels without any of the unpleasant side effects (like mass starvation) associated with corn-based ethanol.
Farmers will do what they’ve always done: they’ll produce the necessary biomass that would be converted to ethanol more efficiently. In fact, they’ll start cultivating the cellulose as a crop (or crops). They have had 10,000 years of practice perfecting their techniques. They’ll use their usual bag of tricks to enhance the yields of the biomass in question: they’ll divert land and water to grow these brand new crops. They’ll fertilize with nitrogen and use pesticides. The Monsantos of the world — or their competitors, the start-ups — will develop new and genetically modified but improved seeds that will increase the farmer’s productivity and profits. And if cellulosic ethanol proves to be as profitable as its backers hope, farmers will divert even more land and water to producing the cellulose instead of food. All this means we’ll be more or less back to where we were. Food will once again be competing with fuel. And land and water will be diverted from the rest of nature to meet the human demand for fuel.
A bet you a large pint of the foaming stuff that this argument will be entirely ignored until the point that people start dying again.
Bishop Hill May 5, 2008 Energy Greenies are being offered the opportunity to put their money where their not inconsiderable mouths are:
Ethical bank Triodos is offering people the chance to become shareholders in Triodos Renewables, a public limited company which came into being 13 years ago as the Wind Fund. This is its fourth share issue - the last was in 2005.
Triodos Renewables invests mainly in small and medium-sized wind farms, hydroelectric schemes and emerging renewable energy technology companies in the UK. It owns and operates two wind farms, Caton Moor in Lancashire and Haverigg II in Cumbria, and two single turbines, Gulliver in Lowestoft, Suffolk, (recently out of action for a few months following lightning strikes) and Sigurd in the Orkney Islands. It also owns the Beochlich hydroelectric project in Argyll, Scotland, and it has a stake in Marine Current Turbines, a tidal energy company whose first commercial turbine will begin operating off the coast of Northern Ireland later this year, and is a partner in Connective Energy, which is developing ways to capture and re-use waste heat from industry.
I'm all for people investing in things in which they believe. The problem is that this is not really an investment in green energy so much as an investment in the chance to win a share of some government subsidies.
(Via The Graun)
Bishop Hill May 5, 2008 Energy There's a rather important article over at EU Referendum this morning. Richard North highlights a recent FAO report, which shows that changing diet in China and India has not affected their share of the global grain harvest. This puts the kaibosh on the argument that demand for meat production has sucked in huge quantities of grain. The change has in fact largely come from the USA, where production has been shifted massively over to biofuels.
Bishop Hill Alastair Darling wants a review of international biofuels programmes, and has called on the World Bank to write a report. Cor.
Perhaps he would do better to plead with Senor Barroso, the man responsible for enforcing biofuels use in the UK?
Bishop Hill Apr 12, 2008 Energy A mob of 10,000 Bangladeshi workers demanding better access to food clashed with police Saturday.
Maybe burning food isn't such a good idea after all.
Bishop Hill Apr 10, 2008 Energy Yes folks, the day when you can start to do your bit to cause starvation in the third world is close at hand! From April 15th all fuels used for transport has to contain 2.5 per cent of biofuels. Break out the bunting!
The UK's Renewable Energy Association, which is behind Biofuels Day, has certainly got something to celebrate anyway, and it has hauled its collective snout out of the subsidy trough for long enough to set up a swanky new website where, among other things, you can listen to views on biofuels from "experts":
[B]uying British biofuels produced from crops grown in accordance with strict farm assurance standards is the best guarantee of ensuring sustainability credentials.
So says Peter Kendall, President, National Farmers’ Union. By an odd co-incidence Mr Kendall has in recent years converted his farm over "from a very traditional mixed farm to a totally arable unit" thus leaving him extremely well placed to take advantage of the relentless upward progress of grain prices while still collecting all those lovely subsidies. Some people have the luck of the devil don't they?
The REA have had a lovely time parsing the Royal Society's report on biofuels too - you may remember this one from a couple of months back - the headline in the Times was "Biofuels do more harm than good". Unabashed, Biofuels dDay has hauled out lots of juicy quotes which appear to support their case but which, if you read them carefully, are just waffle.
There's a wonderful quote from Oxfam (you know, famine relief and all that). They're in favour of biofuelled hunger too, it seems!
Under the right conditions, biofuels offer important opportunities for poverty reduction by stimulating stagnant agricultural sectors, thus creating jobs for agricultural workers and markets for small farmers.
You might have thought that a charity devoted to famine relief might be a bit more circumspect in their support. And you'd be right too - using what may be the largest font size ever used in a press release, the Oxfam report from which this quote is taken has the subtitle:
Why the EU renewable-fuel target may be disastrous for poor people.
Which is not what you'd call unequivocal support, is it? I don't think the Biofuels people can claim that they missed this bit.
Of course, the EU is in on the act too. EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs has this to say:
European consumers should be assured that the biofuels used in Europe, and receiving support, are sustainable biofuels, in other words, that the biofuels they buy do not increase greenhouse gas emissions, do not lead to the destruction of rainforests or other biodiversity-rich areas, do not exacerbate food shortages and are not unreasonably expensive.
Which is a bit odd, because just today the EU's own scientific advisers said this:
The EEA has estimated the amount of available arable land for bioenergy production without harming the environment in the EU. In the view of the EEA Scientific Committee the land required to meet the 10 % [biofuels] target exceeds this available land area even if a considerable contribution of second generation fuels is assumed.
and this
The 10 % target will require large amounts of additional imports of biofuels. The accelerated destruction of rain forests due to increasing biofuel production can already be witnessed in some developing countries. Sustainable production outside Europe is difficult to achieve and to monitor.
The timing of Biofuels Day seems to have been dictated by the timing of the biofuels obligation coming into force. It really couldn't have come at a worse time for the REA though, with food riots breaking out all over the place and the world and his wife denouncing biofuels as a monumental folly. But who knows, by the time the history of the biofuels scam comes to be written, maybe they'll have come up with some better explanations for why they thought it was a good idea.
Bishop Hill The prime minister has urged the G8 to take action on food prices and to stem the upward pressure from biofuels. In a letter to the Japanese PM he says:
"There is a growing consensus that we need urgently to examine the impact on food prices of different kinds and production methods of biofuels, and ensure that their use is responsible and sustainable."
In the face of further criticism from aid officials and with the World Bank now adding its voice to the chorus of warnings, it's become clear that food price inflation is being driven mainly by biofuels production. The problem for Mr Brown is that he is can't actually address the root causes of the problem directly. Biofuels usage in the UK is mandated by the EU and Brussels is digging its heels in and refusing to change its policy. This being the case, Brown is powerless to act and is forced to hide behind the fig leaf of an international aid package. The futility of this kind of gesture becomes clear with even a moment's consideration of the number of people who are affected by price rises. There is no way that an package with any prospect of being realised could make any difference to the millions affected.
Once again, the EU has shown that it puts "the project" ahead of any other considerations, including humanitarian ones. Why we should remain a member of a body which treats poor people with such contempt is something that Europhiles will have to explain.
Bishop Hill Apr 8, 2008 Energy
America is sitting on top of a super massive 200 billion barrel Oil Field that could potentially make America Energy Independent and until now has largely gone unnoticed. Thanks to new technology the Bakken Formation in North Dakota could boost America’s Oil reserves by an incredible 10 times, giving western economies the trump card against OPEC’s short squeeze on oil supply and making Iranian and Venezuelan threats of disrupted supply irrelevant.
To put this in perspective, Saudi reserves are put here at 260 bn barrels.
Full article here.
(H/T NC Media Watch.)
Bishop Hill Mar 11, 2008 Climate: WG3 Energy Greens Thought for the day:
Greens are calling for a moratorium on new coal fired power stations. Would they have still been making these demands if we still had a mining industry?
Bishop Hill Feb 2, 2008 Energy I've been dimly aware of an argument that oil is not in fact made by a biological process for a couple of years now, but I've never really given it much thought - it all seemed a bit hare-brained to me.
But now, via the Englishman, comes an article in Science which seems to support the theory.
Our findings illustrate that the abiotic synthesis of hydrocarbons in nature may occur in the presence of ultramafic rocks, water, and moderate amounts of heat.
If this is right, then oil is not a fossil fuel at all, and another prop has been kicked out from under the global warmers' feet. Interesting times.
Bishop Hill Nov 3, 2007 Climate: WG3 Climate: other Energy Alex Singleton of the Globalisation Institute is a sensible chap and resides very much on the side of the angels. Unfortunately in his article at the Graun today he gets it spectacularly wrong.
His thesis for the day is that green taxes won't work, and so we should introduce compulsory carbon offsetting.
We should scrap green taxes on flying and replace them with compulsory carbon offsetting. Like a tax, offsetting would add to the price of a journey. The difference would be that the money would go to actually improve the environment.
And he's quite definite about the kind of offsetting schemes he want to see.
It is certainly true that some carbon offsetting schemes are dubious. One involves discouraging the use of labour-saving diesel water pumps in developing countries and getting people to use back-breaking pedal-pumps, which were banned in British prisons a century ago. We should not allow some ill-conceived options to put us off more worthwhile schemes, such as planting trees.
Which is where he has got it wrong.
Anthropogenic global warming is alleged to be happening because carbon, which was formerly locked away in the form of oil, coal and gas, has been released into the atmosphere. Growing trees is going to have little or no effect on the situation, because trees have a finite life cycle and when they die they just release carbon back into the atmosphere.
As Britain's great chronicler of trees and woodland, Oliver Rackham, has said of carbon offsetting:
Telling people to plant more trees is like telling them to drink more water to keep down rising sea levels.
Bishop Hill Mar 13, 2007 Climate: WG3 Energy There is a marvellous debunking of the EU's proposed ban on incandescent light bulbs over at EU Referendum.
The similarity between this and the recycling scam is remarkable. A vast and expensive gesture turns out to be a waste. A pattern looks to be establishing itself: environmentalism is bad for the environment.
