CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL WARMING

[chinatyke]

Whatever the technical arguments ... fossil fuels need to stay in the ground.

What use is it in the ground, David? In 200 years time I think we'll have renewable energy sources and a far different chemical industry, but for now oil is a useful resource. We've had the Stone Age, Iron Age, Bronze age, Steam Age, perhaps now is the Oil Age. Don't be a Luddite.

[Stanley]

China, if it wasn't for the 'Luddites' there would be no opposition to uncontrolled fracking and extension of the use of fossil fuels with all its attendant evils. I am in favour of anyone who raises rational doubts about extension of fossil fuel use. Our risible 'energy policies' have led us to a point where the quick fix of burning more gas looks attractive. This makes fracking attractive to politicians and this is why the dice are loaded against renewables. Fusion is coming but still too far in the future. I agree that there is a good reason to use it as a bridge but it must be very carefully controlled and I don't trust the politicians to do this.For this reason the Luddites as you call them are doing us a valuable service, putting the brake on 'easy' answers.

[Tizer]

It's good to hear the different viewpoints and constructive suggestions on fracking. My view is much the same as Bruff's and I like his comment that: "Ideally, I would like Government and industry working together on this with expectation being that a significant chunk of the billions fracking is expected to raise going towards supporting the development of renewables." It's worth remembering that Norway didn't squander its money from North Sea oil but built up a big sovereign wealth fund (now about $850 billion) and is using some of that to support work on renewable energy. I'm not suggesting there would be anything like that amount of money from fracking in the UK but the principle is there - use profits from the present energy to support work on future energy.

I'm not against the use of fracking to extract shale gas in the UK and I don't believe it is dangerous. The earth tremors such as those reported for the Fylde project were tiny and no different from those experienced frequently in the UK from natural sources. The fracturing is a mile or so underground and nobody's house is going to suddenly drop into a hole. Done properly there will be no contamination of water supplies. The scare stories come from the USA were fracking has been going on for a long time and, typically for the US, was done with little regulation and all the attention focused on profts for the cheapest outlay. In other words it was a cowboy business but that's not going to happen here.

I don't like having to rely on another fossil fuel source but I can't see any alternative. Nuclear is behind schedule and the Hinckley C project might fall through soon. Wind, solar, tidal etc are all useful but don't do the whole job and they're not getting enough funding. At least gas is cleaner than coal and oil and having our own UK source of gas is a benefit in these troubled times. Otherwise we'll end up with Putin switching off our lights. We're in the usual situation of having left it all too late and now need to `make do' with whatever is available and least polluting.

[plaques]

I go along with David on his anti-fracking stand. As Michael Edwardes famously said “leave the bloody stuff in the ground”. The world is fast approaching the 2 degree Celsius increase limit and here we are debating whether burning more hydro-carbons is acceptable as a short term measure. Remember it would take over 200 years for the atmosphere to get rid of the carbon we put in it today. The argument that fracking could act as a ‘bridge’ until we get renewables in place is a chimera that will only lead to further global warming. Everything we need to know about renewables is already proven. Waiting for fusion energy as a viable replacement is a total non-starter. The sun, wind and tide have been with us for billions of years and to argue that they are unreliable in nonsense. Given the correct mix of all the available renewables the only excuse for burning methane gas would be as a backup for those odd occasions when the others didn’t line up.

Having decided we may need this ‘bridge’ after all, who should be in charge of it? Certainly not the ‘cowboys’ that Tizer mentions but do these cowboys include firms like BP with their Deep Water Horizon fiasco? Then consider the financing. If left in private hands we shall probably find that the computer programmes that control the drilling and the extraction pumps belong to a subsidiary of a subsidiary located in the Virgin Islands. In addition it will be loaded with exorbitant intellectual fees that put the price above the current market value so much so that we will have to subsidize the extraction to make it viable. If we then decide to cancel the contract we will get hit with a law suit under the latest TTIP for loss of profit. One logical solution would be to Nationalize this developing industry and ensure we are in complete control right from the beginning. Needless to say Mr Cameron and his cronies will see this akin to creeping communism and hit it on the head immediately.
On Nuclear energy I like the comment. When a windmill falls over then ‘thump or splash’, when a nuclear power station goes up its ‘good night to everybody’.

[Stanley]

I love the fact that on this site we can have a rational debate, different views and no conflict. However in this case I think we are falling into a different trap. I have said for a long time that one of the enemies to clarity is the fact that we tend to conflate climate change and global warming, they are two different subjects, climate change is a constant throughout geological history, global warming caused by pollution is a different matter as it is not a natural process but man made. Then we introduce the entirely separate debate on energy sources. All these are complicated matters in their own right and when we mix them all together we finish up with an infinite number of loopholes and diversions.
My understanding is that climate change is a natural process. Global warming is the effect on the environment of increased energy use caused by population rise and industrialisation. The energy debate is always about how we should produce energy and if you take out the side issues of cost and the environmentalists is quite simple, we should go for the least polluting method of generation.
The subject that always seems to be omitted is reducing the amount of energy needed.
As for commercialisation of the energy market, go back to Nye Bevan, keep state control of the commanding heights of the economy.

[Tizer]

Plaques, I'm as concerned as you are about burning more carbon and like you I often emphasise how much excess CO2 there already is in the atmosphere and how long it would take to get rid of it even if we stopped buring carbon now. But we're still a long way from `the correct mix of all the available renewables' and we don't seem to be on that trajectory yet. As you note, fusion is far off too. So in the meantime we've got to make the best of what we have and keep pressing for more renewables. I agree that it would be better if our energy supply were in public rather than private control but it doesn't look likely to happen with the present state of UK politics.

As I've said before, one of the quickest and cheapest ways to reduce CO2 generation is by reduction in energy use, but that's another one that's not likely to happen and I've grown tired of suggesting it. There are too many vested interests, too much greed, and we've become too used to cheap fuel. Even if we could do it in the UK we won't be able to convince the rest of the world. I guess the only way it would happen would be if an immediate global catastophe happened and I don't want that!

So, it's either bridging the gap with shale gas or going full-on for more renewables...but the government has cut back funding for renewables which had the knock-on effect of making the large private companies like BP and Shell abandon their projects and smaller companies go out of business.

[chinatyke]

I'm not advocating that you should extract oil and burn it, it is far too valuable a resource to waste. As I was having breakfast this morning I looked around and wondered who would want to give up our reliance on oil. Just about everything I saw - plastic bottles, dyestuffs and colours, food additives, fridge lining - contained products of the chemical industry derived from oil. Even Stanley's new bathroom carpet contains oil. I'd rather have this technology than be relying on spermaceti oil from hunting whales, or seal oil from rendering seals by the millions in the Falklands and South Georgia Islands like we used to do.

As you say, energy must be produced from other sources than oil. It's ridiculous that in the 21st Century we are still burning fossil fuels. 2% of the sunlight falling onto the Earth would provide our energy needs and Tesla demonstrated 100 years ago how it could be distributed around the World. Have we learned nothing since then?

[Stanley]

Forty years ago I wrote an essay on Energy which had as its main thesis the probability that in a hundred years commentators would think we were crazy to burn coal and oil when they were such good chemical feedstock. My timescale was based on the fact that then we thought oil was running out.

[plaques]

Tesla demonstrated 100 years ago how it could be distributed around the World

A true genius. It is said that the Wardenclyffe Tower was his attempt to transmit electrical power round the world. ie; by pulling it out of the upper atmosphere and passing to the third world countries for free. When G P Morgan (coal and oil banker) found out what he was really up to he withdrew his funding. On his death all Tesla's notes where impounded by the USA government. They still have not been released. Wardencliffe Tower.

[Tizer]

China, The oil you're talking about as a chemical feedstock is petrochemical and it's being replaced by oleochemical oils made from plants and algae. The next step, already in development, is oil made from carbon dioxide which reduces our reliance on fossil fuels and at the same time can counter CO2 emissions. In fact it would be better to say `chemicals' made from plants and CO2 rather than `oils' because there won't always be an oil intermediate. The use of CO2 as a feedstock is one step on our journey towards mimicking plants by fixing CO2 using solar energy. Also we are gradually getting better at recycling plastics. For example, uPVC window frames can now be recycled to make new frames.

[Tizer]

A research paper published in the journal `Science' from the CarbFix team demonstrates that it is possible to permanently store carbon dioxide as minerals in basaltic rocks and that over 95% of CO2 injected is mineralized within two years, instead of centuries or millennia as previously thought. The paper's abstract states:

"Carbon capture and storage (CCS) provides a solution towards decarbonization of the global economy. The success of this solution depends on the ability to safely and permanently store CO2. This study demonstrates for the first time the permanent disposal of CO2 as environmentally benign carbonate minerals in basaltic rocks. We find that over 95% of the CO2 injected into the CarbFix site in Iceland was mineralized to carbonate minerals in less than two years. This result contrasts with the common view that the immobilization of CO2 as carbonate minerals within geologic reservoirs takes several hundreds to thousands of years. Our results, therefore, demonstrate that the safe long-term storage of anthropogenic CO2 emissions through mineralization can be far faster than previously postulated."
CarbFix is a collaborative project between Reykjavik Energy, the University of Iceland, CNRS in Toulouse and Columbia University.

The Carbfix web site: Carbfix

Experiment 'turns waste CO2 to stone': BBC article, 10 June 2016 BBC

[chinatyke]

China, The oil you're talking about as a chemical feedstock is petrochemical and it's being replaced by oleochemical oils made from plants and algae. The next step, already in development, is oil made from carbon dioxide which reduces our reliance on fossil fuels and at the same time can counter CO2 emissions. In fact it would be better to say `chemicals' made from plants and CO2 rather than `oils' because there won't always be an oil intermediate. The use of CO2 as a feedstock is one step on our journey towards mimicking plants by fixing CO2 using solar energy. Also we are gradually getting better at recycling plastics. For example, uPVC window frames can now be recycled to make new frames.

A significant percentage of the world population is impoverished and mal-nourished and we're growing plants simply to convert into alcohol to add to petrol and burn in such places as California, or vegetation to replace coal in biomass power stations. Something wrong there IMHO.

I'm all in favour of new technologies but don't give up oil and coal whilst they are still required. I'm sure in 200 years time the Oil Age will be history and new technology will have taken over. Perhaps the Earth's population will be better fed also.

[Tizer]

I agree with you that it's wrong to tear up our food crops and replace them with fuel crops. The term `oleochemicals ' has usually been applied to chemicals made from plants or algae for use as chemical feedstocks rather than as fuel. Within a couple of years of technologists developing fuel oils from plants the food companies and food scientists were desperately pointing out the danger of sacrificing our agricultural land for this purpose. In fact Unilever was one of the most vocal of these and I published a paper by one of its European managers showing all the facts and figures. Unfortunately there was a lot of money to be made out of biofuel by both countries and companies alike and, as you know, money talks...

I agree with your comment `don't give up oil and coal whilst they are still required' but the objective is to move to a state in which they are no longer required and have been replaced by safer technologies. It's too easy to simply continue saying `don't give up oil and coal whilst they are still required' instead of replacing them! And there's an enormous amount of vested interests in the coal and oil industry.

[chinatyke]

The Sun [SO IT MUST BE TRUE] has said that:"The madness of rapidly closing down our old power stations on environmental grounds and not replacing them is blindingly obvious to anyone outside Whitehall. We haven't got a prayer of building the plants we need to avert potential calamity in just ten years".


With supply down and demand up, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) has forecast that "the loss of coal by 2025, along with growth in demand and the closure of the majority of our nuclear power stations, [will] leave a potential supply gap of 40%–55%, depending on wind levels."

Tighten your belts and store up the candles, you're going back to 1974, power cuts and 3 day working.

[Stanley]

Carbon capture in geological formations sounds good, question is, does the will exist to pursue it?
The Sun is right in that the shut-down of coal fired capacity this year could tip us over the edge. I expect lack of capacity next winter.....

[Tizer]

What's really barmy is our government's policy of closing down coal but at the same time shutting down expenditure on renewable energy. They seem to think that private investment will save us, like the American cavalry in the old films.

I think the present ideas for carbon capture are either too expensive, too energy-consuming or impractical...or all of the afore-mentioned.

Anyway, none of this matters. Once we've left the EU climate change will go away, global famine will end, diseases will disappear, everyone will be rich and healthy, Michael Gove will be Emperor of Britain and Boris Johnson will be court jester-in-chief. There'll also be a boom in porcine aeronautics.

[Stanley]

Shutting down the coal fired stations wasn't really policy... it was blind adherence to EU rules on emissions of gases. Funny that the present almost universal condemnation of the move to biomass is being totally ignored and that contrary to EU rules we have some of the worst urban pollution in Europe..... I can't help wondering if there are hidden agendas at work here....

[Tizer]

`Climate change: Advisers warn of climate change domino effect'
Climate change could have a domino effect on key infrastructure in the UK, government advisers have warned. In a 2,000-page report, the Climate Change Committee says flooding will destroy bridges - wrecking electricity, gas and IT connections carried on them. The committee also warns that poor farming means the most fertile soils will be badly degraded by mid-century. And heat-related deaths among the elderly will triple to 7,000 a year by the 2050s as summer temperatures rise. The UK is not prepared, the committee says, for the risks posed by climate change from flooding and changing coasts, heatwaves, water shortages, ecosystem damage and shocks to the global food system. The projections are based on the supposition that governments keep promises made at the Paris climate conference to cut emissions - a pledge that is in doubt.
LINK

[chinatyke]

In a 2,000-page report, the Climate Change Committee says ...

Wonder how much that cost? It isn't a report it's an encyclopaedia.

[Stanley]

I heard that report as well Tiz. I'm afraid it is just one more example of the possible consequences of neglecting to fund essential elements of our society's infrastructure. A combination of austerity policies and the efforts to achieve 'smaller government', in other words devolve responsibility to someone else. After all Parliament has quite enough on its plate managing the Westminster village.....

[Tizer]

It beggars belief that someone like this Malcolm Roberts can become an elected politician. Arguably people like him are a bigger danger to human civilisation than all the natural dangers combined!

`Professor Brian Cox clashes with Australian climate sceptic' LINK
"Professor Brian Cox has verbally sparred with a newly elected Australian politician who believes climate change is a global conspiracy. The British physicist behind BBC's Wonders of the Universe was a guest on the adversarial panel show Q&A. Also on the Australian TV show was senator-elect Malcolm Roberts from the anti-immigration One Nation party. The celebrity scientist was dumbfounded by Mr Roberts' claim that climate change data was manipulated by Nasa."..."Mr Roberts has previously claimed that the United Nations is using climate change to lay the foundations for an unelected global government."

[Stanley]

Indeed. History is littered with barking mad politicians who manage to find a constituency as flawed in understanding as themselves. Trump is a good example. The basis of their appeal is almost always ignorance, self-interest and fear. They ultimately fail but in some cases, think Hitler, the price is enormous.
The LCD always favour conspiracy theories.

[Stanley]

See THIS for news that China has ratified the Paris Agreement. A step forward but how much difference will it make?

[Tizer]

One of the problems caused by glaciers melting as the climate warms up...
`Nepal drains dangerous Everest lake' LINK
"Nepal's army says it has finished draining a dangerous glacial lake near Mount Everest to a safe level. The Imja glacial lake, at nearly 5,000m (16,400ft) high, was in danger of flooding downstream settlements, trekking trails and bridges. The lake, which was originally 149m deep in places, has had its water levels lowered by 3.4m after months of painstaking work, officials say. Imja is one of thousands of glacial lakes in the Himalayas. Many of the lakes are said to be filling up fast because of accelerated melting of glaciers amid rising global temperatures. Last year's earthquake in Nepal is also feared to have further destabilised Lake Imja. The military said the project to make it safe was the highest drainage project of its kind, with army personnel and Sherpas working for six months to construct an outlet to gradually release the water. After the outlet was constructed, nearly four million cubic metres of water was released - in a process that took two months."....

[Stanley]

Tiz. A good example of one of the clear and present dangers caused by global warming that normally escape our attention because they are far away and don't affect us. We need to be reminded of this because at the moment the media is having an easy ride concentrating on 'breaking news' of wars, politics and economics. Climate change and global warming are no longer hot topics.