Canada Could Miss Out in the Coming "Age of Gas"

I wrote this article some time ago, but it has just surfaced, published over in my column at Troy Media, Canada. It spells out the serious economically debilitating impact of green lobbying to prevent natural gas exploitation (that will have a minimum impact on the environment). Here's a taster:

Canada, at a conservative estimate, sits atop 4,000 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas, according to the Canadian Society for Unconventional Gas (CSUG). To put that in perspective, domestic use accounts for around just 3 tcf per year, with a similar amount going for export. On the CSUG’s very lowest estimate of Canada’s domestic gas deposits, that’s enough gas to meet home and export demands for 100 years.

Markets like Asia could prove very receptive to gas exports, given Canada’s current levels of productions and early exploitation of deposits.

Yet, in Canada, environmentalists question the safety of hydraulic fracturing. This “uncertainty” has the process mired in a heated public debate, and a push to suspend exploration. A year’s moratorium on shale gas drilling in Canada and the Asian market could dry up – and quickly.

Go here for the full article.

Emission Control, We Have a Problem

If you consider the self-destruction of national industry "a problem" that is. Here's a taster for the full article go here):

Unlike the CAU – Climate Alarmists’ Union – I don’t major in defending the immutable prophetic utterance of the computer modelling gods. Still, the faith of those in the rush to decarbonisation at any cost it seems remains unabated, even though all the evidence pointing to spiralling electricity bills resulting in loss of industrial competitiveness – not to mention jobs – will be the direct result. But what is truly disturbing is how little credence our political leaders appear to grant to this self-inflicted ‘foot wound’.

Take Mitt Romney’s hopping around over energy and climate during his opening event of the 2012 campaigning season on June 6. Front-runner (by a nose) for the GOP ticket he may currently be, but in the knowledge of energy stakes he’s already running on empty. Speaking at his first town hall event in Manchester, NH, Romney said how he “believed the world’s getting warmer”, that it’s “important to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases” and, most intriguingly, how he envied “European-style energy efficiency”. For a man whose electoral chances rest on his claimed grasp of economics, Romney’s “beliefs” don’t appear rooted in well-articulated mathematical facts.

Greenism's Threat to Democracy

 

Just published at Energy Tribune our piece as titled above. For the full article go here. But here's a taster:

Increasingly, the new Green-ism appears able to make obfuscating the true cost headway only by riding roughshod over the will of the people. Gore, Fox, Hansen, Mann and journalists like Richard Glover have become the aggressive outriders for the cause. But, as energy companies increasingly feel the mounting anger about spiking domestic energy bills, where as much as one-fifth can be subsidizing failing renewable energy and decarbonisation programs, the pro-democratic blowback for political greens may not be long in coming.

The Blackpool Quakes and UK Shale: Injecting Perspective

The MSM take on the Blackpool 'earthquakes' lacks something of perspective. For the full article go here.

The Politics of Energy (1): The Myth of Viable Industrial-scale Renewable Energy

We have a saying in Manchester (where I originally hail from) that someone or something is "about as useful as a chocolate teapot". It's applicable to renewable energy, too... as the political rhetoric we've been hearing for a decade all comes to nought.

Here's an excerpt:

In 2007 the European Investment Bank calculated it would cost the EU 1.1 trillion euros over the next 14 years to pay for its Renewable Energy Roadmap to be implemented. The entire EU budget at that time was 100 billion euros. Asked who would pay for it, then EU president Angela Merkel, in a moment of unreserved honesty, responded, "With the best will in the world, I can't tell you that." Taxpayers beware politicians who haven’t done the math?

Ecologist Dr John Etherington’s pre-emptive epitaph for renewables as “the minting of money for the undeserving, aided and abetted by the uneducated” may be rhetoric, but it’s also reality. As we have quoted elsewhere, “He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense”.

In politics, as in life, it has always been thus.

For the full article go here

Scottish Wind Farms Paid to Shut Down Generation

The pure ignorance of ideologues who neither understand the physics of energy nor basic economics knows no bounds, as proved by the rising danger to power grids from volatile sources of generation, especially wind power.

Here's why...go here.

Shale Gas Wars: A Tale of Two Studies

Just published, as titled above, my review of the shale gas war stand-off (as reflected in two studies...with very different intellectual standards!). Go here for the full article.

Britain's Royally Disastrous Energy Policies

The energy policies of the current coalition being Conservative-led ought to fend off the probablity of power cuts (for which Britain is headed) by 2014-5. Instead the Cameron, Clegg, Huhne idiot trimvirate have set Britain on course for blackouts even earlier.

For the full article go here.

Ten Fracking Things Everyone Should Know

Climate and green activists have lately been jumping on (or is it grasping at straws over?) the latest eco-cause celebre: fracking or hyraulic fracking. Its a method that has revolutionised our ability to get massive amnounts of gas (and oil) out of the enormous shale resources around the world.

Trouble is - as ususal - no-nothing 'greens' exhbit their igorance by being wel over 40 years too late. This method has been around, without any hint of serious safety issues, for well over that amount of time.

For the full article go here.

Warmageddon Deferred, says Joe Public

Just published here over at Energy Tribune my latest as titled above. While the real science debunks the climate alarmists every time, public opinion has already decided that global warming is NOT a key issue - and will vote out anyone that attempts to push the country down the road of heavy carbon and green taxes.

Who'd have thought it? The phrase 'representation of the people' still counts for something after all. If political elites chose to keep refusing to listen to 'the peo clearly they ain't gonna last too long in power.

One up for the good guys, I'd say. For the full article go here.

U.S. Has Earth's Largest Energy Resources: So why are they still, mostly, off limits?

My latest article on energy just published. For the full article go here, but here's a taster:

In case anyone missed it, let me repeat something that is of a magnitude of 10 on the scale of news-quakes for Joe Public USA: America’s combined energy resources are, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service (CSR), the largest on earth. They eclipse Saudi Arabia (3rd), China (4th) and Canada (6th) combined – and that’s without including America’s shale oil deposits and, in the future, the potentially astronomic impact of methane hydrates.

 The energy facts in the CRS report should be making front page news all over America. Mostly it isn’t. Given the devastating news from Japan and New Zealand, it may be right to postpone dancing in the streets. But something else is going on. Even though they are going to dominate global energy supply for decades to come the insidious war on vital fossil fuels continues apace.

Wind Power Gridlock: Why the smart money is on power cuts

Just published at Energy Tribune the above piece from me.  For the full article go here. But here is a taster:

In Britain alarm bells are already sounding over the potential detrimental effect to the power grid of power surges from amassing increasing volumes of highly variable renewable-sourced GW (gigawatts). Derek Birkett is a consultant UK National Grid control engineer. His new book When Will The Lights Go Out? has gained a deal of interest and makes for sober reading. Birkett has amassed a deal of grid expertise. He predicts that a UK grid with more than 6 GW of variable wind power attached will render the entire grid vulnerable to outages during severe weather conditions due to the uncontrollable stop-go nature of its generation. Around 5 GW of wind power capacity is presently linked in to the national grid.

During 2011, another 2 GW of wind capacity is due to be added, with a further 2 GW per year for each of the next few years. By Christmas 2011, the UK is scheduled to have 7 GW of wind power capacity attached to the grid – exceeding Birkett’s critical 6 GW threshold.

DeSmog, DeBunked

There's nothing worse than 'hit' groups well-finded and set up for smear campaigns rather than to engage with issues raised by those who disagree with them.

On this score, leftwing hit groups have virtually cornered the anti-intellectual, ad hominen attack marketplace. Ans in the public square of debate - something they, like all anti-democrats, don't like - over climate issues, none have been quite so mudslinging as Canada's toxic defamers DeSmogBlog.

Hence, time to return the fire.

My article as titled above was actually published a few days ago, but as I was in Egypt and temporarily de-Netted by BT wi-fi...here is the link to the full article, a little late. And here is a taster: 

DeSmog does at least get its funding from only the highest moral authority, right? Well, wrong again. DeSmog was founded with $300,000 from its chief benefactor John Lefebvre. Lefebvre is a convicted Internet fraudster currently out on bail awaiting conviction after pleading guilty in the NETeller multi-million dollar online pay system scam. Of its chief benefactor, DeSmog’s supporters are only told: “The DeSmogBlog team is especially grateful to our benefactor John Lefebvre, a lawyer, internet entrepreneur and past-president of NETeller, a firm that has been providing secure online transactions since 1999. John has been outspoken, uncompromising and courageous in challenging those who would muddy the climate change debate, and he has enabled and inspired the same standard on the blog.”

It was those same “secure online transactions” that led to Lefebvre becoming a convicted felon now facing up to five years in the slammer. Now why should DeSmog want to “hide” such key information about its “high-profile source of funding”? Much as Lefebvre’s “standards” didn’t run to US ‘legal requirements’, we might feel DeSmog’s “standards” don’t run to giving a voice to dissent in democratic debate.

Gasland's Fracking Nonsense

My latest piece just published at Energy Tribune reviews the nonsense that is Josh Fox's Gasland alarmist movie about hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in shale gas production.

Unsurprisingly this load of nonsense is up for an Oscar as Best Documentary. Go here for the full article but here's a taster:

And the winner is...? Sadly, not the paying public for Josh Fox’s ludicrous Gasland – whether or not the Oscar-voting Hollywood panel are taken in by it. Well-crafted and amusingly presented Gasland is, by turns, dramatic, eloquent, congenial and emotional. But then so is Sesame Street. Call me old-school, but I look for context, balance and, above all, hard facts in my documentaries. Gasland has neither of the first two, and precious little of the third.

Gasland treads the same fear-inducing path of Al Gore’s Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth. It presents a simplistically stark contrast between the pristine wilderness (where our intrepid self-proclaimed hippie film-maker lives) and the dark mutilated moonscape (where ‘evil’ Big Gas is slowly poisoning natural water resources). As with Gore’s power-point ‘epic’ – later ripped apart in the factual stakes by a British high court judge – Gasland loses credibility from the start, as Debunking Gasland, a rebuttal report from Energy in Depth, on behalf of the nation’s gas and oil producers, revealed last summer.

This review will follow an outline similar to Debunking Gasland which falls into a handful of key areas: mis-statements on the law, mis-representation of the rules, mis-characterization of the process and “flat-out making stuff up”, including the recycling of discredited claims.

"Energy and Climate Wars" up for Orwell Prize for political writing

It seems that "Energy and Climate Wars" (see the right hand column here) the book I co-wrote with Michael Economides has been short-listed (along with 211 others!!) for the (George) Orwell Prize for political writing.

That's the closest I've ever come to receiving a prize sine I got one one the stage at Sunderland's Empire Theatre (not for acting, from my school headmaster) for .... well, damned if I can remember. It was something to do with "improvement" passing from the secondary school stream at my 'comprehensive' school into the grammar school stream.

I still think it was a spelling error. Probably the same with the Orwell thing...however...you got your copy yet? Amazon are doing a deal and, those that know me, you can get it as cheap as Amazon from me! (And I promise not to sign it. Now if you can find one that Michael E. hasn't signed....!)

When the Royal Society Stood For Something (Quote)

Here is an ecellent quote from the Royal Society (from the days when the Royal Society was interested in real science not the drivel associated with global warming alarmism that so many of its members currently sign up to:

"It will, without doubt, have come to your Lordship's knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice, has been during the last two years greatly abated. This affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened, and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them, not only interesting to the advancement of science, but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations."

Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, on 20 November 1817 to their Lordships of the Admiralty. The referenced period covered the reduction of ice in the prior two years, one the infamous Year Without a Summer 1816 . It was in the Dalton Solar Minimum, a time of unusual cold and snow in middle latitudes.

With thanks to ICECAP for the heads up.

"Kiss Goodbye" to Cancun CO2 Goals, says IEA Chief Economist

The above article is just published at Energy Tribune, go here.  Here's a taster:

It is “virtually impossible” for the world to keep CO2 emissions within the “safe” limits agreed by world governments just weeks ago in Cancun. Speaking what for climate alarmists is ‘the unspeakable’, Dr Fatih Birol, Chief Economist at the International Energy Agency, was addressing an audience at London’s Imperial College on January 19. And Dr Birol was unequivocal that the world can “kiss goodbye” to its CO2 emissions peaking target set for 2020.

Dr Birol said that the Cancun agreement, just weeks old, stands little chance of achieving the goal of keeping the world’s temperature from rising by 2 degrees C. He cited two main reasons. First, the key emitting nations are not serious about cutting CO2 growth. Second, the shale gas revolution threatens the viability of renewable energy projects worldwide.

The Unenergetic Mister Huhne (Is Britain Ignoring Its Shale Gas Bonanza?)

My debut article commissioned by Lord Tebbit's Critical Reaction political analysis site is published under the title "The Unenergetic Mister Huhne". The sub-tile is more explanatory "Is Britain ignoring its shale gas bonanza?"

Go here for the full article, but here is a taster. First on the allegedly controversial 'fracking' mining method:

Fracking nonsense: risk and reward

No mining technique is without risk. But in the case of fracking, particularly in Britain, the risk is miniscule, the potential reward huge. Fracking involves drilling down up to 10,000 feet then drilling sideways into the shale layer using a mix of water and chemicals to release the gas and oil. The process has made extraction far more efficient if, for some, controversial.

The resulting excitement about a prospective 100 years plus of shale gas, has offered us a potential ‘bridge’ to a post-hydrocarbon era, with shale gas plants emitting up to 45% less CO2 than conventional coal-fired plants. But the lack of understanding of the global energy realities among the environmental lobbies – who, let’s face it, are likely to be against any hydrocarbon extraction efforts – has consistently led to public confusion.

As my colleague at Energy Tribune, Dr Michael Economides, a gas consultant of international renown says about fracking, ‘there is a vicious war being waged against the public interest by environmental groups that fracturing fluids will infiltrate the water supply’. Economides, with 25 years experience as a consulting engineer working with energy companies in 70 countries, articulates the prevailing concerns. ‘First that fracking causes natural gas to migrate upwards through geological formations, infiltrating drinking water aquifers. Second that chemicals mixed with water will contaminate the water aquifers.’ Economides then debunks both as eco-myths. He says, ‘the idea that natural gas formations 10,000 feet below ground can somehow contaminate drinking water aquifers 9,500 feet higher than the actual fracture is false’. He adds, ‘ironically, in fracture design engineers go to great lengths to avoid fracture growth of even 100 feet to avoid losing production to another natural gas formation.’

Then on the British Government's current response:

Quite simply, more domestic gas will mean lower gas prices. We are already facing the very real prospect of serious power shortages if we don’t press the button now and starting building a new generation of power stations, and quickly too. As it is, it takes up to ten years to bring a nuclear power plant online. Whereas it takes only two years to build a gas extraction power plant. Shale gas reserves in the UK may be more modest than in the US and Poland; even so, they offer us a seriously useful addition to the domestic energy mix – with little or no risk.

Can we really afford to ignore a potential saving to the on our Russian/Qatari/Norwegian gas bills of, at current estimates, around £20billion, probably more? How strange, that a nominally pro-free market Conservative-led government should think so.

The article was later published as a lead story at The Global Warming Policy Foundation site here.

Britain's wind farms are 'no spin zones' when cold hits

Should have posted this link to the above title article on Friday (when it was published!). 

And here's a taster:

Serious cold weather has badly affected Britain and its much-vaunted ‘wind power experience’ and it turns out that wind farms are, quite literally in deepest winter, no spin zones.

Such is the grip the Big Freeze has had on Britain (as in northern Europe and the eastern U.S.) since early November that leading industrialists have forcibly reiterated last years’ warning about growing over-reliance on wind power. As the latest figures show, just when Britain was in the greatest need from its burgeoning wind farm industry to perform from November through January with temperatures plunging to as much as minus 20 celsius, wind power failed miserably.

Expalin Global Warming Panic (YouTube-style!)

For those of you have still to poney=up and buy a copy of my excellent book Energy and CLimate Wars (essential reading to debate the alarmists!) you can try this...a very funny take on (and that admirably sums up) the climate debate over at YouTube.

I guarantee you'll like this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdxaxJNs15s