It should have been and should be patently obvious that subsidy regimes are largely counter productive, but such is the power of self-righteous, environmental correctness – which is the modern face of fascism – that many more jobs will be lost and much more tax-payer’s money squandered before sanity will prevail again. Further job losses in the UK were announced by Tata Steel just as the government announced plans to triple the burden on consumers for further nonsense subsidies for “green” power.
Archive for the ‘Energy’ Category
“Green” subsidies increase energy prices which leads to fewer jobs
November 23, 2012European Parliament defeats alarmist scare-mongering that shale gas will “destroy the future of mankind”
November 22, 2012Rational thinking still can prevail over alarmist hyperbole.
It is heartening to see that the European Parliament – which is not my favourite institution – has rejected a moratorium on the exploitation of shale gas and has approved the right of each member state to decide for itself on shale gas exploitation. It has been “green” fanaticism and the environmentalists propensity for myopic adhesion to ideology which has caused Europe to forget the simple reality that “the lower the cost of energy the greater the growth”.
On 20th November the EU Parliament debated reports
Retired High Court judge accuses Danish government of corruption over wind turbines
November 21, 2012The Danish love of wind turbines – sometimes bordering on the irrational – is well known. That is also why they have the highest prices for electricity in Europe. That Denmark is also considered one of the least corrupt countries in the world is taken for granted. But apparently things are not always what they seem. The Copenhagen Post carries a remarkable article by Peter Rørdam, a retired High Court judge which offers a peek behind the scenes at chicanery in the wind industry/government nexus. The article is reproduced below:
The myth of Denmark as a corruption-free country
It’s a widely held conception that Denmark is one of the world’s least corrupt countries. The message is always warmly received, but this isn’t the same as saying that Denmark is free of corruption.
Massive shale oil reserves in Utah and Colorado
November 14, 2012The reserves are massive but not yet technologically exploitable. I have little doubt that human ingenuity will prevail and before too long. It is just a matter of time and engineering before this oil starts flowing.
Malthusians must be gnashing their teeth as “Peak Oil” is pushed back – again – by a few hundred years!!
Drillers in Utah and Colorado are poking into a massive shale deposit trying to find a way to unlock oil reserves that are so vast they would swamp OPEC.
A recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office estimated that if half of the oil bound up in the rock of the Green River Formation could be recovered it would be “equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves.”
Both the GAO and private industry estimate the amount of oil recoverable to be 3 trillion barrels.
“In the past 100 years — in all of human history — we have consumed 1 trillion barrels of oil. There are several times that much here,” said Roger Day, vice president for operations for American Shale Oil (AMSO).
The Green River drilling is beginning as shale mining is booming in the U.S. and a report by the International Energy Agency predicts that the U.S. will become the world’s largest oil producer by 2020. That flood of oil can have major implications for the U.S. economy as well as the country’s foreign policy which has been based on a growing scarcity of oil. …..
The cost of extracting the Green River oil at the moment would be higher than what it could be sold for. And there are significant environmental obstacles. ….. Nevertheless, the federal government has authorized six experimental drilling leases on federal land in an effort to find a way to tap into the riches of the Green River Formation. …….
Getting oil from Green River shale is a different proposition than getting gas and oil from other sites by using the controversial method of “fracking,” fracturing the underground rock with pressurized, chemical-infused water.
The hydrocarbons in Green River shale are more intimately bound up with the rock, so that fracking cannot release them. The shale has to be heated to 5,000 degrees Farenheit before it will give up its oil. ….
“Peak Oil” vanishes and even OPEC bows to shale fracking technology
November 9, 2012The various catastrophe scenarios based on the depletion of a limited resource (peak-oil, peak-gas, peak-energy, peak-food……….) have a fundamental weakness – they fail to account for human ingenuity and technological advance. History has shown that such Malthusian scenarios just do not come to pass. New discoveries change the availability of the resource, innovation and technology find alternatives and economics changes pricing and the supply/demand dynamics.
Moving peaks
In February this year I posted:
In recent times the development of fracking technology and the discovery of huge deposits of gas-bearing shales together with the discovery of new deep-sea sources of natural gas have pushed the “peak” for gas production beyond the visible horizon and into the distant future (a few hundred years). When – rather than if – methane hydrates become available for gas production, the “peak” will shift further into the future.
Reuters now reports on Opec’s latest World Oil Outlook
OPEC acknowledged for the first time on Thursday that technology for extracting oil and gas from shale is changing the global supply picture significantly ……
In its annual World Oil Outlook, OPEC cut its forecast of global oil demand to 2016 due to economic weakness and also increased its forecast of supplies from countries outside the 12-nation exporters’ group.
“Given recent significant increases in North American shale oil and shale gas production, it is now clear that these resources might play an increasingly important role in non-OPEC medium- and long-term supply prospects,” the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said in the report.
OPEC has been slower than some to acknowledge the impact that new technologies such as hydraulic fracturing – known as “fracking” – may have on supply.
The demise of coal has been greatly exaggerated
October 11, 2012Reality Check.
The death of coal utilisation or the exhaustion of coal reserves is not even a glimmer on the world’s energy horizon — thank goodness.
Add to this the fact that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere (and man made CO2 emissions are a minor contribution to this concentration) simply have no significant effect on climate. Trying to control climate by reducing man-made carbon dioxide emissions must rank as one of the world’s most useless and wasteful efforts in the last 30 years.
Terence Corcoran writes in the Financial Post:
….. The idea that coal is dying seems to be mostly wishful thinking on the part of green activists, as well as some politicians and regulators in the United States and parts of Canada. Ontario aims to end dirty coal-fired power generation, at great cost to consumers who are now paying high prices for the putative clean alternatives, wind and solar. The United States, via regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency, has established rules that are said to present the coal-power industry with a “dead end.”
Russia losing the shale gas wars
October 1, 2012The advent of shale gas is not only a game-changer regarding power generation but also a game-changer in the area of energy and geopolitics. The Russian dominance in the European gas markets is being threatened and they are now joining forces with various environmental groups in an unholy alliance to restrain the development of shale gas production in Europe.
But in the long-term I expect Russia will join the shale-gas movement. They have larger resources of oil and gas bearing shales than most others.
Wall Street Journal (Associated Press):
The Kremlin is watching, European nations are rebelling, and some suspect Moscow is secretly bankrolling a campaign to derail the West’s strategic plans. It’s not some Cold War movie; it’s about the U.S. boom in natural gas drilling, and the political implications are enormous. Like falling dominoes, the drilling process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is shaking up world energy markets from Washington to Moscow to Beijing. Some predict what was once unthinkable: that the U.S. won’t need to import natural gas in the near future, and that Russia could be the big loser.
Hard times forces a measure of realism into the mirage that is renewable energy
September 30, 2012As the financial crisis continues, countries – one after another – are finding that the cost of pandering to environmental correctness is unacceptable. Renewable energy is proving to be unsustainable.
- Poland: The government moves to overhaul its system of support for green energy by effectively cutting funding for onshore wind.
- Greece: Greece has slashed the guaranteed feed-in prices it pays to some solar operators and is no longer approving permits for their installation.
- Switzerland: Switzerland plans for using more gas until 2050 and “energy needs can be completely covered by renewable energy”.
- Spain: Government has introduced a new tax on electricity production revenues to try and curb Spain’s current energy sector deficit caused mainly by the government’s renewable subsidy program.
- UK: UK cuts feed-in tariffs for Solar panels.
- Germany: Germany to press on with energy changes to the renewable subsidy system and with the easing of environmental over-regulation to rein-in renewable energy costs.
- Australia: Victoria cuts solar subsidies as the amount paid to new solar customers for power sold to the grid will be reduced from 25 cents to eight cents per kilowatt-hour.
- US: Tax breaks for wind energy to be curbed. Hopes that wind power could be competitive without any subsidy have been dashed by the plunge in North American natural gas prices.
Subsidies for what are essentially inferior products for electricity generation are ineffective. Subsidies for what are misguided objectives are just not sustainable.
Opposition to shale gas and cheap US coal only leads to greater use of coal in Europe
September 26, 2012Not that there is anything wrong with using coal when it makes commercial sense. The demonisation of carbon dioxide is a religion built on a hypothesis which in turn is based on “it must be the cause of global warming” and not on any evidence whatever. In consequence the world-wide drive to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is an unnecessary, expensive and ultimately pointless exercise.
The religious and thoughtless opposition of the “greens” to any use of fossil fuels has led them – especially in Europe – to trying to block exploration, production and exploitation of shale gas. But as with so many “environmentally correct” decisions it turns out to be counter-productive to their own misguided objectives. In Europe this together with the availability of cheap US coals has only served to promote the greater use of coal and an increase in carbon dioxide emissions. The blind pursuit of renewable energy in Europe has already given the highest electricity prices in the world. While the increased emissions of carbon dioxide through greater coal use does not itself matter, the consumer will have to pay even higher electricity prices than would prevail if shale gas were exploited.
BRUSSELS/LONDON, Sept 25 (Reuters) – Shale gas has jolted traditional roles in the planet’s climate drama, giving cleaner fuel to the United States, whose displaced coal has headed to Europe to pollute the old continent.
It is an ironic twist for the European Union, whose energy policy is largely based on promoting renewables and a target to cut emissions b y 20 percent by 2020. The U.S. did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol to combat global emissions and its national goals are far less ambitious than Europe’s.
Now Toyota sees sense and backs away from all-electric cars
September 24, 2012The hype about electric cars is just one more example of environmental alarmism leading to bad decisions. The list of “bad decisions” made to appease environmentalism is long and getting longer. Wind power before its time and solar power before it was commercially viable have only helped to increase the costs to the consumer but they have been a windfall for those who have managed to “milk” the subsidies. The electric car fiasco is no different. Billions have been wasted in subsidising something that is not commercial and in trying to skew the market in the hope of artificially creating a demand where there is none. But a few have managed to live very well off the subsidies. Some day electric cars may well become commercially viable and when they do it will not be because an environmental lobby group or a government merely wished for it but because the technology and supply network then will be sufficiently developed to offer the consumer a superior product at a reasonable price.
The simple reality is that:
- electric car batteries are still too heavy and take too long to charge
- the range they provide is too short
- the cars are too expensive
More importantly the ostensible reason for subsidising the technology – as being for the cutting of carbon dioxide emissions to try and reverse natural climate change – is both based on a false premise and futile.
“The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society’s needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs, or how it takes a long time to charge,” said, Uchiyamada, who spearheaded Toyota’s development of the Prius hybrid in the 1990s.
The k2p blog 