The
Inevitability Factor: When Reality
Reaches its Apex!
Germany should not dismiss gas fracking technology that
has boosted US industry, nor unilaterally overexpose itself to climate
protection efforts, European Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger said on
Tuesday. Germany, the bloc’s biggest economy and energy market, goes to the
polls later this month and afterwards must reform its energy laws reflecting a
costly low-carbon approach coupled with scepticism about fossil fuel
production, including fracking. --EurActive, 4 September 2013
The development of shale gas in Europe could help the continent obtain better deals from its current key supplier, the Russian giant Gazprom, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said. --AFP, 10 May 2013
Britain’s call for the EU to halve its greenhouse gas output by 2030 appears to have little support among other member states, EU documents showed Tuesday, casting doubt on the likelihood that the bloc will agree such a deep medium-term goal to tackle climate change. --Reuters Point Carbon, 3 September 2013
The Dutch government just released a report finding that the environmental risks of fracking shale can be managed. It’s a small but important step for the country. This is a positive sign for a continent that to this point has remained firm in its rejection of the new source of oil and gas. --Walter Russell Mead, Via Meadia, 27 August 2013
The Spanish Government, led by the Industry Minister, José Manuel Soria, has decided to help companies interested in exploring shale gas resources which could be hidden under the Iberian peninsular. It means that the Government has advanced fracking and given legal protection to the controversial technique. Spain therefore joins countries such as Poland and the U.K. which have also set a course to reduce their dependence on outside energy. --Howard Brereton, Typically Spanish, 31 August 2013
Lithuania has finally given Chevron the green light to explore for shale gas, the government announced on September 3. Vilnius plans to formalize Chevron’s win later this month, and sign the exploration contract by the end of the year, officials said. “If they act quickly, they can start drilling in half a year after the licence is granted,” said Environment Minister Valentinas Mazuronis. --Business New Europe, 4 September 2013
The Baltic tiger of Estonia is the world’s first country to meet all its power needs from shale, with enough left over for neighbours and fuel exports for the shipping industry. --Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Daily Telegraph, 26 August 2013
It is the same story wherever you go across Eastern Europe: the fuel debate comes down to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and Gazprom’s stranglehold on gas supplies. Global warming inevitably plays second fiddle. “Estonia is not rich enough to experiment with immature technologies,” said Juhan Parts, the economy minister.said Mr Parts. “I am a right-wing person and I am not a supporter of the war on fossils. We must look after the competitiveness of our industries. We must respect European environmental regulations of course but I am sceptical about these climate issues,” --Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Daily Telegraph, 26 August 2013
Take it from the man who knows, U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz: Fracking for natural gas is climate-friendly, environmentally safe and economically stimulating. Which is just what America and New York need. Moniz speaks not just as the nation’s top energy official, but as a nuclear physicist, a former MIT professor and the coauthor of an exhaustive 2011 report on the future of natural gas production in the U.S. In a meeting with the Daily News Editorial Board, he explained the numerous reasons why President Obama embraces fracking as a key part of his strategy for tackling global warming and creating jobs. --New York Daily News, 3 September 2013
After weeks spent facing down activists in Balcombe, the energy company Cuadrilla Resources has beaten a humiliating retreat from the West Sussex village because of a planning foul-up, apparently of its own making. The shale gas driller will leave the oil exploration site at the end of the month with the job unfinished, after withdrawing plans to extend operations for another six months. A spokesman for Greenpeace, which is opposed to shale gas development, said: “Cuadrilla’s plans for Balcombe are a dog’s dinner.” A rival industry executive added: “It’s all a bit of a mess.” --Tim Webb, The Times, 4 September 2013
Too many policy wonks unwittingly fall into two dangerous tribes. Let's call them, in homage to the late Kingsley Amis, berks and wankers. Policymakers who consult berkish experts will get clear, actionable advice. But it could very well be wrong. The risk of becoming a wanker is far more subtle. If the berks of the policy world are too ready to give an opinion, the wankers never give an opinion on anything, except to say how complicated it is. In some ways, wankers are more harmless than berks, in the sense that being overconfident about what you know is often more dangerous than being too modest. --Stian Westlake, The Guardian, 4 September 2013
The development of shale gas in Europe could help the continent obtain better deals from its current key supplier, the Russian giant Gazprom, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said. --AFP, 10 May 2013
Britain’s call for the EU to halve its greenhouse gas output by 2030 appears to have little support among other member states, EU documents showed Tuesday, casting doubt on the likelihood that the bloc will agree such a deep medium-term goal to tackle climate change. --Reuters Point Carbon, 3 September 2013
The Dutch government just released a report finding that the environmental risks of fracking shale can be managed. It’s a small but important step for the country. This is a positive sign for a continent that to this point has remained firm in its rejection of the new source of oil and gas. --Walter Russell Mead, Via Meadia, 27 August 2013
The Spanish Government, led by the Industry Minister, José Manuel Soria, has decided to help companies interested in exploring shale gas resources which could be hidden under the Iberian peninsular. It means that the Government has advanced fracking and given legal protection to the controversial technique. Spain therefore joins countries such as Poland and the U.K. which have also set a course to reduce their dependence on outside energy. --Howard Brereton, Typically Spanish, 31 August 2013
Lithuania has finally given Chevron the green light to explore for shale gas, the government announced on September 3. Vilnius plans to formalize Chevron’s win later this month, and sign the exploration contract by the end of the year, officials said. “If they act quickly, they can start drilling in half a year after the licence is granted,” said Environment Minister Valentinas Mazuronis. --Business New Europe, 4 September 2013
The Baltic tiger of Estonia is the world’s first country to meet all its power needs from shale, with enough left over for neighbours and fuel exports for the shipping industry. --Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Daily Telegraph, 26 August 2013
It is the same story wherever you go across Eastern Europe: the fuel debate comes down to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and Gazprom’s stranglehold on gas supplies. Global warming inevitably plays second fiddle. “Estonia is not rich enough to experiment with immature technologies,” said Juhan Parts, the economy minister.said Mr Parts. “I am a right-wing person and I am not a supporter of the war on fossils. We must look after the competitiveness of our industries. We must respect European environmental regulations of course but I am sceptical about these climate issues,” --Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Daily Telegraph, 26 August 2013
Take it from the man who knows, U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz: Fracking for natural gas is climate-friendly, environmentally safe and economically stimulating. Which is just what America and New York need. Moniz speaks not just as the nation’s top energy official, but as a nuclear physicist, a former MIT professor and the coauthor of an exhaustive 2011 report on the future of natural gas production in the U.S. In a meeting with the Daily News Editorial Board, he explained the numerous reasons why President Obama embraces fracking as a key part of his strategy for tackling global warming and creating jobs. --New York Daily News, 3 September 2013
After weeks spent facing down activists in Balcombe, the energy company Cuadrilla Resources has beaten a humiliating retreat from the West Sussex village because of a planning foul-up, apparently of its own making. The shale gas driller will leave the oil exploration site at the end of the month with the job unfinished, after withdrawing plans to extend operations for another six months. A spokesman for Greenpeace, which is opposed to shale gas development, said: “Cuadrilla’s plans for Balcombe are a dog’s dinner.” A rival industry executive added: “It’s all a bit of a mess.” --Tim Webb, The Times, 4 September 2013
Too many policy wonks unwittingly fall into two dangerous tribes. Let's call them, in homage to the late Kingsley Amis, berks and wankers. Policymakers who consult berkish experts will get clear, actionable advice. But it could very well be wrong. The risk of becoming a wanker is far more subtle. If the berks of the policy world are too ready to give an opinion, the wankers never give an opinion on anything, except to say how complicated it is. In some ways, wankers are more harmless than berks, in the sense that being overconfident about what you know is often more dangerous than being too modest. --Stian Westlake, The Guardian, 4 September 2013
A licensed mechanical engineer (retired) who has been researching this issue (unfunded) for 6 years, and in the process discovered what actually caused global warming and why it ended, has four papers on the web that you may find of interest. They provide some eye-opening insight on the cause of change to average global temperature and why it has stopped warming. The papers are straight-forward calculations (not just theory) using readily available data up to May, 2013. (data through July made no significant difference)
ReplyDeleteThe first one is 'Global warming made simple' at http://lowaltitudeclouds.blogspot.com It shows, with simple thermal radiation calculations, how a tiny change in the amount of low-altitude clouds could account for half of the average global temperature change in the 20th century, and what could have caused that tiny cloud change. (The other half of the temperature change is from net average natural ocean oscillation which is dominated by the PDO)
The second paper is 'Natural Climate change has been hiding in plain sight' at http://climatechange90.blogspot.com/2013/05/natural-climate-change-has-been.html . This paper presents a simple equation that, using a single external forcing, calculates average global temperatures since they have been accurately measured world wide (about 1895) with an accuracy of 90%, irrespective of whether the influence of CO2 is included or not. The equation uses a proxy which is the time-integral of sunspot numbers (the external forcing). A graph is included which shows the calculated trajectory overlaid on measurements.
Change to the level of atmospheric CO2 has had no significant effect on average global temperature.
The time-integral of sunspot numbers since 1610 which is shown at http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/01/blog-post_23.html corroborates the significance of this factor.
A third paper, ‘The End of Global Warming’ at http://endofgw.blogspot.com/ expands recent (since 1996) measurements and includes a graph showing the growing separation between the rising CO2 and not-rising average global temperature.
The fourth paper http://consensusmistakes.blogspot.com/ exposes some of the mistakes that have been made by the ‘Consensus’ and the IPCC