Europe's Chemicals Industry Could Be Wiped Out In A Decade
The European chemicals industry will be wiped out in a
decade, with the loss of 6m jobs, unless politicians wake up to its chronic
lack of competitiveness, the man at the centre of last year’s Grangemouth
dispute has declared. Jim Ratcliffe, the majority owner of chemicals giant
Ineos, has written to Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president,
warning that the chemicals industry is heading for the same fate as the
textiles sector. He says a toxic cocktail of high energy costs – inflated by
green taxes – feedstock prices in“another league” to those in America and the
Middle East and uncompetitive labour are leading to the rapid closure of
Europe’s chemical plants. --Alistair Osborne, The Daily
Telegraph, 7 March 2014
Aiming at the heart of President Obama’s strategy for fighting climate change, the Republican-controlled House voted Thursday to block the administration’s plan to limit carbon pollution from new power plants. The bill targets Obama’s proposal for the Environmental Protection Agency to set the first national limits on heat-trapping carbon pollution from future power plants. It’s part of the GOP’s election-year strategy to fight back against what Republicans call a “war on coal” by the Obama administration. The bill passed by a 229-183 vote. Ten Democrats, mostly from coal-producing states or the South, joined Republicans in support of it. Three Republicans opposed the bill. --Matthew Daly, The Associated Press, 7 March 2014
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has downplayed evidence that the global climate is considerably less sensitive to greenhouse gases than climate models are estimating, a new paper says. Published by Britain’s Global Warming Policy Foundation think tank, the new paper says clues to weaker climate sensitivity have all been referred to in the IPCC’s recently published Fifth Assessment Report. “However, this important conclusion was not drawn in the full IPCC report, it is only mentioned as a possibility, and is ignored in the IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers,” the report says. --Graham Lloyd, The Australian, 7 March 2014
The "certainty" that underpins European and UK climate policy may be wildly misplaced, as the models that the climate science establishment presents to politicians as evidence run far too hot. That's according to a report released yesterday by UK think-tank the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Nic Lewis doesn't disagree that CO2 contributes to global warming - and most of the additional CO2 is caused by humans. The science today, however, shows around half a degree of surface temperature warming manifesting itself over the next 70 years. This the most important climate discovery in recent years - and you may reasonably think it should have grabbed the headlines. --Andrew Orlowski, The Register, 6 March 2014
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has downplayed evidence that the global climate is considerably less sensitive to greenhouse gases than climate models are estimating, a new paper says. Published by Britain’s Global Warming Policy Foundation think tank, the new paper says clues to weaker climate sensitivity have all been referred to in the IPCC’s recently published Fifth Assessment Report. “However, this important conclusion was not drawn in the full IPCC report, it is only mentioned as a possibility, and is ignored in the IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers,” the report says. --Graham Lloyd, The Australian, 7 March 2014
Slovakia cannot agree with the European Commission’s proposed climate and energy goals that target a 40 percent cut in carbon emissions reductions and increased use of renewable power, Prime Minister Robert Fico was quoted as saying on Monday. Fico said Europe could not be the world’s leader in climate protection at the cost of losing competitiveness with other parts of the world. “We cannot, for example, agree with the Commission’s goal of a 40 percent reduction of greenhouse gases. We cannot agree that a set specific amount of electricity energy should be produced from renewable sources,” Slovak news agency TASR quoted Fico as saying. --Reuters, 3 March 2014
Aiming at the heart of President Obama’s strategy for fighting climate change, the Republican-controlled House voted Thursday to block the administration’s plan to limit carbon pollution from new power plants. The bill targets Obama’s proposal for the Environmental Protection Agency to set the first national limits on heat-trapping carbon pollution from future power plants. It’s part of the GOP’s election-year strategy to fight back against what Republicans call a “war on coal” by the Obama administration. The bill passed by a 229-183 vote. Ten Democrats, mostly from coal-producing states or the South, joined Republicans in support of it. Three Republicans opposed the bill. --Matthew Daly, The Associated Press, 7 March 2014
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has downplayed evidence that the global climate is considerably less sensitive to greenhouse gases than climate models are estimating, a new paper says. Published by Britain’s Global Warming Policy Foundation think tank, the new paper says clues to weaker climate sensitivity have all been referred to in the IPCC’s recently published Fifth Assessment Report. “However, this important conclusion was not drawn in the full IPCC report, it is only mentioned as a possibility, and is ignored in the IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers,” the report says. --Graham Lloyd, The Australian, 7 March 2014
The "certainty" that underpins European and UK climate policy may be wildly misplaced, as the models that the climate science establishment presents to politicians as evidence run far too hot. That's according to a report released yesterday by UK think-tank the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Nic Lewis doesn't disagree that CO2 contributes to global warming - and most of the additional CO2 is caused by humans. The science today, however, shows around half a degree of surface temperature warming manifesting itself over the next 70 years. This the most important climate discovery in recent years - and you may reasonably think it should have grabbed the headlines. --Andrew Orlowski, The Register, 6 March 2014
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has downplayed evidence that the global climate is considerably less sensitive to greenhouse gases than climate models are estimating, a new paper says. Published by Britain’s Global Warming Policy Foundation think tank, the new paper says clues to weaker climate sensitivity have all been referred to in the IPCC’s recently published Fifth Assessment Report. “However, this important conclusion was not drawn in the full IPCC report, it is only mentioned as a possibility, and is ignored in the IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers,” the report says. --Graham Lloyd, The Australian, 7 March 2014
Slovakia cannot agree with the European Commission’s proposed climate and energy goals that target a 40 percent cut in carbon emissions reductions and increased use of renewable power, Prime Minister Robert Fico was quoted as saying on Monday. Fico said Europe could not be the world’s leader in climate protection at the cost of losing competitiveness with other parts of the world. “We cannot, for example, agree with the Commission’s goal of a 40 percent reduction of greenhouse gases. We cannot agree that a set specific amount of electricity energy should be produced from renewable sources,” Slovak news agency TASR quoted Fico as saying. --Reuters, 3 March 2014
The
European Union should ensure that future climate and energy policies do not
undermine the competitiveness of its industry, already weakened by a price gap
with the U.S., the bloc's member states said. Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic,
Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania said in a joint statement that the 2030 carbon
goal should be set at a “realistic level” and take into account United Nations
talks about a global deal to be agreed in 2015. --Bloomberg,
4 March 2014
Business
magnate Warren Buffett contradicted a major Obama administration talking point
by saying that global warming was not causing extreme weather. The CEO of
Berkshire Hathaway told CNBC that he has not changed the way his companies
calculate the likelihood of a natural disaster because of global warming. “I
think that the public has the impression that because there has been so much
talk about climate, that events of the last 10 years, from an insured
standpoint on climate, have been unusual,” Buffett told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“The answer is, they haven’t.” --Michael Bastasch, Daily
Caller News, 3 March 2014
The
grip of green interests and their corporate allies in places like Silicon
Valley suggests Californians will continue to endure ever-higher energy prices,
lagging construction and manufacturing as a regular feature of the economy.
This may make the green clerisy in the state happy, but is likely to have the
opposite effect on the rest of us and on our economy as it becomes ever more
narrowly based and fragile. --Joel Kotkin, Orange
County Register, 4 March 2014
Ukraine, Russia and The Shale
Revolution
Editor's Note: We've seen a lot of commentary over Putin's actions in Ukraine and especially the Crimea, but I never really saw a good explanation as to why. Putin may be a communist thug and an autocrat but stupid he isn’t. Russians have a way of looking at the world differently than westerners, and I have no doubt this is the real reason for Putin's actions and his lack of concern about what the rest of the world thinks!
Russia's broke, and getting more broke daily – even worse than us because we could turn this around on a dime if we got rid of the communists running things now, and ended the regulatory tyranny that is strangling us and allow American style capitalism do it’s magic and be the force of nature it is capable of being. But those are totally alien concepts to Russia – and all tyrants have the same thing in common. They’re squeezers, not expanders.
If they let this go the Russian economy - as bad as it is with all the corruption Putin and his crowd are involved with - will completely tank, the military will continue to deteriorate, possibly beyond repair, and Putin and his crowd will go the way of the Czar and the Soviet Union. And that's Putin's real concern....Putin!
The reason [for Russia’s military intervention] is part
of the Kremlin's long-term and officially stated (if you bother to look for it)
great game: energy imperialism. That is, recovering Russia's global superpower
status via the the chief weapon at its disposal: its oil and energy clout. Since
the break-up of the USSR, Russia has brooked no opposition, using militaristic
means whenever necessary, to recover that which was lost when the Berlin Wall
-and Soviet global power - fell. Neither has it been reluctant to use energy as
a key bargaining weapon. The blueprint for all this was formally laid down in
May 2009, when a Kremlin
security document, approved and published by the Russian Security
Council, explicitly sanctioned the use of military force in pursuit of the goal
of returning Russia to "energy superpower" status. The report
specifically cited the Caspian Sea region as a key area of potential conflict.
--Peter Glover, Breitbart, 7
March 2014
Natural
gas was the origin of the crisis in Ukraine. It is in Russia’s interest to keep
Ukraine and Europe hooked on Russian gas at prices just low enough to quash
incentives to drill and frack for shale gas. Russia’s state-run news and
propaganda outlets have for years disseminated articles critical of fracking
and supported opponents of the technique. Now with Yanukovich gone it’s as if
Putin has taken the Crimea as a kind of hostage — collateral to hold against
what Ukraine owes Russia for gas. The desperation of Putin’s actions underscore
the threat that shale gas development really does pose to Russia’s gas-fueled
diplomacy. --Christopher Helman, Forbes,
4 March 2014
Supporters
of U.S. energy exports have pounced on the crisis in Ukraine to press their
case for faster approvals of liquid natural gas (LNG) projects and for an end
to a decades-long ban on exports of most U.S. crude oil. LNG supplies from the
United States could help some Western European countries react to any Russian
aggression in coming years. The United States is the world’s top natural gas
producer, due in recent years to hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, and
horizontal drilling. Surplus U.S. energy could go a long way to providing
Europe an alternative to Russian supplies, supporters say. --Timothy Gardner, Reuters,
4 March 2014
Changes in the global trade in natural gas have blunted Moscow’s energy weapon, forcing the Russian pipeline monopoly Gazprom to cut prices worldwide and giving Ukraine slightly more bargaining power. The boom in U.S. shale gas has left gas-exporting countries shopping for other customers. Europe will be able to offset its own declining production with supplies from countries such as Qatar. And in 2012, Norway’s Statoil sold more gas to other European nations than Russia’s Gazprom. “Since the Russian supply cuts in 2006 and 2009, the tables have totally turned,” said Anders Aslund. Ukraine once rivaled Germany as Gazprom’s biggest customer. Now, he said, “Gazprom’s challenge is to stay in the Ukrainian market.” --Steven Mufson, The Washington Post, 2 March 2014
Russia has “absolutely” lost its natural gas leverage because Ukraine can produce gas domestically, said Anders Åslund. Europe, which relies on imports of oil and gas to supplement its own modest production, has seen the flow of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, surge in recent years from producers in Africa and the Middle East. It’s been helped in part by the shale gas bonanza in the United States, which took a major customer off the international market, leaving ample supplies for the continent. That means European countries that once had no choice but to strike deals for gas with Gazprom now have other options. “So if Gazprom stops [exporting] once again, then it’s third strike out for Gazprom,” Anders said. “Europe will stop buying gas from Gazprom until the whole situation changes.” --Darren Goode and Matt Daily, Politico, 4 March 2014
Lord Lawson has highlighted the politics of shale for some time. Hitherto “the West has been heavily dependent for its supplies of oil and gas on an unstable Middle East and an unreliable Russia.” But fracking has already “shaken up the old world order”. Lord Lawson does not claim that our diplomatic and military requirements will be redundant – “there is more to international politics than oil and gas.” However long term political benefits of fracking matter as well. It will make it easier for countries to assert their national independence, without being bullied by dictatorial neighbours. --Harry Phibbs, Conservative Home, 2 March 2014
Thirty years ago, I was Secretary of State for Energy in Margaret Thatcher’s government, and one way and another I have been a close observer of the energy scene ever since. In all that time, I have never known a technological revolution as momentous as the breakthrough that has now made it economic to extract gas from shale. The consequences are difficult to exaggerate. Not just in terms of the economic benefit of a new and abundant source of relatively cheap energy, but in geopolitical terms, too. Until now, the West has been heavily dependent for its supplies of oil and gas on an unstable Middle East and an unreliable Russia. Crucially, all that has changed because gas and oil-bearing shale is scattered throughout the world — including in Britain. This has shaken up the old world order — and the global balance of power is being permanently transformed before our eyes. --Nigel Lawson, Daily Mail, 8 December 2012
The shale gas revolution will boost the energy independence and national security of both the United States and Ukraine. Indeed, it is US companies that have been encouraged to sign PSAs with the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian partners. The International Energy Agency estimates there to be 1.2 trillion cu.m of shale gas in Ukraine in the Donetsk-Prydniprovskyy and Lyublinskyy basins, or the third largest deposit of shale gas in Europe. Within a decade Ukraine could return to a time prior to the early 1970s when its demand for energy was satisfied by domestic production. The rapid expansion of shale gas production, coupled with expansion of domestic gas with the assistance of Canadian-US companies such as Cub Energy, and energy conservation will contribute toward removing Russia’s energy noose around Ukraine’s neck. --Taras Kuzio, Alaska Dispatch, 17 June 2013
A European Union summit in March billed as a step in the bloc’s efforts to combat climate change will focus on strengthening Europe’s industrial base, a draft document seen by Reuters shows. The draft is likely to increase worries among the environmental lobby, which fears its argument that green jobs are the best way to shore up Europe’s fragile economy is being ignored. EU diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, however, have said they do not expect agreement before June at the earliest. Poland and other east European countries with heavy reliance on carbon-intensive coal are seeking concessions. --Barbara Lewis, Reuters, 28 February 2014
These posts are from Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation.
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