British PM now sees a future for fossil fuels in Britain
The location of Rishi Sunak and Grant Shapps’s net zero relaunch today shows there has been a change of emphasis since the PM set up the Department for Energy Security and Climate Change last autumn.
One suspects a bit of ideology creeping in: fossil fuels have become a great bogeyman, and nothing will make them acceptable
Whereas Boris Johnson might have sought to make such an announcement at a wind farm or solar farm, today’s relaunch took place at Culham in Oxfordshire, the site of Britain’s nuclear fusion research facility. Fusion is the holy grail of carbon-free energy which even enthusiasts admit is decades away from being commercialised, if it can be at all. But it is a hint that the government is no longer going to try to power Britain with wind and solar energy alone. A competition to pick out the most promising modular nuclear reactor designs – for further funding and development – is one of the strands of today’s announcements.
The most eye-catching initiative is carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS). In his recent budget Jeremy Hunt announced a remarkable £20 billion of investment in CCUS projects. Now we learn that eight ‘clusters’ of projects are planned (although they won’t include Drax, the woodchip-burning power station in South Yorkshire whose shares have dived this morning in response to the news it has lost out on government backing).
Compared with the £240 million the government has made available to develop its ‘hydrogen economy’, this is a vast sum. Today’s document, ‘Powering Up Britain’, doesn’t quite spell it out, but the quest for CCUS signals that the government has changed its mind and now sees a future for fossil fuels. The whole point of CCUS, after all, is to suck out from the air carbon dioxide which has been produced by burning fossil fuels. As things stand, the government remains committed to removing all fossil fuels from electricity production by 2035, banning petrol and diesel cars, as well as new gas boilers, by the same date and pushing for existing gas boilers to be replaced by electric heat pumps at the rate of 600,000 a year. But what if we had a CCUS industry that was removing carbon from the atmosphere at the same rate it was being pumped in? The objections to burning fossil fuels would theoretically disappear. We could, say, continue to use gas power plants to back up intermittent wind and solar – and eliminate the need to find some way of storing vast amounts of energy.
That is not, however, how many green campaigners see it. Anticipating today’s announcement, 700 scientists and campaigners have written to Sunak demanding that no new oil and gas licences be granted. They complain that CCUS is no solution because it has ‘yet to be proved at scale’. They are right on that point – although the same is true of numerous other technologies which have been floated as possible ways of getting to net zero, and which are regularly advocated by some of the signatories. One suspects a bit of ideology creeping in: fossil fuels have become a great bogeyman, and nothing will make them acceptable.
The truth is, if the world is going to get anywhere close to net zero, CCUS will have to be used – because the process emissions from steel-making, cement-making, fertilizer-manufacturing and agriculture are going to be extremely difficult to address. Yet the government is taking an enormous gamble with its £20 billion. A decade ago, David Cameron launched a similar initiative, involving the investment of a more modest £1 billion in a CCUS demonstration plant. But in 2015 the scheme was abandoned, shortly before the expected announcement of who had won the bid. The government on that occasion came to the conclusion that CCUS was too much of a unicorn to take a risk with. Question is: what has changed now?
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/03/rishi-sunak-now-sees-a-future-for-fossil-fuels-in-britain
*************************************************Manchin Steps Up Clash With Biden Over Electric-Car Tax Credits
Senator Joe Manchin stepped up his fight with the Biden administration over its implementation of the president’s signature climate bill in a way Manchin says over-emphasizes clean energy technology, turns away from fossil-fuel production and spends too much.
“They just want to throw caution to the wind and put more money out and throw more money from the Treasury and credits that basically are not going to accelerate how quickly that we can be totally self-reliant,” Manchin, a Democrat of West Virginia, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
In separate comments on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Manchin wouldn’t rule out taking legal action to stop the administration’s interpretation of the legislation.
“I’m looking at every option I possibly have to make sure that that bill is fulfilled and basically implemented the way it was intended to,” he said.
The law in question is the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, passed last year with support from Manchin after he, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and Biden hammered out a deal behind closed doors that circumvented the usual legislative process.
The law makes billions of dollar available — through subsidies and tax credits — to promote the production and purchase of electric vehicles.
Manchin says the administration is veering from lawmakers’ intent by not putting enough into domestic production of fossil fuels. It also, he says, has been too permissive in allowing foreign automakers to access some vehicle credits.
Other lawmakers, including Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Washington, have voiced concern over how the Treasury is deciding which countries can supply battery materials for cars that eligible for credits.
“I’m going to fight and fight back hard,” Manchin said on Fox. “And I would hope that my Democrat and Republican friends in the legislature will feel the same way and will work with us to hold the administration’s feet to the fire.”
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Old refineries incapable of manufacturing enough light hydrocarbons to electrify the world
The zero-emission movement in the wealthy countries are experiencing a “dangerous delusion” of a global transition to “just electricity” that eliminates the use of the three fossil fuels of crude oil, natural gas, and coal, that made society achieve so much in a few centuries. As old refineries accelerate their closure rates in the coming years, new Asia refineries are coming to the rescue! Does Asia’s rescue represent the good news or the bad news?
The future does not bode well as 20 percent of the 700 worldwide aging refineries are projected to close in the next 5 years that will result in less manufacturing with the loss of 140 sites to meet the ever growing demands of ships, jets, and the derivatives needed for all the products demanded by society. With less manufacturing in wealthy countries in the days ahead, further shortages and inflation of both fuels and products in perpetuity are guaranteed.
As old refinery closures accelerate, it’s becoming obvious that wind turbines, solar panels, and EV’s may face challenging growth as they are 100 percent made with those limited light end hydrocarbons that will diminish with refinery closures. But wait, Asia is coming to the rescue!
Asia is the region with the greatest number of future petroleum refineries. As of 2021, there were 88 new facilities in planning or under construction in Asia. The amount of oil fed through refineries in Asia has significantly increased in the past three decades as demand for petroleum products surged in developing countries such as China and India, both with significant less stringent environmental regulations than those in America. China is on track to succeed the United States as the country with the greatest oil refinery throughput.
These new Asian refineries, just like the mining in China, Africa, and Brazil for the exotic minerals and metals required for wealthy countries to achieve their net-zero emission goals, will be constructed and maintained on some of the LEAST environmentally controlled landscapes on this planet.
A subject for another time: Is the rescue by Asia’s new refining manufacturing capabilities exposing national security issues for America?
Today, oil refineries around the world are designed for specific crude oil feed-stocks available to those sites, and then manufacture a 42-gallon barrel of oil into light and heavy hydrocarbon products available from that feed-stock to support the world’s 8 billion on this planet are dependent on the 50,000 jets moving people and products, and more than 50,000 merchant ships for global trade flows, and the military’s of each country, and space programs that are based on the heavy hydrocarbons for the various fuels manufactured from crude oil. In addition, those light hydrocarbons are primarily used for making the more than 6,000 products now in society.
With enough money and technology, new refinery facilities could be designed to extract light hydrocarbons like ethylene from natural gas, and transportation fuels can be manufactured from coal, but both processes come with new equipment and produce excessive emissions.
No new refinery has been built in America since 1977, 46 years ago, so the need for new American refinery facilities to treat natural gas and/or coal may be a pipe dream to obtain environmental and construction permits for a new fossil fuel manufacturing site, when America is motivated to rid itself of both natural gas and coal, along with crude oil.
Today, about 90 percent of that 42-gallon barrel of crude oil is manufactured into the heavy hydrocarbon products like automotive gasoline’s, jet fuels, distillate fuel oils, diesel fuels, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and those “other products” which comprise the other 10 percent of a barrel of crude oil that contains light hydrocarbons, usually referred to as “oil derivatives” that are manufactured from crude oil.
Today, the big push is to reduce emissions, and the target is a future with net zero emissions. Here’s a very short scope of net zero (partial listing):
Electrify all cars, trucks, and train use.
Electrify most heat uses, especially gas heat.
Rebuild the grid so wind and solar generated electricity with battery storage are the primary electricity power source.
To achieve a world of only those light ends to make all the products now in society that supports lifestyles and all the infrastructures, there are thoughts among the green community that we can convert the existing old refineries to produce nothing but derivatives, and/or replace the existing refineries with derivative refineries, or just manufacturing those light ends. That may be another pipe dream as each refinery is designed for specific crude oil feed-stocks available to those sites, and conversions may be technically too expensive and not even permitted.
From the proverb: You can’t squeeze blood from a turnip:
A corn cob weighs in at about around 1 to 1.5 pounds per mature ear of corn. Fresh cut cobs yield around 6-7 ounces of corn. We can’t squeeze more kernels from a cob.
A 42-gallon barrel of oil contains about 90 percent of heavy hydrocarbons for various fuels, and about 10 percent of light hydrocarbons that are the basis of thousands of products made from those oil derivatives by -products. We can’t squeeze more light end hydrocarbons from a barrel of oil.
Such a switch of those old refineries to derivative refineries is a pipe-dream or an environmental and emissions disaster as 90 percent of that 42-gallon barrel of crude oil would need to be disposed of if not marketable as manufactured products like liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), automotive gasoline’s, jet fuels, distillate fuel oils, diesel fuels.
From the proverb “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” tells us that:
you can’t rid America of only the “fuels” manufactured from fossil fuels and
continue to enjoy just the by-products of those light ends hydrocarbons that are manufactured from the same crude oil.
We may get to zero emissions, like we had in the pre-fossil fuel days in the 1800’s, but once we rid America of those fuels that generate emissions, manufactured at old refineries, we also rid America of the light ends that are the basis of the 6,000 products that did not exist before the 1900’s.
Just a few hundred years ago when the world’s population was around just one billion, before oil, the world was unspoiled, decarbonized, and dominated by mother nature and the wild animal kingdom. In the 1800’s there was no coal fired power plants, nor natural gas power plants, and the Beverly Hillbillies had not yet discovered oil. There were fewer humans competing with the animals due to humanity’s limited ability to survive what mother nature provided. Before oil, life was hard and dirty, with many weather and disease related deaths.
The ruling class, powerful elite, and the media lack some energy literacy which may be the reasons they avoid conversations about the ugly side of “green” mandates and subsidies. Before anyone in Washington decides to procure wind turbines, solar panels, or an EV, they should read the Pulitzer Prize nominated book that I co-authored, “Clean Energy Exploitations”, and decide for themselves if they wish to financially support the humanity atrocities and environmental degradation among folks in developing countries with yellow, brown, and black skin, so that the wealthy countries can go green.
Thus, without planned replacements in America for what is now manufactured from fossil fuels, we may get to the net-zero emissions society but with heavy reliance on Asia to achieve those lofty goals.
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Australia: Climate wars rekindled
So, apparently the climate wars aren’t over quite yet. Thank goodness for that! That’s not us rekindling the battle, by the way, it’s the Greens’ ‘Treasury spokesman’ federal Senator Nick McKim who has discovered a new term of abuse: ‘ecocidal’ to describe opponents of net zero. Definitely a word for Kel Richards to strip bare, but obviously a contrived new term designed to imply somebody is guilty of genocide if they don’t subscribe to the climate cult’s nihilistic net-zero agenda.
This is good news. As far as we are concerned, the climate wars are desperately needed: an ongoing battle for common sense, reason, proportionality and above all science – real science, as opposed to ‘The Science’ aka left-wing political propaganda of the sort which caused so much unnecessary suffering (and death) during Covid.
Put simply, it has never been shown that human beings have any ability whatsoever to influence let alone to ameliorate or reverse global climate trends and patterns. The precautionary principle suggests that if the theory of anthropogenic global warming is valid, then heavily industrialised nations should do what they can to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, but – and this is critical – to do so in a way that does not cause equal or more harm in other areas. This is where ongoing proper cost-benefit analyses are required to influence genuine political debate and corporate decision-making, but they are entirely absent.
For example, what is the cost to the working poor if energy prices rise versus what is the actual benefit to the planet for that sacrifice? What is the cost to Third World countries when they don’t have access to cheap electricity versus what is the benefit to them of a potential and purely academic ‘modelled’ reduction in global temperatures? Or on an even more immediate topic: what is the genuine cost in terms of carbon emissions output involved in the manufacturing of an entire global fleet of electric vehicles, batteries and the infrastructure needed to power them versus the cost of simply carrying on with business as usual? What is the cost to entire societies of reducing the nitrogen in their soil versus the measurable benefit to the planet? What is the military and security cost of achieving net zero versus the hypothetical environmental benefit?
That’s if the AGW theory is valid. This week, in Kiwi Life, Amy Brooke analyses the claims of the climate catastrophists and concludes: just follow the money. David van Gend, meanwhile applies not only his clinical but his satirical skills to offer a diagnosis of Mother Earth herself.
Despite the relentless propagandising across virtually all media and from the major political parties here in Australia the simple fact remains: none of the doomsday predictions going back some three or four decades has come true. Not one. Indeed, weather patterns have often done the complete opposite of what was so stubbornly predicted. Much like the now-exposed fraudulent modelling on Covid, climate modelling is self-evidently deeply flawed as a ‘science’. A gypsy queen with a crystal ball in a Louisiana fairground probably has a better track record at peering into the future than Al Gore, Tim Flannery, Greta Thunberg, King Charles, Klaus Schwab and all the rest of them put together.
With wall-to-wall Labor governments across mainland Australia, we are now entering an extremely dangerous period in our history. The ideologues and the dreamers are now in charge. Sadly, due to the cowardice of the Liberal party under former prime minister Scott Morrison, the opposition has twice the task in front of it than it had during the Rudd-Gillard years when Tony Abbott was able to use climate madness as a cudgel against the Left.
Peter Dutton now faces a formidable task. He has to wage war first against the bedwetters within the Liberal party, the likes of Simon Birmingham, Andrew Bragg and Matt Kean – he who wreaked such destruction on the Liberal brand at the weekend. Then he has to convince his colleagues to either abandon net zero or abandon the nuclear moratorium. And then he will need to launch a comprehensive political campaign to explain to the average Aussie just what this prosperity-destroying concept really entails and what a world of energy poverty means for our children and grandchildren. And he has to do it all within the next eighteen months
Can he? Make sure you read James Allan and Judith Sloan this week..
The Labor victory in NSW at the weekend probably helps. Now, Labor has no excuses. They can implement all their lunatic policies and reap the whirlwind. Sadly, we will all be collateral damage but public sentiment will shift very rapidly once the net-zero agenda starts to bite and the Liberals need to be fully prepared to take advantage of that shift. As Mark Higgie points out, many Europeans are already turning against the craziness of electric vehicles. As winter approaches, how many Aussies will struggle to pay their energy bills? One study in Britain revealed a staggering number of households forced to sit in the dark without heating during the long winter months. This is what awaits Australians as our zealous Labor governments hurtle down the same path.
It is now up to the Liberals and Peter Dutton to re-engage in the climate wars. It’s a fight that can and must be won. We’re certainly up for it!
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/04/climate-wars-rekindled/
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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