Comments on: US emissions continue to fall

By: Jiri

Jiri — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 13:15:56 +0000

It is bit scary to see the logic of WWF man. He sees CO2 beeing sort of weapon of mass destruction. He wants biding agreement to limit numbers of this “weapon” produced. But, he fails to see that this weapon is an ultimate tool for human and civilisation survival – energy. For thousands of years civilisation with more resources survived and dominated the other less efficient civilisation. The current “wise men” want to change this. It is like changing genetic code of humanity and the result can be unpredictible. I don’t think they have a chance to make this initiative global. The likely outcome is that their civilisation will become less resourcefull and inferior. After all we already see signs of collapsing climate science – their main tool. It becomes more and more politized with less real science within. Becoming platform for indoctrination rather than beeing drive to expand knowledge. Is it what’s going to happen with all science and industry in the “green coutries”? We shall see.

By: David

David — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 00:09:18 +0000

Adam,
Thanks for the comment and posting. I agree that normal market forces will not address this issue – not even a bit. After all, the issue is a result of a market failure. Very simply, we need a substantive price on carbon in the energy system to make the change necessary – sufficient to drive the roll out of CCS (which doesn’t mean it will drive CCS, other things may be more cost competitive at that price level). But it is nevertheless good news that US emissions are falling, but worrying that coal exports are rising in that the latter probably means that no real drop in global emissions is actually taking place as a result. But it keeps the US in the game and hopefully at the table such that a real carbon pricing mechanism can be introduced.
David

By: Mixed-up messages on cutting carbon

Mixed-up messages on cutting carbon — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 08:25:23 +0000

Dear David,

I would be interested to have your views on my response to this blog post, which you can read here: http://blog.wwf.eu/2012/09/19/mixed-up-messages-on-cutting-carbon/

Best wishes,

Adam
Project Officer, Climate and Energy Team, WWF European Policy Office

By: Jiri

Jiri — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 08:30:56 +0000

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/30/north-american-energy-independence-by-2020/#more-70115

This might be the future for US. Energy independence. David Hone can easily confirm David Middleton’s numbers. Shell is heavily involved in in the Gulf, Alaska and US Oil Shale. All he needs to do is to speak to his Shell coleagues outside the CO2 bubble. Oil shale recovery is around 90% and the deposits are simply gargantuous.
Obviously, if tranposrtation can be efficiently converted to electric or gas then the oil consumption would drop.

By: Jiri

Jiri — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 08:02:11 +0000

I’ve looked at DECC scenarios for decarbonisation and it is scary reading indeed. They’ve already achieved that UK fossil fuel production is dropping, energy prices rising and economy shrinking. But there is more to come. Their scenarios are obviously heavily dependent on increased efficiency and energy conservation, electric cars and nuclear energy which would quickly become dominant source of power from 16 to 60% share (starting in 2015). CCS also plays increased role. What is striking is the assumed price of carbon reaching £500/tCO2 (and above) by 2050.
Clearly, energy companies would benefit. But, who is going to pay for that? As of 2012 the situation is truly pathetic. Carbon price collapsed, CCS is going nowhere and even the workhorse nuclear power is in standstill. Scotland is building unreliable wind draining subsidies from England. And the whole UK is increasingly relying on Norwegian gas and extremely expensive LNG.
DECC plans are clearly a pipedream falling into pieces few years after they are being created. Energy prices are soaring and economy struggling. Sorry, but I can make a better national plan this afternoon.

By: Jiri

Jiri — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 07:28:43 +0000

US development shows that carbon trading is a nonsense. US drops CO2 emissions via implementation of carbon regulation (including taxation) and new technology (gas production). They are also consuming so much energy that they can easily become much more efficient (smaller cars). Also energy intensive industry is moving to more energy friendly countries.
Situation in China is different – they are focusing on economic growth (investing into coal power) and it is unlikely they will ever voluntarily limit themselves. They will always stay outside any CO2 regulation.
The third path is the one chosen by Europe. They want to limit CO2 emissions for ideological reason, but they are already quite efficient to do that with slight changes (less SUVs on the roads). They can’t switch to gas and they’ve chosen not to develop nuclear power. The only way to decrease CO2 emissions is via economic decline (while using inefficient technologies like solar & wind power, CCS, biofuels etc.).
It is quite possible that European cities will be soon flooded with motorbikes and bicycles rather than big SUVs. All the government has to do is to gradually increase (direct and indirect) tax on petrol and diesel. This is the path chosen by EU elites and it is obviously not very popular with CO2 trading lobbyists.