BIG SETBACK FOR EU SHALE GAS

Putin’s Victory As Chevron Gives Up All European Shale-Gas InterestsThe Wall Street Journal, 21 February 2015

Selina Williams

In a setback to Europe’s nascent shale-gas industry,Chevron Corp. said Friday it is relinquishing its interests in shale-gas concessions in Romania, the U.S. oil giant’s last shale-gas project in Europe.

It follows Chevron’s announcement last month that it was quitting shale-exploration activities in Poland. Last year Chevron terminated shale-gas agreements in Lithuania and Ukraine.

“That leaves Romania, where we are in the process of relinquishing our concession interests,” a Chevron spokesman said.

The spokesman didn’t say why Chevron was giving up the Romanian concessions.
As in many cases with energy projects, Chevron negotiated a contract with the government for the concessions, which the company is now relinquishing.

Chevron’s pullback on European shale development will be disappointing to some European governments that have been eager to replicate the U.S. shale-gas boom, hoping to reduce reliance on imported gas supplies, in particular from Russia.

But progress has been slow. Disappointing exploration results in Poland and local opposition to hydraulic fracturing, the technique used to release the gas from the rock, have stymied efforts elsewhere.

Countries with promising geology, such as France and Germany, have imposed a moratorium on fracking.

In the U.K., which lifted a moratorium on fracking at the end of 2012, companies have to apply for as many as seven permits and go through a lengthy planning application process before they can drill and frack. So far in Britain, only a handful of wells have been drilled and just one fracked in 2011.

Full story

ANOTHER CLIMATE GESTURE

This week a new EU Ecodesign Directive brings in mandatory energy efficient standards for domestic ovens, cookers and cooker hoods. The change would (allegedly) save the average consumer €50 a year or €230 over the lifetime of an oven. Obviously this suggests the modern oven or cooker is not expected to last very long! The reason for these changes is to reduce CO2 emissions, and thus save the planet from Armageddon due to global warming. But how effective is this going to be, when considered in the wider context of the whole planet?

 In 20 years, there will be 1.6 billion more people on the planet, according to the latest predictions. That’s more than three times today’s total population of all 28 EU Member States. But the world economy is set to grow faster still, doubling in size, with GDP per capita being 75% higher than today. According to the  BP Energy Outlook 2035 just published this week, primary energy consumption is set to increase by 37%, growing by an average of 1.4% each year. 96% of this growth will be outside the OECD, with energy consumption up 2.2% annually.  Fossil fuels will still account for 81% of our energy needs, a drop of only 5% from 2013.

Of course these new standards are not really going to make any measurable difference to the world's CO2 emissions, or to the temperature of the planet. They are simply a gesture designed to show that something is being done, and to persuade the public that they need to take action.

The above summary is taken from the latest Scientific Alliance newsletter 

MILIBAND PROMISES TO END FOSSIL FUEL ELECTRICITY BY 2030

Yes you did read that headline correctly, here is the article he wrote for the Guardian. Not content with banning coal-fired power stations, he is now going to ban all the gas-fired ones as well. So there will be no back-up for when the wind doesn't blow - you have been warned! There are still gas-fired power stations being planned to be built. This man is seriously mad and yet he could end up as prime minister in May. Are the voters mad as well? No, they are simply badly informed, so let's hope that the other parties will see to it that this changes in the next few weeks. 

PACHAURI STEPS DOWN AS CHAIRMAN OF IPCC

Here is the article from the Indian press giving the story. It seems there were ongoing allegations of sexual impropriety. So he was not sacked for the errors in the IPCC reports. However he has been caught up in a number of controversies including claims of making money from the climate fear that he constantly pedalled. Will this change the way the IPCC operates or will it simply find another just like him? We will see, but I suspect it will carry on as before.

THE CLIMATE PARASITES

Here are the accounts of the Winchester Action on Climate Change charity which show they have received significant public funds to further their cause. I have no objection to people being free to raise money from the public directly for any charitable purpose, but this lot seem to be getting the vast majority of their funds directly from taxpayer funded bodies such as councils and the local university. Of course one cannot blame groups like this for applying for public funds; the blame lies with the tax-funded councils and institutions for giving taxpayers money away. If any publically funded body is still able to give its money away like this then it is being over-funded.

This group are not far from me and so I have a special interest, but they are just one example of a huge number of parasitic organisations sucking out funds from the public purse. Here is a post from 2008 referring to larger organisations. While these are the worst offenders, those like the Winchester group are more numerous and their cumulative effect will be to take money away from other important areas of work.

GREENPEACE ACTIVISTS BANNED FROM ENTERING INDIA

The New Indian Express, 18 February 2015

NEW DELHI: The Centre has so far banned 13 foreign activists of Greenpeace International from entering India including nine from the UK, three from the USA and an Australian national.

These activists have been blacklisted as their activities were found to be in violation of visa rules and they were found to be training, motivating and organising Greenpeace India’s activists to create field level protests near thermal plant and coal mine locations, apart from other activities that would damage India’s energy security interests, Ministry of Home Affairs(MHA) has told the Delhi High Court.

The MHA on the basis of intelligence inputs has suggested that Greenpeace UK office has  keen interest in promoting the growth of Greenpeace India’s ground level protests. Home Ministry has also raised suspicion over the funding pattern of Greenpeace International.

According to the MHA, it had been noted the Netherland-headquartered Greenpeace International was focusing on  India’s energy plants in the next couple of years. This was believed to be at the behest of foreign interests against the overall national interests of India.

EU ENERGY DOCUMENT LEAKED

 The Energy Collective, 18 February 2015

Roman Kilisek

Last week, the European Commission held its first orientation debate on the Energy Union in the college of the Commission. “It was the first time that all commissioners together had an in-depth discussion on the issue. And I can tell you that there was very broad agreement on the main features of the future Energy Union, an Energy Union that puts citizens at its core,” the Vice-President for Energy Union Maroš Šefčovič said in his opening speech at the Energy Union Conference in Riga (Latvia).

Thanks to Alice Stollmeyer – an excellent source for the latest transpiring news on EU energy and climate policy in Brussels – who granted access on her website to an internal Commission discussion paper on the Energy Union (dated January 30) leaked to her, we are in a position to catch a glimpse of the preliminary outline of the future EU Energy Union. According to Ms. Stollmeyer, the EU Commission is expected to adopt this ‘Framework Strategy’ on February 25.

The discussion paper starts out explaining why the EU needs an Energy Union and lists a slew of ‘ills’ as they relate to energy procurement in the EU:

“We import 53% of our energy, which makes us the largest energy importer in the world, at a cost of 400 billion euro a year. Many Member States – especially those dependent on a single supplier or a single supply route – remain too vulnerable to supply shocks. 90% of our housing stock is energy inefficient. 94% percent of transport relies on oil products, of which 90% is imported. Collectively, we spend almost €110 bn per year – directly or indirectly – on energy subsidies, often not justified. Our energy infrastructure is ageing, and often not adjusted to the increased production from renewables. There is a need to attract investments, but the current market design and national policies offer insufficient predictability to potential investors. Our internal energy market is far from complete. Energy islands continue to exist and many markets, for instance in South-East Europe, are not properly connected to their neighbours. From 2012 to 2013 post-tax electricity prices for households increased on average 4.4%, while at the same time wholesale prices fell considerably. (…) For European companies, electricity prices are 40% above the US, and gas prices are even three to four times higher than in the US, which impacts the competitiveness of our industry, in particular our energy-intensive industries.”

This extensive list leads to only one conclusion; namely, that “Europe has no choice: if it continues on the present path, the unavoidable challenge of shifting to a low-carbon economy will be made harder by the economic, social and environmental costs of having fragmented national energy markets.” As a consequence, the “move away from a fragmented system characterized by uncoordinated policies based on narrow national interests, leading to national barriers and energy-isolated areas,” is inevitable.

So, what is “The Way Forward” in the Commission’s view? These are actually the most interesting paragraphs in the leaked discussion paper. The ‘energy security’ dimensions that need to be worked on read more like a ‘memorandum of understanding’ with respect to well-known, persistent but often latent issues, than a real actionable strategy. It begs the question of why something will get done this time, given these issues have persisted for at least a decade.

First, it should not come as a surprise that “energy security depends on solidarity and trust between the Member States.” The paper states that “[j]oint approaches in the field of energy can make all parts of the European Union stronger, for instance in case of supply shortages or disruptions.” In general as well as in theory, that makes perfect sense. However, it is not conducive to solidarity if Germany pays effectively lower prices for Russian natural gas – admittedly because of long-term supply contracts – than Eastern European countries.

Furthermore, the paper recognizes that European gas supply needs to be diversified – perhaps modeled along the lines of Northern Europe’s ‘multiple suppliers structure’: “Work on the Southern Gas Corridor must be intensified to enable Central Asian countries to export their gas to Europe. We will equally explore the full potential of liquefied gas, including as a back-up insurance.”
Leaving the project funding part aside, the fact that the Southeastern flank of Europe is very much in geopolitical flux is often underappreciated. Greece is attempting to – at the very least – emancipate itself from Brussels and the EU’s tentacles with regard to Greek post-financial crisis economic policy, which includes stringent labor-market reforms and austerity. Additionally, Turkey’s EU membership has hung in the balance, with Ankara left to ponder its “candidate country” status for over a decade.

AUSTRALIAN PRESS SLATES THEIR ACADEMY OF SCIENCE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE PROPAGANDA

Here is a piece on the article in The Australian. There is a definite increase in the amount of press coverage for articles questioning the so-called consensus. Clearly the consensus is starting to crumble. The more the government and their captive institutions make bold claims that the science is rock solid, when the facts show that global warming is still at a stand still, the more sceptical the public will get and the bolder will the press become in pointing out the obvious mis-match between claims and reality.

USA "NEXT GENERATION" SCIENCE STANDARDS FORCE OUT SCEPTIC VIEWS ON GLOBAL WARMING

Here is an account of what is happening. New science teaching standards are being adopted in many states which prevent teachers from allowing any doubt about the hypothesis that man is responsible for potentially serious global warming. Some states are having strong debates over whether to adopt these strict standards as, quite rightly they believe that this is not a truly scientific approach, but is a way of shutting down debate and preventing students from looking at the evidence for themselves. The climate tyrants are tightening their grip.

NEW WAY TO EXTRACT SHALE GAS USING CO2

I recently came across This article and though it is a few months old, I thought it was of interest. The fact that I have seen no other reference to it might suggest that it is not progressing very quickly. We will just have to wait and see.

WHICH IS MOST DIFFICULT TO SOLVE - STOMACH ULCERS OR THE CHANGING CLIMATE?

Remember a few years ago when the medical world consensus was that stomach ulcers were caused by stress? Then along came some new research that proved that it was in fact caused by a type of bacteria that could live in the acidic environment of the stomach; something that experts believed to be impossible. This is a good story to bring up when faced with people who believe a "consensus" on the cause of global warming is bound to be right. Here Roy Spencer brings this up as an argument in favour of scepticism when discussing an alarmist article in the New York Times.  

NOW ALARMISTS PREDICT DROUGHT FOR USA WEST

Here's another doom-laden computer prediction which seems to fly in the face of the real data. One cannot help thinking that the authors are coming up with findings that fit the scenario that corresponds with global warming alarm. 

UK PARTY LEADERS SIGN CLIMATE CHANGE PLEDGE

Here is the text of the pledge made by the leaders of the Conservatives, Lib Dems, and Labour.

"To seek a fair, strong, legally binding, global climate deal which limits temperature rises to below 2C.
To work together, across party lines, to agree carbon budgets in accordance with the Climate Change Act.
To accelerate the transition to a competitive, energy efficient low carbon economy and to end the use of unabated coal for power generation."

How on earth they can possibly know that temperatures will keep below 2C is anyone's guess. As for a competitive low carbon economy, that is an oxymoron.

 So as far as spending 18 billion per years for the next 35 years is concerned there is no difference between these three parties. Needless to say the Greens and the Nationalists also agree. UKIP is the only party offering a sensible energy policy, though they are highly unlikely to be able to put it into practice. 

GERMANY APPROVES FRACKING

This piece explains the softening of the German government on this issue. They are finally realising that cheaper energy is a must if industry is to be maintained. As in the UK they will have to overcome the rent-a-mob mentality of the green extremists.

ARE THE OCEANS REALLY WARMING?

That is an important question, as it is possibly the last refuge for the "missing heat" that global warming alarmists keep looking for. When you read this article by David Whitehouse you will see that the temperature changes being measured are so small that they are probably less than the margin of error in measuring them. I say probably because the alarmists seem very reluctant to state what they are. I wonder why.

DATA WARS - HOW WARMISTS ARE COOLING THE PAST

There has been a great deal in the past fortnight about the adjustments made to historical temperature records. Here is one of many posts by the excellent Paul Homewood, who has made a significant contribution to uncover this. It appears that the climate scientists responsible for this alteration are just going to keep quiet and wait for the fuss to die down. There seems to be no attempt to rebut the allegations of fiddling. Perhaps there is no good argument to put. What about our politicians? Will they be asking awkward questions? I fear that most are out of their depth as they have little scientific training.

BRAZIL STEEL INDUSTRY DOUBLES ITS CO2 EMISSIONS BY FOLLOWING "GREEN POLICY"

Here is the article covering this. The moral of the story is that some policies that are claimed to save CO2 emissions are just wrong. We cannot trust these people. I believe we will find that wind energy is another idea that will not save anything like as much CO2 emissions as is claimed by the government.

COUNTRY FILE ON WIND ENERGY

The BBC nature programme, Country File, had a ten minute segment on wind energy. You can view the programme here . The section on wind is from 10  minutes in to around 20 minutes in. Some objectors to on-shore wind farms were given a few seconds to give their view, but on the whole it was slanted in favour of wind with the cost of constraint payments (paying the wind farm owners when they are asked to switch off, as the electricity is not needed) being dismissed as too small to worry about. What did not get mentioned at all was the point about back up being required at short notice for when the wind was not blowing. Interestingly the programme also featured in another segment the fact that bird populations were declining, and yet no mention was made of the fact that wind turbines are also "bird choppers". Funny that in a nature programme.   

ANOTHER CLIMATE CHANGE MYTH DEBUNKED

Here is the article which links to new research that debunks the myth that hurricanes are getting more frequent. I would also add that nothing can be attributed to global warming, as there has only been 0.81 degrees Celsius in the last 134 years (since 1880) and none in the last 17 years. Even the 0.81 figure is very uncertain due to lack of thorough coverage of the Earth's surface.

UK PSYCHO-HISTORY PROFESSOR CLAIMS HE CAN MAKE US BELIEVE IN DANGEROUS CLIMATE CHANGE THEORY

Here is a link to the report. Luckily I doubt that the professor has the power, but it is a scary thought that he thinks he can. The government would love to have such powers at their disposal, particularly in the run up to the election.

BOOKER ON THE ARCTIC DATA FIDDDLING

Here is Christopher Booker's latest article in the Sunday Telegraph. He is getting the truth out there in the major media. Eventually the public will see that the climate alarm scare is based on exaggeration and deceit. 

MORE DATA FIDDLING - THIS TIME IN THE ARCTIC

Here is the evidence from Paul Homewood which shows how the sparse Arctic data has been adjusted to give an enhanced warming. f course there is no doubt that in the recent past there has been some warming in this region, but this has happened in the 1920s and 1930s so it is not remarkable, and that is the point, it has only become remarkable due to these adjustments.

UNDERSEA VOLCANOES MAY BE AFFECTING THE CLIMATE

Here is a new paper which reveals new studies into the effect of the huge number of undersea volcanoes on the planet. Until now little was known about them and they were assumed to have a small effect. Now we are beginning to learn that they have a much bigger role. Yet another aspect of climate that we have little understanding of.

SOMETHING TO AVOID FOR YOUR DIARY

Continuing the theme of propaganda material Here is another example. This time it's the RSA (Royal Society for the Arts) that is putting on a series of climate change "events", including a very one-sided question time. Quite how this fits in with their promotion of art in all its forms I cannot understand. Although I am not a patron, I bet that some of my taxes will end up in their hands, and I object to charities who branch out into unrelated areas. Surely there are enough art-related projects that need their funding. If you click on the link you can go on and look at their general activities and you will find that they have a much wider remit than the arts, they are involved in numerous social projects as well as education, including running some schools.

HOW THE MEDIA DISTORT THE FACTS TO MAKE THE CLIMATE SOUND SCARY

Here is a good example of what is going on all over the world in the media. Here is another by the BBC (if you view the programme, the reference to climate is around 28 minutes in). What is happening is that journalists and broadcasters look for scary stories. They therefore happily report all the worst case scenarios put forward by those scientists and activists who are trying to promote the idea of scary climate change. Mild, largely beneficial climate change is not a story worth reporting. It is the drip, drip of references to catastrophic events which are entering the subconscious of the public, and unless they actively seek out the truth the catastrophic picture becomes the dominant story fixed in their mind. It is a kind of brain-washing, very similar to that of religions in a bygone era. (Or of Muslims today.)

PRINCE CHARLES - THE CLIMATE ACTIVIST MONARCH

Prince Charles Launches Blistering Attack On Businesses That Ignore His Climate WarningsThe Guardian 28 January 2015

Jo Confino

Prince Charles has launched a blistering attack on companies that are actively seeking to delay progress on preventing runaway climate change. Highlighting the need for a radical shift in the way the economy is run, he said that over the past decade he has been met by either indifference from mainstream business leaders and economists, or outright opposition.

Pointing out that science had proved beyond doubt the terrifying impacts of inaction, he called on executives to collapse the chasm between how they acted at home and what they were prepared to do in the office.

“We need to start integrating the business public self with the private family self,” he told a meeting of the Corporate Leaders Group. “So that when you go home in the evenings, perhaps you think a little bit about what you are doing and whether it is the right way to go.”

  A decade ago, the prince said few businesses were contemplating the transformative changes required to achieve sustainability, with the majority “actively delaying progress by equating environmental action with damage to their balance sheets.”

In the more than 100 meetings and seminars he has attended since then, the prince said he had “experienced every sort of reaction to the suggestions from myself and many others that time is running out. The negative reactions have ranged from polite indifference to the pronouncement by an economist – who else - that I was ‘the enemy of the enlightenment’.”

Full story




4) The Man Who Sees Himself The Saviour King
The Independent on Sunday, 1 February 2015

John Rentoul & James Hanning

The Prince of Wales sees himself as a saviour, others think he’ll be a meddling monarch

 
Constitutional experts fear Prince Charles could provoke a political crisis. 
 

The Prince of Wales' preparations for an activist monarchy have prompted a backlash, as a new book revealed a dysfunctional and divided court around him.

Someone who has worked closely with him said: "He is dying to have his go with the train set. He does cause concern with his outbursts. He'll struggle to restrain himself."

The book, Charles, The Heart of a King, by Catherine Mayer, claims he is a tortured individual who endures moments of "extreme despondency" and feels guilty about his privileged upbringing.

It says the Prince's court at Clarence House is riven by Wolf Hall-style intrigue and divisions. Wolf Hall is a book and TV series set in the court of Henry VIII. Mayer writes that Charles often creates unnecessary turf wars between courtiers by failing to set clear boundaries.

The Prince has stepped up the number of meetings with ministers and civil servants recently, partly in recognition of the Queen's advancing age.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule this month on whether his "black spider" letters to ministers should be published. But some observers are concerned he is pushing for a more active role in national life even before he succeeds to the throne. Someone with close links to the Palace said: "It is no accident that he writes all those letters to ministers. He does see himself as a kind of saviour of the nation, someone who can mend the broken country. Some might see that as presumptuously messianic."

Another said: "He tends to dash off his letters without a great deal of consideration. He is far too energetic for his own good."

Constitutional experts are concerned that he could provoke a political crisis, especially if he were to become involved in discussions in a hung Parliament after an election. Civil servants have had discussions about the transition to a new monarch, and are believed to have touched on the sensitive question of what should happen if the Queen's health fails.

The Fixed-Term Parliament Act has removed virtually all the remaining elements of royal prerogative in the event of a hung Parliament but there is some anxiety that the Prince is less likely than his mother to be a largely passive onlooker.

A senior official said: "He does seem more difficult to deal with the older he gets. The age of smooth relations between the Palace and politicians, when they were all of roughly the same milieu, is not as it was."

The Prince has let it be known that he hopes other religions will be included when he accedes the throne, and over the weekend stories have emerged suggesting he wants to modernise the honours system. Jonathan Dimbleby, the Prince's biographer, commented a year ago: "A quiet constitutional revolution is afoot ... I predict he will go well beyond what any previous constitutional monarch has ever essayed."

FUNDING OF CLIMATE SCIENCE IS KEY TO DISTORTION OF THE TRUTH

This piece by William Briggs looks at the claims and counter claims over the funding of climate research and the influence of the source of that funding. We all know the expression "he who pays the piper call the tune", and it is very true. That is why it becomes so important who is paying for climate change research. William Briggs has touched a raw nerve when he rightly asserts that it is government that is paying the climate scientists to research into global warming, and it is the government that is intent on bringing in all the taxes and subsidies designed to promote renewable energy and phase out fossil fuels. It is the government that has a huge amount to lose if global warming turns out not to be a problem.

CLIMATE DATA FIDDLING ON AN EPIC SCALE

Here is a round-up of the evidence, which has been building over a number of years over a wide range of countries. To accuse the controllers of the major data providers of colluding in a giant conspiracy seems like madness. If they had really intended to do that, then surely they should have destroyed the original data that has been used to uncover the issue?  No, it is much more sophisticated than that. By inventing some obscure reasons for "adjustments" and "homogenisation" of the data these climate scientists are hoping to brazen out any criticism. What they didn't reckon on was the sheer tenacity of a few intelligent bloggers. Now the extent of the fiddling is finally coming together. The story is beginning to trickle out into the mainstream media. For how much longer can it be ignored by the likes of the major TV channels?