GREEN GERMANY: HALF THEIR POWER PLANTS FACE CLOSURE

Deutsche Welle, 24 August 2015
 Germany’s shift to renewable energy sources will have a greater impact on operators of traditional power plants than originally thought, according to new data from the country’s grid supervisor. Fifty-seven traditional gas and coal power plants are set to close in Germany as a consequence of Energiewende, or energy transition, which has diminished the profitability of operating non-renewable power plants.

That’s nine more than had been slated for closure at the beginning of the year, Germany’s leading Bild tabloid reported on Monday, citing figures from the Federal Network Agency.

Energy industry advocates have warned that a heavier reliance on wind and solar power could put Germany’s energy supply security at risk.

Hildegard Müller, head of the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), told Bild that modern power plants were an insurance policy against power shortages and deserved to be financially compensated as such.

“The situation for existing power plants is getting worse,” Müller said. “An ice age is looming for the construction of new plants too. Every second planned facility is hanging by a hair,” Müller said.
 Higher costs
Four years after German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced her decision to phase out nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, the costs of adding more renewables to the energy diet of Europe’s largest economy have exceeded initial estimates.

Citing a recent estimate from a leading German economic think tank, the business daily Handelsblatt reported Monday that annual costs of 28 billion euros per year were being handed down to German consumers for the Energiewende.

That means an average household, or one that consumes some 3,500 kilowatt hours in a year, pays about 270 euros annually for Germany’s pivot toward green energy.

“The energy transition began with the assumptions that energy costs in this country would remain manageable and remain internationally competitive. Neither have materialized,” Barbara Minderjahn, the chief of Germany’s Association of the Energy and Power Industry (VIK), told Handelsblatt.

SHALE REVOLUTION (2) COULD DEPRESS OIL PRICES FOR A GENERATION

City Wire, 26 August 2015

James Phillipps
 Shale oil is undergoing an unheralded productivity boom – the scale of which has not been seen since the early days of IT – that will depress oil prices for a generation.

That is the stark view of Neptune head of research Chris Taylor, which has led his firm to minimise exposure to the oil majors across its fund range.

Oil bulls are admittedly a rare breed in the current climate, with recent moves in the futures market signalling that the price will recover much more slowly than many have predicted. The Black Monday sell-off saw oil prices sink to a six-year low and down to levels not seen since the height of the financial crisis. WTI slumped to slumped to $38.24 while Brent dived to $42.69 and few are prediciting an imminent strong rebound.

However, Taylor believes even current prices may be too optimistic as investors continue to focus on legitimate global growth concerns, but underestimate and misunderstand the massive advances being made in horizontal drilling.

‘If you think about traditional oil, they have been pulling it out of the ground for around 150 years so they know what they are doing and can squeak out productivity gains of around 2-3% a year,’ he said.

‘Shale oil only really started in 1998, in any meaningful way, and we are seeing massive productivity gains, which can be as much as 20-30% a year and they can maintain that level for longer than people think.’

Taylor points to the hard numbers in Exxon’s first quarter report as an indicator of just how stark productivity growth has been. In an update on its US Bakken shale oil field, Exxon revealed its return on investment per $1,000 spent has grown from 12.5% in 2011 to 40% in 2014, which is equivalent to a 321% rise. This has resulted in a collapse in the field’s breakeven rate from $115 a barrel in 2011, down to $35.8 in 2014.

‘A 321% productivity gain over four years is incredible. I have never seen an industry move like this since maybe very early IT at the beginning of the PC rollout and it hasn’t even finished yet,’ Taylor said.

‘This is the biggest ever supply side disruption. The incremental supply increases are not only big by anyone’s standards, they are an overwhelming supply disruption and the beauty is it’s onshore, so cheap and easy to turn off
and on.’
 Rigs down, output up
The surge in productivity has resulted in a collapse in the number of rigs in use, which Taylor believes has hoodwinked many investors.

The rig count hit an all-time high of 1,600 at the start of the year, but this number has since collapsed by 43%, yet output has continued upward.

This echoes a similar pattern in gas extraction when the rig count ‘spookily’ peaked at 1,600 in 2009 before collapsing by 58%. Although the number stabilised over the next three years, it has since shrank by a further 64% and Taylor expects a similar pattern with oil.

The slump in the gas price to around $2.8/BTU has exerted further pressure on the cost of oil. Historically, owing to oil’s higher calorific content, it was priced around eight times gas, but if this metric is used, then oil has much further to fall.

‘If gas is at $4, then oil should be nearer $32, not $45 and gas is nearer $3.’

He said such is the glut of US supply increase, its productivity gains were the fourth highest ever by a single country in 2014 and the 10th highest in 2013, with the 2015 figures yet to be factored in.

The US added 1.5 million barrels per day last year and 1.3 million in 2013, which is of such a magnitude that it is sufficient to more than fill the gap in production left by much of Libya and Iran being offline.

‘Historically, supply side disruptions have been very big and instant [for example, through war], but the US productivity gains are not only big enough to offset it very quickly, they can exceed it. This gives you a better ability to dampen out volatility and oil price swings, and structurally the oil price must track lower,’ Taylor said.

‘Another problem the oil price has is that if you look at shale reserves globally, they are massive and very well spread. The likes of Argentina and China have not even started, and long-term, when they get going, there will be a massive amount of supply coming through.

‘You are going to see relatively cheap and abundant hydrocarbon resources for some time yet, with US shale fields alone not expected to peak until 2040. That is a generation of cheap supply.’

CHINA CURBS RENEWABLE ENERGY SUBSIDIES

Bloomberg News, 21 August 2015
 China’s wind and solar developers are getting much less than they anticipated in handouts from the government because of a quirk in subsidy policies, threatening to stymie growth in the world’s biggest market for clean energy.

The issue relates to the support China pays power suppliers as enticement to develop clean energy projects. Surcharges slapped onto electricity bills to fund the subsidies are too low, leaving a gap between what was promised and what’s being paid out, said Meng Xiangan, vice chairman of the China Renewable Energy Society, an industry group.

Left to continue, the trend may foreshadow a reckoning for what has become the engine of growth in the global renewables industry. While China’s hunger for energy is unsated, less money flowing to developers could ultimately constrain China’s capacity to generate power from nonpolluting sources.

“This will weaken enthusiasm for investment and go against the development of renewable power in the long run,” Meng said.

Additional delays could ultimately eat into cash flow at companies such as China Longyuan Power Group Corp., China Datang Corporation Renewable Power Co. and others.

About 30 billion yuan ($4.7 billion) to 40 billion yuan may be owed by the government to developers in unpaid subsidies, said Li Junfeng, director general of the National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation. Some developers have been waiting since before 2012 for payments they’ve yet to receive, Li estimates.

A fax sent to the Ministry of Finance, which retains responsible for allocating the subsidies, wasn’t answered.
 Consumer Impact
“Though the government is working to fill in the shortage in the subsidies, this can’t be done at one kick,” said Gong Siwen, an analyst at Northeast Securities Co. in Shanghai. “The government has to consider the impact on electricity bills after a possible lift in the surcharge.”

The issue could undermine efforts by China’s renewables developers to raise financing from outside China, said Nick Duan, a Beijing-based analyst from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

USA SENIOR POLITICIAN PUTS THE RECORD STRAIGHT ON CLIMATE

Here is a link to a letter written by Dennis Hedke a member of the Kansas House of Representatives. In it he corrects a number of errors made in a talk by a climate change alarmist. It is good to see a senior politician speaking on this controversial topic.

THE FOLLY OF THE EU CLIMATE POLICY

This speech is an excellent summary of the futility of the EU trying to set an example to the rest of the world on cutting CO2 emissions.

UK JOINS EASTERN EUROPE TO FIGHT BINDING NEW GREEN EU LAWS

Britain and Germany will line up on opposite sides of a European Union green energy debate starting next month on how to meet agreed renewable fuel targets for the next decade. The 28 member states agreed climate and energy goals last October, but to make it easier to get a deal, the decision went only as far as a framework. So far, the 2030 renewable goal is binding only at EU-wide level and the challenge is to ensure it is met as the bloc as a whole cannot be fined for infringement. Germany, which is pushing through its Energiewende, or shift from nuclear to green energy, wants binding laws. In the opposite camp, Britain aligned with the Czech Republic in a joint paper urging a “light-touch and non-legislative” approach. --Barbara Lewis, Reuters, 19 August 2015

FREE SEX FOR CLIMATE CONFERENCE ATTENDEES

Here is the link to an article from 2009 for the Copenhagen conference. Now I understand why they are called COP conferences! I wonder if the ladies in Paris will follow suite?

GREEN PROPAGANDA THE FUN WAY

I came across this article the other day and thought what a clever ploy it was.  Climate sceptics could also use this idea to instil a more balanced view into young minds. Just a thought!

COULD HOURS OF SUNSHINE BE THE CAUSE OF WARMING?

This seems an obvious question to ask and to answer it I naturally turned to the blog that has become a mind of information on all things related to climate change, Paul Homewood's "Not A Lot Of People Know That" Blog.  I simply typed "sunshine hours" into his search engine and a list of relevant posts came up. This one has a lot of very useful data and seems to give the expected answer that the average temperature is indeed linked to the hours of sunshine. So there we have it.


  

THE REAL DANGERS OF ATTEMPTS TO REDUCE CO2

This article by Matt Ridley clearly exposes the nonsense at the heart of policies to reduce CO2 emissions. Why are our politicians so gullible?

IS GLOBAL COOLING ON THE WAY?

This video is by an expert in meteorology and he describes clearly what factors are causing the variations in climate that we have been experiencing over the past and why the present climate is driven by natural cycles, not man's CO2 emissions.

ARCTIC DRILLING GETS THE GO AHEAD FROM USA

This article explains the details. It seems odd That President Obama is going to such great lengths to close down coal-fired power stations and at the same time opening up the Arctic to extract more fossil fuels.

ARCTIC METHANE WARMING THREAT DEBUNKED

This piece gives details of a new paper that shows that if the Arctic permafrost were to warm then the bacteria in the soil would actually remove more methane from the atmosphere. This is the complete opposite of the scare story that has been put forward by climate alarmists who have claimed that methane would be released into the atmosphere.

GLOBAL WARMING HAS NOT RESUMED, DESPITE THE BLATANT PROPAGANDA TO THE CONTRARY

This article explains very clearly why it is wrong to say that global warming has resumed, or that there has not been a pause. Both these arguments have been made by scientists of a warmist persuasion who seem intent on keeping the global warming issue alive.

THE BATTLE FOR COAL IN THE USA

This article explains what is actually going on as coal company shares hit rock bottom with some filing for bankruptcy. But this is not the end for coal, far from it, the world is still hungry for the fuel, so this is just a short-term setback (one which will leave many current shareholders deeply out of pocket). In the longer term coal will rise again under new ownership.  

GREEN WITH IRONY

 From my friends at CFACT

Radical Green ideologues live in a world divorced from reality.

California Greens from Governor Brown on down have been blaming California's drought on global warming, oblivious to the fact that rain and drought in the U.S. are historically normal.

They never miss an opportunity to try and use natural weather events as an excuse to attack free market Capitalism.  They particularly love to attack oil.

How ironic that when the time comes to try and mitigate the problem, it's the prosperity and ingenuity that flows from freedom to which they turn -- and to oil.

Californians just rolled 96 million plastic balls (at 36 cents a piece) into a reservoir that serves Los Angeles in an attempt to shade the water and curb evaporation.

What are the plastic balls made from?  Oil.

This reminded us of the Seattle enviros who paddled kayaks to protest an oil platform oblivious to the fact that their own kayaks in effect came out of oil wells.

The Greens may not get the irony, but CFACT's readers do.  This week over 10,000 of our friends shared our "meme" about California's plastic balls with over a million and a half of their friends on Facebook.  The kayak meme (below) blew away all records. Over 300,000 shared that one with over 31 million of their friends!

The EPA certainly provided a fine example of Green irony this week when they released polluted water from a Colorado mine and turned the Animas River yellow.

Imagine how the Greens would be howling for blood had the polluted water gotten away from a productive business rather than feckless bureaucrats.

The Green-Left despises the freedom that nurtures them.  They have little notion of the hardships in store for them and for the environment if they succeed in strangling it.

THE CLIMATE ALARMIST PROPAGANDA UNITS

I stumbled upon this article while reading a recent piece relating to an organisation which Roger Black, the ex BBC science correspondent, joined. What was particularly interesting was the list of alarmist climate change organisations, all well funded, and basically doing the same job of feeding alarmist propaganda (dressed up as science) to the media in the hope of persuading us that there is no doubt whatsoever about the issue that the climate is changing radically and we are all doomed unless CO2 emissions are cut drastically.

This comment below the article caught my attention: "Why the urgency and why the compulsive need to boost levels of public compliance regarding “action on climate change”, though (aside from the obvious motivation of wanting people to agree with them, and also the desire to wield power)? It’s still not 100% clear to me what’s driving all this activity. Those who want CO2 mitigation have largely got what they want, in the UK at least – the three main political parties committed to it, the Climate Change Act ensconced in the law books, the EU committed to it, the United Nations committed to it, the majority of the media and NGOs and charitable foundations on side. What more could they reasonably expect to gain, even if a higher percentage of the public acknowledged the “strength of the scientific consensus”? What practical difference would it make?"

The writer has discounted one answer to his question, which is that there are people who genuinely believe what they are doing, rather like nineteenth century missionaries, or today's radical Muslims. Being convinced they are right does not, of course, make them right, but such people want to convince everyone else.
 

EPA v THE PEOPLE

The Climate War is going up a gear in the USA. Since President Obama has pursued his emission reduction policy via the Environment Protection Agency, bypassing the Congress a huge resistance has emerged as explained here.

97% CONSENSUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE FINALLY DEBUNKED

This post gives the details of how the 97% figure was dreamt up and how it was used as propaganda, only for it to be finally demolished for the nonsense it always was.

DECARBONISING ENERGY IS LIKE "PUSHING WATER UPHILL"

The headline is taken from an article in the Financial Times - see this link (£) here. I found this passage particularly significant:
"Ms Rudd (the Climate Minister) is on shaky ground when she warns green technologies not to expect permanent subsidy. Decarbonising energy is the economic equivalent of pushing water uphill. Carbon-intense methods of driving a turbine or car may always outperform new technologies. Coal, oil and gas are widespread, densely packed with kilojoules and easily stored. Wind, solar and nuclear energy lag well behind. Only a high and rising price for carbon can level the field. Requiring government action to enforce, this is subsidy by another name."

That is indeed exactly the point - we are now moving backwards in terms of technology and cost, and for what exactly? The last line is very prescient -  the only way these policies can succeed is by pushing up the price of fossil fuels. 

CO2 EMISSIONS STILL RISING - SO WHERE IS THE WARMING?

This piece gives full details of CO2 emissions around the major nations. It seems to me that there is no prospect of emissions falling in the foreseeable future, despite the rhetoric of Western leaders.

NOW THIS COULD CAUSE SERIOUS CLIMATE CHANGE

But nobody is suggesting taking any precautions about This. Just like CO2 emissions we cannot be sure if or when anything might happen, but if it did it would be far worse.

A TALE OF DOOM-MONGERING CLIMATE SCIENTISTS

This report in the Daily Mail highlights the blunders made in a vast number of research papers alleging that the oceans are becoming acidic, when it is clear that this will not happen. We live in a propaganda filled world.

IS THE AMOUNT OF GLOBAL WARMING STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT?

This piece tells the story of a series of questions made in the UK House of Lords which lead to an extraordinary revelation. No - the warming is not statistically significant. Read the link to find out why.

WHAT'S THE POINT OF THE MET OFFICE?

This 30 minute BBC radio 4 programme contains some interviews with climate change sceptics that some have sad would not be permitted. Quentin Letts seems to have got away with it somehow.

MORE EVIDENCE OF DATA FIDDLING BY THE UK MET OFFICE

This post looks at what is going on with the latest version of the temperature record from the Met Office. The latest adjustments may be small, but the general trend is towards a cooler past and a warmer recent past, thus exaggerating the trend.

THOSE WARMIST CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS

Here is the latest column from our friend, Christopher Booker. He has hit on an important truth - that it is the climate alarmists who are the "deniers" since they wilfully ignore all the evidence that does not fit their world-view.

UK MET OFFICE GIVEN BIG BONUSES FOR WHAT?

Here is the story and it seems they have given themselves bonuses for simply forecasting the weather. They seem no better now than they were five years ago.

TAILOR-MADE PROPAGANDA HEADING OUR WAY TO CONVINCE THE SCEPTICS

This article shows the way climate alarmists are thinking about their way forward. The problem for them is that we already know what they are up to and so it is unlikely to work. Unfortunately even if it doesn't work we will still end up paying for the daft policies. 

EVERYTHING YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW IN ONE BOOK - YOURS FOR $995

This is the latest edition of the Climate Change Consulting Report. You will be horrified to know that this "business" is now reputed to be worth $1.5 trillion. Why? I've no idea, but it explains why every college, university, charity, etc. is jumping on to this never-ending bandwagon. There is a lot more on this over at Jo Nova's blog here.

IS THE UK FRACKING INDUSTRY DEAD BEFORE IT STARTS?

Here's a good look at what is happening and how one major participant sees the future. The fact is that if the government wants it to happen then it has got to do more to make it happen. This is exactly what is happening in the house-building industry where many councils have been reluctant to grant permission. In this case they are forcing councils to allocate more building land.