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Forget about peak oil … here’s the real reason Saudi Arabia is selling its oilfields

Jun 14th, 2016
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New technologies are poised to displace oil as our dominant fuel source

“The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil,”

Sheikh Zaki Yamani, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister in the 1970s

This sentiment arguably still chimes with Riyadh’s outlook in 2016 particularly with countries such as China exploring long-term alternative sources of clean energy.

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, announced in April by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the first phase of which, the National Transformation Plan, was approved last week by the cabinet in Riyadh, envisages a huge diversification of the Saudi economy away from its dependency on oil production over the coming decades.

In the near term, Saudi Arabia continues to target oil market share, pumping at near record highs, although, as current Saudi energy minister Khalid al-Falih said on June 2 at a meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries “there is no reason to expect that Saudi Arabia is going to go on a flooding campaign”.

Undoubtedly Saudi Arabia’s pumping strategy continues to reflect, at least partly, Riyadh’s desire not to hand market share to its regional rival Iran as the latter seeks to ramp up oil production following the easing of Western sanctions related to Tehran’s nuclear programme.

But it likely also includes a calculation that targeting price over market share is no longer a viable policy.

The higher the price of a barrel of oil, the easier it is to justify the production of energy where the extraction costs are significantly greater than those of Saudi Arabia, especially when low interest rates allow projects to secure cheap financing.

Equally, newly-developed extraction technologies do not disappear.

Saudi Arabia may have hoped to bear down, through increased production, on the ability of the US shale oil industry’s ability to compete but those US producers have, so far, proved tenacious.

Shale oil potentially becomes stranded in the ground if the global oil price is too low to justify its extraction but as the price ticks up, the production comes back on-stream while technological advances may even lower the extractive costs.

But as Riyadh looks out to 2030 it also has to factor into its calculations that major energy-consuming economies, including China, are ploughing money into efforts to develop dependable sources of clean energy.

On the consumer side, Hong Kong itself is already championing the use of electric vehicles but that electricity is still largely sourced from carbon-energy.

The ultimate prize is to create that electricity from a carbon-free energy source.

And one way to do that is by exploring the feasibility of nuclear fusion technology to re-create on planet Earth the conditions that generate the energy that powers the sun and the stars. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) Project, after the Latin word iter meaning the way, is a collaboration of 35 nations including China.

The aim, as ITER explains it, is to create “the tokamak… an experimental machine designed to harness the energy of fusion”.

“Inside a tokamak, the energy produced through the fusion of atoms is absorbed as heat in the walls of the vessel. Just like a conventional power plant, a fusion power plant will use this heat to produce steam and then electricity by way of turbines and generators,” ITER says.

Science fiction? Yet in February Chinese scientists in Hefei, the capital of Jiangsu province, managed in their own Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) to heat, as the POST reported, “a hydrogen gas – a hot ionised gas called a plasma – to about 50 million Kelvins (49.999 million degrees Celsius). The interior of our sun is calculated to be around 15 million Kelvins.”

Previous experiments by European and Japanese physicists could only hit that temperature for periods of less than a minute. The EAST team maintained that temperature for 102 seconds which was a breakthrough.

Energy produced from fusion technology is many decades away even if it is shown to be achievable but Riyadh understands it is just another example of how the world is seeking alternatives to carbon energy.

Saudi Arabia may not have been looking EAST when it mapped out its 2030 Vision but the Hefei success, and indeed technological advances in shale oil extraction, surely underscore why Riyadh is targeting oil market share, not price, and help explain its determination to diversify the Saudi economy over the next few decades.

As a major energy consumer, China can surely only benefit from this as Saudi Arabia has apparently realised that Sheikh Yamani had a point.
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Source URL: http://www.scmp.com/business/global-economy/article/1974989/forget-about-peak-oil-heres-real-reason-saudi-arabia-selling

Biggest US coal company funded dozens of groups questioning climate change

Jun 13th, 2016
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Analysis of Peabody Energy court documents show company backed trade groups, lobbyists and thinktanks dubbed ‘heart and soul of climate denial’

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/13/peabody-energy-coal-mining-climate-change-denial-funding

Peabody Energy, America’s biggest coalmining company, has funded at least two dozen groups that cast doubt on manmade climate change and oppose environment regulations, analysis by the Guardian reveals.

The funding spanned trade associations, corporate lobby groups, and industry front groups as well as conservative thinktanks and was exposed in court filings last month.

The coal company also gave to political organisations, funding twice as many Republican groups as Democratic ones.

Peabody, the world’s biggest private sector publicly traded coal company, was long known as an outlier even among fossil fuel companies for its public rejection of climate science and action. But its funding of climate denial groups was only exposed in disclosures after the coal titan was forced to seek bankruptcy protection in April, under competition from cheap natural gas.

Environmental campaigners said they had not known for certain that the company was funding an array of climate denial groups – and that the breadth of that funding took them by surprise.

The company’s filings reveal funding for a range of organisations which have fought Barack Obama’s plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and denied the very existence of climate change.

“These groups collectively are the heart and soul of climate denial,” said Kert Davies, founder of the Climate Investigation Center, who has spent 20 years tracking funding for climate denial. “It’s the broadest list I have seen of one company funding so many nodes in the denial machine.”

Among Peabody’s beneficiaries, the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change has insisted – wrongly – that carbon emissions are not a threat but “the elixir of life” while the American Legislative Exchange Council is trying to overturn Environmental Protection Agency rules cutting emissions from power plants. Meanwhile, Americans for Prosperity campaigns against carbon pricing. The Oklahoma chapter was on the list.

Contrarian scientists such as Richard Lindzen and Willie Soon also feature on the bankruptcy list.

So does the Washington lobbyist and industry strategist Richard Berman, whose firm has launched a welter of front groups attacking the EPA rules.

The filings do not list amounts or dates. But the documents suggest Peabody supported dozens of groups engaged in blocking environmental regulations in addition to a number of contrarian scientists who together have obstructed US and global action on climate change.

The support squares up with Peabody’s public position on climate change. The company went further than the fossil fuel companies and conservative groups that merely promoted doubt about the risks of climate change, asserting that rising carbon emissions were beneficial.

Just last year, Peabody wrote to the White House Council on Environmental Quality describing carbon dioxide as “a benign gas that is essential for all life” and denying the dangers of global warming.

“While the benefits of carbon dioxide are proven, the alleged risks of climate change are contrary to observed data, are based on admitted speculation, and lack adequate scientific basis,” the company wrote in the 24 March 2015 letter.

The company agreed in November to make fuller disclosures about global warming risks under a settlement deal reached with the New York attorney general. Peabody had been under investigation for misleading investors and the public about the potential impact of climate change on its business.

Even so, the full extent of Peabody’s financial support for climate denial is unlikely to be revealed until the completion of bankruptcy proceedings.

“The breadth of the groups with financial ties to Peabody is extraordinary. Thinktanks, litigation groups, climate scientists, political organisations, dozens of organisations blocking action on climate all receiving funding from the coal industry,” said Nick Surgey, director of research for the Center for Media and Democracy.

“We expected to see some denial money, but it looks like Peabody is the treasury for a very substantial part of the climate denial movement.”

Peabody’s filings revealed funding for the American Legislative Exchange Council, the corporate lobby group which opposes clean energy standards and tried to impose financial penalties on homeowners with solar panels, as well as a constellation of conservative thinktanks and organisations.

These included the State Policy Network and the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, which worked to defeat climate bills in Congress and are seeking to overturn Environmental Protection Agency rules to reduce carbon pollution from power plants, as well as the Congress for Racial Equality, which was a major civil rights organisation in the 1960s.

The filings also revealed funding for the George C Marshall Institute, the Institute for Energy Research, and the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, which are seen as industry front groups.

The names of a number of well-known contrarian academics also feature in the Peabody filings, including Willie Soon, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Soon has been funded almost entirely by the fossil fuel industry, receiving more than $1.2m from oil companies and utilities, but this was the first indication of Peabody funding.

Soon and the Smithsonian did not respond to requests for comment.

Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer, two contrarian scientists who appeared for Peabody at hearings in Minnesota last month on the social cost of carbon, were also included in the bankruptcy filings.

Peabody refused to comment on its funding for climate denial groups, as revealed by the bankruptcy filings.

“While we wouldn’t comment on alliances with particular organizations, Peabody has a track record of advancing responsible energy and environmental policies, and we support organizations that advocate sustainable mining, energy access and clean coal solutions, in line with our company’s leadership in these areas,” Vic Svec, Peabody’s senior vice-president for global investor and corporate relations, wrote in an email.

Over the last decade, fossil fuel companies distanced themselves from open climate denial. Much of the funding for climate denial went underground, with corporations and conservative billionaires routing the funds through secretive networks such as Donors’ Trust.

But the sharp drop in coal prices, under competition from cheap natural gas, and a string of bankruptcies among leading US coal companies has inadvertently revealed the coal industry’s continued support for climate denial – even as oil companies moved away from open rejection of the science.

Earlier this year, bankruptcy filings from the country’s second-biggest coal company, Arch Coal Inc, revealed funding to a group known mainly for its unsuccessful lawsuit against the climate scientist Michael Mann.

The $10,000 donation to the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (E&E) was made in 2014, according to court documents filed in Arch’s chapter 11 bankruptcy protection case.

Last October, court filings from another coal company seeking bankruptcy protection, Alpha Natural Resources, revealed an $18,600 payment to Chris Horner, a fellow at E&E.

UK energy from coal hits zero for first time in over 100 years

May 13th, 2016
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http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/13/uk-energy-from-coal-hits-zero-for-first-time-in-over-100-years

Coal-generation hit historic low several times last week in what experts say are the only occasions since the first coal-fired generator opened in London in 1882

The amount of electricity generated from coal in the UK has fallen to zero several times in the past week, grid data shows.

In what green energy supporters have described as a “historic turning point” for the UK’s power system, coal-fired electricity first fell to zero late on Monday night and for the early hours of Tuesday morning, according to data from BM Reports.

On Thursday, there was no electricity from coal for more than 12 and a half hours, more than half the day, with it making no contribution to the UK’s power supplies late at night when demand was low and for a period in the day, the data shows.

It is thought to be the first time the UK has been without electricity from coal since the world’s first centralised public coal-fired generator opened at Holborn Viaduct in London, in 1882, according to the Carbon Brief website which reports on climate science and energy policy.

The record lows in coal power generation come as the UK enters the summer months, which sees lower demand for electricity, and with more than half of the country’s coal capacity out of action, for example for planned maintenance.

But there have also been a series of recent closures of coal-fired power plants as they become less economic, while plants such as Drax in North Yorkshire have partially switched to burning “biomass”.

The government has said it wants to see coal phased out by 2025, as it is the most polluting way of generating electricity.

There has also been an increase in the amount of renewables on the system, with a record 27% of the UK’s power coming from sources such as wind power in the last quarter of 2015.

Estimates of the power now being generated from solar panels, from household arrays to large scale farms, also show it is regularly outstripping coal during the day, reaching 6.8 gigawatts (GW) at a midday peak this week compared to a high of 3GW output from coal.

Solar is limited to generating power during the day, but analysis from Carbon Brief found that over the course of a week, the clean technology produced more power last week than coal.

Juliet Davenport, chief executive of renewable electricity supplier Good Energy said: “This week marks an historic turning point for energy in the UK.

“Coal formed the backbone of the industrial revolution and was the fuel that powered Britain into the 21st century. But it’s time to begin to say farewell.

“Our energy is becoming cleaner and greener, with wind, solar and other renewables generating more of our electricity than ever before. We are celebrating this news as it shows that our future can be fossil fuel-free.”

Fossil Fuels May Not Dwindle Anytime Soon

May 12th, 2016
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The U. S. Energy Information Administration foresees continued dominance for coal, gas and oil

Based on its latest projections, EIA said global carbon dioxide emissions from energy activities will rise from 36 billion metric tons in 2012, the baseline year used for the 2016 outlook, to 43 billion metric tons in 2040.

Rapid economic growth in China, India, Indonesia, Brazil and other emerging countries will drive global energy consumption to nearly double by 2040, according to new projections released yesterday by the Department of Energy.

But the associated rise in carbon emissions will not keep pace with overall energy consumption, thanks to a shifting global energy portfolio that relies less on coal for power generation and more on natural gas and renewable energy resources, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its 2016 International Energy Outlook.

Based on its latest projections, EIA said global carbon dioxide emissions from energy activities will rise from 36 billion metric tons in 2012, the baseline year used for the 2016 outlook, to 43 billion metric tons in 2040.
That’s a 34 percent increase in energy-related CO2, compared to a 48 percent increase in overall energy consumption from 2010 to 2040, when EIA says the world will consume a record 815 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) of energy.

But some critics of EIA’s methodology say the projections on global energy use and CO2 emissions failed to adequately account for major international policy initiatives, including last year’s pledge by nearly 190 U.N.-member countries to make sharp reductions in energy-sector greenhouse gas emissions.

In a public rollout of the data at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, EIA Administrator Adam Sieminski said that the agency used more sophisticated modeling tools for the 2016 report than previously available, especially in the transportation sector, and that the world’s demand for fossil fuels will continue to grow.

“Even in the aftermath of Paris, I think that our numbers suggest that growth and need for petroleum in transportation and industry is still going to be pretty strong,” he said. “Those numbers could come down over time, but it’s still really hard to compete with the energy density that’s in oil.”

Don’t count out fossil fuels

Among other things, the new report portends continued rising demand for natural gas, along with sustained growth in wind, solar and nuclear energy production. Renewables, led by wind and hydro power, are projected to be the fastest-growing energy resource over the next two decades, according to EIA, expanding by 2.6 percent annually through 2040.

Nuclear will also see solid growth, at 2.3 percent annually, underscored by China’s commitment to add 139 gigawatts of nuclear capacity to its grid by 2040. Natural gas, long the No. 3 source of global energy behind oil and coal, will by 2030 become the world’s No. 2 resource as coal consumption plateaus with the onset of new international carbon regulations.

Consumption of oil and other forms of liquid petroleum will fall modestly over the next 24 years, from 33 percent of total marketed energy consumption in 2012 to 30 percent in 2040. Oil will continue to be a primary fuel for the transport sector, as well as a key fuel for industrial uses in emerging countries.

But experts cautioned against the idea that fossil fuels will become 20th-century energy anachronisms by the middle of the 21st century. In fact, fossil fuels will still account for 78 percent of global energy use in 2040, even as the growth in non-fossil fuels exceeds that of oil, coal and gas.

“Abundant natural gas resources and robust production—including rising supplies of tight gas, shale gas, and coalbed methane—contribute to the strong competitive position of natural gas,” EIA said in the outlook.
While considerably diminished from a decade ago, coal-fired power generation is expected to grow by 0.6 percent annually over the coming years and will account for between 28 and 29 percent of global power generation by 2040, compared to 40 percent in 2012.

Natural gas and renewables, including hydropower, are also expected to claim between 28 and 29 percent of total global power generation by 2040, with the remainder coming from existing and new nuclear plants.
“This is going to happen in many places around the world, and it will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by a significant amount,” Sieminski told energy policy experts and journalists gathered at CSIS’s granite-and-glass headquarters on Rhode Island Avenue.

In one of the first high-level analyses of how U.S. carbon regulation will affect global energy markets, EIA projects that U.S. EPA’s Clean Power Plan would further shave coal consumption by roughly 1 percent after 2020 while driving a comparable increase in renewable energy deployment.

“It changes the global numbers a little bit, it changes the U.S. numbers more, and it particularly changes coal in the U.S. by more,” Sieminski said. “You can see coal plateauing.”

Critics slam projections

Among the world’s three largest coal users—the United States, China and India—only India is projected to see an overall increase in coal consumption by 2040. China is expected to begin reducing its use of coal after 2025, while the United States is already seeing a downward trajectory in coal use, one that could grow steeper if the Clean Power Plan is upheld in court.

While U.S. markets and policy will continue to be critical benchmarks for global energy, the United States will not be among the fastest-growing energy markets going forward, EIA found.

In fact, by 2040, nearly two-thirds of all of the world’s energy use will be in developing countries outside the 34-member Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Among non-OECD members, Asian countries like China, India and Indonesia will account for 55 percent of all new energy use through 2040, the analysis found.

Increasing oil and liquid fuels consumption for industry and transportation will be particularly strong in countries like China and India, Sieminski said, where rising incomes and a proliferation of privately owned cars and trucks has led to significant increases in vehicles miles traveled (VMT).

But critics like David Turnbull of the climate-focused nonprofit group Oil Change International said EIA should have given stronger consideration to shifting national and international climate policies, especially over the last several years.

“We all know that we’re moving in a different direction now,” Turnbull said. “The Paris Agreement was a clear indication that the fossil fuel era was ending. To make a projection that ignores some of these major shifts in public opinion, in energy markets, in renewable energy policy, is leaving out a big piece of the picture.”

A spokesman for EIA stressed in an email that the agency did not ignore the Paris accord or other international agreements in its analysis.

In fact, the report makes clear that EIA “has tried to incorporate some of the specific details,” such as renewable energy goals put forward in the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, in its 2016 IEO reference case. “However, a great deal of uncertainty remains with regard to the implementation of policies to meet stated goals.”

In his comments at CSIS, Sieminski acknowledged that long-term projections like those in the IEO are imperfect and that policy and technology changes can lead to radically different outcomes than the best analysis can predict.

“There’s probably a lot of flex in these numbers,” Sieminski said. “Does that mean that we are wasting taxpayer dollars doing it? The answer is no. It’s hugely valuable to policymakers, it’s hugely valuable to the public.”

Germany to exit coal power “well before 2050”

May 1st, 2016
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Reuters reported at the beginning of May 2016 that “according to a draft environment ministry document”, coal-fired power production in Germany should come to an end “well before 2050”.

The draft document:

• says that CO₂ emissions from the energy sector will need to be halved by 2030 compared to 2014 levels;
• proposes setting up a committee to come up with recommendations on how to phase out coal while averting economic hardship for those working in coal-producing regions;
• calls for a faster expansion of renewables than currently envisaged and says support for solar power needs to be increased;
• says the amount of energy produced by green sources should increase by around 75 percent by 2030;
• says that support for research into energy-storage technologies should be doubled over the next 10 years;
• says that the government will also push for a stricter European emissions trading system and is considering whether an additional levy on petrol, heating oil and gas would increase demand for green technologies.

Source and link: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germanyenvironment-coal-idUSKCN0XU1R1

Methane levels increase rapidly in the Arctic

May 1st, 2016
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“We see an alarming development,” says senior researcher Cathrine Lund Myhre at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU).

Levels of methane increased sharply from 2013 to 2015 and are the highest ever measured.

Director of the Norwegian Environment Directorate, Ellen Hambro, said that the development gives reason for concern. “If the reason is release of methane from thawing permafrost and from the Arctic Ocean, then it is alarming. It will give climate change a self-reinforcing effect,” Hambro said.

The main sources of methane include boreal and tropical wetlands, rice paddies, emission from ruminant animals, biomass burning, and extraction and combustion of fossil fuels. Further, methane is the principal component of natural gas, and leaks from sources such as pipelines and offshore and onshore installations are a known source of atmospheric methane. The distribution between natural and anthropogenic sources is approximately 40/60 respectively. Of natural sources there is a large unknown potential methane source under the ocean floor, known as methane hydrates and seeps. Further, a large unknown amount of carbon is bound up in the permafrost layer in Siberia and North America, and this could be released as methane if the permafrost layer melts in response to climate change.

Reference: compiled from press release
http://www.thebarentsobserver.com/ecology/2016/03/scientists-beat-alarm-levels-methane-increasing-rapidly-arctic

What is behind the diesel cars emissions scandal?

Apr 21st, 2016
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All 93 vehicles tested in Germany and UK exceeded EU-set limits on air quality and pollution in real-world situation

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/21/what-is-behind-the-diesel-cars-emissions-scandal

The air pollution scandal that hit front pages around the world last year with VW’s admission it had been cheating emissions tests has got much bigger.

A UK government-sponsored trial launched in the wake of the VW revelations has found that every single one of the diesel-fuelled vehicles tested had higher emissions of nitrogen oxide pollutants than permitted under EU laws. For some models emissions were 12 times the legal limit.

None of the 56 vehicles tested in Germany and 37 in the UK was found to have a defeat device aimed at artificially lowering its emissions under test conditions, such as those used by VW. But all were found to exceed the EU-set standards on air quality and pollution when driven in real-world situations. Clearly there are important questions for manufacturers.

So what is happening? Crucially, the higher emissions were found to be the result of engine management systems that are routinely used by manufacturers to improve the performance of their vehicles. One by-product is more polluting emissions.

Environmentalists say the result is not unexpected. “This confirms what experts have been saying for years: deadly emissions are far higher in the real world than in controlled tests in the lab,” said Oliver Hayes of Friends of the Earth.

“Governments say they are championing ‘real driving emissions’ but this is a smokescreen. These standards are far weaker than those that currently exist.”

This points to the inadequacy of current testing regimes, but it also reveals a much more alarming truth: that manufacturers are tuning their vehicles’ engines in a way that hurts all of us. Engine management systems have become standard across the industry, and these new tests make it clear that they are there for one purpose: to improve the performance of the car, even if that comes at the expense of those breathing in the air from their exhausts.

Diesel engines produce much higher levels of air pollutants than petrol-driven engines, although they produce less carbon dioxide. This has led EU member states to encourage drivers into diesel cars, reducing the impact of driving on climate change but vastly increasing the problem of air pollution.

The UK is one of the few EU countries that tax diesel at the same rate as petrol, as most countries skew their taxation levels to favour diesel (although tax parity still favours diesels because they do more miles per gallon).

It is ironic that the push for lower carbon dioxide emissions to combat climate change has led to higher air pollution. And the European commission has been slow to get to grips with the problem. A major announcement on air pollution in late 2013 failed to even mention diesel cars.

But the problem is now pressing, as new research is revealing the extent of the damage being done routinely to our health, particularly the majority of the world’s population who live in cities. About 7% of deaths are caused or contributed to by air pollution, according to the World Health Organisation, and the effects on people’s quality of life is even greater. Long a silent killer, air pollution is now being recognised for its devastating effects, particularly on small children and older people.

The question those breathing the pollution will be asking is whether governments are prepared to act.

EU dropped climate policies after BP threat of oil industry ‘exodus’

Apr 20th, 2016
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Oil giant warned industry would pull out of EU if laws to cut pollution and speed clean energy take up were passed, letter obtained by the Guardian reveals

The EU abandoned or weakened key proposals for new environmental protections after receiving a letter from a top BP executive which warned of an exodus of the oil industry from Europe if the proposals went ahead.

In the 10-page letter, the company predicted in 2013 that a mass industry flight would result if laws to regulate tar sands, cut power plant pollution and accelerate the uptake of renewable energy were passed, because of the extra costs and red tape they allegedly entailed.

The measures “threaten to drive energy-intensive industries, such as refining and petrochemicals, to relocate outside the EU with a correspondingly detrimental impact on security of supply, jobs [and] growth,” said the letter, which was obtained by the Guardian under access to documents laws.

The missive to the EU’s energy commissioner, Günther Oettinger, was dated 9 August 2013, partly hand-written, and signed by a senior BP representative whose name has been redacted.

It references a series of “interactions” between the two men – and between BP and an unnamed third party in Washington DC – and welcomes opportunities to further discuss energy issues in an “informal manner”.

BP’s warning of a fossil fuel pull-out from Europe was repeated three times in the letter, most stridently over plans to mandate new pollution cuts and clean technologies, under the industrial emissions directive.

This reform “has the potential to have a massively adverse economic impact on the costs and competitiveness of European refining and petrochemical industries, and trigger a further exodus outside the EU,” the letter said.

The plant regulations eventually advanced by the commission would leave Europe under a weaker pollution regime than China’s, according to research by Greenpeace.

BP said any clampdown would cost industry many billions of euros and so pollution curbs “should also be carefully accessed with close co-operation with the industrial sectors”.

Last year the EU’s environment department moved to limit the coal lobby’s influence on pollution standards, after revelations by the Guardian and Greenpeace about the scale of industry involvement.

The commission had previously allowed hundreds of energy industry lobbyists to aggressively push for weaker pollution limits as part of the official negotiating teams of EU member states.

The Green MEP Molly Scott Cato said that the UK’s robust advocacy of BP’s positions was a cause of deep shame, and illustrated how Brexit would increase the power of fossil fuel firms.

She said: “It reveals how the arm-twisting tactics of big oil seek to undermine the EU’s progressive energy and climate policies. BP’s covert lobbying, combined with threats of an exodus of the petrochemicals industry from the EU, are nothing short of blackmail.

“This document paints a disturbing picture of the degree to which global corporations subvert the democratic process, influence the commission and threaten the vital transition to a cleaner, greener Europe.”

A BP spokesman said that the letter was intended to “highlight the risk of ‘carbon leakage’, where EU policy to reduce carbon emissions may result in industry relocating outside the EU, rather than achieving any actual reduction in emissions. Avoiding this perverse outcome is of critical importance to climate policy.”

In his reply to BP, Oettinger said that his department was finalising an energy prices report and “your thoughts are very valuable in this context”.

Before the report’s publication, Oettinger’s team removed figures from an earlier draft which revealed that EU states spent €40bn (£32bn) a year on subsidies for fossil fuels, compared to €35bn for nuclear energy, and just €30bn for renewables. The commissioner’s office argues that the numbers were inconsistent and “not comparable”

Early in his tenure, Oettinger had been forced to back down on plans for a moratorium on deepwater offshore oil drills in the wake of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Within two years, he had become an industry champion, arguing that Europe was competitively disadvantaged by a reluctance to take offshore drilling risks.

Oettinger regularly hosts alpine retreats for government ministers, bankers and captains of industry. In 2013, these included executives from Shell, Statoil, GDF Suez, EDF, Alstom, Enel and ENI, although not BP.

A spokeswoman for Oettinger said: “When the Commission prepares formal legislative proposals, there is a full public consultation exercise in which all stakeholders can participate.

With the majority of the EU legislation referred to, Commissioner Oettinger was not the Commissioner in the lead.”

An alignment between the commission’s eventual climate proposals and BP’s positions was “unfound,” the official added.

In his reply to BP, Oettinger said that he shared the firm’s views on a guarantee for unlimited crude oil and gas exports being included in a TTIP free trade deal and welcomed more “thoughts” from the company.

Along with Shell, BP began lobbying for an end to the EU’s renewables and energy efficiency targets in 2011, but the scope of its lobby intervention went further.

In its letter, BP strongly opposed renewable energy subsidies, particularly in Germany, and a planned cap on certain biofuels which studies have shown to be highly-polluting.

Over the year that followed, an EU state aid decision on renewables went against Germany, while a cap on the amount of first generation biofuels that could be counted towards EU targets was also weakened.

Europe’s efforts to cut carbon emissions should be built upon market-based tools such as its flagship emissions trading scheme, BP said in its letter.

But EU proposals to label tar sands oil as more polluting than other oil – which could lead to additional taxes – risked companies “being penalised subjectively on the basis of adverse perceptions”, according to BP.

The tar sands proposal was vehemently opposed by the UK and the Netherlands, and the plan was eventually dropped in 2014.

Jos Dings, the director of the sustainable transport thinktank Transport and Environment said: “In case anyone doubted why Europe chose to treat all oil – regular and high polluting – the same, here’s the answer: Big Oil telling the commission that really its impossible to tell them apart.”

Lisa Nandy, the Labour’s shadow energy and climate secretary, called for the EU’s climate policies to be strengthened. “By working together with like-minded governments across Europe we can ensure that big companies cannot water down environmental safeguards,” she said.

BP recently topped a survey of the most obstructive company on climate change, and is increasingly a target for fossil fuels divestment campaigns.

Hong Kong electric company plans floating LNG terminal near Soko Islands

Apr 11th, 2016
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CLP Power says project will open city up to additional source of gas supply and help meet post-2020 fuel mix requirements

CLP Power is eyeing the eastern waters of the Soko Islands, off southern Lantau, for a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal that will enable it to tap more gas from international markets.

This will come nearly a decade after it shelved a land-based version of the project in the southern Sokos despite government approval. A 25-year gas deal with the mainland was signed instead.

The project will help it meet new requirements for half of the city’s electricity needs to come from natural gas after 2020.

CLP, which supplies Lantau, Kowloon and the New Territories, remains tight-lipped on details such as costs and tariff implications, but said the facility would provide the city with additional sources of gas at more competitive market prices and spread out price risks.

CLP’s gas is now piped from Central Asia via the Second West-East Gas Pipeline as part of the contract with the mainland and from the depleting Yacheng gas field near Hainan. As a result,it has little bargaining power over prices.

HK Electric, which supplies Hong Kong and Lamma, obtains Australian and Qatari gas via an LNG receiving terminal in Dapeng, Shenzhen.

“If we don’t have another source…we will have to continue to buy gas from the mainland and our bargaining power will remain weak,” said CLP senior director Edward Chiu On-tin.

The offshore facility, spanning less than a hectare in size, will likely handle about 30 to 50 carriers a year. LNG transferred to the terminal will be converted back into gas and piped to Black Point Power Station in Tuen Mun for use in power generation.

While 22 such terminals are already in operation worldwide, Chiu admitted such a project would be first for Hong Kong. “We will have to consult the Town Planning Board and the Marine Department” on planning and regulation matters, Chiu said.

The company will be submitting a project brief to the Environmental Protection Department in due course.

From there, an environmental impact assessment will be conducted, which will address issues such as impacts on the planned Soko Islands and Southwest Lantau marine parks. Chiu expected “temporary impacts” during the construction phase, but did not foresee any major ecological harm in the long-run as no land reclamation was required.

Dolphin Conservation Society chairman Dr Samuel Hung Ka-yiu said the project did indeed have a smaller footprint than the original land-based project, but posed the same environmental challenges.

“The main facility is located in key habitat used by the finless porpoise and undersea gas pipes are likely to pass through other marine parks around Lantau.”

WWF-Hong Kong’s Samantha Lee mei-wah said regasification – a process which involves pumping seawater to heat the LNG back into gas form – could disrupt fisheries. “This freezing water is discharged and the sudden reduction in seawater temperatures can harm marine life,” she said.

CLP says other locations are being considered, but the waters east of the Soko Islands will remain a “high priority” option.

Energy Advisory Committee member Dr William Yu Yuen-ping said the facility would provide Hong Kong with cheaper gas, but would likely be an expensive fixed asset with a long payback period.

The Environment Bureau said it would review the plan upon receiving CLP’s project proposal.
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Source URL: http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/1935188/hong-kong-electric-company-plans-floating-lng

How to save a billion gallons of petrol

Mar 27th, 2016
by Editor.
No comments yet

In four minutes, you can improve your car’s fuel economy by 4%.

http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160527-how-to-save-a-billion-gallons-of-petrol

Back in 2008, during one of the more memorable exchanges in the US Presidential race between then-Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain centred on offshore drilling — its value to the American nation, or lack thereof. Sen Obama took an unusual approach to the argument: He focused on tyre pressure. “Making sure your tyres are properly inflated, simple thing, but we could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling, if everybody was just inflating their tyres and getting regular tune-ups,” he said. “You could actually save just as much.”

Replied Sen McCain: “My opponent doesn’t want to drill, he doesn’t want nuclear power, he wants you to inflate your tyres.”

Obama’s claim — that simply maintaining proper tyre pressure could save as much fuel as the country stood to gain from offshore drilling — sent fact-checkers scurrying for answers. Could it be true? Could such a simple trick — managing four tyres’ PSI can be accomplished in about four minutes — really improve fuel economy by 4% and, collectively speaking, save a billion gallons of petrol a year? The answer, according to the US Government Accountability Office, is an emphatic yes. Notes a GAO memorandum dated 9 Feb 2007: “The Department of Energy’s designated economist on this issue indicated that, of the 130 billion gallons of fuel that the Transportation Research Board (TRB) estimated were used in passenger cars and light trucks in 2005, about 1.2 billion gallons were wasted as a result of driving on underinflated tires.”

The memo notes that in 1999, underinflated tyres contributed to the deaths of nearly 250 motorists and caused the injuries of some 25,000 more.

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