From the University of Manchester
US CO2 emissions from domestic energy have declined by 8.6% since a peak in 2005, the equivalent of 1.4% per year.
However, the researchers warn that more than half of the recent emissions reductions in the power sector may be displaced overseas by the trade in coal.
Dr John Broderick, lead author on the report from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, comments: “Research papers and newspaper column inches have focussed on the relative emissions from coal and gas.
“However, it is the total quantity of CO2 from the energy system that matters to the climate. Despite lower-carbon rhetoric, shale gas is still a carbon intensive energy source. We must seriously consider whether a so-called “golden age” would be little more than a gilded cage, locking us into a high-carbon future.”
Professor Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre notes: “Since 2008 when the shale gas supply became significant, there has been a large increase in US coal exports. This increases global emissions as the UK, Europe and Asia are burning the coal instead. Earlier Tyndall analysis suggests that the role for gas in a low carbon transition is extremely limited, with shale gas potentially diverting substantial funds away from genuinely low and zero carbon alternatives”
This Co-operative commissioned report “Has US Shale Gas Reduced CO2 Emissions?” is the third on shale gas from the Tyndall Centre – and builds on several years of research and submissions to the UK and European Parliaments as well as the International Energy Agency.
Chris Shearlock, Sustainable Development Manager at The Co-operative, said: “The proponents of shale gas have always claimed that it is a lower carbon alternative to coal. However, this is only true if the coal it displaces remains in the ground and isn’t just burnt elsewhere. Without a cap on global carbon emissions, shale gas is burnt in addition to other fossil fuels, increasing total emissions.”
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These people wouldn’t be happy if they were hung with a new rope.
Chris Shearlock, Sustainable Development Manager at The Co-operative, said: “The proponents of shale gas have always claimed that it is a lower carbon alternative to coal. However, this is only true if the coal it displaces remains in the ground and isn’t just burnt elsewhere. Without a cap on global carbon emissions, shale gas is burnt in addition to other fossil fuels, increasing total emissions.”
These people fail Logic 101.
The logical valid statement is,
‘This is true because the coal it displaces isn’t mined.’
Radical environmentalists have a one “trick” pony. Their only truthful answer (if you can get them to admit it) is this. Leave it in the ground.
It doesn’t matter what “it” is. Coal, oil, natural gas, iron ore, copper, zinc, silver, gold, frac sand, etc…
Just don’t ask them to give up all of the things made from fuels, metals and minerals that are mined which make our lives easier, safer and more productive. We are the ones that have to go without, not them.
We need to restore all of that carbon, locked up in coal, to where it came from – the atmosphere. This is the ultimate environmental restoration project – why don’t the greens understand?
Thanks
JK
Without a cap on global carbon emissions, shale gas is burnt in addition to other fossil fuels, increasing total emissions.”
So they think energy producers will run two power stations at the same time to make the same electric twice? How stupid would that be? Oh, I forgot, that’s exactly what they would have us do with wind power.
It’s a bit harsh to blame shale gas for being cheaper than coal in the US and not in the EU.
Surely the problem is that shale gas is underexploited in the EU?
What is ” The Co-operative” (proper noun) here? Does it refer to the UK Co-opertive Society, primarily a food retailer and bank, usually refered to as “The Co-op” ?
And there you have it, folks. A world climate dictator is needed to save the planet. Out of their own mouths.
It is always the same, when left leaning, government funded, academics try and interfere in market mechanisms, as they have done in ‘climate science’, then:
The Law of Unintended Consequences comes into force.
And as the cost of oil increases, coal will be substituted in as part of the feedstock for liquid fuels such as gasoline and diesel.
The Fischer-Tropsch process is well understood, having been used by Germany in WWII and by South Africa more recently. While coal stocks are finite, they are much greater than our reserves of oil.
Pathetically myopic. But effective for the Greeny sense of logic.
They ignore the trillions of dollars wasted on Green Energy stimulus and subsidies.. and who is going to point it out?
“However, the researchers warn that more than half of the recent emissions reductions in the power sector may be displaced overseas by the trade in coal.”
In reality the appropiate response should be “So what!”
An increase in shale gas production and consumption in the U.S. does not drive up demand for coal in China.
Other than that, it is perfectly clear that the objective of the more than somewhat illogical thinking of the people who produced the report is to have all of humanity, except for a selected few perhaps, shivering in the dark.
That’s the way things always work these days. Being a prosperous society, we tend to do things efficiently and do not live ‘hand to mouth’ like much of the world. We wind up having all sorts of leaches on society who try to excerpt their influence in some attempt to ‘matter’, typically in the environmental area. As our ability in technology increases, we are able to measure smaller and smaller amounts of things so these whackos demand more and more stringent regulations in order to achieve their dream of clean dirt. Quite often, they end up chasing away those industries perceived as being ‘dirty’ to other areas of the globe, where many workers are illiterate, regulations are lax, and technology oftimes is ancient, nonworking, or nonexistent.
Rather than burn coal here in plants that have been made compliant to stringent regulations already, it makes perfect sense to these idiots to export it to the third world where there may be no regulation or pollution technology at all. It’s like the current occupant of the white house forcing the US companies to stop offshore drilling while giving badly needed tax monies to foreign countries to do the same thing – except without the skilled workers, experience, or resources to do the job right.
“Without a cap on global carbon emissions…”
There [will] never be a cap on global emissions. Never.
AGW_Skeptic says:
October 30, 2012 at 4:23 am
Leave it in the ground.
It doesn’t matter what “it” is. Coal, oil, natural gas, iron ore, copper, zinc, silver, gold, frac sand, etc…
—
People
Another opportunity to use the word ‘fungible’.
Very interesting – the more we reduce CO2 locally, the more we increase it globally!
When will we learn?
Now it is America’s fault that the Europeans banned fracking and invested billions in unreliable renewable energy, which also happens to be prohibitively expensive, forcing them to import coal from the U.S. to generate cheaper and much more reliable energy. On would think an intelligent person would conclude that approriate response is to remove the bans on fracking so that Europe could also reduce its carbon emissions (not sure why) as the U.S. is doing. But, I guess I am wrong in assuming we are dealing with intelligent people.
AGW_Skeptic says:
October 30, 2012 at 4:23 am
Yes – “Greens” (like these “researchers” from the Tyndall Centre) are the biggest hypocrites when it comes to energy and modern technology. Once, I kept imploring these people, who would show up here at WUWT as our regular warmist trolls, to STOP using all fossil fuels (and things manufactured by them), but of course that fell of their deaf little ears. Don’t they know they are using fossil fuels when they access the internet??
By the way, does their mantra “leave it in the ground” also apply to food crops?
Walter H. Schneider says:
October 30, 2012 at 5:44 am
An increase in shale gas production and consumption in the U.S. does not drive up demand for coal in China.
Correct, it drives up the demand for coal in Europe.
Fat chance that the buyers of our coal will replace their energy generation with wind or solar. They could possibly pay a little more and buy from us LNG (that contains no pollutants). We could supply much of their needs for a long time to come by converting our vast resources of coal to clean burning natural gas. In any case, lnternational regulations are not the solution to a non problem.
Great. Just fricken great. Export energy so industrialized, cheap labor countries can continue to produce and export to us inferior pencils, erasers, pens, staplers and staples, paper clips, paper, binders, shoes, clothes, rancid flour and cooking oil, nasty tasting mac and cheese, and inferior tables and chairs to eat and sit on.
Bright idea: keep the #$%^ energy here. I am willing to pay for quality longer lasting goods set at a price that allows able people to get in on ground floor manufacturing wages. I am so done with “Walmart” goods.
Carbonophobes inhabit a strange world indeed; one devoid of logic, truth, or indeed any semblance of reality.
The carbon tax in Australia makes it more expensive to use coal in Australia, reducing demand for coal, reducing the export price. This lower export price makes the coal more attractive to China, increasing coal exports to China, where the coal is burned to make energy and jobs. Jobs lost in Australia due to the higher price of Australian coal in Australia.
So, the net effect of the carbon tax is the loss of Australian jobs to China. There is no net CO2 reduction, because for every unemployed person in Australia that can no longer afford to buy manufactured goods, there is now someone working in China to buy the goods.
So, while these grand schemes look good on paper, they simply don’t work because they assume that “all things remain the same”. However, in the real world this never happens. Money flows like water downhill to avoid tax. With it goes prosperity. And like water, regulations cannot hold back money for long. It is always searching for the loophole, the crack in the regulations through which to flow. What starts as a small trickle quickly widens to a flood.
The problem is that people cannot flow like money. When our governments act foolishly we ultimately pay for their mistakes.
A quote from the Tyndall Centre web site: “Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research is a Trademark of the University of East Anglia”.