Turns Back To Coal, Abandons Emissions Targets
From Dr. Benny Peiser at The GWPF
The Japanese government is moving to speed up the environmental assessment process for new coal-fired power plants. According to Japanese media reports, the government intends to make 12 months the maximum period for assessing and approving new coal-fired power plants as its utilities seek to develop more power stations to stem surging energy supply bills. With the government considering the closure of much of the installed nuclear capacity over the medium term, the spotlight is back on coal as the cheapest energy source, notwithstanding plans to cut carbon emissions. A commitment to slice 2020 carbon emissions by 25 per cent from their 1990 level will be revised by October, according to Japanese newspaper reports. –Brian Robins, The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 April 2013
Japan is likely to abandon an ambitious pledge to slash greenhouse gas emissions by a quarter, the top government spokesman said on Thursday. Asked to confirm if the new administration would review Tokyo’s 2009 pledge, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the government was “moving in that direction in principle”. “I have been saying for some time that it is a tremendous target and would be impossible to achieve,” he told a regular news conference. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s business-friendly Liberal Democratic Party ousted the Democratic Party in December elections after pledging to review the emissions cut target in light of the post-Fukushima switch to fossil fuels. —AFP, 24 January 2013
New technology and a little-known energy source suggest that fossil fuels may not be finite. Estimates of the global supply of methane hydrate range from the equivalent of 100 times more than America’s current annual energy consumption to 3 million times more. –Charles C Mann, The Atlantic, May 2013
Across Europe, both policy makers and the public remain wary of the potential environmental impact of technologies like hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, used to extract shale gas. A slowdown in Europe’s efforts to exploit its shale gas reserves, roughly 10 percent of the world’s deposits, could not come at a worse time for Europe’s companies, which are already suffering from a continental debt crisis and anemic growth and are becoming increasingly uncompetitive compared with rivals in the United States. –Mark Scott, The New York Times, 25 April 2013
MPs criticised the government on Friday for unnecessarily delaying development of shale gas, saying it should now encourage companies to come up with more accurate estimates of recoverable reserves. The lack of progress over the past two years in exploration and development of UK shale gas is disappointing and needs to speed up, members of the influential cross-party Energy and Climate Change Committee in parliament said in a report. —Reuters, 26 April 2013
The 18-month moratorium on shale gas drilling was a “scandal”, member of the UK House of Commons select committee on climate change Peter Lilley said late Monday. Lilley said that a fortnight’s trip to the US — the birthplace of the shale gas revolution — could have answered all the questions surrounding the risks of hydraulic fracturing, enabling shale gas production to start that much earlier. “Most of the concerns are either exaggerations or lies,” he said. —Platts, 24 April 2013
Europeans have spent hundreds of billions of euros on renewable energy – ultimately borne by taxpayers, consumers and Europe’s competitiveness – for no gain. As the shale gas revolution spreads, it promises to swamp the economics of green energy, leaving it dependent on unaffordable subsidies. –Rupert Darwall, City A.M. 25 April 2013
Dale W says:
April 26, 2013 at 8:09 am
Enter “greening” in the search box above, or click http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=greening
I think you wanted http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/14/a-must-watch-greening-the-planet-dr-matt-ridley/
Another good page is http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/24/the-earths-biosphere-is-booming-data-suggests-that-co2-is-the-cause-part-2/
In official UN IPCC speak, there is not and never was any place called Kyoto.
john robertson says:
April 26, 2013 at 12:11 pm
In official UN IPCC speak, there is not and never was any place called Kyoto.
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And Mikey’s got tree rings to prove it never existed (You’ll have to sue to get a look at them though).
Thank you so much Ric.
Dale
In January three vociferous members, who are anti-nuclear and pro-CAGW, were ousted from the Central Environment Council in the Ministry of Environment.
I hope this is one of the signs of awakening on the side of our Government.
What I love most about this story is that I’m in Texas, in the nat gas business, and every delay in shale drilling elsewhere just means demand for our product goes up. And what’s even better, every month they diddle another half dozen manufacturers shut down shop where they are and move to Texas to take advantage of our low costs! Unemployment might be a problem some places in the world, but there ain’t no problems here – this place is booming!
And the greens around the world are the ones who are guaranteeing our boom goes on!!!
‘Goofy” is just the perfect term for the political ethos of the insanity of the UK’s and Europe’s Green mania and Energy policies, As usual Asia, spearheaded by China, are thinking well ahead of Europe and are thinking a lot more clearly.
Patrick says (April 26, 2013 at 8:09 am): “And in Australia, we were committed to both Kyoto and Kyoto 2…we are still bombarded with the usual propaganda. But tonight, we were treated to a spectacle…”
Thanks, Patrick! Absolutely hilarious!
Watching those poor biker “energy slaves”, I was reminded of the galley slave sequence in the film “Ben Hur”:
Consul: “Now listen to me, all of you. You are all condemned men. We keep you alive to serve the appliances of this house. So cycle well, and live.”
Thump…Thump…Thump…Thump…
Consul: “They’re awake! Coffee maker, toaster, radio coming on. Battle speed, hortator!”
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Consul: “Uh-oh. TV, computers, hair curler…Attack speed!”
ThumpThumpThumpThumpThump
Consul: “Electric oven! Electric shower! Ramminnngggg SPEED!
ThpThpThpThpThpThpThpThp
Consul: “YIKES! Central air conditioning! WARP SPEED!!!
KABOOM!
Still too much homage to AGW in most of these articles . . . I’m disappointed. Fracking and methane hydrates are going to overheat the world? Pul-LEEZ! When are people with influence going to get up and say AGW is the feces that it is? What cowardice. Enough is too much already.
Japan is brilliant. What better way to get off expensive nuclear and onto cheap coal. How German of them.
@arthur4563 Are all those Chinese nuke plants going to be 100 percent earthquake proof? Just askin’ ya know.
Edohiguma says:
April 26, 2013 at 7:56 am
That’s pretty spot on. I remember reading that, even if all the Kyoto Protocol countries would achieve their goals, the result would still be zero, because especially China and India would keep pushing CO2 anyway.
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Actually Kyoto would have made things worse. Kyoto is no different than shipping your garbage to third world countries for incineration, and then claiming you have made the environment at home cleaner.
However, in the case of Kyoto, you are also shipping jobs and the pollution from the incineration ends up back in your country anyways. The jobs however don’t return. Instead you get mountains of debt to pass along to your children.
Doug Proctor says:
April 26, 2013 at 10:24 am
If conventional gas is your reference price for gas-energy, then you must expect at least double that for shale gas: if it weren’t, you’d have it already.
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Nonsense. A bottle of single malt would cost $5 in the grocery store if the government would get out of the way.
Don’t forget that CO2 is the global tool that enables the UN to implement their sustainable development goals ( named “Smart Growth” for those of you in the US,,,,,, Agenda 21 in the end).
Don’t believe me?
http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.html
And here to save a step >
http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.php?page=view&type=400&nr=23&menu=35
Peter Miller wrote, in part: “…goofy political ‘elite’…”
What an apt description of most of them.
Patrick thanks for the sillyness video of the power bikers.
I almost fell off my seat when they showed the amount of coal they COULD have burnt as an alternative…..a small pile about the size of a shopping bag…LOL
Doesn’t this beg a few questions for them? Other than being miserly with my power usage because its BAD, I could do much much more than would be feasible any other way with a small bag of coal-fired energy….the irony seems to have gone over their heads.
And the family should have been suitably guilty for making all those bikers work so hard..ha ha
“Japan is likely to abandon an ambitious pledge to slash greenhouse gas emissions by a quarter, the top government spokesman said on Thursday.”
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So much for the global warmers. Global warming is history. Wind power is a money loser and so is solar power, despite the subsidies. Nuclear power has a black eye and coal is the new power king.
Doug, I think a hundred years ago drilling in the North Sea for oil/gas would have been considered not worth the candle. But if a privately owned company thinks they can profitably extract shale gas then I see no good reason to stop them even trying to demonstrate their technology is workable.
A government can, of course, make it uneconomic if it is motivated to do so. They are generally better at screwing things up than they are at producing innovative and profitable solutions.
“Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7 says:
April 26, 2013 at 9:06 am”
I wouldn’t be so sure there are any here in Australia listening to the export potential. I read an article (Which I now cannot find) on the SMH.COM.AU website about “protesters” boarding a coal ship sailing around Australia. It seems there are some who are keen to return to the dark ages.
There are many here in Australia who wish the Gillard would simply sod off back from where she came (Barry, Wales. And Barry Island is where oil boilers go to get scrapped).
I suspect that this shift to more coal and gas use in Germany and UK has been inadvertently caused by greens. They oppose nuclear thinking that governments would be forced to exclusively rely on wind and solar. What they forget is that almost all governments will seek out hard nosed technicians to tell them what is feasible. Greens can’t fail to see the irony.
If you thought that co2 was going to cause dangerous warming of the planet then surely you would adopt the lesser of the two ‘evils’ i.e nuclear. I vaguely recall that nuclear power stations in normal operation emit less radioactivity than coal power stations.
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/understand/calculate.html
“It doesn’t frighten me.” Frigging brilliant Feynmann:
Here are just a few impoverished people in the UK who receive income from letting out their lands for wind farms. This is an unholy alliance of idealistic greens and aristocratic land owners. By the way the Prince of Wales and his father think they are eyesores yet both of them rattle on about the environment while living it large with lots of bling and hot gas releases of co2.
Crown Estate (beneficiaries HM Treasury & UK Royal Family)
Duke of Beaufort (gained planning permission 2013)
Duke of Gloucester
Duke of Roxburghe
Jeremy Dearden, the Lord of the Manor of Rochdale
Sir Alastair Gordon-Cumming
Sir Reginald Sheffield
Earl of Seafield
Earl Spencer (plans 2012)
Earl of Moray
Earl of Glasgow
Prince of Wales (“horrendous blot on the landscape”)
Read and weep about the fráud.
Looks like demonizing nuclear had a beneficial side effect. Maybe greenpeace should practice demon control.
hunter says:
April 26, 2013 at 8:26 am
It would be interesting to do a study to piece together just how AGW managed to destabilize so many well educated leaders into making so many poor decisions regarding energy and environment…. The irony is that not only are those choices not going to impact the stated concern of global warming, they are not even giong to impact CO2 emissions. AGW hypesters have utterly failed in achieving their stated goals of reducing CO2 emissions.
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Well said.
I have some slight (although only very slight) sympathy with politicians being duped by the science and not having sufficient scientific intelligence or aptitude of their own to question it, and instead to blindly accept that the science is settled and the debate is over.
However, what I find totally unacceptable is the policy response. It is so blindingly obvious that the policy response (whether this be CO2 credits/trading or green renewable energy) would not result in any significant reduction in CO2 emissions. This response has only upped the costs of everything without achieving their stated goal of reducing CO2 emiisions. It is because the policy response has been so obviously floored that those in public office should be held accountable for their actions.
It is ironic that the USA has been amongst the most successful countries at reducing CO2 emissions, not through the roll out of any green schemes, but through the exploitation of shale gas, a fosil fuel industrywhich was deamonised!