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
Greg says:
April 26, 2013 at 11:12 am
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Greg
Don’t forget that more coal mines were closed during Harold Wilson’s two tems in government than during Margaret Thatcher’s 3 terms.
Don’t also forget that there was no need for Scargill to declare the strike. Don’t also forget that Scargill did not have real ballot approval for the strike and that many miners wanted to carry on working.
Had that strike not been run by Scargill there is every prospect that profitable mines would have stayed in business.
But there was a wider political point, namely who governed the country – the unions or the elected government. I consider it unfortunate the way that mines were closed but it was largely the consequence of the strike that Scargill wanted to run. There could have been constructive talks whereby the mining industry was rationalised with unprofitable mines closed and profitable mines being developed, but unfortunately Scargill was not up to the challenge and mining communities paid the ultimate price. On the wider political issue, the UK greatly benefitted, the growth of the 1980s to 2007 would not have been possible, and the decline that the UK was in in the 1970s would have accelerated with the result that the UK would have had the worst economy of any developed nation.
Doug Proctor says:
April 26, 2013 at 10:24 am
Despite what you have heard from companies in the business and the government, we still have no idea of the true cost and gain of shale gas in Britain or the Continent. The numbers are stupid large as they are gas-molecules-in-the-ground estimates, not gas-in-the-pipeline-with-costs estimates….”
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The point is that this is largely immaterial in the sense that the shale gas industry does not require government funding or subsidies and all the costs of development of the shale gas fields and getting the product to market would be bourne by the private sector since this is a real product and a real industry.
Those in the energy businesss would make the necessary investment and such gas that they extract would be sold at then prevailing market price. If it costs a lot to get it out of the ground, the costs will be high and if too high, there will be few or any buyers and the energy firms will take a hit. If the price of extraction is reasonable then it will compete well in the market place and the energy firms will make a profit.
From the government perspective it is a win win situation. They will licence fields obtaining a revenue stream. THe energy companies will take on labour paying national insurance tax to the government and there will be fewer people without a job. Those in employment will then be paying tax on their earnings, and of course spending money on the high street and with service industries, thereby resulting in yet more revenue for the treasury. The energy firms will eventually be making profits on the shale gas extracted (assuming it can compete viably in the market place) and the treasury will tax these profits. The consumer will pay less for energy (assuming that shale is cheaper than wind) and this will put more money in their pockets and they will spend more money in the high street and with service industries, again putting more money in the hands of the treasury. Finally, cheap energy will boost industry generally with huge financial benefit for the country.
There is simply nothing not to like about shale.
Of course, you are right that the amount of viably extractable gas is not known with precision but that is a risk for the energy firms not the government or the consumer (since no government subsidy is needed so the consumer pays nothing for the extraction of shale).
The most sensible stimulus package that Osbourne could deliver is to push full ahead with shale and reduce all the surrounding red tape and let private enerprise do the rest. No cost to government, and it would quickly become a revenue earner as licenses are granted and then an employment boom. Later as the gas gets out of the ground other revenue streams would open up.
richard verney:
At April 27, 2013 at 5:56 am you say of the deliberate closure of the UK coal industry by the Thatcher government
Oh, dear. No!
The closures under Wilson were part of the progressive modernisation and mechanisation of the industry conducted by successive governments – both Conservative and Labour – following the Second World War. The 1976 ‘Plan For Coal’ was agreed by all three main UK political parties, and closure of the economic industry was a reversal of that policy by the Thatcher government.
I summarised the facts of the matter in a post on WUWT a few weeks ago. I copy it to here to save others needing to find it, but it is at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/13/weekend-open-thread-6/#comment-1274534
Richard
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richardscourtney says:
April 13, 2013 at 3:11 pm
troe:
I am responding to your post at April 13, 2013 at 12:47 pm. Thatcher was – and is – very divisive so several posters have been very partisan in this thread. Others have been more balanced. And I will try to be factual.
Your post says in total
Firstly, it was not only the mining communities which were deliberately destroyed by government policy in the Thatcher era because other industries were also destroyed; i.e. steel, shipbuilding, etc. . This was because the Thatcher government decided to switch the UK economy from production industries to “service industries” (i.e. banking and financial services).
It is a matter of opinion as to whether this was good or bad policy. However, it did have significant immediate and long-term effects. Like all changes, it provided ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ with the result of the extreme pro and anti attitudes to Margaret Thatcher.
In the immediate term a result of the change was devastation of the towns and cities which were deprived of the factories, steel mills, shipyards and coal mines upon which they depended. Many have still not recovered a generation later. Everybody suffered in such towns: for example, late on a Friday it was announced that Grimethorpe Colliery would close and, therefore, first thing on the following Monday morning Tesco announced it was to close its Grimethorpe supermarket because unemployed people would be unable to buy anything.
This deliberate closure of industries destroyed 20% of the UK economy and was only possible because the North Sea oil revenues had come on-stream.
And it was only politically possible because the government bought votes. People were given the right to buy a Council house at well below its market value if they lived in it. This was a direct transfer of capital from taxpayers to those who became owners of the houses for less than their worth. But somebody hoping to buy a Council house or who had bought one would vote Tory because Thatcher’s party would not recover the lost capital. With passage of time it became impossible to regain the lost capital so all political parties now accept it. But the Council housing has been lost with the result that ‘affordable housing’ has become a serious problem in the UK.
In the longer term this transition from production to service industries greatly increased the UK’s reliance on banking and so banking and financial services became about 40% of the UK economy. ‘All eggs in one basket’ is risky. It took a generation before the ‘basket’ obtained a ‘hole’ when the US had a banking crisis. The knock-on effects of this on the UK were a disaster so the UK obtained a triple-dip recession and still shows no signs of recovery.
Achievement of this economic transition required closure of the coal industry, and that was only possible if the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) were destroyed because it was the most powerful trade union in the country. Nicholas Ridley (who, coincidentally, was my MP) devised the Ridley Plan for this. It had two basic components which the Thatcher government applied.
Coal was stockpiled at power stations and ports both in the UK and elsewhere. Any strike or threat of a strike from the NUM would be – and was – capitulated until the stockpiles were sufficient to outlast any NUM strike. The government would then deliberately induce a strike at the start of a summer when need for coal was least. This trigger was assisted by the total incompetence of Arthur Scargill who was President of the NUM. Also, the Thatcher government conducted a successful propaganda campaign which induced a split in the NUM so the Nottinghamshire miners did not join the strike because they were fooled into thinking their mines would not be closed. The strike lasted a year before the miners were starved back to work and, thus, the NUM was broken.
This removed the NUM as an impediment to closure of the coal industry. And that closure was justified by the tactic of “The Uneconomic Tail”.
Prior to defeat of the NUM the coal industry was structured in Regions with several mines in each Region. The mines had become highly mechanised. A mine operated retreat or advance mining but in either case this required a development and a production phase. During development the mine created all the tunnels and facilities needed to cut a panel of coal: this had high cost and no profit because no coal was produced. During production the panel was extracted: this had low costs and high profits because coal was being extracted for sale.
A Region made planned and constant profits because at all times some mines were in development while others were in production.
The Ridley Plan declared that each mine was an individual profit centre and would be closed as being uneconomic if it failed to make a profit over a financial year. But no mine made a profit in a year when it had a development phase. Hence, by this tactic, each mine was declared uneconomic when it reached a development phase and, therefore, it was closed.
I hope this explains the issues which you raised.
Richard
PS I held office – which I retained in five elections – of being the Vice President of the British Association of Colliery Management (BACM) and, of course, BACM Members had to apply the Ridley Plan.
richardscourtney says:
April 27, 2013 at 6:32 am
Not a chip but rather a sack of coal on your shoulder Richard!
Now remind me, how long did Blair and Brown have in office, what steps did they take to right your perceived wrongs, and why did they promulgate the infamous coal vilification Climate Act in 2008?
roger:
re your twaddle at April 27, 2013 at 7:39 am.
I gave a factual account of some history.
I stated no “perceived wrongs”. That is your perception.
Your political beliefs don’t interest me.
Indeed, I fail to understand what relevance Blair and Brown could have had on Thatchers government decades earlier.
Richard
“roger says:
April 27, 2013 at 7:39 am”
Blair ~10 years, Brown ~3 years, Thatcher 12 years alone. Don’t quite see your point.
“richardscourtney says:
April 27, 2013 at 6:32 am
richard verney:
At April 27, 2013 at 5:56 am you say of the deliberate closure of the UK coal industry by the Thatcher government
Oh, dear. No!
The closures under Wilson were part of the progressive modernisation and mechanisation of the industry conducted by successive governments – both Conservative and Labour – following the Second World War. The 1976 ‘Plan For Coal’ was agreed by all three main UK political parties, and closure of the economic industry was a reversal of that policy by the Thatcher government.”
Just like Dr. Beachings “plan” for railways (Labour).
Patrick:
re your post to me at April 27, 2013 at 11:08 am.
I have not been involved with railways so I cannot comment on them. I think it is generally agreed that the ‘Beaching Plan’ was a mistake, but I do not know enough to say what would have been better. I do know the ‘Beaching Plan was not a plan to eradicate the UK railways, and many still exist: the Ridley Plan was intended to – and did – eradicate the UK coal industry.
As you say, all such plans come from governments and no one political party can be said to not apply them.
Richard
NEVER MIND that all the large pumps and their electric motors which ‘pump’ seawater used for cooling are located out near the ocean and they and their corresponding AC switchgear were inundated by conductive and corrosive SEAWATER …
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Interesting to note, that, the original problems imposed on Fukushima Daini (2) (such as loss of seawater pumps due to inundation) were much the same as at Daiichi (1), but, Daini (2) had access to off-property electrical energy (through the temporary laying of a large cable by hand over a distance of 9 kilometres) allowing control room and secondary emergency cooling systems (e.g. RCIC) to operate … Daiichi (1) did not have power as their generators were non-functional after the Tsunami and no external line was run.
As Fukushima Daini (2) was under nominal (full) operating conditions at the time of the quake, the shutdown operations at Daini (2) were _no_ cakewalk as detailed here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daini_Nuclear_Power_Plant#2011_earthquake_and_tsunami
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“richardscourtney says:
April 27, 2013 at 11:54 am”
It’s true the fact mines were being closed in the process of “modernisation” after WW2. In fact the entire industrial base was going through similar changes, it had to. Industry was dragged kicking and screaming all the way. What is also fact is that Winson closed more mines than Thatcher (Regardless of “justification”) and he started the process in 1964. Of course the UK, in the 80’s, being nicknamed “The Dirty Man of Europe” due to coal mining, use and heavy industry was, in part, justification used by Thatcher to swing the wreaking ball through the coal industry again in favour of nuclear power generation, which due to various scares, accidents, protests (Greenham Common, Cold War etc) and politics was, eventually, cancelled. That’s all I know and recall from that time in the UK.
With rail, I do find it rather ironic that in every country I have lived in that followed a “Beaching” type plan to rail transport, and in fact in some countries preceded it (New Zealand), are all now re-visiting heavy and light rail national and urban rail systems to “solve the transport problem” and reduce CO2 emissions (Rail networks owned by the state leased to private rail operators. Just like it was before the Beaching days in the UK).
@_Jim
I think we all can agree that the events of that day were no “cake walk” for anyone living on the northeast coast of Japan that were in the path of the tsunami. And especially the staff of the two Fukushima nuclear power plants on that day and the following weeks and months. The earthquake was huge but the tsunami on the coast of Iwate and Miyagi prefectures north of Fukushima was simply unbelievable. It is remarkable that Daiichi was contained to the extent that it was in the face of this decidedly non accidental event. The media even in Japan continues to refer to Daiichi as an accident and most of the global media have forgotten about the many victims of that day. And the survivors continue to suffer. Throughout Japan people continue to face a lack of sufficient power especially at peak periods. I have no horse in the race concerning coal, nuclear, or other solutions to that problem.
As a trained biologist with a career in engineering I think CO2 is great for biosphere and is decidedly a minor threat to the planet from the point of view of heating it up. I consider a global one degree C anomaly rise over the past 150 years a very stable and remarkably unthreatening condition. If atmospheric CO2 continues to increase at past rates even approaching 500 ppm, I think recent leveling of global temperatures tells me that we have little worry from the continuing “rapid” rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration.
If the Japanese wish to develop coal power generating systems, I am sure they can do it in a very non polluting way. If they wish to restart their remaining nuclear reactors using the experience from Fukushima, I am also sure they can do it safely. I suspect the present Japanese government will be able to work this out in spite of a continuing media blitz of doom that often has no basis in fact.
richardscourtney says:
April 27, 2013 at 6:32 am
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Richard
I don’t wish to get embroilled in a political debate as I detest politics. I never voted for Thatcher, at the time I withheld my vote because I consider all politicians nearly as bad as one another and that there is no reprentative democracy with politicaians saying one thing and doing another.I note your involvement in the mining industry and therefore I accept that you should be familiar with the issues.
However, the reality is that by the time Thatcher came into power, UK heavy industry was in terminal decline. The shipbuilding industry had already been lost, so too motorbikes. The car industry was on its knees (largely because of industrial unrest in the 1960s and 70s). Coal and steel was not competitive on the world market, and like it or not industry has to be competitive and in the real world; if it is not, it is living on borrowed time.
Given that shipbuilding had already been lost and given that the motor industry was already in terminal decline, the domestic demand for steel was already much reduced such that diminishing domestic demand and uncompetitive price meant that the steel industry did not have a rosey future. Markets once lost are extremely difficult to recapture. This is the position that Thatcher inherrited.
Labour costs in the UK were high compared to say South Africa or Poland, and because of this and because of some open cast mining, imported coal was far cheaper and becoming cheaper day by day. In a nutshell, the position she inherrited was worse than that envisaged in the Plan for Coal to which you refer. The challenge facing the government and the unions was the further rationilisation of the coal industry enedeavoruing to keep a much more streamlined industtry operating where coal could be extracted and supplied at competitive cost.
It was inevitable that there needed to be far more mine closures. I accept that that is unpalletable and the loss of one’s job, particularly when there is no obvious replacement, is calamitous. Neither the government nor the unions come out of this episode with distinction, but I consider that the unions (not just the NUM) are in denial as to the extent of damage they inflicted on UK indiustry and the part that they played in its demise.
I fully accpet that had it not been for North Sea oil, the way matters panned out would have been very different. Unfortunately, the UK has largely squandered this asset (no doubt much of it on welfare as a consequence of the loss of industry and manufacturing). Look at what Norway has managed to achieve, although of course, when an asset has to be distributed only between about 4.6 million instead of between 55 million people (now probably over 70 million), the smaller country will always be more wealthy.
Anyway all of that is in the past. The challenge facing the UK is energy, and in particular cheap energy. Shale has revolutionised the US and has given their industry a real competitive edge. The UK needs to get on with shale. Until this is up and running coal has a role in cheap energy production. It is madness that the UK is closing its coal fired power generators. These should be kept on stream at least until a new generation of gas generators are built to be powered from UK shale gas.
“richard verney says:
April 28, 2013 at 8:00 am”
“… I never voted for Thatcher, at the time I withheld my vote because I consider all politicians nearly as bad as one another and that there is no reprentative democracy…”
Hear hear!
richard verney:
re your post to me at April 28, 2013 at 8:00 am.
Various industries were in decline when Thatcher came to power. But it cannot be known whether they would have ended if not deliberately destroyed by her government.
It is a matter of opinion which includes political values as to whether that destruction was beneficial or not.
As I said,
emphasis added: RSC
You say
So Thatcher claimed, but some of the evidence for this is far from certain. For example, as you say
However, the UK car industry was not “on its knees” despite – in common with much of British industry and commerce at the time – suffering from poor management which failed to maintain investment in production technology and product development. This problem was overcome by selling the car industry to foreign companies which imposed competent management.
Wicki lists UK car production over time at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry_in_the_United_Kingdom
According to that source (it is only Wicki and I don’t know its validity) car production in the UK grew until 1980, halved during the Thatcher era, recovered somewhat over the following decade, and since 2000 has varied approximately with UK economic performance.
But the government did not have direct control over car production so could not close it. The government did own the shipbuilding, steal and coal industries, and it closed them.
With specific consideration of the coal industry which I do know about, you say
That is factually not correct.
The Plan For Coal was agreed by all three main parties in 1976.
Thatcher came to power in 1979 and immediately started to implement the Ridley Plan for closure of the coal industry.
UK coal was the cheapest coal for UK power stations because the power stations had been built in the coal fields so transport and handling costs were low.
The UK coal industry was profitable and there are very good reasons to conclude it would have continued to have a competitive and profitable future if not closed. Indeed, that is why the Plan For Coal was agreed.
Also, profitability was not a concern of the Thatcher government’s energy policy. The UK was producing more coal-fired electricity than nuclear electricity. And the Thatcher government was subsidising the nuclear power industry. If the coal industry (which was shut) had been given similar subsidy then it would have made a profit if it had given away all its coal for free and had payed those who took the coal £20 per tonne of coal for taking it. Clearly, profitability was not a consideration in the ‘energy equation’, and coal was not closed for that reason.
As I said, it is a matter of opinion as to whether the closure of UK coal industry was a good or bad policy. But it is a matter of fact that the closure was a political policy and was not affected by any economic considerations.
But that is all history.
As you say, present day UK energy policy is a mess which promises to be a disaster. In my opinion, what happened decades ago has less importance than what is being done now.
Richard
Japan, like Germany, has rejected nuclear energy. At least for the foreseeable future they have. Once a nation goes such a route they inevitably have to build coal-fired stations. Any other option involves de-industrialization.
“richard verney says April 28, 2013 at 8:00 am”
“… I never voted for Thatcher, at the time I withheld my vote because I consider all politicians nearly as bad as one another and that there is no repre[se]ntative democracy…”
Patrick says April 28, 2013 at 8:30 am:
Hear hear!
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GREAT … now look at the demographic that *does* vote. Is it any wonder we’re on the predicament we’re in?
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