Guest geology by David Middleton
I spent the past couple of days in Austin, Texas attending the annual meeting of the Applied Geodynamics Laboratory (AGL). The AGL is part of the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) in the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. The AGL was established to study salt tectonics. Salt tectonics (AKA halokinesis) is particularly relevant to oil & gas exploration because many of the most prolific hydrocarbon basins also happen to be salt basins. The AGL is sponsored by numerous oil companies and geophysical contractors, including my employer. I’ve previously written about one of AGL’s founders, the late Martin Jackson.
The first session yesterday was kicked off by Dr. Scott Tinker, Texas State Geologist and Director of the BEG, whose presentation centered on climate change. Since UT and Austin are deep in the heart of the Peoples Republic on Travis County, this wasn’t surprising. What many people may find surprising is that Dr. Tinker’s position was that energy, economics and environment were inextricably linked. Without energy, a society cannot have the means to protect the environment. I wish I had a transcript of his talk or had thought to record it. Dr. Tinker is undoubtedly a “lukewarmer” (as am I)… But he clearly gets the fact that energy poverty is far more dangerous than climate change. He stated that our industry is “getting killed on social media” and that it was our job as geologists to set the record straight. He closed his remarks by saying, “When someone asks you what you do, reply with ‘I work in the oil & gas industry, I lift people out of poverty. What do you do?'”
Dr. Tinker is an advocate of N2N (natural gas to nuclear) and chairman of the Switch Energy Alliance. He recently authored an OpEd on carbon pricng in UT News…
Aug 23, 2019
Carbon Pricing Is Not a Fix for Climate Change
By: Scott TinkerThere is much talk today about carbon pricing to reduce CO2 emissions and address climate change. Unlike many environmental pollutants that have a local or regional impact, carbon dioxide (CO2) is global — there is only one atmosphere. If actions taken to reduce atmospheric emissions in one region result in increased emissions elsewhere, then the one atmosphere suffers.
Some form of carbon pricing — carbon tax, carbon trading, carbon credits — is favored by many politicians, NGOs, academics and even some in industry. But the reality is that a price on carbon will not be imposed by developing and emerging economies because it makes their energy more expensive, and they are too busy trying to build their economies and lift themselves from poverty.
In the developed world, carbon pricing increases the cost of manufacturing and products, which in turn drives manufacturing to developing nations where it is more affordable because of lower labor costs and less stringent environmental regulations and emissions standards. Global emissions rise in the one atmosphere.
Said differently, the good intentions of carbon pricing have an unintended negative impact on climate change. This is not hypothetical. It is happening.
If carbon pricing won’t work, what will? Energy science tells us how to actually lower CO2 emissions into the one atmosphere in the time frame needed. Unfortunately, those who are the most passionate about addressing climate change seem to not like the answers from the energy experts.
[…]
So what options does energy science suggest will have a major impact on climate change?
Natural gas and nuclear replacing coal for power generation in major developing nations such as India, China and Vietnam would have a major impact. Carbon capture, utilization and storage; direct carbon capture from the atmosphere; and perhaps nature-based solutions such as increasing the size of forests would help, especially in fossil fuel producing regions such as the U.S., Russia, China and the Middle East.
[…]
These scientifically sound and economically underpinned energy solutions present a problem. Many are not favored by people who are the most concerned about climate change. Thus, politicians seeking climate votes continue to passionately promote programs and policies that won’t actually address climate change.
But we have a remarkable opportunity. The right can acknowledge the need to tackle climate change. The left can acknowledge the energy science needed to accomplish real global emissions reductions into the one atmosphere. And developing and emerging nations can continue to climb out of energy poverty.
Unfortunately, this appears to be far from happening. Climate politics seems to trump energy solutions in Europe and the U.S., and the developing world continues to burn coal.
Scott Tinker is the Allday Endowed Chair of Subsurface Geology and director of the Bureau of Economic Geology at The University of Texas at Austin.
UT News
While the “need to tackle climate change” is debatable, the only effective methods of reducing carbon emissions, while maintaining our liberty and prosperity, while also lifting about 3 billion people out of energy poverty are:
- Natural Gas
- Nuclear Power
- Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS)
This is a far bigger problem than climate change will ever be…
And this is the most cost-effective solution to both the real problem of energy poverty and the potential mild annoyance of climate change…
It is also undeniable that “those who are the most passionate about addressing climate change seem to not like the answers” and “politicians seeking climate votes continue to passionately promote programs and policies that won’t actually address climate change.”
It truly is a Bizarro World… Those who consider climate change to be an existential threat are least likely to support natural gas, nuclear power and CCUS. Instead they support Green New Deals that would destroy our economy and have no affect at all on the weather. Through increased use of natural gas, nuclear power and CCUS, we could actually make a serious dent in carbon emissions and help lift billions of people out of poverty without any self-inflicted economic damage.
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“Said differently, the good intentions of carbon pricing have an unintended negative impact on climate change.”
Spencer’s Third Law: For every social action, there it an equal and opposite reaction — unintended consequences.
Energy is life. Nature is at best indifferent and mostly a stone cold killer.
Agriculture is energy.
Medicine is energy.
Maintaining livable temperatures is energy.
Weather monitoring and warning is energy.
Education is energy.
Safe water is energy.
If these people actually cared about human lives they would be doing everything in their power to increase our access to and control over energy supplies. Instead they are doing the exact opposite.
Tsk Tsk – Exactly right our modern civilization was founded during the industrial revolution on the energy density of fossil fuels i e a frozen sunlight battery. Billions have been lifted from poverty in the last 25 years by the increased use of this resource by China and India and these countries are sensibly planning to further the increase use of this gift from nature for the foreseeable future.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was set up to select from the evidence and from time to time produce reports which would show that CO2 was the main driver of dangerous climate change and at the same time provide jobs and professional advancement for thousands of western left-inclined politically correct academic scientists .A second recommendation resulted in a meeting in Rio in 1992 chaired by Maurice Strong which produced the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change later signed by 196 governments.The objective of the Convention is to keep CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that they guessed would prevent dangerous man made interference with the climate system.
This treaty is a comprehensive, politically driven, political action plan called Agenda 21 designed to produce a centrally managed global society which would control every aspect of the life of every one on earth.
It says :
“The Parties should take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimize the
causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects. Where there are threats of serious or
irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing
such measures”
Apocalyptic forecasts are used as the main drivers of demands for action and for enormous investments such as those in the new IPCC SR1.5 report and in the work of Nordhaus who advocates a carbon tax .Nordhaus is quoted in the NYT as saying “If we start moving very swiftly in the next 20 years, we might able to avoid 2 degrees, but if we don’t do that, we’re in for changes in the Earth’s system that we can’t begin to understand in depth. Warming of 4, 5, 6 degrees will bring changes we don’t understand because it’s outside the range of human experience in the last 100,000 to 200,000 years.”
The Western elite academics proselytizing the warming scenario are closely following the UNFCCC Agenda 21 political plan of action by providing the politicians with scary scenarios .
Bernie Sanders says :” Climate change is the single greatest threat facing our planet. The debate is over, and the scientific jury is in: global climate change is real, it is caused mainly by emissions released from burning fossil fuels and it poses a catastrophic threat to the long-term longevity of our planet. If we do nothing, the planet will heat up five to ten degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century. That would cause enough sea level rise from melting glaciers to put cities like New York and Miami underwater – along with more frequent asthma attacks, higher food prices, insufficient drinking water and more infectious diseases.”
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposed taxing the wealthy as high as 70% to fund a climate change plan she’s pushing called the “Green New Deal.” She also says “The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change”
Fortunately, Reality is finally beginning to intrude upon the dangerous global warming meme.
Curry, 2017 in “Climate Models for the layman” says:
“GCMs are not fit for the purpose of attributing the causes of 20th century warming or for
predicting global or regional climate change on time scales of decades to centuries,
with any high level of confidence. By extension, GCMs are not fit for the purpose of
justifying political policies to fundamentally alter world social, economic and energy
systems…..”
Scafetta et al 2017 states: “The severe discrepancy between observations and modeled predictions……further confirms….that the current climate models have significantly exaggerated the anthropogenic greenhouse warming effect”
Hansen et al 2018 “Global Temperature in 2017” said “However, the solar variability is not negligible in comparison with the energy imbalance that drives global temperature change. Therefore, because of the combination of the strong 2016 El Niño and the phase of the solar cycle, it is plausible, if not likely, that the next 10 years of global temperature change will leave an impression of a ‘global warming hiatus’.
Page, 2017 in “The coming cooling: usefully accurate climate forecasting for policy makers.” said:
” This paper argued that the methods used by the establishment climate science community are not fit for purpose and that a new forecasting paradigm should be adopted. Earth’s climate is the result of resonances and beats between various quasi-cyclic processes of varying wavelengths. It is not possible to forecast the future unless we have a good understanding of where the earth is in time in relation to the current phases of those different interacting natural quasi periodicities. Evidence is presented specifying the timing and amplitude of the natural 60+/- year and, more importantly, 1,000 year periodicities (observed emergent behaviors) that are so obvious in the temperature record. Data related to the solar climate driver is discussed and the solar cycle 22 low in the neutron count (high solar activity) in 1991 is identified as a solar activity millennial peak and correlated with the millennial peak -inversion point – in the RSS temperature trend in about 2003. The cyclic trends are projected forward and predict a probable general temperature decline in the coming decades and centuries. Estimates of the timing and amplitude of the coming cooling are made. If the real climate outcomes follow a trend which approaches the near term forecasts of this working hypothesis, the divergence between the IPCC forecasts and those projected by this paper will be so large by 2021 as to make the current, supposedly actionable, level of confidence in the IPCC forecasts untenable.”
Bernie’s wrong, and he’s deflecting, too.
Politicians and their ignorance, greed and lust for power are the single biggest threat to this planet.
More CO2 in the atmosphere is a very good thing.
‘we could actually make a serious dent in carbon emissions and help lift billions of people out of poverty without any self-inflicted economic damage.’
How people live is none of your business. Unless you are a colonialist. People who cook with dried dung don’t need to be fixed.
“Carbon capture, utilization and storage; direct carbon capture from the atmosphere; and perhaps nature-based solutions such as increasing the size of forests would help, especially in fossil fuel producing regions such as the U.S., Russia, China and the Middle East.”
Mr. Tinker makes many good points but carbon capture and increasing the size of forests are in direct opposition to each other.
Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds
nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth …
Also, the current absurd policy in Europe of burning biomass (forests) for fuel to replace coal also works against any increase in forests and increases CO2 emissions.
The Obvious Biomass Emissions Error
Anthony Watts
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/02/07/the-obvious-biomass-emissions-error/
“…As a result, the emissions numbers reported by Europe are wrong. Eurostat reports that Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions declined 16 percent from 2000 to 2016, but emissions from plants burning biomass and emissions from vehicular biofuels aren’t counted. European nations won’t face this obvious biomass emissions error, because without biomass, already difficult climate targets would become impossible to meet.
…In the name of cutting CO2 emissions, four of the six Drax generating stations were converted to burn wood chips over the last seven years, at a cost of £700 million ($1 billion). Hailed as “the biggest decarbonization project in Europe,” this facility now consumes about 9 million tons of wood pellets per year, shipped 3,000 miles from the US and Canada.
An estimated 4,600 square miles of forest are needed to feed the voracious Drax plant, with acres of forest felled each day. Replanted trees will take half a century to regrow. Despite the decarbonization claims, the CO2 emitted from the Drax plants are far greater today than when coal fuel was burned.”
Mr. Tinker was correct when he wrote this, “Unfortunately, this appears to be far from happening. Climate politics seems to trump energy solutions in Europe and the U.S., and the developing world continues to burn coal.” However, wanting to increase forests while engaging in carbon capture and without addressing the greatest threat to forests today, the Drax plants and others like them, is a major deficit in his potential solutions.
Unless the prehistorical research data is all just grievously wrong, CO2 just is not a concern at realistic levels. At all. It’s far more driven than driving, and apparently the world and life has done just fine at much, much higher levels than today.
Which is not to say that pollution is not a concern, in fact the “CO2 obsession” is taking all the wind out of the sails of dealing with other pollution issues.
Apart from the fact that controlling carbon allows you to control people, I really don’t understand why this is the “one and only” issue most of the energy of advocates is spent on. I mean, I was able to do the math at home and I get that math is scary to a lot of people, but, people, do the math. You’ll sleep better, and annoy other people less.
Of the FOUR methods Mr. Tillis suggests for ameliorating CO2, your summary only endorses the efficacy of three. His fourth idea:
If a concession to CO2 fear-mongers is necessary, it seems like this is pretty innocuous, and IS a green crowd pleaser that they would also subscribe to.
Planting trees and managing forests to minimize fire danger puts people to work and yields a harvestable product after the CO2-reapers have done their duty. Should satisfy everyone.
Ironically, environments with green spaces, dense forests, lush flora and fauna, and human habitation are an impediment to low-density, environmentally-temperamental large-scale Green solutions.
Tinker, not Tilis. He also suggests better energy efficiency. Which is also a good idea when it makes economic sense.
Replacing coal-fired power plants with natural gas advanced combined cycle already makes economic sense. While nuclear is expensive, it can replace coal MW for MW with zero emissions of anything. Carbon sequestration already makes economic sense if the CO2 can be used for EOR; however other projects like Petra Nova require either higher oil prices or some manner of subsidization… And the main reason for doing this is to keep coal-fired power plants in service. The one advantage that coal and nuclear power have over natural gas is resiliency. While I don’t care for subsidies of any kind, subsidizing energy that works (coal & nuclear) makes a lot more sense to me than subsidizing energy that only works part-time (wind & solar).
Remove all subsidies and let the market sort them out. Intermittency is a cost that if reflected in the price of primitive energy would make it completely uncompetitive for the foreseeable future.
I did not know that Lindzen and Choi had stated that CO2 caused some degree of warming.As Hottel and Schack
have written all the thermodynamics equations,where CO2 is not included,having no effect,have L&C above rewritten the eqations that are used by engineers and scientists the world over?
Lindzen, Roy Spencer and John Christy have all published papers demonstrating a sensitivty of 0.5 to 1.1 C. Christy & McSnider was the most recent.
There is no actual scientific debate about whether or not CO2 is a greenhouse gas and causes some warming. The only debate is about how much and what, if anything, to do about it.
What, exactly, is there to solve except cases of mindless hysteria?
We want to hear President Trump say “We do have a clean coal solution! This Carbon Capture Utilization System turns CO2 into good paying full time jobs and money.” “Let’s put the coal miners back to work”. Let’s rebuild their communities.
America has over 600 years of good quality coal available. We believe America needs to look at it’s energy situation. Coal should be used to produce electricity. Natural gas should be used for building space heating and by industry to produce all those things we consume daily. America’s oil should be used for transportation and to produce all those other products where oil is required. Using America’s energy wisely will provide energy for many years 24/7.
Renewables (solar and wind) should have it’s own grid network feeding electricity for America’s EV market. The worst that can happen there is if the batteries run out of charge, these vehicles park until they can recover. This industry needs to look at how much CO2 and emissions is being created putting this equipment together, and how much more to maintain it and then replace it.
Natural gas also needs to be consumed much better. 20% or more of this combusted energy leaves the appliances chimney and gets vented into the atmosphere as hot exhaust. With the technology of Condensing Flue Gas Heat Recovery the heat energy in the combusted exhaust can be recovered so what is being vented is cool exhaust. For every 1 million Btu’s of heat energy that is recovered and then utilized, 117 lbs of CO2 does not get put into the atmosphere. This adds up to be Tons quickly.
In every 1 million Btu’s of combusted natural gas are 5 gallons of recoverable distilled water. To get at this useable water the heat energy has to be removed. The cooler the exhaust is reduced, the greater the volume of water that is produced. Water is becoming a precious commodity.
At those locations where there is a lot of vacant land near the natural gas power plants, the heat energy can be recovered from the combusted exhaust and be used to heat and or cool large ranges of commercial greenhouses, in which food crops can be grown. The cooled exhaust can be analyzed, and if free from unburnt matter, can be blown into the greenhouse growing areas providing CO2 enrichment for the food producing plants. The created water can be used by the power plants in their cooling towers, or it can be treated, nutrients added and be used ti irrigate the food producing plants.
Everyone is talking about reducing CO2 emissions and increasing energy efficiency. The above is what we have to offer to help accomplish some of those requirements. https://youtu.be/RQRQ7S92_lo
America has over 600 years of good quality coal in the ground. We have another solution at dealing with Carbon or CO2. Our Sidel Carbon Capture Utilization System turns the Captured CO2 into good paying full time jobs and money.
The sorbent we use requires growing thousands of acres of our required large leaf vegetable. During the time it takes to grow these plants to maturity CO2 is being absorbed and put into the soil. These plants are at the same time giving us back O2.
Our CCU System requires no steam from the power plant, and only a minimal amount of electricity. This allows the power plant to produce more electricity, increasing it’s profitability. This CCU System creates earth friendly products that will be sold and transported by truck or rail from the power plant site. This System has an ROI which over time will be used to reimburse the Utility the cost of putting up the Sidel CCU System.
In 2010 when we decided we wanted to help the coal industry we wanted to design a Carbon Capture that would be a win-win for everyone. We were fortunate to find an industry that injected large volumes of CO2 into it’s process for purification purposes and had been doing so for over 60 years. We were able to take that proven process and remold it into a process that would in an atmospheric reactor absorb the CO2 out of the combusted fossil fuel exhaust.
We believe America needs to review it’s future Energy Policy. America has over 600 years of good quality coal available. This coal needs to be used to generate America’s electricity. Coal power plants can operate for 40 to 60 years or more.
America’s natural gas should be used first for building space heating and by industry to produce all those things we consume daily. If America can make good money selling it to other countries, so be it.
America’s oil should be used for transportation purposes, and to produce those other items that require oil.
Doing the above will keep America comfortable and moving forward for many decades.
Renewables (solar & wind) can be used to produce electricity, but should have it’s own grid network supplying electricity for EV’s. When the sun goes down and the wind stops blowing and the batteries run out of power, it’s time to park the vehicles. No harm done. The charging network can pay for the maintenance and up keep and replacement of these systems as required.
I have been trying for years to get the South African Government to implement a simple solution; Take CO2 from flue gases and feed it to algae growing in sewerage. Then DO NOT use algae for biofuels, at least not directly. We would be recycling nutrients, potentially water also, and slowing the return of CO2 to the atmosphere, and our corrupt municipalities would have a monetary incentive to treat sewerage instead of letting it flow into rivers we draw our drinking water from; We would also create directly and indirectly a large number of jobs, with a business model that can be implemented worldwide. (a potential solution to the migrant problem, with a resurgence of job creation AWAY from major population centres)
The huge problem with CCS that is frequently ignored is the Sequestration part.
We often see energy use projections for the “CC” part and now tech to do it. Things like 40% additional energy from coal to “capture” the CO2. That seems to be where the sexy, “we can do this”, hoopla exists for CCS.
But unless you have a lot ready oil fields that can take the “S” part and do it economically, doing the CC part makes even less sense. Especially at the Sequestration scale necessary to affect a nation’s actual emissions due to electrical generation. Even if you identify a few dozen suitable geologic repository sites around the nation, getting the liquid CO2 there is another energy intensive task as well as energy to pressurize and pump it into that deep formation. Then the local politics of permitting also takes over. There’s already a huge resistance for the ecoterrorists about building new pipelines as CCS goes against their “Keep it in the ground” schtick.
If you own pipelines already it is a license to print money because it is so hard to build new ones due to the environmentalists. In Canada I was told one company simply tried to expand an existing pipeline and were blocked. My sister in law works for a company that makes a product that goes into the pipeline to make the oil have less friction so more can be pumped through the pipeline. Warren Buffett owns the company.
If you live in a poor society for whatever reason, with no Social Services, by sheer necessarily you must have a large family, needed to do the labour required for your survival , such as growing food, plus someone to look after you in your old
age.
Allowing for the fact that in such a society many of the children will die,
then a figure of about 10 children per couple is not unusual.
So along come the well intentioned Westerners and provide both better
medical and food aid. Then they wonder why the population suddenly booms.
Solution is of course simple, only supply condoms, no food or medical aid.
Then along comes the Media, and while we are sitting down to a meal,
see a picture of a small child with a swollen belly, “”Only for a dollar a day”” .
The Western countries went through this same situation, but we did not have
the likes of the UN telling some other country that they should help us. We
helped ourselves the hard way. We dug coal and metals and developed things.
If we could get past the tribal chief or war lord, then Western aid should
consist of developing the coal and mineral wealth the same way we did it.
Put in a profit motive, yes that dreadful thing called Capitalism , it worked,
and the country will develop.
MJE VK5ELL
Transcripts / documentaries to offer:.
https://www.google.com/search?q=dr.tinker+transcript+Austin+geological+speech&oq=dr.tinker+transcript+Austin+geological+speech+&aqs=chrome.