Norwegian socialist PM Stoltenberg: Carbon capture project as important as Moon landing

Carbon capture has failed just about everywhere, but Norway - awash with money accrued from the sale of oil and gas from its vast offshore fields - is still trying to promote its image by investing in this less than succesful technology. 

The country´s socialist Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg - who has compared the carbon capture project in importance to a Moon landing - was upbeat when he opened the new billion dollar Mongstad carbon capture research centre: 

NORWAY inaugurated what it called the world's largest laboratory for capturing carbon dioxide, a leading strategy for fighting global warming.

Located at an oil refinery on Norway's west coast, the Technology Centre Mongstad aims to test French and Norwegian methods of capturing carbon dioxide emissions and burying them underground to prevent them from escaping into the atmosphere.

"We need to find a way to reconcile the need for energy and the need for emission reductions," Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said as he inaugurated the site.

"Carbon-capture technology is a key," he said. "This technology may deliver up to 20 percent of the emission reductions needed by 2050."

Built at an estimated cost of 5.9 billion Norwegian krone ($998 million) mainly with state funds, the Mongstad centre is "the world's largest and most advanced laboratory for testing carbon-capture technologies", Prime Minister Stoltenberg said.

The centre is three-quarters owned by the state firm Gassnova, followed by a 20 percent stake held by Norway's Statoil, with the Anglo-Dutch Shell and South Africa's Sasol holding the remaining stakes.

It is testing technologies of the French company Alstom amd those of Norway's Aker Solutions.

Stoltenberg launched the ambitious project in 2007 with the aim of making Norway a world leader in capturing and storing carbon dioxide, a goal he likened in importance to a Moon landing.

But the project has been plagued with delays and cost overruns: the goal of large-scale capture and storage of the carbon dioxide emitted by Mongstad's refinery and natural gas processing plant was initially set to enter operation in 2014, but is now expected to become possible in 2020 at the earliest.

Read the entire article here, 

However, the reality of Norways "Moon landing project" is not at all as rosy as Stoltenberg wants us to believe. Even the country´s energy minister has to admit that the Mongstad centre would not survive without massive government subsidies: 

Knowledge alone won’t accelerate the commercial development of CCS, however. The full-scale carbon capture facility planned for Mongstad couldn’t survive without public funds. “It’s heavily subsidized by the Norwegian government,” says Borten Moe, the energy minister. Still, he believes the money is well spent. Long-term plans call for exporting technology to countries with similar emission profiles. Some, including Mads Greaker, a research director at Statistics Norway, have suggested the government will have a difficult time selling its know-how in what remains a shaky market.
Cost inflation is a particular risk. The price tag at Mongstad ballooned by more than 200 per cent before shovels even hit the ground, Greaker noted in a 2009 report. “Our results suggest that capture technologies that are intended as end-of-pipe technologies have a small market potential unless such solutions become cheap,” Greaker wrote.

Read the entire article here

Merkel to ban shale gas exploration in Germany?

If what Der Spiegel writes is true, the current political leaders of Germany are not only ignorant, but also incredibly stupid:


Germany has put the brakes on plans to use hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, to extract natural gas in places where it is difficult to access, such as shale or coal beds. Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen and Economy Minister Philipp Rösler have agreed to oppose the controversial process for the time being, SPIEGEL has learned.


Sources in the German government said that the ministers were "very skeptical" about fracking, which injects chemicals as well as sand and water into the ground to release natural gas. "There are many open questions which we will first have to carefully examine," Rösler told close associates.
With their stance, the two ministers are opposing plans by energy companies to use the fracking process to tap into deposits of natural gas in shale, especially in northern and eastern Germany. In order to access the gas, the shale needs to be fractured using a mixture of hot water, sand and chemical additives, some of which are poisonous. Environmental groups reject the use of the technology, saying that the chemicals used can contaminate drinking water. 


Read the entire article here


No doubt the greenies and Gazprom will applaud this stupidity, but when the price of the Energiewende (energy transition policy) becomes clear - and it will not take long - voters in Germany will not forget who is responsible for the mess.

All major studies show that hydraulic fracturing is both safe and reliable. Even environmentalists appear to be prepared to accept this fact:


- Environmentalists and the energy industry appear to be edging towards a consensus that would permit a big expansion in hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas in exchange for stricter rules on engineering procedures such as well casing and cementing.
In a thoughtful article in the "Wall Street Journal", Russell Gold explains how energy officials and some environmental campaigners are converging on the view that poor well construction, rather than fracking itself, has been responsible for recorded instances of groundwater contamination ("Faulty Wells, Not Fracking, Blamed for Water Pollution", March 12).

Public support for "green" energy measures drops in the US

Public support for "green" energy measures to tackle "global warming" is continuing to drop in the US: 

Overall, support for various steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions has dropped an average of 10 percentage points since 2010, from 72% to 62%, lead researcherJon Krosnick says. "Most Americans (62%) still support industry taking steps aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions," Krosnick says, "but they hate the idea of consumer taxes to do it." His group's nationwide polls compared responses from 1,001 people in 2010 to 1,428 people this year.

And what is even more signficant: 
Even if the public supports steps to address global warming, Brulle says, "opinion on climate change and environmental issues overall has consistently ranked at the bottom of the overall public concerns" in polling. Just 1% of people ranked the environment as a "top concern" in the Gallup Poll in March.

The future of Gazprom - and Putin

The shale gas revolution threatens the future of  both  Gazprom and Vladimir  Putin

Ahmed Mehdi, a Reserach Fellow at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, has written an interesting article about the problems facing Russia´s energy giant Gazprom: 

Just four years ago, the Western press commonly touted Russia's state-owned natural gas giant Gazprom as Vladimir Putin's premier instrument of power. Indeed, the $160 billion firm controls several mighty subsidiaries, including oil and power companies and groups that run Russia's export pipelines. It has the ability to leave millions in Europe in the cold, as it demonstrated when it turned off the taps to Ukraine in 2006 and 2009. And it even owns several media outlets, including NTV, a popular television station that was once a vehement critic of Moscow but is now a (somewhat reluctant) advocate of Putin's domestic agenda. In total, Gazprom's profits constitute about ten percent of Russia's GDP. Perhaps that is why the company -- which even has its own anthem -- is considered a bellwether of Russian power. 

Yet, as Vladimir Putin is sworn in this week for another six-year term as president, the energy giant is not what it used to be. Despite the Kremlin's best efforts, the Russian gas market has recently started to liberalize. In the coming years, Gazprom will not be able to rely on high profit margins to stay at the top of the energy business. And for his part, Putin will not be able to rely on Gazprom as a source of power. 

---

Although things look bad for Gazprom, it is inconceivable that the company will simply disappear; it is just too big and owns too many subsidiaries. It is likely, however, that the Kremlin will start allowing more independent companies to play on the gas scene. For his part, Putin will probably favor letting Gazprom keep its prominent position, but even that will depend on his political strength. Between 2000 and 2008, the Russian leader's defining characteristic was an ability to dictate what the Russian state should look like. And a large portion of that picture rested on Gazprom's national champion status. The company got economically ludicrous tax breaks, received favored access to licences, and secured a monopoly over the pipelines. Yet, now the two-tiered gas market is eating into Gazprom's status -- slowly but surely. And as Gazprom gets crowded out of the market, Putin will have to find some other basis for his power, or else be slowly edged out as well.

Read the entire article here


The problem with Mr Mehdi´s analysis is that he does not at all discuss the impact of the American led shale gas revolution on Gazprom´s future. Putin is probably in a position to prop up Gazprom within Russia, but he is unable to do anything about shale gas. That is the real reason why he will be "slowly edged out". 


(image by wikipedia)

The economic outlook for Europe after Hollande´s victory

 Socialist François Hollande´s victory in the French presidential election has led to lots of speculation about the future of the German-French relationship and the euro. 


This is the most likely outcome: 

But analysts believe Ms. Merkel and Mr. Hollande will find some common ground, pointing to the long history of compromise in the Franco-German relationship, often between leaders of differing political colors. "It's absolutely crucial for France to remain as close as possible to Germany and to continue the euro," said Eric Chaney, chief economist at AXA Group.

He said Mr. Hollande will push for adding a paragraph to the fiscal treaty on growth. "The Germans will be happy if it is only saying the word growth, everybody wants growth," said Mr. Chaney. "So a compromise is possible, but not on the fiscal part of the treaty."

However, neither this expected "compromise" or any other hitherto agreed approach will solve the euro crisis. No matter how much Hollande, van Rompuy  and all the others - even Merkel - now talk about growth, the reality is that the failed euro project will still be there as an effective barrier to economic recovery in Europe. A French-German "compromise" will only add to the problems. 

"The course of the sky is within our power" - The view from an academic ivory tower

"the course of the sky is within our power"


"Worldwide governments must take responsibility for the climate and create a new Kyoto agreement that reflects justice in their grasp of human flourishing."


"Classic vices such as greed must be re-conceptualized at the global and intergenerational scales."


"changing human character"




Welcome again to the Brave New World of academic alarmism! 


Case Western Reserve University's environmental ethicist Jeremy Bendik-Keymer and Allen Thompson, Assistant Professor of Philosophy Oregon State University, offer us an interesting opportunity to see what is going on in the ivory towers of academic institutions: 


Ethical Adaptation to Climate Change (MIT Press) is a call for reorganizing both our conception of good character and our understanding of institutions to allow humans to flourish in the climate we have substantially affected for the next thousands of years.
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This new world vision is described by environmental ethicists in 17 essays focused on four areas: adapting ecological restoration to new climates, integrating ecology into justice, changing human character to be responsible for our effects on the climate, and reorganizing a globally just world where people can act in virtuous ways, as opposed to remaining individually impotent.

Without these pathways for change, Bendik-Keymer sees future generations paying a dire price for inheriting our ecological mess.

--

at the heart of living a flourishing or "good" life requires humans to have character. The center of character is responsibility for our effects on the climate system as these affect future generations, the global poor and other species. Classic vices such as greed must be re-conceptualized at the global and intergenerational scales.

Worldwide governments must take responsibility for the climate and create a new Kyoto agreement that reflects justice in their grasp of human flourishing.

--

It's a new way of thinking. Reflecting on human history, no cultures have ever thought that they themselves ought to be responsible for the course of the sky. But we have to be now, since the course of the sky is within our power, Bendik-Keymer says.

"Talk about adaptation must take us beyond mere coping strategies to full human flourishing," he says and thus, the book's subtitle of "human virtues of the future."

Read the entire article here

One of the two editors of the book, Dr. Allen Thompson, has published his own essay on his university home page. Here are a couple of excerpts :  

If we accept that humanity now has the role of managing planetary

stewardship, then we can recognize the demands of this role can be met

well or badly. Thus, we see the possibility of a new form of human goodness.

Satisfying well the demands of this role will require human beings

to develop suitable and correspondingly new traits of character among

which, I argue, is a special virtue of responsibility.

--

Clearly, no one individual alone is or

could be accountable for the stewardship of life on Earth. Yet neither is

anyone off the hook. The responsibility is essentially shared; so the corresponding

excellence of character presents a standard against which

anyone, as a member of humanity, can be morally assessed

--

we lack a conceptual grasp of the emerging form of our

flourishing. Today we need radical hope, commitment to the idea that

responsibility for life on Earth constitutes a part of human flourishing,

although we don’t yet understand precisely how to flourish in that way. 

--

Environmentally good human beings recognize

what is fine in and about the natural world and are habitually disposed

to act well regarding these values, thus enabling the goodness of nature

to have a substantive role in human flourishing, just as the goodness of

friends and human community—via the relevant interpersonal virtues—

can have such a role.

Putin orders police to arrest opposition leaders

Rumours about the death of the popular anti-Putin protests in Russia are highly exaggerated. On the eve of the Putin´s re-inauguration thousands of Moscowites took to the streets to voice their opposition against Russia´s criminal ruler. Among those reportedly arrested following the clashes with police were key opposition leaders Sergei Udaltsov, Boris Nemtsov, and anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny.

Thousands of people marched through central Moscow Sunday, on the eve of Vladimir Putin's inauguration for an unprecedented third term as Russia's president, many chanting angry slogans such as "Putin out!" and "Putin is Russia's shame!"

Unlike the mostly peaceful and even good-natured mass rallies of recent months Sunday's march ended in violence and hundreds of arrests as heavily-armored, tear gas-firing riot police moved in on a contingent of protesters who were attempting to cross a bridge that police had barricaded. The independent Moscow radio station Ekho Moskvi reported that police arrested 400 people. 

Police put the number of protesters at 8,000, but organizers claimed that more than 20,000 people came out to march down a major Moscow avenue in the warm spring sunshine to Bolotnaya Square, within sight of the Kremlin, where they were to hear a rock concert and speeches from key opposition leaders.

The crowd was far larger than either organizers or police had anticipated; last week authorities granted a permit for just 5,000 participants. Many had predicted that the middle class pro-democracy movement would wane following Mr. Putin's decisive electoral victory in March, and fractious opposition leaders had already begun blaming one another for the decline in public support.

But anti-Putin Muscovites, organizing themselves through Facebook and the Russian-language VKontakte rather than through opposition parties and groups, appear to have handed everybody another surprise by showing up in numbers that journalists on the scene agreed were closer to the 20,000 estimate.

Read the entire article here

PS

Putin must know that he and his fellow thugocrats will not win this battle. He can - and will - order more police brutality, but that will only strengthen the opposition. Educated Russians will in the end throw out this false czar.