Category: Energy

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Energy United Kingdom

June 28,1982 – Secretary of State for Energy justifies flogging off public assets

On this day, June 28 1982 (40 years ago today) Nigel Lawson, as Secretary of State for Energy in the first government of Margaret Thatcher, gave a “landmark speech” on energy policy to the International Association of Energy Economists. I can’t find a copy of it online. Ho hum.

According to Amber Rudd, speaking more recently (18 November 2015, since you asked) –

In his seminal speech in 1982, he defined the Government’s role as setting a framework that would ensure the market, rather than the state, provided secure, cost-efficient energy.

This was driven by a desire to create a system where competition worked for families and businesses.

“The changes in prospect,” said Lawson at the time, “will help us ensure that the supplies of fuel we need are available at the lowest practicable cost.”

So, what did these fine words mean? Publicly-owned assets were flogged off and some people got even richer.

Planning became impossible. It was all “fine” (not really, but looked it to some) until we needed to think long-term and strategically about what kind of fuel sources we used to get how much energy and for what purposes. Because privately owned companies are going to want to sell more of their product, not less. This is not rocket-science.

Why this matters. 

Well, that period – late 70s, early 80s, , was probably our last best chance to do anything meaningful about climate change. Oh well.

What happened next?

With energy policy? Ha ha ha ha ha.  

We now (April 2022) have an “Energy Security Strategy” that doesn’t mention demand reduction, energy efficiency, on-shore wind. Instead it goes Full Fantasy on nuclear, CCS and hydrogen.  

Epic thread by Michael Jacobs, that ends thus –

We’re deep in the magical thinking phase, aren’t we?

Nigel Lawson? You many know him from the esteemed Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Categories
Energy Science Scientists United States of America

March 23, 1989 – cold fusion!!

On March 23 1989, cold fusion was announced by a couple of overexcited scientists. (the gory details of why they came to be releasing this when they did can be found here).

The implication in fusion (hot or cold, but especially cold) is of limitless energy, which sounds like a good idea until you start thinking about how infantile human societies would actually use that limitless energy: we would just intensify our exploitation/exploration. [Comedy fact, the Portuguese have one word that covers both of those]. 

And limitless energy would accelerate our doom in all probability without some serious wisdom in our institutions. And I see no evidence of any wisdom in our institutions. (There may have been some, but we have moron-ified ourselves over the last 40 years or more.)

But anyway, this particular bout of cold fusion was quickly debunked, and there were many articles and books about what it all “meant.” Science and Technology Studies was then a relatively new thing.

And the following day…

Categories
Australia Energy Ignored Warnings

March 3, 1990 – ” “A greenhouse energy strategy : sustainable energy development for Australia” launched … ignored #auspol

On this day in 1990, a report was released showing that Australia could reduce its carbon dioxide emissions markedly and save a lot of money through energy efficiency measures. The report was written for the Department of Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories, by Deni Greene, an American consultant who had moved to Australia. 

The broader context was that Australia was discussing what emissions reductions it would commit to. Prominent among these was the so-called “Toronto target” from a June 1988 Conference, which proposed that industrialised nations go for a 20% cut on a 1988 baseline by the year 2005. This was vigorously resisted of course, by industry. Greene’s report was part of a back-and-forth set of reports trying to create/close down support for the target.

Why this matters. 

We need to remember that energy efficiency has been talked about and not done for decades. If you are interested in Australian energy efficiency, you cannot go past the tireless and pain-staking work of Alan Pears. 

What happened next?

In October of that year, just ahead of the Second World Climate Climate conference, the Federal Government did commit to the Toronto Target, but with caveats so big that they rendered the whole thing pointless. Other targets have met similar fates. And here we are.

Categories
Carbon Capture and Storage Energy Europe Industry Associations Technophilia

Jan 19 (2015) -Four utilities pull out of an EU CCS programme…

On this day, Jan 19, in 2015 “four of Europe’s biggest power utilities, represented in Brussels by Eurelectric, have decided to leave the European Commission’s CCS Technology Platform ZEP.“

The four were Germany’s RWE AG, France’s Electricite de France, Sweden’s Vattenfall AB and Spain’s Gas Natural Fenosa.

The ZEP had been set up in the mid-2000s as “a coalition of companies, scientists and environmental groups seeking ways to capture and bury heat-trapping carbon emissions mainly from the exhausts of coal, oil and gas-fired power plants.”

[On the EU’s “Zero Emissions Power Plant Programme”. See also 2011 article in Nature about Europe and CCS.]

Why? Well, money at stake. As a Bellona press release titled “Utilities feign interest in CCS to get public bail out” said

“Of the move, Bellona Europa Director Jonas Helseth said: – In their poorly concealed attempts to attain capacity payments, Europe’s utilities have misused the trust of the European Commission and Europe’s CCS community. It’s shameless how Eurelectric proudly announces the formation of a new CCS taskforce and ‘calls on policymakers to push ahead’, while simultaneously pulling out of Europe’s largest and widest coalition working on CCS.”

What happened next

Is there any CCS? 

Why this matters.

We keep assuming we can deploy these technologies at massive scale, rapidly, despite all evidence to the contrary. It’s one of the ways we avoid looking at how much some of us are emitting.  There is trouble ahead.