No Hot Air

(c) 2009 F. Bruce Abel

Catching up with the latest blogging from the excellent site No Hot Air:

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Can Shale Gas transform UK energy policy?
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Natural gas falls out of the sky
Is our greener future a gas?
Poland shale gas again
Everywhere but here
And Chinese gas. But not shale.
And Canadian gas...
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Poland, Russia, and us, continued
Shale gas could transform energy geopolitics
Which Russia to believe?
Recent Posts
Natural gas falls out of the sky
Is our greener future a gas?
Poland shale gas again
Everywhere but here
And Chinese gas. But not shale.
And Canadian gas...
Australian gas
Poland, Russia, and us, continued
Shale gas could transform energy geopolitics
Which Russia to believe?
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Dec 14, 2009
Natural gas falls out of the sky
The Clean Skies Foundation presentation at Copenhagen available here is worrying and significant where Senator Tim Wirth says how European natural gas leaders didn't "know what we were talking about". And we thought it was just us.
Wirth said that shale gas was a game changer that fell out of the sky. Hopefully, natural gas is starting to bubble up the agenda, especially as neither CCS or large scale nuclear will be available for decades whereas gas is here today.
In his remarks at the forum, U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth noted, “Now that economically accessible reserves in the U.S. have grown by more than 60 percent, it is important to rethink the role of natural gas in climate and energy policy. The dramatic new discoveries and reserves are almost a gift, giving us a chance to develop a faster and smoother transition toward a low-carbon economy.”The premise that brought forum organizers together is that the expanded availability of natural gas makes it possible to accelerate the decarbonization of energy supplies by substituting natural gas for coal and to a lesser extent oil. In addition, a new generation of flexible, efficient gas-fired generators will facilitate the introduction of larger shares of wind and solar power into the world’s power grids
One of the sponsors, World Watch Institute noted that we have to come up with viable solutions very soon, and natural gas can provide that. Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McLendon was key speaker, as one would expect from one of the leaders in shale:
“Compared with coal, natural gas allows a 50-70 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions,” said Christopher Flavin, President of the Worldwatch Institute. “It’s a good complement to the wind and solar generators that will be the backbones of a low-carbon electricity system.” Aubrey K. McClendon, Chairman of ACSF and Chesapeake Energy, the largest explorer of natural gas in the U.S., and Vello Kuuskraa, President of Advanced Resources International, discussed the abundance of natural gas in the U.S. and other parts of the world.
“There really has never been much debate about whether natural gas is a good fuel – its carbon light molecular structure guarantees that,” commented McClendon. “The issue has always been whether there has been enough of it to begin moving our electric generation system in the United States as well as other parts of the world away from carbon-heavy coal and oil. The major natural gas shale plays in the U.S. have made it clear we have enormous reserves of natural gas to successfully address our economic, environmental and energy issues now.”
It will be interesting to see if they were speaking to the converted, or were able to raise some questions, and some doubts among European regulators especially over CCS. The Chesapeake Presentation was titled "America's, and soon the world's clean energy answer to Climate Change".
Posted at 11:29 AM in Current Affairs, Energy Prices, Energy Tech, Next Big Things, Prices and Politics, Shale Gas Permalink Comments (0) TrackBack (0)
Dec 12, 2009
Is our greener future a gas?
Movie review here from the Sheffield Documenary Film Festival of The Haynesville Movie :
We'd like to see it. And obviously lots of UK policy makers need to see it too, in the light of developments in Europe:
US documentary Haynesville premiered at Sheffield Doc/Fest last month. Now, the film - which tracks the discovery of the United States' largest natural gas field and the find's implications both for the local community living on top of it and for a country attempting to move to a greener energy future - has been selected to show as part of the United Nations Climate Summit in Copenhagen."It was a bit of a surprise to us," says director Gregory Kallenberg. "They called and told us about a film programme they were presenting and asked if we would be interested in coming over and showing our film. I thought about it for, let's say, 1.53 seconds and accepted. It's a huge honor to show Haynesville at the Climate Summit."The film will screen on Monday December 14, at 5pm at Pressen, Politikens Hus and Kallenberg will be there to talk about it.
Kallenberg sounds as if he has it about right:
Our goal was produce a film that was balanced and, looking at the energy picture, took the viewer through a methodical line of thinking," insists Kallenberg. "By that, I mean I wanted to look at current energy sources, the possible alternatives and their timeline and, ultimately what we can do now. That meant coming up with a strategy on finding experts. I was adamant that I didn't want anyone from the oil and gas industry in the film. That left with us with having to find scholars, pundits and environmentalists who could speak to the issues. The resulting group has a much greater impact in carrying the message of the film."The experts themselves were very willing to be part of it. I believe a lot of them felt that no one has addressed the energy issue in a rational way. It's neither a negative hardcore enviromental impact piece nor a industry puff piece.
Kallenberg financed the film himself. And what conclusion did he reach?
I do have a view, and that view was developed by making this film. In short, I believe natural gas is the way to go to help ensure a greener energy future. It's cleaner and, in my opinion, is the only way to a green energy future. Also, I want to see the world start to get off coal as soon as possible, I want to see superpowers put more money into the development of renewables, I want to see more attention paid to conservation of energy and, ultimately, I want to see a brighter energy for all of us.
Sounds a brighter future for business energy users than buying into the insecure energy supply, lets spend a fortune on CCS that DECC want for us. We'll try and set up a screening.
Many years ago I wanted to be in the movie business, so I can relate to the need to have the thirty second meeting in the elevator synopsis as being parallel to the thirty second presentation to energy ministers who've made up their own mind. Read more from the movie site here:
At the very least, it will end up on Channel Four at 2 am on a Tuesday, a good graveyard to dump the new inconvenient truth: The Energy Crisis is solved.
Posted at 09:01 AM in Current Affairs, Energy Prices, Prices and Politics, Shale Gas Permalink Comments (1) TrackBack (0)
Dec 11, 2009
Poland shale gas again
For those who think that European shale gas won't work for another ten years or so, further news from Poland today gives rise to the question of if that is so, why are so many companies investing big money today?
We already know ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil and Marathon among big players (and there are plenty of independents: Aurelian, San Carlo, BNK, 3 Legs etc)are investing in Poland. December 9 saw what should be the story of the month, where the energy adviser to the Polish Prime Minister predicted enough gas to export in 4 to 5 years.
So today's news from Chevron only underlines two trends. One is Poland specifically. This is getting too big to ignore. One company takes a gamble, two might be foolish, three might simultaneously jump on a band wagon and drive off a cliff. But there is a critical mass of companies in Poland. Something is going on, and it's unlikely that many companies will be wrong all at the same time.
Secondly, this underlines how US oil majors having missed the boat at home, won't let this happen globally.
Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, will have five years to explore shale gas in the vicinity of the city of Zamosc.In the course of the last two years, the ministry has granted 30 such concessions in Poland, to companies such as U.S. oil major Exxon Mobil (XOM.N), Lane Energy or Marathon Oil (MRO.N)
What is really interesting here is that although latecomer Chevron looks like they are getting the leftovers, they may be simply sitting down at another workbench in the same factory. US experience of shales tells us that they extend far larger distances laterally as opposed to conventional gas reservoirs such as Groningen, Lacq, Morecambe Bay or Troll in Europe. Zamosc is in south eastern Poland nowhere near the acreage Conoco, Exxon, BNK etc have been busy with in Northern Poland.
So three key questions to answer.
One does this mean that Polish shale could be Barnett or Haynesville in it's scope?
Two: Since Zamosc is only 60 km from the Ukrainian border, could that shale extend into Ukraine too?
Three: If there is even the slightest hope that Ukraine has shale, shouldn't we exhaust that possibility before we in the UK commit ourselves, and a huge amount of money, to CCS schemes which depend on a fear of gas security to make sense?
Posted at 10:43 AM in Next Big Things, Shale Gas Permalink Comments (1) TrackBack (0)