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Natural Gas
“Gas has a lower carbon footprint than oil. Nigeria is the country with the largest gas reserves in Africa and the ninth largest in the world, so it makes sense to make use of these resources.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58652848
“Many see the gas sector as being kinder to the environment than oil, and therefore a viable proposition alongside renewable energy. Gas-fired plants already account for about 80% of Nigeria’s electricity capacity.
According to some experts, natural gas plants are more than twice as reliable as solar plants and produce four times more energy per acre of land.
People see gas as a halfway house between fossil fuels like oil, and renewable energy.”That is how I see it, too.
Methane engines have been about a very long time.
Clark, has said we should reserve fossil fuels for purposes such as agriculture.
You could make Methane powered combine harvesters, Methane powered quarry dump trucks.
Scotland is making Methane powered ferries.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-51114275Technology is advancing rapidly and in a couple of decades might not only solve the climate and ecological emergency, but vastly improve quality of life for everyone in the world – “Rethinking Climate Change” by Just Have a Think on Youtube, nineteen minutes.
But first we have to get through the current bottleneck.
We have to be careful about using natural gas faster because it looks like we’re running out. The UK is hit hardest because political idiots trashed our storage system which buffered the constant supply rate of gas against its wildly varying daily and seasonal changes demand, but the overall shortfall appears to be global.
Clark, I have just watched that vid.
The bit that has been attracting me for a long time is “Passive reforestation”
Greenland – Qinngua Valley
The Vikings we are told were winding down their farming in Greenland at the time of The Black Death,
last farms petered out in Tudor times.
So, before The Black Death, European farming, in Greenland was viable, no doubt helped by slavery.
But the point is, it must have rained enough and been warm enough for them to pursue that option, European type farming.
The largest Landmass and biome is the Northern coniferous forests/Taiga.
As the climate gets wetter and warmer, the tree line will go North – on its own, we need do nothing.Greenland – reforestation
In 2005 the first timber was harvested from the plantation in the Tasermiut Fiord – first of all this was done to thin the stand and thereby increase the annual growth in the residuals but also as a project to estimate the profitability in forestry in Greenland. The logs harvested in the plantation will be used as fencepoles at Upernaviarsuk Agricultural Research Station.
https://ign.ku.dk/english/about/arboreta/arboretum-greenland/forest-plantations/
Careful what you wish for. Destabilisation of the Greenland ice sheet could raise sea level by several metres, displacing countless millions of people and drowning much agricultural land.
It’s probably best to use the work of the IPCC as a starting point for such reasoning. The IPCC is a review body; it reviews the entire body of relevant scientific papers, thousands of them, to synthesise an overview of how likely various outcomes are for climate change.
As the price of Natural Gas has shot up so spectacularly, it is expected that people will open the gas taps, to make economic gain.
Quite likely the exploration of Methane will be on steroids, soon.“Chinese investment in Britain’s next generation of nuclear power stations is set to be banned on security grounds! Leaving a multi-billion pound funding hole in the plans.
Nuclear power is key to U.K. Government plans to future-proof the country’s energy supplies and avoid further price shocks, and is part of a drive towards a so-called Green industrial revolution”
No doubt the Nuclear Industries will be shouting from the roof tops that New Nuclear is the answer to high Methane prices, they are wrong.
Natural gas production may have peaked. Look up Peak Oil and Peak Gas; they’re well established geological theory, confirmed in practice at countless oil and gas fields.
With conventional hydrocarbon production, peak production used to occur when geological reserves were half expended. But driven by the need to make ever increasing profit, modern recovery techniques were developed that maintain production until reserves are mostly expended. This changes the classic bell-shaped curve of production against time (called the Hubbert curve after the geologist who discovered it) into a sweeping rise, followed by a plateau, followed by a sudden crash known as the Seneca Cliff (named after the Roman philosopher, who wrote “fortune is of sluggish growth, but ruin is rapid”).
If gas production is falling off the Seneca Cliff, the taps are already open and we are fucked.
Governments, economise now!
https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2011/08/seneca-effect-origins-of-collapse.html
Looks like Norway’s gas is in terminal decline; no new discoveries for years. The Dutch gas field that used to feed the UK is now nearly completely shut down due to earthquakes damaging homes.
ET, take a look at this – new Oxford study linked in the following article, confirming reports in 2018 and 2019 also linked:
– “Wind, solar, and batteries are already the cheapest source of electricity and an aggressive shift to clean energy makes more economic sense than a slow one, according to a new study. However, an enormous lobbying effort is underway to block climate policy in the $3.5 trillion [US]budget bill under consideration.”
ET, it also turns out that the UK already has a huge stock of highly enriched uranium – ie. U-235 of 90% purity or higher. It’s enough to run the UK submarine fleet for over a century; heaven only knows why they ever made so much of it. It possibly makes sense to use this for civilian power generation. It’s considered “weapons grade” uranium, so what else could be done with it? Re-mix it with U-238 and bury it again? Guard it for a further century while the submarines use it up achieving, at best, nothing at all?
Its existence possibly helps explain the AUKUS Australian nuclear submarine deal.
High enrichment permits a much smaller reactor core and produces a fraction of the “spent fuel”. Compared with typical enrichment to 5%, this should produce around 1/20th of the waste for the same amount of energy. Reprocessing and reuse of the unfissioned uranium could reduce that still further.
Scotland
BBC News – Police diver patrols on River Clyde for COP26 conference (27 Sep 2021)Police divers are searching the River Clyde as part of security operations in the run up to the COP26 conference.
Specialist officers will monitor a four mile stretch of waterway during the climate summit in Glasgow next month.
Ministry of Defence police will provide a “24/7 armed policing presence” on the river alongside Police Scotland’s dive and marine unit.
The River Clyde will also be subject to movement and mooring restrictions for about three weeks.I am amazed they did not cancel it, what with the covid pandemic in full monty mode in the U.K.
Australia – not too sure COP26 is good idea
Australia’s prime minister has signalled he may not attend the UN’s landmark climate conference in November as his government faces continued criticism of its poor climate record.
In an interview, Scott Morrison said he had “not made any final decisions” on attending, suggesting it was a burden.
“It’s another trip overseas… and I’ve spent a lot of time in quarantine,” he told the West Australian newspaper.
The COP26 summit will be the biggest global climate crisis talks in years.
BBC News – COP26: Australia PM undecided on attending crucial climate summit (27 Sep 2021)
I can see his point, more quarantine. Also someone might point out they mine an awful lot of coal in Australia, to sell to Asia.Such is the world we live in, it would be a target opportunity for terrorists so it isn’t surprising and is somewhat reassuring that there is a lot of security. It will hopefully be an important event with a lot of limelight for UK and Boris on the world stage so I doubt it will be cancelled. Let’s hope Boris can surprise us all by making the event effective.
Thanks for the article on the previous page Clark. It’s hardly surprising that those who profit from the fossil fuel industry are lobbying for its continuation. Government warnings should be attatched to publications from such self interested sources. It surprises me how little is done to combat such self interested interference in the governance of a country. Surely it’s a national secirity issue. 😀
We have a very long way to go to meet this energy/climate crisis and I do think it is both and energy and a climate crisis.
ET, I don’t know whether this is one of the two links in the article I linked in my earlier post and I don’t have time to check right now, but it looks useful and informative:
In Support of a Physics-Based Energy Transition Planning: Sowing Our Future Energy Needs
Ugo Bardi1 & Sgouris Sgouridis, BioPhysical Economics and Resource Quality volume 2,
Article number: 14, 07 November 2017– (From the abstract) “… A recent controversy on the viability of 100% renewable energy systems (Jacobson et al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci 112:15060–15065; Clack et al. in PNAS 114:6722–6727) brought forward the question of whether we can actually rely on renewable energy to replace conventional fossil resources. Focusing on the physical factors involved may offer us a currently underutilized method to reduce controversy showing that, in practical terms, the two parties are closer than immediately apparent. A physical perspective suggests that accelerated deployment of renewable energy sources makes attaining the Paris objectives feasible, although not without a major effort. A policy directed to increase capital investments in an early and fast expansion of the renewable energy and storage infrastructure is a crucial requirement for this purpose.”
It would seem China is having electrical Black Outs, especially in the North East.
China is using a lot of coal, some suggest that perhaps almost half of all coal used in the World, is used in China.
They are re-opening coal fired power stations and still opening even more coal fired power stations in China. Although their growth has slowed, a little, perhaps caused by the pandemic and the rest of the World expecting to buy less stuff made in China, they are still “growing”. If they are still growing they will be needing ever more power.Perhaps it is time for China to level off?
It is well passed time that the entire world economy not just levelled off, but actively cut back. Humanity has an acute shortage of fuel, and an acute excess of pollution.
I can see no valid moral argument that average wealth in Europe and the USA should be any greater than in China. Any excuse boils down to racism and “I matter more than you” or “we matter more than them”. All humanity are stuck in this predicament together. Either we share, or we’ll fight over our inequalities, making everything worse for everyone.
We are at a fork in the road; indeed, we have passed it. There seems a good chance that a far better world lies ahead, but the fork our leaders took around the turn of the millennium (9/11 in particular) leads over the edge of a cliff. The further we continue down this road the closer to disaster we get and the further we’ll have to retrace our steps, and our fuel supply is limited.
If only the Americans would leave the Middle East and Iran alone, |¦| there would be enough Natural Gas for all of us.
Energy Triangle
The Energy Triangle is a natural gas extraction plan between the three allied countries of Cyprus, Israel and Greece.
Cyprus is to be the input-hub. Crete is to be the output-hub.
Natural Gas will be cleaned in Cyprus. Then flow from Cyprus to Crete. Then flow from Crete to Greece and to Italy.
Possibly in time Egypt, Libya, Syria and Lebanon could also be linked in.– “If only the Americans would leave the Middle East and Iran alone, there would be enough Natural Gas for all of us.”
There seems to be insufficient natural gas everywhere. Even now, right after summer, Russia is having extraction problems and can’t refill its own storage.
– “Perhaps it is time for China to level off?”
Large parts of China are having rolling electricity power cuts:
– China’s power supply tightens as winter dawns
– Factories facing electricity crunch; situation set to worsen – Global TimesOil, gas, coal – all are in short supply:
– @JavierBlas 12h:
– “I have never seen a large economy like Europe (UK+EU) sleep walking into an energy crunch (maybe let’s call it a crisis since major industrial companies are having to shut down) and no a single politician appears to give a damn about it. Incredible.”
Ammonia, fertiliser production being shut down. All sorts of manufacturing being shut down.
Here is an ambitious solar project MN.
“A colossal US$22 billion infrastructure project will send Australian sunshine more than 3,100 miles (5,000 km) to Singapore, via high-voltage undersea cables. Opening in 2027, it’ll be the largest solar farm and battery storage facility in history.”
I wonder if it will remain on time and on budget but if it’s successful it could pave the way for more of the same.
– “I wonder if it will remain on time and on budget” [?]
– “Ammonia, fertiliser production being shut down. All sorts of manufacturing being shut down.”
China is the biggest user of coal. China is the biggest importer of coal. China has been splashing a lot of money about, so their GDP constantly increases. They have to keep increasing their economy to keep full employment.
They have to keep full employment to stop people thinking. If people started thinking, they might realise they are just a cog in the regime, they might want to express their individuality.“Much of this money is linked to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambitious Belt and Road strategy. Starting in 2013, it leverages China’s expertise in infrastructure projects, and ample foreign currency, to build new global trading routes.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-58679039
The Chinese Communist party does not want to slow down or more likely can not slow down. They are driving the World over a cliff.
The U.K. Government want Natural Gas to be used as a feed stock to produce Hydrogen for U.K. to install next generation of house heating.
29/05/2020 Natural Gas Futures = 9.63 pence/therm
29/09/2021 Natural Gas Futures = 215.3 pence/therm
It is not deliverable.
