Fossil Fuels

When Alok Sharma stands up in Glasgow to open the Cop26 climate summit at the end of the month, he will press home one of his key messages to delegates — that coal must be phased out for the good of the planet. “We must consign coal power to history,” he said in a speech last month. “We need urgent action now.” Sharma, the former business secretary who is presiding over the summit, has made ending the world’s addiction to coal a major plank of the Cop26 agenda. Unfortunately, he risks disappointment even before the first of the delegates lands in Scotland. As Sharma noted, the world is still building more coal-fired power plants — some 480 gigawatts (GW) of capacity is in the pipeline. That is the equivalent of building 150 Hinkley Point Cs, the nuclear plant in Somerset. If anything, coal is more in demand than ever before. Last week, prices for thermal coal — the type burnt in power stations for electricity — hit a record high of $223 (£162) a tonne, according to analysts at the energy information firm S&P Global Platts. Chinese president Xi Jinping has ordered mines in his country to “spare no effort” in churning out coal for power stations that have suddenly run short, leading to blackouts. Meanwhile, in the UK, National Grid this month said it expected “remaining coal-fired generation to potentially run more frequently” through the winter. Does this spell an unlikely comeback for the most unloved commodity of them all?

Times 17th Oct 2021 read more »

Can you serve the environment and Mammon? Whisper it, but on the eve of the Cop26 global climate summit in Glasgow, soaring energy prices are resulting in increased investor interest in fossil fuel companies. In the US, the S&P 500 energy sector is up about 50 per cent this year, led by Chevron and ExxonMobil, and has been the wider index’s best-performing sector. Closer to home, shares in Shell, BP, Centrica and Petrofac, to name a few, are soaring — up between a quarter and a third this year. In the past month, BP is up 17 per cent, Shell 19 per cent, Centrica 16 per cent and Petrofac 67 per cent.

Times 17th Oct 2021 read more »

Ineos: ‘We’ll get to net zero our way’. Few companies are more likely to arouse green rage than Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos. The privately owned conglomerate is a £44 billion empire of refineries, offshore gas fields, chemical plants, car manufacturing, and sport. It is one of Europe’s largest plastic producers manufacturing ethylene, the key chemical building block for everything from bottles and bags to aircraft wings, car parts and hospital equipment. A few years ago, Ineos took the Scottish government to court in a failed attempt to overturn the SNP’s “ban”, or as it turned out moratorium, on fracking. And last year Grangemouth, the company’s vast petrochemicals plant and oil refinery near Falkirk, was named Scotland’s worst polluter by the Scottish government’s environmental regulator, SEPA. Is it bothered? Probably not, because as Andrew Gardner, chairman of Ineos Grangemouth, sees it, Ineos is, like the Queen, more interested in delivery than talk when it comes to the environment. “Nearly all the people in senior positions at Ineos are engineers and scientists,” said Gardner, a chemist by training. “We understand the science and the processes around sustainability, and we have a good track record on reducing emissions. We just don’t shout about it.”

Times 17th Oct 2021 read more »

Demand for fossil fuels will peak by 2025 if countries meet their climate pledges, according to the latest World Energy Outlook 2021 from the International Energy Agency (IEA). However, this year’s 386-page outlook – calling itself a “guidebook” for the upcoming COP26 climate summit – highlights the gaps between the policies already in place, the ambition set out in countries’ climate pledges and the significant additional efforts needed to keep global warming below 1.5C. These gaps can be closed over the “crucial” decade to 2030, the IEA says, with a “massive” push for wind, solar and other low-carbon electricity; a “relentless” focus on energy efficiency; a “broad drive” to cut methane from fossil-fuel operations; and a “big boost” to clean-energy innovation. It says a successful transition towards 1.5C would avoid “immense risks” from climate inaction and create a $1.2tn market for clean energy that would rival the current size of the oil industry.

Carbon Brief 13th Oct 2021 read more »

The Energy Mix 13th Oct 2021 read more »

Cutting air pollution and red meat consumption are among a series of climate change measures that would cut deaths and increase average life expectancy, medical experts have said. A report by the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society outlines policies and behavioural changes that it says will improve health and save lives both now and in the long term. Phasing out fossil fuels would cut deaths from air pollution, and reducing consumption of red and processed meat and eating more fruit and vegetables would increase average life expectancy by about eight months, as well as reducing deaths from heart disease, stroke and cancer, the paper says.

Times 14th Oct 2021 read more »

Nicola Sturgeon has refused to condemn plans to drill in the controversial Cambo oil field after warning about the knock-on effect of rejecting the plan. In a question-and-answer session after giving a Ted Talk to an audience in Edinburgh on the impact that small countries can have on climate change, the first minister was pushed on her position about the project off Shetland. She has been accused of sitting on the fence after urging Boris Johnson, the prime minister, to reconsider the drilling licence for the field but refusing to oppose it outright. But Sturgeon suggested yesterday that jobs could be at risk and fossil fuels would have to be shipped into the UK if the development did not get the go-ahead. “We’ve got to be careful that we don’t leave communities and people behind in that transition,” she said. “We’ve got to be careful we don’t switch domestic production to imports of oil and gas. That would be counterproductive.”

Times 14th Oct 2021 read more »

The pipeline of carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects around the world has swelled over the nine months as awareness and understanding of the need to mitigate emissions from carbon intensive power plants and industrial sites has grown, fresh data has revealed. The Global Status of CCS report published this morning by the Global CCS Institute reveals the capacity of CCS projects planned around the world has grown by 48 per cent over the last nine months, increasing from 73 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) in 2020 to 111 Mtpa in the first nine months of this year alone. There are now 27 operational carbon capture facilities around the world, with a further 102 under development and four in the construction phase, according to the analysis.

Business Green 13th Oct 2021 read more »

Shares in a FTSE 250 gas group tumbled by a fifth yesterday after a report raised concerns over methane leaks from its wells and questioned its decommissioning liabilities. The market value of Diversified Energy fell by more than £200 million after Bloomberg published an investigation into its operations, which comprise more than 60,000 wells onshore in America that primarily produce gas. The report, entitled “An empire of dying wells”, described Diversified as “one of the strangest companies ever to hit the American oil patch”. It did not accuse the company of breaking any rules but found methane leaks at “most” of the 44 sites it visited and questioned whether Diversified would have enough cash to fund the eventual decommissioning of all its wells.

Times 13th Oct 2021 read more »

Across the mining heartlands of Inner Mongolia, one of China’s northernmost provinces, activity is ramping up. Workers at more than 70 sites have been issued with a simple instruction: dig more coal, fast. Chinese officials say an extra 100m tonnes of the fuel source is needed to help the world’s second largest economy deal with shortages for power stations, which are leading to widespread energy rationing.

Telegraph 11th Oct 2021 read more »

Our pensions have such power — with £2.6 trillion in the UK and $50 trillion globally — money that’s invested in thousands of companies and assets around the world. They’ve been invested in ways that have helped grow our economy and supported jobs and incomes, goods and services. They have helped support retirement for many, while shaping the world around us. But they have also played a major role in the climate emergency we now face. The driver of the fires and floods, deforestation and extinction level biodiversity loss can, unfortunately, be found in the investment practices of our pensions. The decisions made on how and where to invest our money are contributing to climate destruction; risking both the savings of members, and the quality of the retirement they are saving for.

Times 12th Oct 2021 read more »

In three weeks’ time world leaders will gather in my hometown of Glasgow to talk about the biggest threat to our future: the climate crisis. We’ve seen an unrecognisable summer of flooding and extreme heat, and as a result people have lost their lives in Europe and around the world. The crisis is very much upon us. And yet, incredibly, our prime minister, Boris Johnson, is preparing to sign off on a new drilling permit at Cambo oilfield, west of Shetland. If approved, Cambo would produce 170m barrels of oil and would deepen the climate crisis for decades to come. It would be a staggeringly backward move, going against the science and denying us all the green recovery we’ve been promised.

Guardian 11th Oct 2021 read more »

Our energy debate has become so fixated on renewables that we have almost forgotten the North Sea, and the vast quantities of untapped shale gas lying below our shores. Not that much will be available to save UK households from soaring bills this winter. As global gas prices spiked to record levels last week, few noticed that the Offshore Petroleum Regulator for Environment and Decommissioning – a Department for Business quango that grants licenses for extraction in the North Sea – rejected an application from Shell to exploit its Jackdaw field, 150 miles off Aberdeen. At some point Greenpeace snuck into government when we weren’t looking, and our North Sea strategy became ‘leave it in the ground’.

Telegraph 9th Oct 2021 read more »

Lothian Pension Fund’s investments in fossil fuels has increased by £64 million – almost 40 per cent – since last year, according to new research by Friends of the Earth Scotland. New data shows that Lothian Pension Fund (LPF) is currently investing in BP, Chevron, Exxon, mining company BHP, and Shell – one of the owners of the Cambo oil field, situated off the coast of Shetland, which campaigners are opposing. LPF’s investments in fossil fuels now amount to £229m, they claim. Ahead of the COP26 climate change event in Glasgow, environmental groups have condemned LPF for “failing to show leadership” by not ending investments in firms allegedly “destroying the planet”.

The Ferret 8th Oct 2021 read more »

Campaigners are urging Boris Johnson to hold the Government’s line on fracking as the UK’s onshore oil and gas industry has called on ministers to look again at shale gas amid the looming energy crisis. It comes amid warnings from trade union leaders that hundreds of thousands of jobs could be lost unless Downing Street takes urgent action to avoid a surge in gas prices next spring. Boris Johnson announced a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in England in 2019, with drilling already blocked in the rest of the UK, after a scientific report warned it was not possible to predict the magnitude of earthquakes it might trigger.

iNews 8th Oct 2021 read more »

DUNDEE University has completed its divestment from fossil fuels – less than a year after stating its intention to do so. The university has also confirmed that half of its managed investments have been moved to a sustainable investment portfolio, with the remaining half to be transferred before the end of the month.

The National 9th Oct 2021 read more »