A Great Post (not mine)

Every so often I like to sneak a quick blog post in about what I do for a living. Basically I work as an energy consultant, pretty much with the end users.

Here goes: I help out large industrial and commercial clients with engineering, systems development and change management on all aspects of energy efficiency and renewable energy project implementation. This tends to be in utilities, heavy industry and large scale retail sectors.

I have also been known to undertake climate change related work in policy advice, compliance, purchasing and even 'shudder' carbon offsetting (don't get me started on that).

For some reason, this means that when people ask what I do, I generally have to field large numbers of questions about whether I am a tree hugger and my opinion on two weekly bin collection. From a surprising number of people who I have known for a long time.

People have also been asking my many, many questions on the Copenhagen summit. I have to admit to them that, although I have read many articles on the subject - I am not keen to enter into debate on the subject.

This is not because I don't think its important, I think its very important.

It is partly because I don't feel like many of the people I talk to in my every day life really understand the issues (understanding appears to have been getting fuzzier due to the emergence of more powerful pressure groups in the last year or so distorting the issues), but its mainly because I am really not interested in the politics, bullshit and woolly target setting that is involved - being of the opinion that long term energy security should be reason enough to pursue these policies.

I much prefer to be at the actual implementation end. Making things actually happen rather than talking about it (this is why I left my last job).

However, I did find a very excellent blog on CiF on the Guardian website from one of only 60 individuals who was party to the 'behind closed doors' discussions that went on in Copenhagen. I can't rave about it enough and hope that it gets reproduced in other media across the world.

And hey - this is one article where America comes of pretty well!

A Geeky Industry "In Joke"

George is Back!

Anyone remember my little post about George? No?

Well as a little reminder George is this guy who goes to all of the climate change and energy talks around Sydney and heckles the speakers with the same spiel about a petition signed by 30,000 scientists proves that man made climate change does not exist.

Well this week George made it big!

I was watching this excellent ABC talk show  online today. The speakers are all working in and around the climate change field, although the premise is that they can be asked any question on any subject. If anyone wants to get a bit of a background on climate change politics in Australia, then give it a watch.

When 11 mins and 42 seconds in, our old friend George (or at least I think it is him) pops his hand up and asks a surprisingly familiar question / comment (I am beginning to wonder whose payroll he is on) . Watch how the talk show host bats away his comment without breaking stride.

Interesting panel guests on the show include:

Penny Wong - Impressive minister for climate change and lady of the moment. Basically everybody at my work watches her every move, translating comments and interviews into advice for clients.

Tim Flannery - A scientist, and guy I very much admire for his straight talking and sense. I reviewed his book in a past post here. And would recommend that anyone looking to learn more about climate change give it a read.

Tim Wilson - Random unknown pillock.

Malcolm Turnbull - Loves himself a bit too much and needs to cut back on the fake tan. Liberal politician (Liberal basically means right wing in Australia for some reason). Plays devils advocate.

Catherine Harris - Runs my local grocery store chain. Makes a lot of sense.

Something that Annoyed me Today

For a year or so now, the airlines have been claiming victimization over climate change. their usual retort is "people have to fly, there is not a lot we can do to be more efficient". I hear the same thing from transport companies I work with all of the time. I can't be arsed to find the reference, but I am pretty sure that bloke from EasyJet is the guy I read about a lot.

I read this in the paper today which annoyed me significantly. Aparently some of the airline companies have decided that in the wake of high fuel prices, they should fly slower (and thus more efficiently), and that this doesn't affect the timeliness of the flights at all. Which begs the question ... why the bloody hell didn't they do it in the first place? It may be a miniscule saving, but to be honest - its pretty damn easy!

Just goes to show that companies wont do anything unless you hit them in the pocket. 

Conspiracy Theories...

One of my colleagues brought something to my attention yesterday, which I felt I was duty bound to share with a much deceived and hard done by general population of this rock that we call 'the world'. This has been the master stroke of oppressive political figureheads everywhere! 

Vladimir Putin, 中华人民共和国主席, George Bush, Boris Johnson - they have all been at it! Constraining our economies through trickery and economic lies. Coercing schools into teaching us all of this nonsense about "laws of thermodynamics" in our physics lessons.

When actually, as it turns out, the solution to all of the world energy needs and economic constraints is here! If we could just harness more of this H2O stuff to make some more of this HHO gas stuff (as shown 1 quart or H2O produces 1800 gallons of HHO), we can make enough free energy to power the world! And the oil companies sponsored by the governments, just want to keep all of this information from us so they can keep selling us their black evil. Unbelievable!

Reminds me of some amazing products that I experienced in the UK which also proved the laws of thermodynamics to be complete bunkum. Magnets, that these sales guys flog to you, to put on your natural gas supply to line up the molecules in your gas and make the gas burn better - energy from nowhere! Wow, no modification or effort or investment needed, just a straight up solution for energy efficiency. Such a convenient thing to do!

And while I am at it with brilliant discoveries, this little beaut adds energy to water and harmonises the molecules, thus making the water healthier and tastier than ever before! We should be sticking this thing down wells all over Africa.

Right, thats energy crises and global health problems dealt with. If only everyone would realise that we don't have to put effort into solving these problems - we just need a 'quick fix' / 'black box solution'...

Now onto some inventions that obviously don't work. Someone tried to tell me at work recently that you could make energy from these little bits of metal that you find in the ground. Complete nonsense obviously...

Random Review II

I had planned to do the "Random Review" thing on a regular basis, however being as I don't have so much time on my hands anymore (in fact none) and I haven't really had the chance to read, it has been some time since my last post of this nature.

This review is related to Climate Change (as everything I write appears to be nowadays). I work in the field as an engineer and have little time to actually look back at advancing climate chance science which evolves at a rate that I just can't keep up with, so I have been trying to brush up on the issues. If you are interested - read on...

An Inconvenient Truth (the Book), Al Gore 

Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" was an exceptionally important film. This was not because of the groundbreaking science contained within or because of any new concepts relating to emissions reduction scenarios. It was because of two reasons: 

1. Al Gore is an excellent speaker

2. His film managed to explain climate change in simple terms to those who would otherwise have remained oblivious.

But this is a book review and as such relates to the accompanying tome which I first picked up in Chicago in late 2006. This gave me the opportunity to read the text before I saw the film. In many ways the book is still excellent. As with the film, the book follows Gore around the world as he presents his key-note speech on the dangers of climate change. 

I don't have a copy with me now, but 

one of the things that sticks in my mind is the photograph of mount Kilimanjaro a decade ago and the comparison with how it looks now, with vastly lessened permanent snows.

My main problems with the book

 lie with the fact that far too much of the story is focussed on Gore and his childhood, this is good in one respect as it maintains interest in his struggle to get his message across - but ... if you were to make all of your opinions based upon his explanations he would have you believe that it wa

s his university lecturers who first discovered the problem, and it was he alone carrying the torch through the 80's and 90's which is a bit of a mistruth.

I am going to give it 3 Rabbit Raisins:

The Weathermakers, Tim Flannery, 2006

The main reason why I wrote the review of Al Gores book was that I wanted to make a comparison with Tim Flannery's "The Weather Makers".

I picked up the Weathermakers back in December '07 (a little late I know seeing as it was written in 2006) based upon recommendation from a much respected former colleague in the UK ... and wow was I blown away in just a few Chapters! Tim Flannery (Australian of the year for 2006) presents information on Climate Change science in a way I have never read before - with wit, excellent writing skills, and superb honesty. It is so easy for the layman to read - from start to finish.

He, unlike Gore presents arguments and scientific consensus complete with sources and potential counter arguments in a very complete text. He is an ecologist by profession and takes us from discussions on the fate of the golden toad in Costa Rica to concepts of evolution and the 'Gaia Hypothesis'. He tells stories of struggling scientists trying to get their ideas accepted into the mainstream which helps the reader to understand why (to the general public) it appears that this climate change thing has just been sprung on us. 

Best of all, he gives possible outcomes in terms of impacts upon life. What will happen to use when energy becomes scarce and economies tighten up? And why have economists been forever arguing about the potential costs for climate change mitigation, and are they actually greater than the costs of dong nothing? 

Some of his arguments run into the philosophical, he muses that the source of our civilisation is our cities. Large concentrations of people dependent on networks that supply them with food and water. He considers that in times of scarcity it will be the specialists that suffer as happens in nature (e.g. his golden toad). Therefore it will be those in non-essential jobs that feel the pinch first.

A few of my favourite extracts:

On global population:

"In that seemingly distant age [1961] there were just 3 billion people, and they were only using half of the total resources that our global ecosystem could sustainably provide. A short 25 years later, in 1986, we had reached a watershed, for that year our population topped 5 billion, and such was our collective thirst for resources that we were using all of the earths sustainable production. In essence [since 1986] we have been running the environmental equivalent of a budget deficit, which is only sustained by plundering our capital base."

On the Economic Cost of Climate Change:

"Since the 1970s insurance losses have risen at an annual rate of around 10 per cent , reaching $100 billion by 1999. Losses at this scale threaten the very fabric of our economic system ... such a rate of increase means that by 2065 or soon thereafter, the damage bill resulting from climate change may equal the total value of everything that humanity produced in the course of a year."

On Politics

"As early as 1977 the New York Times carried the headline 'Scientists Fear Heavy Use of Coal May Bring Adverse Shift in Climate' but it was not until the late 1980 when [it became apparent] that constraints could be applied to damaging emissions and action to restrict greenhouse emissions was emerging - that industry embarked upon its propaganda war. Among the first to move were US coal producers, Fred Palmer, then head of Western Fuels ... led a campaign - informed apparently by his personal beliefs - that the earth's atmosphere 'is deficient in Carbon Dioxide'"

Quite simply - an extremely important, yet little known book.

I am going to give the Weather Makers RCWR's first ever 5 Rabbit Raisin Rating:

A Twofold Crisis

My new job has seen me doing some quite unusual work. Work that I am not familiar with, but has opened my eyes to a whole range of new issues in the global energy markets.

I like to rant a lot about Climate Change (and its effects) on this blog, but I am also not adverse to ranting a little about the other great crisis which I believe will face our generation - one related to energy security.

You may have heard in the news recently about cheap Indian cars which are supposedly to cost around $3000 and to make cars accessible to the population of India and will put millions of new cars on the road. People are concerned that all of these new cars will substantially increase air pollution and cause massive congestion.

Then (what didn't really make the papers), is the issue of how the cars will be made (and how the rest of the Indian economy will be supported in terms of energy) in the first place. India needs coal for its new coal fired power stations. 

Another item you may have read in the papers is the BHP is now trying its luck in taking over Rio Tinto, the mining behemoth. Someone is trying to buy Rio Tinto! Its not only the sheer scale of the company being purchased that is a surprise, but the fact that someone is investing so heavily in mining expansion.

And it doesn't stop there. Countries all over the world are grabbing up energy (coal) reserves wherever they can at a rate of knots. India has trouble accessing much of its own coal reserve due to political unrest in some of the regions where the coalfields are prevalent. But it wont stop them from building as many new power stations as they can.

Australia (the largest exporter of coal in the world) is being inundated with Indian investors looking to avoid spot coal price and buy into Australian coal mines. Indonesia (another massive coal exporter) is trying to reduce its coal exports (to preserve its reserves) and China (the country with all of these massive natural reserves) has recently become a net coal importer which is probably something that a lot of people would be surprised to learn.

Australia is now struggling to get enough coal out the door to supply its Asian neighbours (due to bad weather and a lack of capacity at its ports) and all of these issues have algamated to double certain coal prices in the last few weeks.

What makes this all a big joke to me, is that there is Australia going all out preaching the good word about Climate change and signing up to Kyoto - and at the same time, it is desperately building new port capacity so that it can sell more and more coal to resource fast growing Asian states. The Australians (with 20% of export market share) have it within their power, to really get a grasp on Climate Change and just limit exports.

It took 20 years from the initial scientific proof of Climate Change to exist, before it really hit the newspaper headline hard and Western Countries even thought about doing something to counter it. I imagine it will take a good few years yet before people actually realise that we don't have enough energy to last forever. 

I have to say that I have seen very little in the papers about the coal crises that are beneath our noses (apart from in my favorite publication - 'global coal')- so if this does hit the papers over the net few weeks, remember that you read it here first (just like the plastic beer bottles story, or the one about dodgy carbon abatement).

Debunking Third World Myths

My new flat mate showed me this link to a site called Ted which is really cool. It gives an interesting insight into Global Economics (which is something I am prone to ranting about now and again). I recommend you check it out, even if you're not interested - the graphics are pretty cool. 

It also gives a link to a site called GapMinder on which you can create your own charts using UN information and see some pretty interesting trends for global CO2 emissions per capita.

Fusion and Fission

Gordon Brown's government this week gave the go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear power plants in the UK. A relatively bold move, but one that all energy and economic analysts knew that they would have to do eventually.

At the same time Sir David King (a man who I greatly respect for - as the article states, first bringing Climate Change onto Tony Blair's agenda) has criticised green campaigners for potentially harming the Climate Change debate (or rather the action on Climate Change).

When I was at university studying Environmental Management, I came across a few greenies (and lived with a couple). They joined environmental NGOs and a couple of them were really into what they did, volunteering for local cleanup charities - and some of them went on to work for them. Which is fantastic. 

I was also always accused of being a tree-hugger by my friends (who didn't really know what I did) and was asked whether I was a member of a charity or was going to work for one. I always gave the same reply: "I think there are bigger and better ways of improving the environment than working for an NGO - working from within a company or government (something which has regularly sparked debate within NGOs)". 

Sir David King , in his article accuses Greenpeace of being Luddites (link included for any Americans) with respect to their stance on Climate Change. And I am inclined to agree with some of his thoughts. In my opinion, the threat of climate change is so huge now (species have already been made extinct, the great barrier reef is at 60% of it size 20 years ago, the destruction of the polar ice caps is accelerating the whole business - i could go on) that it vastly outweighs the smaller threat of a (don't get me wrong - completely horrific and undesirable Chernobyl). Any risk has got to be weighed on potential severity as well as the likelihood that it will happen (99% for climate change). 

What further complicates matters is the fact that the UK is on the potential verge of a very large energy crisis that absolutely no-one seems to be taking a blind pit of notice of. It seems that the economy has been so hunky dory for so long now that people have forgotten past energy crises. Consider: 

• We have used almost all of our natural gas which we found in the North Sea (and which triggered the period of economic prosperity that we are now in) and within the next 10 years we will be 90% reliant on natural gas imported from Russia;
  
• All of our coal fired power plants are old and knackered;
• the lead time on the construction of a nuclear power plant is something like nearly 20 years (I didn't check this so correct me if I am wrong).

When you consider the evidence - the main shocker is that Gordon didn't sign the papers earlier!

The absolute last, last thing we want to do is to return to coal as the Australians (incidentally the largest emitters of CO2 per capita in the world) will continue to do (Rudd staunchly rejecting nuclear options). A lot of people (for example the Yorkshire RDA) have been pushing what they term "clean coal". Essentially this would mean use of some form of Combined Cycle Gasification with untested carbon capture schemes. This really is no solution to me. The lead time for the carbon capture would be no better than turning to nuclear, and this does not address the fact that there are so many people on this planet (1.2 bn in 1900, 6bn in 2000) that we would just be accelerating the time it took to rid the planet of coal resources forever.

I cant see any other option than (short term) to continue to flog our old plants until we can build some nuclear ones, in the meantime trying to pursue efficiency and renewables to take the load off the grid wherever we can. 

My former boss and mentor always tells me that in a century or so we may be able to find the solution to safer fusion power but until then...

In the meantime I think the time has come for the likes of Greenpeace to pull their heads out of their arses...

Park at 60 Degree Angle

I started my first first week at work this week just gone, and immediately discovered that all of my pre-conceived British stereotypes of the Australian way of working are completely wrong. The pace of life of Sydney is certainly a little slower than that of the UK, but in terms of Aussie working being laid back - it certainly doesn't seem to be! Where us Brits - we love to queue; the Australians - they love rules and regulations.

I've had a few experiences of this over the past couple of weeks - from the way that the people drive so slowly, and no-one EVER breaks the really slow speed limits. The other day, my bus driver had a massive tirade of beeping and swearing at  car driver who had parked in a bus stop. As the driver drove off I heard the bus driver say "and he didn't even indicate at the roundabout UNBELIEVABLE! That's FOUR traffic offenses I've seen .... and the police, they do nothing you know! If I could hit him I would!" Personally - I was considering calling in a SWAT team. 

And you don't have to worry about what angle to apply to you parking here (or whether you should go in forward or backwards) - because the signs tell you what to do. 

I terms of climate change policies for business you can apply the same principles; those of Australia vary vastly from those of the UK (which will take some getting used to): 

The UK government apply what I would term a 'stick disguised as a carrot' philosophy - i.e. they create rules and regulations (and extra tax) which affect the cost of energy for businesses, which then get hit in the pocket and have to do something about the way they use it in order to make financial savings (or that's the theory).

The Australian have extremely cheap energy (due to the abundance of coal), and are extremely scared to do anything about this (as it has been an attraction for business moving to the country for many years). Consider this - when a Brit uses a unit of electricity, they produce 0.43kg CO2 per kWh (due to the current energy generation mix i.e. natural gas, nuclear, coal). When an Aussie uses a unit of electricity, they can produce way over 1kg CO2 per kWh depending on what state they are in.

The Australian government therefore apply a "stick disguised as a stick philosophy" - whereby they create masses and masses of regulation which require companies to prove that they have all kinds of energy management processes in place, and have to undertake all kinds of assessments and audits. The Australians love detail, and wont do anything without comprehensive cost benefit reviews to the nth degree so they take great care in completing these assessments.

Of course - if you applied any such onerous regulatory controls to a British company - they would just say 'what you going to do if I don't to this?', and would weigh the penalties for non-compliance up against the cost of actually doing it.

Whether the Australian approach has merit - I have yet to discover.

p.s. sorry for boring uninterested people - this probably just interests me.

And Then There Was One

I stayed in the hostel last night to watch the Australian election results roll in. After 11 and a half years in power, Howard's coalition government has been dramatically displaced by the Rudd Labor party. I don't pretend to know anything about Australian domestic politics, but commentary suggests that it was Howard's lack of 'contemporary' policy which lost him the voters, and in particular a couple of larger issues including lack of action over climate change.

As a country so dramatically and obviously affected by climate change in areas such as water shortage and in effects on Australian national institutions such as eucalyptus survival, and damage to the Great Barrier Reef (advice is see it while you can), and for a country with such a reputation for environmental beliefs, I always found it strange that the Australian government had not ratified the Kyoto protocol. And it seems that Australian people (particularly the young)were somewhat confused by this also:

While setting up a new bank account with a local Sydney branch, the lady going through the application noticed my new job title "Climate Change Consultant". She enquired what it entailed, and I politely informed her that I went out to factories and large companies and provided advice to them in how to reduce their carbon emissions (mainly through energy efficiency and good management techniques). She asked me the very frank question "how do you think the Australians stack up against the rest of the world?" I gave her the honest answer of "I haven't got much experience of Australia yet, but I think they are around 5 years behind the Europeans". She went into a long monalogue about her frustration at the governments refusal to ratify Kyoto and take action on climate change - frankly surprising me with her understanding and concern for the issues.

Watching the elections and the commentary on the political mood of a nation, the Australian attitude reminded me of the British popular opinion of two years ago. For all of the faults of Blair's government (mainly with respect to foreign policy), Blair spotted this change of popular opinion some time ago, and begun to initiate change (though you might question how successful it has been). Howard did not, and he paid with his job (and his party paid).

Blair has managed to put in motion some political reforms and has presided over the implementation of a number of emissions 'cap and trade' schemes including the climate change levy and the EU emissions trading scheme. And he was there at the inception of the renewable transport obligation and climate reduction commitment (that the British people will hear much about over the next 5 years or so). Personally I think more investment should have been made into capital grants schemes, and into improvements in planning policy to favour renewable energy schemes. Professionally however, the inception of these trading schemes have meant massive workloads for consultancies such as the one I work for.

So one of Rudd's election promises here in Australia has been the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. Which means that if my experience in climate change and energy consultancy over the last four years are anything to go by - the company I am about to go and work for will experience a massive rise in workload over coming months and years. Which is pretty significant, as it appears to me that it is the only reputable large company in Australia to be undertaking these types of projects.

In order to see the other concequence of the Australian government change on climate change politics cast your eyes on the linked map.

So I wonder. Will Bush heed the story of Howard and pay more attention to 'contemporary' politics? I wonder if Howard's story will be repeated on a larger scale.

Though of course Afghanistan hasn't ratified yet, so why should America.

Undersold

A renewable energy engineer and colleague of mine recommended a book to me today called The Weathermakers. It (allegedly) tackles climate change issues in a clear and concise manner running through all of the potential impacts from loss of species to changing rainfall patterns and examines all theories and arguments. It is also apparently written in a story type manner which makes for good, gripping reading (easier to digest than Al Gore's latest I am told).

He also told me a little story: coming back from a meeting in Edinburgh on the train, he was reading the book and was approached by a guy who recognised it and came to talk to him. Turns out that this guy was one of the people involved in the preparation on the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reports of recent years. For those who haven't heard of IPCC, it is an international body of 000's of climate change scientists who come together to forge scientific consensus on climate change issues (often the basis for media coverage of the subject).

What this guy from the IPCC said what that the scientists have to tone down and conservatise all of their predictions for the purposes of writing the report (due to political and legal ramifications) and that most of the scientists involved believe the concequences are far more serious and rapid than the information their reports contain. Which is pretty concerning!

Hopefully I will have a look at the book over coming weeks, and will post my first review here.

Selling Ice Cream

I went to the cinema this weekend, and just before the film, this commercial was played. Funnily enough, the cinema just happened to sell Ben and Jerry's ice cream!

Now, if you watch to the end you catch a glimpse of the bulk of the advert. I cannot decide in my own mind whether this is the most outrageously dodgy advertising, a marketing masterstroke, or an actually ethical company? I thought I should let readers decide for me.

I know that Ben and Jerrys have a reputation for good business ethics (I studied them as a case study at University). I also know that companies that have gone down the route of marketing themselves on ethical grounds have come incredibly unstuck in the past (such as the Body Shop whose decline has partially been put down to various ethical scandals, as well as sale to L'Oreal). Once you start raving about green credentials you have every Green campaigner on the planet bearing down on you extremely rapidly.

What I would really like to do, is have a quick look around a Ben and Jerrys factory to see what they are actually doing (I have yet to visit a company that can match its claims)...