December 20, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

Tuesday, 20 December 2011 21:59
Gabriele Steinhauser, The Associated Press

From the article:

By last week, the price of one emission allowance had tumbled to a meager euro6.41 — making it much cheaper to pollute and slashing the financial incentives for companies to invest in low-carbon technologies….

Shell, which is mostly known for selling oil and gas, has been one of the pioneers of carbon capture and storage, projects in which CO2 emissions are stored underground so they don’t get released into the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. But investing in new technologies like carbon capture and storage only becomes commercially viable at a carbon price of between euro25 and euro30, Hone said.

“Over the last few months, we have seen some of these projects disappear,” he added.

In October, the U.K. government shut down the carbon capture project in Longannet in eastern Scotland in which Shell was one of the partners…. (Full Story)

Posted in Shell CCS Project, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | 1 Comment »

November 5, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

In October 2011, the Alberta Government launched a massive advertising campaign promoting the idea that billions of dollars of tax revenues and increased electricity rates (which climbed in October to about 12.5 cents per kWh for residential consumers) are needed to achieve “carbon” capture and sequestration (that is: “storage”), in an attempt to have Alberta do its part in regulating global climate trends.

First of all, the “carbon” in carbon capture and sequestration is a misnomer, because what is supposed to be captured is not carbon but carbon-dioxide, plain, old CO2, a benign, harmless trace gas that is essential to all life on Earth and without which life as we know it would not exist on Earth.

Atmospheric CO2 levels have been measured regularly and systematically since 1959.  Some people, some of whom are scientists, assert that global temperature trends are being affected and even controlled and driven by atmospheric CO2 levels. That assertion is not supported by hard evidence.  At best, nothing more can be said about it than that it is a theory for which the science is not settled.  It is supported only by computer models.

Computer models will say what they are designed to say, and the adage about computers, “GIGO” (Garbage In, Garbage Out), applies with a vengeance to computer models.  No scientific evidence exists that proves that atmospheric CO2 levels are a controlling factor in global temperature trends.

On the other hand, a good many scientific facts relating to CO2 have been established and are supported by real world measurements, such as,

1. There is no correlation between rising temperature trends and increasing CO2 levels.
2. In 1998, the global temperature trend levelled off and can even be said to have fallen a bit, while atmospheric CO2 increased since then to about 392 parts per million or about four hundredth of one percent of the atmosphere.
3. Man-made CO2 emissions comprise only about three percent of total atmospheric CO2.  The other 97 percent of atmospheric CO2 originate from natural sources.
4. Plants will stop growing when atmospheric CO2 reaches a level of 200 parts per million and will begin to die off when the CO2 level falls to 150 parts per million.
5. The rising CO2 levels during the last thirty years have helped along the greening of the planet and increased agricultural productivity (e.g.; by about 25 percent in China).  In reality, increased levels of atmospheric CO2 have helped substantially to alleviate world hunger.

The truth about CO2 emissions is not wanted by those who spend our money.  Indeed, some people try to oppress it!  Good luck with that.  The advent of the Internet has made it practically impossible to suppress the truth, but the Alberta Government’s CCS propaganda campaign makes it obvious that good, old propaganda tactics are alive and well.  There are just fewer people now who will be willing to swallow government-sponsored lies than there were, say, during the Hitler era.

John O’Sullivan: Popular Skeptic Writer Fired for Exposing Carbon Climate Fraud

Friends, I write to announce my employment with my publishers, Suite101, was  terminated today without prior notice or explanation and all my articles  published over a two-year period with them ar….(Full Story)

In  case you missed the link to it in John O’Sullivan’s article, the  observations offered here are fairly straight-forward and easy to  understand:

Japanese Satellites say 3rd World Owes CO2 Reparations to The West

Well, in a somewhat bizarre twist, it looks like I must reconsider my opposition to CO2 reparations. The notion that the evil sources of CO2 “pollution” must pay those who are lowering the planet’s CO2 levels….(Full Story)

So,  guess what! If we believe that man-made CO2 emissions are the cause of  catastrophic global warming, then let’s do the best thing possible to  ameliorate the problem.  Let’s make sure that the underdeveloped and  developing nations acquire the same living standard as achieved by the  developed nations, and the problem will go away all by itself.

However, if anyone wishes to put his money where his mouth is with his climate change superstitions and wants to spend billions of dollars implementing measures for amelioration of catastrophic global warming, let him do it with his own money, at the source and not here where it will do no good.  However, if he wants to spend that much money to do some good for humanity where he lives, let him spend it on fixing things that need fixing, such as our health-care system.

Posted in Propaganda debunked, Censorship, Shell CCS Project, Corruption & Fraud, Electric Energy Prices, Community & Industry, Climate Change, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | No Comments »

October 27, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

Not quite so fast, let’s take a step back, take a deep breath, and look at things a bit more objectively.

In October 2011, the Government of Alberta launched a massive advertising campaign on TV and in the press promoting the ostensible benefits of a number of carbon capture and storage projects that are largely funded by Alberta taxpayers and to a smaller extent out of federal tax revenues.

The October 26 issue of the Edmonton Journal included “A SPECIAL SECTION by the Calgary Herald in partnership with the Government of Alberta”, comprised of a collection of articles from various sources printed on a total of six full-sized pages.

Here is just one of those stories: “Taming CO2 crucial to our future“, by Brian Burton, for the Calgary Herald.

I agree to some extent with the assertion in the title of that article, but from a perspective that is opposite to the intended meaning.  CO2 doesn’t need to be tamed.  It is a benign, beneficial but nevertheless vitally essential atmospheric trace gas without which life as we know it would not exist on Earth. Globally, the man-made portion of atmospheric CO2 comprises about three percent of annual CO2 emissions.  The remaining 97 percent of CO2 emissions are from natural sources.  For starters, every human alive breathes out about 1 kg of CO2 each day.

The portion of Alberta CO2 emissions that is to be captured and stored is a minuscule fraction of global man-made CO2 emissions. Even if atmospheric CO2 levels were to drive and control climate trends, the fraction of CO2 captured and stored in Aberta would be so small that it would not ever be possible to measure how that would influence global climate trends.  If anyone ever calculated what the impact of our CCS schemes would be, the results of such calculations must be extremely disappointing, as they have not been published or mentioned in the main-stream media.  Aside from that, the “evidence” of the benefits of reductions in man-made CO2 emissions only exists in computer models.  There is no measurable evidence in the real world that proves that there is any substance to the claims made in the theory that reductions in Alberta CO2 emissions will have any measurable impact on global climate trends.

Those are just some of the circumstances of the context in which Alberta’s efforts at attempting to use CO2 capture and storage as a thermostat for global climate control take place.  Still, far from objectively addressing any of those circumstances, the Government of Alberta ignores and does not even mention them.  That is so because of the main premise of the theory of sucessful propaganda expressed by one of its masters:

“The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses’ attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision. …

“All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to. Consequently, the greater the mass it is intended to reach, the lower its purely intellectual level will have to be. But if, as in propaganda for sticking out a war, the aim is to influence a whole people, we must avoid excessive intellectual demands on our public, and too much caution cannot be extended in this direction. …

“The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan….

“The function of propaganda is, for example, not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly.” —Hitler, Mein Kampf, Chapter VI

One may well wonder why the Government of Alberta is waking up to the reality that if the propaganda that supports CCS schemes is not being promoted, all CCS schemes may well and most likely flop.  The CCS schemes are expensive white elephants that cannot come to life, exist and operate without massive government subsidies.

Page 2 of the Edmonton Journal’s special October 2011 section on Carbon Capture and Storage boasts that “Alberta Leads the Way: Pioneering province first to put money behind CCS projects and a levy on carbon emissions”, but I see nothing laudable about a scheme to waste $2 billion through blowing CO2 down Mother Earth’s derriere.  Alberta may lead the way now, but it was one of the last to jump on the wagon and may well be one of the last to jump off.

I have no intention of presenting here even only a partially complete list of CCS and green energy boondoggles, but let’s at least look at a couple of recent news items in that regard:

1.) In Scotland: “Longannet carbon capture and storage project is no more”, October 22, 2011
http://lce.folc.ca/2011/10/22/longanet-carbon-capture-and-storage-project-is-no-more/

2.) In West-Virginia: “High costs bury AEP’s carbon burial plan”, July 16, 2011
The king wears no clothing, but it is even worse that he can’t afford to pay for being made to look like a naked fool.
http://lce.folc.ca/2011/07/16/high-costs-bury-aeps-carbon-burial-plan/

It seems to me that just as the Nazi propaganda machine went into high gear and intensified its efforts the more elusive Hitler’s dream of his 1000-year Reich became, so the CCS and alternative energy  schemes will be promoted ever more intensively the more their objectives prove themselves to be unattainable.

Posted in Shell CCS Project, Deficits and Debts, Propaganda debunked, Corruption & Fraud, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | No Comments »

October 22, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

There is jubilation and rejoicing over the shut-down of the U.K.’s white elephant of a carbon capture and storage project at Longannet, Scotland.  Shell was one of the parties developing that project.  The project was shut down, because it is too expensive.  Of course, without massive subsidization through tax- and utility-rates no one in their right mind would have expected a profitable rate of return on capital investment.  Read more about it.

There is a comparably-sized CCS project in the planning and engineering stages in Alberta, Canada, Shell Quest CCS project that is supposed to capture CO2 from the Shell Scotford oilsands upgrader, pipe it to Thorhild and blow it down Mother Earth’s derriere through a number of boreholes there, to have it “safely” stored forever, thousands of feet below the surface.

There are CCS projects that use CO2 injection into oil-bearing strata to boost the production of crude oil in oil fields that approach the limits of production by conventional methods.  No one ever made the slightest pretense that the CCS project at Longannet, nor the Shell’s Quest CCS project at Scotford, Alberta, ever were to provide a return on capital investment.  Both projects are manifestations of the politicians’ mania of obsessing with using CCS projects as thermostats with which to regulate what cannot practically be regulated, namely global CO2 contents in the air and thereby our climate trends.

The CO2 that is supposed to be sequestered is a beneficial atmospheric trace gas, a natural fertilizer that increases the productivity of the biosphere and agriculture.  U.K. politicians have come to their senses and put an end to their squandering of more than a billion dollars on a folly that cannot possibly have more than a minuscule, unmeasurable impact on climate trends, while at best the role of CO2 on those trends has not yet been substantiated.  Meanwhile, Canada’s politicians still want to carry on with their obsessing.

About three percent of global, annual CO2 emissions are man-made, 97 percent of CO2 emissions are from natural sources that are not affected in the least by such CCS projects.  The CCS projects that are slated to be put into operation are expensive, and their costs will be born by consumers of electricity and other forms of energy, whose rates will be jacked up considerably to pay for the folly of trying to do the impossible.

Shell’s Quest project at Scotford, Alberta, will be funded mainly by Alberta taxpayers (about $800 million).  Federal tax revenues will provide about $200 million, and Shell will contribute roughly $150 million, which costs will without a doubt be recovered through the price for oil that will be produced and sold by the Scotford upgrader.  Also without a doubt, Shell’s Quest CCS project will generate wealth for Shell (mark-up on oil prices), for the provincial and federal governments (through taxes that are called royalties), while the taxpayers and the consumers of energy will be left holding the bill.  The consumers and taxpayers never turn out to be the winners in these games.

Posted in Shell CCS Project, Taxes, Electric Energy Prices, Energy Issues, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | No Comments »

October 7, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

The Guardian, 2011 10 06

Flagship UK carbon capture project ‘close to collapse’

Scottish Power, and its partners Shell and the National Grid, have just completed a detailed study of the CCS scheme and have deep concerns about its commercial viability without heavier public backing….(Full Story)

Note: Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) a.k.a. Carbon Capture and Sequestration, is a misnomer.  It is CO2 (carbon dioxide) that is being captured and stored or sequestrated.  I guess that CO2 is being called carbon by the proponents of CCS schemes because in that fashion it is a little easier to invoke unfounded fears of “carbon pollution” that is falsely alleged to drive up global temperatures and burn all life on Earth to a crisp.

CO2 is a vital natural fertilizer without which life as we know it could not exist on Earth. All life on Earth is carbon based and exists within a biological life-cycle that evolved to have plants extract carbon from CO2 in the atmosphere, while almost all other life forms depend on plants doing well enough to be a direct or indirect source of food without which no other life can exist. CO2 is a trace gas that comprises a little less than 0.04 percent of our atmosphere. The majority (97%) of atmospheric CO2 stems from natural sources, while a tiny fraction (3%) of atmospheric CO2 is man-made.

The unproductive, useless and expensive luxury of burying a minuscule portion of man-made CO2 is a futile attempt to regulate global temperature trends. There is no scientific proof that rising levels of atmospheric CO2 drive up temperature trends.  Even though all measurable evidence that has been found indicates that rising temperature trends have a direct, positive influence on global atmospheric CO2 levels over time and life on Earth, economic policies throughout the developed nations are now geared to regulate and restrict the minuscule, man-made portion of atmospheric CO2. Moreover, the developed nations impose policies that restrict the economic development of the under-developed nations, also in attempts to constrain man-made CO2 emissions.  Those policies keep the underdeveloped nations in squalor and poverty.

Carbon capture and storage schemes such as the UK carbon capture project at Longannet in Scotland are not economically viable and can be brought into existence and operation only and entirely through massive subsidies derived either through taxes or through surcharges on utility prices or both. CCS schemes that serve no other purpose than to bury CO2 may reduce global temperatures somewhat. However, their impact will be so small that the temperature reduction hoped to be achieved a hundred years from now can only be calculated to be at best a few ten-thousands of a degree Celsius, which is far beyond the capacity of any instrumentation in existence to measure. The calculated delay of global warming will by the year 2100 amount at most to only a few hours.

The most efficient method for the disposal of man-made CO2 is to let it escape, unhindered, into the air, whereby it can then contribute to the greening of the Earth.

Yes, our globe has for a long time suffered from a dearth of CO2. Scientific evidence shows that the rising CO2 levels experienced lately are caused by global warming resulting from a more active Sun. Atmospheric CO2 levels are presently at 392 parts per million by volume or at 0.0392% of the atmosphere. Plants will stop growing when CO2 levels drop to 0.02% and die when CO2 levels fall to 0.015%. Earth experienced periods during the recent geological past when CO2 levels were many times, 10 and even 20 times, higher than they are now. Many recent scientific studies established that the rising levels of CO2 have contributed to the greening of the Earth and caused substantial increases in agricultural productivity during the past 30 years or so.

The CCS project at Longannet in Scotland is only one of such projects in the planning, engineering or construction stages around the world. It is also not the only one that is in peril. See “High costs bury AEP’s carbon plan”. http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2011/07/15/high-costs-bury-aeps-carbon-plan.html

“…American Electric Power [AEP] said it would halt a project to bury carbon dioxide deep beneath a coal-fired power plant in West Virginia, experts say the decision reflects a seismic change in the economics of generating electricity.”

The CCS project at Longannet in Scotland is also not the only one involving Shell. Shell is promoting CCS projects in Alberta, Canada. The Alberta Government reserved $2 billion for those. While one of Shell’s CCS projects will collect CO2 for injection in central Alberta, to enhance oil-field production, another one is a CCS project called Quest that will not serve any purpose other than to inject CO2 underground for storage.

Shell’s Quest CCS project will cost about $1.25 billion dollars and is planned to go into operation in about 2015. About $150 million of the costs will be provided by Shell. The remainder of the construction costs will be born by Canadian (mostly by Albertan) taxpayers. Shell’s commitment for the construction of their Quest CCS project is a result of a condition by Canadian governments for granting the operating licence for Shell’s Scotford Oil-Sands bitumen upgrader at Scotford, Alberta.

Shell’s Quest CCS project is purely political folly funded by taxpayers and users of fossil fuel.  It is not something that Shell should be required to put into operation.
____________
More concerns about Shell’s Quest project are expressed in the following article, “No price too high for appeasing climate alarmists”, http://lce.folc.ca/2010/11/06/no-price-too-high-for-appeasing-climate-alarmists/

Here is Shell’s website that promotes Shell’s Quest CCS project: http://www.shell.ca/home/content/can-en/aboutshell/our_business/business_in_canada/upstream/oil_sands/quest/

Posted in Shell CCS Project, Deficits and Debts, Electric Energy Prices, Energy Issues, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | 1 Comment »

September 22, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

Dr David Evans: Four fatal pieces of evidence (disproving the anthropogenic global warming nonsense)

Dr David Evans lays out four crucial pieces of evidence, and calls for a debate with Prof Andrew Pitman. But the evidence is so unarguably strong for skeptics, we know that the name-calling-team-who-want-our-money will do anything to avoid a public debate. If the evidence is “overwhelming” why are they so unwilling to explain it?  — Jo Nova

(Full Story )

Posted in Shell CCS Project, Taxes, Propaganda debunked, Corruption & Fraud | Print | No Comments »

July 16, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

The king wears no clothing, but it is even worse that he can’t afford to pay for being made to look like a naked fool.

High Costs Bury AEP’s Carbon Burial Plan
Posted on July 15, 2011 by News Staff

American Electric Power has scuttled its pilot project to bury CO2 from its Mountaineer coal-burning plant in Red Haven WVa. The original projected cost, before unanticipated overruns, was $668 million. About 1/3 of the gross output from a plant would be required to capture, compress and inject the CO2 into the ground, generating an automatic 50% increase in the cost of net output, before conversion costs.

“The AEP plan, announced with much fanfare in 2009, marked the first time that carbon dioxide was to be captured and buried at a US power plant.”

The pilot system would only have captured 110,000 tons of CO2 per year, out of a total of 7.9 to 9.8 million tons per year from the plant. The company, headquartered in Columbus, “cited difficulties in getting state regulators to approve charging customers for the costs of carbon capture.”

From this morning’s Columbus (OH) Dispatch: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2011/07/15/high-costs-bury-aeps-carbon-plan.html?sid=101

______________
It is a good thing that the people that made the decision to scuttle the AEP CCS project came to their senses. A country that is at the verge of bankruptcy should not waste one-third of a power plant’s energy production to bury even a fraction of the beneficial natural fertilizer that plant exhausts into the air, fertilizer that is essentially free of cost.

The economics of the decision to scuttle the CCS project are sound and make sense. It boggles the mind why anyone in their right mind and not blinded by harmful environmental fanaticism ever made a move to spend even a single dollar on such a hare-brained scheme.

The situation with Shell’s CSS project in Alberta is no different with respect to it being a hare-brained scheme by environmental fanatics and government agencies catering to them holding Shell over a barrel. Don’t blame Shell for the idea that blowing CO2 down Mother Earth’s derriere at a billion-dollars a shot is a thing that Alberta consumers must fund. It is a political decision which Shell supports only because it cannot lose on it on account of taxpayers and consumers footing the bill.

I you think that those observations are not substantiated by facts, then you better have a look at the comments that were posted at wattsupwiththat.com in relation to the AEP CSS scheme.

Posted in Climate Craziness, The New World Order, Shell CCS Project, Corruption & Fraud, Community & Industry, Electric Energy Prices, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | No Comments »

February 19, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

Is it worth spending billions of dollars to try and stave off impending gloom and doom allegedly caused by catastrophic trends in climate change?  Consider the following.

Climate Realists

FRED SINGER
What do Climate Data Really Show? The Berkeley Climate Data Project
Saturday, February 19th 2011, 9:25 AM EST

The e-mails leaked from the University of East Anglia in November 2009 produced what is popularly called “Climategate.” They exposed the thoroughly unethical behavior of a group of climate scientists, mainly in the UK and US, involved in producing the global surface temperature record used and relied on by governments….(Full Story)

________________
Fred Singer mentions in his article:

I applaud and support what is being done by the Project — a very difficult but important undertaking. I personally have little faith in the quality of the surface data, having been exposed to the revealing work by Anthony Watts and others. However, I have an open mind on the issue and look forward to seeing the results of the Project in their forthcoming publications.

Here is a link to the “revealing work by Anthony Watts”, the Surfacestations Project.  I won’t presume whom Fred Singer means by “and others”, but he also mentioned “Climategate”.

If the term “Climategate” is new to you, you may wish to look up a good historical overview of Climategate’s emergence into public view and of its resulting consequences.

When reading all of that about climate data and Climategate, keep in mind that we are engaging in a program of massive expenditures to address “fixes that the global climate needs” on the basis of alarmist and propagandistic findings of climate science that is at best not settled.

It is not a trivial problem for anyone in the world who pays the rising prices for the ability to use modern conveniences in everyday life. The costs of utilities and consumer goods experience enormous increases to help pay to implement climate fixes that are at best useless and at worst harmful and to help provide enormous profits from the resulting “solutions”.

Right now, the Alberta Government, under the leadership of Ed Stelmach, has committed $2 billion to the construction of a variety of oil-industry projects for carbon capture and sequestration that will ostensibly be beneficial in addressing allegedly adverse global climate trends.  Yet, we will find few people in this part of the world or elsewhere that cope with or suffer from record cold periods during winter who will clamour if the winters that make them shiver and even die in large numbers were to be a little less cold. It is obvious that cold weather kills and is at least costly.

One such project, Shell’s Quest CCS Project, will blow 1.2 million tonnes of CO2 annually down Mother Earth’s derriere, of which $780 million in initial construction costs will be funded through Alberta tax revenues.  The sequestering of an annual 1.2 million tonnes of CO2  may sound like a lot to some, and a $780 million price tag to achieve that may seem worth paying for.  However, it will do no more than to reduce man-made, global, annual CO2 emissions by a total of 21 minutes-worth of those emissions at a rate of 957 tonnes per second of global man-made CO2 emissions, while that reduction will not affect the annual emissions of the 97 percent of CO2 produced by natural sources.

Moreover, no one has so far produced any incontrovertible evidence that such an effort will have any effects on global temperature trends.  You may or may not be inclined to accept that, given that Ed Stelmach has already committed $2 billion dollars to such efforts.  However, there is ample, real-world evidence that shows that atmospheric CO2 increases and reductions over time have followed temperature trends.  Not once during the geological record of the world was there ever a time when CO2 drove temperature variations.  Here are two of many links to sources that explain that.

• Climate Change Reexamined, OEL M. KAUFFMAN, Emeritus, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, PA
  Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 723–749, 2007
• The Myth of Dangerous Human-Caused Climate Change, M Carter, Professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory (Node C), Sporing Road South, James Cook University, Townsville Qld 4811.
  The AusIMM New Leaders’ Conference Brisbane, QLD, 2 - 3 May 2007

Professor Carter states in that,

The currently favoured hypothesis of dangerous global warming includes the presumption that late 20th century warming was substantially caused by human emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. As will be elaborated later, this theory has failed the three main tests to which it has been subjected. First, no close relationship exists between the 20th century patterns of increasing carbon dioxide and changing temperature; second, 20th century rates and magnitude of temperature change fall well within previous natural limits of change despite accompanying increases in human-sourced carbon dioxide; and, third, the deterministic computer models that are used to engender public alarm have proved unable to predict the course of temperature change over the period 1990 - 2006, let alone out to 2100.

It is folly to spend money to avert catastrophic warming that — based on the evidence — will not happen, given that catastrophic warming has never happened before, while ignoring the need to adapt to the next period of glaciation that will surely happen soon.

The money spent on such useless pursuits would be better spent in ventures that truly need to be undertaken, such as fixing Alberta’s seriously ailing health-care system and curbing our run-away, government-induced debt.

Posted in Shell CCS Project, Propaganda debunked, Corruption & Fraud, Climate Change | Print | No Comments »

February 16, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

This is from a source that is not necessarily impartial:

Using a gasifier instead of a coker will allow the upgrader [the North West upgrader, across the highway, west from Agrium, south of Redwater, Alberta, that will commence production in 2014] to capture 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, shipping the liquefied gas through a pipeline to central Alberta, where it will be used to recover more oil from depleted conventional oilfields.

And when that much CO2 is taken out of the upgrading process, Alberta diesel from North West will be the greenest in the world, even better than Saudi medium crude, North West chairman Ian MacGregor told the Heartland Association last month.

(Read more at Deal gives go-ahead to upgrader, Edmonton Journal, 2011 02 15, pp. D1 and D6)

Outgoing premier Ed Stelmach, a source whom many consider reliable but who is not necessarily impartial either, concurs:

Alberta takes ‘bold step’ into oilsands upgrading

Evoking the spirit of pioneers, outgoing Premier Ed Stelmach said Albertans know success comes from having the courage to take risks, and the $5-billion North West upgrader/refinery announced Wednesday is just the latest “bold step” in that direction….

“I have always said, shipping bitumen out of the province is comparable to selling the topsoil on a farm. This is fulfilling a commitment I made in 2006 to the province during the leadership (race),” he said at the ceremony.

Stelmach added he is keen on ensuring Alberta is a world leader in carbon dioxide reduction, which is why the government announced a $2-billion program two years ago, and has agreed to fund four innovative projects.

“So today we take another bold step in the area of value added with this historic agreement with North West and Canadian Natural for a project that will use carbon-capture technology from Day 1.”….(Full Story)

That enthusiasm at the taxpayers expense will not colour Alberta’s diesel green, unless “green diesel” is tinted by the colour of money.

Alberta diesel will not be the greenest in the world.  Given that Ed Stelmach has thrown $2 billion dollars at “four innovative projects” for oil production (of which Shell’s Quest CCS Project, is one of the “innovative projects”, with a contribution of $780 million, due to Ed Stelmach’s generosity funded by Alberta’s taxpayers obligations) that will do exactly zilch for addressing local or the world’s climate trends. Alberta diesel will not be the greenest but will without a doubt be the most expensive to produce in the world.

Mind you, one must consider the veracity of the source.  Amongst many other illogical panaceas, Ed Stelmach tried to initiate a program for switching the driving- and passing-lanes on Alberta’s highways to postpone the need for road maintenance work (a move that was fortunately stalled and eventually defeated through massive public opposition) and he also asserted that, with respect to the hurtful impact of rapidly rising utility costs in the wake of Ralph Klein’s program for the deregulation of the utilities,

We will continue to monitor energy supplies and pricing and take appropriate action when necessary in the best interest of all Albertans.
The Alberta Government is committed to putting more money back into the pockets of Albertans.

Ed Stelmach (PC), Alberta Minister of Transportation,
MLA Vegreville-Viking, 2002 04 19,
in his response to an open letter on utility pricing policies.

That is a little confusing, isn’t it?  That tug in your pockets, is that from the increased weight of the money that the Alberta Government is committed to putting back into the pockets of Albertans, or is that from Ed Stelmach’s hands pulling out more money “required” to increase the price of motor fuel in order to make it the “greenest” or rather the most expensive in the world?

If increased levels of atmospheric CO2 cause global warming, should we not by now see some increasing warming in the Edmonton temperature trends?

The Edmonton weather or temperature trends are not representative of  global temperature trends, you say.  Yes, that is correct, but what about the global trends?

Take a look at global CO2 and its dispersion over time.  Can you by any chance detect Alberta’s role in that?  Not very likely, but it is quite obvious that if CO2 could accumulate in the atmosphere due to mankind, there would not be such very large seasonal fluctuations.

Other than that, given that the North West upgrader will capture and sequester 1.2 million tonnes of CO2 a year and that man-made global CO2 emissions are being generated at the rate of 957 tonnes of CO2 a second, the carbon capture and storage scheme associated with the North West upgrader will compensate for 21 minutes of man-made global CO2 emissions a year.  Do you think that is worth spending about $500 million on?  That is just what Ed Stelmach wants to devote of our tax revenues to the cause, for no other good effect than to be favorably mentioned in the history books.  Annual operating costs, and initial contributions by North West and from federal sources are not included in that. What will history have to say about that 30 years from now?

However, in order to determine whether it is truly necessary to increase the price of Alberta diesel or of any fuel anywhere, we really need to know whether rising CO2, globally, causes rising global temperatures.

First take a look at temperature trends over time:

Hockey Stick over Time - Narrated

Here is another view of global atmospheric CO2 versus temperature.

CO2, Temperatures, and Ice Ages
Posted on January 30, 2009 by Anthony Watts

Guest post by Frank Lansner, civil engineer, biotechnology.

It is generally accepted that CO2 is lagging temperature in Antarctic graphs. To dig further into this subject therefore might seem a waste of time. But the reality is, that these graphs are still widely used as an argument for the global warming hypothesis. But can the CO2-hypothesis be supported in any way using the data of Antarctic ice cores?

At first glance, the CO2 lagging temperature would mean that it’s the temperature that controls CO2 and not vice versa.

(See Graph, Full Story)

Carbon capture and storage, what a scam!  Just think of what could be done with $2 billion dollars to fix, say, the Alberta Health-Care system; but Ed Stelmach had to cut back on that, to save enough for carbon capture and sequestration.

The nine most-feared words in the English language: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” (Ronald Reagan)

Posted in Climate Craziness, Shell CCS Project, Propaganda debunked, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | 1 Comment »

February 14, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

Here are three articles of interest.

• CO2 is a benefactor not a pollutant (2011 02 12)
  By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, AMS Fellow

Summary

So real data - not models tuned for the desired result - suggests CO2 is not correlated with temperature changes, is not harmful to health, is instead beneficial to plants and thus mankind.

There are plenty of real environmental issues that need addressing and there needs to be major attention given to meeting energy needs for a colder world likely in coming decades. The misplaced focus on CO2 is preventing focus on both real environmental issues and a sane energy policy.

Note, although I agree with everything the article identifies, it does contain one error that requires correction.  The caption for the third illustration in the states: “Crops increased threefold in the last 50 years from only 10% more land, while the world population  has doubled”  A 30-percent increase in agricultural yield is undeniable, but it is only a 30-percent increase, not a threefold increase.  I wrote to ICECAP and asked them to correct that caption.

• Why Wind Won’t Work
  Submission to Australian Senate Enquiry by Viv Forbes, Carbon Sense Coalition

From the Executive Summary of the submission:

The operating characteristics of turbine and generator mean that only a small part of wind energy can be captured.

Wind power is also intermittent, unreliable and hard to predict. Therefore large backup or storage systems are required. This adds to the capital and operating costs and increases the instability of the network.

Wind farms are uniformly hated by neighbours and will not be willingly accepted without heavy compensation payments. Their noise, flicker, fire risk and disturbing effect on domestic and wild animals are well documented.

The wind is free but wind power is far from it. Its cost is far above all conventional methods of generating electricity. Either taxpayers or consumers will pay this bill.

Wind farms are promoted as a way to decarbonise energy generation. This is supposed to reduce global warming. There is no evidence that there is any need or benefit in chasing this rainbow.

Yes, we are entitled to be given that proof, and that proof has as of now not been provided by anyone.  Yet, that does not stop our politicians from handing over billions of dollars of tax revenues for the pursuit of useless and futile efforts such as Shell’s Quest CCS Project or the construction of wind “farms”.

Don’t blame Shell for spending the taxpayers’ money on the Quest CCS Project.  Blame provincial and federal politicians who force Shell into wasting our money at a billion dollars a shot.

Nevertheless, I must make an addition.  To round out the picture, here is the last of the three articles.

• Carbon Dioxide Feeds the World
  By John Robertson, Mount Tamborine, Queensland 4272, Australia

From the cover page:

Cuddly Carbon Keeps Koalas & all animals, including us, Alive

CO2 is essential for life. More CO2 will do much good and no harm. If it is allowed to increase at the current rate it will feed the world’s coming peak population with NO more land, seed, cultivation or water.

I know, some who reads all of this will think that the authors of those reports work for Big Oil.  Well, I don’t, except that a good portion of my income goes to higher costs of food, energy, heating our home and for fuel for the car we drive.  Another good portion of my income pays for the increased taxes that the government reaps on all of those increased costs.

Going by that, I work for big government, and I suspect that is true for the authors of the indicated reports, as well as for you; and I am getting very little in value for the government’s take.

So, don’t tell me that anyone is wrong because of who he works for.  Tell me whether he is telling the truth.  There is one thing about which I am sure.  I have found nothing that those three authors identified in this posting are not telling the truth about.  However, I cannot say the same thing about the politicians that keep spending our money on things they know little about and on other things that they know a lot about but that don’t do many of us any good.

One of those politicians (he promised just a little while ago that he will retire in September of this year) told me a few years ago, when I complained to him about the rising costs of utilities due to deregulation, that the Alberta Government has only the best in mind for all of us, and that it is committed to putting money back into the pockets of Albertans.  Did you get any of that money?  I did not.  That must be because, amongst other things, there is not have enough left over for such trivial things because the Alberta Government is giving more than $700 million of the taxpayers money to Shell’s Quest CCS Project.  That is one thing they should not spend our money on.

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