Tuesday 15 December 2020

Net zero carbon in the North Sea

Older readers who can remember the 1970's (I just about can't, so making the most of this to annoy Mr. Drew) would be forgivne for laughing until their sides split at the idea of the region becoming a net-zero carbon emmissions zone. The whole sea was swathed in a fleet of oil and gas rigs sucking up liquid cash for around 20 good years for the UK. 

Now though the Government has decided to help the area become a net zero area, with huge further investments in offshore wind. This comes of course with a reduction in oil extraction. It has long been the case that the oil Major's have been selling down their assets - aware that many have become liabilities with a cash payment upfront rather than long term  assets. The decommissioning costs a huge for offshore infrastructure. 

The Government is being bold, but given there are only 10 points in its white paper it is also being very thin. Additionally, the National Infrastructure whie paper is almost more important than the overall energy white paper - without the capacity in the Grid to cope with the vagueries of wind and solar power, there can't really be a big charge toward net zero except with Nuclear power, which is only foreseen as a supporting element from here on. 

Shame the fields in the North Sea could not last a bit longer, the Government could really have done with the cash now too. 

30 comments:

Matt said...

I thought this would be about carbon sequestration.

CityUnslicker said...

luckily, that has been forgotten about - the tech to do that in the ocean is not realistic. Like its sister carbon capture, a fantasy laid to rest.

Anonymous said...

Laid to rest? you haven't read as far as page 13.

"Our ambition is to capture 10Mt of carbon dioxide a year by 2030 - the equivalent of four million cars’ worth of annual emissions. We will invest up to £1 billion to support the
establishment of CCUS in four industrial clusters, creating ‘SuperPlaces’ in areas such as the North East, the Humber,
North West, Scotland and Wales. We will bring forward details in 2021 of a revenue mechanism to bring through private sector
investment into industrial carbon capture and hydrogen projects via our new business models to support these projects."

Old BE said...

Capture and sequestration - I never understood how it was supposed to be for the long term (i.e. more than a few years). How would it not leak out? I always wonder if there’s a chemical process that could be used to fix the carbon into something more storable, using surplus electricity.

On net zero, it requires both a huge increase in overall electricity capacity (3x by some accounts) and storage. We need something better than batteries. I can see hydrogen and fuel cells being useful, and there’s the air-freezing trial going on. Has the hydro interconnector from Norway been built yet?

And yes there’s nuclear. What I don’t understand is why nuclear can’t be standardised and industrialised. Why does every new station need to be different? Why isn’t Sizewell C (and D, and E) a replica of the perfectly adequate B?

Nick Drew said...

Old BE - how it was supposed to be for the long term (i.e. more than a few years). How would it not leak out?

the theory is easy: methane at high pressure has been trapped down there for many millions of years, so why not CO2? So long as you choose the right geology and cap the wells properly

funnily enough, many greens said that wouldn't work with fracking chemicals ...

and you'll find geologists (not working for O&G companies) who say it'll seep

net zero requires both a huge increase in overall electricity capacity (3x by some accounts) and storage

if you're planning to do net zero by electrification (esp of heating and transport), then yes indeed - and of course that strategy greatly appeals to some interests (political as well as industrial: Leninism = Marxism + electricity ...)

but if you balk at the scale of that (and wastefulness - needs huge amounts of capital plant with ultra-low utilisation factors, almost as bad as the old CEGB), then hydrogen is the obvious choice for both vehicles and heating

H2 is much easier to store than electricity, which makes it ideal for producing via solar PV + electrolysis (don't ask about cost)

the other great thing about H2 is that you don't need to go "full green" immediately, you can build up slowly with "grey" and "blue" H2 to get started, with much more bearable cost

Old BE said...

Yes there have been some trials with mixing hydrogen into the natural gas pipes. All interesting stuff

DJK said...

Older readers will also remember the switchover to North Sea gas. Previous to that, homes had run on towns gas, which was mostly hydrogen (from coal) with some carbon monoxide.

Anonymous said...

@old be
There is a simple chemical process that captures CO2.
Trees, lots of them..

As the saying goes ‘the best time to plant a tree is ten years ago’

Old BE said...

I think you may have hit on the main problem there :)

E-K said...

Sorry to be thick.

But all the time China is going big on coal it's all a bit futile and bound to result in lots of poor UK people voting for redistributive taxation.

Arrange your affairs to cope with that.

The Tories are going to be obliterated.

dearieme said...

The Tories always deserve to be obliterated. The trouble is, so do the Opposition.

Sebastian Weetabix said...

Hydrogen??! Jesus Christ. It’s completely mad. Every house would need a brand new heating system pressurised to 13,600 psi. It just isn’t realistic. Current piping won’t hold the hydrogen in.

The real elephant in the room is the whole theory of anthropogenic global warming is complete bollocks. At some point the world needs to wake up and stop this shit.

Anonymous said...

@sebastian weetabix

Haha ‘complete bollox’ I’m going to have a guess you didn’t score highly in the STEM subjects ?
Have you read any journals or papers on the subject ?
I’d post some links from NASA but I suspect you think the moon landings are fake and NASA is full of charlatans.
But coming back to your ‘complete bollox’ statement has that been peer reviewed. No YouTube commenters don’t count.

Anonymous said...

There's a reasonable possibility covid will cure global warming - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41423-020-00604-5

Needs more study work done, but covid probably increases the firing of blanks. If this is true of asymptomatic cases too, well, all that herd immunity and just shield the elderly stuff basically translates as may as well give most of the population the snip.

IF this study pans out, could be looking at a real impact on the human population ongoing.

BlokeInBrum said...

Anon- Jumping straight in with the ad-homs I see. Better than having to construct an intelligent argument I suppose.

I also assume that you're wondering why all these pacific islands aren't under water yet, or whether our kids will eve see snow in England again?

Anonymous said...

I was doing some digging and discovered that between 2015 and 2019, China opened enough new coal-fired generators to power 250% of current UK electricity consumption. It makes our decarbonisation efforts somewhat moot.

https://mashable.com/article/carbon-emissions-grow-2019-climate-change

and as for Covid fixing global warming, someones not seen the World's Most Important Graph. And remember African per capita energy consumption is pretty low. Will it stay that way?

https://twitter.com/steve_sailer/status/1105226110898384896

"The UN forecasts that the population of sub-Saharan Africa will octuple from 1990 to 2100."

Elby the Beserk said...

E-K said...
Sorry to be thick.

But all the time China is going big on coal it's all a bit futile and bound to result in lots of poor UK people voting for redistributive taxation.

Arrange your affairs to cope with that.

The Tories are going to be obliterated.

10:15 pm
=================================================

Not thick. Correct. I'll add India in as well.

I'll also add that the likes of Bjorn Lomborg and co. have calculated that destroying the current energy setup of the West will reduce global average temperature (itself an UTTERLY meaningless figure - half the globe might be far too hot half far too cold, and the climate scientists would say all is well) by something like 0.002 degrees C.

There ain't nothing like a friend,
Who can tell you you are pissing in the wind ... (Neil Young)

On the matter of this "global mean temperature" I commend to you

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/12/08/co2-coalition-the-global-mean-temperature-anomaly-record-how-it-works-and-why-it-is-misleading/

with special reference to the use of "anomaly

Elby the Beserk said...

Anonymous Anonymous said...
@sebastian weetabix

Haha ‘complete bollox’ I’m going to have a guess you didn’t score highly in the STEM subjects ?
Have you read any journals or papers on the subject ?
I’d post some links from NASA but I suspect you think the moon landings are fake and NASA is full of charlatans.
But coming back to your ‘complete bollox’ statement has that been peer reviewed. No YouTube commenters don’t count.

10:00am
================================================

OK. No YouTube, rather data from the ice cores - GISP2 in Greenland. Vostok in Antarctica. Both show the planet has been cooling for 7k years. Indeed, the current interstadial is following the same pattern which occurred in the three preceding interstadials. Being

Rapid warming, followed by long term cooling, with intermittent warm periods, EACH being cooler than the preceding one.

All a model does is this. Produce a projection entirely dependent on

1. The initial state of the model (ie planetary climate in all its elements) and the value of the input parameters. This is why they are all wrong - a) matters such as solar activity are NOT even used in the models. History sh9ows solar activity, not CO2 controls climate (well, der... as my kids used to say). Also clouds are core to climate, and NASA are quite clear that their modelling of clouds is utterly useless.


https://notrickszone.com/2019/08/29/nasa-we-cant-model-clouds-so-climate-models-are-100-times-less-accurate-than-needed-for-projections/

The main input parameter which makes the models so useless is ECS. Always wildly over-estimated, despite more and more peer-reviewed papers showing it to be quite low. Add to that that we are more or less at saturation point for heat radiation from C02 anyway.

Here's an overview of the Holocene. BTW, we are already beyond the average duration of the preceding interstadials and it seems falling into a GSM which will most likely reduce temperatures. As per the LIA.

https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/2015/06/01/the-holocene-context-for-anthropogenic-global-warming-2/

Facts mate matter. Models are useless and serve not science but politics. As I am sure you know, Ike warned about this happening in his farewell speech all those years ago.

And if you want HUNDREDS of peer-reviewed papers stating that CAGW is beyond bollocks, hi thee to No Tricks Zone, and off you go. Report back to us in a few months when you have read 'em all.


https://notrickszone.com/?s=peer+review

Elby the Beserk said...

Cloud modelling.

Here's the link I meant to insert


https://notrickszone.com/2019/08/29/nasa-we-cant-model-clouds-so-climate-models-are-100-times-less-accurate-than-needed-for-projections/

"NASA has conceded that climate models lack the precision required to make climate projections due to the inability to accurately model clouds.
Clouds have the capacity to dramatically influence climate changes in both radiative longwave (the “greenhouse effect”) and shortwave."

Old BE said...

I don’t think anyone has ever said that carbon dioxide is the only factor.

Anonymous said...

Since the climate has been changing for four and a half billion years, I'd start worrying if it stopped changing.
M.

andrew said...


I do not get how Drax can be net 0 by 2030 other than shutting down.

GridBot said...

I think most people who look beyond the green wash understand that Drax is a con.

And that there is nothing green or sustainable (other than for Drax's share holders) about the business model behind shipping wood from north America to incinerate in the UK, when there remain significant coal reserves in the local area.

Unfortunately coal is out of favour with the populous and the politicians. So the energy has to come from somewhere to balance the grid!

Nick Drew said...

Drax ... hold my beer ...

GridBot said...

Excitement Intensifies... (in anticipation of further gory details)

Elby the Beserk said...

Old BE said...
I don’t think anyone has ever said that carbon dioxide is the only factor.

12:16 pm
=======================================

Did I really read that?

Nick Drew said...

Simply that Drax is a pretty scandalous state of affairs, £1bn a year of public money for an outright scam

AndrewZ said...

The key word in "net zero" is "net", because that means it's possible to have huge positive values in some areas as long as they are cancelled out - at least, according to the measurements used - by negatives elsewhere. That turns the whole thing into an exercise in creative accountancy, in which the politicians can fiddle with the metrics until they get whatever numbers they want at any given moment. It will make Enron look like amateurs.

Anonymous said...

@anon 11:28 - Maybe you didn't read the nature article, or you perhaps could do with a refresher on the birds and the bees?

Rather difficult to octuple the population if sterility crashes.

Sebastian Weetabix said...

I enjoyed the STEM comment, especially since I’m a chartered engineer with over 40 years experience in industry.

For the hard of thinking the hypothesis behind AGW since the 80s was that temperatures in the troposphere would go up. We can measure that. They haven’t. Therefore the theory is wrong, for reasons beautifully explained by Feynman.