From the Daily Skeptic
Chris Morrison
The Greens hate hydrocarbons, but an open war is breaking out in their ranks as the world outside their lavish millenarian cult realizes it's impossible to run modern industrial society without hydrocarbons. In the UK, gas is the only realistic backup to an electricity system powered by unreliable breezes and sunshine. But at the same time that the frantic Miliband team is shutting down local oil and gas exploration, Cornell University's Professor Robert Howarth comes forward to claim the 'carbon' footprint of transportable US liquefied natural gas (LNG) Bigger than coal. this guardian Cornell's early working draft helped support the Biden administration's suspension of pending LNG export licenses last year. Liquefied natural gas has been described as a carbon “giant bomb”. Cornell's work is funded by billionaire Parker's foundation, which supports “progressive” causes and divestment from oil and gas extraction. By coincidence—of course, such coincidences are common in the Green League's complex web—Parker donated $650,000 to the project. guardian in the past three years.
The reason behind the UK government's recent decision to waste £22 billion capturing carbon dioxide and burying it underground is the massive investment in gas backups. For many, this is a completely futile exercise as it requires a lot of energy to capture and compress the gases, which may eventually seep out of any nearby underground caverns. The whole exercise bears some resemblance to what old Lag Fletcher said to prison guard McKay in the 1970 sitcom porridge The prisoners dug another hole and hid dirt in the escape tunnel.
From a geological perspective, pumping large amounts of pressurized gas into the formation can pose some risks. On August 21, 1986, 1.6 million tons of magma carbon dioxide was suddenly released2 From the riverbed of Lake Nyos in Cameroon. CO is heavier than air2 It fell on surrounding villages, suffocating 1,746 people. These gases build up under high pressure and may be released by volcanic activity or minor earthquakes. One of UK CO's first sites2 The storage site is Liverpool Bay, while other locations across the country have been identified. There is no doubt that strict geological guidelines will be adhered to to ensure that CO22 There won't be large numbers of escapes, but that may change over time. The threat posed by earthquakes is enough to ban onshore fracking in the UK, and it will be interesting to see if similar concerns arise when millions of tonnes of pressurized carbon dioxide leak out.2 Being buried.
As we’ve seen, so-called climate “solutions” like carbon capture are hated by true green cult adherents. Green billionaire activist group Oil Change International (OCI) described carbon capture as a “colossal waste of money”. In a recent detailed report, OCI pointed out that the United States has spent $83 billion in the past and has a failure rate of more than 80%, with “carbon capture projects consistently failing, overspending, or underperforming,” OCI said.
The hatred arises because carbon capture is seen as legitimizing the continued use of hydrocarbons. Less crazy environmentalists are finally realizing they can't ban hydrocarbons entirely. That's because without hydrocarbon-based medicines, fertilizers, waste disposal, etc., half the world's population would die. Of course, the true believers are right, carbon capture is a colossal waste of money and little more than a fig leaf. .
Then let's consider hydrogen, an explosive, expensive waste of money but favored by many greenies as a scalable alternative to oil and gas. The Royal Society said the same thing last year in a major report written by more than 40 leading scientists. The Environmental Defense Fund, an influential activist and campaign arm funded by the Green Blob, doesn't think so. In a recent paper, it states that hydrogen burns at higher temperatures, producing more polluting nitrogen dioxide. Additionally, the gas is very light and easily escapes into the atmosphere. Chemical changes produce 37 times more carbon dioxide warming2. This is inconvenient for alarmists, who haven't yet figured out that the atmosphere “saturates” with various warming gases beyond a certain level, a suggestion supported by half a billion years of climate observations.
In understanding these civil wars erupting within the green movement, the public is hampered by a long-running news blackout of skepticism about net zero and climate science. The BBC can air the Iranian leader's 40-minute anti-Semitic rant justifying Israel's rape and massacre of women and children, but will not consider any skeptical comments about the “established” science of climate change. It defends the former on the basis of free speech and need-to-know arguments, but rejects such indulgence on net zero emissions. As a result, a Potemkin village of fake science, fabricated weather data, ridiculous computer model attributions and predictions, and Jim Dale/Dale Vince pronouncements has been able to flourish with little resistance. The increasingly violent fights erupting within the green movement have gone largely unreported as it continues its handcart journey to hell.
If there is an urgent need to understand these internal green struggles, it is important to reveal the connections that bind many of the actors together. Professor Howarth's work seeks to demonize LNG for political purposes. Who is funding and promoting it is important information as it is likely to impact future LNG supplies in a gas-starved UK under the Harris government. Mainstream media cannot cover these issues because they must adhere to an established reporting narrative and dismiss skepticism as “misinformation.” But who is saying what, why and who is paying them to say it are important messages for navigating the increasingly treacherous waters of green and net zero politics.
Chris Morrison is daily skepticof Environment editor.
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