With Thanks to Complete and Utter Zebu

Simon Rose reminded me with this report that if Carlsberg did disingenuous it would probably be the the "green" energy lobby.  In particluar and as Simon demonstrates, the wind power supporters do more than their fair share of manipulation.  Here's some examples from the European Wind Energy Association.  According to this august body the benefits include:

• "Wind power has a light footprint. Its, operation does not produce harmful emissions or any hazardous waste. It does not deplete natural resources, nor does it cause environmental damage, through resource extraction, transport, and waste management.
• In a wind farm the turbines themselves, take up less than 1% of the land area.  Once up and running, existing activities such as agriculture and hiking can continue around them. Farm animals such as cows and sheep are not disturbed.
• Any impacts on the local environment (see below) must be set against the much more serious effects of producing conventional electricity and thereby aggravating the pressures of climate change on the balance of nature."

Okay then let's look at those "benefits". 

• Certainly one turbine has a "light" footprint.  Except you need a lot of them to produce a reasonable amount of power.  True they don't emit any pollutants or gases but unless we re categorize excessive noise as "harmelss emissions" they do present a serious noise hazard.  Indeed the nearest a turbine can be placed to housing is 300m.  Just visulaise that for a minute.  Thats a 300m wide band of valuable land that can't be utilised due to noise.
• The second point is really the first regurgetated.  Loads of space between the turbines but only for deaf cattle and sheep it appears.
• The final point is trite in the extreme.  It assumes that the current methods are "aggravating climate change" which may be true but ignores nuclear energy which in my opnion would be a better method of producing power per M2 occupied.

But this website does not provide a balanced reply to each of its befeficial arguments.  It does do that for the disadvantages though.

• "Wind power’s overall impact on birds, bats, other wildlife and natural habitats is highly site specifi c. In addition, impacts from wind power are extremely low compared with other humanrelated activities. Deaths from birds fl ying into wind turbines represent a small fraction of those caused by other human-related sources such as cats and buildings.  US statistics show 1 billion birds are killed by colliding with buildings each year and up to 80 million by vehicles.  By comparison, it’s estimated that commercial wind turbines in the US cause the direct deaths of only 0.01 – 0.02% of all of the birds killed annually by collisions with man-made structures and activities."

I confess that this one makes me smile.  Apparently we would significantly reduce the amount of birds killed if we get rid of those nasty buildings and cats.  Of course with no buildings there'd be no need for power thus no need for wind turbines.  But the really good bit of the above logic is the stats concerning the percentage of birds killed by wind farms.  Could it just possibly be that there are significantly more square metres of buildings than there are wind turbines in the USA?

In short the wind power lobby is telling porky pies.

Anyone Else Smell a Rat? (Not I'm A Celebrity).

So as I understand it the Royal Bank of Scotland owns a substantial portion of a total of 167 Billion pounds Sterling, yup quite a large lunch that, in overseas, mostly toxic, debt. But what is interesting about this story (as opposed to downright depressing) is this snippet "Similarly striking is the fact that in almost all of the asset classes, the majority of the loans now being supported by the taxpayer were made only very recently, some of them in 2008, only months before the bank was semi-nationalised."

Now you may call me a cynic but considering this is the Royal Bank of Scotland and as we know senior members of our government (for want of a better word) hail from that, actually very pleasant, part of the UK, doesn't it seem mildly coincidental that a lot of these debts were ramped up by the bank, just before it rolled over and swallowed all that lovely taxpayer funding?

Likewise isn't it nice to know that whilst Lloyds Banking Group has returned a large portion of wonga to the Treasury, the Royal Bank of Scotland, is paying it back. When would of course be nice to know, but I doubt we'll find that out during this parliament.

If it looks like a rat and smells like a rat, it probably is a rat.

Balance

A lot of us tend to look at the oil and gas majors as being money makers with no thought for the impact on the lives of the people who they either employ or who live in areas where they work. In other words they care little about the environment. The BBC produced this somewhat sensationalised programme in 2004. Among the inaccuracies was that accusation that the oil trains running through the region belonged to the BTC company. They didn't. Thus the arguments surrounding the railway slums were inaccurate to say the least.

It is true that these companies are driven by money. Clearly they wouldn't build a pipeline unless it could transport valuable product to a suitable location. Nor would they build a refinery in a location where there was no infrastructure or means of moving the refined product to other destinations. Politically these companies need to show the countries in which they work, that the project is a valid and important one for the country and indeed the company's shareholders. Many things have imposed themselves on these projects over the years, not least environmental impact and health and safety, both political hot potatoes.

In 1996 the western world was coming to terms with the collapsed Soviet Union, but knew strategically that relying on putting oil through the Russian Federation carried risks to the supply. At around that time I worked on the Western Route Pipeline which runs from Baku in Azerbaijan to Supsa in Georgia. The Russians had previously built a pipeline along the route and this was a replacement for an old and inefficient facility. At the time that this project was muted a more ambitious project was taking shape. It became known as the BTC Pipeline and ran from Baku, through Georgia to Ceyhan in Turkey on the Mediterranean coast. I worked on that one too.

I tend to get involved in larger projects these days and after a spell in Russia on a project in the Arctic Circle I found myself here in Doha working on one of three Mega LNG projects. You can find the public info here. I'm working on the last one to be commissioned which is due in 2010.

My particular project is employing upwards of 20,000 people from all parts of the world (yes you read that right 20k). Apart from the Middle East countries they come from India, Pakistan, Turkey, America, Europe, Australia, Philippines, you name it they come from there. A diverse and seriously multi cultural workforce. As expected this creates a logistical nightmare for those who have to deal with housing, feeding and the general welfare of all of these nationalities.

Something we must never forget is the level of expectation that these people have. From the UK or US or any of the "western" nations, we expect good quality service, good food and health care and good accommodation. It is also likely that the definition of these concepts is vastly different for those from the emerging countries such as India and Pakistan, or Thailand etc. So, my employer has concluded that it is of major importance to ensure as far as is practicable, the workforce enjoys the best possible living conditions. To this end there are certain minimum standards set by the Qatari government. These standards have been enhanced by the company that runs the location where the project is being constructed (a sort of local council if you will). You or more particularly the BBC, may argue that these are ultimately politically and PR motivated measures, you are entitled to hold that opinion. But then again a happy and safe workforce is more efficient and easier to manage.

So are the Oil and Gas companies the heartless brutes we or the BBC think they are? If I told you how much money is expended on making sure these people (I include myself here) get to finish the project healthy and hopefully more wealthy than when they arrived, your eyes would water. So I ask that when you see headlines screaming about the nastiness of these projects, take a moment to consider what the companies are trying to do for their people.

Space - The Only Frontier?

Anyway to all those climate change folks I need an answer to the following.

How many Km2 do you need for a wind farm to produce the power of (let's say) Fiddler's Ferry Power Station?

Only it appears to me, that if we were to move over to offshore wind power we'd need to shove an awful lot of concrete and steel into those oceans to the extent that the displacement may well raise the sea levels, just so that we can provide enough power to energise our solar panels in the winter.

Or have I missed my guess here?