And the Sky Cried

There have been very heavy rains in England and Wales in the past few months and the ground is very soft. Come the equinox, if the gales blow across the land high winds will blow down trees now anchored in soft ground. Many homes have been affected by flooding, and a couple of people have died as a result. These effects are serious and in Britain we gaze intently at our navels while accusing others of doing the same. If we lift up our eyes and look to Russia there we shall find heavy rain which has had far worse consequences than those we have experienced in Britain.

Floods in Pakistan and a heatwave in Russia…join the dots

When you look for evidence, hard evidence, that the climate is changing you should not bother with looking at places where there is large variability in weather, like the United Kingdom. Here we have had our cold winter for many years and the hottest summer for many years. Rainfall is down by 50% in the South East this summer but up by 85% in the North West this summer. This is all part of the UK’s rich pageant of climate.

Transforming democracies into Soviets

In 1980 I visited the Soviet Union, as it then was, or more particularly Moscow. The Soviets had just invaded Afghanistan and for this crime the United States decided to boycott the Moscow Olympic Games. In those days the United Kingdom, under Mrs Thatcher’s leadership, was equally opposed to the soviet invasion of Afghanistan and discouraged competitors from participating in the Olympics, but competitors took no notice of her and the United Kingdom competed in the games and won medals which the Americans would have probably won, had they competed.

Who controls Europe’s natural gas?

I have always been concerned about the way in which the United Kingdom’s energy supplies are not owned by the United Kingdom. Last year the remaining energy company that had a significant state interest, British Energy, which was the United Kingdom’s largest electricity generator was sold by the United Kingdom Government to EDF, a company controlled by the French Government. British Energy generates electricity mainly from nuclear energy.

It seems to me obvious, and presumably to the French and the Russians, that energy is critical to our safety, well being and prosperity, that one way or another, the State should be able to control energy within its borders. Otherwise, the inhabitants of the state are at the mercy of the businesses that do control it.

Why sanctions against Russia just won’t work

The European Union are thinking of imposing sanctions on the Russian Federation as a response to Russia’s activities in Georgia. It is a curious idea, because it seems to me that the EU has more to lose if there were economic sanctions than does Russia.

There are always two sides to every story, and the Russian activity in Georgia is not a clear cut well defined issue. Even if it were, the purpose of sanctions would be to impose economic hardship on Russia as a means of bring them into line with what the European Union thinks they should do.

Three pipelines and energy security

Six years ago work started on three pipelines that would carry oil from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. The route was designed to bypass Russia and Iran, which were thought to be potentially unfriendly to western oil and national energy interests. BP led the consortium of pipe line builders and the three pipelines were designed to carry more than a million barrels of oil every day of the year.

Arctic Ice and Polar cities

In 1997 152 nations agreed that the Arctic region would be an international territory. The countries bordering this region – Russia, The USA, Canada Norway and Denmark (through Greenland) agreed to limit their control to 320 kilometers from their coats. In June last year the then President of the Russian Federation, Mr Putin, laid claim on behalf of Russia to much of the Arctic Ocean, including the North Pole.

Since then all these countries have been studying undersea geology and investing in geological surveys to see whether they can also extend their territorial claims, because if they can show that their country’s continental shelf extends into the arctic they can also lay claim to some of the arctic.

Now, every one of the nations bordering the Arctic has planted flags on ice or land – the traditional way of claiming undiscovered territory, and increasing patrols around “their” land. 

The future of natural gas

Most people in Britain use natural gas to heat their homes and their water space heating, although I think that most people should be using solar panels instead of carbon dioxide producing fossil fuel. However, for the time being at least the vast majority of people do use fossil fuel for these tasks and the fuel of choice is natural gas.

Although using any fossil fuel damages the planet, using natural gas with a condensing boiler which uses almost all of the energy in gas to deliver heat, provides a smaller carbon footprint that using oil or coal or liquid petroleum gas. Because so many people use gas, people are affected by the price of natural gas.

For many years when gas was taken from the North Sea and sold into a newly denationalized competitive British market gas prices fell, so the consumer got cheap heat energy and as a result wasted much of it. The price of energy governs how much of it is wasted and when energy prices were at historical lows in the late eighties and nineties people were not fussed about leaving the heating on full blast while they opened the windows to cool down their homes.

Up until very recently the price of natural gas was linked to the price of oil, so as oil prices rose and fell gas prices mirrored them. Today natural gas prices for short term supplies are not tied to oil prices, but there is still a tie when prices are quoted for supplies in the future.During 2008 it is expected that natural gas prices will rise. Production is not rising significantly but demand is increasing. World natural gas prices partially depend on the weather.

The very cold weather that North America has been experiencing (snow blizzards were reported in Texas) will cause consumption to increase and there will be a price hike to accompany increased demand. In North America where there is plenty of natural gas storage facility (compared to Britain) the amount of natural gas stored affects the price. In Britain with little natural gas storage we tend to find out prices at the mercy of the weather and the demand not only in our own country but also in other countries. It is worth taking account of the fact that the massive North American market is indicating that we are likely to experience much higher natural gas prices.

font face=”Arial”>Natural gas demand in North America is increasing at about 3 % per year whereas supply is increasing at about 1%. Also, as the price of oil increases more consumers and businesses switch to gas. Industries depend on natural gas for their production processes; industries consumed around 44% of the natural gas used in 2004 and most analysts expect this to continue,

font face=”Arial”>Because they expect the oil price to remain high and natural gas to displace oil fuels increasingly In future, gas will become more popular. The world will get three-quarters of its natural gas from Middle East and Eurasia Russia, Iran, and Qatar combined hold about 58 percent of the world’s natural gas reserves. Reserves in the rest of the world are fairly evenly distributed on a regional basis. British supplies of natural gas which are mostly located in the North Sea are running out.

If you estimate the reserves of natural gas of the world, and look at present rates of extraction and use, then the world has enough natural gas to last 65 years. On a regional basis Central and South America has enough for 52 years, Russia 80 years and Africa 88 years. The Middle East has enough gas for 100 years. 

font>In the European Community we have begun to realise that we will rapidly become dependent upon natural gas from non European suppliers; we could be getting as much as two thirds of it from outside the Europe by 2020 and it is never healthy for a group of nations to have energy supplies which are not secure.  Already, nine out of 33 European countries are more than 95% dependent on imports; only five are self-sufficient or net exporters.

The gas exporting countries have a formed an organisation called “the Gas Exporting Countries Forum”. It has expressed that it has no intention to form a cartel to exert control over European gas supplies and prices, which makes one wonder why it was formed; there are real fears that this organisation is OPEC in embryo. 

Britain has had, as I mentioned earlier, a liberalised energy market for some decades; if a major gas receiving terminal failed, or if a long term contract were dishonoured it would affect our energy supplies. The effect could be extremely severe if we have no significant storage capacity.  

In the European Union we import 40% of our natural gas, which will rise to 70% by 2020. The more the European Union liberalises energy markets the greater the need to ensure security of supply. In the long term liberalised competitive energy markets are probably inconsistent with secure energy supplies. In future the modern thing may be to renationalize energy to bring it under government control.

A Multi national company has no loyalty, whereas governments do try to look after the people who hold them to account at elections.  

A good example of just how insecure our energy supplies are arose in August 2007 when Gazprom, the Russian natural gas monopoly, warned Belarus that it would turn off the gas tap if a $456 million bill was not paid.  Poland, Lithuania, parts of Germany and the Ukraine are supplied through the pipeline that crosses Belarus, so cutting it off or reducing supplies would affect those nations. Even Italy was affected although happily the dispute seems to be resolved for the time being. 

If a state is in control of the means of energy it gives that state not only potentially huge wealth but also enormous power. This is because energy is so important. If we want to avoid being subject to nations wealthy in fossil fuel energy for the next seventy or so years we shall have to generate a significant share of our energy from benign sources. It is not only the environmentalist’s desire to save the planet, but it is also good old fashioned national self interest. At the moment we are not saving the planet and not even acting in our own self interest.<