Archive for January, 2012

Ohio earthquake probably caused by fracking wastewater.

January 4, 2012 Gas

So a seismologist studying a magnitude 4.0 event concludes.

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BP sues Halliburton for the costs of the Macondo spill.

January 3, 2012 Oil

Meanwhile, Halliburton stands firm that it was indemnified by BP. The total costs may be as much as $42bn. But the US DoJ is believed to be preparing criminal charges against BP engineers.

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UK third-bottom of the European renewable energy league.

January 2, 2012 Clean Energy

European Commission statistics published today as part of the EurObserv’ER project show the share of renewable energy in the UK’s final energy consumption was just 3.3%, slightly ahead of only Malta and Luxembourg. The report also shows the UK has the biggest gap to bridge to achieve the legally binding 2020 target of sourcing 15% of the country’s energy mix from renewables. Sweden tops the league with 46.9% of the national energy mix sourced from renewables. Across Europe renewables are 12.4% of overall gross final energy consumption, compared to 11.5% in 2009 – a 0.9 point year-on-year increase compared to 2009.

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JL blog: Energy dramas for 2012.

January 2, 2012 Clean Energy, Climate, Coal, Finance, Gas, Nuclear, Oil

2011 was a year of growing polarisation for those of us who long for renaissance fuelled by renewables. The Germans announced targets to run their railway system entirely on renewable energy, mostly wind,and solar. Yet BP announced it will quit solar entirely to pile ever further into tar sands, unconventional gas and the rest of the carbon status quo. The IEA pronounced that the cost of energy will rise “viciously” on a global basis without clean energy. Yet the British “Big Six” opted for so much gas that the installation rate of British renewables fell steeply: this despite conventional UK energy prices soaring so steeply that fully 1 in 4 of UK households fell into fuel poverty in 2011, up from 1 in 5 in 2010.
There were so many of these stark contrasts in the theatre of energy last year.
It seems that the closer renewables advocates get to their dream, the harder the defenders of the status quo push back the other way, notwithstanding the increasingly clear economic, environmental and social downsides. They surely are teeing up some dramas for 2012.
Not to mention interesting research material for neuroscientists interested in how dysfunctional human cultures work. Its not as though Big Energy, and their cosy nexus with conventional capital, just do these things and be done with it. They lobby for their short-term perceived interests – hard, and mostly below the radar – entraining many in officialdom and politics to their ruinous causes.
To the extent that solar energy in cloudy Britain might be a tiny-corner microcosm of a much bigger picture of the potential for renewable-powered renaissance, there is a particularly interesting drama unfolding as we enter 2012. In case you missed it, the British High Court ruled on 21st December that the UK government has acted illegally in proposing a retrospective reduction in the solar feed-in tariff. The arguments for and against were summarised that night on the BBC, here (headline and 7 mins 20 secs in for the detail). The government can appeal by January 4th, risking further humiliation in its efforts to cut back a solar market just a tiny fraction the size of Germany’s. Or it can switch tack, resurrect an industry that was creating thousands of jobs – at net economic benefit to the UK economy – in a time of dire need for such, while realigning with some its core strategic themes, not least a Big Society countering austerity-related unemployment with a domestic green industrial revolution. This will be a choice to watch as the dramas in the triple crunch of financial crisis, climate crisis, and energy crisis roll on in 2012.

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  • My most recent commentaries

    • The greenest-ever government after the Clean Energy Ministerial: a delusion.

      26 Apr 2012

      It is “incredibly disappointing”, Jeremy Leggett founder and chairman of Solarcentury told Channel 4 News. “Mr Cameron was elected in major part because he detoxified the Conservative brand on the promise of being the greenest government ever. He is a fine mile short of that. ….All our confidence is shot to pieces. ….It’s the same with investors, and it’s part of a bigger pattern. Meanwhile, these are global industries, and other countries are not making the same mistakes. They’re deluding themselves. You talk to people from other countries – they think it’s a joke. We’re making an exhibition of ourselves.”

    • “Ghost at the banquet” attends Clean Energy Ministerial.

      24 Apr 2012

      Business Green: Jeremy Leggett, Founder and Chairman of Solarcentury, who will be attending the event as one of three solar industry representatives, said: “Solarcentury is attending this gathering to make three key points. First, the days when policy makers could dismiss PV as ‘nice to do’ but ‘too expensive’ are over.  PV is an essential ally in the global struggle to deliver energy security and a cost-effective low and then zero carbon future.  Second, Governments must stop pandering to the fossil fuel and nuclear lobby, a stance which is driving out the very investment which is needed to drive forward PV and other renewable energy technologies. And third, Governments need to resist the temptation to keep undermining successful feed-in tariff policies.  This industry will continue to cut costs, invest in new products and jobs, but it needs predictable public policy not knee-jerk panic of the type for example that has undermined the UK scheme.”

    • Take-up of UK solar PV has more than halved since April 1st.

      18 Apr 2012

      Business Green: “Weekly government figures revealed that solar firms installed an average of 2MW each week since the start of April, marking a sharp decline from the 4.8MW average capacity installed in the same weeks last year. This month’s figures are the lowest since January 2011, aside from the week leading up to 1 January 2012, when just 0.4MW of capacity installed. They also reveal that only one business-scale installation was completed last week, the lowest level since January 2011. …Jeremy Leggett, founder and chairman of Solar Century, said many installers were reporting that trade had declined by 90% since last year. “The heat’s totally gone out of the market,” he said. “It’s not just about the feed-in tariff but the government has succeeded in confusing people and making them lose interest in solar power. They’ve done a great job in stuffing the embryonic industry.” …Leggett also urged the government to draw up a roadmap to help the industry achieve DECC’s stated goal of delivering 22GW of solar capacity by 2020. “We could help them draw up a roadmap. Surely they must at least now be minded to have a rethink of their policies,” he added. “The nuclear ship is going down in the UK and they must have realised that the next question is about where the clean energy is going to come from. Or are they going to listen to the new carbon industries who think we can “frack” our way to energy independence?””

    • Supreme Court kicks out DECC appeal on feed-in tariffs.

      23 Mar 2012

      ClickGreen: “Jeremy Leggett, Chairman, Solarcentury said: “The Supreme Court has today confirmed that the Government simply has no grounds to appeal the decision that its handling of solar Feed-in tariffs was illegal. This final step in the legal process has wasted much needed time and money and now we, the renewables industry, simply want to get on with creating our clean energy future. Renewables can only play the pivotal role necessary to deliver a new green economy if we have a stable market and investor confidence backed by lawful, predictable and carefully considered policy. I hope the Government is now clear that it will be held to account if they try to act illegally and push through unlawful policy changes. We would much prefer not to have taken this path but Ministers gave us no choice. Our hope now is that we can work together again to restore the thriving jobs-rich solar sector that has been so badly undermined by Government actions.” More in the Guardian.

    • “We are trying to grow a business in a minefield”.

      23 Mar 2012

      E2B Pulse: ““Disastrous” solar Feed-in-Tariffs, the “cavalier irresponsibility” of bankers, and a government that is “mortgaging the future” – Jeremy Leggett is a man with strong opinions. In an exclusive interview with E2B Pulse’s News Editor James Kershaw, Solarcentury’s Executive Chairman argues there’s a war raging against the UK’s renewable energy industry – one that he’s prepared to fight.”

    • PV’s “glittering future” in a near £250bn global green tech market within next decade.

      13 Mar 2012

      ClickGreen: “Jeremy Leggett, chairman of UK-based Solarcentury said: “Any industry (PV) growing volume at 69% and cutting costs 40% whilst netting nearly $100 billion you would suspect might have a glittering future. Big Energy needs to understand that this industry is coming for their market share fast, first in Germany and soon after in other countries, they should embrace solar technology and cease their pushback in defence of a ruinous and increasingly expensive status quo. The UK government is among those who need to understand that their accommodation of Big Energy’s special pleading will cause them to lose out in a job-rich global industry just as it approaches a mass market.”

    • Wrexham installs 30,000 locally made solar panels on 3,000 low-income homes.

      5 Mar 2012

      Guardian: “Jeremy Leggett, chair of Solarcentury, said the solar would not be crushed. “The government does not want anything to impinge on the prospect of centralised power from the big six electricity companies. But well before 2020 solar will be cheaper than nuclear or gas. It’s not the end of the industry but of our opportunity in Britain to grow a domestic industry that could compete with those in Germany and elsewhere. It will explode again, but it will not be British.”

    • Why so much coverage for one exploding Scottish wind turbine?

      1 Mar 2012

      My latest Sublime column, on Big Energy PR blowback against renewables. “What to do about this? Most of us do what we can to support renewables within our circles of influence, be they vocational or domestic. That might boil down just to switching supplier from EDF and otherBig Six companies to Ecotricity or Good Energy. But someone reading this might actually work in a Big Energy PR department, or in one of its hired-gun agencies. You could always leak us the plan for myth-sowing about renewables.”

    • Comment on HMG’s decision to take their illegal FiT plan to the Supreme Court.

      21 Feb 2012

      Jeremy Leggett: “We have been expecting this but we hoped that Ed Davey would see sense and not take the appeal. If we are lucky this is just a cynical exercise to limit the market to 3rd March and they will withdraw in a few weeks. If not, and they really are serious about a Supreme Court appeal, then the implications for the renewables industry are deeply worrying. Two weeks ago, Ministers reassured the industry that they wanted to see 4 million solar homes in the UK by 2020. This appeal completely undermines that claim. They need to stop rewriting the scheme, end the constant stop-start and provide long-term stability and meaningful returns for investors and customers and give certainty to the 30,000+ employees of this successful industry – one of the few that is actively creating jobs in this country. If the appeal is successful it will allow Government to change feed-in tariffs whenever it chooses, even for projects that are already installed and supposedly guaranteed the feed-in tariff. At a stroke, this would undermine investment in all UK renewables, not just PV, and show investors that the UK government simply cannot be trusted. Fortunately their arguments are weak. They are the same ones unanimously rejected by the Court of Appeal so I wouldn’t give them much chance of success. Sadly, this appeal has the whiff of farce about it. First they try to woo private capital into infrastructure; then they mismanage it; now they go to the Supreme Court to argue for sovereign default to cover their tracks. I just hope the new Secretary of State actually understands what his lawyers are doing.”

    • Climate change should mean a 100% renewables by 2030 target.

      10 Feb 2012

      Interview at the Oxford Climate Forum, in Oxford university student magazine, Cherwell: “There are people who are worried about peak oil who aren’t worried about climate change. And vice versa. I’m worried about both. With both of them, at a minimum it’s about wrecking the global economy. A lot more in the case of climate change. These are high stakes issues. And both are high risk. In fact, climate change isn’t just high risk. It’s odds on certainty.” More.

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