This post is for the benefit of constituents of North East Somerset, England, and is on the known views on environment climate change and shale gas of Hon Jacob Rees-Mogg MP. Further, it tries to make sense of the volumes of gas reserves that he has told constituents exist in the UK.
Our
Member of Parliament the Hon Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg is famous for his
informative and often amusing historical references and, on occasion,
for using extraordinarily long words in his Parliamentary appearances.
He often speaks in Parliamentary debates and has an excellent voting
record. He has a broad range of interests especially focusing on
economic and fiscal issues, the European Union and of course history. He
can also be a bit of a rebel.
As
our MP he represents us in Parliament on the full spectrum of
government business, no easy task, but we don’t necessarily know what he
thinks on a specific issue unless it is brought to our attention in the
local or the national media or through a circular from his office. Mr
R-M has recently published articles in the local press, including the
Chew Valley Gazette, concerning energy policy. These days energy policy
cannot be discussed without also considering the environment. So, now
that the topic has come up what are Mr Rees-Mogg’s views on energy and
environment, including global climate change?
The
public media debate on the causes of global warming had almost run its
course until Lord Lawson of Blaby set up the Global Warming Policy
Foundation (GWPF) in November 2009 and started a media campaign to
counter the global warming consensus. There is nothing wrong with having
contrary views to a consensus or having an open debate and we should
embrace scientific skepticism to enable us to come to a better
understanding of the world. However, many of the claims made by the GWPF
have been shown to be demonstrably wrong and they do not submit them to
scientific peer-review. A familiar tactic of the GWPF is to harvest
contrary climate sceptic news reports from US based websites, cherry
pick information which suits their argument and then present them on
their web site as if they were facts. In November 2011 the former Energy
Secretary Chris Huhne wrote a withering criticism of a GWPF paper on
climate change and stated that “... the scientific case for action is
robust. We would be failing in our duties to pretend otherwise and we
must with other countries around the world take the actions necessary to
protect our planet from significant climate change for today’s and
future generations” (http://tinyurl.com/c-huhne-gwpf-letter).
Imperial College in written evidence to Department of Energy and
Climate Change (DECC) recently described the GWPF evidence on the
economics of Wind Farms as “nonsense” and gave a detailed analysis of
why they are nonsense (http://tinyurl.com/ic-cep-economics-of-wind).
David Attenborough, who has been accused of alarmist speculation by
Lord Lawson for saying that Arctic summer ice had declined, said
recently that “most people would recognise that Lawson is up a gumtree” (http://tinyurl.com/da-gumtree).
Mr
Rees-Mogg has raised my concerns about the GWPF and its possible
influence on MPs and government policy with the DECC. The Minister of
State, the Rt Hon Gregory Barker (Conservative), has kindly replied and
reassured me that government policy related to climate change is
informed by science. But what does Mr Rees-Mogg think?
The
Timsbury Environment Group (TEG) held a meeting with Mr Rees-Mogg in
September to discover his views on recent developments in climate
change. The TEG made it clear that their report would be made available
to the wider community and it can be found at http://tinyurl.com/reg-jrm-meeting
. Amongst other things the report states that Mr Rees-Mogg “finds
attractive” the opinions of the GWPF and that he favours the development
of shale gas and is prepared to see the 2008 Climate Change Act changed
to allow increased carbon emissions. In conclusion the “TEG found
alarming the opinions on climate change of our MP Jacob Rees-Mogg”.
What
else do we know about our MP's views on environment, climate change and
energy? In May this year Mr RM gave a lecture at the the Centre for
Policy Studies entitled Is Disraeli Right: ‘A sound conservative government... Tory men and Whig measures’?
in which he lays out a vision of “full-blooded Toryism” including a
business-based growth strategy. Who would disagree with a business-based
growth strategy, but on what basis? Mr R-M says in his lecture:
“Environmental
and recycling targets need to be looked at to see if they serve any
useful economic purpose or are merely part of green orthodoxy. This
leads on to cheap energy which will be essential if we are to compete
globally. Hydraulic fracturing may be part of the solution but carbon
emission targets will not be. Even if the greens are right Britain will
make very little difference on her own and I would rather my
constituents were warm and prosperous rather than cold and impoverished
as we are overtaken by emerging markets who understandably put people
before polar bears.”
He also says to his audience that the “battle of ideas has to be won”. That sounds like a challenge.
Our
economy and wellbeing cannot be divorced from our environment which
provides us with resources and ecosystem services. Even the financial
services of the City rely on it, otherwise where would the traders be
without food to eat and fresh water to drink? Environmental regulations
and the protection of habitats are not there for direct economic purpose
nor, so called, green orthodoxy, they are there to protect the
environment and the ecosystems on which we are entirely reliant. In a
lecture to the Royal Society in 1988 Margaret Thatcher (a scientist)
said of environmental protection:
“Even
though this kind of action may cost a lot, I believe it to be money
well and necessarily spent because the health of the economy and the
health of our environment are totally dependent upon each other. Stable
prosperity can be achieved throughout the world provided the environment
is nurtured and safeguarded”.
Tal, A, 2006
Despite
being an island we do not live in isolation and we share finite global
resources. Our inter-connectivity and the need for environmental
controls to protect our natural wealth are starkly highlighted by the
recent discovery of Ash dieback (chalara fraxinea),
in English forests and there is a serious risk that our Ash tree
population will be decimated. What are the economic costs of not
adequately protecting our forests against the loss of 80 million Ash
trees? The costs are not just economic but also social, environmental
and ecological.
Mr
Rees-Mogg has recently told us of the potential benefits of hydraulic
fracturing. Unfortunately he used the same tactics as the GWPF by
quoting an unattributable Reuters report, cherry picking the information
that suited his argument and then inflated the figures by an order of
magnitude.
He tells us (http://tinyurl.com/rm-frack-somerset-g) that the Reuters report said “the UK has 60 years of onshore reserves and 300 years offshore”.
What
Reuters actually says is that UK onshore resources are 200 tcf and
offshore resources are 1,000 tcf, but adds that only 10-20% of the gas
may be recoverable. Reuters actually used the term 'reserve' whereas
they should have used the term 'resource'. The resource is the total
amount of gas in the ground, whereas the reserve is the amount of gas
which could be recovered - i.e. the 10-20%.
Mr
Rees-Mogg ignores the fact that only a portion of the gas resource can
be recovered and assumes useable reserves of 200 tcf and 1,000 tcf
respectively. Using a national consumption factor of 3.5 tcf per annum
Mr Rees-Mogg then extrapolates:
200 tcf / 3.5 tcf = 57 year onshore supply
1,000 tcf / 3.5 tcf = 286 year offshore supply
Mr
Rees-Mogg rounds these figures up to a 60 years onshore supply and a
300 year offshore supply of gas. A veritable Bonanza of shale gas!
Instead
of taking the whole resource and dividing by 3.5 Mr Rees-Mogg should
have taken just 10-20% of gas which might actually be recovered.
Lower 10% estimate:
20 tcf / 3.5 tcf = 5.7 year onshore supply
100 tcf / 3.5 tcf = 28.6 year offshore supply
Upper 20% estimate:
40 tcf / 3.5 tcf = 11.4 year onshore supply
200 tcf / 3.5 tcf = 57 year offshore supply
So that makes for a national supply of between 34.3 years and 68.4 years.
HOWEVER,
where to the 200 tcf and 1,000 tcf figures come from? Reuters do not
say where the figure of 200 came from, but it could be either the US
Energy Information Administration (EIA) or from Caudrilla Resources
which both use a figure of 200 tcf. The EIA estimate is from a general
global assessment and the Caudrialla estimate is based on fracking tests
in Lancashire (not yet verified). The 1,000 tcf seems to derive from an
off the cuff answer to a question to BGS during evidence to the Energy
and Climate Change Select Committee in February 2011. When asked how
much bigger the offshore resource is compared to the onshore resource
the BGS representative said “say five to ten, something like that”. BUT
in this guestimate he was referring to five to ten times the BGS
resource figure of 5.3 tcf, not the Caudrilla estimate which was not
published until September 2011 or the EIA estimate.
So,
if we take the British Geological Survey’s estimate of onshore
recoverable shale gas, which is 5.3 tcf then we get the estimate:
5.3 tcf / 3.5 tcf = 1.5 year onshore supply
26.5 tcf / 3.5 tcf = 7.6 year offshore supply @ 10% recovery
53 tcf / 3.5 tcf = 15 year offshore supply @ 20% recovery
Then we get a combined onshore and offshore estimate of between 9.1 years and 16.5 years supply - not 300 years !
Estimates of Shale Gas Resources and Reserves in trillions of cubic feet (tcf)
|
J.R-M
|
Reuters
|
US EIA
|
British Geological Survey
|
Caudrilla Resources
|
| Onshore resource |
|
200
|
200
|
-
|
200
|
| Onshore reserve |
200
|
20 - 40
|
20
|
5.3
|
20 - 40
|
| Offshore resource |
|
1000
|
-
|
26.5 - 53
|
-
|
| Offshore reserve |
1,000
|
100 - 200
|
-
|
|
-
|
| Onshore + offshore |
1,200
|
120 - 240
|
|
31.8 - 58.3
|
|
| Supply in years |
342
|
34 - 69
|
|
9 - 16
|
|
Reserves are given assuming a 10% gas recovery rate.
There is certainly much uncertainty about shale gas resources in the UK,
and better estimates will emerge, but the estimate of a 360 year
national supply has been cooked up by someone and promulgated by the
Global Warming Policy Foundation and now Mr Rees-Mogg.
In
recent written evidence to the Department of Energy and Climate Change
the right leaning think tank the Policy Exchange (“David Cameron’s
favourite think tank”) states “commentators who argue with great
certainty that shale gas is the answer to future energy needs fail to
recognise uncertainty about the future and neglect the importance of
developing zero carbon technologies to meet long term emissions
reduction goals”, but in his lecture JRM has said that carbon emission
targets are not part of the solution.
In
evidence to the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee DECC states
that, “It is difficult to see how offshore shale gas might become a real
prospect within the next few decades” adding “At the present time
there is no known offshore exploration activity for unconventional gas
anywhere in the world”. The Reuters report to which Mr Rees-Mogg refers
states that, “for the offshore industry to become viable, you'd need
vastly higher energy costs”.
The
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change has estimated that the investment
necessary to exploit shale gas would be between £19 billion and £32
billion over the next twenty years and would probably impact on
investments in renewable energy. They also estimate that this investment
would return less energy pound for pound than renewables and would
compromise the UK’s commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions
Rather
than using a confused Reuters report and then making even more confused
and outlandish claims, Mr Rees-Mogg should have gone to information
provided to him by the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology
and the Standard Note on Shale gas and fracking (SN/SC/6073) (http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06073) published
in July this year and which gives a balanced overview, or to the
estimates of the Department for Energy and Climate Change or the British
Geological Survey. Why did he go to the Reuters report rather than
official British estimates? Why is he so confident in his conviction
when he not seem to understand the basic principles? Why are his
fracking articles not on his web site? Who is advising him so badly?
Has
Mr Rees-Mogg joined Lord Lawson up the climate change gum tree? I
believe that Mr Rees-Mogg is going to have to work a lot harder to win
the battle of ideas. The least that we should expect is that this debate
is based on credible information from transparent sources and within a
scientific framework. In that context we can all express our diverse
opinions and come to an informed position. This is actually what the
Department of Energy and Climate Change is doing but unfortunately our
MP has chosen to take another path.
I am a constituent who wants to be both “warm and prosperous” and have
a sustainable global economy based on a sustainable global environment -
including habitats for polar bears. Why would we strive for
less?
All
of my information sources are given below so that the reader can see
where I have selected information to support my argument and so that you
can make up your own mind on whether Mr Rees-Mogg's views on shale gas resources are credible.
The Rees-Mogg Reuters Report
http://tinyurl.com/rm-frack-source
Rees-Mogg article in Somerset Guardian, Benefits fracking could bring are surely worth investigating
http://tinyurl.com/rm-frack-somerset-g
Rees-Mogg article in MNRJournal Fracking good for the economy – less fuel poverty
http://tinyurl.com/rm-frack-mnrj
Rees-Mogg article in Chew Valley Gazette
http://www.chewvalleygazette.co.uk, page 20 of the October 2012 edition. Click on the current digital and then use the archive tab.
Tim Richards letter to Chew Valley Gazette
www.chewvalleygazette.co.uk/news.cfm?id=37599&searchword=shale
Jacob Rees-Mogg Lecture to the Centre for Policy Studies
http://tinyurl.com/jrm-lecture
Parliamentary Note on Shale Gas and Fracking
http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06073
Minister of State Chris Huhne’s letter to the GWPF
http://tinyurl.com/c-huhne-gwpf-letter
ECCC Written Evidence
http://tinyurl.com/eccc-shale-gas-2012-13
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change
http://tinyurl.com/tyndall-shalegas
Imperial College evidence on the economics of wind power
http://tinyurl.com/ic-cep-economics-of-wind
David Attenborough: force of nature
http://tinyurl.com/da-gumtree
Tal A., Ed, 2006, Speaking of Earth - Environmental speeches that moved the world, Rutgers University Press
