In March, we are now told (although it was reported here at the time), Britain came within hours of running out of gas and facing enormous power cuts. Meanwhile, almost wholly unnoticed by the British media, there were signs last week of a mighty earthquake beginning to take place in the EU’s energy policy.

For 20 years, as we know, this has been hijacked by the EU’s fixation with climate change. But at Wednesday’s meeting of the European Council, there were, at last, indications that many countries now recognise that the EU’s bid to lead the world in “de-carbonising” is leading the European economy towards meltdown. They have finally cottoned on to the fact that, in recent years, while energy prices in Europe have been doubling, those in the US, thanks to the shale gas revolution, have halved.

Thanks to the demonising of fossil fuels, the obsession with windmills and ever-rising taxes on any economic activity that emits CO₂, European countries have been alarmed to see ever more European firms being forced either to move their operations outside the EU, or to shut down altogether (as we saw here in Britain recently with the closure of our last remaining major aluminium smelter, at the cost of 500 jobs).

Astonishingly, even that great greenie David Cameron told journalists in Brussels that, with the US now deriving 30 per cent of its energy from shale, and Europeans now having “to pay twice what Americans pay for wholesale gas”, Britain and Europe must now work flat-out to exploit their own vast shale gas reserves. “Unnecessary regulation,” he insisted, “must not stand in the way.”

The environment secretary, Owen Paterson, whose brother-in-law Lord (Matt) Ridley is our leading parliamentary enthusiast for shale gas, is already clearing the regulatory decks for shale gas drilling in Britain to go ahead as soon as possible.

Mr Cameron, like other EU leaders, still paid lip service to the need to “meet our carbon targets” (shale gas being a fossil fuel). But, unmistakably, the tectonic plates are at last beginning to shift under an EU energy policy that for too long has imprisoned us on a course that could only land Europe’s economies in an even more disastrous and uncompetitive mess than they are in already.

What happened last week could prove to be a unique example in the EU’s history of it recognising that it has made such a catastrophic blunder that its policy must change.

But so boring do we consider pretty well anything the EU does that almost nobody in Britain – apart from the admirable Global Warming Policy Foundation – seems to have noticed.

The Sunday Telegraph, 26 May 2013

Antarctic sea ice extent has been at or near record highs

Can natural variability explain observed Antarctic sea ice trends? New modeling evidence from CMIP5

Lorenzo M. Polvani, Karen L. Smith

Abstract: The recent observed positive trends in total Antarctic sea ice extent are at odds with the expectation of melting sea ice in a warming world. More problematic yet, climate models indicate that sea ice should decrease around Antarctica in response to both increasing greenhouse gases and stratospheric ozone depletion. The resolution of this puzzle, we suggest, may lie in the large natural variability of the coupled atmosphere–ocean-sea-ice system. Contrasting forced and control integrations from four state-of-the-art models, we show that the observed Antarctic sea ice trend falls well within the distribution of trends arising naturally in the system, and that the forced response in the models is small compared to the natural variability. From this, we conclude that it may prove difficult to attribute the observed trends in total Antarctic sea ice to anthropogenic forcings, although some regional features might be easier to explain.

The Hockey Schtick, 25 May 2013

Electric car company Better Place is planning to file for bankruptcy within the next several days, Fortune has learned.

The move will come seven months after the ouster of charismatic founder Shai Agassi, and five months after his successor — Evan Thornley, CEO of Better Place Australia – also departed.

Agassi also was a significant investor in the company, which had raised more than $700 million from firms like HSBC, General Electric (GE), Israel Corp., Lazard Asset Management (LAZ), Morgan Stanley (MS) and VantagePoint Capital Partners.

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see also: Bill Clinton Had Some Great Advice For The Founder Of An Electric Car Company

Cuadrilla has announced plans to dig a fracking exploration well near the Balcombe aqueduct this summer.

One campaigner said protesters were likely to try and disrupt the work “by any means possible”.

Fracking involves blasting water and sand at high pressure deep underground to cause mini-explosions which release shale gas.

Moves by the same company to exploit the unconventional fuel in Lancashire were put on hold after hydraulic fracturing caused two small earthquakes in 2011.

However Cuadrilla, has assured Balcombe Parish Council that it will not be using fracking at this stage.

Instead, the company plans to drill and take samples of the underground rock in a vertical well 3,000 feet deep.

If oil or gas is discovered, it will only be allowed to flow “for a short time”, the company said.

The work is expected to take no longer than four months, with planning permission set to expire in September.

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EU leaders from 27 countries met in Brussels this week to discuss energy policy, and the chart that had everyone buzzing had three simple jagged lines. It showed EU electricity prices since 2005 had skyrocketed, while Japan’s climbed moderately, and prices in the U.S. plunged sharply.

“Stuck in the doldrums, the European economy has lost nearly all momentum, with growth hard to come by and rising energy costs a real concern,” Agence France Presse reported this week.

“We need to secure good value energy supplies … (which) involves making most use of indigenous resources, such as shale,” AFP quoted British Prime Minister David Cameron as saying. “We need to ensure that the old rules do not hold us back … regulation must not get in the way.”

Fear in Europe that Americans will outcompete and draw investment away is palpable, reported Deutsche Welle, a German-English news aggregator, citing an article in Handelsblatt.

“If we don’t get on top of the country’s energy transition to renewables and are not able to rein in energy costs in the process, German industry’s competitiveness stands to suffer,” the chief of the Federation of German Industry, Ulrich Grillo said.

“He said that while Germans are embroiled in a debate about the right energy mix, the US was getting more and more attractive as a business location for German firms, thanks not least to President Barack Obama’s support for the fracking technology resulting in much cheaper energy prices,” Deutsche Welle reported.

With fossil fuels suddenly in vogue again, and seemingly in endless supply, global warming may take a backseat in Europe to economic concerns.

“There is indeed a sort of paradigm shift,” said Friedbert Pflüger, European Centre for Energy and Resource Security, in an interview with EurActiv. “While a few years ago, climate policy was the issue which characterised (sic) EU energy policy to 90%, today other priorities have made their way to the forefront. This is because people have understood that there is no peak oil, that we have enough oil and gas for a long-term period. There have been new shale gas findings, new oil reservoirs with tight oil. Secondly, we have the economic and financial crisis, and people had suddenly other priorities than climate change — like having jobs, economic competitiveness, and affordable energy prices.”

Deseret News, 24 May 2013

A series of electricity industry reports has highlighted the inequity in existing power pricing where customers without solar panels are unfairly subsidising those with them.

Queensland Energy Minister Mark McArdle has warned that existing rooftop solar contracts will cost the state more than $2.8 billion over the next 15 years and is preparing a major submission to cabinet within a month recommending more user-pays charges. Electricity tariffs could be changed to include a higher network access charge and lower unit prices per kilowatt hour, a move that would increase the cost for rooftop solar users.

A national meeting of electricity executives in Sydney this week discussed a potential “death spiral” for the industry as high electricity prices force more people off the grid, increasing costs further for those who remained.

Mr McArdle said the number of households with rooftop solar had continued to grow despite a cutback in government subsidies and the gap between the haves and have-nots in electricity widening.

“If one group of consumers enjoys a benefit in excess of the true savings they make, other electricity customers have to pay the price of those excess benefits or lower prices,” he said.

“When those doing the paying are likely those least able to afford it, and those enjoying the benefits are those likely to be most able to afford to meet their true costs, then something is truly wrong.”

The problem was compounded because power companies were forced to buy high-priced electricity from rooftop solar when there was no demand for electricity from customers.

And baseload power generators were forced to run inefficiently to be ready for when “intermittent” solar power was not available.

Renewable industry lobby groups have rejected calls for a new fixed charge.

Clean Energy Council deputy chief executive Kane Thornton said: “It would be like telling early adopters of email that they need to chip in to pay for stamps.”

The Greens said yesterday they would spend $405 million a year on a new federal government agency to cut spending on electricity infrastructure, improve energy efficiency, and set higher prices for renewable energy produced by households which generate solar power.

Leader Christine Milne said the Greens were the only party with innovative ideas to help Australians live a fairer, cheaper and cleaner future.

The cost of the new agency would not include the higher charges paid by electricity companies from rooftop solar under the Greens scheme. An investigation by the Queensland Productivity Commission found that, by 2015-16, most Queenslanders would be paying $276 a year or 17 per cent of their annual power bill to subsidise other residents having solar power on their roofs.

Mr McArdle said this did not include the cost of upgrading the electricity network to cope with widespread power flowing back into the grid.

A report by consultancy ACIL Tasman for the Electricity Supply Association of Australia said solar customers were overcompensated when they generated electricity and used it on site because they were not making a contribution to the cost of providing network services.

There were also issues of equity and fairness, as some customers were unable to install rooftop solar systems because they were renters or lived in an apartment.

Fairness was an issue because one customer’s choice to install rooftop solar forced other customers to pay more for network service.

“The distortion could give rise to a ‘price spiral’ where the rising cost of electricity, driven by the ongoing reallocation of network costs, made solar increasingly attractive to customers,” ACIL Tasman said.

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The number of articles harshly criticising the German UBA’s heavy-handed tactics is mounting and there appears to be no let-up in sight.

Today Switzerland’s NZZ published an online commentary written by Markus Hofmann titled State-Certified Climate Science. In it he writes:

What the heck was the German Federal Office Of Environment (UBA) thinking when it decided to publish a 118-page report on the climate debate? The propaganda brochure is called: ‘And indeed the warming continues – What’s behind the climate change debate?’. It is causing a number of journalists to blow their tops with outrage.

[...] Indeed for the UBA it is obviously not about presenting facts simply and clearly. ‘And indeed the warming continues’ pamphlet is a declaration of war on so-called climate skeptics.

The UBA doesn’t stop at defaming the ‘non-climate scientist skeptics’ in general terms. No, it names the persons – putting Fritz Vahrenholt, Sebastian Lüning, Dirk Maxeiner, Michael Miersch, Günter Ederer and the ‘European Institute for Climate and Energy’ (EIKE) on a black list. That is ‘official state defamation,’ heute.de writes.

[...] Specifying what the binding state of the science is, is not the job of a governing authority,’ legal expertThorsten Koch correctly opines in ‘Die Welt’.

Now the debate is off and running: The gentlemen who were criticized by the state are now responding. Vahrenholt is defending himself in an open letter. Maxeiner and Miersch are firing back.

Thus precisely the opposite of what the UBA wanted is now happening: The ‘climate skeptics’ are now in the spotlight. The state’s shot at the skeptics has backfied.”

Yesterday Spiegel published satirical commentary authored by Jan Fleischhauer saying that basically the state has officially declared skeptics as misfits and that everyone should stop listening to them.

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The former DG, who also holds the position of vice president of the World Metrological Organisation (WMO), said climate change was taking place after war on terror rapidly.

He said that due to excessive usage of heavy weapons in war on terror, the climate of South Asian region is changing notably.

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The Obama Administration and European Union are looking for ways to avoid a trade war with China over solar-energy panels. Their brilliant proposed solution? A global cartel enforced by government.

The U.S. Commerce Department set duties on Chinese-made solar cells in October after an investigation ruled that Beijing unfairly subsidizes its panel makers. The European Commission followed this month, proposing tariffs of up to 67.9%. China, in turn, threatened last week to impose duties on American and EU exports of polysilicon, the raw material in solar cells. The EU taxes are due to take effect next month.

Ending the tariffs and subsidies on all sides would be the easiest solution, though never count on Washington and Brussels to choose market sanity over political intervention. The deal taking shape will require Chinese solar firms to sell in America and Europe at above-market prices and in restricted quantities. The hope is that by guaranteeing panel makers across all three continents a profit, the green economy can power onward.

Call it tragicomic that the only way for the U.S. and EU to achieve their green objectives is to embrace China’s model of state-managed capitalism. But the story is also a parable of how the cronyism inherent in the renewable-energy industry can clash with environmental goals.

American and European panel makers, notably the Bonn-based SolarWorld,SWV.XE -0.25% have lobbied heavily for tariffs, but the solar-energy producers and installers rightly complain that this will raise their costs. Higher panel prices will raise consumer prices for solar power, which is still uncompetitive despite huge subsidies.

Beijing wouldn’t be supporting Chinese panel makers at all without the market for solar components that renewable-energy subsidies created in the West. In subsidizing one industry, Western governments generated clamor for trade protections in another. Washington and Brussels need to layer intervention upon intervention to keep their green agendas afloat.

Full editorial

Ten different licences from four different public agencies, involving two separate public consultations, must be obtained before a single exploratory well can be drilled and hydraulically fractured, according to the IOD report “Getting shale gas working” published on Wednesday.

“We do not question the need for the industry to obtain the necessary environmental permits, conduct the necessary environmental impact assessments and install the necessary seismic monitoring equipment,” IOD concedes, but warns the current process “can seem a little cumbersome”.

“In our view, the planning and permitting regime for shale exploration, as currently constituted, presents a major barrier to the development of shale gas in the United Kingdom.”

Overall, however, the IOD presents an upbeat assessment about the industry’s ability to surmount the obstacles to developing a substantial onshore shale industry in a small, densely populated island with a famously self-contradictory approach to construction and local development.

WAR ON RED TAPE

The IOD is a business lobbying organisation that has expressed strong support for shale gas and often campaigns against what it sees as excessive government regulations, so the report’s conclusions are not entirely surprising.

The most interesting part of the report is the careful assessment of the various suggested barriers to shale development in chapter 5.

The report assesses barriers in five major areas: infrastructure and equipment; skills and the supply chain; finance and tax; regulation; and reputation.

It concludes that gas transportation and gathering pipelines, water supply and the availability of drilling and pressure pumping equipment are unlikely to pose serious obstacles to large-scale exploitation of Britain’s shale formations.

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