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The Road Away from Fossil Fuels

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President Andrzej Duda’s authoritarian government can expect a rough political ride in December, when politicians, diplomats and campaigners stream into Katowice, Poland, for the next UN summit on climate change.

Poland’s so-called climate policy – to aim for “carbon neutrality” by discounting emissions from the coal industry with carbon sucked up by its forests – will face richly-deserved criticism. How loudly that will be heard on the streets is a different matter: Poland’s parliament has banned “spontaneous” gatherings in Katowice during the summit.

Donald Trump, who last year withdrew the US from the 2015 Paris agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, will also be the target of derision, not only from demonstrators but from some politicians inside the talks. The main business at Katowice (the 24th conference of parties to the 1992 Rio climate convention, or COP24) will be to finalise a “rulebook” to monitor government promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions (“nationally determined contributions” or NDCs) made in Paris.

The Paris agreement acknowledged that global temperatures should be kept “well below” 2 degrees higher than pre-industrial levels, and that 1.5 degrees is preferable. Campaigners use every phrase in the document to challenge pro-fossil-fuel policies; to resist attempts to make the global south pay the price for warming; and to promote “just transition” that combines the move from fossil fuels with struggles for social justice.

While fighting all these battles, it’s important not to neglect the larger picture. The Paris agreement is most significant not as a beacon around which the world can gather to stop climate change, but as the outcome of a disastrous process of failure to reverse the growth of fossil fuel consumption, the main cause of warming. At Paris, the idea of binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions reductions was finally abandoned, in favour of voluntary commitments.

While diplomats laud these commitments, the reality is downplayed: even if governments implement their promises, global average temperature is projected to reach 2.7 degrees above pre-industrial levels by 2100, rather than 2 degrees or 1.5 degrees.

Historical perspective is useful. Thirty years ago, in June 1988, climate scientists collectively warned that the atmosphere was warming and that greenhouse gases were the main cause. They gathered with diplomats in Toronto, Canada, to form the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN body.

A year earlier, in 1987, international action had been coordinated, through the Montreal protocol, to curtail the production of chlorofluorocarbons that was opening a dangerous hole in the protective layer of ozone around the earth. The Toronto conference, optimistically, urged similar coordination to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2005. The resistance proved greater.

At the Rio summit in 1992, the US insisted that there would be no binding targets for reducing emissions. Its diplomats, and even some northern NGOs, focused on deforestation, a minor contributor to global warming, to avoid talking about the major issue: fossil fuel use. To deal with that, market mechanisms could and must be used, they argued. That thinking guided the 1997 Kyoto agreement, which provided for an emissions trading systems that failed miserably to stop oil, gas and coal use galloping upwards. The 2009 Copenhagen conference failed to produce a post-Kyoto deal; Paris, with its voluntary targets, followed.

While market mechanisms were prescribed for cutting fossil fuel use, governments oversaw subsidies to fossil fuel production and consumption, running to hundreds of billions of dollars per year. Global total emissions from burning fossil fuels, compared to the 1988 level, not only did not fall by 20% by 2005, as envisaged in Toronto; they grew by 35%. In 2017, they were 60% above the 1988 level.

Why has the Rio process failed so disastrously, where the Montreal protocol succeeded? Certainly, politics matters. The 1992 climate change convention was signed as neoliberalism was sweeping through the most powerful countries. While the US Republicans, and major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, resisted binding emissions targets, US Democrats and European governments prevaricated. They denounced climate science denial and acknowledged the global warming threat – but nevertheless saw the market as the lever to deal with it. In 1997, Democrats and Republicans united behind a US Senate bill to kill off the principle of binding targets; it passed by 95-0.

Future historians will surely look back at the Rio process as a historic collective failure by the world’s leading states, on the scale of the slide to war in 1914. There are no easy responses to this failure. But answers must be sought outside the confines of the Rio process. It is not our framework; let’s not normalise it.

The underlying reasons for the states’ failure are of course deeper than politics. The CFCs regulated by the Montreal protocol were a marginal technology, which used to be used in fridge manufacture. But there is nothing marginal about fossil fuels. They are consumed by many of the largest technological systems – car-based transport systems, and urban infrastructure that supports them; electricity networks; industrial systems reliant on carbon-heavy materials like steel; agricultural methods that soak up gas-based fertilisers – embedded in the social and economic systems in which we live.

While writing a book on the global history of fossil fuel use, just published, I worked to understand that technology-society nexus. The fossil-fuel based technological systems have been integral to capitalism, and to the labour process it controls; capital’s expansion has driven those systems’ expansion; a technological transition away from fossil fuels will most effectively be accomplished as part of a transition away from capitalism. These profound changes are never going to be undertaken by governments.

Public discussion about reducing consumption of fossil fuels, or fuel-intensive products, all too often focus on individual households. This is misleading for three reasons. Firstly, household fuel consumption is riven by inequality. Many households in the global north consume dozens, even hundreds, of times more than those in the global south. More than a billion people, mostly in the countryside in the global south, still don’t have access to electricity.

Secondly, even those households that live within the dominant fossil-fuel-supplied energy system, with reasonably regular electricity, winter heat, motorised transport and so on – about 60% of the world population – do not control the supply of fuels. They can not easily opt for measures that could slash their fuel consumption, such as insulating housing, or providing decent public transport to reduce car use. Individuals have still less control over their indirect fuel consumption, e.g. of coal to make steel, or oil to make plastic, in the products they buy; oil used in supply chains; or gas used to make fertiliser to produce food.

Thirdly, the way those technological systems use fuels and fuel-intensive materials is historically formed. There is nothing inevitable, or efficient, about the wasteful use of plastic packaging; about city transport systems based on heavy, fuel-intensive, usually single-passenger cars; about fertiliser-heavy industrial agriculture; or even about centralised electricity networks. These technologies are used in the way they are, thanks to the social and economic systems in which they are embedded. Capitalism doesn’t just exploit technology; it shapes it.

The transition away from fossil fuels will be a transition away from capitalism towards a society that lives in harmony with nature, fashioning from it what it needs, not what feeds profit. Politically, that has to be fought for outside the UN process.

Red Pepper



19 Comments on "The Road Away from Fossil Fuels"

  1. Davy on Wed, 29th Aug 2018 8:20 am 

    “Campaigners use every phrase in the document to challenge pro-fossil-fuel policies; to resist attempts to make the global south pay the price for warming; and to promote “just transition” that combines the move from fossil fuels with struggles for social justice.”
    Let’s be clear, and agreement that tries to do too much will fail. Difficult efforts will not be fair. Tough decisions involve triage. A degree of fairness is important for success. If failure is inevitable be honest about it adapt to failure and learn from it. Lofty idealism can acknowledged but then the dirty work starts.

    “a technological transition away from fossil fuels will most effectively be accomplished as part of a transition away from capitalism. These profound changes are never going to be undertaken by governments.”
    Technology is the problem and part of the solution. Governments are the problem and part of the solution. Individuals and small communities are the only hope of durable change that might be leveraged up partially by regions. The biggest force of change must be with attitudes and behaviors and this is the biggest obstacle. Since liberal democracy and market based capitalism is based on the fairness of price and cost benefits to the cooperative whole there can be no meaningful direction at this level. Real change must be draconian and quick like a Special Forces operation. The best that can be done is draconian and quick lower down with the individual and small communities. This type of change will be water down by the higher up forces brittle to change. There is no escaping global trends. There is no decoupling and no going it alone. Real change will have to be within a general gradient of decline.

    “Public discussion about reducing consumption of fossil fuels, or fuel-intensive products, all too often focus on individual households. This is misleading for three reasons. Firstly, household fuel consumption is riven by inequality. Many households in the global north consume dozens, even hundreds, of times more than those in the global south. More than a billion people, mostly in the countryside in the global south, still don’t have access to electricity.”
    Fairness can be acknowledge. We can have a revolution because of it or not. Fairness does not mean success and rarely do revolutions succeed as intended. In some ways success means triage. Success means walking away from some groups or nations. Success means focusing on yourself and those around you. It is only those who can realize some success at some level that can help and save others. The definition of success is important too. Success that is less failure may be the best we can attain. You can acknowledge the rights of people in theory but don’t think for a minute that leads to success. Painful horrible decisions are needed by people with emotions of steel that once the bad decisions are made can cry internally in humility. Such decisions without humanity leave us little more than animals. Yet, in some case we will have to emulate nature and this is what nature does.

  2. Davy on Wed, 29th Aug 2018 8:21 am 

    “They can not easily opt for measures that could slash their fuel consumption, such as insulating housing, or providing decent public transport to reduce car use. Individuals have still less control over their indirect fuel consumption, e.g. of coal to make steel, or oil to make plastic, in the products they buy; oil used in supply chains; or gas used to make fertiliser to produce food.”
    It is unclear how far we can go with change. Change is both constructive and destructive. Our economies and civilizational fabric cannot be torn to shreds and still expect constructive change. We need draconian and quick change but how much can we endure? The cure might kill us. How much of this change can we afford? Yet, let’s at least enlist the publics attitudes of the correct path forward in a perfect world. Should we not alter our societal narrative which in reality is human myth that is as old as our intelligence? The narrative now is of ever improving affluent growth. This is clearly in conflict with reality so says science. We have to establish good behavior from bad and go from there. We are not even there yet. Wisdom is the key but there is hardly any wisdom around. Corruption has entered all walks of life.

    “The transition away from fossil fuels will be a transition away from capitalism towards a society that lives in harmony with nature, fashioning from it what it needs, not what feeds profit. Politically, that has to be fought for outside the UN process.”
    Let’s be clear there is no harmony with nature as we are configured or may configure. Fashioning what is needed involves feeding profits. There is no other system at the size we are at that can do this. It is the nature of the beast. Learn to live with it of die trying to kill it. We can try to live in harmony with nature and the global system at the individual and local level. This involves tradeoffs and going through doors that close. At the top it is by embracing the comparative advantages of globalism that nations and industries survive. Can that be adapted, sure. How far can that be changed, not enough to achieve harmony with nature. Can we acknowledge harmony of nature as the theoretical way forward, definitely. This means accepting our defeat. Understanding why we are defeated and making the best of this defeat in lifeboats. With lifeboats must come the realization that tough decisions will need hospices? The humanity of our identity must help others who are going to be sacrificed. Survival means some will not survive. If we try to maintain optimism that no one will suffer we all will suffer.

  3. Robert Inget on Wed, 29th Aug 2018 9:34 am 

    US Consumption Lower
    Electrification a real factor.

    Minutes ago:

    Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 21.2 million barrels per
    day, down by 0.2% from the same period last year. Over the past four weeks, motor
    gasoline product supplied averaged 9.6 million barrels per day, down by 1.5% from the
    same period last year. Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 4.1 million barrels per
    day over the past four weeks, down by 1.5% from the same period last year. Jet fuel
    product supplied was up 5.2% compared with the same four-week period last year

    Note, jet fuel the only advancing consumption.

  4. Sissyfuss on Wed, 29th Aug 2018 11:14 am 

    Advanced Civilization will not change in any coherent manner. We will hang on to our toys even as they have begun to threaten our existence. Change will be forced upon us, albeit too late to make a difference to Gaia. She has wiped the slate clean 5 times before and has no compunction against doing it again. We are not that special.

  5. dave thompson on Thu, 30th Aug 2018 7:19 pm 

    The road away from FF? The road is paved with tar and asphalt. The road is made of concrete and steel. The road is built from using heavy gasoline and diesel powered vehicles. There ain’t no such road away from FF

  6. makati1 on Thu, 30th Aug 2018 7:50 pm 

    Bingo! Dave. Few here want to even consider the reality of the situation. FFs are needed just to keep things going as is. All ‘alternates’ require oil. All of them, but you know this.

    There is a barrel of oil in every square yard of highway whether it is asphalt or concrete. All highways need constant repairs requiring oil. The alternate is mud, which is not very good for electrics or hybrids. Giddy up Dobbin! Yahoo! lol

  7. makati1 on Fri, 31st Aug 2018 7:44 pm 

    For Cloggie and all the other “renewables” dreamers…

    https://www.theburningplatform.com/2018/08/31/wind-idiot-power/#more-182479

    Wind: Idiot Power.

  8. Anonymouse1 on Fri, 31st Aug 2018 8:03 pm 

    Why do you keep cutting and pasting others words and works without attribution excpetionalturd?

    Your sock-puppeting is pathetic enough. But, you seem to convinced, that plagiarizing is okey-dokey too. I suppose for uneducated recluse like you, living in a swamp, you figure no one will be able to tell?

    You know, its too bad we have someone to monitor and regulate the behavior of plagiarizers and sock puppets. Something like, oh, I dont know, a moderater? Is that the right word? Someone that can record, or ‘document’ rogue posters conduct. This ‘moderator’ could even, ‘deport’ unruly and dishonest individuals who cant behave themselves to even minimum standards.

    I think that would a grand idea.

  9. Antius on Fri, 31st Aug 2018 9:18 pm 

    “Wind: Idiot Power.”

    According to your link, a 2MW turbine requires 170 tonnes of coking coal for its manufacture. One tonne of coking coal is about 30GJ of energy. So 170 tonnes is 5100GJ.

    A 2MW turbine with a capacity factor of 30% will generate some 51.84GJ per day. So, energy payback time for coal alone is about 100 days. Let us assume that with all other inputs, the total energy investment is double the energy in the coal. Total payback time is then 200 days. It is difficult to estimate how much energy is expended on maintenance and decommissioning. But it is unlikely to be more than a small fraction of the amount invested in build. Of course, any maintenance that does take place would imply some unplanned down time. So lets conservatively put total payback time at 8 months.

    Most marine steel structures have lifetime of around 20 years. This is limited by fatigue and corrosion. So an energy payback time of 8 months, implies an EROI of about 30.

    Agreed, this is not as good as some other energy investments when compounded with having to deal with intermittency problems. But it is still a solid net energy return.

  10. Cloggie on Sat, 1st Sep 2018 12:40 am 

    “Wind: idiot power”

    Thomas Homer-Dixon was intentionally misquoted.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Homer-Dixon

    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wind-idiot-power/

    Here the full 2009 quote:

    The concept of net energy must be applied to renewable sources of energy, such as windmills and photovoltaics. A two-megawatt windmill contains 260 tonnes of steel requiring 170 tonnes of coking coal and 300 tonnes of iron ore, all mined, transported and produced by hydrocarbons. The question is: how long must a windmill generate energy before it creates more energy than it took to build it? At a good wind site, the energy payback day could be in three years or less; in a poor location, energy payback may be never. That is, a windmill could spin until it falls apart and never generate as much energy as was invested in building it.

    TheBurningPlatform belongs in the dust bin, sensationalism a la millimind. You should know better, makati.

    According to new Siemens data, offshore wind has an eroi of 50 or higher:

    https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/12/16/siemens-reports-eroi-onshore-wind-of-50-or-larger/

    Furthermore you can turn an old steel wind tower into a new one for a fraction of the energy cost in an electric arc furnace, powered by wind energy, as it takes to create a tower from iron ore:

    https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/09/05/eroi-of-offshore-wind-power-continued/

    https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/07/26/eroi-of-offshore-wind/

    But makati will pickup any tidbit that confirms him in his unshaken nihilistic belief that the world and humanity are doomed.

    /BigShrugg

  11. Cloggie on Sat, 1st Sep 2018 12:52 am 

    In 2018 a capacity factor of 30% is too pessimistic, at least for offshore wind. New data just in:

    http://energynumbers.info/capacity-factors-at-danish-offshore-wind-farms

    “Danish windfarms also include the most productive wind turbines in the world, at Rønland I: the turbines have been operating for over 14 years now, with a lifetime capacity factor of 44.5%; ”

    The new 12 MW giants are expected to operate at ca. 60%.

  12. Cloggie on Sat, 1st Sep 2018 12:58 am 

    https://www.ge.com/renewableenergy/wind-energy/turbines/haliade-x-offshore-turbine

    “The Haliade-X 12 MW also features a 63% capacity factor*—five to seven points above industry standard. Each incremental point in capacity factor represents around $7 million in revenue for our customers over the life of a windfarm.”

  13. Cloggie on Sat, 1st Sep 2018 2:39 am 

    Just to get the record straight on the very important topic of capacity factor…

    https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2018/09/01/offshore-wind-capacity-factors/

    And the winner is….

    Dudgeon/UK ==> *** 65.3% *** !!! (over the last 12 months)

    Dudgeon: 67 Siemens 6 MW turbines, 32 km offshore Norfolk, operational since October 2017, owners Statoil, Masdar, Statkraft, water depth 18-25 m, rotor axis 110 m, rotor diameter 154 m, nameplate capacity factor 48%.

    Probably 2017-2018 was a vintage wind year, but hey, I never suggested that climate change came without advantages.

  14. makati1 on Sat, 1st Sep 2018 4:44 am 

    Hahaha. The renewable crowd tries to kill the message and the messenger. Renewables CANNOT exist without FFs. Idiots all.

  15. Cloggie on Sat, 1st Sep 2018 5:04 am 

    “Renewables CANNOT exist without FFs. Idiots all.”

    Name-calling is not an argument, makati.

    A world-wide empire was built on energy producers like this:

    https://youtu.be/Q6FxG3ll-lw

    Not a molucule of fossil fuel was necessary to accomplis that.

    Won’t be different with renewable energy. The combined intellectual energy of 500 million Europeans, the #1 carriers of scientific civilization on this planet, can’t be wrong. A kWk is a kWh.

    For Americans like you, who piggy-backed on oil and gas towards planetary prominence, it is difficult to imagine a future without fossil fuel. Your problem.

    Sorry, nice try.

  16. Antius on Sat, 1st Sep 2018 6:47 am 

    Long distance container ships and cruise ships can be efficiently powered using stored compressed air or stored heat. Ships need ballast mass for stability. So the mass of a pressure vessel or thermal energy store can fulfil that function.

    Compressed air can be produced using any mechanical power source. No fossil fuel is needed. It can be stored in tanks and hydraulic accumulators.

  17. Davy on Sat, 1st Sep 2018 7:33 am 

    Antius, if this air compression potential for energy storage and propellent is so theoretically promising why has there not been more activity both experimental and commercial? Hydrogen is a vector we are seeing a lot of activity with. Hydrogen is an example of a similar technology scenario of a vector and not a source.

  18. rockman on Sat, 1st Sep 2018 9:40 am 

    Cloggie – No one has yet devised a “road away from FF”. But some limited and useful alternatives have been developed and continue to expand. But until a widely accepted alternative for motor transportation is developed all we see are seeing are limited side paths…no road away from significant FF consumption.

  19. Cloggie on Sat, 1st Sep 2018 10:19 am 

    No one has yet devised a “road away from FF”.

    That is not correct. The EU has committed itself to getting rid of 90%+ fossil fuels by 2050 as compared to 1990 and are systematically working towards that goal:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_the_European_Union

    The EU is the only political entity to do so.

    China is also committed to renewable energy, but they also want to grow fast and catch up with the West and as such have less maneuvering space in energy matters than Europe, that only needs to replace existing capacity and does so with 90% new capacity renewable every year.

    Europe is extremely lucky to have 600,000 km2 offshore shallow water with excellent larger than 10 m/s average wind speed (North Sea, Irish Sea, Baltic).

    https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/gold-mine-north-sea/

    https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/09/06/european-wind-energy-potential/

    https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/06/12/report-upbeat-assessment-european-offshore-wind/

    Additionally there is in Europe broad popular support for these policies, more than anywhere else in the world.

    What also helps is that Europe has no conventional fossil fuel reserves worth mentioning, other than Norway, so implementing renewable energy can be seen as reducing dependencies on far away lands, always tricky in times of war.

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