Drilling

French President Nicolas Sarkozy may appoint renowned geophysicist Dr. Claude Allegre – France’s most outspoken global warming skeptic — as the new super-ministry of industry and innovation.

According to a story filed by Climate Depot, Sarkozy appears ready to appoint the scientist who mocked former US vice president Al Gore’s Nobel Prize as a “political gimmick” to the high ranking scientific post.

The report states that Allegre’s appointment would send “political earthquakes” through Europe and the rest of the world.

The Financial Times reported that the possible appointment has “drawn strong protests” from environmentalists including Nicolas Hulot, France’s best-known environmental activist who said, “Putting him in charge of scientific research would be tantamount to ‘giving the finger to scientists,’” The Financial Times reported.

Allegre has not always been anti-global warming. He was among the first scientists to sound global warming fears 20 years ago. Only in recent years has Allegre reversed his views to become one of the most vocal dissenters of “man-made” global warming. As a member of both the French and US Academies of Science, Allegre has authored more than 100 scientific articles, written 11 books, and received numerous scientific awards including the Goldschmidt Medal from the Geochemical Society of the United States.

Allegre now asserts that the cause of climate change is unknown. He has labeled Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” as “nonsense,” saying on Oct. 14, 2007, “The amount of nonsense in Al Gore’s film! It’s all politics; it’s designed to intervene in American politics. It’s scandalous.” Allegre has not taken criticism lying down, accusing his environmental critics of spreading “lies and distortions” about his record and beliefs.
“As a scientist and citizen, I, unlike others, do not want environmentalism to accentuate the crisis or make the least well-off suffer more,” Allegre said in a recent Financial Times article.

Although Allegre was one of 1,500 scientists who signed the 1992 letter titled “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity” warning that global warming’s “potential risks are very great,” he now believes the global warming hysteria is motivated by money. “The ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!” he explained.

In October 2007, US Senator James Inhofe from Oklahoma highlighted Allegre’s recent conversion to a dissenter of global warming. “I find it ironic that a free market conservative capitalist in the US Senate and a French Socialist scientist both apparently agree that sound science is not what is driving this debate, but greed by those who would use this issue to line their own pockets,” Inhofe said.

In 2009, rhetoric has swelled around the topics of environmental stewardship, global warming, and greening the economy. With Allegre’s possible appointment in the wings, the global discourse on climate change may finally see a balance due to rational opposition.

A new descriptive enters the lexicon of words used to describe the energy business. Who cares how we got to the modern age? All we know is that we don’t want to stay.

According to PowerShift ’09, a non-profit youth organization supporting drastic climate legislation, “Students and youth across the country will be following closely as the House Energy and Commerce Committee holds the first hearings on the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act this week.”

The press release quotes Jessy Tolkan, Executive Director of the Energy Action Coalition, as saying, “Young people understand the US response to climate change will determine our future.” If climate were an isolated entity, this would be true.

The fact is no amount of US legislation will affect the overall rate of carbon emissions. Growing economies, like those of China and India, will continue to use what many environmental groups are now referring to as “dirty” energy. While this primarily refers to coal, oil and natural gas (including CBM) are inferred. The juxtaposition of “clean” versus “dirty” is a semantic form of brainwashing. More importantly, do young people really understand what kind of effect an irrational response to climate change will have on our future?

The plethora of activists and environmental groups would have us believe that most oil and gas executives’ cheer every time a baby seal is clubbed or a village is plowed over by bright yellow dozers making way for the next crime scene where Mother Earth is raped against her will. This simply isn’t true, but you know this.

The recent political push to mandate the move away from fossil fuels is the irrational result of mass hysteria. Making believe that life as we know it will completely disappear within one or two decades if we don’t “alter our self-destructive course” is not a viable solution. What it breeds is misinformation and the progressive delusion that the world will be great if “they just do what we say.”

Renewable energy is a viable concept, but it can’t take place overnight. In the US, we have optimized our use of resources within the last 150 to garnish the highest levels of energy from the various elements we extract. Newer economies want a chance to do the same. To legislate limitations on what can be produced is to tether one of last bastions of heavy industry we have. While this appeases our sense of well being in the short-term, it will put us behind the technology leaders of tomorrow.

For a “greener” future to have optimum benefit, it will need to be conducted through a long process of transition. Renewable energy is not juxtaposed from that produced with fossil fuels. The oil companies of today will be the energy companies of tomorrow, adopting those technologies that become more profitable as markets change with time – not with legislation. Besides, doesn’t StatoilHydro own wind farms?

A new study published by the University Of Illinois College Of Law sheds light on the myths and the reality surrounding the recent proposal by many policy makers, activists, and politicians to “green the economy” and provide struggling countries – particularly the US – with “millions of green jobs.”

“Green Jobs Myths” is jointly written by Andrew P. Morriss, University of Illinois; William T. Bogart, York College of Pennsylvania; Andrew Dorchak, Case Western Reserve University; and Roger E. Meiners, University of Texas – Arlington. Its abstract points out that “a rapidly growing literature promises that a massive program of government mandates, subsidies, and forced technological interventions will reward the nation with an economy brimming with ‘green jobs.’ Not only will these jobs improve the environment, but they will be high-paying, interesting, and provide collective rights.”

The authors go on to say that this literature is constructed on mythologies about economics, forecasting, and technology.

The study focuses its analysis on the recent efforts to provide a full description of green jobs by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report, the U.S. Conference of Mayors (Mayors) report, the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) report and the Center for American Progress (CAP) report. “All these reports attempt comprehensive analyses, providing greater detail than the anecdotal claims elsewhere,” according to the new study.

The authors of Green Jobs Myths determine three key factors from the literature. First, the authors examine the problems with each report’s attempt to define when a job qualifies as “green” and to calculate how many supposed green jobs exist. Second, the study examines how the green jobs literature treats key economic concepts and finds that it makes fundamental economic errors in its analysis. Third, the study examines specific areas of technology where the authors believe the green jobs literature makes errors that typify it as a whole. The authors conclude by suggesting, “Deep skepticism is the most appropriate response to the hyperbolic claims of the green jobs literature.”

According to the authors, the most comprehensive piece of green jobs literature is the UNEP report. In its summary, the study shows the scope of the transformation that would be required of the American economy, the world economy, and society to implement green jobs proposals. The suggestions put forth by the UNEP report are fundamentally geared toward a complete restructuring of modern society and the world economy. Green jobs are described as a means of achieving its programmatic goals. However, unlike most green jobs reports, UNEP states that existing jobs will be destroyed as disfavored methods of production are forced to cease and replaced by new, preferred methods of production.

While many of the domestic reports viewed in this study propose that green jobs programs are a “win-win,” the UNEP report does not pretend that this policy implementation is a simple matter nor does it sugarcoat the massive structural changes that would be needed. In addition, the UNEP report does not pretend to know exactly how many jobs will be created decades from now, or that the costs can be known. The authors point out in their analysis that the UNEP report makes clear the broad scope of the social change it proposes, which is a change to virtually every aspect of daily life: from where people live, where their food comes from, how they commute to work, and even to what they do at work. If implemented, all of these would be dramatically altered from their current existence.

Overall, the authors observe that the green jobs literature focuses on phasing out virtually all of the country’s current energy sources, roughly 93%. Currently, only about 7% of our energy comes from what are called “renewable” sources. Green jobs promoters assert that 93% of our energy should be eliminated – energy used for heating and cooling homes, schools, and offices; powering cars and transport vehicles; and providing power for industry and agriculture, creating every good most people enjoy.

Former Vice President Al Gore has stated that our current sources of electricity (40% of all energy in the US) should be eliminated within a decade. However, the authors point out the 10% of electricity in the US comes from renewable sources. With wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass representing about 3% of the nation’s electricity generation capacity, even with rising capacity these technologies will continue to represent a mere fraction within 10 years.

Some of the myths surrounding green jobs proposals defined by the authors of the new study include the notion that everyone understands what a “green job” is. The reality: no standard definition of “green job” exists. Advocates report that creating green jobs will boost productive employment; however, the reality is that many green job estimates include huge numbers of clerical, bureaucratic, and administrative positions that do not produce goods and services for consumption.

The authors report that many proponents of green jobs feel that current forecasts are reliable. According to this study, much of the green jobs literature has based estimates on poor economic models using dubious assumptions. In addition, it is believed that green jobs promote employment growth. The fact is that by promoting more jobs instead of more productivity, the green jobs described in the literature will be low-paying and in less than desirable working conditions. The United Nations and Congress cannot simply mandate economic growth. The study also says that government interference such as restricting successful technologies in favor of speculative technologies favored by special interests will inevitably generate stagnation.

Perhaps the most astounding myth put forth by the green jobs mentality is that government mandates are a substitute for free markets. The truth is that companies react more swiftly and efficiently to the demands of their customers and markets than to cumbersome government mandates.

The “Green Jobs Myths” paper concludes that literature supporting green jobs claims is rife with internal contradictions, vague terminology, dubious science, and ignorance of basic economic principles. “Indeed, the green jobs literature claims resemble the promises of long-term financial prosperity offered by Ponzi schemes. New taxes, increased public borrowing , and government subsidies will be needed to support green jobs programs. We find no evidence that these ‘investments’ in green jobs can support the promised results,” the authors add.

The real purpose of the green jobs initiative is not to create jobs, but to remake society. This analysis purports that sweeping changes advocated in these reports under the premise of “greening our economy” are intended to shift the American and world economies away from decentralized decision making. The authors state that its real intent is to move in favor of centralized planning. Instead of allowing individuals to voluntarily trade in free markets, green jobs advocates would instead discourage trade and give central planners and politicians the reigns to choose which technologies could move forward as well as determine the choices faced by consumers and workers. Cloaking these policy shifts within the topic of green jobs, advocates of drastic economic policy shifts hope to avoid heated debates over the massive and costly changes they want to impose.

In an interview, Andrew R. Morriss, lead author for “Green Jobs Myths,” stated the dangers of diametrically opposing so-called “green jobs” against what many proponents classify as “less desirable forms of production” – jobs in the oil and gas industry.

Morriss said, “I think it is wrong to position green jobs as opposed to a fossil-fuel based economy. Jobs in refining - making it more efficient - are just as green as jobs in solar power.” Morriss and his coauthors emphasize, “The US economy has been steadily getting greener through market forces for at least 100 years, as cost pressures drive firms to innovate to be more efficient to cut costs.

“The current debate is an obfuscation of the real issues – what most of the people demanding the government spend billions on green jobs are trying to get is a substantial shift in the nature of our economy. If you read the UN Environment Programme report, for example, you can see this pretty clearly – they want less trade, more expensive energy, less fossil fuel use, etc.”

The debate, contrary to what most green jobs proponents currently believe, is far from over. The shining medallion being put forth as the green-engineered future is a pipe dream to say the least. Fossil fuels provide the infrastructure, the income, and ingenuity for most economies to thrive. To supplant this massive, proven network with technologies that are promising – but hardly scalable – is a vision that is not based in reality.

“Green Job Myths” contains 97 pages and is replete with graphs and statistics on the subject of green jobs and energy production. This paper should be required reading for anyone with a stake in the energy industry.  To download a free full version of the above paper visit http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1358423#

Have you ever heard the expression “being treated like a mushroom?” Well, that may entail being fed oil in the near future. The UK’s Telegraph reported on a new plan to develop mushrooms capable of reclaiming land from oil spills.

According to Clare Kendall, columnist for the Telegraph, an anonymous British donor is funding the project. Jess Work and Brian Page, both American biologists, and Ricardo Viteri, an Ecuadorian fungus expert, are heading up research to develop a mushroom that can eat toxic components in the soil thereby leeching the materials from land.

The process – known as mycoremediation – is being supported by an American charity – The Cloud Institute. It was pioneered by Paul Stamets, the US-based mushroom advocate, who believes that fungus could play a major role in restoring polluted land.

Jess Work claims, “Mushrooms are the world’s great recyclers,” adding, “They eat trash!” Typically, most fungus prefers to feed on wood, which is based on the material as oil – carbon. With this relationship in mind, the scientists have observed mushrooms feeding on petroleum in the laboratory, and now have set out to find contaminated environments for trial research.

Work said, “the question isn’t ‘does it work’ it’s about maximizing effects.” “The decontamination task here is huge.”

The technology has been used previously to clean up oil spills in San Francisco last November, but this will be the first time this experiment has been conducted in the tropics. The team is currently cultivating oyster mushrooms, which the scientists claim are particularly versatile and aggressive. The Ecuador-based experiment will be carried out under the many pipelines crossing the jungle.

Page said, the goal of the project is to find mushrooms that naturally like oil. “If we could develop a strain of mushroom whose particular ecological niche was oil pollution and nothing else; that would be our dream!”

Viteri explained, “The same enzyme mushrooms use to digest lignin, a main component of wood, is used to digest petroleum.” Although Viteri points out that this is not a cure and will most likely work on small scale.

Viteri said, there’s no miracle solution. The mushrooms can’t reclaim oil pits in their raw state, but it can make the soil reusable after the bulk has been removed allowing people to regenerate their own “patch.”

“This would be an amazing thing for the people here, to be able to remediate their own land,” said Viteri.