I nearly used a four letter swear word for this blog post title. That’s how I feel about the fiasco of Conference of the Parties. I read that the young Swedish girl Greta Thunberg isn’t going to attend as she said at the last COP it was all “blah blah blah!”
Why is it we can’t get to grips with this existential threat? The U.K. held the presidency of COP26 when it was held in Glasgow Scotland. COP27 is being held in Egypt at Sharm El Sheikh a southern coastal city on south east side of the Sinai peninsular. Famous for it’s fringing coral Red Sea reef system.
Our new prime minister Rishi Sunak decided he wasn’t going to attend due to the U.K. economic circumstances. I think he’s in the process of making big “U” turn because one of are ex prime ministers Boris Johnson was going to attend. Liz truss the 44 day incumbent prime minister didn’t want King Charles 111 to attend either.
I made comment on YouTube saying “we have greatest human threat to mankind and he’s wanting to tinker with the economy. It’s like me on my small 32 foot boat tinkering with my engine down below and I have series of very largeTsunami waves approaching the boat broadside and ready to swamp me and turn boat right over!”
The conference of parties will have the main arena with the heads of state trying to get to grips with climate change, which I now feel is an insurmountable problem. I think we’ve gone past the point of no return now we have a war displacing millions of people and western leaders are scrabbling around for oil and gas after having sanctioned the Russian bear.
What are nations doing? They’re looking to dig up more coal from the ground or have fracked liquid natural gas transported to Europe from the U.S. The Ukrainian war is making a real mockery of the COP27 meeting in Egypt.
This surely must be the time to make drastic changes. But no we go on business as usual.
Let’s look at typical COP meeting the last one in Glasgow.
What was actually achieved from that meeting? The main goal was to secure global net zero by mid-century and keep a maximum of 1.5 C degrees of warming within reach.
Firstly what’s net zero? Put simply, net zero refers to the balance between the amount of greenhouse gas produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere. We reach net zero when the amount we add is no more than the amount taken away. But how can we achieve this and why does it matter?
Think about it like a bath – turn on the taps and you add more water, pull out the plug and water flows out. The amount of water in the bath depends on both the input from the taps and the output via the plughole. To keep the amount of water in the bath at the same level, you need to make sure that the input and output are balanced.
In reality net zero is human delusional thinking? We humans are great when it comes to bullshit( stupid or untrue talk or writing nonsense.) so much nonsense it written about tackling climate heating.
We humans through our industrial and transportation systems emit 37 billions tons of heat trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. This is over and above the natural carbon cycle.
Surely the extractors of fossil fuels should be the ones paying the cost for this pollution? If the extractors had to pay for all the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere using a environment pollution levy this would increase gasoline prices at the pump. Tax payers shouldn’t have to clean up oil companies pollution. This would increase costs of driving an ICE (internal combustion engine )automobiles and trucks and they would be more expensive relative to the real cost of using fossil fuels as a form of energy.
Yes someone has to pay for all this released carbon dioxide and the blame should be put on the oil companies. They are the ones making the massive daily profits. How would we do that simply by taxing each barrel of oil extracted to cover the cost of carbon dioxide removable and injecting it back down into the ground where it belongs. Carbon capture facilities shouldn’t be the realm of the tax payer. There could be a series of environmental levies placed upon the crude oil extractors once they’re taken it out of the ground.
What carbon capture facilities do we have in the world to remove all the excess carbon we’ve released into the atmosphere to bring it back to pre industrial levels of 280 ppm?
In reality not many or very few it’s all about money 💰 this is the paradox we have with fossil fuels. We been living the last 150 year with an atmospheric experiment. Yes it’s given us a low cost “virtually free” energy powered system that’s created the modern industrialised civilisation. But we haven’t been paying the real cost for that energy if we’d had then energy costs would of been prohibitively higher.
As we can see with the Ukrainian Russian war and Europeans addiction to low cost oil and gas from Russia we’re starting now to pay higher cost for energy. Let’s say it costs approximately $50 dollars to extract a barrel of oil and let’s say it costs the half again to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And to put it back into the ground or to recycle it for further energy usage.
$50 a barrel which holds about 42 US gallons. To Keep it simple it cost $1 dollar to extract a gallon of oil and it costs $0.50 to refine and distribute it. $0.5 x50 = $25. Cost of fuel at the pump in the U.K. for petrol or gasoline and diesel RAC figures average between diesel and petrol at £1.80 litre and there’s 3.8 litres in a US gallon 3.8 x 1.80 = £6.84 US gallon convert that to US dollars = 1.12×6.84 = $7.66 US Gal.
$7.66 x 42 = $321.72. Barrel. Therefore it cost the oil companies $75 dollars a barrel to produce and at the pump it’s $321.72 per barrel. But ~ 50% is U.K. levy and Vat.
Oil prices do fluctuate constantly hard to keep a fix on what oil companies are making in profits but it’s vast amounts of money each and every day of the week.
If all oil companies had to pay a carbon capture levy on all oil extracted based upon carbon dioxide equivalent emitted from each barrel of oil extracted the pump prices would be much higher.
Example
£1.80litre pump price
£0.86 L U.K. oil levy
£0.36L vat
£0.86 L gross profit oil company
Quite complex when we start changing from US Barrels to Litres.
$50 Per Barrel of crude oil. This fluctuates and per barrel prices differ throughout the world oil fields due to various cost of extraction differences.
$50PB
1/3 refining and distribution costs
$17PB
$67PB
£59PB in Sterling
42/59 42 gallons in US barrel
Is £1.40 gallon.
3.8/1.40
£0.37L
£0.86L – 0.37L = 0.49L profit
But if we introduce carbon capture per barrel levy to offset carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from a barrel or gallon or litre of petroleum this would make a whole different scenario for oil & gas extraction.
Let’s go back to are $50 per barrel example. The oil extractors would need to add the carbon dioxide capture to the fluctuation oil price. Let’s do a thought experiment? 🤔
Carbon dioxide capture levy per barrel of oil extracted means that scientifically each 42 gallons of gasoline petroleum would produce an amount of CO2 combusted per barrel. That levy would be to capture that released atmospheric CO2.
Carbon capture equipment would need to be installed everywhere in the world and that carbon could be recycled to produce usable energy again and again with out having to keep extracting oil & gas from the ground.
$50 Per Barrel extracted
$25 Per Barrel Atmospheric Carbon Capture levy
$75 Per Barrel Crude Pice
$17 Per Barrel refining and distribution costs
$ 92 Per Barrel Real Price or £81 sterling
Immediately this would have impact on the prices oil companies could sell gasoline for and it would be in there interests to be at the front end of Atmospheric Carbon Capture and carbon dioxide recycling. It would create a parallel industry and gasoline and petroleum prices would have to reflect the true cost of oil and gas extraction relating to atmospheric carbon dioxide pollution. This the fundamental truth of the whole fossil fuel industry they have over the years like the tobacco industry oil prices have not reflected the true cost of extraction, health and the environment within their pricing structures.
Not only would they be responsible for todays capture but all the emissions that have made them very rich over the last century and a half.
Pump prices would sky rocket and energy prices in general would be force upwards and we would all have to reconsider fossil fuel energy as a very expensive commodity. And in so doing would force us to look for alternative ways to use and reduce energy consumption in an important and marked way.
We’re now in 2022 the Conference of Parties has agreed net zero by 2050 if I’m still alive I’ll be in my 99th year. Will we stop using fossil fuels and capture carbon to recycle and put back the excess back in the ground where it came from.
- Reduce carbon dioxide emissions to zero
- Carbon capture the excess bring down atmospheric carbon dioxide to pre industrial levels of 300ppm.
That’s all in 28 years of time have the political class and the polluters and energy providers such as the oil & gas and power generation companies got the will to achieve this in reality? Based upon what we achieved so far I’m not sure? What if we don’t? That’s the million dollar question and what will planet earth be like by 2100? That’s not that far away 78 years it would mean a complete revolution in energy demand and life styles and I mean a revolution in the way we live and work! If there’s the will there’s a way? If not I hate to think what will happen to humanity and the biosphere? The problem with all the COP talking shops they don’t hold anyone to account it’s just blah, blah, blah!
https://task41project5.ieabioenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2017/11/TARRAGA.pdf
LARGE-SCALE MICROALGAE PRODUCTION PLANTS AS AN EFFECTIVE AND REAL CASE OF BIO-CCU UNIT.
A few years ago when I was sailing to the Canary Islands I stop at the Portugueses Madeira archipelago. First small island I arrived at was Porto Santo which is the most northern island of the group with Madeira being the largest. I had my folding bike onboard Barada went exploring. I saw this unusual unit with large vertical circular perspex tubes filled with green algae. It was quite large experimental carbon capture unit. The Carbon Capture unit is called Buggy power the idea is to turn the captured carbon into a food source. It can be used as other food supplements for humans fish and animals. Health benefits for improving your immune system as well. Absolutely fascinating project hidden away on the small Atlantic island!
We humans have intellectual capacity and were for all to create a sustainable world of equality but more importantly for us to live in harmony with the awesome beauty of our absolutely amazing biosphere we call planet earth. Unfortunately we have this toxic system called capitalism which is all about money and wealth accumulation for the few to the detriment of the many. Until this toxic system is radically changed or eradicated I see no future for humans? But simply the ongoing degradation of the our beautiful biosphere and in-turn our ultimate collapse and demise! That is one serious indictment on mankind! Why? It’s all written historically of the utter destructions of the planet ecosystems for MONEY💰. MONEY will be our final death knell. I’m totally convinced of that fact!
https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/the-new-yorker-documentary-when-glaciers-go-life-without-water