Yesterday the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) proclaimed that there was far too much hype by government ministers in favour of Fracking…the BBC was happy to oblige in giving them plenty of sympathetic coverage.
Jim Naughtie told us that the UKERC was completely independent and had no axe to grind.
That’ll be the UKERC, along with the pro-climate change propaganda organisation, the Grantham Institute, and the UEA’s CRU, that told the government in 2008, in the shape of Ed Miliband, to cut CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050.
The UK government announced yesterday that it will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050.
The Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Ed Miliband, stated last night that the assessment was based on an independent scientific report from Lord Turner’s committee on climate change.
The decision comes just nine days after Lord Turner’s committee, which includes Professor Jim Skea, research director at the UK Energy Research Centre and Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, director of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College, published its interim advice to government recommending more stringent cuts.
This is not business as usual
The speed of the decision is not a surprise to Turner’s panel. Skea says, ‘The Prime Minister indicated at the Labour Party Conference that he was willing to respond quickly once we made a recommendation.’
But the scale of the changes will be challenging. ‘We have said in our letter to the government that this is not business as usual. The very obvious priority is decarbonising the electricity industry. Buildings and transport are also up there as priorities.’
So, far from being neutral in the debate on CO2, climate and fossil fuel use, the UKERC is deeply involved in agitating against coal and gas…and set us on the road to a ruinous and suicidal extermination of industry.
Bishop Hill takes a look….
Public relations, not research
Nov 12, 2014 Energy: gas Greens
The UK Energy Research Centre – a proud member of the green blob, and a taxpayer funded one to boot – has launched a pair of reports into shale gas today, with a big bash to be held at the Royal Institution. As far as I can see the reports themselves have not been made public, and everybody is reporting the press release. This is usually a sure sign that something dicky is going on.
The headline is that shale gas development in the UK will not make a difference to prices. I assume this meanst that they are just channelling previous reports on the subject, but without the reports it’s hard to say. I very much get the impression this is PR rather than research.
And Delingpole does also [H/T George R]
Another Day, Another Worthless Report Trying to Kill Britain’s Shale Gas Industry
To suggest that the UK Energy Research Centre has an ideologically neutral position on fracking is a bit like saying that the North Korean Communist party remains open-minded on the role of the state in the economy.
There is a concerted effort to kill the UK fracking industry before it has even begun, which is being co-ordinated by a number of vested interests: green activists who think it’s eco-unfriendly; renewables companies who recognise that shale poses a massive threat to their government subsidies; natural gas producers from Russia to Qatar, who would prefer us to carry on importing from them than exploit our abundant native resources.
This report is part of that campaign. It doesn’t belong on the BBC or in our newspapers. It should have gone straight in the bin.
I wonder if it was my detailed revelations about the Met Office PEBKAC error that caused the BiasedBBC problems, the Met Office hacking the site for the purpose of censorship?
If so then hear is the copy which still exists as saved on Google cached.
The Met Office problems are exclusively in the Software, so more expensive Hardware will produce the errors faster and with more detail, but then on past experience, the Met Office will benefit by asking for even more money for an even more powerful computer. Probably with the intelligence of HAL, but with the mental problems of a BBC environMENTAL activist.
His forecasting method is partially secret, but at least we know that Piers Corbyn uses the Unified Theory of Climate instead of the Arrhenius method, which produces all the problems at the core of the Computer models, problems that the Computer programmers would not know about, as they would need an Atmospheric Physicist to tell them to talk to either Ned Nikolov, Karl Zeller or Piers Corbyn.
And more evidence that the climate pause is fraud, is that the Computer models show that the Oceans would have to absorb twice as much heat six miles up in the Atmosphere than on the surface. It also looks like Tesco has suffered from following the Met Office forecast while Asda follows the Weatheraction forecast.
Someone from the Met Office seems to have answered my post just before the problems on this site started. My answer to this is that the Weatheraction 40 day and beyond forecast is proven to be superior to that of the Met Office due to ideology, but detractors do like to point out that the Weatheraction forecasts for less than 40 days is proven to be inferior to the Met Office due to resources.
This post was also disappeared.
I find that every part of the Green Blob, subsidised or funded by the taxpayer, needs to lie about everything to obtain the money.
If Fracking does not need subsidies, and the Government gets out of the way, then as long as local communities are given free shares, then it is a goer.
I understand that the people in the USA with gas in their taps, could not get compensation for water pollution because they had the problem long before any fracking was even invented.
And, I find that the Fiends of the planet Earth are the most evil bunch of morons in the Green Blob.
Alan,
“…the BBC was happy to oblige in giving them [UKERC] plenty of sympathetic coverage.”
Yes, the Today programme had a 2.5 minute interview with the Research Director of UKERC. However this was followed by a 5 minute interview with the Chairman of INEOS (fracking company).
How very strange that you failed to mention that in your post.
How very strange that you also failed to mention that the Chairman of INEOS agreed with the Director of UKERC – stating that; “At the moment we don’t know [what the economic benefits of Fracking might be]”.
“Jim Naughtie told us that the UKERC was completely independent and had no axe to grind”.
No he didn’t Alan. You’re lying, as usual.
Jim Naughtie actually said; “The people of UKERC who have nothing against this [fracking] in principle…”, which is correct. In fact they’ve just published a report which says so:
http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=3716
And that’s because they see natural gas as playing a vital role in the transition to a low-carbon future. Which you would know if you’d done even the slightest bit of casual research…
PATHETIC FAIL.
Curious how selectively you quote Jim Naughtie Dez, almost as if you want to hide the truth…here is the full quote…
“The people at the UK Energy Research Centre, they’ve nothing against this in principle, they’re in the business of finding alternative sources of energy, so they’re not people who are coming at this from a position of ingrained opposition….”
So, according to Naughtie, the UKERC is not opposed to the fossil fuel, CO2 producing, shale gas in principle at all …
But that’s not true is it Dez, as you‘d know if you‘d actually read the post, done even the slightest bit of research….the UKERC is implacably, ideologically opposed to fossil fuels and was instrumental in creating the Climate Change Act committing us to an 80% cut in CO2. Have a read of the post, it’s right at the beginning…odd you missed it….where it quotes the UKERC representative as ‘recommending more stringent cuts’ in CO2 and that ‘The very obvious priority is decarbonising the electricity industry. Buildings and transport are also up there as priorities.’
Nor is it true that the BBC only gave the UKERC 2.5 minutes is it Dez?, with news bulletins trumpeting their claims widely and loudly and Harrabin giving them a very sympathetic report.
The UKERC only grudgingly accepts shale as a bridging source of energy, until ‘renewables’ can takeover….just as the IPCC does….and I have no doubt that you will claim the IPCC is completely neutral on climate change as well Dez.
As for Ineos accepting the same premise put forward by the UKERC that there is a great deal of doubt about shale gas being successfully exploited….so unconfident about the future are they that they are investing heavily in shale and making large promises based on what they obviously think is the future…..
Ineos offers £2.5bn to communities disrupted by shale gas
Ineos offers to pay six times industry rate to people living in communities affected by shale gas drilling
So to sum up…UKERC is a green pressure group looking to undermine shale gas and is implacably and ideologically opposed to it whilst having to grudgingly accept it as a bridging energy resource….Naughtie being completely misleading about their real stance on shale, and Ineos has genuine confidence in the future of shale whilst being cautious as to the exact numbers.
You’re wrong, as usual, Dez. But then you know that and post regardless. As usual.
Shale Gas won’t be the answer to energy crises because we will shut it down before any nasty capitalists can make money from it and before anybody who unlike us upper middle class liberal sorts has trouble paying the lecy bill can benefit from lower energy bills.