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EU Energy Chief Warms To Offshore Oil And Shale Gas

Is Energy Realism Returning To Europe?



Europe is at a competitive disadvantage because of a reluctance to take risks on offshore oil drilling and tar sands, and a failure to fully explore its shale gas options, EU Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger says. “In the US there’s a process to re-industrialise the country first by oil. Whoever rules in Washington, one gallon can’t be more than $4,” he said. “They accept some risks with offshore drilling for ‘own sources’ in the Gulf of Mexico and they accept [tar] sand oils and others,” the commissioner said. By contrast, “we import oil and have high taxation.” The result is that Europe’s transport and industrial sectors are disadvantaged, Oettinger said. He argues that since the US used shale to reduce its dependence on cheap imports from Qatar and Nigeria, North Americans now pay roughly 30% of the European gas price. --EurActiv, 18 July 2012
Policies governing the European Union's drive towards a low- carbon economy should not lose sight of the need to retain the bloc's industrial base, Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said in a newspaper column on Monday. "Europe should think about adding a fourth goal to the three 20-20-20 energy-related ones up to the year 2020," Oettinger wrote in the business daily Handelsblatt. Oettinger, a German national, echoed rising concern about runaway power prices in his home country, where subsidizing of fast-expanding green power is burdening industrial and household consumers. This has already caused a government rethink on, and subsequent cuts to, solar power. --Reuters, 16 July 2012 Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government said it may have to scrap some of its targets for shifting the source of its electricity supply, a move that would water down a commitment to bolster renewable energy in Europe’s biggest economy. Economy Minister Philipp Roesler told today’s Bild newspaper that Germany may readjust targets linked to the plan to exit nuclear energy-generation by 2022 if jobs are threatened. --Bloomberg, 17 July 2012

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SHALE gas is about to return to the French government's agenda as ministers gets ready for an environmental conference next month - which is expected to start with a clean slate. It is estimated that there are up to 5 trillion cubic metres of natural gas locked in the shale deposits deep underground below France. --The Connexion, 19 July 2012 The French government is seeking to meet discreetly with several environmentalist lobbies on July 24 to discuss the potential restart of shale gas exploration, French radio Europe 1 reports Thursday, without citing sources. Shale gas exploration was banned in France by the previous government under the pressure of public opinion due to the controversial hydraulic fracturing method used in the matter, despite of the potential existence of huge reserves on French soil. The government is seeking to obtain the approval of the environmentalist associations before relaunching exploration works and studies over their environmental impact, the radio also reports. --Dow Jones Newswires, 19 July 2012 Cheap, abundant natural gas is changing the game for energy in the U.S., and that means a renewed push for natural gas cars. According to Pike Research, there will be a total of 25 million natural gas vehicles on the roads worldwide by 2019, and the amount of natural gas vehicles sold in North America will grow around 10 percent a year between now and 2019. GE estimates there are 15 million natural gas cars globally today, and around 250,000 in the U.S. --Katie Fehrenbacher, GigaOm, 18 July 2012 Prices for UN-backed carbon credits sank to a record low in morning trading on Wednesday after doubts emerged about European Commission plans to prop up the bloc’s ailing emissions trading market. Carbon prices have fallen to fresh lows at several points over the past nine months as a glut in the supply of EU credits has been exacerbated by sagging demand due to weak European economic conditions. --Pilita Clark and Jack Farchy, Financial Times, 18 July 2012[Registration Required] The end of the world is not going to happen within our lifetimes. That’s the word from Justin Deering, author of The End of the World Delusion: How Doomsayers Endanger Society. “We’re bombarded with end-of-the-world scares practically everywhere you look,” Deering explains. Deering doesn’t care whether the claims arise from religious beliefs or scientific concerns. “It doesn’t matter to me whether they’re a preacher or a scientist, a shaman mystic or an expert researcher. If they’re saying the end is near, they’re wrong.” --Watts Up With That, 18 July 2012 The US Senate unanimously rejected Kyoto in 1997, and since then there has been no change in global temperature. The current rate of warming is 0.0 degrees per century. Imagine the disaster if that increased by a factor of ten. Our leaders tell us that we need to do much better than Kyoto, in order to slow down global warming even further. --Steve Goddard, Real Science, 18 July 2012


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