Four senior energy ecoomists have issued a stark warning to policy makers on the UK’s shale gas – ‘don’t expect there to be any!’

In an article published by Warwick Business School, ‘Conditions for environmentally sound UK shale gas development‘, they advise policy makers:

“Given the current incomplete state of knowledge about shale gas and its potential role in a low-carbon transition, we suggest that policy makers should take as their basis for energy policy that there will be no shale gas produced domestically and plan their gas security strategy accordingly.”

The authors, Professor Paul Ekins and Dr Christophe McGlade of UCL, Professor Michael Bradshaw, of Warwick Business School and Professor Jim Watson of UKERC, point to the current incomplete state of knowledge about shale and its potential role in low-carbon transition.

Ten serious hurdles for frackers to overcome

And while the UK may be able to develop some of its potential shale gas resources within the context of a global effort to keep average global warming within 2C, they set out ten caveats that they consider “fundamental to ensuring that any potential shale gas development in the UK is compatible with its required greenhouse gas emission reductions and environmental protection more broadly.”

1. There must be viable resources. “As recognised by the British Geological Survey in the report on the Bowland shale, at present there are no UK shale gas reserves, and next-to-no information or data on volumes that could be considered to be recoverable resources. Whether any will be resources that are recoverable in an economically viable way is unknown, despite frequent claims to the contrary, and this is self-evidently necessary for there to be any development of UK shale gas.”

2. No stalling on the path to low carbon power. “In the UK a danger of promoting the increased use of gas for electricity generation is that there may be a stalling in the necessary shift towards lower-carbon sources of electricity … Indeed, it could be argued that the UK government is planning for this … such a development would be tantamount to an abandonment of the UK’s contribution to limiting global warming to 2C.”

3. Need for carbon capture and storage. “Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is key to the development of new gas resources, shale or otherwise … If CCS does not become available commercially soon, it is unlikely that there will be much scope within available carbon budgets for significant UK and European gas consumption beyond 2050. This calls into question the wisdom of developing a whole new UK shale gas industry for such a limited period of operation.”

4. The main effort lies elsewhere. “Gas can only be a short-term complement to the much larger increase in true low-carbon energy sources that must also occur to substitute for coal, and ultimately for gas too, in order for the low-carbon transition actually to be achieved.”

5. Time is against shale gas. “The bridge formed by natural gas to a low-carbon energy system, and by extension the timeframe for the development of shale gas to help reduce GHG emissions, is strictly time-limited.”

6. It must be accompanied by major emissions reductions. “The development of some shale gas resources is only helpful if there is real global commitment to CO2 emissions reduction. In the absence of such an agreement additional natural gas is not helpful for reducing emissions. The IEA modelled a ‘Golden Age of Gas’ scenario, based upon the widespread availability and development of new gas sources (including shale gas). This resulted in 3.5C of global warming … Under such circumstances the development of shale gas could not in any way be viewed as a positive emissions reduction mechanism.”

7. It’s a zero sum game – so more unburnable carbon. “Policy makers and advocates for UK shale gas development will need to recognise that, if new resources are to be developed in the UK, then fewer fossil fuel reserves need to be developed as a result elsewhere. All countries and regions already hold significant levels of ‘unburnable’ reserves, which will be increased by new UK production, if commitments to limit global warming are to be met.”

8. Gas leaks could wipe out all the ‘benefits’. “The level of fugitive emissions that occurs during production needs to be determined and managed. The literature on this issue is not yet at a mature enough stage to have any confidence on what a reasonable range for fugitive emissions might be. If they are non-negligible the usefulness of shale gas as a lower-carbon bridge fuel diminishes rapidly.”

9. Shale development is no free for all. “Development of shale gas cannot occur in an unrestricted manner … 80% of potential European unconventional gas resources should still be classified as unburnable under a cost-optimal 2C scenario.”

10. Wider environmental impacts must be contained. “Local environmental impacts, including those from waste disposal, toxicity, noise and water pollution, groundwater contamination, induced seismicity, water use in water-deficient areas, and flaring, are appropriately regulated, controlled or avoided. Convincing the public that these risks can be minimised and managed is essential to gaining a ‘social licence to operate’, which the shale gas industry does not yet have in a UK context.”

The authors conclude: “While we are not against shale gas exploration in principle, we believe that it is incumbent upon the shale gas industry and its supporters, and the Government, to demonstrate that the above conditions are met, as most if not all of them are not at present.

“Only then should shale gas production be permitted to proceed in the event that it is proved to be economically viable, in the knowledge that it is consistent with a decarbonised UK energy system and environmental protection more generally.”

The paper: ‘Conditions for environmentally-sound UK shale gas development‘ is by Dr Christophe McGlade and Professor Paul Ekins, UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources and UCL Energy Institute, University College London; Professor Michael Bradshaw, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick; and Professor Jim Watson, UK Energy Research Centre.

Historians will regard the failure of governments to treat environmental objectives on a par with economic and social aims as an absurdity.

Even the most cursory understanding of the forces that govern our world tells us that everything we buy, sell and manufacture, from the simplest of foodstuffs to the most complex technologies that drive the digital revolution, has its foundation in natural products and processes.

It is self-evident that if we exploit these to destruction, increasing competition for diminishing resources will lead to economic crisis and political chaos. Put simply, we are living beyond the environmental limits of our one planet, and this is putting our wellbeing at risk.

So why do we base many of our political decisions, and the structure of the organisations that generate and implement these policies, on the outdated assumption that the world’s natural resources, and their capacity to provide for us, are infinite?

No government that displayed an equally cavalier attitude to, say, the management of tax revenues or defence hardware would be long in office. The environment is a mainstream issue, and it is time to re-shape our institutions to reflect this reality.

How government works – the worm’s eye view

I’ve witnessed Whitehall’s weaknesses from the inside. As a special adviser to DECC ministers, I saw how the government machine fails to ensure that every department consistently pursues environmental aims, even when that department’s activities are crucial to their realisation.

In the current set-up, at least eight departments have critical roles to play – alongside the lead departments of DECC and Defra, the Treasury, Business, Transport, Communities and Local Government, Foreign Office and International Development are all important.

I spent an inordinate amount of time arguing with special advisers in some of these other departments trying to persuade them to support our views over, for example, the Green Investment Bank or the UK’s carbon targets.

Generally I failed – which may just have proved I was a rubbish adviser! – and although in the end we did sometimes manage to achieve our objectives, it came down to bargaining between cabinet ministers.

One of the striking things about my experience was how infrequently party political considerations came into my arguments. Defra generally supported us (even though at the time there were no Liberal Democrat ministers there), while other departments, particularly the Treasury and sometimes BIS, were much more sceptical. And I would guess that the departments lined up in exactly the same way under the previous Labour government.

Part of the problem is a lack of political will. Our last four Prime Ministers – Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron – have all occasionally displayed an interest in environmental issues, but never consistently, and none have given it a high priority. And the country has yet to experience a green-minded Chancellor.

But even when the political will is there – and the cross-party consensus behind the Climate Change Act and the need for further action to build on it offers some hope here – the machinery of government is simply not fit to support new and environmentally sustainable ways of delivering policy.

The three stumbling blocks

There are three problems. Firstly, policy is often dealt with issue-by-issue with little strategic overview, or no over-arching objectives to guide decisions. This makes it very hard to reconcile competing policy objectives, for example around housing development versus protection of green spaces. Even where decisions do try to balance these competing objectives, it is often the environment that loses out.

Second, there is a failure to understand the importance of our natural environment to our economic and social wellbeing. Environmental protections such as the more efficient use of water or sensible management of marine stocks are seen as a cost and a burden, a brake on prosperity, rather than the bedrock of a successful economy.

The goods and services our seas, forests and clean air provide are not properly considered in policy appraisal processes and are all too often treated as a free resource.

Third, political short-termism does not provide for the longer-term response which environmental challenges require. All too often short-term pressures trump longer-term sustainability.

As a result of all this, the government departments that take the lead on environmental issues – primarily DECC and Defra – are small and of low political status compared to, for example, the Treasury, BIS or Transport. Although they do sometimes win arguments, it’s always an uphill struggle.

A green box for the ‘natural resource budget’?

Working with WWF-UK, I’ve proposed a set of comprehensive reforms, set out in the report ‘Greening the Machinery of Government: Mainstreaming Environmental Objectives‘, that would equip Whitehall to meet these challenges.

Long term thinking requires a clear 25 year-plan for the environment. The Committee on Climate Change, and the five-yearly carbon budgets it sets, help to impose a long-term framework on government decision-making.

Now we need to mirror that structure for natural capital – natural resources, air, water, countryside – with the existing temporary Natural Capital Committee transformed into a permanent statutory body setting natural resource budgets for governments to follow.

The UK’s National Security Strategy should be rewritten to include risks to society and the economy from environmental factors, and these should be discussed regularly by the National Security Council, which is chaired by the Prime Minister.

All public bodies should be required to report on the extent to which the risks identified by the analysis pose a threat to their ability to fulfil their responsibilities, and to produce a resilience plan to deal with the likely threats.

This would drive the development of policies that deliver better stewardship of natural capital, and inevitably accelerate efforts to combat climate change.

The current weakness of the environmental voice in government needs to be rectified. Environmentalists have long viewed the Treasury as a barrier to progress. I therefore propose the appointment of a Cabinet-level Chief Secretary for Sustainability located within that very department.

They would play a central role in driving the culture change required throughout government, ensuring that the economy is sustainable, resource-efficient and low-carbon, delivering the greatest overall welfare benefit for society. The new minister would present an annual report to Parliament on the state of the UK environment, and the government’s proposed response.

A new Office of Environmental Responsibility

While the UK is still a global leader on climate change, we are in danger of falling behind. And there is room for much more re-engagement on wider environmental issues, including the protection of the world’s oceans and forests – resources upon which we depend in the UK.

So the Foreign Office should appoint an International Environment Minister, who alongside tackling our international carbon footprint could join up international finance and environment policy.

Procedures need to be introduced to require all government departments (and other public bodies) to consider environmental costs and benefits when taking decisions and spending money. This includes reforming the systems for monitoring and challenging departments’ business plans, systems for impact and regulatory assessment and investment appraisal, Treasury modelling tools and the system of regulatory appraisal.

Most importantly, a new Office of Environmental Responsibility should be created to advise government and hold all its departments to account against its environmental objectives. Sitting at arm’s length from government, it would report to the Treasury.

The Chancellor rightly received plaudits for creating an Office for Budget Responsibility, but living within our means demands prudent management of our natural, as well as financial, resources.

There are recent precedents upon which these proposals could build. This month, the Well-being of Future Generations Bill passed by the Welsh Assembly committed the public sector to sustainable development goals, set down in statute.

This will ensure that Wales lives within environmental limits, tackles climate change, maintains functioning ecosystems and uses resources responsibly and sustainably. This is world-leading legislation.

And this week, the House of Lords EU Committee set out admirable proposals that would see better long-term management of the North Sea’s resources to ensure a viable future for those who depend on them, integrating the environment and economics in a mirror of the Dutch North Sea 2050 Agenda.

These reforms to the machinery of government would cost little up-front, could be delivered within the existing Whitehall headcount and would potentially save billions as the UK helped avert the unimaginable consequences of unchecked environmental degradation and climate change.

They would ensure Whitehall meets its own targets on biodiversity, emissions and sustainable procurement. They would put the UK back where it belongs – at the forefront of international efforts to tackle the most pressing issues of our age.

The report: ‘Greening the Machinery of Government‘ is written by Duncan Brack and published by WWF UK.

Duncan Brack is an independent environmental policy analyst, an associate fellow of Chatham House and an associate of Forest Trends. From 2010 to 2012 he was special adviser at the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change. Before that he worked for Chatham House, and from 1998 to 2003 was head of its Sustainable Development Programme.

Public opposition to reactor restarts (and the nuclear industry more generally) continues to exert some influence in Japan.

Five to seven of the oldest of Japan’s 48 ‘operable’ reactors are likely to be sacrificed to dampen opposition to the restart of other reactors, and local opposition may result in the permanent shut down of some other reactors.

Currently, all 48 of Japan’s ‘operable’ reactors are shut down – and the six reactors at Fukushima Daiichi have been written off.

However, slowly but surely, the corrupt and collusive practices that led to the Fukushima disaster are re-emerging. The ‘nuclear village’ is back in control.

Energy policy

After the Fukushima accident, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) government commenced a review of energy policy. After deliberations in a committee that included more or less equal numbers of nuclear critics, proponents and neutral people, three scenarios were put forward in June 2012 – based on 0%, 15% and 20-25% of electricity generation from nuclear reactors.

These scenarios were put to a broad national debate, the outcome of which was that a clear majority of the public supported a nuclear phase-out. The national debate played a crucial role in pushing the DPJ government to support a nuclear phase-out.

After the December 2012 national election, the incoming Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government repudiated the DPJ’s goal of phasing out nuclear power. The LDP government also revamped the policy-drafting committee, drastically reducing the number of nuclear critics. And the committee itself was sidelined in the development of a draft Basic Energy Plan.

“From a process perspective, this represents a step back about 20 years”, said Dr Philip White, an expert on Japan’s energy policy formation process.

“A major step toward greater public participation and disclosure of information occurred after the December 1995 sodium leak and fire at the Monju fast breeder reactor.” Dr White wrote.

“Although public participation was not conducted in good faith, at least lip service was paid. It seems that the current government has decided that it doesn’t even need to pay lip service.”

The Basic Energy Plan approved by Cabinet in April 2014 contains nothing more than a meaningless nod to widespread public anti-nuclear sentiment, stating that dependence on nuclear energy will be reduced ‘to the extent possible’.

Junko Edahiro, chief executive of Japan for Sustainability and one of the people removed from the energy policy advisory committee, noted in November 2014:

“Now what we have is a situation where government officials and committees are back to doing their jobs as if the March 2011 disasters had never occurred. They have resumed what they had been doing for 30 or 40 years, focusing on nuclear power …

“In Japan we have what some people refer to as a ‘nuclear village’: a group of government officials, industries, and academia notorious for being strongly pro-nuclear. There has been little change in this group, and the regulatory committee to oversee nuclear policies and operations is currently headed by a well-known nuclear proponent.”

‘An accident will surely happen again’

Yotaro Hatamura, who previously chaired the ‘Cabinet Office Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations of TEPCO’, recently told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper that pre-Fukushima complacency is returning.

“Sufficient investigations have not been conducted” into the causes of the Fukushima disaster, said Hatamura, professor emeritus of mechanical engineering at the University of Tokyo.

The Cabinet Office Investigation Committee report called on the government to continue efforts to determine the cause of the nuclear disaster, but “almost none” of its proposals have been reflected in recent government actions, Hatamura said.

He further noted that tougher nuclear safety standards were introduced after the Fukushima disaster, but with the exception of this “regulatory hurdle … the situation seems unchanged from before the accident.”

“It does not appear that organizations to watch [government actions] are working properly”, Hatamura said. “There could always be lapses in oversight in safety assessments, and an accident will surely happen again.”

Hatamura questioned the adequacy of evacuation plans, saying they have been compiled without fully reflecting on the Fukushima accident: “The restarts of reactors should be declared only after sufficient preparations are made, such as conducting evacuation drills covering all residents living within 30 kilometers of each plant based on developed evacuation plans.”

Japan Atomic Energy Commission

In September 2012, the DPJ government promised that a review of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) would be conducted ‘with its abolition and reorganization in mind’. The government established a review committee, which published a report in December 2012. After taking office, the incoming LDP government shelved the report and commenced a new review.

The second review recommended that the JAEC no longer produce an overarching Framework for Nuclear Energy Policy. But an LDP committee has reportedly decided that the JAEC will be tasked with putting together a nuclear energy policy that would effectively have equivalent status to the Framework for Nuclear Energy Policy.

Two reviews, very little change – and far from being abolished, the JAEC retains a role in framing nuclear policy. Moreover, the government has proposed that the JAEC, a promoter of nuclear power, could acts as a ‘third party’ in the choice of a final disposal site for nuclear waste.

Some experts who attended a ministry panel meeting in February questioned the JAEC’s independence.

Government’s massive financial support for TEPCO

Many have called for TEPCO to be nationalised, or broken up into separate companies, but the LDP government has protected and supported the company. The government has also greatly increased financial support for TEPCO.

For example in January 2014 the government approved an increase in the ceiling for interest-free loans the Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund is allowed to give TEPCO, from 5 trillion yen to 9 trillion yen (€39.0-70.2 billion)

The government will also cover some of the costs for dealing with the Fukushima accident which TEPCO was previously required to pay, such as an estimated 1.1 trillion yen (€8.6 billion) for interim storage facilities for waste from clean-up activities outside the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

The government has also amended the Electricity Business Act to extend the period for collecting decommissioning funds from electricity rates by up to 10 years after nuclear plants are shut down. The amendments also allow TEPCO to include in electricity rates depreciation costs for additional equipment purchased for the decommissioning of the Fukushima plant.

Special Committee for Investigation of Nuclear Power Issues

An early example of the LDP government’s reconstitution of the nuclear village was the Special Committee for Investigation of Nuclear Power Issues, established by the LDP government in 2013 to monitor nuclear power administration.

A majority of the Committee members double as members of the LDP. “We avoided anti-nuclear lawmakers”, said a senior official of the LDP’s Diet Affairs Committee. LDP parliamentarian Taro Kono, a member of a multi-party group of anti-nuclear parliamentarians, wanted to join the committee but was snubbed.

Ironically, the Special Committee was formed as a result of a recommendation from the Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, which was scathing about the sort of cynical cronyism that its recommendation led to.

Media censorship and intimidation

Japan has steadily slipped down Reporters Without Borders global ranking for press freedom since the Fukushima disaster, from 11th in 2010 to 61st in the latest ranking.

Journalists have been threatened with ‘criminal contempt’ and defamation suits, and Japan’s ‘state secrets’ law makes investigative journalism about Japan’s nuclear industry a perilous undertaking. Under the law, which took effect in December 2014, the government can sentence those who divulge government secrets – which are broadly defined – to a decade in jail.

Benjamin Ismaïl from Reporters Without Borders wrote in March 2014:

“As we feared in 2012, the freedom to inform and be informed continues to be restricted by the ‘nuclear village’ and government, which are trying to control coverage of their handling of the aftermath of this disaster.

“Its long-term consequences are only now beginning to emerge and coverage of the health risks and public health issues is more important than ever.”

Reporters Without Borders said in March 2014:

“Both Japanese and foreign reporters have described to Reporters Without Borders the various methods used by the authorities to prevent independent coverage of the [Fukushima] disaster and its consequences. They have been prevented from covering anti-nuclear demonstrations and have been threatened with criminal proceedings for entering the ‘red zone’ declared around the plant.

“And they have even been interrogated and subjected to intimidation by the intelligence services.”

Lessons learned … and quickly forgotten

The corruption and collusion of Japan’s nuclear village led to numerous accidents before the Fukushima disaster.

And the corruption and collusion of Japan’s nuclear village was a root cause of the Fukushima disaster itself. On that point the Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission could not have been blunter: “The accident was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and TEPCO, and the lack of governance by said parties.”

A big part of the post-Fukushima spin is that lessons were learned from the nuclear disaster and improvements made. But the real lesson from this saga is that the nuclear industry – in Japan at least – has learned nothing from its catastrophic mistakes.

As Yotaro Hatamura says, an accident will surely happen again.

Dr Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia and editor of the Nuclear Monitor newsletter, where this article was originally published (March 19, 2015 | No. 800).

Nuclear Monitor is published 20 times a year. It has been publishing deeply researched, often strongly critical articles on all aspects of the nuclear cycle since 1978. A must-read for all those who work on this issue!

Scientists believe they may have found how to safeguard a staple tropical crop, on which hundreds of millions of people depend, from the depredations of climate change.

They have discovered – through conventional breeding rather than genetic modification – 30 new varieties of beans that will thrive in the higher temperatures expected later this century, and which will pose a particular threat to harvests in Africa and Latin America.

The new ‘heat-beater’ beans, an important source of protein for around 400 million people, have been identified by plant breeders with the CGIAR global agriculture research partnership.

Steve Beebe, a senior CGIAR bean researcher, announced at a conference in Ethiopia: “This discovery could be a big boon for bean production because we are facing a dire situation where, by 2050, global warming could reduce areas suitable for growing beans by 50%.

“Incredibly, the heat-tolerant beans we tested may be able to handle a worst-case scenario where the build-up of greenhouse gases causes the world to heat up by an average of 4°C.

“Even if they can only handle a 3°C rise, that would still limit the bean production area lost to climate change to about 5%. And farmers could potentially make up for that by using these beans to expand their production of the crop in countries such as Nicaragua and Malawi, where beans are essential to survival.”

An essential and nutritious food around the tropics

Beans are often called the ‘meat of the poor’. They are highly nutritious, providing not only protein but fibre, complex carbohydrates, vitamins, and other micronutrients. In addition to heat tolerance, CGIAR researchers are also breeding lines with a higher iron content, in an effort to tackle malnutrition.

But how are the new beans likely to fare in farmers’ fields exposed to real world conditions, and pathogens? “So far, so good”, Dr Beebe told Climate News Network, referring to the outcome of field trials.

“Some of the lines are also drought-tolerant, and some are resistant to Bean Golden Yellow Mosaic Virus. There are two caveats. First, so far the best lines are small red types for Central America and parts of East Africa, so we have a long road to improve a range of grain types, colours, etc.

“The other issue is that we are taking these beans into a new environment that we don‘t know from the bean perspective. We have seen that a soil pathogen, pythium, is more severe. Will we find more surprises?”

Rising heat as climate change intensifies is expected to disrupt bean production in central and South American countries, including Nicaragua, Haiti, Brazil and Honduras. African countries thought to be at risk are principally Malawi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, followed by Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.

‘Heat-beaters’ emerged from testing over 1,000 varieties

The new beans are the result of CGIAR’s work to develop new crop varieties that can thrive in drastic weather extremes, based on research in its ‘genebanks‘, which preserve the world’s largest seed collections of the most important staple crops.

The heat-beaters emerged from the testing of more than 1,000 bean ‘lines’ – work that began as an effort to develop beans that could tolerate poor soils and drought.

The focus turned to heat-tolerance following a 2012 report from CGIAR scientists warning that heat was a much bigger threat to bean production than previously believed.

Many of the new heat-tolerant beans developed by the CGIAR scientists are ‘crosses’ of the common bean – which includes pinto, white, black, and kidney beans – and the tepary bean, a hardy survivor cultivated since pre-Columbian times in what is now part of northern Mexico and the southwest US.

Alex Kirby writes for Climate News Network.

MPs in the House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Committee have demanded that “a right to regulate” be enshrined in the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the European Union and the United States.

There are growing fears – highlighted in today’s Ecologist with reference to Canada’s salutary experience – that TTIP’s fiercely investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism would allow foreign companies and private investors to sue governments for enacting ‘business unfriendly’ legislation.

Where countries legislate for environmental protection, labour standards or the state’s right to run public services – like the National Health Service – ISDS could allow corporations to sue governments for the loss of future profits in secret tribunals.

As the report highlights, ISDS could also allow “the possibility of US oil companies challenging environmental regulations on fracking.” Other examples include challenging regulations on chemicals in food and cosmetics as well as EU restrictions on genetically modified organisms.

The Committee therefore demands that “a statement ensuring the right to regulate by Sovereign Nations takes precedence over an investor’s right to invest is placed at the heart of the Government’s response on ISDS provisions”, also insisting on “the exclusion of any clauses which would require the State to pay in all outcomes.”