Month: May 2019

Sea Change

This week has seen the publication of an important report on North Sea oil and gas.  ‘Sea Change – climate emergency, jobs and managing the phase-out of UK oil and gas extraction’.  The report is co-published by Platform, Oil Change International and Friends of the Earth Scotland. It finds that

  • The UK’s 5.7 billion barrels of oil and gas in already-operating oil and gas fields will exceed the UK’s share in relation to Paris climate goals – whereas industry and government aim to extract 20 billion barrels;
  • Recent subsidies for oil and gas extraction will add twice as much carbon to the atmosphere as the phase-out of coal power saves;
  • Given the right policies, job creation in clean energy industries will exceed affected oil and gas jobs more than threefold.

Recommendations to the UK and Scottish Governments include:

  • Stop issuing licenses and permits for new oil and gas exploration and development, and revoke undeveloped licenses;
  • Rapidly phase out all subsidies for oil and gas extraction, including tax breaks, and redirect them to fund a Just Transition;
  • Enable rapid building of the clean energy industry through fiscal and policy support to at least the extent they have provided to the oil industry, including inward investment in affected regions and communities;
  • Open formal consultations with trade unions to develop and implement a Just Transition strategy for oil-dependent regions and communities.

We hope to publish a longer review of the report in the near future.  However, in the meantime we strongly recommend downloading, reading and sharing the PDF.

2018-07-19 08.57.05

 

NFLA Seminar on just transition

On Friday 10th May I attended the Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) Scotland Spring Seminar in Dundee on behalf of Scot.E3. The subject of the seminar was ‘Dealing With Climate Change, Just Transition and Divestment Issues’.

The four presentations grappled with issues of just transition and sustainability from a local authority perspective:

You can use the hyperlinks to access the presentations. NFLA have also produced a useful briefing on some of these issues – ‘Climate Emergency’ Declarations and the practicalities in Local Authority Action to go ‘Carbon Neutral’

Eileen Cook

46798793304_28f8245813_z

 

 

 

Energy from Waste

The UK’s Green Investment Bank had a short and inglorious history; founded in 2012 it was privatised in 2017.  The private company is now called the Green Investment Group – a wholly owned financial arm of the Australian development company Macquarie. The company also owns the formerly US owned incineration company Wheelabrator.  The group is playing a role in energy from waste schemes.  In Scotland the Green Investment GroupIG has taken an equity risk of 50% capital in the Earl’s Gate EfW CHP project at Grangemouth. Wheelabrator incineration is at the heart of the project.  Earl’s Gate boasts the capacity to ‘treat’ more than 20% of Scotland’s municipal waste.  Local authorities are being drawn into long-term and dubious ‘green’ capital projects with virtually no public debate.

The evolution of the Green Investment Bank is a salutary lesson in what happens when policy initiatives are based on market ideology.

geograph-5887688-by-Derek-HarperImage by Derek Harper CC BY SA 2.0 https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5887688

A SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM

An Energy Policy Consultation paper – A shock to the system – the case for a publicly owned and democratically accountable Scottish energy company

In 2014 the Scottish government initiated an energy policy review. The purpose of this review was to examine the present state of Scotland’s energy economy and consider future options in the light of both a looming climate crisis and also the optimum strategy for replacing ageing fossil fuel and nuclear generating capacity with a range of renewable technologies.

In 2017 in order to ensure employment and fuel poverty issues were taken into account in this review, an infant SCOT.E3 decided to submit its own paper in an attempt to ensure that a full spectrum of related energy and environmental issues were incorporated into a memorandum of evidence.

Yet five years on and despite an almost universal acknowledgement of an accelerating climate crisis, little has been done- in practical terms- to address an impending environmental disaster and its related social and economic consequences. Also, within the intervening period, we have seen the commercial collapse of the BiFab renewable power technology company at Burntisland as well as the continued interest of the petro-chemical company Ineos in activating its shale gas fracking options to the point that it will feel confident to test the validity of the current Scottish governments ‘anti-fracking’ moratorium.

So it is against this present uncertainty that SCOT.E3 is now initiating another energy policy review to which it invites all interested parties to participate. The aim of this exercise is to re-examine the range of issues needed to be addressed; a renewable energy economy and the availability of appropriate technologies, the issue of fuel poverty and affordability of energy, energy efficiency, energy related employment and just transition possibilities regarding current energy and defence related employment, improvement of housing stock and carbon neutral public transport systems- to name but a few.

And as can be seen from the attached paper, SCOT.E3 have made a start in outlining the historical record of electricity generation and supply in Scotland in order to reinforce the case for a major stage in meeting Scotland’s forthcoming energy and environmental needs- a long promised Scottish state owned energy company.

We are therefore inviting you to participate in this exercise by adding your comments and/or contributions under the section headings so far left blank. This is to ensure that any report fully takes into account the range of opinions that truly reflect the technical and scientific know-how- as well as the concerns of environmental, community and trade union campaigns and interests engaged in these vital and urgent issues.

In order to ensure that this exercise is properly democratic, it is our intention to hold a consultative meeting for all consultees in the near future, as well as a major workshop type conference in the autumn.

We hope that you find the introductory notes both useful and of interest and we look forward to hearing from you in the near future. For any further information please contact:

SCOT.E3 at www.scote3.wordpress.com, email triple.e.scot@gmail.com 

Untitled