Just stop unholy oil at Rosebank; is this the voice of the church?

It is hard to believe now that until recently the churches said nothing about environmental concerns, but today it seems that if you are not opposed to fossil fuels and don’t protest with Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion then you are not a proper Christian.

The General Synod wants the Church of England to reach Net Zero by 2030 and one serious solution is to use battery-heated cushions in church. That will make the pew the hot seat!

Twice before, groups of church leaders – with Rowan Williams heading the signatories, have written to the Prime Minister demanding no new oil in or on British land or sea.

On 5th October 2023 400+ Christian Leaders Called on Prime Minister to Stop Rosebank Oil Field. This was an open letter organised by Operation Noah which has pursued a policy of seeking to curtail fossil fuels for over a decade, which came to the for in its Bright Now campaign of 2013. That was very one-sided and also included a rather inaccurate presentation of fracking! Incidentally, or not, I cannot find out who is funding Operation Noah, or what qualifications they have to pronounce on energy issues.

Rosebank is a relatively small oil and gas field to the west of the Shetland Islands, which would produce a moderate amount of oil and gas. As the Gaurdian says;

Rosebank could produce 69,000 barrels of oil a day – about 8% of the UK’s projected daily output between 2026 and 2030 – and could also produce 44m cubic feet of gas every day [ed. a few per cent of UK consumption], according to Equinor.

The letter had a simple focus; – Just Stop Oil at Rosebank. But, and this is absolutely vital. But, and a big but, they do not consider three basic necessities of life

Heating, eating and meeting

or if you prefer  – living in a warm home, having enough food and being able to travel to meet whether for friends , family or work – and be able to afford it. All three use prodigious amounts of energy and if too costly pushes people into poverty. That has happened in the last few years over the cost of gas for heating and also petrol for transport.

https://operationnoah.org/news-events/400-christian-leaders-call-on-prime-minister-to-stop-rosebank/?fbclid=IwAR24nK1qfst55vSZXEj95lzotX28PYPNHk355NdUwryqrHZs59k1vVBKY3g

PRESS RELEASE: 400+ Christian Leaders Call on Prime Minister to Stop Rosebank Oil Field

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kvyjiS75fY6eLSg1jKrzmQVrnFYzevNcGNiOt42rp7w/edit

Here is the open letter and you can find all those who signed on the url above.

Dear Prime Minister,

As Christian leaders from around the UK, we call on you to stop the Rosebank oil field, which will not lower energy bills, provide energy security, uphold our obligations to care for our global neighbours or create sustainable jobs fit for the green energy future we need. 1

Your government will know that both the International Energy Agency and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have been clear that we cannot afford to burn all the oil and gas from existing fossil fuel developments, let alone from new ones, and still limit global heating to 1.5°C. 2

We have already seen the incredible damage that human-driven climate change has caused around the world; sadly, these impacts will only accelerate as we burn more oil, gas and coal. 3

Rosebank could produce more than 300m barrels of oil, which, when burned, will emit the same amount of CO2 as the annual emissions of the world’s 28 lowest-income countries combined – countries disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis with limited ability to adapt. 4

Yet according to the UN, every dollar invested in renewables creates three times more jobs than if that same amount were invested in fossil fuels. 

Why then does your government refuse to commit to supporting a just transition – one that prioritises workers and their communities, and recognises that the fossil fuel era is rapidly coming to a close 5– in favour of an industry that will cost UK taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds, will produce oil that even its Norwegian owners acknowledge will be sold on the international market at international prices, and will ultimately contribute to climate chaos? 6

We already have most of the solutions we need to transition to 100% renewable energy.7 What we lack is the political will – and the moral conviction to do what is best for people and the planet. As Christian leaders from around the UK, we do not take a partisan view on Rosebank, we take a moral view. It’s time to show international and moral leadership – and stop Rosebank. 8

The content of the letter is similar to previous letters to the Prime Minister and give a summary of the dominant narrative on fossils fuels within the churches today. I say “dominant” but could say “exclusive” as alternative voices are all but ignored in today’s churches. It is also very closely aligned with various green NGOs eg Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. The whole tenor is to disinvest and stop using fossil fuels as soon as possible and it is not surprising that some of the better known signatories Are involved in Extinction Rebellion and have been involved in protests like stopping commuters getting to work by train or occupying business premises.

On the surface it seems a reasonable appeal but the letter does not acknowledge that fossil fuels will be used for several decades, owing to a time lag of introducing alternatives. Neither does it acknowledge that petroleum is used for a vast number of products – and not only plastic bags! These include artificial fertiliser and many everyday and specialist products. It also overlooks the whole question of metals and minerals needed for a transition to electrification which requires astronomical amounts of various metals like copper.

The letter is written with strong moral force but suffers from the unrealistic idealism of so much environmental activism of today. They seem to assume that we can rapidly get rid of fossil fuels and do not see that any transition from them will take decades and not years.

The range of opinion over fossil fuels and Net Zero, whether in 2030 or 2050, is vast. Often those who have the most extreme views shout the loudest, whether those who want Net Zero last week or those who think there is no problem and the more fuel we burn the better. I reject both!

It may seem most unreasonable to criticise such a morally charged letter by 400 well-meaning church leaders, but I do so as it has several deficiencies caused by an inadequate grasp of the technicalities of delivering the vast amount of energy needed in our world today and the mineral resources needed to do it.

What I have done is to number each section and make what I think a pertinent comments and point out serious weaknesses. The letter seems unaware how much the electrical grid needs expanding and that this cannot occur overnight. The expansion will be due to the number of EVs and the transfer of heating from gas to electricity. That would mean that transmission lines would have to carry several times the present amount. That in itself is a massive undertaking. It is is also unaware of the problem of sufficient mineral resources, like Copper and other metals, to make that transition.

The letter is totally silent about nuclear energy, which is probably the cleanest and safest of all energy sources and has the least impact on the environment. My statement here goes against the policies of many green NGOs which are implacably opposed to nuclear energy and to GMOs. At best Christian green groups are very iffy to nuclear energy and GMOs, but the latter is another, though related, story.

I get the impression that there hadn’t been very much delving into the issues from every side. I would have thought church leaders would have examined things thoroughly and found out the “other side”, or, at least, taken advice from experts who are conversant with the technology. The letter seems to echo this article.

https://www.stopcambo.org.uk/updates/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-rosebank-oil-field

And so to my seven points;

 1. Rosebank oil field, which will not lower energy bills, provide energy security, uphold our obligations to care for our global neighbours or create sustainable jobs fit for the green energy future we need. 

This is the standard criticism of Rosebank and any new petroleum from almost all green groups.

There are mixed views on whether Rosebank would actually lower bills, but in the form of taxes it would boost treasury finances and thus the wealth of each of us. Since the latter was sent Hamas has let violence loose in the Middle East, which may cause energy insecurity, thus a local British source would be of great benefit.

This would give some energy security, which seems more necessary now. Further a local source results in few emissions from transportation and loss in transport (this is especially for gas).

The concern for global neighbours is probably a concern of raised emissions, but in fact using Rosebank would make no difference. Britain would either use Rosebank or import.

I am baffled why sustainable jobs  would be excluded, but the word sustainable is overused. Varieties of energy are being developed and pursued – oil, nuclear and renewable. there is a question Renewables are sustainable in light of mineral demands.

2. 1.5 degree limit

The 1.5 deg limit was introduced by the IPCC, and is suggesting temperatures must not rise more than 1.5 deg higher than they were before the Industrial Revolution. That period in the 18th century was in the middle of the Little Ice Age, when temperatures were at their lowest for a thousand years with intervening Mediaeval Warm Period, which began after a sudden climate collapse after 1314. Glaciers were in full retreat in the Mediaeval Warm Period and then in full advance up to about 1850 and have been in retreat since.

Some in the IPCC have tried to smooth out the LIA and MWP and argue the LIA was  confined to the Northern Hemisphere and was thus local. In the LIA glaciers surged in the Alps and I found moraines from a little LIA glacier in the Savoie Alpes,and possibly in New Mexico.  In fact, moraines give evidence for the furthest extent of glaciation. There were probably small glaciers in Scotland. Glaciers also advanced in the Ruwenzori Mountains bang on the equator, as they did in New Zealand and South America. Yes, it was not confined to the northern hemisphere.

(BTW I worked on Precambrian glaciation in South Africa  and then on the discovery of glaciation in North Wales in 1841/2, where I visited many glacial sites, both in the mountains and elsewhere.). Here’s Buckland in 1841 at Rhyd Ddu, below Snowdon. He thought coal was God’s blessing to Britain.

In fact, now many climate scientists reckon the 1.5 deg limit has or will be exceeded and so what is needed is mitigation not limiting the actual temperature. Before anyone concludes I am not concerned, I am, but ditching Rosebank won’t make any difference. Even so the aim must be to reduce fossil fuels, and use every form of mitigation.

Though the IEA wish to see fossil fuels reduced ASAP, they are realists and know that they will be used in 2050 and beyond. They also recognise new sources must be found – especially in regard to unstable source areas.

https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2022/executive-summary

This diagram from their report shows how fossil fuels are expected to be used until 2050. There is no possibility of an imminent transition, and despite concerns of 1.5 deg they are still needed.

3 Incredible damage

The letter seems to assume all recent disasters eg floods and fires are caused  by Climate Change. That is questionable and expert scientists are very reticent on this. It is scaremongering to appeal to climate change whenever there is a flood or wildfire. They have always occurred.

The fact of the matter is that the IPCC has concluded that connections of carbon dioxide emissions and most types of extreme weather are “in a state of high uncertainty, doubt, or incompleteness.” Further decisions may be made by intuition rather than evidence.

https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_chapter2.pdf

A greater consideration of various factors is needed and there are many possible ones apart from Climate Change. Deforestation and human development are major ones, along with streamlining of rivers rather than allowing natural ways of slowing the flow.

In Britain some of the factors are draining moorland peatbogs with loss of CO2

, excess removal of trees (and replacement by non-native trees), some farming practices, and channeling rivers. In recent years there has been sterling work by various rivers trusts. Iconically this can be seen in the re-introduction of beavers, but more mundanely in the work of peat restoration, both in uplands and lowlands, leaky dams, tree-planting and the use of wild horses and rugged cattle, like Belted Galloways. The problems pre-date fossil fuels and is in part due to excess sheep-rearing. The Howgill Fells are just one example, where problems date back to the Vikings!!. This was brought home to me when I reviewed a field guide to the geomorphology of the Howgill Fells;

https://michaelroberts4004.wordpress.com/2021/09/28/the-howgill-fells-sheep-and-geomorphology/

To move to Uganda where I worked for a year. In S W Uganda, close to the Virunga volcanoes, deforestation is running at a rate of 2% p.a. This is mostly for firewood for cooking, but much of BBQ charcoal comes from Africa. Fifty miles to the north in the Ruwenzori at Kilembe Mines, where I worked, there have been several serious floods in recent years, which nearly washed away the bungalows I lived in. These did not occur 50 years ago, but there has been a massive increase of population including on the surrounding steep hillsides which had only a few houses and shambas 50 years ago with no roads. Now there are roads a plenty and lots of building. That and deforestation is a recipe for flooding before Global Warming is invoked as the explain-all.

There are similar stories from elsewhere and warn against simplistic appeals to Global Warming and then to Just Stop Oil.

It is very superficial thinking to put it all down to Climate Change and the burning of fossil fuels and to ignore the massive increase in population, deforestation, re-ordering rivers, loss of wetlands, and unsustainable farming practices. Here one needs to consider each and every one of the causes of flooding and wildfires, first in Britain (because we live here) and then in the rest of the world.

As Philip Fletcher from Church House pointed out a decade ago, we should not see everything through the lens of climate change, as too many within the churches tend to do.

4 Rosebank could produce more than 300m barrels of oil,

That sounds like an incredible amount (and is 13 billion gallons) but it is about the annual usage of oil in Britain, which is 500 million barrels and declining. In other words a years supply. The reference to the 28 lowest income countries is an emotive rather than a reasoned argument.

To be hard-headed that amount will be used in Britain anyway, so opening Rosebank will have little global effect on emissions. In fact, to import petroleum would result in greater emissions due to transport and loss in transit. Somehow that is never considered.

If it is not used immediately by Britain, it will be used in the rest of Europe and thus reduce imports from other parts of the world, which would result in greater emissions due to transporting the oil.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-06-28/debates/BFB69676-9E1C-4899-876B-A80C34FD8450/RosebankOilfieldEnvironmentalImpacts

5 the fossil fuel era is rapidly coming to a close

The question is “How rapidly?” Listening to activists it seems to be a few years or even a matter of months. I discuss this on renewables a little further on. Most scenarios recognise that fossil fuels with be with us for decades rather than years, and it is unlikely they will be phased out by 2050. The challenges of Net Zero 2050 are superbly explained in Dieter Helm’s  Net Zero; how we stop causing climate change. He rightly sees that the issue is with you and me and not only Big Oil. He notes (pxi) “net zero does not actually mean reducing emissions to zero.’ Net Zero means natural and industrial sequestration must be equal or less than carbon emissions by 2050.

Two main natural sequestrators are restoring peatland and planting trees (but right trees in the right places!). Both are very long term projects as they sequester very little in the early stages. Here is a calculator for trees;

https://naturalresources.wales/media/687190/eng-worksheet-carbon-storage-calculator.pdf

From this I can work out that two rowans of 23 years old I planted in my old vicarage have so far sequestered 30 kg of carbon! I also grow rowans from seed and have given away thirty in the last few years – with more in the offing. So far they have sequestered 3 kg of carbon between them, but that will increase rapidly each year. In about 30 years time each will have sequestered some 150 kg. This is a bit of a tangent but is a reminder how glacially slow natural sequestration is, but also how long-lived it is.

To get back to oil, we cannot get rid of oil until we have replacement sources of energy – see below. To illustrate the size of the problem about 80% of UK energy comes from fossil fuels and that will not reduce as rapidly as the letter seems to require. A very useful twitter account for any following energy in Britain is British Electricity Tracker (by Andrew Crossland) @myGridGB. He records how electricity is being produced at various times of the day – and gives it without comment. At 6pm on 31/10/23 it was;

Gas 38.0% Biomass 6.6% Coal 4.0% Wind 17.7% Solar 0.0% Hydro 2.1% Nuclear 13.2% Imports 13.5% Other 1.7% Storage 3.2%

Generation 36GW Carbon intensity 255 gCO2e/kWh

Renewables i.e. wind and solar varies from 1% to 70%, and to fulfil demand gas has to be ramped up and possibly coal. With such variability there has to be back-up and at present that is gas. And it will remain gas for many many years. further electricity is only 20% of the energy we use . The rest are fossil fuels. I.e. fossil fuels are well over 80% of the energy we use and a transition away from them is not on the horizon.

The letter should have been more honest and stated that the Transition will be decades not years. On top of that energy is only part of the use of fossil fuels as these illustrations show;

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/can-made-one-barrel-oil/

Before we can get rid of oil we must find suitable materials to make all these from.

A different way of putting it!

Where are we going to get all our medical equipment, drugs, fertilisers etc from?

This rather dark annotated photo of an Extinction Rebellion founder makes the point about medicine

EVs and bicycles both rely on oil in their manufacture (even the leather saddles on my bikes). Not to mention the construction for renewable energy.

Until alternatives are found AND in production we are tied to oil, whether we like it or not. This inevitably delays any stopping of oil. But if oil was simply stopped – as many of the signatories seem to think – there would be widespread hunger and famine in every continent.

Artificial fertilisers are made by capturing nitrogen from the atmosphere and by the Haber-Bosch process utilising natural gas. Nearly half the world is dependant on using artificial fertiliser, which cannot be replaced in a short timescale – however desirable. Much grain production, along with sheep and cattle, is totally dependant on artificial fertiliser. The fertiliser is to make rye grass grow for grazing and can put farmers into a viscous circle, where to stop using fertiliser and rye grass would mean bankruptcy and less food available. Though more sustainable agriculture is being developed, it will take decades not years to put into effect. The books by James Rebanks and Lee Schofield shows what is being done in the Lake District, but that is small beer.  To effect  immediate change is famine and death worse than Extinction Rebellion’s wildest dreams of climate chaos. The change is slow for many reasons.

There will probably a slow steady decline in oil usage unless there is a sudden  breakthrough in technology. But even that would take decades.

6 Climate chaos

I think the worst case of climate chaos was in the 1310s!! Compared to that decade our present climatic woes are minor. The cause of it was probably a volcanic eruption.

However all the coverage on Climate Chaos and Climate Grief helps nobody. It can lead to having  despair and no hope. It can cause stress and even mental illness and some psychologists say their research indicates that this is having an effect on the young.

To deny that there is a serious issue over the climate (and the environment in general) is both wrong and misguided, but a focus on a climate apocalypse results in despair, mental illness and inaction, though some think protests are the solution.

What is needed is HOPE in a difficult but not apocalyptic situation, so that the HOPE in the future leads to positive action starting at the personal and local level. Many more need to follow Norman Tebbit’s advice of forty years ago  – On yer bike – and use the car less – and that is just for starters.

The churches should have great responsibility  and encourage hope in the time of environmental concern and then suggest action. Those actions will normally be very small and local, but cumulative.

7 We already have most of the solutions we need to transition to 100% renewable energy

This statement is too naive and inaccurate. To transition to 100% renewable there must be a 24/7/365 supply of power which is not subject to intermittency AND IS AVAILABLE NOW. The only sources which can do that at present are fossil fuels and nuclear.

Hydro is sparse in the UK as our topography does not lend itself to developing as much as Switzerland or Norway. There are two pump storage sites in North Wales, and there could not be many more. There are far more in Scotland, but again environmental reasons could be limiting. However, at present, hydro produces 2.2% of UK electricity and does not have the potential of much more.

Both solar and wind energy are intermittent and if you follow Grid watch on twitter https://twitter.com/myGridGB https://twitter.com/myGridGB  , you will find that solar and wind make a contribution of  0 to 70 % of electrical power at a given time. Nuclear makes up some of the shortfall with a steady 15 to 20% and then the slack of up to 80% is made up from gas power stations and imports – and even coal!

Battery storage is very expensive and limited at present and the technology needs greatly improving.

It is totally wrong to say we have most of the solutions. Assuming that the present techniques are suitable it would still take decades rather than years to implement. Battery storage would have to be increased from near zero to being able to provide power for several weeks as in a dunkelflaute. Both solar and wind must be increased several fold and so must the electric grid. None can be done in a few years by which time Rosebank would be exhausted!!

Far too much hope is put on EVs and some virtually virtue signal by being proud owners of an EV! As if that is a solution! The problem over EVs is also severe as mining experts speak out about as the minerals needed are not as plentiful as a transfer to EVs requires. Further EVs increase the demand for electricity, possibly doubling or more the demand. The demand of EVs on mineral resources is mind-boggling.

The demand gives mind-boggling figures. There are 35 million ICEs in the UK to be replaced by EV’s over the next ten to fifteen years.  Then think of the numbers worldwide! To produce just the copper for British vehicles alone, you would need to mine 200 million tons of copper ore at 0.4% copper. (based on 20kg of Cu needed for each EV.)  To consider only copper; a tiny copper mine is 2 million tons of ore at 2% copper. but for one EV you need 1 ton of copper ore if a rich mine of 2% copper. Many decades ago I assessed an tiny old working for potential.  The minimum target was 2 million tons at 2%. That would give copper for two million EVS. In present mines you need 5 tons of ore for each EV, as the grade is much lower at 0.4% . So how much copper ore do you need for the 35 million EVS to replace ICEs in Britain alone? And then the Li, Co, Ni, graphite. This blogs deals with the problem

https://michaelroberts4004.wordpress.com/2023/09/27/why-sunaks-delay-of-banning-petrol-cars-until-2035-is-more-than-copper-bottomed/

Where is all the copper  (and other minerals) going to come from? I can assure you it is a bigger headache than a headache from CO poisoning which I got while working in a copper mine. An unforgettable experience! This is a vital consideration for the practicality of transition away from oil. It was not even mentioned  – but then it is not mentioned by most Christian environmentalism. Why not?

Yes, renewables and batteries are already here, but only a fraction of what is needed for a transition to 100% renewables. It is completely misleading to give the impression that it is achievable in the near future. This is a major example why Christian green groups have not understood the nature of transition and the vast amounts of new infrastructure and minerals needed.

Any equally serious problem is that nuclear energy is simply not mentioned. It ought to be as it is a cleaner energy than any other. There has long been opposition to nuclear energy especially by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth and this is shared by many Green Christians. It is a very serious omission not to encourage nuclear energy which has been stymied and throttled by green propaganda for half a century. The silence from this letter is very telling.

Conclusion

Like the two previous letters of oil from church leaders, this letter has many deficiencies, bias and omissions. It is very one sided and only reflects a portion of Christian opinion, though their view tends to have the upper hand at present. There is little awareness of the technological challenges of going green and clean and has a dangerously optimistic view of the readiness of renewables.

They also ignored the issues of heating, eating and meeting thus ignoring the enormous costs inflicted on people along with insecurity. Too rapid a rejection of oil will have serious consequences of hunger and energy poverty. Food banks will not be able to cope.

The letter was organised by Operation Noah which has single-mindedly pushed for divestment and the ridding of fossil fuels for many years. This may explain the limited vision of the letter which ignores so many things – the need to use fossil fuels for at least a few decades, the use of fossil fuels in artificial fertilisers and many manufactured “things”, the ignoring of nuclear energy, the over-looking of the astronomical demand for minerals for “green energy”, the inevitable slow development of electric grids etc. Ignoring them them may be good rhetoric but it is not realistic – not that a pragmatic outlook is essential to avoid suffering!

In fact it is singing to the same song sheet as many green groups, including Extinction Rebellion and their exaggerations,. But then some bishops went to ER demonstrations/disruptions…….

https://viamedia.news/2019/10/18/the-rainbow-of-non-violent-advocacy/?fbclid=IwAR176P4KmtTPtJG7ojL2cax2fYTKyYHcgckbLTWYdpKmj-Dhb2alFSVf-Bo

And then Christian Climate Action;

This seems an odd way to mark Good Friday! Does it say it all?

Christian Climate Action posted this on Facebook on 20th October 2023

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/tyres-deflated-more-100-suvs-8845965

With the only comment being the emojis

I wonder what the owners’ felt. As much as I dislike Chelsea tractors this is not a good or wise action, and hardly in accord with the love of Christ.

I could say a lot more but the “letter” and its predecessors seem to ignore a variety of informed opinion and only go for the most extreme action without considering the results of rapid elimination of oil.

This boils down to one thing;

What can oil be replaced with if oil is got rid of in a few years?

In a ideal world we would get rid of oil yesterday, but cannot do so until there are replacements, which are not yet present. Until then, which will be several decades, we are stuck with oil.

The whole world needs look for new energy sources,  a greater economy of use, mitigation (especially natural)  and insulation. But that is less exciting and won’t grab the headlines like getting arrested at an ER demonstration or climbing onto a railway carriage.

What should church be doing

Apart from firstly doing its primary task, it needs to be well-informed and not partisan. If it is partisan then it will push away many, both within and without the fold.

There is a danger in  polarising opinion to be utterly for or against rather than slowly encouraging people to at least a partial acceptance of the need for environmental renewal.

Just consider two examples from the hills of the north where I wander around! There is a tremendous amount of work going on which is often unnoticed. There is peat restoration galore, river repair, tree planting, leaky dams, change in sheep and cattle farming etc. I have done my bit having re-introduced sphagnum over the last ten years to a square kilometre of moorland where the old drainage channels were blocked but then no peat planted. Sphagnum is now beginning to thrive. It will slowly become a carbon store.

In one area of upland farms local to me there is much hedgerow repair and other things, but few notice. Many of the farmers were appreciative of the work but one was scathing. He now wants a few things done on his land. He is very much a partial convert but that is a step in the right direction. One of the things that gives me hope are people, not only farmers, who are beginning to have a green tinge!

A recent best-seller is Lee Schofield’s Wild Fell on the work on the RSPB estate at Haweswater in the Lakes. The last eagle has gone but more wildlife is coming back, and most recently a Great Egret. Not all local farmers like the RSPB work and some are antagonistic, but Lee works at it slowly and partially wins some round. More and more hill farmers are adopting the approach at Haweswater and of James Rebanks, whose English Pastoral recounts a gradual change in shepherding to the great benefit of the fells. I think Monbiot would simply retort by saying the maggots aka sheep should just go – and that is the approach of this letter. When on the fells I rejoice when I see peat restoration, tree-planting and Belted Galloway cattle.

Today all churches need to have an environmental concern with action, but that is easier said than done. I have seen churchwardens spray wildflowers with glyphosate in a churchyard for tidiness sake and elsewhere the grass is mown to bowling green standard to the exclusion of wild flowers. To move forward the church leaders need the wisdom of Solomon and great patience. But slowly things are happening despite the pressures of paying diocesan dues (parish share) and bricks and mortar. Things are changing – and ever more rapidly.

Yes it is slow, and there is urgency, but as a geologist and glaciologist, I go for the slow, inexorable approach on creation care.

The rush to electric cars will founder on Copper

In late September 2023 Rishi Sunak, Prime minister of the UK, put forward several measures relating to Net Zero. Not all were happy! Among other things he pushed the cessation of petrol vehicles from 2030 to 2035.

One cannot say that this was not controversial but several things need considering, such as technical issues and the affordability of EVs.

To be truly green you must have an EV – electrical vehicle – rather than a petrol or diesel one. Assuming you have £70K to buy one!!   The cheapest small, but not tiny EV is about  £25,000  whereas some petrol cars less than 15K, but there are few below 13K. An obvious concern is who can afford an EV. At present you can buy a reasonable petrol car for a few thousand, which is often reliable, cheap to maintain and does 50 mpg. You can also buy a 2015 Leaf for about 5K, but I wonder about the battery. With battery replacements at £5000 (or sometimes £2500 refurbished) every few years that makes an older EV more expensive. Range and cost are improving but are still issues. I would suggest that EVs will be beyond some who can afford a petrol car at present. Without decent public transport that will be a serious problem for many outside big cities. Most small towns have no railway connection and poor public transport and thus cars are almost essential. Thus getting to my daughter’s house ten miles away is not easy; 25 minutes by car, 50 minutes by bike (but I am in my 70s), a good two hours by bus and four hours on foot. I usually go by bike.

EVs are often portrayed as Zero Emissions, but that is only point of delivery and thus a misleading claim. It does not consider the source of the electricity or fossil fuels used in making the cars.. Many countries are aiming to be EV within a decade and phase out petrol and diesel vehicles. That sounds excellent but one or two things have not been thought through.

Perhaps, EV stands for Extractivist Vehicle as we will see here, as there are obstacles to a rapid transition to EVs in respect of all the minerals (metals and graphite) needed for the battery and the expansion of the national grid.

First, electrification  of vehicles and other things, including heating, means that the present grid needs to be expanded to cope with a vastly increased use of electricity. I won’t discuss that but consider the extra requirements of EVs. The grid in Britain is under severe strain already.

EVs seem to be an attractive alternative and from the number of Teslas running around they are gaining in popularity.  But Teslas are expensive starting at £40K. They are billed as cheaper and emissions free. The latter is possibly true at the point of use, but depends on the source of electricity.  Except when they catch fire, they emit no gases. Anyone who has followed a badly tuned diesel or stood next to a idling car (Chelsea tractor?) outside a school will  know how bad emissions can be. (I cannot understand why some drivers sit in stationary cars with the engines on!)

Secondly, EVs need a vast amount of additional metals. Cars are mostly steel and/or aluminium and relatively small amounts of other metals – mostly for electrical systems and the catalytic converter. An EV needs all that PLUS the materials, mostly metals in a heavy battery . This diagram shows what is else is needed for an EV battery.

 

 

 

Pinched with permission from B F Randall!

https://bfrandall.substack.com/p/the-recyclable-lion-and-other-bedtime?r=1rapbo&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

(This article deals with the problems of lithium and its recycling)

This anti-renewable meme sums it up.

That is an additional 185kg of metals (including the graphite)  or for pre-metric dinosaurs like me – about 4 cwt – which vastly adds to the cars weight. A lot of these metals are needed; Copper, Aluminium, Steel, Lithium, Cobalt, Manganese, Nickel and Graphite – though the last is not a metal. The quantities needed is vast and mining of these minerals needs to be vastly expanded if EVs are going to replace ICEVs.

Another list of metals needed https://www.mining.com/web/the-key-minerals-in-an-ev-battery/ which is in the same order.

However it is an issue ignored, avoided or evaded by many supporters of EVs and particularly among green groups. Aims of a rapid transition to EVs will founder on a shortage of these minerals as several groups have expounded.

One is a group is from the British Museum of Natural History who consider it from the position of mining in the UK. Relatively little of these are mined in the UK, but old copper mines in Cornwall and Anglesey show promise with moderate reserves. There is also the potential for two vast opencast copper mines in Snowdonia…………….

Natural History Museum experts make case for mining in UK

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/press-releases/natural-history-museum-experts-make-case-for-mining-in-uk.html

In a brief non-technical article they discuss the issues and the challenge. I quote;

The UK has just announced an intent to speed up its reduction of carbon emissions with the new plan set to cut them 78% by 2035. The biggest obstacle to this is internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) which are the greatest contributors to carbon emissions within the UK.

To switch the UK’s fleet of 31.5 million ICEVs to battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) would take an estimated 207,900 tonnes cobalt, 264,600 tonnes lithium carbonate, 7,200 tonnes neodymium and dysprosium and 2,362,500 tonnes copper. This is twice the current annual world production of cobalt, an entire year’s world production of neodymium and three quarters of the world production of lithium. To do the same worldwide would need forty times these amounts.

The quantities are mind-boggling and these are just for the UK. These figures are not quite the same as Randall’s but his diagram would still require  O.64 million tons of copper (32 million vehicles x 0.02 tonnes of copper per EV). His diagram does not include copper needed for components or transmission outside the battery.

In my young years I worked for a mining company in Africa. In Uganda I surveyed two areas for the presence of copper but there was very little. I worked underground as a section geologist for four months. In South Africa I assessed some old mine workings from the 1840s. I made a very detailed geological map and sampled the ore in the adits of the mine. I chipped samples off the roof using a Calcium Carbide lamp for light!  Initially it looked promising but the one diamond drill core going down 700 ft  showed there was probably insufficient ore for a mine. I worked on a ballpark figure of 2 million tons of ore at 2% Cu, which would have given 40,000 tonnes of Cu. That would be less than 2% of the Copper needed for the UK to go EV!!!! As I could only demonstrate half a million tons, that was that!. I also made a I:60000 geological map of about 2000 sq km, and noted all the visible mineralisation. I also superficially looked over a larger area. The area looked promising but nothing has come to light in the last fifty years! During that time copper production in South Africa has collapsed. Most of the time an exploration geologist enjoys making a geological map, but proves there is nothing there. None of my colleagues had any more success.

2.4 million tonnes of Copper is a heck of a lot of the metal and even more of a heck of a lot of copper ore.

If you got copper from a rich ore of 2%, then 120 million tones of Cu ore are needed, but much ore is only 0.3% Cu which would require nearly a billion tonnes of ore. 

Note you need to mine between 1 (grade 2%) and 7 (grade 0.3%) tonnes of Cu ore for each EV, which requires 20kg of Copper.

As well as copper for each vehicle Copper is needed for the grid. 

Could we get the copper from the UK? There are two promising mines in Cornwall and Anglesey  (re-opening the 3000 year old Parys Mountain mine). Between them they seem to have 16 million tonnes at a bit below 2%.

Now that would give 320,000 tonnes of Copper. 

There are two porphyry copper deposits in Snowdonia, one north of Dolgellau and the other at Betws y Coed, but it would transform the area from this at the idyllic Llyn Crafnant

to this;

That would be the new view of the Carneddau! It looks like Carnedd Llewelyn in the distance!!

I think I prefer this kind of Snowdonia. The mine would be in the middle distance and would swallow up Llyn Crafnant. Perhaps the contrast of idylllic lake and opencast mining illustrates the environmental dilemmas. Yet to refuse to open these two places as mines to provide for British EVs means that some other peoples (voiceless indigenous?) will have to suffer the mine while the affluent in the west drive around in Teslas. Is that moral?

The amount of copper needed for Britain to go EV is staggering, but for the whole world it is 40 times as much as it would require

100 million tonnes of Copper

which  needs between 5 and 30 billion tonnes of ore.

It is also  4 times the present annual production of copper.

The amount of copper needed is mind-boggling and unless every country was prepared to ditch their environmental standards is simply unachievable. This is just for copper and the scenario is repeated for each of the metals and graphite.

For the UK the tonnage of copper ore needed is 

   118,125,000tonnes of 2% copper ore, (cooper is rarely that rich today)

 787,500,000 tonnes at 0.3 % copper ore which is the norm.

One billion tonnes of copper ore

 

It does seem that costs of these ores are rising for EVs

There is a diversity of minerals needed but I will focus on one;  COPPER. The annual consumption in UK is about 150,000 tonnes, of which 30,000 tonnes are recycle.

https://www.copper.org/resources/market_data/pdfs/annual-data-book-2021_final.pdf

About 23 million tonnes of Copper are produced each year with over 6 million from Chile alone. China uses 50% of refined copper and Europe a mere 13%..

https://www.statista.com/statistics/470246/copper-consumption-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/

About 1.5  Million new vehicles are registered each year.  If 20kg of copper is needed for the battery then there needed to be increase of consumption of 30,000 tonnes – a 20% increase. That excludes copper needed for other aspects of electrification. These are my estimates and are probably underestimates. There will be little scope for extra recycling as these represent new uses.

  Thus there will need to be an annual  20% increase of copper consumption- excluding copper needed for increased electification

4 million tons Cu at about 1.5 to 1.9 % 60,000 tons of Cu 

at 20kg ie 50 cars per ton   that is 60,000 x50 = 3 million cars less if use BMNH figures

Note that you need to mine between 1 (grade 2%) and 7 (grade 0.3%) tonnes of Cu ore for each EV, which requires 20kg.

For the UK for one and a half million EVs annually that would require between ONE POINT FIVE and TEN POINT FIVE million tonnes of Copper ore annually.

 

For rich copper ore 2% Cu 30k x 50 tonnes of ore are needed i.e    1.5 million tonnes p.a.

 

Or for most ores at about 0.4%                 7.5 million tonnes p.a are needed

 

 

Probably an average grade of 0.4% is reasonable, which means FIVE tonnes of ore must be mined for each EV

These are mind-boggling figures and my rough, back of the envelope calculations only give the right order but will not be out by anywhere like a factor of ten

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/07/14/copper-is-key-to-electric-vehicles-wind-and-solar-power-were-short-supply.html

The  BMNH article cited earlier makes similar points as does the following

https://aheadoftheherd.com/copper-mines-becoming-more-capital-intensive-and-costly-to-run/

Outside mining circles these issues are rarely mentioned as if the ease of electrification is straightforward. It is not and is constrained by the availability of Copper and other materials. There are probably several reasons for this. Most people simply use metals without considering the mining of them and have little concept of the vast quantities needed, when spread over millions of vehicles. Of energy commentators and “experts” few have any mining experience and thus don’t consider all the problems of mining with the costs both financial and environmental. Many, especially in our ubiquitous green NGOs (and green Christians!!) have little technical expertise and rely on a green ideology and a love of a non-industrial world. Too many have arts degrees, which cannot serve them well. That will not provide for 8 billion people. Note that miners deal as casually with millions of tons of ore as geologists do of millions of years!!  The potential mines in Cornwall and Anglesey  with 16 million tones of ore are simply diddy mines!!

Thus changing to renewables and EVs seems very attractive until the question of mineral resources is raised and so often transition to EVs is seen as a done deal and no comment made of metals needed for the vehicles  or the expansion of the grid.

Issues of going EV

There has been some focus on charging points as this directly affects EV drivers now, but it is the least of the long-term issues. 

Again there is a  little on the expansion of the grid. With the grid creaking when under high demand, especially during winter it is clear that the present grid needs updating and expanding to cope with the demand for EVs. This probably could not be done by 2030. This will involve a massive use of materials and, of course, more generation of electricity. It is questionable whether renewables can keep up with increased demand, thus ensuring that fossil fuels will continue to be needed. And then the dunkelflaute can strike on a cold windless night!

The greatest missing element in all discussions (except among some “climate deniers”!!!!) is the incredible amount of mining needed to provide all the metals needed for the electric revolution. This blog has indicated just how much one metal – copper – is needed. My reasons for choosing copper is first because I worked as a mining and exploration geologist in copper and secondly it is a good example for all the other metals needed, as to cover them would require a lot more information saying about the same thing about Co, Ni, Graphite etc. I am aware that I am commenting more as an amateur but I take heart from Oscar Wilde who said “if a job is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” 

Two other major issues of the increase in mining is first the energy required, which in the foreseeable  future will be fossil dependant. and secondly mining inevitably causes environmental problems, which may or may not be dealt with responsibly. It is more than the problems with tailings dams.

But mining is a dirty process.  It cannot be anything else with removal of top-soil, then overlying rock, then removal of ore for opencast mining and for underground mines the removal of rock to get access to the ore, then the removal of ore, and all the dirty refining, which uses vast amounts of energy and produces waste and other pollution. Shiny copper looks pristine and clean but has a dirty history of pollution and high energy usage.

The energy usage in mining can be seen in the trucks used in opencast mines. Underground mines often have electrified underground railways, but others use diesel trucks to haul out the ore. I passed these in action in an underground mine in Namibia, but they were no larger than trucks used on our roads. Trucks in large opencast mines are of another magnitude of size and can carry several hundred tons of ore. Consider this little monster;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haul_truck#:~:text=Haul%20trucks%20are%20off%2Dhighway,job%20site%20to%20job%20site.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haul_truck#:~:text=Haul%20trucks%20are%20off%2Dhighway,job%20site%20to%20job%20site.

Some are now electrified but that will make little environmental impact. (But it looks good!!)

***********

The aim of stopping ICEs in 2030 seems a laudable aim but is dependant on many factors as I describe above. I wonder whether the rush to EVs will hit a brick wall soon, with struggles with charging the least of the problems.

The major limiting factors will be an over-stretched grid and a major shortage of metals needed.

Perhaps the Prime Minister was right! I think he was, and so will most people in a few years time.

**********

But don’t worry the rich will carry on and us plebs will be reduced to walking and huddling up with blankets! If lucky we may have a bike.

***********

Just a little warning!!

28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?

29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him,

30 saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’

31 Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand?

32 If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace.

Luke 14

 

******

This is a recent book on the topic, available free on Kindle. As there was no preview I cannot comment on its quality

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Green-energy-ready-dig-Environmental-ebook/dp/B0CJMKLNSB/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3MPMEPZ8Y8SUA&keywords=get+ready+to+dig&qid=1695624618&sprefix=get+ready+to+dig%2Caps%2C85&sr=8-1

Here is a recent video of Kilembe mine in Uganda which was closed by courtesy of Amin and is now being reopened by Chinese. It is a smallish mine. I enjoyed working in the mine except when I got CO poisoning.

Copper Issues of the Metal Type Make EVs A Poor Choice!

To many environmentalists this blog must be wrong as it comes from a “dodgy” source – Natural Gas Now – an american pro-fracking blog.

However he is absolutely right to argue that EVs will founder on the lack of copper, as supplies and reserves are simply far to low to make the transition and electrify to go for EVs.

Most will not admit to this, but anyone with a little knowledge of mining , and especially copper mining will know that it is essentially correct.

In the UK we could solve the problem by opening up two ginormous opencast mines in snowdonia, one by Dolgellau and the other digging up the whole area around Betws Y Coed.

I claim some knowledge as I worked as a section gweologist in a Ugandan copper mine, surveyed an old mine in South Africa (it was too small) and prospected a few thousand square miles for copper.

Source: Copper Issues of the Metal Type Make EVs A Poor Choice!

Bishops’ move against Big Oil. Backwards not Diagonal

Early in my ministry in the Church of England I found very few fellow priests who were bothered about the environment. Apart from Hugh Montefiore, who was regarded as a bit odd on this and no lover of Concorde, few were concerned. It was brought home to me in 1982, while on the Liverpool Diocese Board of Social Responsibility. I took advantage of bringing up the need for care of the environment, citing the cleanliness or not of the River Mersey. I was met with stony silence and my request never even made it to the minutes of the meeting.

I had a concern for the environment since working for a mining company in Africa over a decade earlier, but found no interest in the church, so ploughed my own furrow. I soon was convinced by all the arguments of Friends of the Earth et al – and E F Schumacher (who lived opposite my school) on nuclear energy – and from 1980 turned vicarage gardens into wildlife havens.

Then slowly the church turned and now we have leaders asking for no more fossil fuels. I don’t have space to discuss all the issues of the environment which have come up in the last 30 years, except to say that some approaches today are more bonkers than mine were in the 70s. My concerns predated any concerns over Global Warming/Climate Change, to which I was converted by Sir John Houghton in 1998, having had a geological scepticism before that. I had worked on Precambrian glaciation so was aware of a fluctuating climate. I cannot see how anyone can doubt that Climate Change is a serious issue, but I suggest many will wonder about me after reading this blog!

My concern is this letter from Church Leaders to the Government produced in March 2022. Also involved were Operation Noah, Cafod, Christian, Aid, Tear Fund and A Rocha, who, perhaps, provided the ideas behind the letter.

The Operation Noah press release can be read here;

https://operationnoah.org/featured/former-archbishop-of-canterbury-50-bishops-and-200-church-leaders-write-to-pm-and-chancellor-calling-for-renewables-push/

To many this will be an excellent prod to encourage the government to do the “right thing”. After all Christians should care for creation and this call to reduce fossil fuels must be an excellent idea. Or is it?

Oh that were the case but this letter shows a poor understanding of energy issues, transitions from fossil fuel, and is fatally marred by seeing everything in a binary way as clean or dirty fuels. Nuclear energy is just ignored and no questions are asked about the vast amount of metals from Copper to Rare Earths (and attendant pollution) needed to get away from fossil fuels. Or fertilizer from the Haber-Bosch process, which depends on fossil fuels. There is no reference to hunger in a world where many rely on artificial fertilizers, which are made from petroleum. They also ignored the value of plastics in many things including medicine. Further they do not even consider the problem that renewables are intermittent and often produce very little electricity. No mention is made that storage of power is very limited – a matter of hours when it needs to be weeks.

At best the appeal is naive but if successful will cause untold suffering as many are forced into fuel poverty. It will also, make the church look silly.  Somehow we have to balance getting to Net Zero ASAP without great human suffering or pollution caused by unthinking green policies.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZVkcT5VKz45P3tzdv2mKwznhyKRduubUqrx5_pcNX9U/edit

OPEN LETTER FROM CHURCH LEADERS TO BORIS JOHNSON AND RISHI SUNAK (Deadline for signatures: Wednesday 23 March at 12 noon via this form)

(Here I give the whole text of the letter and make comments on certain parts as quotations- i.e. like this;

The letter misunderstands this for the following reasons~!!)

Dear Prime Minister and Chancellor,

Spring Statement and Energy Security Strategy

As Church leaders from across the UK, we urge you to ensure a rapid shift from fossil fuels to clean energy in the upcoming Spring Statement and the UK’s new energy security strategy.

My comment is that this is based on the simplistic binary division of energy into clean or dirty. Fossil fuels are dirty, renewables are clean. In fact none are clean as this shows;

https://michaelroberts4004.wordpress.com/2020/12/13/the-soapflake-scale-of-clean-and-dirty-energy/

Not even electric is clean, even from wind or solar, due to all the materials needed to build the Grid and turbines and solar farms. Turbines are squalidly dirty when built on peat.

In fact, the materials, especially metals needed, are why no energy can be clean. Turbines look both stately and clean and solar gives off no emissions, but the amount of minerals needed is horrendous, along with disruption of the environment, especially if built on peat..

Just take one metal -Copper. On this I must say that I’ve worked underground in an African copper mine (and got CO poisoning), re-surveyed an ancient mine and prospected a few thousand square miles to work out the potential for copper. A recent calculation showed that for the UK to be 33% EV by 2030 then an additional 40,000tons of copper are needed annually. That is what a  tiny mine would produce and had my ancient mine had that amount in toto i.e 2 million tons of Copper ore at 2%, then it was probably viable. I would need to find a similar sized mine every year until 2030 and that is just for Britain. Possible reserves in Anglesey and Cornwall could produce 500,000 tones of copper, which is a fraction of what EVs need.

So how much would you need on a worldwide basis?

The figure is astronomical and would be at least a 50% increase on annual copper demand, which could not be met by recycling.

Where would the copper come from?

Now repeat it for Nickel, Cobalt, Lithium and the Rare Earths. Lithium is already shooting up in price.

Those who have a gung-ho outlook on renewables never ever ask this question and it is left for a few geologists to bring it up but it is not heard. Most I mention it to have never heard of the problem, even if they are solidly green.

Add to all that all the waste rock from mining and the water needed to mine.

This plan needs urgently to tackle the climate emergency and the cost of living crisis affecting millions of the most vulnerable people in our country, including many of our Church members.

This is clearly essential but how will banning any new UK oil and gas do this? All it will do will make us dependent on imports and the vagaries of the market. It also ignores the fact that much petroleum is not used for energy.

Or more visually. What are these church leaders going to stop using?

The letter simply fails to see, whether we like it or not, we will still be using fossil fuels in the 2040s. Better for all to use our own.; less emissions by avoiding importing, and lots of tax revenues to spend on the more vulnerable. Even dishy Rishi might be happy.

We welcome the UK Government’s decision to ban Russian oil and gas imports, which are fuelling the catastrophic war in Ukraine.

Why are we importing from Russia?

Before about 2013 virtually no gas was imported from Russia whether to Britain or much of the EU. (I’d need to check details on EU.) The amount has increased year by year. Yet both Britain and the EU rejected fracking their own gas reserves due to the pressure from Green groups, who did not have a penchant for rigorous accuracy.

At times the stories put out by greens were face-palming for their errors and these were echoed by church groups, as I found in the Diocese of Blackburn. I still smile to read that Acetic  and citric acid are pollutants. That would mean no vinegar or lemon juice with fish and chips. When diocesan environmental officers make that type of howler we have a problem.

All the green groups took up the anti-fracking cause and often appeared on RT – Russia Television, where there were given the red carpet to expound their cause. Putin must have loved it! Friends of the Earth when two OAPs reported them to the Advertising Standards Authority for misleading leaflets. I do not know why FoE is regarded as a flagship environmental group.

Artificial Fertilizers

Oil and gas is not only needed for fuel but also as a feedstuff for artificial fertilizers without which many would starve.  This is the Haber-Bosch process which artificially fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere for fertilizers. A major producer is Ukraine and already the war  putting these under threat. Why wasn’t this mentioned in the letter? Organic sounds wonderful, and you can practice it in your garden or in a few farms, but it will not feed the world. To get rid of oil means you close down the Haber-Bosch process which would result in serious starvation.  Further those opponents of GMOs, like Christian Aid, Friends of the Earth, Extinction Rebellion did their best to stop GMOs which fixed nitrogen.

However much one might prefer organic food a rapid transition spells disaster as in Sri Lanka.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/07/world/asia/sri-lanka-organic-farming-fertilizer.html

This is not to say the present agricultural system is ideal or even good. Overuse of artificial fertilizer is a serious problem, with run-off into rivers. My own view is that it is not good, and at times horrific, and needs to move to “mixed economy” of artificial AND organic along with a form of rewilding and regenerative agriculture. This has come from both the non-organic and organic sector.

It is not helped by many, especially church green groups supporting LOAF; Local, Organic, Animal-friendly and Fair Trade.

The Organic is the most contentious as so much of our food is grown using artificial fertilizers. When presented as dogma it is not helpful.

Blackburn Environmental Group expects members to support LOAF, which means I could not be in that Group, despite having had largely organic gardens for over 40 years, with a compost bin!! This means that the group will only allow one perspective on the environment, rather like only allowing conservative evangelicals on the evangelism and mission committee! I will go further and say the churches on the environment have followed only one narrative and that is anti-big oil. Thus any statement is very one-sided, and thus I am as bad as any red-neck driller who cares nowt about creation!!

Many green and aid groups, Christian or not, have often opposed GMOs and non-organic farming  – without providing an alternative. 15 years ago Christian aid was very opposed to GMOs, and along with Green Christian have help to create a negative image of GMOs. I know I may have gone off on a tangent on Organic and GMOs, but this illustrates the way too many christian greens think and close down a diversity of views. But it was not a tangent as it is all part of an extreme green agenda. Getting rid of oil will also mean getting rid of fertilizers and pushing many into hunger.

We need to see that as fracking was stopped in UK and EU due to misinformation from Green groups, other sources had to be found. Russia were happy to oblige, as are Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Now as the whole of Europe is dependent on Russian gas we should see the problem. Whether fracking would have provided enough gas we don’t know as protesting green groups made sure that even proper exploration and assessment could not happen.

Here is a meme from 2015 based on a wildly inaccurate Guardian article. BTW Sir Mark Walport never never never said what the meme and guardian ascribed to him.

The UK has a duty to demonstrate global leadership on the climate crisis, as hosts of the recent COP26 climate summit and as we continue to hold the COP Presidency.

We call on you to use the Spring Statement to provide financial and fiscal support for renewable energy and energy efficiency, especially solar and wind energy

Now that sounds very good, but it does not consider the position of renewable energy today. Turbines and solar farms seem a nice clean way of obtaining energy, and at times produce half of electrical power. However half of electrical energy  is only a quarter of all energy used in the UK as most transport, industry and heating depends on fossils fuels.

Much of the green media trumpet the success when renewables produce 50% of electricity, but go quiet when little is produced as when there is no wind or sun. This happened in December and now during this week of the spring equinox. As a result most electricity is produced by GAS powered power stations and COAL is brought in to cover the shortfall. Most of last week and this week more electricity comes from coal rather than wind.

Consider these graphics for 24th March 2022. These show how little wind is contributing to electrical generation.

Redraw that graph in your minds removing gas and then nuclear. Without them never more than 12k MV were produced, whereas at least 25k was needed – at midnight and at most 36k. At most 5k was produced from wind and solar, dropping to 1 or 2k at night. Yes, it was windless, but even so there is a massive gap between generation from renewables and what is actually needed. Pragmatism rather than ideology is needed.

The graph below shows the difference between demand and actual supply from wind power. It’s going to take a very looooooooooooong time to bridge that gap. Jumping to renewables now and closing down fossil fuels will simply creating a massive energy gap.

and for most of March. Gas is dominant

Renewables sound lovely in theory and their capacity may equal that of fossil fuels but when the is no wind or sunshine, no energy is produced, so the capacity is effectively very small.  Sunshine at night is obvious but to get to reasonable amounts from wind you need a wind speed of 15  mph or more. Above 20 mph turbines are whirring but cycling is unpleasant!! No matter how large the capacity, absence of wind or sun means little energy is produced.

Another unaddressed issue is the question of energy storage. Electricity produced has to be used immediately in the absence of storage and at present there is minimal storage. “Big batteries” may store enough for a few hours, but to be effective storage must be enough for several weeks, as that is how long a windless or sunless spell can last. The church leaders did not consider this and when we look for it we find a glib appeal to battery storage. The technology is not ready yet and without storage renewables cannot supply energy needs. Any transition is going to be slower that the technological change.

Here is a technical article laying out what is needed for 24 days storage.https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/236723/1/Ruhnau-and-Qvist-2021-Storage-requirements-in-a-100-renewable-electricity-system-EconStor.pdf

We must ask how quickly does a transition need to be to make up for that shortfall. Any realistic assessment will suggest many years and not before 2040.

Above all if we are going to transition then we must have something to transition to, or rather the same amount of power for electricity, transport and heating.

Nuclear Energy?

Surprisingly (or not) no mention was made of nuclear energy and I suggest this was deliberate as many green groups are as opposed to nuclear as fossil fuel. Green groups have campaigned against nuclear for over half a century and sucked in many (including myself until I deconverted)

and the retrofitting of homes

That covers many things whether insulation or new heating systems. It cannot be denied that most Britons have been dilatory about insulation over the last 50 years. Many simply did not bother. Over the decades I found we were out of step or ahead as we went for basic insulation and energy saving. Some may remember the ginormous and expensive lightbulbs of the mid-eighties.

As well as many not bothering there was no inducement for landlords to insulate. I remember last century persuading the Parsonage Board to pay for fibreglass insulation for me to install.

Today retrofitting for insulation is very expensive if the maximum is done. In 2013 we moved into a dormer bungalow which had little insulation except cavity wall. On moving in we did the low hanging fruit for about £1000 or so – thick curtains, one ceiling insulated for £400 (I should have done more), improved loft insulation, trapdoor  (no cost as I had the right-sized wood and old carpet), draught elimination etc. I worked it out that without grants it would take 20 years to recoup the expenditure needed on reduced bills to pay for full insulation.

New heating is more problematical. Most rely on gas, but any replacements is not cheap and beyond the budgets of half the population. This includes heat pumps, which have something unproven about them.

This raises some issues but retrofitting will take years and is costly. Appeals sound good but are often not very achievable.

and other buildings across the UK. These measures would reduce heating bills, decrease carbon emissions and increase our energy security.

Clearly, any insulation etc will reduce all of these. Something should also be said about transport and landscaping for saving energy. We need more evangelistic cycling bishops.

The Spring Statement must include no support for new oil and gas developments. The International Energy Agency has stated that there can be no new fossil fuel developments if we are to limit global heating to 1.5°C.

As oil and gas will not be phased out completely before 2050 there will have to be new developments in many parts of the world, if not the UK, then USA, Middle East, Africa etc. We need to ask whether Saudi Arabia is more just  than Russia as , e.g. 80 executed in one day in the last month.

At present by rejecting Russia we need to get oil and gas from the Middle East and USA, as Britain produces insufficient oil or gas. Yet there are untapped off-shore and on-shore sources. Some on-shore  wells have been producing since before WWII, and the fracked well at Elswick in Lancs  has been producing gas since the 1990s. (Yes, this well was fracked and I have copies of the drill logs and the chemicals used for fracking!!). There several potential fields off-shore and the potential for gas was not  fully explored in Lancs and Yorks (and 6000ft below my house) before the plug was pulled. The advantage of homegrown oil and gas is that no gas is lost in transit, as happens with LNG and instead of paying high prices to producers the government would gain large tax revenues, which could then be put into retrofitting. Slamdunk. QED.

New oil and gas production will not deliver lower energy bills for families facing fuel poverty and will have no impact on energy supply for years.

This is an old mantra and thrown out to stop the discussion.

The use of UK oil and gas gives a tax windfall, over imports.

How many years? This sounds like a typical green objection from their playbook.In the 40s during WWII A new oil field was opened up in months in the Midlands, so it may not take years as opponents to fracking claim.

We urge you to increase support for vulnerable households across the UK facing a cost of living crisis as a result of increasing food and energy prices, through measures including a windfall tax on oil and gas companies.

i find this a bit rich as many church groups eg Operation Noah, Green Christian. Operation Noah, Diocesan Environment Groups have joined in with Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion etc demonising “big oil”, and failing to see that without workable alternatives to “big oil” and their products, a rapid change to renewables makes the cost of living crisis worse.

Many of our Churches have set 2030 net zero targets and are taking action to decarbonise our buildings, including through the installation of solar panels, heat pumps and other energy efficiency measures.

General Synod’s Net Zero 2030 aim was simply absurd and will result in failure. far better would be to concentrate on what can be done to church buildings etc, and encourage all church members and beyond to consider their own homes, travel and gardens and how efficiencies and improvements will reduce carbon footprints.

An example of failure cause by impatience and devotion to Net Zero is fitting a church with a hydrogen-based system. It simply did not work and had to be replaced – with another OIL BOILER.

More than 2,000 churches across the UK participated in Climate Sunday ahead of COP26 and called on the UK Government to unleash a clean energy revolution and limit global heating to 1.5°C.

Unleash? What will they unleash? It doesn’t exist!!!!

Between them, UK Churches have more than £20 billion of assets under management. Working with other investors, Churches can make a significant impact in tackling the climate crisis and in supporting a fair and fast transition from fossil fuels to a clean energy economy.

Any transition will not be fast as fossil fuels will still be used in 2050 both for energy and plastics. How can you have a fast transition without new energy sources  in place?

We need to do far more than intone; Clean and dirty, green, renewables, transition etc.

The International Energy Agency stated last year that achieving the world’s climate goals requires the finance flowing to renewable energy projects to treble by 2030. We call on the UK Government to implement the policies to enable this to happen.

This will increase capacity but production depends on wind and sun!

there is no point until there is energy storage to avoid a Dunkelflaute when wind and sun fail.

Now is the time to end our dependence on fossil fuels and fund a fair and fast transition, which will secure our future economic prosperity and protect the livelihoods of vulnerable communities.

It can only be the time to end our dependence on fossil fuels, when alternatives are in place. Renewables simply cannot provide the energy needed for our society to function. Until then we are stuck with fossil fuels

This is simply a myopic view considering only fossil fuels with no consideration to what alternatives are available. Sadly this misplaced vision has been pushed not only by secular green groups and more recently Extinction Rebellion but Christian Groups lie  Operation Noah  ( Bright Now) and other groups who support and are behind the letter.

To conclude the letter is simply ill thought out and demonstrated a total one-sided and a lack of knowledge or understanding of energy issues.

Yours sincerely,

Followed by 500 signatures.

**************************************

CONCLUSION

The letter is a simple message go renewable now.

It has a narrow focus as if it is a simple solution of get rid off fossil fuels and move to renewables.

This assumes it is possible to do it and will be a rapid transition. It cannot be if only as there is no effective storage as yet.

They also see fossil fuels only in relation to energy and fail to see oil used for fertilizer and necessary materials eg plastic, which is essential in hospitals. Also our water supply needs chlorine, which is obtained from brine using natural gas at Widnes.

The letter is marred by a Tunnel vision against fossil fuels

They fail to register any benefits; longevity, health, material wealth (both excessive and moderate) travel, even these come with environmental and climate costs.

They see only one solution to climate change and ignore changes to agriculture, trees, and lifestyle.

It is very one-sided, relying on  poor advice or research probably with  a conscious or unconscious bias. This typifies work of green groups.

It is almost the churches’ equivalent of Extinction Rebellion, who over-egg their arguments and are often inaccurate.  It is surprising that any bishop would support them.

For myself prior to ordination I was mining and exploration geologist focusing on copper. I have long been an environmentalist and look to the breadth of environmental issues.

Which matters most: sin or climate change? | Psephizo

Now COP26 has ended and various are either licking their wounds at the result – that is from either extreme, it is good to consider what a Christian perspective should be.

This blog by Ian Paul is good and useful and attempts to de-polarise the issue.

Over the last year the environment and climate change has become divisive in all churches. Rather than put in my own penny-worth I will let the different voice of Ian speak.

Source: Which matters most: sin or climate change? | Psephizo

E F Schumacher and the nuclear debacle

How can a leading coal economist become such a guru for green issues and alternative and small-scale technologies?

That is the legacy of E F Schumacher (16 August 1911 – 4 September 1977). Migrating from Germany from 1950 to 1970 he was Chief Economic Adviser to the National Coal Board, Yet this leader of old, polluting technologies became the prophet for the opposite and his legacy is his opposition to nuclear energy and various green groups named in his memory. Whether acknowledged or not he has had a great influence in Green Britain! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._F._Schumacher

I came across his work in the 70s as I read Resurgence  and The Ecologist, as his name often came up. I admit to lapping up his ideas. To my surprise I found that he lived in my home town of Caterham in a lovely house opposite our school playing fields. For four years I cycled past his house every day on the way to school and then for another four years after that saw it from our geography, history and science blocks. Two of his sons were several years ahead of me in school and mother taught one of his daughters maths. Yet I knew nothing about him when at school when he was advising the National Coal Board.

After 1970 he seemed to change his economics to small scale projects and upped his opposition to nuclear energy. On the former he was influenced by visits as an advisor  to Burma. I shall return to nuclear energy. That was music to my ears and most environmentalists of the day. He published his ideas in the book Small is Beautiful in 1974, which I got in paperback form some years later.

The subtitle of Small is Beautiful is a study of Economics as if People Mattered. I won’t go into that , but it is behind much of the small-scale arguments of the last 40 years, including Intermediate Technology. It is a classic of the 70s and significant in the whole green movement. But I will focus only on his views on nuclear energy.

Chapter 8 would shock many today, where he expresses his regret that so many coal mines were closed down in the 60s, despite have enough reserves. Thatcher continued in the 80s and Scargill criticised her for it. Scargill could see how the coal industry was being closed down, despite there being plenty of coal. All this was before the serious air pollution from coal was fully acknowledged and before an understanding of climate change.

Chapter 9 of Small is Beautiful is entitled Nuclear Energy – Salvation or Damnation?. EFS goes for the latter, where perhaps purgatory might be better!! The lecture was given as the Des Moeux Memorial Lecture “Clean Air and future Energy” in 1967. When discussing the lecture for his book in 1973, he points out the change in perception on nuclear energy. In 1967 most were in favour but the tide had turned by 1973, and though he does not say it because of the activities of the Sierra Club, the new Greenpeace and others. EFS was just one who added his pennyworth in this lecture. My own memory is that nuclear energy was seen as good thing from the fifties and by the 70s all environmentalists were opposed to it for its horrific potential dangers.

He claimed ” Of all the changes introduced by man into the household of nature, large -scale fission is undoubtedly the most dangerous and profound.” He then says that the building of power stations, whether based on coal, oil or nuclear (note that as yet gas was not used), are decided on economic grounds rather than the ‘social consequences’ which may result from the curtailment of the coal industry, which was in full swing in the 60s. The social consequences were unemployment and destruction of communities, which occurred in all old mining villages and towns. I witnessed them in Wigan and Chirk in the 70s and 80s. What was over-looked he claimed was the ‘incredible, incomparable and unique hazard for human life’ of nuclear energy. To buttress his arguments he used the example of nuclear weapons and their extreme destructiveness. He then describes the radiation and points out there is no safe way of storing “used” material as it will radioactive for ever.. Arguments still used today.

On p116 he notes the problem of air and water pollution (with coal burning being implicit), but says there is a ‘dimensional difference’ and ‘radioactive pollution is an evil of incomparably greater’ dimension’ than anything mankind has known before.’ and rhetorically ‘What is the point of insisting on clean air, if the air is laden with radioactive particles?’

This claim was very plausible in the early 70s and carried many with them, including Tony Benn. It convinced most environmentalists, including myself.

According to EFS the change came in February  1972 with the government report Pollution; Nuisance or Nemesis? The report expected nuclear to produce 50% of electricity by 2000. They highlighted the chief concern – which was the storage of radioactive waste  which was forever.

EFS concluded “No degree of prosperity could justify the accumulation of large amounts of highly toxic substances which nobody knows how to make safe.” That has been the cry of environmentalists ever since.

EFS’s arguments against nuclear energy have been held by groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth ever since, who were very successful in their propaganda. I can’t criticise them as I totally swallowed the lot and was anti-nuclear. However they swung opinions against nuclear, which now produces only 20% of electricity in Britain.

More humorously Friends of the Earth had a yellow tea shirt with the words The only safe fast breeder is a rabbit. We bought one, partly at that time I was a curate in a Lancashire church and the vicar, my boss, was always telling us we should have children ASAP! He was not a nice, cuddly vicar!! Many parishioners were aware of this, so my wife turned up to parish events in the T-shirt! I left a few months later and then worked under the nicest vicar ever. We had our first child in that parish, and he and his wife were godparents. He was my unofficial mentor for 25 years. The Church of England can be quite Jekyll and Hyde.

One of EFS’s main themes was the danger of nuclear energy and how it was far worse than anything other form of energy. He was aware of pollution but did not consider the horrific air pollution from burning coal as totally disastrous. He could have noted the Clean Air Acts of the 50s after the great smog in London and the frequent pea-souper fogs. I think the last pea-souper was in 1963 which almost reached our house in Caterham and probably equally close to EFS’s house half a mile away and a lower altitude. The accumulated death-rate from coal over the years is immense and still is so in many parts of the world. So how does nuclear compare?

Accident rate from nuclear power.

As soon as one mentions nuclear weapons as EFS did in his lecture, pictures are conjured up that an accident in a nuclear power station would be like Hiroshima, first in its blast and next its radiation. So;

nuclear, no thanks!

Any accident creates great media interest, specially when creative writing takes precedent to fact. The three most well known are Three Mile Island in 1979, Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011. The resultant deaths were none at Three Mile Island, possibly one at Fukushima. Chernobyl was serious with 28 killed on site, 34 others and   up to 4000 from cancer. The whole area of the disaster zone was evacuated. here is a list of all accidents from Wiki. Fukushima was no Hiroshima as one person was possibly killed and the death and injury was caused by the tsunami and not a nuclear accident. Many of the reports on Fukushima have been very creative!!

Here is wiki’s list of accidents;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents

Chernobyl terrified many but compared to coal it was less lethal, as fatalities from coal are simply individuals who die one by one from air pollution  but the table from this New Scientist article puts it into perspective.  If you include deaths of miners then that ran at 1000 pa from 1873 to 1953 in Britain, which includes the Gresford disaster of 1934 which killed 266. This was just one of several.

This New Scientist article considers the relative death rates of various forms of energy per TWh. Brown Coal includes lignite which is used in Germany to replace nuclear and nuclear power stations were shut down after Fukishima.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928053-600-fossil-fuels-are-far-deadlier-than-nuclear-power/

Compared to coal nuclear is a very safe energy – and one of the safest. I find it difficult to understand why EFS gave the lecture as it shows an extreme Unconscious Bias – or was it Conscious?  However he set the tone for the next half century (or supported it) and his perspective and that of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth has become accepted wisdom for a half century of environmentalists – though some like me repented.

In November 2021 there were strong voices for nuclear energy at COP26, but others counteracted as did the activist scientist Michael Mann, commenting on twitter.

Friends of the Earth has been consistently anti-nuclear since 1971 , as has Greenpeace.

https://policy.friendsoftheearth.uk/policy-positions/nuclear-energy-our-position

Both are also opposed to GMOs and Fracking, presenting their arguments with Conscious bias. In turn they influence most green groups in Britain and elsewhere, resulting in calls for divestment (keep it in the ground) rejection of nuclear energy and a total conviction that renewables can provide all energy needs in the immediate future. They cannot..

At COP26 there was a grudging acceptance by many that nuclear needed but Greenpeace retained its opposition of 50 years.

At COP26 some environmentalists slightly, and grudgingly, softened their opposition to nuclear energy as did Andy Lester of A Rocha in an interview  with the evangelical TWR (Trans World Radio)  https://youtu.be/aUzbpWGuGuU

It is a shame that a Christian environmental group should take such a negative attitude, though Lester regards nuclear as acceptable only in the short term to be rid of fossil fuels. Christian environmentalists often sing from the Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth hymnbook and do not wish to listen to other viewpoints. Hence the carious churches’ studies on energy, climate change etc  do not allow any breadth of opinion , beyond “keep it in the ground”!! He did not like being challenged either!

However some Climate campaigners like Mark Lynas and James Hansen have accepted that nuclear is needed to tackle climate change.  At least some environmentalists recognise that if we are serious about tackling climate change, we need nuclear power as part of the solution.

Nuclear Energy is like tree planting. The best time was decades ago, and the next best time is today.

I was disappointed  when I found that EFS, whom I almost revered in the 70s has left a flawed legacy, which has led both to the energy crisis of this year and the growing issue of climate change. Throughout the continent of Europe , as well as Britain, green NGOs have stymied the development of nuclear energy – and throttled it in Germany, and due to hatred of gas, it has meant an increased use of coal.

Not good.

P.S. Why did twitter restrict this?

Probably a complain from the anti-nuclear mafia

Is Fracking Good or Bad? Even if it is from the USA!

For the moment there is no fracking in Britain, but, and it is a very big

but

most of the gas used in Britain today , whether for electricity generation, or cooking, or heating, is FRACKED gas imported from the USA. As it is imported here by ship, some gas is lost en route, thus contributing to greenhouse emissions.

The absurdity of electricity generation in Britain is that most is produced from imported fracked gas and when renewables go on strike (no wind or sun) the shortfall is made up by turning up the gas generators and switching on the COAL.

After most of last decade dominated by fracking, misinformation from green groups (my favourite are the pollutants in the fracking fluid – acetic acids and citric acids! If you don’t what hilarious about that, then you know nothing about fracking or fish and chips), and several minor tremors, which may have caused a couple of hairline cracks in plasterwork. However “quakes” from fracking are far, far smaller than those from hydrothermal energy.

The tremors are a concern and various geologists are studying them carefully, as in a recently published paper by geologists from Bristol and Oxford.

Rather than woffle on, here is a blog by a Christian fracking engineer from New Mexico considering the good and the bad  – and the negative hype.

Is Fracking Good or Bad? Why Is it an emotionally charged issue for Americans? Fracking of oil and gas wells is a conundrum.

Source: Is Fracking Good or Bad?

Pilgrimage to Net Zero 2030; or Pilgrimage to bankruptcy 2030

Pilgrimage to Net Zero 2030, or bankruptcy?

NET ZERO 2030

The Climate Emergency Toolkit

In February 2020 just before the pandemic hit General Synod voted to work for Net Zero in 2030, altering the original motion for 2045 by an amendment. There was controversy as it was rushed through. On such a serious matter a major change should not have been made without due consideration and not rushed through.

The original target of 2045 was going to be difficult but 2030 is frankly impossible, without bankrupting many parish churches. Quite simply the technology is not in place how ever many times you intone “renewables” or “clean energy”..

In January 2021 a large group of Christian environmental groups came together to produce a route map for a church “to respond to the climate emergency”. It is already gaining enthusiastic responses. As we will see it assumes that swapping to renewables and heat pumps will solve it. It also does not consider the doubts and questions some have, especially those with technical ability in these areas.

It appears that green Christians in the Church of England think it is a wonderful idea and we should all be working hard to make it happen. 

Here is the route map in the Climate Emergency Toolkit.

https://media.wix.com/ugd/d168f3_07498be7114c43749f8e995bbea63155.pdf 

In view of the general concern over the climate, this seems an excellent idea, especially to enable local churches to understand Climate Change and be guided how to respond

This looks very promising as it supported by almost all Christian environmental and overseas development groups. It sets out a plan or route map for churches to make their response to the climate emergency. Further, there is no doubt that Climate Change is very serious and must be tackled by all, whether by the government or community groups.

As I read the route map, or Climate Emergency Toolkit I became more and more concerned. It was clear the authors had little or no grasp of energy issues and what is involved in going Net Zero. They seem to have a blind and tantric faith in renewables and pit “clean” energy against “dirty” energy from fossil fuels. It seems the most important thing for churches to do is to divest. That is partly as it seems to be an echo chamber for Operation Noah, whose accuracy is not always spot-on. And then we are advised to support Extinction Rebellion and Christian Climate Action. I cannot help thinking that they uncritically accept anything these or Friends of the Earth or Greenpeace say.

There is no discussion of various understandings of the challenges of climate change as it opts for an extreme ER-type stance without presenting any case for it. The position of Nuclear Energy is simply ignored without even a mention. Fossil fuels are terrible but there is no realisation that on almost every scenario fossil fuels will continue to be used until mid-century.

Despite these strictures, the route map gives the impression of being considered and cautious, seeking to understand the problem of climate change. As they say it is better to not to jump in it but to ;

PREPARE first

DECLARE secondly

and then lastly work towards making an IMPACT, however local or limited

and so to the DECLARING. You are referred to a few sites to help, inform and guide you to set a target or a focus.

It is very much a done deal as a certain stance of energy in relation to the climate is assumed and thus one is almost coralled into agreement. It is a Route Map with no alternatives. It is taken for granted that the only energy which should be used is wind or solar, with no reasons given why oil is bad. nuclear is ignored. No discussion of energy is encouraged and then one is given two suggestions to carry out. It seems you are expected to agree with the view presented, when I, as a long-standing Christian environmentalist, most definitely do not. There is no question whether Climate Change is a serious issue which needs addressing, but there is no single route Map to do this. The route map here is centred on Renewables and Divestment, as if all will be fine and dandy after that. (There is no consideration of the downside of renewables – their intermittency and the vast amount of metals required from Copper to rare earths, almost doubling the present consumption. As a former mining geologist I expect major shortages within a few years. What we will see is copper being stripped from almost anywhere, as has happened to South African railways.)

This is apparent in the page entitled DECLARE, where two targets or foci are given.

ENERGY SWITCHING and DIVESTMENT

There is no discussion on the reasons for the necessity of either. These seem to be the only options and no mention is made of other Christian, or environmental, viewpoints. Energy switching is simply to change one’s electricity or gas supplier to a provider of renewable energy rather than those which use fossil fuels to generate electricity.

There is no mention of nuclear energy, biogas or the fact that fossil fuels will be used for several decades to come, as even Greenpeace admit. One is presented with a simple binary option of renewable i.e clean, energy or fossil i.e. dirty energy. There is no mention of nuclear or the horrendous environmental price of renewable wood for power stations.

The emphasis is purely on renewables as THE answer for all energy problems. There is no mention that they only work when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. I write this in the first week of February, when energy suppliers are struggling with a chance of black-outs. On a cold winters night you get your electricity because gas and coal are ramped up, producing up to 70% of the nation’s electricity, with nuclear (ugh) producing another 20%. This is a very incomplete argument and ignores the energy needed for heating — 70% of houses rely on gas, which is increasingly imported from abroad, with a loss of gas en route, or that used in transport or industry. There is an absurdity that much gas used in Britain is FRACKED gas imported from the USA, when fracking is outlawed in the UK at present. It is often not known that electricity only accounts for a third or so of energy usage.

By considering renewables to be “clean energy” unlike “dirty fossil fuels”, the serious environmental impact of renewables is ignored, as different sources of energies are simplitically classified as “goodies” and “baddies”. All are “baddies” on the effect on the environment. No mention is made of the materials used in construction and that metals and rare earths needed are in short supply. When one adds on Electric Vehicles this becomes almost impossible.

This article by leading geologists well-versed in minerals resources tells of the problems of obtaining sufficient metals to “go electric”.

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/press-releases/leading-scientists-set-out-resource-challenge-of-meeting-net-zer.html

Having worked in a copper mine and as an exploration geologist focussing on copper, just the figures to move to 100% EVs by 2050 leaves me aghast. Over the next 30 years the UK needs a further  2.4 million tons of Copper, i.e 80,000 tones per year. This increase the annual consumption of copper by 66% and most would have to come from new mines. This is just for the UK, but imagine what it would be for the whole world. The authors highlight the scale of the difficulty. Recycling is not an option due to the amounts required.

The alternative is deep-sea mining which to some is disastrous.

THIS SHOULD BE CONSIDERED IN THE ROAD MAP, and not just an appeal to go renewable and divest from fossil fuels. Like many green groups they do not face the reality of the problem.

The second focus is on divestment. Here one is referred only to the Bright Now Campaign, which goes far beyond what the Church of England is suggesting. Again there is no reference to other voices, but only to Operation Noah. Leaving aside the fact that objections can be made to their claims, including on technical details (both on bias and matters of fact), it does seem very one-sided.

What we see is a Route Map totally tied to a particular perspective. As well as being very one-sided it omits several other foci, which are both good and have a wider appeal

1. Transport. Consider leaving the car, and go by bike or foot. This is omitted in most ideas of Net Zero 2030, but would make an immediate difference on CO2, but also has health benefits. E.g. Today I needed to go to the supermarket, on a 1.5 mile return journey. My panniers and rucsac were full! Mine is usually the only bike at the supermarket. The value of walking and cycling is borne out by recent article on bikes by Prof Brand of Oxford https://theconversation.com/cycling-is-ten-times-more-important-than-electric-cars-for-reaching-net-zero-cities-157163 He makes it clear how effective bikes are at reducing carbon. In fact, for short journeys of less than three miles a bike is often quicker. It is also less stressful.
2. Carbon capture by planting. – yes tree planting! This can be in church and school grounds, also in gardens and possibly the local community. Clearly oaks are out for most places , but there is a plethora of small trees e.g. sorbus, prunus or malus which are great for wildlife, or even native or non-native shrubs. All my vicarage gardens since 1980 have several trees and many shrubs gobbling up a bit of CO2. Two rowans I planted in 2001 are now about 20ft high, but those in my present garden, planted since 2014, are still spindly.
3. Many aspects of personal lifestyles eg insulation, use of water, choice of food (not runner beans from Kenya!), what’s put in one’s garden e.g. Coffee grounds, tea leaves, when changed reduce one’s carbon footprint. Just consider how coffee grounds are cleaned up in the local waterworks, consuming energy in the process. But put on the garden they improve the soil. This needs to be emphasised in the teaching life of the church.

Yet there is no mention of these things in Pilgrimage to Net Zero 2030. This could be used to gently encourage both church employees and church members. But you need a vicar on a bike!!

The emphases of “divest” and “clean” energy recommended in the route map do not depart from the Great Green Narrative of “keep it the ground”, “renewables” “clean energy as opposed to dirty energy”(actually there is no clean energy) “divest” and support Extinction Rebellion. It totally ignores those environmentalists who take a different line after careful consideration and who may well support nuclear energy or a temporary support of fossil fuels. It is as though they are bad as the “Climate Denier”. In no other discussion in the churches would this happen. After all, the Church of England would not appoint a commission to discuss the place of the eucharist and only allow members of the Church Society to sit on it!! It is as though Sir David Mackay and others never did any high-powered work on energy. This is a serious omission and reflects badly on all the sponsoring groups.

The route map is so focussed on fossil fuels that almost ignore all the other vital issues;

Food; What and whence

Peat and plants and what one does with one’s garden. (This also touches on biodiversity)

The recent publications on the way that careful planting can improve climate issues is not mentioned, whether in gardens, road verges, parks, farms and countryside.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24933260-100-pollinators-are-our-secret-weapon-in-the-fight-against-global-warming/

Here is something all can do.

IMPACT

This section considers what can be done to make an Impact. Consider these two pages;

Rather than consider all possibilities this gives a carefully chosen selection of resources. It seems to assume all will agree with Operation Noah on divestment. Divestment seems to be the only/major emphasis of this road map.

This is little more than an appeal for activism, with several examples from the box headed Tools

Groups seem to be chosen to force churches into one view. However Repair Cafes is a Dutch group and list no cafes in Britain! Many places are not Transition Towns.

Of the others Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace are very well-known especially for their stunts and bias, and even misinformation, on green issues. Several times they have been forced to correct these, including by the Advertising Standards Agency as in January 2018. They always seem to be in the front of the queue for considered opinion, which is usually more opinion than considered. For decades they have opposed one of the cleanest energies – nuclear, not to mention GMOs and other things.

More recently both have emphasised a rejection of fossil fuels, but also reject GMOs and Nuclear Energy, and have either slowed down or thwarted the implementation of these. The former will reduce agricultural emission and the latter low carbon energy with less risk than other forms of energy. Though they are usually foremost of green groups, many environmentalists reject their wide-ranging opposition over many issues.

Ironically most of us are queueing up for the GMO- COVID-19 vaccines whether we support GMOs or not! In July 2020, the European Parliament actually had to suspend the EU’s anti-GMO rules in order to allow the unimpeded development of COVID vaccines. There is great irony here. The Oxford Astra-Zeneca vaccine overtly uses genetic modification, but no one has complained. That is a reminder of the wayward ideas of these two groups and others like Christian Aid and Green Christian who are hostile to GMO. It’s odd no one has opposed the vaccines on the grounds of them being Genetically Modified, (or PPE as it is made from oil.).

One may ask why these were picked out as groups to support.

Extinction Rebellion in its local groups is also singled out. This was formed in late 2018 and soon caused major disruptions with their protests, almost courting arrest.

They take the most extreme view of the dangers of climate change claiming billions will die. This has terrified some youngsters, who think they will die early, and is dismissed by climate change specialists as false and simply scaremongering. That is hardly truthful.

However it is supported by Rowan Williams and several bishops, which is surely a serious lapse of judgement.

Christian Climate Action is true to its name and sees itself as the “Christian” wing of Extinction Rebellion. They seem to revel in being arrested. They were the group who climbed on commuter trains at Canning Town mid 2019 preventing working class employees getting to work. It turned very ugly and one protestor was pulled off the roof of a carriage and roughed up by by commuters. It was lucky no one was badly beaten up. It was a protest too far.

Protest in London 1/5/21

This would convince me to avoid anything connected with this

What we are suggested/guided/told to do in this section on IMPACT is Activism as protest, whether as apparently virtuous actions, or martyrdom through arrests, rather than activism as changed lifestyle seeking to drastically reduce our impact on the environment, which inevitably impinges on our carbon footprint, and slowly persuading others.

I think the authors of this Road Map need to say whether they expect whole congregations to join in these protests, disrupt the lives of other people and face arrest and prosecution. Being sarcastic, do they envisage the Mothers Union processing with their banners at an Extinction Rebellion protest? 🙂

This road map seems to be a ploy to force churches to adopt an extreme stance. It may be significant that the actual authors are not named. I suggest that this a recipe for conflict within churches who start using this Toolkit.

As described before there seems to be no openness to other green viewpoints, which do not demand divestment nor so-called green energy nor projects which do not break the law. Local to me are the Wyre River Trust and Lancashire Wildlife Trust. The former do careful tree planting, creation of new Carbon-absorbing wetlands and river repair and the other have various projects including restoring Winmarleigh Moss, a damaged low-level peat bog. This has great implications in dealing with climate change, though peatbogs have little sex-appeal for most people. (Though this project is controversial with the farmers neighbouring the moss.)

This is a very misguided and biased approach and I can imagine many churchmembers refusing to take part, with resultant division in the local church.

I question its discernment, accuracy and wisdom and whether all what they suggest is actually moral. Though since the 1990s I’ve been convinced of the seriousness of Climate Change, (having been an environmentalist for many decades) I’d refuse to take part and would oppose it by word and action – and withdraw any financial contribution to a church taking part.

Effectively each of these groups are undoing whatever good work they have done. The Route Map is very limited in its grasp of the technical issues of providing and using energy, which does not come from fossil fuels. The authors fail to discuss the problems of their chosen route map and should have given a presentation of the difficulties of getting away from fossil fuels, rather than simplistically appealing to renewables as the answer. They have done the churches a great disservice by this neglect. luke 14vs 28

I ought to note that among the patrons of these groups at least one is an antivaxxer in relation to Covid-19, and dismisses its seriousness.

It is a concern that the Church of England’s lead bishop on the environment raises no critical questions about Net Zero 2030.

https://www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/articles/corpus-alumnus-appointed-lead-bishop-environment

What are the main priorities of the Church of England’s Environment Programme? 

We have an ambitious target of reaching net zero by 2030. That means that every church community needs to be thinking what it can do to contribute, whether by changing energy supplier to renewables, or using offset schemes, or generating solar, ground/air source, or wind energy on site, or considering these issues when the time comes to replace, for example, a boiler. I’m keen that we play out part in enhancing biodiversity on our land, especially churchyards which can be great places for the living diversity of life, as well as being places for the dead. Let them be Resurrection places of new life!

I am afraid I am unconvinced by the bishops’ arguments. I am not sure of his use of Resurrection, but that would take more space to discuss! There is no mention of an individual’s  reduction of the earth’s resources, which can be effected by use of   – bike/foot for travel, insulation, economy of food, water and other materials (and not only plastic).

What about me in 2021

1. I’ve got to find forever homes for 25 mountain ash trees grown from seed
2. I shall continue to pester local councils not to destroy flowers on road verges
3. I shall continue helping to spread sphagnum moss on upland peat bogs – already done 1 sq km
4. Grow more mountain ash from seed
5. Encourage others to be more green – even a teeny-weeny bit 🙂
6. Do some green volunteering
7. write more green blogs (which to some are not green).

Finally can you imagine Mothers Unions arranging coach trips to support Extinction Rebellion and Christian Climate Action in their protests?

But I will conclude on a very serious note. I have pointed out the biased and lopsided approach of this route map, which does not get beyond a simplistic call for renewables and then supports groups like Extinction Rebellion.

I would have thought these eleven groups would not have supported such a limited perspective.

The Soapflake Scale of Clean and Dirty Energy

The Soapflake scale of energy for cleanliness.

In the usual binary and mutually exclusive discussions over energy, certain forms of energy are lauded as “clean” and others denigrated as “dirty”. The former are GOOD and the latter are BAD, and no one should challenge that. Fossil fuels are always dirty , hence dirty fracking is bad and renewables are always good,- even turbines planted on peat bogs, wrecking the bog system and emitting loads of Carbon into the atmosphere.

However this binary division overlooks many things. It never mentions all the carbon-spewing resulting from the concrete used in the bases for wind turbines, or in the construction of the blades. EVs are “clean” as they have no emissions at the point of use, but what about their construction? 

So looking at each in turn, not that this is an impressionistic view and not accurate in absolute detail.

10. Peat, lignite

One of the wonders in Germany has been the closing down of lethal nuclear power stations (so far no fatalities) and their replacement with lignite-fuelled power stations. Lignite, or brown coal, is a messy fuel and makes coal seem very clean. The cost has been high carbon emissions and the strip-mining for lignite and even the razing of whole villages. Complete folly. 

Lignite must win the prize for sheer dirtiness, whether for emissions or good old-fashioned pollution.

Peat and peat bogs are wonderful things. They trap more carbon than trees or meadows, yet they have been ripped up for fuel and horticulture. Fortunately many are being restored at present, but there is a long way to go. (make you sure you only buy peat-free compost and make your own.) Above all they do not make good sites for wind turbines.

9.  Coal

Ole King Cole is the baddy and just saying the word raises the heart rate of some. When it was first widely used in 1800 it was a saviour as it meant woodlands could be preserved and deforestation halted. Despite its pollution, it increased longevity, living standards and health for many. No wonder the geologist William Buckland saw coal as a blessing from God.  The cost was increasing air pollution, acid rain, ill health and CO2 – the last only realised in recent decades.

Coal, or rather coke, is still needed for steel-making. Hence the new mine in Cumbria, which isi better for emissions than importing steel.

No one will mourn its demise – provided there are alternative forms of energy.

8.Wood

Until the mid 19th century the main two forms of energy were wood and muscle, the latter provided by humans , horses and oxen. It would be good to bring back the first of the three for local travel, but at times it seems whips for wimps will be needed.

A major problem of the use of wood for fuel is deforestation, which hit a maximum in Britain in 1800 and is still increasing elsewhere. In Kigezi (SW Uganda) forests are shrinking at 2%  each year due to demand for fuel. A few miles away oil and gas production has started, which should be used locally to save the planet – at least in Kigezi.

Wood is only renewable when used in small quantities, but the use of wood pellets, often imported, in power stations like Drax, is far, far worse than coal. also, it can cause serious air pollution when burnt under non-ideal situations. For those in many parts of the world who cork with wood, the air pollution is terrible.

7.Diesel

Dirty diesel was the preferred green fuel of two decades ago, but has been found wanting, with far too many particles emitted. Yet there has been little switch ing to gas – oh yes, the greens stopped that!

6. Oil , Imported Natural Gas, Hydro

Oil has been the fuel for transport for the last century and more. It’s downsides and convenience don’t need stating.

Why have I put Imported Natural Gas here? Quite simply when gas (fracked, of course) is imported some gas is lost in transport, thus increasing emissions and making it dirtier. Local fracked gas would reduce that impact.

Hydro seems to be the perfect renewable, but there is a cost. First it can causes earthquakes rather than tremors. Secondly it causes problems to the river systems to the detriment of wildlife.

5. Local Natural Gas,  Solar, Wind, Geothermal

This four-fold equivalence will give some a heart attack. After all, gas is dirty and the others clean.

Solar and wind are only clean in the final production of energy. The construction is very dirty. Vast quantities of cement are used in the foundation of turbines and many rare metals for solar panels. Both are unreliable and produce nothing on a cold windless night, when power demand is at its highest. 

Geothermal has many advantages but like fracking has associated earth tremors, which are overlooked by greens.

Natural Gas, – methane – is the cleanest of fossil fuels as it has the lowest amount of carbon. There are vast resources but it needs to be fracked, which is a no-no to some. Yet converting power stations from coal to gas has reduced emissions. It is now a hate-fuel by the Tory government, who need to realise that Roman oratory is no substitute for hard science. 

4. Biogas, Nuclear

A few years ago Ecotricity claimed to provide biogas in the mains. The ASA told them to correct their ads. Biogas can be a a green fuel is the biomass used would otherwise just rot. But there is a limit on how much gas could be produced. Some reckon no more than 10% of our needs. Using specially grown biomass takes away the green credentials.

Nuclear has long been a green bogeyman and has been effectively stifled for decades due to perceived risk. In fact it is safer than most forms of energy. The trouble is now there is much catchup needed whereas more nuclear plants should have been opened throughout the world. Again own goals by greens.

3. Hunter gatherer e.g bushmen

Nothing is as inspiring as the old Bushman style of living in the Kalahari, but it is dependent on a very low population density.

2. Hunter gatherer eg Patagonia

Some of the most evocative descriptions in Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle are of the the residents of Tierra del Fuego living in semi-nudity and frugality in a cold wet climate. I am wary of following their example.

1.  Adam and Eve before they went scrumping

Maybe the only time of Net Zero was in the Garden of Eden, before the nudists went scrumping.

0. Dead

I sometimes wonder if this is the ultimate aim of some greenies, who seem to want the human race to go extinct. They even have a rebellion for it. 

 So ends my rather impressionistic analysis of clean and dirty fuels. I reject the Manichean dichotomy of clean and dirty. All are dirty to some degree. Carbon emissions are not the only test. Materials used in construction need to be considered and that immediately dishes the dirt on wind, solar and EVs.

Copper and other metals shortages

Just consider the problems of shifting to EVs. EVs require so much more in the way of rarer metals than fossil-fuel vehicles but most only consider the emissions at the point of use.

If by 2030 32% of vehicles are EVs that has an imme4nse demand on metals needed, with the attendant emissions of extraction. To get to 32% for building vehicles and extending the electric grid and additional 40,000 tons of Copper will be needed annually and that is over and above the 120,000tons used at present. Recycling will not make a big impact so it will have to be mined.

40,000tons of copper is a lot of metal, which would require a great increase of mining. If 2% copper ore is used that is 2.000,000 tons of ore, and if  0.25%  (more typical of a porphyry deposit) that is 16,000,000 tones ore. That is every year. Thus Britain would need access to a large mine overseas. Just imagine if it were 100% EV.

If you multiply this throughout every country throughout the world that would require copper production to go up by about 50%. It is difficult not see copper shortages.

No wonder some are looking to sea-bed mining.

 I’ve only mention copper, but there is also Nickel, Cobalt, Lithium and an alphabet soup of rarer metals

So ends my rather impressionistic analysis of clean and dirty fuels. I reject the Manichean dichotomy of clean and dirty. All are dirty to some degree. Carbon emissions are not the only test. Materials used in construction need to be considered and that immediately dishes the dirt on wind, solar and EVs.

Just consider the problems of shifting to EVs. EVs require so much more in the way of rarer metals than fossil-fuel vehicles but most only consider the emissions at the point of use.

If by 2030 32% of vehicles are EVs that has an imme4nse demand on metals needed, with the attendant emissions of extraction. To get to 32% for building vehicles and extending the electric grid and additional 40,000 tons of Copper will be needed annually and that is over and above the 120,000tons used at present. Recycling will not make a big impact so it will have to be mined.

40,000tons of copper is a lot of metal, which would require a great increase of mining. If 2% copper ore is used that is 2.000,000 tons of ore, and if  0.25%  (more typical of a porphyry deposit) that is 16,000,000 tones ore. That is every year. Thus Britain would need access to a large mine overseas. Just imagine if it were 100% EV. (To be personal. When working for a mining company I assessed some old mine workings and the target for a viable mine was 2 million tons at 2% Copper. After drilling it was clear there was only 500,000tons of ore, so that was that. Most exploration geologists thought themselves lucky if one of the prospects produced a mine in the course of their career.)

If you multiply this throughout every country throughout the world that would require copper production to go up by about 50%. It is difficult not see copper shortages.

No wonder some are looking to sea-bed mining.

 I’ve only mention copper, but there is also Nickel, Cobalt, Lithium and an alphabet soup of rarer metals

These two links indicate some of the problems;

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/press-releases/leading-scientists-set-out-resource-challenge-of-meeting-net-zer.html

or on a world perspective

https://www.mining.com/much-copper-nickel-cobalt-electric-vehicle-world-needs/?fbclid=IwAR0AliU-1JxFPUlmOCDBfjlBdFeastmvSedCz7yuEszwrnpVB4ooGijz97g

This is only looking at problems associated with EVs but it needs to be applied to all renewable forms of energy as these require vast quantities of materials from concrete to metals. Add to that issues over tailings dams, limited water supplies, and political instability, the hurdles are all but insurmountable, if they are.

I am more than aware that this blog is no more than impressionistic and gives only the general order of the problems facing any attempt at going Net Zero by 2030 or even 2050. The first thing to do is to reject wishful thinking and a naive belief that there is clean and dirty energy. Every form of energy is filthy rather than just dirty.

The next is to assess what metals and minerals are needed to effect any policy and whether hopes for totally electric will be limited by the earth’s resources.

Perhaps the first thing need to “save the planet” is to realistically assess all the problems of even approaching Net Zero and to reject green virtue signalling and impossible hopes. 

What next?

Issues too big for individual and need to be considered from all angles including metals!

Also we don’t want navel gazing climate grief but first to look at oneself to see how our individual impacts can be reduced. 

 Looking at this book is better than climate grief

 

Can the Church get to Net Zero 2030? Or is it holy greenwash?

It may be greenwash, but it is not copper-bottomed!!

Over the last few years the Church of England has got very concerned about Climate Change and thus in the February 2020 General Synod the Bishop of Salisbury put forward a motion that the CofE should aim for Net Zero by 2045. The accompanying papers were well-argued and realistic, and showed the ways in which the Church of England could make much headway in approaching Net Zero in 25 years..

When it came to the debate, which was poorly attended, some from Bristol Diocese put forward an amendment to bring that forward for Net Zero 2030. That was passed despite the low numbers and now the CoE is committed to be Net Zero by 2030.

As you read that ask yourself if you are a Goodie or a Baddie. The Goodie  wants Zero in 2025 or 2030 as a compromise, and divestment ASAP, and  the baddies are the rest!! The baddies are all as bad as each other and those, like me, who are concerned about climate change and know things need to done but do not accept a 2030 date for Net Zero, are as bad as those who will burn the last lump of coal! To some all of us are “Climate Deniers”.

I’m one of the baddies, and proud of it, Because I wish to see life, animal, vegetable, fungal and bacterial, on this planet improving and not wrecked either by those who don’t care or those whose feelings have taken over from their reason..

Joking apart, I will start by saying that there is no question that Climate Change is a serious issue and have argued that since last century, having been convinced by no less a person than Sir John Houghton after personal chats. Climate Change needs to be dealt with now, or rather 30 years ago, and not 20 years hence. However it will not be solved by impractical solutions or intoning ecogodwords like “renewables”, “carbon-free”, zero emissions”. Grand solutions will not work, nor will green virtue signalling. The solution will come from carefully worked-out technical changes AND lots of little changes from the public at large like planting a tree (in the right place) or reducing consumption of anything from food, to energy or materials in apparently trivial ways, including turning the tap off when brushing your teeth. There are those who are insistent on reducing plastic, but drive everywhere and pour their coffee grounds down the sink. It takes energy (i.e fossil fuel) to clean the water of coffee grounds – something which could be avoided by putting them on a flower bed or veg plot. That would also improve the soil.

Within the church those pushing environmental issues tend to be greenies with limited technical skills rather than techies. This may be seen by diocesan environmental officers with no science background putting forward arguments which are often flawed or inaccurate. It is cringeworthy when the Environmental officer comes out with basic scientific error indicating they have not studied science beyond GCSE. e.g. claiming. Fracking fluid contains contaminants like citric acids & acetic acids”!! My answer is “Fish and Chips”!! With a reliance on the outpourings from Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, and more recently Extinction Rebellion, this results in a disconnect with the actual realities of energy, mineral extraction and food production, not to mention climate change and biodiversity. Thus those who favour nuclear energy, a continued use of petroleum until something better is found, GMOs, non-organic farming, glyphosate will find their views , and even considerable expertise, are not required and so are effectively non-platformed or even cancelled. They are often dismissed as climate deniers. The church has thrown away a lot of expertise, as with an expert on Carbon Capture.. As a result the environment groups simply do not have geologists, those from the oil industry, Energy etc. Hence any informed perspective is lost.

Only one narrative

It seems to me that when issues of the environment are discussed only ONE narrative is followed or allowed and the rest are sidelined. Undoubtedly there are those who simply do not care about the environment i.e God’s creation, but those who do care cover a much wider opinion that members of the Christian Climate coalition. I began to realise this over fracking, when the only permitted narrative allowed was to be strongly anti-fracking and to dismiss those who saw fracking as being a bridge and reducing emissions immediately as climate deniers and as bad as the “drill, baby, drill” redneck from Texas, who gives not a stuff about anything except his truck and MAGA hat. This was so with both secular and church groups. Perhaps we can call this the Grand Green Narrative GGN, which insists you do not diverge from its tenets!! Its corollary is that if you diverge from the GGN you are not green.

A recent Church Times article of 6th November 2020 was on the Net Zero 2030 proposal as being achievable, as it was coming up in general Synod.

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2020/6-november/news/uk/synod-emissions-target-realistic-says-its-mover?utm_term=Autofeed

However it is more assertion than demonstration, but here we may be dealing with belief rather than actual substance. Having persuaded Synod in February to switch from Net Zero in 2045 to 2030, proponents have to show that it is possible.

But what we have in the article is somewhat muddled and shows a lack of understanding of energy issues and also how such changes can be effected. I don’t know whether that is due to the reporter or those consulted.

I touch on a few points. We are told that;

Purely electric heating has, on average, a lower net-carbon footprint than gas or oil,

I blinked at that statement. It may be true if you use only electricity from renewables, but most electricity is not from renewables. 20% is from nuclear and about 50% is from gas with a small percentage from coal. It depends on the source of electricity, but then we can only have green electricity in our mains as the grid makes no distinction, and we don’t know where our power actually came from!.

Despite the government’s new green schemes for 2030 it will be very difficult to produce “green” electricity on the scale needed. At present electricity is about one quarter of energy used. ( there are times, e.g. on a cold windless night, when no renewable electricity is being generated. Think if a freezing January evening when every appliance is switched on. When this happens gas power stations are ramped up and coal switched on.)  The rest is from fossil fuels for transport, heating  and industry. The recent government suggestion of windfarms sounds good, but will only generate electricity when there is wind.

switching to 100-per-cent renewable energy on a “green tariff”, perhaps through the parish buying scheme;

This is a blind faith in renewables as if renewables are good clean energy and fossil fuels are bad and dirty energy. In fact, both are “bad” and and neither are clean. All energy systems have an environmental cost. For fossil fuels it is in the extracting and burning of them, and for renewables, both in the fossil fuels needed for construction and the demand for copper, cobalt, lithium and other rare metals, which need to be mined from mineral-poor rock needing vast amounts of ore to be mined for a little metal. If it is a porphyry  deposit the ore is probably 0.25% copper, thus needing to mine 400 tons of ore for one ton of copper. There is a serious problem on the metals needed  – and often these are obtained from dodgy overseas mines outside the major mining companies, with little concern for safety or pollution. This is why prospectors are looking at old copper mines in Camborne and Parys Mountain on  Anglesey. Both have an environmental cost, which would be less so than a dodgy venture in the middle of Africa. Both could be the size of a copper mine I once worked in, where among other things I got CO poisoning. Not recommended!

Further, renewables need also to be built with vast quantities of Concrete and resin-based materials ( which produce a lot of emissions in construction) for wind, and areas of land for solar farms. The environmental cost of building windfarms on peat terrain is immense, especially as peatbog is excellent for carbon capture. Here is a windfarm built on peat in Ireland.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1327581502763380736

That should make you blink. With peat as an excellent carbon sink, they should never be used for wind farms or even the occasional turbine – or even tree planting. That  nullifies any reduction in emissions on the combustion of fossil fuels.

But this does not fit in with the usual designation of clean and dirty energy. In fact all energy is dirty. Please repeat 1000 times.

On major issue often overlooked or glossed over is that the electrical grid needs to be vastly expanded. Heating and transport by electricity means that the grid must double, or even triple in size. This is not crucial for the church, but is for the whole of society.

On could add the area needed for solar farms

It is very easy to raise objections to fossil fuels, but we also need to quiz the claims of renewable suppliers. Frequently they have claimed to provide 100% renewable electricity and gas.  At times they have been censured for making false claims, as was Ecotricity by the Advertising Standards Authority in 2017 for falsely claiming their gas was 100% renewable. It was not and they were not producing much gas, if any!! The ASA insisted future averts were corrected. Further it is impossible for wind and solar to provide 100% renewable electricity  in absence of storage e.g. on a cold windless night. Thus wind accounts for between 0% and 40% of electricity generated at any particular time, which is not reliable. On that cold, windless night gas is ramped up and maybe coal is switched on. Without plenty of gas power stations power-cuts would be the norm. A little realism and attention to detail is needed. I just checked twitter and found for this week  (written on 26/11/20).

National Grid ESO 

@ng_eso

We’re forecasting tight margins on the #electricity system over the next few days owing to a number of factors, primarily varying renewable generation levels and colder temperatures over periods of the day with higher demand [1/3]

I hope there are no power cuts and gas and coal plug the gap!! Yup, coal is burniong merrily as I type.

Here is a recent tweet focusing on electric vehicles. The figures seem to be in the right order.

EVS Tweet “There are 33 million cars in UK each averaging ~10miles/day or 3KWh/day. So to charge them all will need 100GWh/day of electricity demand. That equates to two extra Hinkley C’s ! Forget Wind power – unless you want to add sails to all the cars!”

That tweet only focuses on the actual electricity needed and I deal with the increased use of metals below. A Times report (27/11/20) says EVs use up 50% more emissions than petrol/diesel cars and take 50,000 miles to break even on emissions.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/electric-cars-have-to-do-50-000-miles-before-they-are-greener-than-fossil-fuel-vehicles-8hb5m0dm7

In contrast to the simple appeal of renewables all energy predictions, including those from Greenpeace, conclude fossil fuels will be used until at least 2050.

The devotion to the green means you cannot use the greener, or the least ungreen – which is nuclear and gas.

The perfect is the enemy of the best available.

The suggestion of lots of little improvements is excellent and is what people should have been doing for 40 years, if they haven’t been doing so. Thus moving over to LED lights should simply have been done, even only as replacements over the last 40 years, moving from Tungsten filament incandescent, to low energy to LED. In our household we followed that trajectory from 1986 starting with the massive low energy bulbs and then moved with the times. A good personal task is to consider how you can make little energy or material savings from all aspects of your living. e.g using a bike where possible.

The same is the case with insulation and all forms of energy efficiency. Some of us remember cold houses in the 1950s with expensive and inefficient heating with temperatures of 55 deg F  – sorry 13deg C !

The change in mode of travel to achieve net Zero is challenging.. To change to electric may reduce emissions to zero at point of use, but one must consider the metals needed for batteries and motors, as I mentioned above. I admit to being wary of the Governments policy to ban diesel and petrol cars from 2030, on grounds of practicality and the need to vastly increase electricity generation, but also the availability of the metals needed.

Acute Metal Shortage

There is also the problem of essential metals as greatly increased quantities of copper, Nickel and Cobalt will be needed, and also Lithium. For the hoped-for 32% of EVs by 2030 an additional 27,000 tons of Copper will be needed annually just in the UK. (To consider what that means, that is nearly one and a half million tons of Copper Ore at 2% copper. When working for an exploration company in South Africa and re-evaluating an old mine  my initial findings showed that it could be 2 million tons at 2% which would be a small viable mine. Drilling soon showed there was half a million so it was dropped. My point is simple, Britain would need a new Copper mine of that size ( 2 million tons at 2% every year. That is simply unlikely.)  The extra 27,000 tons of copper needed is an 18% increase from the last decade years when 150,000 tons were consumed annually of which 130,000 was reclaimed from scrap. This additional Copper will have to be from refining. To give an indication, if Parys mountain in Anglesey was viable as a mine it could produce 80, 000 tons of refined Copper i.e 3 years of increased demand.

Parys mountain Copper Mine

The result will be to open up mines of much poorer ore with the attendant increase of mine waste and pollution.

This is expressed far better by scientists from the British Museum of Natural History

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/press-releases/leading-scientists-set-out-resource-challenge-of-meeting-net-zer.html

or on a world perspective

https://www.mining.com/much-copper-nickel-cobalt-electric-vehicle-world-needs/?fbclid=IwAR0AliU-1JxFPUlmOCDBfjlBdFeastmvSedCz7yuEszwrnpVB4ooGijz97g

I’d suggest both the Church of England and the Government get up to speed on their understanding of mineral resources and stop hoping for renewables!

Now to change tack on travel.

On travel it is remarkable how few clergy actually use a bike. Except in far-flung rural parishes it is often the quickest and easiest mode of transport. It has the great advantage of being able to stop and talk to people in busy streets. In fact, a bike is an excellent pastoral aid! Travelling five miles to visit in a hospital I found cycling was quicker than a car  – and less frustrating. Yet the article makes no mention of bikes and says  It also includes all work-related travel by clergy, staff, and volunteers. It is simply not happening.

It seems no one expects to get to Net Zero by 2030 as the article says. A further phase of work from 2030 includes all emissions from large building projects; emissions from the farming and management of church lands, and all emissions from products bought, such as paper and printing; downstream emissions from waste disposal; emissions from building contractors; and carbon generated from use of emails and the internet in work-related contexts. All these are said to be “within our influence to a significant degree”.

Ah, I see! Net Zero by 2030 is not Net Zero by 2030. One would have thought these would have been included in the 2030 targets. I suggest there is a clear realisation that Net Zero 2030 is impossible to achieve!

One would have thought the items on this long list should be tackled well before 2030.

However much was omitted;

Water usage

Tree-planting

Various small ways of reducing energy usage in church, school and home

  the myriad little things

And, of course, the education of congregations

The article then gives the example of a church in Birmingham. The church at Baddesley Clinton, which has no gas or running water, is now carbon-neutral after the installation of under-pew heating, which heats a bubble of air round the pew rather than the whole church space.

I don’t whether to laugh or cry at this scientific nonsense. Is there a plastic bubble to enclose those being warmed?  From the most basic physics all should know that hot air rises and thus most of the heat will fleetingly warm those in the pew before roasting the top of the church. It does not say what the source of electricity for the underfloor heating is, but it would use more electricity than other methods of heating.

The CT article then says  “It has halved its energy consumption by switching to a renewable-energy supplier. That is impossible and risible, you will use the same amount of electricity for the same usage whoever your supplier!

Shoddy arguments like these help no one and create misunderstanding of energy issues. However this type of confusion takes root and is very difficult to counter. One is usually met with a variety of ecogodwords.

Eco-diocese, eco-church

Several dioceses are register as eco-dioceses and with eco-churches.

In 2016 eco-church was relaunched through Arocha, with bronze, silver and gold awards. Much was simply sensible green advice on what churches could do, but it tended to be doctrinaire coming from a particular standpoint. Back to the Great Green Narrative

It simply assumed that churches ought to go renewable and recommended Ecotricity. This follows the common line on renewable (good) and non-renewable/fossil (bad) and not considering the actual problems of obtaining energy, or the total emissions produced.

The additional materials point one to resources and groups to follow. It refers to the flagship green group Friends of the Earth. Yet it ignores they way they were pulled up by the Advertising Standards Authority in early 2017 for their grossly inaccurate leaflet on fracking. In it they claimed that additives to fracking fluid were carcenogenic. When challenged on BBC the best they could come up with was – SAND! One needs to note their campaigns, especially in the EU to ban GMOs, and their anti-nuclear stance. Bees have been in their sights for year, but now claim that the greatest cause of decline is intensive farming, rather than what they previously claimed – neonicotinoids.

The record of Friends of the Earth is not good. Nor is that of Greenpeace

Another group highlighted was Frack Free Fylde, which for several years disrupted peoples’ lives, blocked roads, held up funerals and pushed misinformation. And also recommended is Keep it in the ground with the aim of stopping extraction of fossil fuels.

If Ecochurch is to be ecochurch, it should not simply put forward one extreme environmental line, however popular that may be. It excludes a large number of environmentally concerned people. It is classic GGN Grand Green Narrative.

There is so much else to recommend what parishes can do to be truly eco-church. It is a pity eco-church focussed on only those groups taking a particular view on energy and not referring to government bodies or others. Perhaps it is as well it was produced before Extinction Rebellion and Christian ‘sClimate Action.

The problem of Net Zero 2030

I think it is a great pity that Bishop Holtham simply does not say Net Zero 2030 is totally unrealistic.

To conclude it was based on an amendment which was both ideological and idealistic and rather lop-sided in their beliefs and arguments.

Their’s is a tunnel vision on divestment  and Net Zero ASAP

It is Binary thinking, whereby fossil fuels are totally bad and renewables the opposite

It is unrealistic on transition

Further they have excluded the middle ground, which needs to be recognised and also their support gained. I wonder how many will opt out because of that.

They eschew the more technical and slower approaches, which take the state of technology into account. These will be far more effective in both the medium and long term, but won’t have the activist glamour.

Nothing will be gained by rushing things and we should follow the example of beavers and slowly beaver away.

FINIS

******************************************

 The Church Times Article in full

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2020/6-november/news/uk/synod-emissions-target-realistic-says-its-mover?utm_term=Autofeed

THE whole Church should be committed to reducing its carbon footprint, and, if it works systematically and together, it can succeed, Canon Martin Gainsborough, a General Synod member, has said.

Canon Gainsborough moved the amendment in the General Synod in February which resulted in its adoption of the target of net zero emissions by 2030 (Synod and Comment, 21 February).

Canon Gainsborough was commenting on the publication today of Synod papers on the scope and definition of what net zero would look like, to be debated by the Synod this month. “What an achievement and what a legacy that would be!” he said. “I have been hugely impressed by the way in which the Environment Working Group has been working since the momentous vote in February.”

“The definition of what is included for our net-zero carbon target seems the right one. It is also widely supported, as the consultation process relating to it shows.”

Chaplain to the Bishop of Bristol, Canon Gainsborough was formerly the professor in development politics at the University of Bristol and the Social Justice and Environmental Adviser in Bristol diocese.

Data has been submitted from 4500 churches — about one third of parishes — to the Energy Footprint Tool (EFT). Twenty-two diocesan synods have carried or are planning to debate a net-zero motion, and 23 have either registered or planned to register as an eco diocese. Birmingham, Bristol, Coventry, Guildford, Leeds, Liverpool, St Edmundsbury & Ipswich, Salisbury, and Winchester have achieved Bronze status.

The Church’s current carbon footprint is described as “very significant”. A baseline study in 2012 found that it created between 600,000 and one million tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent: the standard measure of greenhouse-gas emissions. That figure was purely for energy, and did not include transport, water, waste, and purchases.

Heating accounted for more than 80 per cent of church energy use. Purely electric heating has, on average, a lower net-carbon footprint than gas or oil, and the Synod papers make practical recommendations for reducing both energy use and carbon transmission. The lowest tier of these are “actions that nearly all churches can benefit from, even low-occupancy churches only used on a Sunday. They are relatively easy, with relatively fast pay back. They are a good place for churches to start.”

These include attention to maintenance and draught-proofing; switching to 100-per-cent renewable energy on a “green tariff”, perhaps through the parish buying scheme; replacing light bulbs and floodlights with LEDs; writing an energy-efficient procurement policy; making a commitment to renewable electric and A+++ rated appliances; and offsetting small remaining amounts of energy with a contribution to community projects in the developing world.

At the other end of the scale are the main “Only if” projects, such as the installation of ground-source heat-pumps, likely to be done only as part of a reordering.

Included in the 2030 target are churches, cathedrals, church halls, and ancillary buildings; Royal Peculiars; theological education institutions; clergy housing; voluntary aided schools and diocesan academy trusts; and church bodies’ offices and diocesan properties. It also includes all work-related travel by clergy, staff, and volunteers.

A further phase of work from 2030 includes all emissions from large building projects; emissions from the farming and management of church lands, and all emissions from products bought, such as paper and printing; downstream emissions from waste disposal; emissions from building contractors; and carbon generated from use of emails and the internet in work-related contexts. All these are said to be “within our influence to a significant degree”.

Those acknowledged to be out of the scope of the target, “but still within our mission to influence”, include greenhouse-gas emissions for which worshippers and visitors are responsible, and schools that are fully controlled by local authorities.

The PCC and congregations of two rural churches, St Michael’s, Baddesley Clinton, a small building south of Birmingham, and St Michael and All Angels, Withington, in the Cotswolds, are highlighted for their recent work. The church at Baddesley Clinton, which has no gas or running water, is now carbon-neutral after the installation of under-pew heating, which heats a bubble of air round the pew rather than the whole church space.

It has halved its energy consumption by switching to a renewable-energy supplier; has replaced all light bulbs with LEDs; and offsets to climate stewards the travel associated with people coming to church. The Rector, the Revd Patrick Gerard, who is also the diocese of Birmingham’s environmental adviser, describes his PCC as “not an eco-warrior PCC at all, but very practical”. The LEDs had been “an easy win”, and the congregation were now warm. The old wall heaters had been retained, “but we now have the confidence not to use them.”

OTHER STORIES

Climate battle must start right now, says bishop

THE Bishop of Salisbury, the Rt Revd Nick Holtam, the Church of England’s lead bishop on environmental issues, is writing to all bishops and diocesan secretaries this week, in response to the target set at the General Synod last week to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to net zero by 2030

The church in Withington, in Gloucester diocese, was believed to be the first to become carbon-neutral, in 2010, when a biomass boiler, solar panels, and LEDs were installed (News, 1 October 2010). Although the biomass boiler worked, it was simply a boiler replacement, and did not change the the number of radiators. Loading it with wooden pellets became an onerous task for a small core of people.

Pew heaters have been installed, and have made a fundamental difference to comfort levels, besides maintaining zero-carbon credentials, it has been reported. Residual electricity is bought from renewable sources.

The project leader, Matt Fulford, said on Tuesday, “Different people will view the project in different ways. You’ve got those viewing it as a very positive environmental project; others take a treasurer’s view that sees it as as a very positive financial project; and a third view it as a success because of the comfort element. It is now a very usable building which is enjoyable to be in; so it’s a missional view in being able to serve its core purpose better. It’s lovely when all three of these come together.”

Also the General Synod “jobs to be done”

https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2020-11/GS%20Misc%201262%20EWG%20update.pdf

Net Zero2030

1. The energy use of our buildings;
 Gas, oil, or other fuel use
 Electricity purchased (no matter the source it is purchased from – renewable
electricity purchased is accounted for later)
 For the following buildings;
• Churches, including church halls and ancillary buildings.
• Cathedrals (and …..l  the precinct)
• Schools where the DBE has a significant degree of influence (generally
Voluntary Aided & Diocesan Academy Trusts) including halls/other buildings
• Clergy housing,
• Church bodies’ offices
•
• Other diocesan property, including common parts of tenanted properties
• Theological Education Institutions
 Including the “well to tank” and “transmission and distribution” factors involved
in getting energy to the building.
 Note: Electricity used to charge EV vehicles will be included within the above.
2. All work-related travel

3. From this, and on the understanding that real reductions in energy use have been
made, the following can be removed:
 Excess energy generated on site (e.g. from solar PV) and exported to the grid
 100% renewable electricity purchased either from the Green Energy Basket
or agreed companies, reviewed annually, having regard to the criteria used
by the Big Church Switch
 Green gas [certification approach still t.b.d.]
 Other reliable offsetting schemes,

After2030

4. All the emissions from major building projects (
5. Emissions generated from the farming / management of Church land (including
church yards, unless fully controlled by local councils, and glebe land) less emissions
sequestered through the farming / management of Church land (such as tree
planting, soil improvement, and other nature-based solutions) *
6. All the emissions (including upstream process & transport) from the procurement of
any items we buy (e.g. pews for churches, paper & printing for offices, new cars for
bishops, catering for events)
7. Upstream and downstream emissions from water and drainage
8. Downstream emissions from waste disposal
9. Emissions from building contractors, plumbers, electricians and the like
10. Carbon generated from use of emails and the internet in work-based contexts
11. Diocesan investments, if they are a material amount
12. Air-conditioning gasses
In standard Greenhouse Gas definitions, these are those parts of our “Scope 3“ emissions
which are within our influence to a significant degree.
* To be specifically reviewed in 2022, with the potential to bring them into scope of the
2030 target, only after consultation, and if feasible methodologies have been developed
 NOT INCLUDED IN TARGET

13. Travel of staff and clergy to and from their usual place of work or ministry
14. The travel of the public to and from church, school, and church events.
15. Clergy family’s & residents’ GHG emissions (consumer goods, travel, holidays). The
energy used to heat and light the housing, if over the average reasonable use above.
16. Personal GHG emissions from the lives of worshippers attending church, other
church users (such as people attending a choir or playgroup), and overseas visitors
17. Schools over which we have very limited influence (generally Voluntary Controlled
Schools which are fully controlled by Local Authorities)
In standard Greenhouse Gas definitions, see below, these are either out of our scope or
are scope 3 but largely outside our influence.

Click to access GS%20Misc%201262%20EWG%20update.pdf

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