Climate Under No Threat, Sceptics

IMPORTANT UPDATE at end

Well at least that's how the cognoscenti funded by the Heart Land Institute in the US would have as believe. Notable among them is Australias own Bob Carter. The Fairfax press reports...

Scientist accepts 'cash for climate'
Ben Cubby
February 16, 2012

A PROMINENT Australian scientist has rejected as offensive any suggestion he is doing the bidding of a US climate sceptic think tank that is paying him a monthly fee.

Confidential documents leaked from inside The Heartland Institute, a wealthy think tank based in Chicago and Washington, detail strategy and funding for an array of activities designed to spread doubt about climate change science, paid for by companies that have a financial interest in continuing to release greenhouse gases without government interference.

Among the recipients of funding is Professor Bob Carter of James Cook University, a geologist and marine researcher...

The documents show Professor Carter receives a ''monthly payment'' of $US1667 ($A1550), as part of a program to pay ''high-profile individuals who regularly and publicly counter the alarmist message''.

Professor Carter did not deny being paid by The Heartland Institute, but would not confirm the amount, or why it was paying him.

''Institutions or organisations simply pay for services rendered. In the same way that an architect is paid for their work, so are scientists. What they may make any payment to me for, I'm not discussing with anybody outside of my family.''

More than $US20 million had been spent funding and co-ordinating activities of climate sceptics and bloggers since 2007, the documents suggest.

Other cash recipients include Anthony Watts, a US climate sceptic blogger, who is to receive $US90,000 this year. Programs for funding include school curriculum modules that teach science from a climate sceptic perspective.

The documents discuss strategy to ''keep opposing voices out'' of the media and co-ordinate efforts with other ''groups capable of rapidly mobilising responses to new scientific findings, news stories, or unfavourable blog posts''.

Also at the Sydney Morning Herald and Crikey.

The documents were originally published on DeSmogBlog which has followed up with a post detailing a report by John Mashey titled Fake science, fake experts, funny finances, free of tax. Specifically,

...this new report is painstakingly detailed and carefully referenced throughout. It both corroborates and is corroborated by the leaked Heartland documents, which reinforce Mashey's conclusion that Heartland is a for-profit public relations and lobbying firm that is operating with non-profit status by misrepresenting the nature of its activities in its own tax filings.

In totally unrelated news The Canberra Times reports that SA Senator Corey Bernadi wants the CSIRO to redact some of the information it is handing out to kiddies in its climate change kit.

Climate change kit for kids 'apocalyptic'
Rosslyn Beeby, 15 Feb, 2012

The CSIRO will review its new climate change education program for schools following claims made in Senate estimates today that the material is biased and frightens children by offering ‘‘an apocalyptic scenario.’’

South Australian Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi said the CSIRO’s Carbon Kids education kit was ‘‘designed to scare kids’’ about future impacts of climate change.

It painted a frightening picture for children of a world where rising temperatures had created jobs losses and food scarcity, he said. The kit had ‘‘cherry-picked facts’’, offered no discussions of alternative views, and ignored positive steps such as future development of green jobs.

The Good Senator attended the Heart Land Institute sponsored “4th International Conference on Climate Change”. This from Crikey is an interesting read.
News.com also has this story. I liked the question in the poll accompanying the story.

Hot under the collar
Should schools teach the controversy?

What controversy?

Ian Plimer has had his totally unquestionable ethical scientific stance rewarded.

Rinehart appoints daughter, climate sceptic to key board
The Australian
February 16, 2012 12:00AM

AUSTRALIA'S richest person, Gina Rinehart, has continued to reshape the management of her business empire, appointing climate-change sceptic Ian Plimer and favoured daughter Ginia as directors of a company linked to a mine that generates annual revenues of $2 billion.

And even if the climate under no threat sceptics are wrong then there is always clean coal and CCS.

Clean coal 'unviable for two decades'
Michael Atkin, ABC News Online February 15

There will be no business case for developing clean-coal power plants in Australia or overseas in the next 20 years, according to a key Federal Government adviser.

National Low Emissions Coal Council chairman Dick Wells says even the introduction of a carbon price in July will not entice the coal industry to invest the billions required for clean-coal plants because it makes no financial sense and punishes shareholders.

He says carbon capture and storage (CCS) will not play a major role in combating dangerous climate change unless the Gillard Government dramatically increases industry assistance.

"If you want to wait for the carbon price to rise to levels where these will be commercially viable we're probably into the 2030s," Mr Wells said.

The Gillard Government has a $1.68 billion CCS Flagships program to get major projects off the ground and the coal industry's Coal 21 fund has committed $289 million to projects so far.

But the potential of CCS remains largely unfulfilled.

"We're a long way off it (the 2050 targets)," Mr Wells said.

The National Low Emissions Coal Council estimates $10 billion to $17 billion is required to have one industrial-scale, clean-coal power station and a portfolio of smaller projects operating commercially by 2020.

The CCS Flagships program originally had deeper pockets, with $2 billion pledged. However, its funding was reduced to $1.68 billion last year.

Just $57.26 million has been spent so far but Mr Wells defends the need to move slowly.

"I don't think there is any embarrassment about not spending the money too fast," he said.

No. Probably just as well, because the super tax that so enraged the mining industry last year may not return much to the real owners of the resource anyway.

Mining's small change
Peter Carey and Neil Fargher
February 16

Flaws in the mineral tax mean Australia may profit little from its resource wealth.

COULD Australia end up with little to show for its mining boom - as an echo of what happened to Nauru once its considerable phosphate wealth was exhausted?

Close examination of the proposed minerals resource rent tax reveals serious flaws that could leave the federal government well short of the forecast revenue. It is conceivable that some large and highly profitable mining companies could reorganise their affairs to pay little or none of the tax.

The first and most obvious shortcoming of the MRRT, in terms of its revenue potential, is that it applies only to coal and iron ore. All other minerals are exempt.

The main problem is that the tax is based not on an objective measure such as tonnes of material mined, but on ''super profit'' (mining profit less allowances). Profit at the best of times is a highly flexible concept that can allow accountants to apply creative techniques to minimise a company's tax obligations. With the MRRT, the incentives and opportunities for creative avoidance appear even greater than those applying to company tax.

The minerals tax is not based on audited company profits from statutory accounts, but on a narrow portion of profits from particular mining activities. It requires the taxpayers (that is, the mining companies) to determine the amount of proceeds and costs that relate to these activities.

This reliance on the miners themselves to determine the appropriate proceeds and costs creates a significant incentive to estimate profit from taxable activities in the most tax-efficient manner.

UPDATE to main story.

Scientist Peter Gleick has publicly stated that he obtained the documents from The Heartland Institute by impersonating a board member (presumably over the phone). He regrets taking this unethical step but states he was driven by frustration over the constant barrage of disinformation from such outfits as The Heartland Institute. Since the documents released were instantly denied (it's a reflex action) it probably became necessary to take this action if only to prove that the documents did in fact originate from The Heartland Institutes own email server. While this damages Peter Gleicks credibility, his simple deception is a different class of unethical breach from the hacking theft perpetrated at CRU. Climate denialists baying over ethical breaches need chew on that before publicly exposing themselves as hypocrites. Not that it will stop them as a brief survey of blogs and newspapers (also just blogs) will reveal.

The Origin of the Heartland Documents
Peter H. Gleick 20/2/12

...in a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics, I solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone else's name.

I can explicitly confirm, as can the Heartland Institute, that the documents they emailed to me are identical to the documents that have been made public.

Whistleblower Authenticates Heartland Documents
DeSmogBlog

Climate scientist Peter Gleick has acknowledged that he was the person who convinced the Heartland Institute to hand over the contents of its January Board package, authenticating the documents beyond a doubt and further exposing the disinformation campaign Heartland has pursued in the last week, trying to discredit the information.

Without condoning or promoting an act of dishonesty, it's fair to say that Gleick took a significant personal risk - and by standing and taking responsibility for his actions, he has shown himself willing to pay the price.


Climate scientist Peter Gleick admits he leaked Heartland Institute documents
The Guardian, 21/2/12 (<- yesterdays word was palindrome)

Peter Gleick, a water and climate analyst, says he was blinded by his frustrations with ongoing attacks on climate science.

A leading defender of climate change admitted tricking the libertarian Heartland Institute into turning over confidential documents detailing its plans to discredit the teaching of science to school children in last week's sensational expose.

The admission – nearly a week after Heartland's financial plans and donors' list was put online – looked set to further inflame the climate wars, in which a network of fossil fuel interests, rightwing think tanks and politicians have been working to block action on climate change.

New Zealand Officials Muzzled on Peak Oil?

from Denis Tegg at oilshockhorrorprobe 

The government has finally released its Energy Strategy. There are cosmetic changes from the Draft version but it's no surprise that the final Strategy continues to completely ignore the threat of peak oil.  There were many submissions, including my own, which detailed the raft of recent reports from oil and energy experts, think tanks and government institutions which are all pointing to an imminent supply and oil price crunch. And in 2009 government officials themselves gave strong warnings to Ministers. So since 2009, have the officials been muzzled?

Climate for Corruption

No this is not a post about those fiendishly clever climate change conspirators pulling a fast one on Claude or Ligna Coal Magnate.

The small Maldivan Newspaper Haveeru caught my eye, or rather my Google news feed, with the following interesting article about the potential for corruption in carbon markets and climate mitigation schemes.

Transparency Maldives launches Global Corruption Report on climate change

Haveeru Online, June 26.

MALE, June 28 (HNS) – Transparency Maldives Sunday launched the Global Corruption Report: Climate Change compiled by Transparency International.

Transparency International officially inaugurated the report, first of its kind to comprehensively explore major climate-related corruption risks, in April of this year at Dhaka, Bangladesh.

International watchdogs identify that improper or poor governance paves the way to corruption especially in the area of climate change governance, as huge amounts of money flow through new and untested financial markets and mechanisms.
The Global Corruption Report: Climate Change focuses on this issue along with making climate governance work, strategies for reducing carbon emissions, building effective adaptation to climate change, actions for sustainable climate governance and recommended actions for governments, businesses and civil societies.
The report stresses the importance of protecting from corruption the estimated US$700 billion budget allocated for mitigation efforts by 2020. It also highlights the inequality of the current processes for individuals and groups most directly affected by climate change.

Well not nearly as much as the US spends on oil wars but more than the ADF wastes (ie a lot).

“The quality of climate governance – the degree to which policy development and decisions are participatory, accountable, transparent, inclusive and responsive, and respect the rule of law – will determine how well it addresses inherent corruption risks,”

However, it is noted that organisations and personnel in developing countries most affected by climate change lack the skills and expertise needed to observe and track the projects undertaken.

By 2009, the registered number of observer organisations to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States reached more than 400 while from the developing countries, India, China and Brazil were only able to recruit just more than 10 organisations.

“According to a recent study in the North Africa region, however, almost 70 percent of the potential investors interviewed considered regulatory risk, including corruption, to be likely – and a serious impediment to investment,” it says.
“As a critical mechanism for mitigation, carbon markets need safeguards to reduce the risk of corruption, as well as to ensure their sustainability and capacity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Transparency International notes that adaptation to climate change requires large-scale infrastructure development like flood control systems in Bangladesh, which received a 2.4 score on the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of 2010.
“None of the 20 countries most affected by climate change scored higher than 3.6 on the Corruption Perception Index,” the report stresses.

From the introductory page at Transparency International

Carbon markets: Managing public assets transparently In international carbon trading schemes, individual governments can sell carbon credits when a country’s emissions are below their pollution targets. In an opaque market, the government mismanagement of credits can go unnoticed. Media investigations in Slovakia revealed that the government sold carbon credits at half their value to a company with links to officials in the ministry that made the sale. They made neither the contract nor the price public. The sale represented an estimated €75 million in lost revenue for the people of Slovakia.

What needs to be done

If climate governance is not prepared for corruption, corruption will undermine climate governance. The GCR does not just raise the alarm, it provides a risk map of ways to make climate change measures more effective.

Recommendations include:

• All conferences and meetings where climate change targets are set should be open to the people they impact and transparent at the international and local levels
• Experts monitoring and verifying projects must be independent and not paid from the budget of the project they are overseeing
• All climate measures should have strong, well-resourced oversight bodies
• Civil society must monitor government commitments to reduce emissions and be involved in development and oversight of national plans for mitigation and adaptation.

Downloads

Global Corruption Report: Climate Change (full download)

Parts 2 & 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

This report appears to have been released earlier and may be having regional releases.

Green schemes are 'wide open to major corruption'

The Independent, Sunday, 1 May 2011

Corruption is threatening global steps to combat climate change, a new report from Transparency International (TI) warned yesterday. Billions of pounds will be plundered and wasted, it says, unless stronger measures are introduced against embezzlement and misappropriation.

The organisation warns that 20 nations most vulnerable to climate change – where millions in grants and aid will be targeted – are judged to be among the most corrupt in the world – and stronger oversight is needed to ensure the funds are properly spent.

"Corruption holds nothing sacred, not even our planet's future," said Huguette Labelle

Although you don’t have to be corrupt to perceive the world through a cash register – greed will suffice.

"Failure to properly govern climate change measures now will not only lead to misallocated resources and fraudulent projects today, but also hurts future generations," …

"Where huge amounts of money flow through new and untested financial markets and mechanisms, there is a risk of corruption," [the report] says.

Carbon markets, the main financial tool for combating climate change, have already been hit by fraud, the report points out. In January, the European Union's carbon market was shut down after it was attacked by cyber-hackers. More than three million carbon credits were stolen from government and private company accounts.

The system has also been hit by repeated tax frauds. One scheme to meet all of Europe's power needs from concentrated solar power plants covering 1 per cent of the Sahara desert was undermined after experts said bureaucratic complexity and corruption in north Africa raised the risks and costs of investment there. After an investigation by Spanish officials, it was discovered that more than one in 10 of its solar parks was falsely registered as operational, despite making no contribution to the energy grid.

Illegal logging, an industry estimated to be worth more than $10bn a year, is fuelled by corrupted customs and other officials, the report says. Some countries have already claimed carbon credits for fictitious forest plantation projects. In Kenya, deforestation is exacerbated by corruption among under-resourced forest guards. TI estimates that in 1963 Kenya had about 10 per cent forest cover; by 2006, it was less than 2 per cent.

But its not just developing nations.

All countries are vulnerable: Britain is criticised for its failure to deal with so-called "greenwashing" marketing techniques used by companies to misrepresent how environmentally friendly their products are.

Also highlighted is America's failure to curb the influence of the "brown lobby" – the 2,000 registered oil, gas, coal and electricity lobbyists who spent an estimated $400m in 2009 compared with the green lobby's $22m.

And from Reuters – Africa,

Corruption must be cut to protect climate –report

Reuters, April 30 2011

MARKETS

Carbon markets, the main financial tool for combating climate change, continue to be shaken by fraudulent activity.

Over the past couple of years, the European Union's $134 billion emissions trading scheme has been blighted by the re-sale of used carbon offsets, hacking, theft and continuing value-added tax fraud. [ID:nLDE70J1KT]

The integrity of the U.N.'s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which encourages emissions cutting schemes in poor nations, was dented after some project developers were accused of exploiting the system. [ID:nLDE6AI1A3]

"Creative accounting can lead to the double counting of emissions by companies of their own reported mitigation efforts, (...), thus nullifying the environmental integrity of the emissions reductions," the report said.

Corruption risks also exist in political decision-making and climate financing and through the mismanagement of public funds, the report said.

We need only remember this fiasco…

                                                            … in a supposedly well regulated economy to see what flies are attracted to a shit load of money.

[UPDATE]

In a good move to avoid political interference in clean energy decisions in Australia,

New body to control clean energy grants

The Age, July 5, 2011

RESPONSIBILITY for handing out about $1 billion in clean energy grants will be taken out of government hands under a compromise with the Greens as part of a carbon price deal to be announced on Sunday.

The Age has learned that clean energy programs such as the $1.5 billion solar flagships program - designed to help build Australia's first large solar plants - will be removed from Energy Minister Martin Ferguson's control and run by an independent statutory body.

The new statutory body running clean energy grants is expected to take over responsibility for some of the $5 billion clean energy initiative announced in 2009, including the remaining $730 million in solar flagship funding.

And the West Australian also reports,

Rules to rein in carbon cowboys

July 2, 2011

Trade in international pollution permits will be strictly limited under the Gillard Government's climate change package to prevent so-called "carbon cowboys" from scamming the multibillion-dollar scheme.

In a significant departure from Labor's abandoned carbon pollution reduction scheme, international permit purchases are likely to be restricted to high quality sellers such as the European Union and the US State of California. The concern under the CPRS was that low-quality carbon abatement could be bought by Australian polluters from places such as equatorial Africa and South-East Asia through hard-to-verify and dubious projects such as tree plantations.

It is understood the Government agreed to "qualitative and quantitative controls" under its emissions trading scheme at the insistence of the Greens who opposed unlimited access to international permits under the CPRS.

Although Tony Abbott sounds increasingly like he is running for the Republican nomination in the US rather than as opposition leader of Australia, viz;

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who yesterday blasted the Government's planned carbon tax as "socialism masquerading as environmentalism"…

Mythonium

Easier to create than Unobtainium, and with a longer half life than any of the transactinides, it is a powerful and necessary element in any public relations effort.

Myth creation is common during a crisis. Some of them are deconstructed below.

The first major myth concerns Japanese technological prowess. As a nation the Japanese have a strong technological history, but they are not alone in  having a long cultural history of avoiding (or outright denying) uncomfortable “truths”.

The first article below is an extensive cut and paste from the New York Times (follow the link for the complete story). I have edited out more from the start of the original piece and highlighted some of the more boring technical or “factual” statements that normally get relegated to the bottom of the journalists pyramid.

‘Safety Myth’ Left Japan Ripe for Nuclear Crisis

Norimitsu Onishi, NYTime, 24 June

SHIKA, Japan — Near a nuclear power plant facing the Sea of Japan, a series of exhibitions in a large public relations building here extols the virtues of the energy source with some help from “Alice in Wonderland.”

“It’s terrible, just terrible,” the White Rabbit says in the first exhibit. “We’re running out of energy, Alice.”

A Dodo robot figure, swiveling to address Alice and the visitors to the building, declares that there is an “ace” form of energy called nuclear power. It is clean, safe and renewable if you reprocess uranium and plutonium, the Dodo says.

“Wow, you can even do that!” Alice says of nuclear power.

See more images at Building Japan’s Nuclear ‘Safety Myth’ also from the NY Times

Over several decades, Japan’s nuclear establishment has devoted vast resources to persuade the Japanese public of the safety and necessity of nuclear power. Plant operators built lavish, fantasy-filled public relations buildings that became tourist attractions. Bureaucrats spun elaborate advertising campaigns through a multitude of organizations established solely to advertise the safety of nuclear plants. Politicians pushed through the adoption of government-mandated school textbooks with friendly views of nuclear power.

The result was the widespread adoption of the belief — called the “safety myth” — that Japan’s nuclear power plants were absolutely safe. Japan single-mindedly pursued nuclear power even as Western nations distanced themselves from it.

As the Japanese continue to search for answers to the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, some are digging deep into the national psyche and examining a national propensity to embrace a belief now widely seen as irrational.

Because of this widespread belief in Japanese plants’ absolute safety, plant operators and nuclear regulators failed to adopt proper safety measures and advances in technology, like emergency robots, experts and government officials acknowledge.]

Banri Kaieda, who runs the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which oversees the nuclear industry, said at a news conference at an International Atomic Energy Agency meeting in Vienna on Monday. “It’s a fact that there was an unreasonable overconfidence in the technology of Japan’s nuclear power generation.”

With radiation levels too high for workers to approach the reactors, the Japanese authorities floundered. They sent police trucks mounted with water cannons — equipment designed to disperse rioters — to spray water into the reactor buildings. Military helicopters flew over the buildings, dropping water that was scattered off course by strong winds, in a “performance, a kind of circus” that was aimed more at reassuring an increasingly alarmed Japanese population and American government, said Kenichi Matsumoto, an aide to Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

Japan lacked some of the basic hardware to respond to a nuclear crisis and, after initial resistance, had to look abroad for help. For a country proud of its technology, the low point occurred on March 31 when it had to use a 203-foot-long water pump — shipped from China…

But perhaps more than anything else, the absence of one particular technology was deeply puzzling: emergency robots.

Japan, after all, is the world’s leader in robotics. It has the world’s largest force of mechanized workers. Its humanoid robots can walk and run on two feet, sing and dance, and even play the violin. But where were the emergency robots at Fukushima?

The answer is that the operators and nuclear regulators, believing that accidents would never occur, steadfastly opposed the introduction of what they regarded as unnecessary technology.

“The plant operators said that robots, which would premise an accident, were not needed,” said Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, 77, an engineer and a former president of the University of Tokyo, Japan’s most prestigious academic institution. “Instead, introducing them would inspire fear, they said. That’s why they said that robots couldn’t be introduced.”

The rejection of robots, Mr. Yoshikawa said, was part of the industry’s overall reluctance to improve maintenance and invest in new technologies.

“That’s why the safety myth wasn’t just an empty slogan,” said Mr. Yoshikawa, now the director general of the Center for Research and Development Strategy at the Japan Science and Technology Agency. “It was a kind of mind-set that rejected progress through the introduction of new technology.”

After Chernobyl, the nuclear establishment made sure that Japanese kept believing in safety.

The plant operators built or renovated the public relations buildings — called “P.R. buildings” — attached to their plants. Before Chernobyl, the buildings were simple facilities intended to appeal to “adult men interested in technical matters,” said Noriya Sumihara, an anthropologist at Tenri University who has researched the facilities. Male guides wearing industrial uniforms took visitors around exhibits consisting mostly of wall panels.

But after Chernobyl, the facilities were transformed into elaborate theme parks geared toward young mothers, the group that research showed was most worried about nuclear plants and radiation, Mr. Sumihara said. Women of childbearing age, whose presence alone was meant to reassure the visitors, were hired as guides.

In Higashidori, a town in northern Japan, one of the country’s newest P.R. buildings is built on the theme of Tonttu, a forest with resident dwarfs. The buildings also holds events with anime characters to attract children and young parents…

Here in Shika, more than 100,000 guests last year visited the P.R. building where Alice discovers the wonders of nuclear power. The Caterpillar reassures Alice about radiation and the Cheshire Cat helps her learn about the energy source.

The nuclear establishment also made sure that government-mandated school textbooks underemphasized information that could cast doubt on the safety of nuclear power. In Parliament, the campaign was led by Tokio Kano, a Tepco vice president who became a lawmaker in 1998.

In 2004, under the influence of Mr. Kano and other proponents of nuclear power, education officials ordered revisions to textbooks before endorsing them. In one junior high school social studies textbook, a reference to the growing antinuclear movement in Europe was deleted. In another, a reference to Chernobyl was relegated to a footnote.

The nuclear establishment itself came to believe its own safety myth and “became entangled in its own net,” said Hitoshi Yoshioka, an author of a book on the history of Japan’s nuclear power and a member of a panel established by the prime minister to investigate the causes of the Fukushima disaster.

Will these events mark a transition to more questioning approach by the public to the otherwise supine acceptance of authoritarian opinion?

Survey shows disappointment, anger among Fukushima evacuees

Asahi Shimbun (Asahi.com), 25 June.

Disappointment toward Tokyo Electric Power Co. for its failure to guard the safety of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and anger at the central government's inept handling of the accident.

Those are the two major themes that emerge from the results of an interview survey of 407 evacuees from the Fukushima nuclear accident.

About 90,000 Fukushima residents have evacuated because of the nuclear accident, with about a third of that number moving outside of the prefecture entirely.

While TEPCO may have provided many Fukushima residents with jobs, the nuclear accident has turned many evacuees against nuclear energy.When asked their opinion on the use of nuclear energy, 70 percent of respondents said they were opposed while 26 percent said they were in favor of nuclear energy.While the survey methods and sample sizes are different, those results are much more anti-nuclear than a nationwide poll conducted by The Asahi Shimbun in June in which 37 percent favored the use of nuclear energy and 42 percent opposed it.

Having young children was an obvious reason for not wanting to return to Fukushima.

A 37-year-old woman left her home in Minami-Soma with her husband and one-year-old son even before the region was designated as a potential emergency evacuation zone.

Whenever her son has health problems because of the unaccustomed evacuation life, the woman blames herself for giving birth at such a difficult time.

"No matter how much they say it is safe, there is no way we can believe them ever again," the woman said.The deep disappointment felt by many of the respondents is due to the fact that many believed TEPCO and other experts who repeatedly said Japan's nuclear power plants were safe and that no accident would ever occur.

Anger at the central government was due in major part to the confusion over evacuation instructions in the immediate aftermath of the accident.

A number of evacuees said they were given conflicting or incomplete instructions that made it difficult to understand where they should flee to.

A 72-year-old woman said, "Information that radioactive materials had spewed from the plant was only transmitted later. If I had known about it earlier, I would have evacuated much farther away."

A woman in her 60s from Namie said, "Not being informed about radiation, I was told to go to a location that had dangerously high levels of radiation."

As a result of such experiences, a total of 80 percent of respondents said the government's response was either totally inappropriate or somewhat inappropriate.

With life in evacuation centers now exceeding three months, close to half of the respondents said their health had worsened as a result.

When workers are put at risk they must be hailed as heros, whether they had a choice or not or new the risks.

Japan's 'throwaway' nuclear workers

Reuters, 24 June.

A decade and a half before it blew apart in a hydrogen blast that punctuated the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant was the scene of an earlier safety crisis.

Then, as now, a small army of transient workers was put to work to try to stem the damage at the oldest nuclear reactor run by Japan's largest utility.

At the time, workers were racing to finish an unprecedented repair to address a dangerous defect: cracks in the drum-like steel assembly known as the "shroud" surrounding the radioactive core of the reactor.

But in 1997, the effort to save the 21-year-old reactor from being scrapped at a large loss to its operator, Tokyo Electric, also included a quiet effort to skirt Japan's safety rules: foreign workers were brought in for the most dangerous jobs, a manager of the project said.

"It's not well known, but I know what happened," Kazunori Fujii, who managed part of the shroud replacement in 1997, told Reuters. "What we did would not have been allowed under Japanese safety standards."

The previously undisclosed hiring of welders from the United States and Southeast Asia underscores the way Tokyo Electric, a powerful monopoly with deep political connections in Japan, outsourced its riskiest work and developed a lax safety culture in the years leading to the Fukushima disaster, experts say.

The repeated failures that have dogged Tokyo Electric in the three months the Fukushima plant has been in crisis have undercut confidence in the response to the disaster and dismayed outside experts, given corporate Japan's reputation for relentless organization.

Hastily hired workers were sent into the plant without radiation meters. Two splashed into radioactive water wearing street shoes because rubber boots were not available. Even now, few have been given training on radiation risks that meets international standards, according to their accounts and the evaluation of experts.

The workers who stayed on to try to stabilize the plant in the darkest hours after March 11 were lauded as the "Fukushima 50" for their selflessness. But behind the heroism is a legacy of Japanese nuclear workers facing hazards with little oversight, according to interviews with more than two dozen current and former nuclear workers, doctors and others.

And finally,

Report From Tokyo: No News Is Good News?

Huffington Post, 23 June

Controlling information flow in a crisis is crucial to its outcome. So it should come as no surprise that much information received about how the crisis at Fukushima unfolded has been kept away from traditional and social media as long as possible. In the end, however, the truth does come out.

One of my favorite truths this week was the acknowledgment by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) that 69 workers who worked at reactor #1 at the Daiichi Fukushima nuclear power plant in March "cannot be found." This means that these individuals, who may have been exposed to high doses of radiation, cannot be located for testing. Was this a case of "sloppy paperwork" or something else? Either way, one wonders how long and why this was kept from the public eye.

While many are no longer surprised to see this sort of thing occurring in Japan, it becomes even less palatable when it happens on the global stage. Take the case of International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) recent decision to hold talks about the Fukushima disaster behind closed doors.

But the picture emerging after three months of radiation release is nothing to laugh about. The June 17th edition of Science magazine reports that radioactive cesium (both 134 and 137) has spread over 100 miles from the plant and now affects an area southwest of the reactors with a large pocket of contamination further south to the outskirts of Tokyo.Not telling the truth gives traditional and social media pundits much to write about and makes the pain last longer when it is revealed. Let us hope that more of those with inside knowledge prioritize the people more than they do their entrenched interests.

For an amusing expat view from Japan of the events try Spike Japan. Read the article about Pluto kun (Plutonium Child) and the bizarre world of TEPCO PR aimed specifically at children  After the earthquake: So farewell then, Plutonium kun.

“I’m hardly absorbed by your stomach or intestines and I’m expelled by your body, so in fact I can’t kill people at all”.

SRREN Policy Makers Guide

Selected extracts from the Special Report on Renewable Energy sources policy makers summary.

The Message: The scenarios used to achieve CO₂ stabilization may be achieved using renewable energy at a cost of 1% Global GDP per year.

I have tried to distill what I think are some of the most important statements from the 26 page summary, and to include some of the graphics not published in mainstream media. See the original (link above) for detailed explanations.

Integrating sustainable development with renewable energy adoption is a theme of the paper which I have highlighted.

The full report will be out at the end of the month.

On a global basis, it is estimated that Renewable Energy (RE) accounted for 12.9% of the total 492 Exajoules (EJ) of primary energy supply in 2008 (Box SPM.2) (Figure SPM.2). The largest RE contributor was biomass (10.2%), with the majority (roughly 60%) being traditional biomass used in cooking and eating applications in developing countries but with rapidly increasing use of modern biomass as well.

Traditional biomass (17%), modern biomass (8%), solar thermal and geothermal energy (2%) together fuelled 27% of the total global demand for heat.

Deployment of RE has been increasing rapidly in recent years (Figure SPM.3). Various types of government policies, the declining cost of many RE technologies, changes in the prices of fossil fuels, an increase of energy demand and other factors have encouraged the continuing increase in the use of RE.

Despite global financial challenges, RE capacity continued to grow rapidly in 2009 compared to the cumulative installed capacity from the previous year, including: wind power (32% increase, 38 Gigawatts (GW) added), hydropower (3%, 31 GW added), grid-connected photovoltaics (53%, 7.5 GW added), geothermal power (4%, 0.4 GW added), and solar hot water/heating (21%, 31 GWth added).

Of the approximate 300 GW of new electricity generating capacity added globally over the two year period from 2008 to 2009, 140 GW came from RE additions.

The use of decentralized RE (excluding traditional biomass) in meeting rural energy needs at the household or village level has also increased, including hydropower stations, various modern biomass options, PV, wind or hybrid systems that combine multiple technologies.

The global technical potential of RE sources will not limit continued growth in the use of RE. A wide range of estimates are provided in the literature, but studies have consistently found that the total global technical potential for RE is substantially higher than global energy demand. The technical potential for solar energy is the highest among the RE sources, but substantial technical potential exists for all six RE sources. Even in regions with relatively low levels of technical potential for any individual RE source, there are typically significant opportunities for increased deployment compared to current levels.

In the longer term and at higher deployment levels, however, technical potentials indicate a limit to the contribution of some individual RE technologies. Factors such as sustainability concerns, public acceptance, system integration and infrastructure constraints, or economic factors may also limit deployment of renewable energy technologies.

The levelized cost of energy for many RE technologies is currently higher than existing energy prices, though in various settings RE is already economically competitive. Ranges of recent levelized costs of energy for selected commercially available RE technologies are wide, depending
on a number of factors including, but not limited to, technology characteristics, regional variations in cost and performance, and differing discount rates. Some RE technologies are broadly competitive with existing market energy prices. Many of the other RE technologies can provide competitive energy services in certain circumstances, for example, in regions with favourable resource conditions or that lack the
infrastructure for other low-cost energy supplies.

Monetizing the external costs of energy supply would improve the relative competitiveness of RE. The same applies if market prices increase due to other reasons.

The cost of most RE technologies has declined and additional expected technical advances would result in further cost reductions. Significant advances in RE technologies and associated long-term cost reductions have been demonstrated over the last decades, though periods of rising prices have sometimes been experienced (due to, for example, increasing demand for RE in excess of available supply).

As infrastructure and energy systems develop, in spite of the complexities, there are few, if any, fundamental technological limits to integrating a portfolio of RE technologies to meet a majority share of total energy demand in locations where suitable RE resources exist or can be supplied. However, the actual rate of integration and the resulting shares of RE will be influenced by factors, such as costs, policies, environmental issues and social aspects.

Renewable energy and sustainable development

Historically, economic development has been strongly correlated with increasing energy use and growth of GHG emissions and RE can help decouple that correlation, contributing to sustainable development (SD). Though the exact contribution of RE to SD has to be evaluated in a country specific context, RE offers the opportunity to contribute to social and economic development, energy access, secure energy supply, climate change mitigation, and the reduction of negative environmental and health impacts. Providing access to modern energy services would support the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

- RE can contribute to social and economic development.

- RE can help accelerate access to energy, particularly for the 1.4 billion people without access to electricity and the additional 1.3 billion using traditional biomass.

- RE options can contribute to a more secure energy supply, although specific challenges to integration must be considered.

- In addition to reduced GHG emissions, RE technologies can provide other important environmental benefits.

o Lifecycle assessments (LCA) for electricity generation indicate that GHG emissions from RE technologies are, in general, significantly lower than those associated with fossil fuel options, and in a range of conditions, less than fossil fuels employing CCS.

o Most current bioenergy systems, including liquid biofuels, result in GHG emission reductions, and most biofuels produced through new processes (also called advanced biofuels or next generation biofuels) could provide higher GHG mitigation.

o The sustainability of bioenergy, in particular in terms of life cycle GHG emissions, is influenced by land and biomass resource management practices. Proper governance of land use, zoning, and choice of biomass production systems are key considerations for policy makers.

o RE technologies, in particular non-combustion based options, can offer benefits with respect to air pollution and related health concerns.

o Water availability could influence choice of RE technology. Conventional water cooled thermal power plants may be especially vulnerable to conditions of water scarcity and climate change.

 

From this point on the report is uses projections based on scenarios.

Mitigation potentials and costs

A significant increase in the deployment of RE by 2030, 2050 and beyond is indicated in the majority of the 164 scenarios reviewed in this Special Report11. In 2008, total RE production was roughly 64 EJ/yr (12.9% of total primary energy supply) with more than 30 EJ/yr of this being traditional biomass. More than 50% of the scenarios project levels of RE deployment in 2050 of more than 173 EJ/yr reaching up to over 400 EJ/yr in some cases.

More than half of the scenarios show a contribution from RE in excess of a 17% share of primary energy supply in 2030 rising to more than 27% in 2050. The scenarios with the highest RE shares reach approximately 43% in 2030 and 77% in 2050.

RE can be expected to expand even under baseline scenarios. Most baseline scenarios show RE deployments significantly above the 2008 level of 64 EJ/yr and up to 120 EJ/yr by 2030. By 2050 many baseline scenarios reach RE deployment levels of more than 100 EJ/yr and in some cases up to about 250 EJ/yr.

The scenario review in this Special Report indicates that RE has a large potential to mitigate GHG emissions. Four illustrative scenarios span a range of global cumulative CO2 savings between 2010 and 2050 from about 220 to 560 Gt CO₂ compared to about 1530 Gt cumulative fossil and industrial CO₂ emissions in the IEA World Energy Outlook 2009 Reference scenario during the same period.

Scenarios do not indicate an obvious single dominant RE technology at a global level; in addition, the global overall technical potentials do not constrain the future contribution of RE. Although the contribution of RE technologies varies across scenarios, modern biomass, wind and direct solar commonly make up the largest contributions of RE technologies to the energy system by 2050.

Individual studies indicate that if RE deployment is limited, mitigation costs increase and low GHG stabilization concentrations may not be achieved.

A transition to a low-GHG economy with higher shares of RE would imply increasing investments in technologies and infrastructure. The four illustrative scenarios analyzed in detail in this Special Report estimate global cumulative RE investments (in the power generation sector
only) ranging from USD2005 1,360 to 5,100 billion for the decade 2011 to 2020, and from USD2005 1,490 to 7,180 billion for the decade 2021 to 2030.

Increasing the installed capacity of RE power plants will reduce the amount of fossil and nuclear fuels that otherwise would be needed in order to meet a given electricity demand.

The annual averages of these investment needs are all smaller than 1% of the world GDP.

Policy, implementation and financing

Barriers to RE deployment include:
- institutional and policy barriers related to existing industry, infrastructure and regulation of the energy system;
- market failures, including non-internalized environmental and health costs, where applicable.
- lack of general information and access to data relevant to the deployment of RE and lack of technical and knowledge capacity; and
- barriers related to societal and personal values and affecting the perception and acceptance of RE technologies.

Although not explicitly stated in this summary, converting the traditional biomass faction of current energy production to some combination of modern biomass, solar, wind (etc) seems to be a priority for several reasons.  Obviously to lower the GHG emissions, but also to reduce the health effects of particulate smoke and increase the transfer of technology to developing countries as part of the millennium development goals. As the populations using traditional biomass are frequently not connected to a centralized system, that objection/barrier is not a consideration in the implementation cost for adopting decentralized RE approaches. Obviously, nuclear is not an option for these people (numbering some 1.4 billion - see above).

Garnauts Gambit

In late February Ross Garnaut began to release his update papers. At the time The Age reviewed the history of his previous gig under Kevin Rudds leadership. The contentious issue was (and remains) the level of compensation paid to fossil fuel generators. Garnaut's favoured position was… none. First the history.

Public Planning and Policy Post Petroleum – PIA NO. 6 Finale

This is the final in my series of rough reviews of the special edition of The Australian Planner (Vol 47:4).

To recap, the first few articles (The Shorter PIA – Australian Oil Vulnerability, Shorter PIA NO. 2) summarized the current position of Australian cities and used scenarios to explore the likely impacts of oil depletion. Later articles explored the possible role of cycling (Cycling over the peak - PIA NO.3), the effect of oil depletion and urban development on children, mobility and society (Where do the children play? PIA NO. 4) and the role of planning and governance at all political levels (Transurbanization – PIA NO. 5).

The first paper below picks up the story from an earlier article (Petroleum depletion scenarios for Australian cities)

Planning public transport networks in the post-petroleum era
John Stone and Paul Mees, pages: 263-271

There is no doubt that a compact and connected urban form enhances the potential for oil-free mobility through walking, cycling, and greater public transport use. Therefore, some localised intensification of residential development … and, perhaps more important, concentration of employment and other trip destinations, are necessary objectives for urban planners responding to oil vulnerability.

[But we] argue that it is not necessary to intensify land-use across the whole city before significant improvement in both patronage and economic efficiency of public transport becomes possible.

Alternatives to the car will need to be effective at existing urban residential densities.

Back to the future?
The challenge of peak oil seems daunting, but … [for] the first time since the end of post-War petrol rationing, there is a serious prospect that public transport may become the dominant motorised travel mode in Australian cities. Urban Australia has dealt with constrained oil supplies in the past. Petrol rationing was introduced during the Second World War and remained in force until February 1950.

Table 1. Travel to work in Melbourne, 1951

(Source: ORC,1951, p. 35)

Transport mode	Share of workers (%)
Train	26.0
Tram	22.1
Bus	8.8
Total Public Transport	56.9
Bicycle	9.5
Walk (or work from home)	14.1
Total Non-motorised	23.6
Car	16.2
Van/Truck	2.0
Motorcycle	1.3
Total Private Motorised	19.5

Table Reproduced from page 264.

However, the need to conserve fuel and labour saw service levels constrained, leading to overcrowding. While this ensured healthy surpluses for public transport operators, it also created public dissatisfaction. In the minds of many members of the public, trains, trams and buses became synonymous with discomfort and crowding (Davison, 2004, chapts 1-2).

Where do the children play? PIA NO. 4

This fourth extract from the Special Edition (Volume 47:4) of the Australian Planner (1, 2, 3) is refreshingly different, asking some interesting questions about how we perceive and organize society. This paper focuses specifically on child transport issues – and they way that society thinks of children as revealed by our selection of  transport modes. The paper also points out that some of our (misguided?) attitudes may become self fulfilling prophecies.

The hope for oil crisis: children, oil vulnerability and (in)dependent mobility
Scott Sharpe & Paul Tranter. Pages 284-292

The abandonment of the streetscape as anything but a thoroughfare for motor vehicles has heightened the perception of the streets as unwelcoming for pedestrians. The exclusions that result for those who are unable to afford a car or who are incapable of driving one, means that the poor, the elderly and the young are all denied independent mobility and are positioned as vulnerable when they do take to the streets as pedestrians.

Australian planning professionals have long been aware of New Urbanism (NU), Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND), Walkable Cities (WC), Transit Oriented  Development (TOD) and … Child-Friendly Cities (CFC). … there is a dearth of consideration of children and child-friendly cities in research on oil vulnerability.

Ultimately, the mobility of children throughout cities is more than simply a transport issue, and the degree of child-friendliness of the city says much about the way that children are conceptualised in contemporary society. [Do we think of them as] vulnerable, incompetent, dependent and passive? Or …  are they valued as participating members of society capable of ever increasing amounts of independence and activity?

Children, through their role as car passengers, are major consumers of petroleum.  In Melbourne, trips to take children to school make up 21% of all trips in the morning peak.

The paper reminds us that management decisions to increase or improve “efficiency” in one aspect of society, when taken in isolation, can have unintended consequences in other areas of our lives.

Planning for Oil Vulnerability

The Age is mining stories from a special issue of The Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) journal Australian Planner titled CITIES AND OIL VULNERABILITY (Vol 47, No 4, Dec 2010).

I have compiled my own review from this issue (including quotes) which you can find at:
The Shorter PIA – Australian Oil Vulnerability
Shorter PIA NO. 2
Cycling over the peak - PIA NO.3
Where do the children play? PIA NO. 4
Transurbanization – PIA NO. 5
Public Planning and Policy Post Petroleum – PIA NO. 6 Finale

Much of this information may sound like 'old news' to peak oil literate readers but at least in this form it gets reported as a serious topic (no longer some 'fringe' opinion) and the reports will be presented to the council of Australian Governments from a recognized professional body.

Report warns of oil woes (edited - a bit)
Andrew West, December 28, 2010

AUSTRALIA will be forced to rely on huge quantities of imported oil unless it radically overhauls its transport and urban policies, according to a major study by the Planning Institute of Australia.

The study ... warns that without urgent national action the country's trade deficit will spiral and many of the outer suburbs will become slums. ...Professor Peter Newman of Curtin University, who is ... an adviser to the federal government, said the most compelling finding of the research was that "urban sprawl is finished".

"If we continue to roll out new land releases and suburbs that are car-dependent, they will become the slums of the future." He said every state should duplicate a Queensland law that requires local councils to conduct an "oil dependence study" when approving new developments.

Dr Jago Dodson of Griffith University, forecast a grim future, with Australia's trade deficit, which was $9.3 billion in 2008-09, due to hit $25 billion by 2015, largely because of oil imports. "With Australian cities so clearly exposed to the effects of depleting global oil supplies, our urban planning should now turn its attention to mitigating oil vulnerability and adapting Australian cities to an oil-constrained world."

Professor Newman said the cost of building public transport to remote suburbs on the urban fringe would become prohibitive and Australian policymakers were "about 30 years behind the times" in solving the problem.

Transport study derails thinking on outer suburbs
Andrew West, January 5, 2011

Dr John Stone, of the University of Melbourne, and Dr Paul Mees, of RMIT University, argue that many city dwellers have been presented with a false choice - live in apartments and enjoy good public transport or retain the house and land and rely on cars.

"Many planners, and other commentators on urban issues, appear to believe that getting significantly more people on public transport will not be possible until massive changes in suburban densities are achieved", they write. Their study ... finds that cities with densities comparable with Melbourne and Sydney, such as Toronto, Ottawa and greater New York, have better public transport than Australia's two biggest cities.

Greater New York ... has 20.5 people to the hectare: Sydney has 20.4 people. Melbourne, with 15.7 people to the hectare, has only slightly lower density than Ottawa, with 17.2 people.

"There is no doubt that a compact and connected urban form enhances the potential for oil-free mobility through walking, cycling, and greater public transport use", the authors write. "However, we argue that it is not necessary to intensify land-use across the whole city before significant improvement in both patronage and economic efficiency of public transport becomes possible."

[I]ncreasing public transport use in outer suburbs [requires] more frequent buses, running at least every 10-15 minutes, not just in peak hour; better co-ordination with rail services; more convenient transfers; and fares that allow free transfers between modes.

[R]esidents of Australian cities "will continue to live in houses and suburban subdivisions that are already built". "Alternatives to the car will need to be effective at existing urban residential densities".

The forward to this special edition by Neil Savery, the president of the PIA, states in part;