{"id":6179,"date":"2014-12-08T07:29:52","date_gmt":"2014-12-08T07:29:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6179"},"modified":"2014-12-08T07:29:52","modified_gmt":"2014-12-08T07:29:52","slug":"christiana-figueres-redefines-zero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2014\/12\/08\/christiana-figueres-redefines-zero\/","title":{"rendered":"Christiana Figueres redefines zero"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The UN is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.climateactionprogramme.org\/news\/first_day_of_un_climate_conference_tackle_talks_of_oil_prices\">meeting<\/a> in Peru to sort out climate change before it's too late \u2013 although many (which includes me on my more gloomy\u00a0days) think it was already too some time ago. \u00a0Still, you have to meet to show willing,\u00a0even though it piles more GHGs into the upper atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>The first day \"tackled\" (that is, discussed) oil prices. \u00a0As <em>Climate Action<\/em>\u00a0reported:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\"In the presence of 190 nations at the first UN Climate conference of the season on Monday, Christiana Figueres argues that falling oil prices show the \u201chigh risk\u201d of fossil fuel investments compared with renewable energies.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ms\u00a0Figueres\u00a0would, of course, have said\u00a0that if the oil price had been rising lately: such a win-win argument. \u00a0She went on:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\"The fact that oil prices are so unpredictable is precisely one of the reasons we need to move to fuels which has a completed predictable cost of zero for fuel.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I read this nonsense at the same time as a report on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2014-12-01\/eon-split-to-fortify-german-green-energy-transformation.html\">Bloomberg<\/a> about the cost\u00a0of electricity from renewables in Germany. \u00a0This\u00a0noted that:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\"German consumers have paid a total of 106 billion euros ($132 billion) through the surcharge on their power bills to finance the clean-energy expansion. \u00a0The annual cost may peak this year and drop slightly to \u20ac22 billion in 2015 as the government begins reducing subsidies for the industry.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Thus is \"zero\" redefined.<\/p>\n<p>For reference, here's another <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2014-11-27\/molten-aluminum-lakes-offer-power-storage-for-german-wind-farms.html?cmpid=otbrn.video\">Bloomberg<\/a> piece on the real costs of free electricity in Germany, and a <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.reuters.com\/anatole-kaletsky\/2014\/12\/05\/price-slump-shows-its-time-to-stop-exploring-for-new-sources-of-oil\/\">Reuters<\/a> article on the economics of oil investment, exploration and pricing. \u00a0The Economist also weighed in this weekend with three \"Sheikhs v shale\"\u00a0comments. \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/finance-and-economics\/21635505-will-falling-oil-prices-curb-americas-shale-boom-bind\">This<\/a> is the most interesting. \u00a0It's about the economics of shale exploration \u2013 coming soonish (but only if the price is right) to somewhere near you. \u00a0It seems clear that the Saudis are trying to keep the price of oil down to make shale exploitation a very risky business. \u00a0With the own extraction costs at ~$6\/barrel, they can afford to. \u00a0Meanwhile, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emergingmarkets.org\/Article\/3389530\/Carney-raises-the-heat-on-climate-you-cant-burn-all-the-oil.html\">Mark Carney<\/a> was at the World Bank last week arguing that the black stuff will have to be left in the ground for the sake of the climate. \u00a0We shall see ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The UN is meeting in Peru to sort out climate change before it's too late \u2013 although many (which includes me on my more gloomy\u00a0days) think it was already too some time ago. \u00a0Still, you have to meet to show...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}