Nick Grealy Administrator of NaturalGas2.0, NoHotAir and ShaleGasInfo Blogs  

Shale gas opponents are living on the fringe, out of touch with reality, but, Nick Grealy says reality is slowly sinking in with their favorite experts, as green eyes begin to focus on the what shale gas means for China and the world.  

I’ve been speaking to a lot of environmental scientists lately, none of whom I want to “out” as speaking to the fracking devils. The guys in the groves of academe are way ahead of the base, which is so stirred up they have been moved to camped out by the side of the road for months on end. We both disagree on more than we agree, although I think it’s fair to say that we both at least understand each other far more.  I’d also say they have moved their position more than I have mine and found themselves if not challenged, then at least pleasantly surprised.  Understanding natural gas, like anything else is a crucial first step as Marie Curie put it:

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

Edging Toward Reality on Shale Gas

In the case of green opponents, I think we’re edging from public opposition to private acquiescence among policy wonks and environmental scientists. It’s important that people are given space to make up their own minds and it’s those minds I’m trying to focus. I think that some Green organizations, simply will never agree. But, the scientists and think tanks and green NGO’s are looking for a route edging away from the shale gas opposition narrative. That’s hard to do since so many got caught up in the irrational exuberance of the base and backed themselves into a blind alley last summer here in the UK. You can always get out of a blind alley. But it takes time, patience and is far easier with a sympathetic passing stranger to wave you out.

There are two realizations dawning on Greens, one with nudges from me and others and one they are figuring out for themselves. The scientists, as opposed to the activists and desperate green entrepreneurs, have always been honest on the environment evidence, or not, of shale gas extraction itself. Their objections have been founded, rather, on disbelief over the resources and a variety of objections over climate policy. The gas tsunami coming out of the Marcellus Shale play and elsewhere over the past year has overcome the first argument, what I’d describe as the “gas flash in the pan” objection.

But the second realization seems to be dawning without my help. It is this; the current model simply isn’t working, and as the classic definition of madness tells us, rational scientific people don’t wish to repeat the same actions expecting different outcomes. Unfortunately, to some extent, they are not yet ready to admit this to each other except in private, or in public; and to the huddled masses, not at all. That is a realization they themselves ultimately will have to make.

One thing that may help is one thing I’ve noticed even the most hard core antis admit; if China has shale gas, it could change everything. Let’s remind ourselves why. These slides are from some I prepared, but didn’t end up using, at the London School of Economics Energy Society (LSE) International Conference on Energy Transitions this week. The LSE advertises itself as the best university energy society in Europe, and I was there with some heavy gas hitters around.  This is not your average energy club.

I’m sharing the slides because this is the reality we all have to face, whether journalists seeking a “controversial” story, academics, politicians, the majority in the middle of the road and yes, even those camped out by the side of the road. They’re too good to waste, so in the environmental spirit, I recycle them here: Too often natural gas is cast as carbon villain. But if you seriously are concerned about CO2, attacking gas is simply illogical.

This slide shows where that 44% of CO2 comes from.

This final slide shows this; if one honestly wants to curb global warming from CO2, then the logical way is to get Chinese coal out of the equation.

Although they say full speed ahead into the brick wall in public, the realization 2050 targets are going to be anywhere from challenging to impossible is starting to take hold among some of the science-based thought leaders of the green movement.

These numbers don’t lie. Europe can totally decarbonize by removing every single kWh of energy from coal, oil and gas by 2050. Or, as even mainstream organizations such as Eurogas suggest, they can cut 40% by 2030 (806 MT) and get China to reduce over 4,000 MT by 2050 through replacing coal with gas as well.

Does that scenario sound far-fetched? No more so than either shale gas or US gas exports did ten years ago. Certainly it appears at least as deliverable as a total European replacement of coal, gas and oil in generation, transport or heat.

On that subject, we go back to resources. I think that there has been fatalism over Chinese coal demand.That’s logical enough, because as I noted to the audience, at the time of Kyoto in 97 or Stern in 2006, the alternative of abundant and ubiquitous natural gas did not exist. In Paris 2015, it most certainly will, and a key way of overcoming lingering doubts over the impact of gas outside North America is by ensuring it’s success in China.

This will enable a climate treaty based on reality, not on wishful thinking. A reality that most of the world, apart from the French anti-shale battalions massed outside the convention site and the host President inside it, will welcome. The US has given a great gift to the world, but it’s up to China to pick it up.

The narrative of China as yet another shale fail is one jumped on by antis. I’ve noted the stakes, and the reality, last November. But the doubters have been out and about most recently here:

China’s had a bit more success in recent years, but they won’t hit the pretty paltry 2015 target…If we’re using the U.S. as the standard by which to judge China, then they won’t get to that level by 2020 at the earliest.

Barely two weeks later, though we read this:

Recent progress at shale gas projects operated by China’s state-owned giants Sinopec and China National Petroleum Corp. suggest the country is on track to meet the 2015 production target set by the central government, analysts said Monday.

China is targeting shale gas output of 6.5 billion cubic meters/year by 2015 and 60 billion-100 billion cu m/year (5.8-9.7 Bcf/day) by 2020 under its official plans.

Analysts had earlier criticized these targets as unrealistic given the huge challenges facing operators in China’s nascent shale gas sector.

Followed by this from Bloomberg reversing course only this week:

China, which sits on the world’s largest shale reserves, may exceed its 2015 output goal, as a new project in the nation’s southwest and the promise of fresh investment leave government targets looking outdated.

China Petrochemical Corp., the parent of the listed company known as Sinopec, agreed last week with local government to build shale gas capacity at its Fuling site to 5 billion cubic meters a year by 2015. It suggests a national target of 6.5 billion cubic meters will be met or surpassed.

This welcome news could change everything. Including giving some more wiggle room to back out of the situation the shale gas opposition has driven itself into. U-turns are permitted in some cases, after all. Indeed, they’re often advisable if you backed you’ve been driving the wrong way.