Latest posts of: charlienomad

The Times today has an article entitiled, "Challenged by Carbon: The Oil Industry and Climate Change. The article is a precis of the introduction to a new book by Dr Bryan Lovell at Cambridge of the same name. Lovell is both academic and oil company man, having been Chief Sedimentologist and Exploration Manager at BP before back into the academic world. The book reflects that, and although accessible, is not for the faint hearted or anyone looking for quick and easy answers...

The book gives a real insight into the changing nature of oil companies attitudes to global climate change, and some of the ideas they have for dealing with it. Personally, I have worked both for one of the major companies involved (along with BP) in Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) pilot schemes, and alongside academics involved in the same type of projects. I offer no personal opinion on the value of these schemes (read the book and make up your own minds) but would simply say that CCS is real, has already been implemented in more than one oil field, and is likely to be a major feature of oil and gas production in the future. Part of the reason is that pumping CO2 back into a hydrocarbon reservoir helps to increase the rate and volume of production, so it's not all about saving the planet by any means.

I am really sorry for the long post, but I think it is worth including an overview of the book (rrp £45 hardback, £19.99 in paperback) and a review by another oil company man. The book is thorough, non-partisan and frankly a hell of a lot more worth reading than a lot of the sh*te that gets bandied about on the internet by polarised pro- and anti- climate change ranters! Very Happy

"To repeat: you can’t argue with a rock. We can simply try to understand rocks by examining them carefully in the field and laboratory, using our wits and our imagination. Rocks are tangible objects that humans find useful for many purposes, including the provision of energy and the disposal of waste. So there is reality in rocks that we should strive to grasp.

In that spirit, Chapter One describes how a few refreshingly jargon-free geologists, inside and outside the oil industry, had a key influence on the relationship between the oil industry and the environmental movement at the crucial time of the Kyoto climate summit in 1997. Following that bit of modern history, we go way back in time. Chapter Two shows how 55 million-year-old rocks record the reality of a warming event that is a salutary guide to our present concerns on climate change. This account draws on the emerging detailed understanding of that 55 Ma warming event on a human timescale). That 55 Ma perspective was available to participants in a 2003 international scientific conference that is considered in the last of the three introductory historical chapters; Chapter Three has at its core the illuminating transcript of the March 2003 Geological Society debate in London on ‘Coping with Climate Change’, featuring two of the several Vice-Presidents of BP and ExxonMobil. From a strict environmentalist’s perspective this could be seen as a discussion between the damned and the devil, but here it is interpreted as the beginning of an important convergence across an earlier Atlantic Divide in the oil industry - a convergence that continues apace.

With the historical scene now set, Chapter Four examines the strategic options open to the oil industry in reacting to today’s growing scientific and political interest in climate change. The restraint imposed by rocks on all parties is identified. But do we have an intellectual framework within which this recent carbon challenge to the oil industry may be embraced in a new strategic outlook? Chapter Five claims that we do have such a framework, and summarises a largely Princeton University-generated integration of engineering, economics and social science within which the oil industry can consider its strategic options. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is picked out as a potentially significant contribution that the oil industry can make to controlling our release of carbon to the atmosphere, by putting back underground the carbon that the oil and coal industries have taken out for our eager use.

Can CCS be readily implemented by petroleum geologists and engineers? For them the principles and practice of CCS set out in Chapter Six are second nature. Finally, how could CCS be made to happen? Chapter Seven places the onus firmly on government to set a framework of carbon policy and regulation, within which such vital activity as CCS can take place without beggaring everybody involved. This global regulatory framework for coping with the imminent carbon crisis should be well within the range of world leaders hardened by the financial crisis that began in 2008.

Chapter Eight, ‘The proof in the puddingstone’, is a personal coda, connecting various events 55 million years ago to us. Puddingstone is an exceptionally hard rock, with a tough silica cement that probably formed as a result of the intense heat at Earth’s surface during the 55 Ma warming event. The recent discovery of a hitherto elusive Roman puddingstone quarry north of London triggers a series of connections, including links to the 55 Ma oil reservoir at Forties field in the UK North Sea and to the carbon released to the atmosphere by our use of that oil.

For the Roman invaders of Britain settling in the Thames Valley a couple of thousand years ago, puddingstone was to become a key element in an essential technology: grinding corn. That particular imperial legacy now consists only of beehive querns and a few angular fragments of rock. This book says that our use of carbon cannot be allowed to become a millstone round the necks of our grandchildren – and it does not have to be. Our governments should give the putative environmental villains of the oil industry the chance to become carbon heroes: challenged by carbon yet not found wanting."

Review of the book on the Nature website (Nature is generally considered to be the most prestigious peer-review journal in the world, which is not to say it infallible, but it is well-respected):

Ron Oxburgh, UK House of Lords and former chairman of Shell: 'Climate change fatigue' is said to be an ailment slowly spreading through the media. As Copenhagen takes over the headlines, Bryan Lovell's lively new book — peering into the doubts, concerns and prejudices that have dogged climate negotiators — is an instant tonic for this malady.

Lovell, whose career has spanned geological academia and the petroleum industry, gives an eyewitness account of oil producers' shifting views on global warming. Unlike many writers on climate, he presents today's changes in their long-term geological context and shows how this had impeded understanding of human influences. After all, the argument went, the climate has changed many times in the past, so what is different today? Lacing the story with personal anecdotes, Lovell describes a slow evolution in the industry from scepticism and hostility to a widespread if not universal recognition that although coal is the main culprit, burning oil is a major and growing contributor to climate change. He concludes with a practical discussion of how to make the transition to a different world. Challenged by Carbon is a good read that the non-specialist will find refreshingly free from technical jargon and that all will find rich with the insider history behind December's talks.

May I add, once again, that I am by no means vehemently pro- or anti- climate change prevention/mitigation. Just a humble research geologist with a passion for good science and good science reporting. As it happens, my own work over the last couple of years has been very similar to Lovell's, just working on a different time period and location.

Nature has a list of recommended reading in light of the Copenhagen Summit in the next few days that'd worth a look for anyone interested in digging a little deeper...