Pandemic lands 'worst body blow' in modern history on fossil fuel companies (excerpt): Yale Climate Connections

 "......“Serious stress, serious stress.”

“An industry in its last days.”

“Steady decline [in growth, demand] for the past decade.”

“Cratering.”

Those are a few of the characterizations of today’s oil, natural gas, and coal industries put forward by several independent journalists, writers, and analysts in the new edition of the “This is Not Cool” video series.

… And then, along came the coronavirus and the COVID-19 challenges, providing one more blow to the energy industry.

Even pre-pandemic, the conventional energy sector “already had plans to cancel major infrastructure projects like pipelines,” independent journalist Keith Schneider told Yale Climate Connections. And with the pandemic, oil and gas experienced “the worst body blow in its modern contemporary history,” he said.

Journalist and writer Antonia Juhasz agrees, pointing to “an industry in its last days, it’s just getting hit from too many sides.”

“Most of the new electricity generation coming online today is coming from wind and solar,” says Houston Chronicle reporter Chris Tomlinson. And professor Dan Kammen of the University of California Berkeley says solar and wind have been the cheapest energy options worldwide for at least the past three consecutive years.

Kammen also says that he believes solar and wind energy initiatives can advance two to three times as many job opportunities as traditional fossil fuel projects: That would be critical to help long-time coal and other fossil fuel industry employees whose decades of work has been critical to economic development … and who society cannot simply leave stranded as momentum turns toward a clean economy. Tending to the plight of those workers whose jobs are lost will have to be part of the energy-options puzzle, interviewees say."..."

By Peter Sinclair | Thursday, August 20, 2020

Watch the video

Go Yale Climate Connections

 

Related: Scottish green hydrogen scheme gears up to fuel ferries, buses and trains (excerpt): The Guardian

The Two Sides to Canada’s Post Pandemic Recovery: by Rolly Montpellier @Below2C

There are two sides to Canada’s post pandemic recovery. On the bright side there’s massive public support for a recovery that puts people before profits and tackles both the climate crisis and the coronavirus crisis simultaneously. Hundreds of organizations all across the land have endorsed these Just Recovery Principles. But there is also a dark side.

Canada's commitment to different energy types since beginning od Covid 19 pandemic

 

1. The Dark Side

“The last time we had a financial meltdown (the 2008-09 recession) it was followed by a record surge in fossil fuel burning,” wrote Barry Saxifrage and Chris Hatch recently in the National Observer. 
 “At the time there was hope that governments would use their huge, future-shaping stimulus to transition to a climate-safe economy.”

Fossil Fuel Burning Annual Totals

Well, that didn’t happen. Instead, the burning of fossils soared in 2010 and continued its upward trajectory every single year since. That is, until the pandemic as the Global Fossil Fuel Burning chart illustrates. The blue dotted line on the chart shows the projection for an 8% decline in CO² for 2020.

The Green New Deal Is Cheap, Actually (excerpt): Rolling Stone

Green New Deal: Rolling Stone

By Tim Dickinson  April 6 2020

Decarbonizing will cost trillions of dollars, but it’s an investment that will have big return — for the economy and the environment

Opposition to the Green New Deal is often framed as a matter of cost. President Trump’s re-election campaign blasted the “radical” plan, claiming it would “cost trillions of dollars, wreck our economy, and decimate millions of energy jobs.” 

But science shows that the costs of unchecked global temperature rise are far higher than transitioning to clean energy — which will, in fact, boost the economy. 

“Everybody thinks, ‘Oh, you have to spend a huge amount of money,’” says Mark Jacobson, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Stanford University. “Well, yeah, there’s an upfront cost, but this is something that pays itself back.”

The coronavirus crisis is changing the world’s comfort levels with massive expenditures. Fresh on the heels of a $2.2 trillion economic rescue package, President Trump has begun calling for another $2 trillion infrastructure package to create jobs. Across the political spectrum, politicians are anticipating that the economy will need something approximating a New Deal to spring back to life after the pandemic subsides. And climate advocates are making the case that we can use this disaster response to invest in renewable energy, to ward off an even more dangerous crisis down the line.

The price of not acting on climate change is staggering. 

Seizing the moment: how Australia can build a green economy from the Covid-19 wreckage : The Guardian (excerpt)

Solar farm in Darling Downs, Queensland. The idea of helping jumpstart the economy by also tackling the climate crisis is gaining currency across the political spectrum. Photograph: AAP

"Detailed research by the Grattan Institute suggests an Australian green steel industry could create 25,000 jobs in regional areas that now rely on coalmining, offering a potential path ahead for workers likely to be hardest hit by international steps to cut emissions. 

Among the report’s conclusions: “Australian governments need to be honest with carbon workers: their attempts to protect carbon jobs from global forces will ultimately fail.”

In one of the most challenging areas to address, the faltering aluminium industry, Simon Holmes à Court, a senior adviser to the Climate and Energy College at the University of Melbourne, is looking at how to give four large smelters, which use up to 15% of electricity from the national grid, a viable future in a renewable energy world. He says technology originally developed in Australia could give them the ability to rapidly dial up or down the amount of energy they consume, turning them into a “virtual battery” that helps stabilise the grid and provides an extra income stream to owners.

Garnaut says the economic crash only strengthens the case that he laid out late last year in his book Superpower – that Australia could have an affordable clean electricity system running at more than three times its existing capacity powering a transformed economy, including new minerals industries.

The former government climate adviser, now a professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne, says entrenched low interest rates should increase the pace at which renewable energy replaces coal, as capital costs are down and the fuel used in clean power generation costs nothing. Among Garnaut’s messages is that governments should not fear taking on greater debt to fuel a low-carbon recovery that could include new or expanded clean industries in hydrogen, aluminium, steel, silicon and ammonia.
Wilder says there is cause to be optimistic. “Ironically, this crisis has pushed climate change to the fore in discussions of the economy around the globe,” he says.

“There is now significant acceptance that climate change is a threat to the economy. And there is an opportunity to rebuild in a way that makes the economy more resilient, if we choose to take it.' "

Go to The Guardian article 

Related:

Gas lobby seizes Covid moment, and declares war on Australia’s future: RenewEconomy

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