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Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

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Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#271

Post by whatever1 »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #265
whatever1 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to be clear, the viable path you refer to includes complete elimination of gasoline usage globally, 100% conversion to biojet fuel and biodiesel from jet and diesel respectively, and ~ 50% of the world vessel fleet to be converted to nuclear. In 8 years.

What's your guess then for the % convesion possible? Is that the whole argument, how many % is feasable in the time frame?

Timing supply and demand is of essence.

This extreme scenario of fossil demand destruction is the only scenario where Aramco does not become an effective monopoly for decades.

That is if we don’t start a World War to solve the upcoming energy crisis.

Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#272

Post by vineyardmike »

FridayoLeary wrote: post #18
chefkoch wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an older article >A court in The Hague will hear claims that Royal Dutch Shell has broken Dutch law by knowingly hampering the global phase-out of fossil fuels, in a case that could force the company to reduce its CO2 emissions. Lawyers for a consortium led by Friends of the Earth Netherlands will argue on the first of four days of public hearings on Tuesday that Shell has been aware for decades of the damage it…

Why are they sticking it on Shell? Blame drivers. And anyway, even if Shell did hamper the global phasing out of fossils in the past we still need their oil. It's unfair to the public. And also, "knowingly hampering the global phase-out of fossil fuels" sounds like it deserves a fine, not a demand that to my ears at least sounds unreasonable. One more point, if renewables are actually viable then fossils should anywa…

They’re sticking it to shell because they’re trying to reduce carbon emissions as a nation and shell accounts for 90% of total carbon emissions (according to another comment here). So if they want to make an impact nationally, it basically has to be against shell.

Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#273

Post by JamesBarney »

epistasis wrote: post #266
JamesBarney wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take every super major oil producer today and say they have to produce half as much oil what happens? They sell off half their assets to smaller oil companies. But you still have the same number of wells pumping oil/gas. I just don't see how this helps anyone, it's a silly PR win. Shell didn't wrought any economic harm on their customers. We as a society have failed to regulate the consumption of oil/gas (as w…

The underlying assumption in this scenario is that global demand for fossil fuels without carbon capture and sequestration will remain constant. This is certainly not the case. Shell can either start capturing carbon to lower their emissions, or perhaps they can sell to smaller firms. But those smaller firms are now under the same gun that Shell currently is. So investors in these smaller firms risk losing everything…

You are arguing the very long term prospects for oil and gas aren't great. I agree.

But that has little to do with whether or not this case will have any impact on oil and gas extraction. It's just a PR move, which won't affect the number of barrels pumped out of the ground each year.

Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#274

Post by kokanator »

epistasis wrote: post #268
kokanator wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am glad you asked this question because this is what is missing in these situations. Where does the individual bear responsibility in any of this? Instead the public tends to focus on the huge evil corporation who struggles to even keep up with our demand for the very product we are damning them for. There are 1.4 Billion cars on the road.[0] Somehow that is Shells fault? Really? I'm not saying Shell has not commit…

> There are 1.4 Billion cars on the road.[0] Somehow that is Shells fault? Really? Shell is at fault for providing a product that causes harms and not rectifying that harm. Cars? Who cares, that's not what Shell sells. I would love to shift some liability to city planners that have made so much of the population dependent on cars, and some liability to car manufacturers, and maybe even to the advocates that make it n…

> Cars? Who cares, that's not what Shell sells.

The only reason Shell truly exists is because all of those gas tanks.

>And it's even possible to build cars that don't depend on carbon emissions,

Sure, really only in the past 5-8 years. ( what about those Tesla stations ran by diesel generators? )

>Renewables are cheaper than natural gas right now, and by the time we need massive amounts of storage, renewables plus lithium ion batteries will be cheaper than combined cycle gas turbines.

Every time, I mean every time this threshold is crossed the cost of fossil fuels plummets way below the threshold. 1.4 billion cars are on the road a little over 1 million are electric in any way. I don't see how this is the gas companies fault.

They have provided a product to 1.4 billion gas tanks ( a lot of those weekly ) on a consistently reliable basis. If there is ever a threat of a shortage people start lining up for miles to buy the product Shell is 'forcing' them to buy? Perhaps we need to hold the gas tank companies responsible for making a product that holds fuel.

This is a culture and economy problem not the fault of a fuel company. Our entire economy is dependent on fossil fuel.

PS. It would be nice if you provided at least on reference for the last two paragraphs of your post. Way too many claims with no resources.

Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#275

Post by epistasis »

JamesBarney wrote: post #273
epistasis wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The underlying assumption in this scenario is that global demand for fossil fuels without carbon capture and sequestration will remain constant. This is certainly not the case. Shell can either start capturing carbon to lower their emissions, or perhaps they can sell to smaller firms. But those smaller firms are now under the same gun that Shell currently is. So investors in these smaller firms risk losing everything…

You are arguing the very long term prospects for oil and gas aren't great. I agree. But that has little to do with whether or not this case will have any impact on oil and gas extraction. It's just a PR move, which won't affect the number of barrels pumped out of the ground each year.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "just a PR move" since this has strong legal implications with a timeline for one of the big players. Shell has been dealt a major legal blow, and precedent has been set for all the smaller players.

This will have big impacts for financing future fossil fuel extraction, because all the financiers see what's happened here.

This has major implications, there's no PR anywhere near this.

Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#276

Post by epistasis »

kokanator wrote: post #274
epistasis wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are 1.4 Billion cars on the road.[0] Somehow that is Shells fault? Really? Shell is at fault for providing a product that causes harms and not rectifying that harm. Cars? Who cares, that's not what Shell sells. I would love to shift some liability to city planners that have made so much of the population dependent on cars, and some liability to car manufacturers, and maybe even to the advocates that make it n…

> Cars? Who cares, that's not what Shell sells. The only reason Shell truly exists is because all of those gas tanks. >And it's even possible to build cars that don't depend on carbon emissions, Sure, really only in the past 5-8 years. ( what about those Tesla stations ran by diesel generators? ) >Renewables are cheaper than natural gas right now, and by the time we need massive amounts of storage, renewables plus li…

Two apologies are in order 1) I disagree with a lot of your comment but don't really know how to proceed productively, and 2) for not providing any sources, as I've come to think of these things as common knowledge the past few years.

A link dump is never convincing, but in case you find my thinking so strange that you're intrigued how I got to where I am, here's some of the key bits of info:

1) Ramez Naam's summary of solar/storage costs (2020) -- He's a science fiction author, but has really brought together the best resources. Academic and industry energy models use old cost estimates for renewables and it gets them into huge problems. Naam's estimates have been far too conservative, but at least they've been less conservative than the pros' estimates: https://rameznaam.com/2020/05/14/solars-future-is-insanely-c...

2) Lazard's levelized cost of storage/energy (2020, comes out annually) -- best free estimates of costs, IMHO. (note that the LCOE doesn't take into account the price of dispatchability, but storage fixes that)

3) RMI's analysis of stranded natural gas plants (2019) -- a bit dated, but shocked people when it came out, and even most utility IRPs don't consider this possibility yet, which means utility customers are going to get bilked for billions of dollars https://rmi.org/a-bridge-backward-the-risky-economics-of-new...

4) RMI's analysis of low NG deployments and high storage, solar, and wind deployments in open markets (2020) -- a follow on to the prior year's analysis, documenting that the open market realizes that new natural gas will likely become a stranded asset. Regulated utilities generally bear no risk of competition, so only regulatory bodies can reign in the bad economic decisions of utilities that are still deploying natural gas. https://rmi.org/clean-energy-is-canceling-gas-plants/

5) The IEA's recently released global energy transition pathway to keep to 1.5C of warming (2021) -- The IEA has been hopelessly wrong about our energy path, and they are here too, IMHO, estimating absolutely ridiculous hydrogen production capacity by 2030 (3TW!), and far too low renewables and storage. But even the IEA is now plotting a pathway with a very quick transition away from any fossil fuel that doesn't have it's CO2 emissions captured https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/all-fossil-fuel-...

Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#277

Post by dredmorbius »

eloff wrote: post #51
dylan604 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Shell is in the business of producing fossil fuels to burn. Playing devil's advocate, but what about all of the oil that is not burnt but turned into plastics and other products?

It's a very tiny percentage of oil that gets used in this way.

Roughly 15% of petroleum goes into chemical feedstocks.

Not all of that is plastics. I suspect natural-gas-fired ammonia synthesis (Haber-Bosch process) is a major fraction.

But it's not a tiny percentage.

Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#278

Post by kolbe »

epistasis wrote: post #235
kolbe wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a line in The Wire where an honest hard working security guard asks Marlo to not disrespect him by stealing in front of him. Marlo says, "you want it to be one way, but it's the other way," then Marlo kills him. You can downvote me all you want. You can "hope" to do whatever in your crusade. You can tell me all about what "could" happen if the world weren't the way is. But it's not that way. It's the other wa…

In this analogy, one might think that Shell is Marlo and society is the security guard, but the reality is that the roles are reversed. If Shell does not change their game, they will die. Global capital is coming to terms with this, though there are still a few executives in power at banks that don't realize it. Fossil fuel companies skate by because they have access to cheap loans right now. But as that dries up, so…

That isn’t at all the analogy. Quit reducing this to a war on climate. The “way the world is” corporations are highly mobile, and they engage in regulatory arbitrage. If RDS’s home country wants to put an onerous requirement on them, they will leave to a country that won’t. If landing a tiny little punch on RDS in order to lose hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars in import revenue to their country, then sure, this is a win.

But this won’t materially affect climate change. This won’t even materially affect RDS. It will materially affect the Dutch people who have come to depend on the economic benefits of having RDS headquartered in their town/country.

Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#279

Post by mrinfinite »

acdha wrote: post #261
neaanopri wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fossil fuel companies aren't greedy monopoly men burning oil for no reason. Oil companies sell oil to consumers. Imagine if US gas prices went up overnight to $10/gallon. There would be riots. Jan 6th would look like a warm-up. But does anybody realistically think that they can carbon-capture 1 gallon of gas's worth of carbon emissions for $7? How much would it realistically cost? It's willful ignorance to think that…

I think this is too fatalistic. There are tons of things which can be done to reduce CO2 and the sooner we do the more time we gain for bigger transformations. The big thing would be sending a strong public message that gas will only get more expensive every year: that discourages sales of inefficient vehicles which will be polluting for a couple of decades, pushes businesses to invest in major capital investments no…

The best way to cut down on oil use is to personally use less electricity and enjoy a lower standard of living.... suing people will mot help... only solution is accepting a lower stanndard of living.

Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#280

Post by acdha »

mrinfinite wrote: post #279
acdha wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is too fatalistic. There are tons of things which can be done to reduce CO2 and the sooner we do the more time we gain for bigger transformations. The big thing would be sending a strong public message that gas will only get more expensive every year: that discourages sales of inefficient vehicles which will be polluting for a couple of decades, pushes businesses to invest in major capital investments no…

The best way to cut down on oil use is to personally use less electricity and enjoy a lower standard of living.... suing people will mot help... only solution is accepting a lower stanndard of living.

This is the personal responsibility narrative which is pushed by industry because it conveniently absolves them of responsibility for setting up a system which locks in high carbon usage.

Most of the necessary changes are too big for individual people: we don’t have direct control over heavy polluting companies, a large fraction of our personal energy footprints are things like inefficient transportation and housing designs which are strongly encouraged if not required by public policy, etc. For businesses, there’s a prisoner’s dilemma where nobody wants to take on the cost of rearchitecting ahead of their competitors.

This is especially important with the fossil fuel companies who don’t just sell materials but actively work to prevent alternatives. Companies like Exxon have known about the risks since the 1970s, when their own scientists concluded global warming would happen, and their response was to lobby hard against efforts to use less CO2 and astroturf an entire network of faux-experts whose talking points are all over the news. Just as with the tobacco companies, suing is appropriate and effective.

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