Our guest this week is Ian Dexter Palmer, the author of The Shale Controversy, which explains the pros and cons of fracking and tries to distill the facts around climate change in a non-partisan way.
As a petroleum engineer and consultant, Ian Palmer has advised oil and gas companies all over the world. He has worked at Los Alamos, The Department of Energy, BP, and Higgs-Palmer Technologies and given presentations and classes on fracking, earthquakes and global warming.
This was an interesting conversation that Justin and I had with Ian around his conclusions around climate change, the energy transition, and the shale revolution. I appreciate Ian’s attempt at laying out the facts in his book to try to filter out the noise around the real impacts of climate change and fossil fuel usage. I agree with many of the points that we discuss at the beginning of the episode but I don’t agree with some of Ian’s conclusions around the severity of potential global temperature increases by 2100 and his conclusions around the economics of wind and solar vs. coal or gas fired power plants.
Specifically, Ian mentions that the cost of building renewables plus batteries to provide backup when the wind isn’t blowing or sun isn’t shining is now cheaper than building new [fossil fuel] power plants. He references an article on reneweconomy.com.au as a source. That article does substantiate this claim based on very specific assumptions that we didn’t discuss in the interview. Namely, the costs are based on only 2 to 6 hours of battery storage for wind and solar. Also, this claim is only valid where substantial subsidies for wind and solar exist through carbon taxes or other carbon pricing schemes. An article on this website also mentions that coal is cheaper than wind and solar for countries that are not encumbered by carbon pricing like in Europe. So for most of the world as with Australia, it is still cheaper to keep existing coal plants running than to build and operate new solar or wind farms. That article says “That suggests economics alone are not yet enough to accelerate the transition away from coal that is already underway in Australia.”
That said, this was a really thought provoking interview on an important subject. I always advocate for everyone to do their own research and form their own opinions on what is really happening. This is especially important because I don’t think we can take what mainstream media says about climate change at face value. The fact is that “if it bleeds it leads” so mainstream media is incentivized to exaggerate the impact of global warming because it will generate more newspaper sales or pageviews on their website.
Here’s a link to Ian’s Book: The Shale Controversy so you can read it and form your own conclusions on these important topics.
In general, the views and opinions expressed by any of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of The Mineral Rights Podcast.
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About Our Guest
Ian Palmer is the author of The Shale Controversy, which explains the pros and cons of fracking in a non-partisan way.
As a petroleum engineer and consultant, he has advised oil and gas companies all over the world. He has worked at Los Alamos, The Department of Energy, BP, and Higgs-Palmer Technologies and given presentations and classes on fracking, earthquakes and global warming.
You’ll Learn
Ian’s Background:
- Tell us a little about your background and your experience in oil and gas and energy
- What drove you to write your book, The Shale Controversy?
- What is the message you would like people to take away from your book?
The Impacts of Climate Change
- I agree that global warming is occurring and may be anthropogenic in nature or in other words may be caused by humans. The thing that we seem to struggle with is accurately predicting the potential consequences of this warming trend. Why is this?
- I appreciate your acknowledgement in the book that the Earth’s climate is a very complex and chaotic system that is hard to accurately predict the impact on global temperatures. With that, it seems that a lot of the climate models assume that we understand and can perfectly model the atmosphere and potential warming trends but this is not the case, would you agree?
- One thing I struggle with is the predictions around the severity of the impacts of global warming. As an engineer, I am skeptical of predictions that are alarmist in nature and aren’t based on science or data. I appreciate your view of data and attempt at doing this. Why is it that we consistently hear predictions of the potential catastrophic impact to humans like sea levels rising a certain amount or increased climate related deaths due to global average temperatures rising but these predictions haven’t come true?
- I understand the concern regarding the potential impacts of global warming on global average temperatures. In your book, you mention that if GHG emissions are not ebated then the global average temperature is predicted to reach higher than any time in the previous 400,000 years. [Page 204]. What information are you basing this prediction on?
- What are your thoughts on recent studies that have found that the rate of increase in the average temperatures have slowed despite large increases in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution?
- How can we better balance making major policy decisions in the US on this incomplete information in a way that is not as detrimental to the economy and our energy security?
- How do we balance the need to manage CO2 emissions with the increasing demand for cheap and reliable energy given the continued global population growth? What in your mind are the best options that balance CO2 emissions while ensuring access to cheap and reliable energy? It seems we would need to focus heavily on nuclear and Carbon Capture and Sequestration/Utilization but these aren’t getting the front page headlines here in the U.S. Would you agree?
The Global Nature of Climate
- It seems that this must be a global solution and not something U.S. centric because if we invest heavily in “renewable” energy while China and India and others continue to build hundreds of coal fired power plants we are just exporting emissions to those countries who would be enjoying much lower electricity costs and the economic prosperity that goes along with this.
- So even if the data doesn’t support radical action, how do we balance the need to limit CO2 emissions with the increase in global demand for energy? Particularly in the United States where CO2 emissions have decreased whereas China and India are building hundreds of new coal fired power plants each year.
- The outlook for nuclear power?
The Outlook for Future Oil & Gas Development in the US and How this Might Affect Mineral Owners
- As a mineral owner, my first thought is how will this impact me? What kind of timeline are we on where I might start to see an impact?
- On the show, we often mention raising the bar in the oil and gas industry as an additive measure towards the goal of less impact on the environment. In your book, you mention reducing gas flaring and methane leaks as a couple examples of room for improvement.
- What are your thoughts on how much of an impact implementing these practices could have in the glide path?
- We have talked about carbon capture and sequestration. Is it the big shake the industry needs to extend the viability of oil and gas as an energy source? Are there any other options on the horizon short of shifting to renewables?
- Many mineral owners hold on to minerals to pass to future generations, are we nearing a point to where those future generations may not see the benefit? What is your take on the outlook for natural gas vs crude oil given that natural gas is a cleaner fuel. Do you see it shifting more towards gas and in what timeline might that happen?
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
Books
- Ian’s Book: The Shale Controversy “The Shale Controversy assesses the shale oil-and-gas revolution, including the pros and cons of fracking, in an open and transparent way, and it is written for lay readers as well as experts. Dr. Palmer strives to clarify emotional issues with facts and data, enumerating the benefits of cheap gas and oil for cars, home and industry as well as the import-export trade balance achieved for the United States.”
- Inconvenient Facts: The science that Al Gore doesn’t want you to know by Gregory Wrightstone. “The book’s 60 ”inconvenient facts” come from government sources, peer-reviewed literature or scholarly works, set forth in a way that is lucid and entertaining. The information likely will challenge your current understanding of many apocalyptic predictions about our ever dynamic climate. You will learn that the planet is improving, not in spite of increasing CO2 and rising temperature, but because of it. The very framework of the climate-catastrophe argument will be confronted with scientific fact. Arm yourself with the truth.”
- The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels (Penguin, 2014), a New York Times bestseller arguing that if we look at the whole picture, human flourishing requires that humanity use more fossil fuels not less. (WSJ review here.) The book has been widely praised as the most persuasive argument ever made for our continuing use of fossil fuels, winning Epstein the “Most Original Thinker of 2014” award from The McLaughlin Group.
Articles
- Building new solar now cheaper than keeping existing coal plants open: BNEF. The article that Ian references that mentions that new solar plants plus the cost of batteries are cheaper than coal plants, this is only true in countries with carbon pricing to increase the effective cost of coal fired power plants. Specifically, this article mentions “According the CSIRO’s GenCost report back in December, the levelised cost of new solar is between $35 to $40 per MWh mark ($US26 to $US30), while BNEF found the cost of coal generation is around $US21 per MWh.” So coal fired power plants are still cheaper than wind and solar and will likely be unless a carbon pricing scheme is enacted more broadly.
- The temperature–CO2 climate connection: an epistemological reappraisal of ice-core messages. “Considered in this light, the current climate debate should be considered as being the latest of the great controversies that have punctuated the march of the Earth sciences, although its markedly differs from the preceding ones by its most varied social, environmental, economical and political ramifications.”
- Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases. “The most striking fact about radiation transfer in Earth’s atmosphere is summarized by Figs. 4 and 5. Doubling the current concentrations of the greenhouse gases CO2, N2O and CH4 increases the forcings by a few percent for cloud-free parts of the atmosphere”. In other words, doubling the greenhouse gas concentration may only increase the atmospheric temperature by a few percent. This is the study we asked Ian about but didn’t have the link at the time.
Contact Ian
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