No, Roy, Carbon Dioxide ‘Climate Sensitivity’ Falling to Zero

via Current News – Principia Scientific International
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In his latest blog post Dr Roy Spencer admits climate lukewarmists are losing in the climate debate. Why so? Because the CO2-controlled climate theory is slowly and steadily being proved wrong in the peer-reviewed science literature. This is spectacularly exposed in the revealing graph above. This indisputable graph starkly maps out – left to right- where all the latest peer-reviewed science…

Click title above to read the full article

via Current News – Principia Scientific International http://ift.tt/1kjWLPW

April 3, 2017 at 02:59AM

Quietest Hurricane Season On Record

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
http://www.thegwpf.com

April can see some Southern Hemisphere hurricane activity — but so far, 2016-17 season is quietest on record, by far.

ACE 1970-2017

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) http://www.thegwpf.com

April 3, 2017 at 02:59AM

Pillar Of The Anti-Fracking Movement Takes A Hit

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
http://www.thegwpf.com

A pillar of the anti-fracking movement has fallen now that a federal judge has set aside a lucrative jury award and has ordered a new trial. It involves the Dimock case that was spotlighted by the 2010 documentary “Gasland,” which sought to portray drilling as harmful to drinking water supplies.

Hydraulic fracturing, of course, is the technique used to break the shale oil and natural gas from rocks deep below the earth’s surface — a process that uses chemicals, sand and water. Critics complain of not just the potential for fouled drinking water but also of increased carbon emissions.

However, the drilling tack is the reason that the United States has become a global leader in oil and gas production and why natural gas is supplanting coal as the leading fuel used to generate electricity. And safe exploration has bipartisan support as a result, albeit the Democrats favor tighter restrictions and greater transparency in terms of the chemicals used to flesh out the fuels.

To that end, the differences became increasingly apparent when President Trump signed an executive order last week that reverses a rule put in place by President Obama to curb methane releases from oil and gas drilling. Methane, which is 72 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping heat, had been the alleged culprit in the Dimock case.

With that, Judge Martin Carlson took the rare step last week of setting aside the $4.24 million jury award in that trial for two families who had alleged that Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. despoiled the ground water in their township of Dimock, Pa. The jury, he said, disregarded flawed testimony, although the judge nonetheless ruled that the case could be retried. 

“(T)he weaknesses in the plaintiffs’ case and proof, coupled with serious and troubling irregularities in the testimony and presentation of the plaintiffs’ case – including repeated and regrettable missteps by counsel in the jury’s presence – combined so thoroughly to undermine faith in the jury’s verdict that it must be vacated and a new trial ordered,” Judge Carlson wrote.

“Moreover, the jury’s award of more than $4 million in damages for private nuisance bore no discernible relationship to the evidence, which was at best limited …,” he added, in his ruling. […]

The ramifications of this judge’s decision to set aside the award in the Dimock case are thus huge, impacting both corporations and communities. Freeport, Texas, for example, is now home to new ethylene and ammonia plants, which rely on a steady flow of natural gas, launched by two of the largest global chemical producers: America’s Dow Chemical Co. and Germany’s BASF.

“Cabot presented uncontradicted evidence that undermined the plaintiffs’ very theory of liability in this case …,” the judge wrote. “The plaintiffs had no explanation for this scientific evidence.”

While natural gas producers won this round, they should now take the opportunity to inform the communities where they operate of their best-practices while also going as far to reveal the chemicals they use to drill. That would create goodwill among all stakeholders and perhaps lessen the opposition’s intensity.  

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via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) http://www.thegwpf.com

April 3, 2017 at 02:28AM

The End Of OPEC Is Near

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
http://www.thegwpf.com

OPEC, which has far exceeded the average life of cartels, is on the brink of failure.

Though cracks have been developing in the cartel since the start of the current oil crisis, the group has managed to stay together so far. Nevertheless, the success of the current OPEC deal for production cuts will decide its future as a cartel.

What is a cartel?

A cartel is a group of like-minded producers, who act in concert—or collusion—to achieve a shared goal of increasing their profits by means of restricting supply, fixing prices, or destroying their competition by illegal means. The average life of the 20th Century cartels has been 3.7 to 7.5 years, according to various studies by Margaret Levenstein and Valerie Suslow. In the past two centuries, cartels have been able to influence prices by an average of 25 percent.

History of OPEC’s success in boosting oil prices

Since its inception, OPEC has been fairly successful in boosting prices by various means. A few of the price increases, however, were due to reasons other than direct OPEC action, nevertheless benefitting their members.

Though the 1973 oil embargo was brought on by political reasons, OPEC used the production cuts of the embargo to boost oil prices from $3 a barrel in 1973 to $12 a barrel in 1974.

The 1979 energy crisis was not a brainchild of OPEC. The production dropped due to the Iran-Iraq war, and the price of oil doubled in about 12 months, again benefitting OPEC members.

OPEC was able to boost prices using production quotas and production cuts following the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997.

What has OPEC done to support oil prices in the current oil crisis?

OPEC, as any cartel would, has used two strategies to influence oil prices. However, both have been unsuccessful in achieving their objectives.

In 2014, Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of OPEC, attempted to stifle the competition of the shale oil drillers by keeping their production intact. As a result, oil prices plummeted to multi-year lows of about $27 a barrel in February 2016. The drop in oil prices saw 119 North American oil and gas producers file for bankruptcy from the beginning of 2015, according to Haynes and Boone, LLP.

U.S. oil production dropped about 883,000 barrels a day by August 2016, after topping out at 9.7 million barrels a day in April 2015. Nevertheless, the price decrease went well below OPEC’s expectations. Meanwhile, many shale oil drillers used a combination of better technology and hedging to continue pumping oil, despite the low prices.

As its first strategy failed to effect the U.S. shale oil production to the extent presumed, OPEC then adopted a second strategy of cutting production. On November 30, OPEC sealed a deal to cut production after months of difficult negotiation. Though prices bounced and broke out of the $52 levels – a strong resistance – they could not reach the $60 levels preferred by OPEC members.

However, this modest rally in crude oil prices rejuvenated the U.S. shale oil drillers, and U.S. oil production is now on the rise. As a result, crude oil has dipped again and is hovering near the $50 per barrel level.

The market believes that if crude oil prices remain above $50 per barrel, U.S. shale oil production will increase. For this reason, OPEC is finding itself in a catch-22 situation: It is losing market share to the U.S. shale oil drillers, but it is unable to propel prices considerably higher. It is losing its ability to influence prices above a certain level.

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via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) http://www.thegwpf.com

April 3, 2017 at 02:28AM