“Go and protest properly!”: Cyclist pushes Just Stop Oil protestors off the road to make way for traffic

The tabloids have footage of a bloke on a motor scooter speeding through the middle of one of the these 'go slow' protests and driving off with their banner.

Which is surely driving carelessly or without due car and attention...?

(edit) In any case, isn't Mr Blue Shirt No Neck committing assault of one kind or another by grabbing and dragging those people about?

Hard to be sure, but it certainly looks like he starts the confrontation by cycling straight into the protestors. I would be surprised if the police aren't searching for him.

This chap aside, I would think JSO would be encouraging cyclists through their protest? What better way to demonstrate the benefit of cycling than to have a load of cyclists slip through with no delay.

HoldingOn wrote:

Hard to be sure, but it certainly looks like he starts the confrontation by cycling straight into the protestors. I would be surprised if the police aren't searching for him.

This chap aside, I would think JSO would be encouraging cyclists through their protest? What better way to demonstrate the benefit of cycling than to have a load of cyclists slip through with no delay.

I think we're at the point now that people changing to cycling is going to do very little in the grand scheme of things (rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic). What does make sense though is to not look for more oil to dig out of the North Sea for burning and of course opening new coal mines is hardly the correct course of action.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/heatherfarmbrough/2022/12/09/uk-government-approves-first-coal-mine-in-30-years-in-cumbria/?sh=435aa9e1258b

hawkinspeter wrote:

I think we're at the point now that people changing to cycling is going to do very little in the grand scheme of things (rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic). What does make sense though is to not look for more oil to dig out of the North Sea for burning and of course opening new coal mines is hardly the correct course of action.

Indeed - those with slightly longer-term vision need to stop digging up oil and coal and start vastly increasing their grubbing up of lithium.  Otherwise others will have cornered that market!

Sadly the Duke of Edinburgh's trolling comment comes to mind here.  We may live into interesting times...

The digging up of much of anything will have to stop.
If you read French here's a good explanation why there's no technological way out:
http://carfree.fr/index.php/2018/03/19/quelles-technologies-pour-une-soc...

Much better to mine the stuff elsewhere on the planet and then ship it here...

Shurely mine it on another planet?

Oh yes, many misspent hours in my early 80s youth to become merely Dangerous. 

Rich_cb wrote:

Much better to mine the stuff elsewhere on the planet and then ship it here...

That's some kind of false dichotomy you're building there.

80% of the coal mined is expected to be exported from England and drilled oil will be for sale on the general market, so is also likely to be exported.

The problem is that everywhere needs to stop burning fossil fuels and dumping CO2 into the atmosphere, though it's likely that even if we completely stopped that tomorrow, it would still be too late for us. Might help future generations though.

I know you don't consider it practical to stop burning oil immediately, but I would question the wisdom of us continuing to destroy our environment despite the warning signs. We had the opportunity to act during the end of the 20th century, but a lot of people decided that turning a profit was a better use of our resources.

It will likely be exported to Europe which is a significantly shorter distance than coking coal typically travels.

The mine will also be subject to far stricter environmental regulations than mines in Russia, one of the world's largest producers, for example.

Fewer emissions in production, fewer emissions in transportation. No economically viable alternative for the next few decades. What's not to like?

Rich_cb wrote:

It will likely be exported to Europe which is a significantly shorter distance than coking coal typically travels. The mine will also be subject to far stricter environmental regulations than mines in Russia, one of the world's largest producers, for example. Fewer emissions in production, fewer emissions in transportation. No economically viable alternative for the next few decades. What's not to like?

The first rule of finding yourself in a hole is to stop digging.

Looking across at people in Russia and figuring that they're digging quicker than you are, so you might as well carry on digging for a bit longer is motivated by how much dirt you can sell and not about how we'll get out of the hole.

Also, there's not a fixed demand for coal/oil, so increasing our production is unlikely to make any difference to the production of other countries. Similar to building roads, there's induced demand if people want to sell off their coal cheap and then we're just back to learning about our mistakes and continuing to make them.

If we assume that one day we won't require any more coking coal and that between now and then there will be a finite amount required it makes sense to extract and transport that coal in the cleanest way possible.

A UK mine ticks both those boxes.

At present it is impossible to build green infrastructure without steel and large scale virgin steel production is not economically viable without coking coal.

Reducing the carbon intensity of coking coal reduces the carbon intensity of wind turbines, electrified railways, heat pumps etc etc.

Just humour me here, as I don't know enough about the subject, but isn't coking coal used to make steel? We either make steel or import it, and is it not better to make it here? If we're going to make wind turbines and solar arrays, it requires lots of steel in the short-term surely? 

Turbines?  Lots of concrete for the bases, steel and currently difficult-to-recycle composites on top.  (All the metal can be reused).

Of course, if you don't require your turbines to fuel everyone's heating and driving around (or even flying!) then you might be able to get away with lower grade metal and natural composites...

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2019/06/wooden-wind-turbines.html

That's interesting thanks. It was more the solar arrays, a mate of mine used to design the frames they're housed on, and the inverter sheds, it's a *lot* of metal despite his efforts to reduce material cost while retaining the structure. 

On your other point ref less driving around, I've just pulled the pin on another bike to fulfil travel to the office 2 or 3 times a week. Only 11km each direction but (living at sea level) 190m elevation in the first 5km on the way out due to the South Dorset Ridgeway that's in the way - on a road bike or the folder with a laptop & other kit it's difficult not to be like a conflagration in the cycling aisle of a French sports retailer* on arrival. So I've ordered an ebike with belt drive, automatic geared hub, built-in lights & radar, mudguards, pannier rack, basket option, etc and it's on the way. Looking forward to seeing how it goes. I'm not getting rid of my van but the reduced short journeys will stop the DPF complaining and I get to ride a bike more. 
 

* road.cc forum comments passim 

mark1a wrote:

On your other point ref less driving around, I've just pulled the pin on another bike to fulfil travel to the office 2 or 3 times a week. Only 11km each direction but (living at sea level) 190m elevation in the first 5km on the way out due to the South Dorset Ridgeway that's in the way - on a road bike or the folder with a laptop & other kit it's difficult not to be like a conflagration in the cycling aisle of a French sports retailer* on arrival. So I've ordered an ebike with belt drive, automatic geared hub, built-in lights & radar, mudguards, pannier rack, basket option, etc and it's on the way. Looking forward to seeing how it goes. I'm not getting rid of my van but the reduced short journeys will stop the DPF complaining and I get to ride a bike more. 
 

Nice! Let us know how it goes. I started skeptical on eBikes mostly because decades ago I was fitter and they were a lot weedier. Also because humans so "wants, not needs". Not got one yet but have tried a few last 5 years, they're cheerful! Hope to stay smug on (mostly) 2nd hand bikes for a bit though.

For some applications the old tech was used (or there as a backup) until pretty recently.

mark1a wrote:

Just humour me here, as I don't know enough about the subject, but isn't coking coal used to make steel? We either make steel or import it, and is it not better to make it here? If we're going to make wind turbines and solar arrays, it requires lots of steel in the short-term surely? 

Yes it is and it's not sustainable. Electric Arc Furnaces are an alternative and are currently repsonsible for approx 30% of the world's steel production. Hydrogen direct reduction is also an interesting technology that's being developed. It's ironic that the Tories idea of looking to the future seems to use 18th centrury technology that we know has no place in a sustainable future.

There's some info here about it: https://greenallianceblog.org.uk/2021/02/09/why-europe-doesnt-need-cumbrias-coking-coal/

Quote:

The future for coking coal in Europe looks grim to put it mildly. Most of today’s coking coal consumers are looking for alternatives and the European steel sector is becoming more circular. It is a myth that steel production requires coking coal. A third of global steel today is made without coking coal, either through scrap recycling or gas-based steel production; and counting. Europe is racing against the rest of the world for a first full-scale hydrogen steel mill. Where was the UK when this train departed?

Arc furnaces require scrap metal to be able to produce steel. It's only useful for recycling. That's where the 30% figure that your article disingenuously quotes comes from.

There is no economically viable alternative to coking coal for virgin steel production.

Hydrogen can be used in place of coking coal but is currently prohibitively expensive and requires entirely new furnaces etc.

Coking coal will be used in European virgin steel production for decades to come.

Until there's a viable alternative we need coking coal. If we need coking coal it makes sense to use the least impactful coal available.

The Cumbria mine will produce coking coal with a far lower environmental footprint than the alternatives. It also won't fund Putin's atrocities.

Those who oppose it simply haven't looked at the big picture.

Rich_cb wrote:

Arc furnaces require scrap metal to be able to produce steel. It's only useful for recycling. That's where the 30% figure that your article disingenuously quotes comes from. There is no economically viable alternative to coking coal for virgin steel production. Hydrogen can be used in place of coking coal but is currently prohibitively expensive and requires entirely new furnaces etc. Coking coal will be used in European virgin steel production for decades to come. Until there's a viable alternative we need coking coal. If we need coking coal it makes sense to use the least impactful coal available. The Cumbria mine will produce coking coal with a far lower environmental footprint than the alternatives. It also won't fund Putin's atrocities. Those who oppose it simply haven't looked at the big picture.

Again, the first rule of finding yourself in a hole is to STOP DIGGING!

From https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/08/government-approves-cumbria-coalmine-legal-challenge

Quote:

Tony Bosworth, an energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “The evidence against this mine is huge. It will have a significant impact on UK climate targets, while the market for coal is already disappearing. The UK steel industry wants to move to greener production, like its counterparts in mainland Europe who are rapidly moving away from coal.”

Another threat to the mine’s future is the general election that must take place within the next two years. Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green party have all made clear their opposition to the new mine.

Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, vowed to keep fighting: “This government has backed a climate-busting, backward-looking, business-wrecking, stranded asset coalmine. This mine is a climate crime against humanity – and such a reckless desire to dig up our dirty fossil fuel past will be challenged every step of the way.”

Protesters are also gearing up to take local action at the site of the mine, and any banks and investors that finance the mine will also be put under pressure in public campaigns.

All of this means that it is possible that the new mine will never be operational. The economic viability of the mine – which will cost £165m, create 500 new jobs and produce an estimated 2.8m tonnes of coking coal a year, for steel-making – is already in doubt. Two UK steel companies have said they will not need its coal, and most leading European steel-makers are adopting green production methods.

Ron Deelan, a former chief executive of British Steel, said: “This is a completely unnecessary step for the British steel industry, which is not waiting for more coal as there is enough on the free market available. The British steel industry needs green investment in electric arc furnaces and hydrogen to protect jobs and make the UK competitive.”

The UK’s own steel industry must reach net zero emissions by 2035, according to the government’s independent statutory advisers on climate, the Committee on Climate Change.

From https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/17/cumbria-coalmine-uk-climate-goals-methane-emissions:

Quote:

Methane is an increasingly urgent problem, with emissions of the gas – which has a warming effect about 80 times that of carbon dioxide, though it breaks down faster in the atmosphere – strongly on the rise in recent years.

A sharp reduction in methane would give the world breathing space to take the longer-term actions needed to phase out fossil fuels, according to many scientists. At the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021, the UK was one of the leading countries signing up to the global methane pledge, requiring a 30% reduction by 2030.

Emissions from the new mine, which will produce coking coal for steel-making, would make that target almost impossible to meet, according to the new analysis. Coalmines, including abandoned mines, are a big source of methane around the world.

The government has claimed the mine would be carbon-neutral, though this only applies to the mining operations and does not take account of the emissions when the coal produced is burned. Carbon neutrality would require most of the emissions from the mine, of methane and of carbon dioxide, to be captured.

The analysis by Green Alliance suggests this is not likely to be possible. The world’s best capture rates from mines rarely surpass 50%, according to the thinktank, so claims that about 95% of the mine’s methane could be captured have yet to be substantiated.

And from https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/01/steel-boss-dismisses-claim-that-sector-needs-new-cumbrian-coalmine

Quote:

Supporters of the proposed mine, which would be the UK’s first new coalmine in 30 years, have suggested that at least a share of the coal produced would be used in domestic steel production. They also say it could lower reliance on Russian coking coal in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.

However, influential figures in the steel industry have become increasingly frustrated about the claims – with the two domestic steel producers understood to be unlikely to be significant customers for the mine’s coal. Chris McDonald, chief executive of the Materials Processing Institute, which serves as the UK’s national centre for steel research, said there was no demand from his industry for the West Cumbria mine.

“There’s a frustration hearing other industries speaking on behalf of the steel industry when the steel industry itself has not come out to say that it wants this mine,” he told the Observer. “I would contend that there isn’t a demand for it. The case for the mine has been built around the need for coking coal produced in the UK for the UK steel industry. That’s the case that the coal industry is making. But that doesn’t stack up with the needs of the steel industry.

“There are only two potential customers for this coal in the UK: Tata Steel and British Steel. British Steel have said they cannot use the coal from this mine because the sulphur levels are too high. Tata Steel have said if the coal were available, then they may or may not use a small amount. There isn’t anyone in the steel industry who’s calling for the mine.”

Surely the solution is just to accellerate what we have been doing for a while now?  (Via a variety of routes / under various political, economic and social driving forces).  Just get the dirty / unpleasant / basic stuff made elsewhere?  Or even just import products in an even more advanced state.

Hey presto!  Less troublesome extractive industry here, fewer spills / leaks / fires / fatiguing and boring jobs and we've moved the emissions accounting to someone else's books!  Everyone's a winner!

Snark aside I've never figured out a really good way to sell "we promise you more effort for less shiny new material goods".  But then it's the job of politicians and marketers to convince people of stuff...( On that subject there was an interesting series on Radio 4 recently exploring "convenience").

chrisonatrike wrote:

Snark aside I've never figured out a really good way to sell "we promise you more effort for less shiny new material goods".  But then it's the job of politicians and marketers to convince people of stuff...( On that subject there was an interesting series on Radio 4 recently exploring "convenience").

How about less effort for less shiny new goods? bringing in the 4 day week and working against excess consumption.

It seems it's much easir to cut the carbon emissions by buying fewer consumer goods, than by making just as many in a low carbon form. It's like companies arguing it would be uncompetetive to reduce carbon, while we can see them wasting energy.

A pretty myopic set of quotes.

We shouldn't mine in the UK and capture between 50-95% of carbon emissions.

Instead we should mine in Russia and capture what percentage exactly? I'm guessing it's a round number.

My entire point is that a UK mine will be less carbon intensive than the current alternatives. Your quotes back that up.

Entirely carbon free British steel making is not possible by 2035 (unless you destroy the entire industry) and there is no official target to do so. British Steel have a net zero target of 2050 for example.

It's likely that most of the early (2030s) decarbonisation efforts will focus on capturing the carbon emissions from blast furnaces so coking coal will still be used.

It will also still be used throughout Europe for decades.

The choice is either a very clean mine in the UK with minimal transportation emissions or a far dirtier mine far further away.

It's not a hard decision.

Not sure where you are getting your info from but thje vast majority of the coal to be mined in Cumbria will be for export. It isn't of high enough quality for use in British steelworks.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/07/uk-first-new-coalmine-for-30-years-gets-go-ahead-in-cumbria

As for carbon capture, apart from a few rudimentary operations in Norway iirc nobody has developed the technology yet to do it at scale, so your points are a tad mute.

Export to Europe. It's not that far away.

Certainly closer than Russia or Australia.

The only semi feasible way to decarbonise virgin steel in the medium term is carbon capture. I didn't say it would be easy. Hydrogen fuelled furnaces are so far from being economically viable that they won't be a mainstream option until the 2040s at least.

Rich_cb wrote:

Export to Europe. It's not that far away. Certainly closer than Russia or Australia. The only semi feasible way to decarbonise virgin steel in the medium term is carbon capture. I didn't say it would be easy. Hydrogen fuelled furnaces are so far from being economically viable that they won't be a mainstream option until the 2040s at least.

From: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64538296

Quote:

H2 Green Steel hopes to produce five million tonnes of green steel a year by 2030. Global annual production is currently around 2,000 million tonnes, according to figures from the World Steel Association.

We "hope" to produce 5m tonnes by 2030.

Just 1995m tonnes to go then.

I'd say my prediction of that not being "mainstream" technology before the 2040s is pretty safe.

Rich_cb wrote:

We "hope" to produce 5m tonnes by 2030. Just 1995m tonnes to go then. I'd say my prediction of that not being "mainstream" technology before the 2040s is pretty safe.

How curious - you present an unshakeable faith in the proclamations of Tories' climate policies despite the evidence from the Climate Change Committee and yet suddenly have doubts about predictions from people actually working with the new technologies.

From: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jun/28/uk-has-made-no-progress-on-climate-plan-say-governments-own-advisers

Quote:

Lord Deben, the outgoing chair of the CCC, said the UK had “lost the leadership” on climate action shown at Cop26 in 2021 and done “a number of things” – such as greenlighting a new coal mine and new oil and gasfields in the North Sea – that were “utterly unacceptable”.

Quote:

The report also found:

• The number of homes receiving energy efficiency improvements under the government’s Energy Company Obligation scheme more than halved, from 383,700 in 2021 to 159,600 in 2022, according to the report. At least 1m to 2m homes should be upgraded each year to meet net zero.
• Homes are still being built that will need to be retrofitted with low-carbon heating and efficiency measures, because the government has not yet brought in its promised future homes standard.
• No decision on whether to use hydrogen for home heating will be made until 2026, leaving households and boiler companies in limbo.
• Emissions from transport have remained stubbornly high as the government has “made a political choice” to allow an increase in road traffic, instead of encouraging people on to public transport.
• There is no coherent programme to encourage people to change their high-carbon lifestyles.
• There is no clear policy to decarbonise steel production, or emissions from other heavy industries.

I notice that you have not produced any evidence to back up your various claims, despite me producing numerous examples that show your arguments are untenable. I think you're clearly arguing in bad faith.

They "hope" to produce 0.25% of the world's steel using hydrogen within 7 years. I really don't think it's an unreasonable position to say that they will struggle to make hydrogen made steel a mainstream technology within 10 years of that.

My whole point has always been that a UK mine would produce fewer emissions than the mines in Russia/Australia it would displace. Your own links confirm this. The fact that the UK mine is also much closer to Europe wil obviously reduce transport emissions.

My other claim was that there is no plan to decarbonise UK steel by 2035. Your last quote confirms that too.

What evidence do you want besides what you've already provided?

Carbon emissions don't care about borders. Banning UK mines and then importing coal from far more polluting foreign mines is just rank stupidity. We need to focus on reducing our use of fossil fuels but while we still require fossil fuels (like in steel making) we should be using the least impactful version of that fuel.

Do you honestly think mining coal in Australia/Russia and shipping it to Europe would produce fewer emissions than mining it here?