‘BP renewable energy archive still closed despite promise to open to public’:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/24/bp-renewable-energy-archive-still-closed-despite-promise-to-open-to-public
A BP archive containing scientific knowledge on renewable energy projects collected over decades as a result of a multi-billion-pound research programme is still closed to the public despite promises to the contrary.
Critics said BP’s integrity was at stake and the archive held next to the Modern Records Office at Warwick University must be opened immediately.
The oil company told its shareholders at the annual general meeting last week that BP shared all the information it had held on to – unless it was particularly commercially sensitive.
Carl-Henric Svanberg, the BP chairman, was specifically asked about the store of research material kept under wraps in a corporate archive at Warwick University: “Nothing is locked away. We share everything happily.”
But a spokesman at the company’s headquarters later confirmed what the Guardian had already reported: that no material for the last 40 years was available to the public.
“The National Records Office has a 30-year rule. We just have a longer one,” explained the company spokesman, while Peter Housego, the BP archive manager at Warwick, said the opening period was under regular review with (these) internal stakeholders.
Catherine Howarth, the CEO of Share Action, who challenged BP at the AGM to open the archive as part of a wider demand to be more transparent about the issue of climate change, said she was disturbed to hear the company was apparently not opening the archive.
“I’m truly disappointed if it turns out that BP’s archive of research is not in fact open, or due to be opened imminently. The chairman not only told us about BP’s general commitment to ‘sharing our knowledge’ but explicitly responded to my question by confirming that nothing would be ‘locked away’.
“I would expect him to make good on that. Openness is very much in the public interest and a matter of integrity with those shareholders who attended the AGM and heard the Chairman’s commitment with their own ears.”
Boo! BP.
No doubt they’re not alone in doing that, but I don’t think that anyone is seriously asserting that the earth cooled over those years, and only the fringe is stating that there is no reasonable explanation for the slowdown in warming (other than it’s not “it’s a hoax”). That’s fringe.
But none of that relates to the point in the article that I reposted, which is just that the fact that the slowdown was not predicted by climate models highlights that our understanding of climate science, and the models scientists use, continue to evolve, so the models’ future predictions of temperature are viewed with cynicism (especially when they predict, in the relative near future, dire acceleration far beyond actual results to date)
‘Vatican urges action on climate change’:
So, that is from God i guess? crazy religious republicans in turmoil?
And cause Charlie is a decent egg (for his background):
‘Prince Charles on brink of ending all fossil fuel investments’:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/28/prince-charles-on-brink-of-ending-all-fossil-fuel-investments
The Prince of Wales is on the brink of eradicating all fossil fuel investments from his financial holdings, becoming the latest high-profile addition to a fast-growing and UN-backed divestment campaign.
It is calling on investors to sell their stakes in coal, oil and gas because world reserves are already several times greater than can be burned while keeping climate change in check.
Prince Charles has frequently voiced the need for rapid action on global warming, referring recently to the Earth as a “sick patient”. He does not comment publicly on his personal financial dealings, but sources at Buckingham Palace told the Financial Times that “his private investments and his charitable foundation do not have any fossil fuel holdings”.
Prince Charles also draws income from the £900m Duchy of Cornwall and a spokesman told the Guardian: “The Duchy of Cornwall does not have any direct hydrocarbon investments. A review of collective investments is currently being undertaken.” Direct investments are understood to be stakes in specific fossil fuel companies, while collective investments are funds composed of a range of companies.
The divestment campaign also received a boost from seven UK-based charitable foundations, worth a collective £234m, which have decided to sell their fossil fuel investments on financial and ethical grounds and re-invest the money in green businesses. A statement from the group, which includes three trusts linked to the Sainsbury family, said pledges by governments to act on climate change and tumbling renewable energy costs meant fossil fuels were no longer sound investments.
Prince Charles would be in a mental institution in the not-so-recent past, so not surprising that you endear him.
No doubt they’re not alone in doing that, but I don’t think that anyone is seriously asserting that the earth cooled over those years, and only the fringe is stating that there is no reasonable explanation for the slowdown in warming (other than it’s not “it’s a hoax”). That’s fringe.
There is not a “slowdown in warming”. 1998 was the hottest year on record (until last year - you know, warming). It’s like saying there’s been a slowdown in Nepalese earthquakes in the last couple of days.
Nope, it’s like saying you have a model that proves there will be 20 major Nepalese Earthquakes over the next 17 years and there end up being none, until last year, which your model couldn’t explain without reconsideration and refinement. All it means is that the predictive model was inaccurate and is still being refined, not that there won’t be further earthquakes or that the land isn’t susceptible to earthquakes.
But your prediction that there will be 120 earthquakes in the next 30 years is going to be viewed with some cynicism given the predictive failings and the need to refine the model used previously.
Quaro
1807
Interesting storage idea: http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1320266/siemens-developing-thermal-energy-storage-system
Fill a long tunnel with crushed rock. Roughly 50% efficiency round trip, which is middling, but the main benefit is crushed rock is cheap and scalable.
Energy storage is an interesting space and there are a bunch of ideas in various stages of implementation - another concept is basically having submersed balloons in cities near lakes or large bodies of water, and using pressure to store and create energy. Efficiency on that one was about 50% as well, but with engineering improvements and relatively low maintenance, they’re basically free.
If only companies like BP would release their research into the public demain we might find solutions quicker?
wahoo
1810
I
No. Because then why would anyone else do any research.
MikeJ
1811
Exactly! Science always progresses best when researchers keep their discoveries to themselves.
CraigM
1812
There should be, at minimum, some form of ‘use it or lose it’ clause to copyrights and patents. Espcially for companies that recieve government subsidies (either directly or from preferential tax treatment).
Look at the case of Bell Labs and magnetic tape. It is one of several cases where an important new technology was spiked in favor of corporate interests. And in the case of green tech the stakes are high enough that telling BP and others to fuck off and release the tech is morally right.
Timex
1813
This is certainly possible, but it’s totally outshone by the fact that those same corporate interests resulted in an absolute MOUNTAIN of technological discoveries that basically dwarf the entirety of research done by non-profit organizations. Bell Labs cranked out all kinds of amazing innovations that changed the world in huge ways. Hell, IBM puts out more ideas every year than pretty much everyone else in the world combined. Not only do they patent more stuff than anyone else, but they also churn out mountains of amazing ideas in their public journals, in order to put those ideas into the public domain (basically so no one else can patent them and prevent IBM from using them).
While corporate interests can squash innovative ideas, the exact same things happen in academic institutions and government funded research.
In academic institutions you have little enclaves of researchers who basically see their jobs not as developing new technology, but rather just publishing as many papers as possible, and then citing each others’ papers. It’s a ridiculous circle jerk of bullshit that very rarely produces real concrete innovation.
Likewise, you have government funded research which is often being driven by cronyism. Some programs, like the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program are extremely productive in terms of getting a good return on investment, but that’s basically a tiny little slice of money that’s scraped off of the “real” programs… the big programs end up getting fed into organizations who are extremely inefficient in their expenditure, and often this inefficiency goes on for years, or decades, because unlike corporations playing in the real world, the success of those organizations depends not upon the results of their research and development yielding useful results, but instead depends upon those organizations maintaining the right political connections.
ShivaX
1814
That last paragraph makes me think of the F-35.
Let’s spend a trillion dollars on something that doesn’t really work and we never really needed in the first place. Some day it will work. No really, we mean it this time. Please send more money or you hate freedom.
CraigM
1815
And often what is worth developing isn’t truly known for years. Fundamental research may not have easily applied uses, and may only serve as a springboard to other, more useful, discoveries.
I picked the link I did for a reason, it is a fairly even handed one that acknowledges what Bell did that was good. There are others I’ve seen that just turn into pile ons decrying Bell here. This is an incident, though not the only one, where Bell used their position to delay or prevent a new technology from coming out.
Further I’d argue that the modern system is much more hostile to the public interest than it was in the 30s and 40s. I won’t belabor the concept of patent trolls, or how absurd the pissing matches between the various phone makers are. I’ll point out that the number of patents has increased dramatically:
Basically to head of further digressions: patents can be useful. Companies have done research that helps the public good. They also have been used in destructive means, and as ways to stifle innovation and competition. The modern system does not on balance serve the public, as it has been heavily distorted by a few powerful interests. A case like this where many potentially important innovations are locked away, especially since much of the research was funded with public dollars, is an absolutely unacceptable use of the patent system.
CraigM
1816
Yeah, that’s not so much patents as it is special interests. When special interests (read: contractors with links to politicians directing the spending) make decisions that should be the domain of engineers bad things happen.
Just reading the design constraints is irritating. This is putely a case of uninformed politicians screwing up a design by not understanding that their requests are often contradictory and mutually exclusive (bomber+ VSTOL + stealth = WTF?).
wahoo
1817
Agree with Craig on copyright or patent reform. Disagree on saying we should compel companies to disclose their tech.
I want more research; not less. Appropriating their research for emergencies will discourage future research investment.
I wish the bomber program was an exception buy government programs are always suboptimal due to special interests. Those interests have and will always be there so government spending is less efficient(multiplier less than 1 as general rule).
Timex
1818
The only issue I have is that it seems to kind of ignore the fact that those are technologies that didn’t come from some outside source that Bell then somehow suppressed. They were technologies that wouldn’t have existed without Bell inventing them anyway.
Basically to head of further digressions: patents can be useful. Companies have done research that helps the public good. They also have been used in destructive means, and as ways to stifle innovation and competition. The modern system does not on balance serve the public, as it has been heavily distorted by a few powerful interests. A case like this where many potentially important innovations are locked away, especially since much of the research was funded with public dollars, is an absolutely unacceptable use of the patent system.
What of this research is funded by public dollars? I thought we were talking mainly of corporate research, which is generally funded by internal R&D budgets.
I understand the concern about patent trolls, but the reality is that without some sort of patent system, it’s the SMALL corporations that get screwed… because if we invent something awesome, patents are the only thing that gives us any kind of protection against a large company just taking our idea and beating us in the market by virtue of their already established production and deployment systems.
This is always the part that seems to be missing from criticism of our patent system… what can we replace it with? Because it’s not really a viable answer to simply say to get rid of it and not replace it with some other sort of IP protection.
CraigM
1819
But that happens anyhow. Court cases being what they are it is often the smaller companies that get screwed already. They can’t really afford to fight against Sony (or whoever), and so often get forced to pay settlements or bullshit ‘licensing fees’. The IP systems are used as a cudgel against smaller companies, not protection for them. Not today at least.
Timex
1820
But small companies HAVE fought the giant corporations and won. It’s also a chief reason why the larger corporations buy the small ones… Most of those acquisitions by huge companies like Google of small corporations is because Google wants the intellectual property and patents of those smaller corporations.
If you remove the patent system, and don’t replace it with some other form of IP protection, then many of those acquisitions wouldn’t happen, and the large corporation would simply push the small corporation out of the market, and the inventors in those small corporations would get nothing for their trouble.
