Bryan Lovell
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Publication date: 2010
ISBN: 978-0521-19701-4 (hbk); 978-0-521-14559-6 (pbk)
List price: £55.00 (hbk); £19.99 (pbk)
212 pp
www.cambridge.org
The three main problems with climate change are: it is multidisciplinary and few people have the scientific expertise to understand all its interwoven strands; second, anthropogenic climate change is not universally accepted and third, the world is now beginning to suffer from “climate change fatigue”.
Bryan Lovell is well placed to overcome these problems. He has had a distinguished career first as a lecturer, then as an oil company geologist and latterly as a senior manager with BP. In the late 1970s he was a parliamentary candidate, and energy spokesman for the Scottish Liberal Party. Dr Lovell is also President Designate of the Society, and it is worth noting that the Society has played a major role in the climate change debate, convening a key conference in 2003 in which senior oil company executives participated, and arranging as part of this year’s Shell lecture series an important talk on carbon capture and storage by Martin Blunt.
The book addresses the challenge facing the world, which will continue to need hydrocarbon products for many years to come, but cannot afford to ignore the effect that use of these products has on climate. At the outset Lovell poses six fundamental questions, asking, for example, whether oil company shareholders will be willing to finance expensive carbon-capture schemes, and whether governments can be persuaded to give the same level of priority to reducing per capita carbon output as to health or education services.
Lovell’s analysis of the problem is addressed from a variety of standpoints. Chapter 1 describes the growing scientific unease that led to the Kyoto summit of 1997. Chapter 2 is a detailed review of the PETM (Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum) event of 55Ma, chosen because the unfolding of this event can be detailed with great precision. Very large volumes of carbon were released into the atmosphere over a period not exceeding 20,000 years, and the book discusses in some detail the consequences and possible trigger mechanisms of this. Chapter 3 is an account of the pivotal confrontation between BP and ExxonMobil at the Geological Society’s Petroleum Group conference in 2003, which Lovell identifies as the first sign of a convergence of views between European and American oil companies.
The remainder of the book addresses the role that oil companies might play in the carbon challenge. Lovell is a strong advocate of carbon capture and storage, which is technically feasible - but which cannot be implemented without the forceful involvement of government and ‘the Establishment’ in creating a strong regulatory framework. The final chapter is a ‘personal coda’ in which the author makes some interesting connections between rocks, Romans and reservoirs.
This is a thought-provoking book, which incorporates much of the latest research. But does the author provide convincing answers to the six questions of the Introduction? Can oil companies transform their role from villains to heroes? Will government respond effectively to the challenge? Will the public be willing to pay for the cost of carbon capture? I am sceptical; but read the book - and make up your own mind.
Don Hallett