Just over a quarter of a century ago I wrote an article for a Business Strategy journal about one of the most successful environmental campaigns of the 1990s - Greenpeace’s 1995 action which halted Shell UK’s dumping of a redundant North Sea oil installation at sea. Shell had embarked on its plan to dump Brent Spar because this was the cheapest option, and one that was allowed by a narrow interpretation of the particularly lax environmental regulations in the UK at that time. Greenpeace activists boarded the Spar as it was being towed to its intended burial ground in the Atlantic, and they used visual images from their action to reinforce Greenpeace’s long-standing campaigns against dumping at sea. Their action inspired negative reaction to Shell, throughout Europe, forcing a rethink which resulted in the Spar being diverted to a Norwegian fjord for reuse options to be explored. Eventually it was moved to the port of Mekjarvik, where its storage tanks were filled with ballast and reused as a quay extension.
I naively wondered in my article (aimed at a business audience) if Shell would learn from its experience. I had no illusions that it would rapidly diversify out of fossil fuel extraction. I suggested, though, that it might in future consult more widely in its decision making, and perhaps start designing projects with end-of-life disposal in mind. I was far from sure, though, that, once people had forgotten about Brent Spar, there would be any lasting change in Shell’s behaviour. My scepticism was shared by a key participant in the saga:
“I think you’ve written one of the more interesting papers of the many I have read about the Brent Spar…… You say near the end that ’it remains to be seen how deep the change’ in Shell goes. I would have to say not very far, based on our discussions with them this year about climate change, and the need to end new oil developments.”
(Peter Melchett, then Executive Director of Greenpeace UK, personal communication 16 July 1997)
Sure enough, our scepticism was justified. Mainstream media interest in the story continued to focus not on climate change, new oil development, or dumping at sea. Instead, it obsessed about an over-estimate by Greenpeace of the amount of oil in the Spar, ignoring that this was a genuine mistake for which Greenpeace had apologised, and that the key issue was dumping an industrial structure on the sea bed, not the precise amount of oil that was still in it. And in 2000, as Brent Spar was being prepared for its new life as a quay extension, Shell made it clear that this was ‘a one-off solution for a one-off structure’, and that deep sea disposal remained its prime disposal option for other redundant North Sea installations.
The energy industry, and energy policymakers, are particularly prone to embarking on projects before considering how to deal with the inevitable end-of-life waste. This is not just in the fossil fuel sector. Nuclear power stations are constructed on coastal sites, with little consideration as to how they will cope with the rising sea levels that are the inevitable consequence of continued global heating, and how the radioactive waste is to be safely stored for thousands of years. These issues, like global heating itself, are problems that are left to be solved by future generations. And the same is happening with wind turbines and solar panels. How are the components to be sourced? How are they to be disposed of at the end of their life? And what do we need all those panels for? Yet again, energy developers are embarking on projects and leaving such issues to be resolved later.
I was heartened to read the start of a recent BBC article, which seemed to recognise the scale of the solar panel disposal problem. But it soon became clear that the journalist, Daniel Gordon, was following a familiar pattern, not addressing the key issues but focussing instead on a hope that the problems will be resolved in the future (by innovation in recycling). Here we go again, I thought - this is Brent Spar mark 2, in slow motion , but with a ‘green’ tinge. Projects launched with no consideration for the long term consequences. And journalists asking the wrong questions.
Just as I was wondering whether I should respond to this latest iteration, I checked my inbox, and there was a substack post by Elisabeth Robson (RadFemBiophilia) which critiques the BBC article, brilliantly. She ends by asking the fundamental question, which mainstream climate journalists never ask - “What will these ‘clean’ technologies be used to power?”
Do read her post, here.