Solar campaign at oil show

David Knott
London
[email protected]

Although there were no Greenpeace protestors chained to drilling rigs, platforms, or anything else at OGJ presstime, the campaign was still trying to get its message across.

For the first time, Greenpeace had a stand at the Offshore Northern Europe oil and gas conference last week-a marked change from its traditional, spectacular guerrilla tactics.

While other standholders promoted a vast range of equipment for exploiting oil and gas reserves, Greenpeace demonstrated the merits of solar power.

Stephanie Tunmore, Greenpeace campaigner, said the organization's protests have moved onshore for the time being, because of the onset of grim North Sea winter weather.

The Greenpeace display consisted of a truck on which was mounted a wall of solar panels used to run a number of kitchen appliances.

"We thought this would be an effective way to show solar panels are a viable way to produce electricity," said Tunmore.

Price fall

The 24 solar panels on the display, each roughly 4 ft by 18 in., combined to give 2 kw of electric power.

Luckily, the show took place during one of Aberdeen's rare weeks of sunshine. Whatever the weather, Tunmore said such a system could provide about half the typical requirements of a family running the normal collection of electrical gadgets: fridge, microwave, stove, TV, video, and lighting.

A 24-panel solar system would cost £8,000-10,000 ($12,800-16,000), making it still costly for a residential installation. But solar panel prices have fallen sevenfold since 1981, said Tunmore, with further falls expected.

Greenpeace's adoption of conventional promotional methods may, of course, be linked to last month's courtroom battle with BP Exploration Operating Co. Ltd.

At BP's request, a judge froze a Greenpeace bank account and released the assets only after Greenpeace promised to halt stunts disrupting Atlantic Frontier developments.

Climate message

Besides the solar message, Greenpeace continued to protest about Atlantic Frontier work and climate change.

Tunmore said that the display aroused a lot of interest among visitors to the exhibition, although Greenpeace was not expecting much agreement with its views among delegates.

Greenpeace campaigner Robbie Kelman said, "The oil industry is central to the problem of climate change and must be central to its solution. We are very pleased to be able to present both our arguments and a positive solution to climate-changing fossil fuels."

Meanwhile, environmental campaigner and botanist David Bellamy, perhaps Britain's most famous green guru, was in Aberdeen to address a conference at Aberdeen University.

Visiting the oil show briefly, Bellamy said that while the Greenpeace solar display was impressive, "It is shortsighted for environmental campaigners to say oil companies should just stop production tomorrow.

"Imagine where we would be without electricity or without petrol in our cars. Oil companies have made immense improvements in the past few years, and they are beginning to look into less damaging ways of producing energy. But they could be moving faster on this."