Between 1924 and 1932, Henry Landsberger conducted experiments at the Hawthorne Works, which was a telecommunications equipment manufacturing facility in Cicero, Illinois. During his investigations, Landsberger would vary the level of lighting in the factory just outside Chicago and attempt to measure its effect on worker productivity.
Regardless of whether lighting was increased, or decreased, productivity continued to rise.
He concluded that the mere experience of being selected as a research subject was the primary factor that would affect changes in productivity. This phenomenon is known as the Hawthorne Effect, and its practical management application is neatly summarised in the expression: ‘what gets measured gets done’.
Aside from thinking about how many times you’ve heard that awful idiom ‘gas-lighting’ used as an accusatory verb by people who don’t even know what a gas light is, let alone know any plays produced in the late 1930s, isn’t that a fascinating thing to contemplate? The mere act of paying attention to those workers, improved their productivity, even when conditions were worsened.
So many people in management think of the profession as the art of manipulating people into working harder for less money. I much prefer to think of it as paying attention to people, and ensuring that our purposes are in alignment.
Unfortunately, in shipping and offshore energy, the unintended effects of safety management metrics are well known. Fudging the numbers, gaming the system, and failure to report are some of the most common activities in modern marine management strategies. At least, in low-trust corporate cultures.
I saw this first hand in the Navy when I fell overboard while transferring empty oil drums ashore, across the decks from our ship, across a sister ship that we were rafted outboard of. The inner ship had failed to keep her lines tight, and they opened up when I stepped aboard, allowing me to fall into the water. I cut my hand quite painfully on the way down and felt trapped between the hull and the quay for a moment, before climbing onto a fender buoy and flopping onto the deck like a happy wet fish.
My own XO didn’t record the incident, because he was proud of his ‘accident-free’ record during his time in charge of the incident logbook. As such, ‘it didn’t happen on our boat, so it isn’t going in our book’. And since I wasn’t crew on the other vessel, they didn’t record the incident either. I had the day off to recover, and spent the week on light-duties in the engine room, with a bandaged hand, but no documentary evidence as to the reason why.
It was the same offshore. Oil platform supply vessel companies seeking investment would contrive safety metrics so that they could boast to investors of ‘5000 days of operations free of Lost Time Incidents (LTIs)’.
It’s easy to make incidents disappear. The company would require every employee to fill out 10 safety observation cards per trip and would encourage ‘positive comments’ to be submitted. Ships submitting vast quantities of safety data and reporting zero incidents would get cash prizes and bonuses, including electronic devices, nice winter coats with corporate logos, and other coveted gifts. Incidents went on as normal, but reports dwindled.
Another metric that investors in shipping seemed to love, was having an average fleet age of less than 10 years. This saw the scrapping or sale of many fine ships, only for them to be replaced by new-build garbage of far lesser quality, purely to lower the average age of the fleet. One ship I was on had severe stability issues and saw 7 different skippers resign in her first year, with the entire crew signing a letter testifying to the vessel’s unseaworthy nature. She had no collision bulkhead, and the same floodability design flaw as the Titanic. Blackouts, steering failure, DP drive-on incidents close to an oil rig, and she would roll so badly that we’d be thrown through 45° either side every 50 seconds. For days at a time. At the same time, the corporate website showed photos of her as the new flagship, and pride of the fleet, as the stock price soared from $30 to over $130 that year.
That company went bust and got bought out, quite rightly. Although the management blamed US dollar inflation. Those execs have risen to great heights elsewhere in shipping, having understood that shipping was only part of the game they were playing.
I’ve seen the same thing in the wind farm industry. Crew transfer boats that don’t meet minimum MLC standards, have no heating, plumbing issues, no emergency power backup, and blackout 7 times a day, but are given awards like ‘workboat of the year’, and get lauded on LinkedIn and in the Industry Press as marvels of innovation.
It’s not just the government lying to us about everything. It’s almost all lies, all the time. Yes, you should be able to spot it by now.
As Orsted have laid off 700 workers, offshore wind farms are having their subsidies cut, the minimum price per kilowatt is reduced, and construction permits are being revoked worldwide, there is a little bit of wind spilling from their sails at the moment in this sector. Brazilian LNG is calling, and the shiny newness of offshore wind is starting to wear off. Underwriters are no longer quite so convinced of the accuracy of their models for the predicted lifespan and ROI of these ‘assets’. And I don’t think anybody even bothered to ask the question of how becoming dependent on offshore energy would place us at a security disadvantage, in case of war or an act of terror. Perhaps that‘s why they just quietly ‘dropped’ the investigation into Nordstream being sabotaged?
It doesn’t matter that carbon is our friend, and that catastrophic climate change is a total lie. Or that it isn’t 97% of scientists who agree, but really just 0.3%. Or that ‘fossil fuel’ was a marketing term invented by Standard Oil to make petroleum seem more scarce than it is. The table has been set, and we all must proceed to dine on a false premise because that is what is for supper.
Hydrocarbons are everywhere. They can never run out. They will only ever be subject to cyclical changes in price, and limitations of technology for extraction and processing. Any real scarcity will (should) be reflected in price changes, that will drive efficiency and alternatives.
Hydrogen ‘leaks’ continuously from the centre of the earth. It combines with carbon that lies in the bedrock of the earth, soaking through the layers of sediment from geological generations and layers of soil. Most of the carbon that is in the ground was captured by the thin skin of organic life on this earth. ‘Carbon’, ‘captured’ and ‘stored’ naturally, without even a hint of government subsidy.
It isn’t just dinosaur juice. (Or dragon juice, depending on your worldview). All that carbon in the hydrocarbons comes from life itself. Plants, animals and soil. Did anyone point that out to you in school?
I have recently been told as a matter of absolute fact that the UK will have hundreds of CO2-carrying tankers calling at our ports in the very near future, to fulfil Carbon Capture & Storage contracts, as part of the Net Zero transition.
No matter that there are only 4 of these ships currently in service. The power of fake crisis and manufactured public urgency will overcome that hurdle.
This fact, that a client has been asked to testify to in court, is about as truthy as it gets. It is entirely reminiscent of the fact I was taught in primary school geography, that Glasgow would definitely be under 4 m of water by the year 2000, as global warming causes sea levels to rise.
I know that garbage bully of a geography teacher was just trying to scare little kids, because I drove my van around Glasgow in December 2023, and despite 20 mph wind and continuous rain, it still isn’t underwater. The fact that I made this observation is probably why they gave me an LEZ fine for driving in the city centre. Those cameras also scan for thought crime, in Humza’s Brave New World.
It couldn’t be because of air quality, because – as you can imagine with the aforementioned wind speeds – the air in Glasgow is continuously being replaced by air from the Atlantic. Which is really rather fresh.
I did some research. Not just into the fact that carbon levels are so historically low that we are close to starvation point for plant life on earth. Rather, into the viability of Ammonia carriers and CO2 carriers. You see, it turns out to be just another Greenie-Commie fantasy.
There are CO2 carriers out there. From my recent research:
“Most gases other than CO2 may be carried in a liquid form provided they are at or below their boiling point and either:
• Under pressure alone
• Under refrigeration alone
• Under a combination of pressure and refrigeration.
CO₂ is different from natural gas in this respect. To carry CO₂ in its liquid form, both pressure and refrigeration are required to prevent it from converting from a gas into its solid state (dry ice). The risk of high-purity CO2 becoming solid and blocking safety release valves is documented in the IGC code and in various incident reports. Reclaimed quality CO2 is associated with risks of corrosion.
CO2 Carriers
These combined pressure/refrigeration requirements are not fixed but are sometimes referred to as “high pressure”, “medium pressure” and “low pressure”. These constraints limit the safe size of vessel design and cargo capacity.
Currently, the maximum capacity for transporting liquefied CO2 is approximately 3,600 cu m, or roughly 1,770 tonnes in dedicated CO2 tankers, predominantly with specialist operators such as Larvik. Carriers currently operate only at medium pressures, with limits on tank size determined by safety considerations.
CO2 shipping has been taking place for 33 years, with the main demand for CO2 coming from the food and beverage industry. The first dedicated CO2 tanker was launched in 1988 in Norway. However, the scale of the yearly CO2 trade flows, and therefore the ship sizes, are much smaller than those needed for planned Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects.
CO₂ shipped by sea since the late 1980s was initially done on converted dry-cargo vessels. The existing fleet of CO₂ vessels comprises only four ships (see table below). These have mostly been trading within Europe on short-haul business, supplying CO₂ to the food and drink industries.
Vessel Name Capacity Built Yard Owner
Helle 1,265 1999 Frisian SY Nippon Gasses Europe
Gerda 1,800 2004 Royal Bodewes SY Nippon Gasses Europe
Embla 1,800 2005 Royal Bodewes SY Nippon Gasses Europe
Froya 1,800 2005 Royal Bodewes SY Nippon Gasses Europe
Source: Clarksons.com 29/06/22
Clarkson’s database shows that while there are 6 existing gas carriers (LPG carriers of 10,000 CBM capacity) with a rating that enables them to carry CO₂, none of these ships have ever done so. The intake and sloshing-related challenges they would face make large-scale CO₂ carriage impractical.
LPG carriers are therefore extremely limited in their ability to carry CO2 in bulk, and LNG carriers are not able to withstand the pressure required to handle CO₂ cargo. There are a few small-scale LNG carriers which have a relatively high-pressure rating, but still none that are high enough to carry CO2. Converting dry bulk carriers to larger scale CO₂ carriers is also impractical for cargo volumes of significant scale. At present there is no fleet of tankers that can efficiently transport high volumes of CO2 over long distances.
The challenges of scale and safety during the marine transportation of bulk liquid CO2 are driving research into the development of designs for a dedicated fleet of specialized tankers. It is unlikely that a uniform design of CO2 liquid gas carrier will be adopted worldwide, as the scale and volume required, different (low, medium, high) pressure levels required, distance to the final storage location, and varying levels of purity and condition of CO2 will affect the design in each case.
Hyundai Heavy Industries from South Korea and Maersk Tankers looked into developing next-generation liquefied CO2 carriers in 2010, but nothing ever materialised from the research. Another Korean yard, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME), also produced a CO2 carrier design, though it has not received any orders in the five years since it first published the design. However, in early 2024, Wärtsilä Gas Solutions announced a key-stage investigation of the systems and solutions required for the development of liquid CO2 carrier (LCO2) vessels. The cargo tank design, which is suitable for LCO2 applications, has been awarded approval in principle (AiP) by the classification society DNV.”
In short, I predict you’re soon going to hear a lot more facts about CCS and CO2 carriers in the long march toward Agenda 2050, and the ‘energy transition’.
Why?
Because it is an expensive and unwieldy technological solution to an unobservable, un-indefinable, invisible problem that doesn’t actually exist. As such, this problem can be stated as urgent for as long as the powers that be decide it is a problem, meaning it can never end. Unlike poverty, immigration, health or education, we can never measure progress or lack thereof with our senses.
With no market demand or free market reason for CCS and large-scale CO2 transport and storage, we’ll need vast amounts of public spending and subsidy, paid for ultimately in the blood, sweat, tears and frustration of the inflation-fenced tax cattle for decades to come.
And much like the Olympics or other large-scale make-work schemes, it will be impossible for anyone to audit for corruption or financial malpractice. This technology is so unique and expensive that there is virtually nothing to compare it to. Tendering processes and offices of budget responsibility have nothing to go on. It’s the next big cash cow for those with the connections to get in there first.
Meanwhile, my local authority has recently closed all of our municipal swimming pools. They closed one of our dumps (sorry, recycling centres) a few years ago as well. Now you need an appointment through the council website 2 days in advance, detailing precisely what garbage you want to bring to be recycled, before you are permitted to wait in the mile-long line at the entrance. Oh, and they’re only open from 10 to 4 now, 5 days a week.
Low Emissions Zones in Scotland effectively make it illegal to be poor. They force the premature scrapping of cars and vans and are insanely unjustifiable in a country like Scotland, which suffers from almost zero air pollution. Not only that, but the principle of an LEZ fundamentally erodes the notion of individual sovereignty and property rights.
‘You may well be a citizen of Scotland, in the United Kingdom, but don’t think you’re allowed to own that particular piece of property or travel freely with it in your own country. You know, the country that was the land of your ancestors for a thousand years before the existence of the concept of nation-states? The one that fought Edward and ended serfdom in the 1300s, only to try bringing it back again now because we have computers and CCTV?
How can we go along with all this nonsense? How can we take the word of cretinous politicians over our own sense data? How can we let the agenda-setters build a world where Mister Burns keeps all the carbon for himself in a cave under Norway, and only gives us just enough to grow our low-yield organic gardens once a year if we endure debt slavery and fiat-serfdom for the rest of time?
Don’t fall for a fake Hawthorne effect manipulation. Don’t listen to their fake metrics. Don’t update your company policies in line with ESG fads. Don’t chase the dragon and invest in faddy schemes based on subsidy and regulatory capture that can collapse any time there is a loss of political will. Don’t believe in the fantasies they proclaim as fact.
The Greenies are watermelons. Commies in climate camouflage. Nothing else.
The only thing that gives me peace is knowing that the collapse isn’t like the Green fantasy, based on assertion and circumlocution. It’s based on arithmetic.
I don’t know how, why, or when, but their schemes will collapse under the inevitability of arithmetic. They simply must. Just like so many abandoned offshore energy projects and closed municipal swimming pools.
I can’t wait. Bring on the collapse. And that global warming you keep promising. We could use some of that in Jockland!