2023 in review
We started Data Desk to give the environmental movement a new tool for holding climate laggards to account.
From our previous work, we knew that extraordinarily rich data existed on the real-time movements of ships and their cargoes of oil, gas and coal that powered the world and dangerously warmed it.
But this data was built for traders seeking to make profits from buying and selling fossil fuels and not for the people seeking to push the world towards a new energy system. Access to the data was often prohibitively expensive for cash-strapped campaign groups, and expertise in using it effectively was lacking.
Over the past twelve months, we’ve been trying to connect the myriad groups at the forefront of the fight against climate change with this rich data ecosystem, looking beyond seaborne trade to global supply chains as a whole. In the process, we’ve developed an approach to investigative environmental research that we call “supply chain forensics”.
We use commodity tracking software, detailed trade data and satellite imagery to get a high-resolution picture of the opaque and complex supply chains that sit at the heart of the climate crisis. So far, we’ve helped 18 clients and funders over 29 separate contracts, working on projects touching every continent except Antarctica.
Tracking fossil fuels (and the kit that makes them flow)
The biggest disruption to global commodity flows this year has been the redirection of millions of tonnes of hydrocarbons in response to European and US sanctions targeting Russia in the wake of 2022’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
But while this redirection has been extraordinary and a significant tailwind to the energy transition in Europe, there have been several players who have bucked the trend and diminished Western efforts to wean Europe off Russian oil and gas.
Our work has shown how a major French engineering company, Technip Energies, skirted sanctions by continuing to deliver critical technology to one of Vladimir Putin’s most strategic gas projects, Arctic LNG 2. Our analysis formed part of a major Le Monde exposé which hit the value of Technip’s stock hard. The main joint venture responsible for Arctic LNG 2 was subsequently targeted with sanctions by the US State Department.
We also revealed that the US Department of Defense has continued to put Russian hydrocarbon molecules in its fighter jets through deals with a Greek refinery which has been making jet fuel and naval diesel from laundered Russian oil products. These findings made it onto the front page of The Washington Post and resulted in a group of Senators pressing the Defense Secretary for answers about how this had happened.
CCS claims under the magnifying glass
But our work went well beyond Russian fossil fuels and sanctions chicanery.
Our investigations also covered the only commodity more central to the climate crisis than fossil fuels: carbon dioxide itself. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) — the process of capturing carbon from industrial processes and the atmosphere and storing it underground — will play a larger or smaller role in the energy transition, depending on who you talk to.
Oil companies want it to play an unrealistically large role so that attention is directed away from the urgent need to cut emissions from fossil fuels, a clear threat to their business models. We looked at the claims made by some of CCS’ biggest boosters — such as Occidental Petroleum — and how their existing facilities had performed using a novel methodology based on obscure regulatory filings.
The results were not encouraging. Our analysis, featured in Bloomberg, showed that the Century Plant — formerly the world’s biggest CCS facility — had captured just 10% of its nameplate capacity. This raises serious questions as to whether the world’s future capacity for capturing carbon dioxide will be anywhere near what oil companies are suggesting and about the risks we’re taking by delaying emissions cuts in the belief that we can offset them in the future.
We would like to thank all our partners, donors and those who have taken the time to read our Substack. Stay tuned in 2024 for more dispatches from the material economy, and get in touch any time to talk about collaborating or supporting our work.