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June 4, 2012—He works at retail companies, transportation organizations and manufacturing firms. He might work in IT, operations or finance. He seems reasonable, smart and entirely committed to your company. But for whatever reason, he does not like radio frequency identification technology, and thus marshal’s all of his political weight to kill RFID projects before they begin. He is Dr. No.

I’ve heard about this character from end users who are frustrated by his opposition, and from vendors who say he is all that stands between them and a successful deployment. He is a fact of life, and he’s tough to deal with. He doesn’t go away—even if you can get your company to deploy a solution.

There is really only one surefire way to deal with Dr. No: Get a group of loyal RFID team members, some baseball bats and take him out in a dark alley. No, I’m kidding, of course, but I do know a few frustrated individuals who have neared that point of frustration. The good news is that there are ways in which to deal with Dr. No. Here are some suggestions.

Shift the focus: Often, Dr. No feels threatened by RFID. The impression, he feels, is that he’s not doing a good job, and that RFID might fix things, thereby threatening his standing. Shifting the focus away from improving current shortcomings can make the technology seem less threatening. I know of an RFID project leader who brought in a Six Sigma team, and used Six Sigma quality improvements as the rational for one project. This made it seem that RFID was just part of the company’s ongoing efforts to achieve Six Sigma quality.

This strategy also worked at a company that positioned an RFID project as part of its ongoing efforts to reduce its on-hand inventory (then valued at more than $1 billion). At another firm that was planning to close its warehouses, RFID was introduced to manage one central facility. And some retailers are positioning RFID as a way to respond to online sellers, such as Amazon.com.

Ukraine has invited bids from international energy groups to explore for oil and natural gas in two vast offshore fields on its Black Sea coast as Kiev steps up efforts to reduce the country’s reliance on increasingly expensive Russian gas imports.

Officials said bids were expected within the next two months to explore the 16,700 sq km Skifska field, located close to Ukraine’s offshore border with Romania, and the 13,600 sq km Foroska field, off Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.

Viktor Yanukovich, Ukraine’s president, has repeatedly described import prices charged by Russia’s Gazprom as unfairly high, and his administration has stepped up efforts to boost domestic hydrocarbon production.

Experts have described the planned exploration projects as a shift for Ukraine, whose price disputes with Moscow have twice since 2006 triggered supply disruptions to Europe. The plans mark the first significant attempt by Kiev to break its heavy dependence on Russian fuel by bringing overseas investors into a sector long dominated by domestic and Russian groups. It imports about 40bn cubic metres of gas from Russia annually.

The new tenders come weeks after Ukraine chose Chevron of the US and Royal Dutch Shell as winning bidders in two multibillion-dollar onshore exploration projects that are expected to utilise shale and other unconventional technologies to unearth hydrocarbons. Ukraine is estimated to hold Europe’s fourth largest shale gas reserves.

Government and industry sources said that companies eyeing the new offshore exploration projects include Shell, ExxonMobil, China’s Sinopec Italy’s Eni, Austria’s OMV, Brazil’s Petrobras and France’s Total.

The winning bidders are expected to pay an upfront premium of at least $300m to Ukraine’s cash-strapped government, an official said. Should commercially viable hydrocarbons be found, Ukraine’s government wants a 20 per cent share for domestic use.

Citing government estimates, Kiev-based investment bank Dragon Capital said annual production from the Skifska and Foroska fields might “peak at 3bn-4bn cubic metres and 2bn-3bn cubic metres, respectively. With water depths in these areas reaching 1,500m, we think commercial development of these fields can realistically start in seven to eight years.”

Investors will not be required to sell their share of hydrocarbons to Ukraine, but this option is likely to be attractive given the prices the country is paying for Russian gas imports.

The Treasury is pushing the energy department to go further in proposed cuts to subsidies for onshore windpower amid pressure from scores of Tory backbenchers who are hostile to new turbines.

Chris Huhne, the former energy secretary, set out proposals in October to cut the onshore subsidy by 10 per cent, enabling larger subsidies for other renewables including offshore wind.

But George Osborne, the chancellor, has urged the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) – now run by Ed Davey – to go further in the onshore cuts, scheduled for April 2013.

The current subsidy for onshore wind is one ROC (renewable obligation certificate) per megawatt hour of power, which under the original proposals would fall to 0.9. According to industry sources, the government is pushing for a bigger cut to about 0.85 or 0.8/Mwh.

Windpower companies fear the new drive has been inspired by the vociferous hostility to onshore turbines from many Tory MPs, 101 of whom signed a petition against the industry earlier this year. Chris Heaton-Harris, the MP behind the petition, has called for a “dramatic cut” in the subsidy.

Gordon Edge, director of policy at RenewableUK, the wind trade association, said: “It doesn’t make sense to take out the cheapest source of renewable energy in order to placate 100 backbench Tory MPs.”

If the scheme was unchanged the government would spend between £250m and £280m a year by 2016-17 to support onshore wind, according to government documents. A cut of 10 per cent would reduce this to between £170m and £220m while a deeper cut – as proposed by the Treasury – would save even more money.

The falls are designed to reflect the relatively low and dropping cost of onshore wind generation, a more mature technology. “The new level of ROC support will track the latest fall in costs,” said one government figure.

However, subsidies for offshore wind, biomass and wave power are set to rise under Decc proposals.

The department’s own figures suggest that offshore wind typically requires double the subsidy of onshore wind.

A consultancy called Pöyry, which carried out modelling work for Decc recently, suggested that the 10 per cent cut would lead to 346MW less onshore generation. But this would be more than compensated for by an increase in offshore windpower of 844MW, the report said.

A larger cut – as suggested by the Treasury – would, however, have more negative consequences for new capacity.

Yet Pöyry suggested that an ROC of 0.8 would be enough to support a typical new onshore wind farm.

The new figures should have been published this spring but were delayed after 4,000 submissions.

Decc said its new support levels would be published soon but added: “It is vital that our support for renewable electricity both encourages investment and represents value for money for consumers.”

The Treasury refused to comment.