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Post by marchesarosa on Feb 3, 2013 13:41:56 GMT 1
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Post by fascinating on Feb 3, 2013 17:51:49 GMT 1
Oil is not the only fossil fuel. It's generally known that there are hundreds of years worth of coal supplies and therefore plenty CO2 could be produced even if oil production falls away.
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Post by alancalverd on Feb 4, 2013 16:57:33 GMT 1
The British Isles are geographically interesting. Essentially, vast lumps of coal interspersed with iron ore, covered with fertile soil, and surrounded by a warm, shallow sea full of fish.
But the EU killed the fish and farming industries, then Thatcher destroyed the coalmines and Kyoto made sure that the steel industry couldn't compete with India and China.
If it wasn't for banking, we'd all be broke! Erm...on second thoughts.....
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Post by principled on Feb 4, 2013 20:14:13 GMT 1
Alan
Nicely summed up in a sentence!
Still, at least our politicians are honest. Oh, hold on a minute there's a newsflash, who's this bloke Huhne?
P
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Post by fascinating on Feb 4, 2013 20:52:18 GMT 1
WARM???
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Post by alancalverd on Feb 5, 2013 2:04:47 GMT 1
Yes. Ask any Cornish shark or pilchard!
The Gulf Stream ensures that London, on much the same latitude as Moscow and Toronto, is a lot warmer than either.
A couple of summers ago I spent successive days on the Kerry coast and at Cape Cod - several degrees further south. The sea off Kerry was bracing, but at Cape Cod it was lethal.
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Post by fascinating on Feb 5, 2013 8:30:23 GMT 1
In fact colder waters hold more oxygen and so tend to have more fish in them, provided there are enough spawning grounds, which require shallow water.
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Post by marchesarosa on Feb 5, 2013 20:14:12 GMT 1
If you read the discussions linked to, fascinating, you would see that it is acknowledged that all the fossil fuels are to some extent interchangeable. Gas, as well as oil, is a feedstock for chemical production and fuel oils can made from coal.
The point is, availability of fossil fuels is not a problem, either now or in the medium term. The market (supply and demand) will take care of both scarcity and glut provided governments do not get in the way with irrational phobias and fads and market distorting taxation.
When the Greens have been put back in their box, nuclear energy will get a fair crack of the whip and all will be well. Nuclear and fossil fuels can do all the really heavy work for industry, heating and transport whereas renewables can be whittled down to the locations where they can really work efficiently and economically and, of course, make a small contribution to domestic consumption on people's rooves when the wind blows or when the sun shines. Even then, the money would be better spent on loft inflation which would not burden other consumers with unnecessarily high fuel prices.
Have we reached "peak coal" yet, by the way, ma'am?
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Post by marchesarosa on Feb 11, 2013 8:29:37 GMT 1
Quote of the Week: The Stone Age didn’t end for lack of stone, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil. Former Saudi oil minister Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani (NYT “The Breaking Point, Aug 21, 2005)
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