At least one columnist understands how impossible it is to stop Global Warming. The full article is here;

http://www.macleans.ca/science/technology/article.jsp?content=20080326_994_994

Here is a small excerpt:

Late last year, the Paris-based International Energy Agency compiled a list, which it presented at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, outlining what's required in order to meet emissions reductions of 50 per cent by 2050. The list, described by the Los Angeles Times, included: 30 new nuclear power plants, 17,000 wind turbines, 400 biomass power plants, two hydroelectric dams the size of China's massive Three Gorges project, and 42 coal or natural gas plants using carbon-capture technology to store CO2 emissions underground. But that's not all. It concluded that all of that would have to be built and up and running by 2013 — and the process repeated every year until 2030.

That's just the financially impractical side of it....and that's still based on the presumption that AGW is a function of CO2 output....and that those efforts would in fact impact it.

If man's CO2 output is truly causing global warming, our only solution is to get Algore on a nuclear powered aircraft. But there's a case of which do you worry about more...the nuke going critical or Algore???

..Slightly off topic...Don't know if I posted this somewhere, but I found this article pretty interesting...

"...The World Investment Report last year highlighted the transformation of world oil and gas supply from a private investor-controlled — and market driven — business to a state-controlled business. The top 10 oil firms in the world are all state owned, accounting for 77% of the total, with Russian firms controlling another 6%. Only about 10% of world oil reserves are in the hands of investor-owned firms such as Exxon Mobil...."

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/04/26/the-real-drivers-of-food-and-oil-prices-corcoran.aspx

Why is global warming being discussed on a CNC forum?

Why is global warming being discussed on a CNC forum?

For entertainment?

Because CNC machines need energy and the primary source of energy in our civilization are fossil fuels.

Why not?

I've got a novel answer....maybe because CNC machines might be useful in manufacturing the solutions that WE come up with??? Like compound airfoil shapes for wind turbines?

Maybe cauhape is already saving the planet by generating his CNC's power with solar panels so doesn't have to worry about energy prices.

I've got a novel answer....maybe because CNC machines might be useful in manufacturing the solutions that WE come up with??? Like compound airfoil shapes for wind turbines?

Maybe cauhape is already saving the planet by generating his CNC's power with solar panels so doesn't have to worry about energy prices.

I prefer to run mine with a stationary-bike powered generator. That way if my machine makes any funky noises, I just stop pedaling...instant E-stop

(my cheek hurts)

Even if the Nuclear Plants could be built maybe they are not the solution anyway.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/05/12/the-limits-to-nuclear-mccain-shouldn-t-try-to-follow-french-disaster.aspx

Why did the U.N. Climate Change Conference take place in Bali? Is it not time that "World conferences" particularly this one, should set up e-conference facilities using large screens such as those used in sports stadiums. Along with automatic translation facilities international travel would be negated. Thus, all delegates could remain in their home contries (or even at home), and chat to each other to their hearts content.Thus huge financial costs and further CO2 damage to the planet would be minimised. A common time zone could be agreed to best suit delegates. Travel time/costs and hotel costs would be almost eliminated. In truth an enforced time zone would exist anyway if every one had to travel a place like Bali! Such savings could go into a World Global Warming fund.

Am I in cloud cuckoo land, by thinking that most of these international conferences are mainly placed were they are, so that delegates can have a really good time at someone else's expense.

I have to say that long before global warming was an issue, I very regularly travelled for business reasons by air all over the world. As a retired scientist I am now ashamed of the CO2 footprints I left all over the planet. My only wish is that with todays' technology, and the few governments that genuinely want to save the planet,we might just be able to "stop the clock" but it is doubtful that there is any chance of reversing existing damage. Sadly my children and grandchildren, will not forget my generations' lack of knowledge, and certainly will not forgive the current generation of governments that still have their heads in the sand whilst at the same time being fully aware of the consequences of doing too little to late.
John Stafford

John,
I'm puzzled about your statement concerning "CO2 damage". That implies a) CO2 is damaging and is therefore a pollutant, and b) you subscribe to the AGW notion that CO2 is a causitive.

I appreciate your being sorry for your old carbon footprint, but a far greater crime is committed today where we have some people leaving an enormous carbon footprint in the process of trying to tell the rest of us that we're guilty and need to change the way we live.

Algore sits at the cookie jar, eating all the cookies, and tells us he's doing it to convince us to stop eating so many cookies because it's bad for all of us. Maybe that's a lousy analogy, but you get the idea. Algore's a hypocrite, and that's the difference.

You may be retired, but once a scientist, always a scientist.

I will second everything fizzizzist writes. I think he only got there before because he is in a different time zone. Why did the Bali Conference take place in Bali? Because it was a big boondoggle; you are not in cloud cuckoo land, anyone who thinks these conferences are serious is. Although they do have a serious side; a potential for serious harm. They create the idea that a problem exists, it may it may not, and they create the idea that humans can do something about, indeed must do something about it. And I think my thread starting post shows the futility in that. We have to adapt.

Why did the U.N. Climate Change Conference take place in Bali?

Because it is warm there. As with most vacation spots, warm is good.

Why didn't they go to Siberia? Because cold is not so good.

If the UN actually believed that global warming is a real problem, that human CO2 emissions cause global warming, and that reducing fossil fuel consumption will make a difference, they would have used telecommunications instead of flying all their delegates to Bali. Regardless of the published agenda, that conference was not about stopping global warming. It was about how the UN can develop a mechanism to control all human activity by regulating the use of fossil fuels.

If everyone always thinks it is someone elses problem then nobody will ever do anything about it. How about we all start by eating the elephant one bite at a time. It's never too big a problem if we approach it that way. Start with reducing the energy you consume.
The simple baby steps. Like not wasting time driving around when you don't really have to. Turning off litte things that add up to a lot of money back in my pocket. I am looking into building an electric vehicle that will get me back and forth to work and even adding a wind mill to generate power for charging it. Who knows! Remember it starts with little things. Rome was not built in a day.....It was brick by brick and taking action not finding ways we cant do it. There are way to many people in this world that expect everyone else to solve it for them. Why not get involved rather than just telling everyone else it can't be done.....

I just stop pedaling...instant E-stop

Hahaha! I like that :)

The reason "they" want Nuke power is it for sure will shorten every persons life span.
"They" know the mineral fuel/oil, (no such thing as fossil fuel) is safe in its original form, before "they" add other poisons to it.
What will it take to stop global warming? To ground all jet aircraft. And remove the one in control that have the concerted programs to cause climate change, and this new world religion. Its all caused by jets dumping chemicals in the upper atmosphere and high energy devices that heat and disrupt the air currents. Its all a planned event and it is obvious that it works just great.

A horse.

We as monkeys can not stop fabricating less then 2 offsprings just for the replacement reason and that makes us HIV of our existance. Latinos are pumping them out and abandaning them before they reach 18, muslims need a damn tv just to stop making them, orientals are shooting for a boy no matter what, come on, we need more German Shephards then honor roll, too much butter, joystick delapetaded human amebas. Global warming is a nice way to go out, we need giant asteroids to make sure this crap is erased for good.

My God Beton, I do believe that something I've said has germinated at last, never thought about the giant asteroid bit.....
Uno hoo.

I believe in global warming. I even have All Gores book on the subject. But I do feel that is to much effort is put forth to curb green house gases it would cause serious economic consequences.

What the world need is cheap alternative solutions and DAM smart city planners and polititions to put forth a rapid transit solution that while may be expensive today would be MUCH more cost prohibitive in the future. Unfortunately various city and state polititions often look at the looming oil crisis and global warming in the rear view mirror and do not look 10,20,50 years down the road and anticipate serios problems such as todays high gas prices.

I depend on my service truck for my work. We are a Bell/IBM contractor and do lots of work for them. I just hope we can sustain a profit in our company.

Building a SMART city that reduces the dependence of oil is the SMART way to go.

City of Vancouver, New York, San Francicisco and England have built wonderful rapid transit systems that are mostly pure electric.

But should some day we run out of oil, world nations will be in big trouble and we all will have to survive some how.

A horse.

We as monkeys ...............

Are you related to handlewanker by chance????


rhinoman,
Glad you've got all of Gore's books, they make good insulation. I've read many of L. Frank Baum's books, and they're even better than Gore's!!!

You should give 'em a try!

Could Gores' book replace the Sears catalog in the outhouse? I have no doubt we are going through a CYCLICLE period of global warming similar to the last 12 and probably many more before. Probably more in the future along with periods of global cooling.

We humans probably influence it just as much as the termites exuding carbon dioxide or maybe even as much as the "cow farts". Roughly as effective as a mosquito mounting an elephant. The mosquito yells "rape!!!" Al screams "greenhouse gas!!!!". Both equally credible.

Dick Z

If global warming gets any worse in the pacific northwest I am going to freeze to death!
I think mother nature is taking over and adjusting her winds and creating a lot of cooler air. ocean currents are changing and damn it's cold for June

If global warming gets any worse in the pacific northwest I am going to freeze to death!
I think mother nature is taking over and adjusting her winds and creating a lot of cooler air. ocean currents are changing and damn it's cold for June

But the Global Warming Gurus have an explanation. This is the North Pacific Decadal Oscillation, they 'knew' it was coming and it 'does not invalidate' their predictions because after 2015 warming will resume once more.

The funny thing is they never mentioned this knowledge before it happened and their models do not take it into account.

A few days ago there was even a traffic advisory predicting snow on the Coquihalla Pass!!!! I suppose there may have been snow up on Stephen's Pass.

Not that I want to add to any sense of panic but I thought all you cheery Brits should see this if you haven't seen it already.

I think most likely a similar situation is lurking for us.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1025586/FUEL-CRISIS-Forget-warnings-panic-pumps-Thanks-decades-government-neglect-Britain-set-lose-nearly-half-electricity-years.html

So Geof, you're a regular on Milloy's too, I see.... :)

Patrick Michaels is talking about sulfate aerosols and climate models, and publications like Nature turning into rags of doom....

"..Call us skeptics, but we have grave doubts that the corrections to the observed global temperature history will result in a lessening in the overall confidence that is proclaimed that climate change is manifesting itself even worse than we imagined. After all, there is an overwhelming, odds-busting tendency for publications in the journal Nature to report that things are tending worse (rather than better) than we ever imagined. In an unbiased world, the expectation should be 50-50 that publications in Nature would find things either better or worse than the expectations. In reality, the publication ratio is about 10 to 1 for the worse side. We have a bad feeling, that despite the initial optimism, that the outcome of the Thompson et al. findings will ultimately prove to increase the tally on the worse-than-expected side of things..."

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/06/04/the-sanctity-of-climate-models/#more-330

Hey Geof, I'm no cheery Brit....I'm miser...able doom gloom £10 a gallon sort of miserable......Looks over shoulder...Crap no navy...looks left...crap no army...OK lets go 3rd world...loss of Empire was never this cruel! Gasifier plans at the ready :D brb just off to watch "The Day After Tomorrow" pmsl

Hey Geof, I'm no cheery Brit....

Whadda ya mean? All Brits are cheery; stiff upper lip, what ho, pip pip and all that.:)

Not that I want to add to any sense of panic but I thought all you cheery Brits should see this if you haven't seen it already.

]

Dear Geof,

No panic here, just a cheeky sense of fatalism (brings violin from case and stares at distant flames etc..)

Well, we may be at risk if Russia turns off the UK supplies of natural gas, and maybe France will sell their nuclear electricity to another, higher, bidder.

Yes, it could get a bit inconvenient when the computers all pack up,

BUT,

the UK has a whole shed load of coal.

(Further squeakings from the fiddle, horizons burning etc..)

Best wishes,
Martin

...BUT,

the UK has a whole shed load of coal......

True, but as the article points out the EU will not let you burn that nasty stuff, and it will be necessary to build a whole bunch of new generating stations, and start large scale coal mining again, without a large workforce willing to tolerate the conditions in underground mines.

Like it has been said before, you've got too many people, and I mean it in the nicest possible way.

Try to reason out my thinking pattern, when the chips are down, anyone with a bit of self survival will be down on the floor picking them up, no matter if they've been walked on.
What do I mean?

When it comes to the crunch, most of you will just take the next course of action, and that will only happen when the time comes.

So take heart, all you people, life will be beautifull no matter what the doom watchers say, just tighten the old belt a notch or two, whistle a happy tune.

PS, When the ship is going down it might be a good idea to dump overboard all of the excess rubbish taking up room and absorbing resources.
Uno Hoo.

True, but as the article points out the EU will not let you burn that nasty stuff, and it will be necessary to build a whole bunch of new generating stations, and start large scale coal mining again, without a large workforce willing to tolerate the conditions in underground mines.

Dear Geof,

I could be wrong, but ( I think) the majority of UK coal mines were "put out of action" by a previous prime minister about 25 years ago, entirely for political reasons.

At the time, I read an article in a newspaper ( OK, OK, not the most reliable source, but in the pre-internet era, probably better than most compared to today), which said that a coal mine is useless once the owners turn off the pumps which keep out the groundwater. Once the levels are flooded, it is probably more economical to sink an entirely new main shaft and start again from scratch. If my memory serves me...(and it probably does not), somebody mentioned a figure of £30,000 per metre for a main shaft twenty five years ago. Economists can make adjustments for inflation.

The sums of money needed to re-galvanise the UK coal industry are pretty huge, but, if there is no nuclear capacity, what else is there?

When "push comes to shove", and the lights are going out, nobody is going to give a rat's #ss about pollution, or the working conditions of those on the coal face.

(Puts down Stradivarius)

Best wishes,

Martin

.... which said that a coal mine is useless once the owners turn off the pumps which keep out the groundwater. Once the levels are flooded, it is probably more economical to sink an entirely new main shaft and start again from scratch......Martin

I have seen this claim elsewhere, and it makes no sense to me. Surely if it is possible to pump fast enough to keep grounwater out while it is operating all that is needed for a flooded mine is pump faster for a while. I can't help thinking pumping water is easier than breaking rock for a new shaft.

But you are correct with the comment about the posterior of a rat.

Geof, I think if you pump the water out too quick the pressure of the ground water will just collapse the shaft walls before the water drains out.

This is like boring a hole in the sand down on the beach and just keeping the water out, but if the hole fills up it saturates the surrounding sand and it becomes subject to fluidization.
Ian.

Geof, I think if you pump the water out too quick the pressure of the ground water will just collapse the shaft walls before the water drains out....Ian.

Okay, I see now. You would have to pump the water out incredibly slowly so you created a declining pressure gradient around shaft.

....a coal mine is useless once the owners turn off the pumps which keep out the groundwater. Once the levels are flooded, it is probably more economical to sink an entirely new main shaft and start again from scratch....Martin

After replying to Ian's post I had a brain wave...marvellous what a glass of Merlot can do. :)

If coal mining did start up again in any big way it would be much more mechanized than in the past; maybe even to the extent that no people would go underground only tele-mechanisms (I refuse to call them robots because they are not.) run by operators on the surface. If they can shoot bad guys in Ahghanistan from a computer console in California, mining coal remotely should be a snap.

The technology to build remote machines working under several hundreds or thousands of feet of water pressure has been worked out and is in regular use on deep sea oil rigs.Transferring it to coal mining machines that could work flooded shafts should be comparatively easy.

You don't mean Batman, that we send down deep sea vehicles and just mine the coal as if it's under the sea? What would the Unions say?

I suppose the spoil and coal could be brought up by an air lift instead of mine cars, no gas problems, no water flooding problems, no ventilation problems, no lighting problems.

I don't suppose this would be a better way to mine coal, iron any minerals deep down with a mechanical device, by intentionally flooding the mine and have the mechanical digger just wending its way through the flooded corridors, having no weight problem as it could be made boyant and drag a huge tube with digger teeth to grind up the soil and suck the goods up to be blown to the surface by compressed air, like a giant earth worm.

WOW, I'm going to get this one patented, but I suppose the Chinese were doing it in the tenth century by using a bucket line which led on to the village well invention with a single bucket on the end of a rope, now used in practically all villages throughout the world.
Uno Hoo.

....this would be a better way to mine coal, iron any minerals deep down with a mechanical device, by intentionally flooding the mine and have the mechanical digger just wending its way through the flooded corridors, having no weight problem as it could be made boyant and drag a huge tube with digger teeth to grind up the soil and suck the goods up to be blown to the surface by compressed air, like a giant earth worm.....

Sounds absolutely crazy...but it would probably work.

Wreak havoc on groundwater however; wouldn't suggest doing it on sulfide ores.

Dear Geof and Ian,

This idea of sub-aqueous mining of flooded pits is pretty impressive. It took me a while to understand why fast pumping out would be a bad idea, but I get it now.

Another reason for keeping the shafts and levels flooded (I guess) is that whatever is being crushed by gravity in a conventional mine is pressing against air, while the flooded version is pressing against water. All those pit-props will have a holiday, (for a while).

Best wishes,

Martin

It may be that the materials used either for shoring or the bolts in the ceiling have been attacked by the water, and all that will need to be both inspected and replaced. Costly! Badly cemented bolts have caused highway deaths when tunnels collapse... and the mine bolts were probably never intended for such duration in service or abuse. The other is that removing the water removes any bouyancy that may have been preventing collapses.

But get a whole bunch of 6 inch high volume pumps... given enough diesel and time, I don't see any pile of water they can't defeat.

Oh well,

This is a bit off-topic, but there is some great stuff about Cornish mines.

Levant was closed a long time ago, but Geevor was still going in the 1960s. The problem was that the levels of Levant (disused) were leaking into the adjacent mine, Geevor.

http://www.tinmining.co.uk/breach.htm

Best wishes,


Martin

I'm wrong... have to plug the ocean before pumping :)

Dear Mike Horne,

It was a neat trick with the dye though, was it not?

The main shaft is about 1800 feet (approx) vertically, and the mine head is on a cliff. I went there a couple of years ago, and I would guess that it is 150 feet above sea level maximum. Could be wrong.

What is really incredible is the depths to which those miners went below, and out into the Atlantic. The level that leaked was just grazing the sea bed: there were many more hundreds of feet deeper.

Brave men.

Best wishes,

Martin

Best

It just goes to show what lengths some will go to get the resources for pure profit not survival.

I never heard of a rich coal or tin miner, or any other miner, unless it was someone who was called a "miner" because he/she owned a mine, (more likely).

If you want to see the lengths people will go to get a living in the mining sense just watch the series directed by Godfrey reggio called Koyannisqatsi, Powaqatsi and Naqoyqatsi, pretty thought provoking.
Uno Hoo.

....and speaking of pure profit.....your good buddy AlGore makes the news again....

Energy Guzzled by Al Gore’s Home in Past Year Could Power 232 U.S. Homes for a Month
Gore’s personal electricity consumption up 10%, despite “energy-efficient” home renovations

"...In February 2007, An Inconvenient Truth, a film based on a climate change speech developed by Gore, won an Academy Award for best documentary feature. The next day, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research uncovered that Gore’s Nashville home guzzled 20 times more electricity than the average American household.

After the Tennessee Center for Policy Research exposed Gore’s massive home energy use, the former Vice President scurried to make his home more energy-efficient. Despite adding solar panels, installing a geothermal system, replacing existing light bulbs with more efficient models, and overhauling the home’s windows and ductwork, Gore now consumes more electricity than before the “green” overhaul.

Since taking steps to make his home more environmentally-friendly last June, Gore devours an average of 17,768 kWh per month –1,638 kWh more energy per month than before the renovations – at a cost of $16,533. By comparison, the average American household consumes 11,040 kWh in an entire year, according to the Energy Information Administration.

In the wake of becoming the most well-known global warming alarmist, Gore won an Oscar, a Grammy and the Nobel Peace Prize. In addition, Gore saw his personal wealth increase by an estimated $100 million thanks largely to speaking fees and investments related to global warming hysteria. ...."

http://tennesseepolicy.org/main/article.php?article_id=764

Doesn't Gore have interest in an old mine too? Oh yeah...the zinc mine...

"Then there is the Gore zinc mine. Mr. Gore has personally earned $570,000 in zinc royalties from a mine his father bought in 1973 from Armand Hammer, the business executive famous for his close friendship with the Soviet Union and for pleading guilty to making illegal campaign contributions during Watergate. On the same day Al Gore Sr. bought the 88-acre parcel from Hammer for $160,000, he sold the land and subsurface mining rights to his then 25-year-old son for $140,000. The mineral rights were then leased back to Hammer's Occidental Petroleum and the royalty payments put in the names of Al Gore Jr. and his wife, Tipper."

Yeah Fizzwizz, you gotta be in it to win it.
I wouldn't deny Al Gore his right to "maka da money", or his right to buy all the energy he requires, when it's rationed that's a different matter.
Uno Hoo.

Here you are, a bunch more reading out of Jolly Old Blighty.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/20/mackay_on_carbon_free_uk/

Nice to know that for the past two years or so I have been on the same wavelength as a Cambridge physics prof; he just has more free time than me to dig up numbers.

Here you are, a bunch more reading out of Jolly Old Blighty.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/20/mackay_on_carbon_free_uk/

.

Excellent material. It is so refreshing to see somebody else that really does the numbers. In the whole sequence I can only comment on one point and that is not to disagree but to extend. At one point while introducing the idea of nuclear he makes the point that nuclear is not infinitely dangerous and then he compares it to mining danger.

I think that nuclear reactors were at one time much more dangerous than mining, i.e. they put whole communities at risk and not just the underground miners. However, next generation reactors, so called Generation IV reactors are no more like the early ones than a modern car is like a Model T. Both boiling water reactors and pressurized water reactors use Graphite moderators and will fail catastrophically if the core is not submerged. A high temperature gas cooled reactor like the S. African Pebble Bed Reactor will simply stop if it gets to hot. The kinds of accidents we all watched at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were failures of water cooling and were actually or potentially more serious that most coal mining accidents. (I know no radiation escaped Three Mile Island so the safety design worked but it could have been very bad with one or two more failures. Also I don’t want to offend any one from any place that has lost a miner. At a personal level it hurts but I can remember only one coal mining accident that wiped out a community, the recent mine flooding in China.) If future reactor builds use the Generation IV cores (and there are several designs) then the major risk for nuclear reactors will be eliminated. Then I think their risk will be below that of other industrial processes in modern western countries.

What I worry about is that our fear of nuclear will cause industry and regulators to do another generation of the same-old, same-old while saying the new digital control room fixes the risk. Both parties are very likely to argue that public fear dictates we need to do what we have the most experience with and that inertia will force use to stay with the inherently more dangerous water cooling designs.

Tom B

The only thing that will stop Global Warming is to get rid of all Modern Day Machines and go back to Horses, Buggies, and Sail Boats. Anyone remember the 1700 and 1800's ???????

Even then the population of the World would have to be reduced by at least 1/3 or more.

IMPO:)

Carefull Toby, they'll accuse you of being a realist.

I think we have to forget that we have the present use of free fossil fuel from the Cornucopia, and in reality recost the whole infrastructure of human endeavour on the basis of "work for the energy dollar" using a low yield energy source that will be rationed.

Probably that will clean up the atmosphere and then if the volcanoes and forest fires stop happening everything in the garden will be rosy, horses can eat hay harvested from fields plowed by horses and we'll soon be back to the stone age living in simple stone huts using simple wooden tools and eating out of simple wooden bowls, so environmentally friendly.

But only if we can stop the global warming scenario which some say is overdue, and with it the coming ice age again.

One goes with the other, if the conveyor belt is interupted in any way we can look forward to many white Christmasses to come. Ho Ho Ho.
Ian.

.....Even then the population of the World would have to be reduced by at least 1/3 or more.

IMPO:)

That is the scary part.

Did you read the full test of the article in 'theregister'?

I was thinking about it over the weekend: He does explain some technically feasible ways of providing enough energy without using fossil fuels, but when you consider the scale of infrastructure involved, everyone would be fully occupied building and maintaining the 'renewable energy' machines, nobody would be able to use all this abundant energy making the type of consumer goods and preparing the wide range of foods we take for granted.

It is a bit "Alice In The Looking Glass" where the Red Queen says; " No dear you have to run this fast just to stand still; if you want to get anywhere you must run twice as fast."

Subsistence technology!

Having read the account from The Register, it would seem that the figures account for the energy needs from ten or twenty years back, whereas the energy needs for ten or twenty years hence will pale into insignificence when it's the food supply that will knock down most grandiose plans.

The population growth, and anyone who thinks that population is "just moving around" and not increasing is blind, will soak up any meagre energy production figures dreamed up at this moment in time.

One thing puzzles me, importing energy from desert regions where sunlight prolificates and transporting it by HVDC to UK and elsewhere, how are you going to pay for it, seeing as your present manufacturing cost stucture is based upon energy derived from free in the ground oil pools.

As soon as the oil is gone so do all the figures, and trying to base your economy on sustainable energy is like trying to get bread crumbs out of a bag to feed the hungry.

I don't suppose for one moment that energy rationing will be in the pipeline, that is the needs of the many will be relegated to the back burner by the needs of the few.

It would be interesting to know actually how many megawatts of electricity are used on a day to day basis on average, using present manufacturing methods and public domestic demands, such as just getting up and boiling the millions of kettles when Coronation Street makes a break. Does this take into account the millions of kettles heated on gas stoves too? Would banning Coronation Street solve the energy crisis?

At the end of the day it will be the Governments responsibility to ensure the lights stay on and the gas and water flows.

All the population are interested in is if the TV lights up or the toilet flushes and is the pub going to be open later, all else is the governments responsibility, and if they want to stay in power that is how it will be.

Who cares if the nukes prolificate, that is something you will be born with and get used to, like in the old days having a large gasometer down the road that stores coalgas for the cooking stoves and gas heaters, just part of the environment.

The equation is balanced on a knife edge, with the figures generated, when all it takes is a few degrees colder and longer during winter to make the energy demands skyrocket.

It will take a thousand years to stop global warming, and that will lead to consequences that at best are hypothesis and guesswork, why a thousand years? Because you aren't going to live for a thousand years and so the results of preventing global warming are pure guesswork and at best ineffectual. Vested interests will determine which methods produce the best returns.

In the meantime lip service will be paid to all measures bordering on the lessening of the comfort zone, and the most effective method will be a tightening of the belt as the services become more expensive to produce.
Uno Hoo.

Here is the way to solve the energy crises. Algae ponds. From
what i have found from multiple sources on the net algae can
produce 10000 gallons of biodiesel per acre per year, under the
right conditions. It is clamed that an area the size of Maryland would be enough to supply the US need for sometime.

One of the right conditions is an increase in
the CO2 in the growth media. It turns out that one of the nicest sources of CO2 is a brewery. So you put breweries next to the algae ponds and there you go.

Can one of you that are handy with numbers calculate how much ale and lager we will each have to consume to keep the breweries open? ( all in the name of supporting energy production, a heroic sacrifice but we can do it)

cheers, and pass the pretzels

I'm working on a secret project breeding "electric" eals.
When I get them big enough I'm gonna harness them to my power supply and then get them to charge all my batteries up, only takes a bit of feeding on cheap grub to keep them happy.
Uno Hoo.