And now brace yourself for an ice age

simonoaks

I understand where you are coming from, but as we well know, being AV enthusiasts, technology is always advancing, there are always new things in development, and we can spend half our lives "waiting for the next gen release". Sometimes, you just have to buy what you are happy with, and just enjoy them for many years

Nuclear fusion has been 'just round the corner' for decades, but if they do solve how to contain and manage the reaction/ technology, problem solved!

deckingman

I take your point but I was thinking more about things like wave/tide power, osmosis (where see water meets fresh water), and some of the other stuff that's being looked into.

Still, what will be will be. One things for sure, none of the decision makers is going to take any notice of what gets posted on this forum. The best thing to do is just go with the flow - it's the ony way to stay sane (and control the old blood pressure).

TBH, I'm kind of thinking what is the point of this forum topic? If the science of AGW was settled, then it would fulfil a function. However, it seems that the science is not settled, or at least there are many who have doubts and even downright disbelief. So every thread degenerates into the same fundamental argument about whether the science is settled or not.

Wild Weasel

The government tries to present it as a fait accompli, but it's cleary not settled. These quack 'scientists' wouldn't have to resort to cherry picking data and their circle-jerk 'peer review' process if it were.

GasDad

Though I don't personally think the science is settled - we are in the near long term* going to run out of hydrocarbons. We are also incredibly dependent on Natural Gas - politically stable and safe supplies of that are going to disappear in the medium term (says the chap who had a new gas boiler fitted yesterday )

So to me it certainly makes sense to:

a) Try and insure against AGW being a real problem, by taxing carbon etc
b) Fully develop alternative clean sources of power.

Two sides of the same coin - but I'd love to see alternative energy sources given the kind of R&D budgets that nuclear science has traditionally got.

* Very long term, if we're still here, the terra tonnes of hydrocarbons in the solar system will be freely available.

deckingman

It is interesting that, despite people's views about AGW, I don't think I have ever heard anyone say that we should not be seeking alternatives to using fossil fuels to produce energy.

Also, I think everyone is agreed that energy costs are high and likely to get even higher. Even if we continue to use fossil fuels, they are becoming more difficult, and therefore costly, to find and extract.

This situation is unlikley to change, even if the whole case for AGW collapses.

So, regardless of AGW and politics, we're all going to want to know how we can save a few bob, if not the planet. We'll all also be interested to hear about new technologies for generating, storing, preserving energy.

Now it's not for me to say, but maybe what we just need is a new title for this forum, or another forum called something like "Ways to reduce energy costs" (with the express condition that this is not a forum to discuss Global warming). If we remove the politics from the debate, we might get some really useful and constructive posts going.

What does everone else think?

deckingman

No problem with that in principle. I do have a bit of a problem about taxing carbon though (at least the way it is currently done). The trouble is that everything we eat/drink/use has to be transported. When you tax fuel, it increases transport costs which increases the cost to the end user (of everything). As ever, this hits the poorer harder than the wealthy. I guess if some of the money raised through carbon taxes was used to increase the state pension and help the low paid, then this would redress the balance but it's not happening at the moment.

GasDad

Surely the whole point is to increase the costs - that way the market can respond and come up with solutions that require less carbon.

I also think the government is missing a trick by not making all free insulation and similar schemes available to all without means testing. Just because you can afford to do something, doesn't mean you will.


The only other thing the government could do would be a set of well laid out progressively tighter emissions controls for cars etc.

NikB

The costs are passed on to the end user who often can't afford the increased cost. It will also be seen as an excuse to charge more and be used to increase profits not invest into new technologies.

simonoaks

and their method of means testing is stupid anyway as they tend to base it solely on earnings. I could be earning £100k per year with £50 disposable income whilst someone else could earn £25k per year and have £300 per month.

For me, the main thing about using other energy sources, is that it makes us more self sufficient and not reliant on foreign countries to provide us with essential energy sources.

Either that, or we invade and overthrow the whole Middle East, surely building some nuclear power stations would be easier, and cheaper?

deckingman

What I was trying to say is that 5p on a pint of milk of 10p on a loaf of bread may not be big deal to you and I. We also find a way to pay the gas and electricity by maybe cutting back on something else. However, if you are trying to subsist on a meagre state pension, it's entirely a different matter. We already have the situation where some pensioners have to decide whether to buy a loaf of bread or put the gas fire on for half an hour. They just simply don't have any money to pay carbon taxes (directly or indirectly).

As for tighter emission controls for cars, I take it you mean CO2 emissions (pollutants such as CO, THC and NOx are pretty well zero any way now). The only way to reduce CO2 is to reduce the amount of fuel burnt. The only way to do that is to make cars lighter. That wouldn't be a carbon tax anyway. Nor would it have any effect. If you banned all forms of transport throughout the entrire world and didn't replace them with anything else that used fossil fuel, you'd only reduce mankinds CO2 emissions by 10%. If you only banned cars but kept lorries, trains, ships and planes, it would only save 10% of 10% (1%).

The UK government on it's own can't do anything effectively because if you litteraly switched off the UK (didn't use any fossil fual at all) it would only reduce mankinds CO2 by only 2%. Or, if you like, banning all cars in the UK would save 1% of 2% or 0.02 % of mankinds CO2 emissions.

We seem to have got back to CO2 again. Oh well.........