Climate, the science, politics, economics and anything else


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  • #78296 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    ET, it also turns out that the UK already has a huge stock of highly enriched uranium – ie. U-235 of 90% purity or higher. It’s enough to run the UK submarine fleet for over a century; heaven only knows why they ever made so much of it. It possibly makes sense to use this for civilian power generation. It’s considered “weapons grade” uranium, so what else could be done with it? Re-mix it with U-238 and bury it again? Guard it for a further century while the submarines use it up achieving, at best, nothing at all?

    Its existence possibly helps explain the AUKUS Australian nuclear submarine deal.

    High enrichment permits a much smaller reactor core and produces a fraction of the “spent fuel”. Compared with typical enrichment to 5%, this should produce around 1/20th of the waste for the same amount of energy. Reprocessing and reuse of the unfissioned uranium could reduce that still further.

    #78316 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    Scotland
    BBC News – Police diver patrols on River Clyde for COP26 conference (27 Sep 2021)

    Police divers are searching the River Clyde as part of security operations in the run up to the COP26 conference.
    Specialist officers will monitor a four mile stretch of waterway during the climate summit in Glasgow next month.
    Ministry of Defence police will provide a “24/7 armed policing presence” on the river alongside Police Scotland’s dive and marine unit.
    The River Clyde will also be subject to movement and mooring restrictions for about three weeks.

    I am amazed they did not cancel it, what with the covid pandemic in full monty mode in the U.K.

    #78330 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    Australia – not too sure COP26 is good idea

    Australia’s prime minister has signalled he may not attend the UN’s landmark climate conference in November as his government faces continued criticism of its poor climate record.

    In an interview, Scott Morrison said he had “not made any final decisions” on attending, suggesting it was a burden.

    “It’s another trip overseas… and I’ve spent a lot of time in quarantine,” he told the West Australian newspaper.

    The COP26 summit will be the biggest global climate crisis talks in years.

    BBC News – COP26: Australia PM undecided on attending crucial climate summit (27 Sep 2021)
    I can see his point, more quarantine. Also someone might point out they mine an awful lot of coal in Australia, to sell to Asia.

    #78329 Reply
    ET
    Guest

    Such is the world we live in, it would be a target opportunity for terrorists so it isn’t surprising and is somewhat reassuring that there is a lot of security. It will hopefully be an important event with a lot of limelight for UK and Boris on the world stage so I doubt it will be cancelled. Let’s hope Boris can surprise us all by making the event effective.

    #78331 Reply
    ET
    Guest

    Thanks for the article on the previous page Clark. It’s hardly surprising that those who profit from the fossil fuel industry are lobbying for its continuation. Government warnings should be attatched to publications from such self interested sources. It surprises me how little is done to combat such self interested interference in the governance of a country. Surely it’s a national secirity issue. 😀

    We have a very long way to go to meet this energy/climate crisis and I do think it is both and energy and a climate crisis.

    #78340 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    ET, I don’t know whether this is one of the two links in the article I linked in my earlier post and I don’t have time to check right now, but it looks useful and informative:

    In Support of a Physics-Based Energy Transition Planning: Sowing Our Future Energy Needs

    Ugo Bardi1 & Sgouris Sgouridis, BioPhysical Economics and Resource Quality volume 2,
    Article number: 14, 07 November 2017

    – (From the abstract) “… A recent controversy on the viability of 100% renewable energy systems (Jacobson et al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci 112:15060–15065; Clack et al. in PNAS 114:6722–6727) brought forward the question of whether we can actually rely on renewable energy to replace conventional fossil resources. Focusing on the physical factors involved may offer us a currently underutilized method to reduce controversy showing that, in practical terms, the two parties are closer than immediately apparent. A physical perspective suggests that accelerated deployment of renewable energy sources makes attaining the Paris objectives feasible, although not without a major effort. A policy directed to increase capital investments in an early and fast expansion of the renewable energy and storage infrastructure is a crucial requirement for this purpose.”

    #78368 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    It would seem China is having electrical Black Outs, especially in the North East.
    China is using a lot of coal, some suggest that perhaps almost half of all coal used in the World, is used in China.
    They are re-opening coal fired power stations and still opening even more coal fired power stations in China. Although their growth has slowed, a little, perhaps caused by the pandemic and the rest of the World expecting to buy less stuff made in China, they are still “growing”. If they are still growing they will be needing ever more power.

    Perhaps it is time for China to level off?

    #78381 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    It is well passed time that the entire world economy not just levelled off, but actively cut back. Humanity has an acute shortage of fuel, and an acute excess of pollution.

    I can see no valid moral argument that average wealth in Europe and the USA should be any greater than in China. Any excuse boils down to racism and “I matter more than you” or “we matter more than them”. All humanity are stuck in this predicament together. Either we share, or we’ll fight over our inequalities, making everything worse for everyone.

    We are at a fork in the road; indeed, we have passed it. There seems a good chance that a far better world lies ahead, but the fork our leaders took around the turn of the millennium (9/11 in particular) leads over the edge of a cliff. The further we continue down this road the closer to disaster we get and the further we’ll have to retrace our steps, and our fuel supply is limited.

    #78384 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    If only the Americans would leave the Middle East and Iran alone, |¦| there would be enough Natural Gas for all of us.

    #78386 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    Energy Triangle
    The Energy Triangle is a natural gas extraction plan between the three allied countries of Cyprus, Israel and Greece.
    Cyprus is to be the input-hub. Crete is to be the output-hub.
    Natural Gas will be cleaned in Cyprus. Then flow from Cyprus to Crete. Then flow from Crete to Greece and to Italy.
    Possibly in time Egypt, Libya, Syria and Lebanon could also be linked in.

    #78398 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    “If only the Americans would leave the Middle East and Iran alone, there would be enough Natural Gas for all of us.”

    There seems to be insufficient natural gas everywhere. Even now, right after summer, Russia is having extraction problems and can’t refill its own storage.

    “Perhaps it is time for China to level off?”

    Large parts of China are having rolling electricity power cuts:

    – China’s power supply tightens as winter dawns
    – Factories facing electricity crunch; situation set to worsen – Global Times

    Oil, gas, coal – all are in short supply:

    @JavierBlas 12h:

    “I have never seen a large economy like Europe (UK+EU) sleep walking into an energy crunch (maybe let’s call it a crisis since major industrial companies are having to shut down) and no a single politician appears to give a damn about it. Incredible.”

    Ammonia, fertiliser production being shut down. All sorts of manufacturing being shut down.

    #78413 Reply
    ET
    Guest

    Here is an ambitious solar project MN.

    “A colossal US$22 billion infrastructure project will send Australian sunshine more than 3,100 miles (5,000 km) to Singapore, via high-voltage undersea cables. Opening in 2027, it’ll be the largest solar farm and battery storage facility in history.”

    I wonder if it will remain on time and on budget but if it’s successful it could pave the way for more of the same.

    #78424 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    “I wonder if it will remain on time and on budget” [?]

    “Ammonia, fertiliser production being shut down. All sorts of manufacturing being shut down.”

    #78428 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    China is the biggest user of coal. China is the biggest importer of coal. China has been splashing a lot of money about, so their GDP constantly increases. They have to keep increasing their economy to keep full employment.
    They have to keep full employment to stop people thinking. If people started thinking, they might realise they are just a cog in the regime, they might want to express their individuality.

    “Much of this money is linked to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambitious Belt and Road strategy. Starting in 2013, it leverages China’s expertise in infrastructure projects, and ample foreign currency, to build new global trading routes.”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-58679039

    The Chinese Communist party does not want to slow down or more likely can not slow down. They are driving the World over a cliff.

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    #78429 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    The U.K. Government want Natural Gas to be used as a feed stock to produce Hydrogen for U.K. to install next generation of house heating.

    29/05/2020 Natural Gas Futures = 9.63 pence/therm

    29/09/2021 Natural Gas Futures = 215.3 pence/therm

    It is not deliverable.

    #78440 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    “They are driving the World over a cliff.”

    But as you said yourself, they “more likely can not slow down”. They are, like every other country and company, locked into the profit-making system, to earn the money with which to buy raw materials. Under that system no one can slow down without going bankrupt and thereby freezing or starving.

    Capitalism depends upon continual growth. On a finite planet. It has reached its limit, at least in its current form.

    #78441 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    “It is not deliverable.”

    Not only is it not deliverable, not only does it not help, not only is it pointless, it would actively make matters far worse:

    Blue Hydrogen. The greatest fossil fuel scam in history?
    – “Just Have A Think” on YouTube, ~16 minutes.

    #78446 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    More energy firms in the U.K. have gone bust today.
    We seem to be heading in to the eye of a storm.
    More expensive energy, more people catching covid.
    More expensive and delayed shipping.
    One hundred thousand HGV drivers short in the U.K. but a lot of the World has a shortage of drivers/sailors/farmers/plumbers
    The NHS is virtually collapsed in England.
    What is going on?

    #78450 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    I’ve got a question. How long do you think we humans have?

    “How long does the human race have?”
    “Ooh.”
    “Umm,”
    “ah wow..”
    “I don’t exactly know, but maybe two…”
    “I have no clue; I hope I give me at least fifty more years!”
    “I think, there’s an infinite amount of time.”
    “Infinite. It’s infinity, yeah.”
    “I give us a million, a million years.”
    “Being kind, I’d say about probably ten years.”
    “Ten, twelve years.”
    “Thousands of years.”
    “Forty seven years three months five days, it’s approximate.”
    “We’re kinda like cockroaches on the planet; no matter how much damage we’ll do enough of us will survive to procreate and keep it going.”
    “Unless we can get to another planet but then we’re just gonna Fuck it up like we did Earth.”
    “Well I think we’ll be here for a long time but we will change. We’re gong to turn back into apes!”

    Have you ever wondered what would happen if a single species took over an entire planet? Maybe they’re cute, maybe they’re clever, but lack a certain, shall we say, self restraint? What if they go too far? What if they go way, way, way, way, way, too far?

    How would they know
    when it’s their time
    to go?

    Planet of the Humans by Jeff Gibbs,
    YouTube, 1 hour 40 minutes.

    I should point out that various claims in this film are out of date and some are just plain wrong. However, many others are correct, especially the ubiquity of greenwash and the corporate promotion of utterly impractical technical miracles.

    This film poses vitally important questions that need to be faced.

    #78458 Reply
    Pigeon English
    Guest

    Michael @ 15,51

    Natural gas comes 2 or 3 ways to UK.
    Having so many companies “providing” gas is scam. They are just speculators or market players if you like. It is the same gas, being resold at different price pretending competition.
    And: spot, futures and all other terms are just Speculation !After kolaps you will get the same gas charged by different company ?.

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    #78471 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    “Having so many companies “providing” gas is scam. They are just speculators”

    I know they don’t supply gas, but is speculation all they do?

    They have loads of customers, and they like to charge by direct debit. Often their bills are based upon “estimates” (as they like to call them) of usage. So, at any time, if they increased their estimates by say 3%, they’d take 3% more by direct debit from tens of thousands of customers. They’d have that “real” money, moved from a multitude of customers accounts and accumulated in their own. It wouldn’t be debt or invented money; it’d be money their customers had worked to earn. It would be their cut of their customers’ time and effort.

    Now I know nothing about finance so I may be guessing the wrong term here, but might they be selling “liquidity” or something?

    #78473 Reply
    ET
    Guest

    Indeed Clark. I have never accepted payment by direct debit for any utility that I can get away with doing so. Send me the bill by email (not paper) and I will pay it. If the bill is an estimate I go and read the meter and adjust the bill via whatever online adjustment mechanism there is. It can still be done. I’ll pay my bill in my own time thanks.

    Pidgeon, you have made a very good point. Perhaps they deserve to go bust.

    #78476 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    I remember, as a very small child, being pushed chaired up to the center of our village by my mother.
    She would go in the electricity board and pay their bill.
    Then in the water board and pay their bill. Then the same for gas, then coal.
    All separate but mostly controlled by our government. You could also go in the dairy. Then in the wet fish shop. Then in the bakery. Then in the Post Office.
    None of these places now exist, yet that village is now a large town, all gone, as not “efficient”.
    I have worked, years ago in local factories, making machines, not one factory is left?
    I suppose it must be because of “globalisation or commodification”.
    But whatever, it is a downgrading of community, a downgrading of local resilience.

    #78484 Reply
    DunGroanin
    Guest

    Ah this is where the action is?

    Look we were choking on horse shit and piss in the streets and cloppity clop noise pollution in our towns &cities until the trams and oil-based engines came along.

    We are choking on oil based fumes and noise pollution of vehicles in our towns & cities with more vehicles than road spaces for them and whole noxious industries that are as acrid as knackers yards and don’t have as many trams but do have plenty of electric trains over and under ground.

    Just like having to get rid of the equine infrastructure, we are in the process of transition and the last drop of profits are being drawn from the oil-based factories, pipelines, storage and usage ‘investments’ – should have happened decades ago but the monopolists have pushed it and allowed the mass increase in CO2 in the atmosphere and more seriously in hydrocarbon pollution of our food and water – because they are psychopaths and morons and some even believe they are gods or in the Rapture- such is the Implacable self-delusion of these who long ago captured finance as a magic potion no one else should be allowed to understand.

    NextGen is where China is leading and will take the poorest who have, like them, no previous attachment to infrastructures to protect. Their bullet and maglev trains will sort out the neglected peoples and lands and allow a much higher quality of life for the majority of the 12 billions that we will be by the end of the century. The amount of resources per capita consumed and pollution produced will inevitably change. Yankees and us Europeans are going to have to get used to not being exploitative and exploited by our Bankers, Industrialist and Monopolies of Media and fake Religion.

    Hence not just solar and electric but fuel cells and AI and yes comma protocols such as 5G plus means that the ‘Western’ Financial Owners are in mass panic. They can’t control innovation through IP capture as they have done for centuries now. They’re ****** and they know they are.

    COPS is bs and a platform to set up and protect their hundreds of trillions income stream for the next century – it is doomed. Even their little elfin princesses and her army of child rebels won’t be able to do that. It’s a clear choice now Fight or Surrender.

    Fight was easy when we had superior fire power and GunBoat coercion and mass slaughter and terror was defendable against – well mr Matthy mr HSBC Mr Mellon and all you Masters of the Universe – your easy money and impunity is OVER. As their Little Prince and Bank of France are set lose today to defend their Magic Money secret world by attacking a strawman MMT they have constructed.

    I love the smell of desperation rising from the pants of so many inbred ‘Aristo’ arseholes.

    The Unipolar Implacable Empire is Dead.

    Long live the first multipolar All Human Empire.

    #78486 Reply
    ET
    Guest

    The convenience of paying bills online etc is in my view great though I accept maybe there is a social aspect missing. The other thing I don’t miss are travel agents. One has to wonder about the privitisation of utilities and whether it was a success.

    Supermarkets (the big 4/5 in UK and others elsewhere) have sucked out all the local businesses and offshored the profits taking money from the local economies. Living in London for 30 years I saw the disappearance of local butchers, bakers and independent off-licenses amongst others. It was a shame. The manufacturing base the UK used to have moved away to places where labour was cheaper. Ireland (Rep) never really had one in the first place though two factories in the town I am from making shoes (Clarks) and Cigarettes are now long gone. There are some new ones, Paypal being one. 😀

    Now we have the problem taxing multinational corporations especially, though not exclusively, big tech with Ireland being a holdout. I don’t think that can last and I’m not proud of Ireland for that.

    I don’t have a problem with online shopping and in terms of climate/energy usage it makes sense having one delivery van drop off 50 people’s shopping than 50 people getting in their vehicles and going to the shop. I see this is where it is going though I again accept there is a missing social aspect to it. That social aspect will have to be replaced with something.

    #78492 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    ET, michael norton,

    I strongly agree with both your points.

    Michael – “She would go in the electricity board and pay their bill.”

    – that’s how I used to do things in the 1980s. I still would if I could, and I still do where I can; the baker’s, and fruit and veg at the town market. I’m trying to keep the old ways alive, with their human connections.

    But the system undercuts the old ways on price, and it alienates everyone from everyone else.

    #78502 Reply
    ET
    Guest

    In my view having to go to the bank or having to go to the electricity shop to pay your bill was a pain in the ass and took valuable time I could have been having a pint or something. Also, in my job you couldn’t really leave the site to go do this kind of stuff in your lunch break (not that we had one which couldn’t be interrupted) so it all had to be done at weekends off.

    I remember the “novelty” of booking flights or the boat home to Ireland on the phone but still having to go to the travel agents and queue for 3-4 hours to get your ticket issued (OMG that was a royal pain) so it didn’t actually save you any time and might as well have just gone to the travel agent in the first place. I certainly don’t miss all that. Now it takes me all of 5 mins to do the same thing and I can do it whilst having a pint. I am happy to be able to do these things online and thus have more of my free time to myself.

    All of this stuff used to also involve social interactions though. My mum used to know fecking everyone and she’d stop and chat to them all which as a 3-4yo kid was also a pain in the ass 😀 It always seemed to happen in the doorways of shops and all I wanted was to get home and play or watch playschool or something. Largely, in my home town in Ireland, independent butchers and other shops do still exist. No one buys their meat in Tesco if they can help it.

    I am someone who likes going to shops but I have found my shopping is much smarter thanks to online research and price comparison. I think we have a problem with offshoring of profit and I think if you trade in the UK (or any other country) you should have to pay taxes on all your trade in the UK, including intellectual property, in the UK. No offshoring. It is time for large windfall taxes everywhere and the meaningful shuttering of offshoring loopholes.

    #78505 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    China Rapping Up Big Coal

    “China’s economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), has outlined a number of measures to resolve the problem of power cuts, with energy supplies in the northeast of the country as its main priority this winter.
    The measures include working closely with generating firms to increase output, ensuring full supplies of coal”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58733193

    “The China Electricity Council, which represents generating firms, has also said that coal-fired power companies were now expanding their procurement channels at any cost, in order to guarantee winter heat and electricity supplies.
    However, finding new sources of coal imports may not be straightforward.”

    This might be problematic as Australia and China are now at each other’s throats.

    #78508 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    Where I live, one of our main, local industries was brick and tile making.
    They are building monstrous new housing estates.
    All our local brick yards shut by the seventies.
    All the bricks come in by diesel lorry from elsewhere, Poland, I think.

    #78510 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    This is not near me but gives you the flavour of industrial and community collapse.

    “Near the little village of Stewartby, Bedfordshire, four chimneys and two kilns stand alone in what used to be a bustling industrial site.
    At its peak in 1936, Marston Vale was home to the world’s biggest kiln and produced 500 million bricks a year. The last working site closed in 2008 as it could not achieve emission standards?”

    https://www.bedfordshirelive.co.uk/news/history/bedfordshire-village-home-largest-brickworks-4949097

    We have to go back to real people doing real jobs, we can’t all just box stuff up at Amazon
    or spend our meaningless lives pushing buttons.
    Imagine how you would feel if you had no culture, no history, no real life existence, everything meaningless.

    #78513 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    “Since 2006, Europe has increasingly viewed the Eastern Mediterranean Natural Gas as a resource with huge potential to provide economic growth, mitigate climate change, and reduce dependence on Russian gas supplies. European companies have been involved in gas exploration, while the European Union has largely supported the idea of a new pipeline that connects Israeli and Egyptian fields with Cyprus and mainland Europe.

    https://ecfr.eu/special/eastern_med/gas_fields

    Now Turkey wants to rival Greece and Cyprus and Israel.

    “The United States Geological Survey estimates that the Levant Basin – the waters of Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, and Palestine – contains 122.4 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable gas. To date, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, and Palestine have discovered gas – which has stimulated cooperation between Egypt, Israel, and Cyprus.”

    This Natural Gas is now rather important, as Natural Gas Futures has multiplied twenty five times in eighteen months

    #78521 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    ATHENS, March 9 2021(Reuters) – Greek-Italian gas joint venture IGI Poseidon said on Tuesday it had signed an agreement with the Israel Natural Gas Lines Company to cooperate on building facilities to connect Israel to a planned gas pipeline in the eastern Mediterranean.

    Greece, Cyprus and Israel last year signed a deal to build the Eastmed gas pipeline, which has been in the planning for several years and seeks to transport gas from offshore Israel and Cyprus to Greece and on to Italy to help Europe diversify its energy resources.

    Looks like it is going ahead.

    #78543 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    DunGroanin, your comment was awaiting moderation when I posted mine at 11:41, and then Wordfence (part of the site’s security) ate my reply to you. Then I had to go shopping.

    “they are psychopaths and morons and some even believe they are gods or in the Rapture.”

    One thing the rich have no monopoly over is delusion; the proliferation of conspiracy theory across the Web is proof enough of that.

    The problem is systemic. I had written a good description of its dynamics, but I am not feeling so articulate now.

    Anyway, good to see you here.

    #78547 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    A tiny village is to become the centre of a ‘revolution’ in the global energy industry and be connected to Morocco – with the world’s longest undersea cable costing £16billion.

    The scheme will see Alverdiscott in Devon – population 286 – at the end of a line attaching it to North Africa.

    The Xlinks Morocco-UK Power Project says it will import enough sun and wind-generated energy to the UK to supply seven million homes by 2030.

    #78556 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Exxon Rejected Net Zero Pitch After Proxy Loss, Citi Banker Says

    Bloomberg

    Exxon Mobil Corp. rejected a pitch from a Citigroup Inc. senior investment banker to commit to a target for net zero emissions even after shareholders staged a revolt over the company’s climate policy. […]

    – “They looked at me and said, ‘That’s great, but we don’t know how we would get there. We can’t commit to that if we don’t have a plan to get there,’” he said Thursday during the webcast of an event hosted by Rice University’s Baker Institute for Energy Studies and law firm Baker Botts LLP. “I assured them most companies today who have committed to net zero don’t have a plan on how to get there, but they’re working to get there.”

    – – – – – – –

    The market can’t do it. Capitalism can’t fix the problem.

    We need to use less energy. We need to economise!

    #78570 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    Alverdiscott in Devon
    How interesting
    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Alverdiscott_National_Grid_Substation_-_geograph.org.uk_-_89419.jpg
    Presumably, this is where the Interconnector will land.
    Wibbery is an historic manor in the parish of Alverdiscott. Nicholas the Bowman, was a servant of King William the Conqueror. Nicholas was the king’s artilleryman, whose role was “the captain or officer in charge of the stone and missile discharging engines used in sieges” These devices were known in Latin as ballista, weapons for throwing “balls”, bolts or other projectiles, ranging in size from a cross bow to a large artillery piece. His name was traditionally translated as “the Gunner”, as the word gun was in use in the English language for such purely mechanical devices before the introduction of gunpowder.
    [ Mod: text reproduced from Wikipedia – “Nicholas the Bowman” ]

    That is at least as interesting as the fact that the cable from North Africa, will take land here to give us renewable electricity.

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    #78575 Reply
    Pigeon English
    Guest

    Clark

    before I start I would like you to read following article and hopefully spend
    some time having a look around that website:

    line-height: 14pt”>https://positivemoney.org/2021/09/lawmakers-urge-bank-of-england-to-regulate-fossil-finance/

    IMO Money creation is the core problem. Most of the money is created by private banks as debt.
    It is up to them (banks) to lend where they find it profitable and least risky.
    Fundamental problem is that they do not lend other people’s money as we all believe.
    But governments have to borrow with interest.

    There might be some restrictions after 2008 but nothing major.

    I strongly believe that Government should create extra money at least interest free if not debt free.

    If D G joins this discussion, this link is for him. It is a Swedish link but very readable.

    https://www.riksgalden.se/fi/our-operations/central-government-debt/how-does-the-government-borrow/

    I don’t disagree with MMT but I question the assumption of their theory, and as such DG’s comments in the main thread.

    BTW Sir Keir Starmer’s speech for me was cringeworthy. Any comments?

    #78595 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Pigeon English, you don’t need to convince me that money is concocted; it quite clearly has no basis in physical reality, and can be shaped to any ends by whoever controls its creation and distribution – primarily by the issuing of loans, under the control of private companies.

    On the positivemoney.org page you linked, I have trouble with this:

    “all investment in new fossil fuel projects must end this year.”

    This is probably impossible without killing lots of people. Humanity is dependent upon fossil fuel, and it will take time to replace infrastructure. For instance, right now, much fertiliser production has stopped due to the shortage of natural gas.

    Transition to sustainable systems has been left far too late, and consequently we now have a crisis. I don’t know how to minimise the death and suffering that will result; near-term deaths from fuel shortages will need to be traded against deaths over a longer term from damage to climate and biosphere; a morbid calculation fraught with uncertainties.

    What is abundantly clear is that the total, the sum of fuel shortage deaths and planetary damage deaths, would be reduced by conserving energy and reducing emissions, starting immediately and continuing until greenhouse gas concentrations are low enough and new infrastructure can keep them low enough.

    There is massive scope to do this. Swathes of human activity is unnecessary, and swathes more is hugely inefficient. But the pandemic has just demonstrated that governments and people lack the necessary will and coordination. The situation looks extremely bad.

    #78719 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    The murky world of green energy firms

    “Last year Mr Fedotov was revealed to be the owner of Aquind, the company behind a £1.24bn project to build an electricity cable linking the U.K. to France. Aquind is currently seeking U.K. government approval for the project and a decision will be made in weeks.”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-58791274

    I expect what with the head long rush into Green Energy, there will be all sorts of people fiddling like mad.

    #78745 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    At the moment the U.K. seems to be going for a mixture of Natural Gas, New Nuclear and Renewables, with the most effort on New Nuclear and Renewables. Most of Europe is now having a lot of trouble with skyrocketing energy prices, too much demand or not enough energy? This seems a bit like the lack of butchers, lack of lorry drivers, lack of farmers. If Europe had enough a few years ago, how come now we do not? France is shouting that the E.U. make them pay too much for their electricity, yet seventy percent of French electricity is produced by their own Nuclear Power Stations. Maybe the people of Europe expect unlimited electricity and heat? When I was growing up in the fifties, we did not have a television or central heating or a freezer or airconditioning or double glazing or solar panels. Maybe people will have to revert to using less energy, afterall, it is not limitless.

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