i knew this was going to crop up here..how could it not

I have been following the media debate and the level of 'energy illiteracy' by commentators from all sides including the gov is staggering.

the realization that time is up and nukes can not be built in time leads them back to source from the reason why they need more nukes to start with!

ng security is an issue therefore build nukes but NG supply declines means nukes can not be built therefore build more gas power stations is just surreal in its inability to cope with reality

the 'coverup' has no function but short term political gain

I am concerned somewhat by this turn of events.

they better start educating the public pretty soon.... my concern is they do not really understand the problem

rationing..   its worked before

Boris
london

The EAC's degree of incoherence in calling for more NG power despite the global prognosis for gas supply is pretty wild, but it's matched by several other anomallies.

- There appears to be no serious consideration given to energy conservation;

nor to which energies warrant the term sustainable (as opposed to renewable);

nor to which energies offer massive potential UK supply without intruding on communities to the extent of arousing organized resistance;

nor to which energies offer local legitimacy in terms of security of supply, substantial net employment, valuable bi-product resources & services, etc;

nor to which energies offer global relevance in terms of their applicability and desireability worldwide.

Given that the UK has residual potential to produce and export energy technologies to meet IIIW demand, and that we face both global climate destabilization and the peaks of oil & gas supply,
the application of criteria of Sustainability, Local Legitimacy & Global Relevance appear prerequisite to any serious enquiry into the UK's present options.

The still more fundamental issue that the EAC has blithely ignored is that of global demand management -
while there seems no present leverage for reforming the fossil fuel trade to a system of international rationing to maintain nations' coherence under PO/PG,
the intensifying impacts of GW on wealthy nations, and the extrapolation of those impacts forward,
does provide very serious leverage by which wealthy nations will be brought to negotiate global demand management - albeit at some point in the future.

The framework of that negotiation is known as "Contraction & Convergence", as was described on one huge banner at last year's G8 :

      "CONTRACTION
[of global emissions to respect the Earth's capacity]

      & CONVERGENCE"
[of all nations' emission-rights to per-capita parity]

~ "is the logical conclusion of an equitable approach to resolving Climate Change."

Ambassador Estrada:  Chair, Kyoto Conference.

~ GLOBAL COMMONS INSTITUTE ~   www.gci.org.uk

The floundering non-response of the EAC, like the lame-duck Blair govt's mendacious hype for nuclear,
not only demonstrates their gross illiteracy in terms of energy & ecology,
it also demonstrates that the nexus of cultural change is approaching -
the status quo dinosaur has been shot in the hind brain, and is just starting to realize that it's done for.

regards,

Backstop

"It seems to me that Malcolm Wicks didn't like what the BBC had published and has managed to have the story rewritten with a completely difference emphasis. This level of government influence at the BBC is very worrying - it seems that government is actively covering up reporting of future energy problems. This does not bode well for the future."

how is this influence asserted?

by d notice?

Boris
London

Those of us who have been studying PO for some time have been wondering the question , 'what will actually happen when it becomes Apparent that PO is upon us? What will the government do? What will the oil companies do? What will public response be? Will it all pan out one way or another? Will most people `get it' and then real change, real uptake of sustainable energy supplies start to kick in? Are we looking at doomsday, or a brief recession, or something much much worse?  
This present scenario does not sit comfortably. To be backing off the debate just when it could accomplish something is a very bad thing. As I am sure most know this is the time when important decisions NEED to be taken. Denial or pretending all is ok is bad news indeed. I go around the country talking about PO, and what small contribution I make gets completely negated by this tripe. Sad. The longer we leave it the more likely the doom and dieoff end of the spectrum become the most likely outcome.
Naresh
Livingonthecusp.org

I couldn't resist: UK protectionism threatens European gas supplies

(and see my recent stories on the same topic:
A European government caught being protectionist
European energy liberalisation forbids gas deliveries to the UK!)

This is probably the wrong place to post this kind of information, but I thought it was of interest and illustrative.

I noticed a few days ago an article on the BBC's website about George Bush. The article was about Iran and their atomic power programme. A journalist asked Bush directly if the United States had plans for a nuclear strike on Iran. How did Bush respond to this golden opportunity to once and for all deny that any such 'crazed' plans existed?
He replied by repeating that all options were still on the table, but the United States was still looking for a diplomatic solution.

I thought this was a very interesting answer to a very simple and direct question about the possibility of using nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state, and to find it on the BBC which usually prefers to 'smooth over' such stories!

More bad news (from the Press and Journal 20/4/06):

FUEL PRICES RISE 'WILL BRING NEW CLEARANCES'

IAIN RAMAGE AND EILIDH DAVIES

09:00 - 20 April 2006

Higher fuel prices in the north will decimate business and force many people to uproot, it was claimed yesterday.

The bleak warning came as fears emerged this week that unleaded petrol at £1 a litre is likely to arrive this summer.

And they increased yesterday as oil prices in the UK hit a new high of more than 73 (nearly £41) a barrel due to fears that Iran's dispute with the west may hit oil supplies.

One leading member of the north business community warned tourism could suffer as a result of the high fuel prices, and local residents may even be forced to leave the region.

Frank Buckley, who lets holiday cottages at Melvaig, near Gairloch, Wester Ross, said: "It's expensive to live in the Highlands as it is. There's a widespread belief in Inverness and around the areas where I travel that fuel prices are going to cause the next Highland Clearances because people are on low incomes.

I thought I ought to point out 2 stories in the quagmire
of 'green' issues:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/4927744.stm

title: Backing for Severn barrage power

Just another proposal for a Severn tidal power system.

To put this in context, people have been proposing good schemesfor over a hundred years with regular re-invention.

Since this scheme has no energy storing pool unlike earlier
designs [C.A. Martin ~1930s], the present one appears to be a much poorer design.
As with all previous renewable schemes [Salter duck etc], the 'status quo'lobby who all claim to be environmentalists - ie Nuclear energy, wetlands/bird groups, richpig landowners etc will scupper the plans. The same as the next proposal.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/4927550.stm

title: National park decision on pylons

I was disgusted when I heard the biologist Dr David Bellamy [a very influential UK TV figure decades ago] had been reported as campaining against wind turbines on the SE coast last year. Then we had a large turbine cluster in NW England rejected as well. Looks like we are all going to be dragged into 'the dark ages' by these narrow interests.

Personally, I think we need to start by explaining to these spudheads what 'the environment' actually means [ie not the view from your window..]

Pondlife -

I share your disgust with what passes for "Environmentalism" to the point that, back in the '80s,
I realized that I'm not an Environmentalist.

As an ecologist, I observe an ecosphere of which humanity is a rather minor but hugely damaging part
due to its traditional anthropocentic delusions and its present dominant ideology of the centralization of wealth via resource consumption and usury.

This puts me at loggerheads with the Enviro-NGOs, whose strategies of the "isolation" of token parcels of nature actively obstruct the requisite "integration" of society with nature. Such is their hubris that celebrations were recently held for getting about 12% of the planet's land area under some form of official "protection" !

For example, slinging a fence around formerly productive forestry and calling it "saved" may be great for an NGO's PR and subscriber income, but it not only fails, totally, to defend the forest from climate destabilization, acid rain, exotic pests and diseases, etc, it also destroys local forestry jobs and produce while raising timber imports from the tropics.

Thus while most NGO's (and practically all businesses) view Nature as society's environment
[a hierachical relationship of user and used]
an ecologist sees Nature as the dynamic organic system within which society can, potentially, thrive -
[an interdependent relationship of diverse players].

To the extent that new energy systems such as a new nuclear fleet, a severn barrage and batteries of mega-scale wind turbines intrude damagingly upon nature and its human communities,
I would class them as grossly counter-productive examples of the failed delusions of environmentalism.

Their opportunity costs, being the tens of billions of budget that should be spent on sustainable energies and on massive energy conservation, is perhaps the most telling case against them in that the sustainable options are denied that development funding and the prospect of global deployment to meet burgeoning IIIW demand.

From your post I'm not clear where you stand on these matters, so perhaps you could clarify whether you seek to reduce our unsustainable energy dependence faster than the supply of fossil oil & gas decline,
or whether you wish to maintain a global growth of energy consumption but via non-fossil resources ?

Regards,

Backstop

Anyone following this thread should read it in conjunction with the thread on the main site:-
European gas supplies and a more than gentle cough from Russia
Nothing to worry about, the market will provide :-(