Vocal Voices

..... or something near the truth?

For the past few decades we have been bombarded with global warming and climate change stories to the point where many people have given up listening. That is not really surprising when the only people capable of doing anything positve, our politicians, only pay lip-service to what they are being advised on. Maybe this different tack will change things: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27435624

The timescale sounds ridiculous, and maybe it is, but it should be the wake-up call we all need. However, I am not convinced of that. When Jim Skea, Research Councils fellow in UK Energy Strategy calls reports of energy supplies running out "irrelevant" I fear the worst.

When gas and oil start to run out, which will happen this century, those who have reserves will want to keep them. There will be no point in selling them as there will be nothing to buy. Those who do not have reserves will do anything and everything they can to get hold of them - anything and everything.

Climate change will be bad, but the realisation of oil and gas running out will be Hell on Earth.

When those in control start saying things are "irrelevant" it's time to start worrying. Because "irrelevant" is a word used (especially by politicians) when they don't have an answer to a problem and don't want to talk about it.

Nuclear power - why oh why did our politicians not bite the bullet 20 years ago and build more stations!! Political expediency of course

It will be hell on earth when the oil runs out, that's for sure

When demand overtakes supply and there are no more worthwhile reserves to come online, which will happen, those who have the oil will realise that a barrel of it is worth more than all the gold ever dug up or a an Everest sized mountain of dollar bills. They will want to hang on to it for as long a possible and at any cost.

Oil does not only power our cars and keep some lights on, it is integral to every facet of our lives, from A - Z. Without oil we lose most of our clothes, furnishings, fertilizers for food, gadgets and gizmos; and even if we keep the means of production we will have lost the raw materials. Unless we make changes we will become the scavengers of the earth.

I know

Kaz wrote:Nuclear power - why oh why did our politicians not bite the bullet 20 years ago and build more stations!! Political expediency of course

It will be hell on earth when the oil runs out, that's for sure

France did that. They have 75% or so Nuclear power.

Now they face the cost of replacing all of those reactors or "reclassifying" them as safe. They burn too much fuel. Class III reactors are still not online and fast breeder reactors are, relatively, unsafe compared to high burn reactors.

Also we have to consider resources. They talk about the 5 million tonnes of retrievable ore, but they don't talk about how difficult it is to mine, refine and ship. After all, you can't just import 5 million eastern European workers to mine your uranium. You need background checks, security and you need to ensure health and safety.

Also the reserves of Uranium don't come from Britain. We are talking Australia, Canada Russia and Kazakhstan as the prime sources of readily available Uranium.

Then, also, if the western world were to increase their usage of Uranium by 1,000%, the cost of Uranium would go through the roof. It is currently the most expensive fuel for generating electricity. Never mind the hundreds of billions of £ it would cost to transition the UK to a nuclear power structure. Then we'd have no energy security so long as our nearest producer of Uranium was Russia.....

it's very easy to say that we have a simple solution in Uranium. We don't. You could get all you need, forever, by distilling it from seawater. However for every KWH of energy you gained from the Uranium you retrieved from seawater, you'd spend about 1,000 KWH distilling it.

There is no free lunch. Our best energy bet is HDR geothermal and nobody is looking at that. Quite literally, our surface world floats on a sea of Lava. Hot enough to power all our energy needs for a million years. Free for the taking once we've done the research....

Electricity production is only one small part of the problem. There will always be some ways of producing electricity and some of them can be brought on line quite quickly. Even the Uranium issue will only be a sideline when Thorium reactors are perfected. That said, a future of limitless electricity, where everything runs for pennies and forever, is a cruel fantasy. We are not going to be driving around in electric cars or flying to our holidays in electric planes while electric container ships sail the seven seas brining in our every need from far away. It is not going to happen, Times will, if anything, get harder.

The real hard times begin when we run out of hydrocarbons. We need them as much as we need air and water. We might be able to make small amounts of them artificially in some "Mad Max" production facility, if we can get over the problem of putting more energy in than we get out, but the total will be nowhere near enough.

We are doing nothing, not a thing, to address the empty larder problem. We are actually doing the opposite by consuming more and more at an ever increasing rate. We live in a closed system and there is no escape pod.

One night on holiday Mick and I caught an episode of a US series called Revolution, set in a future where the electrical supplies all stopped suddenly overnight.......obviously it was fictional, but it was still rather sobering

People think hydrocarbons are just for powering vehicles. Most of our modern technology, fixtures, fittings and, to an extent, clothes come from the petrochemical industry. Oil is far too important to burn.

But, as you say WM. Nothing. Not One Single Thing is being done to truly resolve the underlying problems of our power infrastructure and our transport infrastructure which is so reliant on hydrocarbons.

And we let them. Again by using more and more, faster and faster.

There is a new competition The Longitude Prize about to start to try to resolve some of the world's problems. It has been drawn up by the science community as a way to crowdsource ideas and engage people with some of the problems we face.

*Flight - How can we fly without damaging the environment?
*Food - How can we ensure everyone has nutritious sustainable food?
*Antibiotics - How can we prevent the rise of resistance to antibiotics?
*Paralysis - How can we restore movement to those with paralysis?
*Water - How can we ensure everyone has access to safe and clean water?
*Dementia - How can we help people with dementia live independently for longer?

It is noticeable that Food and Water are on the short list for the £10 million prize on offer.