Beelbeebub

Hopefully soon. I maintain people don't have range anxiety with electric cars They have recharging anxiety. My (3l petrol auto) work car has a 200mile max range, but that doesn't worry me becahse A) I do about 1200 miles a year B) I know I'm probably never more than 30 miles from a filling station and when I get there there will be a pump free for me with a man wait of maybe 5 minutes, it will take me 5 minutes to fill up and will cost me between 135 and 150p per liter. If electric cars could boast the same (albeit with maybe a more relaistic 10 minute charge time) then 200 miles range ( and all the benefits of lower mass, cost etc) would be ample for an ev

The UK has done spectacularly well on increacing renwable generation. That should be celebrated - as you say. But we do need to keep up our momentum, and that does mean continuing to install capacity. That means more offshore, more onshore, more transmission lines (or more accurately upgrading some and adding some) and more solar. But current right wing media is against all of these. "valuable farm land being taken over by solar farms" - the majority of the land going for solar farms isn't top grade. It's the lower grade stuff you graze livestock on or have lower rates anyway. That's why it's available to lease! If it was growing vast quantities of grain etc the farmer would keep doing that.

I get your point but I do think we could transition a little faster *if* the naysayers who would like to "cut the green crap" got back in their box. I have been somewhat out off by the antics of extinction rebellion, just stop oil and insulate Britain. I think they are broadly correct (caveat: as mentioned I don't think we should or could stop using oil derivatives but we should stop burning the stuff unnecessarily) but agree many of their methods are somewhat counter productive. Absolutely, hence this thread. There is more to "Net zero" than tree hugging. Yes but there are many naysayers out there saying that HPs won't work, they can't heat old houses, they cost a fortune to fit, they cost a fortune to run etc. Whilst some of those criticisms have some basis in fact, none are insurmountable. Our biggest barrier is a skilled workforce. HPs require somewhat more skill to install effectively than a "bung a 30kw combining there and bugger off" gas install. There are many examples out there of old buildings fitted with HPs without extensive replumbing and upgrading functioning well. Of course there are plenty of horror stories as well. For the majority (statistically speaking) of people who use thier car for short commutes or city driving etc EVs function perfectly. For some people who travel long distances regularly or (in particular) tow long distances (caravans being thr classic case). 2nd cars (1/3 of households) are a fertile area for EVs as are commercial vehicles in urban areas (trades and delivery) which also provides air quality benefits. More importantly EVs are ultimately the future. In 30 or so years ICE vehicles will be specialist vehicles, for heavy haulage, long distances, remote working etc and most other cars will be electric. The problem is of we transition to gradually our auto sector risks being left behind. They are lazy buggers intent on wringing every last drop of value out of the ICE technologies thry have developed. The Chinese and Koreans have stolen a march and are dominating electric vehicle production. Our about makers need demand now to get them to switch.

Again to get this thread back on track - My argument that we need many of the policies described as "Net zero" is agnostic to climate change. It is purely rooted in the fact our reserves of oil and gas are running out.

The same applies, if you are regularly getting measurements that you would normally expect infrequently (eg every 100 years) then the system has changed. It is irrefutable fact that the climate is changing at a rate not seen before. From NOAA As for the medieval warm period - that was mainly concentrated in the North America, North Atlantic and Europe. Globally the average temp rose by less than 1C, ie less than now

I'm not saying we should abandon the remaining reserves. What we shouldn't do is dig them up at great expense in order to burn them to heat our homes and driven our SUVs because we are too stubborn to use a near infinite energy source to accomplish those things. The oil industry projects that we could extract as much as 3x more oil and gas as we are currently set to do. The problem is that our current "withdrawal rate" is equivalent to maintaining our existing levels of extraction for 5 years. Then that's it. All gone. So taking the oil industry's best projection - which includes not only us coming up with ways to extract more oil from existing sites but also discovering some new sites - is 3x or our existing rate (which is only 50% of demand) for 15 more years before we have used every last drop.

That's not actually true. Record readings of any stable system become rarer the longer you take measurements. This is a mathematical fact. If the rate at which you set record measurements increaces then the system you are measuring has changed, again a mathematical fact. The rate at which we are setting temperature records has increaced. All 10 of the hottest years ever recorded occurred in the last 10 years. That means the world is warming. And we should be worried as the world is now hotter than at any time since humans left Africa.

The Met Office lying? I mean I know weather forecasts aren't always accurate but how do you get the idea thr Met Office is lying. Are you going to say that they are literally making up the measurements? 'cos this measurements show the climate is changing.

Reality is analogue rather than binary. But my point remains, much of the policy that comes under the umbrella of "Net zero" Insulating homes Increacing heat pump installs Electrification of road transport Could easily be rebranded "Zero dependance" or "Net Zero Imports" or something else a highly paid marketing team can come up with. Yet there are some politicians and many of their followers who are campaigning vigorously against "Net zero" but also talking of needing to increace energy security - by drilling more. Own up. Were you aware of the state of UK fossil fuels production and *more importantly* that is was down to the geology rather than policy. The impression given by certain politicans is that we could become a net exporter again, if only we weren't held back by policy.

Very much so. Which is worse A) losing storage site/vessel that provides a fuel for a small proportion of your demand and is mainly a backup reserve. B) losing storage site/vessel that provides a fuel you were relying on burning next week. Again, pick one. (you haven't picked which choice from the last time...) (for context the uk currently gets 25% of all it's gas via LNG)

I think it is, though not as expensive as the country going dark! 😁 I wonder how much gas storage is on board a LNG tanker. Could the UK Gov just buy and operate a bunch and use those as a dual use transport /buffer

They were great, and in 1984 it wasn't an unreasonable decision. But by 2001 it was clearly a technogy with no future. Much like gas boilers. Thry are fantastic. A small box on the wall that will provide heating and hot water on demand for an entire house with almost no effort on the occupants part. Brilliant. But their time is coming to a close and in 2035 even more so. I remember when incandescent light bulbs were phased out and lots of people moaned about it. Anyone moaning now? I can light an entire house of about what it cost to run a single light bulb and the (decent) ones last years.

Yes, aside from the clean coal (which is not a viable technology and exists, like hydrogen boilers, purely as a tech fig leaf to keep doing nothing). Personally I think we need much more gas storage and more gas plants as backup for the times when renewables are low. Don't mistake my position for not using a single drop of fossil fuels. We will.meed them for all sorts of things - aviation, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, plastics, certain transport, defence etc. Oil and gas are important resources that are absolutely vital to our modern way of life. Which is why it is absolutely crazy that we take our dwindling supply and set it on fire to heat our houses and pick up the shopping when we could do those things without burning a drop.

There is no ban. The ban was originally mooted by the conservatives for 2025, then extended to 2035, then watered down to 80% phase out by Sunak. Milliband just reiterated that position a few days ago. 'There isn’t going to be a ban because Rishi Sunak, well, they never legislated for the ban and then he said he wasn’t going to do it,' explained Mr. Miliband. He further emphasized Labour’s transparency in their manifesto, which assured that consumers would not be compelled to discard existing gas boilers. So there - no ban an no compelling people to switch. However by 2035 we will be importing even more of our gas so installing a gas boiler in 2035 would be like buying a betamax player in 2001.

I think you are the one missing my point. The decline of UK production is down to geology - the fields we have in our territories are nearly empty. Here is a study commissioned by the FF industry body. Note the decline even if everything goes well. They have even included an "unconstrained" case Which shows that maximum possible extraction and that is only 3x the current (declining) projection, ie still falling, just not as fast. So, given we are running out of our fossil fuels, we have two alternatives A) continue as we are and accept importing an ever increacing amount of our use. B) taken steps to minimise our use of FF by reducing energy demand and substituting, where possible, an energy type we can produce. Which one do you want A or B? Pick.

Ah, there's your problem.....

In before someone says "scientists thought global cooling was a thing in the 70's! How do you explain that?!"

Again, for those at the back Whether or not climate change is happening is totally irrelevant to the fact the UK is rapidly becoming more and more dependant on an energy source we have to import I suspect the continuing invoking of the climate change question is simply a coping mechanism to avoid having to face the inevitable. The numbers on current uk fossil fuel production are not a matter of opinion. The numbers on future uk production are less certain but even using the most optimistic forecasts by the organisations most biased towards continuing fossil fuel dependency the future looks decidedly bleak

The massive, overwhelming weight of scientific observations is on the side of climate change being real and humans being the main driver. The "naysayers" are in the tiny minority and almost all have major links to the fossil fuel industry. But again, my argument is entirely uncoupled from climate change. Whether you believe the climate isn't changing,or it is changing but it's caused by sunspots or humans are changing thr climate but that's actually a good thing is totally irrelevant to the fact the UK is becoming more and more dependent on a substance we cannot obtain ourselves.

I have a load of old motorcycle magazines. From the 50's and 60's. About when the first Japanese bikes appeared in the UK. Every single review basically commented how the bikes started reliably, didn't leak oil, handled well, were smooth and powerful, excellent value etc and basically superior on every way to the offerings of BSA, Norton, Triumph etc. And every single review ended with something along the lines... "of course no real motorcyclist would choose this over a thoughbred british sports bike" And thus died the British motorcycle industry. Europe risks the same. That said there are some "green shoots". The manufacturers are starting to churn out the volume everyday cars that people actually drive and buy at prices reaching parity or even cheaper than ICE cars.

I was being facetious, but on a serious note coal derived fuels are more expensive and there is a serious bottleneck in terms of production facilities We woikd also need around 100milliom tons of coal per year - a level we haven't seen since the 80's when something happened to the mining industry You would need to argue that restarting the uk coal industry (good luck getting Gen Z down the pits - though they do love Minecraft so maybe not! 😁) and building the largest conversion facility in the world from scratch, twice, is cheaper than upgrading our grid, increacing renewables (and nuclear) and switching to EVs

Aside from my point that "Net zero" policies are neccesary from a security perspective regardless of climate change, I should point out that the people along money from touring the world on jet planes cranking out unscientific lies are the climate change deniers. Have a look how much climate scientists earn and then look how much the scientists who zip about denying climate change are paid.

Trump may keel over tomorrow. But that is to miss the point. The fact that he has been allowed to drive a coach and horses through the old world order, threatening economic and military force to take over Iceland/Greenland with no pushback from the much vaunted "checks and balances" of the US constitution is the problem. He has shown that the institutions that were supposed to keep any madman in check are toothless. The US can no longer be considered a reliable partner. We are just one suoreme court appointment, one special election away from everything being thrown up in the air. I can't remember the source of the quote but "we cannot base our security and prosperity on some voters in Florida every 4 years"

Thank you for proving my point It is a common misconception amongst people such as yourselves that the UK could achive energy independence if only the "greens" would let us drill for more oil and gas. In case you misread my OP the oil and gas industry itself is predicting production will fall even with no restrictions on drilling. Let's take the "Rosebank" field, described as the Uk's largest undeveloped oil and gas field. At it's peak, it's owners predict it will produce in excess of 21 MMSCF of natural gas every day, which sounds impressive until you realise that is about as much as Aberdeen uses per day. That won't make a dent in our imports. There is no way the UK can pull enough oil and gas out of it's territory to satisfy it's current demand for oil and gas That is the considered opinion of all the experts including oil and gas industry. So the only option is to reduce our consumption of oil and gas via things like efficency, reducing journeys by car, electrification of heat and transport. All the "Net zero" things but not for environmental reasons, for purely pragmatic reasons. As for coal, let us assume, for a moment that there are near unlimited coal reserves available to the UK. How do you propose we heat our homes and drive out cars on coal? Go back to coal cellars, and a fire in every room? Rip out out combi boilers for solid fuel boilers? And as for cars.... If you think EV's have too short a range and take too long to charge, wait until you try steam cars! 😁 If you genuinely think the future of UK energy is coal you should be cheering for EVs and pushing for the adoption of Heatpumps alongside the blue haired vegan tree huggers. It's not your fault. The oil and gas companies have a well funded disinformation and lobbying campaign for keeping the UK hooked on oil and gas. After all, drug dealers aren't going to help you kick the habit - not when there are vast profits to be made.

I suspect you give him too much credit for strategic thinking. But some of his courtiers are probably thinking along those lines.