Britain has just 8 days of gas supplies left - Tories

HammerSmashedFace

8 days and we're out of gas ?, you think this is bad ?

Wait until we are out completely and what bit of gas is left is being shipped from Russia to China. People need to get realistic, they switch their boiler on now and just because gas flows to it and it works, they think it always will do.

Think again, best bet we have is nuclear power, but with peak uranium heading or way within two decades that's not going to be a long term solution either. Within 4 decades the UK will be finished has habitable island on any kind of large scale.

Cleaver

HammerSmashedFace wrote: »

Think again, best bet we have is nuclear power, but with peak uranium heading or way within two decades that's not going to be a long term solution either. Within 4 decades the UK will be finished has habitable island on any kind of large scale.

I can imagine villagers saying the same thing when the Romans invaded in the first century. And probably again when the Goths invaded in... well, whenever it was they invaded. And then yet again when the Vikings pilaged. And someone was probably saying it when all the coal mines shut. And some individuals were probably predicting the end of the country when the cold war was happening. And I imagine in the north of England people were saying that the country would shut down when the cotton industry began to dissapear.

Stuff always seems to go on though. People find new solutions and things to keep themselves occupied. They'll just invent water powered boilers, or some heating system that runs from an iPhone app that's powered by millions of texting teenagers networked to a gigamabob.

mbga9pgf

As soon as we run out, watch the politicos forget Global warming. We will be digging coal out of the ground as quickly as we can burn the stuff.

chucky

HammerSmashedFace wrote: »

Think again, best bet we have is nuclear power, but with peak uranium heading or way within two decades that's not going to be a long term solution either. Within 4 decades the UK will be finished has habitable island on any kind of large scale.

i like it!!!

Cleaver

HammerSmashedFace wrote: »

Think again, best bet we have is nuclear power, but with peak uranium heading or way within two decades that's not going to be a long term solution either. Within 4 decades the UK will be finished has habitable island on any kind of large scale.

See, this is why I like you Mr Face as your post made me go away and read the wiki page on peak uranium.

Robert Vance seems to think that we hit peak uranium in 1980:

Robert Vance, while looking back at 40 years of Uranium production through all of the Red Books, found that peak global production was achieved in 1980 at 69,683 tonnes (153.62×10^6 lb) from 22 countries. In 2003, uranium production totaled 35,600 tonnes (78×10^6 lb) from 19 countries.

Two people from Lehman Brothers (so presumably a right pair of ars*holes) think 2009:

Lehman Brothers Holdings analysts Rohit Ogra and Edward Moore predict uranium will hit a peak in 2009. However, they see it as a temporary peak because supplies of uranium won't exceed demand until 2012.

The fantasitically named Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen thinks 2034:

Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen, an independent analyst with Ceedata Consulting, contends that supplies of the high-grade uranium ore required to fuel nuclear power generation will, at current levels of consumption, last to about 2034. Afterwards, the cost of energy to extract the uranium will exceed the price the electric power provided.

Bernard Cohen is my fave. He sounds as optimistic as you sound pessimistic Mr Face, and he thinks we can somehow harness stuff from the sun, mix this with some cr*p and therefore never run out. Piff, paff, poff, problem solved.

In 1983, physicist Bernard Cohen proposed that uranium is effectively inexhaustible, and could therefore be considered a renewable source of energy. He claims that fast breeder reactors, fueled by naturally replenished uranium extracted from seawater, could supply energy at least as long as the sun's expected remaining lifespan of five billion years - whilst uranium is a finite resource mineral resource within the earth, the hydrogen in the sun is finite too - thus, if the resource of nuclear fuel can last over such time scales, as Cohen contents, then nuclear energy is every bit as sustainable as solar power or any other source of energy, in terms of sustainability over the finite realistic time scale of life surviving on this planet.

Mind you, I've just read this about him:

Bernard Leonard Cohen is Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Pittsburgh. He has been a staunch opponent to the so called Linear no-threshold model (LNT) which postulates that there is no safe threshold for radiation exposure.

That changes everything for me. Any idiot still opposing the linear no-threshold model is not a serious contender in my eyes. Unbelievable.

Mr.Brown_4

Plenty of gas on here. C'mon Cleaver, sharpen up. Or did you leave the obvious one for me?

jamespir

omg lets panic now or shall we vote in the conservatives in 3-4months time when theres no gas left

Cleaver

Mr.Brown wrote: »

Plenty of gas on here. C'mon Cleaver, sharpen up. Or did you leave the obvious one for me?

To be honest, I was leaving it as bait for the long-lost mewbie. I miss that cat.

StevieJ

mbga9pgf wrote: »

The armed forces are an insurance policy. The UK coal industry was a loss making business that was having to be highly subsidised by the Goverment to ship coal overseas.

Doesnt equate I am afraid. The subsequent lack of investment in coal mining communities was the shocking mistake Maggie made, not closing the pits.

The coal industry was an insurance policy against being held to ransom by the Ruskies in the future. We should have developed a coordinated oil, gas and coal policy to eek out our scarce resources.

StevieJ

mbga9pgf wrote: »

As soon as we run out, watch the politicos forget Global warming. We will be digging coal out of the ground as quickly as we can burn the stuff.

I thought it was uneconomic