Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

andrewf75 wrote: »

That may be true, fossil fuels have played their part in our success, but we have to keep evolving to maintain that success. Now that the threats of fossil fuel use are very clear, we have to change in order to maintain progress.

Spot on, or as it is sometimes stated - The stone-age didn't end because we ran out of stones.

The biggest 'gift' that FF's have given us is our incredible technological levels, levels that have allowed us to invent and develop new technologies to replace the FF's. Seems somewhat natural and correct to me.

GreatApe

andrewf75 wrote: »

That may be true, fossil fuels have played their part in our success, but we have to keep evolving to maintain that success. Now that the threats of fossil fuel use are very clear, we have to change in order to maintain progress.

I'm not against lowering emmissions in an affordable way
But the demonisation is fossil fuels is ridiculous
There is no way to rapidly go to zero fossil fuels
It's going to be a 40-80 year process and that's if alternatives get much much cheaper

Natural gas today in the UK in winter January 30th costs less than a penny per kWh spot prices

That's not going to be easy to replace

A gas boiler is £1000 and requires very little service and lasts years and years
Last home i had a boiler than was nearly 40 years old had not been serviced for 35 years just worked day in day out. I wonder if heat pumps will be anything close to the reliability and low maintenance. Even my modern boiler I've not touched it for 5 years it just works

There are alternatives
In the same way electric vehicles exist
But with the most popular selling car in Europe at £12,500
Vs the most popular selling EV at £43,000
Is it really a workable solution
Nope not now

Martyn1981

No big surprise here, change our policies steadily now, or risk a dramatic change in the future.

Change climate policy now to avert oil market crisis, warns thinktank

The oil industry is at risk of a global market shock that could halve the value of fossil fuel investments if governments delay setting policies to tackle the climate crisis, according to new analysis.

A report by Carbon Tracker, a financial thinktank, warned that a “handbrake turn” in climate policy could have a “forceful, abrupt, and disorderly” impact on the global oil industry by derailing fossil fuel demand.

The report warned that the longer governments wait to set new regulations to drive climate action the tougher they will need to be to avert the risk of runaway greenhouse gas emissions and dangerous global heating.

Under existing forecasts oil demand is expected to grow by 0.6% a year over the next five years, but the report found that a crackdown on greenhouse gas emissions could cause demand to shrink by 2.6% a year between 2025 to 2040.

Martyn1981

Gravitricity concept demonstrator has got the go-ahead.

HUISMAN TO DELIVER GRAVITY-BASED GRID STABILISATION SYSTEM

Today Huisman has announced that it has signed a contract with its partner Gravitricity from Edinburgh, UK, to deliver a 250kW gravity based grid stabilisation concept demonstrator. The Gravitricity system is designed to stabilise the utility power grid by means of lifting and lowering a weight, enabling competitive global green energy storage and discharge. The demonstration system will be built in Europe and is to be installed in the UK. The system is set to be operational by the end of 2020.

zeupater

Hi All

... Strange, it's gone very quiet around here today ... was expecting the usual level of trolling, but it's as if winter's over & the sun's started to shine for a while ....

Probably a case of watching out for reincarnation ??? .... :exclamati

HTH
Z

EricMears

zeupater wrote: »

Hi All

... Strange, it's gone very quiet around here today ... was expecting the usual level of trolling, but it's as if winter's over & the sun's started to shine for a while ....

Probably a case of watching out for reincarnation ??? .... :exclamati

HTH
Z

There's a whole thread launched by GA which seems to have disappeared overnight. Possibly others ?

Martyn1981

EricMears wrote: »

There's a whole thread launched by GA which seems to have disappeared overnight. Possibly others ?

Yep. Not a good end to the week for Team Denial.

1961Nick

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Yep. Not a good end to the week for Team Denial.

Or ... Not a good end to the week for anyone who's opinion doesn't align with Mart's?

Martyn1981

1961Nick wrote: »

Or ... Not a good end to the week for anyone who's opinion doesn't align with Mart's?

Why oh why is Team Denial so obsessed with opinions and the spread of false and misleading information? Shirley on a subject as important as AGW, we should be focused on facts? And on a board with ethical in the title, we should be focused on truth.

As I always say - "You are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts."

Rather than attacking me, because you don't like my referring on here to science, fact and truth, why not take your issue up with the experts, not me for simply advising you what the facts are when you get it wrong.

For instance, on the many times you have tried to promote the CO2 is good for crops myth, and I have pointed you to the myriad of science reports confirming that it's not 'good news', why waste your time, my time, and everyone else's time arguing about it on here. Why not put a science paper together, get it peer reviewed, and then publish it.

Wouldn't that be more productive than trying to convince me that you know more than the scientists/experts? It would shirley be of benefit to both of us, and perhaps the scientific world, and even the whole of humanity. Shame to waste it on a small sub board on MSE.

Martyn1981

OK, I'm putting my hands up and admitting that this is more than a stretch for the thread title, but given I'm a bit of a softy for animals, and a free labour source for professional land drainage and flood defence 'experts' is not something to be sniffed at, I just had to pop this one in:

Dam fine: estate owners across UK queue up to reintroduce beavers

Hailing beavers as “ecosystem engineers”, Gow said: “They turn landscapes that are largely dead into environments that wildlife can recolonise.”

The five-year government study of both fenced and wild beavers will show how their dams can prevent flooding by drastically slowing the flow of streams, purify water polluted by nitrates and phosphates, store carbon and create an explosion in other wildlife.

“All of these benefits could accrue in every single headwater stream or catchment in England,” said Prof Richard Brazier of the University of Exeter, who led the study. Brazier’s modelling – currently being examined by Defra – identifies suitable habitat where beavers could improve river catchments in virtually every part of England, Scotland and Wales.

During five years monitoring a two-hectare study enclosure in west Devon, Brazier and colleagues found that frogspawn increased from 10 clumps to 650 clumps last summer, with amphibian life attracting predators such as herons and egrets. Dragonflies, butterflies, aquatic plants, flowers and trees have benefited from new pools created by the beavers. “Bringing that type of biodiversity back is something that you couldn’t engineer,” said Brazier.