Where I think TTA have gone wrong...

[Stitch_KTF]

The fortunes of a country are surely more dependant on the leaders as individuals as opposed to the parties they represent. Or maybe this is wishful thinking given it's near enough a choice between two, both with chequered records!

 

Time for a re-think party wise? Abolish them? That would make people consider who they are voting for rather than just voting for one party or the other's representative, largely based on the voters class!

 

I think the whole system is another bizzare normality we have in our society.....

[Corporal_Jones]

I’m not Marxistist, some of my best friends are Marxists... Anyway, saying that economic motives are at the heart of anything completely misunderstands both the system of voluntary exchange and broader human action.

 

Back to oil – the recent above trend prices were caused by fears over the short and medium term due to political instability rather than longer term supply and demand. This is clearly true as the prices wouldn’t have fallen so far when as you say demand dropped with the current downturn. Of course, if we carry on using oil at the same or increasing rate the price will go up and up and up until what’s left of it in the ground is worth extracting even though it’s hideously expensive. But there’s the answer – as things become hideously expensive, you stop using them. There’s no need to run cars on petrol right now, the reason we do is that petrol (despite most of the cost being tax, so again not linked to scarcity)is that petrol is relatively cheap – ie it isn’t scarce. Bio-fuels and in time I suspect battery and hydrogen powered cars will become the norm as better uses can be made for oil (of course you still need to get the energy to power the batteries or make the hydrogen, which people often forget). It may actually be the case that these technologies will undercut petrol before a physical shortage of oil causes it to be economically scarce, just as whale oil went from being a valuable commodity for it’s use as lamp oil to being relatively redundant as it was superceded by gas and electricity.

 

 

 

The political tradition you uphold sees Marxists as enemy even if you don't-blind, as I said, to the striking assumptions they share. You are welcome to enlighten me on intricacies of the 'system of voluntary exchange and broader human action' (otherwise known as life on earth?) sometime, however?

 

On the contrary-the reason we use petrol in cars is because there is no alternative that's been proved to be anywhere near as efficient and freely available. Not to mention as cheap. The car is the product of the age of cheap and abundant oil. Biofuels might have some potential but are likely to cause problems if the crops used to produce it come to be seen as being more profitable than crops that are locally needed to, in poor countries, offset malnutrion, and will similarly distort crop production elsewhere, as growers switch to what's profitable. And biofuels lack anything like the scope of oil.

 

The trouble with hydrogen and battery-powered cars is that it takes a glut of cheap and abundant oil to produce them. Isn't it said that producing a single car tyre involves something like seven barrels of oil? Last time I looked nobody was claiming you can make tyres using biofuels. Biofuels, too, depend heavily on oil for their harvesting. Hydrogen, meanwhile, is not an energy source but a conductor of energy. When you look into it, it's staggering to see just how much of what we take for granted rests on the oil platform. Ultimately there are no 'market solutions' to this problem (nor for that matter any that involve economic planning as traditionally conceived either.) You can understand why the Big Brothers have to sell these supposed solutions to us, however, and it isn't just for the sake of their short-term profits...

Edited October 22, 2009 by Corporal_Jones

[Corporal_Jones]

The fortunes of a country are surely more dependant on the leaders as individuals as opposed to the parties they represent. Or maybe this is wishful thinking given it's near enough a choice between two, both with chequered records!

 

Time for a re-think party wise? Abolish them? That would make people consider who they are voting for rather than just voting for one party or the other's representative, largely based on the voters class!

 

I think the whole system is another bizzare normality we have in our society.....

 

 

 

Try tuning them out. They're part of the problem.

[Corporal_Jones]

I personally think nuclear power will ironically be the saviour!!

 

 

 

 

The US uses something like ten million barrels of oil a day. To produce that much energy would apparently take about 750 nuclear power stations. At present the US has around 104. The entire world only has 300-odd, or so I've heard it said. And they are politically sensitive, take a long time to build and are vastly expensive. And ultimately depend on oil for their construction, maintenance and the transporting of their highly toxic waste.

 

Go figure, as they say over there...

[leeslover]

On the contrary-the reason we use petrol in cars is because there is no alternative that's been proved to be anywhere near as efficient and freely available. Not to mention as cheap. The car is the product of the age of cheap and abundant oil.

That's what I said... Oil is used because it isn't scarce...

[Corporal_Jones]

That's what I said... Oil is used because it isn't scarce...

 

 

 

Okay. But it in no way implies that 'the market' will provide an adequate substitute. To believe that 'the market' always provides is nothing more than superstition in disguise.

 

Edited to add: I misunderstood in quickly replying to this post that you seem to be thinking that I'm claiming that oil is currently scarce. I'm not-I'm emphasising the way that not only is supply set to outstrip demand as the world population mushrooms and heavily populated new industrial powers come onto the scene demanding their share, but fewer new oil fields are being discovered. This means that it will become increasingly less profitable to extract oil from the ground, which, in turn ultimately means the twilight of the age of cheap oil-and with it an enormous amount of what we've learned to take for granted.

Edited October 22, 2009 by Corporal_Jones

[rudemedic]

The US uses something like ten million barrels of oil a day. To produce that much energy would apparently take about 750 nuclear power stations. At present the US has around 104. The entire world only has 300-odd, or so I've heard it said. And they are politically sensitive, take a long time to build and are vastly expensive. And ultimately depend on oil for their construction, maintenance and the transporting of their highly toxic waste.

 

Go figure, as they say over there...

 

France produces 70% of his energy from Nuclear power and I've not seen anything from them to suggest it hasn't worked. For a start they haven't spent billions of a public purse to spend far far far too long in a war which no matter what any lying of a politician says was about oil (or oil based Yankee construction companies). Having said that the French aren't well known for being sandal wearing vegetarian environmentalists.

 

Nuclear power plants once built won't depend on oil that much either- transportation of the waste isn't excatly done on the back of a bloody big lorry- the bloke driving the lorry would probably not last long if it was.ing

 

In fact having certain medical tests exposes you to more radiation than working in Sellafield.

 

[Corporal_Jones]

France produces 70% of his energy from Nuclear power and I've not seen anything from them to suggest it hasn't worked. For a start they haven't spent billions of a public purse to spend far far far too long in a war which no matter what any lying of a politician says was about oil (or oil based Yankee construction companies). Having said that the French aren't well known for being sandal wearing vegetarian environmentalists.

 

Nuclear power plants once built won't depend on oil that much either- transportation of the waste isn't excatly done on the back of a bloody big lorry- the bloke driving the lorry would probably not last long if it was.ing

 

In fact having certain medical tests exposes you to more radiation than working in Sellafield.

 

 

 

You might have noticed that the French don't run their cars on nuclear power. They benefit from the safeguarding of the oil supplies by the illegal war in Iraq just as much as any other economically developed nation. The fact that they produce 70% of their electricity from nuclear power does not mean that the replacement of that which comes from oil by nuclear power will not prove impossible on an international basis for reasons outlined in an earlier post.

 

More than you might think is based on oil. The constructing of any means of transporting nuclear waste (or anything else), for one thing, depends on oil, let alone the running of them. And, as I said, the building of the nuclear plants themselves depends on oil. The likelihood is that, at the present rate it's being used, demand for oil will outstrip supply before any replacement, nuclear or otherwise, is in place. (It is highly unlikely that any potential replacement that has the same scope and versatility as cheap oil.)

 

Nobody, meanwhile, has argued the environmental case against nuclear power. Feeble Littlejohn-style cliches about sandal-wearing vegetarians have absloutely nothing to do with it.

[garcon]

There is certainly an environmental case to answer on nuclear power, but the more immediate problem may be financial - they're fecking expensive to build!

[Corporal_Jones]

There is certainly an environmental case to answer on nuclear power, but the more immediate problem may be financial - they're fecking expensive to build!

 

 

 

Especially when, as I said with regard to the US above, it would require a sevenfold increase in nuclear power plants if the energy demand that's met by oil were to be met by nuclear power alone.

 

And that leaves aside the question of the unprecedented debt we're in.

[rudemedic]

You might have noticed that the French don't run their cars on nuclear power. They benefit from the safeguarding of the oil supplies by the illegal war in Iraq just as much as any other economically developed nation. The fact that they produce 70% of their electricity from nuclear power does not mean that the replacement of that which comes from oil by nuclear power will not prove impossible on an international basis for reasons outlined in an earlier post.

 

More than you might think is based on oil. The constructing of any means of transporting nuclear waste (or anything else), for one thing, depends on oil, let alone the running of them. And, as I said, the building of the nuclear plants themselves depends on oil. The likelihood is that, at the present rate it's being used, demand for oil will outstrip supply before any replacement, nuclear or otherwise, is in place. (It is highly unlikely that any potential replacement that has the same scope and versatility as cheap oil.)

 

Nobody, meanwhile, has argued the environmental case against nuclear power. Feeble Littlejohn-style cliches about sandal-wearing vegetarians have absloutely nothing to do with it.

 

There is an environmental argument against Nuclear power but there's an environmental argument against all forms of power (wind turbines damage wildlife etc.) whether the argument against nuclear power is stronger than the other non-renewable forms of energy is a matter for debate as nuclear power is the most renewable source of non-renewable power (if you catch my drift).

 

Everything runs on oil- even those wind turbines I mentioned earlier according to your logic (the metal certainly isn't manufactured in a complicated pressing process by magic). Oil is important I'm not saying that but what I am saying is nuclear power doesn't use up as mcuh oil as you might think (the waste tends to be stored on site and the storage facility ius built with that in mind and doesn't require a lot of maintence).

 

At the moment I'd much rather be living near a nuclear power station than a coal-fired or an oil run power station. Nuclear power gets a load of bad press but it isn't as bad as some people like to make out- and just because you compare me to Littlejohn doesn't mean to say that you aren't as up to speed as you think when it comes to nuclear power and the building of its power stations.

[al_bro]

Sheff Wed announced their intentions to extend Hillsborough a matter of weeks ago - in no time at all the plans were submitted and permission received.

 

Other clubs have had seemingly smooth passages to improvement too..

 

Our owners have announced to a fanfare several schemes which have got peoples hopes and backs up in equal measure, namely Ferney Field and the Oldham Arena and again with Failsworth opinion on all sides is divided yet no dedicated plans have even been submitted yet. Perhaps if they had kept their cards closer to their chests one of the projects may have got off the ground, ok we can blame the council and the property market but the truth is in my opinion that if the tta are guilty of failure to get the projects off the ground then surely that failure can be atrributed to being a tad premature in their announcements.

Many clubs have had major problems with their councils, Luton and Portsmouth to name but two who still haven't moved after years if trying.

[Corporal_Jones]

There is an environmental argument against Nuclear power but there's an environmental argument against all forms of power (wind turbines damage wildlife etc.) whether the argument against nuclear power is stronger than the other non-renewable forms of energy is a matter for debate as nuclear power is the most renewable source of non-renewable power (if you catch my drift).

 

Everything runs on oil- even those wind turbines I mentioned earlier according to your logic (the metal certainly isn't manufactured in a complicated pressing process by magic). Oil is important I'm not saying that but what I am saying is nuclear power doesn't use up as mcuh oil as you might think (the waste tends to be stored on site and the storage facility ius built with that in mind and doesn't require a lot of maintence).

 

At the moment I'd much rather be living near a nuclear power station than a coal-fired or an oil run power station. Nuclear power gets a load of bad press but it isn't as bad as some people like to make out- and just because you compare me to Littlejohn doesn't mean to say that you aren't as up to speed as you think when it comes to nuclear power and the building of its power stations.

 

 

I don't think I'm 'up to speed' regarding nuclear power, and neither have I offered any kind of 'environmentalist' argument. Pointing out a few reasons why nuclear power is unlikely to provide a replacement for cheap and plentiful oil is not the same thing. For one thing, as I said, the building programme needed to do this is vast, prohibitively costly at a time when the world economy is hampered by unprecedented debt levels, highly contentious and subject to legal and all other kinds of delay. That's leaving aside the fact that demand for oil may have outstripped supply long before any such mass programme is underway (which it quite likely never will be.)

 

Even storing something on site involves the use of more oil than you may think. And yes, it's true that wind turbines, like all 'renewable' alternatives to oil depend on the oil platform. Once again, go figure.

[rudemedic]

I don't think I'm 'up to speed' regarding nuclear power, and neither have I offered any kind of 'environmentalist' argument. Pointing out a few reasons why nuclear power is unlikely to provide a replacement for cheap and plentiful oil is not the same thing. For one thing, as I said, the building programme needed to do this is vast, prohibitively costly at a time when the world economy is hampered by unprecedented debt levels, highly contentious and subject to legal and all other kinds of delay. That's leaving aside the fact that demand for oil may have outstripped supply long before any such mass programme is underway (which it quite likely never will be.)

 

Even storing something on site involves the use of more oil than you may think. And yes, it's true that wind turbines, like all 'renewable' alternatives to oil depend on the oil platform. Once again, go figure.

 

Building a nuclear power station is costly but so is building any power station and we need more power stations as our population increases and our demand for energy increases. There is a lot of oil around and the oil won't run out (nor will supply outstrip demand) by the time new nuclear plants are built (in less than 10 years). Building a nuclear power station or a series of them will do a lot more for this country than the billions of pounds we are going to spend on bankers' bonuses in that time.

 

I'm probably more aware than you how much oil is used to store nuclear waste as part of my brother's job (which I will admit is partly why I'm in favour of nuclear power) is involved in decommisioning nucelar power stations- i.e. dealing with waste.

[Corporal_Jones]

Building a nuclear power station is costly but so is building any power station and we need more power stations as our population increases and our demand for energy increases. There is a lot of oil around and the oil won't run out (nor will supply outstrip demand) by the time new nuclear plants are built (in less than 10 years). Building a nuclear power station or a series of them will do a lot more for this country than the billions of pounds we are going to spend on bankers' bonuses in that time.

 

I'm probably more aware than you how much oil is used to store nuclear waste as part of my brother's job (which I will admit is partly why I'm in favour of nuclear power) is involved in decommisioning nucelar power stations- i.e. dealing with waste.

 

 

The whole point of my argument is that world energy demand is increasing exponentially at a time when populations are increasing-exponentially. This will obviously put a massive strain on existing supplies, at a time when new discoveries of oil are slowing. As it seems I keep having to say, it isn't a matter of the oil running out (this will never happen, as oil production will become economically unviable before what remains in the ground can be completely exhausted.) Whether 'a series of nuclear power stations' are built in this country before that happens remains to be seen. The question of bankers' bonuses has nothing to do with it, as nobody is going to divert that money towards building a nuclear power station even if you're correct about costs.

 

The amount of oil used in storing a substance is only one example of the way oil is part, in one way or another, of almost everything we take for granted. It isn't just a case of producing electricity. Even the computer you sit in front of now is made of oil. The means of transporting it to the shop where you bought it, as well as its manufacture, would not have been possible without oil. Etc etc. Nuclear power, even if the your ideal situation was possible (and I've already explained why I don't think it is), is nowhere near as versatile.

[rudemedic]

The whole point of my argument is that world energy demand is increasing exponentially at a time when populations are increasing-exponentially. This will obviously put a massive strain on existing supplies, at a time when new discoveries of oil are slowing. As it seems I keep having to say, it isn't a matter of the oil running out (this will never happen, as oil production will become economically unviable before what remains in the ground can be completely exhausted.) Whether 'a series of nuclear power stations' are built in this country before that happens remains to be seen. The question of bankers' bonuses has nothing to do with it, as nobody is going to divert that money towards building a nuclear power station even if you're correct about costs.

 

The amount of oil used in storing a substance is only one example of the way oil is part, in one way or another, of almost everything we take for granted. It isn't just a case of producing electricity. Even the computer you sit in front of now is made of oil. The means of transporting it to the shop where you bought it, as well as its manufacture, would not have been possible without oil. Etc etc. Nuclear power, even if the your ideal situation was possible (and I've already explained why I don't think it is), is nowhere near as versatile.

 

Oil is very useful and I'm well aware what petro-chemicals are used for (I did quite well on my A-level chemistry), Nuclear power will won't stop our demand for oil but it will reduce it in such a large fashion that Oil extraction can continue until long after my great grandchildren are dead even if extraction costs keep rising (which they may or may not do once demand is reduced and depending on any technological advances). You said nuclear power stations are costly and I said yes they are but they are more cost efficent than paying bankers billions in bonuses the parts of which comes from public funds and not paying bankers their bonuses means there is more money in the public purse to fund other things like finding other sources of energy and building nuclear power stations.

 

The Nuclear Power stations will be built in the next 10 years (or started at any rate), Oil demand won't outstrip supply by that much in that time. You are making valid points and I'm saying that whilst valid they are inaccurate as more and more nations start using non oil based power (even in power stations that use the amount of oil you are suggesting) the oil demand will drop or at worse remain constant. Time plays a role, we are not the only nation building a whole bunch (or intending to build a whole bunch of new power stations- for the most part nuclear based ones) and whilst oil demands in the developing world keep rising in line with population and development rises the demand in the developed world will start to fall as we no longer relyas heavily on oil for the purpose of providing power.

 

[Corporal_Jones]

Oil is very useful and I'm well aware what petro-chemicals are used for (I did quite well on my A-level chemistry), Nuclear power will won't stop our demand for oil but it will reduce it in such a large fashion that Oil extraction can continue until long after my great grandchildren are dead even if extraction costs keep rising (which they may or may not do once demand is reduced and depending on any technological advances). You said nuclear power stations are costly and I said yes they are but they are more cost efficent than paying bankers billions in bonuses the parts of which comes from public funds and not paying bankers their bonuses means there is more money in the public purse to fund other things like finding other sources of energy and building nuclear power stations.

 

The Nuclear Power stations will be built in the next 10 years (or started at any rate), Oil demand won't outstrip supply by that much in that time. You are making valid points and I'm saying that whilst valid they are inaccurate as more and more nations start using non oil based power (even in power stations that use the amount of oil you are suggesting) the oil demand will drop or at worse remain constant. Time plays a role, we are not the only nation building a whole bunch (or intending to build a whole bunch of new power stations- for the most part nuclear based ones) and whilst oil demands in the developing world keep rising in line with population and development rises the demand in the developed world will start to fall as we no longer relyas heavily on oil for the purpose of providing power.

 

 

 

 

Again, though, you seem to assume that bankers' bonuses are going to be halted and redirected towards a programme of building nuclear power stations which is going to start immediately. Nothing could be further from the case, even if the bankers' bonuses would cover the costs of such a programme-which they wouldn't. And bankers' bonuses are not a significant part of the crippling debt we're in, even if they're diverted from the bailouts that helped put is in debt. Where do you get the idea that 'the nuclear power stations will be built in the next ten years?' Where do you get the idea that 'more and more nations are starting to use non-oil based power stations?' Are these non-oil based stations somehow going to be constructed and mantained without oil? And you are taking no account that the new major industrial powers coming onto the scene have enormous populations and a desire to emulate the Western consumer lifestyle-which has been created thanks to the age of cheap and abundant oil-at the very time that new oil discoveries have slowed drastically with much of the remaining known supply difficult to get at. Which means more costly to extract. Which means that the cost of getting it out of the ground takes away from the use that can be made of it (the 'energy cost of energy.')

 

And as I pointed out several times earlier, even if we were not mired in unprecedented levels of debt, the cost of replacing the energy obtained from oil with nuclear power would require a vast number of nuclear power stations. These power stations are expensive, require enormous amounts of oil to construct and maintain, and are politically contentious and subject to legal and other kinds of challenges. Even in your best case scenario where, say, a significant amount of energy is also obtained from other sources (nearly all of which rest on the oil platform) and the supply of oil somehow remains undisrupted by increasing demand for a slowing, increasingly expensive supply, how feasible is it to say that scores, if not hundreds of nuclear power stations can rapidly be constructed when opposition to them is widespread, and the ones that already exist politically controversial and in some cases dysfunctional?

Edited October 22, 2009 by Corporal_Jones

[rudemedic]

Again, though, you seem to assume that bankers' bonuses are going to be halted and redirected towards a programme of building nuclear power stations which is going to start immediately. Nothing could be further from the case, even if the bankers' bonuses would cover the costs of such a programme-which they wouldn't. And bankers' bonuses are not a significant part of the crippling debt we're in, even if they're diverted from the bailouts that helped put is in debt. Where do you get the idea that 'the nuclear power stations will be built in the next ten years?' Where do you get the idea that 'more and more nations are starting to use non-oil based power stations?' Are these non-oil based stations somehow going to be constructed and mantained without oil? And you are taking no account that the new major industrial powers coming onto the scene have enormous populations and a desire to emulate the Western consumer lifestyle-which has been created thanks to the age of cheap and abundant oil-at the very time that new oil discoveries have slowed drastically with much of the remaining known supply difficult to get at. Which means more costly to extract. Which means that the cost of getting it out of the ground takes away from the use that can be made of it (the 'energy cost of energy.')

 

And as I pointed out several times earlier, even if we were not mired in unprecedented levels of debt, the cost of replacing the energy obtained from oil with nuclear power would require a vast number of nuclear power stations. These power stations are expensive, require enormous amounts of oil to construct and maintain, and are politically contentious and subject to legal and other kinds of challenges. Even in your best case scenario where, say, a significant amount of energy is also obtained from other sources (nearly all of which rest on the oil platform) and the supply of oil somehow remains undisrupted by increasing demand for a slowing, increasingly expensive supply, how feasible is it to say that scores, if not hundreds of nuclear power stations can rapidly be constructed when opposition to them is widespread, and the ones that already exist politically controversial and in some cases dysfunctional?

 

I'm not going to get sucked into your argument anymore- I've already told you how I know nuclear power stations will be in the process of being built in the next 10 years (and not awaiting permission from a government worried about protestors) a.) Its now public knowledge and b.) My brother works for the company doing the building, unless you work for said company I doubt you are more up to date than I am but you can't handle that so keep denying it.

 

Britain and France have similar popualtions, similar development and similar economies- Britain gets less than 10% of its power currently from nuclear power France gets over 70% from less than 7 times as many power stations. The new super-power countries (from which I take you mean the likes of India and China) don't have much Coal, nor do they have much Oil but I know China has some Uranium from which they generate power by a nuclear power station. I will repeat myself as you are not listening we are not the only country currently building nuclear power stations and while Yes they need Oil to run they don't need as much as the power stations they are replacing or working alongside of so the demand for Oil is going to go down (even if the world's population rose by ridiculously high levels and all of them wanted and could have the consumer goods we take for granted). Burning Oil for power is not the same Oil as they use to make stuff out of. There is loads of Oil left and if demand starts stripping supply areas where it is not currently profitible to get Oil from will start being used so the supply will go up.

 

Nuclear Power is not a panacea for the world's energy problems but it is going to be a lot more effective than you think. But then again you are well known on this board for seeing the worst possible scenario and arguing your point so severly and repeatedly you become convinced it is the only scenario and I'm beginning to wonder why I bother reading your posts anymore (although at least this one isn't about the capacity of a stadium which hasn't got to the same stage as some of the nuclear power stations around the world).

[garcon]

So what we're saying is, TTA have gone wrong by not planning to build a nuclear power station in Failsworth. Or at BP. Right?

[rudemedic]

So what we're saying is, TTA have gone wrong by not planning to build a nuclear power station in Failsworth. Or at BP. Right?

 

That's made me chuckle we have gone off on a tangent but maybe we should have been bought back on to topic.

[garcon]

 

It's a fascinating debate. Just seems a bit unfair to blame TTA!

[Corporal_Jones]

I'm not going to get sucked into your argument anymore- I've already told you how I know nuclear power stations will be in the process of being built in the next 10 years (and not awaiting permission from a government worried about protestors) a.) Its now public knowledge and b.) My brother works for the company doing the building, unless you work for said company I doubt you are more up to date than I am but you can't handle that so keep denying it.

 

Britain and France have similar popualtions, similar development and similar economies- Britain gets less than 10% of its power currently from nuclear power France gets over 70% from less than 7 times as many power stations. The new super-power countries (from which I take you mean the likes of India and China) don't have much Coal, nor do they have much Oil but I know China has some Uranium from which they generate power by a nuclear power station. I will repeat myself as you are not listening we are not the only country currently building nuclear power stations and while Yes they need Oil to run they don't need as much as the power stations they are replacing or working alongside of so the demand for Oil is going to go down (even if the world's population rose by ridiculously high levels and all of them wanted and could have the consumer goods we take for granted). Burning Oil for power is not the same Oil as they use to make stuff out of. There is loads of Oil left and if demand starts stripping supply areas where it is not currently profitible to get Oil from will start being used so the supply will go up.

 

Nuclear Power is not a panacea for the world's energy problems but it is going to be a lot more effective than you think. But then again you are well known on this board for seeing the worst possible scenario and arguing your point so severly and repeatedly you become convinced it is the only scenario and I'm beginning to wonder why I bother reading your posts anymore (although at least this one isn't about the capacity of a stadium which hasn't got to the same stage as some of the nuclear power stations around the world).

 

 

 

 

'Being sucked in?' What are you talking about? You came here of your own free will and decided to add your two penn'orth, that's all.

 

Any credibility to your argument ends when you claim inside knowledge, I'm afraid, particularly when this inside knowledge amounts to no more than the fact that part of your brothers job involves disposing of nuclear waste (so you say.) Nuclear power isn't, after all, the only industry to come out with projections that are never fulfilled or prove far more costly than anticipated.

 

It isn't a case, for one thing, of a government 'waiting for permission from protestors,' but, as already explained, that a number of factors of which protest (which doesn't come primarily from dreadlocked eco-warriors) is only one, will scupper any mass nuclear programme. In any case, when you consider the point made above about the way that replacing the energy obtained from oil by nuclear power in the US alone would involve a sevenfold increase in the number of existing power stations, you do, like it or not, see the scale of the problem (I know that nobody is saying that the response to peak oil should be solely a nuclear one, although some do come close, but the other fuel sources-renwables and so on- barely scratch the surface.) Whether it will trake a sevenfold increase in the UK is neither here nor there, as it's unlikely that we'll see even a doubling of the currnet number of reactors under the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

 

And,yes, I am listening, but you merely keep repeating your ideal scenario as if there is a chance that everything will go that smoothly. I've got some bad news for you, son-it won't. You seem to assume an unchanging world. Much has already happened since governments first started talking about expanded nuclear programmes, and it's only the beginning. There is indeed 'loads of oil left,' but much of it is of a lower grade than that which the industry prefers and is hard to get at (and the results when they explore tar sands and so on, are often highly disappointing.) This involves greater investment at a time when the world has plunged into a debt crisis that may take a generation to overcome (if it can be definitively overcome at all.) . Taken together with the cost of a nuclear power expansion programme on anything like the scale needed, you begin to see that the money may not be as forthcoming as you like to assume. Nuclear power stations may, in theory, need less oil to build, run and maintain than other types of power station, but as ever, theory will not match the reality (it never does), andeven if it were the case, this does not in any way mean that the world's demand for oil will not outstrip supply long before any mass nuclear programme is up and running.

I haven't challenged the effectiveness of nuclear power, but have merely pointed out why it is unlikely to be expanded on the scale that those who see it as the answer to the world's energy problems like to assume.

 

A cursory glance at history should explain to you why looking at the downside is always advisable, by the way.

Edited October 23, 2009 by Corporal_Jones

[leeslover]

Sigh - demand, supply and price are linked you know. Oilbecomes more scarce, all other things being equal energy prices will rise, at which point it becomes more viable to afford to build nuclear stations than it is at current prices. And really Corp, we can engineer DNA, smash the tiniest particles of matter apart, convincingly fake moon landing and much much more. It will not prove beyond the ability of mankind to make something to fit around a wheel hub or make a TV chassis out of without using gallons of oil. There's no point at the moment.

[Corporal_Jones]

Sigh - demand, supply and price are linked you know. Oilbecomes more scarce, all other things being equal energy prices will rise, at which point it becomes more viable to afford to build nuclear stations than it is at current prices. And really Corp, we can engineer DNA, smash the tiniest particles of matter apart, convincingly fake moon landing and much much more. It will not prove beyond the ability of mankind to make something to fit around a wheel hub or make a TV chassis out of without using gallons of oil. There's no point at the moment.

 

 

 

 

For reasons that become obvious when you think about it, what that enables us to do all those things is the society and economy that depended on a seemingly endless supply of cheap, high quality oil. Never lose sight of that fact.

 

I'm well aware that a rise in the price of a resource usually results in increased investments in research into alternatives, but it does not follow that the alternatives found will have the scope or versatility of oil. The oil age seems to have been an historical one-off; a period when the human race struck it lucky. I don't undertsand this desperate, ahistorical optimism that stridently declares that everything always comes up smelling of roses. It's really time that we put such childishness to bed. As I said the other day, LL, you may be a free-market fundamentalist now, but in another era you might well have been waving the red flag. It's two sides of the same coin, and it has Queen Victoria on the front.

 

Far from there 'being no point,' in searching for alternatives to oil at present, the search has been on for some time. It's actually becoming desperate.

Edited October 23, 2009 by Corporal_Jones

[leeslover]

I don't undertsand this desperate, ahistorical optimism that stridently declares that everything always comes up smelling of roses. It's really time that we put such childishness to bed. As I said the other day, LL, you may be a free-market fundamentalist now, but in another era you might well have been waving the red flag. It's two sides of the same coin, and it has Queen Victoria on the front.

As much as you like to try and pigeon hole me Corp, I have no issue with agreeing that I share many sentiments and beliefs commonly associated with the left. You will in any case be aware that Marx based much of his theory on the classical economists who laid the foundations of what is worthwhile in modern economics, he just had a different idea about where to go with them.

 

If you want to compare me to outdated theoreticians though, I will match your Victorian and raise you a George III. It was 1798 when Reverend Malthus published his Essay on Population, predicting that an exponentially growing population and a linear increase in production would result in a return to the Stone Age. 211 years down the track and we’re still waiting for it, but it doesn’t stop people such as yourself being taken seriously peddling the same old :censored:e.