hawkeye

me thinks the expressions Bark-rubber is far more tactful than tree hugger... either that or wood-worrier....

anyways there is now doubt that things are getting worse in a lot of ways BUT most people think about their live NOW not in 50 years time and issues that hurt are usually in the pocket hence when the thread started... then it moved to another issue and finally to a big issue

BIG ISSUE

BIG ISSUE anyone want a BIG ISSUE.......(oooops thats another story)


hawk

Lagamorph

iTrader: (12)

for the final time the tree hugger comment was a joke (accept my apologies this time)

And again i agree with most of what your saying imlach but that does not justify our government ripping us off does it, if the money was put towards resolving this issue it wouldnt bother me but it wont be.

Diesel

>>they should make it a criminal offence to own a car<< LOL

If you'd have told me I would have considered voting Tory, say 4 years ago i'd have laughed at you. Not any more...

Brit_in_Japan

There are no "low hanging fruit" regards undiscovered oil fields. I'm sure there will be new finds, but they are not going to be significant. We've spent the last 30 odd years drilling almost every part of the earth, and surveying all the oceans where it's not so deep as to make recovery impossible. So we know there are no oil fields like in the Middle East that are undiscovered. Oil companies invest hundreds of millions of pounds using 21st century technology to improve the recovery by just a handful of percent. There are no big gains to be had.


But there are not major yield gains to be had in agriculture either. We are in the 21st century in a market economy, if farmers could easily increase yields then they would. Potentially genetically modified crops could increase yields, but then you are opening a whole new can of worms because of legitimate fears about the use of GM and the extra pesticides and fungicides needed.

I tend to agree. No government is willing to grasp the nettle regarding the exhaustion of fossil fuels. There's no votes in it.


IF oil was more expensive (think x2 or x3) then we would reduce oil consumption and it would make development of smaller oil fields more economic.

Petrol is cheaper than Evian water FFS, even with the high UK taxes on it !!!

barrybudden

You can buy bio diesel round here which is made from recycled chip fat, its nearly the same price as the ordinary fuel as they have a tax on it as well.

Sprint Chief

Both of these arguments suffer from the same fundamental flaw. There are no gains to be had under the current market conditions. At present oil can be pumped out of the ground at (say) "m" pence per litre. Now for "3m" pence per litre we can extract a higher percentage. But the market simply won't support that technique while it is still possible to pump oil at "m" pence per litre. So it won't happen. Like I said, necessity is the mother of invention and the necessity simply doesn't exist today. The market is actually preventing advance where it is not necessary or financially benficial.

Likewise for the agriculture. The market conditions - in which food costs are being driven down by the government but technical advances are suppressed as "unnecessary risks" - simply will not support the techniques where yields can increase. That doesn't mean they don't exist.

Also you are applying food farming "rules" (which are inevitably more restrictive) to fuel farming which is also a mistake. If the government reduced tax on biofuels to make them more competitive it would give the strapped UK farmers both a cash crop and an incentive to develop technology.

Don't forget a very effective way to increase agriculture output is to increase CO2 percentage in the atmosphere. We're busily working on that one right now!

Your reasoning is based on the proof a negative without evidence, and from a scientific viewpoint is therefore severely flawed, similar to the way in which Thomas Malthus' arguments were flawed.

Brit_in_Japan

Sprint Chief, I like a good debate

You are right that current economics don't favour spending the money it would take to improve the agricultural yields or make smaller oilfield economically viable. But I am afraid I don't share your optimism about the ability of man to come up with the huge technological advances that we would need to. The problem is fundamental, where do we get energy from when oil and gas are exhausted? You can't invent energy or create it out of nothing.

Ultimately there are two sources, the sun (and the earth's renewables) and nuclear. We will undoubtedly generate more electricity from renewables, hydro, solar, wave, wind, tidal and biomass. If we are doing very well, maybe we can generate 50% of current energy needs in these ways.

As for the other the other 50%, I am convinced we should go back to nuclear power in a big way. Joe Bloggs won't be keen, but given the tough decisions we will face in the future I think they won't have any choice. Of course the holy grail of power generation would be nuclear fusion. We could then use electrolysis to split water into hydrogen & oxygen, and have hydrogen powered vehicles. The rather large fly in the ointment is we don't even know if it's possible to harness nuclear fusion.

And back to biomass for a second, if we turn over our fields for growing biomass crops instead of cash crops, where is the food going to come from? It may sounds like a fatuous argument, but consider this; statisticians predict the world population will rise from about 6.3 billion now, to 9 billion by 2050. That's a 42% increase in food and fresh water required. So can we really increase food production by 42% and grow significant quantities of biomass fuels ? Considering people are starving in 2004, I have big trouble believing that we can easily feed 3.7 billion extra people and grow enough biomass to provide fuel for vehicles and raw matriels for conversion to all those plastics and synthetic materials we take for granted today.

Maybe the world should reduce consumtion of oil and give us more time to make these big technological breakthoughs. Once we've made the breakthoughs, Scoobies for everyone ! But until then....

P.S. I just had to go and find out who Thomas Malthus was. Maybe he wasn't wrong, maybe he was just a little premature

Sprint Chief

Generating food to feed the masses is a knotty problem. If you look at the UK, we generate more than enough food to feed our population; in fact we produce a considerable net surplus. Of course we trade to increase variety etc. but the fact is our farming would be capable of supporting us and then some. Yet the UK is one of the most densely populated parts of the world. In fact our government are actively supporting yield reducing schemes such as organic farming.

So why is this? Simply because most parts of the world do not use the intensive farming methods that we do. So areas with less dense population struggle to support themselves and need our help.

Of course some areas are barren and will not support life but these typically go hand in hand with a lack of people.

An example of this was a scheme whereby westerners paid to have roads built in a third world country. An environmental lobbying group complained saying they were already starving, and building the roads would reduce their farming area by 10-15%. What they didn't mention was access for mechanical equipment that would increase yields by over 100%!

If the world used intensive farming all over there would be more than enough food. As for growing crops for fuel, why restrict ourselves to land? Plants grow perfectly well at sea. In fact the majority of CO2 absorption takes place through the sea, so if we can harness the sun's rays landing on the sea and the carbon content in dead organisms there is a potential massive increase in yield.

The sun drops an enormous amount of energy on the earth, far more than we use, we just don't harness it effectively at present. Then, when we fully harness all of the energy that lands on the earth, how about harnessing some that doesn't? People are already designing giant foil solar collectors to ship out to space and capture the energy. Transporting that energy is a challenge but not impossible to resolve (safely!).

I believe the problem is more that there are simply too many solutions!

What would concern me the most is that sufficient quantity of oil is preserved to ensure survival through (for example) multiple failed harvests, when crop would need to be kept for food. You see, in truth, I do actually believe in preserving what is a finite resource, but I can't resist playing devils' advocate in these situations

Brit_in_Japan

Nothing wrong with playing devils advocate
It is an interesting point about using the oceans to grow biomass. After all, the oceans make up about 2/3 of the surface aread of this planet. However everything we do tends to have knock-on effect and consequences, many of which were not foreseen. Do we know what the knock-on effect is of growing all the biomass in the sea ? What effect will it have on the food chain already there ? Can we trust the companies who will run these new ocean farms not to pollute the oceans with fertilisers and fungicides ? We know cod stocks in the North Sea are in imminenet danger of complete collapse, yet we seem incapable of stopping over fishing by fishermen on our own doorsteps because they believe the scientists are wrong. The same as happened to the Newfoundland banks in the 1980's, and there has been no commercial cod fishing there since then. We seem incapable of learning from our mistakes.

In many parts of the world intensive farming would only be possible with huge irrigation schemes. But we don't have a good track record there either. The old Soviet Union tried this and for a few years they succeeded in turning previously unfertile land into highly productive farmland. They needed to channel river water in huge qualtities to do this and they used lots of fertilisers, insecticides and herbicides. And was it a success ? Read any report on what happened to the Aral Sea.

Mankind has a track record of choosing not to believe the damage we are doing until it's too late. Once cod stocks in the North Sea fall below a critical level (and the scientists say we're at that level now) then the stocks cannot recover. We have not learned the lessons from the Newfoundland banks. And then we will move on and fish-out other cod stocks.

We are living in a golden age where we seemingly think energy supplies and our current lifestyles will continue in perpetuity. I guess we should enjoy our scoobs and cod-and-chips while we still have them.

Sprint Chief

Of course any such action would have complex consequences, particularly on species that depend on areas farmed. That is inevitable. In reality governments should (ideally) conduct experiments first (through commercial organisations) to learn the consequences. Only when that is done can real operations be scaled up. But most "problems" can be worked around. Waiting until the oil runs out is wrong, we should be addressing these questions sooner.

Cod stocks are in danger of collapsing purely because of the incompetent vacuum in Europe. Icelandic cod is fished through sensible rules which could have easily been applied to the North Sea. I agree it is probably too late now. Although only around 3% of cod eaten in the UK today is fished from the North Sea, so I think even if cod are fished to extinction there we will still be enjoying cod for years to come! It isn't right, but unless someone is prepared to slap the politicians about a bit there won't be a solution. As long as the effective rules being applied to Icelandic cod are maintained, I see no reason why they should be fished to extinction.

As for agriculture, as I said the worlds yield is massive compared to what is being produced. The problem can be solved, but it takes the guts to find solutions rather than find problems.