Iād like all energy to be a mix of renewable and nuclear, however, donāt for a second think that ending all fossil fuel burning will have any impact on climate.
C02 is a mere 0.04% of the atmosphere and itās been a lot higher when plant life was more prolific.
Before any eco warriors roast me, you tend to be the exact same people obsessed with Covid testing. Those testing kits are made of plastic and are wrapped in plastic packaging. Trillions have ended up in our oceans.
Get your own morals in order before telling me to stop eating beef. PS a world of mega monocrops sufficient to feed 8 billion people, would be utterly sterile
Indeed.
If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live. *No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.
Excellent post Conradd, just one questionā¦Is any thing ārenewableā or āsustainableā?
Just because the energy to power solar panels comes from the sun (which Bill Gates intends to block out with his cloud in space project) and the wind which supplies kinetic energy for Turbines, doesnāt mean itās sustainable or renewable or indeed freeā¦The amount of land required for panels or turbines far outweighs the amount of land required for a conventional power station. The building, transportation and installing of marine wind turbines is phenomenal, and the massive concrete structures used in the foundations will never deteriorate and break down. Turbines have an expected working life of just 25 yearsā¦The blades even less so maintenance is an issue. Since the government reduced the subsidy on wind turbines many companies will not in future install them and run at a loss. Hence the reason why Keir Starmer has allowed turbines to be sighted on the mainland once again because itās cheaper. I havenāt even mentioned the amount of Lithium and Cobalt required to provide battery storage facilities because the wind doesnāt always blow when you want it to. Same with sunshineā¦Until we find an efficient way to generate electricity, we are embarking on a fools errandā¦A costly one at thatā¦And guess who pays?
Quote Wiki:-
Offshore wind turbines are, understandably more expensive per MW installed. The initial outlay can reach as much as Ā£5 million per MW installed!21 Jun 2024
And that doesnāt take into account the building and transportation costsā¦
I am more worried about extinction of species as a result of human activities than anything else in the climate debate. There is not enough emphasis on this and people are constantly diverted to discuss whether or not they believe in global warming, rather than understanding how intensive farming and deforestation destroys insect habitats.
nuclear power if pretty much sustainable and a long term solution until we find a totally clean alternative. The Green Party have been split on backing vs banning it.
Iām as worried as the next man, or woman, about our insect friends Annie, but humans come first in my bookā¦
No it isnāt Annie, plutonium rods etc only produce heat to power steam turbines. There are lots of other materials in the mechanics and electronics necessary to generate electricity, least of all loads of water, and the waste products are difficult to transport and dispose of safelyā¦Expensive to build also. And who wants a nuclear power station in their village? However, I believe itās the way to go until we can find something betterā¦But there is always a cost, both to the environment and the worlds resourcesā¦No such thing as āperpetual motionāā¦
not really because we canāt exist either outside the biosphere that we have on this planet
Less cost than the alternatives. It doesnāt really matter whether itās in your village or a 100 miles away. They had a plan to build mini reactors in various locations. Not sure how thatās going. But throwing nuclear out of the window is pointless when much of the world is being powered by this technology.
Quite expensive according to wiki Annieā¦
How much does it cost to build a nuclear power plant in the UK?
25-26 billion pounds
The project in southwest England, Britainās first new nuclear plant in more than two decades, was at the last update expected to start operations in June 2027, with an estimated cost of 25-26 billion pounds, which also was a revision of a previous 2025 start date at a cost then estimated at 18 billion pounds.25 Jan 2024
How much does it cost to build a gas power station?
Value for money
Recently, some commentators have asserted that gas will be much cheaper than nuclear. Figures have been quoted that gas-fired power stations cost Ā£0.5m/MW to build, whilst nuclear could be as much as Ā£6.9m/MW.
You make many good points.
The problem with eco-warriors is the inconsistency in it all.
Think on this one:
If they stopped us eating meat, and given we arenāt self sufficient, this would mean importing even more produce from thousands of miles away.
So whatās more ecologically sound, a locally reared grass fed cow, delivered 20 miles as meat, or quinoa, rice, spices, soy, coconut etc etc traveling thousands of miles?
If the AMOC fails then northern Europe will be 20 to 40Ā°C cooler than it is currently over about 100years.
It is not a failure of the Gulf Stream which is caused by the the rotation of the planet BUT it will force the Gulf Stream further north up the east coast of Canada causing rapid cooling of northern Europe. It has happened before.
But you said
But there is always a cost, both to the environment and the worlds resourcesā¦
Weāve discussed this before:
Britain has not been able to feed its population for over a century. Itās pie in the sky to think it can. Far better to find what it is really good at and trade that for food.
Nobody is saying that we could become totally self sufficient Bruce, but we could do helluva lot better than we do now. And it would provide more jobsā¦More jobs = more tax and a better economy. Paying Australia to send us all our beef doesnāt really help the economy or the environment.
I thought we had very low unemployment here OGF. More jobs would require more labour from outside. The government plan to automate instead. Whereās the tax benefit there?
Off shore wind farms?what a joke. has anyone given any thought about another war?
The first targets would be off shore wind farms, that would knock out most of our power supply in one hit.
A small percentage does not mean a small impact. In 1959 the ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere was 320 ppm. By 2020 it was 420 ppm. So you are right that it is 0.04%. But it is also 25% higher. Its like saying āhey officer, its only 0.09 grams of alcohol in my blood stream, thatās tiny, right?ā Small numbers do not mean its all good and fine. And to make things worse, forests and jungles that are the primary convertors of CO2 to 02 are being stripped at an alarming rate.
And, yes, atmosphere temperatures have been higher millions of years ago. That is not the point. The point is two fold. Its about the impact of higher temperatures and the change in getting there. Increasing temperatures cause instability: weather patterns change and become more extreme, much plant and animal life will need to evolve to adapt to the new climate, sea levels rise, large parts of the world become much less fertile, the productive arable parts of the world shrink and concentrated in different places. Dismissing the impact of such climate change by saying āhey, whatās the worry, the earth has been even hotter in pastā entirely misses the point. that time when it was hotter was not suitable for the plants and animals around today.
But more significantly it will, it already is, add to the movement of people. That is inevitable.
Soz but your optimism on CO2 levels and climate change is misplaced.
Have you wondered if stopping meat production would actually increase the countryās ability to feed itself? Meat production is massively inefficient compared to just growing crops for food. It takes 7 kilo of cereal to grow 1 kilo of beef. I know, I know, for some of the year a good bit of the food intake of cattle is grass, not cereal (not all cattle, and theyāre not just eating grass, and only some of the year). But the cattle are on fields that could have produced vegetables for humans. So, in simple terms, removing all the cows from the UK would greatly enhance our ability to be self-sufficient in food. Not the other way round.
Iām not telling you to stop eating meat. I am not going to stop eating meat. I am just letting you know that your claim that imports of food would go up is very evidently wrong.
PS cattle are one of the larger contributors of green house gases, see my post above.