I think digging a hole and placing explosives must have been done for the first time sometime, when they didn’t know what was going to happen Dex…
Unfortunately burning things has served us well over the years…Keeping us warm around a campfire, and then burning coal to produce steam for the early machines and trains. Petrol and diesel was used later in internal combustion engines and then aircraft. Steam turbines have been producing electricity since electricity was discovered, either burning Gas, Coal or nuclear. Things are also burnt to produce the steel and other metals needed to create so called 'Sustainable Energy production methods.
So Burning things will be a very hard act to follow, and we must prove the science before we turn off the lights and heat and make it especially tough and dangerous for our loved ones.
Burning things has indeed stood us in good stead. But the number of fires we have to burn has naturally increased along with the increase of global population and their needs. Meanwhile, the things we set light to is becoming scarcer, and will run out in the relatively not too distant future.
We can argue about the impact this activity has had on the environment/climate etc until the cows come home. But is seems eminently sensible IMHO to try and find alternative ways of generating electricity (or hydrogen if that’s a more suitable intermediary fuel), of getting heat from some other natural source, and to do this with a greater degree of urgency.
I agree totally Dex, and there is a natural source of Methane from the waste that we create.
In fact, every living thing produces methane as it decays. Together with Hydrogen it would be possible to supply our needs until, as you say, something more natural comes along. But we haven’t found it yet.
Yes there is Swim. As long as things grow, there will be something to burn.
The Sun hasn’t done too badly over the last 4.603 billion years, and it should go on for another 4.603 billion years.
So, I’ve seen on the internet: We have enough oil & gas, in British waters, to keep us going. But thanks to Greta, government policy was changed and we cut back on production.
But who owns the oil & gas in British waters anyway? Familiar names like BP & Shell are not acting in the interest of British people. They are selling to the highest bidder.
The UK has opened a new licensing round for companies to explore for oil and gas in the North Sea. Nearly 900 blocks are being offered for exploration, with as many as 100 licences set to be awarded.
Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg says the new exploration will boost energy security and support skilled jobs. But the decision is at odds with international climate scientists who say fossil fuel projects should be closed down, not expanded.
The licensing process will be fast-tracked in parts of the North Sea that are near existing infrastructure and so have the potential to be developed quickly, according to the North Sea Transition Authority. It says the average time between discovery and first production is close to five years but that gap is shrinking.
Both campaigners and the oil industry agree that the reserves won’t be large enough to have a significant impact on the prices consumers pay for energy in the UK.
North Sea oil and gas production peaked about 20 years ago and since then the UK has gone from producing more oil and gas than it needs, to importing it from other countries.
Seemingly, no benefit to the consumer but, presumably, profit for the producer …
Its always a profit to them. The proposed “power cuts” over winter has me so angry at the moment. How can they fling us in the dark between 4 & 9pm in the middle of winter, yet these companies make sackfulls of profit month after month
