The Local > Three Towns Blog

The great debate - Published Dec 2009

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Ian:
Oil be blowed!

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Well, Llandudno TC has decided to cancel the fireworks tonight and shelve the whole thing until next year. Which is a pity, but understandable, given the rather dire forecast. December is being very...Decemberish, with the snows on the Carneddau remorselessly advancing to lower levels each day.  Which is very pretty, if you didn't know that the Ogwen team are almost certainly going to be called out at some point to rescue the hapless, the unprepared and the sheer daft. But there's something delightful about seeing the snow, layering the fourteen peaks and edging, like carefully prepared frosting, ever lower.

Meanwhile, the BBC's excellent Newswatch (0750 Saturdays - BBC1) found itself having to defend its coverage of the theft of the emails from the East Anglia Climate Research Unit. There are those, you see, who wonder if the Global Warming stories are all part of some massive conspiracy, created to stop us enjoying life to the full, with gas-guzzling cars, electricity hungry devices and plastic bags.

What's sad, however is that the message about consumption isn't really getting through.  The plastic bag story, which revealed that millions of Tesco bags are strangling the ocean, somewhere, didn't think to mention that plastic comes from oil, oil is certainly not going to last forever, and that - really - we're all still living in the aftermath and with the mindset of the industrial revolution.

Nuclear power is being hailed as the energy source for the 21st C, which it could be, although Nuclear fusion is the real hope for the future, and yet our method of generating electricity is still almost horse-and-cart.  All the nuclear option does is produce a lot of heat, which boils water, which turns turbines which generate electricity. in the short term, we'll need nuclear, as oil is simply getting much harder to extract, but fission comes with its own problems - notably the rather unpleasant waste products.

All of this is being ignored, however, as the row over data falsification continues. What we need is for climatologists to come clean, admit that no one really understands weather (it's far too complex at the moment), but we do know that the earth itself is warming, when all the astrophysical data suggest the opposite ought to be happening and we absolutely need to stop waste and profligacy.  If they did that, then they may well be taken more seriously.

SteveH:
The subject of Nuclear power seems to be raising it's head, with the energy problems we are having, Germany to delay phase-out of nuclear plants to shore up energy security https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/05/germany-to-delay-phase-out-of-nuclear-plants-to-shore-up-energy-security
also France and Japan increasing plans for more NPS

Helig:
According to online sources, we get about half of our gas from North Sea fields. We get about 3% of our gas from Russia and a third from Norway. The rest is made up of imports of liquified natural gas (LNG) transported to the UK by sea from countries such as Qatar and the US. This is dated 4 August 2022. Plus: "There are over 200 oil and gas fields operating in the North Sea, which currently supply approximately half of the UK's gas needs". This is dated 10 March 2022.

How can they justify the massive price rises if we are getting a half of our gas from the North Sea? I seem to remember the days when the North Sea gas was something that was held to be the answer to our energy needs for many years (200?).

mull:
The whole thing is a farce. The UK has all the Gas and Oil it needs and does not need to buy it in from other countries.

That being the case, WHY, are UK customers paying the high rates. Notice how that other oil and gas producing countries look after themselves, and not allow being ripped off by these big companies.

!2+ years of mis management, the SNP have the right idea, why do we have to put up with it .

Hugo:

--- Quote from: mull on September 06, 2022, 12:08:38 pm ---The whole thing is a farce. The UK has all the Gas and Oil it needs and does not need to buy it in from other countries.

That being the case, WHY, are UK customers paying the high rates. Notice how that other oil and gas producing countries look after themselves, and not allow being ripped off by these big companies.

!2+ years of mis management, the SNP have the right idea, why do we have to put up with it .

--- End quote ---

If the Energy companies are having their highest ever profits then why on earth are they allowed to automatically increase their prices?
It seems absurd and no one seems to know the answer, apart from perhaps the Conservatives

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