My conversation with Dr Vincent Cable (LibDem - Energy)

[skeptik]

skeptik, what about Smart cars? Two seats, about 60mpg... even Smart roadsters get about 50mpg...

Um..not sure what you're getting at? Fine.. if it can do 60mpg, zero rate it for car tax. Preferable in every respect to a 15MPG SUV in London. Uses less fuel and take up less space..

Im suggesting that now is the time for some SERIOUS tax incentives to persuade people away from SUVs, Bentleys and Porches and into something more fuel efficient. And appropriate to the envirnment they are being driven in. A vehicle that can do 0-60 in 4 seconds and 170mph doesnt make much sense when it is only ever driven in Neasden.

[beev]

Incidentally my Smart Roadster is for sale. Two years old, 9000 miles, ?6k. Time to go car free I think.

I wish I had ?6000 kicking around in loose change just now...

[zceb90]

I still have a copy of the original Club of Rome projections bought from a second hand shop in the early eighties when I was a student. I had a quick look through recently and it all makes sense - it had a timescale of fossil fuel depletion of 30 years or so (and various other timescales for metals etc) so I reckon they have done pretty well.


Well done Paul S for trying to stir the politocos up. I dont think the use of the word stupid was inappropriate, particularly considering Gordon Brown's comments in the last few days - so he's going to have a word with the men from OPEC and sort it all out is he? and its OPECs fault is it? Jees he must be aware of the depletion figures from the North Sea, and he must be aware of what is going on elsewhere but he still spouts this rubbish.....

The publication is not discredited at all imo. Back in 1972 the authors could not have forseen the 1973 and 1979 'oil shocks'. Without the demand destruction thus brought about conventional oil would likely have peaked by 1995 and 'all liquids' maybe around 2000.

[SherryMayo]

Limits to growth had always been on my "want to read" list but it was Matt Simmons review that prompted me to actually get round to it (My "light" Xmas reading last year was Limits to growth, Limits to growth 30 year update, and Global Warming the complete briefing - what a cheery character I am

I agree that there is little that is wrong and a lot that is right with Limits to Growth - The whole point of the book was not about extrapolations (which were often criticised) but about what happened if you tried to mitigate disaster in various ways - eg reducing population, pollution or use of non-renewables for instance. Basically it was disaster in the mid 21st century unless you work really hard to deal with all the problems at once - and we've wasted 30 years since they wrote it .

[RogerCO]

I have asked one of my researchers to find the number of mentions of "peak oil" in the UK media for each of the past 5 years.

I've tried to find out the number of google results for "Peak Oil" and came up with the following
Aug 2003 - 65,000 (sorry lost the reference)
Nov 2004 - 97,700 link
Aug 2005 - 650,000 (my own count)
Sep 13th 2005 - 1,790,000 (blooming heck, tripling in the last month) )

[skeptik]

http://forums.philosophyforums.com/thread/6249/15
"Today, 19th January 2005, the Google search results for "peak oil"* stands at "312,000", down 48,000 on last quarter's report."

and at 17:31 UK time on 14/9/05 Google returns 'About 1,790,000 pages for "peak oil"

If however we slide over into a global recession, as seems possible, and the price goes down as demand is (temporarilly!) reduced. I expect the page count will go down as people (temporarilly!) lose interest in peak oil.

I think its feasible that we will 'bump along the top' of peak output for quite some time - demand hits supply, price spike, recession, demand drops, price drops, economic activity recovers, rising demand hits supply... repeat a few times.

Not so much peak oil as 'bumpy plateau' oil

[PowerSwitchJames]

A bumpy plateau or maybe like the jagged teeth of a saw cutting through the tissue and bone of our way of life

waxing lyrical.

[peaky]

All this talk of fission and fusion

I've said this on other threads, but hey...

We've had unlimited cheap energy, in effect, from oil, and with that energy we have had in our hands the awesome power to lay waste to our beautiful and unique home that is the Earth. And we're proving pretty adept at that by almost any measure you care to use.

For years, a lot of us have been saying that nuclear is the wrong answer: it's dangerous, relies on a finite fuel source which requires loads of energy to extract, transport & process. Power station construction is really energy intensive, and even with cheap oil, we still have to subsidise it and the government has to underwrite the entire process. And we still, after all this time don't know how to deal with the waste which will be toxic for 1,000s of years, so people's kids will just have to deal with our shit. And if they go wrong they can be very unpleasant. And they can only happen in big centralised economies with national power grids. They are a symbol of 'big' and all that is out of touch with human scale engineering and any sense of local control.

So, what do we want?

We want more of it

Because we seem to want to keep on this life at our current level with all that implies. If we want to leave a planetary home such as the one we enjoy now - and we've damaged it grievously compared to the start of the last century - to future generations, we've got some real 'lifestyle assessment' to do.

Imagine if we had Britain pumping out unlimited, cheap power from dozens and dozens of fusion and fission reactors; electricity to generate hydrogen to power all those great new hydrogen cars, and maybe if we're lucky, planes. Then we can keep flying, even more than now in fact as we don't need to worry about emissions. Then we can build terminals 6 & 7 to take all those holidaymakers to even further destinations. More exotic than ever and they will have to cover over more of their land for airports, runways and solar (or fusion) powered hotels for the tourists all along the beaches and the hills. We can widen the M25 to 8 lanes, as we won't need to worry about Climate Change caused by CO2 from our cars so even the environmentalists will be happy to drive.

Is this what we're really after? Well, I for one don't want to be part of that future, 'cos it has no future as far as I see it. Isn't that what the Club of Rome were saying?

Exhausted.... a bit ranty, sorry. I think I'd better go to bed.

[Ballard]

Well said!

[skeptik]

All this talk of fission and fusion

For years, a lot of us have been saying that nuclear is the wrong answer: it's dangerous,

It depends how you define dangerous. How many people have died in the UK as a result of the use of Uranium to produce electricity? How many people in the UK have died as the result of the use of coal to produce electricity?

No contest. Nuclear is as safe as it gets. Coal fired stations have killed thousands from pit cave ins to respiratory diseases in the general public Coal stations even emit FAR more radioactives up their flues and in the piles of fly ash produced than niuclear stations would ever be allowed to... as well as many other pollutants..

The problem with nukes is a) the mental association with nuclear weapons b) the waste disposal problem, Mainly NIMBYism.- nobody wants a geologically safe deep depository in their back yard. c) the 'worst case scenario' problem, which has only ever occurred when a bunch of idiots did something incredibly stupid with an ancient reactor design - Chernobyl.

It shouldnt be impossible to design a reactor which always 'fails safe' The Pebble bed design that the Chinese are going for looks interesting

relies on a finite fuel source which requires loads of energy to extract, transport & process.

Has anybody ever done an EROEI study on a nuke plant over its entire life cycle - including decomissioning? Id be interested in that if anybody has a link. I still think we will need nuclear as a transitional technology. It does provide a reliable base load which the more erratic renewable sources can sit on top of. I'm fairly certain in my own mind that a UK govt (of either party) will abandon the decision to get rid of nuclear power, and start ordering replacement reactors. Probably soon after the next general election.

Basically I think we are going to need everything we can think of from locally knitted underpants made out of muesli to a new round of nukes to ease the transition to ...who knows what? ... after global peak oil

[snow hope]

Lets get real. I agree with Sceptik, in the short - medium term I see no alternative other than to renew and increase our nuclear generating capacity. The sooner the better, in my opinion (imo).

Regarding technology - I love it! Mobile phones, BlackBerry's, Internet, computers, cars, instant electricity, heat, planes, TVs, blah, blah, blah. I don't want to lose any of it. But I also accept that we have evolved a very complex society in a short time period (50-100 years) much different than our fore-farthers ever knew. And this has only come about due to cheap energy which is now going into decline - so we do have seriously big problems to contend with and the likelihood imo, is that we will fail as a civilisation to deal with those problems......

I am fairly convinced that most of the population will disappear over the cliff before they even realise that a cliff existed or that they were so damn close to the edge!

But back on topic, it is great to have some politicians contributing to the site. I would like to welcome John Hemmings input (sorry if this has already been done) and please pass my regards to Lembit if you are in touch as he is an old friend of mine from way back..... (it would be great if you could encourage his input here too!)

I particularly agree with your statement, "I take the view that the laws of physics trump those of economics." Indeed! As you well know, the laws of physics were created long before the stardust that makes up us and our planet. Yet it is only in the last second or two of our species existance that we have created economics..... enough said I hope.

Finally, I would like to congratulate John on winning his parliamentary seat ealier this year, but mostly for the Early Day Motion (EDM) that is set for an October discussion of this immensely important subject. No matter what the reasons for keeping this subject quiet and under the carpet, we owe it to ourselves and our fellow human beings in the UK and the rest of the world to get this issue out into the open and get some clarity and transparency on what is really going on with this resource that underlies our current way of living.

John, if we have hard times ahead we need to make people aware of the problem and prepare for the best mitigation strategy we can achieve. If the problem continues to be hidden from the public, I suspect it will be the final death nail in the political coffin. This time we need real leadership to confront the biggest problem that modern man has ever been faced with.

[isenhand]

<< So, what do we want?>>

Me? I just want to go home, be with my friends and family and learn something new!

<< I still think we will need nuclear as a transitional technology.>>

But will it? That is to say, will it be used as a technology to fill the gap before renewables are fully on line or will it be used as a replacement for oil (in a way) letting ppl sit back until we get to peak uranium and then everyone panics and say ?why didn?t we do something about this before???

<< Regarding technology - I love it!>>

Its good stuff, but too much of a good thing can be bad for you. I think it should be there to help people and to improve people?s lives, things like communications and automation. I also think exploration and learning are important and technology is also part of that. However, technology is not everything, it?s just a tool.

<< Yet it is only in the last second or two of our species existance that we have created economics.>>

I used to be fascinated with economics as I am with science. My mum got me a book on it when I was a kid. I even made my own currency when I was about 12 or 13 and I went on to do it at A level but by then I had lost interest in it. It never seamed to be real to me. Went off and did engineering instead.

<< If the problem continues to be hidden from the public, I suspect it will be the final death nail in the political coffin.>>

I some times think that most people don?t care enough to be bothered to put the energy in to find out (and that is why most will end up going off the cliff). After all, with all the ideas out there it take some work to work out what is a good idea or not and what is true or not. I think that a good strategy is to form a skeletal network of groups that could form more localised communities just in case things get really bad. Sort of ?future clubs? were people look at what skills will be needed, and learn them. If they do, then if things get bad people will take note and then a solution would be in place ready to go.

<< This time we need real leadership to confront the biggest problem that modern man has ever been faced with.>>

I wouldn?t trust to ?leadership?, I think we are better off working things out ourselves. I think ?our leaders? are too much of the system to form such radical changes that could we been needed.

[skeptik]

British Energy confirms to extend Dungeness B life to 2018

http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/af ... 25494.html

looks like they're going to keep the old stuff going till the new round is built. Bet this wont be the last.

[RevdTess]

Vince Cable interview on BBCNews

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4246080.stm

Vincent Cable does not come across as a man suited to the daily grind of British politics.

The Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman - a donnish, Cambridge-educated economist - would seem to appear more at home deciding policy from on high than canvassing in Conservative marginals or delivering soundbites for TV.

[fishertrop]

Since I missed all of the original Club of Rome output and the bulk of the "discrediting" I wonder if someone can summarise exactly what they said that has now been discredited ?

Why is there not more discussion of the destructive and doomed nature of unrestrained economic growth? Limits to Growth, the 1972 report to the Club of Rome, investigated economic growth and overshoot. Its initial popularity stimulated a subsequent widespread repudiation. The complete success of that repudiation is puzzling. Even environmentalists can be heard to repeat the refrain of the growth enthusiasts that the predictions of Limits to Growth failed to come true. Read the book again to locate the failed predictions. You won?t find them, because they don?t exist. The only predictions contained in Limits to Growth cannot fail before 2070.

http://energybulletin.net/8990.html

Ahhhhhh, I see

Great article by the way, HIGHLY recommended.

Many thanks to the others who replied to my question about the original LTG