Why the cuts are good...

[Totally_Baffled]

Biff - you missed the point I was trying to make - but then I think you did that on purpose to perhaps avoid answering it?

Sorry, you made several points. Which do you mean? This one?

How else do you anticipate providing the access to the energy Biff?

Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs), but that's the bleedin' obvious.

Sorry Biff that wasn't the point I was making. And not its not the bleeding obvious becuase they dont help at all!

TEQ's help you distribute the energy flow once you own it(eg the coal, gas etc), but you still have to purchase (import) that energy in the first place - which the UK will - around 80% of it from 2020.

For this we need a private sector to sell goods and services abroad, to generate foreign currency to purchase Russian Gas, middle eastern oil etc etc

The public sector will then receive a tax income from this revenue to buy its share of the TEQ's in this case to get the energy it needs.

Put it another way, how can you ration the energy supply to the private sector for the public sector when the former is the sector generting the income/foreign currency so you can purchase it in the first place?

As much as we need social services, nature reserves - they do not generate an income in foreign currency to purchase the energy to be distributed by TEQ's!!!

Its a bit of a conundrum to say the least!!

[emordnilap]

With respect, TB, I think you might have missed the point of TEQs (or the system I prefer, Cap & Share).

[biffvernon]

And you're still muddling up the money and politics thing with energy flows.

The energy issue doesn't care about that. We could have a much more dominant private sector or we could nationalise everything. As we've seen, different nations vary from about 10 to 90% public/private. That's the left/right politics. The UK is about in the middle and the Tories and Labour will try (probably not very successfully) to nudge the balance one way or t'other.

How we manage the energy decent is a quite separate matter. The first thing to worry about is that we won't, whatever government we have, be able to import anything like what the BAU crowd want and expect. It's going to be a case of make do and mend.

Fortunately the North Sea is a very windy place, the west of Scotland even windier, the Atlantic has big waves as the norm and our waters have amongst the highest tides and strongest tidal streams in the world. There is potential for some geothermal and even the sunshine can provide a useful amount of heat and electricity. The climate is mild with neither extremes of hot or cold and our density of population means that much activity can take place with limited transport.

If we want to reduce our already crushing responsibility for global warming the last thing we need to do is import oil and gas, which is just as well since we won't be able to afford it. Economic collapse is our only hope. We now need the trick of managing it with minimal pain.

[Totally_Baffled]

With respect, TB, I think you might have missed the point of TEQs (or the system I prefer, Cap & Share).

And you're still muddling up the money and politics thing with energy flows.

The energy issue doesn't care about that. We could have a much more dominant private sector or we could nationalise everything. As we've seen, different nations vary from about 10 to 90% public/private. That's the left/right politics. The UK is about in the middle and the Tories and Labour will try (probably not very successfully) to nudge the balance one way or t'other.

How we manage the energy decent is a quite separate matter. The first thing to worry about is that we won't, whatever government we have, be able to import anything like what the BAU crowd want and expect. It's going to be a case of make do and mend.

Fortunately the North Sea is a very windy place, the west of Scotland even windier, the Atlantic has big waves as the norm and our waters have amongst the highest tides and strongest tidal streams in the world. There is potential for some geothermal and even the sunshine can provide a useful amount of heat and electricity. The climate is mild with neither extremes of hot or cold and our density of population means that much activity can take place with limited transport.

If we want to reduce our already crushing responsibility for global warming the last thing we need to do is import oil and gas, which is just as well since we won't be able to afford it. Economic collapse is our only hope. We now need the trick of managing it with minimal pain

lol I know you maybe won't agree - but I do understand the difference between these things we have been discussing (the politics, the energy issue/flows, TEQ's etc) - but I will concede maybe I am bogged down too much in my head on how this can all sit together ,which system would manage it better, and lots of other crappy detail.

I also still maintain a lot of this stuff is intermingled, interdependent even - it is not that I have them muddled.

Lets leave it at that.