Zero Carbon Britain

[woodburner]

If you consider otherwise, please explain where the power currently supplied from fossil fuels will come from.

That's not the right question. The question is how will we adapt to do without much of the power supplied from fossil fuels.

That was not a question, it was a request for an explanation as to how the current population will get their power. It was as I intended it, it was not a mistake.

There is an ever increasing demand for power driven devices. The efficiency may be improving, but the embedded energy still needs to be accounted for even if it was put in in some distant land.

A carbon neutral UK is a fantasy and will be another exercise using smoke and mirrors.

[clv101]

If you consider otherwise, please explain where the power currently supplied from fossil fuels will come from.

That's not the right question. The question is how will we adapt to do without much of the power supplied from fossil fuels.

That was not a question, it was a request for an explanation as to how the current population will get their power.

Okay, mine was not a question either, it was a request for an explanation as to how the current population will adapt to the loss of much of the power supplied from fossil fuels.

[woodburner]

I'll make my request, you make your's,but don't tell me mine is the wrong one (even by implication)..

[kenneal - lagger]

In the near future we will just have to do without because the country won't be able to afford to import fuels. Our balance of payments is going the wrong way very fast because of increasing fuel prices and dropping North Sea production. Fracked gas won't save us because the EROEI is very low compared to NS oil and gas. We need so much more of it to account for it's lower EROEI that we won't be able to drill the wells fast enough. The Tory NIMBYs of the south will be out rioting when they find out the mess that will be made of the south of England if they're going to exploit the shale here. It will be OK to frack the North because very few people up there vote Tory. That's assuming that the Tories get in at the next election.

It will also be very expensive compared to NS gas so we won't notice any saving. We're f***ed Woodburner. Just get used to the idea!

[woodburner]

It will also be very expensive compared to NS gas so we won't notice any saving. We're f***ed Woodburner. Just get used to the idea!

I quite understand that,what I am asking is what the fantasists, who think a zero carbon UK is possible, is to explain how it's done (they can't).

[biffvernon]

Zero carbon Britain is not fantasy but something that will happen.

It might happen because we run out of carbon.
It might happen because we realise that burning carbon is a bad idea.
It might happen because we have driven ourselves to extinction by burning too much carbon.

I suspect the last but hope for the second.


Perhaps CAT should be renamed COT

(Ordinary)

[woodburner]

ok, I'll buy that. The thing I don't buy is the politicians who pretend it can be done with BAU.

[extractorfan]

ok, I'll buy that. The thing I don't buy is the politicians who pretend it can be done with BAU.

I don't buy it either, but most people do because they have an amazing capacity to believe what they want to be true.

[biffvernon]

The thing I don't buy is the politicians who pretend it can be done with BAU.

Of course. Zero Carbon BAU is an oxymoron.

[emordnilap]

It will be OK to frack the North because very few people up there vote Tory. That's assuming that the Tories get in at the next election.

Why should that affect it?

[emordnilap]

ok, I'll buy that. The thing I don't buy is the politicians who pretend it can be done with BAU.

The majority of the population believe it should be done - they've no idea that it can't be done, even if they have encountered the idea.

They just keep electing the biggest liars, time after time after time.

[Pepperman]

That was not a question, it was a request for an explanation as to how the current population will get their power. It was as I intended it, it was not a mistake.

There is an ever increasing demand for power driven devices. The efficiency may be improving, but the embedded energy still needs to be accounted for even if it was put in in some distant land.

A carbon neutral UK is a fantasy and will be another exercise using smoke and mirrors.

It's not a fantasy, it's just down to the definition of the boundary.

You consider the boundary to include domestic emissions and the associated with all imported goods. The ZCB work defines the boundary as domestic emissions only. Both definitions are valid in their own way, it just needs to be clear what is being referred to.

Regarding the embodied energy of energy using products, it's worth remembering that this is small in comparison to the in use energy. Naturally as products become more efficient it will increase as a percentage of life cycle energy. So yes we definitely want to be reducing demand for these products and helping the countries which manufacture them to decarbonise, but we also need to get our own house in order.

And going zero carbon within our own borders would be a heroic achievement!

[woodburner]

Not to mention impossible without major lifestyle changes.

[extractorfan]

major lifestyle changes.

Major changes that most people, like the majority of people, would see as catastrophic, what's the point in living type of thing.

[woodburner]

If they think it's not worth living, I'm ok with that, and would not dream of trying to force them to change their minds.They would after all, be so unhappy having to endure the changes.