Boredwivdrivin has got all the bases covered. Oil is too cheap, absolutely.
If it sold for a price that reflected the huge resources it took to bring it to the end user then alternative energy sources would’ve seen the oil wells capped years ago.
Yes Carryfast, I know about plastics, but hemp not only provides a perfectly good alternative to most of them, it also has the added bonus of being biodegradable and the plants ■■■■ up a tremendous amount of CO2.
Nuclear energy can provide power, as can wind, hydro and solar generators. And if we do still need internal combustion engines then natural gas is a far better alternative to diesel and petrol.
There is no logical reason why we are still burning dinosaur juice.
I have no problem with using oil for next 20 years , so longs we are building infrastructure to replace it .
For example nuclear fusion plant in germany is producing energy now , and is only a small step from producing more energy than it consumes to start it . the technology works and its a case of getting the magnets and their cooling improved . this will come through investment in it now . an oil surcharge could pay for it .an energy revolution awaits .
Hemp is very strong and fibrous , makes a great alternative to oil based nylon . corn is most often used for plastics .
But hemp is great biofuel . is a power station in norfolk that only burns straw . this type of facility could easily burn hemp too .
Also hemp can produce several crops a year , is a great soil improver with its strong roots , is a great nitrogen fixer , can remove panning caused by ploughing improving drainage and can easily be grown on steep or rocky ground .
But dont expect CF to acknowledge cheap oil is daft and damaging to our nation .
You will have more success nailing jelly to the ceiling
When I look out to sea at Whitstable - I see a number of the turbines apparently failed not on their main rotor, but the “attitude” rotor that rotates the whole thing around to face into the wind. If this one fails, the thing ends up pointing in the wrong direction, and not turning until fixed by a visiting engineer. That can’t be cheap going out there to fix the kind of problem that likely occurs as regular as clockwork with these things, especially when one considers the corrosive effect of being out at sea 24/7…
Sounds like lack of investment to me .
Cant be beyong science to solve this ? Perhaps a small motor to turn blades into wind . or a different design all together . perhaps manufacturing them in england could improve quality control ?
The wind sock at airports always faces the wind !
You may have seen box spinners as micro generators too . the wind itself turns these into wind and spherical turbine spins on a butterflys ■■■■ . these are limited in size but ideal for your roof , if you have a smart meter !
I will post a link when i get home on laptop .
newmercman:
Boredwivdrivin has got all the bases covered. Oil is too cheap, absolutely.
If it sold for a price that reflected the huge resources it took to bring it to the end user then alternative energy sources would’ve seen the oil wells capped years ago.
Yes Carryfast, I know about plastics, but hemp not only provides a perfectly good alternative to most of them, it also has the added bonus of being biodegradable and the plants ■■■■ up a tremendous amount of CO2.
Nuclear energy can provide power, as can wind, hydro and solar generators. And if we do still need internal combustion engines then natural gas is a far better alternative to diesel and petrol.
There is no logical reason why we are still burning dinosaur juice.
Firstly it was bordewivdrivin who thinks we need to stop burning oil based fuels because ‘he’ thinks that competes with ‘his’ preferred use of it for chemicals meaning plastics and fertilizer. 
As for oil supposedly being too cheap great put it up to £2 per litre and join those who want to leave a good cheap source of energy in the ground. Because that will be the result on a product which is already over priced and either getting back to a pre 1973 price regime or that are the only two options here.
As for dinosaur juice.Diesel maybe fits that description ever since the diesel engine was invented but not petrol or LPG.In which case you won’t get much LPG if you cap the oil wells and can the oil companies make a viable economic business and supply case having taken diesel out of the frame.Let alone your idea of capping the oil wells and totally replacing oil consumption with just natural gas.
While in joining the leave it in the ground luddites you’re actually contradicting yourself bearing in mind your previous ( correct ) comments that we need to keep using oil.
While my answer is in an ideal world,in which they can put the diesel fraction out of the frame,the combination of petrol and LPG sold at pre 1973 price levels is still the way to go.At least so long as hydrogen remains more expensive to produce than it’s worth.Although it’s my guess ‘if’ global warming really is an issue then the resulting increase in water vapour will be the last thing we need just like running vehicles on nuclear electricity.Even without the odd major nuclear disaster here and there.
Looking at it purely from a UK perspective, there is plenty of scope to improve our use of non-fossil sources of power.
Biofuel power stations running on hemp, wheat/barley/oat straw, pea haulm, wood pulp…
Plenty of scope for more hydro both large and micro schemes.
Greater use of gas capture from digesters and and landfill.
We haven’t even begun to make use of tidal which, unlike wind and solar, is more or less constant. Maybe more expensive but I reckon they’d be better using ceramics to build offshore installations.
As to the water vapour from hydrogen thing - would fitting a condenser be any more costly and difficult than a catalytic converter? Than just empty the water and recycle it. simples really.
You contradict your whole philosophy of life with your take on oil prices Geoff!
Oil is priced at an artificially low price for a number of reasons, the main one being that it keeps the cost of everything else down. Not to us, that’s just an unintended consequence, but to business, as there isn’t a single business that doesn’t rely on oil in one way or another.
It’s a pile em high, sell em cheap deal and the petro dollar is therefore devalued. If the price of oil reflected everything it had to go through from reserve to fuel tank (or chemical by product) then prices of everything would have to follow suit and there would be a global Fordism situation as prices and wages went up in conjunction with oil prices.
I’m not a fan of global warming scaremongering, my own views on that are that it has to do with the elliptical nature of the earth’s rotation around the sun and is not a man made phenomenon at all.
However, having said that I do believe that we should be using different fuel sources and harnessing the power of mother nature in conjunction with burning fossil fuels and that e should be eliminating plastics in favour of hemp based products.
newmercman:
You contradict your whole philosophy of life with your take on oil prices Geoff!
Oil is priced at an artificially low price for a number of reasons, the main one being that it keeps the cost of everything else down. Not to us, that’s just an unintended consequence, but to business, as there isn’t a single business that doesn’t rely on oil in one way or another.
It’s a pile em high, sell em cheap deal and the petro dollar is therefore devalued. If the price of oil reflected everything it had to go through from reserve to fuel tank (or chemical by product) then prices of everything would have to follow suit and there would be a global Fordism situation as prices and wages went up in conjunction with oil prices.
Fordism is one thing but inflation is another.Fordism will only work under the pile it high sell it cheap model to maintain the price wage balance.In the case of oil we’ve got previous precedent which proves that the pre 1973 price regime was more than covering the costs of production with plenty of profit left over.The post 1973 environment was just a politically motivated attempt by the Arabs to artificially limit supply which just kicked off an inflationary cycle.Resulting in the industrial strife and economic collapse of the late 1970’s on and which we’ve still not recovered from and won’t until/unless we get the massive oil price correction needed to get us back to that pre 1973 situation.
While you’re contradicting yourself by blaming that 1970’s workforce for trying to maintain the value of their wages in the inflationary environment which the post 1973 oil price regime kicked off.While now saying that wages will/should have risen to match it when they clearly wouldn’t/didn’t.Let alone now saying that £1 per litre isn’t high enough.The end result being that Fordism won’t fix inflation it will only fix lack of economic growth.With artificially high oil prices based on reductions in supply and the illusory actually non ‘benefits’ of high oil unit price just kicking off inflation.The biggest irony being how did we end up in that situation when we were sitting on a sea of our own oil which ‘could’ have been used to cancel out that whole inflationary mess.While instead charging ourselves the inflated price kicked off by the Arabs putting an embargo on exports that we didn’t even need. 
You correctly point out my contradictions in my views, that is because I have evolved from a Sun reading right winger. As I learn more, my views change, I used to be the epitome of a Thatcherite, now I think she was an evil ■■■■■■■■■ condoning witch puppet, just like all the rest of them.
Here’s something that may interest you, Schlumberger has laid off a quarter of its workforce since the last quarter of 2014, 24,000 people out of a job, since then shares have risen by 8% and Schlumberger has bought $10billion of its own shares back.
This current situation is all part of the plan, once they’ve taken care of the Russians, everything will return to how it was and don’t for one minute think that OPEC and the Saudis in particular are not up to their eyeballs in the con.
No way will fuel prices stay low for long There are a lot of costs incurred after getting the crude oil. Make the most of the present price, as it will soon return to the higher rate.
chicane:
As to the water vapour from hydrogen thing - would fitting a condenser be any more costly and difficult than a catalytic converter? Than just empty the water and recycle it. simples really.
I dont understand these concerns at all
Surely any water vapour would just condense as it rises in earths atmosphere and fall as rain ■■?
You are right about tidal whether lagoons or barriers , hopefully when the cardiff bay lagoon is finished there will be a mad rush to build more . i understand that just the severn and wash having barriers would equate to 1/2 of englands power requirements , in a perfectly predictable and sustainable way . allowing fish rights activists to scupper these plans is madness . fish face hazards from warming and acidification of oceans , not to mention oil spills with present system .
Apparently south west (around plymouth) is world leader in wave technology . we export these all around the world but use none here . these can be tethered to barges in floating islands and can produce huge huge amounts of energy even when there is little in way of waves . pretty cheap too .
CarryFast . its not a question of leaving it in the ground . it would be madness saudi abandoning oil in favour of tidal power !
Its a question of each country adopting policies that make the most of its natural resources and provide energy security .
We are a windy wet island with second highest tidal range in world . crops grow freely here BUT we have next to NO oil .
These facts should shape our energy and economic policies .
And not be oil junkies hanging around the back of bus station trying to give BJs to arabs so we can get our fix .
Alternative energy sources such as tidal systems would be a huge boost to the economy, the raw materials and personnel required to build them would be similar to the post war rebuilding boom.
boredwivdrivin:
newmercman:
You correctly point out my contradictions in my views, that is because I have evolved from a Sun reading right winger. As I learn more, my views change, …
Face facts mate .
You are a hippy now [emoji38]
Groovy man, peace out [emoji3] [emoji3]
boredwivdrivin:
Sounds like lack of investment to me .
Cant be beyong science to solve this ? Perhaps a small motor to turn blades into wind . or a different design all together . perhaps manufacturing them in england could improve quality control ?
The wind sock at airports always faces the wind !
You may have seen box spinners as micro generators too . the wind itself turns these into wind and spherical turbine spins on a butterflys ■■■■ . these are limited in size but ideal for your roof , if you have a smart meter !
I will post a link when i get home on laptop .
Erm. That’s what I was suggesting was “broke”… 
newmercman:
Alternative energy sources such as tidal systems would be a huge boost to the economy, the raw materials and personnel required to build them would be similar to the post war rebuilding boom.
Tidal,wave and wind doesn’t provide 24/7 power.It’s also more expensive than coal fired generation.Infrastructure investment isn’t a ‘boost’ to the economy it is actually a net burden because it has to be paid for out of the wealth creating industrial sectors.Either in the form of subsidies to private investment put on the cost of the product or direct taxation.This is the reality of being conned by the green agenda which wants us to be reliant on its preferred bonkers utopian ideas.
telegraph.co.uk/finance/news … nomic.html
telegraph.co.uk/news/politic … years.html
boredwivdrivin:
CarryFast . its not a question of leaving it in the ground . it would be madness
Its a question of each country adopting policies that make the most of its natural resources and provide energy security .
Great.In our case that would be coal for our elecricity generation and stop all further exports of UK oil and limit its use for domestic consumption based on pre 1973 oil prices in real terms.I’m guessing that your real agenda doesn’t match the rhetoric in that regard.
Although if I read it right you actually said you don’t want oil burned as fuel because you think that competes with your preference in the chemicals fraction of refined crude.
boredwivdrivin:
Surely any water vapour would just condense as it rises in earths atmosphere and fall as rain ■■?
In which case even the global warmist believers wouldn’t class water vapour in the atmosphere as the largest contributor to the green house effect on Earth.Having said that assuming you can provide all this cheap and plentiful renewables fuelled electricity as advertised and the condensor idea works the greens will have no problem with hydrogen fuelled internal combustion engines.So why the need for electric vehicles.
Carryfast:
boredwivdrivin:
CarryFast . its not a question of leaving it in the ground . it would be madness
Its a question of each country adopting policies that make the most of its natural resources and provide energy security .
Great.In our case that would be coal for our elecricity generation and stop all further exports of UK oil and limit its use for domestic consumption based on pre 1973 oil prices in real terms.I’m guessing that your real agenda doesn’t match the rhetoric in that regard.
Although if I read it right you actually said you don’t want oil burned as fuel because you think that competes with your preference in the chemicals fraction of refined crude.
Are you going to get it out f the ground Geoff, because there ain’t many left to to do the job in those industries.
