218 replies to this topic

[fiveoclock]

We had a by election in Loxwood yesterday. Results are in. Conservative gain from LD with a 21 per cent swing which is huge. There's a lot of conservative voters out there.

[slindborg]

 

Corbyn has taken aim at the UK’s oil companies, unveiling a one-off £11bn tax to pay for their contribution to climate change.

Another tank full of 99ron goes up in smoke tonight, for that stupid idea, Comrade Corbyn.

Are you a climate change denier?

 

The science behind climate change is well established as is the companies who are/have contributed most to global warming.

 

1 China (Coal) 14.32% 2 Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco) 4.50% 3 Gazprom OAO 3.91% 4 National Iranian Oil Co 2.28% 5 ExxonMobil Corp 1.98% 6 Coal India 1.87% 7 Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) 1.87% 8 Russia (Coal) 1.86% 9 Royal Dutch Shell PLC 1.67% 10 China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) 1.56% 11 BP PLC 1.53% 12 Chevron Corp 1.31% 13 Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) 1.23% 14 Abu Dhabi National Oil Co 1.20% 15 Poland Coal 1.16% 16 Peabody Energy Corp 1.15% 17 Sonatrach SPA 1.00% 18 Kuwait Petroleum Corp 1.00% 19 Total SA 0.95% 20 BHP Billiton Ltd 0.91% 21 ConocoPhillips 0.91% 22 Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) 0.77% 23 Lukoil OAO 0.75%

It is also well established that the oil companies are playing both ends against the middle - professing publicly to be pursuing renewable energy sources while at the same time the estimated investment they intend to spend in the near future on fossil fuel is in the trillions.  If they won't do what's required voluntarily - and all the indications are that they don't intend to, then an alternative is required.

 

 

yada yada yada.... BUT will a heavy one off tax against the oil companies a) be used to "fix" climate change OR be used to fund the terminally jobless and do nothing for actual climate change

 

Now, framing it differently it could go as such:

1) Big tax annually if you just keep doing what you are doing.

2)less tax annually if you make positive changes

3) no tax because you have buggered off to another country

 

[techieboy]

Poor old SNP. Nasty Labour appropriating their windfall tax on BP et al. Got to wonder how the SNP will fund Scotland if the "windfall" has already been taxed and nobody is allowed to use the black stuff anymore.

[jonnyboy]

Corbyn will stay neutral over Brexit. You really couldn't write the mess that Labour are in. How did we end up with this utter clown in charge? They write their manifesto by committee then he is desperately trying to lead a remain party in an election while been totally anti EU. He's not really leadership material I think all Boris needs to do is keep quiet and Corbyn will win the election for him.

It will be interesting to see where they go after assuming a defeat. The whole Corbyn/McDonnal/Watson/Abbot lot need retiring off.

[Jetpilot]

Corbyn will stay neutral over Brexit. You really couldn't write the mess that Labour are in. How did we end up with this utter clown in charge? 

 

The Unions, desperate to return to their glory days.

[Zoobeef]

We had a by election in Loxwood yesterday. Results are in. Conservative gain from LD with a 21 per cent swing which is huge. There's a lot of conservative voters out there.

 

Most are busy working and cant be arsed to take part in meaningless polls.

[casino]

Corbyn has taken aim at the UK’s oil companies, unveiling a one-off £11bn tax to pay for their contribution to climate change.

Another tank full of 99ron goes up in smoke tonight, for that stupid idea, Comrade Corbyn.

Are you a climate change denier?

The science behind climate change is well established as is the companies who are/have contributed most to global warming.
1 China (Coal) 14.32% 2 Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco) 4.50% 3 Gazprom OAO 3.91% 4 National Iranian Oil Co 2.28% 5 ExxonMobil Corp 1.98% 6 Coal India 1.87% 7 Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) 1.87% 8 Russia (Coal) 1.86% 9 Royal Dutch Shell PLC 1.67% 10 China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) 1.56% 11 BP PLC 1.53% 12 Chevron Corp 1.31% 13 Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) 1.23% 14 Abu Dhabi National Oil Co 1.20% 15 Poland Coal 1.16% 16 Peabody Energy Corp 1.15% 17 Sonatrach SPA 1.00% 18 Kuwait Petroleum Corp 1.00% 19 Total SA 0.95% 20 BHP Billiton Ltd 0.91% 21 ConocoPhillips 0.91% 22 Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) 0.77% 23 Lukoil OAO 0.75%
It is also well established that the oil companies are playing both ends against the middle - professing publicly to be pursuing renewable energy sources while at the same time the estimated investment they intend to spend in the near future on fossil fuel is in the trillions. If they won't do what's required voluntarily - and all the indications are that they don't intend to, then an alternative is required.

On who’s behalf are the energy Co’s providing energy? Just climate change deniers?

All the folks with the facts & figures, how are they getting their homes heated? How’s their food reaching the supermarkets?

[PaulCP]

Guy on the news this evening showed a graph highlighting the increases on ozone destroying emissions since the year 1800.

 

Apart from the scale on the graph being obviously skewed to show the effect he wanted the interviewer was absolutely useless (BBC again with their biased reporting). Why didn’t they ask him what technology they had in 1800 and 1900 to be able to measure the quantity of ozone destroying gases.

[rob999]

When I think of useless interviewers I automatically think of Kay Burley.

[SteveA]

 

All the folks with the facts & figures, how are they getting their homes heated? How’s their food reaching the supermarkets?

 

 

Renewables, green energy etc. The point is there are viable alternatives.

[coldel]

I wonder if the month long South West Rail strike thats about to hit us is a sign of things to come if Corbyn gets in...

[techieboy]

Nah, there'll be no need for strikes. Jezza's going to nationalise them all and Len and his mates will be able to name their price each year (RPI+5% minimum, reduced working week, increased holiday, one surly - usually sleeping - "guard" per carriage, statutory sick days, yada, yada) as part of collective bargaining.

 

But, just in case a Tory government ever gets back in, they'll roll back all of the union laws to allow general strikes, secondary strikes, sympathy strikes (as McDonnell called them at the weekend), flying pickets, only requiring the vote of 0.005% of union membership to enable it.

 

Stub your toe on the way to work? That's a H&S issue. Clearly unsafe working practices. Scum capitalist management. All out!

 

[C8RKH]

 

 

All the folks with the facts & figures, how are they getting their homes heated? How’s their food reaching the supermarkets?

 

 

Renewables, green energy etc. The point is there are viable alternatives.

 

Aye, that viable that the majority of them need either a subsidy, tax break, or a grant to make them viable (as does North Sea oil and gas to be fair).

 

My point is that everyone talks about these alternatives but no body ever provides any breakdown as to how "green" they really are. Yes, they energy they produce is in green, but what about:

 

1. Batteries and EVs - go to the DRC and other places where they mine the cobalt, lithium, and other rare earth metals and tell the parents of the child workers, with very short average life expectancies, contaminated water tables, and who are paid a pittance, that it's all OK as the stuff that they are mining, that is killing their children, means that people in the West can sleep at night knowking that they have a green, environmentally friendly car!
 

2. We do not, as yet, have a viable recycling process, at scale, to deal with the batteries that are being created. Guess what environmental disaster everyone could be talking about in 20-30 years time.
 

3. Wind turbines - wonderful things. A lot of them made in Malmo in Sweden, and other places that are not the UK. What's the environmental cost of making them, shipping them, the concrete (concrete being a massive pollutant) bases being excavated and laid, etc?  You never see this mentioned, just the "free green energy they produce" as if there a a zero impact, totally carbon neutral on day one
 

4. Biomass - wood fooking pellets, shipped in by the thousands of tonnes on oil burning boats that sail from Canada, the US and South America to transport fooking wood pellets to be burnt efficiently in the UK (as of course, we have no trees or forestry operations here) etc...

 

Aye, viable alternatives. My arse!

[coldel]

I am pretty sure there has been studies about end to end environment cost of types of energy production. Fossil fuel power stations are equally damaging to set up and create then of course for their lifetime are pumping out hazardous waste whilst turbines spin in the wind. Just as importantly the actual cost of producing wind energy is lower than fossil energy over the lifetime of the equipment, it now makes more financial sense. 

 

I guess putting it this way imagine that our country is entirely powered by solar stations, hydroelectric, wind farms then someone proposed that we build a power station that burns materials that are becoming more expensive each year, that are more expensive to run over the lifetime of the factory, that are more damaging to the environment - would you accept that proposal?

Edited by coldel, 26 November 2019 - 12:05 PM.

[C8RKH]

Yes - because actually what happened with the carbon economy is what is happening with renewables. Carbon was at first expensive to get out the ground, then became much cheaper and boom - industrial revolution - and progress.

 

The same will happen with renewables, but we are not there yet so on the one hand everyone wants green, but no fooker wants to pay extra for it, so it gets subsidised, which increases the energy costs and every body whinges...

 

Don't get me wrong, I am not Anti-renewables. I'm just sick and tired of the bullshit miss-information and the half truths and the bits left out by the asses who just "believe". It's a bit like vegans and meat!

 

Solar, wind, nuclear, hydrogen, they all have a place and a re all better than coal. But when our car engines no longer go vroom vroom, by god we'll miss it... 

 

[sford]

I always wonder if while renewables are viable, they are realistic. I imagine it's fairly straight forward to put up a turbine and store some electricity from it. As a solution, the problem then becomes scalability. If you were to take away the power stations, is there enough materials/space/wind to produce the same amount of electricity with the scope to expand production to meet demand as electric cars become the norm. I'd imagine as soon as a lack of energy impacts peoples day-to-day lives their view will adjust.  

[Jetpilot]

I always wonder if while renewables are viable, they are realistic. I imagine it's fairly straight forward to put up a turbine and store some electricity from it. As a solution, the problem then becomes scalability. If you were to take away the power stations, is there enough materials/space/wind to produce the same amount of electricity with the scope to expand production to meet demand as electric cars become the norm. I'd imagine as soon as a lack of energy impacts peoples day-to-day lives their view will adjust.  

 

I asked the very same question to someone pushing renewables as the future to our increased electricity demand and the future of ev's, just how much area will be required to supplement the grid, not surprisingly the answer was vague, just that they were the answer without any question to the logistics.

 

The kicker is also the environmental impact, proper irony that i.e people dont want their view ruined. There was a proposal for a 77sq m offshore wind farm off the Dorset Coast where i am from, surprise surprise it got refused. I would bet my left nut there were eco warriors calling for sustainable energy who objected to this because it was in their back yard!!

 

https://en.wikipedia...s_Bay_wind_farm

 

3-4+ years of building, jobs, contracts, employees staying in the area and sustainable energy all turned down for sake of a glimpse of something 6 miles offshore and living here i can tell you if there were less than half of year you cant even see that far offshore i would be surprised.

 

Utter bu**sh*t.

[techieboy]

First Tory canvasser I've ever met has just knocked on the door asking if they could count on our vote tomorrow (we're both postal voters).

 

I said we were both struggling and the first thing he asked was "What's your position on Brexit?". I said we'd both voted remain though neither of us were ardent remainers (though 'er indoors is becoming more so). His reply was a slightly disappointed "Oh". The only other thing he asked was "Have you met Ryan (Henson, our new Tory candidate), he really is a lovely chap". That was it. Nothing more. No attempts at persuasion. Hmmm, thanks for the deep and meaningful.

[coldel]

End to end cost both environmentally and from a basic economics perspective is that renewables are cleaner and cheaper - the cheapness has only just flipped in the last year hence the requirement for subsidising to date but soon the economic model will be firmly in renewables favour and more of the energy firms investment will go towards it. As an island, we have a stack of wind and tides (ok sunshine is a tough one!) but we still rely on gas from Russia and Oil from Saudi, given the current strength of feeling on making Britain great again I am surprised so many leavers still want our energy imported when we could be self sustaining that would make us more autonomous and not subject to volatility outside the country.

 

There are a tonne of myths around it but many are false. Something that is very true though is the political impact, Trump for instance is actively closing down (as are some UK politicians) renewable projects because it doesn't align with their core voters that keep them in a job.  

 

All that said I will also miss the vroom vroom of the ICE car and am making the most of it whilst we have it, but I also get that we need to stop burning stuff.

Edited by coldel, 26 November 2019 - 02:02 PM.

[coldel]

I always wonder if while renewables are viable, they are realistic. I imagine it's fairly straight forward to put up a turbine and store some electricity from it. As a solution, the problem then becomes scalability. If you were to take away the power stations, is there enough materials/space/wind to produce the same amount of electricity with the scope to expand production to meet demand as electric cars become the norm. I'd imagine as soon as a lack of energy impacts peoples day-to-day lives their view will adjust.  

 

Wind does a lot of overtime if you like, producing when not needed. One of the really fascinating ways of storage is that you pump water uphill using the excess energy. Then when you need it you release the water back down to regenerate the electricity. Relatively clean and reliable storage method (and quite clever!). When I did a Scotland road trip a few years back saw quite a lot of these hidden away on hillsides, would never have noticed or known what they were for unless it was explained to me!