It's all about the sun!

[TimberWolf]

UK Coal | Business | guardian.co.uk

Ch 23 Page 157: Sustainable Energy - without the hot air

The first is a link to a stock chart for UK coal

And from the second:

[the UK has] 100 tons per person

And 100 tonnes would last how long to feed, clothe, heat and transport the average UK citizen? The UK has flip all coal left - including the awkward to get at stuff. We burnt ours 100 years ago.

Worldwide it is a different story.

[TimberWolf]

If this gets out weathermen will have to get a first class degrees astrophysics rather than in astrology as at present.

[Paddy]

Do some research and stick it up your bum

Why is oil usually found in deserts and arctic areas?: Scientific American

Oil and gas result mostly from the rapid burial of dead microorganisms in environments where oxygen is so scarce that they do not decompose. This lack of oxygen enables them to maintain their hydrogen-carbon bonds, a necessary ingredient for the production of oil and gas. Newly developing ocean basins, formed by plate tectonics and continental rifting, provide just the right conditions for rapid burial in anoxic waters. Rivers rapidly fill these basins with sediments carrying abundant organic remains. Because the basins have constricted water circulation, they also have lower oxygen levels than the open ocean. For instance, the Gulf of California, an ocean basin in development, is making new oil and gas in real time today

The difficulty here is that there are practical implications for actually extracting and converting these resources at a rate which will meet future daily demand levels. With conventional oil you drill a hole in the ground and it comes out in liquid form. With coal you have to set up a mining operation, which isn't quite the same thing. For the same reasons, tar sands will never produce as much oil as the oil fields in the gulf, even though there are comparable levels of total oil available in each. Conversion also takes a lot of energy, meaning that the energy return on energy invested is poor.

The amount of fuel left inside the planet isn't really an issue (there will always be some left), it's the speed with which it can be extracted and supplied that's the problem. Currently global oil use is around 1000 barrels per second.

Says who?

UK Coal | Business | guardian.co.uk

Ch 23 Page 157: Sustainable Energy - without the hot air

Here’s the arbitrary definition I’ll use: the
burn-rate is “sustainable” if the resources would last 1000 years. A ton of
coal delivers 8000 kWh of chemical energy, so 1600 Gt of coal shared be-
tween 6 billion people over 1000 years works out to a power of 6 kWh per
day per person

[VectraMan]

The opprobrium is leaking across to areas where we have much higher skill such as in short range forecasting and climate change

op·pro·bri·um [uh-proh-bree-uhm]
–noun
1. the disgrace or the reproach incurred by conduct considered outrageously shameful; infamy.
2. a cause or object of such disgrace or reproach.

Just thought I'd add that to help out the "less intelligent". I of course knew what it meant.

[AtW]

"there is some evidence we are losing the respect of the public."

[Freamon]

The Met Office is certainly feeling a little bit hard done by lately. This paragraph is taken from an internal executive paper:

"Unfortunately, less 'intelligent' (and potentially hostile) sections of the press, competitors and politicos have been able to maintain a sustained attack on the Met Office ... The opprobrium is leaking across to areas where we have much higher skill such as in short range forecasting and climate change - our brand is coming under pressure and there is some evidence we are losing the respect of the public."

Pretty amusing. More here:

BBC - Open Secrets: The Met Office and its seasonal problems

[CheeseSlice]

There are billions of dollars invested in AGW alchemy. As contractors, you should be trying to get on the gravy train, not derailing it.

I'm not convinced. Its not exactly bubble material, nor is it a convincing doomsday event like the millenium bug promised to be. To get anywhere with a con like this you at least need to scare either the average man on the street or the successful business owner.

The only thing driving green technologies (especially in IT) is the cost savings from saving energy. The smugness and warm fuzzy feeling in your tummy you get from 'going green' is just a freebie from saving many £££££s.

[Gold Dalek]

There are billions of dollars invested in AGW alchemy. As contractors, you should be trying to get on the gravy train, not derailing it.

Besides, you humans are running out of fossil fuels anyway, so AGW conspirators and their ultra-green policies are a good thing for now.

Who let you out of the box?

[TimberWolf]

Maybe running out of certain fossil fuels (it’s possible the oil is regenerative and a product of the Earths plate movement). The UK has between 300 and 1000 years of coal reserves that can be converted Benzene and Diesel.

Says who?

[Freamon]

Maybe running out of certain fossil fuels (it’s possible the oil is regenerative and a product of the Earths plate movement).

The UK has between 300 and 1000 years of coal reserves that can be converted Benzene and Diesel.

The difficulty here is that there are practical implications for actually extracting and converting these resources at a rate which will meet future daily demand levels. With conventional oil you drill a hole in the ground and it comes out in liquid form. With coal you have to set up a mining operation, which isn't quite the same thing. For the same reasons, tar sands will never produce as much oil as the oil fields in the gulf, even though there are comparable levels of total oil available in each. Conversion also takes a lot of energy, meaning that the energy return on energy invested is poor.

The amount of fuel left inside the planet isn't really an issue (there will always be some left), it's the speed with which it can be extracted and supplied that's the problem. Currently global oil use is around 1000 barrels per second.

[Paddy]

There are billions of dollars invested in AGW alchemy. As contractors, you should be trying to get on the gravy train, not derailing it.

Besides, you humans are running out of fossil fuels anyway, so AGW conspirators and their ultra-green policies are a good thing for now.

Maybe running out of certain fossil fuels (it’s possible the oil is regenerative and a product of the Earths plate movement). The UK has between 300 and 1000 years of coal reserves that can be converted Benzene and Diesel.

[derekthedalek]

There are billions of dollars invested in AGW alchemy. As contractors, you should be trying to get on the gravy train, not derailing it.

Besides, you humans are running out of fossil fuels anyway, so AGW conspirators and their ultra-green policies are a good thing for now.

[Flashman]

I've been banging on about the Sun being more to blame than anything we do for a few years now, looks like others are starting to come across to my way of thinking

Is the Met. Office facing relegation ? | Boris Johnson

Bring on the ice age

Dave Cameron awarded a CBE to the head of the Met in the new years honours list. I kid you not.

[Ardesco]

I've been banging on about the Sun being more to blame than anything we do for a few years now, looks like others are starting to come across to my way of thinking

Is the Met. Office facing relegation ? | Boris Johnson

Bring on the ice age