Reply to: Risk of blackouts at highest for six years

[amcdonald]

Ah, the old 'We fooked up so let's make other people the scape-goats' approach.

How do you decide what an inappropriate use of electricity is exactly?

When you only electrocute one Labour MP when you could have done them all

[bless 'em all]

The government will launch an "all pull together" movement, telling people they must turn the bloody lights out when not in the room and dob in neighbours who use electricity inappropriately.

It's going to suck for electric cars though.

Ah, the old 'We fooked up so let's make other people the scape-goats' approach.

How do you decide what an inappropriate use of electricity is exactly?

[minestrone]

I fancy going down the pub and having a blackout later on this afternoon.

[d000hg]

The government will launch an "all pull together" movement, telling people they must turn the bloody lights out when not in the room and dob in neighbours who use electricity inappropriately.

It's going to suck for electric cars though.

[EternalOptimist]

You've found your way to the least likely end-point there - but there's certainly a chance of it happening.

The more likely senario is, as soon as the first black-out strikes and the populace can't watch 'stenders, the Govn't will allow fracking to start anywhere there's a goodly supply of gas and get the carbon ball rolling.

By that time it'd be a risky business being an anti-fracking protester.

The most likely scenario in my mind, the lights will stay on, just. The dept of energy have been buying emergency generators on the quiet and these have 30gw of capacity.

If the lights do go out, the criminals will take over the streets within hours, like the riots in 2011, the army will get involved in restoring order and Ed Milliband, Chris Huhne and Ed Davey will be looking for somewhere to hide.

[DodgyAgent]

Well, my invoices would seem to indicate I have a certain talent for IT. But yeah, like a lot of IT people of my acquaintance, I graduated in a science subject (Physics), found there were no jobs and cross-trained, I still like to keep up with the literature in my subject and in climate change.

The lead DBA at my last clientco used to be a research assistant for Stephen Hawking.... the two are not mutually exclusive...

We might take your word for it. But bioscience is not physics. I also note that you do not get provoked into sideline arguments about agendas of scientists, and nor do you give any ground on any of your arguments. Before you get too smug about this it makes you look like a controlling propogandist not someone who is debating issues. No jobs for physics graduates?? - pull the other one.

[bless 'em all]

For all this discussion the lights are still going to go out as we shut down more and more plants. If we end up unable to generate our own electricity and forced to buy it from Russia then we'll become a vassal state and life in this country will change drastically.

At that point we won't be able to afford to have a green agenda at all and probably won't even be able to talk about such things without getting locked up.

You've found your way to the least likely end-point there - but there's certainly a chance of it happening.

The more likely senario is, as soon as the first black-out strikes and the populace can't watch 'stenders, the Govn't will allow fracking to start anywhere there's a goodly supply of gas and get the carbon ball rolling.

By that time it'd be a risky business being an anti-fracking protester.

[smatty]

For all this discussion the lights are still going to go out as we shut down more and more plants. If we end up unable to generate our own electricity and forced to buy it from Russia then we'll become a vassal state and life in this country will change drastically.

At that point we won't be able to afford to have a green agenda at all and probably won't even be able to talk about such things without getting locked up.

[pjclarke]

Well, my invoices would seem to indicate I have a certain talent for IT. But yeah, like a lot of IT people of my acquaintance, I graduated in a science subject (Physics), found there were no jobs and cross-trained, I still like to keep up with the literature in my subject and in climate change.

The lead DBA at my last clientco used to be a research assistant for Stephen Hawking.... the two are not mutually exclusive...

[Old Greg]

I am not a scientist

Sir, I feel betrayed and shamefully used.

[DodgyAgent]

Q1. What is this amazing micro-nutirent?

Q2. What trials have been performed?

Q3. Is it scalable to a global solution?

Q4. What are the unintended consequences.

Ocean fertilisation has been trialled. Seeding the oceans with iron to create artificial algae blooms that sequester carbon by sinking it to the ocean bottom as the organisms die. See for example Boyd et al 2004 http://aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_50/issue_6/1872.pdf (and if you think such research is starved of funds, check out the number of co-authors). Basically, it doesn't work, the increased algae get consumed by other organisms attracted by the new food source, so the carbon sequestered is less than the carbon released in mining and transporting the iron. Also waters downstream of the bloom get depleted of nutrients and deoxygenated, which is likely to p*ss off the people trying to fish in those waters and as things stand breaks various international treaties.

At least that is my understanding, but you seem to know better ....

You are not far off the mark at all. I am not a scientist but I showed your answer to the friend of mine (he is not a scientist either) who is selling the product and what he said is that your answer has to be from someone who if not a scientist has a very strong understanding of science. You are not really an IT person at all are you?

[d000hg]

Good for the obesity* epidemic too.


* I typed "abesity" by mistake and my spell-checker suggested "bestiality". I was VERY tempted to accept that suggestion.

[d000hg]

weave on what ?
how would you cut the tree down though ?

This is silly. We've had clothes and tools long before we learned how to mine and process ore, and that is where we start to use resources in a non-recoverable way.

[some] Plastic can already be created in a sustainable way but metal cannot.

[pjclarke]

No, EO, that is, of course, a parody of my position, full of untruths and half-truths.

Here, for example, is the Hadley Centre's view of the last 20 years of global temperatures ...

Wood for Trees: Interactive Graphs

[EternalOptimist]

Ah, the old 'environmentalists want to take us back to the Stone Age' myth.

News for you: people have worked out the sustainable per-person carbon footprint, assuming some feasible technological changes, and it is perfectly possible to take a long-haul flight a year within that budget. Google 'Contraction and Convergence'. Let me google that for you

What is lacking is the political appetite to make the changes the science tells us are required. I wonder why?

so your answer is that although the temperatures have not risen for 20 years, sea levels rises have not accelerated, although the ice has rebounded dramatically and every single prediction of catastrophe has failed to materialise, although the IPCC have confirmed that there is no link between CO2 and extreme weather, you still want us to adopt your fanatical green agenda ?

well my answer is No