rising oil prices

Re: Nuclear Fusion.

I just had a look at the article on nuclear fusion and I hope it dispels any notion that nuclear fusion is just going to appear seamlessly online to replace fossil fuels as they run out. It exists in theory and in futuristic startrek technology along with "beam me up scotty". If it ever becomes possible on earth it will require enormous budgets and resources and take decades of sustained effort. It also won't be achieved by international cooperation but by nations or maybe continents acting in their own self interest. No nation if it achieves it will want to share it with other nations as if it were some sort of internet technology. Afterall the nuclear technology we now have was only made possible by America at war acting in its own self interest with military resources. It was made possible in Russia by Stalin using all of its resources to achieve it (so much resources that people starved). No private enterprise or corporation has touched nuclear technology since even though it is now 60 years in existence. This shows that even the limited nuclear technology we now have, it is still too difficult and too hot for private enterprise to go near.

nuclear investment

Is anyone here that has invested in nuclear energy?
How did it work out?
I,as a tax payer ,have lost a lot of money already !!

back to the future

I have been looking at alot of analyis of the energy market for the next 20 to 30 years. No serious analyst is expecting some magic new cheap energy source. They predict that oil will get more and more scarce and more and more expensive. Many analysts are now predicting a return to coal as oil gets scarcer. Coal can be liquified and gasified but it is not cheap and not clean. Currently coal is still abundant but by its nature it can't be extracted quickly enough because it is not a liquid like oil. So what ever way you look at it the global economy is going to run into a brick wall, there is no alternative to serious cutbacks in global energy use. It is interesting to note that mankind abandoned coal in favour of oil because oil was superior to coal. If mankind is forced to return to coal it will be the first time that man has had to go back to using an older technology. It would be like iron age man going back to using bronze.

Well,the people of the Netherlands have used windpower to create the Netherlands.The mills pumped the water into the sea.Then they switched to steampower for the pumps,then to electricity created by (nuclear) powerplants.Now they use more and more windturbines to replace the nuclear powerplants.And they are not going back(smiley).
HB

The dutch have been masters at using resources they have at their disposal. When the dutch were using windpower to reclaim land from the sea they didn't have a densely populated country of 10 million on a land area less than half the size of ireland. This population can only be maintained by importing energy (in the form of fossil fuels) and raw materials from abroad. Only a fool would believe that this population and its standard of living can be maintained by windpower blowing across the netherlands. In fact the population of Europe cannot be maintained by using European resources, it can only be maintained by importing resources from third countries. This is what globalisation is all about, and globalisation needs cheap energy in order that everything can be moved around the planet.

There is no doubt that we are living on a standard that is not sustainable.The developed countries have to save 80 % on fossile resources incl. nuclear power.Any alternative form of energy resp.the combination of several forms of them can provide for the other 20%.(Half of Irelands energy demand is used for homes-and the zero energy homes are available of the hook.)That is the opinion of the IEA-certainly not a "green phantasts" organisation.The sun propably provides your roof/backgarden with more energy than you use at all-around 700 watts per square meter.The harvest is up to everyone.
The Dutch are fulfilling their promise under the Kyoto agreement.With the help of their brains,their feeling for being responsible .That is something that religious nations don't have.A priest killed in a German concentration camp(Bonhoeffer) said that we have to live as if God doesn't exist-we are responsible for what we can influence.
That the oil prices are increasing leads to energy price increases.To price increases generally.Capitalism gives us a tool that shoudn't be underestimated.And the major energy user (in national terms),the U.S., is calling for communism.They want to abandon the mechanisms of the free market with the aid of protectionistic laws.......Fine.Otherwises nuclear power wouldn't have a chance.
When intelectual fossiles are the decision makers of a society this society is determined for extinction.
Arnold Schwarzenegger phones home every day to see if his children have done their homework,Daddy Bush never did so....

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/08B97BCF-7BE6-4F1D-A846-7ACB9B0F8894.htm
There is a lot of fiddling going on,surely Shell wasn't the last company to adjust their existing field capacitys.The third last sentence of the article above gives food for thought,at least for me.

We have not considered Bio fuels. Made from beet crops. The Brazilians have been using gasahol for years. ( petrol and alcohol mixed)

Roker

Beet are about the worst agriculture for the environment that we have in Irland.It is a monoculture that demands heavy spraying and weeding.It is a typical Sargent Trevor idea-when other brighter people have dimissed it he picks it up.The EU and the US and the former USSR have done plenty of research inthe field,check google.Sugar in brassilia is growing in the form of canes after destroing the natural environment and with the aid of slaves it is-since there is no tax on methanol/ethanol-a little bit cheaper than the conventioanal fuel.Except for NLG,LPG,oil from plants ect..Sargent Trevor is trying to lure farmers to vote for his income.He is a mafiosi in my opinion.During the last election the lady on his side made publicly the announcement that "nothing has to change for farmers"(on RTE)-the worst polluters in the EU!!! There is no sugar industry cheaper than the unsubsidised sugar industry.But that is history.Unless some idiots jump onto the waggon.
Sugar cane is several times more productive than sugar beet.Compare like with like -calories per hectar is the base.The cane grows several meters high ,the beet a few inches.Sugar cane needs no weedkiller,it grows by itself for several years without reseeding,without ever seeing a tractor running on diesel.Sugar cane factories are energy autark,they burn the leftover fibres to produce the energy to run them.And still have plenty of surplus energy to sell to the grid.That is nowadays technic.Without any subsidies and development aids.The sugar beet is a German first world war developement.As dead as a "Panzerkreuzer",a battelship.
Aid to the third world aid (that will keep us the terrorists away) means opening of the market and NOT subsidising further dependancy.Don't throw good money after bad.And don't take us for stupid.
You are voting Green ?I did so by tradition until I met the Irish Greens.I never met so much hypocracy and ignorance with any politicans before-and I met a lot of them.

It's getting even better.$120.- per barrel predicts the IMF.See http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E161F3F4-4602-4C09-AB80-8B121C0EABA0.htm

(I don't want to push that theme to far ,tell me when it get's out of hand.)
To heat up the discussion here is an other one.
$ 380.- per barrel:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/73CE8286-740C-482B-8150-DA57696BC02F.htm
I don't assume that the dollar will still be the currency to pay with for it in 2015.
But the $ 380.- per barrel is still cheaper than nuclear power.So there is a good chance that it realy is compatible at that price.....and what can be done will be done.

Even though I think that oil is going to get very scarce and very expensive and that it will propel the global economy into crisis I would take what Al Jazeera says with a large grain of salt. They have their own agenda which is an anti western one. The problem is that as the situation moves up the political scale, it will be used by different people to drive their own agendas. I think that western governments are discussing this problem behind the scenes but any measures they take will be presented to the public under the guise of tackling "global warming". It is interesting to note that Tony Blair has recently given the issue of global warming a high priority. There is even talk of Britain building a new generation of nuclear power plants after the next election to tackle "global warming"

But Britain has privatised the energy market , techman.Even when the atomic mafia -they are ,after all,comitting a crime on our future by influencing gouvernment decisions to fill their pockets- gets a say who will finance the project? You and me?Get your say and sign this petition:[broken link removed]
Billions are already lost in the pockets of those who are working-as you put it - behind the scenes.For this money all EU homes could have had a PV solare panel and hyper insulation.
The British army is facing an existency crisis.So guarding nuclear rubbish after running out of oil seems to be a job guarantee for the next few hundred thousand years . That won't come cheap to all of us .
Will the children get new school books or will sargent ray get a new radio meter.That is the question.And how do army vehicles move? On hydrogene? They would be targets for bow and arrow ! A match strike could blow up an entire battalion plus whatever they guard.And don't tell us these guys don't smoke the dreadful weed....

there was something in the sunday times last sunday ( cant recall which section) about some guy who says there is no global warming in fact he says greenland is getting colder and the ice packs are getting bigger. on oil, i suspect that the military will never run out of oil, take the second world war when oil was pretty scarce in Britain , there was still plenty to run the war effort. same today . petrol may get scarce or expensive but how many airplanes do the US military have in the air at any given time?. during the 2nd world war Britian was able to bomb the This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language out of Germany night after night but when the war ended how many British Citizens could afford to take a european flight ( I know, bad example )?