 | Government doesn't accept imminent peak oil (Part 1) | The Oil Drum: Europe | Government doesn't accept imminent peak oil (Part 2) |  |
User login
Personnel
Editors
Contributors
Peak Oil Primers
Archives
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
Vital Trivia
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
government has no intention of solving the energy
crisis, nor the global warming crisis. All these
reviews and discussions are simply time fillers,
distractions to make it look as though something
is being done, attempts to have their cake and eat
it? Would it not be a fair assumption that all
politicians are blinded by maninstream economic
dogma of perpetual growth they will never
abandon the growth ideology until forced to?
The UK government will do whatever is necessary
to continue to create the illusion of economic
growth, even as the economy starts falling to
pieces -hence all the silly nonsense about
additional runways and surges in air travel over
the next 30 years.
The real solutions to Britain's problems are
politically unacceptable, since they amount to
an admission that almost everything that has
been done over the past 40 years or so has been
wrong, going right back to the closure and
ripping up of much of the rail system in the
1960s.
The real amswer to most of the problems that
bedevil the UK (and the world) is abandonment
of GDP and the adoption of the Genuine
Progress Index. Well the chance of that
happening is about zero.
Clearly a rapid power down, whereby people live
and work within their own community and food
is produced as close as possible to the
communituy will be necessary. I cannot for the
life of me see politicians who are committed
to globalisation suddenly turning round and
saying: "Sorry folks, we got it all wrong.
We need local manufacture, local employment,
local small scale markets, local everything."
What is far more likely is that the UK
government will continue to fiddle while Rome
burns, attempting to secure oil and natural
gas import deals with whoever they can, for
as long as possible, maybe getting engaged
in a new military fiasco, in order to delay the
dreaded day when the all the chickens come home
to roost.
If the UK government really wanted to solve the
enregy crisis it would commence with a public
education campaign pointing out that London is
likely to be under water in a few decades and
that a gradual shut of the consumer society
[throughout the world, with Britain leading the
way] is necessary to prevent it. It would remove
the annual road tax on vehicles under 800cc and
raise it to punative levels on over 1500cc
vehicles. It would subsidise bicycles and
bicycle spare parts. It would make road systems
friendly to bicycles and unfriendly to cars. It
would revitalise the rail system with
lightweight, slow-moving railstock.
It would recognise that speed is not the answer,
but is the problem. It would reintroduced
trade restrictions. It would ensure that all new
buildings are of solar design and as thermally
effcinet as possible.
Well, we can be pretty sure none of it will
happen and Britain will continue to head straight
off the cliff, just as New Zealand is.
Why do that when the fuel price do most of the work?
And why write the rules with a measurmenet of engine size that might loose its technical relevance in a few years?
I would prioritize making it easy to switch over to plug-in hybrids. Your standard fuzed high capacity electrical outlets are good ones for such systems.
> It would subsidise bicycles and bicycle spare parts.
Why do that when the fuel price do most of the work?
The bueraucracy will eat such a system from within, dont start such a waste of workhours.
> It would make road systems friendly to bicycles and unfriendly to cars.
Why create conflicts when there is room for both? In my home town most people like bicycle lanes exept those who get irritated on the ones local "greens" built to be in the way for car traffic.
> It would revitalise the rail system with lightweight, slow-moving railstock.
Why slow moving when fast moving attracts more people and can be powered with electricity from manny sources?
And build more rail lines and plan bus lanes and streets to be usefull for future trolley systems.
> It would recognise that speed is not the answer, but is the problem.
Speed is not allways wastefull. Speed up some of your trains and replace more air travel.
> It would reintroduced trade restrictions.
Brilliant to slow down trade when living on an iceland that needs trade to survive...
> It would ensure that all new buildings are of solar design and as thermally effcinet as possible.
Why do that when the fuel price do most of the work?
Ok, you can hurry on the process, my favorite is to do it with good exampels. The most important part is what can be done to make the excisting houses more energy efficient. (The most important part in US suburbia is probably what can be done to cheaply fit two families into a modified excisting house. That is if my over-the-internet impression is correct. )
Flexibility and incremental improvements are more important then raw capacity. Wider track gauge would be good for cargo limited by volume and do very little for dense cargo limited by axle preassure.
What is being done in Sweden is a gradual enlargement of the loading profile and upgrading of the railway lines for larger axle preassure. This gives most of the benefits of a wider gauge withouth the incompatibility costs.
http://www.banverket.com/upload/pdf/marknad/jarnvagsnatsbeskrivning/Lastprofil%20A_B%20och%20C%20040 714.pdf
The intresting examples for higher axle loads can often be fond in USA, they also double stack containers wich is impossible in Sweden due to numerous bridges and the electrification.
You can also get more capacity by longer trains and better traffic control systems such as the ERTMS that is to become the new pan european standard.
Find needed railway lines that can be built with current technology and standards, getting them to run a few years earlier then odd projects should be inspiring.