harry wrote:

The thing is the price of fossil fuels is going to quadruple in the
next decade.
Getting oil from the Aratic won't be cheap.

In Sept 2011 it was announced that shale gas reserves in Lancashire alone
can provide
the UK with an estimated 64 years worth for the UK. It never came with a
media hype of wonderment for some reason. The country was moving to phase
out cheap natural gas (which rose considerably in price recently), now it
will reverse.

The problem with shale gas is the fracking to extract the gas. A small
earthquake (a very minor tremor which no one felt) near Blackpool, where
fracking is being done, was blamed on the fracking process which involved
forcing high pressure chemicals/water/mud down pipes into the gas layer to
extract it from rock/sediment. Shale gas finds in the US meant gas prices
around NY dropped. I can't see that immediately in the UK, as they would use
it to bring down the deficit. They hope to have it on-line by 2013. Shale
gas resereves drop right down from the North, Midlands and into the the top
of southern England.

In Texas fracking has meant gas seeps into ground water. Lancashire gets its
water from lakes further north so no great problem.

A Resource & Pollution tax will reduce demand and encourage clean burning.
But it has to come from all angles to solve the energy problem.

1. More renewable energy usages,
2. Tax pollution,
3. Make appliances more efficient.
4. Smaller local (district) power stations.

Internal combustion engined vehicles are an efficiency joke - the makers
have done little to improve/replace these old crocks. Some condensing gas
boilers (furnaces) are up to over 95% efficiency - burning natural gas at
point of use (in the homes) is highly efficient. Having smaller, local,
cleaner, natural gas power stations, again is far more efficient as there
are less line losses - also waste heat can be piped to local homes (Combined
Heat & Power). In Scandinavia, locals stations are about 90% efficient as
the waste heat is used. One uses an underground heat store, to store heat in
summer for winter use.

We could be all electric, inc cars, buses and trains, using the abundance of
fracked gas to fuel the power stations.