I read in the Mail (I know its reputation thanks) that with improvements
in drilling and fracking that the UK amongst, many others, could soon be
free of Arab oil and Russian gas and be completely independent. What a
lovely thought, even if not true, what a difference it will make to our
world. However how real is that theory?. I wonder if then the strong
move to wind power will disappear. I am sure there are many here with
strong opinions and views, as well as "facts".
--
Remember the early bird may catch the worm but the second mouse gets the
cheese.

Broadback wrote:
I read in the Mail (I know its reputation thanks) that with improvements
in drilling and fracking that the UK amongst, many others, could soon be
free of Arab oil and Russian gas and be completely independent. What a
lovely thought, even if not true, what a difference it will make to our
world. However how real is that theory?. I wonder if then the strong
move to wind power will disappear. I am sure there are many here with
strong opinions and views, as well as "facts".

In the '70s, '80s and '90s, we could have used the leeway that our
massive reserves of coal, oil and gas gave us to institute a programme
of nuclear power and some renewable sources.

Instead, we had the "dash for gas", used up all our resources building
gas fired power stations and stupidly closed the coal mines for
political reasons. People were scared of nuclear, so we didn't build
any, and now we're finding that wind and solar are in the chocolate
teapot league apart from some off-grid applications. My home is
currently running "carbon free" due to some accounting trickery where
the supplier agrees to buy the total amount of energy I use from
renewable resources, rather than charging it to the coal and gas
accounts, while still guaranteeing me continuity of supply.
Hypocritical, maybe, but it encourages them to use carbon free sources
wherever they can.

Even when we were a net exporter of oil, we still had to import some, as
the North Sea Oil didn't have the right mix of ingredients to let us
make what we needed, and as the new reserves produced by fracking are
only gas, we'd still be importing large amounts of oil, and almost all
our coal.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

On 14/12/2012 12:05, John Williamson wrote:
....
In the '70s, '80s and '90s, we could have used the leeway that our
massive reserves of coal, oil and gas gave us to institute a programme
of nuclear power and some renewable sources.

Instead, we had the "dash for gas", used up all our resources building
gas fired power stations and stupidly closed the coal mines for
political reasons...

They were going to go anyway. It was cheaper to ship coal from Australia
than to get it from British mines.

Colin Bignell

On 14 Dec 2012 12:42:17 GMT, Huge wrote:

On 2012-12-14, Nightjar wrote:
On 14/12/2012 12:05, John Williamson wrote:
...
In the '70s, '80s and '90s, we could have used the leeway that our
massive reserves of coal, oil and gas gave us to institute a programme
of nuclear power and some renewable sources.

Instead, we had the "dash for gas", used up all our resources building
gas fired power stations and stupidly closed the coal mines for
political reasons...

They were going to go anyway. It was cheaper to ship coal from Australia
than to get it from British mines.

Precisely. Simple economics.

With emphasis on simple.


--

In article ,
Nightjar wrote:
On 14/12/2012 12:05, John Williamson wrote:
...
In the '70s, '80s and '90s, we could have used the leeway that our
massive reserves of coal, oil and gas gave us to institute a programme
of nuclear power and some renewable sources.

Instead, we had the "dash for gas", used up all our resources building
gas fired power stations and stupidly closed the coal mines for
political reasons...

They were going to go anyway. It was cheaper to ship coal from Australia
than to get it from British mines.

And is this still the case?

Oil used to be $25 a barrel. It's rather unwise to plan ahead on the basis
of what any type of imported energy costs at one point in time.
Of course it would be naive to think any politician is interested in the
future beyond the next election.

--
*When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
The Other Mike wrote:
On 14 Dec 2012 12:42:17 GMT, Huge wrote:

On 2012-12-14, Nightjar wrote:
On 14/12/2012 12:05, John Williamson wrote:
...
In the '70s, '80s and '90s, we could have used the leeway that our
massive reserves of coal, oil and gas gave us to institute a
programme of nuclear power and some renewable sources.

Instead, we had the "dash for gas", used up all our resources
building gas fired power stations and stupidly closed the coal mines
for political reasons...

They were going to go anyway. It was cheaper to ship coal from
Australia than to get it from British mines.

Precisely. Simple economics.

With emphasis on simple.

Quite. Thatcher realised there was enough North Sea oil and gas to get
through any possible time she'd still be prime minister. Beyond that
nothing mattered.

--
*Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article , Nightjar
writes

They were going to go anyway. It was cheaper to ship coal from Australia
than to get it from British mines.

'Was' being the operative word.

--
(\_/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

On 14/12/12 13:45, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Nightjar wrote:
On 14/12/2012 12:05, John Williamson wrote:
...
In the '70s, '80s and '90s, we could have used the leeway that our
massive reserves of coal, oil and gas gave us to institute a programme
of nuclear power and some renewable sources.

Instead, we had the "dash for gas", used up all our resources building
gas fired power stations and stupidly closed the coal mines for
political reasons...

They were going to go anyway. It was cheaper to ship coal from Australia
than to get it from British mines.

And is this still the case?

Certainly coal form the USA and IIRC poland is very cheap.

Oil used to be $25 a barrel. It's rather unwise to plan ahead on the basis
of what any type of imported energy costs at one point in time.
Of course it would be naive to think any politician is interested in the
future beyond the next election.

there is an awful lot of coal in the USA. worlds biggest reserves, and
most of it open cast too.


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 14/12/12 13:47, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
The Other Mike wrote:
On 14 Dec 2012 12:42:17 GMT, Huge wrote:

On 2012-12-14, Nightjar wrote:
On 14/12/2012 12:05, John Williamson wrote:
...
In the '70s, '80s and '90s, we could have used the leeway that our
massive reserves of coal, oil and gas gave us to institute a
programme of nuclear power and some renewable sources.

Instead, we had the "dash for gas", used up all our resources
building gas fired power stations and stupidly closed the coal mines
for political reasons...

They were going to go anyway. It was cheaper to ship coal from
Australia than to get it from British mines.

Precisely. Simple economics.

With emphasis on simple.

Quite. Thatcher realised there was enough North Sea oil and gas to get
through any possible time she'd still be prime minister. Beyond that
nothing mattered.

To be fair, politicians - even half decent ones, and I think she was
half decent - have their hand full solving the problems their
predecessors have left, never mind looking ahead too far. One of the
things I have decided is that unlike the green fantasists, the world is
actually too complex to make it worth having more than contingency plans
for a few decades ahead.

In my time running companies I learnt to be very astsurte in delaying
decisions about things, on the basis that around 60% of all decisions
would be utterly irrelevant by the time the next board or management
meeting happened. If an issue made it to three board meetings in a row,
then generally it really was important, and generally by that time the
answer was a no-brainer.

Its getting that way now with energy. the answer is a no-brainer.
Fracked gas coal and nuclear. The problem is there are a lot of people
who have less than no brain at all.



--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 14/12/12 13:50, Mike Tomlinson wrote:
In article , Nightjar
writes

They were going to go anyway. It was cheaper to ship coal from Australia
than to get it from British mines.

'Was' being the operative word.

still the case. We cant compete with vast open cast mines in the USA or
poland.


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:08:35 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

They were going to go anyway. It was cheaper to ship coal from
Australia than to get it from British mines.

And is this still the case?

Certainly coal form the USA and IIRC poland is very cheap.

And even cheaper since the bottom dropped out of the US coal market with
the advent of shale gas. Are the US not going to learn from our "dash for
gas"?

--
Cheers
Dave.

En el artículo , Huge
escribió:

And you have some evidence to back up your assertion that this is no longer
the case?

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-...final-results-
062612588.html

"as at 30 March 2012, the average forward market price for coal for
deliveries in the remainder of 2012 was £67 per tonne."

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=coal-
australian&months=60

Aug 2012: £62.05

that, of course, ignores the cost and environmental impact of shipping
it from Down Under.

--
(\_/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

On 14/12/12 15:06, Mike Tomlinson wrote:
En el artÃ*culo , Huge
escribió:

And you have some evidence to back up your assertion that this is no longer
the case?

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-...final-results-
062612588.html

"as at 30 March 2012, the average forward market price for coal for
deliveries in the remainder of 2012 was £67 per tonne."

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=coal-
australian&months=60

Aug 2012: £62.05

that, of course, ignores the cost and environmental impact of shipping
it from Down Under.

http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/COALBGSD:IND has FOB price of US coal at
$68 a tonne

So that's even cheaper.

And its closer.


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 14/12/2012 15:06, Mike Tomlinson wrote:
En el artículo , Huge
escribió:

And you have some evidence to back up your assertion that this is no longer
the case?

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-...final-results-
062612588.html

"as at 30 March 2012, the average forward market price for coal for
deliveries in the remainder of 2012 was £67 per tonne."

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=coal-
australian&months=60

Aug 2012: £62.05

that, of course, ignores the cost and environmental impact of shipping
it from Down Under.


Shipping something half way around the world is often cheaper and has
less environmental impact than delivering it from the docks to an
average distance destination within the UK.

Colin Bignell

On 14/12/12 16:16, Nightjar wrote:


Shipping something half way around the world is often cheaper and has
less environmental impact than delivering it from the docks to an
average distance destination within the UK.

Colin Bignell
+1


I ran a script to get a rough idea of how many people are watching the
gridwatch site..the log goes back to Sunday.

vps:/var/log/apache2# cat gridwatch.access.log | awk '{print $1}'\; |
sort -u | wc -l
3166

Over three thousand different IP addresses have accessed the site this
week.

No wonder the traffic stats are on the up.

Now if only they paid me 5p a hit...



--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 14/12/2012 13:45, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Nightjar wrote:
On 14/12/2012 12:05, John Williamson wrote:
...
In the '70s, '80s and '90s, we could have used the leeway that our
massive reserves of coal, oil and gas gave us to institute a programme
of nuclear power and some renewable sources.

Instead, we had the "dash for gas", used up all our resources building
gas fired power stations and stupidly closed the coal mines for
political reasons...

They were going to go anyway. It was cheaper to ship coal from Australia
than to get it from British mines.

And is this still the case?

Probably, given that Australia is the world's largest exporter of coal
and sells 35 million tonnes per annum to Europe. Although, at 47Mt/a
South Africa is the largest external supplier to Europe. The biggest
world market for coal today is the Far East, and most of Australia's
coal goes there.

Oil used to be $25 a barrel.

Adjusted for inflation, $25.10 a barrel in 1979 is equivalent to $78.73
in 2012.

It's rather unwise to plan ahead on the basis
of what any type of imported energy costs at one point in time.
Of course it would be naive to think any politician is interested in the
future beyond the next election.

Australian open cast coal mining was always going to be significantly
cheaper than deep coal mining in the UK, even with the transport costs.
Of course, today we have open cast mines of our own, but nothing on the
scale of Australia.

Colin Bignell

The Natural Philosopher wrote:


Now if only they paid me 5p a hit...


You could do worse than lob some Google Adsense bits on it - not hugely
instrusive, not hugely millionaire making but you might get a few quid from
time to time


--
Tim Watts Personal Blog: http://www.dionic.net/tim/

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."

On Fri, 14 Dec 2012 16:16:10 +0000, Nightjar wrote:

On 14/12/2012 15:06, Mike Tomlinson wrote:
En el artÃ*culo , Huge
escribió:

And you have some evidence to back up your assertion that this is no
longer the case?

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-...final-results-
062612588.html

"as at 30 March 2012, the average forward market price for coal for
deliveries in the remainder of 2012 was £67 per tonne."

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=coal-
australian&months=60

Aug 2012: £62.05

that, of course, ignores the cost and environmental impact of shipping
it from Down Under.


Shipping something half way around the world is often cheaper and has
less environmental impact than delivering it from the docks to an
average distance destination within the UK.

Colin Bignell

A few years ago, there was a story about engines for Vauxhalls (IIRC)
being made in Australia, and shipped to the UK. I couldn't believe this
was cost effective ... however, one of my customers worked in shipping,
and said that for very large quantities (10,000+) booked well in advance,
and with a properly manifested ship (i.e. with something to leave the
destination port full with) then cost per unit could be quite small.
Factor in exchange rates and it can be cheaper.

Although I still can't understand why lamb is such an expensive meat,
when the fields near me are littered with the things ... and why from New
Zealand ....

Jethro_uk wrote:
Although I still can't understand why lamb is such an expensive meat,
when the fields near me are littered with the things ... and why from New
Zealand ....

British land values, and the way that New Zealand lamb is, or at least
used to be, a waste product of their wool industry.

Lamb isn't all that expensive, though, unless you compare it with
intensively reared pork or chicken prices in the butcher's shop.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

Tim Watts wrote:
You could do worse than lob some Google Adsense bits on it

I've just started experimenting with putting an Adsense advert on the
non-content bits of my website (the autogenerated and main index
pages). In three weeks I've had 5p so far. Maybe because I put them so
they scroll off the bottom of the initially displayed page...

JGH

On 14.12.2012 15:14, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
....
Its getting that way now with energy. the answer is a no-brainer.
Fracked gas coal and nuclear. The problem is there are a lot of people
who have less than no brain at all.

Here I found a Xmas gift for you:
http://www.etk.ee.kth.se/personal/nt/elecpow/history/

It has a lot of the history how humanity learned to
produce and use nuclear energy.
We need more nuclear energy and no coal and fracked gas.
--
jo
"My views have changed because nuclear energy is the only
non-greenhouse-gas-emitting power source that can effectively
replace fossil fuels while satisfying the worlds increasing
demand for energy." €”Patrick Moore

On 22/12/2012 14:04, Jo Stein wrote:
On 14.12.2012 15:14, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
...
Its getting that way now with energy. the answer is a no-brainer.
Fracked gas coal and nuclear. The problem is there are a lot of people
who have less than no brain at all.

Here I found a Xmas gift for you:
http://www.etk.ee.kth.se/personal/nt/elecpow/history/

It has a lot of the history how humanity learned to
produce and use nuclear energy.
We need more nuclear energy and no coal and fracked gas.

Thank you for a very interesting link