The relentless rise in energy prices has been attributed to the profit-seeking of oil producers, to politically-motivated energy bullying by Russia, and to the effects of the ending of easily accessible oil deposits. The need for an energy source less vulnerable to all or any of these factors has produced weird plans for: wind farms encircling the British coast, huge investment in nuclear power (with all the problems of siting, waste disposal, large public resistance to nuclear energy production, not to mention a wholesale lack of experience and competence in such technology in British industry now), micro-provision at individual level, wholly unsuited to the management of energy demand and the national grid, and other greenish solutions.
Underneath the north east of England is lots of coal. On top of the north east of England are lots of failed bank workers. Presumably their much vaunted cultural traditions still hold; the pouring of tax-raised cash into the region should be directed towards establishing a modern energy industry and everyone can get back to their roots and back into productive employment.
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4 comments:
I believe that we have in Britain enough accessable reserves to last for 400 years. Surely it is not beyond our engineers to produce 'clean' electricity from this. Although by the closing of the pits in the 1980s will there be any men who atre willing to work as miners.
Near where I live they are piping natural gas (finite resource )ashore to fire a power station to generate electricity.
Wind power is not a solution, ask the Danes.
Perhaps one of your readers can tell me why we don't have causeways across our tidal rivers to generate electricity and prove a river crossing (the tides do not stop,yet).
malthebof@gmail.com
Following up Anonymous, I seem to recall that there is, or may be, a way to extract coal from decayed workings, by pulverising it with water and raising it to the surface in a slurry.
Perhaps, when Mrs T took on the miners, the closing pits should have had a skeleton staff to maintain their condition so as to allow them to be reopened when more efficient methods became available, just as in the sixteenth century, Queen Elizabeth called in German miners to find modern, profitable ways to work old copper mines in Devon and Keswick.
pausing to enjoy HG's modest suggestion
can I just point out that over the past 5 years oil has risen in price no more than almost all other major industrial commodities, and rather less than some
same high-level causes: GDP growth (esp Chinese); and producer-power (includes some 'western' co's)
ND, my excuse for pinching your expertise is that I fully agree with your energy views (particularly not paying to clean up France), and once posted that oil prices are neither at a historic high nor driven to where they are by falling oil reserves. There's lots and lots of oil, though I accept that it might be put to better uses than powering vehicles and producing electricity given its infinite flexibility.
There are a few laws that will have to be repealed so that the girls aren't excluded, but they're incompatible with equality legislation anyway and ought to go. Can't have outdated employment acts disempowering on the grounds of gender.
On S's suggestion that lost skills can be reintroduced by immigrant workers, Poland (again - they really are hard workers) springs to mind for coal miners. And I'm sure the culture is being kept alive by the Northern Rock Foundation anyway. If it isn't we can reasonably ask why not? After all we own the entire lot, don't we? Yet? As for the slurry, doesn't the coal slosh about in the sea at Hartlepool and Easington? The nuclear power plant at Hartlepool is out of production (fancy building one on top of all that coal), so it might be best to shut it for good and apply new technology to an age old resource.
Who knows, we could be making steel, building ships, railway engines, and laying out a decent rail track next.
And it certainly is a modest proposal, it wouldn't cost upwards of £80 billion. Apart from it being much more fun to be employed in heavy industry and engineering than sitting in a bankrupt call centre.
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