|
U-Know! Forum » NEW FEATURE: Bury Heads in The Sandbag |
Log In to post a reply
|
|
|
|
| Topic View: Flat | Threaded | |
Merrick 2148 posts |
Nov 30, 2009, 18:49
|
||
|
There's a new Feature article up in U-Know. It's about Sandbag, a new environmental organisation that wants to make carbon trading work as away to solve climate change. Thing is, the carbon trading system is built to be acceptable to the desires of the high-emitting corporations. Which is why the 5 years of the EU's carbon trading system haven't yielded any real cuts. Meanwhile, corporate lobbying has moved carbon trading to be the centrepiece of the forthcoming Copenhagen climate change talks. The effective solutions are not on the table, and the pressure to put them there will have to come from a desire to match what science demands instead of what big business finds palatable. http://www.headheritage.co.uk/uknow/features/?id=99
|
|||
Daminxa 1415 posts |
Nov 30, 2009, 19:26
|
||
It's just robbing Peter to pay Paul isn't it? With no overall reduction in the amount of carbon dioxide being pumped out there. We're all told how we can reduce our own 'carbon footprint' and I believe the majority of people here are doing what they can, but it's a drop in the ocean compared with the 'carbon footprints' of industry, and I don't see any practical measures being taken to reduce that. It's very demoralising for people trying to make a difference in their own small way, by buying their electricity from the likes of Good Energy, cutting back on the electricity they use and or using their cars less etc. Is there any real hope of industry following suit and cutting back on their carbon emissions? It's just that I've yet to see it.
|
|||
dodge one 1242 posts |
Nov 30, 2009, 19:42
|
||
|
Be interesting to see what develope's at the Copenhagen talks. But if history is the bench-mark, it's just going to be talk. Mankind will not, and won't, do an about face of the magnitude nessasary to save ourselves from ourselves. It's interesting to me that peak oil and Climate warming tip-over point coincide so closely. Perhaps there is an order to the cosmos. 6 Billion and counting of us. We'd still be a plague at 1/3 that. What saddens me the most living through this era, is how many species of animal and plant life, that went extinct, that i have bore witness to. A few years ago, at the lunch table at work, i remarked to my co-workers,"A species of Chinese river dolphin has been declared extinct today" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baiji Everybody sort of went quiet a moment....and then got back to there own concerns.
|
|||
|
Merrick 2148 posts |
Dec 02, 2009, 16:17
|
||
|
Daminxa wrote: I believe the majority of people here are doing what they can I really don't. People may recycle more, but that is a miniscule difference compared to their flights or car use. For example, Daminxa wrote: buying their electricity from the likes of Good Energy all the green electricity tariff customers combined (including people on the scam ones run by the Big Six suppliers) make less than one percent of households. People find it difficult to change habits, and all the more so when the changes involve some kind of sacrifice. Imagine if WW2 rationing had been voluntary instead of mandatory. Even those who thought they should do it would've given up if they saw their neighbours living high on the hog. Daminxa wrote: Is there any real hope of industry following suit and cutting back on their carbon emissions? In short, no. Not without legislation to force them, and that will only come if governments acquiesce to public pressure. corporations are legally obliged to maximise profits for shareholders. All other considerations have to be secondary. So they can only do the responsible thing if it also happens to be the most profitable, and that is almost never the case.
|
|||
|
Merrick 2148 posts |
Dec 02, 2009, 16:52
|
||
|
dodge one wrote: Be interesting to see what develope's at the Copenhagen talks. But if history is the bench-mark, it's just going to be talk. Putting the people who caused the problem - and who have a vested interest in it continuing - in charge of the solution isn't going to work. dodge one wrote: It's interesting to me that peak oil and Climate warming tip-over point coincide so closely. As we hit peak oil other - far more carbon intensive - methods of making oil become economically viable, such as tar sands and coal-to-liquid. It makes us accelerate toward the cliff edge.
|
|||
|
Daminxa 1415 posts |
Dec 02, 2009, 17:28
|
||
|
Can I just say that I sat in my very modest flat yesterday freezing my tits off in a bid to cut my carbon emissions, that I rarely drive anywhere even though I live in the arse end of nowhere and haven't taken a flight anywhere for longer than I can remember. That's what I mean about people here making sacrifices - not really sure what else we're supposed to do. Sure there are some people that think they're saving the planet by recycling (and leaving the Landrover Discovery engine running while they're emptying their Waitrose carrier bags in the appropriate receptacles - I've seen it happen more times than I care to recall) and by holidaying in a yert but what I'm saying is that I do my best to use as little electricity/fuel as I can, honestly, but it seems a waste of time when industry is doing fuck all. And as for the government bowing down to public pressure - fat chance.
|
|||
|
dodge one 1242 posts |
Edited Dec 02, 2009, 18:15
Dec 02, 2009, 17:58
|
||
|
What other multi-national coalition exists with the Manpower, funding, technology and more importantly....the political savvy, to sway the entire planet otherwise? Obviously, that doesn't exist.... Tar-sands and liquifying coal. Those are scary alternatives indeed, that i am in fact aware of. In fact, one of the technologies i make my living at will enable it. From a pragmatic standpoint, Nuclear energy is the only real solution. I've disscussed this subject many times with the Physicists in the field that i work in. There simply is nothing else available that will fuel the planet at the current rate of population increase. Star Trek technologies are still science FICTION. And even most of the Sci-Fi technologies rely on fission/fusion methodologies of some sort. All ideological arguements aside, and stopgap eco-friendly measures...wind, solar, tidal generation methods....Nuclear energy is the only thing that will be able to fuel our planet's energy needs, with a population projected to be at 8 Billion and rising in the year 2025. Or there is the perfect solution. An entire generation will have to forgo procreation in the name of species survival. At which point, further ideological debate ensues. Which cultures to preserve? Which Faiths? Which ethnicities? Which sexualities?........What Political science will we adopt? You mean drop the concept of having 100 goats or cows, so you can barter for a wife and have 10 kids you can't feed? What !!?? We won't be bringing the concept of Sharia into this brave new world? No Christianity? .......OH, O.K., but just 1 version of it.... {Cue up the hundreds of sects in unanimus disgruntlement} What about Food? Will we argue that too? 86 the jews because kosher is too much a pain in the ass to accomodate? Or the vegans too? Cuz the meat eaters ain't havin' that? Or the Muslims cuz they won't eat pork? A whole shitload of sacrifices will be needed. I just don't see that happening. But for me, it's all academic. I didn't have kids. I try to keep my footprint as light as possible. I'll do what i can to help out where i can. Even if the human race does go forward, nearly every other species on this planet will vanish as a result. Thats how i see it going down. One last thought on sci-fi technologies. I figure if any of those futuristic technologies can be developed, it will most likely be the PHAZER. Set on Kill.
|
|||
stray 1630 posts |
Edited Dec 07, 2009, 08:20
Dec 07, 2009, 08:16
|
||
|
Merrick wrote: all the green electricity tariff customers combined (including people on the scam ones run by the Big Six suppliers) make less than one percent of households. In my old day job one of the big six were a client of mine. I worked on designing and developing the systems to support the opening of the market. Basically, building the things they needed to trade power with the generators, and each other. But mostly the stuff they needed to trade customers with each other, both industrial and home consumers. Thing is, the way the national grid and actually power trading works within the grid structure (and it couldn't work any other way) means that the same electricity (as it were) gets sold multiple times, cos they basically buy quantites of power and not all of them will get used, maybe. This means generators can pretty much sell more than what they actually generate. Likewise the power companies can sell on their unused units they got from the generators to each other. So I imagine the 'green power' units get oversold, a lot, in that more of them get bought and sold onto customers than are actually generated. Is this the case ? I'm guessing thats what you meant by using the word 'scam' in the above paragraph. It's something I've thought must be happening but I've never really looked into it. Is this the case do you know Merrick ?
|
|||
|
Merrick 2148 posts |
Dec 07, 2009, 11:00
|
||
|
stray wrote: So I imagine the 'green power' units get oversold, a lot, in that more of them get bought and sold onto customers than are actually generated. Is this the case ? I'm guessing thats what you meant by using the word 'scam' in the above paragraph. It's something I've thought must be happening but I've never really looked into it. Is this the case do you know Merrick ? I've no idea about that, Stray. I refer to the Big Six's green tariffs as scam because there's no additionality. The green electricity they supply, they would've bought it anyway, yet they sell it to customers - often with a premium! - as something special the customers are doing. Basically, the government obliges suppliers to source a given amount of their electricity from renewable sources. They get rewarded if they supply over the threshold, and penalised if they supply under. Five of the Big Six supply under the amount, which means they're paying fines on it (and the sixth one's only over cos it owns all the old dams). You're only encouraging more green electricity production if you buy off one of the genuine green suppliers, Good Energy, Ecotricity or Green Energy UK.
|
|||
Eduardo 373 posts |
Dec 07, 2009, 14:49
|
||
|
Merrick wrote: Basically, the government obliges suppliers to source a given amount of their electricity from renewable sources. They get rewarded if they supply over the threshold, and penalised if they supply under. That's not quite right. I think what you mean is if a supplier buys more (ROC-accredited) green power than he is obliged to under the RO he can sell the ROC on to another supplier, or choose to retire it. Under the RO the government does not reward anybody directly. As you say it is a levy/obligation on suppliers. I've come to feel that the RO is needlessly complicated and feed-in tariffs would be a better bet. The RO was designed to look sexy to traders & markets but is a nuisance to generators, particularly small ones. Next year we should see a small generator-sized feed-in tariff in UK, albeit not an overly generous one. Hopefully it'll trigger an expansion of small independant generation that the RO has failed to do. I'm also starting to worry about the effectiveness of ROC retirement. Although the value of all the other ROCs is increased, at the time of retirement (ie the point of redemption) all ROCs are in the hands of suppliers (mainly the big 6!) so they, not generators nor developers, see the extra value. Also, if the gap between obligation & delivery is made wider by ROC retirement, is the message to government that there is no need to increase the level of obligation?
|
| Pages: 2 – [ 1 2 | Next ] | Add a reply to this topic |
|
|
|
| U-Know! Forum Index | |
- ©2012ce Head Heritage Ltd. Contact us Top of page