If you had to draw "society"

[Bruce Wayne]

It's an oft quoted example but you could have a solar farm somewhere in the Sahara of a few miles squared in size and produce enough energy to power the world. The problem of course is getting the energy to where it's needed as transmission can be difficult and of course you lose energy during the process. Then there is the issue of non-electricity energy such as gas for heating and oil for petrol.

So it's a nice idea to have a global co-op but unlikely to materialise, especially when energy rich nations such as Russia and Venuzuela are using it to further political ambitions.

 

[SuitsBlue]

when it is all they have got to barter with, can we blame them? after all, it was the economics of the cold war that sunk the russians.

hopefully (carbon neutral) bio diesel will become mainstream and petrol will become a relic. gas is a little bit more difficult to handle, methane can be produced but safely and in enough quantity are some of the issues.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Unfortunately biofuel is far from the silver bullet many politicians would like us to believe. I think I'm right in saying that for all of our fuel needs the entire country would need to be used to grow the crops. When you consider that deforestation is one of the largest contributors to carbom emissions and clearing forest for growing crops is one of the largest contributors to deforestation then it's really no kind of solution at all.

Politicians like to play every card though if they can and biofuel does tick a lot of boxes. They can pretend they care about the planet. They give domestic farmers more to do so keep them happy. They allow the car industry to maintain the status quo so they're happy, and they can play the energy security card as well. That most western nations don't produce the right crops to create biofuels economically or environmentally is a minor detail that politicians are happy to overlook.

 

[SuitsBlue]

farming in britain has been on its arse for years, some government subsidies to help farmers in the transition to bio fuel crops and then a stable market to take the crop would breathe life back into what is currently an industry that is at best treading water.

i wonder where GM fits into the bio fuel debate?

its the shortfall in tax that i see as being one of the big problems, if petrol pumps are less used, and biofuel becomes mainstream will the chancellor up his take on that thereby pushing consumers back to petrol?

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Farm subsidies are another bone of contention. Currently the UK pays out something like £4.5bn in farm subsidies as part of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (the total CAP is around £60bn), so the farming industry is already the most assisted of all industries in Britain. This is one of the main sticking points in the fight to reduce poverty around the world, because both Europe and America heavily subsidise their farmers, therefore preventing many poor nations from trading with the west.

On the issue of tax, with road pricing being touted it seems the Chancellor has that issue in hand

 

[SuitsBlue]

road pricing means an intrusion of privacy, because it cant be done without monitoring every car on the road, i recently signed the petition on the 10 downing street site to oppose this load of bollocks.

 

[TX Bill]

Unfortunately biofuel is far from the silver bullet many politicians would like us to believe. I think I'm right in saying that for all of our fuel needs the entire country would need to be used to grow the crops. When you consider that deforestation is one of the largest contributors to carbom emissions and clearing forest for growing crops is one of the largest contributors to deforestation then it's really no kind of solution at all.

Politicians like to play every card though if they can and biofuel does tick a lot of boxes. They can pretend they care about the planet. They give domestic farmers more to do so keep them happy. They allow the car industry to maintain the status quo so they're happy, and they can play the energy security card as well. That most western nations don't produce the right crops to create biofuels economically or environmentally is a minor detail that politicians are happy to overlook.

You don't say...