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Originally Posted by Acrylic-bob
I noticed on TV last night the news people were saying that China had doubled it's consumption of oil in the last four years, from 1.2 to 2.4 billion(?) barrels per year. how long can growth like that be sustained on the back of what is a finite resource?
I don't think it makes too much difference what level of taxation individual governments impose. Oil is now around $50 a barrel two years ago it was $35 dollars a barrel. That's somewhere round about a forty eight percent increase, in two years. The day is not far off when we will cease to be a net exporter of oil and the North Sea fields begin to dry up. We are already seeing this with natural gas. That is why British Gas is having to increase it's prices. That, and its own greed and stupidity, but that's another story.
If we had any sense at all we would all be flocking down to B & Q to buy as many solar panels as we could find.
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I agree with your assessment of the situation A-Bob, and I have said many times that Dubbya should have invested the money wasted in Iraq on finding a "new" economical renewable energy form. A sort of water driven combustion engine as an example, or an anti matter drive, both theoretically possible.
I have some solar panels in my own home, and they have a real reliability problem. This is mainly due to the re-charging of the battery. (solar power changed to electrical energy and stored in a battery - basically). Also you need a great deal of area of solar panels to create a viable power rating. Another nagging problem is the lamps themselves, and trying to buy a spare is another "great adventure", depending on voltage (normally 12V) and the wattage (normally as dim as a TOC-H lamp).
Unfortunately my main heating sources are electricity and oil fired heating. Fortunately I live in a forest, so there's plenty of wood around should I convert to a wood burning stove.
What the rest of the world will use in the future is a mystery to all politicians, and a secret to the major oil companies!
Meanwhile....keep paying the taxes so that Peter Britcliffe, Tony B'liar and his ilk can throw it away on crackpot schemes.