Cockfosters said:
Coal wouldn't have run out quite so soon if maggie hadn't closed all the pits...
Good point.... I believe that we're actually sitting on
millions of tons of coal under the UK - it's just that the economics of getting it out make it expensive, relative to gas and nuclear, when it comes to producing electricity and gas from it.
In the 1980s, British Gas perfected coal gasification, and was selling the technology to China, where they have lots of coal, but less natural gas. Coal gasification can now be done much more cleanly than we were doing it for much of the last century.
The same applies to electricity generation. We have the technology to produce electricity from coal much more cleanly than ever before, and with poorer quality coal, too.
At the end of the day, whatever we as a country does will come down to politics and economics. The NIMBYs don't want to live next door to power stations, however they are fuelled; nor do they want new coal mines or open cast sites. There are supply security problems if you rely on other countries (Russia for gas, France for electricity) for supplies. There are safety and environmental impacts as a result of whichever route is taken.
Personally, I would like to see government subsidy for domestic installations of solar power arrays (for electricity), heating panels (for hot water), and, perhaps, research into using solar-powered battery arrays to store domestic electricity - think about it: we only use mains voltages because it's easier to transmit - how many of our appliances transform it down to 12v to actually use it?
A greener, more energy efficient world
might be possible, if only we get some joined-up thinking to make it happen.
eezypeazy
