Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 21:41:33 GMT From: Paul Halliday <pjghnospamyonder.co.uk> Subject: Re: SaabUSA Biopower survey
in article 449otfF149uvU1nospamvidual.net, Dave Hinz at DaveHinznospamcop.net wrote on 31/01/2006 18:34: > On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 18:25:03 GMT, Paul Halliday <pjghnospamyonder.co.uk> wrote: >> in article 449npsF141g9U2nospamvidual.net, Dave Hinz at DaveHinznospamcop.net >> wrote on 31/01/2006 18:15: >> >>>> It would be killing two birds with one dollar, so to speak... >>> >>> More than two - it would cut down on the amount of funding we give to >>> people who don't like us. >> >> Maybe they'd like you if you gave them more money? > > Oh, sure, I bet a couple thousand years of history could easily be, you > know, overlooked, if we'd just buy a bit more oil from 'em. Well, it's been around 1500 years since the Arabs got religious :) It's more about power, than money. There are echelons of power above which the likes of you or I will ever know. Oil is one of those power bases. It could easily be nuclear power, but as you well know, your government is very vocal about nations trying to adopt nuclear power and spent many years in a very tense debacle with another global power over just that matter. As you rightly say, local empowerment is paramount when one considers global oil usage and the ramifications, thereof. The UK has long been paying its farmers not to farm, but it did not pay its coal miners not to mine! Our government decided that coal miners were practically terrorists when they decided to stand up and "not take it anymore". Farmers in the UK are no doubt very different from farmers in the US, being "land owners" and the last bastion of that layer of conservative power in the UK. After FMD devastated our land, I longed to see livestock back in the fields. It took years! In that slack time, our government decided that paying farmers not to bother was better for our economy, since we could import meat, grain, whatever cheaper from abroad ... Oh! Like the '80s when that bitch Thatcher* killed off British Coal in favour of Argentinean imports from her mate Pinochet, with whom we had some phoney war back then when no-one really knew where that Falklands were. * "Maggie Thatcher ... Milk Snatcher" Some will know ... Some will ask the question :) I cannot see how it makes any actual sense to do that. Where people have vast areas of land that could be given over to beet production for alternative fuels, great! Why the fuck not do it? All that offal from meat production can make Biogas. It comes down to money ... Simple as that! We don't follow global initiatives to explore alternative fuel sources because it costs too much. Or rather, it costs less to do nothing ... For now. That's the crux. Back to cars ... We do need to shift from oil. Ethanol, bio-gas and bio-diesel are most definitely viable alternatives. By viable, I mean can continue a way of life as we know it with oil. When I visited Trollhättan a couple of years ago, I was thrilled to see the local buses running on biogas (well, really, I was thrilled to see over a hundred classic 900s drive by the hotel in under an hour, but ...) and it got me thinking about why we did not do this in the UK. We have an outstanding public transport service. I know we bitch on that the trains are never on time and so on, but our bus and coach service is excellent, generally. If local authorities could take on biogas powered public transport then we're one step closer to the ideal. I've long been hassling WYPTE (my local public transport executive) to take on bio-powered vehicles and be a UK leader. This really does smack of the Rio summit slogan "Think global ... Act local". They do seem receptive, but I do understand timing is important. Well, I don't but they say so and have not come up with a better fob-off to date. They know it's important to do so, but I suppose corporations do need to get it right when they do make the jump. I'm not sure the Kyoto agreement is all that important, globally, but when I see European nations taking it on and reaching certain goalposts well in advance of "the schedule", I wonder why other parts of the world are not doing so. I did ask about the US in a previous post. Who is receptive to change? Who can drive the environmental agenda in the US? I did read recently about the mayor? or governor? Of New York (sorry, my understanding of the tiers of government in the US is not very good) who seems to have been rubbished for pointing out how many cars could actually run alternative fuels, unaltered but do not. He was pointing out that his area could well drive an agenda of change, if only people would listen. Well ... Maybe he could talk louder? Crap, I've written a lot there. Erm, it's not directed at Dave ... I'm mostly in agreement with Dave on the principles. I've been thinking about the numerous posts on this matter and I suppose that's my brain fart :) Well, I'm going to have a beer now ... Paul 1989 900 Turbo S http://saab.go.dyndns.org/
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