Wood burning stoves - Radio 4 programme (CO2 and going green etc)

[mark]

Population control being the common theme?

mark

[Derek]

In 1972 I went on a residential training course, my roomates brother had just bought a wrecked Aston Martin which he intended to repair himself. He ran his own accident repair shop but it would still have been a ruinously expensive repair because of the cost of replacement parts but he did it because "as everybody knows" there would be no more petrol left in the world after 1982, so he wanted to have the experience of owning an Aston Martin whilst he could before the petroleum ran out.

Derek

[dennis]

Not if you leave a border and don't plant the trees up to the carriageway edges. That's why I said 50m, 20m of shrub land either side and 10m with trees in. Anyone that manages to plow through 20m of shrubs and stuff to hit the trees would have gone through the crash barrier anyway. They would also create wildlife corridors too and replace some of the hedgerows the farmers have dug up.

Was it a little white ford van about 8 years ago? That's the last time I saw one hit. If it was you were only doing 65 not 70. ;-)

[dennis]

The condom machines in the Vatican are there to stop the spread of diseases,

[David Hansen]

On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:36:07 +0100 someone who may be Mike Barnes wrote this:-

We are only doomed if we fail to act. The cartoon at is worth watching as it explains the issues well.

[dennis]

You don't actually know that.. we may already have passed the tipping point.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Terry Fields saying something like:

The UK has only ever been one of those things.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Timothy Murphy saying something like:

Appearance is superficial. There's just as much shit in the roadside ditches as there was a decade ago, maybe more.

[ARWadsworth]

[ARWadsworth]

Never accuse me of driving a Ford.

VW Polo on that jouney. Sideswiped into a barrier by a car changing lanes.

20m of gravel run off might work. Similar to the emergency run off lanes at the end of steep hills.

I have seen quite a few cars end up in those. Never seen one used in an emergency through. Always because drivers had not realised that they have left the road.

Adam

[george (dicegeorge)]

this week's Costing The Earth we look at the range of biomass heating schemes in the UK ? from small-scale wood-burning stoves that can effectively heat a home, to huge projects that are on the horizon: a massive biomass power station is planned at Port Talbot in South Wales. On the way we meet a bona fide environmental maverick in Barnsley where government renewable targets have been reached decades in advance.

We find out what the government is doing, if it really is green, and whether vast swathes of woodland would be chopped down to make an impact on our renewables target. And with the Port Talbot plant set to import a lot of the biomass from Canada, how sustainable is that project?

[The Natural Philosopher]

I wish they would just read Mackays book.

Efficiency of conversion of sunlight to power:

Windmills and tidal.. about 1%.

Solar direct. About 5% in a bright sunny place.

Plants: About 0.1%

You don't need to go any further really. If it would take all of wales=20 covered with windmills to power the country, it would take the whole UK=20 land area growing firewood to do it.

More greenpiss ecobollox

Having said that, the biggest current generators of 'renewable' power in =

this country are in fact waste incinerators and methane digestors. No=20 point in NOT turning rubbish into power, if its there...

[Huge]

It says no such thing.

[The Natural Philosopher]

oh really?

[Clot]

Wholly agreed. I just wish we could make more folk realise the energy we are missing by blocking the construction of waste incinerators and anaerobic digestion plants.

[Steve Firth]

No we did that one before we came here.

[jal]

Not round my way: I pick it all up as I pass by, every day. (The litter, not the shit!)

I figure if 1% people pick up litter, we will deal with the (maybe) 3% who drop litter. The other 96% of people never drop litter, I believe.

Mind -- I'm talking about a country road (which I suppose GC is, since he mentions ditches).

On topic again: wouldn't it be _lovely_ if discussions like we've seen here (discounting the name-calling, interesting though it is) were to take place in the news media (including, sadly, the BBC nowadays).

Instead, they just pump out whatever the latest half-baked theory is, with no regard for balance, and still less for veracity. And of course if it's bad news that makes in 10 times more newsworthy: good news is no news, to reverse the old saying.

john

[Alan Braggins]

In what way are tides driven by sunlight? Do you mean hydro (where sunlight does evaporate sea water that ends up as rain)?

[mark]

Efficiency of conversion of sunlight to power:

Windmills and tidal.. about 1%.

Solar direct. About 5% in a bright sunny place.

Plants: About 0.1%

You don't need to go any further really. If it would take all of wales covered with windmills to power the country, it would take the whole UK land area growing firewood to do it.

More greenpiss ecobollox

Having said that, the biggest current generators of 'renewable' power in this country are in fact waste incinerators and methane digestors.

No point in NOT turning rubbish into power, if its there...

So why not turn wind and tide into energy if its there? mark

[The Natural Philosopher]

Nno. sorry. should have said 'energy conversion of renewables' not just sunlight. But is the moons orbit renewable\/..there's a thought..

Mind you., sunlight is not renewable either. Everything since the big bang has just been going downhill..