| There is no doubt that Global Warming is real. Neither is there much doubt that it is a man made phenomenon: the scientific community have pretty much reached consensus about that and most commentators are of the opinion that 2007 is going to be a pivotal year in terms of public recognition of the scientific facts.
So, just recognising that there is a man made problem is a start, but it's not all doom and gloom.
Sweden has a target of being 100% oil free by 2008, and a strategy to achieve it. Think about that, it's only next year! Their plans include technologies that are really simple, like effective insulation to minimise energy usage, as well as grander schemes like hydro-electricity and wind power. There is also some pretty impressive lateral thinking going on in the form of Combined Heat and Power stations where instead of sticking a damn great power station in the middle of nowhere and building big cooling towers to disperse the wasted heat, they build a smaller one on the edge of a town, use the electricity that is produced to power the town and run the coolant through a network of pipes to provide the town with heat as well. Huge efficiency gains there. These CHP stations run on a variety of fuels, but there are ones that burn vegetation and Bio-Fuel. There are also gassification plants that turn wood into gas and bio-fuel, the projections are that they can provide a huge amount of their energy needs through sustainable forestation.
Their plans rely heavily upon bio-fuels such as Ethanol and Bio-Diesel for transportation, and this to me is where the real win-win situation starts to occur.
Firstly in environmental terms, it is carbon neutral. The fuel will only release the same amount of carbon dioxide that the plants it was made from absorbed when they were growing. The time scale is the important thing here, it is only releasing Co2 that was absorbed last year (or thereabouts) rather than releasing Co2 that was absorbed and locked up millions of years ago, so the Co2 balance remains the same. Also, in environmental terms, it is sustainable - need more fuel, then just grow some more. At the moment, the bio-fuel that the Swedes use is not very eco-friendly since it is made from sugar cane grown in Brazil so it's transportation costs and dubious slash and burn agricultural practises make it less than ideal (that's where the gassification of sustainable forestation comes in for the Swedes). However, with a bit of creativity, a huge amount of our fuel could come from bio-sources. Crops such as Sugar Beet, Oilseed Rape and so on are pretty good candidates and we currently have a huge European Wine Lake (despite my best efforts) that can be turned into Ethanol.
In engineering terms, Bio-Diesel is just as efficient as ordinary diesel and you can get more power from Ethanol than you can with petrol - plus the fact that you don't need huge modifications to current internal combustion engines to make it work.
I'm no expert on this, just what I've picked up from various radio programs and articles, however a carbon neutral, sustainable supply of fuel that doesn't need any major change to current engines seems like a win-win to me.
And it doesn't stop there. It may appear just a utopian ideal, but if you imagine a world where our farmers can stop being paid to 'set aside' land and grow enough biomass to make the UK self-sufficient (as Sweden aims to be), where Europe, the Americas and even developing countries like China and India (huge potential to increase sugar cane production by massive ammounts in India) could follow suit, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that huge amounts of the world could be self sufficient in fuel and drastically reduce (if not eliminate) the total reliance on fossil fuels. Environmental utopia.
If you then think about the geo-political effects, it would remove the need for big greedy gas guzzling nations like the US to keep stomping around the world trying to exert economic and military pressure on third world countries to keep their supply of oil flowing. There would not be the need for the US and the West to meddle in Middle Eastern politics in order to maintain platforms of influence. You might like to think that with the need for western dominance removed, without the need for oil, that more political stability or even peace might be achieved.
India and China are fast developing countries who are now competing hard for the worlds energy resources. Between them they comprise one third of the worlds population and their expectations and goals are to reach the same standards of living as they can see in the western world. The world does not have the fossil fuel resources to allow this to happen so if they want to raise their standard of living, we've got to go down. So, without drastic changes to the dynamics of the worlds energy supplies, more conflict is almost inevitable. Chinese and Indian companies are already beating the western fuel companies for oil drilling licenses in places like Khazakstan, so with dwindling supplies of oil, the western powers have got to lower our energy consumption or give up some of our standard of living. We're not going to want to do that, so as competition for these resources gets more fierce, the west has to outbid the East for drilling rights - or fight them for it. That's where the real danger lies without an alternative to fossil fuel.
Oh yes, and how comfortable does everyone in Western Europe feel being a net importer of Russian gas? Belarus has just been told to pay double for their gas or the Russians will cut them off.
Bio-fuel. It won't happen big time until multinationals or countries work out how to make big money from it, but I think it could be the answer to a lot of the worlds environmental and political problems.
Hmmmm...Flower Power. Maybe the old hippies had a point? |