Where is the money for this 1 trillion stimulus coming from?

Richard, it’s not a “stimulus” as such; although governments across the world have committed to $5 trillion stimulus. In terms of the overdraft facility, the international credit finance etc (ie the money represented by the 1.1 trillion figure) much of the money seems to be coming from Asia. Remember that not all this money may actually be used, (even if it isn’t, the fact that it’s there if it’s needed adds value in confidence).

The stuff on getting rid of Tax Havens sounds very promising.

Paul is right though, smart investment in greener technologies has not yet happened – this is a really crucial issue.

“Paul is right though, smart investment in greener technologies has not yet happened – this is a really crucial issue.”

Really? So which technologies should we invest in? Which ones will be the winners? How can we be smarter about it?

“Where is the money for this 1 trillion stimulus coming from?”

Some tax increases and massive cuts to social services, obviously. But lots of people don’t want to mention that.

John Meredith,

Solar and Lunar technologies both exist. I see no reason why they shouldn’t be fast tracked – I have read, for instance, that tidal dams in the Severn and the Moray Firth could supply 20% of the UKs’ electricity. Let’s get on with it!

John Meredit – here you go, have a read:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/11/progressive_growth.html

Obviously I can’t summarise everything in a few lines, so if you’re really serious you can read the report.

“The stuff on getting rid of Tax Havens sounds very promising.”

Yes Sunny, and quite hilarious, considering the Govt recently decided to continue with Northern Rock’s Guernsey Tax Haven business.

“ it points to the extraordinary passion and rising anger of people around the world”

What? 5,000 students and layabouts being a pain in the arse in the City? Keep taking the pills.

Solar and Lunar technologies both exist. I see no reason why they shouldn’t be fast tracked – I have read, for instance, that tidal dams in the Severn and the Moray Firth could supply 20% of the UKs’ electricity. Let’s get on with it!

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Commence construction straight away!

Until we get into the fact that both the Moray Firth and Severn Estuary both have SPA (Special Protected Area) status and areas of ecological significance, with the Severn Estuary having at least one SSSI which would be affected by the construction of a tidal dam.

Then there’s the bottlenose dolphins of the Moray Firth, who wouldn’t take kindly to a concrete monstrosity of a dam appearing in their habitat. Nor would the people of Inverness, but dolphins tend to excite more of an emotional reaction.

Then there’s the human cost. If you were to build a tidal barrier at the point of the Severn where it could generate the most electricity (required under your figure of 20%), then no ships could go up river to Bristol. Liverpudlians may rejoice at the idea that they could get Bristol’s shipping, but I doubt the people who rely on that for their jobs in Bristol would be cool on the idea. The aerospace industry might also be less than amused at the idea, given that one of the key factors in locating their factories tends to be based on good access to international transport facilities.

So in creating 20% of our electricity off renewable sources, you’ve angered environmentalists and the dolphin loving public, as well as alienating the constituents of Bristol. That last one might be slightly important since the Public Health Minister, Dawn Primarolo (one of the few sane Labour ministers around), and not one, but two Liberal Democrat frontbench members (Stephen Williams and Steve Webb) make their home there. The left-liberal vote may take a hit if you decimate the docklands. Just a suggestion.

Save the city from a concrete barrage with some greenwash, please.

This is perhaps what John Meredith meant by:

Really? So which technologies should we invest in? Which ones will be the winners? How can we be smarter about it?

The problem with the two technologies which don’t have the impact of a tidal barrage is that they are as yet immature technologies. Despite Friends of Earth going on about tidal lagoons, its still a speculative technology. The other alternative (and worth further investigation) are the tidal stream generators, but they’ve got their own problems.

From a realistic perspective, a combination of microgeneration, an insulation drive, CHP and setting up more Pelamis Wave Energy Convertor systems round Britain (it creates jobs, in Edinburgh. Who has a constituency in Edinburgh? Hmm, can I see an advantage here?). Let the other technologies mature and in the mean time, we can set up the infrastructure so that when they’re actually delivered, we can use them properly.

OHOC,

I knew most of that.

So what?

There are ways around almost all of your difficulty stating, which is all it boils down to.

Bristol could be accessed via a canal, as per Inverness. Think of it as a salmon ladder for boats. Both should be costed in.

I would look at alternative habitats for ecologically significant species.

I do not think that the bottle nosed dolphins usually hang aroung the Moray Firth, rather than the Moray Forth, but, so what? They have to move a bit.

I’m pretty sure the Victorians didn’t have to countenance this sort of nit picking.

You, sir, are too short term green, for anyones good.

Spend the money and get them built!

I knew most of that.

So what?

So the tidal barrage scheme isn’t that green nor will it be if you want to meet your stated target of 20% of the United Kingdom’s electricity supply. Tidal barrages are intrusive, costly and damaging.

There are ways around almost all of your difficulty stating, which is all it boils down to.

How the barrage gets around the SSSI, I am agog to hear given that, depending on location, it either runs right through them or submerges them on a permanent basis.

Bristol could be accessed via a canal, as per Inverness. Think of it as a salmon ladder for boats. Both should be costed in.

Bristol – 12 million tonnage handled last year, £75 million in revenue.
Inverness – 775,000 tonnage handled last year, £1.07 million in revenue.

So while you could feasibly do a canal for Inverness, Bristol’s sheer amount of tonnage will be abortive for shipping given the frequency and number of ships that come in and out of the port on a daily basis. Navigating a lock system is But, even then the canal idea is disadvantageous. First problem is where you build it; do you compromise your energy output and build it into the barrage (Goodbye 20%!) or do you build it into the surrounding ground? Neither circumstance is desirable, given their impact.

I would look at alternative habitats for ecologically significant species.

Animals don’t work like that.

I do not think that the bottle nosed dolphins usually hang aroung the Moray Firth, rather than the Moray Forth, but, so what? They have to move a bit.

Sorry, can we define our terms here for a minute?

The Moray Firth is the huge expense of water which covers the area from Wick to Inverness to Fraserburgh. This has dolphins.

The Inner Moray Firth is the stretch of water which covers the stretch of land from North Kessock/Inverness and out towards Lossiemouth. This also has dolphins, which is why people watch them from North Kessock.

Your barrage will have to cover the inner Firth in order to be feasible (unless you have plans for a super-barrage stretching from Wick down to Fraserburg) and that will effect the dolphins, given they’re at North Kessock. The nature of the barrage will mean that while they could get through sluice gates when the barrage is non-operative, when it is operating, there is going to be no way to move except through the turbines, which have a high mortality rate on the local population.

Irregardless, you’re ruining an SPA unnecessarily.

(Are you sure you’re not talking about the Firth of Forth, in which case you’re down Edinburgh way, not Inverness?)

I’m pretty sure the Victorians didn’t have to countenance this sort of nit picking.

This would be the same Victorians which enjoyed child labour in the coal mines, would it?

There’s a difference between Brunel style engineering and reckless behaviour. You may have confused being a great engineer and building big things.

You, sir, are too short term green, for anyones good.

Wait, short-term green? I was working on the basis that you were the short-term green for thinking that the only thing which matters is the production of green electricity and sod the other impacts. If you look at how I finished, I’m more planning for the long-term with a stage-by-stage approach.

I dispute whether the barrage is even green, because Friends of the Earth is opposed to it (admittedly on the basis of some speculative future technology which hasn’t been finished yet).

Spend the money and get them built!

That attitude alienates people. I view this as bad oddly enough, because if we create green infrastructure which alienates people on a mass scale, it is just going to turn people off and create a powerful anti-green lobby.

It also leads to cock ups, as we’ve seen with numerous large projects in the past.

OHOC,

Did I say I was your idea of green?

No.

I don’t agree, obviously, with what your idea of green actually is.

Says the brain dead OHOC:

So the tidal barrage scheme isn’t that green nor will it be if you want to meet your stated target of 20% of the United Kingdom’s electricity supply. Tidal barrages are intrusive, costly and damaging.

So what?

I believe, correct me if I am wrong, that climate change threatens the birds and the bees and the sychamore trees. Our obligation is to fix it. Your sort of narrow mindedness is likely to mean that the birds and the bees, och, even an idiot like you can work that out….

Brain dead OHOC says this:

How the barrage gets around the SSSI, I am agog to hear given that, depending on location, it either runs right through them or submerges them on a permanent basis.

Route it around the SSSI, that can’t be too difficult, can it? You wee difficulty starter you.

On the Moray Firth debate, my understanding was that it had quite ferocious tides that equalled around 10% of UK energy needs. No need to invoke Wick, or sommat. It clearly hasn’t got the easily obtained power of a Severn solution, but it is still possible.

You sir are a tit.

And now we’ve descended into insults. Thank goodness we didn’t dispel the myth that anything which asks for comments functions as an idiot magnet, we might have put Charlie Brooker out of a job.

So douglas clark spoke unto the evidently mentally incapacitated folk of the world who disagreed with him;

Did I say I was your idea of green?

No.

I don’t agree, obviously, with what your idea of green actually is.

Well, since this is an argument in which we’re both vying to claim what is green and what is not, it is traditional to undermine your opponent’s claim to that title. So really your observation that you’re not my idea of green is useless, what matters is that you can put forward a convincing argument that you really are green.

So says douglas clark, a man I have never met and so I will decline to pass comment upon the nature of his cranium or indeed any other part of him or his anatomy:

So what?

I believe, correct me if I am wrong, that climate change threatens the birds and the bees and the sychamore trees. Our obligation is to fix it. Your sort of narrow mindedness is likely to mean that the birds and the bees, och, even an idiot like you can work that out….

And your barrage is the only way to do it? There are no viable alternatives which can produce equal amounts of electricity without the intrusion on the environment?

As I explained, there are alternatives, but they’re not yet fully developed and tested. So, rather than rushing headlong into one large scheme, we can achieve comparable results with smaller, already available technologies. The argument is that you’ve fallen into the classical trap of large, unwieldy, headline projects which promise a great deal, but are hard to deliver and have a great deal of negative impacts.

I’m not saying that ecology comes above Climate Change, but that it is possible to both protect the environment and fight Climate Change. It is not as you seem to believe where you chose between protecting the local environment and protecting the global environment.

And douglas clark did decree in a patronising voice, which I can fully appreciate given arguments get heated and it is only natural to talk to your opponent in a condescending manner, but strikes me as rude given his accusations pertaining to the functions of my primary thinking organ:

Route it around the SSSI, that can’t be too difficult, can it? You wee difficulty starter you.

This isn’t starting difficulties, this is just a combination of engineering and geography.

But as to ‘routing it around,’ there’s a problem (I’m not just creating difficulties for the sake of it, I’m just thoughtful). Firstly, it adds expense and makes other schemes (such as tidal lagoons or tidal stream generators) more viable. Secondly, if you “route” the barrier downstream of the mudflats, then they’re still obliterated by the barrage raising water levels upstream (see any weir in any river any where or Series 5, Episode 10 of Spooks for a more explosion filled explanation). Thirdly, if you route it upstream, you reduce power-output and add cost making the other schemes even more viable. And finally (at last, the end is in sight!), the entire Estuary is an SPA. This means that the whole area is of ecological importance. Look, here’s a poorly designed government website to explain more and why it is of importance:
http://www.jncc.gov.uk/page-162

So even if you do protect and preserve the SSSI, you’re just going to damage the broader SPA.

And so douglas clark did continue in his quest to avoid substantive debate and instead did quoth thus:

On the Moray Firth debate, my understanding was that it had quite ferocious tides that equalled around 10% of UK energy needs. No need to invoke Wick, or sommat. It clearly hasn’t got the easily obtained power of a Severn solution, but it is still possible.

Yes, it does have a very large tidal range and is perfect for tidal power. No dispute.

The problem arose because you started talking about the dolphins which live in the Firth and claimed they didn’t live in the affected area. Well, regardless of which part of the Moray Firth you were talking about, they live in the area which would have a tidal barrier. Again, the Moray Firth is an SPA.

Let Wikipedia soothe your geographical problems:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moray_Firth

It is as achievable as a Severn barrage though. It would just be a bad idea to have a barrage.

And finally douglas clark did bring himself to bear unto the final oratorical hurdle and did throw himself most bodily at this solemn summative task, concluding thus:

You sir are a tit.

If I am, then I have an easy excuse for why I act like one. What’s your excuse?

OHOC,

Lets take a time out. OK?

I apologise for calling you a tit

Time out over.

Your version of green is local, is it not?

I happen to live in a flat. Could you suggest to me quite how I can be more green than I currently am? I have one of these half flushing toilets, I grow greens on the window sill. I do not own a car. I recycle what I can. I am trying to implement a plan about eating local, although I do like oranges and stuff, which don’t grow in west central scotland. And I might as well point out to you that my central heating only heats the room where I type this. It is still cold, of a night, up North.

You, sir, assume. You assume I could do more on a personal level. Well, absent my liking for oranges, tell me please, what else I can do?

It seems to me, correct me if I am wrong, that people like me, the flat dwellers, the urbanists if you like, have done, are doing, what we are capable of doing.

So, if we are to get ourselves out of the hole that is global warming, (which I do believe is a threat, do you?), then we have to look at options that scale up my, human, limitations.

I am sick to death of folk pretending that this is not an addressable issue. The French have had a tidal power station for goodness knows how long.

I am a bit cheesed off that every reasonable suggestion for averting climate change, within our own society, is addressed by naysayers.

Quite why you are so against Lunar power is beyond me.

And your SSSI, and your SPA stuff doesn’t deal with the overburdening fact that if human beings can’t address climate change responsibly, the habitat loss for other species will be a far greater disaster for them. Perhaps terminally so.

Anyway, now that we we know you hate the Moon, we could always turn to the Sun, couldn’t we?

Your version of green is local, is it not?

I happen to live in a flat. Could you suggest to me quite how I can be more green than I currently am? I have one of these half flushing toilets, I grow greens on the window sill. I do not own a car. I recycle what I can. I am trying to implement a plan about eating local, although I do like oranges and stuff, which don’t grow in west central scotland. And I might as well point out to you that my central heating only heats the room where I type this. It is still cold, of a night, up North.

You, sir, assume. You assume I could do more on a personal level. Well, absent my liking for oranges, tell me please, what else I can do?

Well, I actually don’t assume anything about your personal circumstances and I don’t like the emphasis on personal sacrifices that some people in the Green movement do. I do not believe that the green movement should interest itself in trying to influence and change learnt human behaviours at this stage.

So I am not a “local” green in that I do not place responsibility for making changes on the individual, I place it on central, regional and local government. My emphasis is focusing on microgeneration and creating a greener national grid now, then to move onto macrogeneration and finally, if we still need to reduce CO2 further, change human behaviour.

And I am aware it is cold up north, given I live in the north of England.

It seems to me, correct me if I am wrong, that people like me, the flat dwellers, the urbanists if you like, have done, are doing, what we are capable of doing.

Good thing I am not asking you to do anything then. If you go back to my first suggested alternatives;

a combination of microgeneration, an insulation drive, CHP and setting up more Pelamis Wave Energy Convertor systems round Britain

Microgeneration projects and an insulation drive should be partially funded by the government. CHP is something which central government should fund and build and local councils maintain. And Pelamis’ WECs, again, should be funded by central/regional government.

So, if we are to get ourselves out of the hole that is global warming, (which I do believe is a threat, do you?), then we have to look at options that scale up my, human, limitations.

Yes, I do believe it is a threat.

I am sick to death of folk pretending that this is not an addressable issue. The French have had a tidal power station for goodness knows how long.

Thank God I’m not pretending it isn’t addressable?

And that would be Rance, right? The one which produces 0.012% of France’s total electricity?

The point isn’t that tidal power is something which we should avoid, it is that large scale tidal barrages in sensitive environmental areas are. I have no objection to tidal barrages in locations like Swansea Bay, which when well designed can help the local ecology. The problem with the Moray Firth and Severn Estuary barrages is that because they are so large in scale is that they will have such a large environmental impact that it cannot be negated in the same Swansea Bay’s was negated.

There are very good tidal power schemes which I’d like to see rolled out into the Moray Firth and Severn Estuary, but the entire point was, as I said at the beginning, that they were not yet mature. They still had parts of the developmental phase to go through. So, if we focus on dealing with other issues which can give us an equivalent reduction in emissions to the two barrages, we can then deploy those technologies when they’re mature without delaying tackling Climate Change.

I am a bit cheesed off that every reasonable suggestion for averting climate change, within our own society, is addressed by naysayers.

Quite why you are so against Lunar power is beyond me.

That would be because I’m not and you’ve built my argument up into a straw man.

And your SSSI, and your SPA stuff doesn’t deal with the overburdening fact that if human beings can’t address climate change responsibly, the habitat loss for other species will be a far greater disaster for them. Perhaps terminally so.

And you view decimating those areas as addressing climate change responsibly?

It isn’t a choice between fighting Climate Change and protecting the local ecology, the entire point I’ve been making is that we can do both.

Anyway, now that we we know you hate the Moon, we could always turn to the Sun, couldn’t we?

Ignoring the jibe about tidal power (this is the first time I’ve seen it referred to as Lunar Power), I’m fully in favour of solar combisystems. I think photovoltaics are not yet ready for the UK market in terms of cost:benefit ratios, but I’ve no objection to them being supported under REFIT.