Coal's future is burning hot - just not in Britain

[GommeInc]

I don't understand that despite being surrounded my ocean, and having various rivers and mountains in the British Isles we don't rely more heavily on hydro-electric power.

We only have the seas to rely on, our rivers are quite slow moving and we lack valleys to properly make dams to create decent hydroelectric power There have been many attempts to create off-shore/wave related forms of energy, but all have been too costly or do not create that much energy to be of any use. The only thing that comes close are wind farms and solar panels, but they're too expensive, break easily and will never properly replace fossil fuels and/or nuclear.

EDIT: I also have a feeling that some/all of the mountains are in protected areas.

[Ajthedragon]

Ahh, good point. Didn't think of that!

[-:Undertaker:-]

Sorry but you keep claiming climate change is "nonsense". A scientist are you? Surely the ones making the decisions should be the people with PHDs in the area, the ones that have done decades of research and not the likes of you, me or Lord Monckton. I think you'll find that the government employs thousands of Scientists in order to advise them on sensitive areas such as climate change which is exactly why all of the western economies worldwide are pledging money to fight it.

Er no actually, I use my head and look at all the governments eagerly jumping on the bangwagon with their green taxes, I look at the likes of the UN and Maurice Strong who have openly pushed for global government (yes they've even openly pushed for that agenda as ludicrous as it) via using this as a tool to secure more powers and thats not even mentioning the EU. I also use some common sense really, the IPCC was set up to come to the conclusion that climate change by mankind is real just as the government hires scientists to come to that very conclusion.

Even if it were real, the mathematics doesn't work out - and more to the point, history blasts the whole theory into smitherins.

To be fair to the Gordon Brown he oversaw the largest period of unbroken economic growth in Britain's recorded history. Although I'm not a big fan of the man, he does deserve credit for that considering it was only broken by a world recession set off by America. Sure he could have done more but how many parties would have realistically done anything different?

The recession had little to do with being caused by America, if you have the kind of fiat money system that we have then you will have continuous boom and bust as shown by the Austrian school theory. More to the point, if you have a goalith of regulation on business then it will simply be more exposed to any downturn and will be unable to recover again which is what we are seeing now in the western world which has sluggish appalling growth - while the public sector continues to grow which is something 'the right' argued and warned against for years. Gordon Brown didn't have a clue what he was doing, this is the man who sold our gold at rock botton prices and who amassed gigantic debts under the guise of 'we cant take amount x out of the economy' - absolute rubbish, every penny the government taxes is taking money out of the real economy; the private sector.

And no, the other two main parties wouldn't have done anything different as they are all incompetent.

[alexxxxx]

If you believe everything that government tell you, then you are mis-lead, uneducated and downright silly.

anything or everything? cause sometimes i feel there's a type of person who lacks any trust in any authority for very little reason thinking they know it all. and it is often the mislead, uneducated and downright silly who do!

coal is expensive to pull out of the ground here, health and safety and running costs are expensive - and is a very dirty fuel.

and undertaker - yes the recession was caused by american banks. Once one domino falls, they all fall. Plus there is no such thing as a 'real' economy. It doesn't matter how the money flows or who commissions work - if work is being done and jobs are created, it is in fact an economy.