We get far more letters than we can possibly print. So here are the ones that we picked from... Please note: these are unedited for spelling or grammar.
JOINED UP EXPERIENCES >> In Joined Up Experiences it is pointed out that Microsoft is going to compete (or tying to compete) with the iPod, not at a device level, but as an overall experience. Who can deliver the better overall experience? Microsoft bet that people want to tag, recommend and share songs, and they have the best system for doing this. And it's true, I for one don't find the iPod and iTunes "a good share". Places like MySpace are "a good share" for music. Could MySpace be the next iTunes? It could. http://voicesage.blogspot.com/2006/10/customer-interaction-vs-social.html
FOSSIL FUELLED It is true that electric cars will take over from cars with internal combustion engines. The driver though will be climate change and not peak oil. Estimates of when Peak Oil will occur vary from now to within the next thirty years. Climate Change however is definitely happening now and the rate at which estimates for the need to reduce carbon emissions are rapidly being increased, from 60% by 2050 until recently, to 70% by 2030 last month, and authors such as George Monbiot argue that it is 90% by 2030. Climate research centre Tyndall estimate that by 2010 city centres could be restricted to just electric cars. The point is that change is happening quicker than most people realise and the impact upon our lifestyles could be sudden and dramatic. As our choice of car has a bigger environmental impact than any other we make as consumers, switching to electric cars represents an immediate opportunity to dramatically reduce carbon emissions (electric cars reduce the impact of emissions by between 74% and 100% depending on how they are charged) and, at least in London given the incentives, to reduce motoring costs by up to 90% as well. Keith Johnston, Managing Director, GoinGreen, Southall, London
Five years not fifty! This year, less regular oil is being produced/consumed than last year. Alfred Nassim, Ryde, Isle of Wight
Welcome to the concept of peak oil! To misquote a famous American, it's the Geology stupid! You are absolutely right that in the distant future we will be driving far fewer cars. Where you are wrong is in the time scales. It is going to happen a lot, lot sooner. The US government's Energy Information Agency is a standing joke. They take the forecast global demand for oil for the next 30 years, assuming unconstrained economic growth, then they map the world's future supply onto this figure, as best they can. Unfortunately it isn't going to happen. To give you a few numbers, global production of fossil liquid hydrocarbons (oil, gas, and coal derived oil and oil substitutes) has been effectively static for 18 months now, in which time the market price has more than doubled. In fact there has been a marginal steady decrease in production since Dec. 2005. Very serious oil professionals are calling global peak production by 2010, some say it has already happened. The recent drop in oil prices (to $57 /barrel is I type) is due to forecast reduced US demand, due largely to a housing and debt bubble. (Some people call peak oil as 2005 and the recent price drop due to political manipulation for US November elections). Production decline rates have been variously predicted at 3%, 5% even 8% per year after that. The truth is nobody knows , but global decline rates are the real key to our predicament. The UK situation, however, is in a much better defined, and a FAR WORSE predicament. North Sea oil and gas have been in decline for a few years now, and we are now a net importer of both oil and gas. Annual decline rates are currently 7-9% for oil and 13-17% for gas. We will be very lucky if we can build import gas facilities fast enough to replace our falling production, and this makes no account of the gas being available for import, from the European /Global market when we have built them. Last winter we burned 10% more coal than the previous year to offset the shortage of gas. That did nothing to meet our Kyoto commitments. Add into that that we now import the bulk of our coal, that we are facing a closure of the majority of our nuclear power stations and our largest coal burning stations due to lifetime and environmental constraints, and we are producing 9% less total indigenous power, year on year. Just think what that is going to do to our national balance of payments, which is already dreadful. If you really want to know the future of oil, view these web sites: http://www.theoildrum.com ; for a UK perspective http://uk.theoildrum.com ; http://www.powerswitch.org.uk You will never look at your car the same way again (or anything else for that matter) Ralph Williams, Cambridge
With respect, I don't think it true that "human beings are irredeemably selfish". It's easy to say so nowadays, but the solution to our energy problems may lie in a species-wide swing in precisely this regard. It does seem to be true that in a mix of selfish and unselfish, the former will seize power and property, and enslave the latter. (I think that's our predicament.) It also seems true that human discoveries of the world and how it works have been largely fuelled by competitive selfishness (would we have atomic energy but for the bomb? and carbon dating was a byproduct of wartime investigation of the consequences). On the other hand, there have been and doubtless still will are examples of selflessness (giving you like not just for friends, but for other, for animals, even for enemies). And - what is often overlooked - the various Stone Age communities discovered in the 20th century in remote fortunate places are reported as idyllic - and I myself have checked this out and can confirm a complete absence of selfishness. (And as Clinton proclaimed, all societies contain much the same spread of DNA.) What remains possible, in my view, is that our species has gone as far as it can on the selfish track, and (given the global village effect) may now be due to transform all at once - a Darwinian change in a sense, producing a sapient paradise, the human imago stage. Then we'd be modest in energy needs, and cherish the biomass on which we depend. Hugh Sacker, Knockandarragh, Ireland
That was the most absurd statement I've ever heard. I assume you've never heard of solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal and hydro generation of electricity? These have proven to produce more than our share of needed electricity. These can all be placed on top of any roof, spare piece of land, carports, garages etc. Nuclear, on the other hand, only poses environmental risks. For the price of a nuclear generator, all the previously mentioned methods can easily be implemented without the environmental risks nuclear plants pose. These risks are no better than the burning of hydrocarbons in practice today. Kindly rethink your article and propose these other forms of electricity generation. Richard Farci, St. Petersburg, FL
Oil is not running out. The production of easily refined, high quality petroleum oil is rising to meet demand, but discoveries of new reserves are not keeping pace, and extraction is slowing. At some point demand will outstrip supply as current wells deplete. The price of sweet crude will rise. That will mean that the refining of difficult-to-refine, low quality petroleum oils will become economically attractive. Indeed, for reasons of Energy Security, these sources of petroleum are already being tapped, for example in Canada. The danger is that we will continue to demand petroleum at the rates we demand today, whatever the source, and whatever the price. It is true that the difficulty of refining low-grade petroleum oils will risk their flow into the markets, which would incentivise alternative fuels. However, electricity is not guaranteed to be financially or environmentally preferential as a power source for transportation. When Charles Arthur refers to electricity-powered vehicles, he neglects to admit that the majority of electricity generation is, and will continue to be, performed by the burning of Fossil Fuels. Nuclear Power generation is too energy- and financially-intensive to ever make up a significant proportion of even our current energy supplies. As petroleum oils and Natural Gas deplete from the high quality wells, there will be a shift to electricity-powered vehicles - but the power will be generated from the burning of the 200 years of cheap dirty coal we have left - and that is even more destructive a prospect than a massive expansion of Nuclear Power. Nuclear Power generation is not Carbon-free : the figures show that for the whole life cycle of Nuclear generation roughly a third of the Carbon Dioxide emissions of Natural Gas generation are incurred. So, we will either demand expensive, environmentally-destructive petroleum from low-grade sources, or we will demand expensive, environmentally-destructive electricity from mostly Fossil Fuel plants, and some Nuclear Plants. This is unacceptable. The only future that is sustainable requires us to travel less. If you must have a car, have a small, light electric vehicle that you never replace, and recharge it from truly Renewable Energy. Or go car-free. Dig up the M25 and grow food. We'll need it. The world cannot afford the biofuel or electricity the developed nations will want for transportation after the cheap oil is gone. It's either food or cars as far as I can see, and the food supply is going to be highly stressed by Climate Change if we continue to use cars for much longer. Let's get serious about energy, Ms Jo Abbess, London
quite right...when exactly are we going to decouple from fossil fuels and how? few commentators can lower themselves to the practical things they can do like change boilers, hang good quality curtains, put time clocks on immersion heaters, walk or catch the bus... No one can bring themselves to complain to the staff of cafe Nero that the aircon is turned on when all that is needed is that the door or window be opened to let fresh air in... No one wants to cite the big organisations that keep the lights on in there offices...or the computers running...all night... No one can be bothered to talk about boiler manufacturers reluctance to educate the installers on energy efficient boilers..how about technology that varies central heating flow temperatures according to outside temperature...something that is common in Europe.. No one wants to talk about ground source heat pumps that are common in northern Europe and are up to 300% efficient.. No one wants to admit that we have squandered north sea oil...and we are technologically behind Europe where condensing boiler have been developed more than 20 years ago.. In fact there are lots of lofty ideas...but no one really wants to grasp the route of the problem which is that we have to be aware of energy consumption... scarcity in an age of consumption is really difficult to deal with...and doubly so when boiler manufacturers in the UK are nothing but glorified sales offices of European multinationals (the UK despite inventing the boiler has very few significant players in boiler design) Everything talked about in the press is still a lofty ideal.... No journalist has the balls to get a gas engineer to put a probe in the flue of an ideal Mexico boiler with a flue gas temperature of 140-160c and show ordinary people that a condensing boiler flue gas temperature is always under 70c, every one understands that that must mean more efficiency... but the industry cant be bothered and nor can the journalists...hey why rock the boat? Alec Morrow (no post town given)
Oh dear, Charles Arthur, in his article on Oct 13th, displays several pitfalls of being stuck in the Guardian back pages, the greatest of which is complacency in the face of the twin crises of global climate change and Peak Oil, which he appears to have just heard about. First, the dates by which he says Peak Oil will kick in are wildly optimistic by most current standards. The recent BBC Radio 4 four-part series on the subject took several estimates which vary from now to within the next ten years. Most experts now think that if Peak Oil is not already with us, it will be in the next couple of years. To get an idea of its seriousness, try H. Kunstler, 'The Long Emergency'. Second, to quote: 'And what will get us out of the jam we're in? Technology, obviously.' Along with many city-based techno-geeks, Charles Arthur seems to view technology as existing outside the natural world of finite resources, natural limits, and economics. Many writers from the Guardian's other pages, such as John Vidal, Paul Brown and George Monbiot, as well as experts such as Paul Mobbs, have over the years been taking critical looks at these assumptions, and pointing out that a) uranium is itself a dwindling resource subject to the laws of economics, ie we will not be able to afford the fuel for any new nuclear power stations we commission now for use in twenty years' time, and b) so long as demand for energy continues to rise, there are no sustainable technological ways to meet it. To save the earth we must consume one fifth of the energy we currently use. That is the challenge. Technology can obviously be harnessed to help us do it more efficiently, but the essence that has been denied by our government, because it looks like Old Labour austerity, is to reduce demand. Which brings us on to Charles' third fallacy, which is that we are all following each other in an ineffectual circle. OK, he and his techno clique may be, but I and many others living off the grid or attempting to live a lifestyle that does not cost the earth know that it is possible to live sustainably, that to do so is rewarding in many ways, and that it takes a personal commitment to embrace alternative technology without being driven by it. It is pointless to wait for leadership from politicians; they will be the last to catch on. Tony Wrench, Newport, Pembrokeshire
TRAINS (STILL MOVING) Even in the steam age, railway carriages were fitted with dynamos and batteries to provide power for lighting. Then of course, you simply opened the window for "air conditioning". The mistake is to believe that this energy is free, when it is an (albeit small) extra load on the locomotive. (If you do not believe this, run your car engine on tick over and switch on the headlights, listening to the engine note. It will slow down, but it may speed up again if the engine management system is sensitive enough to compensate by supplying extra fuel.) The clever method is to use some of the waste energy available when braking (but even this is not free). Modern electric trains use regenerative braking to feed power back into the supply. Ian Taylor, Carnforth, Lancs
Out of concern that you may not have had at least a million responses to Georgeanne Slater. Energy taken from bicycle wheels, driven or not, came from the rider. A resistance is noticeable when the dynamo is engaged. Similarly, taking energy from train wheels, bogies or not, to power lights means less diesel or electricity available for motion. Moreover, taking energy in this indirect way is less efficient: electrical energy is converted to motion but then some of this motion energy is converted back to electricity. Aside from useful energy lost in transmission, each transfer of energy from one form to another incurs further loss with friction producing waste heat and sound energy. Total energy in equals total energy out - the trick is to maximise the useful work done. Chris Oldman, Cheltenham
Whilst Ian Soady may be correct in saying that more power would be needed to generate electricity, it should be remembered that almost from the early beginnings of the railways, all passenger coaches had a dynamo slung underneath the chassis and this fed a bank of batteries to supply the lighting of each coach. The belt linking dynamo and the wheel axle was clearly visible. At a start point such as Cheltenham, passengers used to have to sit in the dark until the guard came and flicked a switch.. Jack Hill, St Albans
Georgeanne Slater (Letters and blogs, October 5) and Ian Soady (Power point, October 12) may be too young to be aware that in the days when trains were hauled by steam locomotives every carriage had its own generator, belt driven from a wheel axle, to provide electricity for lighting. The second law of thermodynamics seems to have remained undefeated by this. Guy Smales, Chandler's Ford, Hants
