Be Excellent To Each Other

1. 'The long, hot summer of 2008, where blackouts began lasting weeks'

According to the BBC website (forecast for London), it's 24 degrees for the rest of the week. Granted, it's been rather unpleasantly cool for the last few weeks, but it's suddenly hit very hard and it's only May 7th. Is this the beginning of the hot summer that stretches electrical supplies to the limit? (after all, you can generate heat from electric, gas, coal, oil and more... but cool air from air conditioners and fans only comes from electric power)

2. 'The Long Emergency - Oil Prices begin an irrevocable rise'

It's 125.9 per litre for diesel pretty much everywhere I've seen this week. Grangemouth may have had some effect, but that's a BIG jump from what it was only a few months ago. I'm rather glad I topped the car up recently.

3. From 2014 in the War Timeline - 'In less developed countries, flooding kills millions who cannot go anywhere else. The worst effects are felt in Bangladesh where tens of millions are drowned by flooding and unseasonable monsoons... ...seal their borders, letting the tragedy unfold uninterrupted'

Substitute Bangladesh for Burma.

Perhaps I'm being melodramatic. Perhaps someone could post that excellent little blurb about 'other worlds where people toil amidst the ruins of their ancestors' skyscrapers who squandered their oil' from World of Bistro for me? Ta.

Hush now, things will be fine. It's hardly the early 70's out there at the moment is it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis

Peak oil is terrifying.

But like zombies it's kinda interesting to think about.

Oil zombies?!

Return of the Living Dead is coming true!!!

Jesus. Nobody mention watermelon or Al Jolson or say any shit like that, or else.

Weather-wise, we had a hot May last year, and yet the summer was fucking dreadful. The fact that it's warmed up for a few days means nothing.

Petrol-wise, I don't think the brakes will come on until it nears the two-quid mark.

I remember part of April being really hot. That was when I was moving away from Conwy, and decided to explore the place before I left. I had to go back to my house after 100yds when I realised I was overdressed and badly in need of sunglasses.

Petrol-wise, I fear you might be right, which is fucking awful considering I'm already spending £100 a month on fuel just commuting, plus any for my own excursions. And that's on a bike with pretty decent fuel economy.

The nice weather is a direct result of Boris Johnson's new policies for London. He campaigned on improving the poor weather we'd been forced to endure under Livingstone.

The media love something to talk about. I think it should level out in a few months. I don't see it hitting quite that kind of high. I think it will hit a peak and then fall back. If it starts to get higher the petrol retailers may start putting more ethanol in fuel. Apparently in Germany they want to use 10% ethanol in a few years time. As of a few weeks ago about 2.5% of your tank is ethanol. No drop in price though despite ethanol presumably being cheaper.

Has LPG gone up as much? I met someone last year who had converted his repmobile to LPG and was raking it in as his company was still paying him standard petrol expenses. Apparently conversion is quite cheap but the fuel is still not widespread. Wonder if it will take off now?

I didn't mean it'd hit £2/litre any time soon, just that I doubt we'll see a stop in gradual price climbing until we near that mark, just as we did with the £1 barrier. I can't see prices falling again by any major amount, however. The petrol companies are too keen to make massive profits, and it's effectively a monopoly market, in that it's a product we can't really do without.

Plus the price of entry to the refining market is utterly huge. Oil refineries cost billions, so it's not really a market where people can jump into when the profits go up. No chance of fresh competition undercutting the established players and driving prices down quickly.

I wasn't being super-serious with this thread, you know. It was amusing co-inky-dinks.

With regard to fuel, there's E85 which is 85% ethanol 15% gasoline/petrol, with the downside being less miles per gallon (but at the same time it doesn't pollute as much). It's popular already in some parts of Europe and especially Brazil (who have the climate to grow sugarcane, which is currently the best producing plant for it), which makes me imagine the service station in 10 or 15 years time will still have 'petrol' and 'diesel' pumps - albeit ones that dispense fuel with a very high proportion of ethanol/biodiesel respectively. In the meantime, I reckon the biodiesel pumps at service stations around the UK should be priced a bit cheaper to encourage people.

To put it very politely, there's massive, MASSIVE doubt about the environmental benefits of E85 or anything like it.

Starting with the fact that diverting land to grow "Petrol" for developing nations does nothing for the many, many countries with food problems.

I heard that for the USA to convert to it, they would need to give over all the area used currently for growing food *PLUS* 20%.

That's what I heard also.

Unless that 'cellulosic' thing works out (which means all parts of any plant could be used). I also 'heard' that it shouldn't be a matter of producing enough food for the world so much as distributing it to everyone who needs it.

I had a book of future transport which showed a service station of the future - there were at least three if not four different power sources available for you to plug your car into depending on what kind it was - hydrogen, methane, electric... if you never go far from the city, you'd have electric, for example.

I plan to power a car on hatred and stupidity. I am yet to transform this to motive power however.

Southeastern Trains manage it. Mostly.