The cost of living... what can we do?

I dont know much about football, but hasn't there always been a lunatic in charge of FIFA.

 

They are mostly definitely not clean energy. That is just what the companies and governments that run them tell us.

When you burn methane gas, which is what 'natural' gas primarily is, it releases CO2. That's unavoidable no matter what technology is in place because it's just physics. Methane is a hydrocarbon. The hydro part refering to hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, the bit that reacts with oxygen and burns. The carbon part, when released from the bonds of the hydrogen part, react with oxygen to form CO2. There's nothing anybody can do about that.

There is chemistry to strip the carbon from CO2 to leave just oxygen to go into the atmosphere. Plants do it all the time through photosynthesis, and we can do it through chemistry and technology, but not at the kind of scale needed to make gas carbon neutral.

Several greenwashing politicians pin their hopes on carbon capture and storage, but this has two major problems. Firstly, it doesn't work at scale, and secondly, it not only doesn't solve the problem but actually makes it worse. They want to use captured co2 to force the last dregs of oil out of depleted wells.

 

Because we have to buy our gas from overseas and it costs an arm and a leg and a few tender bits. With Russian gas off the market, Europe is struggling. Plus gas fired is still relatively polluting though, as you say, nowhere near as bad as coal.

 

Yeah, sounds like a man made volcano in the making.

But it would be good if it worked, cant see them getting away with drilling holes in places like Surrey though.
Best done Up North just incase it goes wrong.

 

“Our current plan is to drill the first holes in the field in the next few years,” said Houde.

Hope it's not the field next to me!

 

We could be coming to a field near you.

 

Over here it used to be "all the way to heaven and all the way to hell". I believe the utility companies now make sure to own the area where their lines are laid and it is usually arranged before the time of building to make sure they have the right to dig.

I don't know about mineral rights but I believe that must be a separate agreement. Now you've got me curious.

 

The crown doesn't necessarily own the mineral rights.

I found out following discussions with the solicitor I use for land matters that I own the land below the surface of my land out in the countryside, but I don't own the mineral rights, because a previous owner sold said rights to a local rich landowner who owns great swathes of the area.

I benefited financially from this quirk of law when a mining company wanted to run a tunnel 'not less than 100 meters below the surface' of my land, so I sold them a 100 year lease to the ground 100 meters down. I did joke to the solicitor that I can't imagine I'd ever dig that far but he just looked at me with a blank expression.

 

The mining company I sold the subterranean lease to is after some fancy sounding mineral that I think becomes potash. They're not taking any from under my land as far as I'm aware, because the mineral rights aren't mine to sell. They just want a tunnel under there.

If the crown owns the fossil fuels, how come private companies take it and sell it?

 

I notice the crown doesn't own anything that's been fly tipped then, old baths, sofas, kitchen units, etc, etc.