Most probably cheaper as a bye product? The worrying thing is that a minister says 'don't worry we will sort it', on another note this situation or a variation on it has been widely predicted for years not the CO2 issue but our reliance on foreign energy.

Tony

Nationalisation of our energy sector is the only real answer

Privatisation is for things like cars and shoes

Water and energy, like healthcare, are state level industries

It needs to be "food grade" CO2 as well

The wind situation is amazing, I have never seen 2 months of dead calm weather like this before up in jockland

It's fabulous, warm and almost continental, so luxurious

Totally useless for energy production though

A bit political, that. But from there it is only hot air? The living-dead don’t need to actually breathe?

No need to be more stupid than we already are! Give up energy today for reasons I don't understand? Party on, and sod the consequences. And anyway, as we'll all be dead before the result of burning gigantic quantities of fossil fuels gets really bad, there's no reason for silly old duffers to change.

All you have to do is denounce 'Greens', 'Tree-huggers', scientific consensus and all the evidence that anything is wrong. Unfortunately the evidence of climate change is still quite subtle, and many people won't believe it until they are personally effected. Central London flooded twice in 10 years might do it, and the probability of it happening is rising!

Thing is humanity are plain bad at assessing risk. This is true even when people understand the problem, and worse when there are vested interests. When it comes to risk we are all thickos, but some are thicker than others. Some people really believe the world is flat, and the moon landings were faked, and that Stalin was an Uncle Joe.

Dave

It seems the current problem of energy supply companies affected by the rise in gas prices going bust is because the proliferation of energy companies happened because energy was cheap on the wholesale market so it was like a casino with some companies making large profits, but because they didn’t invest their profits to cover the day when energy costs would rise, they have now become insolvent with no capital to carry them through. I agree with Ady1 this scenario would be much different if the energy industry was under state control. As it is with private companies running industries such as energy, as consumers we not only pay the cost for the energy but we also have to pay shareholders dividends, and it looks in the present case that as taxpayers we will also be paying via the Treasury to sort out the consequences of the bankrupt companies. Dave W

Back to the food shortage problem; Isn't it possible to change over to nitrogen in the packaging? I seem to remember that's what was used in the past.

Another possibility is just to use air from which most of the oxygen has been removed. A molecular sieve is used to extract oxygen from the air for medical use.

Russell

A large part of the food industry shortage is the use of CO2 'anaesthesia' pre-slaughter – since it's heavier than 'air' one can herd animals into a depression filled with the stuff. Whilst still not exactly humane, it's better than most alternative ways of killing pigs for food.

pgk

Some would take that as a challenge.

No politics involved at all, it's a big room with all involved and strangely enough, I was led to believe we exhale CO2? One worrying aspect is that the largest producer in this country is American owned together with many more and prospective purchases "over here"

Regards Ian.

Amusing to watch one little company holding an entire country to ransom

and with the approval of the leaders of that country too

Pay up on the ransom and even make up some excuses for your corporate buddies lol

Presumably the ransom will be paid in Bitcoin

Interesting times

Edited By Ady1 on 22/09/2021 10:17:05