Heathrow

[biffvernon]

A good time to highlight the proposals from a Period Property point of view.

The UK's historic building, monuments, sites and landscapes are a finite and constantly eroding resource. We must value them and protect them. Their loss should not be seen as the inevitable consequence of progress. Once lost they cannot be recovered. The Consultation Document concedes the scale of the damage to the heritage resulting from the proposal. The Government should recognise that this is too high a price to pay, and think again.

That was from the SPAB press release about the joint response submitted by The Ancient Monuments Society, The Civic Trust, The Council for British Archaeology, The Garden History Society, The Georgian Group, SPAB, The Twentieth Century Society, The Victorian Society. Worth a read if there are still any doubts about the merits of the scheme.

 

[Moo]

I've just heard a lovely item on the news:

Apparently Greenpeace has bought a chunk of land just where they're proposing to build the third runway and intend to sell it off in little bits to as many people as possible.

 

[skier-hughes]

I'm going to buy some, could make a fortune

 

[Penners]

I'm going to buy some, could make a fortune

I'm not sure that you've entirely captured the spirit of this plan, Graham. :wink:

If you buy a piece, you will then be expected to emigrate to the Amazonian jungle, and live in a cave, so that BAA can never find you to serve a compulsary purchase order on you.

Just make sure it's a period cave, OK?

 

[middi]

It is depressing from a conservationist point of view but bying the land will have as much an effect as King Canute had with the sea.

The sure way to stop expansion is an indefinite economical recession ( gulp !!) to the point that the airpotr authorities will have to sell the other runways as arable land ( that would be fun would't it ? )

 

[Flyfisher]

I can't see any immediate panic; didn't T5 go through 10 years of inquiries before the final go-ahead? If the peak-oil people are correct the price of oil should be almost unaffordable by then and no one will be able to afford to fly anymore. The real danger is that Gordon seizes on a new runway as a way of building ourselves out of recession and pushes it through without due process.

Still, the case for an additional runway at an airport current running at 90%+ capacity makes more sense than building another one at Stansted when the existing runway is nowhere near fully utilised.

But I suspect that Middi is right about the impact of buying up 'runway' land. Great publicity but ultimately futile.

 

[biffvernon]

I've already signed up and sinceLincolnshire is about as remote as the Amazon I'm staying put.
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/climate/airplot/about-airplot

Seems the government is delaying the decision amongst rumours that the cabinet is split. This might be just the moment to make as much noise as we can.

 

[Pford75]

If the peak-oil people are correct

I think i've spotted a flaw in your plan :wink:

 

[biffvernon]

How's that? Oil production peaked in July 2008. We are now experiencing the predicted bumpy ride on the downslope. Hadn't you noticed?

 

[skier-hughes]

To be honest with unleaded petrol at 82.9p litre and heating oil from approx 65p litre in July to way under 40p now I hadn't noticed the rocky download slope.

 

[MdB]

How's that? Oil production peaked in July 2008. We are now experiencing the predicted bumpy ride on the downslope. Hadn't you noticed?

There have been a lot of predictions of when peak oil will be reached. There is still a lot of debate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

 

[Penners]

Biff - if I understand the Peak Oil principle correctly, it is the point at which the planet is providing us with its maximum output of oil - after which, due to dwindling reserves, production can only diminish.

If that is the case, how do we accurately define that point, when man-made market factors such as:

* A steady reduction in demand due to the global fall in industrial activity, and

* OPEC's decision to reduce production in order to support the price

...obscure the picture?

 

[another_richard]

It appears the scramble to buy land in the Heathrow area to thwart development plans might have a bit of potential.

Currently, for land to be compulsory purchased the free and leaseholders each have to be individually served.

What G-Peace could do is to give each person a sq millimetre so the CPO company would have to serve notices on, well say millions of people.

Given that it costs £3 per search on Land registry x number of notices, it could prove to be a rather cunning move.

However, the govt plan to veto all of this by shifting the goalposts on the law around CPO.

 

[Flyfisher]

Unfortunately, "currently" is the key word here. It's rather difficult to use the law against an entity that defines the law in the first place. It will, if necessary, simply change the law.

 

[biffvernon]

Biff - if I understand the Peak Oil principle correctly, it is the point at which the planet is providing us with its maximum output of oil - after which, due to dwindling reserves, production can only diminish.

Well, words can mean whatever you like, but I go with "Peak Oil" being the moment when the rate of production is greatest. Since July 2008 the rate of production has declined. If that date was indeed Peak Oil then it means we will never again see the daily production rate pass that figure.

Now if it hadn't been for the credit crunch and all that followed, the smart money was on Peak oil still being a couple of years ahead. There are a number of big projects, notably in the Caspian basin, and the potential for Iraq to calm down and produce more, etc., etc..

What has happened since last July is two things. The global recession has meant that demand for oil has reduced. Think of all those idle brickworks, cement factories, steelworks, and fields full of unsold SUVs. If demand is just a little less than supply the price drops. A lot. Rather the opposite of this time last year when demand was trying to nudge supply upwards but finding there was no spare capacity, resulting in a rapid run up of prices.

The second thing is that the current low price combined with the disappearance of credit has reduced investment in new production capacity. Big projects all round trhe world are being postponed or even cancelled. It looks unlikely that the rate of production will reach the level seen last July. Hence Peak Oil is history.

That means that if and when the financial system pulls itself together, the recession ends and growth begins again, the oil industry will be in no position to meet the increase in demand. Prices will soar to heights that make July 2008 look cheap choking off those 'green shoots' of.... ok you can make the rest up yourself.

 

[Penners]

OK, we agree on the self-evident reasons why oil production has reduced in recent months, and that this is why the price has fallen.

However, I confess that I'm sceptical about production never again reaching the July 2008 level. I accept that investment in new production sources/facilities will have fallen away in the current financial climate, but as to the future... well, I suppose that depends how much faith you're prepared to put in the laws of supply and demand.

Given that demand (and thus production) has fallen, I presume we can accept that the planet's remaining reserves will last a bit longer than they would have done if our headlong drive for growth had continued. Is it not therefore possible, or even likely, that when the current financial unpleasantness diminishes, a resumption of economic growth will be matched by an upturn in oil production once again? Surely the oil companies will see those additional reserves as a justification for resuming investment in production.

I suspect that the only honest answer to all this is a shrug of the shoulders and a gruff "dunno". :?

 

[biffvernon]

No, it's not quite like that. And this is where the understanding of Peak Oil comes in. You look at every oil field in the world and then you look at all the places that might potentially have oil and you work out the maximum rate of production that they could possibly achieve. You study the depletion rate of all the existing oil fields and you look at how quickly new oil fields could be brought on stream. And you take into account the number of oil rigs and the speed that new oil rigs could be built. And you study the number of geologists and oil field engineers and how many of them are about to retire and how long it takes to recruit and train new ones. And you take into account downstream capability, the tanker fleet and the refinery capacity. And then the type of oil is taken into account, light sweet or heavy sour, or worse, the tar sands and oil shales. And you study the technical difficulties of operating in deep water.

And when you add up all the sums you find that even if there was no financial crisis the maximum rate of production can only be about 90 million barrels per day all liquids, (86mb/d last July).
NO MATTER WHAT THE PRICE.

And now we factor in the global recession, with demand destroyed and investment capital evaporated and exploration and development projects postponed. The conclusion is that Peak Oil happened in July 2008 and we will never ever see such a high rate of crude oil production again, ever. No matter what.

 

[middi]

Good,....Perhaps it will force us to get off of our cosy lazy ar**s and thing about a more friendly sustainable alternative.

 

[skier-hughes]

And when you add up all the sums you find that even if there was no financial crisis the maximum rate of production can only be about 90 million barrels per day all liquids, (86mb/d last July).
NO MATTER WHAT THE PRICE.

And now we factor in the global recession, with demand destroyed and investment capital evaporated and exploration and development projects postponed. The conclusion is that Peak Oil happened in July 2008 and we will never ever see such a high rate of crude oil production again, ever. No matter what.

A very bold statement, not even a probably, considering you've said capability is for higher.

 

[biffvernon]

I'm feeling pretty emboldened by events, though to be honest I expected the financial collapse to have happened a year or so earlier.
Actually I said potential capability was, perhaps, higher, a little higher, but the recession has put paid to that.

Back to Heathrow, here's Joss Garman's take:
http://www.theecologist.org/pages/archive_detail.asp?content_id=2038