Oh Look, Russia is cutting Gas supplies to Belarus. Bullies I tell ya. They are bullies.

[eleusis]

Why does no one care?

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6925718.stm

BP has built an oil pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey avoiding Russia, though it goes through ex-Soviet bloc states. We were lucky last year not to have gas shortages because our undersea storage was out of action and the UK couldn't stockpile gas. We have still got excellent coal in the UK but there are two problems:1. It is cheaper to import coal (possibly mined by Colombian children) and 2. Technology to clean up carbon emissions.
It is a very important topic but many people now take energy supplies for granted.

Has North Sea gas and oil run out? Why are we buying from Russia?

Well, I expect it won't surprise you tha tI think privatisation is a good thing. It promotes competition and brings prices down and quality up.

Coal is not really an ideal fuel source for bot economic and environmental reason -- not to mention health and safety. So I believe that coal was destined to be replace by other fuel sources.

Lily, you are talking about the BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) pipeline. This is a start but we need a pipeline which cuts across the Caspian from Kazakstan (possibly from Aktau or Atyrau) to Baku so that Kazakhstan exports don't have to go through Russia.

Do you guys think any of this has to do with the spy incident? And the esculating relations between the two countries?

We need to ensure our energy supplies fast. China is rapidly taking over in Africa and will also be interested in dealing with Central Asia.

Lily, that's an interesting point. Also if don't get a pipeline from Kaz to the WEst that bypasses Russia, then Kaz will probably find it a lot less hassle to send their oil/gas east to China.

Leati,
Yes, I suspect all finger here point to Putin and his cronies. Why else would he refuse the extradition? Because he's a kind moral man? Doubt it.

Lily, do you work in the oil indistry? Or are you just well read on the subject?

I'm not in oil but DH is an engineer who has done work for most forms of energy production/supply so it is something we are concerned about. In the 1980s the government forced the demise of the coal industry and nuclear power in Britain and then encouraged the development of gas fired power stations so that we then generated energy by burning up our gas reserves inefficently. At the same time, far too little investment was put into renewable sources. Now we import electricity from France and we are still waiting for something to come out of the recent government energy review.

"privatisation is a good thing. It promotes competition and brings prices down and quality up."

That hasn't happened here much. Industries like railways and water should never have been privatised; and gas and electricity prices vary with where you live, regardless of which company you use, because the regional supplier's prices are the basis for everyone else's in that area.

It's only really worked with eg telecomms, where serious competition is possible (but even that took a long time to kick in).

The main purpose of privatisation in the Tory years was to put quite a lot of money in many people's pockets - and ensure that they would go on voting Tory - and also to help with squashing the unions.

I would say the problems lie in the way the government issue contracts. Take water for example. Someone explain to me why they thought it was a good idea to not make the maintenance of the pipes a mandatory part of the scope of the contract. Some things were allowed to be neglected. So I don't think it's privatisation that hurt the water supply, but rather a poorly written contract.

France has a lot of nuclear power and that is what they have electricity to sell. I think the UK should get on the nuclear bandwagon sooner and not later. It is the best opportunity which we currently have to reduce our dependance on Russian taps that open and close as it suits the Russians.

I thought we had over two hundred years of coal reserves in the UK. However after the miners strikes of the 1970's which brought down the conservative govt some leading conservatives said that at the next opportunity they would destroy the miners and so remove them of any political influence they had. Hence the confrontation with PM Thatcher. The rest is history.

But, it's about economics. It's not about how much is there but rather at what point does getting it out no longer render a profit. Same goes for oil fields.

And now it is okay to Fire missiles at Georgia? Or did they? Not sure who to believe here. But, surely if there is a Russian missile in Georgia all they need to do is point to it to prove their point.