Comments on: Local MP Enthuses About Transition Town Totnes.

By: Richard

Richard — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 10:22:42 +0000

I wonder how Anthony Steen squares this with the fact he owns shares in Shell

By: Dorothea

Dorothea — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 18:14:16 +0000

I agree with Ben. Good for Anthony Steen, he is clearly a true conservative, not one of these Thatcherite neo-liberal types who have taken over the party since WW2.

I particuarly enjoyed his recognition of the fact that globalisation is a dead end, and that we need to be decentralising and localising.

By: Ben Brangwyn

Ben Brangwyn — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 15:22:58 +0000

What a ground-breaking article!

Rather than debate oil usage for home heating (see thread above), how about recognising that this is a significant development in the inexorable stages of Peak Oil going mainstream. Not only that, but this politician has really understood the implications.

Apart from Caroline Lucas (MEP), he's the only one that's gone on record with this, to my knowledge.

If you're from another constituency than South Hams, how about cutting and pasting this into an email to your own MP and seeing what their response is.

Remarkable!

By: Mark Donaldson

Mark Donaldson — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 10:47:35 +0000

Yeah i think it supplies about 2% of our demand. The onyl reason it is there though is as an emergency backup for the other fuel sources. It obviously makes no economical sense to burn oil for electricty in this country. I was wondering if Anthony Steen MP was referring to burning oil in the home for heat – can you actually do this? Rather than supplying a fraction of electricity demand for electric heating.

By: Mike Grenville

Mike Grenville — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:19:22 +0000

Lots of people heat their homes with oil. According to The National Energy Foundation “The number of homes with oil central heating systems is growing, as more houses are being built in villages away from the gas main.”

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 04:28:42 +0000

According to Wikipedia there is one currently- working oil-fired power station in England: “Fawley Power Station is located on the western side of Southampton Water, between the villages of Fawley and Calshot. The station, operated by N Power is oil-fired and contains four 500 MW generating units although two have been mothballed since the 1990s so it currently produces 1,000 MW of power.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fawley_Power_Station)

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 09:55:56 +0000

nice article. One thing though, do we really use oil to “heat our home”? I’m pretty sure we don’t. Often i also read people stating we use oil to generate electricity in the UK, which is obviously wrong. There does seem to be a general lack of knowledge in the public about what energy sources are used for different services in society.