This blog page is intended to raise the issues around Peak Oil and encourage debate in the Dereham area about these issues, how they will affect our local area, and how we should respond. Please do post any comments you have in reply to any blog entries posted here. Alternatively please e-mail; transitiondereham@googlemail.com

It must be stressed that Dereham is not (yet) a Transition Town. But through this blog it is hoped that a debate will be started that will lead Dereham towards engaging in the Transition process and that this blog will become a record as we engage in that process.

Thursday 17 July 2008

Current fuel prices; Record 3


Its been another 4 weeks so its time for another record of the fuel prices at the petrol stations in Dereham. I have been round the town again on the afternoon of Tuesday 15th July (29 days after the last time) and here's what I found;

Morrisons supermarket, Station Road, Dereham
Unleaded; 119.9p
(up 2p or 1.7%* & 8p or 7.15%#)
Diesel; 132.9p
(up 2p or 1.53%* & 10p or 8.14%#)

BP station, Lynn Hill roundabout, Dereham
Unleaded; 119.9p
(up 2p or 1.7%* & 6p or 5.27%#)
Diesel; 133.9p
(up 3p or 2.29%* & 9p or 7.21%#)

Tesco supermarket, off Yaxham Road, Dereham
Unleaded; 119.9p
(up 1p or 0.84%* & 6p or 5.27%#)
Diesel; 133.9p
(up 2p or 1.52%* & 8p or 6.35%#)


* increase from Mon, 16th June (4 weeks/29 days ago)
# increase from Mon, 19th May (8 weeks/57 days ago)

Thursday 10 July 2008

Energy debate; letters in the Dereham Times

Today's Dereham Times (10th July) carries 2 letters about energy supplies. Malcolm Heymer (of Wheatcroft Way, Dereham), replying to my letter printed last week, continues his ill-conceived argument that man-made global warming doesn't exist! Well I'm sorry to inform him that the OVERWHELMING weight of evidence and the broad scientific consensus says that IT DOES EXIST! Yes, there is an element of natural variations in temperature that Mr Heymer speaks of, but this is small compared to what we are facing as a consequence of man-made CO2 emissions!

Mr Heymer refers in his letter to a report by a group calling itself the "Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)". This is clearly intended to deceive many people because it could very easily be mistaken for a reference to the much more widely accepted UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (or IPCC) report (see http://www.ipcc.ch). Mr Heymer also appears to have been deceived by exaggerated predictions claiming that there are vast undiscovered reserves of finite resources like oil and uranium that will thrust the peak of these resources far off into the future! Maybe those reserves are out there somewhere! But who's to say we'll ever be able to find or extract them!!!

The logical thing is to plan based on the resources that we know (or can reasonably predict) that we've got! Regarding oil, the current evidence is that global production is coming to a peak, beyond which it will go into terminal decline. And this is happening at just the same moment that global demand for oil is sky-rocketing due to the growth of India and China (among others). This IS creating a widening gulf between supply and demand, leading to soaring oil prices which is exacerbating (if it didn't directly cause) the "credit crunch" and other economic instability.

The solution to all this is VERY obvious and relatively simple; we must rapidly reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, particularly oil. I believe that through this we can build stronger, more robust local economies, stronger, healthier, friendlier local communities, and a nicer, healthier local environment. But having done a little web search for "Malcolm Heymer, Dereham", I've discovered that Mr Heymer is a very vocal climate change denier and a member of the car lobby, the "Association of British Drivers" (ABD). So I don't expect that he'll be convinced by any of this until long after the facts have been proved.

The other letter is Cllr Rupert Read's response to Malcolm Heymer's previous letter (printed 26th June), answering Mr Heymer's criticisms of Mr Read's previous letter (19th June). Mr Read (quite rightly in my view) dismisses Mr Heymer's argument for building new nuclear power stations to solve our "looming crisis in electricity generation" as economically unviable and physically dangerous (citing Chenobyl, and the modern terrorist threat).

Wednesday 9 July 2008

Energy supplies

In last Thursday's Dereham Times (3rd July '08) I had another letter published about energy supplies, which was given the title "We need sustainable energy" by the Dereham Times. It was in response to a letter by Malcolm Heymer (of Wheatcroft Way, Dereham) printed in the Times the previous week (26th June) which appeared to quite misunderstand the comments of Cllr Rupert Read (printed the week before - 19th June) with regard to the decline of oil supplies. Mr Heymer also appeared to foolishly dismiss the facts of global warming!

The main focus of Mr Heymer's letter was "the looming crisis in electricity generation" which I quite agree with him about, although I disagree with his suggested solutions!

Once again with my letter the Dereham Times failed to include the details of this blog when they published it. HOW HOPELESS!!!

Below is my letter in FULL.


Mr Heymer (June 26) miss-understands the science if he believes that slightly cooler temperatures "since 2002" mean global warming had ceased! Temperatures fluctuate from year to year. But the longer-term trend clearly shows a rapid warming of our climate due to humans burning fossil fuels, releasing large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. It IS rapid relative to what we know of from the geological past.

Mr Heymer is right to say that there is a "looming crisis in electricity generation". But the solution is NOT to build new coal or nuclear power stations. Instead we need to significantly reduce our energy use, and to develop genuinely sustainable energy sources like wind (both off-shore and on-shore), micro-hydro, and wave/tidal power.

I think Mr Heymer misunderstands what Mr Read (letters, June 19) meant about oil supplies (a mistake repeatedly perpetuated by the media's representation of concerns about available oil supplies). Oil will certainly not just "run out". But the point comes, when about half the available oil has been extracted, that the rate of production reaches an all-time peak and then goes into terminal decline. This happens in every oil producing country or region. In the USA (lower 48 states) the peak happened in 1970 and even significant advances in extraction technologies did little to halt the subsequent decline!

The same thing will happen to oil supplies globally. The question is when! No one can say for sure until sometime after the event! Oil companies say it won't be until 2030. But many independent experts believe it will be before 2012! It may already have happened! And with ever growing global demand for oil, the growing gap between supply and demand will create a perception of shortages, and ever-rising prices.

It should also be said that the same process of peak and decline will apply at some time to all finite resources including coal, and uranium ore for nuclear power. So these cannot be sustainable energy solutions!

We must reduce our unsustainable use of energy. We have to rapidly engineer an end to our dependence on cheap oil for transport and agricultural production. And we have to reduce our electricity use to levels that can be provided by sustainable sources like wind and hydro. We must make a Transition in Dereham and surrounding areas towards a sustainable, low-carbon economy. Please come to discuss these issues further and help to develop solutions at the Transition Dereham blog; http://transitiondereham.blogspot.com.

Matt Walker