Green Energy

Unless we rely on sun, wind and waves only. I realise that resources needed to harness this energy won't be sustainable in the long-term but probably long enough for us to think of the next steps that will be sustainable.

As a mining friend of ours has "advised" us many times ,there are hundreds of years of coal under the UK ,and modern power stations (as the new ones being built in Germany)emissions are almost zero,and do not rely on the sun or wind to keep producing power

Good point JVB.  I guess that we need an open mind and responsibly use all means of energy production that we have available. Alongside that we need to look ahead and find clean technologies and preferably one using resources which will last longer than ….. and that's another question.

There may well be "hundreds of years of coal under the UK" but the cost of it's extraction, the damage that will do the landscape and environment, and the cost of building new power stations far outweigh the benefits of using it.

Brue, you are missing the point /  crux of the information, and that is the problem!

I do work in O&G and am well aware that it is a limited resource and the impact it has, which is EXACTLY why I'm suggesting you consider furthering your knowledge / consider the information in the film, or perhaps you are scared of what you may see?

The conclusion was clear, when you take into account whole life cycle costs of many of the "green" technologies, the fossil fuels used to manufacture and support them are never off set by the renewable energy generated i.e. Over the full life cycle MORE fossil fuel is actually used, than if you had not bothered at all and it would be GREENER to just actually use the fossil fuels in the first place.

This is not about being against renewables or sustainable energy, not at all. But as an Engineer, it is about actually making a informed and educated choice of what is actually best for the environment long term. I see the government supporting things like carbon sequestration in my industry, as green sustainable technology - it uses 40%+ of the energy being generated to capture the carbon (so you have to burn 140%+ of the finite resource fuel you would have done for the same output energy) and then it gets injected into depleted wells, which due to the density, just happens to help release extra fossil fuels from those wells...how is that sustainable or green in any way?

You may be able to for an opinion from a review or from what you have been fed by companies making billions in subsidies over the last 10 years, but ignorance is no excuse for you or nations sticking their heads in the sand and blindly supporting activities that do nothing but actually accelerate the destruction of the planet and use of limited resources for future generations. 

A few power stations have you seen a modern power station? ,or thousands of acres of soler panels and masive wind farms

The minerals being extracted, to make what some hope a green planet? are also not a sustainable resource .

True, but that is where recycling comes in even down to the level of an AAA battery.

The original green energy was promoted by Popeye. 

The life style we have is based on unsustainable, world wide inequality, pollution, at the expense of the less developed part of the world , the planet and  nature etc ,and the measures needed are being resisted ; as all polls and surveys show,  mainly by the more elderly section of our society, who simply want to carry on, by denying the overwhelming scientific evidence

A tree is more sustainable than natural gas which I am given to understand is finite, along with oil, so burning logs in winter is surely the better option?

That being so I shall continue to keep warm in winter.