Is the UK sustainable?

Ricochet J said:
Should the need arise:
- Would we be able to produce/use our own coal/oil/gas/uranium reserves for ourselves?
- Would we be able to feed our people from UK produce?
- Would we be able to manufacture our own equipment for our own use? Such as ships, aeroplanes, cars, tools, turbines, computers etc.

It's a lot of people's understanding that we source a lot of stuff from overseas because it's cheaper. But how much of it can we do for ourselves?

It's a debate we were having at work today. What do you think?
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Energy? Yes, by sensibly investing in wind power. We have the jet stream, a huge renewable source of energy that nobody is tapping into.

Food? We probably have the capability to do so, but things would have to change. Less waste, farming based on needs not profits and better distribution locally.

Manufacturing? Of course. We used to make tons of stuff, just because we don't any more doesn't mean we couldn't.

The UK, as a bit of land with some people on it (which is exactly what it is) is perfectly sustainable. Capitalism on the other hand... ;)
 
I think in the last study we produced between 60 & 70% of the food we consume. This was slightly down from before, however in the 40's i think it was around 30-40%. If it came down to it, with modern intensive farming techniques I'd think we could go close to self sufficiency within a short time frame, we'd have to tighten our belts a little initialy and maybe change our eating habits a bit though.

Energy, well we have the North Sea gas and some Oil (sure we might have sold it off - but in the situation we are talking about we'd take it back). We could cover our electricity probably for the next 50 years. Our coal didn't run out it just wasn't financially viable to continue mining it in most of the mines (we still get a third of our electricity or thereabouts from Coal fired power stations - many of these might have to close due to 'clean air' regulations). The more dire the situation we get the more viable it is to mine some of the more difficult reserves.


I don;t think our Nuclear stocks are in a good state, the last report I saw said we only have about a quarter of the supplies our reactors will need for the next 50-60 years. But we would still have 10-15 years to develop alternative sources.

Oil would be a big problem, we don't use much at all for electricity but transport would be a worry.

So we'd be ****ed for oil, we should be able to survive long enough to reform our food and electricity supplies.
 
Stumble Bum said:
We own the falklands, which has crap loads of oil. So yes we'd have ample supply for the UK.

We could also just recycle Luton, it's has no purpose apart from the airport, no-one would miss it.
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Haven't the Yanks sided with the Argies for the Falklands oil though? I imagine we probably won't go for it without that changing or will sell off the rights to it to another country.

Haha, poor Luton.
 
We touched on this at uni. The UK can support around 30 million people but we have a population of 60 million. I'm sure you can work out the maths.
 
We are now a net importer of both oil and gas (source), so from an energy point of view we're definitely not self sufficient.
 
I think it completely depends on why we have to be self sustainable. If importation suddenly stopped due to a global "event" then I think we would be in big trouble. However, if importation slowly dried up then I think we would be able to make the necessary changes over many years.
 
most of our nuclear power stations barely run over 30% capacity, but they are getting old and damn eco nerps are trying their hardest to stop new AGR's being built.


Oddly enough heres a strange fact about global warming and sustainability.

cuba is one of the few places that is truly sustainable it has enough green land to produce enough o2 for it's population and combat it's carbon emission. making it's existance non impacting on the environment. Communism isn't all bad :)
 
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