Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I guess having electricity when you need it is sooooo last century … UK families will have to get used to “only using power when it was available”. That constant electricity at home was dangerous anyhow, the unending hum of the wires can drive a man so insane that the only way to cure him is to make him head of the National Grid …
UK persons … comments?
w.
[Update, for those who believe the above is a faked article, I had Green Sand send me a photo and another scan of the actual newspaper. ~ ctm]
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UK persons … will change their leaders before they change their behaviour.
I suspect this guy was appointed by the Rt Hon Chris Huhne MP, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change – MP in this case stands for MupPet.
I used to be proud of my British ancestry. Now it’s becoming a bit of an embarrassement.
onbe, I agree, this Telegraph “article” looks like a fake. I found nothing in the Telegraph data base that matched the title. The question in my mind now is can we trust posts here by Willis Eschenbach!?
By the way the Rt Hon Chris Huhne MP, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change is a multimillionaire with no less than seven, SEVEN, homes. Footprint anyone?
Andy Dawson says:
March 4, 2011 at 10:57 am
“If, rather than building lots of windfarms, we put multiple nuclear units on existing sites, Grid would only have to spend perhaps £4bn on upgrades, as opposed to £20bn or so..”
For that money you could build a lot of these:
http://www.thamesweb.co.uk/windsor/thames/romneyhydro.html
@Murray Sandland Duffin
The optimistically uninformed here that blame the problem on greenies just don’t get it that the problem right now is the beginning of the great fossil fuel shortage.
Both oil and NG are going to be a problem in Europe
Electricity is not made from oil and only a small amount is made from gas. Most electricity in Europe is made from coal (bituminous and lignite), nuclear and hydro. No shortages in any of these. We have hundreds of years of coal resources in Europe alone. Besides oil and natural gas aren’t anywhere approaching a shortage either. Especially not natural gas, plentiful resources of which have been found in Europe a short while ago.
Hmmmm.
No electricity.
No lighting gas.
No whale oil for lamps.
Not nearly enough tallow for candles.
Stone Age, here we come.
That’s impressive… “smarter than that”… you know, only using energy when it’s blowing. So cook and eat a lot when it’s breezy, because next week you may starve!
My sympathies for those listed as low and middle class in the UK. I’m sure the likes of Prince Charlie is willing to sacrifice lives for his religion.
Hopefully, the people power currently in North Africa spreads to areas like Europe, North America and others with similar political climates.
alan
At this point I am going to have to say this article is bs.
They will make it a fight.
You will or you will not be.
This would actually be funny, in the context of theater of the absurd, if it wasn’t for the implications. From what I’ve read, Brits are “taxed for washing their cloths in hot water”.
I don’t want to say much more about “It” but WUWT? I guess its what you “get” from labor party “science” logic.
“UK persons … will change their leaders before they change their behaviour.”
How? The last election had two parties which were potentially electable, both run by EU-loving socialists who believe in ‘green power’.
Every significant party in the UK other than the unelectable UKIP and BNP has essentially the same policies, so nothing important can be changed by voting. This is one of the reasons why I emigrated a few years ago and why pretty much everyone I studied with at Oxford has also gone; Britain has been in an increasingly steep decline since the end of WWII and as far as I can see the situation is now pretty much terminal.
Even if you believe that the middle class are going to start rioting in the streets when the power cuts begin, by then they’ll be far too late to start a program of replacing the numerous power stations which are due to close over the next few years. Decades ago you could probably have found the engineering talent in the UK to keep those stations open until such a program completed, but now most of them are working abroad in countries that aren’t suicidal.
John from CA says:
March 4, 2011 at 7:37 pm
. . .
===
Lord,
I’ll bet they have to carry home wet cloths as well, imagine the Pounds for the dryer cycle.
You just can’t make this “stuff”up!!!
The UK already has special Grid customers that get CHEAP electricity because they agree to be load shed first if problems happen:
“On 27th May 2008 at 1134–1136 am, the GB transmission system suffered the loss of some 1600MW of power infeed from Longannet and Sizewell B within 2 minutes. The system frequency fell to 48.8Hz, its lowest level for twenty years, and Low Frequency Demand Disconnection relays correctly operated to trip some 900MW of demand to secure the system.”
The talk by Holliday was about smart grid as others have said (you need to check the facts if using daily mail or telegraph as your sources!!!).
i.e. get cheaper electricity to wash clothes/dishes but only when the grid allows during low demand (some machines already allow users to utilise cheaper off peak electricity) All that is being suggested is that this process is automated using smart grid – is this so bad?
alan says:
March 4, 2011 at 6:50 pm
onbe, I agree, this Telegraph “article” looks like a fake. I found nothing in the Telegraph data base that matched the title. The question in my mind now is can we trust posts here by Willis Eschenbach!?
What is supposedly a scan of the paper even looks suspicious to me. I am a resident of the US, so I have never seen a print version of the Telegraph, but the logo of the Telegraph is in Gothic lettering on their web site. The header of what is scanned is not in Gothic lettering . There is no reporter’s name attached to the article. The more I think about this, the more rotten it seems.
The falacy of the “smart grid” is that folks don’t have “smart appliances” nor do they have “smart schedules”.
Increasingly people do have smart appliances (quite cheap to add in these days of fancy electronics) and it is sheer laziness which prevents some (some) rescheduling.
In France the power is cheaper in the evening. Not late at night, just after most workplaces have shut and people have cooked their dinner. That’s because Nuclear might as well run all the time (whereas gas, hydro, coal etc are turned off when demand drops). Supply tends to outrun demand at night in France, as a result.
A lot of French choose to run their dishwasher late to save money. They put their washing machine on hold, and it runs at night. They hang it in the morning. Some even chose to not heat their houses on the peak cost days because they know that (a properly insulated) home can go a day without heating. Some heat water overnight to use during the day. Big savings can be made with small changes of routine. (Cooking dinner is not a big issue – the French mostly use gas, because they like to cook well.)
Now I’m picking that most people on this list are for free markets and free enterprise. In which case they should be for differential pricing according to supply and demand. However, many people go all cry-baby when free markets don’t suit them. They want socialised services – electricity at one price day and night. They whinge if lack of supply causes peak prices to be too expensive.
But the issue of differential pricing is completely unrelated to the issue of insufficient supply. Things should be more expensive when demand is high or you get distortions in the incentives of suppliers and users.
The UK should build more electricity generation for the future. It’s madness to think that lack of supply will somehow cause demand to drop. (The same madness that thinks not building roads will decrease the amount people want to drive.)
At the same time, people who are too stupid or willful to use modern appliances to take advantage of cheap supply should be punished in their pockets. If they chose not to buy “smart” appliances, it is not the fault of the electricity suppliers or the grid.
Jack Daniels and I are out on the porch looking at this here post and comments. We can’t make much sense of it. Seems Jack’s relatives watched folks do the same things back in the 1800’s and decide that it was just STOOPID. Some of ’em froze that winter, so we quit that shit and started drilling.
eadler, alan et al
Search “electricity” here:
http://dailytelegraph.newspaperdirect.com/screenprint/viewer.aspx
There it is on page 14 … log on for a one-day freebee and it is yours.
Here is the copy I “printed” to PDF. (Second post.)
http://members.shaw.ca/ocl2/UKpower.pdf
Clive
THIS ARTICLE IS FAKE.
It does not exist online. Doesn’t anyone check before posting these things?
The closest thing I could find is,
National Grid chief says 2011 is ‘pivotal’ year for UK energy market (The Guardian, UK, March 1, 2001)
alan says:
March 4, 2011 at 6:50 pm
onbe, I agree, this Telegraph “article” looks like a fake. I found nothing in the Telegraph data base that matched the title. The question in my mind now is can we trust posts here by Willis Eschenbach!?
==========
Trust?
I trust this post was made in good faith, because I am familiar with its author.
I did locate a print edition of an inside page on the web, and it does look similar to in format to what Eschenbach scanned and posted. The header of the paper doesn’t have Telegraph in gothic on the inside page, and the stories are not attributed to specific reporters.
I still haven’t found a reference to the quote on the web.
It was easy to find for you doubters. Go here:
http://dailytelegraph.newspaperdirect.com/screenprint/viewer.aspx
Type “electricity” in the search window. Page 14.
Here is a screen capture I got:
http://members.shaw.ca/ocl2/UKelectricity.jpg
Here is a PDF of same from their printing service.
http://members.shaw.ca/ocl2/UKpower.pdf
Willis Eschenbach: So your claim is that this all has nothing to do with the rolling blackouts that are impending for the UK? Or what? I don’t see the difference you’re pointing to. THE UK IS RUNNING OUT OF POWER.
I have a cunning scheme! We can build a power system of windmills tapping into that source of never ending rising thermals:
Rising hot air over Westminster & Holyrood , welsh assembly, etc.
And if that isn’t enough we shall just create a lot more assemblies & quangos to create a lot more hot air.
See!
That’s the British way. If you ever have a problem, form another assembly, give the people another group of useless airbags to vote for and problem solved!