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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We have similar problems with water here on the west coast of Florida. During times of water restrictions, which seems like always now-a-days, there are always those who use 10 to 100 times the amount of water that a normal household uses. And yes, you are correct, they are almost always either a county official or a wealthy resident who just didn’t care about the price or fines. Bottom line was they get what they want when they want while restricting the rest of us.
Further to the autonomousmind evisceration (Katabasis above) there’s a useful iPhone App referred to here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100107083902.htm (“UK Grid Carbon Intensity”). It currently has the following data: Gas 33.4% / Coal 41.6% / Nuclear 16.4% / Wind 0.4% / Hydro 1.5%. OK, the percentages look wrong – but the position is clear: even if hydro is included (applicable only to Scotland) “renewables” are contributing only about 2% of our power supply.
What are refrigerators supposed to do, hold their breaths during times of no electricity?
Absolutely stupid. Many appliances, particularly those burning natural gas, require a small amount of electricity to ensure that solenoids, pilots etc. are proper functioning at all times. I also have to wonder about home health-care devices including oxygen generators, dialysis etc.
My sympathies to the Brits, I lived there in 1992-94 and feel your pain with you. Sheer lunacy.
Energy is power? The ability to control access to energy is power. The UK regime has knowingly embarked on a course of action which is guaranteed to enable the regime to control the energy matrix, rationing is power and the result of this rationing is more power over peoples lives. At a stroke we will become dependent on the state as supplicants, energy becomes the currency of political and social control, some groups will be favoured over other groups, some will prosper and receive more than others. State employees will have certain perks and benefits, the commissar class will also be treated better and have more than the ordinary person, you can already see where this is heading! Divide and rule, take certain things essential to a 1st world life and make them gifts of the states whims to be given or withdrawn as the state sees fit. The art of political and social control, the means of creating an authoritarian state.
In a future world you bathe when the state dictates and you use your appliances when the state says you can, you watch the TV when the state says you can, its all about who is the field hand and who is the boss man, who has the whip and who has the flayed back. The steady implacable progress to a totalitarian bully boy state, the regime believes that this is our future, a post democratic future, a modern future brave new world. Democracy degenerating before our eyes and we are unable or unwilling to wake up and smell the coffee. Little by little the state takes over and dictates the actions of the people for its own good you see. Little by little the rules and laws get pettier and the punishments get stronger, the regimes powers grow along side its arrogance and confidence as the power and confidence of the people ever weaker and as the people become to rely on the state more and more the state becomes ever more arrogant, dictatorial and bullying in nature and demeanour.
The regime takes over, the regime wants to take over, it dreams of taking over every aspect of your life. The regime believes that computer models of peoples average needs will allow the regime to supply those needs more efficiently. Person ‘A’ having a computed ration number that rises or fall according to how important or not the state thinks they are requires 1 pound of bread and 8oz of food product per day, electricity provided by modelled ration with access to other services rationed according to need or the states opinion of the individual need. Sound familiar does it, this brave new modern world where the efficient state provides and the grateful worker drone gives thanks every day for having a state that does so much and cares so much.
Think it cant happen? Think it wont happen? The road we are travelling on now is well used, the road is clearly marked and those who have travelled it before have left warning messages by the bucket load, neon signs as large as a football field and yet we are content to our journey down this road to hell, perhaps that is our recurring destiny?
They’ve been importing the barbaric laws and customs of Sharia so it makes sense for them to return to barbarism in other areas as well.
We have a similar culmination in former Eastern Germany. It produces 12 GW of power during peak production times, consumes about 4 GW itself, sends about 5 GW through the three interconnectors to the West, and has 3GW left over that do nothing but destabilize the grid, unless the grid operator can e-mail and fax enough wind turbine operators and convince them to voluntarily reduce production before the grid collapses.
Renewable energies in East Germany are expanded by 1GW/year; new interconnectors to the West do not get built due to protest initiatives; the Eastern neighbours (Poland, Czechia) do not want to destabilize their grid by importing German power surges. Rolling blackouts RSN i’d say.
(info according to Fritz Vahrenholt, head of RWE Innogy)
DocattheAutopsy says:
March 4, 2011 at 10:41 am
California, arrogant, misguided, smug. When the coasties get uncomfortable, they’ll start to whine again like in the 2000 power crisis. But this time, it will be too late. We’re in too steep of a dive. And we have Moonbeam back to finish the job he started in 1975. Now it’s California, the pyrite state.
Well, it hasn’t happened yet. In a sense, the sooner this crazy scenario unfolds, the better, if only in the sense that it will inject a shot of sorely-needed reality into the discussion, such as it is, here in the UK.
The AGW/Climate Change mantra has a secure hold on the political class (all three main parties), and I’d guess a good proportion of the educated middle class. Thank Auntie Beeb for this, ably assisted by the Royal Society, the Met Office, Prince Charles, Lord Porritt, George Monbiot – names familiar in this forum for reliably sticking to a hypothesis long after its supports have been knocked away.
All I can say, dear WUWT people, is ‘watch this space’ – I retain a fragile hope that we will see reason prevail.
(Where are the gung-ho investigative journalists in the British MSM? Booker and Delingpole can’t do it all, bless ’em).
Sorry, not a UK inmate, but I would venture a guess and say Mr. Holliday and his ilk will will always have power available. Shortages are only for the “little people”.
Yep, it is a bad joke, but it’s probably also true.
If you look at our energy consumption and production projections going into the future, we are going to have to wait for the wind to blow before we can make a cup of tea.
The old nuclear stations are practically finished and replacing them with wind was never going to cut it. They just cancelled the Severn barrage on the basis of cost. Wind Energy Subsidy anyone? That’ll be a billion pounds.
A year.
Which comes out of our pockets. At the expense of reliable electricity.
A bad joke, but true, too.
For what it’s worth, I can’t google up that article.
That said – IF TRUE then I urge the rational UK folks to… come to the US. Bring the Top Gear blokes with you. Really, we’ll figure out how to do decent tea…
“Mr Holliday was challenged over how the country would “keep the lights on” when it relied more on wind turbines as supplies of gas dwindled.”
Supplies of gas are dwindling? Ah well, I suppose these guys are rather conventional.
UK families will have to get used to “only using power when it was available”.
UK politicians be warned.
Pull My Finger says:
March 4, 2011 at 10:28 am
Welcome to the 21st Century, a lot like the 19th Century.
…..but in reverse.
We have third world railways, motorways (freeways to you guys), eductation and health service. Will we notice if another key part of our infrastructure goes into rapid decline?
We (even I helped whilst studying for my degree) built a first world power grid and generating infrastructure in the fifties & sixties – a good mix of nuclear, coal gas & a bit of hydro (no big mountains in the UK).
Our socialist government, which stayed in power for 13 years by copying Clinton, ignored things it found difficult – like sorting out Defence and building new generating capacity. We now have a situation where an incredibly high proportion of our generating capacity needs to be retired in a few years (3 they say – but no doubt it will be extended). It will apparently cost 100s of billions of pounds (if my poor old memory serves me right I have heard figures up to to £250Bn) to bring the generating capacity up to scratch.
Meanwhile Huhne (Minister in Charge of Greenery) is focused on windmills that delivered 0.04% of our supply in a cold and (unfortunately) calm December and whose electricity costs almost 100 times what it costs to deliver electricity by conventional means. The EU (plus the eco Fascists) insists we must not build any more coal powered power stations and they are even insistent that we switch off our old ones. Even though the UK has 300 years of coal reserves available.
Our MPs (embers of Parliament) are investigating the wondrous new gas from shale opportunity (which could give 1-15% of our energy supplies) with a view to throttling it at birth.
Idiots you quote above cannot have lived through our Miners strikes in the seventies. They cannot have travelled to India or Nigeria. All of which have an appalling electricity supply infrastructure.
You could say we have become detached from reality.
UK is an undeveloping country.
Gee, Nation Grid is my utility in Massachusetts.
They recently signed a contract to purchase 50% of the Cape Wind, offshore wind power, for 20.7 cents/kwh starting in 2013. Even better, there is a locked in 3.5% annual price increase for the duration of the 15 year contract. This more than 2x the current 8.1 c/kwh. They also charge a handsome 4.5c/kwh to deliver the juice.
Did they solicit customer input when they signed this terrible contract? Nope.
“Quick, lemmings…to the cliffs!” There are obviously too many of you.
If you get thirsty on the way, the Jonestown Population Reduction Institute recommends Kool- Aid. The green flavour satisfies the best.
I see my spelling reflects what I said about educashun – but it was really my TYPING!
It is being discussed on Bishop Hill here
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/3/3/the-third-world-ambition-of-the-uk.html
The UK is a case study in economic self-destruction and the death of politics… I always expect to see Abandon hope all ye who enter here writ large in the arrival hall at Heathrow airport and Will the last person please remember to turn the lights off when they leave in the departure hall.
With myself a Yank and my wife a Brit (citizen in both) we see both banks of the pond on a daily basis as we watch families make their way inthese two similar but still very different countries. You Brits aought to be accustomed to waiting for what you need – just look at your health care. My father in law has been waiting almost two years now for a rather important operation – and it was just postponed again last week – indefinitely. Waiting a day or two for power – come on. Stiff upper lip and all that rot.
What a load of raving nutters in your government – oh, wait – people in glass houses……
Well, having no heat will make the wool comeback a lot easier to manage…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/7069612/Prince-of-Wales-leading-wool-fashion-comeback.html
In second world countries the electric supply is intermittent. In third world countries you have the privilege eating when food is “available and available cheaply” If we labeled political-economic system according to results rather than intentions “socialism” would be called “shortagism” because that is what it produces, always and everywhere.
I suppose we have to give the British voters credit for being, as Mr. Holiday says “being much smarter” and, since poverty is a relative term, for fighting World poverty.
So when it’s not available in 10 years time with another bitterly cold winter with very little wind over the British Isles what then? Excess winter deaths will rocket and I suspect voters will vote politicians willing to promote coal, oil, gas and nuclear.