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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Here is a European dimension (not that we want one, we just get it whether we like it or not!):
Germany Passes Energy Tyranny Act – Will Force Energy Rationing
NoTricksZone : P Gosselin’s Climate Science News And Free Commentary From Germany
http://notrickszone.com/2011/01/03/germany-passes-energy-tyranny-act-will-force-energy-rationing
“A new law has been passed by the German government, quietly and almost unnoticed. Soon in the future, the government will tell its citizens how much energy they can consume.
It’s “Germany’s first step in declaring eco-martial law.”
Expect a hockey stick graph for UK’s exess winter deaths in 10 to 20 years time.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=574
Ha! And so it begins…..
Cameron, Clegg, Huhne and the rest, look to the middle East – Mubarak, Ben-Ali, Gaddafi – Only the names are different! What’s happening there will be visited upon you. Your days in power are numbered, true democracy is beginning to flex its muscles. There is a growing disaffection, and it will not be stopped! The supine british population are beginning to rise up, and who knows when it will end? And our fellow westerners, over the pond, are beginning to rise up as well, as far as I can see.
Sorry to US readers – bit of a rant aimed at uk politicians, but it seems to fit both sides anyway.
But, you did ask for our input!!
M
As an inhabitant of Central England, I have felt this coming for some time. I have tried to rationalise it based on a project management course I attended many years ago.
Essentially, I was taught, PM was not about working out the goal of the project, but the aim of it. It turned out that there is a very good psychological difference between the two. And the way to figure out that difference was to ask a question: Why? To the 7th! Only then would one understand the real aim of the project (and, amazingly, it works).
I think that this is what is happening now in the UK. There is a ‘project’ going on – not just based on global warming – that the government wants to pursue. It is hard to realise their goal if we continue as we are: but if we ask ‘why?’, we will get closer to the truth.
Sorry Anthony, typos in above. corrected version follows
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 systems 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, as Mr. Holliday says “being much smarter” and, since poverty is a relative term, for fighting World poverty.
@ur momisugly AleaJactaEst: * 😉
Well, I suppose the UK can always ask to be annexed by India (the US isn’t an option because we’re already owned by China).
Not sure India would want the burden of such a backward society, though…
Well, the difficulty isn’t confined to the U.K. In the Great State of Texas, where there is an abundance of fuels to provide stable and constant electricity, the residents were subjected to rolling black outs during one of the coldest blasts in recent history. Lives of many were risked in this effort to save humanity.
Whirly-gigs and pinwheels. Weird, I could have sworn that would work as viable replacement for fuels.
Lunatics running asylums.
Does anyone else think it is not the time to replace the old corrupt politicians? You either get some in to protect your rights or you go… darkly.
“Intermittent” electric service is just as well because customers won’t be able to afford continuous service anyway, once the capital cost of solar and wind is folded into their electric rate structure. The European experience with large-scale wind and solar now stands at: 3x current U.S average cost (at the power plant fence) for on-shore wind; 5x for off-shore wind and between 10x and 15x for photovoltaic solar.
Unlike the U.S., which has hid the true cost via “under the table” construction subsidies, the Europeans elected to pay the true cost “at the fence” in the form of electric rates required to justify the capital costs. Those rates run for the entire 15-20 year useful life of those plants, so forget the story that “it’s all free after the plants are paid off”.
Logic and reason are no longer employed by those who govern us, especially in the UK. Anybody with any sence would just compare France with Spain and immediately recognise France as the better example to follow. (nuclear power).
There has to be another reason why the obvious is ignored in favour of the rediculous. In my opinion, THAT reason is the “Precautionary Priciple” strong version. It is the only explanation which makes sense to me.
I don’t know if you have looked at the PP Willis, but somebody needs to give it some thought because it is enshrined in EU law and therefore, mandatory.
Murray Duffin says:
March 4, 2011 at 11:56 am
“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. ”
Are you talking about the current shale gas shortage? Or about the future methane clathrates shortage? Or the coal-to-liquid shortage? Come on, inform me about the shortage you’re talking about if you think i’m uninformed… give me a link…
I know it’s tempting to write us off – but remember what Chesterton said in the last verse of “The Secret People” :-
We’re a passive, unexcitable lot in the main – but when the lights start going out …… wait and see.
That should read, “ridiculous” oops
In the 18th and 19th centuries in Britain if people were unhappy then mobs would arm themselves with cudgels and roam the streets smashing things up. It didn’t help but the authorities took notice. In recent years it has been the ecoloons doing the smashing. Perhaps it is time for ordinary middle England (Britain?) to start smashing things up like energy companies, banks, train operating companies etc. To quote an Irishman (WB Yeats) (more or less)
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world
A terrible beauty is born
Since the UK govermnent at GCHQ monitors all emails, I now expect to be arrested at 3am this morning as a terrorist.
We still have room here in the colonies for clear thinking folk from the UK, that wouldn’t include Mr. Holliday though, something about completely barking mad comes to mind.
geo says: March 4, 2011 at 10:46 am
quote
Some political party is going to get a rude surprise over that, and some other one is going to get a windfall.
unquote
Can you imagine the election slogan?
VOTE FOR US — THE PARTY THAT BROUGHT YOU BLACKOUTS!
Maybe they’ll eventually think of it as being an electoral disadvantage, but I suppose there’s still the delusion that Green sells.
Barking, absolutely barking mad.
JF
I tried for a while to find out exactly what Holliday said, rather than just what The Telegraph turned it into. I wouldn’t comment without seeing it all. I couldn’t find it.
Anyone?
Further proof, if any were needed, that the political elite here (uk) couldn’t find their own arses with a map, satnav, two sherpas and a lemur.
It beggars belief. Pray tell- what will the hospitals do?
If this happens you’ll be seeing a middle-east esque coo occuring in good old blighty. Words fail me.
Also- hang on.
So in winter, when the freezing weather knackers all the wind turbines- i suppose we’re all just supposed too freeze to death right?
So when everyone has an electric car and no electricity, just exactly how does that work?
Perhaps, . . .
http://thelibrary.springfield.missouri.org/lochist/frisco/history/Images/presentation/handcar.jpg
This is a hoax. Can’t find the article and no link. Me thinks someone is duping you and having a good laugh.
I need to buy myself a house with a chimney
40 shades of green says:
March 4, 2011 at 11:00 am
Imagine if the head of the Water Utility said they would only supply water occasionally. >>>
Well, does the water utility run on electricity? Because then that would actually correlate…
Big problem for weather forecasters too. They get a ton of static as it is when they miss a forecast and ruin someone’s picnic. But now people will be jumping on line to see what time of day they will be able to watch TV. No wait…its even worse…they can’t jump on line to get a forecast for tomorrow’s TV schedule unless it is windy today. Well, they could listen to the radio because you can get those low power ones that don’t even need a battery…oh crap that won’t work either because the radio station can’t broadcast until it is windy. You could leave the radio on all the time I suppose and then jump up and write down the forecast when you hear it come on. No idea how the papers are going to work, with the delay imposed by printing time, delivery, and now burdened with intermittant work flow as well, their forecasts won’t likely get delivered until after the weather does. Usefull for hindcasting analysis I suppose.
I know! Town Criers! Need no electricity, no wind, no wires, they just wander around at random shouting out the weather so people will know when they can flush the toilet or watch TV over the next few days. Of course they’d need security, the opportunity for radicals to disrupt people’s lives by masquerading as Town Criers and delivering forged forecasts could be highly disruptive to society. And good luck in the courts trying to prove which ones were just wrong and which ones were deliberately wrong. Heck, convict them all and send them to jail.
The jail doors use electromagnets to keep them locked of course, so the inmates will have to be responsible for their own release dates.
I welcome this word from on high because this is precisely the sort of idiocy that makes it clear to all that the AGW bandwagon has lost its wheels and is careening down the hill, just moments away from the 500 foot (170m) cliff that will be its final end.