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 in the UK we have a Coalition Government consisting of mainly multi millionaires from the Tory Party with little experience of power and Liberal Democrats who haven’t tasted power for almost a century and are drunk on it.
They are under the impression that they can radically change everything and it will be meekly accepted by the populace. Their come-uppance will surely come in the end but who knows how much havoc they will wreak in the meantime?
Sad news – not.
UN postpones crucial green fund meeting
Row over who should sit on transitional committee leads to delay of first Green Fund meeting
By BusinessGreen staff
04 Mar 2011
“Any hope the spirit of improved co-operation evident at last year’s Cancun climate change summit would continue through to this year’s negotiations appears to be receding, after the UN yesterday confirmed a crucial meeting to discuss the formation of a proposed “Green Climate Fund” has been delayed following a row over who should attend.”
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2031375/postpones-crucial-green-fund-meeting
So how will they address the problem of providing power to those institutions, businesses and people who need it whenever they need it, and not just “when it’s available”?
Hospitals, say, or (Britain going the way it is) mosques?
I’m sure those who can pay or who have a say will somehow magically be spared the artificial “shortage”. The rest will be told it’s good for their moral fiber to do without when the people in charge say they should.
Has anyone addressed what happens when supplies are intermittent and everyone’s laundry all needs to be done within the two-hour window designated for the day? It seems to me the overload would burn out the system.
Is there enough wood in the UK for this?
“03 June 2010
Rising electricity prices are increasing the use of wood for heating in South Eastern Europe to alarming levels, posing a serious threat to health and the environment, experts warned.”
http://www.euractiv.com/en/enlargement/impoverished-se-europeans-turn-wood-heating-news-494816
I have been haranguing my MP for some considerable time now about about the looming catastrophe in the UK that will be caused by a serious shortfall in generating capacity.
I have pointed out that his government is going to be responsible for a dramatic increase in the already shocking number of deaths from hypothermia among the elderly; on top of increasing numbers dying through fuel poverty there will be many freezing to death because of daily power cuts (all central heating systems require electricity to function) during the coldest parts of winter when the the wind turbines are stationary .
His response? I am being unduly pessimistic. Well, there’s none so blind as those that WON’T see – which includes virtually all UK MP’s.
The worst part of all this is that the professional electrical engineers association is busy pratting about things like power generation to deal with climate change. And is too lily livered to say in public what they are all saying between themselves.
Joe Public is well aware that there is a scam in progress but the political class is so thick (for our US cousins =dumb) that it is following the lead of Prince Chuckles.
Still there might be hope. In a very recent by election the Coalition candidates came behind UKIP so it might wake them up!
I notice people talking about backup generators. Cheap Regular just hit 3.72 and Diesel 4.15 at Sam’s club for members in 91733. Think you will be able to afford the gas for that backup generator if we don’t get rid of the MORONS in office NOW!!!
This is so outrageous, I wonder if it’s a spoof. And having the date and newspaper name conveniently placed over the article makes me think it could be. However, these following Bloomberg excerpts lend support to the Daily Telegraph article :
“The U.K. is ready to step up payments for factories, offices and supermarkets that switch off electricity as rising demand drives up prices and the nation turns to cleaner but less-reliable power.
The government, planning for a six-fold jump in wind capacity in the next decade, is seeking comment from power suppliers and consumers until March 10 on its so-called Electricity Market Reform. The unpredictable nature of wind generation, combined with rising electricity consumption, is likely to drive up U.K. power prices as plants that burn coal are phased out to help reduce pollution.
“Depending on Wind”
“Wind turbines generate only when the weather is favorable, making it difficult to predict electricity supplies. The power can’t be stored, and there’s no guaranteeing it will be sufficiently windy at time of peak consumption, forcing National Grid Plc to manage demand for electricity as well as supply.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2011-03-02/u-k-ready-to-pay-power-users-to-switch-off-in-negawatt-plan.html
Re: Green Sand says: March 4, 2011 at 1:08 pm
“Its real, I have the paper infront of me”
Anyway to take a picture of the newspaper page and attach it here? I’d like to see the full or half page photo of the paper in a photograph quality photo.
Here is another little tidbit from Holliday:
“Holliday will predict that the UK will need to increase its installed capacity of electricity generation from 75GW today to 100GW by 2030, in order to meet the rapidly rising demand for electricity that will result from the move to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport and heating – switching vehicles from petrol to electric, and to use electricity for heating rather than gas.”
Electricity is already too expensive to heat your home with (it’s around 20p per KwHr compared to 5p per KwHr for gas). Can you imagine how expensive it will be for the average family by 2020 after all the threatened price hikes have been piled on? But from listening to Holliday I never heard cost mentioned once. But then again, to these government types, there is an endless pool of money to be extracted from the serf – I mean citizens.
So much for the future. This is called “Load Shedding” in Zimbabwe and has been practiced for over a decade. It is what you would expect from a bankrupt leftist third world dictatorship. Sounds like the UK will be in good company!
E.M.Smith says:
March 4, 2011 at 1:25 pm
They might want to take a look at Egypt and Libya for how the end game of that tends to go… Or maybe that little thing with Hitler and Stalin… or even how things like that lead up to the French Revolution…
When the Colonel closes the window on the drive through all hell will break loose.
Wow, talk about doubling down on stupid.
From The Engineer Magazine, another strong hint from his speech:-
“He also noted the importance of smart meters and other technology to manage the demand for electricity by remotely controlling appliances in people’s homes.
I wonder which people’s homes – Her Maj?….Govt Ministers?…….senior civil servants and quangocrats?…..captains of industry?……… No, they’ll all have to be provided with state-of-the -art standby generators with stepless auto changeover systems (fully accoustically insulated natch – can’t have joe public getting jealous).
Read more: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/policy-and-business/news/chief-executive-to-outline-uk-infrastructural-challenge/1007641.article#ixzz1FfkjAfQu
I image this will lead to an increase in people using personal gas and propane generators. I’m sure that’s much better for the environment!
The article accurately reports what Mr Holliday said at the end of the 3-minute BBC Today interview when he was asked “Does it work? ‘Cause when the wind doesn’t blow, how does your grid cope?” I can’t vouch for the quotes from his speech at the RAE. The interview is here, with a brief description:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9410000/9410485.stm
If you’re in the UK you can listen to the audio. Overseas users may need to use a proxy.
There are still a lot of really good power consuming class A hifi-amps produced in the UK. How are these industries going to survive without continous supply of power? The answer is blowing in the wind.
@Vince Causey: Sounds like a do-over of Central Maine Power. That was at the start of the cogen craze here in the states. They had a lot of electric heating up there, and the regulators forced them to buy power way above market (sound familiar?) from cogen facilities burning wood waste from paper and other milling operations. They eventually had to file bankruptcy since the regulators did not give them a way to make their money back and they needed to break the contracts somehow. But all this is sounding a bit close to home. National Grid bought the Boston area electric utility and of course is allowing Cape Wind to be put up and buying its input over the market. They are doing their worst here in the states too.
1) Ken Hall says ….The bloke, Steve Holliday, should be sacked!
Or perhaps he should be thanked for having the gonads to tell the truth which seems to be woefully lacking these days.
2) I am 63…was born in England and moved to Canada at age 8, in 1955…been back a few times. Last summer I met a British couple vacationing here … about my age. We chatted. It was so sad. Almost with tears in their eyes they told me how lucky I was and their main regret was not moving to Canada (or elsewhere) 30 years ago. But at their age and with their finances it was no longer impossible. It was so sad.
Good luck across the pond
Clive
LaRouchePAC LPAC Weekly Report 3 2 2011
MIN 28,30 SOLAR, WINDMILLS,NUCLEAR etc
If you think those comments are nuts, just check the mess the Germans ACTUALLY DID with their petrol:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14888490,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf
We all have 2 hemisheres in our brains, except for the Green-Socialist persons who only possess a right Hemisphere, with the left brain being completely absent.
I would suggest that these people use only their left hemisphere to make decisions !
And to think they could have all the power they need if they had a couple more nuclear plants going.
Kramer … I logged onto the Telegraph using their one-day free trial and got a print copy of the item and saved it as a PDF … here is the link on my server . .. dunno if that is good enough.
Clive
http://members.shaw.ca/ocl2/UKpower.pdf
is it april the 1st?