Via The GWPF
Energy bills will soar as green policies shut coal-fired power stations and cause an “electricity supply crisis”, experts say. Prices will be forced up as the UK has to import more power, according to a report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers today. –Craig Woodhouse, The Sun, 26 January 2016
The UK is heading for a severe electricity supply crisis by 2025, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME) is warning today. IME, which has more than 112,000 members in 140 countries says the closure of coal and nuclear plants would lead to a 40-55% shortfall amid growing demand. And the group’s new report – Engineering the UK Electricity Gap – also says plans to plug the gap by building combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plants are unrealistic as the UK would need about 30 of them in less than 10 years. IME head of energy and environment Jenifercorr Baxter, lead author of the document, said: “The UK is facing an electricity supply crisis. As the UK population rises and with the greater use of electricity use in transport and heating, it looks almost certain that electricity demand is going to rise.” –Keith Findlay, Energy Voice, 26 January 2016
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Just apply the VW engineering “solution” to the problem of unattainable environmental regs with market objectives.
In the UK we have a political class that is dominated by “greenery”.
We have the most ambitious CO2 emission reduction targets in the World, voted in by almost the entire House of Commons.
I know that politicians are largely poorly educated in science/engineering, but surely even they could have seen the consequences of their lunacy?
We will have to wait for serious black-outs when they might make the connection between their irresponsibility and reality
#steamheatmatters
Decreasing Supply (artificial) + Increasing Demand (inevitable) = Price Increases + Power shortages/Outages
Remember and hold the crooks accountable!
I’m getting a bit worried about WUWT. It used the Daily Express as a source last week and is using The Sun this week. Neither is reliable and both are noted for sensationalist headlines.
John Finn The Guardian Their is a Good Source Is not./
I’m not too sure what you’re trying to say – but I don’t trust the Guardian either though they tend to distort figures in the opposite direction.
Then go and read the IMechE report yourself. I think you’ll find the link for this story is to the GWPF. Are you suggesting they are unreliable, perhaps?
You are missing the point. I’m not necessarily disagreeing with the general message but a blog like this should be careful about the sources for it’s information.
John Finn,
I am confident in saying that Anthony Watts has been far more careful about credible sources than any alarmist blog (unless he’s posting something clearly ridiculous, like the “Spanish missionaries caused the LIA”). Readers here like that kind of red meat thrown to them once in a while.
But comparing the GWPF with the Guardian is complete nonsense. The GWPF argues based on valid science, while the Guardian caters to the far Left with its wild-eyed rabble rousing over the ‘dangerous AGW’ scare.
One is science, the other is propaganda. No comparison on the basis of science is possible.
” Then go and read the IMechE report yourself. I think you’ll find the link for this story is to the GWPF. Are you suggesting they are unreliable, perhaps? ”
I have now read the IMechE report and I’m pretty sure that the GWPF have interpreted the report’s message.
Sorry this
“the GWPF have interpreted the report’s message”.
should read
“the GWPF have MIS-interpreted the report’s message”
I’ll look into this further but Jenifer Baxter who is quoted in the article is NOT an opponent of renewable energy and is fully on board with the Climate Change message
Jenifer Baxter, Environment Policy Spokesperson.
https://www.imeche.org/policy-and-press/environment-theme
I just wonder if the Brit system will crash in time to affect the US elections. Hilary and Bernie would look particularly silly.
I hope for the people’s sake that the system waits to collapse until April or May when not so many would die. Unfortunately it is unlikely to collapse then because in Britain that is probably the lowest power use months (maybe June).
I definitely would like to see one of these extremely green schemes crash and burn a notional grid though.
GB Electricity Capacity Margin Oct 2013 report from the Royal Academy of Engineering:
http://www.raeng.org.uk/publications/reports/gb-electricity-capacity-margin
Not much has changed since then.
The pertinent bit …
http://s10.postimg.org/4wd2yo7k9/Capacity.png
AjB the no change in capacity has a lot to do with Industry Shut down.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/12106829/The-tragic-decline-and-fall-of-the-UKs-steel-industry.html
Right. The scary 2015 projection is in reality already worse because of the Falconbridge C fire and closure, IIRC. The total is about 62, and that also includes the emergency forced paid in advance industry curtailments. Those do reduce demand but hurt doubly- unnecessary payments if the grid were rationally managed, and lost production if implemented. No wonder remaining British steel capacity is being shut. Relying on continental interconnectors is doubly risky. When the wind isn’t blowing in the UK, it usually isn’t in Germany, either.
@Rud Istvan.
I assume you mean Ferrybridge, which is set to close in March this year. The fire was in 2014. Ferrybridge C was comissioned in 1966 and has four 500MW gen sets BTW.
Nonsense, what crisis? As our CO2 emissions continue to overheat the planet it will become so warm in Britain in the next 5-10 years that home heating will no longer be required. The corresponding reduction in demand will mean Britain’s vastly improved and ‘greened’ grid will comfortably handle requirements. Honestly, you deniers, do we have to spell out everything to you?
Colin You and I know the Ice Age is back just look at Greenland now 400 feet of ice. You know that Iceland, Greenland, will be joined by Ice and will be part of the British Isles .http://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/04/us/world-war-ii-planes-found-in-greenland-in-ice-260-feet-deep.html
That’s hilarious. But I’m sure that many politicians, especially in England, believe it.
Pardon me, English MPs might be crazy as far as renewable energy mania goes, but the Scottish ones are totally demented.
I don’t think he is an M.P., but Kit Carruthers who regularly favors us with his all-sound-and-fury-signifying-nothing promotions of windmills isn’t helping the Scots’ reputation for wise, well-informed, analysis any.
LOL
My sympathies are severely limited.
Contingency Balancing Reserve Documents …
http://www2.nationalgrid.com/UK/Services/Balancing-services/System-security/Contingency-balancing-reserve/
Investment Opportunity 🙂
If a bit late on the uptake. This from 2013.
Lotsa diesel chancers.
Not all of them, got a backup generator sitting idle most of the time?
http://www.yorpower.com/news-standby-generator-payments.htm
Money of old diesel 🙂
Which shows how party political this is becoming. The image on this piece is based upon an old Tory party poster from back in the 80s. (below)
But I have to say that simply blaming the Labour party is a bit off. They may have started the problem, but it was Cameron who came to power: hugging huskies, putting a windmill on his house, and saying he was the Greenest prime minister ever. It was Cameron who failed to make a decision on nuclear power for another five years (after Blair had already prevaricated for ten years), and so we still have no replacement nuclear power stations.
And it is Cameron who has been closing down coal fired power stations, and replacing them with the Strategic Reserve formed by fields of small diesel generators. Because, as you know, diesel is sooo much cleaner than coal. And it was Cameron who has just wasted another £ billion on discovering that carbon capture does not work.
And despite Cameron’s rooftop windmill producing just enough power to charge a mobile ‘phone, and being condemned by the council as noisy and antisocial (he was forced to take it down), he still went on to subsidise the larger variety. As if scaling up a disaster would make it better, instead of just resulting in an even bigger disaster. Cameron is a walking disaster for the nation. A formerly first world nation being run by the kids in a kindergarten.
Last one out, please turn the lights off.
http://thatwritingchap.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Labour.jpg
Ralf, you forgot to add that Scumbag Camoron’s father-in-law is raking in over £300k a year in green subsidies from Joe Soap for renting his land to the wind-farming racketeers. Gotta keep Sam happy.
Ralf
It isn’t particularly Cameron’s fault. The reason so many Coal-fired power stations are being forced to close can be found in the European Large Combustion Plant directive (2001/80/EC) introduced in the same year Cameron became an MP and 4 years into the last Labour Government’s 13 year term in office.
The other main reason for the sorry state of the UK’s energy generation system lies with the Climate Change Act 2008 which sets out by how much, and by when, the UK must reduce its CO2 emissions. This Act, introduced and pushed by Ed Milliband, the last Labour SoS for Energy and Climate Change, was passed by an overwhelming majority of MPs, with only 3 (all, incidentally Conservative) voting against.
Couple that with the fact that both Secretaries of State in the Coalition were from the Lib. Dem. party and you can see that this is not a party political issue at all. They are all equally guilty and, as I posted in the previous article on this subject, it is a perfect demonstration that stupidity knows no political limits.
Oh and, yes, John Archer’s point should be made repeatedly. Sir Reginald Sheffield, 8th Baronet and father-in-law to our current vacuous prime minister, must indeed be kept happy so as to avoid Sam having a hissy fit and (presumably) banishing Cameron to the spare bedroom.
It is interesting.
How this Directive works?
Poland produces 93% of its electricity from coal (black and lignite).
It has biggest coal (lignite) power plant in the world in Belchatów (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%C5%82chat%C3%B3w_Power_Station).
Government says that this situation will not change in next 20-30 years – no big coal power plants will be closed.
Poland is in EU.
So – directive works only for UK or directive is useful as excuse for UK government?
It is interesting.
UK is member of EU. UK is closing its coal power plants.
Poland is member of EU. 93% of electricity in Poland is supplied by coal (black and lignite). Biggest coal (lignite) power plant in the world is in Poland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%C5%82chat%C3%B3w_Power_Station).
Polish government says that such situation is likely to last in next 20 years. Poland is not going to close ANY big coal power plant in close future.
So – is directive culprit in UK or is directive handy excuse for UK government?
>>It isn’t particularly Cameron’s fault.
Great Britain is (was) a sovereign nation. It can do what it likes. If EU regulations are stupid and likely to result in social, industrial and economic hardship, David Cameron has the right and power to raise a middle finger and declare “swivel”.
The fact that Cameron is following every EU directive to the letter, no matter how absurd or painful it is, IS CAMERON’S FAULT. A patriotic prime minister would have stood up for Britain, which means that Cameron is either a poodle or a traitor.
R
Hear, hear, RalphEllis, 2:09pm — given that Cameron has not even tried to counter the socialists, here, there are only two options (assuming he isn’t being blackmailed beyond what an average human being could be expected to resist):
1. Incompetent.
OR
2. Treacherous.
ralfellis, Janice Moore
Spectacular missing of the point.
The crucial point in my post was the word “particularly”.
In any case, the one thing Cameron or any other Prime Minister can’t do is “raise a middle finger and declare “swivel” ” since various governments of both left and right have repeatedly confirmed the primacy of EU legislation over domestic law. This is enshrined in the European Communities Act (1972) as amended at various times. Yes Cameron is a euro-enthusiast and will always do what Brussels demands but the same is true of all previous Prime Ministers since Heath, with the possible exception of M. Thatcher, although she was responsible for signing the UK up to the Single Market without the right safeguards. Any attempt to do such a thing would of necessity be struck down in the British courts.
So my gripe with the post isn’t anything to do with thinking Cameron is any better than his predecessors – he certainly isn’t – but to raise him to the post of uber-demon is to ignore completely anything done before 2015. And yes, I know he became Prime Minister in 2010 but part of the deal to get him to that position was to surrender energy policy to the Lib. Dems and in particular the extremely corrupt convicted criminal Chris Huhne.
Those of you who don’t know much about UK politics are prone to making spectacular errors* and to hold Cameron solely or principally responsible for the catastrophe which is the UK’s so-called energy policy is one of them. And before anyone levels the charge of ‘right-wing’ or even ‘Tory’ at me, my views are and have been for many years that they’re all equally responsible and I refuse to let any of them off the hook.
*The reason that I don’t comment on the many posts which involve US politics is that I don’t know much about it.
Dear Mr. Green Genes,
“Particularly” does not save your “point.” What RalphEllis and I wrote is not inconsistent with your (1:16am) “point” — as written, as you amply confirmed at 2:12am. . That we did not merely echo you appears to be your beef. We amplified. Consider for a moment, O Pompous One, …. that if two intelligent, generally like-minded, people misunderstand your writing, the fault may not be theirs.
Sincerely,
Janice
“O Pompous One”
I consider that to have the above levelled at me by a religious maniac is a badge of honour.
Russell you might find this interesting, abandoned radar sites in Greenland getting buried in the snow.
http://lswilson.dewlineadventures.com/dye2pics.htm
nc Great Stuff one more example for Mann to try and explain allow me to use it Russ
France starts decommissioning some of its nuclear stations next year. Will they have the capacity to export over the interconnector (at this moment 4.2% of UK demand).?
Depends on whether Germany and Holland need power also. The highs that tend to have no wind also tend to cover all of northern Europe. Its not that big a place.
Decentralization of electrical supply pending. With all the loss of efficiency and pollution controls. People of means will be fine.
So if “The UK is facing an electricity supply crisis” then why are they embracing electric cars?
Inquiring minds want to know.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/25/britain-embracing-electric-cars/
For the same reason millions of gallons of water were diverted to the delta smelt during a drought that was destroying farm crops. Greens always assume someone else will either solve their problems or suffer for them when they promote their ideas.
Or maybe for the same reason that Merkel’s Energiewende has “wended” back to brown coal? Namely, everybody is thinking green but nobody is thinking straight.
Electric cars have their limited uses, but as expressions of piety and green fetishism they constitute yet another white elephant to trample the developed West.
Green blob indoctrination from birth.
On the 19th January, 2016 at 19:00 hours wind power supplied to the national grid fell to 0.14% of the nation’s demand. In other words, wind power has to be treated as totally redundant.
Seeing the UK from outside of it, by 2025 the people who populate that place will all keep warm by burning camel dung!
But such product will still be heavily taxed and government controlled dung and with high import duties to stabilize the domestic market. The steady flow of government revenue is the top priority after all.
Like wood chips from the USA, camel dung starts a new industry for the Middle East?
I think Australia could capture that market as we export camels to the ME.
Where have these people been. I read about this potential problem in 2006, ten years ago. It was in a very perceptive article by Christopher Booker in the Sunday Telegraph. However, as usual, nobody in a position to do something about it was listening.
If this nonsense goes on much longer, the people will begin to notice that there will be a problem, and they will not be happy. Unhappy voters are a great political problem, probably greater than CAGW.
That will be solved by Special Counting of votes, as perfected by Obama.
People change attitudes and values only when confronted with consequence. Widespread blackouts can be useful in the fight to sober policy makers and their green supporters. Meanwhile, stay warm…
I know that the Sun (the newspaper, not the star) is one of the most reliable source in the world, but you should read the original report (something written by engineer, not journalist.)
It recommends to invest in renewable energy to solve the problem of the energy crisis, which is mainly created because they decided to reduce the subsidies of fossil.
[??? .mod]
…ROTFLMAO !!!
You can ROTFLMAO me, or you can read the report. Here is the link to the press release https://www.imeche.org/news/news-article/closure-of-uk-coal-and-nuclear-plants-to-create-electricity-supply-gap-of-up-to-55-by-2025 it’s a good summary, the full report is linked at the bottom.
So using fossil fuels is a subsidy for fossil fuels.
Interesting bias there.
Of course taxing people so that other people can use so called renewables, isn’t a subsidy.
Maybe more than 2 verres? And not so petits?
You are either very late to the party (and don’t know the history of this story), or you’re seriously confused about who did what.
There were never any subsidies for fossil fuels.
I did not read the engineer’s report. If true, what a shame. No genuine student of engineering who took his or her studies seriously could write such a thing. Your comment, 2PetitV’s, was helpful, though (assuming you are correctly reading the engineer (?!)’s report) in answer my question about this weird sentence in the “Sun” report (linked in above main post):
My Q: “Unrealistic” — why? … (after reading above comment)…. Oh. I see.
Answer: Artificial market constraints courtesy of windmill-powered M.P.’s.
Now, when that nice Mr Putin gets his Nord Stream pipeline flowing, and if the overthrow of that “murderous Assad regime” gets Qatari gas flowing through a Turkish hub…
Along with Norwegian etc imports and the incineration of American forests (they only use the tops and tailings, right?), Britain will have green-ish energy to, er, burn.
Of course, the North Sea isn’t what it used to be, but if you can keep those Nigerian tribespeople and Algerian sunnis peaceful there’ll still be oil for the gennie. And it looks like there’ll be lots of gennies to fill!
And perhaps with plenty of Green help from Europe’s prime leader/Chancellor that used to be in charge of Communist “agitation and propaganda” in East Germany. Perhaps her true agenda is……
http://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkels-green-gamble-cop-paris/
After all the fuss and the zillions frittered, Germany is back to its own brown coal and (even more) Russian gas. (Those solar panels at 50+ degrees north are largely decor.)
Now if Merkel co-operates with Greek debt demands and Turkish blackmail they might stop sending her all those non-Syrian Syrians to feed.
Just as well the Green Angel has got lots of lignite handy. She gunna need to burn lots of brown to pay for all the green.
Sent to a few friends in the UK this morning:
Re: “Energy bills will soar as green policies shut coal-fired power stations and cause an “electricity supply crisis”, experts say. Prices will be forced up as the UK has to import more power, according to a report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers today. –Craig Woodhouse, The Sun, 26 January 2016”.
Congratulations to the IME for their conclusion – the IME is correct, but rather late in the game.
As stated previously, we predicted this severe energy shortfall in our 2002 written debate with the warmist Pembina Institute. We wrote in 2002:
(until recently posted on the APEGA website, now at) http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
8. “The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
I wrote the UK Stern Commission in 2005 that the UK’s approach to alleged manmade global warming and green energy was ill-founded and would greatly increase energy costs, with no benefit to the environment.
In 2013 I wrote an open letter to Baroness Verma, then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. making similar points.
I suggest we are now proven correct.
Governments that adopted “green energy” schemes such as wind and solar power are finding these schemes are not green and produce little useful energy. Their energy costs are soaring and these governments are in retreat, dropping their green energy subsidies as fast as they politically can.
I suggest there is a two-year time limit to launch a lawsuit for Negligence and Misfeasance in a Public Office against the parties who foisted this costly green-energy fraud on society.
Regards to all, Allan
This is more likely than “global warming”:
http://americandigest.org/frozenthames1739.jpg
http://americandigest.org/frostfairthames1814.jpg
http://americandigest.org/printedonice.jpg