Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t JoNova – The cold is biting Britain so hard domestic gas use is causing a supply shortage, forcing the British government to ask industrial users to reduce energy expenditure to preserve supply to households.
UK running out of gas, warns National Grid
Perfect storm of freezing weather and supply problems prompts call for more fuel immediately
Adam Vaughan
Fri 2 Mar 2018 02.36 AEDT First published on Thu 1 Mar 2018 19.56 AEDT
National Grid has warned that the UK would not have enough gas to meet public demand on Thursday, as temperatures plummeted and imports were affected by outages.
But the government said households would not notice disruptions to their supply or any increase in energy bills because suppliers, including British Gas, bought energy further ahead. The energy minister Claire Perry said people should cook and use their heating as they would normally.
But experts said there was a strong chance that industrial users could experience interruptions to their gas supply.
Within-day wholesale gas prices soared 74% to 200p per therm after the formal deficit warning, which acts as a call to suppliers to bring forward more gas. It is the first time such an alert has been issued since 2010.
By lunchtime on Thursday the price had spiked even higher, hitting a high of 275p per therm at one point.
National Grid’s forecast for the day initially showed a shortfall across the day of 49.5m cubic metres (mcm) below the country’s projected need of 395.7mcm, which would normally be around 300mcm at this time of year. The gas deficit warning aims to fill the gap, which has since narrowed to 16.5mcm.
“We are in communication with industry partners and are closely monitoring the situation,” the company said.
The UK Government MET office has issued severe weather warnings, such as the following;
Chief Forecaster’s assessment
Widespread snow is expected to develop through Thursday afternoon and evening. Around 10-20 cm is likely to fall widely, with the potential for up to 30 to 50 cm over parts of Dartmoor, Exmoor and parts of southeast Wales. Snowfall will be accompanied by strong to gale easterly winds, leading to severe drifting of lying snow especially in upland areas. Severe cold and wind chill will compound the dangerous conditions, with very poor visibility. Towards midnight, there is a chance of snow turning to freezing rain in places, mainly across the south of the area, with widespread icy stretches making driving conditions particularly dangerous.
Source: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/warnings#?date=2018-03-01
This deep freeze is occurring despite predictions just a few years ago that global warming would cause wetter, milder winters;
National Trust campaign highlights how gardens will look if global warming brings Mediterranean weather to Britain
By David Derbyshire for MailOnline
UPDATED: 19:04 AEDT, 24 March 2010
The apple orchards have been replaced with orange groves, the turf covered over with gravel and the summer borders replanted with cacti.
They may look like scenes from a Portugese holiday, but these images could be the future of the traditional English garden, plant experts claimed yesterday.
The striking images are part of a National Trust campaign to highlight how gardens will look if global warming brings Mediterranean weather to Britain in the next few decades.
…
No word yet on when the UK’s 12 GW of installed solar panel capacity will kick in to alleviate the load on gas supplies.
I bet a few good coal plants humming merrily along would look awfully good about now.
Yes, you’re right, Bruce. But our politicians have not only allowed the UK’s only large gas store to be decommissioned – without replacement – but have also closed down almost all our nation’s coal-fired power stations. That is because they were producing evil CO2. Luckily, they converted some to burn wood pellets which are shipped over from the States. Even luckier, they have encouraged companies to build wind turbines and develop solar panel farms. It’s just bad luck, I guess, that the wind is howling at around 70 mph across the nation so the windmills have to be turned off for safety reasons (windfarm shareholders should not panic, though, because the Government are obliged to pay them money NOT to generate electricity – how cool is that?). And everywhere is covered in snow – including, of course, the solar panels…
Much better, though, to have industry threatened with turning off their gas supplies instead of adding insignificant amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere while old people shiver at home, unable to pay their power bills which have seen a 9% uplift to pay for wind farm developments.
Or in the words of the great Anthony Watts – the stupid, it burns.
maybe they can use the burning stupid to heat their homes 🙂
Us Yanks are always glad to ship wood pellets 3000+ miles to the UK so your stupid politicians don’t freeze you to death.
Call it the “wood pellet Marshal plan”…
I’m going to invent a solar panel windscreen wiper that operates from it’s own solar panel energy.
I’ll be rich, I tell you, stinking rich!
Oh…..whats that, the wiper will use up more energy than the panel will produce.
Drat…….back to the drawing board.
Hey, Canada ships huge quantities of wood pellets to the UK too. I just looked up our natural gas prices and at today’s rate the UK is paying about 17 times what we are currently paying. Care for more pellets?
About time for UK to wake up and start buying some more of that cheap and plentiful Russian gas.
And the Government has done its best to stop fracking (to please the green idiot voters and the young who have been propagandised).
https://youtu.be/TaBVKN6QEUY
And always the poor hit hardest.
BS alert re above. Facts from the UK. Actually, we have a substantial 10GW of coal fired power stations in reserve – that are now delivering 10GW. As are wind farms. See pic. I was wondering a yesterday why gas was not flat out as it usually is… A: We are in gas conservation mode.
?dl=0
Don’t believe the made up nonsense above, it seems that even in this forum there are propagandists, so verify with the below website. IT’s actually much worse than that.
FACT: If there was no wind or coal generating today we would ipso facto be 20GW short, probaly in power cuts, and in the total nonsense of emergency diesel engine farms, subsidised in “capacity payments”, built in solar panel parks, plus back up gene’s in hospitals connected to the grid. While the policy is nonsense, unvalidated false opinions that deny the facts won’t solve anything – because they are obviously WRONG. The 1.5GW wood chip firing of former coal fired DRAX is flat out also (small dial top right) , but don’t stop that or the convicted criminal and former enrgy secretary, Chris Huhne, who runs the UK end of the wood chip subsidy racket for the green mafia, won’t get richer.
We don’t need no steenking Putin gassing us all either. It IS the fact we really don’t need windmills or coal IF we just get the 40 years of Bowland shale gas out of the ground, far easier and safer than from under the North Sea. When Nigel Farage told the audience in Blackpool this and how much it would help Lancashire’s economy as it develops on TV last night (Question Time) they were booing – peope are the [roblem everywehere, the people of Lancashire are typically either so ignorant, stupid or gullible they prefer the lies of extremist propaganda to the technical facts they could check in minutes by reading the study papers and understanding how the tchnoogy works. Simple, but so are they, fearful peasants have always been easy for trouble makers to exploit to resist progress.
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
It does France as well, nukes plus hydro is fine but….. Macronman is changing all this to windmills, he says. http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
If you need the UK facts, check gridwatch, don’t trust the very un scientific people above who don’t verify if their beliefs match the facts. Seems people here who claim to prefer what works, are as happy to write what they believe and not what the facts are as the greenshirts are about renewables.
Only the solar is a guess, from a religious climate centre university temple of greenness for grant somewhere. Solar PV has an 11% duty cycle in the UK, but its so small and almost zero i nwinter so it doesn’t matter. In the words of the old Jewish corned beef trading joke (the response from seller to buyer when when the much traded corned beef is found to be badly off by the the buyer who opens it to see what he is actually buying and finds it is inedible …….
“You schmuck! The solar panels are for business, they’re not for energy!”
As a final note, health and safety nonsense will kill people from hypothermia – if the electricity fails, the gas valves in modern appliances are shut, so all sources of heating are cut off – it’s the law.
I wish it was only 9%. The hidden costs work out nearer 30% on electric heating which most of the poorer people are using.
BCBILL at March 1, 2018 at 7:15 pm
Canada imports some wood from Norway. The Thunder Bay Biomass Plant was Nominated for a Teddy award in 2016 for it.
“Thunder Bay Biomass Plant Nominated for: Most Expensive Norwegian Wood (Isn’t It Good?) Cost: $40 million (annually) Ontario’s Auditor General uncovered the wasteful conversion of a Thunder Bay coal plant into a biomass facility. In 2013 the Minister of Energy Bob Chiarelli decided that the Thunder Bay coal plant would be converted to burn forestry by-products. The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) advising the government against it after a review that showed the conversion wouldn’t be cost effective. The plant is a peaking resource that only operates the equivalent of five full capacity days a year while employing 60 full time staff. At a cost of $40 million a year it will only generate 15,000 MWh, putting electricity costs from that plant at $1,600 per megawatt hour, which is approximately 25 times more expensive than electricity from the average biomass facility. Originally, the hope was that jobs would be created in Ontario’s forestry industry – but the biomass plant was not able to use ordinary wood chips readily available in Northwestern Ontario, so it is required to import special wood chips from Norway”
If it’s Other People’s Money, it doesn’t matter, does it.
It’s all about trying new things and change. There’s always so much money for these things. It just keeps coming from the taxpayer? If we run out someone will always bail us out. It’s the EU, Canadian, US way. That’s what a few trillion dollars of debt leverage is for. This globalist money keeps flowing? how strange…
What’s left of them have been red lining it all day. Eased up a tad now demand has dropped off overnight but not a lot. Still busy saving on gas by the looks of it.
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/index.php
And not a single power station in London. All their ‘carbon emissions, and particulates, farmed out to the country bumkins.
Yet the ingrates still bitch about air quality within London.
AJB, that’s electricity demand. For UK gas demand/supply you need
http://mip-prod-web.azurewebsites.net/PrevailingView/Index
Sorry, but they turned Drax into an abortion that they fuel with wood chips imported from the US. It is a total mis-allocation of resources. Drax was an uber clean coal fired plant. Chopping down and shredding trees in the US to fuel it should be declared a crime.
Don’t worry about the wood being shipped out of Texas ShrNfr. They are mesquite trees which is an invasive and water gulping weed. We burn as much as we can in our BBQ pits, fireplaces and help with the effort to get a little more carbon in the air but still have millions have acres. The tree has vicious little thorns, offers little shade and has the longest tap root. It costs a lot to eradicate so the export is a pretty good deal for the land owners and the UK.
We grow them especially to be cut down quickly and turned into your pellets. It is the same as our growing trees especially to produce paper products.
Drive on USA, drive on.
There is no reason avoid burning wood. Good forestry including wild fire protection requires chopping wood to chips.
Just do good forestry. And don’t buy or let others buy illegally downed wood from development countries.
‘Ecologist’ disagrees, would be good to know the truth.
https://theecologist.org/2017/apr/10/no-drax-theres-nothing-sustainable-about-big-biomass
Perhaps they can borrow their neighbor’s burka to help stay warm.
Yes. The Fiddlers Ferry power plant on the Mersey does overtime these days. Perhaps someone in power wakes up and reverses the idiotic decision to mothball and then scrap a perfectly good power generator.
‘Ferry Down the Mersey?’
Cross
Is there a way to get paid for NOT generating electricity online? I think I could handle that, and it would be pretty carbon efficient too, no trips to the bank – I take wire transfers as payment.
The solar wont do much good for heating a home because The 12GW of solar is probably photovoltaic and NOT solar thermal installations. All electricity generated from photovoltaic is added to the grid but since electricity is too expensive to heat your home ; almost all home heating is natural gas. So in this article only the industrial users have a problem because of the consumer natural gas guaranteed supply. They can only guarantee supply by taking it away from the industrial users but all Britons will pay in the end for that strategy. Since natural gas produces BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAd CO2 this is not a CO2 story.
That warning about gas reserves was scrubbed a few hours later….
in fact nearly all Britain’s coal plants are up and running using up their allotted running hours and making what profit there is.
As its blowing a half gale, wind power is there at a similar level.
solar panels covered in snow and the country is overcast
help yourself to facts
http://gridwatch.org.uk
http://vps.templar.co.uk/chez%20moi/DSC_0003.JPG
That’s a great site. It has nearly everything one might want to know. It’s a pity that the meters don’t have a second scale to show the % of installed capacity that’s being used, because although it looks like wind power is doing well (equivalent to nearly 5 power stations), we don’t know what proportion of installed capacity that represents.
You couldn’t make it up. This morning’s Grauniad rants on about the Tory Govenrment’s lack of planning to allow for adequate gas supplies. But as the greenest of green newspapers it also continuosly rants on about shutting down fossil fuel supplies so that we can install expensive, inefficient, low densirty, intermittent renewables. .
I thought the UK had massive onshore gas reserves but Graunaiad’s greenie readers protest against allowing fracking to be used to extract the gas. Unintended consequences !!
It is only our few remaining coal plants that have averted disaster – they have been humming at beyond full power all week (10 gw maximum, but giving 11.5 gw). While solar-power has been doing nothing, and bio-power has been equally poor. Wind has been running at 50% of max all week, despite the higher coastal winds this week, presumably because of blade icing.
This link gives real time UK power production:
http://clivebest.com/rgraph/Wind.html
Ralph
And next winter there will be less coal generation so the blackouts move a step closer.
As an interesting point, I have recorded my highest weekly gas usage in the 3 years I have lived in my house.
That’s global warming Gerry. We know one winter isn’t an accurate representation of global temperature change but some of us actually follow trends. That’s why they can’t call it CAGW anymore. We have to call it catastrophic anthropomorphic climate change now. It covers all the bases. Whatever happens, we can blame it on carbon emissions.
Children in the UK still won’t know what snow is…..because it will be renamed to something like climate change disruption flakes.
+1
Not to mention that snow flake now means something completely different….
Yes, plenty of snowflakes here in the UK!
Global warming snowflakes falling and tripping all around due to icy roads.
Quality comedy. But as ever with climate junk science you flirt dangerously with Poe’s Law.
Can you be jailed in the UK for calling a snowflake a snowflake?
eyesonu
Snowflake command demands it!
No but it’s illegal for a Yorkshireman to call a spade a spade.
Depends if anybody perceives it as a ‘hate crime’.
‘The victim does not have to justify or provide evidence of their belief, and police officers or staff should not directly challenge this perception. Evidence of the hostility is not required for an incident or crime to be recorded as a hate crime or hate incident.’ (1.2.3 of College of Policing Operational Guidance)
Yes, you could end up on trial at the world “court” for crimes against humanity and other misc. charges. The UN would also be an intervenor.
Probably.
It’s going to be a White Brexit.
ResourceGuy
Yay! Fork em all.
Turn on the solar and wind farms.
Gotta go out and give ALL those Solar Panels the old Brush Off to remove the 8-10″ / 20-25cm of the white stuff just to get them functioning THEN discover thet the Light Quality is so poor they only produce around 5% of NamePlate
Simple solution:
Wire each panel to a NOT gate, so you gain excessive power when the panels are obscured.
/sarc
Actually, the wind is currently producing 11% of the total. That is quite an expanse of wind though blowing across the UK.
Gotta say that’s really indicative of the shortage produced by divesting from coal power. Only 11%. because the wind is presently strong. Even with the current dis-figuration of the landscape they already make. Can you imagine the audiovisual perversion of reality when they achieve saturation?
Let’s hope that never happens, the saturation I mean.
We live some 15 miles away from the met office in Exeter which ironically was right in the eye of their own red weather warning.
It’s just before 10 and I am watching the new series of civilisation on tv. We are toasty warm in our gas fuelled house
It has just started raining a little and the temperature is hovering around freezing after being at around minus three all day. One of the coldest march days ever.
Ironically this is a favourite place to live for some of the met office staff but the local news tells us we are cut off. The coast road has cars stranded on it whilst the main road is up the notorious high and steep haldon hill and is impassable.
Mind yOu it’s only a few inches of snow, but the gale force winds have blown it into three foot deep drifts opposite our house. It’s the strong cold east wind that is the main problem and with high tides and this easterly, expect flooding tomorrow and perhaps the closure of the main railway line through dawlish.
Tonyb
It’s the Russians. Not content to interfere with US elections (and any others), now they have to send their cold air to GB. Bastards.
“It’s the Russians…. now they have to send their cold air to GB.”
So they can sell us more of their gas!
CRAFTY Bastards.
Vlad says his military has developed nukes that make NATO defences useless. Msybe we could talk him into setting one oft them off close to home and using Russian wind turbines to blow the heat generated to the UK.
For years Russia Today has been promoting (giving a platform without any contradiction or even common sense questions)
– Kevin Kamps of “Beyond Nuclear”
– Helen Caldicott
– Arnie Gundersen of “Fairewinds Energy”
– that mayor of a Fukushima city who ordered, without mandate, a stupid, unnecessary, disorganized evacuation that caused many death
and certainly many other cranks that peddle anti radiation anti fission propaganda.
Or course, this wasn’t “electoral” speech so special counsel Mueller won’t indict anybody for the so called crime of “conspiracy again the US” and for breaking the so called “electoral law” (on speech). It’s still noxious “interference”.
Are these crank propagandists registered as “agents of a foreign power”? They sometimes look like such.
(Of course, I don’t support state regulation of political speech.)
after the nor’easter finshes here, it’ll be bringing you some more global warming …
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nor-easter-set-slam-east-coast-severe-winds-rain-flooding-n852326
And the UK better prepare too. All that snow has to go somewhere when the melt starts. With any luck it will be accompanied with a lot of rain.
It’s just scaremongering. The EU’s stock of solar panels will pick up the slack.
Curse you autocorrect, that was supposed to be snowlar panels.
Love it!
YES.
How does a snowlar ™ panel works?
It drows on the solar energy stockpiled in the Earth on summer. The snow is cold source, the Earth the Heat source. I converts snow into water, and we all how precious water is. Not just save water, produce it!
And it can produce a whopping 0.01W/m² for a tremendous 100 hours a year (if there is snow).
It only cost 60£/m², and only need 59£ installation subsidies, + 1£/Wh subsidy to run. Real bargain.
It can be installed on roofs and walls, with the added benefit that is then work on the leaked heat, and works even better when the building has no insulation. Yes, that right, thanks to snowlar panels you don’t need to invest in a costly insulation, The more energy you use for heating, the more electricity you get! win-win!
Buy NOW our snowlar panel
In 2013-14 the upper midwest, had one of the toughest winters in the past century, propane supplies were terribly low for almost all the distributors, and the spot price was off the charts. The people who were hurt the most were fixed and low income rural residents. The good news is that a Republican governor was able to take some limited steps to ease the problems.
Any government official, elected or appointed, that pushes renewables at the the cost of today’s potential security and reliability issues should be publicly flogged and sent packing without their pensions.
Mark, absolutely so. When politicians put people’s lives at risk in order to indulge unevidenced pseudoscientific politically correct fantasies then the consequences for failure need to be commensurately severe.
Wait til Winter 2020, closer to the sunspot minimum. Those who shut down cheap reliable sources should be disconnected from any electric grid and fossil fuel sources, as well as paycheck/pension garnished.
These days they publicly flog the sex perverts among themselves to draw attention away from the real issues. Then they praise themselves for being so virtuous as to place mother Gaia above the dregs of humanity.
I forgot to mention that I live in Torquay on the so called English Rivera. I have many succulents in the gaden which I protected with fleece. However they are coverd in snow and the petals appear to be frozen stiff so I expect they will all need to be replaced.
This happens every five years or so. The council, with govt encouragement, ran courses for local business in how to adapt to the coming Mediterranean climate. I kid you not. Mind you I haven’t seen them promoting it for a couple of Years now.
Tonyb
The adaptation to Mediterranean climate is only a small example of green jobs provided by the climate change. Then for every job lost in a coal-powered powered plant there will be 23 new jobs in a “renewable” industry. Finally, each farming job will be replaced by 17(?) hunting-gathering jobs.
You mean 17 freezing consumers hunting for the idiot who demanded CAGW “solutions” ?
It’s snowing in the Mediterranean; I wonder if they use fleece there.
What the hell; as long as they don’t promote Mediterranean banking and freeze more than 1% of the population, you come out ahead.
climatereason,
Sounds like you were “fleeced.” 🙂
Being from the country that sells you wood pellets, I’m not familiar with how your councils work, but were the courses you mentioned provided because of an honest, but stupid (mind-numbing?) belief that a Mediterranean climate was actually coming, or was it a scam to try to use the courses to convince locals that that “climate change” is real?
Phil
The money was provided by the UK Govt to councils that were tourist oriented and likely to benefit from a warmer climate. I think the money initially came from the EU.
I was in NIce france last week for the carnival. It was cool and cloudy. They had a lot of snow on Tuesday night.
tonyb
My children wont know what snow is. While they sleep soundly after a day off school snowball fighting and stuff.
Until tomorrow, when they will be able to do it all over gain, fresh, as it is snowing, lots, while I type this.
Warning: Brits be on the lookout for starving penguins foraging for oranges and call the RSPCA.
http://quadrant.org.au/sbs-snow-job/
Just be sure to let us know if the English Ice Shelf breaks off. I live in Western Canada only 1000 miles from the ocean and I can’t swim. -30C here at night last week but the t record low was -37 in 1962. It really was colder back then. This winter is just a warning shot!
“I’ve been warm and I’ve been cold, and warm is better.”
― with apologies to Mae West
Rather: “…. the UK’s 937,421 solar installations rated at 12,910 MW kicked in to alleviate the load on gas supplies.”
Cumulative total generation estimated 5.45 GWh
https://www.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/pvlive/
Operationally – a pathetic 1.76% Capacity Factor
Lol!
The panels suck a little heat out of the rain as it runs off them!
That is the Australian experience with Solar they work really well when you don’t need the power. Our energy peaks are in the evening when it’s dark.
Solar Power Generation in the UK must work for a good ten days in July at least.
Pity we don’t have air-con.
But . . . but . . . I was assured that “Snowfalls in England are now a thing of the past.” http://tinyurl.com/hdbebqr
Good thing you archived that article. The Independent took it down a couple of years ago.
Disappearing inconvenient history has a long pedigree, Jorge.
Archive every alarmist statement.
That the Independent hid that, tells a lot how much they believe in their own crap.
Well, at least they didn’t rewrite it, although I suspect that time is coming.
Brian
From the March 2000 article you link to:-
Interesting. How come no one ever quotes that bit?
Because it hasn’t been twenty years since snow, nor even ten, nor even five. In fact the prediction was, like all global warming hysterical claims, sheer bull****. Now do you get it?
UK is never prepared for snow, Viner thought he was being cunning with that one but it just makes him more of a laughing stock.
Cuadrilla Resources shale gas drilling project in Lancashire can’t come online soon enough.
https://www.thegwpf.com/matt-ridley-britain-needs-to-embrace-the-shale-revolution/
So…..Ask your MPs why we do not have a ready source of gas from the shale fracking in Lancashire by now?
(Answers on a biodegradable postcard please)
But the Brits have gone into renewable energy in a big way, so how can there be shortages?/snark
Al Gore must be over there .
I think Mr. Gore should be required to wear a GPS Tracker so that weather bureaus will always know his location and will be able to adjust their weather forecasts appropriately based on that knowledge.
Waste of energy. Use it for a drone strike against eco terror. . Save the world from the Jimmy Swaggart of climate change.
Of course, in green/nationalist dominated Scotland, the ridiculous SNP government has banned frac’ing despite the probable presence of significant deposits of shale gas. Instead, they continue to destroy the landscape with ever-increasing numbers of wind turbines and waste money investing in making fanciful claims about wave energy that have, so far, proved to be worthless….at tax payers’ expense! Ridiculous!
They’ll burn peat – for a few decades.
They are also fairly close to the Arctic Circle, so, even though they have wind, and, possibly, tide- or wave-power, there is little solar between October and March, when, as I undertstand, it is cooler.
Auto
The hope of independence is probably a major factor, keep the gas in place until it is really needed by Scotland, meanwhile get English bill payers to cover most of the cost of wind power, rely on English fossil fuel power stations for back-up, and maintain a constant clamour for more interconnectors, mostly paid for by … guess who.
Thanks Eric, as always, for keeping us so well-informed.
The BBC has a program called ‘Grand Designs’. The Series follows the construction of homes in the United Kingdom with spin-offs in the rest of the world.
I would love to see a ‘where are they now’ on all the flat roofed, glass walled, eco-structures this program has promoted. I suspect a ‘where are they right now’ would be on the roof shovelling as their pipes explode and the wind turbines and solar panels fail & die.
One such …
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/abandoned-grand-designs-eco-dome-8022563
Every sign of a real estate scam there. Note – if anyone ever tells you to not go through EBay, Amazon, etc. (where they advertise) – run! And report it to the company (and maybe whatever your consumer fraud agency is).
Especially EBay – the seller doesn’t get the money until the product is shipped or the service is completed, and the buyer signs off on it. Give the money directly to the seller, and it is highly unlikely you’ll ever see what you bought, or the money.
There was one with a useless wind turbine that cost the owner a fortune to dispose of. And one that burnt down (made of wood and straw) and the owner couldn’t afford to insure it.
They should’ve known better — the big, bad wolf destroys wood and straw houses. Should’ve used bricks.
This isn’t really happening. Must be fake news. Dr. David Viner said in 2000 that children just wouldn’t know what snow is, so it can’t be snow. Or else, it isn’t Britain.
I don’t know . The education system is getting pretty bad. A lot of kids don’t know what anything is!
Was he peer reviewed? i won’t take the expert advice of just any climate plonker, I tell you!
Must be those shneaky Russians making synthetic snow with their secret weather machines!
I thought it was George Bush’s secret weather machine?
My first comment is WHEN THE SUN COMES OUT! But then again at 52N, London may only have a few hours a day this time of year to get anything substantial out of those panels. Pretty sure they won’t be operating at nameplate capacity.
What is not discussed here is the UK needs MORE solar to alleviate this issue.
I gather that the solar installation has its output impeded by a two inch covering of snow.
Even in daytime.
Odd, that.
Auto.
The solution to failed Socialism is always more Socialism.
Could we also get some photos of the clothing used by drivers and passengers of electric cars lacking heaters.
Spent the evening driving home from work in Salisbury from 17.30 hrs until about 21.15 hours, a journey of about 12 miles. The delay was pulling people out of trouble and giving them a tow up hills, including a 10 ton lorry stuck at Harnham traffic lights tonight. Amazing what a Landrover Discovery 4×4 fitted with snow chains can do – plus the 20 odd volunteers pushing at the other end of the lorry at the same time! So many grateful people helped tonight and so many other volunteers out giving a push and clearing snow. Brings out the best of British.
Its still snowing, reckon we’ll get close to a foot tonight if it continues. And we are not in the worst area. So much for global warming!
How are you guys fitted out with snow plows?
The plows were out last night, the problem is where vehicles get stuck and block the road. People were moaning that the plows weren’t gritting but I think it was the right decision not to. With so much snow falling the grit would just have been covered over. The snow stopped about 11 pm, so we ended up with about 6 inches where I am. There is possibly more snow forecast this afternoon, but as the warm air pushes in over the weekend I think by Sunday most of the snow will have gone here in the Southern part of England.
Thanks ThinkingScientist,
When the weather turns horrible, people need help and the best people in the world are the ones who provide that help. The really bad weather is rare, so it is not a full-time job to be one of the best people in the world.
As a fellow Land Rover owner (2006 LR3) I commend you on your assistance to the less fortunate.
I live in Boston, Massachusetts. We frequently get serious snowstorms (at least one or 2 each winter that dumps more than 6″ on us) as well as Nor’easters that dump huge quantities of rain — like the one we’re having now. I work for a hospital, so no “snow days”, and usually end up with a car full of passengers who I rescued from waiting for the local bus on days like today — because waiting for a bus is no fun.
Well done. I used to do the same in previous snowy years with my series 3 and 90 landrovers although without the chains. What I found odd was the number of people who appeared to be ungrateful at being helped. I used to get similar looks and comments from ramblers and horse riders when I used my vehicles and time to clean up “fly tip” rubbish form RUPPs and Byways.
I did have a ’94 Discovery and an ’85 90 which I converted to V8 and 4 speed auto (ZF 4HP22).
If indeed there isn’t enough gas, then all those who have been promoting the global warming agenda and advocating for an end to fossil fuels should be the first to be cut off, in accordance to the saying – “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.”
Cut off??? How can they possibly be receiving supplies of the dreaded gas in the first place??? Wait….are you suggesting they may be hypocrites?
It was -13 in the wind here yesterday (I’m around 50 miles north of London). But it’s only been for a few days and looks like it will get milder next week. As I type this, I’m watching an old documentary about the hellish cold winter of 1963 in the UK where parts of the country had snow on the ground for 45 days. Many villages were cut off for weeks and the electricity grid failed. Interesting point, the explanation of why it happened sounds very much the alarmists version of why its happening now – the presenter has just mentioned 6 other similar winters in the last century. I guess they also had the same cause despite low concentrations of CO2 at the time.
Roy: I was there in 1962/63. We had moved just before Christmas from London to Romney Marsh in Kent. The house we moved from had burst water pipes and my brother and I skated across the floors to get the last remaining smaller items to transport to Kent. Our furniture, in the lorries (trucks) were held up for 3 weeks. All we had were orange boxes to sit on and our village was cut off for more than 3 weeks. The authorities were dropping supplies from helicopters to stranded villages. It was some experience – one I shall never forget.
I lived through 1962/63 high up on the Edge of the Peak District. As kids, we had the time of our lives. Homes heated by coal (no double-glazing so you learnt to get out of bed and dressed in 30 seconds) and continuous playing in the snow and sledging.
It was so cold we were allowed to wear long trousers at prep school (boarding). Trousers sent from home after the school’s letter arrived so there were a few days of freezing knees to endure.
Yea, I was at boarding school in Suffolk in 62/63. It was brutal.
Rode my Domi 99 motor bike the 6 miles to work at NPL 5 days a week in winter of 63, following the icy ruts in the frozen snow through KIngston, inside London. Younger snowflakes today have no rational grasp of what is or can be real nature at work, versus what they would like reality to be. Whatever happened then we knew would change in time and we coped as necessary until it did. Nobody was blamed much. Just got on with whatever it was.
1963, interesting. That was another example of the triple threat of 1) cold phase ENSO, 2) approaching solar minimum, and 3) declining AMO. Look them up on WUWT reference pages for that time period and then compare to now and the next few years. Also, go buy more blankets and coats for what lies ahead from nature paired with wrong way policy bet.
…forgot to add Corbyn as the 4th factor. He’s capable of making natural cycles much worse for effective impact with wrong way policy bets.
Roy,
At last a mention of the winter of 1962/63. Here’s a couple of my memories:
In December the frost was so severe that the River Dee at Chester froze solid above the tidal weir at Handbridge and someone drove a mini car upriver for at least a mile on the ice and lived to tell the tale!
The frost ended with a severe snowstorm that blew all the snow off the Cheshire farmland into the sunken lanes and also created a 6 foot snowdrift in our garden at home on the Wirral. We dug a snow cave inside this and the drift remained in the garden until Easter.
Here is more nonsense:
Impoverished Puerto Rico Wasted Money on Solar Farm; Now They are Paying the Price
What do you do when a hurricane destroys your solar farm leaving countless people without energy? Do you reconsider the wisdom of building fragile energy systems in a hurricane zone, and maybe build hardened coal or nuclear plants? Nope, progressives never admit defeat for their idiotic ideas. When a progressive finds himself in a hole, … Continue reading
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/03/01/impoverished-puerto-rico-wasted-money-on-solar-farm-now-they-are-paying-the-price/
That happens regardless. Replacing poles is easy, and can be done in weeks. replacing the source of power will take much longer. Poles are inexpensive and low tech. The power source is what matters…and what costs the most. Coal or solar, you lose the poles with both, but you maximize the cost and downtime using solar.
I didn’t say 100% of the Wind and Solar Farms were damaged, some look to have survived. The videos and pictures I posted provide the evidence that many wind and solar farms were in fact destroyed.
Rob, I have never been to PR. Have you? But I read a lot about it. There are surely off-grid rooftop installations. I don’t know how they withstand hurricanes.
” I don’t know how they withstand hurricanes.” They don’t, that is the problem. Funny, gas and oil wells, on land, are virtually unaffected by hurricanes. Starting to see a pattern here.
Untrained volunteers set 3+ miles of wood power poles along a park road and pathway in a day.
Poles are easy to replace compared to solar panels.
Rooftop only works when the mains are up.
As usual, Rob displays his brilliant ability to not understand what anyone else is talking about.
Just a guess, but it’s probably easier/cheaper/quicker to put up new poles & lines (burry them?) than to build new “hardened” coal and nuclear plants.
Like I said, just a guess.
Pure sophistry and speciously stated.
The Santa Isabel wind farm is located on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. Where it was protected from high winds by Puerto Rico’s land mass.
Nuclear, natural gas and coal installations would not be termed fragile in that situation.
Land installed electrical generation facilities with single point hookups into the grid are not “fragile”, especially when compared to wind farms with 60-70 turbines spread over 3700+ acres with every turbine consisting of another ‘connection’ before the two separate wind farm components are hooked to the grid.
That said, Santa Isabel is operating at limited functionality. Especially as Santa Isabel’s owners find out whether their wind turbines are, in fact, undamaged; along with every turbine connection.
Maybe they will know by summertime.
The experiment has been done Rob.
Power is restored within weeks after cyclones in Australia. The coal powered generators remain intact. I live with stand alone solar having ditched the wind generator (useless and killed an owl) and in a location without access to the grid. I live in fear of lightning strikes, having already had to replace one Inverter. Stand alone solar is extremely expensive, difficult to maintain and would not be easy to replace in a third world economy with your roof having disappeared down the road.
The Socialists are busy installing a Venezuelan economy in Australia and South Australia has already shown how difficult it is to restart a grid from wind and solar alone.
Good luck in your renewable Utopia, best learn to sweat or freeze!
mike
March 1, 2018 at 4:28 pm
“Untrained volunteers set 3+ miles of wood power poles along a park road and pathway in a day.”
———————-
Similar volunteer efforts in Belgium produced less than stellar results.
When it was pointed out that the Brits had set nearly six times a many poles, the Belgians merely scoffed and pointed out how much of the poles the Brits had left sticking up.
When those are replaced, the plants can come back on line. Unlike the one surviving wind farm there – which can’t come back on line until it can be “booted” from a real power plant.
@Rob Bradley – the point is that ALL of the fossil fuel power plants (they only have oil and, I think, one NG plant) survived. The MAJORITY of the solar and wind plants did not.
Does no good to replace the distribution system when more than half of your generation is GONE. They could replace the entire network of lines in six months – but it will be years before they can replace the generation with ANYTHING, whether it is reliable technology or “renewable.”
Look, a dead herring! (points at the sky)
Well, for starters, you don’t need to rebuild the coal power plant.
*shakes head in despair* Is this guy trolling me, or being incredibly daft?
Rob Bradley: “They [wind farm] have to wait for the high voltage lines to be fixed.”
What power source is used to fix the high voltage lines?
Poor Rob, he actually thinks getting offensive is a solution to his utter lack of knowledge.
A single person can put up a solar panel? Are you really that ignorant? First off solar panels are heavy, you need some kind of lift, plus you need trained electricians to wire them into place.
Finally, you need to have spare panels on hand before they can be installed.
Hugs, he’s pure troll.
Rob Bradley, I can only assume you are trying to be funny. Or else you have drank so much of the Kool-Aid that you are getting H20 poisoning in the brain.
First, everyone, including you, knows that it is much more time consuming to replace power generation than it is to replace power distribution. A sufficient number of linemen can replace almost all the distribution in Eastern Oklahoma in less than 20 days, as they did in the last major ice storm. Replacing power generation can take almost 2 years – even more most times because there has to be studies done and permission granted by almost every government agency that exists.
Second, everyone, including you, knows that solar power is NOT robust. There are reasons why American solar power plants are built in Nevada and Arizona. Excellent sun exposure, less government regulations and, most importantly, relatively few natural disaster risks.
Now, if you like, I could discuss with you the FMEA (Failure Mode Effects and Analysis) for each type of plant in Puerto Rico, but I am sure you could see it for yourself.
Or maybe you can’t. After all, our American Re-education Camps (Public Schools) have proven to be effective at removing logical thought from the curriculum.
Rob Bradley: Co2 posted about a solar farm destroyed, and you respond that a wind farm survived. Thanks for the link, which tells us they can’t run any electricity from the wind farm because first they must re-energize the “backbone”, not (as you seem to think) because of downed poles and lines (which any other place in usa would have replaced long before now). What do they use to “re-energize” the system, why not the wind? We know the answer, do you?
Rob, please; you know nothing about operation of power systems. You are beclowning yourself.
Your statements, on their face, imply ignorance.
Industrial ones are a lot bigger than home units.
Even you should know that.
The ones I worked with were rated at 5KV in full sunshine. Definitely not something your average DIY’er should be messing with. The smallest of them weighed several hundred pounds.
Rob’s proof that industrial panels aren’t bigger than the panels that he put up is that the panel he put up is small.
Rob, as always, knows nothing about electricity. He assumes that the smallest unit that can be wired together is the panel that he used on his house.
The skill Rob has perfected is his ability to be offended about everything.
Over offensitivity. Berke Breathed, Bloom County. You should check out his panels on Trump from the ’80s. Hi-larious!
How small do those broken solar panels look?
Certainly, not small enough for a single worker working alone.
Must take years for each solar farm to get installed, what with the footings, wires, solar panel direction and angles…
Teams around here just fixed wires, poles, whatever broken by the Nor’Easter that swung up the East Coast.
Teams were typically two workers, driving a high bucket rig that also had a mounted drill for placing new poles.
Total repair, including any needed new poles, several days.
The link you posted had a November 2017 date. Old news.
The current status of the Santa Isabel Wind Farm is partial operation as the owners test the equipment.
I can see the exodus……..soon polar bears are moving to Europe.
Happy first day of meteorological spring.
A little trick folks from an engineer.
I have a 500 watt dehumidifier which trundles now through the day now that it is cold. It reduces the humidity by about 50% to around 30 to 35. At the same time it extracts the energy from the water as it condenses and heats the room in addition to the 500 Watts it uses. Mind you it is just backup for the storage heaters which now don’t have to heat up all that water in the humidity.
Finally it FEELS a lot warmer whatever the temperature is and your clothes are dry so have greater thermal efficiency. I’m happy at 19C now or even less with an extra woolly.
When this cold snap finishes I will revert to just running it at night on economy 7.
Happy warming!
In Colorado, we have to add water to get up to that level of humidity. I target 40% but I wonder what is optimum.
In Western Canada the water from the shower head is absorbed by the air before it hits you unless you are 7’6″. /wink
@John – here in the desert Southwest, it doesn’t even GET to the shower head in the middle of June.
What I love about Phoenix is that in the summer you don’t even need a water heater. The water comes out of the pipes already heated to above 90 degrees fahrenheit. When the sun beats down on the ground with an air temperature of 118 degrees Fahrenheit, the heat goes down at least 3 feet and the pipes are buried shallow because it never freezes in Phoenix.
In June when the shutdown of the Rough natural gas storage facility was announced, the following was included in the FT story.
“National Grid, which operates the UK gas transmission system, said in its annual winter outlook last week that it was confident there would be adequate gas supplies this winter despite the absence of Rough.”
https://www.ft.com/content/68fa2c3e-55ad-11e7-80b6-9bfa4c1f83d2
What do you expect them to say?
“We have no idea what the REAL honest-to-god forecast is, thus we have no idea how supply & demand will match up. We hope everything works out (especially in our gas-heated home). We will feel badly if this is not the case.”
In these two weeks people will die in their homes in Britain. There really are people in the UK who hesitate to boil a kettle for a cup of tea or to fill a hot water bottle, because of the expense of the electricity. They are the old and the poor, and the old will be dying as you read this.
The way it works is, to pay the solar panel and wind turbine owners way over the going rate, the electricity companies charge what is in effect a tax on all usage of electricity.
This raises the price. But the people it hits hardest are those who heat their homes by electricity, and who are on pay as you go meters. These are the poor and the old. These are the ones who will be dying now.
The wicked futility of it is that it isn’t even reducing UK emissions. Not that it would be possible to reduce them enough to make any difference to global emissions, any UK reductions are instantly swamped by increases in China, India etc.
But the UK has signed up to the insane Climate Change Act of 2008, surely one of the most insane laws ever passed by a country, which demands about an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions. So to comply with this, the UK is doing all kinds of expensive things which do not make any difference to its emissions, and do not implement the Act at all, like shipping wood pellets from the US to burn in Drax, subsidizing solar and wind. And which, even did they have any effect on UK emissions, would have zero effect on global emissions because they are in the noise in terms of quantity.
If you want to blame anyone, blame Ed Miliband, who pushed the thing through Parliament. But more than him, blame the Parliament which voted overwhelmingly to pass it. And blame the green lobby, who thought it was too unambitious!
Utter idiocy, taken to the point where lack of thought about the consequences and indifference to them when they are pointed out is wickedness.
In these two weeks people will die in their homes in Britain
======
how many v2 rockets did Hitler have to fire at Britain to kill the same number of people?
only difference is now its Brits killing other Brits.
…and Al Gore made money off of it, too.
Ah, great. Were back to Hitler.
If we must, history shows the 1,500 V2′ landed in England killed about 7,500 people – do the math, and that’s about 5 per V2.
Happy now?
(NOTE: Hitler isn’t freezing Englanders to death in 2018; stupid British politicians are.)
1,402 V2 were launched against England which killed 2,754 people, or just under 2 per launch.
About 10,000 V1 were launched of which 2,419 actually impacted and killed 6,184 people, or about 0.6 per launch or 2.5 per impact.
‘V’ for ‘Vergeltung’ vengeance, an effective terror weapon, much like CAGW.
michel March 1, 2018 at 3:13 pm
In these two weeks people will die in their homes in Britain. There really are people in the UK who hesitate to boil a kettle for a cup of tea or to fill a hot water bottle, because of the expense of the electricity. They are the old and the poor, and the old will be dying as you read this
,………………..
You do realise I hope that boiling a kettle uses less than £0.02 a cup of water for tea probably less than £0.004. I therefore call your comment bs
Ma Nature hits Warmunist fantasies with reality—yet again. Pity that UK industry might be crippled to save lives.
Apart from this current spell of cold weather this winter has not been all that bad. So its worrying that supply is so quickly running low. What’s it going to be like if we get a real cold winter like 1978/79.
When the weather got as bad or worse then this current spell 4 times in the whole season.
Saw this energy shortage coming in 2013 – also wrote about it in 2002.
Even if this is just “weather” and not “climate”, it is incredibly stupid for politicians to shut down dispatchable energy in favour of intermittent “green enerrgy”, which at times like this proves that it is not green and produces little useful energy.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/31/blind-faith-in-climate-models/#comment-1462890
An Open Letter to Baroness Verma
“All of the climate models and policy-relevant pathways of future greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions considered in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) recent Fifth Assessment Report show a long-term global increase in temperature during the 21st century is expected. In all cases, the warming from increasing greenhouse gases significantly exceeds any cooling from atmospheric aerosols. Other effects such as solar changes and volcanic activity are likely to have only a minor impact over this timescale”.
– Baroness Verma
I have no Sunspot Number data before 1700, but the latter part of the Maunder Minimum had 2 back-to-back low Solar Cycles with SSNmax of 58 in 1705 and 63 in 1717 .
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/space-weather/solar-data/solar-indices/sunspot-numbers/international/tables/
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/solar/image/annual.gif
The coldest period of the Maunder was ~1670 to ~1700 (8.48dC year average Central England Temperatures) but the coldest year was 1740 (6.84C year avg CET).
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/data/download.html
The Dalton Minimum had 2 back-to-back low SC’s with SSNmax of 48 in 1804 and 46 in 1816. Tambora erupted in 1815.
Two of the coldest years in the Dalton were 1814 (7.75C year avg CET) and 1816 (7.87C year avg CET).
Now Solar Cycle 24 is a dud with SSNmax estimated at ~65, and very early estimates suggest SC25 will be very low as well.
The warmest recent years for CET were 2002 to 2007 inclusive that averaged 10.55C.
I suggest with confidence that 10.5C is substantially warmer as a yearly average than 8.5C, and the latter may not provide a “lovely year for Chrysanths”.
I further suggest with confidence that individual years averaging 7.8C or even 6.8C are even colder, and the Chrysanths will suffer.
So here is my real concern:
IF the Sun does indeed drive temperature, as I suspect, Baroness Verma, then you and your colleagues on both sides of the House may have brewed the perfect storm.
You are claiming that global cooling will NOT happen, AND you have crippled your energy systems with excessive reliance on ineffective grid-connected “green energy” schemes.
I suggest that global cooling probably WILL happen within the next decade or sooner, and Britain will get colder.
I also suggest that the IPCC and the Met Office have NO track record of successful prediction (or “projection”) of global temperature and thus have no scientific credibility.
I suggest that Winter deaths will increase in the UK as cooling progresses.
I suggest that Excess Winter Mortality, the British rate of which is about double the rate in the Scandinavian countries, should provide an estimate of this unfolding tragedy.
As always in these matters, I hope to be wrong. These are not numbers, they are real people, who “loved and were loved”.
Best regards to all, Allan MacRae
Yes.
Yes.
They have to get rid of reliable power in order to blame economic collapse on “the corporations” and install a Socialist regime.
The surface winds rule the day, …https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=8.81,54.18,671/loc=4.457,55.986
Running out of gas? Not likely. The climate explainers have plenty of it.
I guess it all depends on what you are used to. Here in Boston, snow like they have in Buffalo would be a disaster. Having said that, the snow I am seeing that is bringing Britain to a halt would cause a minor delay in a a morning commute here in Boston. Most places would probably not even call out the plows.
Hah! In England they’re still asking themselves where they parked the one snowplow last year!
I recall an early visit to Austria in summer, and asking what the 2m poles topped with black by the side of the roads were for. I was told they are to let the snowplow drivers know where the road is!
On a later visit in winter I saw that all main roads were cleared by 7am,and most side roads by 8am. They take it seriously.
Yes this “snow event” has rather been overplayed in the media. Even in England l’ve known it to get alot worse then this. The dates Feb 79, Dec 81, Jan 87, Feb 91 and Dec 10 spring to mind. But it does look like the UK is in for a cold March.
Regarding all the snow falling everywhere in the world, including locations that rarely ever have snow – such as the Sahara Desert, Rome, etc. etc.
Repeat after me everyone – loud and proud – lefties stand at attention and hoot and shout:
“WE BLAME GLOBAL WARMING!!!”
Need I say “sarc right off”? 🙂
Boston is not far away from the Buffalo-type snows in the current storm moving in. Probably mostly heavy rain in Boston but eastern New York could get up to 20 inches. As you said though, 20 inches for Buffalo.
Boston had a major blizzard circa January 2015 that shut down the city.
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/blizzard-of-2015-to-shut-down/41180972
Then there were several more blizzards in February 2015, which set the all-time monthly snow record of 58.5 inches.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/02/15/snow/2IO1E0ibEJ1PK1sC1wPAyO/story.html
Why do I remember this, way up here in Calgary? Read below:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/13/new-butt-covering-end-of-snow-prediction/comment-page-1/#comment-2397292
[excerpted]
A little recent history about Winter weather forecasts:
The National Weather Service (NWS) of the USA forecast a warm winter for 2014-15 and my friend Joe d’Aleo told me in October 2014 that the NWS forecast was seriously incorrect, and that the next winter would be particularly cold and snowy, especially in the populous Northeast. This was the second consecutive year that the NWS has made a very poor (excessively warm) Winter forecast, in Joe’s opinion – and he and his colleagues at WeatherBell have a great track record of accurate forecasts.
…
After that brutally cold and snowy winter, a back-analysis showed that the actual energy used was 10% more than the NWS forecast projection, and just 1% less than Joe’s forecast projection.
(Note: all numbers are from memory.)
So I think we did a good deed.
…
Regards to all, Allan
“Capitalism has failed. Government must take over energy production.”
Guardian headline tomorrow.
Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn has already called for nationalisation of UK energy production.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/02/21/hard-left-british-opposition-leader-nationalise-utilities-because-climate/
Doubling down on stupid and less. Should ask residents of Venezuela and Rhodesia how that has worked out.
Oop, there it is! Ever body cabbage path. Seriously, I thought all of that had been nationalized a long time ago.
Showing your age Rhodesia doesn’t exist anymore it ceased existing in 1965 and as a state of South Africa in 1979 🙂
The UK already has nationalised energy production.
It’s owned by the Chinese and EDF – that’s owned by the French state.
Corbyn argues that letting a foreign state run your energy systems is less advisable than doing it yourself.
Obviously, no private company wants the long-term risks of investing in state infrastructure – except tax dodging pyramid schemes like Enron which don’t help anyone.
Private companies tend not to like investing in property that could be expropriated at any minute.
LdB – “Showing your age Rhodesia doesn’t exist anymore it ceased existing in 1965 and as a state of South Africa in 1979”
Correction: Rhodesia voted in 1923 to become a dominion of Britain (and NOT a state of South Africa). We declared independence (UDI) in 1965 from Britain, and existed until 1979, when the country became Zimbabwe-Rhodesia for a year, becoming Zimbabwe in 1980.
Ex-Rhodie
Rhodesia is a term that was used to describe the former British protectorates of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Later Southern Rhodesia declared unilateral independence as Rhodesia.
Both protectorates were economically prosperous countries under British rule, with modern infrastructure and Rule of Law.
And you were correct Ldb when you wrote: “Rhodesia doesn’t exist anymore.” The countries have regressed hundreds of years under majority rule, almost everything that was achieved under British rule has been destroyed, and yet nobody wants to say that because they are so politically-correct.
I was offered a job in Northern Rhodesia circa 1970 – best decision I ever made was NOT to accept it.
Allan – “Rhodesia is a term that was used to describe the former British protectorates of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Later Southern Rhodesia declared unilateral independence as Rhodesia”
True, in that Rhodesia, as in the full pre-independence name “Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland”, referred to both Northern and Southern Rhodesia (Nyasaland is now Malawi). However, we were never a protectorate, prior to independence, but a self-governing dominion loyal to the Crown, with a governor, similar to Australia and Canada.
Otherwise, I agree that Zimbabwe is stuffed.
Rob
Hi Metosoft – a minor detail, new to me before today:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Rhodesia
Northern Rhodesia was a protectorate in south central Africa, formed in 1911 by amalgamating[2] the two earlier protectorates of Barotziland-North-Western Rhodesia[3] and North-Eastern Rhodesia.[4][5] It was initially administered, as were the two earlier protectorates, by the British South Africa Company, (BSAC), a chartered company on behalf of the British government.
Allan – “a minor detail, new to me before today”
No Worries…
Prior to 1923 (when we voted to become a dominion), I guess we were a “protectorate”, “owned” by the British South African Company, which in turn was run by Cecil Rhodes. Whether we were in fact protected by Britain at that stage is anyone’s guess. The first pioneers only entered the country (the area then known as Monomotapa) 20-40 years before that.
My initial reply to LdB was a reaction to people re-writing history, and correcting them when possible.
When it comes to issues relating to Rhodesia, unfortunately Wikipedia is not your friend.
Rob Munn
South Africa yesterday voted for a law that permits expropriation of white owned property without compensation.
Within a decade S. Africa will look like Zimbabwe.
Lifehack from an expat:
Move nearer the equator!
Several additional benefits may include:
More friendly people
Better food
Cheaper food
Cheaper housing
Better roads
Cheaper petrol
Less miserable weather
More jobs
More opportunities
Better schools
Better healthcare
Better politicians (just kidding, no chance!)
Frack, baby frack!!!!!! And lay pipe.
Snow in the UK? How odd that is! Would it be naughty to wish for a Frost Fair on the Thames?
The snowstorm which has inflicted itself on England is a mere pittance when set up against winter snows in the Midwestern USA. I learned long ago to be out with the shovel if the snow started around 5PM my time and stay up all night if you have to. Keep the tea or coffee or hot chocolate hot and available, and keep the doors and steps clear.
We’re due for one more snowstorm where I live, but unless it hits tonight, I don’t think it will happen. Just standing watch for it. Lovely day today, with blue skies full of stratocirrus clouds racing ahead of the front, dumping tons of ice into the atmosphere. Should be interesting. Some plants, like my chives in a pot on the front steps, are already pushing their earliest leaves up now.
It looks like that Global Warming has made it to Northern Ohio…It’s snowing here (3 to 5 inches predicted) with gusts of wind up to 40 MPH. I could get the snow blower out but this time of the year its usually better to just let it melt by itself.
the problem of snow is not its actual levels, but how unusual it is.
I waited three hours in Jersey – a very mellow maritime climate – because the ailerons had frozen and the airport had no antifreeze to spray on them.
in 1980 or 1981, my then boss was delayed because Johannesburg airport was closed..by less than an inch of snow. no snow clearance machinery exists in South Africa.
there is less than 2″ of snow here, yet traffic levels are massively down. People really do NOT know what snow is. Certainly not how to drive on it.
they prefer to close and cancel and stay at home.
Just need to bust out that wind and solar. There’d be plenty of energy for errbody around, and some to spare! 😉
No, there is only one shortage in the UK, they have run out of the ability of logical thought.
“Gas is central to our energy-secure future,” she said. “So is nuclear.” … “eventually”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34851718
Horse, cart and muppet manure. Now there’s another airhead in charge. Next week’s spin: CO2 exhaling coke snorters didn’t drop ball as gas prices continue to spike. Whoopie-do!
Mahna Mahna …
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/dec/29/russian-liquified-natural-gas-shipment-unlikely-remain-uk
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/926712/Beast-from-the-East-Storm-Emma-Russia-s-LNG-cargo-gas-tank-The-Yamal-project-Siberia
Actual Climate refugee–
“The Royal Canadian Air Force confirms the CH-146 Griffon helicopter was on its way back to Opalocka airport when its inflatable life raft fell out of the aircraft. The chopper and its crew was in South Florida to train search and rescue squadrons that carry out rescues over waters since its too cold to perform the exercises in Canada this year.”
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2018/02/28/royal-canadian-air-force-life-raft-crashes-miami-woman-hurt/
If you fall out of the boat in Canada they tell you not to take a boat out ice fishing and to walk to shore ’cause the choppers in Florida, eh? Then they drop a life raft on you for some reason!
I am not sure about the United States natural gas industry today, but for decades natural gas companies had standard contracting practices that industrial and commercial customer gas supplies could be curtailed in severe winter weather in favor of keeping consumer housing heat working. The Brits apparently do the same thing.
Education is essential, go to university and get YOUR degree in Stupidity.
The call it a Dialectic Materialism degree.
How can it be that Britain is being caught by an energy shortfall? I thought that wind and solar would be available to pick the slack, except when the skies are overcast there’s none the latter and when winds are light, very little of the former. So what we’re seeing here is the probable future of energy supplies until mid-century or beyond; i.e., not any domination by any single source, but still a strong reliance on fossil fuels.
Lucky the government planned ahead for extreme cold temperatures, eh?
“How can it be that Britain is being caught by an energy shortfall?”
Because idiots like that one eyed chancellor from Scotland were running the country while Bliar made war in another part of the world.
One of his finest hours apart from selling all the UK gold reserves at the lowest possible price was destroying the British nuclear power industry so that they would have to pay the French and the Chinese to do what we did first.
Then they sold off stuff like the UK oil pipeline, told everyone that coal was still a curse, and spread the disease in everyone’s minds that CO2 was a deadly poison, while making Britain reliant in every possible way on imported energy, and failing to have enough reserves for the really cold days which kids were being indoctrinated to believe could never happen.
If it actually weren’t so serious, once could be forgiven for believing this dystopia was a cold war communist plot from Erik Honecker.
The sad part, the person running the ex-soviet union today, was a good pal of Erik, and understandably was disappointed with the way the USSR turned out.
He weaponised gas exports to be able to screw around with people’s lives then co-opted the ex chancellor of Germany to help him sell this idea to the west as “energy security” sweetly wrapped up instead of the old brutal propaganda stuff that used to come out from behind the Berlin wall.
The irony is THEY WON, when the wall came down!
tTomas wrote:
“The irony is THEY WON, when the wall came down!”
Maybe Tomas this is not irony. Maybe this was the plot all along – that the Soviets could win by simply appealing to the weakest minds in the west, the leftards, the warmists and their imbecilic fellow-travelers, all led by a few scoundrels who knew the truth and how to manipulate it.
It was obvious to me, with my earth-sciences education, that global warming alarmism was a false crisis as early as ~1985 when it first appeared.
It was also obvious to me, with my energy expertise, that intermittent electrical power generated from wind and solar systems was not green and would produce little useful (dispatchable) power. The fact that the wind does not blow all the time and the Sun does not shine all the time is hardly news. Does anyone truly think that these warmist leaders were (and continue to be) that stupid?
Here is what we published, with confidence, in 2002:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
“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.”
Educated professionals have known for several decades that global warming alarmism and green energy schemes were fraudulent nonsense. Those who spoke out have been vilified or ignored. Now the imbeciles, the sheeple, are about to pay the price with energy shortfalls and human suffering. We tried to prevent this debacle, often a great personal cost, but nobody would listen.
IMPORTANT
Hi Anthony
I just read this article from GWPF – now it all makes sense. This stunning report by the House of Representatives is just “the tip of the iceberg”, imo.
Anti-pipeline, anti-fracking, anti-oilsands – it’s the new Cold War.
Dr. Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, wrote this article in 1994. It still rings true today. Read “The Rise of Eco-Extremism”.
http://ecosense.me/2012/12/30/key-environmental-issues-4/
Regards, Allan
***************************************************************************************
Begin forwarded message:
From: Benny Peiser
Date: March 2, 2018 at 11:11:16 AM MST
Subject: Russia’s Secret Campaign Against U.S. Energy Policy Revealed
GWPF Newsletter 02/03/18
Russia’s Secret Campaign Against U.S. Energy Policy Revealed
U.S. House Committee Reveals Russian Attempts to Influence U.S. Domestic Energy Markets by Exploiting Social Media
A Russian-backed propaganda group used social media in an attempt to disrupt the U.S. energy industry and influence energy policy, according to a new congressional staff report reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Unlike other Russian campaigns to stir political unrest in the U.S., this effort by the tech-savvy Internet Research Agency is characterized as mostly one-sided, agitating against American fossil-fuel production in a way lawmakers believe was aimed at benefiting Russia, the world’s largest oil producer.
–The Wall Street Journal, 1 March 2018
The purpose of this report is to provide the American people with the findings of the Committee’s investigation into Russian efforts to influence U.S. energy markets. First, the report discusses several factors driving the Kremlin’s desire to interfere with U.S. energy markets and influence domestic energy policy. Next, it demonstrates how the Kremlin manipulated various groups in an attempt to carry out its geopolitical agenda, particularly with respect to domestic energy policy. Finally, this report provides an assessment of the Committee’s findings, including examples of Russian-propagated content targeting U.S. energy markets and domestic energy policy. The facts put into perspective the nature and extent of the Kremlin’s energy influence-peddling operation.
–United States House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Majority Staff Report, 1 March 2018
1) Russia’s Secret Campaign Against U.S. Energy Policy Revealed
The Wall Street Journal, 1 March 2018
https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-meddling-on-social-media-targeted-u-s-energy-industry-report-says-1519902001?utm_source=CCNet+Newsletter&utm_campaign=a10c8bbc3c-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_03_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fe4b2f45ef-a10c8bbc3c-20138661
2) Russian Attempts to Influence U.S. Domestic Energy Markets by Exploiting Social Media
United States House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Majority Staff Report, 1 March 2018
https://thegwpf.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c920274f2a364603849bbb505&id=c0b87e49db&e=da89067c4f
3) Gazprom: Russia Is EU’s Energy Guardian as Cold Grips Europe
Bloomberg, 2 March 2018
4) Reminder: Putin TV Station ‘Stokes Fracking Fears’
The Times, 6 August 2016
5) Europe’s Green Madness: Russia’s Grip On Anti-Fracking EU Tightening
OilPrice.com, 3 January 2018
********************************************
I, and many other people, have known the Russian and Saudi governments were the primary backers of the anti-domestic oil/gas production and pipeline movements in America since the 1990s. How did we learn of this nefarious scheme? Because both publicly said they were doing it. No big secret. George Soros is balls deep in it, too. No surprises in this at all.
To be fair what killed nuclear in Britain was the EU, the ERM and North Sea Gas back round Thatchers time.
Up till then interest rates were low, the coal industry was collapsing under the weight of history and the Unions, and that left only nuclear for baseload.
Then Britain got shafted by currency speculators like Soros, the pound collapsed, interest rates soared and the economics of debt to asset finance collapsed too. Gas plant was cheap to build and there was plenty of gas.
And that meant the political hit potato of nuclear could simply be dropped.
Then the EU – led by the most profoundly anti-nuclear nation in the world – Germany (a tribute to the billions of rubles poured into political agitation by Merkel and her communist chums in the cold war) pushed for a Europe wide ‘renewable obligation/. Siemens made wind turbines…
Only then did a junior minister in Blairs government – a whey faced wimp called Edward Milliband, son f another communist who was given refuge in the country and proceeded to attack it at every turn – had a chat with the ex communist funded eco-groups and drew up – with the assistance of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and several renewable energy trade organisations – the Climate Change Act…which laid down how we would not only meet EU renewable targets (whilst other EU nations judged it cheaper to pay he fines or NOT meeting them ) but EXCEED them.
It was about three years later that I was setting up Gridwatch,(http://gridwatch.org.uk) to collate data on wind variability that I was able to help the late Dr David Mackay get his book published (www.withouthotair.com)
That book propelled him into DECC – the now defunct department of energy and climate change – as chief scientific adviser where he told the then minister (subsequently disgraced) Chris Huhne, that the energy density of windmills and solar panels together with their intermittency meant that actually the best carbon free power available was nuclear. Huhne, a Liberal Democrat whose anti-nuclear stance was fundamental to their green credentials, was alleged to have stormed out of the ministry not to be seen for two weeks…I passed him my monograph on intermittency (http://www.templar.co.uk/downloads/Renewable%20Energy%20Limitations.pdf) – it may have been useful but I never found out.
Since then the UK position has been delightfully ambivalent. Whilst absolutely advocating renewables susbisdies have been replaced by contracts for difference, to give a level playing field. Unfortunately level playing fields do not favour renewables, but having claimed they were viable without subsidy, they are hoist by their own petards.
I mention this because the reality is that there is a massive political and ideological struggle, even within British parties themselves as to whether or not its windmills or nukes. Andrea Leadsom who made her bid for prime mister before being stabbed in the back, was involved with energy, and is one of the few politicians I have ever heard utter the word ‘dispatch’ in a power generating context and actually understood what she was talking about, is pro brexit and pro nuclear.
But the EU supporters are all behind the faux policies of renewable obligations, because European industry is invested heavily in it – well West European industry, Further east in the old sovbloc countries they are still dependent on coal, soviet gas and soviet built nuclear power, which they are reluctant to relinquish.Russia via Gazprom, is keen on renewables and wants to squash nuclear, because that means more gas. Russia is also in te business of selling nuclear power however, so it seems that the west if Europe is encouraged to be anti nuclear, whilst the east is encouraged to be pro.
Paranoid as ever Russia would be very happy to see these tensions tear the EU apart. There shalt be no Soviet Union in Europe but the Russian Soviet union, and they don’t like the EU trying to out do them in soviet style propaganda, rule by diktat, political control and outright 19th century colonialism.
So its all about as complex and interlinked as is the climate itself.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-Rising-says-UK-should-aim-for-50percent-nuclear-2802185.html
is another view of someone who has a little skin in the game, but is actually (heaven forfend) talking sense from the point if view of what is best for the people of these isles (bless!).
How old fashioned!
Personally I thunk with a bit if luck, we will exit Europe, and that will bring with it, once the dust has settled, the obvious corollary at we don’t need to follow EU diktats on energy any more.
It’s all down to how important it’s seen politically, and to how much anti-nuclear sentiment the usual suspects are able to whip up. It may well be another hard face off between the forces of the left and the forces of reason like Thatcher and the miners, with nuclear power being rammed through against fierce opposition.
What this current cold weather has done is raise the level of public consciousness about energy. My website has seen unprecedented activity and interest, and that;s the best news there is The media are all talking about energy security, and solar panel are shown to be as much use as a chocolate teapot.
So keep pushing the message. Renewable energy is pants, and we need actual real fact based policies, not ideological flatulence.
Thank you Leo – an interesting analysis.
My bottom line is:
Educated and experienced professionals like me have known since about 1985 that global warming alarmism was a false crisis, and that the warmists’ green energy schemes would not replace fossil fuels. We spoke out and wrote articles stating these facts, sometimes at great personal cost, and we were ignored and vilified.
Leading skeptics including Dr Sallie Baliunas (Harvard-Smithsonian) and Dr Pat Michaels (U of Virginia) and many others were forced from their universities by people too vile to be named. Other leading skeptics including Dr Richard Lindzen (MIT) and Dr Willie Soon (Harvard-Smithsonian) were persecuted but were able to hang on to their positions.
Tens of trillions of dollars of scarce global resources have been squandered on this obvious scam, enough money to bribe countess corrupt politicians, government officials and academics. The result has been an avoidable huge increase in electrical costs, the destabilizing of electrical grids due to intermittent wind and solar power, and the premature deaths of millions due to dysfunctional energy policies and the misallocation of tens of trillions of dollars that could have been used to improve lives and alleviate human suffering.
These corrupt warmist scoundrels have committed unforgivable crimes against humanity and they belong in jail.
Regards, Allan
+10
“cold war communist plot ” Rather I had thought that it was an energy suppliers’ conspiracy to cause shortfall and drive up prices. That way you get winnowing of marginal buyers with payment problems as a bonus.
No – false.
Companies did jump on the “green power” bandwagon after the structures had been put in place to provide trillions of dollars in overly generous subsidies, but wind and solar power schemes were primarily driven by corrupt greens and idiot politicians.
For example, in Alberta and elsewhere intermittent (non-dispatchable) wind power is purchased by the grid on a preferential basis, and dispatchable power is expected to reduce or increase output to compensate for wind power. This is an enormous indirect subsidy to wind power.
Furthermore, in Alberta wind power was paid 20 cents/KWh regardless of demand and was paid this huge overpayment 24/7, when dispatchable coal-fired or natural-gas fired power was paid about 2-4 cents/KWh, This is the opposite of what these types of power are worth – I calculated on wattsup that intermittent wind power in a large grid is actually worth about 5% of dispatchable power.
Only an imbecile or a phony green politician could derive such an incompetent and corrupt payment system.
I think the UK Met Orofice quietly dropped the “Mediterranean Climate” theme after the bad winter of 2010.
That, and the dawning realization that they weren’t actually scaring many British people by threatening them with a climate the same as where they like to go on vacation. That was probably a Homer Simpson moment for the global warmers.
Here on the south coast of England 15 miles from the Met office the snow has become freezing rain and the roads right outside my house are literally a skating rink and I don’t dare go out.
This would be a good time to contact the met office to see how many have made it into the office through the global warming drifting on the roads.
tonyb
I would not recommend contacting The Met Office for anything – they haven’t a clue. Just when it is most needed, their rainfall radar observations page has been unavailable “due to unprecedented demand”! They spend hundreds of millions on supercomputers but can’t keep their website servers up to the mark. Pathetic!
Grimwig,
I totally agree. The fact that the Met Office Radar has been unavailable since Wednesday on the grounds that it is “little used” is one of the most reckless decisions I have ever seen. On the same grounds a lifeboat is “little used” so it should not be made available in an emergency. If I say any more about this stupidity I would violate site policy.
I have found this alternative at weatheronline that uses the same information.
Excellent except that the key at the bottom seems to go up to infinity which is an alarming thought.
It is still quite severe in Lincolnshire with the lying snow and it has not yet risen above freezing. I don’t think it will last that much longer however it is another case of winter arriving too late here in the UK, we will likely get a some more frosty nights in March but it is only going to stay colder at higher latitudes than the UK. The likelihood of the UK getting a severe winter will increase over the next few years with the approaching Solar Minimum.
…and ocean cycles
I note that Prof Roy Spencer’s UAH satellite reading is now 0.2degs above the 30yr mean – a disappointing drop
From last month, but I’m sure the La Niña will continue to kick in.
Drifting snow can be really bad and quite dangerous, even in Sweden where everybody is used to snow and winter driving and uses studded tires. This gives you an idea:
Störst av allt är smaken. Or should I say smack!
It means “the taste is the greatest thing of all”.
Most people her have missed the point
Gas is needed for domestic central heating, not electricity.
No, it is also used for electricity: “Power prices, which would usually be around £45-50 per megawatt hour at this time of year, spiked at an astronomical £990 per mWh on Thursday.”
without electricity my gas central heating wont work
Brian and everyone else with natural gas or oil-fired central heating that is run by electricity:
If you live in a cold climate, buy a Honda generator large enough to power your furnace, fridge and other basic needs and learn how to quickly set it up. Chain it down outside, because in a major power failure it will develop legs and walk away.
Another good plan is to install a good wood stove and a store of dry firewood, My family experienced a long-term power failure in the Great Ice Storm of 1998 and my dad’s wood stove rescued the entire neighborhood.
You can also buy ventless ceramic tile gas heaters that do not use electricity. They work very well.
“Gas is needed for domestic central heating, not electricity.”
Nope. At this moment (13:12 02 March UK) Gas is generating 28.94% of leccy going in to the grid.
They are not out of natural gas resources.
There is more than enough gas in Britain.
Thanks to the climate extremists, the gas is useless, in the ground and unavailable.
Britain is freezing, and I hope that they tske comfort in the fact that they are shivering while on top of huge safe natural gas reserves.
Why has a seemingly intelligent scientific and political community allowed a country to cope with a perceptually uncertain and dangerous weather reality with primitive energy devices like solar and wind power? It would almost seem to be a perfect plan for the poor to be sacrificed to the elements.
Cold air from Sibir has been pouring down into Europe. Many people have died from frost. New temperature records for March. Several places in southern Norway had colder than -40 C night to Thursday.
Solution – more cabbage!
If only we were sat atop 300 years worth of Gas like those lucky Russians
So sorry I posted a description of a Nautiraid boat and not the promised Gridwatch clip for today, it’s the dumb link-only system used here by WordPress. Try again. Even Twitter finally managed to take images as attachments.
The last desperate and utterly childish throes of den!alism.
Let’s ignore fact that the Arctic is scorching.
Enjoy the “enterprise” while lasts. You guys are so far gone in delusion it’s hilarious to everyone else.
The arctic is scorching? And you accuse us of suffering from delusions?
Regardless, when arctic air plunges south, it gets replaced with non-arctic air from somewhere else.
That’s just how the world works. Perhaps you should study a little meteorology?
That is of course assuming you actually want to know something, rather than just being told what to think.
That’s right MarkW – it’s called weather and it doesn’t disprove climate change despite the idiotic claims and insinuations to the contrary here. glad we agree.
Do you have any reference to your claim that the “Arctic is scorching” or are you just making that up to support your views?
Minus twenty centigrade isn’t exactly scorching:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/meanTarchive/meanT_2018.png
PS. Apparently you have to click the image to get the current version. DMI apparently has defaulted a version several days old. One wonders why….
Maybe he means scorching cold, since extreme cold causes burns on skin contact similar to extreme heat.
I’m in a generous mood today.
Donald
The climate that matters is where people are.
Have you ever wondered why the “fastest warming” places on earth are always remote and unpeopled?
Poles, oceans, Siberia, etc.
Like a “weeping angel” in Doctor Who.
Only moving when you can’t see it.
We’ve got used weather headed your way for another round.