Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t JoNova; Coming soon to the USA? Nuclear, coal, gas, hydroelectricity – every significant form of electricity generation except renewables allows people to have electricity when they want it, in the quantity they want.
How much could YOU earn for turning off your oven and TV? How families could be PAID up to £6 to ‘ration’ electricity at peak times (including nearly £3 for shutting off electric car chargers)
The measures come amid spiraling energy costs made worse by war in Ukraine
Households with smart meters could be paid £6 per kilowatt-hour not used
The National Grid is looking at expanding the measure which is now under trial
By TOM PYMAN FOR MAILONLINE and ARCHIE MITCHELL FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 21:44 AEST, 28 June 2022 | UPDATED: 21:51 AEST, 28 June 2022
Hard-pressed British families can save as much as £6 by turning off key appliances for two hours in the evening – and could be paid to do so under plans being considered by the National Grid.
Consumers with smart meters will be offered the payment to slash their usage during peak times in the winter and try and cut the risk of nationwide blackouts.
National Grid sees the plans as a cheaper and more environmentally friendly way to keep the lights on than paying fossil fuel power plants to increase production.
The firm responsible for transmitting and distributing electricity and gas is scrambling to mitigate the effects of the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It has led to Russia restricting energy supplies to Europe.
The proposals could see households paid up to £6 for each kilowatt-hour they avoid using at peak times. That compares with the 28.34p homes pay per kilowatt-hour, enough to power a 100 watt lightbulb for ten hours.
National Grid ESO trialled the proposals with Octopus Energy customers this year and is now looking to offer the scheme to millions of households.
MailOnline has analysed the cost of running some key household appliances for two hours during the periods that were trialled – 00:00-02:00, 09:00-11:00 and 16:30-18:30.
…
Energy rationing would not have happened if Britain maintained coal capacity and developed shale gas reserves. Rationing would not have been necessary if Britain had focussed on reliable zero carbon energy, nuclear power – nuclear power plants, which are completely insulated from fuel supply price shocks, because they only have to be refuelled every two years.
After this failure, does anyone in Britain still think Bojo’s push for more renewable energy is a good idea? Imagine what living in an energy rationed society will be like next February? Imagine the horror of finally caving in, switching on your heater – only to have the lights and heat go out, after the grid collapses under the weight of demand from other other families just like yours, who reached for the switch at the same time as you, because they could no longer stand the cold.
There might still be time to fix this before winter – but the British government has to act now, the British government has to stop wasting time and resources on useless green energy, and get out of the way of entrepreneurs who are trying to develop onshore British unconventional petroleum resources. The government must open the floodgates to made in Britain energy, or it will be the British people who will suffer, starting with the innocent, elderly and vulnerable, six months from now.
Realizing weather dependent sources are inherently unreliable seems beyond most greens. Lacking the political courage to tell them to sit down and shut up also seems beyond certain politicians, including here in Texas.
We have yet to deal with the effects of wind subsidies on the market, despite a week in 2021 of patchy power.
How will the electricity companies know whether you would have used your cooker/heater? It looks like a scheme for the unscrupulous to get much of their electricity free.
2 hours at £6 per hour = £12
£12 * 365 days = £4380 per year
How does this compare to paying wind generators to switch off when the wind blows too hard?
Smart meters will report date, time, and quantity.
I have two sons who live close by me, if we each agree to turn off electricity two nights per week and visit the other two on one of our off nights then we could make engough to keep the lights on the rest of the week.
It could lead to closer family ties, or the opposite.
I doubt it would happen since it is available only if you have smart meter. I suspect that would be an outcry in parliament that only half of the population would be benefiting.
9 Mar 2022 — Smart meters have now been installed in half of homes across the UK.
A smart meter is a device that could potentially limit or switch off your electricity. It is pitched at consumers as a means to save money, even though the huge cost of smart meter roll out is borne by the supply companies and therefore the consumer.
Supply companies are mandated by the government to hard sell smart meters to customers every 6 months.
The government can f#ck off and they will need a police officer with a warrant on my doorstep before they gain entry to my home to fit one.
I think it was Southern Electricity who were recently in the headlines for entering peoples houses, fitting smart meters and changing the locks (presumably they destroyed the old ones when gaining entry). Unfortunately for them, not all the houses they did this to were their own customers.
Another government program to benefit the “haves” over the “have nots”. Nothing new here………. move along, move along.
Those who didn’t get a smart meter will expire from cold and famine. It’s what wokies call social justice.
You could all huddle together to stay warm. As expensive as it is, people for the most part limit their usage to what they need anyway. Paying people to turn off needed utilities, such as heaters or air conditioners, won’t be of any comfort. The government could provide shelters so that everyone could stay a certain amount of time every day and share the lowered cost for energy. That way the bad oil plants won’t have to be restarted.
Council comfort COVID caves. Now why didn’t I think of that?
Myself, I bundle up and keep my office at 40 degrees in the Tucson summer! (That’s ~4 degrees for the metric-oriented.)
For the mentally challenged (initials “G,” “S,” “B.O.B.,” and “N.S.” – yes, that IS sarcasm. I’m actually sitting here with bare feet, in shorts, and shirtless, with the thermometer reading 85 (or 29) degrees.
By the way, the world should be thankful that I am slightly paranoid and don’t even have a camera anywhere on this machine…
Are you serious? Surely your post is missing the /sarc tag
And if your family members live 1000 miles away, you can hop on a flight to go visit them…oh wait!
In the U.S., that could get you on the terror watch list for FBI and DHS and a listing by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
It will start as a voluntary measure and will soon morph into shut downs at peak load
There will be trouble.
Big time and heads will roll. The bloated politicians who did this are rehearsing their lines and trying as hard as possible not to say “let them eat cake”.
New Rhode Island Law Requires 100% “Renewable” Electricity by 2033
https://apnews.com/article/politics-legislature-providence-state-6b77f98faa5e1023d1891b91771fd4b0
Somebody is going to die because of this folly.
That’s a feature, not a glitch, someone elderly and poor.
How is that even technically feasible in the next 11 years?
Well if a good portion of the population were to die off from, oh let’s say the long term side effect of an experimental gene therapy drug, then the demand for energy (and everything else) would go waaaay down and you (if still alive) would be warm.
It will be done mostly with “offsets”. Watch…
“It states that all of the energy provided to Rhode Island by 2033 would come from renewable energy, either directly from renewable energy resources or through offsets in the regional market.”
The new lines being run to southern New England from the hydro plants in Québec will help meet the “renewables” quota.
California is actually planning for blackouts. Pacific Gas & Electricity is asking me if I need a reliable power for my life-sustaining medical devices. I have none, so I am out of luck.
That’s not planning, it’s insanity.
Curious G (and also with reference to Ronald Stein’s comment below), this is what the whole UK smart meter drive is really all about. Anything else you read is either through total ignorance or bare-faced lies. With the combination of the doubling (and possibly trebling) of UK electricity demand after the bulk of heating and vehicle powering goes electric, and given that a huge % of grid capacity will be unreliable, the authorities know full well that major and regular power shortages are inevitable. How to cope then? Well, the early-1970s solution of full regional blackouts regardless of usage is no longer acceptable. The only other thing you can do is selectively switch off domestic power supplies for specific usage like cookers, heating/cooling and, of course, BEV charging. And, clearly, the only way you can achieve that degree of totalitarian control is via smart meters. Thus – everyone is being hit with constant (and grossly misleading) propaganda about the wonders of the meters such that they cave in and get one.
The deliberate and relentless “information” that the UK public is being fed with regard to smart meters is deeply insidious. Head should roll but, of course, they won’t because people honestly believe that they are saving the planet by adopting these.
Yes, I have been saying this for sometime now. You would be very foolish indeed to install one of these so-called Smart Meters; for once there they can be controlled by anyone with hacking knowledge as well as including your energy supplier, at their whim. Regulations will NOT help you get the energy you desperately need WHEN YOU NEED IT. All far too late for that in practical terms.
In fact these units are capable of controlling your life by switching off any of your facilities it wishes; so for instance you could wake up in the morning to find that your washing has not been done, your car has not be charged and has in fact been used to supply the grid so you can’t get the kids to school. Etc. I could go on.
And heaven help you if someone nasty decides to Hack you and play havoc with all your smart appliances.
The only good thing here is that you can always encase this smart meter insider a Faraday Cage which would render it secure and inoperable.
Two new markets and business opportunities – smart meter hacking, and smart meter security (subset of critical infrastructure security?)
I think that’s already happening –
Interactive Map Details Destruction of Numerous US Food Manufacturing Plants
HM Gummint wishes to advise that Putin hackers have been overriding planet saving saving smart metering and turning them on again.
Well here in the land of the free and home of the brave we weren’t given a choice as whether or not to get a smart meter, they just came and installed them for all the customers. Fired all the meter readers too.
At least now they know when and where the power goes out.
Unfortunately the meter is now smarter than the occupant for anyone with a “smart meter”.
Yet the problem is that the generations of “smart” meters installed so far do not have this capability built in. They can cut supply completely, and they can operate a tariff that changes every half hour. Some of them are even able to report consumption to your supplier (older ones only manage to stay connected if you are still with the supplier you had when the meter was installed, forcing consumers to email in their readings and a periodic meter reader visit to check they’re not cheating). Consumers will be forced to pay for a third round of meters with the extra features, partly because the old ones will find themselves without a reporting network, as the radio spectrum they use is planned to be repurposed.
It’s New Orleans Levee Board leadership.
Why have we spent billions in green levy’s and government handouts on solar and turbines when we have a situation like this looming
why are we also paying international prices on home grown power?
Can’t we just lynch politicians instead? See Sri Lanka for details.
Politicians are deluding themselves if they don’t think there will be a price for them to pay.
They’ve been getting away w/it for many decades.
Mike,
“Bread and Circuses”
Only thing is, they’ve forgotten about the “bread” (and I would include electricity).
Also, without power the masses can’t WATCH the circuses.
There is a new phrase that I am hearing often enough to think it’s a candidate to be added my buzzword-bingo card: “managing demand”.
That is an appalling euphemism for rationing.
In France the appalling euphemism is “energy sobriety”.
Or how about “managing expectations,” their sure-to-come appalling euphemism for the notion that “electricity” being something you can count on is just a quaint and old fashioned notion.
Most language from the left is riddled with political and social double entendres. “Managing demand” is the same as “forcing demand to decrease” but softened so the brainless masses don’t catch on to what’s going on. I’ve heard it said before and I think it’s worth repeating: the left has your vocabulary but not your dictionary. Another example is the WEF’s favorite word: transform. Transform does not mean to change into something better; it means, to change into something the WEF wants.
I don’t know how these people can be so stupid. We need energy availability.
As of May 30, 2022, in the UK, new home and workplace chargers being installed must be “smart” chargers connected to the internet and able to employ pre-sets limiting their ability to function from 8 am to 11 am and 4 pm to 10 pm.
In addition to the nine hours a day of downtime, authorities will be able to impose a “randomized delay” of 30 minutes on individual chargers in certain areas to prevent grid spikes at other times.
The UK Electric Vehicles (Smart Charge Points) Regulations 2021 come into force on 30th June 2022. All home installed electric vehicle chargers will be required to be separately metered and send information to the Smart meter data communications network. Potentially this legislation allows the electricity used for charging EVs to be charged and taxed at a higher rate than domestic electricity. The technology enacted also enables the rationing of electricity for EV charging because the government can decide when and if an EV can be charges, plus it also allows the EV battery to be drained int the grid if required.
Yes. The real costs of going to wind and solar are not limited to the capital plus running costs of the systems themselves. The costs are also the social costs caused by having to make the population behave differently.
The concept of levelized costs (LCOE), still being invoked by a few here and by many more on alarmist sites, leaves out the costs of intermittency. But they also leave out these secondary costs which are imposed by not being able to run the grid in the same way. One reason is the huge cost of storage which is necessary to make it work at all. So trying to limit these costs, the other way of doing it is by demand reduction.
All political parties in the UK seem bent on destroying the economy and society. They intend (as I have said before) to move generation to unreliable wind and solar, and at the same time to at least double demand, by moving everyone to EVs and heat pumps.
It is simply not possible, at least not at any cost the country can seriously consider incurring. The unanimity that this insanity is the right direction, among Labour, Liberals, SNP and Conservatives, is mind boggling.
Don’t forget the Green Party!
But we’d really really like to…
Storage is simply uneconomic for anything more than a few hours in relatively small volumes – say shifting a solar peak into the evening. In the first instance it is cheaper to over-invest in renewables generation, but as you start to aim for more than about 60% renewables the marginal contribution from extra windfarms and solar parks gets increasingly curtailed, driving up the cost of the smaller and smaller element of useful output. Having proper dispatchable backup is then essential.
In addition to charging and rationing , the Govt will know how much electricity each vehicle has used since its last charge . Since the only use of that is in transport the govt can attach a surcharge to the electricity rate which will have the effect of being the “tax per mile” which is proposed to replace the road tax that ICE vehicles pay. I think that this is a brilliant move by the Govt, as a ICE car user ( cant ever afford ev) I think this is excellent legislation. For once this Govt has shambled in the right direction.
They could do that by simply having the vehicle report regularly to the tax authorities on its use. Time and amount of charging, each journey recorded by the onboard satnav and reported with extra congestion charging and automatic fines for travelling more than 5 miles from home during a
covidenergy shortage lockdown.This what Smart Meters have been about from the very beginning, …rationing and time-of-day rates.
V2G isn’t quite that simple. It requires a rather more expensive charger that can handle the reversed flows. You can always unplug for the key demand hours anyway, preventing the grid from discharging your battery. I suspect that the battery degradation caused by regular grid discharges will leave many greatly disgruntled, and V2G will be a flop.
As a UK citizen, I should like to give you an anecdote relevant for greenery.
My wife (the gardener in our family) brought home a new gooseberry bush the other day. It’s called Captiva, but personally I think Johnsonia would be better. In the notes it says that its fruits are deep red, it’s great for propagation and it is almost completely spineless. I was a bit dubious after reading all that, but I am now happy: we have put it in a cage and it will stay there for the rest of its life.
I think the memo has got around…
They’ve messed it up yet again, those incompetent western governments have completely botched their bright idea of “transitioning” to the progressive future of electric LaLa land.
They f’ed up, so now you have to turn it down… or preferably off, sit in the dark quietly with your mask on… and be happy, while they swan around the world boasting to each other about who has the biggest carbon footprint.
This is the message in France, even the energy sellers want you to buy less!!
TotalEnergies (ex-Total), EDF, and Engie (ex-GDF) got together and said this the other day:
“A collective and individual act so that each of us – each consumer, each company – changes their behaviour and immediately limits their energy, electric, gas and petroleum products consummation.”
Our glorious leader, Jupiter king of the gods Macron, has said this:
“First major project is to consume less energy.”
……. you, not him obviously.
I’m struggling here and I really do have a bad case of Deja-Vu.
Have we been here before?
Anyway: How are they going to know how much electricity you’ve **not** used?
Unless they work on your recent consumption during the relevant time interval and switch you off completely for the duration?
In which case, it would be in everyone’s interest to use as much while they still can.
Use as much at 28 pence in the safe secure knowledge that Government will pay you 600 pence when they switch you off.
(Now we know what it’s like to be a windfarm operator when the wind blows too strongly)
What about someone organises an auction or spot-market for voluntary non-consumers – I’m sure they could garner ‘a wee bit more’ than a paltry £6 per unit.
And if Gov don’t pay up, they switch on and bring down the entire grid.
By the time there’s next to zero spinning reserve (now basically), it could take days to get it back up again,
How Could They Be So <expletive> Dumb
just how
practice lots of practice with a large portion of stupidity
The U.K. power companies saying that they will payback 6 pounds, and them actually paying back anything at all, are two very different things. If you believe such a promise then you are dumb indeed. That’s what they’re counting on.
They’re already training their handlers in their defensive patter.
“Yeea yore intoitled ta six paand back. But wenn we factor in this, and factor in thaat, and factor in the uvaah, then you pay extra fifty paand.”
We’ve now entered a dystopian, totalitarian wormhole. Only the rich can afford electricity on demand. What’s even more frightening is that people will be happy about it. “Look at how much money I’ve saved on electricity. WooHoo!” I suspect driving and flying are up next. Price ordinary people out of the market, but throw them some kind of toxic carrot so they actually think they are benefiting.
Another push for smart meters…
Just say no.
And the vegans will have to prise the fillet steak or the pheasant from my cold, dead hands.
This post reminds me of a phrase I read on Willis’ blog: “We’re not put here on Earth to see what we can do without!”
Of course if you’re cold, there’s always the furniture. Hardwood is best.
Unfortunately the interior walls now days are covered with gypsum board not wooden ship-lap.
In the winter of 1947, a very harsh one by UK standards, our local council gave permission for their tenants to take off the doors between rooms and burn them because there was a shortage of coal.
Does Britain have a Climate Czar of pedigree equal to that of John “Lurch” Kerry in the USA?
LOL
“Yooooou Rang?”
Yes, he’s called Lord Deben
Lord Deben, formerly John Selwyn-Gummer, was a Cabinet Minster in Margaret Thatcher’s time.
He is notorious for feeding an infant daughter a beef burger – at the time of the BSE scare.
He is a rather self appointed busybody.
Certainly no Tsar.
A rather jumped up mountebank, in my opinion, he has interests in wind farms, I believe, and – oddly – promotes renewables through some @Climate’ quango he’s invented or sponsored.
Something like Plutocrats for Climate Concern, or Snobby Weasels against Fossil Fuels.
Not my cup of tea, as you may have detected.
Auto
Let’s not forget, what they’re proposing for Electric Cars is absolute tantamount to ‘Transport Rationing‘
or, because it’s people’s personal private cars..
Freedom Rationing
This Climate Thing is truly hideous and, at present rate, getting worse almost daily.
Bojo has been brainwashed (or possibly some other part of his body) by Green idiot Carrie. Is there any sign that he will come to his senses and eject her from the marital bed?
little head controls big head
I remember when limited electric supply availability was a hallmark of third world countries.
It still is.
What did Conservatives use before candles?
British power companies can turn their power supply failure into opportunity. So expect them to be branching out into funeral services. They will know in advance – or even plan for – who to expect business from.
Also in the Daily Mail today…
Lord Deben and the CCC have issued a new report. Lots of sacrifices will have to be made.
– – – – – – – – –
Go meat-free at least one day a week, Zoom your work meetings rather than flying and switch to a heat pump:
What UK government’s climate change advisers want YOU to do to hit Net Zero pledge
UK’s independent Climate Change Committee released its latest progress report
Advisers to government say people should fly less, cycle more and eat less meat
They suggest encouraging 20% shift away from meat by 2030 and 35% by 2050
The report also suggests businesses use Zoom more to help cut back on flying
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10964259/UK-governments-climate-change-advisers-want-cut-meat-fly-cycle-work.html
A couple of quotes from Scottish Gov policy:
‘Developing a skilled, flexible, and adaptable
workforce will be central to a successful
transition and this was recognised in the
Future Skills Action Plan published in 2019.
This will enable people to access the job
opportunities that will be created through the
investment needed for a net zero economy
including in renewable energy, retrofitting
buildings, enhancing our environment and
the promotion and embedding of the circular
economy.’
…
‘Scotland’s Energy Strategy identifies internationalisation as a key area, recognising the importance of working with partners and the contribution this can make to sustainable economic growth as we transition to a net zero economy. Our priority areas for international engagement include: Hydrogen; CCUS; Wind; Marine Renewables and Marine Spatial Planning; Heat Decarbonisation and Energy Efficiency; and Local Energy.’
…
‘Scotland is well placed in terms of proximity and infrastructure connectivity to several European nations, such as Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden, that are unlikely to be able to decarbonise wholly through their indigenous wind and solar renewable energy supply and will require the importation of hydrogen. As large demand for green hydrogen develops in Europe, our challenge is to ensAs we move forward, we are extending this partnership model to encompass the heat in buildings transition, to help deliver positive consumer outcomes as we transition a large proportion of our heating demand to heat’ etc.
Just a couple from the gov policy statement. Okay, two further
‘We are working to protect the consumer on a local level with our £7.5 million Strategic Partnership including Transport Scotland, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks and SP Energy Networks which launched in August 2019. The Partnership is exploring new ways of coordinating the development and delivery of electric vehicle charging and electricity network infrastructure; to ensure efficient investment and a fair distribution of cost across electricity consumers.
‘We have funded Home Energy Scotland to provide wide-ranging energy advice and support for energy efficiency and renewable installations by householders.
This has included the ground-breaking Smart Meter Advice Programme which has helped consumers to get the most out of their smart meters, a key facilitator in the transition to decarbonised energy systems.’
‘We are transitioning to a net zero emissions Scotland for the benefit of our environment, our people, and our prosperity.’
Link(s): https://www.gov.scot/publications/scotlands-energy-strategy-position-statement/pages/7/
Zoom your work meetings
Until your smart meter cuts off the power…
This is not rationing.
I have to wonder if Eric and the average journalist have acess to a dictionary.
If anything is a crisis than nothing is a crisis.
I was an enlisted for 5 years before becoming an officer in the navy. One of the first things I learned as an officer is to act like there is a no crisis. Run around waving your arms and your bosses will tell you to calm down.
One night the engineer is ponding on my door because there is a crisis. He assumed I was the duty officer because I was on the ship the night before getting undereay. He would have been out drinking since a bad hang over helps dealing with a real crisis.
I got dressed and went down to the engineroon and found the duty officer with his feet up on the desk. He was aware of the problem and it was being taken care of. I told him I would take over holding the desk and he could go and be at the problem. Don’t foget to wave your arms!
He looked at me like I was nuts. He was right, he had the same last name as his fater who CNO.
If you are at the power company you have to say and do stupid trivail things to show that you are doing things because of the climate ‘crisis’.
I always have a plan for a crisis. If climate was a crisis and using energy would solve my plan would include rationing. On day one, I would ration political leaders to the amount of electricty used at my house.
On day 2, I would help the same group cut red tape for building nuke plants.
The thing which does my head in is this is still fixable, just, maybe. All Bojo has to do is unclench.
Problem is Bojo has never had to worry about anything, except himself, throughout his life. When he was writing for the Telegraph he often complained about how hard it was to live on £250,000 a year!
Britain, the US and other Western countries can wave as we descend in to 2nd and 3rd world status and the non-Western countries ascend to first world status. Was fun while it lasted.
There is no cure for stupid, and UK politicians have it in spades. We are all doomed!
California is giving “policy” relief checks, not inflation relief.
California plans ‘inflation relief’ stimulus checks. Will other states follow? (cnbc.com)
Universal Basic Income – thin end of the wedge. The end game of all Socialists, everywhere.
These green devils are monsters and will stop at nothing to control the rest of us. We need to stop passively sitting on our backside meekly complying with them.
New business opportunity: Replace frozen water piping every spring.
Hot and cold running water, will be a thing of the past…
The UK government is quietly turning back to coal, but not shouting about it. The appalling Ukraine war provides them with a good excuse for doing this in the name of ‘security’.
But unfortunately they left it too late. Had they jumped on it 18 months ago, when the problems of looming capacity shortage were evident there would have been several extra GW of capacity that could have been saved. Alok Sharma personally blew up one coal fired power station as a virtue signalling act ahead of COP last summer. Now it’s too late – also for Hinkley Point B, the old nuclear station which can’t be extended any more, despite the government belatedly asking if they could keep going.
Renewable/intermittent/unreliable Green deals, with progressive prices and availability, is a blight on the environment and economy.
“energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It has led to Russia restricting energy supplies to Europe.”
Even sceptics cannot avoid buying
into propaganda from the Dark Side. The cutting of supply is another case of fallout from sanctions of the circular EU-US firing squad!
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-cuts-gas-supply-germany-siemens-equipment-stuck-canada-sanctions-2022-6?op=1
Please do the due diligence. Nearly everything readily available in the news these days is a lie! Yeah, it’s too easy to blame pariah Russia for everything, especially when EU/UK and US need a scapegoat to blame for their policy horrors that have shattered their own the O&G industries: blocking access to resources; nixing pipelines, punishing and costly regs, foreclosure of financing sources, …they have enriched and emboldened Putin all by themselves.
Western boffins apparently were unaware that natural gas is needed to make cheap nitrogen fertilizers (not cheap when at 10x prices of two years ago), diesel needed to fuel agriculture and transport for everything we eat wear or use. Fossil fuels are needed for mining, production, refining and manufacture of products each containing one or more of 89 of the 92 chemical elements of the periodic table.
Being the base of the commodity goods/services/logistics system, screwing up ff supply (before we have a comparable substitute) has a terrifying multiplier effect. 10x the cost of making fertilizer, 10x the cost to ship it, 10x the cost to apply it, to plant and harvest and ship a crop, grind it, bake it, ship it again….inflation, famine, disease… all directly attributable to hugely stupid policies. Joe Biden has a cognitive disability, but he is no worse than any of his fellow heads of state in the West. Managing a country and its economy is a no-brainer activity nowadays.
I blame British government policy for this shambles. It doesn’t matter that Russia helped deliver some of the shocks, Britain was only vulnerable because British politicians are clueless.
Some of them walked into this situation with their pockets wide open, or their family/chums pockets – it’s quite the racket.
Its all a bit Atlas Shrugged IMO, the parasites scrambling over the dying host, thinking only of themselves.
Yes, I understood your take on the problem, Eric. It’s just that the invasion has become an overall convenient way for inept politicos to keep torch and pitchfork wielding citizens off the streets when real horrors precipitate from their policies.
We can already see that another danger of this scapegoat affair is it serves these leaders to prolong and widen the conflict. They won’t step into the war to stop it as they did in Serbia, but will keep stoking it, possibly tipping it into something far worse.
They also did (along with the UN) stand by for 8 years while Ukraine (particularly the Asov n@zi regiment) was shelling with impunity it’s own citizens of Russian descent in the Dombass. US has invaded a number of Latin American countries to protect its ‘interests’ and even bombed Serbia where they had no interests. Even Australia invaded East Timor for an exact same reason Russia invaded eastern Ukraine.
I was born before WWII so my BullS meter is work-hardened.
UK needs to go on a “war footing” too… stiff upper lip, and The Blitz and 1940 and ’41 stuff. Hard to believe in today’s world…
I hate to sound cruel but we in the US need an electric grid disaster in Australia, Germany, UK, etc. as the canary in the coal mine for weather dependent energy. The sooner, the better. I’m not sure that will change many minds, but I hope so. So many Americans act like trained parrots of climate alarmism that I wonder if they will recognize canaries.
On the other hand, the US electric grid has been reliable and boring, so could use some excitement. Such as random brownouts and blackouts.
That would be exciting. Years ago, I wrote my congressman to propose, spending a bazillion dollars to make the US electric grid less reliable. And now that is becoming public policy in many nations. Amazing what one letter can accomplish. This should really help my flashlight business.
You know what? Everyone who has been voting for climate change politicians and climate change policies needs to suffer for a year or two. Then they’ll learn to vote differently next time.
Huddled up together in a dark room wearing their thermals while wrapped in a cozy wool blanket will do them some good.
I’ve been saying this for a while. Us Brits need to suffer until the penny drops that voting for idiots leads to suffering and that we need to stop voting for idiots if our situation is to improve. Nothing is going to change until we stop voting for idiots. Tribal or thoughtless voting comes with a horrendous price tag. We are now going to pay that price.
Tony S.
“we need to stop voting for idiots if our situation is to improve.”
Whilst I agree, a significant problem is that all three main-ish parties, and most of the regional ones, too, follow the Green mantra.
There may be individual MPs who are sceptical, possibly ‘against’, the Unicorn Fart Solution – but they are apparently almost as rare as those unicorns..
My concern is the selection of candidates to stand for election.
In over half the seats in the House of Commons, it is possible to say with 99.9% certainty which party will win. That party’s selection of a candidate is therefore of more importance than the actual election [which involves the population].
Unhappily, too many ‘electable’ candidates have little backbone, scientific knowledge, or desire to serve [rather than make money for themselves and their families].
So – who to vote for?
Auto
So much misery and so much expense just to address a problem that doesn’t exist.
Net Zero at any cost? NO THANKS!
Wealthy western nations have built an energy strategy out of wishful thinking, childish ignorance, emotional indulgence and pure fantasy, paying no heed to the rules of nature and economics. When this is all over, and after much pain and loss, we must ensure those who put us in this position can never lead us again.
“The avalanche has already begun, it is too late for the pebbles to vote.” – Kosh, Babylon 5
In other words, it’s already too late to avoid the future the OP foresees.
“Energy rationing would not have happened”
I don’t understand this. Is it a typo?
Energy rationing has not happened.
But it already has. Industry has been the first target. When they have shut down as much of that as they can, guess who’s next?
We had energy rationing back in 1973 under Heath, but AFAIK there has been no energy rationing recently, but I may be wrong. What is your source for this?
This is more important than money. Poverty kills. Lives are at stake. Greens are killing people and they are killing the very people that other left-wing people claim to protect. They are killing the poor and the old and the physically weak. Is there even one person with sound left-wing credentials willing to point this out to their comrades? They’ll never listen to us, but maybe they will listen to you.
Is there even one person with sound left-wing credentials willing to point this out to their comrades?
If it’s anything like any other topic, anyone pointing it out will be drummed out of their leftist circles (see Bill Maher recently)
I am confused. The reason we have high energy prices at the moment is because most of our energy is from fossil fuels, the price for which is set by international markets. The cost of our electricity would be higher if we didn’t have wind and solar.
But everyone here seems to be arguing that wind and solar are the reason our energy costs are currently very high. I don’t get it.