From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Dave Ward
Every week, the people who trade electricity in the UK get to quiz the managers of the national grid for an hour. The conference call, which anyone can monitor, offers an insight into what the men and women on the front line of the power market are worried about. Listening to them is getting scarier by the week — and suggests keeping the lights on this winter will be a lot more challenging than European governments are admitting.
Prices are worrying enough. British households were told on Friday that their power and gas bills will increase from Oct. 1 by 80%. The so-called energy price cap was set at £3,549 ($4,189) per year, up from £1,971 over the past six months and £1,277 during last winter.
But the industry’s teleconference suggests the problem is broader than just rising costs. Increasingly, the words “emergency” and “shortages” are being used, with participants focusing on when, rather than if, a crisis will hit. Imagine being able to overhear conversations between Wall Street executives and the Federal Reserve as the global financial crisis unfolded in 2008.
Here’s a question from last week’s session: “Are you war-gaming possible options for if/when cross-border trading collapses under security of supply pressures this winter?” And another: “Can we have a session where we talk through the emergency arrangements?” Another participant said that the forecast for demand-and-supply electricity balance showed “how bad the winter could be for anyone who can do the maths.” The same caller was blunt about the grid’s own predictions: “I don’t think you believe what you’ve written, and nobody else does.”
One intervention was particularly revealing. “Based on where winter ‘22 products are trading, where does this position yourself with respect to securing power over the winter?” asked one participant. The background? In the forward market, UK power for December 2022 is fast approaching £1,000 per megawatt hour, up 50% from current prices. The implication? Power shortages.
Compare the tone with the British government’s insistence that there’s nothing to worry about. “Households, businesses and industry can be confident they will get the electricity and gas that they need over the winter,” Downing Street said earlier this week. “That’s because we have one of the most reliable and diverse energy systems in the world.”
The weekly call is officially known as the “ESO Operational Transparency Forum,” and allows market participants to query the managers of the so-called Electricity National Control Centre, the hub that moves power around the UK from generators to traders to consumers. The forum typically deals with obscure power-trading problems. But in recent weeks, attention has shifted to crisis management. Another example from earlier this month: “If a system-stress event is active in both gas and power, how do the electricity system operator and gas control center communicate? Which stress event takes priority?” What’s particularly worrying is how few of the disaster scenarios appear to have been planned for.
A key concern is what happens if European countries introduce beggar-thy-neighbor policies by shutting down cross-border electricity flows, as Norway has already said it’s considering. “Please, the market needs to understand more fully how interconnectors are to be used in periods of very high prices and potential generation shortfall,” one market participant said last week.
Another topic is how much consumption might drop if households and businesses can’t afford elevated electricity and gas prices. “What level of demand reduction, demand destruction, are you forecasting for the winter ahead from commercial industrial consumers as a price response?” was one recent example. Another repeated the request: “What demand destruction, if any, is included in your demand forecast for this winter for residential and industry?” The grid managers were unable to supply any numbersto the callers.
To be sure, the call should focus on potential troubles ahead — it exists to anticipate and solve problems. Buthaving listened in on multiple occasions over the last few months, I have three takeaways. First, the looming power emergency is worse than many industry executives publicly acknowledge, and a lot more dangerous than the government admits. Second, high prices are a big problem, but security of supply is at risk, too. Third, time is running out to prepare before temperatures start to drop.
The manager of the Finnish grid, in a rare example of the kind of transparency that’s badly needed, told citizens earlier this week to prepare for shortages this winter. European governments have a duty to come clean with their voters about the magnitude of the coming crisis. Minimizing the scale of the problem or, worse, pretending there’s not an issue, won’t keep the power running this winter.
While we can blame Russia for the current gas supply problems, the real cause of this looming disaster has been the government enforced shutdown of most of our coal generating capacity during the last decade:
But there’s “Green” energy at the end of the Rainbow.
That will require a pot of gold to pay for.
Our very own Old Seadog knows where to look for the
“pot o’ gold”. It’s not too far from this unicorn!
Maybe, according to Peter Pan, if you believe enough.
Though, like most children’s tales, it’s mostly fantasy.
The only real parts are that politicians and climate alarmists are corrupt.
Captain Hook must have had a big family!
Peter Pan- Isn’t that Griffo’s alter-ego?
No, that’s Pinocchio…
More than likely both- all Greens live in Neverland &
are perpetual prevaricators- “Panocchios”.
I’m younger and better looking…
Naivety does not equal younger
but still a fictional character
(sorry, couldn’t resist)
“better looking”
Get The Magic Mirror™ ASAP- its honesty MAY
even rub off on you & help you in soooooooooo
many ways. Miracles can happen!
I’m probably older and uglier than you, Griff. But I compensate for that by being right about climate science.
Humour is always welcome.
You people are wasting time and energy with this frivolous banter.
We have a planet to save, not a second can be wasted.
Maybe they’re not corrupt, but just criminally stupid.
Nah – nobody could be that stupid and still remember to breathe.
Important to remember that breathing requires no intellect. Ta-Da!
This Winter will be interesting. Next Spring, with some of the EU/Canada fertilizer/farming challenges getting worse could be fun as well. Now, Fall and Winter 2023 could get scary…
The EU fertilizer situation for 2023 planting season is particularly concerning. BASF is a major nitrogen supplier, and they won’t have precursor natgas this winter.
Well, as the Greens state, we will have less food to eat but we will have a much better, colder climate!
(/s needed?)
Everything is getting better and better in each and every way, each and every day. I know this because Joe Biden told me so.
is it too late to put Boris Johnson in jail??? That guy needs to pay if people lose their lives this winter
He’ll plead mental incapacity, which would be the only truthful thing he’s ever said.
Make sure there’s room in jail for Carrie…Boris was OK before she took over his brain and bxxxs!
The idea that net zero was on page one of the last Conservative election manifesto because of and only because of Carrie does not stand up to scrutiny
How can you tell? are you some kind of voyeur fly in their bedroom?
Knowing Bo’s personal history regarding the use of his br…, are you implying that his predominant organs of thinking are his ba… ???
Sadly, yes! Unfortunately he’s not alone in this…some members of the Royal Family come to mind too…
Some of the Royal Families “members” come to mind?
It’s not just BoJo
It’s a succession of failed politicians over the last 40 years leading us down the path of energy insecurity to the land of make-believe
Amazing to think that so many thought the lying oaf would be the saviour of the country but alas the man does not do detail and never has – after all he can’t even be sure how many children he has sired. Above all else the job requires detail and the next likely PM is MisTrussed who said we should stand with Ukraine and all our other neighbouring allies on the Baltic Sea. And insisted Russia should withdraw troops from occupying an army base…..in Russia.
At least Boris was going for nuclear as a major component of the energy mix. Labour and the Lib Dems want renewables only.
It was Ed Davey who banned fracking when he was a LibDem member of the Cameron/Glegg coalition, the problem is no subsequent Energy Minister has had the nous, or influence, to override his decision. The lingering suspicion is the Civil Service is complicit in the WEF/Common Purpose/Green programme.
If I were Putin, this is exactly the outcome I would have wanted if I had poured billions of spare gas profits into the Green movements..
Yes, he’s winning this thing hands down. Just what he wants.
“if”? Try “because.”
Ed Miliband was the author of the Climate Change Act 2008, passed almost unanimously.
Ed Davey was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change 2012-15, and was and is a strong advocate of reducing gas supply. Davey is the one largely responsible for banning fracking by setting an absurd limit for the magnitude of earth tremors which were permissible.
It was Theresa May in 2019 who committed the country to Net Zero by 2050.
Yes, Johnson bought into the prevailing madness pretty much as soon as he came to office. But the real intellectual and policy rot set in much earlier, and isn’t his responsibility.
The thing the UK needs to do now is repeal the Climate Change Act and license fracking. It also needs to abolish all the renewable subsidies. Its in the grip of a national emergency, and the sooner its admitted the better.
And it needs to admit at a policy level that the only result of installing more wind is to increase dependency on gas. To see this, consider that the UK has about 26GW of wind installed.
On a recent spot check wind was generating 4.GW and gas 15GW. And this is not yet the winter blocking highs, when it gets worse for several days in a row.
We are going to see several things this winter in the UK
1) Increased taxes to pay fuel bills for the less well off
2) Increased borrowing for the same purpose
3) Rationing of both electricity and gas
4) A consumer driven recession as purchasing power vanishes into energy
We will see political turmoil, because of a general denial among the young of the existence of things that cannot be fixed by government action of some unspecified sort. So we will see fury and demands for some action, they know not what, to lower energy prices to what they were a year or two back so we can all carry on working from home and shopping and enjoying restaurants. And holidays, of course, we have a right to holidays.
The UK had better hope and pray that the Cabinet which is about to take office next week has the intestinal fortitude to demolish the whole green fantasy policy edifice and get to work rebuilding the coal generating infrastructure on an urgent basis. Its the only thing that will save the country and the Conservative Party. There will not be time to finish before the next election, but there is probably just time to get started and show the country there is a plan that will work.
Why start with him. How about Milliband, Cameron-Clegg and most of the rest of the political class. What about the high paid civil servants who are supposed to advise Ministers who propose risky policies.
The “A-Team” works in industry. The “B-Team” works (sensu lato) in government.
I think that’s one thing we can agree on from both sides of the climate debate? (if for different reasons)
Yes
Theresa May is the one who put through the statutory instrument amending the Climate Change Act committing the UK to net zero by 2050.
A statutory instrument is a trick for avoiding parlimentary scrutiny and revision.
Boris may be the worst wasted opportunity in the history of British politics but Theresa May did the more actual damage.
One is tempted to suggest that Paul Homewood rename his web site
‘NOW A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT’
It’s a great website.
More of a UK focus, but the UK is a canary in the coalmine for Nut Zero
What the climate world needs is more retired accountants like Homewood.
and fewer Ph.D.s
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT | “We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. – J Robert Oppenheimer. (wordpress.com)
Sounds like the US DOJ and FBI.
The Clintons sure were smart to fill the FBI and DOJ with cronies during Bill’s 8 years. They are still reaping the rewards for those they placed, and those placed by their appointees for the last 20 + years.
Note the FBI Managing Special Agent shown the door over covering for the Hunter laptop, a 25 year agent. The FBI is filthy with them.
I call what he did TREASON, and hopefully there will, within 3 years, be charges of treason against all of the co-conspirators. BTW, treason has no statute of limitations.
Just move the trials out of DC, and justice can be served.
Exactly what popped into my mind. Every national election of the last 5 years has been significantly influenced by the FBI/DOJ.
I expect no charges, and certainly no successful prosecutions of the co-conspirators.
McConnell is simply not motivated. He’s lazy, complacent and rich and not inclined to raise a ruckus of any sort. If he had any real commitment to conservative causes, he would be organizing a comprehensive conservative agenda (including working with parties outside of government) that included civil class action lawsuits against the Biden administration for its dozen or so outright violations of federal laws and the US Constitution.
Each year about 100,000 additional families in the US gain “standing” for a credible legal complaint against the Biden administration, due to the loss of the lives of family members as a result of the failure to enforce US borders, and the consequent flood of fentanyl across our southern border.
he would be organizing a comprehensive conservative agenda
Not only is he not doing so, he is actively opposing those who ARE trying to do so.
To steal a phrase, “And that’s the rest of the story”.
Put all the greens in front of wind turbines and have them blow hot air at them?
Put all the greens through the wind turbines. Problem solved.
And then burn the remains in coal power staions
Fantastic…So that’s what they mean by ‘green energy’! They’re all supposed to be into recycling/repurposing, etc…so that’s a win for everyone I would have thought.
I now understand what the ‘circular’ economy is…at least in regards to windmills.
That’ll create a serious pollution problem.
Think of it as fertilizer, containing so much BS and all.
Folks are being scared witless here in the UK by the continuing ratchetting up of the governments energy cap whilst the ruling Conservative Party, who have sat on their green hands for the past 12 years, prove they can’t walk and chew gum at the same time while selecting a replacement for the useless Boris Johnson as their leader and our Prime Minister.
They and their partners in crime, the Liberal Democrats, during the premiership if David Cameron refused permission for a Nuclear power station which would be coming on stream now and banned fracking for natural gas. At the same time they demolished coal powered power stations. Suddenly they are surprised as they predict that average domestic energy cost is expected to rise to 80% of the state pension.
Dazzled by the fantasy of net zero carbon the morons are suddenly beginning to understand what was the bleeding obvious to anyone with half a braincell, that we need self sufficiency in reliable energy. Doh.
When something has to give, it eventually will. Unfortunately usually with a lot of collateral damage.
Old farmer fix it joke. If something doesn’t move, but should, use WD40. If something moves, but shouldn’t, use duct tape. Neither WD40 nor duct tape will fix the UK electricity situation come the 80% rate cap increase Oct 1. Pensioner coming winter choices: starve to death, or freeze to death. Ugly for BoJo.
Reminds me of this.
“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
Ronald Reagan
The last line seems very apt for windmills.
You mean the Great Ronald Reagan.
You omitted riot on the way out.
My father used bailer twine, not duct tape! I still have odd bits of it and I sometimes find it holding old timbers to old posts in even older hedgerows.
“My father used bailer twine, not duct tape!”
I still use both. Actually, for wire, I use electric fence wire. It lasts a long time.
The Labour party in fact announced they backed new nuclear back in 2006…
Blair presses the nuclear button | Energy | The Guardian
in the last 16 years, most of that under tory rule, we have started building just one nuke… 2 others have failed to start because impossible to fund.
Well, it’s about time British politicians made it possible to fund nuclear reactors.
Ask yourself why we’ve only started building 1, Griff
Clue: Greenpiss
Ed Miliband cancelled all that when he set up the Office for Nuclear Retrenchment.
I posted this on another recent thread, here it is again, sometimes repetition helps:
This is all nuts. The UK has a long history of building nuclear reactors, ask the Royal Navy. One way, maybe, around all the green blocking is for the UK to build their equivalent of the TVA. Build floating nuke power plants and then moor them at government facilities that can then be connected to the grid. The Russians have a couple. If it’s government owned on goverment property it could be immune to local politics, and declared a National Security Asset. Same thing could be done in Oz and the US. A good place would be Hawaii. How many working reactors are in Pearl Harbor on any day: a bunch.
Good suggestion.
Nuclear could fix quite a bit of this mess if not all, but we are well behind schedule in the western world in coming to terms with this and getting to work. We have to deal with public sentiment, NIMBism, excessive costs partly mandated by erroneous linear-no-threshold thinking and the prospects of new generation technology which could actually solve a lot of storage issues for high level radioactive solid “waste” much of which can become fuel in new designs.
There are several ‘tells’ that the European grid is probably in a heap of trouble this winter. In addition to the UK questions of this post focused on the UK grid:
Great comment.
But they are just minor problems
All solved with more windmills
Europe must suffer to save the world from CO2
Don’t you want to save the world?
Whups wrong reply.
I spoke with my daughter yesterday. She lives in Trelleborg Sweden. She told me they have been warned about possible energy shortfalls this winter along with power interruptions.
My cousin who lives in Dresden Germany “skyped” me last week and said the same thing.
Just to add some detail to your 4th point, initially the stress corrosion was found on some pipes of 4 reactors of the type N4 at the end of 2021 during scheduled maintenance checks .
8 months have passed during which time EDF have been working on how to not only fix the problem, but try and develop a program of prevention with an early detection system.
They have now built an ultrasound machine that let’s them see these micro cracks appearing in those stainless steel pipes, along with experiments on the best welding solutions.
The ASN, (atomic police in France) have just recently given the thumbs up to all this.
EDF are maintaining its production forecast in 2022 of between 280 to 300 terawatt hours.
Let’s hope we have a mild one.
Good comment, Rud.
The situation doesn’t sound good for Europe. They seem to be pretty much at the mercy of the weather now.
Germany needs to fire up their nuclear reactors and everything else available to them.
What a fine mess the climate alarmists have created for all of us with their distortions of the role CO2 plays in our lives.
The ever so Green Lefty™ German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has said in a recent statement that allowing the three remaining nuclear power stations to continue operation would be of little help in solving the growing energy crisis, and then went on with his mantra that Germany must expand its investment in renewable energies and phase out fossil fuels.
Another German (Iranian) Green Lefty™ leader Omid Nouripour added that he sees no future for nuclear power.
“The talk about re-entry, about nuclear power as an alleged future technology, is a fairy tale debate,” he noted.
I mean you really can’t fix stupid.
You don’t want those two running your energy policy.
When it gets really, really cold, there’ll be a fix for stupid. Burning witches springs to mind.
The UK has been cranking up its CCGT plants to keep the lights on in France – in summer. They will be bidding to do so over the winter too. For the UK the choice will be take the money and impose blackouts, or cut the supply to France and see Macron launch more invasion troops across the Channel in rubber boats. Still with some blackouts because we now lack adequate generating capacity to handle Dunkelflaute without imports.
Rud,
Thanks for the nice, comprehensive list.
Making Norway Great Again (MNGA) will of course be branded as “semi-fascist” and that fixes everything.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Summer has not even ended. It could all unravel in autumn. The problem could be far worse than even Jon Snow envisaged. Nothing scarier than turds migrating through a house when the sewerage pumps shut down.
Interestingly, it was John Snow who recognised the need to stop the Thames from being an open sewer.
I think Thomas Bazalgette has the credit for that. He built the sewerage system for London in Victorian times.
I thought the Dwarf was given the job of fixing the sewage problem.
I want to take a moment to applaud Jon Snow’s failed defense of the wall, and also note the remarkable resemblance of the undead of the North to the most senior and influential members of one of our political parties. Its not for no reason they are so fixated on ice cream.
The obvious answer is for the US to double down on stupidity and duplicate everything the UK is doing, but even more so.
We must do it in a bigger way…or else risk the failure they are experiencing.
Brandon is doing his best.
He’s even draining our strategic oil reserve.
There ought to be a massive lawsuit directed at him for that.
Just as Oz is doing (43% reduction by 2030)
Is this another instance of choosing the wrong ‘World’s best practice’?
10 yard penalty
for giving Biden ideas
Let’s don’t be silly. Brandon gets his ideas from whatever is printed on the box of his Fiber One. His presidential daily briefing is printed on his Boost box.
Australian government here, hold my beer !
Will the government here in Australia learn from what’s about to happen in Europe this winter. I very much doubt it.
That would require Chris Bowen changing his mind, or at least thinking. I can’t see that happening.
He has a mind?!
Australia is giving that premise it’s best shot at the moment.
We are witnessing an inevitable train wreck slowly unfolding in real time. The truly sad part is that nothing will change because both parties are as pathetic as each other.
Australia takes the prize for that. But according to our ‘leaders’ we are going to show the world how it’s done. And we don’t even have nuclear, or neighbouring countries to fall back on. It’s going to be 70% or more of wind, solar and backup. And we’re shutting down our coal fired power plants.
It’s not as if Vladimir Putin didn’t publicly warn Europe.
More than ten years ago, he was widely quoted saying that he didn’t understand where Europe was going to get its heat.
We can blame Russia and/or Putin for a ‘shortage of gas’ all we like but this just isn’t the case – Russia has the gas and is producing more. The problem is that our own governments would rather have their own citizens freezing to death in the dark than buy gas from Russia. Now I’m all for not giving Putin’s war chest any more money but I’m just not sure if that’s a principle I’d be willing to die for.
It won’t quite come to that. USA will be OK, I think. And Canada. Japan is restarting nukes faster than you can say ‘Fukushima’ . Europe is the center of the storm, and the problem areas are already highlighted – fertiliser, heating, both gas and electric, and so on.
But looking back to my coal fired childhood, where a fire in the house was the only occasional source of heat, there is an amazing amount of fat that can be trimmed off at least some peoples energy budgets. If we simply went back to wearing thermal underwear.
But look on the bright side.
2023 will likely mark the end of Putin’s Russian ambitions forever, and the difference that will make to the world – yes the world – is something I am thinking may be massive: No one knows how much money he has been pouring in to hard Left and Marxist and Green organsations (is there a difference) to foment dissension in Western civilisation. Except maybe the CIA, and they aint telling.
In addition a total collapse of the European electricity grid (from which Britain is fairly well isolated) is likely to put so many nails in the coffin of renewables that it would take a windmill sized pry bar to lift the lid again.
I cannot remember where I read it, or in what context, but years ago someone remarked that what the West needed was a war, to remind them of the real priorities in life, but sadly he feared that this time even a war might not be enough.
Well it may not result in infrastructure destruction, but it sure looks like Britain and Europe are going to be on a war footing this winter. Rationing, massive drop in standards of living, and with horrendous inflation eroding everyone’s savings, except in house prices which are set to crash.
Even the well heeled useful idiots who populate all thes political activists groups are going to find it hard to get to demonstrations when they are freezing cold, hungry and there are no trains running and they can’t afford to use a private minibus.
In the USA it probably spells the end of the Democrats, since social justice is hard to preach when your urban electorate is suffering 30’s style deprivation.
People may not have wanted Trump, but (his?) policies were pretty decent, when all is said and done.
I have always thought that morality, religion and politics followed society, they didn’t lead it. And society is set for massive change, whether it likes it or not.
The great reset may well be happening, just not in the way those that set it in motion expected, wanted or planned for.
And if the ruling elites show that they are hopeless at adapting to it, bang goes their credibility. If your Glorious Leaders are clearly turkeys, well then you are far more likley to take a chance on another political party, even though it looks completely mad. A shot to nothing – nothing to lose.
Humanity will survive this, and the planet won’t even be moved, but it may well be the permanent end of the Left as we know it. Back in my teens Macmillan repeated an old adage from the 19th century ‘We are all socialists, now”.
I suspect the new adage will be “We are all pragmatists, now”.
As I said a while ago – NetZero won’t happen because it can’t happen due to some fundamental laws of physics and thermodynamics
I didn’t factor in a cessation of cheap gas supplies overnight due to Putin.
But hey – ! anything that makes the politicians wake up and see the stupidity for what it is…..
Due to Brandon in the US. The crunch was already happening before the invasion.
“and the problem areas are already highlighted – fertiliser, heating, both gas and electric, and so on.”
The real problem area is delusional and/or conniving politicians making alarmist climate change decisions that are harmful to their populations.
I think you are overly optimistic regarding the end of Russian ambition. I’m not sure that Ukraine is quite the quagmire for Russia everyone claims it to be. I wish all the best for Ukraine, but I don’t think Russia has really flexed its muscle in this conflict, optimistic reports to the contrary notwithstanding. My guess is when Europe, and by extension the US, is completely involved in the winter energy crisis, Russia will make a push against Ukraine and force some very favorable settlement terms (for Russia) on Zelenskyy. But we shall see.
Hmmm…over here in the US we have a holiday,after Election Day, where the main course at dinner is Turkey…
Maybe not as bad as Europe, but even here in Texas, one of the world’s largest producers of oil and natural gas, our gas utility (Atmos Energy) just sent all of their customers a warning letter.
https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/gas-bills-higher-winter-atmos-energy/287-5586cff2-c8d5-4717-97af-ebab8a085952
Basically, they said we could shave the peak bills by spreading the cost over several months or conserve or both. Excuse me, but there is no actual gas shortage here, but market prices impact costs even for us living near the source of gas supply. If prices spike too high, un-affordability is practically the equivalent of a local supply shortage.
Also, despite the dire events of the 2021 deep freeze in Texas (and the unlikelihood of a repeat of that severity), all government did in response was fire a few people, shuffle the deck, and more or less continue with business as usual. Although it was evident that wind and solar are unreliable and can’t dependably supply needed energy during severe weather/ high demand, nothing was done to curtail renewables expansion or to spur expansion of reliable coal and natural gas-fired power plants. In the current price and supply environment, even a moderately cold La Niña winter event could threaten to crash the system in Texas and destroy customers’ energy budgets.
Long about January I expect a massive initiative by the Biden administration to conceal the (deadly) effects of energy poverty. Fortunately (in a horrible situation) they are the most inept liars we’ve ever seen. And we’re not in a recession. Joe told me so.
“People may not have wanted Trump”
Well, 74 million voters wanted Trump in 2020. And that’s 11 million more than wanted Trump in 2016.
Lots of people want Trump. Now, more than ever.
Trump is still, by far, the favorite of the Republican Party. Despite all the efforts of the lawless Democrats.
John wasn’t blaming Putin. It’s the fools that didn’t listen to what Putin said who are to blame. Remember, Adolf H. told the world what he planned to do and Europe ignored him.
To quote Groucho Marx: “If you don’t like my principles, I have others.”
Um, perhaps (No, hell no, what was I thinking?) they could reconsider their national bans on fracking. No, hell no. They’d die first.
Germany will relent in mid October and authorize NordStream2.
Not unless they also dump the Ukraine; Putin isn’t stupid.
So what
The German government does not want German companies to pay rubles for Russian gas unless there is no other source. They’ve already cut purchases by over 50%. And Russia doesn’t want Gazprom to sell all the gas that Germany could use. Political interference on both sides. It’s a mess. I’m not sure that Nordsteam 2 is needed based on current trade volume.
Germany can neither afford to do that nor to not do that. Politically their political class are toast. They let this happen, because of Energiewende and if they dump Ukraine for Putin’s gas they will never ever be able to claim the moral high ground again.
Someone will hit on the right note that those other politicians made a really bad mistake, and if you vote us in, we will put a stop to all this renewable nonsense and build nuclear and coal plants, but meantime draw your belts in a notch and all go down to the Bier Halle where they are burning Greens, and keep warm.
Prizes will go to the first politicians who are honest.
Never mind the technicalities. Ukraine, corrupt or not, is part of the European and Western hegemony, and in attacking Ukraine Putin has de facto (if not de jure) declared war on Western Europe, and no one with any sense believes that if he gets away with it again he will stop there.He wants all of the old USSR back.
At some point Western Europe is going to have to deal with Putin, The FSB and the whole shebang. It might as well be now, and if it takes one tough winter, its a price worth paying.
Although Scholz’ Socialists have been falling out of favour, replaced by the CDU as the most popular party, the most surprising element in recent months has been the rise of support for Greens from 15 to 25 %. AfD are finally picking up a bit, but it will take a harsh winter of lessons to knock the stuffing out of the Greens.
I saw the Grün got a boost in the recent regional vote in North Rhine-Westphalia, probably due to the constant drip drip of misinformation from media about the flooding…. “it was the climate wot dunnit”.
Greens do have a habit of making huge errors of judgement, I hope this energy crisis will red pill some Germans, (easier said than done).
“At some point Western Europe is going to have to deal with Putin”
That’s right. Europe better help Ukraine defend itself from Putin, otherwise, they will be next on Putin’s list. Deal with him now, or deal with him later, after he is victorious and stronger.
A victorious psychopathic dictator is very bad news for the rest of us. Don’t give this psychopath a victory.
Well oddly enough, with the upcoming winter heating nightmare looming on the horizen, the EU might just hit it’s climate carbon emission targets.
Its almost like this whole thing was planned or something….
“the EU might just hit it’s climate carbon emission targets”
You are an optimist !
If & when hitting those targets is met, it will need to be pointed out to the citizenry that this is what “net’zero” will look like in reality. I am guessing it will bring more than a few to our point of view. Sometimes reality has to bite for people to get it.
That was also said of the transient COVID lockdowns. See? This is (was) a small taste of things to come in NutZero-world. Nobody listened.
Mother Nature is a very cruel teacher: she kills those who don’t do their homework.
In the UK electricity demand from industry has fallen by 20% since 2000. Some of this is due to better efficiency but most because the demand has been outsourced to China. Same is true for most European countries so EU meeting its emission targets is really a meaningless thing.
But despite the 20% drop in demand the UK has had to build an extra 20GW of capacity because of the intermittency of unreliables – a truly pyrrhic victory!
The Australian Energy Market Operator had a nail biting time in July, in their efforts to show that they could operate Australia on renewables. A number of calls were made to production companies to reduce their load between 5 and 8pm. That will get worse over the next two years as two major coal power stations close, in NSW.
You have to hope it leads to power outages in Canberra.
The relatively recently appointed CEO of AEMO is from the same industry in the UK. He must know that renewables are a mistake yet he is faithfully installing the same failed industry here in Australia.
No one needs “diverse energy”, they need reliable energy, but reliable energy is exactly what the elites deliberately destroyed.
Europe committed energy suicide; Putin & Xi are laughing.
Reliable energy = no unreliable windmills and solar panels on the electric grid
Why is that so complicated for politicians?
The US grid is now struggling to meet its
99.9% efficiency target, as unreliables increase.
99.9% is about an average of 8 hours of blackouts a year
Used to be caused by storms and trees falling on power lines.
Now we have the new problem of unreliables.
There is a proven solution that works thanks to US leadership.
Send maufacturing jobs to China. Then send the coal to China.
Then China will solve our problems (and Taiwan’s and South Korea’s and Japan’s and …
(Not sure what China will do about Russia’s problems.)
The only thing China is good at is blaming Tiawan, South Korea, Japan, USA, India, Viet Nam, ect.
Not being able to provide electricty when and where it is needed is a problem. Although I worked at nuke plants, I think that coal is an important part of solving that problem.
I have seen jobs go to China and coal plants in the US close. The coal trains keep going by.
The governors brag about their states being coal free while ignoring the coal trains.
Just because a solution works, does not mean it is a good solution.
I forget the sarc tag.
China is doing what The West should have never stopped doing.
Of course you are wrong as are 9 0f 10 posters on this site. People do not check their facts.
France stop using coal because they ran out and did not want to import it.
I know of no country that has stopped using coal.
So pay attention while I educate you. China and India are doing what we did in the US 100 years ago. Improve the standard of living by providing cheap electricty.
I have observed that many with a high standard of living no longer know where food and energy comes from. Califonia for example has no coal and no coal power plants. Yet Califonia school kids talk about dirty coal fired power plants.
I worked in nuclear power. If you looked at the percent of electricty generated by nuclear in a country, I could tell you how much coal they did not have.
I have lived and worked in states where the governor was both against coal and nuclear. Not a new thing, been going on for 50 years.
The governor of Califonia just got a wake up call. A sigificant share of the state power come from the last 2 nukes. When they close, he will have to approve the plan for rolling blackouts.
Are you paying attention now? Check your facts and look for the reasons power plants are closed not what you read on the internet.
What I see is old nuke and coal plants close when they are no longer econmical. Has nothing to do with energy policy.
And the hydro that was being generated at Lake Mead? That’s coming to a stop.
Yes, that is correct. The lessons learned from the 2000/2001 Califonia energy crisis have been forgotton or never learned.
20,000 MWe of hydro was offline because of hot weather and a drought.
While F David Freeman, Cali energy czar and GM of LADWP, was pointingthe finer at ENRON he was personnaly ripping off Califonia citizens with cheap coal power that LADWP owned in other states.
Those old coal plants are also now closed.
Ethnic Chinese are increasingly moving into Eastern Russia, It was a part of China before Russia took it over.
The prospect of gas pressure in networks going to zero could present hazards.
I can envisage circumstances where manually operated gas burners are left on when the gas runs out. When pressure is restored the place gets filled with gas; waiting for an ignition source that usually come free of charge..
And if the pressure in the network goes to zero, there is no back flow prevention iii household plumbing so air could infiltrate and cause an explosive mixture. The ignition source could be attempting to restart burners once gas pressure is restored.
I imagine all the water pumps and sewerage pumps have standby diesel power. But what happens when the diesel runs out. The requirement for humans to shit is more time critical than the requirement to eat. If you cannot shit, you cannot eat and you die.
Sanitation is a vital and nearly hidden function in modern civilisation. It is easy to forget its importance to health and wellbeing. There is nothing worse than low-lying areas being inundated with turds.
It is highly likely that the back flow preventers on water supplies have never been properly tested. If water pressure goes to zero anywhere then the water could easily become contaminated.
So my advice is to prepare by having ability to cook independent of utilities. Work out where you can take a dump in privacy and hold waste independent of the normal crapper. If in low lying area have a means to block crappers. You probably need to have sand bagging ability as well but contaminated water is not as bad as raw sewage migrating from internal source. Have a couple of good flashlights for emergency lighting. Have enough bottled drinking water for a week or so.
A widespread power outage could take a few days to progressively recover.
Interesting post. Thanks.
Somehow I rather doubt that considerations such as those you list have ever occurred to the geniuses of NPR, PBS, the WaPo, Pravda (a/k/a the New York Times), ABC, MSNBC, Bill McKibben, Greta Thunberg, Leo DiCaprio, Jeremy Grantham, Michael R. Bloomberg, or the senile, drooling fool in the White House.
I knew my septic system would prove its cost. Can get water from the creek to flush. Can get wood from the trees lining the creek and I can dig out the old, old, wood burning stove (but I’ll have to move heaven and hell to uncover it).
Mine would stop working – its electrically stirred to keep digestion aerobic.
But it wouldnt need to work, because my water supply wouldn’t last.
I’d just dig a hole in the garden and freeze my butt off, and look forward to next years potato and bean crop…
This is what “thundermugs” (chamberpots) are for.
People tend to take water and wastewater utilities for granted.
If the power goes out at their house or neighborhood in a large city, they usually still can turn on the tap and get water to drink and refill their toilet tank so they can flush.
But the power for the water (and wastewater) utilities still comes from the electric grid.
Such utilities along with hospitals and shopping malls (for food and supplies) are usually priorities in restoring grid power.
But if your grid’s source of power has gone “Green” … better get used to “Brown”.
the sewage system is atmospheric, ie not watrtight. if (when) it back up like you say, then blocking oyur houses pipes womt work, your neighbour’s sewage will come in form the road outside.
I estimate the half life of a city deprived of electricity to be about 10 days before the whole thing collapses.
You have mentioned sewage pumps. Well people can, and used to, shit in the streets.
But what about water? that’s pumped. And diesel and gasoline, That’s electrically pumped.
And all the electronic cash registers. No one will be able to buy anything if credit cards dont work, so they will loot instead.
Until the food in the freezers goes rotten, at which point cholera will spread like wildfire.
Because you can’t cook without gas or electricity.
The disaster that would ensure from a 10 day power cut to any major city would make Chernobyl look like a picnic.
There’s only one force that can operate effectivcely in areas with no power whatsoever, and that is the miltary. But they can only maintain a semblance of order, they can’t necessarily feed people . And a national 10 day power cut would be simply beyond anyone’s ability to deal with without massive loss of life.
I hope it doesnt come to that, but if it does, I guess at least it will ram home the message that reliaible electricity is a damn sight more important than gay marriage, and cholera doesn’t give a damn what sex or race you identify as, and with feral foxes ripping out childrens throats, maybe using dogs to kill the vermin isn’t such an immoral thing after all.
And climate change is something we will simply have to take a risk on, because trying to fix it with windmills is a sure fire route to extinction.
“I estimate the half life of a city deprived of electricity to be about 10 days before the whole thing collapses.”
A nuclear explosion that took place high in the air over the United States would cut off electricity for millions of people for a lot longer than 10 days.
Who would be crazy enough to explode a nuclear weapon over the Untied States?
Well, a Mad Mullah of Iran might be that crazy. And Joe Biden is enabling this danger by making a deal with the Mad Mullahs of Iran which will give them billions of dollars to play with, and won’t prevent them from developing a nuclear weapon and the rockets to deliver them.
Obama had this fixation with enabling the terrorists in Iran and it appears that Biden has this fixation, too. Or Obama is just pulling Biden’s strings. That would be my guess.
I’m certain that is exactly North Korea’s dearest ambition.
Yeah, them, too.
On WeatherBell, JB put out winter prelim thoughts 2 weeks ago. Europe looked pretty cold based on analogs. A cold winter in Europe ups the ante even more.
Take a good look at what the Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption did to the Southern Hemisphere.It’s migrating North.
The injection of seawater into the mesosphere means that a lot of element and compounds were also delivered, among them: sodium, magnesium, calcium, potassium, iron, mercury, chlorine, iodine, bromine, fluorine, sulfur, nitrogen, oxygen and silica to name but a few. What effect this will have on global weather is anybody’s guess.
I only occasionally read something on Bloomberg because I have often found it trash.
Perhaps if you sift through the chaff you may find a solitary grain of wheat.
A quango that advises the UK government “misled Parliament about the cost of Net Zero”.
The main thing to be said about quangos is that is a fine word to have been added to the English language. Is it used outside of the UK at all?
(QUANGO=Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation. Essentially non-elected bureaucrats that have been given governmental and legal authority over their particular area of jurisdiction. I would guess that the EPA would be a good example in the US. They can come for you, and get you if they want to, without the courts or elected government representatives being involved at all.)
That quango, the Climate Change Committee, was criticised by Treasury witnesses to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) earlier this year.
In their report ‘Achieving Net Zero’ the PAC said
“Treasury witnesses were reluctant to be drawn on the future costs of achieving net zero cautioning that the Climate Change Committee’s estimates contain ‘heroic assumptions’ with errors potentially compounding over very long periods”
In other words they were cr*p
Meanwhile in Canada, our prime minister says “there has never been a strong business case for moving Canadian LNG to Europe”
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/possibly-one-of-the-greatest-missed-opportunities-in-canadian-history
Ho hum another Greeny power grid same old story-
Consumer confidence in Australia’s energy system suffers steepest-ever plunge (msn.com)
If you spend years ignoring hockey sticks
dont be surprised to be whacked by one.
The only correlation between hokey schticks and power prices is that both are the effects of perfidy.
Two graphs showing the difference between fantasy and reality.
Why are you still using Mickey Mann’s fake treemometer temperature series?
It’s all they have.
It *is* all they have.
Just think, that bogus, bastadized Hockey Stick is what got us in this mess in the first place. Without the Hockey Stick, the alarmists would have nothing scary to point to.
All the actual written records of temperatures from around the world refute the “hotter and hotter and hotter” temperature profile of the Hockey Stick chart. The written records look nothing like the computer-generated Hockey Stick. The written records show it was just as warm in the recent past as it is today, which demonstrates that CO2 is a minor player in determining the Earth’s temperatures.
The Hockey Stick chart is a BIG LIE and is what led us to this disaster where our stupid politicians are elimnating our sources of energy in order to control the demon gas CO2. All based on the Hockey Stick LIE.
Michael Mann must be so proud of himself. He’s managed to fool millions of people into believing a false CO2 narrative.
Everyone should get themselves a copy of “The Hockey Stick Illusion” (advertised on this webpage) if they want to know the basis for all the lies about CO2 and the Earth’s climate. It all starts with the Hockey Stick lie.
It’s all the climate alarmists have to prove their case, and it’s all a big lie.
And Big Lies can’t propagate without the assistance of the mass media. They are the ones spreading these lies near and far, and the ones trying to shout down the skeptics.
The one who turned the Hokey Schtick up to 11 was Albert Gore.
That’s right. He made the most of it, too.
Loydo is so archetypical of the useful idiot chattering class.
Still wittering on about ‘greenhouse gases’ while his little fantasy world is collapsing all around him due to renewable energy.
I could say more, but I cant be bothered, he just isn’t relevant anymore to anything.
These people are insane. They need to start up every generator of every type, get to mining, get to drilling and get to building more generators coal if need be but certainly gas and nuclear. There should be some way to salvage those useless wind and solar generators, maybe use them for landfill for new nuclear plants. I feel this could be a painful winter for many people but in the end they have no one to blame but themselves. You can’t just sit on your backside and let your leaders screw over you. The US needs to start doing the same thing. We are nearly as foolish as the Europeans, it is frightful.
They do indeed appear to be insane.
In the UK, politicians and the BBC (peace be upon them) continuously talk about energy price-caps, subsidies, etc etc. They refuse to start addressing the fact that cheap, reliable sources of energy have been discouraged and actively discriminated against for decades now. All in the name of saving the planet from carbon dioxide and global warming.
They caused the problems. Openly. By decree.
Nero fiddling while Rome burns is not a sufficiently adequate metaphor.
Bob: What they need to do and what they will do are two different things. What has happened, as far as my analysis goes – which isnt nearly far enough – is that the political classes – given we have had a major war-free 50 years or so of unparalleled prosperity, have concentrated on more and more pointless irrelevant issues to win elections on, feathering their own and cronies nests, whilst falling out of the habit of actually governing their countries.
Renewable energy is just another nest feathering exercise for chums.
Sadly, the world just changed. The music stopped and everyone is looking for a chair to sit down on or get thrown out of the game.
It will probably take completely new people to stop thinking in terms of politics is all about social justice, and get down to ‘politics is actually about keeping the lights on and civilisation running’.
My guess is hoi polloi will react faster than the political classes will. Their greatest nightmare, people taking matters into their own hands, thereby removing the need for politicians and civil servants altogether.
It will probably take completely new people to stop thinking in terms of politics is all about social justice, and get down to ‘politics is actually about keeping the lights on and civilisation running’.
My guess is Liz reckons she’s just the woman for the task and there aint no easy way out of the Green mess so toughen up princesses-
Liz Truss’s energy plans will be disastrous for our bills and the planet (msn.com)
I work in the business and for 15-years I have been writing articles that the EU’s policies will cause an energy disaster – well, here we are. The energy transition is unsustainable for humanity. Renewables are neither cheap nor plentiful consistently and politicians have traded security of supply for low carbon. All of them barr none should be fired and never allowed to meddle with energy again.
politicians have traded security of supply for low carbon.
Yep we sell coal to China so we can buy solar panels windmills and EVs to be Green and save the planet-
• Number of coal power plants by country 2022 | Statista
That’s the way the IPCC and COPumpteenth work with a tick of approval to China cos Xi is a much nicer bloke than that Putin feller. You need to contextualize these things like lefties.
Amen
Fertilizer/Natural Gas Prices
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/88331/
Natural gas prices 7 times the price in the US and 10 times a year ago means the cost to make fertilizer soars higher.
This gets dialed into the cost of growing crops/input costs and in some cases, results in cutting back on fertilizer in 2023, This may result in lower crop yields/production and less supply which puts upward pressure on food prices.
One of the reasons causing this was the shift from reliable coal 30 years ago to increasing amounts of very unreliable fake green energy.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/88331/#88344
So the unthinkable has happened in Europe. They’ve restarted coal burning plants to generate reliable electricity because the fake environmental schemes were not working as planned.
As a result, its messing up their fraudulent, political Climate Accord commitments that were never really intended to affect the climate.
It should be called the Paris Political Agreement, Pretend Climate Accord.
.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/88331/#88345
Since green fairy energy does not exist in the real world, this is just an early glimpse of what the future looks like in the real world as the government subsidized, fake green/anti environmental, diffuse, unreliable energy schemes are imposed on society.