Essay by Eric Worrall
WUWT recently reported how Conservative Party rebels sabotaged Liz Truss’ attempt to increase domestic gas availability by allowing fracking. Britain might be about to pay the price.
National Grid warns Britons of blackouts on ‘really cold’ evenings
FT conference hears of various ‘unlikely’ scenarios in which UK might not have sufficient energy
Nathalie Thomas, Energy Correspondent OCTOBER 18 2022
National Grid’s chief executive has warned British households to prepare for blackouts between 4pm and 7pm on “really, really cold” weekdays in January and February in the event of reduced gas imports from Europe.
John Pettigrew said the company would have to impose rolling power cuts on “those deepest darkest evenings in January and February” if generators failed to secure enough gas from the continent to meet demand, particularly if the country suffers a cold snap.
Pettigrew’s comments at the Financial Times’s Energy Transition Summit came after National Grid, which oversees Britain’s electricity and gas systems, this month took the unusual step of setting out various “unlikely” scenarios in which Britain might not have sufficient energy supplies this winter.
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https://www.ft.com/content/d31fbbd6-8325-43b7-94e4-29101cfe6045In those “worst case” circumstances, power would be cut off to parts of the country for up to three hours “probably between 4pm and 7pm in the evenings on those weekdays when it’s really, really cold in January and February”, Pettigrew said.
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Read more: https://www.ft.com/content/d31fbbd6-8325-43b7-94e4-29101cfe6045
I would love to know why John Pettigrew, CEO of National Grid, thinks energy shortage scenarios are “unlikely”.
Britain and Europe could have a mild winter – that possibility exists. The British MET are forecasting a mild winter, though they haven’t ruled out the possibility of cold spells.
If winter weather turns nasty, there could be severe energy shortages.
I doubt Russian gas will come to the rescue. There seems little prospect of an imminent outbreak of common sense in the Russia / Ukraine conflict. Both sides are currently trading claims the other side wants to detonate a radioactive dirty bomb in Kherson.
So long as the conflict drags on, Europe will remain cut off from previously reliable Russian gas supplies. What gas does get through will be subject to geopolitical games.
President Biden offered US gas to Europe, but the plan to export US gas to Britain and Europe could break down this winter. The US North East is running short of gas, thanks to energy policy incompetence, so if the North East winter turns cold, it seems likely there will be demands for the diversion of any US fossil fuel exports back to US consumers.
The situation in Europe without Russian gas is dire. Germany is so worried about energy shortages they are preparing for riots, preparing special federal police squads to maintain order in the event of a general breakdown in society – so I doubt Germany would agree to giving Britain any of their share of European gas supplies.
Britain has a large electricity inter-connector to France, so Britain can access French nuclear capacity. But France is currently experiencing major problems with their nuclear reactors, a sizeable fraction of their nuclear fleet has been shut down for maintenance, because of corrosion concerns. If winter turns cold, France would most likely take care of their own people first, and keep their energy for themselves.
Liz Truss, to her credit, tried to do something about the shortages, but British Conservative rebels sabotaged Liz Truss’ gallant, last ditch attempt to increase domestic gas availability, by attaching a prolonged review process to any attempts to permit fracking. I had my doubts about Liz, but she really put herself on the line to try to alleviate Britain’s horror winter energy shortage – only to be torn down by short sighted fools in her own party.
So it seems very likely indeed that Britain will face at least some periods of energy and heating insecurity this winter.
If this winter turns cold, and the power and heat fails, civil unrest and riots could break out.
I don’t think the politicians who wrecked Britain and Germany’s energy security fully appreciate where the mess they have created could lead. They seem complacently confident they are safe from any unrest amongst the peasants.
Update from Breitbart, New British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has reinstated the fracking ban.
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Lighting bonfires to power the solar panels and some diesel generators to turn the wund turbines will do the trick.
Buy a few cords of seasoned wood for those cold nights.
British cities are crowded, a lot of people don’t have fireplaces.
British people are inventive – the urban estate crowds have used improvised community fireplaces before now; aka setting cars on fire!
This post led me to wonder about the progress with the East Med pipeline which would transport natural gas from the fields off of Cyprus and Israel to Greece and onward into the rest of Europe. I found an article reporting that the Biden Administration withdrew U.S. support for the pipeline last January. Turkey, which opposes the pipeline, aired a video of a statement by the State Department political appointee charged with this area of responsibility in which he says:
“Why would we build a fossil fuel pipeline between the EastMed and Europe when our entire policy is to support new technology… and new investments in going green and in going clean?” he asked. “By the time this pipeline is built, we will have spent billions of taxpayer money on something that is obsolete – not only obsolete but against our collective interest between the US and Europe.”
“This project probably will not happen because it’s too complicated, too expensive, and too late in the arch of history,” he said.”
I wonder what freezing Europeans will think of this action as their grids collapse.
Thanks Ray, I didn’t know about the East Med line. But yes, there is a determination in Europe to clear the way for renewables. The tech dyslexics who run Europe don’t understand renewables can’t deliver what Europe needs.
Re Britain’s new PM
“Had to laugh.
An anagram of Rishi Sunak is Hi Risk Anus.”
https://joannenova.com.au/2022/10/unplug-the-fridge-uk-gears-up-for-hard-cold-winter-and-bbc-secretly-plans-for-a-national-blackout/#comment-2602270
Warnings seem counterproductive.
If people expect blackouts on really cold nights, a weather forecast of a really cold night might convince people to turn up their thermostat during the afternoon to get their homes as warm as they could tolerate. If they later lose power on that very cold night, at least they will start the blackout with a very warm home. At least that’s how I think.
And if a lot of people think along the same lines then the warning of blackouts could become a self fulfilling prophecy.
85% of houses in the UK are heated and get hot water from gas. But the boilers and heating systems require electricity to work. They are hot water systems. The radiators are water filled, and require a pump to circulate the water through the heat exchanger in the boiler. What happens is, thermostat calls for heat, this triggers the pump, which then triggers the boiler.
Some houses still have large cylinders which store hot water, but many use so called ‘combi’ boilers, where there is no water store, but mains water is heated as the hot taps are opened.
Some will still be cooking on gas, but most will now be using electric hobs and ovens.
Most of the rest of the houses will be rural and oil heated. Same principle. Thermostat calls for heat which triggers pump which triggers boiler. Almost all of these houses will be cooking on electricity.
So if they really do have a blackout in early evening, that means no heat, for lots of people no hot water, and no cooking.
You might think that the oil fired people, mostly in rural locations off the gas grid, will be better off, because they are immune to natural gas availability and price fluctuations, but given the above its not the case. And in any case there are very few gravity fed oil installations at this point which means they have an extra dependency. Tanks are mostly located now at ground level and the boiler draws in the kerosene. With a pump, powered by electricity.
There are a small number of LPG tank installations, but the same thing, the pumped hot water thing, applies to them.
The only way to be sure of heat this winter is to be one of the few rural installations with a solid fuel stove. You will be sitting in the dark, reading perhaps by candlelight or an emergency battery powered light, but at least you’ll be warm. Assuming that your neighbors have not bought up all the available coal!
How likely is it? Almost certain. The usual week long blocking high will happen, there will be no wind and almost no solar, and there will be a gas shortage. The utter idiocy of converting power generation to intermittent sources liable to week long outages in the coldest and darkest times of the year!
Buy down and fleece, you will need them. And vote against Net Zero, if you ever get a chance, because its going to get worse, not better, the longer that idiocy is persisted in.
Hello, the “blackout” story is a contrived MSM scare story. Every autumn the Grid produces a forecast, mostly ignored but always has a worst case scenario. In the U.K. we have a substantial power mix, and export and import power from the European grid as well as Norway. Currently catastrophism is the vogue, but even with “really really cold” (define please) blackouts are highly unlikely.
No, this year they are likely. Because gas and French nuclear. There is going to be a lot less to import. And there will be less gas to run the gas generation.
And no, the UK does not have a substantial power mix. Its almost totally dependent on gas. Because without gas, the wind doesn’t work, and solar is non-existent in January.
seeing as sweden wont even tell the rest of the eu what they found on the blown lines cos..too secret to tell anyone? yeah suuure it is
and then they wont allow russia to go look to DO repairs either, russias said they arent in a hurry to do so (understandable)
meanwhile 60 lpg tankers are backed up in eu ports used as storages cos they dont have the ability to process it..oops
why the hell hasnt UK got LPG processing setups?
quoting ussa
maybe UK is TOO RELIANT on the bloody EU feeding em nuke n gas power??
Russia quite reasonably also wanted payment via their banks in Rubles after the SWIFT debacle and the theft of their OS trade funds, they werent asking what the usa is for the LPG by a long shot either.
self inflicted injuries and maybe it will take deaths to get the people to get off their asses and stop this stupidity re renewable fairytales
faint hope after the covid debacle proved even vax deaths didnt get em moving
During his leadership campaign, Rishi Sunak declared his support for fracking.
Maybe it was just a mini stroke that caused that.
What the moron Pettigrew hasn’t factored in is even though it might be mild across most of the UK as it certainly is in the South-East at the moment, just a few miles away, the continent can be in a deep freeze. At that point Pettigrew, how much spare energy will be coming our way via the interconnectors? With the changed jet stream pattern, it has often been the case that we see the warm air flow from the south while a bit to the east they get the arctic plunge.
Everyone in the UK and the continent should donate their warm coats to the brave people of Ukraine fighting invasion by tyrants. This is since you don’t have a need for them in your global warming perception bubble.
RE: the northeastern U.S. running short of natural gas “thanks to energy policy incompetence,” I think I might substitute “malfeasance” for “incompetence,” but even that might not be precisely the right word. The appalling truth is that all of these literally life-threatening problems, on both sides of the Atlantic, result from things the political left has actively desired and imposed deliberately and it stretches credulity to believe these people are so stupid they didn’t know what would happen. Eleven days and counting down to midterm elections that will tell us whether most American adults are as finished as I am with being condescended to by people I wouldn’t hire to mow my lawn…