From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
NESO issued yet another Electricity Margin Notice for yesterday evening’s peak period, with low winds and solar power dropping away:
As usual, there was never any threat of blackouts. The Notices are designed to give generators, particularly gas, adequate time to get capacity ready.
In the event, we relied on gas for 52% of our electricity supply, plus 11% from imports.
The real question is what will happen when all of those gas plants are shut down under Net Zero.
In order to give BACK UP generators time to get ready. Sounds like the unreliables are not particularily reliable. Double talk and PR poofery. Pity.
Sounds like several hours additional bottom line expense .
Exclusive: Creation of GB Grid will be major step towards putting Britain’s utility companies into public control – The Guardian
Which will change nothing. Utilities may be in private ownership, but they are heavily regulated and effectively controlled by… the government, anyway. All we can expect is smoke and mirrors by gaslight. But there’s more. If you happen to disagree in any way, the UK free speech impediment becomes apparent…
The Government is keeping a blacklist of people who question its policies, with social media posts criticising the Government being monitored and investigated by officials.
…
Jacob Smith, who fought for a year to get the Home Office to publish the information, said: “You should be allowed to criticise government policy without being put on a list.”
And to ensure the analogue world is also covered
Burnham Sets Up Ministry of Truth
Someone needs to go back in time to persuade Carroll, Huxley, Orwell etc not to write their instruction manuals.
Worrying News…. Story Tip
Electric cars are an even poorer choice for the average motorist than they were three years ago. Government subsidies have now vanished and electric car owners have to pay Road Tax – from which they were formerly exempt – and there are plans to introduce a pay-per-mile charge for all EV drivers. Owners of petrol and diesel cars are also being squeezed and just before the book went to the publishers the Government announced proposed legislation – due to go through Parliament in the summer of 2027 – which requires owners of all internal combustion engine cars to submit to a yearly exhaust emission level check.
The implication of this proposed legislation is that any cars which fail the new emission regulations – which may happen just because their catalytic convertor is a few years old – will have to be scrapped. I believe this is a cynical ploy to take many petrol and diesel cars off the road and force people into electric cars. – Daily Sceptic
All cars over 3 years old have a mandatory annual emissions test as part of the standard yearly MOT vehicle test. Emissions already are a fail or pass test…
My ice car passed its test this September, that gives me a while…
My fleet is getting on for 40 years old (‘cos I never buy a car less than 20 years old already), at which point they are exempt from vehicle excise tax and annual MoT inspections. (They are required to be maintained in roadworthy condition though, which is fair. I don’t want to die in a fiery crash of my own making!)
On a related point, almost nothing about new cars appeals to me at all. They seem designed to be uneconomically repairable within a small number of years.
They all look alike, and larger.
The way forward is subscriptions. Once you bought a car, and for a bit extra it had a stereo or a sun roof etc added. Now it’s all there in the car, but it won’t work without that subscription.
The uproar over BMW subscription features was never really about heated seats. Heated seats were only the symbol: a small rectangle of warmth buried inside a luxury car, suddenly transformed from a familiar comfort option into a monthly commercial relationship.
My 2017 Fiat Tipo is relatively low mileage. True, it has an electronic engine management system, but it is entirely independent of the tyranny of software updates, subscriptions etc. It is splendidly isolated.
I’ve just bought a new car.
Got a cracking deal on a Renault Clio Iconic Esprit Alpine with the 1.6 E-Tech engine. My old Fiesta was starting to have electrical issues, which meant it was time for a new one. It’ll probably be the last car that I buy, as my days of changing my car when I got bored of them have passed.
I’m not especially happy with the batteries, but at least it’s got a proper engine, and if you drive it spiritedly, the batteries don’t kick in at all 😉 In fairness, around town, the batteries are ok, but not on the open road.
The biggest issue for me is the automatic box; it’s really difficult to find an affordable new car with a manual box these days.
Britain’s National Audit Office has just issued a report (September 2026)’Upgrading the electricity transmission network’
£70bn investment that OFGEM (Office of Gas and Electricity Markets) say is needed to upgrade and maintain the grid from 1st April 2025 to 31 March 2031£1.9bn paid 2025-26 to balance the grid.£7.8bn upper estimates of constraint payments by 2030 if grid upgrades not accelerated80 grid upgrades needed by 2030 of which only 12 have been completed.Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) has allowed renewable electricity generation to expand faster than the grid which has led to increasing constraint costs. As a result thermal constraint costs have risen risen from £0.6bn in 2018-19 to £1.9bn in 2025-26Transmission owners will need to spend up to £70bn 2025-31 on grid upgrades quadrupling the current rate.NESO (National Energy System Operator) recommended a further £89bn investment beyond 2030.Many of the 88 grid upgrades are at risk of not being completed when neededNo significant acceleration of the 3 projects NESO recommended to be accelerated in 2024 to reduce constraint costsOne further project has now been delayed beyond 2030Government has not demonstrated that these projects represent the best way of achieving its objectivesIn 2000 there were 179 generation sites, by 2025 this had risen to 1317 reflecting connection of a large number of new generation sites and closure of a smaller number of older power stationsAs you can see everything is going extremely well 🙂
Funny how they keep framing an avoidable cost as “investment”. But not so funny for those whose money is being “invested”.
Something happened to the formatting. I originally put all the information on separate bullet points so it was easier to read!
“The real question is what will happen when all of those gas plants are shut down under Net Zero.”
Another real question is what will happen when those exporters need the electricity for their own country.
Fire up all fossil fuel and nuclear generators, build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators, remove all wind and solar from the grid.