Tuesday
May132014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Hard hitting at the Times
May 13, 2014 Energy: grid The Times (£) has taken a look at UK energy policy and has come away pretty appalled with what it has found:
With zero margin for error, power cuts are virtually inevitable. Britons are in fact becoming more efficient in their use of energy. Overall consumption has fallen slightly since the 1970s and markedly since 2005. A crisis looms despite this trend because of steadily declining North Sea output and the planned obsolescence of ageing power stations.
There are extended excerpts at GWPF.
Reader Comments (18)
And the people responsible call us deniers.
Miliband (E), ex-Con Huhne, Davey...aided and abetted by Deben (Selwyn Gummer) and Yeo.
These are not folks you'd trust to run a whelk stall, let alone anything remotely important on a national scale.
An island built on coal, gas and oil and we rely on f...g windmills!
You couldn't make it up.
Clearly the power stations will have to be kept open, and upgraded with some urgency
@fenbeagleblog
Your reality is staring all of us in the face. It has been obvious for some while now.
I have yet to see anyone in Government for the last fifteen years face this reality, let alone draw up a sensible plan to deal with it.
I wonder what the excuse will be when rolling blackouts arrive next winter and tens of thousands die in the extreme cold. Global Warming?
Electricity has been the political pass the parcel that MPs of all persuasions have ignored. I suspect they feel confident because a) they take supply for granted and b) in a crisis, every party would have to shoulder part of the blame. There’s always the concern that blackouts are a bit like any other scare story, but unlike CAGW, it’s a scare we’ve actually experienced before. I predict that severe blackouts would not be the result of a simple lack of supply but be the final domino in a series that will start with something else. It might be a strike or a flu epidemic. Something that is ‘unexpected’ but will rapidly put pressure on the already fragile system. Part of the plan seems to rely on our having mild winters.
In the event of power cuts the worst impact in the short term would be on the most vulnerable and unless the government has looked at how important energy is to the elderly and the disabled, they wouldn’t appreciate the risks. In the long term the risk is to the UK’s business credibility. Do the banks and trading houses want the headlines for 2015/16 to be ‘Blackout Britain – A poor place to do business in our 24/7 culture’?
Fenbeagle: "Clearly the power stations will have to be kept open, and upgraded with some urgency". But the Government cannot force the owners to keep open any power stations or stop them being moth-balled or even make the owners operate them.
I've found a picture.
http://politicsandothershenanigans.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/cockroach-king-large.jpg
Posted on the wrong thread, should be the one before about Bob Ward.
@ Phillip Bratby at 11:52 AM
"But the Government cannot force the owners to keep open any power stations or stop them being moth-balled or even make the owners operate them."
But it can repeal misguided legislation which consequently made them uneconomic.
Philip Bratby, Joe Public, of course the obvious solution for socialists is nationalisation. If labour are back in power next year, I wouldn't be surprised if they have a plan to nationalise any plant that the owners decline to operate. If they're still talking nationalisation wrt the railways, then they'll consider anything.
Clearly the power stations will have to be kept open, and upgraded with some urgency
May 13, 2014 at 11:19 AM | Unregistered Commenterfenbeagleblog
I'm not sure this is possible. The UK Parliament passed the CC act in 2008 Oct 28 making CO² reduction a legal requirement. There is also, I think, a carbon tax which comes into full force in 2015. The coal fired stations will have to pay a huge tax on coal. They will never be able to sell their generated power except at a far higher price than currently.
However, the rest of Europe is no better off. The germans are building lignite fired stations as fast as they can but they are unlikely to come on stream for the next 2-3 years. No, The whole of europe is in the deep, deep brown stuff but that may be what is needed to turf out the clowns.
However, this is where Hitler came in and we are approaching a possibly dangerous situation.
It all comes down to there being no ENGINEERS in Parliament...
There is no guarantee that the French and Dutch will provide any electricity via the interconnectors when they see us in shortfall - in fact the opposite is more likely. The interconnectors will be used as a threat.
Tiny
"the banks and trading houses"
Perhaps it's time they pointed out to DECC that their activities will be thrown into utter chaos by any substantial mains failure. Even if they have sufficient backup generation, the square mile won't look good shrouded in diesel smoke...
JohninCheshire: "...I wouldn't be surprised if they have a plan to nationalise any plant that the owners decline to operate"
And there was me thinking that our power generation plants had already been nationalised - but by the Germans and the French. [/s]
Seriously, can we really see the EU allowing such a thing to happen? I know the EU is very much in favour of socialism but this would be a socialist venture too far. (IMHO)
I just love how the de-industrialisation of the UK is now called 'becoming more efficient in their use of energy'.
Once again the skeptics are proven correct: Climate obsession leads to bad energy policies.
We have to get accustomed to it at some point as we still have a long way to go to reach our 80% reduction in GHG emissions by 2050.