Brits Freezing Assets Off

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--Please see below link for an article about possible Winter power shortages in the UK.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/350389/Winter-power-cuts-feared-as-Britain-runs-out-of-energy

“Unfortunately consumers can expect to be footing much of this bill. This is deeply concerning as the cost of household energy has already rocketed by 140 per cent since 2004.”

"I am no poet, but if you think for yourselves, as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your minds."
Michael Faraday 1791 1867

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[Neilm]

There have been warnings about this for the last 10 years. The politicians keep ignoring them, or come out saying that we need more wind farms as they will take up the slack without generating CO2. In all cases they keep saying that the energy companies should pay for them.

They will only start to do anything when the power cuts start to happen

Neil

[mariush]

Maybe they can educate the British to stop drinking tea



Problems solved.

(joking)

[M0BSW]

Maybe they can educate the British to stop drinking tea



Problems solved.

(joking)

there's nothing wrong with a good cup of tea , it's the idiots that's running the country plus the Bankers their friends

[NiHaoMike]

Set the thermostat to 65F or below during the winter and 78F or above during the summer.

[tom66]

Energy costs across the world have gone up, including oil.

Where's the news? Just another excuse for the Express to blame environmentalism?

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--Tom66 has said "Energy costs across the world have gone up, including oil.
Where's the news? Just another excuse for the Express to blame environmentalism?

--The news was in the headline of the article:

"WINTER POWER CUTS FEARED AS BRITAIN RUNS OUT OF ENERGY"

--and

"The battle to keep the lights on is also being compromised by EU anti-pollution laws which are forcing the early shutdown of coal-fired power stations. At the same time Britain’s nuclear plants are also closing. The shutdowns will lead to a 30 percent cut in the UK’s electricity generating capacity."

--So I guess that Tom66's point was that a 30% reduction in generating capacity has nothing to do with predicted "Winter Power Cuts", which are not news, go figure.

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."
William Shakespeare 1564 - 1616

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[tom66]

This is scaremongering. We will not run out of energy over winter. But it will cost us a lot to maintain it because we still rely on outdated coal and gas power stations, instead of nuclear, solar, wind or hydro (least to most preferable.)

[G7PSK]

This is what happens when you privatize the electricity generating company, Investors want profit today not what is best for the community in 20 years time which is the sort of time frame required for planning and building power plant. 

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--A couple of points with regard to some of the most recent posts:

--1)If this is scaremongering, it is scaremongering by the UK government arm OFGEM which regulates the Electricity and Gas markets in the UK.

"BRITAIN faces power cuts by the winter of 2015 as ageing power plants are shut down, a shocking report warned yesterday. Energy regulator Ofgem also said consumers face massive rises in electricity bills as generators are forced to rely on expensive gas to fuel power stations."

--2)Surely no one really thinks that all nuclear and coal plants, 30%, are being shut down because of privatization, do they?

"The battle to keep the lights on is also being compromised by EU anti-pollution laws which are forcing the early shutdown of coal-fired power stations. At the same time Britain’s nuclear plants are also closing. The shutdowns will lead to a 30 per cent cut in the UK’s electricity generating capacity."

--Nope, definitely not the result of unconstrained market forces, that I can see. Clearly, with regard to energy utilities, the government must have some role, as they, by inherent physical nature, must be monopolies. We cannot have multiple companies running gas and power lines to the same places. The question is, has the government been doing things correctly? Just look at the difference in promise and performance of UK Wind. If it had been sold as what it is now actually doing, could it have been sold in the first place?

--If a dealer is selling dodgy automobiles, and gets caught out by the government, saying that the newspaper that published the government information just hates automobiles, and does not really care about people being cheated, is a very weak defense.

"Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching around for what it gets."
Henry Ford 1863 - 1947

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[tom66]

Hmm, I will have to find that report. The one thing I've learned from newspaper reports is they often take the press release, which in itself is cut down. The report, could, for example, suggest that 2015 is a particularly bad year, but it's all sunny from there on in - I don't know. I guess newspapers don't link to the reports because it could show how often they get it wrong.

[G7PSK]

That is just it in the UK we do have multiple power company's many of whom are not UK owned they are in it for the profit and nothing else, if the operating conditions become too onerous they will just walk away. The only monopoly is the central grid local distribution is by other company's yet again, the retail of power is in yet more hands and all in a country that is smaller than many US states, it is a recipe for disaster. 

[poptones]

If a dealer is selling dodgy automobiles, and gets caught out by the government, saying that the newspaper that published the government information just hates automobiles, and does not really care about people being cheated, is a very weak defense.

ROTFL. There must be a dearth of reflective surfaces in your house.

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--Poptones has yet to explain this quote from his post "No Fracking Way":

"From Nature:
"The agency tested the water in the shallow wells that tap the groundwater above the 169 gas-producing wells in the field; in two municipal wells in the town; and in several surface and deep wells that it drilled for monitoring purposes. It found evidence of contamination in both the shallow and deep wells, and attributed the shallow contamination to the 33 or so nearby surface pits used to store drilling wastes"

169/33... hmmmm, that would seem to be about 5. As in 20%"

--Now, Pop posted this as evidence for his claim that frack wells cause toxic pollution for miles around 20% of the time. Now surface pits are where the excess water and fracking fluids are pumped during installation of the wells. So all frack fields have surface pits while the wells are being drilled, yes? So, you have a field of 169 wells with 33 surface pits. Just how can you divide the surface pits into the wells to get 20% or "5" as Pop calls it? Then he claims that this proves frack wells cause toxic pollutions for miles around in 20% of all cases. Now, watch him avoid answering this one again.

--If I had made that post, I would be real careful about calling people stupid.

"We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid."
Benjamin Franklin  1706 - 1790

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[poptones]

I didn't call you stupid, I said you lack self awareness. I'm not going to argue with you anymore because I think you're an oil industry shill astroturfing forums.

[HardBoot]

The UK is pretty much screwed energy wise, their nuclear program isn't very good, they rely heavily on fossil fuels, and they don't have tons of possible hydroelectric because the place is pretty flat.
Thorium seems to be their only practical solution... but there's hardly any push for it, so the sods will end up in the dark eventually.

[siliconmix]

i've changed to LED's to light my bench

[Neilm]

The UK is pretty much screwed energy wise, their nuclear program isn't very good, they rely heavily on fossil fuels, and they don't have tons of possible hydroelectric because the place is pretty flat.

There are a lot of NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) in this country. Add them to the greens (All nuclear is evil) and the number of sites for nuclear power stations shrinks considerably. Ironically, there is a nuclear power station on the south cost (Dungeness) that has space for another reactor in the grounds - and the government have refused planning permission.

Oh well, we can always buy the electricity from France.

Neil

[HardBoot]

The UK is pretty much screwed energy wise, their nuclear program isn't very good, they rely heavily on fossil fuels, and they don't have tons of possible hydroelectric because the place is pretty flat.

There are a lot of NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) in this country. Add them to the greens (All nuclear is evil) and the number of sites for nuclear power stations shrinks considerably. Ironically, there is a nuclear power station on the south cost (Dungeness) that has space for another reactor in the grounds - and the government have refused planning permission.
Oh well, we can always buy the electricity from France.
Neil

Canada is the biggest mix of energy in a country I know... every province and territory has it's own independent energy policy and they're all pretty bad.
Ontario has a MASSIVE nuclear fleet but blew of tens of billions because they loaned the money from banks instead of having a development bank, nuclear covers the base load and the peak is done by hydroelectric and gas... it's a good program that has no future, nuclear plans scrapped, no new hydro sites,  there's a tiny bit of coal still around because gas and hydro growth stalled. So it was a good program, but blew so much money and has no good future plans.
Alberta uses Coal, Gas, Oil for all of it's energy... very messy, prices going up.
The maritimes(east of Quebec) import from Quebec and pay terrible prices, they're not organized well enough to have their own energy program.
Far north... they pay insane amounts of money on desel power, the natives would go against nuclear in a heatbeat so they're just stuck with diesel.
CANDU is the best conventional form of nuclear reactor, but the Conservative government dumped it and sold it to a private company.
Since CANDU's future may be dead, and there's no other good old-world nuclear reactors, Thorium(LFTR) is the only promising program for the future.

People just don't care about things when they work, gotta wait for the lights to go out for then to start to... which will happen eventually, when the UK is a huge importer and a HV buried cable fails, they'll be stuck with rolling blackouts until they repair.