Bishop Hill Three years until the lights go out
Oct 5, 2012 Energy: grid Ofgem, the UK's energy regulator, has apparently announced that the UK should expect power outages to begin in the winter of 2015-16.
Britain risks running out of energy generating capacity in the winter of 2015-16, according to the energy regulator Ofgem.
Its report predicted that the amount of spare capacity could fall from 14% now to only 4% in three years.
Ofgem said this would leave Britain relying more on imported gas, which would make price rises more likely.
The government said that its forthcoming Energy Bill would ensure that there was secure supply.
That last bit is not a joke. The government really thinks that throwing money into the wind is going to make things better. Really, I wouldn't like to be Lord Deben, Chris Huhne, Ed Davey, Gregory Barker or Lord Marland when it all goes dark.
Reader Comments (94)
I clicked through to the Beeb report and was distracted by this on another story on the right hand side:
No, it really isn't. The energy stand-off is odder and far less amusing to boot.
"The government really thinks that throwing money into the wind is going to make things better."
Assuming there is some wind!
We've been discussing this on unthreaded.
The full report is at http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Markets/WhlMkts/monitoring-energy-security/elec-capacity-assessment/Documents1/Electricity%20Capacity%20Assessment%202012.pdf
It looks like, even on their probability assessment (and I wouldn't expect these civil servants not to make mistakes), that there is a good chance of power cuts. And the wind power won't be of any assistance.
I think it should be
TwoThree yearsFixed. Bloomin' mathematicians.
:-)
In 2010's cold winter, the only reason we didn't have rolling power cuts was the industrial recession with car plants etc. on short time. Those plants are now at full bore so if we have another snowy cold winter, we'll have power cuts soon. The end of October will be very cold with snow. Only a couple of weeks ago, Northern Iceland had 2 m of snow.
The end of coal power next March means 2013's winter, which will probably be colder as the sun is shutting off fast, will probably have major power cuts. The smart people are buying generators before those prices rocket. By then the people will have twigged that the greenies are intending to kill millions and will react with fury at the traitorous politicians like the CCC, DC, Clegg, Davey and Alexander.
The madcap thinking of Chris Huhne and Ed Davey (or rather Laurel & Hardy) will serious damage both our long term energy planning and our health of Western economies. Unfortunately, the suicidal course we are on, will take time to reverse and it isn't clear whether we will be able to recover from this. Will these people be blamed for the damage they have already caused and will cause?
"...and I wouldn't expect these civil servants not to make mistakes..."
Oct 5, 2012 at 5:54 PM | Phillip Bratby
Philip, it comes as no surprise to me that the cock-up over the planning for the franchise-letting on the West coast main-line has been blamed on a bad computer model. (PM, Radio 4, this evening). I'm left to wonder when they might admit that some other models might also be in error.
This is what happens when you let Friends of the Earth (aka Enemies of Humans) develop your energy strategy for you.
The report makes very interesting reading. In 2015/16, if there's a high demand (presumably during a cold spell), there is a 1 in 2.4 probability of electricity consumers being disconnected. That will certainly result in deaths. Who will be held responsible? There is a long list of Energy Ministers going back 15 years who have all ignored the warnings, particularly most recently Milliband, Huhne and Davey. These three will be the main culprits.
2002 Energy watchdog warns of power cuts in 2015 - well nobody will be able to say they weren't warned.
Phill's right about Miliband. Planning for this should have started 10 years ago. But as with the coalition they had their head in the sand. This must not be forgotten when Labour are blaming the current crop of fools at the election.
I have commented on here several times that this cAGW nonsense will only end when people shiver in the dark.
It isn't something I look forward to, let alone hope for. Far too many innocent people will suffer.
But it is clear that there is NO chance that the scientific 'establishment', the media, the Wunch of Bankers or the politicians will EVER admit the sheer stupidity of all this. They have nailed their colours to the IPCC mast and do not now wish to be confused by anything so vulgar as facts.
And I'm sorry to say that when the peasants gather with pitchforks and flaming torches outside CRU and DECC, I shall be unable to feel sorry for those inside those ivory towers.
The enemies of humanity have indeed been very successful in recent decades, but there is still hope that they will all in due course be regarded and treated with the contempt they deserve. The excuse of being concerned with little furry creatures and clean water has long gone out the window - as evidenced for example in the diversion of the WWF from such things. And the diversion of once-humanitarian organisations such as Oxfam into climate-campaigning. Their horror at the impact of bio-fuels could yet be surpassed by their horror at what other suffering could be caused by the CO2 alarmists they have given so much support to. The threat of lights going out all over Europe of course recalls Sir Edward Gray's remarks ahead of WWI. Let us hope that good sense and rational analysis prevails before the worst happens this time as 'the lights' would be the least of it.
geronimo
Yep.
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2214973/exclusive-davey-hints-at-flexible-carbon-target
Clearly not news to anyone who has been following this issue with any kind of objectivity, but still shocking to see it stated so clearly by tptb.
Shale gas anyone?
Peter is right.
We shouldn't forget all the other fools who have played their part, from Cameron and Clegg to David Miliband, Veggie Benn and Gordon Bruin. Nor, indeed, Maggie Thatcher who started the whole thing, with her spite against the Coal industry.
But I have a special venomous place in my heart for little Eddie Milipede.
He is, in my view, the Chief Idiot, par excellence.
It was the Labour Party's choice (backed by the Unions) to choose Milipede as leader.
And, as someone who had been a Labour activists for many years, I have to say that I will never, ever, support the Labour Party again.
At least not until the rank and file of decent, hardworking people who used to be the core constituency of Labour, rise up and kick the stupid twat out and demand he is impeached for foisting the Climate Change Act 2008 on the long suffering population of what was once Great Britain.
Hearing and reading the reports on this I was intrigued by the apparent flat reporting of it. It seems quite strange when you consider the controversy whipped up over the most trivial things, blame games are played and sides are taken about football, health scares, X Factor , and these stories are replaced in a week for something equally trivial and pseudo contentious.
Yet this story is almost reported as a means of conditioning and softening up with a minimum requirement to report it so it is acknowledged as done but a hurried desire to continue on.
The fact that the public don’t become more agitated I think must come down to fact that it seems quite unbelievable that a modern country could really let this happen. The comforting talk that the overhead safety room capacity will be reduced but will not matter seems to be bought I think. I guess retrograde steps can be conditioned into people. But can anyone imagine the lefty metropolitan elites who have helped this situation arise, not having their own energy “Chaika lanes” opened up to spare them the sacrifice the little chavs must bear? ;)
Martin:
Christopher:
With all due respect, I believe the second guy.
'Really, I wouldn't like to be Lord Deben, Chris Huhne, Ed Davey, Gregory Barker or Lord Marland when it all goes dark.'
Nah, they'll be alright on their yachts in the Med - it's the rest of us I'm terrifed for. {Of course Chris Huhne may be in jail by then if they ever get round to hearing his case.}
On skimming the report, what concerns me is that OFGEM use an EFC (equivalent firm capacity - the amount of capacity that is required to replace the wind capacity to achieve the same level of loss of load expectation) of 22% compared to the 8% figure used by Nat Grid. It is not explained very well, the relevant passage being:
I'm not at all convinced; it seems to me that they could have averaged out the effects of wind availability over a month or even over the winter and so ignored the cold spells with no wind. It could be a lot worse than OFGEM are telling us.
" kick the stupid twat out and demand he is impeached for foisting the Climate Change Act 2008 on the long suffering population of what was once Great Britain."
Fine idea. Now we need to agree a nicely pithy slogan that will work on posters, T-shirts and tatoos.
Something like (but better than): "Milliband, Huhne and Davey. When the UK goes dark, it will be THEIR fault"
This should be launched - and be encouraged to take hold in the nation's psyche - well ahead of the first of the blackouts.
This is a game. The coal plants will still be there, it will just cost a fortune in EU fines to run them. What will the prime minister do - let the people shiver in the dark, or order the coal plants fired up?
I'm not one to lightly advocate civil disobedence, but I am rapidly approaching the conclusion that we need to take a leaf out of the Watermelons' book and start picketing windmill construction sites/ports which service them.
''Really, I wouldn't like to be Lord Deben, Chris Huhne, Ed Davey, Gregory Barker or Lord Marland when it all goes dark.'
By 2015, I hope that Huhne will have had plenty of practice at sitting and shivering in the dark as I understand that they still have 'lights out' in Her Majesty's Prisons.
Unfortunately nobody will remember Deben, Huhne, Davey, Barker and Marland, or their predecessors who are equally culpable (including one Ed Miliband, secretary of state for energy and climate change 2008-2010) if the lights go out in 2015. They'll be too busy blaming whoever is then prime minister and his DECC minister, should DECC still exist in three years time.
Oct 5, 2012 at 8:17 PM | Latimer Alder
"''Really, I wouldn't like to be Lord Deben, Chris Huhne, Ed Davey, Gregory Barker or Lord Marland when it all goes dark.'
By 2015, I hope that Huhne will have had plenty of practice at sitting and shivering in the dark as I understand that they still have 'lights out' in Her Majesty's Prisons."
It might give rise to a new euphamism "Hot Water Bottle'.
@ Martin Brumby - Oct 5, 2012 at 7:49 PM
".....Maggie Thatcher who started the whole thing, with her spite against the Coal industry....."
On the contrary, the miners actually did cause the first regular power cuts of post-war Britain in the mid- late-70s. Maggie nullified Scargill's blackmail, & prevented annual repetition.
And as if by some serendipity, Huhne's trial has been delayed.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/trial-of-chris-huhne-and-his-exwife-delayed-until-next-year-8199983.html
That is an excellent point I remember those days as a child and would say that coming from a lefty background and later being a student hating “Thatch” with (retrospective) tiresome predictiveness, even then I could recognise she was somewhat a parvenu bourgeois, I think her power was no one could really see her as wanting the working classes to suffer from no power in order for them to be kept in their place. In fact as a student I later actually remember when she was selling council houses off finding it a strangely disorientating sneaky thing to do which would win the “unthinking” working class to her side. Now I think of it I really do have some insight into lefty derangement today ;).
The fact is today the Tories, Beeb and Guardian public school lot are all effectively passively accepted in a position of power, and all singing from the same song sheet, Funnily enough one of the gits on the Filter video from the other thread let slip that Ed Balls wasn't fully on message when it came to enlisting him in environment posturing.
If Labour came out for the working man again against this kin of crap then they I reckon they really could benefit ;)
Doesn't seem to have made The Guardian . . .
It is not just the impending closure of coal plants which is of concern; as a fair number of the UK nuclear stations are getting old too. Perhaps worth re-posting Brownedoff's summary of the situation back in March 2011 - http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/3/15/hastings-notices-energy-gap.html?currentPage=2#comments:
So another 3GW of nuclear capacity will be lost by 2016. With all that coal and nuclear gone capacity it will not matter how many thousands of windmills they have in their place, for when the winter high pressure system sits over the UK, and winds and temperatures will drop, they will have feck all chance of meeting the 60GW peak demand. Expect rolling blackouts - the grid managers already have all the plans and procedures in place.
"On the contrary, the miners actually did cause the first regular power cuts of post-war Britain in the mid- late-70s. Maggie nullified Scargill's blackmail, & preventedannual repetition.
Oct 5, 2012 at 8:30 PM | Joe Public"
Sorry to disappoint you but actually Heath/Gormley were guilty in 1972 of causing the three day week. I was doing my Diploma in Management Studies dissertation in candlelight thanks to these two amiable gentlemen managing to generate power cuts during the miners strike.
I would vote for an re-introduction of the concept of "traitor" and suitable punishment (short of capital) for those willfully endangering the state whether due to belief or stupidity. No excuses if the lights go our or industry is driven out through high prices combined with power cuts.
AQ42
Guardian piece here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/oct/05/blackouts-coal-power-stations-ofgem
It includes this gem:
I'm old enough to have been attempting to run a small business at the time of Ted Heath's "three day week" in 1974.
I'm sure that, whichever party is in power when the biomass hits the fan, they will use the same strategy as Heath did. Limiting power use by business will keep the old folks warm and the tabloids & voters passive, while the private business sector takes the strain and slides ever further down the pan - plus ca change.
As long as politicians can borrow money to conceal economic reality and buy votes to keep themselves in work - they will.
The end game will be what we're now seeing in Greece - except we won't have Angela Merkel to bail us out.
Oct 5, 2012 at 9:46 PM | John Peter
Yeah but I would agree with Joe Public's sentiment that Maggie was responsible for the eventual "nullifying" of any "repetition". ;)
Leopard at 8:59pm: "If Labour came out for the working man again.."
Fat chance. I think a French philosopher noted recently that the environment is the new proletariat for the left. The previous one was doing too well out of 'the system'.
The Leopard In The Basement
"That is an excellent point I remember those days......."
Yup so do I! Ended up working 7 days a week making "Stoker Links" to bring on line the old pre PF stations that had, with foresight, been mothballed complete with months of stockpiled fuel.
It was back in the days when people had the ability and the drive to put in place systems so they could respond, it was known, in those bad old days as "responsibility"
I don't see anybody, politicians, civil servants or the masses so prepared today. It always staggers me how so many can be convinced that history is wrong, know exactly what the future will be, but remain at a total loss about the here and now.
Oct 5, 2012 at 10:03 PM | John Shade
Hey! A wealthier proletariat is still a voter base. Trees haven't been given the vote - *cough* yet ;)
Foxgoose
"except we won't have Angela Merkel to bail us out."
All that is left in Angela's handbag is short change and it is not about to be used as anything other than a bludgeon.
She has nothing else left, winter is coming and Berlin is getting colder by the day.
The story has just been covered on the BBC Ten O'Clock news. And they had a sentence putting the blame on EU environmental regulations.
I don't know if everyone has noticed, but whilst this "National Emergency" has been developing which could cause deaths amongst us - quite a few pensioners died during the cold snap and snow a few years ago, and the die every year - our great leaders have been focussing on the real issues vital to today - Gay Marriage, Constituency Boundaries and Lords Reform.
{snip]
BBC News Friday Feb 13 2016
Crisis talks are being held at Downing Street and Cobra has been convened. The persistent cold has lasted now since October and the rolling blackouts have turned into permanent outages in some parts of the country. Ministers are under pressure to come up with a solution.
The Energy & Environment minister was not immediately available but he released a message that claimed the gas disruption from Europe had been unforeseeable. The Met Office had failed to predict such a widespread cold snap across the Northern Hemisphere which had led Russia and other gas producing countries to cut off all supplies. Even Norway had been unable to help us in this crisis as they were dealing with pipe failures and demands from other EU countries. France had also failed to come to our aid, offering its spare capacity to Germany in the new Franco German pact. Despite the help, Germany is also suffering, in part because they are experiencing even colder temperatures than the UK but mainly because their chronic lack of supply after they finally closed the last of their nuclear stations last spring. There has been much anger directed towards the renewables suppliers as almost no meaningful supply has been forth coming during this prolonged period of high pressure. Even the few decent days of wind supply has been dogged by failure brought on by icing.
In other news the Health minister was under fire. The failure of hospitals to cope with energy shortages has meant that they are now only dealing with emergency cases. Fuel oil and gas supplies have been ring fenced but three hospitals have already closed because their emergency back up generators were unable to cope.
This afternoon the expected call to exclude the elderly from new hospital admission was made. Carers and care homes have been asked to manage as best they can but mass casualties are expected. Ninety three pensioners have already died of hypothermia in poorly heated homes but this figure is now expected to soar. A spokesman for Age UK said that the winter of 2015/16 would be known as ‘Logan’s Winter’ a sequel to the iconic film Logan’s Run where a futuristic society executed the old because there wasn't enough resources to go around. The Care Quality Commission also issued a statement expressing anger that the government hadn’t heeded their warnings that few care homes had been made aware of their need for backup power supplies and had assumed that they would be exempt from power cuts. Where possible, families and generous individuals have taken the elderly into their homes but without reliable heat, they face a grim future.
One positive piece of news. The flu epidemic is now under control. The school and business closures have meant that people have been mingling less and this has had the knock on effect of starving the virus of new victims. The Health Protection Agency however warns against complacency and foresees a resurgence once power supplies return and people try to get back to normal. With hospitals already at breaking point you are very much on your own.
Oct 5, 2012 at 10:11 PM | Green Sand
This is the key thing I suggest we should remember, er, – what you want to remember – the old days were bad in my mind - sometimes - but they are only youtube clips to everyone else younger – so you can cleverly show Showaddywaddy to some (so it seems bad to them too and they agree) or Star Wars to others "My God Lucas what were you thinking with Phantom!? what happen to the good old days!"
However if you want to be scientific - and operate as being really "evidenced" based, then notice the real scientists talks about every metric of human well being over the last couple of hundred years getting better. And notice the pretend scientist, like John Cook, ignore this and says nuclear power is bad (Pielke Jr is having a great ongoing debate about yet another debatable contrary minded view of this idea of continuous development)
I say there *is* a linear whig history of development and improvement – there are people from all over the LewandowskySphere here on this site doing some good chin wagging about noticing possible retrograde steps, and how to “think different” and keep pointing us on a positive path - and the concept of accepting that power cuts could be acceptable makes me gag at the inane idiocy of its implicit acceptance.
Power to the people!
The Leopard In The Basement
"and the concept of accepting that power cuts could be acceptable makes me gag at the inane idiocy of its implicit acceptance."
TLiTB, the genie will not go back into the bottle, mankind will improve it's welfare, there will, and must be, short term imbalances. But we are good at siphoning the nectar, takes awhile, but it is inevitable.
On the other hand, restricting mankind's development will only end in man exhibiting the one ability that, on this planet, he has no match, conflict!
So Christopher Booker was bang on target with this, a year and a half in advance of Ofgem.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/8470256/New-figures-show-the-lights-may-go-out-sooner-than-we-thought.html
I love bullshit add campaigns.
I love real humans are bemused.
So, various ministers have over the last 15-20 years failed to get a grip on the realities of electricity generation, and now, having over the last couple of decades spent uncounted billions of money on various projects, are facing cameras and saying that whereas 20years ago we had a solid generation system that would allow for a period of economic growth with some room to spare, we are now in a position that in the economic status quo we will run the risk of interupted power within 2-3years, and any significant growth (which they are trying to make happen but don't hold your breath) will certainly lead to power outs.
They've fed the populace on bread and circuses for too long. I'm certainly not going to vote for any of the %$^&* %$£"!$%* again. I'm getting very angry.
Think they are getting Austerity Power Cuts in Greece in 3 months time.
I envisage hordes of rent-seeking personal injury lawyers cold calling for punters who might have been 'injured in the blackouts' of 2015.
Compensation will probably be the tool politicians will turn to, to avoid being charged with corporate manslaughter.