Sunday
Feb242013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Booker on when the lights go out
Feb 24, 2013 Energy: wind Normal BH service will be resumed tomorrow. In the meantime Booker has a good, if thoroughly depressing, look at the UK's energy crisis.
Has anyone in the government said they think the lights will in fact stay on? Or should we accept their sullen silence as an admission that we are in trouble?
Reader Comments (80)
@ - moved to warmer climes... No greens - or bloody "carbon" taxes - where I live now! Feb 24, 2013 at 4:10 PM | Jimmy Haigh
Surely not Latin America's oldest democracy, given Arias' motto: Nature and Peace. Costa Rica competes with UK's desire to show the rest of the world what Carbon-neutral means. Meanwhile, sewers plug with petro-products, occasionally flooding low-income communities. Plastic sacks adorn San Jose's streets, providing natural wind-driven entertainment as the colorful bags chase each other around and into pot-holes.
Favorite daughter - Gore-trained C. Figueres - and UNFCCC exec sec'y advises developing countries on Green mitigation projects: ¨¡Eso es lo fantástico! ¡Es una oportunidad única para recobrar la atención del mundo!¨ - C. Figueres
http://www.nacion.com/2010-10-11/AldeaGlobal/Relacionados/AldeaGlobal2547029.aspx
and CR Chancellor Castro had more advice:
ttp://www.nacion.com/2010-10-10/AldeaGlobal/Relacionados/AldeaGlobal2546964.aspx
JRTM
Jimmy Haigh: “No greens - or bloody "carbon" taxes - where I live now!”
Well it can’t be anywhere in Europe. Greens get favoured by the electoral system in most European countries (plus the European Parliament) giving them exaggerated importance and media coverage. Don’t keep us guessing.
Well I see it isn't just Booker this time - he has been shouting down a long dark tunnel for years now for which, I for one, thank him.
http://www.thegwpf.org/british-media-declares-all-out-war-green-energy-lobby/
I see that CO2 stuff is getting even more clever now -
http://www.thegwpf.org/british-media-declares-all-out-war-green-energy-lobby/
Why on earth does everyone keep bleating on about "the lights going out". We can use candles. But what happens when the banks go into meltdown, hospitals close, travel is totally disrupted and the supermarkets have to throw hundreds of thousands of tons of frozen food away?
Anybody remember this little snippet? No direct link, because it was only ever in the print issue of the DT on 2nd March 2011:-
http://postimage.org/image/n88mkq4md/
The following was my comment at the time and is still the same now:-
“As a society, we all need to be clear about what we can and cannot afford” he (Steve Holliday - Chief Executive of National Grid) said.
May I suggest that we “as a society” cannot afford extremely highly paid “no can do” Chief Executives?
“We are going to change our own behaviour and consume it when it is available”
No Mr CE, because “as a society” we are not going to let you and or our government make your product “exclusive”.
Get your act together and have the guts to tell it as it is. That you can guarantee supply, cheaply, profitably and effectively provided the government allows you to do so.
To spell it out I respectfully suggest that you either pee or get off the pot.
Pylons or underground are the least of your problems. Fuel availability and security of supply are and always must be your priority. You need to have a secure balanced mix of nuclear, coal, gas and renew etc. Please stop hiding behind these maniacal government ideologies and for once tell it as it is. You will be absolutely amazed at how much support you will get.
Either get a grip or move over; as we all have to "pull together” maybe now is not the time for a Holliday.
Anybody remember this little snippet?
Yes Green Sand, I do. In fact I still carry it about my person. At appropriate moments it has left many people (who eyes glaze over if you try reasoned or scientific discussion) speechless, gobsmacked or plain worried.
It makes it absolutely clear that Holliday (and therefore the industry as a whole) have known exactly what is going to happen and see reducing demand and blackouts as the solution: to repeat your quote "We are going to change our own behaviour and consume it when it is available and available cheaply"
Totalitarism or what?
Vernon E - Good point, but since the Greenies are keen that we move back to an idyllic, self sufficient time from the past we might not be able to earn enough for too many candles. And of course this idyllic age never existed.
As Matt Ridley tells us in his excellent book "The Rational Optimist" - today you can have 300 days worth of reading light for an hour of work at the average wage. In 1800 an hour of work would buy you 10 minutes. Candles were very expensive.
miket
There are no practical, engineering, fuel supply, or distribution reasons why the UK should not have a safe, sound, secure and cost effective energy supply system. For there not to be such a system there can only be one logical conclusion - somebody has deemed it should be so.
For those responsible for the decision I trust you do not reside in one of the UK's overcrowded inner cities, I fear they will not be a pleasant environment when the lights go out.
We still have the time, capability, in-house resource to resolve this issue. What we don't have is anybody with the balls to tell the truth and fix it! Our children and their offspring will always wonder why we stalled.
Sorry, I come to this late (have been busy all day gathering firewood for next winter).
I can't answer BH's original question -
but I at a local husting meeting just before the last Scottish Election, I did ask the candidates (John Swinney, Murdo Fraser and the Lib-Dem whose name escapes me, if they would resign the morning after the first blackout resulting from the current madness for wind. Swinney completely dodged the question, and just said he would rather have renewables than nuclear waste. Murdo to his credit (and this was before he became chair of the Scottish Parliament Energy Committee) did say that if he was the Energy Minister, he would resign if the lights went out.
[UPDATE - that said, given that there are more pandas in Scotland than Tory MPs, there is not much chance of him becoming Energy Minister].
But iirc none of the candidates had the guts or sense to see that wind is an expensive and unreliable turkey that needs 100% thermal backup, and they all seemed oblivious to the impending 15GW power gap resulting from the closure of old coal and nuclear stations in the next 5 years or so.
I met Murdo again recently, and had a friendly chat about energy policy - he was unaware that the Germans were building 20 new coal power stations (without CCS), and I also put him in the picture about thorium. Incidentally, I don't think he is a climate sceptic but in another chat I had him a few years ago and he did mention he had read Lomborg's first book, so at least had an appreciation of the adaption verses mitigation argument.
Geoff - Jimmy H is now based in Thailand, and it was a smart move.
Graham Hutt has created a petition at the Government's epetitions website calling for the coal fired power stations to be kept open for another 5 years.
keep coal fired powerstations operating for 5 years
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/46183
Responsible department: Department for Energy and Climate Change
We propose that the UK Government should address the impending electrical shortage by keeping open older coal fired power stations for a limited period (5yrs) to allow a sensible transition to gas, renewable and later, nuclear. This would be a temporary ignoring of the EU rules that require this.
Some people might think that 5 years is not long enough but it would enable the government to climb down , or make a U-turn, without losing too much face and if necessary 5 years could become 7 or more, depending on what happens to global warming in the meantime.
Roy
Agreed, will sign, but it will be to naught. The coal fired stations are kaput, knackered, purposely driven to such state. Once given a target of hours v a deadline date their fate was sealed. The coal fired process is very, very attritional, the demise of these plants will have been planned to the shortest possible timescale and therefore the least possible "maintenance shilling"! Been there, done that! Be cheaper, faster, safer to build new, especially as it could provide ample provision for a flight of fantasy known as CCS?
Yes - I live in Thailand now.
There was a lot of bleating here about "climate change" during the floods in Bangkok last year but that was nothing to do with rising sea levels or a change in rainfall patterns caused by man's use of fossil fuels and everything to do with the fact that Bangkok is built on a flood plain.
Drive a diesel or CNG car, Jimmy? Subsidized motor-fuel, or at least it was when we were there last year.
Carbon subsidy rather than tax.
============================ as Kim would say
Where are Entropic Man, Bitbucket and Co?
What are their considered thoughts on this approaching man-made disaster?
Come along and tell us everything will be alright in the brave new World powered by solar and wind.
Where are Entropic Man, Bitbucket and Co?
What are their considered thoughts on this approaching man-made disaster?
Come along and tell us everything will be alright in the brave new World powered by solar and wind.
Feb 24, 2013 at 11:15 PM | Don keiller
Of course it won't be all right.
The industrial civilization we have built around cheap abundant energy is only going to be viable for a limited period.
Renewables will never deliver the quantity of energy currently available from oil, gas and coal.
Once the fossil fuels peak we will perforce have to operate at a much lower per capita energy consumption.
Plenty of time yet then - 400 years of coal still left in UK and goodness knows how many years of fracked gas.
Cue cheap trick (an amendment to the Climate Change Act proposed by the execrable Yeo) to squeeze out gas by capping emissions at 50g CO2 per kWh generated.
http://www.thegwpf.org/energy-bill-drag-britain-dark-age/
O/T
There is a Firefox add-on (maybe on other browsers too?) called WOT or Web of Trust. It is supposed to be a warning against unsafe sites (malware, child safety etc) based on user ratings. Unfortunately it's being abused by people who just disagree with views expressed. Delingpoles site has gone "red" and this site has gone "amber" no doubt on its way to red.
Complaining to "Web of Trust" is useless as they wash their hands of the problem - lawsuit anyone?
Unless users of sites like this use WOT, if only to rate these sites as safe, then new people coming here will be getting a full screen warning stating that the site is dangerous. It is going to put off a lot of people who might otherwise get alternative useful information, possibly for the first time, about CAGW.
A quote from the Booker article:
"..that warning by Alistair Buchanan, retiring head of the energy regulator Ofgem."
I must say how truly impressed I am with these bureaucrats who bravely speak up about poor government direction/interference after they've retired with their pensions intact. Not.
Bollocks, future generations will just thank us for not using all the thorium.
When the lights go out and the electronically controlled gas boiler and electrically pumped central heating go off in the middle of winter, our emergency candles might seem less than adequate.
Shouldn't we prepare the population for rolling blackouts by having a few organised power cuts. I would suggest we start immediately with central London and see how our leaders like it.
As I've blogged on Booker - I find it odd that, while the UK commits economic suicide by closing existing coal-fired power stations, worldwide over a thousand new coal-fired stations are planned or being built.
Twenty-three of these are in Germany - which presumably has a different set of EU 'environment' rules to those handed to the UK government...
While I'm at it, on BBC Breakfast this morning, the business lady, Stephanie, she of the dreadful Hull accent, interviewed a gentleman (who's title I missed) who seemed (surprisingly) to have some really cheerful news about the level of impending investment in the oil and gas sectors in this country.
However - at no point did either of them mention SHALE GAS..!
@Entropic man "Once the fossil fuels peak we will perforce have to operate at a much lower per capita energy consumption"
Ah the tired old cliché of "Peak Oil". Get a life.
Maybe you want to live in a yurt, wearing a nettle-fibre shirt, attempting to read "The Guardian" by tallow candle, whilst plague-rats scurry around.
Personally I want a brighter, healthier and wealthier future for my children. Moonbeams and fairy-f**ts power does not figure.
"Personally I want a brighter, healthier and wealthier future for my children. Moonbeams and fairy-f**ts power does not figure."
Don Keiler
Please indulge my curiosity.
How do you expect humanity's 15 terawatt energy budget to be sustained over coming decades and centuries?
Given that the resources you hope to use, such as oil, are finite; how long do you think we can keep up " business as usual"?
Please leave out the sarcasm and silly remarks. I would like to see your serious opinion.
I drive a normal gasoline car out here in Thailand.
Even without the green meanies we will be losing power hee - right around the Thai New Year holiday of Songkraan. We get a fair bit of power from a gas plant in Myanmar which will be down for maintenance for a week or so.
http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/621973-emergency-plan-ready-for-thailands-april-power-crisis/
@ET- "How do you expect humanity's 15 terawatt energy budget to be sustained over coming decades and centuries?"
I do not expect it to be sustained, I expect it to increase and bring the 3rd. World out of the grinding poverty that a low carbon/energy economy ensures. Or are you in favour of equal misery for all?
As in the past, I expect technological innovation will do this. This does not mean ditching fossil fuels whilst there is no sensible alternative.
I hope you are right, but there are problems. Conventional fossil fuel deposits are in decline (Witness the way expensive and inefficient sources such as tar sands etc have suddenly become economic).
Coal costs lives. Fusion is an ever receding dream. Fission is mired in fear. The problem with thorium is tritium.
There is no God given right to unlimited energy. Technology is not magic and cannot conjure energy from nothing.
@ET have you heard of "shale gas", "tar sands", or "methane clathrates"?
At least 500 years here, plus there is still loads of coal.
Sticking your head in the sand and hoping they will all go away is not magic either.
EM...quantumelectrodynamics tells us that energy is practically infinite, if we can harness it. the UK is stuffed full of coal. Coal, coal-liquid, coal-gas, is all we realistically need, if we had the balls.
quantumelectrodynamics tells us that energy is practically infinite, if we can harness it. the UK is stuffed full of coal. Coal, coal-liquid, coal-gas, is all we realistically need, if we had the balls.
Feb 26, 2013 at 11:26 PM | diogenes
@ET have you heard of "shale gas", "tar sands", or "methane clathrates"?
At least 500 years here, plus there is still loads of coal.
Sticking your head in the sand and hoping they will all go away is not magic either.
Feb 26, 2013 at 10:23 PM | Don Keiller
Leaving aside the climate change issue, coal is mined at the cost of miners' lives. With British coal mining almost gone, few remember that price. It is now being paid by Polish, Chinese and Third World miners. Are you really keen to go back?
Shale gas is only profitable when gas prices are high. There is only a small margin between the cost of fracking and the value of the gas it produces. A typical well gives half its total production in its first year and tails off to nothing after 5 years. You then have to refrack another, less productive part of the rock formation. Hardly a long term solution.
Tar sands are hard and expensive to extract oil from, again only viable when oil prices are high.
Methane clathrates are completely unproven.
Nuclear power in its various forms only works when the population is rational enough to accept it and the government is willing to subsidise the decommisioning and waste disposal costs.
Your belief that we can maintain our high per-capita energy use indefinately is optimistic.
@ET I will not be engaging in further dialogue with one blind and deaf to reason.