Bishop Hill The Lib Dem energy policy document
Aug 26, 2013 Climate: Parliament Over the weekend the Liberal Democrats published a new policy paper on how they envisage the energy market developing the next time they are in government. The document gives the impression of having been put together by a spotty teenager and perhaps one with mild learning difficulties. It is at once scary, laughable, naive, daft and soft in the head.
From it, we learn that Liberal Democrats intend all kettles and cookers to come with two sets of heating elements:
Households can maximise the use of electricity by prioritising flexible, or semi-flexible, electricity demands according to urgency or by enabling non-time-sensitive equipment to switch on when power is available. High energy using appliances like cookers and kettles can be designed with two levels of heating elements to select, based on the best match to the power available.
There is also a demand that homes should be built to minimise the need for airconditioning.
In future, erratic weather may reduce the need for winter heating but should temperatures rise, there is an increased risk that the need for air conditioning will lead to a significant rise in summer energy use. Liberal Democrats would...Amend the Code for Sustainable Homes, BREEAM and other relevant standards to ensurethat new buildings are designed to minimise any need for air conditioning.
In truth, I've picked these last two examples almost at random. The whole paper is full of similarly fatuous thinking, a hodgepodge of buzzwords and hypothetical technological innovations flung together by people who would clearly struggle to run a whelk stall. There is not even the hint of an attempt to cost any of the policy proposals made, or to demonstrate that they represent a cost-effective solution to the purported problem of global warming. It's as though the Liberal Democrat team got round a table and googled frantically until they had a document of sufficient length to justify their existence.
Reader Comments (100)
"appliances like cookers and kettles can be designed with two levels of heating elements"
I'd missed the reference to cookers. It would seem that the LD's have never prepared a roast dinner...
Richard Littlejohn's famous phrase "you couldn't make it up" could have been invented for this document!
I have 45 cm insolation in my roof, 30 in the walls and 25 in the floor and with plastic it's very very airtight. It's cheap to warm in the winter, but gets very very warm in the summer. If you demand houses like this to save energy in the winter you will have to use energy in the summer to cool it down.
Is this some sort of catch 22?
This green energy brochure is so bad, it cannot be the work of the Lib Dems. Nobody hoping to be elected would publish such dreck.
It must be agitprop created to completely destroy the credibility of the Lib Dems.
With bother with the extra expense and CO2 creation with dual elements? Just make it illegal to sell a kettle rated at more than 1KW. Added bonus of that is the "End of Corrie" spike will be that much less. In fact it might be spread over the entire programme. On the other hand people might buy more than one and split the water between them so perhaps the only winners will be kettle manufacturers in China.
People who think a 1kW kettle will use the same amount of electricity as a 3kW kettle and take 3 times as long haven't heard of Newton's Law of Cooling. Maybe the LibDems can pass an amendment to the Law.
The Lib dem proposal is not so odd. It is the logical extreme of what the AGW fanatics are currently demanding. Little if anything they are promoting is alien to the AGW mainstream.
Some famous LibDems, before they got anywhere near government. Explains a lot. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ta2DAOu5X8
Jon : 'I have 45 cm insolation in my roof, 30 in the walls and 25 in the floor and with plastic it's very very airtight. It's cheap to warm in the winter, but gets very very warm in the summer. If you demand houses like this to save energy in the winter you will have to use energy in the summer to cool it down.
Is this some sort of catch 22?'
I'm not sure - but it will certainly catch any moisture that's going, and trap it, allowing long-term development of moulds, wood-rotting insects, damp patches in plaster etc, etc!
Roy
I thought we had a "perpetual green growth" already. I've been asking the garden centre for something to get rid of it.
lunatics & asylums come to mind!
"High energy using appliances like cookers and kettles can be designed with two levels of heating elements to select, based on the best match to the power available"
This is so monumentally stupid that it is hard to believe that grown people could have written it. Or otherwise they mean that the high-powered element will be used when there is a shortage of power, since this will minimize losses. But then why have the low powered element? Unless it is to get rid of excess electricity on the very rare occasions when wind power is producing near nameplate power. However a single huge heating element in e. g. Loch Ness would be much simpler and cheaper.
"5.3.1 There are several means of producing gas that has a lower carbon content than natural gas ........... Others can be exported to the gas network."
They also have a lower calorific value, so you need more for an equivalent heat content.
The gas network will only accept 'feed-in' of gas complying with a very tight specification and combustion characteristics.
The writer of that section knows little about gas combustion & distribution.
Somebody should tell these idiots that there are other ways to boil water apart from using a kettle.
In case of intermittent brownouts, wouldn't bigger heat elements be more appropriate?
"Quick dear, the wind is dying down, turn the kettle onto 10kw since the power will go out again in 5 minutes."
....And these people are currently part of our GOVERNMENT...???
Thank god we have an Aga.
Until I recently bought my first house, I lived in a high rise council flat for my sins. The flat was quite warm for the majority of the year, owing to only being exposed to the elements on one corner of the block. But what did the council in its infinite wisdom decide to do a few years ago? It spent millions "upgrading" all the tower blocks by cladding them in an insulated outer metal shell. That's when it started to be like living inside an oven. The shells are all dark-coloured as well, so act as heat sinks. I used to have the windows open almost 365 days a year. Even on the coldest winter days I would have a couple of windows open ajar. Utter madness. But what would one expect of public bureaucracy?
Mock not too soon. I suspect that there are precious few of any party in Parliament who understand why, to take the simplest of the idiocies, a dual element is a stupid idea. As for the population at large...well, despair, ladies and gentlemen, despair.
As for a "no carbon Britain" I trust all of you who currently live there have made your wills - in favour of the rest of us. You will not be allowed to exhale.
Alex Cull: Amazing video from November 2006, thanks. The contribution that most struck me was from Chris Huhne. Put that idealistic tone together with his prison sentence followed by the £100,000 job at Zilkha Biomass Energy for just two days a week. It's quite some journey.
Won't the lower wattage kettle lose more energy via radiation losses because it's heating time is going to more than twice that of the higher wattage kettle?
I guess we should be thankful that it's not a yet crime to mock them.
@Alex Cull.
Thanks - The video is a classic ! The first comment seems most apt.
notruk:
"the next time they are in government"
Chances of this bunch of whores getting anywhere near the levers of power again is thankfully small!
@ Richard Drake, @ Clive Best, and the journey continues! The Thursday after next, Chris Huhne is due to give a keynote address to the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership:
http://www.cpp.csap.cam.ac.uk/events/cambridge-programme-sustainability-lecture-chris-h/
Where's the comment in the report about the health benefits of cold showers?
Surely people could do without clothes washers and dryers as well. You'll be getting your weekly ration of paper clothing, on Sunday you can burn it to boil your weekly cup of tea.
And there's more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi1JxVzmwSs
Aug 26, 2013 at 12:07 PM | Unregistered CommenterAllan M
Whoops, I got the kettle wattage and time thing back to front. Must use brain. Maybe imbecilia is catching? The people who wrote this policy wouldn't have noticed.
Perhaps what we really need is carbon-free politicians.
This statement immediately brought to mind the apocryphal tale of Sir Isaac Newton and the cat flap.
Perhaps the Lib Dems took their inspiration from the great man?
That is sooo last century! New smart meters will text message you to tell you your power is cut off cause the shilling has run out or the instantaneous price has gone over your limit, (eBay electricity!) or they have just shut off the water heater, or the fridge or the kettle until the sunshine comes back or whatever.
It's all under control! It is called "Demand Response".
This is you Responding:
"Demand response is a generic term for energy delivery programs to residential and commercial customers that combine supply with additional communication efforts in order to encourage (or eventually enforce) reducing or shifting energy consumption for the benefits of security of supply and climate conservation." (Save the planet!)
This is you agreeing:
"Energy savings from smart metering and information feedback depends on acceptance and understanding by consumers of the basic premise. It is vital that consumers are not prejudiced against smart metering by perceived unfairness or undesirable outcomes. Consumers’ representatives must understand and accept the proposition." (Perish the thought)
This is you paying:
"It has been found in many cases around Europe that energy companies cannot justify the cost of smart metering based on their own benefits and need a contribution from the other beneficiaries (primarily the customers) to make the overall cost benefit positive." (It is all about you!)
From the "European Smart Metering Alliance Final Report 2010"
Ironically opposed by (furiously texting and emailing) Greens for the fearful 'ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION', British Columbians have spent $1 billion installing 1.8million of these: https://www.itron.com/na/productsAndServices/Pages/OpenWay%20CENTRON.aspx?market=electricity
We are so smart now and going to get much smarter: https://www.itron.com/na/PublishedContent/OpenWay%20Demand%20Response_%20Maximizing%20Value%20and%20Efficiency%20in%20Energy%20Delivery.pdf
Irrespective of the actual measures proposed to achieve a totally 'decarbonised' Britain, nowhere does it state where this has been attempted, let alone been successful, by any other modern nation. The document describes one long unproven and grand experiment in attaining something which even if achieved is guaranteed to destroy jobs, make electricity prohibitively expensive and intermittent, and render our economy uncompetitive.
The LibDems are therefore happily throwing away all that we have on reliable, low cost energy, and committing to an outright gamble that their ill thought out mishmash of green suppositions will sustain a 21st century nation. The policy document truly reveals more about the poor state of the LibDem understanding of energy generation technicalities than they might wish.
It would be nice to see this go viral so the rest of the world can see the idiocy of our so called democracy.
It would be nice to see this go viral so the rest of the world can see the idiocy of our so called democracy.
I read it but could find no trace of intelligence.
We have one 12 year old grandson staying with us over the bank holiday. He goes to the same boys grammar school as I did. I always like to probe and if possible add to his stock of general knowledge. I try to think of things I can recall being confronted with at his age at school. Yesterday I asked if 'white paper' and 'green paper' mean anything to him and if so, what. He was understandably as vague as I was at that age, but at least he knows now because we looked up the meanings to be sure.
But now we need a new term. 'seriously off-the-wall paper'.
The new party slogan.
Under the Libdems
All of the people will have electricity for some of the time, some of the people will have electricity for most of the time, but none of the people will electricity for all of the time.
Reminds me of the joke, as follows: "What do climate scientists bring to the table at an atmospheric science conference? .... The coffee".
Same could be said of the LibDems to the political table. They (esp. Nick Clegg & Ed Davey) are intellectual nonentities.
'Homes, workplaces, shops and schools will be well insulated, staying cool in summer and warm in
winter. People will spend a lower share of their incomes on energy - fuel poverty among
vulnerable households will be consigned to history.
'People will be healthier. Their diets will be less based on imported foodstuffs and life-shortening
air pollution from burning fuels will finally be over. More walking and cycling will help people be
less sedentary and more active.
Change on this scale won’t happen quickly or without difficulty. Britain led the world in an
industrial revolution – a powerhouse of engineering, investment and ingenuity. In the twenty first
century, the zero carbon revolution demands no less effort or ambition. Over the next three
decades this country needs to see a transformation on the same scale as the three centuries of
industrialisation.'
Fruitcakes , nutters and closet Marxists
From the Lib Dem document:
"4.2.3 Energy storage, if distributed through the network on an economic basis, could increase
the capacity of the grid to accept new generation; energy generated at peak times can be stored,
and then transmitted at other times."
What energy storage system would that be? Some magical system in the imagination of the report writer? Capacitors? Really Big capacitors? Rechargeable batteries?
Or are these people totally immersed in a virtual fantasy world?
The document reads like a hybrid between central Soviet planning and a sixth former science fantasy writers co-op. How much money are these people wasting, and how much more are they going to waste before the country comes to its senses?
Also noticed that they seem to think that people only live in towns and cities. Presumably only people worth talking about do anyway.
"It's as though the Liberal Democrat team got round a table and googled frantically until they had a document of sufficient length to justify their existence."
You give them credit. This is just a bunch of loons.
There is of course a simple solution to the problem of brown-outs and black-outs. Register all those who believe that CO2 is a wicked problem requiring personal sacrifice, fit 'smart meters' to their homes and offices, and when electricity demand exceeds supply from the grid simply switch them off. A small price to pay for fleecing reasonable people for their warmist religious fanaticism. Those that want to benefit from the advancement of civilisation can and those that want to live like cavemen can do likewise in the knowledge that their sacrifice to GAIA will be kindly considered upon their demise from hypothermia. Everybody is a winner, including Paul Ehrlich and his followers.
Wow, that video of the Lib Dumb fruitcakes!
What we need now is an official cull of the gullible and stupid.
Looked at section 6.3, their proposals for rail. Electrification to be increased, more lines to be re-opened, to result in 75% of journeys being on electric trains. They don't say if the trains will have to have two electric motors of different ratings like the elements in kettles and cookers, though...
Thinkingscientist - but when they start talking about living in 'communities' who will be living and working together (thus avoiding the need to travel) and generating their own power, I have to wonder where this utopia might be. I can't imagine it happening in Leeds or Manchester or Islington. Will Islington have its own windmills? Where might they be? Highbury Fields, Islington Green?
They also seem to be relying on more interconnectors with Europe to provide power when we cannot make it for ourselves, thus implicitly acknowledging that their policies will result in under-generation. This is, of course, the European dream of interconnectivity, as is HS2 - there are some lovely squished up maps showing connectivity between cities in journey times to which HS2 will contribute - I found them somewhere on an EU website.
And I see that the LibDims want to stop the mostly Conservative councils from imposing minimum distances for wind turbines. Maybe that is so that we can all benefit from having them close to hand so that we can see them powering our self-sufficient communities as we eat a few motley potatoes, cabbages and leeks through the winter months when our locally produced food is running out. What a nightmare. I'd love to see some of our local over-fed LibDims surviving on this diet.
Madness.
Wow - the Lib Dems have received a well deserved whacking. My problem is that their proposals are not significantly different from the other major parties (please don't tell me that UKIP are going to change all that; at the moment they seem to be a spent force). Just today The Telegraph headlines that a conservative is leading a move against fracking (using all the old dis-proved claims) and that smart meters are imminent.
I have an excellent proposal for the LibDems to solve this problem of lack of power storage on the grid. Clearly the problem is analogous to a caravan. Now in a caravan this problem is solved by having a large wet cell leisure battery. The bigger sizes are typically 110 Amp-hrs capacity. My proposal is to have this already available technology installed in people’s homes in the form of a quota of 110 Amp-Hour leisure batteries per head of population. Also, each home will be fitted with a secondary 12 volt ring main system, using existing caravan technology, so when the power goes off the system can be automatically switched to 12 volt, just like a caravan. And the beauty is that flat-screen tellys, lights etc are already available for this technology.
I calculate that if we have just 12 x 110 Amp-hr leisure batteries per person then we can have dynamic, distributed power storage, using available technology, attached to the grid with a capacity of 1 GW-Hr of on-demand electricity, and all this from just domestic storage. The small storage area required will be likely less than 1 m^3 and could become a mandatory compliance requirement for new build properties. Grants would be available for retro-fitting older properties and feed-in tariffs available for those who wish to convert their garages as large capacity storage.
Businesses will also have to do their bit too and I suggest that each work place desk be fitted with one leisure battery housing and of course all office computing and lighting be converted to 12 volt. Enabling legislation requiring all bottom drawers in new desk pedestals to be converted to single or dual compact leisure battery housing with a minimum capacity of 100 amp-hrs should be passed by the next LibDem government. Research has shown that in 97% of offices the bottom pedestal drawer is never used anyway.
If businesses and private storage companies do their bit, I estimate up to 10 GW-Hrs of back up storage could easily be made available and create exciting opportunities
for MP's and their spouses and cronies to grab filthy lucrefor new green start-up businesses. Think of the windfall opportunities for those with "self-storage" and farmers with barns, so providing a sustainable yet modern rural economy.Now for the really clever part – in order to avoid power conversion losses between the high tension (and dangerous) National Grid voltages and the new, safe, low voltage systems and storage we will convert the National Grid to run at 12 volts. The energy saving from not converting back and forth to the new 12 volt system will pay for the conversion, according to my figures, and running the National Grid at 12 volts will be so much safer and clearly more efficient.
How long it takes a kettle to boil water and how much energy is consumed is for all practical purposes dictated by the amount of water in the kettle. The only way to save power, is to use less water. Rather than fitting a kettle with two elements, you should programme how many cups of coffee/tea you wish to make and the kettle can be filled only to the level selected (ie., it automatically closes the lid when the required water level is reached.
I know a lot of people who fill the kettle nearly fully, and then make just 1 or may be 2 cups of coffee using less than a third of the water boiled. That is wasteful, just like using a washing machine to wash just one or two items.
I have not read the paper, but the thrust of the paper is ominous since it seems to be based upon the fact that there will be insufficient energy available within the UK to meet the demands of the UK consumer.
Since there is no problem in producing all the energy that industry and the consumer requires (coal, gas and the odd bit of nuclear could easily provide the necessary capacity), the LibDems are advising that the introduction of green/renewable into the energy mix means that we no longer have an energy production system fit for purpose, and as a result we are going to be rationed (presumably forcefully if voluntary measures do not work).
What a needless mess recent governments have made of matters.
"...the next time they are in government."
Ahah hah hah hah hah hah!
There's optimism for you.
I'm glad to see that the LibDems are getting a pasting on the Guardian. Apparently they haven't lived up to their pure green credentials and been corrupted by those nasty Conservatives.
Just a quick read of the comments restores one's belief in the lunatic green mindset.
So third world status is now official LibDem policy. Neat.
My wife has aspirations for a new kitchen
I have told her she needs to design it around a 4Kw diesel generator
or more likely a dung burning facility