Power and gas prices in Germany more than doubled in just two months, with year-ahead electricity at a blazing 570 Euro per megawatt-hour. Two years ago, it was 40 euros. It’s summer but electric heaters sales are already up 1000 percent and online searches for Firewood are running hot. In the UK — householders are facing bills in the order of £5000 a year — (like $10,000, after tax) people are described as being in “pre-panic mode” already. Some are starting to turn off freezers, giving up toast and showering every second day. Shops and Pubs are closing, consumer confidence is at an all time record low, the most depressed in the last 48 years consumer confidence has been measured for.
European Power Smashes Records as Energy Crisis Intensifies
by Todd Gillespie, Bloomberg
This week’s prices are “unbelievable,” analysts at Energi Danmark wrote in a note. “The rally on the gas and coal market and the very high spot prices we see this week have given the already elevated market further momentum.”
German year-ahead power, a benchmark for Europe, is on a nine-day rising streak. The contract rose 6.1% to a record 570 euros ($573) per megawatt-hour, with French futures jumping as much as 2.8% to 720 euros. Europe year-ahead coal futures hit a record $311.50 a ton, while carbon-emission permits traded at all-time highs.
For obvious reasons, Germans are worried about winter already:
Germany’s Growing Energy Supply Uncertainty: Electric Heater Sales Up 1000%…In The Summertime!
Already the media are reporting that electric heaters are flying off the store shelves at an unprecedented rate – in the summertime! For example, online daily The Hamburger Abendblatt here reports: “Electric heater online retailers and DIY stores report explosion in demand – increases of up to 1000 percent.”
Germany Risks a Factory Exodus as Energy Prices Bite Hard
Welcome to the Clean Green Future in London, 2022
The Victorian lifestyle is making a comeback.
Power off, panic on in British energy crisis
By Jacquelin Magnay, The Australian
People in Cornwall have been turning off their freezers, to the alarm of health officials warning of food poisoning. In Newcastle, food charities have been flooded with requests for non-perishable items that don’t require turning on the stove.
And in London at my house, the hot water has been off for the past month with showering scheduled for immediately after a sweat-inducing run in the park. A neighbour has given up toast and community groups advise people to vacuum the backs of their fridges to ensure they work as efficiently as possible and to shower every second day.
A pre-panic mode has struck households across Britain as a cost-of-living crisis approaches uncharted territory.
Easy to see why people might be jittery at these prices. How many houses will burn down when people cook by candlelight?
Energy industry analyst Cornwall Insight forecasts that the British price cap will skyrocket and the average annual bill will reach £3582 ($6177) in October. By January, it predicts it will be £5000 a year. That is close to $10,000, after tax, for an average bill.
Consumer confidence in the UK is at the lowest level since 1974 when it was first measured:
Record-breaking gloom grips Britain ahead of ‘nightmare’ winter
Louis Ashworth and Tim Wallace, The Telegraph
A record-breaking economic gloom is gripping Britain as households brace for a “nightmare” winter of soaring costs.
Consumer confidence has plummeted to its lowest ever level as the Bank of England increases interest rates to counter rocketing inflation, according to a closely watched survey from the data company GfK.
GfK blamed acute concerns over the cost of living for a drop in its confidence index to -44, the lowest it has been since launching in 1974.
The GWPF, of course, saw all this coming: Don’t say you haven’t been warned: See 2017 GWPF Energy Manifesto: Climate policies, electricity prices and the energy price cap
House of cards…
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Katie Hopkins comments on energy starvation in Once Great Britain.
https://youtu.be/MohffU04vgA
4 min 52 sec.
Brilliant rant. And Australia will be in a similar situation by next winter.
Katie for PM!
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I wonder if this will slow the flood of refugees heading to Britain for a better life.
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Probably not.
They are used to Third World conditions…
331
Yes and the handouts are free . .
101
So they should feel quite at home.
10
Good question. The illegal immigrants – (they are for the most part not refugees), are already complaining that Britain is too cold for them. What are they going to do when winter comes around and they have no power?
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Daily flights to….?
Kenya.
50
Tell ’em to head somewhere warm, I hear Zimbabwe is nice this time of year.
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Don’t worry wal1957, the govt will prioritize resource allocation to them above natural born citizens, if recent history is any indicator.
00
There is so much Coal and Gas and maybe some Oil under the UK land mass and surrounding Seas and Waters to make the UK Energy Independent for many, many years to come. And the UK has Nuclear Energy and will now do more on that front.
The problem is that the ‘Pollies’ have NFI and have been hijacked by the Climate Change Druids.
Hello Druids. This Planet has been through a lot of change in over 4 Billion Years. And the Planet is still here.
So [Snip] and have a Nice Day……………………
[Should have used the KFC version]AD
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So sorry. I had NFI………lol
10
???
Overpriced, small, badly presented, soggy, with cabbage instead of lettuce? 😅
31
Good fun as always to see what comments get through the ‘Free Speech’……….LOL
20
Katie always does good rants. Though I always balk at predictions of certainty. Quantifying 1 million people is setting yourself up should the prediction not arise. And it probably won’t. Why ? People will go to great lengths and afford the expense somehow when faced with that brutal adversity. I’ve had a toothache that I would willingly have sold my soul for it’s cure. And that is what people do when it’s real.
10
Here in Coastal Devon The cafes were crowded as we walked through at lunch time, the pub garden is over flowing, the shops are buzzing. our next door county is Cornwall and I have never heard of anyone there turning off their freezer. In the meantime there is a waiting list for the bikes from our local bike shop with those costing £3 to 5000 being the most in demand. Our third nail bar opened last week. Our travel agent is busy booking exotic holidays. We are having a new carpet fitted next week and the owner says he is busy
Undoubtedly some people are suffering but many are not.
We shall see what winter brings when fuel prices will really bite
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It’s Summer. Read the first part of Jo’s piece again.
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I did. I know of no one who has turned off their heater, stopped making toast or turned off their freezer.
120
Sorry, meant turned off their freezer and virtually stopped showering..
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“I know of no one who is starving for lack of bread.” – Marie Antoinette
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” let them eat a Devon cream tea”
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Interestingly, certain dark forces are even trying to write the alleged quote “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” by Marie Antoinette out of history.
https://www.livescience.com/let-the-eat-cake.html
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She was 10 when this was said about her, but she was never the author:
https://www.history.com/news/did-marie-antoinette-really-say-let-them-eat-cake
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Depends on your demographic.
We have people here who are convinced that if they and their immediate social group don’t have a problem, then nobody has a problems. Don’t know what it’s like in the UK, but the inflated land prices along the coast tend to exclude those who are financially challenged.
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Must be all the well heeled EV owners buying those pushies at 3 to 5 grand a pop.
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Tony, the two additional nail salons are a dead giveaway to the area. So your comment is unusually provocative.
As the average age in Devon is over 50, it is a warmer place in the Gulf Stream and entirely below London with a high proportion of successful retirees running on accumulated wealth, not wages and a population of 800,000 from a UK population of 67 million. Cornwall and Devon are the warmest places in the UK if you do not want to live in the Scilly Isles.
Some seaside areas South of London are similar. But there is another poorer 99% of the UK including Scotland which will be really dark and freezing next winter and where 5,000 pounds a year in electricity will bring a major revolution in politics. There will be suffering not seen since WW2. Plus the lack of food from both a dry summer and the devastation of no fertilizer thanks to rocketing ethane prices and attacks on food producers like the very successful Dutch farmers. These are both political problems. And don’t forget that the EU wants to bring Britain to its knees. And personally I blame Carrie Johnson for the extreme position, the new class of privileged extreme socialist Green.
Like Australia and America, there is no actual shortage of oil, gas, coal and peat and there was no food shortage. But they are banned as is growing food in Nederlands because fossil fuels are rotted plants and will rapidly warm the world. In mid winter that will be highly desirable, but I doubt an additional +2C by the end of the century will help them. Paying vast wages to avoid any warming and reduce food supply will seem the height of insanity, even if warming were true, the sole justification for both.
People don’t know the awful French revolution was based on a simultaneous cold drought and crop failures. People were starving. But that was unintentional. The Global elites and the EU are stoking the coming revolution because as every good communist knows, it is a chance to seize world power. I believe the war in Ukraine was a direct response to the EU and UN and US and NATO provocation, which is largely unreported. And the loss of gas and food is part of the predictable disaster story this coming winter for many countries, some far away like Lebanon. Russia and Ukraine are the largest and third largest exporters of grain, now stopped.
No one really cares about Warming which is highly desirable if you really live above 51 North (which is above Devon), like 40% of the world’s population. Even so, a lot of the richest baby boomers are migrating even further South for the warmth, like Portugal, Spain and Italy. In the US, Texas and Florida. The whole situation from Holland to Ukraine to the UK is artificial. NATO and the UN were supposed to prevent war, not create it. But these tens of thousands of over paid bureaucrats spend their days with nothing else to do.
722
Whether Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss becomes PM it is very possible that the push fo lower emissions will become much less intensive than currently is the case.
Truss has primarily voted against measures to prevent climate change. She opposed the requirement for ministers to have “due regard” of the net zero 2050 target when making policies.
As Foreign Secretary, she announced in March that aid spending would be prioritised for women and girls rather than global health and climate change.
Sunak has consistently voted against policies to tackle climate change. In February 2020, he voted against calling for a government proposal to eliminate almost all transport emissions by 2030.
In 2016, he also voted against lowering the maximum rate of carbon dioxide emissions in new homes, and against establishing a decarbonisation target in Britain.
In his previous role as Chancellor, he opposed a windfall tax on oil and gas companies tabled by the Labour party to tackle the energy crisis.
He also offered a tax deduction of 91 per cent for these companies’ investments in further oil and gas extraction.
https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/07/26/who-will-be-the-next-uk-prime-minister-and-what-are-their-green-policies
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Two good candidates putting fairy tales in the bottom draw.
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I do hope you’re right, and whoever wins throws the whole global warming debacle out!
A major Western country doing that, rather than ‘one of those countries’ like Hungary or Russia, would lead a stampede for the exits as others realised the game was up.
21
The US are fighting a proxy war against Russia in the Ukraine. They may also fight a proxy war against China with Taiwan and Australia as the front.
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The boom in sales of electric space heaters should be very concerning. Even though these things typically have built in safety features like tip-over switches and over heating protection, they cannot prevent people doing dumb things like putting them too close to combustible materials like bedding or drapery. Every winter people die in fires caused by careless use of portable electric space heaters. Most occur where users are poor and can’t afford to cost of running regular heating systems. Hopefully, European consumers are more careful than many Americans. But risk is defined as probability of event times opportunity and a 1000% increase in opportunity does not bode well.
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Yes. And it might be hard to handle.
A few years back before the insanity set in our whitegoods suppliers offered us lots of cheaper (than before) 10 amp (240v) electric heaters. I don’t recollect why, maybe because China had increased their production of these goods.
When the cold weather came and the heaters were plugged in the system had noticeable difficulty meeting the demand.
This will likely be a lot worse.
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House fires in modern cities are way lower than they were a generation ago, thanks to much safer appliances. In particular, not so long ago people were using kerosene heaters to keep warm … the Germans might get back to that.
https://www.policygenius.com/homeowners-insurance/house-fire-statistics/
Heating is listed as the second most common cause of fire, a long way less than cooking fires. If you are concerned about poor people, then the most useful thing you can do is teach them how to cook properly … which might also be beneficial from a nutrition standpoint. I look forward to your YouTube channel … although there are already at least a hundred YouTube channels teaching people to cook. Anyone who wants to learn, can learn.
As for buying a little electric heater, they are very cheap, but only useful if you can afford electricity. Using a reverse cycle air-conditioner is more efficient, provided you don’t attempt to heat the whole house. My recommendation is the little single-room split systems that retail for between $1k and $2k plus a bit for installation.
By the way, I should point out that most domestic refrigerators these days are full of lighter fluid (isobutane) which is itself a fire hazard. Some A/C units also use this, but if you are lucky it won’t leak!
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That’s what started the Grenfell Tower fire in London.
It wouldn’t have happened with traditional refrigerants.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4603616/Fears-faulty-FRIDGE-blame-devastating-fire.html
91
Another farce caused by greed, the hole in the ozone is hardly going to affect anyone in Antarctica, but we all had to pay though the nose for appliances with the you beaut new non ozone destroying refrigeration gas, just because DuPonts patents ran out on R12.
20
Good. Europe needs to learn the consequences of their delusion. This is the place that wants to place new taxes and levies on Australia because we don’t meet their expectations of wokeness.
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It is ultimately about the regression of European civilisation (and Western Civilisation in general) to more primitive, pre-industrial, pre-Enlightenment times, for non-Elites.
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That was meant to be a new comment, not a reply to Cookster.
51
This is where the Klimate Klowns live, hope you guys are stocking up on rough hemp rope or at least drums of tar and of goose feathers.
111
People will die as they utilise inappropriate, unconventional and unsafe methods of keeping warm.
151
Electric heaters are commonplace in European homes.
70
Charcoal, or even gas heaters in enclosed spaces generate carbon monoxide. A few weeks back there were two cases in the Sydney area of near fatal CO poisoning.
130
It was a smart move to move to predominantly digital currencies. The other stuff now has more heating value than the gas or electricity it buys. Australia’s plastic money not the cleanest burning though.
The only reason people buy newspapers in Germany and UK is for their heating value. They are now the lowest cost fuel source. The digital versions are subsidising the real energy version.
81
In Feb 1952 my Mum had baby #3 in <3 years in Belfast. Coal was still rationed. She used newspapers as extra blankets for the babies.
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German vice president wants to open Nordstrom 2 . Ukraine not impressed
https://www.politico.eu/article/vice-president-of-the-german-parliament-calls-for-activation-of-nord-stream-2/
50
Ukraine has bigger problems than Nordstream right now.
20
…so long as they convert the Marks to Roubles to buy it, Putin will have no problems in supplying all they want.
Ukraine definitely has problems, the biggest of which is their Clown Prince. Seems he might be running out of usefulness and America/NATO looking at a replacement.
21
Good to see the fossil fuel producers making nice profits, obviously the supposed threat from renewables is not hurting their bottom line. Odd how that is working out
637
It’s pretty simple for most of us to understand Peter. If you actively drive down the supply of a product, it becomes more scarce. Then, when you decide you suddenly want more of that product, it costs more.
Try googling “Supply and demand”.
Or do you think after having their companies vilified and attacked by virtue signalling governments, fossil fuel suppliers should now act as charities?
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Before this unreliables carnage set in, nobody talked about electricity, nobody thought about electricity, that’s a good indicator that things are going well, nowadays it’s on everyones’ mind, globally, that also tells you that things are NOT going so well.
331
Yes.
The energy supply problem was solved centuries ago with the invention of the first practical steam engine (Newcomen’s “atmospheric engine” of 1712) and the utilisation of coal for its fuel rather than trees.
No longer was human or animal power or unreliable wind or water wheels required to do tedious tasks.
221
The very first domestic , continuous, electricity generator was a water wheel !
Today “water wheels”. (Hydro turbines) remain a key power source for grid electricity supplies.
20
Ronin,
Some of us in mining and energy industries thought about electricity quite a lot. I’d like a dollar for every page I wrote in the 1970s about Australia going nuclear.
The main lesson in 2022 is that the problems now being “revealed” like intermittency and frequency control with unreliables were very well known and planned for in the 1970s. Then a wave of poorly educated social science people got too much say, ignored this conventional wisdom in favour of unicorns and commies, so there you have it.
We never used to let kids play with matches but we let these fools write regulations. What a mess, shame it was so easily preventable. Geoff S
171
A Tory government with no vision gave the energy section no direction, hence the lack of investment. Copy paste for Australia.
21
They need to make profits because they can’t get funding from the ESG banks.
152
In Oz, if a coal fired generator bids $1/MWHr AND the grid needs a lot of power, then it buys all the coal power and works it’s way up the suppliers list, (and in consideration of the mandated purchase of W&S), buying the cheapest first until reaching a point where the supply safely exceeds the demand. At that point, let’s say they are buying OC gas fueled power and that is going for $400/MWHr.
As you would know, EVERY supplier gets the $400/MWHr for that period. Of course, the coal generator at the bottom of the stack is going to make a lot of money, it has the lowest costs and yet still gets the same income as the dearer units. If it was profitable at $1/MWHr, then it’s going to be feasting on the money tree down the garden at $400/MWHr.
So what is the problem…. For those who will see. The answer lies in the removal from the supply chain of cheap generators. As always, it’s supply and demand, and if there are not enough cheap suppliers, the buyers have to pay more. Anyone who thinks the cheap suppliers are to blame or should be shamed need to think through the consequences when the next one is removed from the supply chain.
There’s just not enough cheap lettuces anymore. And soon there will be less. And it’s government approved.
151
There used to be enough cheap reliable coal to cover the grid + some.
Governments have refused to build extra reliable supplies, choosing to shut them down for a virtue-seeking anti-science cause, and building up erratic, unreliables instead.
This has led to a situation where there is now no longer this surfeit of cheap reliable energy, and the reliance is now on very expensive forms of electricity from gas peakers etc
The blame for this has been the irrational, anti-science scaremongering about CO2, the gas of life.
182
If you remove the world “reliable” and confine the observation time to lunchtime in spring and autumn then you will find there is an abundance of electricity generating capacity. Queensland is already experiencing negative wholesale price.
This is what the world is being told about Australian electricity:
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/08/24/solar-beats-coal-for-one-brief-moment-in-australia/
And everyone in Canberra knows they have reducing power costs because they use 100% “renewable”. So all this positive reinforcement that they are on the right track.
Today, I am reminded of how Joseph Cassano was singing the praises of credit default swaps in 2005. It took two years for the wheels to start falling off and another year before GFC was the acronym of the day. Joe walked away from AIG having made USD285M in 7 years before the wheels fell off. In fact he was paid a monthly retainer of USD1M to help unravel his mess.
Right now Australia is riding the wave of a giant Ponzi scheme where government organised theft is taking from the poor to give to the less poor. 30% of Australian households are into it – fortunately paid up front. The wealthy players like Turnbul are at the top of the Ponzi. Most of the big super funds are into it.
Australia is in a position where the wheels may not fall off for decades to come because it continues to supply coal and iron ore to China to turn into the “renewable” trinkets that the west cannot afford to make themselves.
80
There is no mandated purchase of W&S at grid generating level in Australia. And the coal generators bid slabs of energy at large negative price around minus $1000/MWh to ensure they get scheduled thereby forcing grid W&S to voluntarily curtail.
You can see that grid scale solar is already curtailing (faint orange line) at 9am on Saturday in Queensland:
http://nemlog.com.au/gen/region/qld/
Price is minus $41/MWh with coal generating 69% of power at 10am. So they are willing to accept a negative price to force solar out of the market. The coal generators will recover the “losses” during the evening peak. Coal also get income for the stability services they bring to the grid.
Australia will enjoy low energy prices throughout spring as potential supply exceeds demand. Right now, Queensland is the only State with negative wholesale price. Still cold and little sun in southern Australia.
33
Rick,
You have clearly missed the details within the government legislated REC scheme.
The details can be found through the link below. In summary, liable entities, (mainly electrical retailers), are REQUIRED to purchase LGC’s from the W&S generators. LGC’s are large scale generators certificates, which are issued by the W&S generator for each unit of energy they produce. The retailers have to buy these or they fail to make their required quota under the scheme.
So tell me again… Do you still believe that W&S are not under a mandated purchase agreement?
https://www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/RET/About-the-Renewable-Energy-Target/How-the-scheme-works/Large-scale-Renewable-Energy-Target
02
LGCs are the mandated theft applied at retail level. They are NOT the wholesale price or anything to do with wholesale market. They apply at retail level.
They are the reason that W&S can operate at slight negative wholesale price and will curtail when the wholesale price drops below the current price of LGCs. They are purchased in proportion to the retail sales and paid to the W&S producers. If W&S production is below the RET then LGC price goes up. If the W&S are exceeding RET then LGC prices go down.
11
You completely missed the point of REC’s. They were introduced to force the purchase of W&S. They work.
If I were a W&S producer , AND I knew that my product HAD to be purchased. Why would I bid low? All I would have to do is be in the group with the other W&S producers, raking in the profits and ensuring that the price paid to ALL generators is much higher than the price that coal generators ALONE would have delivered.
Another way you could look at it. Let’s say that in the land of Oz, there were originally 10 CHEAP coal generators. Then the wizard of Oz produced a law that required any retailer to purchase all the W&S that was generated. All of a sudden the rent seekers of Oz moved in and built 2 W&S units. With the new law in place it soon became apparent that when the wind blew or the sun shines there were now two too many cheap coal producers. So they either closed due to lack of sales or were shut down by their owners, (who also owned the W&S units). When the W&S units produce, all will be fine. But when the W&S do not produce you are now short two cheap generators. Guess what happens? Yep, the land of Oz fires up their diesel generators at $15,000/MWHr. And everyone gets the same pay rate.
If you would like to jump in at any time and tell me how forcing the market to buy W&S can result in cheaper bills then I’m all ears. The forced purchasing of W&S is affecting the base rate for power.
40
This might help you Fitzy.
31
This might help you Fitzy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kRFXlgX9AY
11
Peter, it’s the unreliables subsidy harvesters that are making guaranteed huge profits.
Thanks to Government they work without competitive forces and without any incentive to reduce costs as would happen under the free enterprise system.
Apart from that, their product is expensive, unreliable, defective and unfit for purpose.
It wouldn’t survive in a free market.
131
David it is the free enterprise system that is making the record profits. Explain if you can how coal locally produced, and locally transported is now way more expensive at the local power station. While you ponder that also explain why, Western Australia, which has the same mix of generation types is not seeing these price spikes. Or, and for extra points explain why France, is not seeing the same spikes as the rest of the EU or the UK.
Remember the oil shock back in the day? we have learned nothing, except that if you can shift the blame (say to renewables) then the focus is not on your actions. Straight out of the playbook for tobacco.
315
You need to learn how NEM pricing works.
Even though it has been explained many time, you still seem totally clueless.
42
“shift the blame (say to renewables)”
Yes, the blame is TOTALLY on the
renewablesunreliables agendaIf we had built new coal fired power stations instead of wasting funds on unreliable, erratic grid disruptors… this problem would NOT be occurring.
82
How can a “system” make profits?
That’s complete nonsense. What sort of accounting is this?
11
The spot price of coal is trending up … but LRET is the most significant government imposed wealth transfer. If you don’t understand how that works when you have no idea about the Australian electricity market.
41
Yes Germany, seems my friends across there don’t want to accept what I’d been seeing and saying about all this some time ago. Birds are coming home. On their MDR Sat tv tonight news I could understand for myself that GAS bills going up from around $250 per month to over $1000 ( Euros not $ ). Woman in tears about what to do – no hairdo or holiday now. looked like she was on fixed income ( pension ). and then Norstrom 1 is closing completely from end of August …. but to re-open a few days later after some service issue, if I understood it properly. As for GB, Hmm our Kero prices have jumped UP again 6ppl in a couple of days, under £1 a litre now.. and then WE have E-on advertising that their electricity is 100% renewable! what a Con! – until today the wind hasn’t blown much this week, once again. … and its been quite cloudy, dark early at nights so any Solar PV panels havent made much and the thermal panels have been cooled by the cold winds all summer.
141
How are your hydro plants going, we stopped at the cafe near the Loch Sloy hydro plant many years ago.
20
Ronin, wish you hadn’t asked ! 🙂 “Between 2003 and 2020, numbers had increased more than fivefold” – really? https://www.statista.com/statistics/518390/uk-hydro-energy-sites/ but more succintly, https://www.statista.com/topics/4957/hydropower-industry-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/#topicHeader__wrapper .. but as would normally answer in direct response to your question, locally we’ve had enough rain, so ‘there must be enough water in the burn to feed the lochs’ for the techies, here – an interesting article ( we’ve been working by this area quite a bit recently ) https://www.quartzteq.com/resources/news-1/read/quartzelec-completes-bespoke-brushless-exciter-retrofit-at-mucomir-hydro-station-for-sse : And it is raining again – been a cold night Summer this year with insufficient rain / or at least for our crops the WIND has drawn the moisture back out. – is Wind reflected in Climate change? Last night Weather forecast “Little weather coming from the change in the Atlantic” – ‘Little weather’ ? what is weather then? Only a LOT of Rain or Sun or a Lot of Norain ?
20
As renewable prices are related to the free sun and wind , they are unaffected by the hike in gas prices so they are now very much cheaper than their fossil fuel equivalents. Oh, wait!
180
Sorry to say this TonyB, but France, Germany and Britain need to get it good and hard this winter to remind the plebs to stop voting for left green wanker govts, the power is in your hands at the ballot box.
241
Am I missing something?
Why would one panic buy electric heaters if there is a looming shortage of electricity?
221
Makes no sense unless they figure just heating the area where you are sitting reading the paper/watching the idiot box, is cheaper than heating the whole room/house.
90
To paraphrase a local wit, if you are in the doldrums, put up more sail.
110
Always works, LOL
70
The looming shortage is gas. They will have electricity when the wind blows. They may even avoid rolling “load management” if they can get enough coal and nuclear generators back on line.
They will not be space heating with electricity. They will be buying radiant heaters that they sit in front of or stand over.
I doubt Australia will take any notice of what happens in the UK or Germany until the same happens here. That is people die because the power goes off.
81
United Kingdom, Germany, and Europeans all nutters, mad as the proverbial Hares.
And green, climate warming governments will continue to destroy all that makes life comfortable.
Closing down power stations that work, turning off freezers and hot water, and shutting down industry. Turning off gas and petrol supplies and much more,and so on, and on it goes. But the people have been brainwashed and will accept everything their masters throw at them with stoic faces that will never admit defeat because that would be admitting they have been duped. Simple as that, they are being duped . .
231
Mate, the same applies here in Australia. We fit into that “nutters” category also very well.
131
Hence QED, Quite Easily Duped.
51
It amazes me how the politicians and media still keep claiming that wind and solar are the cheapest form of electricity, yet prices are now becoming unaffordable because of them. What’s even more amazing is how many people believe the media despite their rocketing power bills.
271
doublethink
/ˈdʌb(ə)lθɪŋk/
noun
the acceptance of contrary opinions or beliefs at the same time, especially as a result of political indoctrination.
141
You would have to be covered in green slime and living under a rock to not realise that as more and more solar and wind is commissioned, the price just keeps going up, despite the impassioned bleatings of our fool leaders on the left.
171
Electricity prices in Canberra fell this year. They are the only 100% “renewable”. region in Australia. So everyone living in Canberra can readily see that “renewables” are the cheapest.
And it does not surprise me that Canberrans do not appreciate that they are leading the way in this subsidy driven Ponzi scheme. As Ponzi schemes go, it is extremely intricate.
60
And when it is a calm cloudy day or calm night the ACT get there power from?
Well it couln’t be from the Snowy hydro because that is in V & NSW. Perhaps 100% is just lying.
50
I think Canberra has always got hydro from the Snowy – yes, that effective low emission power that greenies won’t let us build any more. They now crow about Tassie being a rich source of clean power while memory holing the outcry against dams down there which gave birth to The Greens!
11
No “perhaps” about it.
It is a lie that Canberra is powered 100% by renewables.
11
Ronin,
Some of us in mining and energy industries thought about electricity quite a lot. I’d like a dollar for every page I wrote in the 1970s about Australia going nuclear.
The main lesson in 2022 is that the problems now being “revealed” like intermittency and frequency control with unreliables were very well known and planned for in the 1970s. Then a wave of poorly educated social science people got too much say, ignored this conventional wisdom in favour of unicorns and commies, so there you have it.
We never used to let kids play with matches but we let these fools write regulations. What a mess, shame it was so easily preventable. Geoff S
61
What is unlawful in not paying an account??? What is unlawful in doing without electricity for a month? People will be doing without electricity if prices are artificially increased for no good reason.
If we do nothing, we are headed for disaster!
00
Due to looming shortages of Russian gas, with
an uncertainty of future supplies with a likelyhood of gas running out. Even if supplies resume, is not good for a country to be too reliant any other country for more than ~10% of their energy needs.
Electric heaters/ wood stoves are just an alternative heating methods that can be used.
90
“Electric heaters/ wood stoves are just an alternative heating methods that can be used.”
So long as you have electricity (which will be a coin toss on a regular basis this coming northern winter)…
… or access to fire-wood. (maybe they should have saved all the trees removed to make way for wind turbines?)
22
What we are witnessing is the start of the greatest tragedy to inflict western Europe since WW2 and all of this was caused by people pushing the green agenda. Where is Greta Thunberg right now?. Will we hear more “Bla, bla, bla” as vast numbers of people start dying in their homes from the cold as winter approaches ?. I’m guessing that Greta’s silence right now is due to the shame of knowing she helped cause this massive human disaster, albeit lead by other adults who are ultimately responsible.
And, in the face of this great looming disaster that threatens to bring down Europe and possibly the entire global economy and even possibly start WW3, our own Chis Bowen wants to implement the same failed policy down here and silence the dissenting voices who try and call out the obvious danger.
Whilst we can only sit back and watch what unfolds in Europe, what the opposition government parties needs to focus on here is to push for a Royal commission into the dangers of green energy and green policy. The people that are responsible for reckless endangerment of human life need to be held to account, especially when there is more than enough evidence to demonstrate the failure of RE technology to power an energy grid and the need for chemical fertiliser. The Greens, ALP, Teals and many in the LNP, know the new government plan will kill our nation along with the loss of many lives, but deliberately choose to act in full knowledge of the facts.
141
I’d be willing to bet she isn’t starving or freezing in the dark.
She is an Elite now.
She is beyond such worldly concerns.
132
I doubt it. She always was elite and her father is behind her success. But to be fair his story is that he had an unhappy angry autistic dropout daughter who found that being a Green activist gave her purpose and meaning in life. A crusade. And this real passion meant she succeeded beyond his wildest dreams to become a one person industry. She addressed the UN, the US Congress and DAVOS and more. A modern Joan of Arc, who likely had the same obsessive personality.
So I do not blame either of them but she has been used to add pathos, the cry of a child to the lie which is man made Global Warming. I expect she is really passionate and sincere. And in her psychology, likely totally inflexible. Is it a bad thing to turn 20 as a world famous person? Will she ever have regrets? Possibly not.
But in many ways she is no different to the generations of children since Global Warming was invented in 1988 and who have been told it is real. They are now the adult Teals and the Greens and cannot believe they were told lies by their teachers and the press. Saving the Great Barrier Reef, the Koalas, the Polar bears, the starving and preventing war, just to quote a current Greenpeace ad. All by eating kale and donating $5 a month. Greenpeace is now a massively profitable multinational business run by lawyers, milking the gullible who like Greta, have been programmed to believe the Green religion. And for NASA, the CSIRO, BOM, ABC, BBC, CBC and the rest, it is a gold mine which is never exhausted. What ethics?
That is why no one is interested in the truth. They really believe in a world of rapid devastating Global Warming and sea rise. And are not interested in hearing it’s not true. And the politicians play to their audience, even the Conservatives. And scientists learn to keep quiet or join the money go round. Who is asking for the hundreds of millions back, money donated to ‘save’ the Great Barrier Reef which never needed saving. Not a single journalist. Fake science for a massive amount of cash to live in paradise. And if you question these religions, you are attacked like Cardinal Pell or Dr. Peter Ridd.
111
Greta and her father are what is known in the trade as “useful idiots” or to use spooktalk, cutouts. The real players, who are well hidden via layers of intermediaries, rely on these tools to complete their tasks uncritically. Places like Sweden and Canada are favoured dropboxes for their nefarious activities. What their true intentions are is still in question. Probably to arrange a global monopoly on energy. They seem to already control the money supply.
32
German electricity prices out of control
https://notrickszone.com/2022/08/19/german-electricity-prices-spiraling-out-of-control-have-tripled-since-2000-blackouts-shortages-loom/
62
Does anyone know?
Are children in “schools” today taught anything good about the invention of the first practical steam engine or the Industrial Revolution?
I certainly remember being taught such things.
131
No, those are colonialist, and cause climate change.
Those inventions however, did lead to the development of Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok, freeing Mankind, sorry … Personkind, to complain about colonialism and stop the climate change caused by it.
Fortunately, the De-industrial Revolution is here.
151
“freeing Mankind, sorry … Personkind”
I’m confused.. I though a female was a kind of man, (in post-modern LGB******* culture) ? 😉
22
I should also note, the Industrial Revolution promoted patriarchal Cis binary gender roles.
Speaking of it in an educational setting results non-inclusive othering.
(My Woke is getting pretty good I think. Still have a bit on accent though.)
131
Didn’t get any of that, maybe I need some re-education.
50
Ronin
Its Ok, we already know your address. The reeducation will start Monday at 9Am. We have already cancelled all your other commitments and taken the money from your account to pay for it.
50
You have to concentrate on that high rising terminal speech pattern.
80
Where did that ghastly word ‘cis’ come from? I don’t recognise it.
20
See tonyb’s reply to Ronin above,
10
This will certainly be Chinese made heaters. Germany makes electric heaters but they are too expensive for Germans to buy. It is challenging to make stuff at low cost when your energy cost is the price of diamonds and gas in Germany will reach the rarity of diamonds.
90
I am sometimes conflicted as to whether to feel sorry for people who through monumental acts of stupidity have brought misery upon themselves.
Remember when President Trump warned the German UN delegation about depending on Russia for energy?
They laughed at him.
https://youtu.be/FfJv9QYrlwg
161
Same thing is happening in many countries and broadly fewer than half the people have been responsible for inflicting the misery and not just on themselves. Only those at the top of the Ponzi scheme are enjoying significant benefits.
90
Net Zero => Politically induce energy poverty !
122
“German electricity prices surge out of control, social instability threatens….German Chancellor assures police won’t open fire on demonstrators. ”
Well, isn’t that just so nice of them, so ‘unwoke’, I bet the truce lasts until the first demonstration.
51
I hope they have good luck with those electric heaters. A couple of weeks before Christmas our heat-pump based heating (and cooling in the summer) died. In the US most houses use forced hot-air heating.
Of course, our heating required a new part, and the manufacturer was closed for the entire Christmas/New Year period.
We had one electric heater, and bought two more. The US domestic electricity is useless for things like this. 120v with 15A trips means a wimpy 1500W is the usual max for these, and looping the sockets together means that you can’t put two on the same circuit.
Our house is mostly open-plan, including the hallway and stairs. Fortunately the bedrooms have doors.
Even at 45°N and a mild winter three of these were just not enough.
German houses tend to be smaller, and at least the older ones are not generally open-plan, and the have 240v power, but still it gets MUCH colder Toss in a few power cuts and they are in for a miserable winter.
130
I always thought ‘open plan’ was a bad idea. Not only hard to heat and cool, they are noisy, destroy privacy, and convert what should be a peaceful place of respite from daily life into a one room hut. Want to live in a hut? Choose open plan.
Want the comfort of a home? Invest in doors.
10
So, what Europe ( mainly Germany ) need right now is for a peace keeping delegation to hot foot it to Ukraine and broker a momentous peace deal. Get that Russian gas turned full on and any other disruptions to supply solved. That’s what is needed for the 2022/23 upcoming winter.
80
Putin only needs to wait till after winter and the Germans will join forces to help him liberate Ukraine.
Will be interesting to see where this charts sits in February 2023:
https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=EUR&to=RUB
31
Perhaps he doesn’t have to wait that long. Already the Deputy head of the FDP (third party in the ruling coalition) has suggested opening Nord Stream 2 to supply gas before winter.
At least Putin can’t play “mechanical problems” with brand new pipelines.
21
“At least Putin can’t play “mechanical problems” with brand new pipelines.”
As yet untested
I hope you had a dream run with that first of model new car?
10
The Russians have known how to use the winter as a weapon for a long time.
20
Cooking with a pressure cooker can save energy.
50
Oh I’m sure all the cooks will be under pressure once the rolling blackouts start…
South Africa worldwide.
10
Being the UK they don’t have bbq’s to bring inside either. 😉😅
U.S. Petroleum Reserves Hit Lowest Level In Decades Ahead Of Winter Months
Strategic Petroleum Reserve levels have reached their lowest levels in four decades as autumn and winter weather conditions approach, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.
President Joe Biden has responded to rising gas prices by releasing one million barrels of oil per day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves — a stock of emergency crude oil created to “reduce the impact of disruptions in supplies of petroleum products.” Though reserves in January 2021 were as high as 638 million barrels, reserves have fallen to 461 million barrels as of August 2022 — a level not seen since March 1985.
“The scale of this release is unprecedented: the world has never had a release of oil reserves at this 1 million per day rate for this length of time,” the White House said in a statement earlier this year. “This record release will provide a historic amount of supply to serve as bridge until the end of the year when domestic production ramps up.”
http://www.stationgossip.com/2022/08/us-petroleum-reserves-hit-lowest-level.html
1MBD is nothing of course; a token gesture.
It’s everywhere. The energy “crisis” that is. Or isn’t…
Belongs in Sat O/T so I’ll save it for there…
51
One word: midterms.
51
“1MBD is nothing of course; a token gesture.”
Hey! That’s OUR oil, Australia has a special arrangement with the Yanks whereby they store our strategic reserve in with theirs, but its OURS!
Really, you could sell a harbour bridge to any damm voter here!
21
Various local pressure groups have quickly coalesced to oppose Viva Energy’s proposed new gas terminal for Geelong. This is the headline in the free Geelong Independent newspaper this week. ADAC – A Different Approach Community – has written 4000 letters to various parties protesting the mooted gas installation. Point one they say it will damage important sea grass beds in Corio Bay. Point two, they specifically reference the United Nations and the IPCC and claim that Victoria’s move to renewables and the urgent need for climate action (Now!) should make a gas import terminal redundant.
You can’t fix silly, but it shows just how determined the climate lobby – even at the most local level – is to derail any future for conventional energy.
That the UN and IPCC might be lying and imposing a political agenda in the interests of malevolent foreign actors seems to impinge not the slightest onto the minds of these noisy Geelong activists.
Whatever the UN says must be treated as absolute gospel.
Fact: 90% of Australia’s solar panels are imported from China. Uighur slave labour might well be used in their manufacture.
Imagine the consequences of protesting against a new energy terminal in Chicomland.
70
Loss of seagrass beds, bad, loss of forest and farmland for windmills, good.
30
There is no climate emergency …
https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/83224/psyopclimatechange-update-1107-scientists–professionals-from-across-the-world-led-by-the-norwegian.html
40
Finally the scientists catch up with what most here on the JoNova forum have always known ! 🙂
42
Thanks Dennis and Rowan Dean also mentioned this on Outsiders this morning.
Here’s another link.
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/08/18/1200-scientists-and-professionals-declare-there-is-no-climate-emergency/
11
Sales of logs in the UK are booming.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/firewood-sales-to-surge-by-a-fifth-as-households-turn-to-stoves-to-stay-warm-this-winter/ar-AA10QFeG
10
Breitbart News has entered the movie making business with first release “My son, Hunter” about you know who.
Male star is Laurence Fox, the detective-sergeant for Lewis who reveals the huge incidence of mass murders in the quiet university town of Oxford.
In real life, Fox is an outspoken sceptic about climate change, who gets cancelled time after time for non-woke.
Do a quick search for previews including an hilarious shot of Hunter-Fox well into the white powder with three yummies on a couch in various undress, his nose mere mm from a big white boob. I wonder if I am too late to take up acting.
Geoff S
52
Also not a young bloke, I was taught many years ago that it was dangerous to get ambitions and capabilities mixed up Geoff.
01
I’m impressed with Laurance, seeing him on ‘Lewis”, I thought he’d be a lefty.
01
Get some land with some trees you can chop. That’s the only practical advice I can give anyone.
41
In the UK the sheeple voted for this.
21
Suppose some ordinary events happen, and, as is all too common in our world where we appear connected electronically to one through our idiot nerves, go viral.
These are predictions of events that will happen, but, as in a Christmas Carol, only the ghost of Christmas future knows the consequences.
— Locals in a coal mining area will go in small numbers to defunct mines and tailings piles to collect energy to take car of their families. The authorities will respond.
— Power will go out, and an unstable grid will prevent restarting for some time. Public necessities will be down, but some luxury residences, with generators and large tanks, will be happy, warm, comfortable, and partying. It will be irresistable to show the world this on a cell phone.
–Bad Storms! Some areas, blessed with petroleum on private land, and a local refinery and generating station, will be an island of normalcy, surrounded by a sea of pain. In Texas, US and Louisiana, and outstate Illinois the islands may join to salvage the state, or at least a significant area, and even welcome some power refugees. There are islands like this in California, and around nuclear plants. They may not all be handled the same way.
–Governments will be too proud to accept legitimate offers of help from abroad. Somewhere, a ship with enough propane for 10,000 homes (or even a load of coal briquettes or wood pellets) will sit in port, unable to get political permission to unload.
–failsafe systems will not be. Minor system parts are likely to fail under stress, only to be found unobtainable under current circumstances.
–US: Florida & Carolina power companies will be sending trucks to 20-30 states. Power companies in hurricane zones are able to charge rate-payers for spare parts stocks. Some jurisdictions will refuse the help because FL and NC power employees are often non-union.
–Greens will tell us that any troubles we have prove we shouldn’t use unreliable fossil fuels, and should instead depend on wind and solar because, after all, they are available everywhere.
21
I don’t think the average Joe realises what will be lost when all power goes off, modern life will cease to exist.
21
In the US it won’t be so bad. The guys with guns will be in the party mansions before you can blink, and take over, I daresay.
11
The River of Money continues to flow today…….$593 Million dollars, about the same price of the 200 MW/Hr battery announced last week for N.S.W.
“World’s largest green hydrogen plant to be built in South Australia”
“the plan does not come without risk”.
“is not going to solve every problem”.
“It is an ambitious policy – it’s not without a degree of risk in a policy sense but also in a technical sense,”
Quotes from Sky News Australia.
https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/ambitious-worlds-largest-hydrogen-plant-to-be-built-in-south-australia/video/d656f3e57fd45b73298e577b7abee208
20
The climatebaggers are flocking here from all over the world, must be some damn big subsidies on offer.
20
“German electricity prices surge out of control, social instability threatens….German Chancellor assures police won’t open fire on demonstrators. ”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/08/21/german-electricity-prices-spiraling-out-of-controltripling-since-2000-blackouts-unrest-loom/
10
The mendacious cruelty of the Greenaway people haters. It knows no bounds. They will see the less pecunious starve, freeze and die before they let go their Greenist fantasy.
11
[…] Elsewhere in Europe, skyrocketing energy prices are causing a lot of hardship–and will surely create serious economic pressures as much manufacturing in the affected countries becomes cost-prohibitive) […]
00