By Jo Nova
Just to recap: Energy prices are so wildly high in Europe — thanks to a quest to alter the planetary climate — that 70% of fertilizer plants have already shut down, half the aluminum and zinc smelters have closed, and glass-makers and tilers who survived both world wars may go out of business. German homes are reduced to being wood fired (if they can find the firewood). Meanwhile someone very naughty set off explosions on the Nordstream gas pipes from Russia, and since a third of all UK gas comes from an underwater pipe to Norway now suddenly people are very nervous about that. Before most of this unfolded, UK consumer confidence was at minus 44 — the lowest ebb ever recorded since 1974 when people started recording these things. Now it’s even lower (minus 49). As many as one in four people in the UK were saying they won’t heat their homes in winter. It’s the most dramatic fall in European energy since the late Middle Ages. Luckily, at least the UK and Germany both have some old coal plants they haven’t blown up.
To make things more exciting, last week, after the underwater bombs went off, Joe Biden said he’d help European allies with gas, but this week, he’s thinking about banning US exports of gas and oil. Well, the US midterm elections are coming.
UK electricity prices:
Spot Electricity prices in the UK. | Trading Economics
And it was all so easily avoidable, completely unnecessary, and we won’t let any of them forget.
Rolling three hour blackouts for the UK this winter?
Households could experience a series of three-hour power cuts this winter if Vladimir Putin shuts off gas supplies from Russia and Britain experiences a cold snap, National Grid has warned.
Such an event would mean consumers in different parts of the country being notified a day in advance of three-hour blocks of time during which their power would be cut off, in an effort to reduce total consumption by 5%.
Apparently the King has to approve these “rota disconnections” and the privy council would advise him. Which takes British monarchical symbolism to its peak really. I mean what would happen if he said “No”?
Even though the UK didn’t get much gas from Russia, the market prices “flowed” right through:
Britain has the highest electricity costs in Europe, with consumers paying almost eight times as much as in some other countries, new research shows.Energy users in Britain were paying 64.21 Euro cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) for electricity in August, according to analysis produced by the Household Energy Price Index...
— NationalWorld
Meanwhile the EU experiment is tearing at the edges
There is a bun fight developing over who gets the scarce energy, and at what price. Some nations are paying 7 Euros per Megawatt hour tomorrow, some will pay 270.
Day ahead prices for spot electricity tomorrow in the EU. | Energy Live
The Germans and the Greens want the collectivist solution. But nations willing to use their own fossil fuels have cheap electricity and are getting rich.
The nations caught in the middle resent having to pay for the German Energiewende grand experiment, but they also resent paying the Norwegians.
EU fumes as US, Norway energy profits put solidarity to the test
Euroactiv
As the USA and Norway reap unprecedented profits from surging energy prices, EU countries are complaining more loudly and are preparing to send the European Commission forward to negotiate a better deal, voluntarily or not.
The European energy crisis has caused energy prices to spike. While Russia, the cause of the crisis, was one of the largest beneficiaries, EU allies, primarily the USA and Norway, are reaping extreme windfall profits as they fill the gap Russia left behind.
“In an energy crisis of such magnitude, the solutions are to be found together in the spirit of solidarity,” commented Renew Europe MEP Nicolae Ștefănuță.
Those who have fossil fuels have too many profits:
Norway, now the EU’s largest supplier of fossil fuels, is profiting immensely from Russia’s actions and subsequent energy price spike. Norwegian officials say they have a difficult time with such windfall profits.
“There are times when it is not fun to make money, and this is one of them,” said Norwegian petroleum and energy minister Terje Aasland in March.
The Norwegian Greens say that the governments excuse that these profits are good for the pension fund “is lame”:
“We cannot go on being war profiteers, which is becoming more shameful by the day,” he added. Norway, a small European country, “is as dependent on peace, stability and prosperity on the continent as any other country,” Johansen noted.
..the Greens want the extra fossil fuel profits to go into a solidarity fund to be used to aid Ukraine and Europe’s energy poor.
The Norwegian Greens call their own government “War Profiteers” for looking after their senior citizens. They say they want peace, but don’t realize that energy insecurity is a weapon of war.
So how come no-one is accusing Norway of planting bombs?
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I am sure someone is, somewhere!
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Imagine a world where the Norwegians said that they don’t want to profit from the sale of gas to Europe, so they shut the pipeline. Stopped all flows and just went back to farming. Would that be green enough for the greens?
In an alternative reality, (set some thirty or more years ago), it was good government to have stable energy supply and was essential to be beyond the control of a foreign nation. People even went to war for this independence. Not now, our governments would sell our souls to improve their personal credit score. And they are.
When the human race looks back on this period, they will either be up in arms at our stupidity or teaching it in schools, using chalk and slates.
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That would be the Greens’ idea of heaven. Dying people, lower population levels, subsistence survival of the remainder . . . The only better outcome would be extinction, I suspect.
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I am pretty sure the Greens would be extinguished somewhere along the line.
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Only 1.7% of Norway’s electricity is generated by fossil fuels. 86% of new vehicles sold in 2021 were EVs. Norway doesn’t need fossil fuels anymore so it sells them to those who need it.
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Norway gets basically ALL its income from the sale of fossil fuels !!
It is totally reliant on those sales
It uses HYDRO electricity, because it can..
NOT wind and solar. !
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Yes, solar is not too effective around the Arctic circle.
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It’s not bad in the summer month(s).
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I hope you have insurance for “errors and omissions”
You do know how much is hydro right? Not solar not wind. Those EV’s run on water.
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Simon,
You forgot to point out the “incentives” from the Norwegian government. No purchase fees or VAT for electric cars and a reduction for Hybrids . Your 86% also includes hybrid vehicles . 72% of the currently registered vehicles are still petrol or diesel .
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For a long time EV owners in Norway also got free parking in Oslo Fredrikstad Baerum and Trondheim. They get tax exemptions, half price tolls, company car tax discounts, use of bus and taxi lanes, no road traffic insurance tax, etc etc. It takes a long page to list the subsidies.
When they say it’s cheaper to run an EV in Norway, they’re lying by omission.
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Yes and do not forget that the long list of subsidies is paid for from the sale of natural gas exports.
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So magnanimous of Norway.
Meanwhile, in downtown Florida, there’s been a great fizzing and gurgling as Elektrik cars run into flood water.
All you can do is get out and run. Do NOT breathe the fumes.
Toxic.
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Simon
When the Norwegians find out that their EV is completely worthless in 5-7 years time, due to astronomical cost to replace the battery then we can look at this again.
Shelling out lots on a car that quickly becomes worthless will quickly stop this madness in its tracks. My current drive is 14 years old and going well, and my wife had a car over 25 years old when we were first married. Such ages will not exist in the EV world. And funny that the Left used to rail about the “throwaway society” yet here is the most massive leap in this area in history, and you and your fellow travellers are silent. Obviously care for recycling and reusing is politically based, rather than practically based…
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Simon, the Norwegians are given massive subsidies to purchase EVs. But after talking to a few, I found out that when they travel to other countries, out comes the SUV, as a lot of the “benefits” of driving an EV apparently only apply in Norway.
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And those massive subsidies are only exist because Norway sells so much fossil fuels.
Their whole socialist economy relies totally on those sales.
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Taxes on a new $30,000 gasoline car in Norway comes to just under 100%, costing around $60,000. This puts them in a similar price range as EVs, as a result 70% of new car sales in Norway are EVs.
I didn’t realize Noweigians were such maleable sheep.
Next on the green agenda will be Crickets and Soldier flies, they’re not just for breakfast you know.
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They’re either sheep, or Norway is the 6th wealthiest country in the world.
In fairness to our Norwegian friends.
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Coming to an Australian state near you in the near future and there is no one crying loud enough to say the bell tolls for us!!
All the evidence and proof is sitting there and Dutton is too frightened to lead the LNP and say the bell tolls for Australia the left is leading us to disaster.
They just need to KEEP ASKING 3 simple questions of Net Zero 50:
1) How will you do it? (show us the engineering, the resources, the details, the build program and infrastructure)
2) How much will it cost? (then triple it cause governments can’t manage projects!)
Finally and most importantly;
3) HOW MUCH WILL IT CHANGE THE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE
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To question #3, the answer is Zero.
There’s the beauty – Net Zero is the nearest whole number to the change in temperature from all the climate cult stuff.
Oddly, the sign of “net zero” is unknown.
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That’s gold!
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/10/06/the-impossibility-of-windmills-2/
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The politicians pushing the ruinables scam need to be held to account. Make all ALP/GREENS/TEALS sign a contract that guarantees cheap 24/7 power supply. If we get rolling blackouts because of their policies, they must pay compensation out of their own pockets.
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“3) HOW MUCH WILL IT CHANGE THE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE”
and all the other weather/climate events that are supposedly caused by climate change.
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Col
You and others here it interesting that a Swiss study, by Thomas Allmendinger, published in the International Journal of Physics in August 2016 questions CO2 as a green house gas. It finds that CO2 as a green house gas has been massively over rated. He conducted empirical experiments to determine the real green house gas potential for it and other gases.
This reconfirms the answer for 3 is zero. And will remain zero even if we have many times the amount of Co2 in the atmosphere as now.
As an engineer and somebody who has actually had the title “Research Scientist” in the past it is extremely concerning that science and reality are not even being followed here. Its quite easy for Dutton or anybody to ask for the scientific basis of global warming. And rising temps (yes they have risen since the little ice age) are NOT proof Co2 is causing issues. We had far higher temps 6000-10000 years ago and CO2 lower than now. The Sun does vary in output and there are all sorts of other factors here.
In any debate myself and probably many here could wipe the floor with the idiotic Leftists pushing for catastrophic destruction of our world via CO2 reduction. But we have never ever been given a proper opportunity as virtue signalling politicians refuse to let us speak, refuse to have a debate as they know they will be wiped out.
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Yes.
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So, you don’t need climate to create a climate crisis.
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ANY crisis will do.
Remember the great global KOOLING scare of the 69’s and ’70’s>
Latch onto a book called; “Scared to Death”. It details a series of massive “scares” that were either wildly overblown or utterly fraudulent from day one.
Scared (and ignorant) people are MUCH easier to manipulate than confident and knowledgeable ones.
As for the goal of the exercise?
I think it was Voltaire who said something like:
“Those whom you can make believe absurdities, can be made to commit atrocities.”
We are WELL into the “warmup” phase now.
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Search for “cord of wood” — images too — and see what is used as the “unit” for sale in the USA.
Sometimes folks sell a “face cord” that is just 1/3 of a full cord.
Newly cut tree wood has lots of water (40% ?) and if used fresh a lot of the energy goes to driving the water off. Drying or seasoning is a 2-year thing but varies. Open fireplaces are inefficient. A new wood stove with a catalytic converter (burner) is expensive.
But back to the cord: cut the tree, cut the rounds, split, stack, carry, and clean up the messes. Wood heat warms you several times. Or you can pay someone to do these chores for you.
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Burning Coal instead of wood liberated many from poverty.
Let’s forcibly return people to
burning (“renewable”) woodpoverty.Great people, these lunatics that want to “run the world”.
They can only exist in a civilisation so miseducated as to have no practical immunity to their madness.
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““run the world”.” or should that have read *ruin the world*.
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Selected areas of Victorian State Forests are open to the public to collect wood in Spring and Autumn. For me, that involves a 30 to 60 minute drive into impressive temperature forests to get a load of wood. The trees are usually freshly fallen within the last couple of years. Usually they fall because they have been weakened by some form of insect infestation so they turn to dust after a few years on the forest floor.
My wife usually comes and we choose one of the many nice spots on the fringes of the forest to buy lunch.
So a pleasurable outing a few times a year to build the wood pile in addition to what I trim off the trees on my block.
The wood burner is a modern one with claimed 65% efficiency but no flue gas cleaning. It could be higher than 65% because the burner is in a room with 10ft ceilings so a lot of sea recovery from the flue. We live in a suburban area but a lot of surrounding parkland. About 10% of the houses in the neighbourhood use wood for heating but I think that will change due to rising gas prices. I know people in Victoria spend $3000 a year on gas.
My sone just bought a heritage listed house in the same area that was built in 1870 and it has 6 brick fire places but none are used. The house had gas heating fitted in the 1990s. He is thinking about trying out one of the fireplaces and coming up into the forest with me to collect wood.
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You can burn wet wood, just need a bigger or better insulated firebox and some dry kindling to get it going, Large woodchippers and industrial drying kilns could produce dry burnable chips from fresh cut trees in a few days if govt+industry decided it was a critical problem or market opportunity. It’s also possible to recover energy from the evolved steam of burning wet wood by spraying lots of water in the exhaust (ie like a cooling tower does) to cool flu gases right down and condense the steam out of it – which would be really efficient. Collect that just above room-temperature cooling water and use it for heating – eg by pumping it though a car radiator indoors even if the fire box is outdoors. A decent garage workshop and $1-2k of online parts orders and you could probably improvise such a system in a day or two.
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One house across the bay from us burns wet wood in an (presumably) antique stove. The pollution is incredible for the houses around. Their only hope is that the place burns down in the near future due to a chimney fire. In winter with a temperature inversion you choke going outside at our place due to all the wood heating up the hill – all seasoned wood, but none of these folks has the $8-10K needed to replace the stove and chimney lining. This in BC Canada.
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We welcome you to the Borgopean Union.
Resistance is futile.
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Thanks Jo for covering the EU situation so clearly, but what about our lunacy in Australia?
We’ve now got a barking mad govt that wants to waste endless billions of $ for a ZERO change to their so called climate change idiocy and yet hardly anyone understands the data?
Just imagine a very simple AD in the papers and on the TV telling people that we only emit 1.1% of Human co2 emissions and even the entire SH is a co2 NET SINK? See CSIRO Cape Grim.
What impact I wonder if we also linked to the co2 emissions Wiki UN data graph showing SOARING emissions from China, India + developing countries over the last 30 years?
Don’t these ignorant fools realise that we’ll also completely wreck our electricity grids if we continue to waste these borrowed billions of $ on their TOXIC S & W energy?
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AGAIN here’s the world’s countries co2 emissions graph since 1970.
What’s so difficult to understand about the developing countries’ SOARING co2 emissions over the last 30 years?
Are we really so dumb that we can’t understand this very simple graph?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions#/media/File:World_fossil_carbon_dioxide_emissions_six_top_countries_and_confederations.png
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“…a barking mad govt that wants to waste endless billions of $ for a ZERO change”
As always, the FIRST rule is to FOLLOW THE MONEY.
The “spillage” from the money trail is the REAL story.
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Of course “these ignorant fools realise that we’ll also completely wreck our electricity grids if we continue to waste these borrowed billions of $ on their TOXIC S & W energy?”
But it gets them the sheepie votes which is what it’s all about.
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Sweden 2022: The rise of the in-home family campout with the latest in improvised blanket Thermal Yurts.
https://rmx.news/economy/sweden-braces-for-a-winter-of-power-shortages/
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Remember the good ol’ days when traitors were ostracised, banished, or executed? Not out of bloodlust, but to protect a society from the active evil that seeks its destruction.
When they say “peace”, they mean submission. Peace is easy if you surrender to evil, at least for a time. Appeasers have historically had this lesson forced upon them, but it is often others that have to pick up the tab for their conceit and hubris.
How many times must the wrongologists be allowed to inflict their insanity on humanity before we learn to ridicule and deride their demented ideas?
Tolerance for utter BullS#!t is not a civic virtue, it is a symptom of decline.
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I say bring back the stocks and the rotten fruit/vegetables. Do not execute, just shame the politicians who are taking us to a real crisis.
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A friend of a friend in Norway reported their power bill for August was $1000 AUD. They used five times the electricity last December to stay warm…Expect alot of elderly to freeze to death this winter in Europe.
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Happy Friday to you ALL.
Looks like the UK will be going back to a 3 day week just like 1974. Ah yes, the Good Old Days………………..
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But they got ABBA and their Waterloo at the Eurovision contest held in Brighton.
I worked in Oil & Gas, so we were exempt from the restrictions to conserve electricity during the coal miners strike. We kept those basement size computers humming through the night. Now a notebook could do a much faster job. But I did get to watch (on live TV) the 1974 Eurovision song contest, where ABBA blitzed them all. Memories from this link:
Waterloo
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Waterloo
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Here’s another article about their TOXIC S & W disasters from the Judith Curry blog.
The facts are that the more S & W you install on a grid the worse it gets and the more chaos you encounter and at a much higher cost.
Plenty of references to look up and the comments are very interesting as well.
https://judithcurry.com/2022/10/03/the-penetration-problem-part-i-wind-and-solar-the-more-you-do-the-harder-it-gets/#more-29160
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But, but, but, CSIRO did a cost analysis of all the power generation sources and they said S & W were the cheapest. We have to believe CSIRO don’t we? Larry Marshall even went on the ABC and said it – must be true. I mean, not only are they advising government on scientific matters like climate but also beneficiaries of research grants in that area. Silly me, that’s not a conflict of interest.
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The calculations are for LCOE, not full cost (FCOE), and are only taken over over 30 years, where they falsely claim that solar and wind won’t need replacing over that time period. And the costs don’t include firming/backup for solar and wind. When the costs are properly compared over the longer lifetimes of coal, gas and nuclear, solar and wind come out at over twice the cost. That’s without including the requirements for more longer transmission lines. Additionally, there are many wrong assumptions in GenCost. For example, they use the (wrong) U.S. CF figure of 35%, where as Tony has advised, Australia’s wind CF is around 30%.
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Great summary in a few words. Thanks I’d like to be able to use it.
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Ditto to that.
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The figures start out as Basic Overnight Costs, in $ per kWh:
USC Coal: 3,600
CCGT gas: 1542
SMR nuclear: 5316
Large-scale Solar: 1100
Wind: 1700
So at this stage, which are basically the LCOE figures that folks love to quote, it’s clear that wind and solar are cheaper.
Then we adjust for CF, but using the wrong CF of 35%:
Coal: 4000
Gas: 1713
Nuclear: 5596
Solar: 5500
Wind: 4857
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Next step is to use the same plant lifetime for all energy sources. This would be nuclear, but I would expect coal and gas to have similar long lifetimes, if they were allowed to.
Naturally solar and wind have to be torn down and replaced, at least once, if not twice, during this time.
Coal: 4800
Gas: 4112
Nuclear: 5596
Solar: 13200
Wind: 9724
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And a final step to provide firming/backup for the unreliable solar and wind. The exact amount of backup isn’t stated, and I suspect that it’s not enough to ensure energy reliability of say over 99%, but we will use the figures anyway.
Note that the Coal, Gas, Nuclear figures don’t change, as they don’t require backup.
Coal: 4800
Gas: 4112
Nuclear: 5596
Solar: 14882
Wind: 12372
The above doesn’t include the additional costs of more and longer transmission lines required for solar and wind.
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And to save the effort of comparing the final costs ($/kWh), using a normalised value of 1.0 for coal, we have:
Gas: 0.86
Nuclear: 1.16
Solar: 2.75
Wind: 2.02
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NNR + GF = WRYW
Narrative Number Required + Grant Funding = Whatever Result You Want
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And we must always remember – Cost of A+B is always more than A.
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Unless “B” is negative…
Now there’s an idea, negative grants (funding): applied each and every time a recipient produces anything which does not apply the Scientific Method.
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I think you’re pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down, Terry.
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Well, the CSIRO did invent SiroSet, so I suppose that makes them experts on everything.
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What if S & W are not the cheapest so much as what people are willing to spend the least to acquire ?
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The UK govt says there won’t be power cuts and in order to save face will take a variety of measures including getting people to use off peak power
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11288499/Liz-Truss-insists-Britain-winter-National-Grid-warns-BLACKOUTS.html
They will also do their best to keep the power on as otherwise it is an admittance that they have gone down many blind energy alleys. If its a mild winter they will probably get away with it. If its a sharp one then the problem is there are many EU nations in a much worse situation than we here in the UK who do not get any of our gas from Russia. Germany for example will do all it can to ensure it gets sufficient power else it’s economy will collapse as it has a lot of heavy industry. In that case they will divert energy away from our tradional sources, which includes Norway.
The EU is trying to put together an energy plan to cover all it’s empire so everyone gets an equal amount. Let’s see how that works out
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I currently have my solar calculator doing a long run but here is the solar data at 55N from NASA for previous couple of years and next.
2020 73 137 238 350 438 478 455 377 272 166 88 56
2021 74 138 237 349 438 478 455 378 273 167 89 56
2022 74 137 237 348 437 478 456 379 273 168 89 56
2023 73 137 236 347 437 478 456 379 274 168 90 56
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelE/ar5plots/srmonlat.html
The January and February are trending down in this short time frame.
The influence of the past solar cycle is very close to the bottom in the tropical Pacific and will swing up soon. And we are overdue for the start of the next
La NinaEl Nino phase in the Pacific. It will be a mild one like 2011 if it occurs at the start of the upswing.I do not look closely at the AMO so not certain how it is influencing UK.
In any case, UK winters are trending cooler and wetter while summers are trending warmer.
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Why are we overdue for the start of the next La Niña? There is still a very large pool of cooler water stretching out from South America, and aren’t the current heavy rains on the east coast a sign of a continuing La Niña?
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Graeme – I did not bother correcting the error. If someone picked it up, I would point out it was an error. It should read overdue for El Nino.
[Corrected now. – Jo]
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Are you talking about four La Nina in a row? That would be unprecedented.
Throw out your solar calculator and focus on the oscillations, particularly the NAO.
We already know that this La Nina is moderate, so the teleconnection to Europe is relatively weak.
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I meant overdue for El Nino. We have had a long run of La Nina conditions partly due to the fact that the Nino34 temperature has been in a downswing of the 11 year cycle. The cycle is about to upswing. That does not affect the timing of ENSO though.
I go into some detail on the Nino34 region and its association with solar cycles here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/10/04/surface-temperature-response-to-solar-emr-at-top-of-the-atmosphere/
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Not sure that this La Niña will be moderate EG. Just looked at the OSPO site – that’s one very big lot of cool water, now stretching right across the Pacific. Seems to be far larger than last year.
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You might be right, but the models are saying it will ease off by Xmas.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-139.62,-15.87,531/loc=153.235,-5.426
If they are wrong and it turns out to be fairly strong, then we can forecast a snowy winter in Western Europe.
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Therein lies the crux of the problem! Financially beneficial Profits or prophets of doom!
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Europeans have been re-electing socialist/Marxist governments for decades, because they get lots of “free stuff” that way.
Well, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and now it’s time to pay up – with interest! The EU resembles nothing so much as circular firing squad.
I hope they all freeze in the dark as they starve.
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The EU should slap a few sanctions on Norway , that will show them. Sanctions have proven to be so safe and effective against Russia, why not?
There is a thread on Reddit called Choosing Beggars. It all about entitled people who want something for nothing and also want just they way they want and maybe delivered as well. The EU seems to be a candidate for some entries as they clearly dont think their actions have any consequences , at least not ones they need to pay for.
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YouTube algorithms are pushing a DW Planet video saying natural gas use must be phased out ASAP. Because of CO2 emissions, naturally. This poor molecule cannot seem to catch a break.
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I am reminded of that rewrite of one of “the Laws” that says –
“Under conditions of standard temperature and pressure the molecule will do as it damn well pleases”
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The US and Norway are profiteering from this crisis – which begs the obvious question. Why the hell isn’t Australia also profiteering from this opportunity? ( I think I know the answer, but it felt better to ask it anyway).
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Australia is doing quite well out of it. The Q2 current account was $18.3bn positive. The net investment position is down to $834bn in debt. So slowly paying down the net foreign debt. Imagine if Australia was not buying solar panels and wind turbines from China how much better it would be. Or gifting the French a couple of billion for pulling out of a submarine contract.
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/international-trade/balance-payments-and-international-investment-position-australia/latest-release
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Western Australian govt. has a $6b surplus, much due to the huge LNG exports.
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well, if so many Brits say they won’t be heating their homes this winter, it opens up a return to the economics of the 1950s, when Australia’s merino wool was in such high demand. Back then, stud rams occupied the rear seats of Rolls Royces purchased by grateful sheep station owners.
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I can think of a better date!
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The Brits will muddle on and freeze through another winter, nothing will change.
Except if they can they will go to war against Russia, cause it’s all their fault . .
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It might not be a freezing winter, it depends on the North Atlantic Oscillation.
Some models are already predicting conditions similar to last winter, where January and February were mild because the NAO was positive.
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Let us hope for the sake of the non-millionaires in the UK that the prediction is right. On the other hand I have doubts after so many predictions haen’t turned out right e.g. continued drought in Qld and NSW about 12 years ago.
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That La Nina was strong and had a big impact on that European winter, the NAO was also very negative. This is not a coincidence.
https://weather.plus/nao-index.php
On this occasion it appears unlikely that the UK will experience serious freezing..
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What happened to the 3800km undersea electrical cable to deliver unreliables from Morocco to the UK, LoL?
Remember, unreliables are the “cheapest form of electricity production”, LoL.
https://www.smart-energy.com/renewable-energy/subsea-cables-to-deliver-renewable-energy-from-morocco-to-the-uk/
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When will it start delivering? Long after this coming winter.
In the meantime The Problem with Solar Energy in Africa which is mostly about Morocco.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OpM_zKGE4o
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First 15 mins very good – full of really interesting information about the problems of trying to power Europe from North Africa. Definitely worth the time.
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I haven’t watched it yet but two major problems will be dust accumulation and the fact that panels get less efficient in heat.
For the first issue they will need large teams of slaves to constantly clean the panels.
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Here’s another reason you don’t built solar subsidy farms in Africa.
https://youtu.be/n4F3_RbyRvs
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From the comments, I’m assuming that the locals were upset at having their farmland taken away for a solar farm.
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Blowing up the undersea Nordstream gas pipeline brings to one’s attention the security frailty of any of these international undersea utility lines. Hope Singapore is paying attention before becoming reliant on the million hectare solar farm generated power (C-Brookes?) for transmission from northern Australia to Singapore.
Then there’s the communications systems. Nations dependent on any of these utilities are now placing their futures in the hands of so many disparate unfriendly groups, all into drone systems whether local guerilla or nationalist forces. A little snip here and a little snip there… . Having been done once, now, it will become all the go.
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I started to watch it but stopped again because of the endless intrusive plinky-plonk piano interfering with listening to the commentary. It’s infuriating to me and means I rarely persist for long. A pity but it’s aural pollution.
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Remember the story of “the ant and the grasshopper” and its woke update?
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96% of the price spike in the UK is attributed to gas prices rises. Renewables and nuclear have not raised their prices (according to carbonbrief, so renewables are around 38%, while nuclear is at 21%, of the total, what would the price of electricity be?
Would they see the same market fluctuations as the east coast of Australia, where coal and gas jumped in line with the international market.
Western Australia, with a similar mix of generation types is behaving more like Qatar, or Saudi Arabia, as leftist policy holds part of locally produced supply for the local market only.
Therefore, the reality is that the problem is purely political, and those politics are driven by the profit motive.
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The implementation of ruinables into the grid is a massive cost, plus it makes the reliable suppliers operate inefficiently, thus pushing up prices even further.
Carbon briefs, only use fancy fudges to deny those cost.. it is fake accounting
WA has its own stable GAS supply which is uses to fill the massive gaps left by ruinables.
Why is it that every country with a large infection of wind and solar ruinables into the grid, has the most expensive electricity !
And yes, the problem is purely political, with the idiotic push for unreliable, erratic supply system.
If only these countries had not destroyed their RELIABLE electricity supply systems !
If Australia still had a surplus of coal powered electricity… there would be cheap reliable electricity for all.
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…for stupid people.
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Oh and isn’t Carbon Briefs one of those cult groups that still thinks CO2 causes warming ?
If so, shows how utterly divorced from science they are. !
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Their “prices” is meaningless in the context of the wholesale electricity market. The correct term is bids. And they would have no need to raise their bids because the highest cost in every bid block is set by the highest bid scheduled genorator.
If gas is always the last scheduled generator then gas sets the wholesale price.
The UK is looking into redesigning the market because nuclear and other dispatchable generators have been making windfall profits.
Any change, if successful, will only extend the illusion that wind and solar are a lowest cost form of power generation. In the longer term, reality will prevail and the giant Ponzi scheme unravels.
Trump pointed out out to Germany about 5 years ago that they were building energy dependence on Putin and that would bite them – like many things, time has proven he was right.
Germany’s Enertgiewande has been built on cheap Russian gas – what could possibly go wrong.
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RickWill,
One newer off-shore wind farm contracted to supply at £79 per MWh but due to a loop-hole they get to sell at around the current wholesale price of (approx.) £217 per MWh.
Other new off-shore wind farms which signed the same sort of ‘contract’ at rates around £39 per MWh (leading to claims that wind was getting cheaper) are looking forward to that loop-hole with joy for when they start up.
And if I had (which I haven’t of course) a PV solar contract at £800 per MWh I wouldn’t be worried about the future either, (and probably planning to spend the coming winter on a luxury yacht well south of the UK).
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The contract price really does not matter. If the wholesale price is high then someone will have some benefit from the difference between the contract and the wholesale price. I do not know what loop-hole. I believe it is inherent in the market design.
The UK government is threatening to levy windfall taxes on the electricity generators. But they are just operating under the current market rules. Surely private companies are out to maximise profits while operating within the rules of the market.
22
Yes, everyone bar the gas generators are operating under the rules set by the government and are legally profiteering from a situation of the government’s making. The EU runs the same system and has realised it is stupid so is looking to change it. When talking of a windfall tax most people are thinking it should apply to oil and gas companies but they are just selling at the international market rates for their commodities. The excess profits are being made by the generating companies whose costs have not increased so are making an extra £45bn profit.
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‘the problem is purely political’
I love it, purely political – Just like climate change . .
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Again Peter, the domestic gas reservation policy was NOT setup by a Labor govt. It was brought into operation by the Sir Charles Court, a minister in Brand’s Liberal govt. Carpenter’s Labor govt enshrined the agreement in legislation. But it was Charlie Court that put in the hard yards, setting up the iron ore and gas export industries, initially against the wishes of the federal govt.
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Meanwhile, illegal immigrants get to stay on a chartered 5 star cruise ship, heated and cooled, in luxury accommodation, waited on by staff, as tax-paying EU citizens face being discovered dead from exposure this winter in their own homes.
And the USSA is going to fund their Ukrainian proxy war until 2029.
Now, what COULD have been done with all the money being p1ssed away on that scumbag Zelensky?
An end to the energy woes of the EU, that’s what.
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C’mon! Get serious. Not all that money goes directly to Zelensky the pianist. A lot of it gets recycled through the US arms industry and into the pockets of US billionaires.
Isn’t that more important than helping the EU to survive the winter?
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The profits flow to the Norwegians because those who pay the price consider they are getting more value than would be derived from not paying the price. So the profits are quite fair. If people don’t want to pay that much for energy, don’t vote for the clowns who think CO2 is the climate control knob.
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“don’t vote for the clowns who think CO2 is the climate control knob”
Simple logic might tells us that there is no ‘control knob’ on a complex system like planetary climate.
Simple history shows us that we are not experiencing unprecedented catastrophic weather in the current era.
But logic and history are the newly anachronistic fantasies of a bygone era.
Logic and history are defeated and the only task left is the elimination of the remaining survivors.
Probably soon to be cornered at Montsegur and virtually cleansed by Tech Lord Simon of Zuckerberg.
The ilk of Joe Biden and Jacinda Ardern have openly and proudly declared as much in recent weeks.
They openly discuss their totalitarian visions, and those that hear them are labeled ‘conspiracy theorists’.
We didn’t get Spock, we got Cardinal Richelieu.
We have thought them clowns at our peril.
They are in fact power seeking sociopaths that now stand over a prostrate public with a sword.
The argument has been handily won by the Clowns.
After a short period when superstition appeared to have been defeated by history, humans have once again been convinced to hate their own existence.
‘Science’ can no longer be questioned at virtually every academic, medical, governmental, NGO organization on the planet.
Thus it is dead.
Murdered by its’ own mercenary guardians.
And their Neo Red Guard Pink Haired children.
I’m pretty sure the new Tech Warlords have the ‘voting’ thing under control.
In the US, vote audits are not currently possible, or advocated for by any established political faction.
POTUS has officially declared that to do so makes one a ‘clear and present’ (legal terminology) threat to democracy.
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Science is ‘what I think it is’! Proof is not required and history is an inconvenience, readily disposed of by my selection of data sets taken from within a time period outside of which measurements were made by unscientific techniques. Past ‘history’ is simply the opinion of those that wrote it, and we all know human beings have contrarian views on most matters. Hence, arguments to the contrary, are rejected as not meeting the criteria of modern scientific decision-making. That’s why modern electronic means of communication can justifiably sensor out masses of material judged as mis/disinformation aimed at misleading the under-educated masses. How else is one to save the world …. from itself?
40
Can’t wait for the whole of Europe & UK to grind to a halt. Been waiting & hoping for this to happen for a long time. They stupid electorate and the devious immoral lying politicians will end up having a huge fight which’s going to go on until commonsense reigns once more.
Just hoping, without much confidence, that the Australian electorate will waken from their slumber & dreams of unicorns & fairies of zero emissions by 2050.
They’d best wake up soon as government, both liberal & Labor are hell bent on proving their superior intelligence by destroying our economy & way of life!!!
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I have quite a number of European friends but they all seem to be oblivious to the fact that they are heading into complete train wreck.
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” As many as one in four people in the UK were saying they won’t heat their homes in winter. ”
I’m assuming they’ll need more clothing – not from oil , I’m guessing.
Bullish for wool?
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But who would want to take GBPs for real stuff. The GBP has a bleak future.
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Most people are not old enough to know what it was like living in unheated houses in the 1950s and early 60s. I remember only too well. When they blithely say they won’t be heating their homes and there’s even just an averagely cold winter, well, things might be very interesting from a generation or two who think an extra sweater over that t-shirt and shorts will keep them warm.
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It seems that Bulgaria is breaking ranks.
https://tass.com/politics/1518229
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But only by permission of the EU dictators.
60
La Niña has begun already. We are on South Coast NSW with non-stop rain cycles. NSW is largely soaked all the way to central west.
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To me the West seems so incredibly naive and dumb.
The West is facing the most dangerous period of its combined existence in almost a century.
It is being attacked by the left extreme from within, socially, where its value’s system is being destroyed, and economically where its essential energy system is being destroyed. The political system has failed us since it became based on the winning of power for power’s sake while wilfully ignoring its raison d’etre to serve for the good of the people and the nation.
The West is being attacked externally from multiple sides, but most egregiously by the very nations it exported its manufacturing and digitally based expertise to ie China, and Russia. The naive, dumb ignorance that it was funding its own demise via the hands of Big Business, whose job it is to make a quid, and by politicians, some of whom are making huge profits for themselves, facilitating such actions and compromised ideological politics, is a disgrace of infinite proportions. Trump called the stupidity of Germany relying on Russia for energy, the basis of everything it has.
The end stage is at hand this winter as identified by as per this article. Our people are dumb! They live for the moment, can’t be bothered with consequences until they happen. In Australia, the fear of climate is so instilled that few see the craziness of the current moment. They get headlines on wokism and the UKraine, daily, but ‘Climate Change’ is all consuming. The rest is just diversion. They don’t get on the street demanding change of government direction to save the nation but simply watch persistent fossil fuel driven energy plants destroyed despite events in Europe. They ignore that the home of climate ideology is rapidly trying to reverse course before it smashes into the icy reef due to the same policy driven high cost of energy that is growing here. We are just quietly accepting this same game knowing we have huge energy resources at our disposal but forbidden by politicians to be used. That is the definition of the ultimate in stupidity, or is by design?.
Just how dumb can we of the ‘educated’ West get? It’s unbelievable! Our people are zombies, driven to the cliff by the political/Big Business/ Big media cartel where profits from the pockets of the working class citizens and power are the driving forces. People see what energy deprivation brings – and want more of it! The USA is no better; probably even worse! They don’t even know who are the driving forces behind the incapacitated Biden. The Jones Town Massacre doesn’t hold a flame to this! Currently people are seen as sleep walking into a possible nuclear war. Meanwhile, China just sits smiling, assisting and profiting from the West as it destroys itself and tells its people one truth: ‘You will own nothing, and be happy!’.
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This should be a sceptics T shirt reminder message…https://www.art.com/products/p15063337931-sa-i6845694/paul-noth-wait-a-minute-we-re-lemurs-lemurs-new-yorker-cartoon.htm
40
Here’s an interesting Goolag search.
Search “firewood theft uk” without quote marks and see all the entries you get.
They are burning anything they can find.
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Why is it Greens are consistently stupid?
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They wouldn’t be greens if they weren’t.
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Because of crass stupidity spawned of a consumate arrogance.
10
Comes with the job. A bit like hypocrisy and being a Leftie go together along with a complete failure to understand economics.
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The UK have rich fosil fuel fields around our Northern Isles which, together with the shale gas we should have been fracking a decade ago, would have provided energy security whilst we got busy with nuclear energy plants using our own engineering know how and not at the mercy of some foreign entity. The political stupidity started after we lost a decent PM (Thatcher – not always right but always determined to keep lesser leaders in their places) and in particular during the Blair ‘blue rinse’ era where he devoted himself to being just about better than any Tory equivalent.
The UK is paying for that energy neglect now but the big problem is the infestations of our public services, institutions and academia with left wingers who do not know the meaning of political neutrality whilst at work. Perhaps we need a cull of all the corrupted areas of UK life (including our political system and parties) and a return to honesty, integrity, and professionalism instead of greed. The word Great unfortunately no longer applies to our constitutional collective and we need it back again urgently
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The UK is paying for that energy neglect now
What are retail prices like for electricity, gas and petroleum or diesel?
What is the general pub talk on these issues?
A few weeks back I had my first ad hoc discussion on climate change with complete strangers in an Aldi store. The two guys I talked to felt they were being scammed but could not
nail it down; more a feeling in their bones that they were being lied to because none of the predicted disasters had eventuated. Both were old enough to remember real rain, real heat and real fires.
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“The UK is paying for that energy neglect now but the big problem is the infestations of our public services, institutions and academia with left wingers who do not know the meaning of political neutrality whilst at work.”
The trouble is they think they are being neutral…
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A lot of them are actually really stupid – I know, I have worked with them.
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I do wonder how many people in the UK will really go without heat on cost grounds. I’ve done it and it is a miserable experience. You actually feel colder indoors than out, not because of the lack of activity, but because the cold walls suck the heat out of you. No amount of insulation or clothing can make you feel warm. Being chilled to the bone day after day is no fun.
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Bit like sitting in a concrete seated stadium in the middle of a cold rainless winter night, even if it has a roof.
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Nail on head Mr GN. It’s only those of us who remember what it’s like who know what they are really in for.
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A certain irony that King Charles is required to sign off on allowing blackouts that are an effect of his eco-lunacy when he was the Prince of Wales.
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Of course, he installed chip-burning heating at Highgrove. Lucky him.
30
From 2011,
‘A giant water turbine to provide energy for Windsor Castle has been installed on the River Thames.
The 40-tonne Archimedes screw turbine joins another already installed at Romney Weir.
When they are both up and running in the new year they are expected to provide half the electricity needed for the Queen’s Berkshire residence.
The £1.7m project will also provide electricity to homes and buildings on the castle estate.
The Queen’s deputy treasurer Mike Stevens said: “The Royal Household is constantly looking at new ways of saving and supplying energy so as to remain as environmentally friendly as possible well into the future.
Accordingly, the household was very keen to support this project.”
Project manager Stephen Naylor said: “This is the first one for us, we’re going to learn a lot from it.”
Mr Naylor said the Environment Agency would work with developers and communities to explore similar schemes at other suitable sites.”
The developer was a firm called MANNPOWER. From their site,
‘Mann Power Hydro Ltd is now part of the TLS Energy Group
We are very pleased to announce that Mann Power Hydro Ltd is now part of the TLS Energy Group, which owns and operates 10 hydroelectric power stations and 2 wind turbines with a combined capacity of over 6MW across the UK. These schemes will further expand our portfolio of projects for which we provide technical services, and allows us to continue investing in the trained engineers and specialist equipment required to offer the best possible service to our customers. We also now have access to TLS Energy’s long-standing expertise in the energy trading market, in particular negotiating the best rates for selling the energy generated.’
Mann Power Hydro Ltd is now part of the TLS Energy Group
We are very pleased to announce that Mann Power Hydro Ltd is now part of the TLS Energy Group, which owns and operates 10 hydroelectric power stations and 2 wind turbines with a combined capacity of over 6MW across the UK. These schemes will further expand our portfolio of projects for which we provide technical services, and allows us to continue investing in the trained engineers and specialist equipment required to offer the best possible service to our customers. We also now have access to TLS Energy’s long-standing expertise in the energy trading market, in particular negotiating the best rates for selling the energy generated.
We are very pleased to announce that Mann Power Hydro Ltd is now part of the TLS Energy Group, which owns and operates 10 hydroelectric power stations and 2 wind turbines with a combined capacity of over 6MW across the UK. These schemes will further expand our portfolio of projects for which we provide technical services, and allows us to continue investing in the trained engineers and specialist equipment required to offer the best possible service to our customers. We also now have access to TLS Energy’s long-standing expertise in the energy trading market, in particular negotiating the best rates for selling the energy generated.
[It’s worth reading the ‘customer’ recommendations – notably not from the royal household].
http://www.mannpower-hydro.co.uk/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-16276225
00
Latest rant from Alan Kohler..
“Anthony Albanese and his ministers should refuse to go on Sky News unless the climate deniers are removed – is not simply a matter of “everyone is entitled to their opinion” if the opinion is dangerous epistemic stubbornness.”.
https://bit.ly/3fQpel9
I would of thought keeping Albo off the TV would be a good thing… 😄
40
Energy Prices:
Markets work
Econ 101:
The Law of Supply and Demand.
The price is set when the marginal buyer transacts with marginal seller.
This still happens, no matter how much diddling beforehand has been done by politicians with marginal intelligence.
20
EU committing collective suicide now. Running a genuine risk of hyperinflation.
Germany can not carry the burden of the debtor nations forever.
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There’s a ‘self-inflicted’ energy crisis across much of Europe
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I am uncomfortable with this “suicide” term.
00
Part of me is actually cheering this utterly predictable, totally man made escalating disaster.
World temperature was at a minimum in 1850. So how much actual damage has the alleged +1.5C done in 170 years? None.
It should be obvious even to Greta that the rapid damage from banning fossil fuels is far worse than Climate Change itself.
And an attempt to ban farming, fishing, transport, manufacturing as well.
But there is no temperature problem. There never was.
EU bureaucrats are wrecking whole countries, freezing and starving people to save them from tiny warming which isn’t even happening?
As Dr. Tom Parker says, Greenpeace is the enemy of humanity. And all other carbon based life on earth.
If anything is going to bring down the EU/UN it is that people have had enough of utterly disastrous fake Climate Emergency. Europe now has a real emergency, the EU. Meanwhile the bureaucrats of Brussels are living high on power and cake.
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The problem is that we are trying to kill science lies one at a time. Typically a rebel against one wrong science idea becomes an conformist in other areas. We can’t win like that. We have to go after the lot of them. Even if as individuals there is a cost to this.
20
Meanwhile East Timor is STILL waiting for our government to agree on development of $100 billion in oil and gas in-between Darwin and Dili… No need for shortages and high prices here if they got off their collective climate crisis arses. Funny how recent news or pictures from East Timor is rare. Maybe it looks like Dubai now!
20