electricity in the UK

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

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John Larkin
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First, let's create the situation of low supply. Then we will be able to ask a high price. Then we will trumpet an increase in production capacity. But we will keep the price high. And increase the price even considerably in peak periods, with the help of the oh so smart meters, which also enable us to know the private details of energy consumption in every family house.

By the way... The fact that smart meters are introduced world-wide should get somebody thinking about who or what is wanting and able to have such laws created world-wide, and for what reason.

joe

Reply to
joe hey

The only bit they have got wrong is that Prof Ian Fells has been pointing out this energy shortfall in the UK for more than a decade.

He predicted ages ago that 2015 would be when laissez faire free market capitalism approach to UK electricity would hit a crunch point. Most recently summarised in an article at OilPrice in 2013:

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The energy suppliers are also royally ripping off consumers by always passing on price increases and never passing on the decreases.

You can watch the UK national grid in realtime detail daily, weekly, monthly and yearly at (Wind can sometimes contribute but is way too intermittent and they are installed to farm the grants not the wind):

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Notice how flat the last year has been - basically because we didn't have a winter to speak of. I had pelargoniums and other tender annuals flowering outside all year (that is not at all normal where I live).

Successive governments have prevaricated about new nuclear build and basically there is not enough capacity on stream now to handle a hard winter. Enron going bust didn't help as it meant the closure of a major plant not far from me where they were supposed to be building another big plant and National Grid had installed the supergrid lines to cater for moving the electricity down south when the whole site closed down.

Existing nuclear plant is at or beyond end of life but still being run and they will have to apply for licence exemptions to keep running them as the graphite moderators are now seriously under weight.

It is a huge mess and it is a stupid dim witted Conservative government that has presided ineffectually over the final stages of this predictable slow motion train crash. They have form - the last time we had electricity rationing it was a Conservative government too. In this case with an election due next year I expect the incoming UKIP (Tea Party swivel eyed loons) or Labour government will have to deal with it.

NB You should be aware that big energy consumers like steel works, aluminium refiner (now closed I think) and the Runcorn chloralkali plant are on a cheaper tariff that means they will be dropped from supply if things get tight. The latter is used as the ultimate load balancing tool on the UKs national grid since within reason it can sink any amount of electricity turning it into sodium hydroxide and chlorine.

What is unusual is to be begging other industry not to use so much power or else expect power cuts. I'm OK I have my own generator.

But what do you expect from a government so inept that it cannot even manage to issue UK passports reliably?

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Regards, 
Martin Brown
Reply to
Martin Brown

Martin is letting his prejudice get in the way of his brain.

The killer issue in the UK re. energy is the lunatic obsession with so called "renewables" which is shared by the three major parties in parliament and re-enforced by the EU.

There was/is no reason to shut down many of the older power stations, no reason to build any windmills and no reason not to build some nukes.

It's not party political thing - it's a horrible new development where almost all the high ups in all the established political parties are career politicians with the same educational background and almost no engineering/science understanding between them.

Michael Kellett

Reply to
MK

Sounds like the opposite: too much idealogical government meddling. California and Germany have the same problem. Texas doesn't.

Reply to
John Larkin

Politicians have a poor record in changing the laws of physics.

Reply to
John Larkin

Or economics, such as they are.

Reply to
krw
[...]

At an open day for one of the biggest wind turbines in the South West of England (in an ideal location and with huge economies of scale) I was able to discover that the pay-back time was estimated to be 21 years based on:

a) No major repairs. b) Doubling of the current Government subsidy for wind-generated electricity.

A video about German wind turbine repairs gives an average time of 9 years between major overhauls (costing over 50% of the original purchase price). Observation of the number of out-of-commission wind turbines in Cornwall suggest that this is not unique to Germany.

There are also at least two "wind turbines" situated near major routes out of London that rotate at constant speed and always face in the same direction, regardless of wind conditions. They appear to be dummies powered by electric motors.

Someone is perpetrating a vast and expensive con trick on a par with the lead-free solder fiasco.

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~ Adrian Tuddenham ~ 
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Adrian Tuddenham

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