Today I will post my speech on energy made in the Commons yesterday.I continue to press Ministers to reduce our dependence on imported electricity. They need to restore two crucial objectives of Conservative energy policy, sufficient domestic capacity with a margin for demand or supply shocks, and a mechanism to drive down prices so it is affordable.
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July 9, 2021
And I hope that you will also work to remove Chinese financing and technological involvement in our energy infrastructure – particularly our nuclear power stations. The utterances of some of your colleagues makes me think that many of them do are blind to the strategic objectives of the CCP.
July 9, 2021
Or complicit maybe?
July 9, 2021
See the Spectator this week:- How China bought Cambridge by Ian Williams.
July 9, 2021
I find it strange that the policies of the CCP are acceptable to the most woke University in the world. Money talks, I suppose…
July 9, 2021
You have been herded into a green mire of your own making and you will pay dearly in a political sense over the next ten years.
There is no indication that current green electricity is benefitting price wise from scale, and as you point out you have to compensate for it’s unreliability with less green instant backup.
You have run away from fracked gas prefering to take the knee to ill informed nimbies.
You have done nothing to detatch yourselves from foreign owned and chinese financed new atomic power.
Despite Rolls Royce developing small atomic power units, ten of which would cover UK needs, you have done little to encourage them. If you have you are being very quiet about it.
As you point out, there is no coherent policy on VAT in its relationship to all green fuel conserving equipment and the labour involved in converting to it. Nor for that matter on the fuel itself.
Finally you insist on a ride to hell on a handcart in making everything electric, ergo very expensive in both changing to it and using it. Politically it is about the dumbest thing you could do. It leaves a large gap on your increasingly left flank for a coherent political party to walk into. Not that we have any of those at present, but remember the speed with which the Brexit Party evolved and decimated everyone at the EU elections. That is how vulnerable you are, the king without clothes.
July 9, 2021
agricola
Well said pal, it was always said leave it to the engineers, since the Climate Change Act they haven’t and still the country suffers. If you manufacturer anything you need to get it to market.
Where the hell is the infrastructure to support all these all electric dreams?
July 9, 2021
+1
July 9, 2021
Gosh!I wish that new party would hurry up!
But you are correctā¦the Brexit Party did appear to spring up quickly.
What has happened to Reform though?
In my experience newly formed parties do not make much effort to be inclusive, informative etc.
They are usually quite keen to take a subscription thoughā¦
July 9, 2021
Not true. There has been a substantial reduction in costs of production to the extent āitā matches or is cheaper than gas fired outputs and recent government estimates have recently revised the costs downwards.
The problem is that despite repeated requests by MPs the BEIS refuses to publish its internal reports. Why the secrecy. I guess their modelling is severely flawed.
July 9, 2021
The government plans are to add taxes to gas fired production. Already, the Carbon Tax has increased from noting to Ā£18 and now to Ā£50/tonne CO2. If you look at the OBR report released the other day, you will see that carbon taxes are expected to levy large sums and will be doubled again very soon. Of course, by keeping on adding taxes (the OBR report include a chart 3.25 showing the UK carbon price reaching $900/tonne CO2 by 2050 in constant 2010 prices). You can always keep adding taxes to favour renewables, but it has nothing to do with real costs. The average CFD payout is Ā£164/MWh for the wind farms in operation at the moment. That’s way ahead of even the expensive Ā£106.12/MWh current value of the Hinkley Point CFD.
July 9, 2021
Nig1, Not true. We keep hearing about the so-called “substantial reduction in costs of production” of electricity. My electricity cost have just gone up by over 20% this year, and is now 6 times the cost of natural gas. Without gas but with a heat pump my heating bills would jump 50%+ (not accounting for Ā£20k installation).
Electricity is the most expensive fuel there is. It is beyond stupidity to convert the nation to run on electricity with electrically heated homes (heat pumps need electricity) and electric cars. Apart from anything else the government is not building the extra generating capacity required. And, yes, to be taken seriously the government should already have started building.
It’s the new farce playing in Downing St – Carrie on Boris.
July 9, 2021
And just how do they work when there is no heat to pump i.e. when it is at or below freezing ?
July 10, 2021
Heat pumps are refrigerators in reverse. Assuming the refrigerant has a boiling point well below (water) freezing, heat pumps can extract some heat from cold ground or air. However, as the temperature drops heat pumps need more and more electricity. That is, the CoP – Coefficient of Performance – drops. And your bills rise – much more dramatically than with gas heating in winter because electricity is about 6 times more expensive than gas.
Note that the CoP will probably be termed the “efficiency” in the MSM – it is in fact no such thing. Note – refrigerants are can leak causing severe ground water pollution.
July 11, 2021
NickC, thank you so much for that image….
JF
Sorry, Sir John.
July 10, 2021
Whatever production costs may be, in my recent six month visit to the UK I failed to notice any reduction in energy costs. In fact ICE fuel has shot up. I suspect that what people and industry are expected to pay for electricity will impoverish them and electorialy those who have chosen to impose it upon us.
July 9, 2021
Agricola : Agreed.
In addition the government is making our energy position even worse by importing 700,000 new immigrants into the country EACH YEAR (300,000 net) all of whom will not only be consuming energy but causing massive amounts of energy to be used to build the additional, houses, schools, hospitals and infrastructure to support them.
July 9, 2021
Well said. There is no coherent energy policy. The government wants to expand interconnections despite the EU being a hostile power.
They are ploughing ahead with EDF building Sizewell D using Chinese technology.
July 9, 2021
agricola. For once I agree with you. Sir John could have been, how should I put it, ‘considerably more outspoken about the idiotic Green policies’.
It is not just the matter of cost for both industry and individuals. It is also the fact that the whole country could easily find itself with NO POWER AT ALL for heat, light, or anything, because the national grid is not being charged.
July 9, 2021
Well said Agricola.
Though I would emphasise Johnson and his cohorts are not ‘dumb’ , actually they’re extremely sinister and highly dangerous to this country.
July 9, 2021
Vulnerable? I do hope so. We wI’ll never even have reasonably priced energy all the time Carrie and Co insist on renewables. It’s silly to even discuss price.
July 9, 2021
Whereas they have a mechanism the ānet zeroā lunacy combined with bans of fracking that make energy hugely expensive and very unreliable. Thus exporting jobs and whole industries, making the UK less competitive and less productive. Not even saving any net CO2 worldwide.
Perhaps the daftest policy of all is burning imported wood at Drax while banning the burning or more efficient (in terms of energy per ton of CO2) coal. Not even any political advantage to this insanity one the voters realise what insanity will mean. Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.
July 9, 2021
No the daftest policy of all is so called āGreen Hydrogenā wind power, to splitting water into H2 and 02, compressing and storing it, then burning it or using in fuel cells. Hugely expensive, inefficient and very energy wasteful. And much CO2 is still produced building with concrete and maintaining the wind turbines in diesel boats.
So are the metric martyrs going finally to be pardoned for the crime of selling a pound of bananas to customers who wanted 1lb of them – this after 21 years of this appalling abuse of power by the state idiotically fighting against free markets.
July 9, 2021
Since all this dangerous nonsense is tied up with international agreements wouldnāt it at least be sensible ( not that the govt. does sensible!) to wait a bit and see what the other signatories actually do?
Didnāt we always fall over ourselves to do the bidding of the EU? Even now, even though we have āleftā? And then we found/find freshly, home-slaughtered chickens in a french market whereas our small farmers die of red tape strangulation. Make sure other countries actually relinquish their gas and coal and oil before taking drastic action!
On top of killing us with imprisonment and withdrawal of PAID FOR healthcare, our govt. will see us freeze and starve. And probably enjoy the spectacle too!
July 9, 2021
And you are walking proof of your Latin quote.
July 9, 2021
Perhaps you could explain to all of us how transporting woodchips across the Atlantic, thereby creating CO2 emissions (since slave galleys are no longer considered de rigeur), in order to be burned, is Green in any way?
July 9, 2021
So what do you think I am I saying that is remotely mad exactly?
July 9, 2021
Still only 5 charging stations on my street which has 500 cars parked on the street overnight. Do you not think you need to start installing 250 more ? What are the plans ? When will they be available ?
July 9, 2021
You have charging stations, albeit only 5, lucky you. š
There are none along the A5086, which is 15 miles long. It has a town, several villages and lanes off it leading to multiple villages and hamlets along its way.
How does the government expect the hundreds of people living along this stretch travel to work? When there is no rail station, or even a bus route on good stretches of it? Even if they want to install charge stations, where would they go, as nearly all these properties are terraces with only a narrow pavement separating them from the road?
Sheesh, polite words fail an apt description of the people making these decisions!
July 9, 2021
None in our street or supermarkets. A few home chargers for the odd Tesla or PIHV. I’m changing my car shortly and it will be 100% petrol.
July 9, 2021
Ian
My 21 year old 3 litre V6 gas guzzling 4 x 4 failed the MOT this time around, but given it is only going to cost Ā£250 to fix, I will keep it going for another year, thus I save the Ā£30,000 plus needed for its replacement, no depreciation, and far more cost effective for the environment as well, saving the emissions of making a new car.
July 9, 2021
Our people are going to get poor under a Tory government. Seriously poor.
The policy is not a switch to renewables but greenism through poverty.
The Sun editorial is clear that the average household is going to need an extra Ā£50k to get by.
July 9, 2021
Energy wholesale prices have increased on average 50% in the last year. This has yet to be passed on to customers due to the price cap but come October the cap will increase and bills will increase massively. The pandemic has had a huge impact on the cost of building materials, there is more demand than supply. All this house building isn’t helping. Inflation will be a huge worry in the year ahead. When the true cost of the lockdowns hit, voters will not be happy.
July 9, 2021
The retail price increases are here. I have recently renewed my one year fixed price contract (still one of the cheapest). The unit gas price has gone up more than 30% – the direct debit from Ā£72 to Ā£91 a month (and, I use as little energy as possible).
Hopefully, the retirees can look forward to their pension triple lock (or not).
July 9, 2021
I don’t know how pensioners or indeed workers without powerful unions are going to manage. Our pensions have not covered the increases in services or food costs this year.
July 9, 2021
Correct. What is particularly worrying is that we have been seeing very high wholesale prices in recent weeks at a time of year when demand is lower and we have the boost of some solar output. It’s due to a combination vof factors. Carbon prices have soared to around Ā£50/tonne CO2, way above the Ā£18/tonne CO2 that applied last year as a floor price. A year ago, wholesale NBP gas prices were as low as 12p/therm, or 0.4p/kWh on the back of very low demand caused by lockdowns. They surged in the Spring to 75p/kWh, or about 2.5p/kWh (Ā£25/MWh), and are hovering at about 50p/therm currently. A simple rule of thumb is that electricity generated from gas costs twice the gas price before green taxes.
But wholesale electricity prices have risen higher still, because we have had extremely disappointing performance from wind farms this year, and we have also started losing nuclear capacity to early shutdowns like Dungeness B, as well as losing more of our coal backup plant (the available plant is still being run to plug supply gaps even in midsummer). This has left us short of electricity, and short of generating capacity at times (given that in summer plant is often closed for maintenance), and very dependent on imports. Things good get even tighter than they did last winter during the coming one, at least until Nordstream 2 starts to relieve the tight gas supply situation on the Continent, with sharply lower production from the Dutch Groningen field and uncertain supply via the Ukraine. Biden’s attack on US LNG exports is also not helpful.
I will post links to two separate charts which I hope will be allowed in additional reply: one showing how wind has been extremely disappointing and leaving us reliant on gas in recent months, and another showing trends in day ahead wholesale electricity prices over the past 30 months.
July 9, 2021
Chart links
From the Watt-Logic blog written by industry consultant Kathryn Porter, showing daily average sources of electricity supply over April-June – no hope of covering lack of wind with batteries!
https://watt-logic.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/gb-generation-sum21-h1.jpg
Wholesale UK day ahead prices 2019 to date
https://image.vuukle.com/9ffc6604-feed-474e-a82d-c2de2f561502-99cf1e3b-c0db-4e61-b093-8b89c4e2315f
July 9, 2021
I hope from now on your speeches and other efforts will broaden out to question the overall direction of travel. You are one of very few MPs with the guts to do so.
July 9, 2021
MPC I thought he could have been a bit more outspoken about the Green Nonsense.
July 9, 2021
“You are one of very few MPs with the guts to do so. ”
Ask him for comment / update on who sent a Border Force vessel into French waters to collect illegals……then see how much guts he has.
July 9, 2021
Hooray/Hoorah for the new Leicestershire Chief of Police!
Letās hope he means what he says!
July 9, 2021
We don’t seem to have an energy policy as such. We only have the green agenda, which is the actual problem here.
Those pursuing the green environmentalists dream just do not want us to create more energy for consumption — They want a reduction in energy usage so a reduction in energy creation potential fits in very well with their overall plans.
Until we all wake up to how destructive the green plans are we will be denied the energy we require, and there will be hell to pay when the lights do go out and factories stand idle.
<I<By then it will be too late exercise our democratic options as those taking us along this path will remain unaccountable or retired from high office.
July 9, 2021
+1
July 9, 2021
“Build Back Better”. For the rich. Peasants like most of us will be car-less and living in cold houses. But “You Will Be Happy” – by order.
July 9, 2021
BH
“…it will be too late exercise our democratic options as those taking us along this path will remain unaccountable or retired from high office.”
Makes no difference if they’re retired, we’ll still get them.
July 9, 2021
Apparently we have the worst pension in the developed world. Our ministers must be proud.
July 10, 2021
And the poorest value. A few years back I remember reading a report by some actuaries, that had we been allowed or compelled to invest the pension contribution element of NIC’s into proper pension schemes, the average pension would be around 20,000 pounds per year, as against the present dismal level. This is because the pensions contributions are not invested but spent immediately on supplying pensions to current pensioners, which is what Andy constantly complains of. Not our fault young whippersnapper, but government policy. We paid in, but it was wasted, a lot of it paying the EU over the last 40 years. It would have taken courage and many billions of pounds (which can be found for some pet projects) to change the system and no government will ever do it. It suits them as it is, especially as their pensions are boosted by us who do not get the same opportunity.
July 10, 2021
Note: Ā£40 BILLION claims mentioned plus other multi billion payments.
We can apparently fund all this without any legal or moral obligation. We voted to leave. Smells to me of control fraud.
The EU Super Brussels pensions! and gravy trains of all kinds.
Of course we can’t fund UK citizens pensions in NON EU countries.
Poorer private sector UK citizens, cant even fund there own defined contribution pension plan! One that is devoured by various interests and means tested at benefit assessments. How about we all join the MP pension plan!
July 9, 2021
Yesterday I had a day out, visiting an old friend in Whitstable, a seaside town in North Kent famous for it’s oyster fishery. Unfortunately, we were unable to enjoy any oysters, as they had been recalled from the market following contamination of the fishery with raw sewage from Southern Water’s Foreness Pumping Station, apparently during a storm at the end of June.
Whitstable Oyster Company’s farm had to be shut down this week as public health officials investigated “at least 100” reports of people falling ill after eating the shellfish. People succumbed to bouts of sickness and diarrhoea after eating oysters farmed off the Kent coast. A spokesman for the Whitstable Oyster Company said “We have stopped harvesting oysters as there have been some cases of sickness related to our oysters over the past week”.
In 2016, Southern Water was fined Ā£2 million after untreated sewage polluted the sea in North Kent. The pumping station was said to have been overwhelmed following a heavy storm, before detritus such as human faeces, tissues, sanitary pads, condoms and wipes were discovered along the coast, including at Whitstable.
Look, it really is time for government intervention over the public health issue of raw sewage discharges into our rivers and seas. I was told that 500 protesters took to the streets on Sunday afternoon, marching from the district council offices in Cecil Street, Margate, to the pumping station in Princeās Walk. The local South Thanet Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay has known about problems with this pumping station for years, but declined to attend – apparently having a prior engagement. It is time he responded to his constituent’s concerns and intervened.
July 9, 2021
Sakara
Reports on the lunchtime BBC news allege that 17 Southern Water treatment Plants have been dumping raw sewerage into the sea for the last 6 years !!!!
I wonder how many times they will get a slapped wrist, and how much they will put up the price of their service to their customers to pay the fine.
July 9, 2021
Southern Water are 40% owned by JP Morgan and 40% Hermes Infrastructure, with 10% each by Hong Kong private investors. Over the last 7 years Southern have paid out ~Ā£650 million in dividends. Ian McAulay, the CEO had his pay tripled last year to Ā£1.9 million. I wonder why?
The water/sewage industry is, after the railways, one of the worst examples of what goes wrong when critical infrastructure assets are flogged off to foreigners. Like the railways, it should be re-nationalised and the customers – and the British public – compensated for enduring their disgusting practices for year after year.
Govey facilitated their dumping of untreated sewage by slashing the Environment Agency’s budget from Ā£210 million to Ā£80million when he was SoS Environment a few years back.
July 9, 2021
You make some very sensible comments in your speech JR, but I am afraid it seems to be falling on deaf ears.
Of course we should be generating all of our own power with spare capacity, not only for future expansion and flexibility, but for simple national security reasons.
If we wish to encourage the use of better insulation and lower fuel use then of course those products should be free of tax, as subsidies (now being discussed I understand) of any sort, are too blunt an instrument that often miss the target, and are never long lasting.
I see that building regulations are coming up for change again soon, with once again an increase in insulation standards, which many products promoted and on sale today will not be able to comply with.
I am all for moving forwards, but we are in danger, just like with emissions/climate change regulations, of running ahead of reliable product development, and the law of unintended consequences.
July 9, 2021
I see from Guido’s web site that the OBR are suggesting that in trying to reach the target of net zero by 2050 it will cost the UK population Ā£1.4 Trillion.
I also see that the Global Warming Policy Forum GWPF are suggesting this is a gross under estimate.
Goes the government really have any clue as to0 the costs of its proposed Policies John, because this looks like utter madness, particularly when there is still a debate in many circles, Scientists included, that warming is going to continue and/or indeed is man made.
July 9, 2021
Alan, Not only is the government clueless about the costs, it doesn’t even believe its own propaganda because it isn’t building any extra generating capacity.
July 9, 2021
I have been reading the OBR report. I think that the estimate actually comes from the CCC, not the OBR. They have simply accepted the CCC figures, including some highly dubious projections about the economy and even more dubious projections about costs of not pursuing net zero, and plugged them into their fiscal models. Of course, there is no reason why the OBR should have real expertise in making projections about net zero or the effects of climate change. But the problem is that neither does the CCC, which has gone around making enormous assumptions that problems can be solved at no cost by assuming them away.
I did note one rather telling phrase in the OBR report, where they were “justifying” looking at the extremely unlikely RCP 8.5 climate scenario data by saying that since the real effects of climate change are not expected to be particularly large in the UK until the end of the century. So it seems that anything we do (to the extent it matters at all) is not for our benefit, but for the benefit of others. Shouldn’t they be the ones paying for it?
July 9, 2021
I see in reports that there are thoughts and talks about the breaking of yet another manifesto pledge with regards to the triple lock on pensions.
Is there anything left in the manifesto that still remains a pledge.?
Indeed one is forced to ask, what is the point of a manifesto at all if its contents can so easily be disregarded.
July 9, 2021
According to the Institute for Government, of 39 key commitments in the 2017 Conservative Manifesto, only a third had been implemented or on track to be implemented (Emma Norris, 19/11/2019).
Another example is the 2010 coalition Government: Out of 60 pledges, 37.5 were implemented (some were partially implemented, therefore the decimal).
However the details of these 60 pledges (Guardian 14/04/2015 āHow much of the Conservativesā manifesto ā¦ā) appears to indicate that the 62.5% implemented were not the costly ones.
So the question is: Why would you want the triple lock to be kept for ever and not go the way a non-negligible fraction of pledges usually go? Do you have much more confidence in PM Johnson than in PM May?
July 9, 2021
hefner
My understanding was, that given we were and still have one of the lowest State Pensions systems in the World, its low purchasing value should at the very least be protected, and after much thought and argument the triple lock formula was eventually agreed and put in place by Parliament.
Now because the cost of living and wages have increased rather more than expected, and the Government want to claw back as much spending as possible, all of a sudden the agreement reached is deemed too expensive to honour.
Thus the purchasing power of the State pension may be reduced at a whim.
Are the Mp’s pensions, the civil service pensions, and local government pensions going to suffer in the same way ?
No thought not !.
Government should be reminded that not all Pensioners have lost their memories yet, and are still active enough to vote for who they like and trust.
Reply Public sector employee pensions do not get the triple lock
July 10, 2021
Reply to reply – They don’t need it. It does apply to the pension they get when they retire which we all pay for in NIC’s though, so its a bit disingenuous to try to portray them as suffering. Most of us don’t get civil service pensions and millions rely on the state pension alone and are in poverty for which your government cares not one jot.
July 10, 2021
Reply-reply
Exactly my point, they are not reliant upon the State pension at all, so it does not matter that much to them, as the taxpayer is already funding their employers contribution to their very generous working/private pension schemes as well.
Many workers have a very, very poor employee pension scheme (if one at all) with a very low Company contribution, so for them the State Pension is vitally important.
The simple fact is a promise is a promise, they volunteered to put in their own manifesto, and it was your Party’s choice to include such !
If it had been excluded from the manifesto, then I would have no complaint about promises made..
July 9, 2021
Yet mid term this Government is way ahead in the polls.
If an election was called now they would get a similar huge majority.
Normally at this stage the government is performing badly.
July 10, 2021
Why? Could it be that we are at an all time low in quality of politicians and there is nowhere else to go which would not be worse? Do not make the mistake of thinking the government majority means popularity. Take a view on what is said here, of which which mostly are Tory supporters.
July 10, 2021
I agree Graham
But my reply was not aimed at you.
July 9, 2021
Every sea change in technology has its time. The ancient series by James Burke, Connections, illustrated this well. I accept that fossil fuels will not last forever, but we have many more discoveries to make before we have a viable alternative to gas or petrol.
July 9, 2021
“And a mechanism to drive down prices so it is affordable”
Simple – stop closing perfectly good coal fired power stations. If you think we are setting an example to the rest of the world, think again:
“Why are they knocking back all the cheap solar and wind power? Could it be that China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam are filled with stupid people who canāt add up. Or is it that they can do the sums and they noticed that every nation with renewables also has expensive electricity?“
https://joannenova.com.au/2021/07/five-asian-countries-will-build-600-coal-plants-wreck-world-but-who-cares/
July 9, 2021
Cheapest, reliable, low pollution electricity production is by using natural gas in CCGT plant. And we have plenty of natural gas – all we have to do is frack it in Lancashire.
July 9, 2021
Nuclear power (fission) is the only working green technology that can provide the power the country needs.
So why does the government allow all our nuclear power plants to be owned by EDF, a company wholly owned by the French state, and the Chinese, both of whom I consider to be hostile powers?
EDF has recently decided to close Dungeness B and Hinkley Point B early whilst at the same time the President of France has recently threatened to cut off the electricity we import from France via the interconnectors.
BTW, whilst we are closing our coal fired power stations Germany has just built a new one, as well being on the point of completing the huge Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia.
July 9, 2021
Totally off topic, but can we please have your views on the apparent decision to abolish English Votes for English Laws? This was an inadequate half-measure, but was at least a nod in the direction of the injustice (and insult) to the English of Blair’s asymmetric devolution settlement. Perhaps it is mere coincidence that it was announced while the nation is distracted by football, then again, perhaps not. No doubt it presages further constitutional and economic appeasement of Scottish nationalism at English expense.
If it is carried into effect this Englishman at least will be supporting the SNP bid for a second referendum and hoping for a nationalist win. That will be the only option remaining to us.
July 9, 2021
“… the UK and Belgium are the greatest importers. However it should be notedwww.johnredwoodsdiary.com that this does not necessarily mean that they rely on energy from other countries. Prices of neighbouring markets are lower making it more economic to import than to produce electricity with their more expensive national generators.
The UK is a high market price zone in Europe. A nice little earner for a foreign owned oligopoly; thanks to privatisation. Interconnectors will enable cheaper imports which is why everyone and his dog wants to lay cables to the UK and the kit to do it is getting cheaper. But the UK will be able to export surplus Solar and Wind instead of restraining it off grid at times. https://northsearegion.eu/northsee/e-energy/future-interconnector-demand/
There is so far 16GW of battery storage planned for the UK. There is a 320MW/ 640MWh battery planned for London Gateway but the UK needs some 300MW/ 1200 – 1800MWh rigs that won’t get stuck by small thinking in Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Planning Depts., for five or more years.
July 9, 2021
The effect of interconnectors is that prices rise to the level of the highest bidder needing supply, or fall until someone finds it cheaper to pay for curtailment during periods of excess renewables. Prices are arbitraged. Once interconnector capacity is taken up, any further local shortage can only be met by local price rationing or emergency high cost generation – or blackout. Blackouts may also occur where local bids are too low to secure supplies which get exported to earn a higher price.
July 10, 2021
You need to have a read of the Interconnector trading rules. They are designed to minimise what you surmise.
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-policy-and-regulation/policy-and-regulatory-programmes/interconnectors
July 9, 2021
16gw is nothing acorn.
July 10, 2021
It’s correctly written as 16 GW. That was equivalent to 50% of GB system generation at 6:30 pm yesterday evening. BTW, have you ever made an original comment on this site or do you just bark at other peoples comments?
July 10, 2021
16 GW is nothing, Acorn.
July 10, 2021
As is the space between your ears NickC.
Some philosopher said the good bit of a democracy is that everyone gets a vote. The bad bit of a democracy is that everyone gets a vote.
This site has proved the consequence of the latter in spades throughout this last decade. Education of the electorate would have been an excellent antidote to laissez faire neoliberal conservatism. Sadly, there is now no way back from Brexit UK for the UK voting proletariat.
Remember to tell your children and grand children that you voted for this to be their future.
July 10, 2021
I think I have acorn
And I repeat 16gw is not a big sum.
The UK needs many megawatts
Do you understand the difference?
July 11, 2021
apologies acorn
I’ve got my Watts wrong.
July 9, 2021
Mark Carney is the UK Prime Ministerās Finance Adviser COP26 (COP26 Inquiry today)
Mark Carney ex Governor Bank of England, is a āremainerā of high order and still in the pay of our governmentā¦.just tells you about Boris and his true alliance
July 9, 2021
Carney is also a climate alarmist too as is his wife (rather like Boris and Carrie it seems). He was a dire and very expensive choice as head of the BoE. Chosen by the foolish and misguided remainer George Osborne. I assume Carney studied PPE or similar & not science, maths, engineering or logic.
July 9, 2021
Carrie on Boris into the Carney age!
July 9, 2021
I imagine the Hof C, Downing St and Chequers have generators installed – you know, for the when the lights go out?
July 9, 2021
The Climate Change Act 2008 represents a regressive tax on the poor and, increasingly, the not so poor.
People living in rental accommodation have little control over their facilities and may have a coin operated meter to supply their cooking and heating with no means of controlling their heat losses other than shutting a window.
Mass immigration is also bound to have a serious impact at the bottom with housing carved into smaller units with inferior heat and sound insulation. We have a rogue government. Let Sturgeon chair COP26 while the government goes back to the drawing board and examines the financial and logistical implications of their pie-in-the-sky plans on everything because they are getting almost nothing right.
July 9, 2021
A certain multi-millionaire said on the radio today – āmaybe we just have to learn to live in colder housesā, of course, he doesnāt include himself and his family just the poor people.
This net-zero nonsense has to stop. It will make no discernible difference to the planet. With the rate of immigration into our overcrowded country, this Government even with its madcap policies will be lucky to stand still on CO2 emissions.
When will politicians tackle the elephant in the room that itās the massive growth in the human population that is doing the most damage to our planet?
July 9, 2021
I was reminded of work that shows that cooler indoor temperatures are associated with higher deaths. More excellent work by the late Roger Andrews, who also discusses heat related deaths:
http://euanmearns.com/the-influence-of-temperature-on-uk-death-rates/
The temperatures of some of these new heat pump systems are going to be inadequate.
July 9, 2021
The green religion will kill this country and lead all of us into ever increasing poverty. Nobody voted for the green wash the government are doing. The hair-shirted eco-loons from Labour, Liberal Dem and Green Party ranks will not vote Conservative no matter what you do, so why are you trying to appease these people ?
We are told year after year by the eco-warriors our electricity will become cheaper, but they have been saying this for 20 years.
We have MASSIVE Shale Gas reserves (and some Shale oil also) both onshore and offshore with the offshore estimated at 10 times larger than the onshore reserves. Offshore they estimate 1000 Trillion cubic feet, and we use a poultry 3.5 Tcf3 per year. Even if we extracted 20% of our reserves we would be self sufficient and could even export gas as LNG.
I can only conclude that this government is determined to kill our industry and drive its population into fuel poverty.
July 9, 2021
Mac “I can only conclude that this government is determined to kill our industry and drive its population into fuel poverty.”
Indeed. That, or the most monumental incompetence on record.
July 9, 2021
MtK, The UK reserves are not MASSIVE, the UK is the 41th country in terms of reserves (7.32 TCF, tn cubic feet) (worldometer.info). Thatās between two and three years of the present consumption.
According to another table, the UK is even lower down (47th) with reserves in km^3 of 176 (US EIA), 269 (OPEC), 200 (BP). Are you going to invest your savings in a local gas extraction company for it to extract and process that gas for such a short term impact?
As a matter of comparison, in first position Russia is thought to have between 35,000 and 50,000 km^3 of gas reserves, and in 21st position Norway (first European country in the list) has between 1,700 and 2,300 suck km^3.
So have you given up on Ricardoās principle of comparative economic advantage?
July 9, 2021
We should distinguish between proven reserves and possible resources. The former require test drilling, production, and delineation of reservoirs using seismic, etc. The British Geological Survey reports as follows:
Andrews (2013) estimated a total gas-in-place estimate for the Bowland Shale Formation and Hodder Mudstone Formation between 822 and 2281 trillion cubic feet (tcf). As a comparison, the total gas consumption in 2018 in the UK was 2.98 tcf. Since then, other estimates have suggested the total gas-in-place volume could be considerably less (around 140 tcf; Whitelaw et al., 2019).
Middle Carboniferous, organic-rich shales are also found in the subsurface Midland Valley of Scotland (Girvan to Greenock in the west; Dunbar to Stonehaven in the east) as part of the Strathclyde Group and the Clackmannan Group. There, the shales reach a thickness of about 3000 m, contain 2ā6 percent organic carbon and are considered as a potential target for shale gas exploration. Monaghan (2014) suggested a total of 49.4ā134.6 tcf gas-in-place for the Midland Valley of Scotland.
July 9, 2021
Mark, thank you for this. Given the wide range of these estimations, the first thing should be experimental drilling to confirm/prove these reserves. Has IGas Energy and/or Cuadrilla Resources and/or UK Methane Ltd published such results, and if not, why not? The original announcement of the presence of such reserves was in 2013. Couldnāt we expect results of exploratory drilling 7-8 years later?
A quick check shows that the IGAS share at 115p in October-November 2018 is today at 20p. Not too good. Cuadrilla Resources had a report on seismic tests in December 2020, much better, and UK Methane Ltd and Bidston Methane Ltd are still UK registered companies. So everything might not be lost ā¦
July 10, 2021
Does it matter how much reserves there are in the eco loons won’t let it be used?
July 9, 2021
āThe government is considering paying families to help them offset the rising cost of gas bills and to incentivise a switch to green heatingā, Sky reports.
Only a governement could come up with a plan like this.
Unaffordable to ‘go green’ > Give them money to help > Introduce a new tax to pay for it.
Everyone gets poorer except the government.
July 9, 2021
Barbara, I just don’t take Carrie on Boris seriously any more.
July 9, 2021
A recent topic:
Southern Water has been fined a record Ā£90m for deliberately dumping billions of litres of raw sewage into the sea. The company admitted 6,971 illegal spills from 17 sites in Hampshire, Kent and West Sussex between 2010 and 2015. His Honour Mr Justice Jeremy Johnson said the offences had been “committed deliberately” by Southern Water’s board of directors at the time. Lawyers for the company had told Canterbury Crown Court the spills were the result of “negligence”.
The offences were discovered as part of the Environment Agency’s largest ever criminal investigation, which began after shellfish were found to be contaminated with E. coli. Raw sewage had been diverted away from treatment works and into the environment, allowing the company to avoid financial penalties and the costs of upkeep and upgrades, the court heard.
Mr Justice Johnson said Southern Water “showed a shocking and wholesale disregard for the environment, for the precious and delicate ecosystems along the north Kent and Solent coastlines, to human health and to the fisheries and other legitimate businesses that depend on the vitality of the coastal waters”.
Surely Directors privy to what was done should be fined personally, and debarred from being a Director ever again.
July 9, 2021
That’s privatisation for you.
There’s nothing in it moneywise for salaried public sector workers to break the rules on the other hand.
What you think “should” happen is neither here nor there. It absolutely will not in a a country governed by the friends and associates of these rule breakers.
July 9, 2021
Sounds more like another failure of the Environment Agency’s monitoring.
July 10, 2021
and by dumping these billions of litres of raw sewage, it was an attempt to make the company appear more efficient and successful in operation. That in itself to the advantage of the Directors – if you do not see that why bother having a Environment Agency monitor?
July 10, 2021
Well, the Tories in 2010 handed over that responsibility to the companies themselves with “self-reporting”, old chum.
Now, what could possibly go wrong?
Are you willing to pay for the costs of monitoring every outlet pipe in the UK 24/365 then, as your bizarre response implies?
The guilty ex public-schoolboys – it’s reasonable to assume that they are – should go to prison, simply.
July 10, 2021
Replied to Mark.
July 10, 2021
It’s worse than that. It is not even owned by people who have any interest in water supply or sewage disposal but by money firms like hedge funds, pension funds etc. whose only interest is profit, not public service.
July 9, 2021
Being report tonight –
”A fresh Brexit dispute has emerged over the size of the UKās ādivorce billā after the European Union estimated it is now worth billions more than expected.
Downing Street on Friday rejected the new net figure that emerged in Brusselsā latest accounts of 47.5 billion euros (Ā£40.8 billion)”
July 9, 2021
We will pay whatever it is.
July 10, 2021
I distinctly remember Boris saying we wouldnāt pay a penny, but I also remember Boris saying that there wouldnāt be a border down the Irish Sea, and the our Fisheries would be 100% british
July 9, 2021
“press Ministers to reduce our dependence on imported electricity
I hope by that you mean *net* dependence. If neighbours like France and Norway are in different time-zones and therefore have different peaks in energy use, then trading energy with them over electric cable actually makes a lot of sense. Cutting ourselves off and trying to use only domestic energy would be a very bad idea.
July 9, 2021
There is a small rush hour effect where we top up the French in the morning sometimes before our morning rush hour gets under way. But the flows are mostly imports, except on those occasions when it is very windy when buyers on the Continent can take advantage of the fact that wind farms will not curtail unless they are compensated for loss of subsidies, and so they can be paid to take our exports while UK consumers pay the subsidies for the French and Dutch and Belgian consumers to profit.
July 9, 2021
Off-topic, here is an article just put on the Irish Times website:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/all-options-on-the-table-if-no-agreement-reached-with-eu-on-protocol-says-frost-1.4616028
with Lord Frost saying that it was āpretty exceptionalā that London agreed to apply EU law in the North and control the movement of goods from Britain into the region.
I think my alternative wording would be “pretty stupid”, in fact I cannot believe just how stupid Boris Johnson and Lord Frost and UK parliamentarians have been.
Here is an ostensibly reasonable claim made in a letter published in the same newspaper in September 2018:
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/brexit-time-to-mind-our-own-business-1.3636142
“… once the United Kingdom has left the EU it will be none of the EUās business what goods are permitted in Northern Ireland, or any other part of the United Kingdom and its internal market.”
If only I could have anticipated just our stupid our politicians would be.
July 9, 2021
‘The European Union is set to propose all new cars sold from 2035 should have zero emissions, as part of an unprecedented plan to align its economy with more ambitious climate targets ‘
https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1413571118393352200
July 9, 2021
Sorry John, but this government are like a bunch of schoolboys trying to impress the teacher. I’ve not heard a good word spoken on behalf of either the party or the leader. Northern Ireland is a mess and that came today from a retired Colonel in the army. Johnson is a blustering idiot.
July 9, 2021
keep up the good work John
July 10, 2021
I have put together a chart from BM Reports half hourly data on interconnector flows showing the daily imports and exports on each interconnector over the first half of the year. If an interconnector handles exports part of the day and imports for another part, both flows are shown and not the net position. Typically, Ireland, which has a high wind dependence, imports during higher demand hours and on low wind days and exports to the UK when it is windy, while exports to the continent tend to be on windy days and overnight when demand is low and half hourly prices can even turn negative.
The loss of interconnectors to cable outages is quite evident, as is the extensive and extended nature of low wind days over the period, evidenced by Irish imports and high imports from the Continent to the extent possible. I also overlaid a day ahead price series to aid in gauging overall market tightness, and the effects of wind or lack of it: prices are up very sharply on last year as already noted in an earlier comment. Of course, if we still had more coal generation, or had built more gas capacity, these problems would be much less.
Link to chart:
https://image.vuukle.com/9ffc6604-feed-474e-a82d-c2de2f561502-515cc53d-9d7a-4228-b223-76428912a7fd
Reply Yes it shows a worrying dependence on imports
July 10, 2021
I hope you will also challenge net zero from a scientific viewpoint.
Dr Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace says that we need MORE CO2 in the atmosphere to prevent pants dying out:
https://cairnsnews.org/2020/01/13/greenpeace-co-founder-dr-patrick-moore-says-we-need-much-more-co2-in-the-atmosphere/
July 11, 2021
Like the models used to model Covid, which do not take account of the positive vaccination effects, the climate models do not include the advantages of more CO2 for certain parts of the world either.
He who pays the piper……follow the money