The government does need to win the green argument about gas. Much as it wishes it were otherwise, households and industry are going to continue to burn large quantities of gas this decade. It is a slow transition to new forms of domestic heating and to new ways of fuelling industrial processes.Ā It will take time to replace all the domestic gas boilers and petrol cars.Ā The UK therefore has a simple choice. Should more of this gas and oil come from our own North Sea fields via a relatively short pipeline, or should we come to rely more and more on large tankers carrying LNG half way round the world? Surely the home production is both greener and better for UK jobs and prosperity. The government can stay focussed on leading a transition but it must ensure enough conventional fuel before it has developed more hydrogen or nuclear or battery power. It should ensure there are sufficient exploration, development and production licences for UK reserves, and a suitable tax regime to foster UK production.
The government should also wish to encourage more gas storage capacity at home. The business proposal would be that the owner of the store would fill it up during periods of low demand and soft prices, and make it available during periods of supply interruption and price spikes at prices which make them a profit but which support the market at lower prices than theĀ market price during the crisis. The government should call for owners of potential salt domes and old energy fields or large holders with suitable reservoirs to say on what terms they would be willing to make their stores available. They or others could bid for a role in management . The government could opt for a strongly interventionist model where it was effectively paying for a strategic reserve which it would entirely control and price when used, or for a less interventionist role where the private sector took more of the risk and kept and shaped more of the reward. The UK is an outlier with very little storage capacity compared to other advanced countries.
The government and Regulator need to procure more electrical power for the next few years. They need to cater for the retirement of substantial nuclear capacity as old plants are powered down. They need to cater for the likely increase in demand as their electric revolution progresses. They need to replace some of the vulnerable interconnector capacity and cut our import bill. They need to have a bigger buffer against days when the wind is not blowing.Ā They need to see what is the cheapest and best way to bridge the gaps and get new plant in place as quickly as possible. Nuclear and hydrogen may come to our assistance in the next decade but we need answers soon for the looming shortage. We should not retire any more fossil fuel plant before having reliable replacements, and may need more CCGT capacity.
September 23, 2021
You stood for election on a commitment to net zero Mr Redwood. Rather than working out how to spend billions and spending years storing gas, you should be working out how to deliver on your promise to your constituents.
We have an energy shortage because of the policies of this Brexitist government – including Brexit which is a significant contributory factor.
We await your sunny uplands. Do we get to them after the plethora of shortages, the tsunami of bureaucracy and the massive price hikes you have imposed on us?
Reply Read my blog and Manifesto leaflets and stop your silly attempts to misrepresent me.
September 23, 2021
Well, brexit has certainly caused many difficulties, not least in the movement of commodities between ourselves and our neighbours.
The most critical of these just now would seem to be carbon dioxide, without which central areas of life will simply grind to a halt.
However, Tory ideological recklessness in handing over our strategically vital utilities to the only-for-profit boys, PLUS deregulation means that we have not only gas storage being abandoned, but also water reservoirs filled in or allowed to be come dangerously neglected – viz. Whaley Bridge – meaning that flood waters are not retained and shortages in droughts are more commonplace.
Parallel problems will no doubt be revealed in other key areas as the circumstances arise.
Tory Britain is an utter disgrace.
September 23, 2021
For Brexit read the EU
September 23, 2021
Criminals entering the country in all inclusive star hotels without having to worry about taxation, care homes, next meal, food bank or keeping warm.
Kwertang acknowledged millions in fuel poverty will have to decide to eat or heat this winter, but not for criminals in four star hotels!! They do not have to work, get pocket money and everything paid for!!
Meanwhile Johnson inflicts more misery by taxing the pips out of every working person or pensioner. Not caring that pensioners are working to make ends meet! Socialists like to spend other peopleās money!
JR and chums doing all they can to deflect and distract from reality. It is not as though his party has been in power for 11 years and created this mess!
September 23, 2021
JR I have to say this has all the hallmarks of the two aircraft carriers. Sell perfectly good jump jets to US for a pound each and have two air craft carriers without planes!
Or sell off viable parts from coal fired power stations to Germany!
Come on JR, have the decency to say your govt has lost the plot and no longer fit for purpose. It is ruining our country in every regard. We learn lock down was forced upon us by threats of unilateral action by the teaching unions, any truth in it?
Reply Stop lying. The QE carrier has fast jets on board and in regular use.
September 23, 2021
I doubt if they have to worry re no medical care either!
September 23, 2021
+10
September 23, 2021
We read today North Sea deposits of gas abandoned by Tory govt. in 2017, we also read Tory govt. stopped gas storage facilities in 2018 even though Brexit vote meant differing from EU on energy!
Another article informing us how gas and shale gas deposits are still available in the UK and this mess need not have occurred but the nutty Tory govt. brought a halt to gas production!
Come on JR, tell us the facts how your party and govt brought this predictable mess on our country. Why is Johnson still spouting his rot about green agenda at UN and looking forward to COP26, all coming by plane one assumes!
September 24, 2021
JR, not lying. The aircraft carriers now have F35 planes that was not always the case. UK cap in hand to the US, certainly not the case to have F35 when first conceived and when being built!
I thought your rules prevented language like you used?
September 23, 2021
I donāt agree with most of what you say. However, your last sentence is absolutely spot on.
How has Brexit affected gas supply and prices?
September 23, 2021
Well, I’m not blaming brexit for the specific problem of high gas prices.
On the other hand I am absolutely blaming Tory privatisation and deregulation for the appalling position re storage and contingency planning – not just in gas but in many other things – and which gives no insulation from price spikes.
Brexit is a product of the same doctrines.
September 23, 2021
Kindly explain why Brexit is a cause of the current crisis. Go on!
September 23, 2021
Well, let’s just consider those CO2 cylinders and tankers.
It probably wouldn’t be necessary for the taxpayer to bribe the companies to restart making the gas here again, if there were no problems in its crossing the border with the European Union, and we could actually find the lorry drivers to carry it.
Something appears to have worsened those two problems, doesn’t it?
September 23, 2021
Youāre grasping at straws there. However, I didnāt realise how important CO2 is. But whatās wrong, of course, is idiotic governments – Labour and Tory- allow foreign companies to own strategic assets and facilities.
September 23, 2021
+1 exactly
September 23, 2021
Martin, There are driver shortages, a looming CO2 shortage, energy shortages and dependency on Russia for energy in the EU. Try again.
September 23, 2021
Andy and Mic : you seem to read different news reports to everyone else !
Like many other issues you mention, the problem over CO2 has nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit !
It has been caused by the 6-fold increase in the wholesale price of gas. No company could be expected to continue production of fertilizer, of which CO2 is merely a bye-product, when they would make a vast loss on every litre of product manufactured.
There is no option of importing CO2 from the EU because European plants also have the same problem.
September 23, 2021
MiC – what are the problems importing gas over the EU border?
September 23, 2021
More nonsense from you MiC
There are shortages of lorry drivers in America and Europe.
Is that Brexit too?
And the shortage of CO2 has nothing to do with crossing borders.
It is to do with increasing wholesale gas prices.
September 23, 2021
Of course, of course…
September 23, 2021
Producers in the EU are subject to the same cost pressures and are also cutting back production.
September 24, 2021
So Martin give us the facts how many EU drivers were driving fuel tankers in the UK prior to this January on a regular basis? Were they residents here? How many fuel provider sites are there? What are the contract terms their specialist drivers are on? How many resignations did the fuel companies have this month or did they lay people off when people couldn’t move around the UK because of covid lockdowns because of reduced fuel purchasing expecting to just pick them back up, were these driver’s paid furlough during covid, did they leave the UK and claim their furlough from the UK whilst living abroad, now that furlough is ending at the end of September will they be returning in October?
September 23, 2021
Being a Remainer poor old Andy has no knowledge or interest in anything that happens in the EU. He doesn’t understand for example that gas prices and shortages there are the same, or even worse in countries like Germany which has made itself totally dependent on Putin for their supply and are continuing to burn coal in power stations until 2038 at the earliest. He will also refuse to accept that his support of banning fracking is a direct cause of the gas shortage in the UK.
The fact is this. You can’t have Net Zero and low energy prices. Choose. One or the other.
September 23, 2021
+1
September 23, 2021
Well said. We must exploit our shale gas reserves now. Start fracking.
September 23, 2021
The important thing is not whether or not Brexit is actually to blame. The important thing is that Brexit is blamed.
For forty years you mob of charlatans blamed all of our ills on the EU. This is payback. And it is quite funny watching your outrage.
Enjoy your Brexit related shortages and price hikes.
September 23, 2021
I kept asking “what happens when the wind doesn’t blow?”, Andy. And you were unable to answer. You still can’t, but instead cover up your technical illiteracy with bluster about Brexit.
September 23, 2021
Now you openly admitt that you will blame everything that happens on Brexit.
Dreadful dishonesty Andy.
September 23, 2021
A dishonest person does not know they are dishonest!
September 23, 2021
Andy, Thank you. The kindest thing you’ve ever said, “Enjoy”. Oh, wait; it was bitterly ironical.
Writhing in hatred of all his fellows, terrified of aging (tough, Andy – no escape!), abusive to his host, and living in a fantasy world, Andy should never be reasoned with. He deserves to be ignored or ridiculed.
September 23, 2021
Andy (n) dishonest troll
September 23, 2021
Though, as you ask, let me explain why Brexit is significantly to blame.
When we were in the EU we were part of the Internal Energy Market. This allowed for the free trading of electricity across Europe. So when it was very windy here we could easily send excess power across the Channel and when it wasnāt windy we could easily receive excess power from places were it was sunny. This was all predictable – risk and reward was shared and prices were pretty predictable.
You left this structure. Despite being warned it would lead to significant volatility and price rises – you left this structure. With no plan in place for what happened when things went wrong.
Leaving the IEM has caused additional problems with the gas shortages. We now need more gas than we would have done – further increasing our prices. We need more gas to burn to make electricity – because you have made it harder and more expansive to import electricity. This is why we are more exposed to rising gas prices than most.
Your Brexit in action. You hadnāt thought about the consequences of leaving a market you hadnāt even heard of. Enjoy your higher prices.
September 23, 2021
No. Bad EU policy in action. The EU is finding exactly the same trouble – the wind isn;t blowing anywhere, and they have shut too much dispatchable capacity in coal and nuclear, and are reliant on gas, creating extra demand and soaring prices for gas and for electricity. Blame the Large Combustion Plant Directive and the EU’s green initiatives. All that interconnectors are doing is sharing the pain of high prices among the “well connected” countries.
September 24, 2021
“when it wasnāt windy we could easily receive excess power from places were it was sunny.”
The interconnectors are used even after Brexit. At one point in the last few weeks we were getting around 20% of our energy from France, Netherlands, etc. It is regularly 15%, until the cable fire, the damage from which won’t be fixed until March. During the same period wind was varying between 0.6 and 3 % on many occasions, from 11000 wind turbines. At 0.6% of grid demand they were producing 0.7% of their rated capacity, (enough to power x million homes etc).
Maybe we get less wind because of Brexit.
September 23, 2021
Johnson lied and messed up is the only explanation I can think of. He lied over N.Ireland ie no border, no checks, no shortages, leave as one country etc. When he opens his mouth I think he is either going to lie or stuff his face with too much food- yet tax the rest of us on what we choose to eat!
September 23, 2021
JR is one of the tiny few of sensible MPs who did not vote for the moronic Climate Change Act.
The Net zero CO2 agenda is entirely pointless for three simple reasons (any one of which is sufficient on it own) and all three are indeed correct.
1. It require full world cooperation to reduce world atmospheric CO2 and this will not happen – will China, Russia, India go with it? It is hardly likely.
2. Slightly more CO2 in the atmosphere is a positive not a negative. It is plant, tree and crop food and greens the planet nicely. There is no manmade C02 driven climate emergency at all.
3. The solutions proposed to reduce CO2 (wind, solar, EVs, tidal, wave, biofuels) do not work even in CO2 terms to any significant degree anyway. Non are zero carbon anyway.
Does anyone really think all three are true?
September 23, 2021
When I was young, I supposed that in the face of dwindling reserves, the western world’s oil based economies would fight for what’s left, with the USA particularly doing “whatever it takes” to secure their needs. I never supposed governments would actually anticipate the exhaustion and crash their economies before time.
Still, one bright prospect is that at least the UK of the future will have a supply of coal after everyone else has run out, so this generation will gift something to the next and not just a massive pile of debt.
September 23, 2021
Andy
Grow a pair
September 23, 2021
Andy, Are you trying to say all your comments endorsing the dash for Wind, and for electric cars and electric homes, never actually happened? You’re going to have to try harder than that.
Quite clearly there are a number of far better technically qualified commenters on here than you. But, no, in your ignorance you were swayed by green propaganda (as you have been by EU propaganda) and you would not listen to us.
You should at least have the honour to admit your mistakes, but instead you hide behind bluster that the lack of wind is caused by Brexit, and high world gas prices are caused by Brexit. You need to pay more attention to the truth, rather to green tribalism.
September 23, 2021
Sir John,
If I had written half as much nonsense, abuse, hatred, ignorance and misrepresentation as Andy you would have banned me months, if not years ago. So why persist?
September 24, 2021
Every site needs an Andy…
September 23, 2021
Definitely need more nuclear.
But they seem to take a very long time to build. Particularly the first few sites for a new design. Although new designs may offer potential advantages in theory, in practice the cost of delay in coming into production nullifies most (all?) of the advantage.
We should (as part of the green agenda if you must) be building quickly using tried and tested designs.
September 23, 2021
Hinkley Point – French dated technology and as yet to be tested in France, over budget over time – ring any bells. Hinkley and HS2 both political ego projects
September 23, 2021
Dated tech too on the subs they hoped to con Australia into buying.
September 23, 2021
The nuclear station in Flamanville (Calvados) has two reactors (EPR second generation) working since 1986-1987. The third reactor, EPR third generation, is the one that has accumulated the delays. It is not scheduled to become operational before 2023.
Taishan 1 and 2, with a similar EPR III technology, were coupled to the Chinese network in 2018 and 2019.
The other EPR III reactor is in Olkiluoto (Finland) and although loaded has yet to be started.
September 23, 2021
The Taishan reactors are presently shut down with technical problems. Not promising for reliability of the design.
September 23, 2021
The French are now just waiting for the opportune time to cancel the build
September 23, 2021
+1
September 23, 2021
Agree, we defo need more nuclear and less Boris. His green speech to the UN last night was unbelieveable.
September 23, 2021
Glen, I must disagree. It was entirely believable and predictable. He is rapidly becoming a disaster.
September 23, 2021
Yes Glen, the man is off his rocker. His not fit for purpose!
September 23, 2021
The most worrying thing is that he went freelance again and without any debate in parliament announced he was going to impose a 68% cut in emissions by 2030 – a new, unattainable target that will wreck the economy faster than ever.
September 23, 2021
I see the Russians are going to build four more FPNNs(Floating Nuclear Plants),following the successful launch of the first a couple of years ago in the extreme(and extremely inhospitable!) NE of Siberia.They plan to have them operational in 2027(2),2028 and 2031.
September 23, 2021
That should read FNPPs(Floating Nuclear Power Plants)!
September 23, 2021
The first of these FNPPs, the Akademik Lomonosov, has been set up in Pevek (Chutkotka region) within the Artic circle in 2019. It is linked to the local electric distribution grid, can provide 70MW, about 200,000 dwellings.
September 23, 2021
I think that’s a little optimistic for dwellings (even small Russian flats) in the high Arctic from 70MW. Perhaps for lighting. Especially since they won’t be doing the usual Russian CHP from coal or gas to provide heating and hot water.
September 24, 2021
I think they are mainly aimed at powering some very large resource extraction developments(including associated worker accomodation) that are planned for the second half of this decade in those remote,very sparsely populated eastern regions
September 23, 2021
John’s acceptance of the Green agenda should not come as a surprise. Party loyal politicians eventually wrap themselves up in knots trying to equate their true, now well concealed beliefs with the nonsense pump out by their party leaders.
Let’s see. Centrica closed Rough. Islandmagee sits idle in N. Ireland. No LNG import facilities. Attacks on North Sea operators by political leaders desperate to appear Green and appease the Green lobby and Green supporters. Even the OGA nobble gas suppliers in the North Sea demanding they flare rather than pump to shore. Why? I believe their aim isn’t Green as some call it but to change the psychology of the population to get them used to using less, expose them to press headlines of ‘looming shortages’ etc etc.
We’re all being played by a political class with revenge and hate in their hearts and a contempt for who we are.
reply I continue to put forward proposals to improve things given the views of governments. Fuming against them with nasty language as you do will not change behaviours.
September 23, 2021
Indeed the insane anti-scientific war against CO2 (a little more of which in the atmosphere is, on balance, beneficial – in greening the planet, increased crops) is moronic. Yet all but a tiny handful of MPs voted for the moronic climate change act. So deluded and scientifically ignorant are our virtue signalling MPs.
John says “Nuclear and hydrogen may come to our assistance in the next decade” well nuclear is a source of energy hydrogen is just a very energy inefficient (and very expensive) way of storing energy (a battery in effect) we have no hydrogen mines. You should not out these two (very different0 things. What is needed is more sources of energy. Of all human energy use (electric and non electric) the amount coming from wind and solar is probably under 2%. When will MPs get real? Get fracking and have piles of coal in reserve.
The solutions are mainly gas, oli, coal and fracking now better nuclear soon and fusion within 20 years. The current was on CO2 is moronic. The solutions proposed wind and solar do no even save significant CO2 anyway and CO2 is not a serious problem either.
September 23, 2021
I very much hope that you’re right about nuclear fusion within 20 years. That is in my view the only definitive way out of this climate-change puzzle in which we find ourselves. The pollution and health risks of nuclear fission make it an alternative which is unpalatable to electorates.
I recall visiting the JET project as a sixth-form Physics student. I was struck by the immense size of the facility that was needed to create the conditions for fusion. That was three decades ago and we are still at the stage of optimising the engineering and increasing the performance of these machines. But I take hope from recent press reports from California where the first – very, very brief – controlled nuclear fusion reactions have been achieved and which have generated net new energy.
It will take massive capital investment and engineering to progress from this point to a commercial nuclear fusion industry that meets everyones’ energy needs but I think it’s possible that this will be achieved in a time-frame measured in decades rather than centuries. At that point wind and solar can be abandoned as legacy technologies. Hopefully it will be just a couple of decades rather than a higher number.
September 23, 2021
Boris tells us to grow up, witters on about Kermit the frog and tells us it is āeasy and lucrativeā to be green. Has he gone totally round the bend? There is nothing green, lucrative or remotely sensible about net zero CO2 it is evil, vastly expensive, will destroy jobs and the economy, freeze people to death and is entirely pointless too. I am all for protecting the environment but the war on CO2 is hugely misguided.
What is green about Boris/Carrie spending many thousands decorating no. 10 (for no good reason). What is green about tennis players and footballers flying round the world to play games or green loons flying to COP 26? What is green about 100 room stately homes being heated for ministers use as second homes? So is he going to ban international sport perhaps or green conferences other than on line?
Boris talks nearly as much B/S as Baroness Natalie Bennett. Boris even suggests Scientist got it right on Covid. Well they clearly helped to evolve it in the Wuhan lab I suppose as seems almost certain now. Plus the scientists he followed have got so much wrong. The Barrington declaration ones that his direct government attacked got is mainly right though I agree.
September 24, 2021
Lifelogic, it makes you wonder how often a busy minister gets to stay at this 100 room mansion per year and is that stay taxed as a benefit in kind or are they working weekends where the minister is entertaining people?
You’d think they could share the perk out better and take bookings with a priority for the Minister it is intended for like a posh air bnb.
September 23, 2021
+1
September 23, 2021
@Lifelogic
More absolute nonsense. You are one of the most scientifically ignorant climate emergency deniers ever. I don’t believe you even have an “O” level in arithmetic, let alone physics. You just parrot fossil fuel industry lies and bullshit.
September 23, 2021
It doesn’t work like that, Sakara. If you think Lifelogic is wrong, rather than merely bluster that he is a “denier” and hasn’t got “an “O” level in arithmetic” (there wasn’t one), you have to show how he’s wrong with rational arguments from common knowledge and using – yes – arithmetic. Otherwise you are just a propagandist.
The consensus scientific position on the global climate is that man, by burning “fossil” fuels, has caused an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere from about 300ppm (1870, ice cores) to about 415ppm (2021, Mauna Loa). And that this CO2 increase has caused about 1 deg C rise in the “global” temperature, in 150 years.
Despite the activists (various green pressure groups), propagandists (BBC, etc), and the politicians, there is no scientific consensus for an imminent, irreversible, catastrophic, global melt down (CAGW). Even Dr Mann has jumped off that bandwagon.
September 24, 2021
Exactly.
September 25, 2021
Only fair to demand LifeLogic does the same – arguments require facts and opinion. I can’t remember when he cited any sources, cherry picks extreme examples pretending they are average and rarely posts facts to back up his exaggerated numbers.
September 23, 2021
Another angry personal comment.
Respond with a decent counter argument SG
T
Over 80% of our total energy requirements are satisfied by fossil fuels.
We are seeing the effects of increasing our dependence on renewables already.
It is an argument about engineering and capacity not a belief system.
September 23, 2021
Solar and wind are under 2% of human energy needs currently. I assume she/he does not have any decent counter arguments – as there are none.
September 23, 2021
so wha do you think I have got wrong or am ignorant off exactly? Nothing that I can see.
September 24, 2021
I am a physicist and trained meteorologist and LL’s comments are always accurate and scientifically valid.
September 25, 2021
Really? he never cites sources and exaggerates numbers – pretends that all EVs are high end Teslas wrt costs and batteries, all EVs will only be charged using power from high CO2 power generation etc.
He claims to debunk government energy policy but only offers opinion no facts or argument.
September 23, 2021
Well I read maths and physics at Cambridge, later some solid state physics and electronics at Manchester and have worked in these areas too. But why do you not say on which particular points you think I am āignorantā. Nothing in the above is incorrect as far as I can see but do please enlighten me if you disagree on anything. Do however be specific and not just generally abusive.
You are right in that I do however deny there is any real āclimate emergencyā driven by manmade CO2 as there simply is no evidence for it. Not only that but the agenda of renewables – wind, solar, EV, heat pump agenda will not even reduce CO2 to and significant degree. It will just make everyone poorer and destroy the ability of the UK to compete economically and freeze a few old & poor people to death.
September 23, 2021
well said – a breath of fresh air – which the Government advisors say will save us from Covid too.
September 23, 2021
Google :”Speech delivered by Alexei Miller at “Challenges and Opportunities of the Growing Energy Markets of Asia Conference”,17 September,2021.”
Miller is the CEO of Gazprom.I can’t remember the last time I read a report so bullish-not just for the present but also for the long term future.He describes prospects as “staggering” and it’s all about Asia,Asia,Asia,Asia!
“Asia will require an additional 1.5 trn cm3 by 2040,60% of which will be imported…..Gazprom’s reserves are the largest in the world.We are not going to have any problems with our reserves for the next 100 years…..even in current conditions the”Asian premium” remains.”
Although best known for it’s pipelines,Gazprom in Asiatic Russia now also produces LNG,serving a variety of markets with India taking a quarter of output.In addition in the Far East they have the world’s largest helium production facility covering around one third of global demand (“helium is computer chips,helium is optical fibre,helium is LCD monitors”)
Not much mention of Europe,but if Power of Siberia II goes ahead(PoS I takes East Siberian gas exclusively to China;a feasibilty study for PoS II is currently underway),they will be able to connect the western gasfields (which currently supply Europe exclusively) to China/Asia through Mongolia and switch in both directions as required.
Good luck with COP 26!
September 23, 2021
Admittedly nasty language achieves nothing. But I have to say, Mr. Redwood, I think you have a moral obligation to speak out and call your party leadership out. Maybe it would inspire others so the sheep like behaviour might stop.
Reply I am the best judge of how I personally can pursue causes that matter to the wider public. What I need is support, not a constant barrage of silly criticism doubting my motives or my willingness to seek change. If people do not like my methods why do they waste time commenting on here?
September 23, 2021
Reply to reply – ‘ If people do not like my methods why do they waste time commenting on here?’
Obviously they hope to change your methods – is that so hard to understand?
September 23, 2021
Reply to:
Obviously you think you are the best judge of what you do – but you must expect other people to have a different opinion. I think you would have far more affect on what ministers think if you were a bit more outspoken.
I support your position on this subject – I just think you could make your voice heard more effectively.
September 23, 2021
Reply to reply: JR, I believe you are on the side of sanity, but Dom frequently has a point. His language may be trenchant and abrupt, but I would not call it “nasty”. Indeed I sometimes wish I could put my points as effectively as he does. I loathe the “net zero” and “build back better” mantras because they do seem to reflect the “hate” and “contempt” that the governing class (establishment, civil service, BBC, government, etc) has for us, as Dom said.
September 23, 2021
Scrap the net zero nonesense, get fracking and start building SMR,s.
It’s not hard you know.
Get some CCGT plants up and running.
Refurbish the abandoned gas storage facility.
September 23, 2021
I really hope we have a series of cold winters to expose the manure your inflicting on this nation.
September 23, 2021
Agree.
September 23, 2021
+1
Me too!
Amid all the psycho babble that Johnson and SAGE et al spoutā¦I try to keep uppermost in my mindā¦
They closed all health facilities ( including vets) for nigh on two yearsā¦.
TO SAVE OUR HEALTH. Talk about cognitive dissonance.
They will happily take any measure in the name of āsaving the planetā aka filling their coffersā¦no matter how cold and hungry WE get.
September 23, 2021
+1
September 23, 2021
They also closed HGV testing stations and wonder…….why a shortage of…..drivers. Your Government’s authoritarian behaviour on covid and green religion is harming us all.
September 24, 2021
People weren’t driving around commuting for over a year, fuel requirements dropped severely, ask how many fuel drivers’ were furloughed, check how many were working part-time whilst furloughed, furlough ends in September how many have quit at the end of September, how many spent furlough abroad? People are getting back to the office and other workplaces, fuel requirements have gone up it’s a pinch point.
September 23, 2021
We are not all listening Ian. I have just bought a new PETROL car, 2.5 Litre and pulls really well, non of that stupid battery city nonsense . It has a job to do and must earn its keep. My wood burner and gas heating will last at least twenty years. There are plenty of trees to keep my wood pile high. So I will not be paying tens of thousands to install some thing that does not work, It must be a very successful system to get the public to reach for their purse!
However I do not believe the fiddled stats, as I am over 75 , i can remember all the hot days past and the freezing winters.
So called ā climate changeā is fraudulent and a con!
September 23, 2021
Good o you, we’re in the market for a new gas boiler after this winter. Been quoted Ā£2250 installed with 10 year guarantee.
Our car will be changed at 22reg and it will be petrol.
I won’t participate in their expensive scams
September 23, 2021
One bad winter will be enough, if it leads to the electricity grid falling over. Rota power cuts (that some of us are old enough to remember), are one thing. But a complete loss of grid synchronisation, followed seconds later by complete shut down, and we are in uncharted territory. Then we’ll see if National Grid’s “Black Start” plans really work! A week (if we’re lucky) or a couple of days (if we’re REALLY lucky) without ANY electricity will soon open the public’s eyes. It will also seal the fate of any government stupid enough to believe it can run a 24/7/365 society on so called “Renewables”…
September 23, 2021
Ian. Very sensible suggestions but this and indeed all other main parties don’t do sensible. Just virtue signalling and watch the carnage unfold.
September 23, 2021
Exactly.
Nor do they do “sensible” in cricket where we are now to have “batters” rather than batsmen, batswomen and all the other 100+(?) genders. So we will not now know what the gender they are referring to or which teems we are referring to.
Great plan take out the gender so the word is far more vague and ambiguous. But why stop here? Let’s just call them cricketers so we do not know if they are batters, wicket keepers or bowlers. Or just sports people so we do not even know what sport they play. Surely the point of words is to convey information now it seems not?
I particularly dislike the word “partner” which can mean almost anything business partners, same sex, different sex …
Then we have more insanity from OFCOM with Gammon, remoaner, Karen and snowflake among the words added to Ofcomās potentially offensive terms! If you cannot offend people free speech is dead & that seems to be Ofcom’s agenda.
September 23, 2021
+1
September 23, 2021
Ian
The problems are NOW !! What you propose, which I agree with, cannot be done when winter is upon us. And yes, we need a bit of tough love / reality to to shake people out of their fluffy green world where everything is magic and made of little green fairies.
September 23, 2021
We could have fracked gas on line within months.
The mine in the North could be up and running by spring negating the need to import Russian coal.
Open circuit gas turbines could be installed within months and become CCGT plants pretty quick.
Where there’s a will…….
September 23, 2021
If we analyse the 11 years the government has been in power it’s frightening.
1. Decimating the armed forces 2011.
2Building RN support ships in South Korea causing the closure of British shipyards.
3. Bulldozing viable coal fired power stations and replacing them with windmills.
4. Banning fracking leading to a gas shortage
5. Causing the shutdown of our only aluminium smelter slavishly following EU dictate.
6. Destroying our motor car industry by announcing end of ICE by 2030.
The list goes on, now we have the most stupid net zero and legislation banning gas in favour of electricity when we can barely keep the lights on now.
We close down viable industry to reduce CO2 then subsidies a foreign company to produce CO2.
Talk about left hand and right hand…..
September 23, 2021
Closing the ‘coke’ mining for our steel industry
September 23, 2021
+10
September 23, 2021
Ian, Exactly so. This government cannot escape from the reality that their “net zero” policies have brought us to this sorry state. If it hadn’t been for the resurrection of the mothballed coal-fired generation, we would have had blackouts or a three day week. So much for green energy.
I have a Jan 2021 letter from Kwasi Kwarteng MP, in which he claims: “The UK has one of the most robust energy systems in the world . . .”. Well, until the wind doesn’t blow. It’s taken just 9 months to show the government’s position is no more than bluster. They are technically illiterate, and due to the net zero ideology, unable to hold National Grid to account.
September 24, 2021
+1
September 23, 2021
+1
September 23, 2021
All good traditional Tory policies….where did they go wrong
September 23, 2021
As the Reform Party now call the Tory Party, the Con SOCIALISTS for its actions and behaviours.
September 23, 2021
Spot On
September 23, 2021
Why have our current and past governments not planned and provided for sufficient resources for what we are currently going through.Who can we blame?
September 23, 2021
Because they have been too busy saving the planet for the CCP.
September 23, 2021
+1
September 23, 2021
The political parties and the green focused media forget that 99% of the electorate arenāt interested in saving the planetā¦.theyāre interested in day-to-day living, employment and paying bills
September 23, 2021
glen cullen :
Agreed.
Our PM has not only turned the Conservative Party into a second Green Party, which BTW is currently polling at around 5%, but has even told the World at the UN today that we are the nasty country and to blame for CAGW :
āWe started this industrial revolution in Britain: we were the first to send the great puffs of acrid smoke to the heavens on a scale to derange the natural order.ā
Thanks a lot, Mr. Johnson.
September 23, 2021
Bob, you can blame Just-In-Time supply chains where nobody holds any inventory of components, just in case they are needed to keep production going. The NHS is a classic case. You get hit with a pandemic and the cupboards that stored the emergency PPE (face masks gowns etc) was sold off by the government years back.
September 23, 2021
You don’t understand how “just in time” works acorn, which is very common among people who have never worked in industry.
It is more about on time deliveries to the Tier One company.
Others lower down in the supply chain hold sufficient stock to satisfy scheduled demand.
Products have a shelf life acorn.
You cant hold hundreds of millions of PPE in stock for years.
They gradually degrade.
And who is going to fund that stock and the huge warehouses needed to store them on your “just in case” basis?
If you were buying an appliance for your home, would you be happy with parts contained in it like the electric motor, having been made six or twelve months before?
Or a new car that was made 12 months ago then left sitting in a car park before you bought it?
September 23, 2021
After 33 years in the Power Industry, I know what I am talking about. BTW, the replacement fan motor for my twenty year old Miele oven was made twelve years back.
September 24, 2021
The power industry is no real equivalence to manufacturing industry where just in time supply systems are commonplace and work very well.
Best of luck with your 12 year old fan motor.
September 23, 2021
Bob, Building gas or oil storage facilities, constructing new water reservoirs and power stations of any sort is a necessary basic requirement, but boring for many, just like maintaining our roads, railways and power distribution systems.
People expect it should be automatic, so there are no new votes in doing it, until we have a crisis, when votes can then be lost.
September 24, 2021
Putin is usually favourite. It distracts from the real reasons and the politicians who produced the policies over successive governments, eg Ed Davy in the Coalition government
September 23, 2021
And again you’ve dodged using the f-word: fracking. We already have huge reserves of gas in storage in the UK – or more correctly, under it. It takes a special kind of stupid for a country in that position to run out of the stuff.
Listening to the news this morning, I found myself thinking that the government needs to do three things now:
(1) Remove the cap on gas prices. Companies should not have to sell gas more cheaply than they can buy it.
(2) As a temporary measure, remove VAT on domestic fuel.
(3) As a temporary or permanent measure, remove Green levies on the energy sector.
P.S. If there’s one thing that will be out of Business in the next three months it will be Kwarteng.
September 23, 2021
1*****
September 23, 2021
+1
September 23, 2021
Sea Warrior, Many people are unaware that “fracking” is a long established and frequently used technology in drilling for both gas and oil. It has been demonised by green fanatics. Fracking for gas in Lancashire (and elsewhere in the UK) is far more benign than coal mining was (and more benign than fracking for oil, too). And for those who sneer, I would be perfectly happy to live near a (fracked) gas well.
September 23, 2021
The reversal of the ban on fracking is extremely urgent. In coal mining areas subsidence was accepted although not liked, naturally. It did not stop the urgent need to get the coal out. Our present and recent leaders have behaved completely irresponsibly and should receive punishment. We would not be in this position were it not for them.
September 23, 2021
A special kind of stupid sums up Boris’s junta.
September 23, 2021
Sea_Warrior :
“(1) Remove the cap on gas prices. Companies should not have to sell gas more cheaply than they can buy it.”
Agreed.
The cap is a great way for the big energy companies to remove their smaller rivals.
September 23, 2021
These are sensible proposals. A revised version of the dash for gas appears the fastest, most practical and economical route out of the UK’s acute energy predicament. But does this government possess the gumption, wit and drive to allow it to happen? With Johnson in charge I doubt it. If the changes you set out are to happen you need someone else in charge.
September 23, 2021
Going by what has happened recently over the alleged pandemic, I see this.
1. Ignore the situation and hope it either goes away or is not as bad.
2. Panic !
3. Look like he is coming out fighting and is going to sort this out. Even though he has not a clue.
4. Create a new government post and put someone totally useless in charge. ie Scapegoat.
5. Spend vast amounts of money.
6. Claim to have fixed the problem, whilst ignoring the fact that, had he a previous governments done their jobs we would not be in this mess.
September 23, 2021
+1
We are being kept under control by the alleged plague.
Meanwhile thousands, as in the US are being ushered into our country.
Unjabbed, unseen, uncontrolled by passports.
September 23, 2021
Indeed. Just back from Cyprus. Lots of boat people there too. My wife and I had to carry out covid checks before and after arrival in UK. Proof of vaccinations. Two very complicated on line forms at our expense. Boat people arrive, free 4* Hotels, pocket money, food, health dentistry. No forms or hassle. No deportations or tow back to France. This Government is simply awful and will receive its payback by us tax paying political refugees.
September 23, 2021
7. And play the (Global) village idiot in America.
September 23, 2021
Mark,
I think Patel still has a an ex marine in the channel giving directions while shovelling tens of millions more to France!!
Meanwhile Javid closed detention centres as HS so illegal criminals entering the country can be put up in four star hotels while Johnson breaks another promise to tax us all to pay for social care!! Four star hotels for criminals, taxes for all of us to pay for a care home!! Where is JRās blog about this outrage?
And now fuel poverty for millions while criminals pay no bills in their four star hotels, not even having to decide to eat or heat as Kwertang acknowledged!!
September 23, 2021
I see that the only-for-profit lads who operate these mothballed coal fired plants such as Ratcliffe-on-Soar are charging up to Ā£4000/MWh as against a typical baseline cost of Ā£40/MWh.
Remember when the miners – would you do their job? – wanted a perfectly reasonable wage for their grinding toil, and the right wing mantra was “how dare they hold the country to ransom?”
Instead of paying them, the Heath Government inflicted power rationing and the Three Day Week on the entire country, out of no more than the spiteful principle that the Working Man Must Never Win..
It seem hilarious in retrospect, doesn’t it?
September 23, 2021
Martin, Again you demonstrate your lack of knowledge. Starting a coal-fired boiler from cold is fraught with difficulties: condensation in the draught leading to severe corrosion; and, separately, leaking tubes among them. If you’ve never seen water pissing out of a cold-start boiler you’ve missed a treat.
Then you have to assemble a team to run it – presumably contractors in addition to the care and maintenance crew. I’m not surprised at the very high cost. Coal-fired generation is for base load, for precisely those reasons. You can’t even switch gas-fired off and on instantly – the best work-around being to keep the set on spinning reserve. That’s why Wind is so problematical. But you don’t know, and don’t care.
September 23, 2021
Yes, but it doesn’t make it 10,000% more expensive.
Come off it.
September 23, 2021
You have described exactly why I recommend firing up our coal capacity as baseload over the winter, rather than leaving it to be supplier of last resort in the Balancing Mechanism. That would provide much cheaper power while gas prices are so high, and free up gas and reduce our gas import bill. It would also be a good idea to suspend carbon tax over the winter: it is an unnecessary imposition on bills.
The Germans are managing to burn coal to save on gas. So should we.
September 23, 2021
The miners leadership wanted to destroy the elected government MiC
A wage rise for their members was of lower importance.
September 23, 2021
Letās take that logic one step further and revisit domestic shale gas as well.
Never let a good crisis go to waste as they say. What this gas shortage fiasco has highlighted is 1) the folly of socialist economics with foolish measures such as price caps and 2) the utter fantasy that the U.K. is going to be able to move to 80-100% electrification of the whole economy, homes, business and transport, based on ārenewablesā. The public will now understand how absurd this idea is – but will blame the incumbent govt. so hereās another thing where we need Conservative MPs to wake up.
September 23, 2021
+1
September 23, 2021
Logic does not come into it. Otherwise why ban the sale of new ICE cars without the infrastructure to support it ?
You forget, we are dealing with vain, over and badly educated morons.
September 23, 2021
The alarming thing is leading politicians, ministers and even many left-wing ones, are not morons. Far from it. If they were you could understand it.
September 23, 2021
Correct ā and if the people loved the EVs with a passion, and the whole country backed Borisās green revolutionā¦.there wouldnāt be any need to BAN the ICE car as everyone would sell their on grandmother to buy an EV without any subsidy or inducement
September 23, 2021
Coal mines not being allowed to open, despite our industry still needing the raw material and fracking being banned for no reason, except scaremongering, are some of the bad decisions this government has made. Helped along by the green policies from past years this has driven up our energy costs and pushed jobs abroad.
September 23, 2021
+many, many.
September 23, 2021
You’ve just described Boris’s message last night to the UN……oh and we’re again at a new tipping point (that date keeps moving)….we just need a little bit more of your money and a few more green solutions
September 24, 2021
Why is everything like these energy and food problems a complete surprise to this government and swivel service.
Convene a Cobra and sort out the immediate issues and the medium term strategy.. long term too if not entirely banjaxed by El Greenios.
Daily briefings again until sorted .. let’s see some accountability.
What’s the next shortage? š¤
September 23, 2021
ā The UK is an outlier with very little storage capacity compared to other advanced countries.ā
Until about, perhaps, ten years ago, we had storage for gas. In a town near me, Sainsburyās was once a gas storage facility. Battersea in London had a huge power stationā¦ weāve just gone backwards in our progress.
So many of your suggestions, need to be implemented and are very necessary. This country has been so stupid and naive to believe all this climate nonsense.
Unless we sort ourselves out, if the Chinese scientists are correct about an imminent cooling period, weāre going to be in a very bad place. Theyāll be fine!
September 23, 2021
@Sharon. Very true, climate change can work both ways: hotter and colder!
I’m concerned as to what fresh lunacies Johnson will sign us up to at this Cop conference.
September 23, 2021
Cynic
I think many of us share your view, whenever a Prime Minister goes abroad, or holds an international conference here, they always pledge or spend more of our money.
September 23, 2021
Is this ālevelling upā?
(=us levelling DOWN)
āWeāve been emitting for centuries and these newly industrialized countries say āwell, why should we pay such a big price?ā So the $100 billion a year that we need to raise is to support those countries [to] make the transition.ā
Johnson talking about aims of stupid conference.
September 23, 2021
”Those Countries” = Dictatorships with Nuclear Weapons and/or dpon’t allow girls to go to school
Once again – our tax dollar at work
September 23, 2021
+1
Yes..youāre right. I hadnāt thought of that aspect!!
September 23, 2021
I’m very concerned, particularly regarding his submission to his green (as in immature) wife.
September 23, 2021
Sharon,
I went to Battersea Power Station yesterday on the new Northern Line extension. I walked along the 110 metre coaling jetty that once handled coal from South Walnes and the North East and had record breaking capacity. It is now being set up with wooden shacks to dispense food and drinks for people promenading along the riverbank.
The whole area is rather sterile with very expensive apartments aimed at foreigners looking for an investment or a money laundering opportunity. I had a cup of tea in nearby Battersea park instead. I eventually found the Sky Pool opposite the American embassy though nobody working in the area seemed to know where it was. I counted three people swimming at ten storeys up. I read reports that there may be losses on new build in this area and some may never be completed.
Returning, I got off at NineElms and walked back to Vauxhall which is still Little Portugal with some decent authentic restaurants.
September 25, 2021
I remember the area when I was a kind, Battersea Park was my playground. Until recently I cycled through through both the park and the Power Stn. Complex. The company I was working with at the time installed the Combined Heat and Power units (hence why there is fumes coming out of one the chimneys) there. Around the US Embassy it does look very sterile, much like Canary Wharf does, and I have pictures of the floating swimming pool which, as you rightly describe, is hard to find. One thing I did notice about Vauxhall, was that some of the new buildings going up around there, and there is a lot of them, are financed by the Chinese.
September 23, 2021
Sharon, Indeed. The climate does change, but the theory of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) – a “climate emergency” – is a hoax. The scientific consensus is not what the activists and the politicians claim it is. CO2 is a green house gas, but is not the global thermostat. The small increase in global temperatures and CO2 over the last 150 years have been beneficial overall. And geology says we’re due an ice-age anyway.
September 23, 2021
+1
September 23, 2021
NickC :
Agreed.
The science is definitely not āsettledā. Ask any climate activist to explain why the Earth started to warm after the last ice age 22,000 years ago and long before there were any man-made CO2 emissions.
September 23, 2021
Indeed Sharon. We had several gas holders in the Worthing area. Does anyone remember those halcyon days of just one electric company and one gas company?
September 23, 2021
Good morning.
Err ! It is your party leader and PM that is the one trying to ban gas and gas boilers. To have an argument you need to differing views. Currently, the government is on the side of the Greens.
But it was a Conservative government, under one Theresa May MP, that allowed our gas storage to be closed down and, wait for it, sold to property developers for housing. It was also her, again, under a Conservative government, that imposed the price cap which is responsible for the distorting of the market and the problems now faced by suppliers.
As I said before, there seems an element of panic in our kind hosts posts. He may be wise enough to see the looming danger, both to our grid and to the Conservative party’s chances at the next election, but alas, those at the very top could not give a stuff.
You reap what you sow. Or in this case of failure over 11 years, not. And I still remember the outgoing PM’s words of one David Cameron. The man whose proudest achievement of his Premiership was to introduce GAY Marriage. Something for which we never voted for or were asked about.
This is not Alexander Johnson’s failure, it is theirs, but he isn’t making things any better with his daft ideas.
September 23, 2021
Somebody has been asleep at the wheel, and the Tory energy policy during the past 11 years hasn’t just been a hot potato its a deeply buried potato in an unknown field
September 23, 2021
Just so, Mark B. The Conservatives have been transfixed by green ideology. Boris Johnson’s political epitaph will be “the Saudi Arabia of Wind bags”. His legacy is BINO, uncontrolled immigration, and net zero greencrap.
September 23, 2021
There isn’t an immediate short term solution to the gas storage problem, except perhaps buying a few specialist LNG tankers and mooring them offshore the 4 LNG terminals we have, like the one on the Ise of Grain in Kent on the River Medway. Building more specialist LNG tanks onshore would help, but would take time.
Incidentally, my energy provider went bust yesterday. I am unimpressed at SoS Kwarteng’s response
September 23, 2021
Mine also Sakara, don’t forget to read your meters today, someone will ask for them down the line. Good idea to buy some LNG Tankers. A big one, 170,000 M3 of LNG comes to circa one TWh of storage.
You may have listened to the guy from Stag Energy on R4 this morning. He has spent since 2008 trying to get some government interest in his Gateway Project for gas storage in salt caverns and getting nowhere.
“Gateway has the potential for the development of up to 40 caverns with an average spatial volume of approximately one million cubic metres ā each with the capability of storing around 75 million cubic metres of working gas.” (I make that 3 billion M3 = 30 TWh) https://www.stagenergy.com/gateway/
The old Rough storage had circa 3.1 billion M3 of working gas and probably circa 2 billion of cushion gas, the spring that pushes the working gas out.
September 23, 2021
LNG is very cold. Store it as a liquid and it boils off bit by bit.
JF
September 23, 2021
@Julian Flood
Convenient for feeding the boil-off into the grid then
September 23, 2021
Modern LNG Tankers are fitted with re-refrigeration units to condense the boil-off gas and return it the cargo holding tanks.
September 23, 2021
We should never have made the dash for Wind, Sakara. Or at least, for so much. It is no secret that the wind is variable and intermittent. Yet the green propagandists, including the government, chose to ignore that fact.
And I do remember telling you that we needed near 100% dispatchable back-up for when the wind didn’t blow. That back-up is needed here and now – and the schemes you popped up with (batteries, weights down mineshafts, etc) don’t hack it on the scale needed. And they take time and extra money to implement, so approximately doubling the cost of Wind. So why not go direct for what works? – conventional natural fuels and Nuclear, rather than expensive intermittents such as Solar and Wind?
September 23, 2021
Hiring LNG carriers as storage would prove very expensive. LNG transport is being stretched to the limit by longer voyages into Asia, and that will stretch again as the Arctic route becomes impassable even for the ice breaker tankers in a couple of months. Current rates are about $100,000 a day.
September 24, 2021
With the benefit of the new generation of superheavy nuclear icebreakers currently being built I believe the Russians expect year round delivery to be possible by 2027.By then their second Arctic LNG mega project,Gydna,should be fully operational-I think it commences operations in 2023.
I read recently they are also planning to transport significant quantities of LNG from the Arctic Yamal peninsular to their Baltic ports by rail.
September 23, 2021
What is happening is a total confirmation that the vast majority of politicians and business leaders had no and still have no understanding about energy networks and how the sector operates. . There is more to it that putting money into the meter.
The green zealots on the other hand have over decades wormed their way into all the key positions created a fifth column that has been ignored as they built their infrastructure to attack every sector of society and the community. People with the knowledge and experience to reverse the situation are now cleverly isolated from the very people they are trying to serve by the media and the teaching organisations. Nothing will change, for decades government’s have thrown billions into the green revolution and to change now is admission they all got it so terribly wrong.
September 23, 2021
+ EXACTLY
From very precise personal involvement over many years I am pretty sure that the green movement itself is a total scam.
It is intimately linked to real anarchy.
OK there may be a few useful idiots who really believe in pink fluffiness but many in the movement see it as a route to power. And I know that, rightly or wrongly they see mask wearing, taking the knee and jabs and āpassportsā as a sort of signing up to global communism. ( Donāt ask!).
They in turn are the useful idiots of those who truly hold the reins of power and will be swiftly dealt with having served their purpose.
We KNOW that air travel, heating, lighting, meat consumption will not stop for the controllers.
That is one thing we CAN be certain of.
September 23, 2021
Curiouser and curiouserā¦
We had gas storage in every town. Mostly demolished now. Like the Beeching Axe.
The changes in energy should have been organic of course. But since the globalists are trying to buy our milch cows for a handful of beans I dare say it had to be a sudden coup before people woke up.
Open up the coal mines, burn coal, make gas again.
For goodness sake, the human race has survived proper plagues, many wars, smoking, pollution etc.etc.
We will not survive living in a sterile, joyless world of control and terror.
September 23, 2021
I like your āchangesā¦should have been organicā comment and that should apply to the forthcoming car ban in 8 years. The transition should be organic which allows people who want and can afford EVs to buy them and fuel/electricity suppliers to build an infrastructure to support new marketsā¦.Organic in that there are no subsides and the market place and the people dictate the pace and volume of transitional change
September 23, 2021
+1 šø
September 23, 2021
I see that 5 or so energy companies have gone to the wall!
September 23, 2021
Yup, mine included, even though I deliberately chose a well-established one rather than the cheapest.
September 23, 2021
+1
September 23, 2021
It will take more than time to replace all domestic gas boilers and petrol cars, it will take an alteration in the laws of thermodynamics. There has never been an attempt to replace good efficient fuels with less efficient alternatives before this. The only reasons it is being attempted are political dogma and elitist agendas not common sense. We will see an absolute disaster unfolding if these ridiculoyus ideas are not stopped.
September 23, 2021
+1
September 23, 2021
I still don’t see who’s going to pay for all this…we’re talking trillions
September 23, 2021
Agreed Lisa.
And the cost to people who earn normal income is prohibitive.
September 23, 2021
With respect to wind power, no one ever talks about the physical security of the turbines. If I were an unfriendly state, I would relish the opportunity to attack Dogger Bank where it is harder for U.K. defences to act as they are at a distance. It would also be enticing to attack key U.K. infrastructure without hurting people as well.
What are the plans for this?
September 23, 2021
The easy attack is on the cables to shore. The same with interconnectors of course.
September 23, 2021
The lack of storage is a medium-term issue. The lack of supply is the immediate problem. Well, I say “problem” but government policy is to discourage fossil fuel use through penal pricing so this is all as they wanted isn’t it ?
Push on with fracking – the operators of those facilities will build storage.
September 23, 2021
Isn’t it already ‘stored’?
September 23, 2021
Provide more gas storage? Why? Why has everything got to be supplied for here in the UK for the rest of the world???? – – Just because the world wants to come and live better? Someone else built it – – now the world wants to come and enjoy it ???? – – but doesn’t want to contribute to it??? – – Can I drive for free , someone else’s car that they bought?? – NO – – but the world is being waved in for free housing, free NHS, free cash, free education, free everything. There is only one result of that policy.
September 23, 2021
Also, as most, if not not all of them come from warmer climes, they will probably use more energy than the seasoned native Brit.
September 23, 2021
Energy Infra structure is a long term strategic question for which consistent planning and a risk averse attitude are required . Consequently the UK with its non-functioning Government was bound to fail .
It is worse than pointless for John Redwood to play the back seat driver, ” Ooooo you should have turned of a mile ago”…in fact its annoying
Plans for gas storage needed to be greenlighted 10 years ago at least for the storage to be functioning now . Yes again we see the UK floundering due to a lack of planning and a system that encourages any cost you can put off to be dumped into the future.
Reply I have been advising for the last decade that we need more energy capacity
September 23, 2021
Sir John
Now your party is effectively led by Caroline Lucas where can I , a conservative, place my vote at the next election?
Roger
September 23, 2021
Roger, cut out the middleman and vote Green. Iāve been doing it since 2010. I did it in the knowledge itās a wasted vote. But has it been wasted? I didnāt realise Boris was as green as grass.
September 23, 2021
Boris’s green plan is working – we’ll all be in mud huts soon
September 23, 2021
+1
Lol
They shouldāve asked Windy Miller!!
September 23, 2021
Is more capacity for gas storage a part of the government’s agenda – I don’t think so.
I do see the many psychologists employed by government departments getting plenty of overtime, to convince us all that being a little cold is not such a bad thing, and that people dying in cold temperatures is not unusual, and we should just wear an extra layer of clothing.
When we are encouraged to come out and clap the energy sector, if we are not in lockdown, it might just sink in that we’ve been nudged a little too far.
September 23, 2021
All the problems we face are as the result one mans whimsical ‘world stage grandstanding’. While ignoring the first job of a Government, to keep us safe and secure by ensuring a strong vibrant economy.
The so-called situation of storage is really the lack of interest from Government to do what they promised and what we are paying for.
Can we have our ‘Money Back’? Can we sue under the trade description act?
All the things that are now piling up and compounding the UK’s lack of thought through momentum comes from the Government going off in the complete opposite direction to their promises to get elected. Vote Conservative and get the Green Party and Socialism. How is that honest! How is that transparent!
As we the people don’t actually vote for our leader, then the Government, they are party appointees. It is the Conservative Party that are the only ones in the UK that need to get their act together, they are the fault line in our woes, is it a Conservative Party even?
There is no sign of let up in this bizarre creed to deliberately wreck the UK and the Conservative Party. You have to ask who have the Party been infiltrate by and who do they now work for – certainly it is not the people of the UK and definitely not those that voted Conservative.
September 23, 2021
Today’s and the last two day’s blogs all have the same root cause. We have far too many lawyers in parliament and it is a known fact that they are not adept at running anything and are not gifted with very much foresight.
Westminster is a ‘talking shop’ and lawyers are brilliant in debate and arguing the ‘here and now’, so it is not surprising that many are selected to run for parliament. They have the gift of intense concentration on the argument of the moment, followed by the ability that when it is over all the detail is removed completely from memory, leaving it clear for the next debate.
This attribute does not encourage a person to be a ‘mover and shaker’ or to have much imagination on what might or might not happen in the future. We have a classic example in the leader of the labour party. A successful lawyer with seemingly all the right credentials making an absolute fist of running his party.
We now have an energy crisis worldwide effecting this country more than it should do, because of a succession of poor, short sighted decisions taken during the last three decades. The latest is our reliance on wind power and we have completely ignored hydro and tidal streams.
We have littered our countryside and coasts with windmills that are totally dependent on weather over which we have no control. For the past 7 or 8 days we have had high pressure over the southern half of the country and gales in the north so surprise surprise all the turbines across the highlands are turned off as there is too much wind and not enough to turn the blades in the south. These conditions can happen in winter just the same and then the lights will go out.
If you want to go green, go nuclear and hydro and pass it over to industry where we have the scientists and technicians who can provide the long term safe solution. At the same time attract many more members into parliament from the business world. Let’s have an ‘action’ shop not a ‘talking’ one
September 25, 2021
My experience of using lawyers is thus. You tell them your problem and they agree to undertake your case for an ‘upfront’ fee. When said money runs out, they stop work until you give them more.
Sounds familiar ?
September 23, 2021
I am pleased gas storage is now underground instead of in huge, ugly, rusting metal rising storage bins that were probably never in a lot of their supporter’s towns but usually put in the most deprived areas out of sight.
Locally they’d been building large storage areas of gas and have been laying new pipelines for what seems like years.
For once this government has adequate warning it now needs to stop dithering and get on with solutions that can be delivered over the next ten years with an aim to meet the manifesto commitments to net zero by 2050 and kick Boris’ butt about reducing this unnecessarily by 2030 to impoverish his own nation – this isn’t going to end well! Is this so the Tories have no chance of re-election by 2030 and Labour can sign us up to a rubbish deal with the EU to keep our lights on. Wake up and make us more self-sufficient. How can it be more environmentally friendly to import Gas and coal and energy over large transport miles?
I will ask Boris like the news anchors are finally asking the leader of the new protest ‘Insulate Now’ group – just how insulated are government buildings and homes? If you are so involved in ‘Insulate Now’ Mr Protester and you can’t afford to insulate your own home isn’t incumbent upon you to downsize into a eco home and sell off your big home to someone that can afford to make it energy efficient? Why should the rest of us pay for it? Then I hear the government has already stumped up Ā£2bn to insulate homes – it’s no wonder we’re not told the truth about government spending.
September 23, 2021
@A-Tracy – the government has for some time offered those that need to insulate their homes Ā£5,000 of taxpayer money. The 2 members of the clergy taking part in the terrorist actions qualified for 100% free insulation as with others of a similar age or on benefits
September 24, 2021
The news channels love a good protest they turn up and put these videos on their prime news of the protestors sitting in the road holding up people from their work, hospital appointments, urgent trips and journeys to the airports yet never ask the questions of them. Never quote the facts about government subsidies as you say. Enough is enough. The main news channels are not doing their jobs.
When they say children are starving why aren’t we told how much that adult is receiving in benefits, full benefits including housing, child benefit, child tax credits, if they’re working working tax credits and other subsidised allowances for food, uniforms, beds and other necessities. I know plenty of women that have lived subsidised for over eighteen years and go on foreign holidays, run cars, buy lottery tickets and have the latest phones and gadgets, satellite tv etc.
September 23, 2021
Tice has coined a new name for the Tories.
Con-Socialists!
September 23, 2021
@EH; Many a voter, north of the “Red Wall”, might well agree, never again will they be conned! š® š
September 23, 2021
Agree – its quite amazing how quickly Boris forgot about the votes lent to him….he’s in for a shock
September 23, 2021
Very apt
September 23, 2021
@Everhopeful – the ‘Con’ part is a bit rich!
September 23, 2021
Meanwhile the Worlds third largest exporter of defense equipment France, more than 4 times larger than the UK which is now way back in the number 10 spot (behind Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands even) is prevaricating and playing politics to manipulate its self on board all future agreements of Aukus. The indignation from France is that the UK is so small in Defense production and exports on the World stage why would anyone think that are should be involved in World alliances.
This is no different to the UK’s lack of energy storage or energy creation capability. The UK was once it third spot in defense, then the Government allowed the sell-off our capability – mainly to the French and French Government at that. The UK Government ditched the jobs, the IP and the revenue that goes to keeping the UK safe and secure. Likewise the UK Government has shunned the UKās advantages in energy capabilities and sacrificed it on the stage of vanity. How crazy, we now cant even produce CO2 ourselves!
Under a different leadership the UK people might just about still have the ability, the resources and capability to secure our energy situation, therefore the storage and more importantly the economy to fund the essentials to get us on track to stability
September 23, 2021
@Nota# – Elsewhere in the MsM it is reported Boris will reach out to appease Macron ā maybe he is going to sell him the UK Submarine manufacturing facilities to go with the controls for they already supply.
The EU still controls the UK and Macron rules the roost with them
September 23, 2021
I’m sure Macron was unimpressed by Boris’ misgendering of la grippe – the flu – and being told to get a dose of it.
September 25, 2021
The steel will still be made by the French thanks to our government daft energy policies and the closing down of both coke and steel works.
September 23, 2021
Iāve started gathering candles
The lights might stay on ā but who could afford it
September 23, 2021
Most of the country has a very stiff westerly breeze.
September 23, 2021
I live on the North West Cumbrian coat, no wind here, perhaps you could send some of yours.
September 23, 2021
Off topic, here is a 84 second clip from Sky News last night, in which their propagandist Beth Rigby asks President Biden an obviously leading question about “the Irish protocol”, singular, and in his response he refers to “the protocols”, plural, and says that he feels very strongly about “those”, and later that he and other US politicians would not like to see a change in the “Irish accords”, also pluralised.
https://news.sky.com/video/us-president-joe-biden-says-northern-ireland-protocol-is-issue-for-any-uk-trade-deal-12414058
Having seen that -and replayed it several times to be sure of what I had heard – I was more inclined to agree with George Eustice that President Biden does not properly understand this issue:
https://news.sky.com/story/us-president-joe-biden-does-not-fully-appreciate-details-of-northern-ireland-protocol-row-minister-says-12414150
The question then is what our embassy in Washington has been doing to explain UK government policy and improve the understanding of the President and other US politicians and the American people.
September 23, 2021
Yawn. You left. Get over it.
September 23, 2021
Sigh. We got BINO. That’s precisely the point – it’s about Northern Ireland being annexed by the EU.
September 23, 2021
Andy. Your comment is ironic when you are obsessed with Brexit
September 23, 2021
I am overjoyed WE left and I haven’t got over the triumph, you clearly are dismayed.
September 23, 2021
@Denis Cooper; “[I am] more inclined to agree with George Eustice that President Biden does not properly understand this issue”
Your point being what, exactly? It matters not one jot what you, George Eustice or anyone else here in the UK think, just what Joe Biden believes or wants to believe, just as it was when Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton and so one were the President of the USA!
September 23, 2021
Dennis
Your last Paragraph sums up the situation and action which is needed perfectly, it certainly seems clear to me that the USA does not really understand the Irish/Northan Irish situation at all.
September 23, 2021
when President Biden talks about the protocols I am sure he means the whole encompassing range of issues that the Withdrawal Agreement covers Like – Citizens Rights after departure – during the transition period and after the transition period like Intellectual Property Rights and the Financial Settlement Etc Etc. The Irish Protocol so named is an important part for the new agreement but is only a small part relatively speaking. As far as I am concerned he can say Protocols or protocol – no point in splitting hairs
September 23, 2021
As Blake says below, there are other protocols attached to the Withdrawal Agreement:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A02020W%2FTXT-20201218
but only the long and complex first protocol, that headed “PROTOCOL ON IRELAND/NORTHERN IRELAND”, is relevant to this issue. You may think it unimportant that President Biden has such a vague idea about it all that in response to a question specifically about “the Irish protocol” he incorrectly refers to “the protocols”, plural, but it does support the contention that he is confused and that should prompt the question of why our diplomats in Washington have allowed that to happen.
September 24, 2021
No Denis – what your about is having a go at Biden “sleepy Joe” a put down that suits your fixation about Ireland. Not your fault but the Problem with Ireland started centuries ago – we are only seeing the end results now.
September 25, 2021
I’ve given the link and you can listen for yourself.
September 23, 2021
There is also the Protocol for Gibraltar and another for Cyprus and could be others
September 23, 2021
Our current energy predicament is caused by our Government, Parliament, Civil Service and Quangos following the CAGW scam which is driven by both Marxists and Globalists.
Net zero commitments are made before they are technically and financially achievable whilst our existing energy infrastructure is closed down to cause shortages, rationing, economic decline and finally social unrest.
All made worse by neglecting other essential infrastructure in order to give the impression of āclimate changeā, such as the stopping of dredging to cause flooding.
Fortunately we have voted to leave the EU which means we still retain the ability to remove any Government who continues to take us along this path of self destruction.
September 23, 2021
@Original Richard +1
You could also say ‘no economy’ no future, would appear to be the order of the day
September 23, 2021
OT; The Paymaster General, at COQs this morning, suggest there is nothing wrong with the current govts wish for the electorate to have to provide (photo) ID before being allowed to vote in future elections (they might well be correct), giving certain European countries as examples of were such a need already exists, very true except for one thing, those countries provide State issued ID (cards), not just tell their citizens to source the necessary ID!
Time to dust off the plans made by the last Labour govt for a national ID card scheme perhaps, whilst eating a large portion of humble pie? If not many otherwise fair-minded people might well come to the wrong conclusion as to why Voter ID is being introduced…
September 23, 2021
Day 4 of the government’s vaccination in schools of people who did not use to get the disease with the now long known to be dangerous potions. What do our MPs care? Anyway it is knock off day in the House of Commons. Note the past tense as the vaccinated have been made into a potent source of infection by the vaccines, they can get the disease without symptoms, incubate it strongly and pass it on full blast.
We owe you nothing.
September 23, 2021
+ brilliant.
September 23, 2021
We are gripped by a pandemic of fear deliberately created by globalists who intend to destroy our lives. Our government has been completely mesmerised by the vaccine and windmill salesmen, preferring to follow just one form of āThe Scienceā rather than take into account dissenting voices from eminent scientists who would provide a balanced point of view.
There will be rich rewards for the first country to awake from this cult of āwarmismā and ācovidismā, please let it be us. If the Johnson Regime canāt provide the necessary leadership they should be replaced.
September 23, 2021
The BBC & SKY now even start discussions with āāthe science is settledāāā¦the bloody cheek, theyāre supposed to be unbiased
September 23, 2021
Sadly, we aree led by donkeys. They believe that nice guys finish first, so being nice litlle greenies means everything will work out fine.
Modern nuclear tech is the way forward. Gas storage for the interim, while these technologies are deployed, but Rolls Royce’s SMR reactors are small, safe, cheap and quick to build. It’s time we sowed the seed in the public mind that nuclear is no longer Fukushima/Chernobyl, it is the future.
It also gives us clean electricity at low prices.
September 23, 2021
+1
September 23, 2021
“The government can stay focussed on leading a transition but it must ensure enough conventional fuel before it has developed more hydrogen or nuclear or battery power.”
Sir John, you have confused an energy producer with two storers of energy. A nuclear power plant produces electricity by the old-fashioned and reliable way of boiling water and sending the steam through a turbine which spins a magnet inside a wire loop — I simplify, A level physics is some decades away. The other two you mention are stores. The electricity comes from somewhere else and they tuck it away to be drawn on later. Storing it wastes energy, it’s an example of the ‘no free lunch’ principle. Hydrogen in particular is very wasteful of that original energy and the current wind drought has disproved the idea that renewable energy is plentiful or reliable enough to run our society, let alone provide a surplus to be stored against a month of low winds and cloudy skies while a blocking high pressure system squats over Europe from Norway to Morocco.
The first big power cut will shake the government. The second will make it fall. Will we dodge the bullet this winter?
JF
Let me repeat something I have articulated elsewhere, in particular in a post entitled “The sensible speech on climate the PM will never make” at The Conservative Woman. The current road to Net Zero will lead to failure and rejection by the electorate. There is a way forward which involves using our own fracked gas. Before anyone begins to worry about the effects of that technology I would ask them to examine the failure of opposition to it in the most litigious society on Earth — tales of burning tap water and polluted groundwater are in the main lies. Had we our own resources of fracked gas we could be halfway to the hydrogen economy already — natural gas is one atom carbon to four atoms hydrogen — and we could relax for a couple of decades while we research alternative technologies like nuclear fission and fusion.
September 23, 2021
Sir John,
“The government and Regulator need to procure more electrical power” – you seem to be advocating government intervention.
Perhaps there have been some errors in previous regulations that need correction. For example there are entrepreneurs who are willing to buy gas and LPG when it is cheap and sell high BUT only if the government does not end up legislating in such a way that they make much more money by selling off assets for some other use (eg housing development). The inevitably “law of unintended consequences”. As I and others have said the government needs to get out of crisis management mode and start considering a longer term view.
One intervention leads to another.
September 23, 2021
Boris currently giving a speech to the world in which he wants to phase out coal and reduce the number of cars. So forget about re-opening coal mines. He also wants to plant new forests and provide new habitats for flora and fauna. Of course this cannot be achieved alongside a burgeoning human population, if only we had a vaccine which could solve that problem. Oh, wait a minute………
September 23, 2021
+1
September 23, 2021
If only we had a vaccine to inoculate us from the bullshit Johnson pumps out each time he opens his two-faced trap. From small State libertarian to full blown progressive fascist in the blink of an eye.
When the people start to suffer maybe then they will wake up and realise the existential threat posed by Labour and the Tories
September 23, 2021
Such eminent good sense, but I fear out of reach of this government’s ministers and PM. His UN speech will be taken as the need for a rush for more windmils and solar and more control of existing power generation.
September 23, 2021
If only we had the foresight we could have built suitable gas carrier ships and moored them at designated points around the coast- but we havn’t – the only foresight we have from the political class is the next GE
September 23, 2021
If Johnson has an eye on the next GE he is making just about the worst balls-up imaginable.
September 23, 2021
While Boris is condemning co2 and promoting zero carbon & green solutions in the billions to the world, I see that China have proposed to stop building coal power stations abroad by 2030 (theyāll just build them using 3rd parties) but have plans to build 43 coal power stations within China this year alone
The same China that year-on-year from 1995 has build more coal fired power stations then the rest of the world combined
UK last coal power station set for decommission in September 2022
We’ve shot ourselves in the foot, arm, back and headā¦weāre pathetic
September 23, 2021
All of this, all of it,is based on a falsehood.
The fact of the matter is that man made climate change is a myth, a hoax, and a Scam.
September 23, 2021
+Nail on head!
September 23, 2021
Some Labour MPS believe that what you have should said (dissent) should become a criminal offence including critical references to the accusation that the CV19 issue is a scam.
We’re teetering on an abyss and not one single politician is prepared to come out against the slide into despotism
September 23, 2021
Precisely, why cannot the man on the street see this foul plan
September 23, 2021
Spot On
September 23, 2021
“How could we provide more gas storage?”
Sir John, does it really matter? The situation is now, right now, not next year or the year after. We have arrived at this threshold because of the UK Governments not being interested in the slightest in ensuring the people of the UK are safe and secure. The Government is all about the whimsical messages that has nothing to do with putting food on the table and providing shelter for the people that they are there to protect. (In fact these messages have nothing to do with anything of any real consequence)
September 23, 2021
@Nota# – most of us expect the UK Government any day now to turn up with the protestors on the M25 to show their solidarity. That’s how much sense they are making with their ‘virtue signaling’
September 23, 2021
Correct in all respects – from the channel boat people, cancel culture, the green revolution, our fishing industry and Northen Ireland……this government is against the people, our people, tory voting people, hard working people and small domestic business people
September 23, 2021
I see that Sam Laidlaw has been lobbying to be allowed to increase production from his company’s Neptune field. The problem is that the additional gas would contain impurities that lower its heat content below grid specification. I suspect that means it contains CO2, much as with the Groningen field. Removing the Cow is technically feasible by freezing or liquefied it, but then you have to dispose of it. It is not a quick or cheap fix. Dilution with other production is a more cost effective solution. One for the technical boffins, who would need to make sure customers aren’t overcharged for the lower quality. Of course the CO2 would add to our emissions, so we will cut off our noses to spite our faces.
September 23, 2021
More gas storage at home ? Sir John do you mean “home” as in in my back garden ?
Have you considered the safety aspects of this ? Let alone the practicalities ?
The nearest you get to this currently is a calor gas bottle or large tank storage as seen on farms or in a large garden near the road. But the gas is already compressed on delivery. This is the key point, each home would need compression plant. Not as simple as having a battery for electricity storage.
You have to have large storage tanks like there use to be on Canvey Island, storing liquid gas under pressure. You can go back to the old fashioned Gas holder that stores gas at low pressure. A lot of this storage method was replaced with high pressure gas distribution with inherent capacity in the national distribution network of pipes.
The gas to home is at a very low pressure compared to the Gas Grid.
Again politics without Engineering thought is a road to disaster so is economics .
Reply No I mean in the UK
September 23, 2021
Sir John we can agree 100%. But there use to be this type of storage when the Energy supply industry was State (tax payer) owned. I get the impression that at that time more Engineering thought went into security of supply and not purely the cost.
September 23, 2021
SW, Wind at c25% on Gridwatch around 2pm.
September 23, 2021
Every UK Prime Minister is desperate to make their mark in World affairs. For some it is going to war on a ‘humanitarian’ basis, fighting terrorism, etc. For another it is saving the World from financial meltdown.
Boris clearly sees his reputation as being enhanced by being the leading siren for a ‘green future’ where all will be pleasant, vegan and healthy, a land called – Carrieboris.
He is an obsessed idiot who cannot see the wood for the trees. And so are those who blindly follow his preaching!
September 23, 2021
@Beecee +1
September 23, 2021
The lights are going out in the UK, BP/Tesco reports fuel shortages, OFGEM regulator describing hard time and huge increases in domestic energy billsā¦..and what are our MP discussing this afternoon ā Human rights in Kashmir
The divide just gets bigger and bigger
September 23, 2021
….and now they’re debating ‘Horse Racing’
āNero fiddles while Rome burnsā
September 23, 2021
@Glen – none of us are surprised any more. Anything to ignore their duty and responsibilities to keeping the UK safe and secure.
September 23, 2021
There is plentyiful gas in the north sea and will last for years to come.
September 23, 2021
But the Tory & Labour parties will never allow anyone to drill for it….wouldn’t look good in the media
September 23, 2021
Hope you are not going to leave in moderation
September 23, 2021
Another day that the RN is without an effective antiship missile. 40 years after the Falklands War, how come?
September 23, 2021
One suggestion is that once storage has been created, it should be nationalised. Why did the government allow Centrica and NG to collude in misleading the nation about the selloff of the ROUGH gas storage plant in 2017? Centrica merely wanted to avoid having to spend money on refurbishing the plant it had inherited from the old nationalised British Gas. Naturally it did not care about infrastructure, and NG did not want to say anything that would force it to assume responsibility.
Rough accounted for more than 70 per cent of the UKās gas storage capacity and could meet 10 per cent of daily peak winter demand for nearly three months.Ā The government stood by, refusing (as so often when the issue goes back historically further than ministers’ PPE degrees) to grasp the consequences, and claiming the UK ‘had already coped without the facility during previous periods of closure’.Ā
At the time, the Energy & Utilities Alliance (EUA), (including SSE, EDF Energy and ScottishPower) warned that ‘recent winters had been mild’.
So next time, do not allow vital infrastructure decisions to be made by profit-focused private companies that benefit from its lack.
September 23, 2021
Frankly I’m more worried by the decision they are being asked to take this time: reduce the storage capacity from what was originally 41TWh of methane to just 9TWh of hydrogen, which isn’t even being produced yet, and will be extremely expensive if it ever is produced, imposing more and more subsidy bills on consumers. They are just looking to take advantage of government naĆÆvety and its willingness to waste money on anything labelled hydrogen.
September 23, 2021
Dear John Redwood
I agree with you that we are potentially looking at a major energy crisis over the next few months. If I were Boris Johnson I would be willing to pay Ā£10 billion for tankers of liquefied natural gas to stop the lights going out over the next few months and to subsidise the purchase of gas by energy companies to help forestall a big inflationary rise in heating bills.
Talking of inflation, you cannot wait until the Bank of England gets round to stopping its Money-Printing programme and raising interest rates. The UK Government should not interfere with the Bank of England normally, but it is clearly going to fail to stop inflation getting out of hand so Boris Johnson quickly needs to make a speech re-emphasising the Conservatives’ commitment to Sound Money, not Funny Money- by actively urging the Bank of England stop printing money forthwith! Perhaps Boris Johnson could put that in his speech at the Conservative Party Conference. That would send a strong signal to the Markets that the Conservative Government is not prepared to use more newly printed money at a time of rising (and over- target) Inflation when the UK economy has almost recovered to pre-Pandemic levels. If the Markets see the politicos (if not yet the Bank of England) committed to Sound Money that would reassure the Markets and Sterling will increase in value- offsetting some of the Inflation.
The Government should then sell the last of Ā£25 billion in stakes in part-nationalised banks, make a further Ā£10 billion annually in savings from halving the size of Whitehall and further Ā£Ā£ billions from cutting the Quangocracy to raise further funds for the Levelling Up agenda- an extra 100,000 houses a year, rail links across the North electrified, better broadband and roads upgraded. Less of this should be funded from borrowing because debt interest costs will be going up when the Bank of England gets round to raising Interest Rates.
There should be further cuts to Foreign Aid- perhaps to 0.25% of GDP for a few years given the invidious Economic sitution Britain is now in. That extra Ā£3-4 billion a year could be used to cut Fuel Duty- thereby helping to further alleviate Inflation whilst also boosting Economic growth by ensuring Ā£3-4 billion a year stays in Britain.
September 23, 2021
99.99% of the people in Peru donāt care if we go zero carbon or co2 neutral or have insane green policies that will decimate our economyā¦.so why do politicians believe we care
99.99% of the people in Pembroke donāt care about gas storage solutions; they just want affordable cheap electric & gas every time they switch on an appliance
September 23, 2021
SirJ yesterday you tweeted āāto ease transition to a more electric futureāā as though itās a given, the green revolution is set, the adoption of green policies are steadfast, the future is greenā¦the people will comply
Reply It is UK and global policy that they are serious about. I am concentrating on the reality that we need fossil fuels for the next decade at least.
September 24, 2021
…what happened to ”FREEDOM OF CHOICE”
September 23, 2021
The best gas stores – and ones with capacity that far exceeds anything in Germany – are the North Sea gas fields linked to pipelines that come ashore in the UK. We don’t have to spend anything to acquire gas to pump into them, or waste energy doing so. However, investment may be required if we are asking them to increase maximum productions rates, and there may be consequences for ultimately recoverable reserves from such modes of operation, which require detailed reservoir engineer evaluations.
Being supportive of new field developments would also be a good idea, especially ones that could be brought on stream quickly.
September 23, 2021
Those who talk about gas storage havenāt done the sums. As usual. Forget it. Read the GWPFās analysis of what has to be done to get UKs energy back on track. Cancel everything green to start with. Pointless.
September 23, 2021
I note that our cavern storage of about 17TWh is almost full at 15TWh. We have even just had an LNG tanker delivery at Grain (from Algeria) which should boost LNG stocks to around 7TWh – a little over half capacity. Meanwhile stronger prices on the Continent mean we have been exporting gas to Belgium in limited quantities.
September 23, 2021
The Government has exposed itself to a charge of negligence, particularly from the millions of the electorate who feel their voices do not count as much those of the metropolitan elite, who are better able to pay for the climate change stuff.
Recent errors should be reversed in that home produced fuel should be encouraged and storage should be reinstated. This could be subject to review at (say) yearly intervals.
September 23, 2021
There isn’t any hydrogen, Sir J. Hydrogen isn’t therefore an available fuel. To make hydrogen, you will need a fuel of some kind to input so that your hydrogen will be an output.NB all fuel transformation processes are relentlessly inefficient.
The only way out of this mess is: a) fracking, b) North Sea gas, c) a modular nuclear programme starting tomorrow.
September 24, 2021
The two new large nuclear power stations, one under construction and another to follow, will take years to complete and will generate expensive power. A stop gap is needed. We should keep our remaining coal fired power stations open beyond 2024 and we could show willing by converting them to use decarbonised coal, admittedly expensive. We should also do a feasibility study on the possibility of constructing rapidly a number of small nuclear power stations, which it is rumoured Rolls Royce could build. We might also construct one or two modern efficient on shore wind farms to deliver some cheap energy, but these are unpopular because they are noisy. If we want to build more large solar farms, we may need to get higher crop yields from less agricultural land, probably involving the use of GM crops. Tidal power – e.g. from Cardiff Bay and the Pentland Firth – seems to be expensive using current technology. Overall, there are solutions but we need to extract our digits.
September 24, 2021
We also need to ‘divorce’ the words Fossil from Gas (Methane – CH4). Methane is highly transportable in Bulk at pressure – as Gas in pipelines or Liquid in Tankers. And it can be made from short cycle Carbon (Biocoal, Biomass and Trash) by a very British invention. The BritishGas Lurgi Gasifier with the HiCom Methanator (Johnson Matthey) . With a parallel high pressure CO2 stream from the Methanator which can be easily sequestrated. Low/Negative Carbon Green Methane.
Hydrogen (H2) can not be moved in bulk easily, in fact the compressor does not exist to get up to the 70 or 90 bar pressures we use for CH4 in the GB Gas National Transmission system. And mixing it with CH4 increases the loading on the NTS compressors in a non linear manner. H2 CV is 12.8MJ/cum as against Manufactured Gas (60% H2 as we used in ‘Town Gas’ before the conversion to fossil Ch4) at 17MJ/cum and CH4 at between 39.1 and 39.8MJ/cum as you see on your bills.
So, make Electrolytic Hydrogen locally, use it locally and combine it with sequestrated CO2 (Sabatier process) for more Green CH4. And produce Methanol; Maersk are already proposing CO2+H2 to produce fuel for their Container fleet.
September 24, 2021
We have plenty of storage under the North West particularly, and it is already stocked with gas. We simply need to pipe it out but of course Boris’s greenies will not allow it and he hasn’t the guts to over ride them possibly because of his wife.