It is perhaps fitting that energy prices go up again soon after the new government arrives. The last government was wrong to impose and retain price controls for as long as it did, but it was always encouraged to do so by the Labour Opposition. These price controls mean lurches in bills and prices, and mean prices stay higher for longer when they are on the way down. What is the point of them?
The last government was wrong to impose windfall taxes on energy that did not define the windfall properly and stayed on after the windfall high prices went down. The new government likes these taxes and wishes to hike them. That will mean the more rapid close down of our own oil and gas, more import dependence and higher prices. The last government did come round to the conclusion that closing down our own oil and gas faster Ā was a bad idea. It meantĀ importing moreĀ LNG which is far more CO 2 intensive as well as meaning we lost the tax revenue and the better paid ,jobs that home production delivers. It is self harm on a huge scale.
This government on its sane days admits we will depend on oil and gas for many years to come. Global forecasts say the world will be burning more oil and gas in 2030 than today and decline thereafter will be slow. The issue is who benefits from the oil and gas extraction, and do we add to the CO 2 by relying on CO2 dense LNG where liquefying, gassifying and transporting all require large amounts of energy.
Some think trying to reduce CO 2 is a bad idea, and disagree with the global warming theory.Ā There is no need to engage that argument when less contentious and more obvious arguments show that not getting our own oil and gas out of the ground is madness. No wonder we have dear energy. No wonder energy security is a government phrase that they do nothing to implement. The UK is living dangerously by spurning its own domestic energy. It is deindustrialising too quickly, importing too much and wondering why it does not grow faster.Ā Far from saving the world it just watches as others grow richerĀ out of selling us oil and gas and fossil fuel based products, producing more CO 2 on the way.
August 24, 2024
For a short time, at the end of the last governments life, I thought a level of sanity was begining to return when they began to issue more developement licences for home oil and gas production. Never mind the crazy business and tax plan that stifles the advantages of using our own oil and gas, logic was returning.
To balance such logic, which only seemed to have a small walk on cameo role, in the drama of a very precipitate general election. The players left the stage and most of the audience left the theatre, only to find that the asylum inmates had escaped and were running the theatre. Sorry for so much metaphor.
We now have the high priest of global warming, a Rasputin reincarnation, dictating energy policy. We saw the first glow of illogical conviction in his piece on tv yesterday. A perfect example of a zealot’s belief, versus the logic over the yellowing spot on the end of his nose.
The only plus to all this will be their utter fall frrom grace with the electorate who are going to foot fhe bill. It will be that part of the electorate that genetically supports them who will suffer most. Combine it with their complete failure on immigration and their propensity to grease the feline better known as the EU. Altogether a formula for a very short life in Westminster. I only hope it does not take revolution to remove them.
August 24, 2024
Without doubt we are going to have power cuts in the coming years thanks to the Energy Security Minister. But why the increases in costs? See this price chart: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/natural-gas Amend the period out to 10 or 20 years.
Is it beyond the wit of our government to enter into long term purchase agreements?
Our cost of electricity at the house is Electricity: Ā£21.75 per kwh, and Gas: Ā£6.20 per kwh. So thanks to Millipeed’s dogma on converting to electricity, we have to pay more than 3 times the cost than if we used gas
.
And sorry Sir J., the CAUSES of global warming, such as it is, are not agreed and defined; this SHOULD be open for review and discussion ALL the time, given the cost and effect of its incorrect rectification.
Reply Iām not stopping debate about them!
August 24, 2024
@Peter Wood – Millipeed man, is seeking to punish to make the UK, making it the most expensive place on Planet earth to do business, what little money the UK has, has to be exported. The object being to block the UK surviving and responding to whatever the future may throw at it.
All the while he is using your and my money to fund foreign regimes to produce more and more of his global warming
August 24, 2024
It is extraordinary that so many of the people I speak to have no idea that electricity is so much more expensive than gas per kW/hr !
This degree of ignorance could be one reason why some MPs (particularly the uneducated lot, like our current Deputy PM), don’t understand the issues around electrification.
How can heat pumps be the answer, when politicians tell us they are three times as efficient as a gas boiler but conveniently forget to add that the electricity they use is three times the price. You pay out Ā£10-Ā£40,000 to install one, rather than an efficient new gas boiler costing Ā£2-Ā£3,000, and it saves you no money at all !
Miliband is the very last person I would put in charge of anything, but I bet the leftie luvvies in his department absolutely adore him. Just like the pro-immigrant Civil Servants working for Mrs Balls at the Home Office.
August 25, 2024
78% N2 (sorry)
August 24, 2024
Remind us again who signed Net Zero into law without debate. Oh yes it was treacherous May.
Every solar farm or windmill which is built will require back up for when they’re not working generally when they are needed most
Would you invest in fossil fuel power stations when you’re deemed an enemy by the government. Of course not. The government will encourage more interconnectors from hostile states who have their own problems. Welcome to pre industrial Britain with rolling power cuts and crumbling infrastructure.
August 24, 2024
Yes it was the last spiteful act by the ousted Remainer Mrs May whose attempts to fool the electorate with BRINO and fool her ministers by means of her back-channel to Brussels via Olly Robbins, led to her well deserved downfall.
August 24, 2024
Well at the end of the last government we got just a touch on the brakes from Sunak but still heading over the cliff, but 95% of MPs support this lunacy. Only a handful did not vote for Milibandās suicidal climate change act (including JR) and Mayās moronic net zero Net Zero was nodded through without even a vote.
Ed (tomb stone) Miliband and two tier Starmer both have physics A levels (albeit only Bās then read PPE and Law resp. but even so should be able to grasp the total insanity of Net Zero. So do they know it is bonkers, but think it is good politics so in an act of evil just lie, or are they really so ignorant & idiotic they have fallen for this mad net religion? Must be one or tāother!
August 24, 2024
Well, I have a problem evening it all up with airport expansions! ( WHAT?)
But whatever the root cause ( fear? Money? The physics teacher wasnāt up to much?)
There are going to be an awful lot of very cold if not dead people come winter.
And maybe a load of unpaid bills and disconnections.
( And it seems to me that anti ANY solid fuel campaigns are ramping up)
Plus I read a very interesting article suggesting that āfossilā fuel isnāt made from fossils anyway!
August 24, 2024
Well coal certainly is fossil fuel largely old compressed wood. Rather better than using young wood but Drax and idiotic ministers do not see it this way.
As to oil and gas formation see the late great Freeman Dyson videos on Heretical thought on science and society.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8xFLjUt2leM
August 24, 2024
Everhopeful – as you reminded me of this Freeman Dyson lecture I listened to it again, I had forgotten just how excellent it is. A very great man. Son of the composer George Dyson later knighted. The great Freeman Dyson was not honored perhaps as he was rather too honest – but perhaps he just turned them down.
Dyson demonstrated the equivalence of two formulations of quantum electrodynamics (QED): Richard Feynman’s diagrams and the operator method developed by Julian Schwinger and Shin’ichirÅ Tomonaga. He was the first person after their creator to appreciate the power of Feynman diagrams and his paper written in 1948 and published in 1949 was the first to make use of them. He said in that paper that Feynman diagrams were not just a computational tool but a physical theory and developed rules for the diagrams that completely solved the renormalization problem.
August 24, 2024
I think that the argument in the article was that oil comes from mineral rather than organic sources and may possibly be renewable(!) rather than a one-off money maker that can run out.
I always rather liked the idea of Carboniferous coal swamps but thenā¦I always rather liked being warm!
https://www.freespeechbacklash.com/article/oil-really-fossil-fuel
Thanks for the vid link. Off to watch it now!
August 24, 2024
The third option of course is that they are acting on orders from the WEF. We know Starmer has a love of the Davos lot and a loathing of our Parliament, as he has said so.
August 24, 2024
Indeed but regardless of the WEF agenda do our ministers know this is total B/S and lie or actually believe this religious lunacy?
August 24, 2024
The real bonkers people are the voters who elect these destructive idiots.
Still, it will make more people turn to Reform for future elections. They are the only party with sensible policies.
The main political parties are destroying our country year after year. They all need to go.
August 24, 2024
Well the destructive idiots lie before election and with FPTP and historic party brands we have rather little real choice.
August 24, 2024
LL,
Rubbish. Vote with your feet. We did with Brexit and we do the same to rid ourselves of Labour and Tory Uni Party.
Two Tier Stasi Keir doing a very good job to turn voters away. He thinks do all the nasty stuff now and then shower with our taxes before election will get votes. His voters already imprisoned will not forget or their families, same for British people ousted or not getting houses for illegal economic welfare scroungers from France.
August 24, 2024
Also endless propaganda that we are forced to pay for from the BBC, Government etc. that fills the mind of voters with much drivel that then affects their voting.
August 24, 2024
@ hope – with FPTP voting and so many āalways have vote Labour or Conservativeā (perhaps ages 102) voters – plus the biased TV coverage and funding rules (based on seats not votes voters) and the BBC etc. endless propagandaā¦ it is very difficult for new parties to break through
August 24, 2024
I hope your last paragraph proves correct, Agricola.
I worry that the relentless, systematic, all-pervading indoctrination used by our governments these days will slow or prevent the counter-reaction of the voting masses.
Very many middle class people I meet are willingly blind believers of whatever the media tells them. They are intelligent people who have lost any desire to critically analyse information, if it goes against the narrative. Of course buying Chinese goods merely outsources our CO2… of course Trump is not Hitler…of course humans can’t chose their sex etc, but they do not want to think it. Otherwise nice people, they have been brainwashed.
I think this mass of voters may never wake up, acknowledge they’re being duped and vote accordingly. As for the working class, they mostly see through the BS but can’t mobilise as an effective electoral force, for a variety of reasons.
August 24, 2024
The middle class virtue-signallers are more concerned with conforming to the correct points of view and being invited to “the right” social gatherings.
August 24, 2024
Good morning.
Look on the bright side (pun intended). At least those on the continent will have the same energy that is produced for us as for them will be cheaper. š
August 24, 2024
Those over the water can smirk with satisfaction that every time they switch electricity on, but fear the cost, they know us Brits pay more than them.
August 24, 2024
All this is driven by the spot Natural Gas market gyrating because of geopolitical fears such as the recent Ukrainian incursion into Russia – so yes it highlights the weakening position we find ourselves in through scoring own goals in the North Sea.
Electricity prices move with gas so this compounds the problem.
There was however definitely a case for windfall taxing the fat profits for nothing during the height of the problem 2 years ago – Germany went much further I believe.
We now find ourselves utility hostages to global events living in dread from quarter to quarter awaiting the price cap announcements. Labour will make things significantly worse with their bungled energy policy.
August 24, 2024
Yes we are hostage to events affecting the EU. Should they feel it necessary they can throw the OFF switch on electricity to us, thus stopping 20% of our usage.
August 24, 2024
The answer is to decouple the price of renewable generated electricity from gas or coal generated electricity. If it is cheaper more people will want it. If it costs less to produce, pass the savings onto the consumer.
August 24, 2024
That’s nor possible when gas is used to back up renewables. If you decouple the gas generators won’t bid
August 24, 2024
The energy market is broken by the interventions of governments
August 25, 2024
Back up will cost more separate bidding process. At least the costs of renewables will become apparent
August 24, 2024
Your very cogent arguments ought to convince moderate supporters of the climate agenda to think again, SJR, about how our energy needs are to be met over the coming years. Unfortunately, such people are not in charge of policy. With Labour, as with the Tories’ CCC, it’s the climate ideologues who make the running. Also, you don’t mention who benefits from selling us expensive LNG, and it’s not Putin. Only when we stop being beholden to foreign countries and organisations, and their agendas, will this country recover its sovereignty over energy policy. Meanwhile, the Power of Siberia pipeline nears completion, and even larger quantities of Russian gas will soon flow China’s way, helping their economy to outperform European production even more strongly, on guaranteed long-term low energy prices. Whose decisions got us into this dire situation?
August 24, 2024
+1 R Grange.
August 24, 2024
Power of Siberia was completed a few years ago.Capacity utilization continues to increase rapidly-22.7 bcm went through in 2023,full capacity utilization of 38 bcm is expected by 2025.A further pipeline to China,taking gas from Sakhalin in Russia’s far east, is currently being built and is expected to add a further 10bcm when fully operational in 2027.Then there will be Power of Siberia II although that is no longer so urgent,particularly with Arctic LNG 2 producing:Tradewindsnews.com,22/8:”Russia set to secure three vital Arctic carriers by winter”(despite sanctions!).The Arctic route is now operational all year round.
Bloomberg reported that gas production in Russia was up by 8.2% yoy in first half of 2024,with exports to China and Europe both increasing,as did domestic demand.
August 24, 2024
It’s not just energy either.China is restricting supply to the west of an increasing number of specialist elements,the latest being antimony wef 15 September.China already dominates the processing of this rare substance (which has military and nuclear applications)and none of the top five countries by reserves is west-friendly-China (c350k tonnes),Russia(c350k t),Bolivia (c310k t),Kyrgyzstan(c260k t) and Myanmar(c140k t).Unsurprisingly the price is at an all time high.On youtube there is a good report from Inside China Briefing-23/8-“China’s export curbs on antimony isn’t a new front in the trade war.The problem is much worse.”
“If China’s previous export curbs on gallium and germanium are anything to go by,supply will go basically to zero.”
August 24, 2024
You think the “electorate” will be the cavalry?
The primary target from the outset has been pensioners – presumably they think them responsible for Brexit and leeching all the riches and therefore deserving of punishment and eradication.
They are killing off protection for free speech in Universities – the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, thus allowing brainwashing of the next draft of civil servants, public sector workers and SPADs.
They are introducing a scheme in schools to “improve critical thinking”, ie ensure correct thoughts and groupthink.
Is this far fetched? or considering the government actions so far is this a reasonable projection – you won’t see any riots against these will you.
So who do you think the electorate will be in 5 years time?
Meanwhile where the heck are the “official” opposition? – at home washing their clown suits.
August 24, 2024
above was reply to Agricola
August 24, 2024
Sounds like you will be leading the revolution.
August 24, 2024
no thanks, I am too old for such nonsense, besides in a democracy there is no need for such a thing./
August 24, 2024
+1 Dixie. We are no longer in a world where we swing from moderate left to moderate right at every few election cycles. We are facing a totalitarian takeover.
August 24, 2024
It would appear so.
August 24, 2024
“Some think trying to reduce CO 2 is a bad idea, and disagree with the global warming theory. There is no need to engage that argument when less contentious and more obvious arguments show that not getting our own oil and gas out of the ground is madness.”
An excellent point a long time coming – I know you have been pressing the constructive argument for some time but the general audience never seem to have gotten the hint. The cult of madness was always going to be a juggernaut and screaming at the void that CO2 is just plant food and makes up less than a gnats toenail of the atmosphere, for example, was never going to affect anything.
It is a waste of time arguing against an irrational end goal, better to address and influence the transition process which will establish any irrefutable evidence at hopefully a lower cost and impact.
August 24, 2024
@dixie – either way if you punish wealth creation, maliciously export the UK’s wealth, so you have no economy so no way to respond to what ever is thrown at you.
August 24, 2024
What you describe have been done independently of the introduction of net-zero. The evisceration of our industrial and technology bases has been going on for decades and despite people raising the issue of offshoring decades ago you all refused to notice or care. As long as you got your cheap radio or TV or washing machine you were happy.
But then it was cheap cars and suddenly higher technology. and then the indigenous companies either got bought up, went offshore or bankrupt.
And then it was too late.
The government could easily have ensured all the wind generators were manufactured in this country along with the electronics and control systems and allied components. The City could easily have made finance available.
But they did not.
You are tilting at the wrong windmills.
August 24, 2024
Sir JR, you’re last paragraph is absolutely spot-on. A madness driven by a hysterical Swedish child and Green looneys who have convinced themselves and some elements of the British body politic, the planet is about to ‘boil’
August 24, 2024
“There is no need to engage that argument ….”
I disagree. Not engaging with an “argument” (actually a blatant lie) is why we’re in the mess we are with so many issues, most obviously Net Zero; Cultural Marxism and the DEI nonsense; the Trans Agenda etc.
This is the post-war history of the Not-a-Conservative-Party:
First they surrendered to the language of the Left
Then they surrendered to the objectives of the Left
Next they surrendered to the agenda of the Left
Then they surrendered to the policies of the Left
Finally, they implemented the policies for the Left
The only respite was 1979-1990, but even Mrs Thatcher continued the process by sinking us further into the then EC and destroying grammar schools.
If you don’t engage with the argument, you are ceding control to the Opposition.
Reply I engage them over a lot of arguments and cede nothing. I am not stopping others engaging on the aim of cutting CO 2 but do not do that myself for a variety of good reasons.
August 24, 2024
Reply to reply.
I’m sure you have good reasons for not engaging with the primary argument and I understand that you are trying to insert a little sanity into an insane policy.
But as I said, this is the history of the post-war Not-a-Conservative-Party ….. and look where it’s got us!
You cannot insert a little sanity into zealots. They have to be destroyed.
August 24, 2024
+++
Overall our freedom was ceded.
The jealous lover syndrome.
Demanding, ever demanding further proof of devotion and obedience to an increasingly bizarre set of ārulesā.
Leaving the victim confused, defeated and not certain why their total compliance has resulted in absolutely no benefit but a great deal of harm.
And weā¦.we are going to be extremely cold!
August 24, 2024
(By design?)too busy playing computer games,watching ‘reality’ shows and following vacuous celebrities to care.
You never miss the water till the well runs dry.
August 24, 2024
did you mean opposition not Opposition which are the losing Party in the H of C?
August 24, 2024
By all means engage through argument but don’t expect any meaningful result – the argument phase has passed and the “greens” are in power and control the money.
You need to look to other approaches where you have agency if you actually want to affect the direction – what you or your family do, what you can do within the community.
For example, if you disagree with the power of train unions and their disruption of your travel take that power away from them – it is generally cheaper to travel by coach than train, you would just have to give up some extra time for the journey.
August 24, 2024
You’re preaching to the converted Dixie š
August 24, 2024
You don’t need to engage the argument over whether more CO2 is bad for the planet. Accept this contention as it lends support to the argument for reducing immigration to zero. All those people coming here will need winter warmth using the burning of fossil fuels, not to mention all the other reasons it’s good to reduce immigration – less strain on local services, easing traffic congestion, less farmland that has to be turned over to housing, easing demand on the problem of integration.
Remember, all the time we’re importing oil and gas, the longer we’re keeping our own in reserve so we still have it when everyone else has run out.
The planet really is suffering environmental damage, but to focus on CO2 is just a distraction. Pollution is a much bigger problem, as well as deforestation. Again, less people is the way to go, which happens in advanced countries where women are educated and allowed an alternative to being forced baby factories.
August 24, 2024
agreed
August 24, 2024
Donna :
Agreed.
August 24, 2024
Good reasons being that circa 95% of MPs are deluded net zero loons with zero grasp of physics and reality.
August 24, 2024
Labour are cruel to remove the heating allowance from old folk, many of whom die from the cold at home in the UK. The 1st duty of govt is to protect its people, but recent ones have sent billions overseas as āaidā, found to be wasting it on frivolous items like artwork to make bus shelters in Africa more visually appealing, or siphoned off by corrupt leaders for their own purposes, out of control nor even caring.
August 24, 2024
Timing is wonderful, remove the small assistance to pay winter fuel bills, and soon after they rise by 10%.
Double whammy. Us pensioners will look on thinking ‘they hate us’.
August 24, 2024
More than just Foreign Aid. We also send billions (eleven billion I think) abroad to help people like Malaysia to ‘go green’. And the Wicked Witch says she cannot afford 1.5 billion to keep the WFA going for our own people. Something is very wrong, we are paying for foreigners to play about whilst our old folk freeze or starve. Keir Hardy must be spinning in his grave to see what has become of his heartless evil party.
August 24, 2024
If i may ask, would you please reintroduce the word increase, and remove hike. Do you really believe hike is better?
And for Goodness sake don’t use the word multiple.
August 24, 2024
We cannot expect a better, more sensible outcome with knuckleheads in charge of UK energy policy – as they have been for the past 30 years.
August 24, 2024
Energy security and cost.
Not sure if Common-sense has left behind politics, or if Politics has left behind Common-sense.
I guess we now wait for the Budget announcements to hear of more stupid and harmful ideas, and ever higher punishment taxes.
August 24, 2024
We know what the truth is. Net Zero is Marxism and state control over human consumption through the backdoor. NZ is not about environmental protection. We only ask you and your Tory colleagues state this fact before you write articles relating to energy supply and energy consumption. If you can’t highlight in the strongest terms the ideological foundations then you do yourself and everyone else a huge disservice
We have passed the point of energy utility, that argument’s hold hat. We are now into the realms of ideology and until the evil nature of this ideology of the NZ is exposed then we’ll suffer
It is the Tory party’s job to expose the NZ cancer not promote it. It should show some self-respect and then show some respect for this nation’s people welfare
Reply You are never supportive or happy that some of us challenge the prevailing follies in ways we think might work. This is not a Conservative Party site.There is nothing stopping you setting up an anti NZ website and seeking to make news, so why donāt you? I run my campaigns on things I research and understand.
August 24, 2024
old hat
August 24, 2024
Some think trying to reduce CO 2 is a bad idea, and disagree with the global warming theory. There is no need to engage that argument when less contentious and more obvious arguments show that not getting our own oil and gas out of the ground is madness.
I am sorry Sir John bur ceding that ground to the eco-zealots is a bad idea. The economic and carbon intensive arguments for producing our own oil and gas are strong but if we allow the dogmatic religion of net zero to prevail unopposed it is simpler to make the case against the economics in favour of “doing good”.
August 24, 2024
The bigger issue is that there’s no-one in opposition to oppose the energy policy ….in fact they’re in step …..100% net-zero is alive and well in both the labour & tory parties
August 24, 2024
An argument often made by people who are happy with importing gas and closing down our own production is: āIt wonāt make gas (and therefore electricity) any cheaper as the gas is sold on the āworld marketāā.
Given that the USA is the home of capitalism, why donāt their energy companies sell their gas on the āworld marketā? How is it that their energy costs are a fraction of ours?
August 24, 2024
There is no such thing as the world market in gas. There can be no world market whilst the crime syndicate that runs the US engages in international terrorism to achieve its economic objectives.
August 24, 2024
Can someone please answer Mikeās question with some knowledge and lay this issue to rest ??
August 24, 2024
Transporting gas is very expensive and very energy wasteful. The UK has high gas prices so far better and more profitable to sell it locally. More environmental too.
August 24, 2024
Sir John
So-called green cheap energy in the UK receives massive subsidies through levies etc. They donāt appear to be able to pay their own way on the open market. The bulk of what is feeding the UK is offshore windfarms owned by foreign governments using foreign supplied components for their manufacture. There is between very little to none of the UKās wealth that is involved in these projects getting to go around and feed back into the UK economy ā it is in reality the UK economy being exported to feed the tax take in foreign domains. At the same time UK citizens and business have to pay a punitive over the odds price further inhibiting the UK to be a competitive wealth creating nation. They canāt compete with the Countries they are forced to subsidies
(Allegations about possible political payments to encourage NZ policies which did not name anyone and were not backed up Ed)
A mad, mad place forced on the UK
August 24, 2024
It’s a cult among our leaders and probably impossible to change without some sort of disaster such as wholesale loss of heating and power over a period or a complete change in the leadership. Vested interests also play a huge part in it and they have the ears of the leadership.
Even the chief of Ofgem was waffling on yesterday about renewable electricity yet he must be aware that at least 74% of homes and much of industry is heated and dependent on gas.
August 24, 2024
I wouldn’t assume the Chief is aware.
OFGEM – All roles are recruited for through Civil Service Jobs, using the Success Profiles methodology, and in line with the recruitment principles of the Civil Service Commission.
Enough said?
August 24, 2024
Yes, it is idiotic madness.
The civil servants, BBC and others who encourage this kind of thing act like starry-eyed teenagers.
August 24, 2024
From the MsM(The Telegraph) – ‘ British consumers face higher prices than in most of the developed world
n the run up to the general election, Labour pledged to bring down energy bills by Ā£300 a year, an ambition it intended to realise with the creation of an Ā£8.3ābillion state-owned clean electricity company. Almost immediately, however, the opposite has happened’.
Self generating ‘black hole’
August 24, 2024
Labour is a mess we knew it would be, but lets not forget this disease was perpetrated and allowed to fester and morph under the previous UniParty(Tories). Changing the team at the top has changed very little, its just another faction of the old regime. The disheartening thread is that the old team wants to be the new team by selecting a leader that is more of the same, more continuity of failed policies. A drift to oblivium by those that don’t understand why the lost.
labour is bad, very bad, ideological terrorist. But they get away with it and will continue to get away with it unless a opposition party is found to challenge them. The old team resurrected is not opposition, just a different flavour of failure.
August 24, 2024
Quite so, Sir John.
August 24, 2024
I think that Labour’s idea is like creaming the market: rake in what you can before killing off the product. Since Labour intends to kill it off anyway, it is sensible, even for insane people, for Labour to take what it can in the process. Utterly insane but who can stop it? It is not as if the people, whose name Labour is abusing by acting in their name, can call an election to chuck them out. The animals, having learned to walk on two legs, are determined to make the most of it – at least until the inevitable uprising.
August 24, 2024
āSome think trying to reduce CO 2 is a bad idea, and disagree with the global warming theory. There is no need to engage that argument when less contentious and more obvious arguments show that not getting our own oil and gas out of the ground is madness.ā
The reason to engage with the argument over CO2 emissions is because the climate activists can, and do, always claim that saving the planet from extinction is far more important than ANY cost. So their argument will always trump any economic argument against a Net Zero policy even when a policy is deemed to be āmadnessā.
So any arguments about the cost of Net Zero (economic or human) are lost before theyāve even started which is evidenced by the fact that no notice is taken that it would make sense to use our own oil and gas, even during the transition period.
August 24, 2024
PS :
There is no CAGW. Although CO2 is only 0.04% of the atmosphere there is already sufficient to produce 99% of the maximum possible greenhouse gas (GHG) warming effect. This phenomenon, known as IR saturation, occurs because the existing CO2 can already absorb all the IR radiation emitted by the planet within its IR bands and so adding extra CO2 to the atmosphere makes only a 1% difference. Even the Royal Society admit that IR saturation exists.
But this scientific explanation is not even required. Just go and examine the data. There is no climate crisis only some slight warming as we exit the last ice age, which ended just 11,000 years ago and the Little Ice Age (LIA) just prior to the Industrial Revolution. Check Table 12 in Chapter 12 of the IPCC Working Group 1 (āThe Scienceā) showing no signal for climate change or the data for storms, precipitation, draughts etc.. Check the historical data. CO2 following temperature for the last 500,000 years according to the Antarctic Vostok ice core data. Or the fact that retreating glaciers in BC/Canada are revealing tree stumps 7000 years old. Or that Icelandic Norsemen colonised Greenland for several hundred years before the LIA requiring temperatures 5 degrees C higher than today. Or remember the false predictions that there would be no Arctic ice is summer by 2013 or that the Great Barrier Reef is dying when it is in the best health ever since records began despite (or probably because of) 4 bleaching events since 2010. The BBC should stop lying to us.
August 24, 2024
Which oil and gas is that, is it even economic and will it replace all imports? – I believe the answer to the latter is no as we have the wrong kind of oil for petrol etc.
Even if the answer is yes in both cases it is a dwindling supply, so what are you going to do?
Meanwhile alternative solutions get manufactured elsewhere and we lose the option for self sustainable energy completely.
August 24, 2024
We need a lot more honest reporting in our news media and police.
Only today, we see reports of yet an other knife attack in Germany where three people at a “Diversity Festival” have been murdered and eight people injured, five of them seriously. There were many witnesses, but the Polizei have issued no description of the offender. I had to trawl the German papers to find that only Bild was prepared to say what hundreds of witnesses already know, that the perpetrator was a (quote deleted as description not confirmed Ed) ” Naturally, neither the BBC, Times, or the Telegraph published the description.
We see this so often. How do Police expect to catch a suspect when they fail to tell the public what kind of person they should be helping them look for ? These incidents are becoming frighteningly more frequent and it seems little is being done to stop them. Khan goes on about there being to much stop and search for fear of upsetting his supporters. Germany is looking at reducing the size of knives that can be carried in public from 12cm to less than 5cm. What are the rules here?
Reply I agree the authorities should usually publish a description of the suspect based on witness accounts. I am not going to publish a description when I have not seen official or witness accounts. Publication of a false description could be damaging. Carrying a knife around for āself defenceā is an offence.
August 24, 2024
‘Wounded’ is accurate, ‘injured’ implies by accident.
August 24, 2024
Well you can be wounded by accident too! A 5cm knife is more than enough to kill someone, the heart is quite close to the surface as are many arteries and blood vessels, brain and the abdominal cavity. Anyway it is not the knife that is the issue – you can kill with hammers, kitchen knives, bowes and arrows, poison, axes, pieces of wood, lead pipes, many building tools, cars, garrotting wiresā¦ it is the would be murderers and their motivations that is the issue.
August 25, 2024
Publication of a false description could land you in jail in Keir Stalin’s Two-Tier State.
August 25, 2024
The attacker has now been named as a 26-year old Syrian.
August 24, 2024
We can be forgiven for thinking that the aim of both main parties, via their acceptance of the “harmful AGW” agenda, is to diminish quality of life as we know it for us ordinary plebs, the only difference being that Labour aspire to have it diminished more quickly.
In turn, we must note that the only way to call a halt to bad energy policy is to elect a government whose manifesto and majority will enable the repeal of Ed Miliband’s Climate Change Act, with Net Zero falling by the wayside in the process. Otherwise, with the exception of the elite and their fellow travellers, we are all in for a long hard winter, literally and figuratively.
August 25, 2024
That’s certainly what Charles wants for “his subjects.” Not for him, of course …. he won’t own nothing.
August 24, 2024
The people at the top never loose a election they just change the colour of their team they wish to bat with.
August 24, 2024
Ed Miliband is simply lying to us when he says the energy price cap is rising because
āā¦.it’s [a] direct result of our country’s exposure to International gas markets that are
controlled by dictatorsā¦ā
Firstly most our gas comes the UK Continental Shelf (41% still but EM is trying to kill this off) and Norway (33%). Imported LNG provides the remaining 26% of which 50% comes from the USA and is rising. So only 13% comes possibly from ādictatorsā.
Secondly, the massive spike in the price of gas as a result of the Ukraine War has largely subsided. Gas generated electricity is now around Ā£60/MWhr whilst all renewable electricity is more expensive even before taking into account the enormous additional costs caused by chaotic intermittency. At the next renewables auction in September this year (AR6) the government is offering Ā£100/MWhr for intermittent fixed offshore wind, Ā£242/MWhr for intermittent floating offshore wind (the technology recommended by the PM at his GB Energy speech in Scotland), Ā£88/MWhr for intermittent onshore wind and Ā£84/MWhr for intermittent solar which supplies no power at night and negligible amounts in winter.
The sole reason that energy prices are rising is because of the Net Zero policy to transition to expensive, low energy density, chaotically intermittent renewables with no security other than by running a parallel gas generated system also intermittently and hence less efficiently. Not only does grid-scale electricity storage not exist now there is not even a plan for it to exist by 2050, let alone the decarbonisation date of 2035 (now 2030 with Ed Miliband in charge).
August 24, 2024
PS :
If weāre āexposed to international gas markets that are controlled by dictatorsā wouldnāt it be wonderful if we were lucky enough to have sufficient supplies of our own gas to not require importing any?
August 24, 2024
I havenāt heard any Tory MP challenge Milibandās claim to reduce energy bills by Ā£300
Reply I think his Shadow has
August 24, 2024
The donations to China are absolutely ridiculous . We are peanuts in the world of pollution and should not be contributing anything to those who make things worse .
August 24, 2024
Price caps are a great way to distort prices. The cult of climate change has a lot to answer for, because this has led to so much perverse thinking and actions!
What good does it do to starve our industries of energy? None if you want to grow, but do the eco-nuts want to grow our economy – all the signs are that they want us fully industrialised and in debt.
Artificial pricing of commodities is a socialist concept that leads only to deprivation for the masses and rewards only those already rich.
August 24, 2024
“Some think trying to reduce CO 2 is a bad idea, and disagree with the global warming theory. There is no need to engage that argument when less contentious and more obvious arguments show that not getting our own oil and gas out of the ground is madness. ”
At one level I agree, but until the deliberate exclusion of overwhelming scientific evidence that counters the decarbonisation delusion is overcome we will continue to be preached at about decarbonising our lives until the cows come home, which not only is expensive and affects economic outlook but distracts us from improving the environment in other ways, an immediate example is reducing the deaths of birds and bats and the destruction of marine life such as whales.
August 24, 2024
Sir John
The massive bit missing from all these discussions is why, oh why is it the that UKās Legislators, all 650 of them seeking to punish and impoverish those that lent them their authority and pay their wages. Why is it our 650 Legislators have made Laws, Regulations and Rules that none of our major competitor nations have imposed on them?
Some ask why does the UK have some of the Government imposed highest energy prices in the world that handicaps the UK economy, that impoverishes the UK citizen when all our major competitor nations are āfreeā and pay the market price. In this sense 95% of the worldās citizens are actually āFreeā, they get to earn and finance a future. From that you have to ask why is the UK Government rubbing our noses in it and sending UK Taxpayer money to those nations that are not handicapped by their (the UK Legislators) Laws, Regulations and Rules?
Our Legislators all 650 of them, the guys we pay and empower could change this situation tomorrow, all the indications are they would refuse. The whole of Parliament is seeking to impoverish the UK.
The so-called opposition(there isnāt one, just more UniParty), the people that handicapped the UK in the first place donāt seem to wish to reverse their punitive punishment regime. They appear to be more worried about saving ones āpersonal faceā than empowering the nation.
The crux of it all is the UK’s future needs innovation and resources, an economy to be able to responds to whatever is sent our way, as no truly knows what that will be. Our Legislators have the opportunity to ensure and secure that future ā they refuse.
reply I and a few others out of the 650 in previous Parliaments regularly stressed the need to get out more of our own energy, not adopt dangerous and unattainable targets and to allow unsubsidised markets to determine the role of renewables and electricity. We could never win a vote because any NZ proposal the government did put forward was always supported by the main Opposition parties Lab/Lib/SNP. Official Opposition always wanted more extreme NZ policies.
August 24, 2024
‘Sir John and a few others out of the 650 in previous Parliaments’….tells us all we need to know.
Our ‘democracy’ and FPTP regularly produces hundreds of fairly ignorant, uneducated sheep to the most important body in the land.
August 24, 2024
Exactly especially ignorant on energy, engineering, maths, logic, economics, climate, physicsā¦
August 24, 2024
I’m sorry, Sir John, but the nonsense of trying to reduce CO2 is at the heart of the previous Conservative and the new Labour government’s policies. That must be dealt with and shown to be complete nonsense before the UK can have energy security; bad decisions will be made and continue to damage the UK economy, as they are now!
You are not an MP and don’t have to be concerned about who you upset, so why not tell the truth?
You are discussing and trying to mitigate the effect rather than dealing with the cause. That is the key problem of the last 14 years of Conservative Government and will be even more so with Labour.
If you don’t deal with the cause of any problem, the problem will continue and get worse.
Reply I have set out my views many times before on this issue. I refused to vote for the climate change legislation. I am happy for climate scientists to put a different view here. I am not your problem!
August 24, 2024
āFar from saving the world it just watches as others grow richer out of selling us oil and gas and fossil fuel based products, producing more CO 2 on the way.ā
You know that, and we know that, and so do those who are doing it. We can all see it happening. It is a strange mindset indeed which says producing our own oil and gas is verboten, but importing the same oil and gas from elsewhere (in some cases faraway repressive regimes) at great expense and effort is perfectly ok.
But those in charge still continue doing it – even though they, like the rest of us, can see the obvious results – which does rather raise the question of whether this was their intention all along. Applying Occamās razor, it is the only explanation which makes any logical sense.
August 24, 2024
I see Ed Milliband is blaming ādictatorsā for the fact Starmer has broken his āfully costed energy price freezeā. Odd – I havenāt read anything about a military coup in Norway. We were promised Ā£300 lower bills and the winter fuel allowance protected – not another price hike.
August 24, 2024
@Roy Grainger – Yup, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, France all countries that profit from UK Taxpayer donations due to the UK Government fixing the price of energy above the market rate… I thought for a moment you were saying Ed Milliband was our new dictator, he does have some strange friends that as our Minister for Energy Security he forces the rest of us to subsidies.
August 25, 2024
I’m inclined to blame the Dictator in No.10.
August 24, 2024
Ed Miliband may say that rising energy prices are āa direct result of our country’s exposure to International gas markets that are controlled by dictatorsā¦ā
I would say it is a direct result of our countryās exposure to Marxist dictators who are using the CAGW lie and its āsolutionā, Net Zero, as a trick, to sabotage our economy. Aided by the BBC and the Met Office with its class 5 monitoring stations.
August 24, 2024
Dear Sir John,
I shall shortly be 80yrs of age.Been through it done it and seen it,Let me get my steam out,
For the last 30yrs NOT ONE GOVERNMENT has put the British people first.
Nowt will change in the forthcoming
Like your site
August 24, 2024
Sidney …well said
August 24, 2024
Good old Labour, pretend lover and supporter of the elderly, not only withdraws their winter benefits to counter the outrageously high high energy cost (thanks to the demented Miliband net zero crusade) but now, actually increase those same energy costs.
However it proves the point Labour is now the World Champion at the double whammy, 2024. What a dreadful accolade and their legacy to pass on.
Horror, everyone has to face another five years of this catastrophic disaster of yet another incompetent government!
Sadly, post GE 2024, we, the poor citizens are helpless to stop them until 2029, so we must now rely upon the financial markets and the FX to bring them down. I do not think we’ve too long to wait there.
However, it really does look like ‘Deja vu 1970s’ all over again, in the making.
August 24, 2024
THE 1970s are the left’s ‘happy place…’
August 24, 2024
Listening to Musk & Trump. CO2 becomes a problem for breathing, for some at 1000ppm. So its not an immediate issue compared to a regular and reliable winter.
Re: Energy . A net zero strategy for imports of energy should be the goal over any year.
Local production of gas and oil should be prioritised over the import of the very same fuels. I suppose burning oil and gas tankers don’t count?
However given we are not a sovereign, “local” is being interpreted by others.
August 24, 2024
A friend who runs a renewable energy practice in the US said that the UK could have some of the cheapest cleanest fossil fuels in the world. We are not even allowed to discuss it thanks to the BBC’s iron grip on discourse in the UK. We are beggaring ourselves for nothing.
August 25, 2024
First the Tory and now the Labour government have effectively imposed a Morgenthau Plan on Britain.
The justice of the conquerors, one might say: the conquerors being the political and state-employed elites.