Our Energy Policy Relies On A Wing And A Prayer
By Paul Homewood
One of our colleagues wrote to his local MP last month:
I’m sorry keep harping on about this, but don’t you find these Gridwatch figures for last night extremely worrying?
In spite of all our foreign owned wind turbines, on and off shore, they were producing less than 1GW with demand of 38GW. Solar produced zilch. Gas nuclear coal and biomass were all practically flat out.
Gas was heavy lifting 24GW of generation. Do you have any idea what a replacement 24GWh battery would look like or cost? How long it would last for and how would you propose to charge it?
The system is broken.
National Grid are currently paying people not to use electricity at peak times. Your government is paying people thousands of pounds in subsidies and tax breaks to change to electric cars and £7500 to install heat pumps. Electricity companies are actively encouraging people to use less of the product they sell- can you name any other business that does that?
Do you have any idea what the electricity demand is going to be in 2035 when gas and oil boilers, and petrol and diesel cars are banned?
And how on earth are you going to provide it with renewables?
Maybe one of the 80,000 free loaders in Dubai can help with the answer.
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He has asked me to keep his name and the MP’s confidential, but I can confirm that the latter is a member of the Conservative Environmental Network. This is his reply:
,
Thanks for this and I’m sorry for the slow reply. You’re right to highlight the total inadequacy of the renewables sector at the moment; and the threat that a hasty forced march to Net Zero could pose. I remain hopeful that a genuine market-led solution will emerge, by which the abundance of free energy in nature translates into low-cost energy for consumers, supplanting more expensive hydrocarbons through the ordinary process of the market.
With best wishes, and thanks for highlighting the situation in such stark terms
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The letter is breathtaking in its naivety. “Free Energy”, “Hopeful”.
And of course, no recognition, never mind solution, to the question of what we are supposed to do when the wind stops blowing.
I automatically assumed he was one of the sceptical groupings of MPs, but no he really is signed up to the CEN agenda.
It really is frightening that people like him are in charge of our energy policy.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Hopeful?
Simple arithmetic the gullible haven’t quite grasped:
£XXX Billion wind farms + No wind = No power = Blackouts.
I got a similar response from my MP who didn’t understand the difference between electricity and UK energy use. The country needs a few serious and lengthy electrical blackouts where everything goes down. No banking payments, no trains, no Westminister, no hospitals, no BBC broadcasts saying everything going to be all right. Maybe then the poiticians might say – Oh Dear what went wrong after 14 years of mismanagement. I despair of the uselessness of politicians..
“No BBC broadcasts”
Even if the majority of their studios & transmission network had working (diesel) backup, how many people would be able to watch/listen? These days internet “Streaming” seems to have taken over from traditional radio & TV. How many people still have simple AM/FM transistor radios, with spare batteries? Modern DAB sets have greater electrical demands, and are usually mains powered. I’m one of the few who could watch TV, but during long power cuts I’m likely to prioritise other domestic needs ahead of their bullshit…
To coincide with today’s (Monday) vote on North Sea oil/gas licensing the DT (Business) carried an article in which the writer posited in his text the exact opposite of what his graphical (very good – saveable) data was showing. His claim is that North Sea reserves will supply us for decades to come but his figures showed dramatically how far the North Sea has declined – not entirely clear if he was addressing just the UK Sector.
I think we should be told the MP’s name. Presumably the MP would not object to his reply to a constituent being on the record.
That which keeps you alive is under government control. Your life is not their primary concern, if any concern at all. Your central planners are going to kill you. Indeed, Net Zero is their public announcement of that intention.
I have a new NHS entry for death certificates; “Death by Government”
Some stark facts about Weather-Dependent Renewables here:
Our biggest battery stores less than 0.1 GW hour at a cost of £30 million, so you are looking at £7.2 billion. We currently have storage capacity of about 0.15% of our needs.
Just a fortnight of calm cold weather in winter would leave us needing 20,000 GW hours without any renewable input. If you were relying 100% on renewables, that means we need batteries to store 20,000 GW hours, which even if the materials were available would cost £6 trillion. Of course we can’t do that, so we need more nuclear, and more fossil fuels. More wind and solar is useless, as 2 times zero is still zero. We currently have no technology delivering anything like this storage need. Pumped hydro might do a few percentage points but we lack suitable sites (we’d need over 600 Dinorwigs). The Royal Society says 20% more windmills producing green hydrogen to store in thousands of salt caverns at 300 bar pressure, to burn at 41% efficiency, might be the answer. As the wind wouldn’t be blowing, we’d need the full 20,000 GW hours in storage as we wouldn’t be making any more. They should have their own comedy show.
But these people have been in charge of our energy policy for over 20 years. We have seen a steady decline in terms of energy security and a steady increase in the cost of energy. The policy has to be a deliberate intent to turn the country into a member of the third-world. The people responsible should be in jail. In the meantime I am throwing more logs on the fire and have the generator ready.
I can think of something cheaper than jail….
Not on topic butPressReader.com – Digital Newspaper & Magazine Subscriptions
Kind regards Brian
On the 22nd December 2023 the France-England interconnector dropped offline from delivering 1,000MW. System frequency crashed in just 4 seconds to a dangerously low level that very nearly collapsed the entire grid. Did the BBC report it?
A drop of that amount 20 years ago would barely have registered as a problem, in fact the grid once mostly survived the simultaneous trip offline of Sizewell B and Longannet – almost 3,.500MW total. In theory the system is supposed to be able to handle a 1700MW loss (the “Infrequent Infeed Loss Limit”) to accommodate the largest potential single generation source (1 turbine at Hinkley Point C when operational) but very clearly it is not up to the job.
I am personally surprised the MOD does not take an interest in this. A failure at just one particular point on the grid will send the GB grid into meltdown – terrorist target?
I have noticed the graph plunging on Gridwatch now and again. So that is why.
Is there any kind of easy to follow tracking of these frequency control events? I wonder if Paul Homewood or the guy who runs gridwatch.templar.co.uk could set something up unless there is a site already doing this I don’t know about.
I would love to see what a group of electrical engineers view on what
a) would happen in a 1947/1963 style winter (although I heard in 2010 when we still had 20+ GW of coal/oil there were issues with some of the gas unit not starting up)
b) they make of the blackstart plans – I presume a technologically feasible up to date plan exists but who knows after all the coal & oil units were demolished – particularly in Scotland were it look like they would need to import from England to black start and god know what the plan is if there are any breakdowns at Peterhead Power Station especially if Torness has to shut down (is it possible for it to help with a blackstart).
As we have the problem of embedded generation (the May 2008 low frequency load shedding was made worse as this disconnect from the grid and should have resulted in all generation being reported and controllable in real time by the national grid operator).
The lack of inertia with all the asynchronous generation/ HVDC cables not just submarine imports but that Scotland cable (presuming its working).
Does anyone know if natural gas pipelines in the UK use electric pumps and the national grid/ distribution grid operators know where they are so they not effected by rota disconnections & low frequency load shedding so we don’t have a repeat of what happened in Texas with gas power station (who like the Island of GB but not Ireland don’t require gas power station to keep oil onsite for emergencies like disruption to gas supply)?
So this can be passed on to our MPs and with a election coming up candidates so see how knowledgeable they are & to make sure someone is accountable when it goes wrong.
“Gas was heavy lifting 24GW” I don’t know which particular night was being discussed but “a replacement 24GWh battery would look like or cost” a 24GWh battery would only last an hour to replace this assuming it didn’t melt. But to cover 10 hours 240GWh are needed.
This coming week looks interesting as there is a high with lowish winds until at least Wednesday.
I would love to challenge a member of the CCC to match their energy consumption to the output percentage of installed for wind generation for a year.
The famous quote from Goebells is totally relevant
“if you tell a big enough Lie and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The Lie can be maintained only to such time as the State can shield the people from the Political, Economic and Social and Military consequences of the Lie”
That moment has been reached, where the Public are becoming aware, and we must all continue to write to our MP’s and Secretary of State to try to reduce the damage being done our Country
No consolation that it is being repeated elsewhere:
https://joannenova.com.au/2024/01/australia-is-becoming-green-powerless-and-defenceless/
“At this point Australia has lost half the refining capacity it once had and has only about one month of diesel and petrol. In the event of something hostile stopping the supply of foreign oil, Australian planes would be grounded in a couple of weeks.”
No point in writing to these clowns in general terms. The numbers must be included, and the cost.
The BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Future push that kind of bilge
6 Oct 2022 — Limitless renewable energy would offer tantalising benefits: emissions-free heating, greener fertiliser and electric transport.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221006-what-would-happen-if-we-had-limitless-green-energy
Meanwhile XRHorsham tweeted this Guardian article where two people use the same phrase
Sep 8, 2023
Keith Anderson, CEO of ScottishPower, said: “.. lost opportunity to deliver low-cost energy for consumers and a wake-up call for government”
Richard Sandford, the co-chair of the Offshore Wind Industry Council, said
“.. a missed opportunity to strengthen Britain’s energy security and provide low-cost power for consumers,”
“abundance of free energy” is a phrase I’ve seen solar PR people use a couple of times
Ofgem 1 Mar 2023
“Our economic security requires us breaking the link between cheaper renewables and >b>expensive hydrocarbons”
UK hydrocarbons often come almost free out of the ground
government taxes including mining tax accounting for a large proportion of the price
The MP’s statement “I remain hopeful that a genuine market-led solution will emerge, by which the abundance of free energy in nature translates into low-cost energy for consumers,” made me think about other thing that are collected for free in nature. Truffles came to mind in that all you need is an animal that can sniff them out in the Forrest and you just dig them up and sell for a high price. They appeal to the elite who have very discerning pallet. The animal sniffing them out is a truffle hog. But is the renewable energy truffle hog sniffing out energy or subsidies?
I do hope the author of the original letter writes back to his MP and asks him what he means by ‘free energy from nature’. It seems to me that the MP is a fool or someone on the take. Nobody can be so stupid.
Free energy from nature sounds like coal to me – you’ve only got to dig it up
Free gas here – ‘The Door To Hell’ in Turkmenistan, burning for 50 years after a Soviet-era drilling disaster.
https://www.businessinsider.com/turkmenistan-darvaza-gas-crater-the-door-to-hell-photos-2017-1
I can only refer you to a comment that Dr North made. He used to hold politicians in esteem from afar and then working for UKIP and in other jobs he encountered them. He was left wondering how they got through the day given their stupidity. So don’t believe they can’t be that stupid.
“… a genuine market-led solution will emerge…”
How can a genuine (as opposed to a fake?) market-led solution emerge, when the market is State-led (Benitonomics) prevent market-led anything?
If a ‘genuine’ market-led solution existed, we would already have it. The reason why there is no solution. Is because the problem is political and ideological and there’s only one way to deal with that, and it’s going to be crowd-led, not market-led.
Not so. There’s been no market for decades and because of governments’ subsidies and strategies, no point in investing in alternatives to wind or solar.
THe Heron and it’s pals are falling about laffeen (LAUGHING) at people following this morethan stupid scam. No fish- no dinner, no wind = no power to cook anything. It’s that simple really but so many still don’t get it.. Never mind the kings new clothes, we are all borne the same and that Birthday suit ….. We all have one.
We are no longer blessed by visionaries … just floods of dreamers.
We are no longer blessed by visionaries … just floods of dreamers.
A list of low-wind periods for 2023, including dates, would be useful!
Feb 2023 article claims NATURAL HYDROGEN is the new magic fuel
“natural hydrogen is always being made afresh, when underground water reacts with iron minerals at elevated temperatures and pressures. In the decade since boreholes began to tap hydrogen in Mali, flows have not diminished, says Prinzhofer,”
https://www.science.org/content/article/hidden-hydrogen-earth-may-hold-vast-stores-renewable-carbon-free-fuel
Government by closing essential services down and hoping something will turn up sounds suspiciously like administration to me.
And Maladministration is something a bureaucracy can be charged with, and a judge can rule on….
Ask him if he is confident that Fujitsu’s “Horizon” system has never made a mistake.
Or if HS2 will enable businessmen to travel King’s Cross to the centre of Birmingham 20 minutes quicker and for a few billions of taxpayer’s money.
Or if the JabbaJabbas saved millions of lives in the UK. Or if the Covid treatment of schoolkids has helped their health and education. Or if importing a million or more excitable young adherents of the Religion of Peace has enhanced the security of our Jewish community and our indigeonous schoolgirls.
Or if his daughter has a penis.
I could carry on, if goaded.
They were also hopeful Thalidomide would end morning sickness and that asbestos would provide superior thermal insulation
My MP is Flick Drummond. That’s right. Flick Drummond. In response to my question about Tory policy I got boilerplate about the success of COP28. She failed to mention Asian coal mining and burning. She looks forward to tripling UK windmills. She knows nothing about the grid. She doesn’t know that forests are CO2 neutral. It was a response that left me rather insulted. I mean, I’m not a stupid constituent. I would have expected some sort of intelligent discussion. In response I’ve asked her what she will do when the wind doesn’t blow. And her.views about and plans for the 600 million without electricity.
Well said 👏👏
‘genuine market-led solution’
ordinary process of the market.’
Focus groups have told them ‘market’ is good. So the MP declares that fascist seizure of the energy industry is ‘market-led.’
He speaks of the market because YOU care; he doesn’t.
“Control the language, and you control the conversation.”
” I remain hopeful that a genuine market-led solution will emerge, “. I hope for peace on Earth but I cannot see it happening in my lifetime.
Hope is not any basis for a short term energy policy. When are we going to see a long term energy policy?
Hope is all they can do – they have no competence in energy to manage it
You’d be better off with no policy. “Policy” means government control.
You await their next 5-year plan.
Oil is as free as wind. Both just require investment to get something useful from them.
System looking stressed tonight as our i/c friends have said no, non, ingen, nei, only Dutch able to help so even with 11GW wind we are using 24GW of gas and even the friendless Ratcliffe is purring nicely at 1.2GW.
How on earth do they think this is going to work without gas but will use the scenario on my MP mind you hes headed for the hills as hes worked out that re-election is problematic.
And just to note that of our 9 last remaining nukes, one is down for refuelling and 3 are down for steam valve inspections, with a 4th cycling down for the same reason. One is due to be back up by the 16th, the rest by the end of the month.