Britains green energy crisis (1 Viewer)

[flogger]

Perhaps all you eco flagwavers should sit up and take notice of our example across the pond. My energy costs have risen 39% in just 4 years with a doubling of such cost expected by 2020. This is what you can expect by following our woeful example. For the first time in 40 years since the miners strikes in the 70s we face potential power cuts this winter due to our misguided reliance on these useless renewables in favour of proper power generation infrastructure replacement. They simply cannot generate enough power

Britain 'faces energy crisis unless ministers abandon green policies'

Peter Lilley, a member of the Prime Minister's Parliamentary Advisory board, has warned that the UK's hesitance to embrace shale gas comes at great expense to the country. He cites decreasing gas prices in American as an example, where gas is a third of the price of what it is in Europe, and questions why Britain is "dragging its feet". The UK is potentially sitting on enough shale gas reserves to heat all homes in Britain for at least 100 years, experts at the British Geological Survey claimed in April this year.

However, there has been resistance to excavate the fossil fuel amid concerns about the possibility of earthquakes and water contamination if gases are leaked into the water table while the "fracking" process is carried out.In an article for The Spectator, the Conservative MP accuses the Department for Energy and Climate Change as being "in disarray" over the issue, with some ministers now beginning to question the direction green policies have been heading. He claims that the green lobby is in control of the Department for Energy, dominates the EU and is institutionalised in Whitehall via the Climate Change Committee. He also accuses them of deploying "scare stories with reckless disregard for the truth" on a scale comparable to the MMR scare. "Whatever the power of Big Oil in the past, it has been eclipsed by Big Green," he said.

Mr Lilley said the growing battle over shale gas is a prelude to an impending energy crisis, with the green lobby counting on green alternatives becoming cheaper as imported gas prices rise. He argues that although viable alternatives to fossil fuels may be discovered in the future, any government policy based on the assumption that this will be imminent is "doomed to fail"."The sooner we wake up to that fact and throw off the thrall of Big Green, the better," he added. "There are simply no affordable renewable technologies available [at the moment] to replace fossil fuels." The case for decarbonising the EU economy has weakened, he added, because China, India, USA and other will not follow suit. "The idea of Britain going it alone is risible," he said.

Britain 'faces energy crisis unless ministers abandon green policies' - Telegraph

 

[CalGun]

There are places for green energy and then there is Britain. I was very involved in solar power at one time a few years ago and it makes sense for some places, but I can't see England being one of those places. Arizona, Texas, CA, Hawaii fine. There are other states it works. I have a home that is 100% solar power and I use a propane generator if the sun can't provide enough. It took me 4 years to afford enough panels to know I now have enough solar power and my home is in the desert (Nevada). Solar can work for some, but when the politicians use it to raise the costs of decent and affordable power - shame on them. That is what California is doing. There are people who pay .33 cents a kilowatt hour in California only because of political mandates lead by "green" energy. Solar runs about .25 cents a kilowatt hour and so there is "pairty" and that is what the solar advocates are shooting for - raising the electric rate to a point where solar is cheaper. They can't get away with it in AZ, Texas, and other states becuase the people won't let them. God Bless em.

 

[flogger]

There are places for green energy and then there is Britain. I was very involved in solar power at one time a few years ago and it makes sense for some places, but I can't see England being one of those places. Arizona, Texas, CA, Hawaii fine. There are other states it works. I have a home that is 100% solar power and I use a propane generator if the sun can't provide enough. It took me 4 years to afford enough panels to know I now have enough solar power and my home is in the desert (Nevada). Solar can work for some, but when the politicians use it to raise the costs of decent and affordable power - shame on them. That is what California is doing. There are people who pay .33 cents a kilowatt hour in California only because of political mandates lead by "green" energy. Solar runs about .25 cents a kilowatt hour and so there is "pairty" and that is what the solar advocates are shooting for - raising the electric rate to a point where solar is cheaper. They can't get away with it in AZ, Texas, and other states becuase the people won't let them. God Bless em.

Our geographical size is a fairly major constraint for us too. 65 million of as live on an island smaller than most US states. Given the diffuse spread out nature of renewable power generation techniques where are we going to put all those windmills given the power we will require ?

For us its big green and not big oil that is the enemy. It has the power to ruin our economy, impoverish countless millions and leave many of us, quite literally, in the dark and cold. We are not talking about alarmist theories of what the future climate may do. We are talking about what the current and ubiquitous green agenda is doing.

Other than food, no commodity is as important to the world as energy. Yet, because of angst-ridden theoretical speculation – note: not empirical science – the modern green agenda has effected an intellectual disconnect. It is a disconnect that has seen eco-theories eclipse energy realities such that national leaders, industry executives and even reasonable people are not engaging in rational debate let alone action.

There is no contest from an economic point of view. Solar, wind and other “alternatives” favoured by the greens are not and will never be viable. From a thermodynamic point of view they will never amount to much more than one percent of world energy demand without massive and unsustainable government subsidies.

Fossil fuels, headed by the recent emergence of shale hydrocarbons (arguably the biggest energy story in decades) have offered an imposing argument for the UK dependency on them in the foreseeable future given we allegedly sit on at least a centuries worth . The future of oil and gas for us is not solar and wind; the future of oil and gas is oil and gas !

What the other side is left with is the boogeyman of global climate change and emissions. But this is a non-starter today. First, there is an apparent and inexplicable holding to theoretical climate orthodoxy: inexplicable because, for almost two decades, there has been no warming in spite of the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

For all the panic over this which we see in growing Green angst, the reality is that theoretical environmental notions are still running the political policy show in Europe and in the UK. But Europe’s energy confusion is indicative of a more deep-seated cultural malaise: an abject failure to grasp that even a “green agenda” must be subject to economic realism. Unless we re-visit our understanding of what we value, economically and morally, “green” government energy policies will remain, as they are in Europe, contradictory, incoherent and unsustainably uneconomic. Governments love green taxes and levies. They provide a windfall of non-earmarked cash; but at a massive social cost. They render industries uncompetitive and unable to hire. They mire increasing millions in fuel poverty. They doom energy costs to remain artificially high – and all for no discernible environmental benefit.

Today, the public and media pantomime villain continues to be Big Oil. But, as energy insiders know only too well, even Big Oil has bought into the green agenda, if only for PR reasons. The reality is, however, that it’s the well-funded lobby of Big Green that has the greatest influence on UK and European government and government policy – and presents the greatest threat to the economy.

Let’s get it straight, Big Green is Big Business. Next time you are moved to pitch your ‘hard-earned’ cash into a tin shaken before you while being regaled with a nonsense message – e.g. that carbon dioxide is a ‘pollutant’ – you might like to bear that in mind.

As it stands, today’s prevailing cultural “green agenda” is nothing less than a case of anti-intellectualism, costing the earth, in pursuit of the illusory.

 

[Manc Skipper]

There are places for green energy and then there is Britain. I was very involved in solar power at one time a few years ago and it makes sense for some places, but I can't see England being one of those places. Arizona, Texas, CA, Hawaii fine. There are other states it works. I have a home that is 100% solar power and I use a propane generator if the sun can't provide enough. It took me 4 years to afford enough panels to know I now have enough solar power and my home is in the desert (Nevada). Solar can work for some, but when the politicians use it to raise the costs of decent and affordable power - shame on them. That is what California is doing. There are people who pay .33 cents a kilowatt hour in California only because of political mandates lead by "green" energy. Solar runs about .25 cents a kilowatt hour and so there is "pairty" and that is what the solar advocates are shooting for - raising the electric rate to a point where solar is cheaper. They can't get away with it in AZ, Texas, and other states becuase the people won't let them. God Bless em.

Germany has more solar power collection than the USA and it's on the same latitude as Britain. And Canada.

 

[flogger]

Germany has more solar power collection than the USA and it's on the same latitude as Britain. And Canada.

The German story must be viewed in the context of the global collapse of the subsidized solar energy bubble. The whole thing was built on politically unsustainable subsidies from beginning to end.

Unfortunately Germany’s ‘renewables revolution’ is at best making no difference to the country’s carbon emissions, and at worst pushing them marginally upwards. Thus, tens (or even hundreds, depending on who you believe) of billions of euros are being spent on expensive solar PV and wind installations for no climatic benefit whatsoever. Artificially raising prices for the consumer by 40% in just 5 years

Here in the UK nothing better illustrates the insanity of the shambles our politicians have led us into than the fact that, just when we are closing down our coal-fired power stations in the hope of saving the planet, the Chinese are building 363 more of them, the Indians a further 455 and even the Germans another 20 - adding far more CO² to the world's atmosphere every week than Britain puts out in a year.

With power cuts looming this winter the disaster we face is only made harder to bear by the realisation that experts were predicting it a decade ago, yet so lost were our politicians in their bubble of green make-believe that they were unable to listen.

 

[code1211]

This is the comedy of the morons we have in charge of our governments. While they stroke each other to make themselves feel good, another coal fired power plant is coming on line every week across the planet and this will continue for five years.

The USA is emitting carbon at levels lower than 1993 thanks largely to the policies of Obama that are keeping million from driving to work each day. Still the world's emission of carbon increases as it always has.

The symbolic, feel good policies that are bankrupting business and families are having no impact on the carbon problem that in turn is having no impact on the climate in any event as it never did in the first place.

As the post in a different thread stated to eloquently, we are living in country founded by geniuses and now run by idiots.

 

[sawyerloggingon]

The US seems Hell bent on following the UK over a cliff. Think I'll keep stocking up on rice, beans, guns and ammo.

 

[flogger]

The US seems Hell bent on following the UK over a cliff. Think I'll keep stocking up on rice, beans, guns and ammo.

I know I post an awful lot on this issue but perhaps you can understand my very valid concerns now about where all this is ultimately going .Here in the UK I've seen this crisis coming for a number of years and I hoped our politicians might have woken up to the ultimate folly of all this by now.

It has been admitted by our government , families will be forced to pay almost £1000 ($1700) in green taxes on top of their energy bills by the end of the decade. What is also clear is that our gas and electricity supplies are fast running out .And if, that werent enough our government is imposing a swingeing new tax on all the coal and gas-fired power stations , which provide more than two-thirds of our electricity. Would you not throw up your hands in stunned disbelief if this happened in the US ? But that is what is about to happen with this new 'carbon tax', its deliberately designed not only to double the price of electricity from our remaining fossil fuel power plants within a few years, but to make it hard for them to survive at all. All this adds up to as great an act of political mismanagement as any in our history.

So, how did we come to such a terrifying pass ? There is one reason above all why our energy policy has gone so disastrously off the rails , and it lies in the conviction shared by politicians of all major parties that we must do all we can to save the planet by reducing CO2 emissions. At the time when this belief began to take shape, back in the Nineties, for 40 years Britain had had an electricity industry as efficient as any, based on the coal of which we had huge reserves and the nuclear power with which we once led the world. Then we decided to close down most of our coal industry in favour of a 'dash for gas', because it gives off only half as much carbon dioxide as coal ,this at a time when we still had enough cheap gas from the North Sea not to worry about becoming dependent on costly gas imports. The next move came with the new green energy manifesto , which ruled out building any more coal or nuclear power stations in favour of going flat out for 'renewables'. This was centred on pouring huge subsidies into building thousands of utterly useless wind turbines.

In recent years, so obsessed had our politicians become with the supposed threat from CO2 that Parliament voted almost unanimously for the Climate Change Act, committing Britain uniquely in the world to reducing its emissions by 80 per cent in just 40 years. This basically represents the longest economic suicide note ever written. But what the politicians failed to realise was that wind and solar are not only by far the most expensive means of producing electricity ( hence those green subsidies we all have to fund through our electricity bills ) they are also the most unreliable, because the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine. Yet the terrifying fact is that we really do need those reliable power stations our government is trying to price out of business , not least to provide constantly available back-up for the 32,000 wind turbines our ministers eulogise, for all those times when the wind is not blowing.

A responsible government would reverse this nonsense, and it would stop pouring massive subsidies into the generation of electricity from wind turbines. Such a government would recognise that our only hope of keeping bills down, our lights on and the economy running is to go flat out to exploit Britain's vast reserves of the cheap shale gas, which in America has more than halved gas prices in the past four years. But we do not have such a government. Our bills will continue to soar. Our lights will go out, just as our electricity chief was predicting last week on our news. Our nation will soon find itself having to stumble in the cold and the dark through a self-inflicted crisis that is unique in the developed world.

Heed the warning from what Britain has done to itself. These are the ultimate consequences of green myopia that many on this forum would have the US government embrace too. Thank yourself you dont live here and can watch this green disaster unfolding from a safe distance because the end result will not be pretty

 

[fmw]

I know I post an awful lot on this issue but perhaps you can understand my very valid concerns now about where all this is ultimately going .Here in the UK I've seen this crisis coming for a number of years and I hoped our politicians might have woken up to the ultimate folly of all this by now.

It has been admitted by our government , families will be forced to pay almost £1000 ($1700) in green taxes on top of their energy bills by the end of the decade. What is also clear is that our gas and electricity supplies are fast running out .And if, that werent enough our government is imposing a swingeing new tax on all the coal and gas-fired power stations , which provide more than two-thirds of our electricity. Would you not throw up your hands in stunned disbelief if this happened in the US ? But that is what is about to happen with this new 'carbon tax', its deliberately designed not only to double the price of electricity from our remaining fossil fuel power plants within a few years, but to make it hard for them to survive at all. All this adds up to as great an act of political mismanagement as any in our history.

So, how did we come to such a terrifying pass ? There is one reason above all why our energy policy has gone so disastrously off the rails , and it lies in the conviction shared by politicians of all major parties that we must do all we can to save the planet by reducing CO2 emissions. At the time when this belief began to take shape, back in the Nineties, for 40 years Britain had had an electricity industry as efficient as any, based on the coal of which we had huge reserves and the nuclear power with which we once led the world. Then we decided to close down most of our coal industry in favour of a 'dash for gas', because it gives off only half as much carbon dioxide as coal ,this at a time when we still had enough cheap gas from the North Sea not to worry about becoming dependent on costly gas imports. The next move came with the new green energy manifesto , which ruled out building any more coal or nuclear power stations in favour of going flat out for 'renewables'. This was centred on pouring huge subsidies into building thousands of utterly useless wind turbines.

In recent years, so obsessed had our politicians become with the supposed threat from CO2 that Parliament voted almost unanimously for the Climate Change Act, committing Britain uniquely in the world to reducing its emissions by 80 per cent in just 40 years. This basically represents the longest economic suicide note ever written. But what the politicians failed to realise was that wind and solar are not only by far the most expensive means of producing electricity ( hence those green subsidies we all have to fund through our electricity bills ) they are also the most unreliable, because the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine. Yet the terrifying fact is that we really do need those reliable power stations our government is trying to price out of business , not least to provide constantly available back-up for the 32,000 wind turbines our ministers eulogise, for all those times when the wind is not blowing.

A responsible government would reverse this nonsense, and it would stop pouring massive subsidies into the generation of electricity from wind turbines. Such a government would recognise that our only hope of keeping bills down, our lights on and the economy running is to go flat out to exploit Britain's vast reserves of the cheap shale gas, which in America has more than halved gas prices in the past four years. But we do not have such a government. Our bills will continue to soar. Our lights will go out, just as our electricity chief was predicting last week on our news. Our nation will soon find itself having to stumble in the cold and the dark through a self-inflicted crisis that is unique in the developed world.

Heed the warning from what Britain has done to itself. These are the ultimate consequences of green myopia that many on this forum would have the US government embrace too. Thank yourself you dont live here and can watch this green disaster unfolding from a safe distance because the end result will not be pretty

Flogger, don't get confused about politicians caring about the common good. They are interested in power and control. The "green" revolution is all about power and control, not saving the planet from anything.

 

[flogger]

Flogger, don't get confused about politicians caring about the common good. They are interested in power and control. The "green" revolution is all about power and control, not saving the planet from anything.

Thats why I send out the warnings to the green evangelists who feel their pompous moral superiority will save the world. These naieve idiots dont realise the real agenda is the emptying of thier pockets by the political shysters who initiated this scam and that there are multibillions $$$ of vested interests at stake in keeping it alive.

The UK and to a lesser extent Europe should stand as a warning about what happens when you give the greens thier head.

Be warned