Commonsense For Now as New North Sea Oil and Gas Goes Ahead – But National Grid Begins Experiment in Rationing Household Power

As the energy crisis and price inflation continue to bite – driven to a large extent by Net Zero carbon dioxide policies – the Government is set to give the green light to six new North Sea oil and gas fields, in a sign that some ministers at least have their heads screwed on. The Telegraph has the story.

Six North Sea oil and gas fields are set to be given the green light this year, The Telegraph has learnt, as Cabinet figures push back against “insane” demands to go further on net zero.

Rishi Sunak has asked Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, to fast-track the licences amid Treasury fears over the economic impact of making the UK a net zero carbon emitter by 2050. …

The six oil and gas areas, which have already been given a preliminary licence by ministers, are expected to be given approval by Britain’s oil and gas regulator to begin construction of rigs in the North Sea.

Despite calls for all domestic fossil fuel extraction to be halted, ministers have pledged to continue to support oil and gas production while renewable energy sources are developed.

Drilling of oil and gas could begin in the Rosebank field, to the west of Shetland, and at the Jackdaw, Marigold, Brodick and Catcher sites in the central North Sea. A sixth site, Tolmount East, had been intended to be approved by the Oil and Gas Authority last year but is now expected in 2022.

The combined reserves of all six sites are thought to be enough to power the whole U.K. for six months, with 62 million tonnes of oil equivalent fuel in the ground.

A Whitehall source told The Telegraph: “The Business Secretary is pushing for more investment into the North Sea while we transition – not just for jobs and tax revenue, but for domestic energy security.

“Kwasi is actively resisting insane calls from Labour and the eco-lobby to turn off U.K. production. Doing so would trash energy security, kill off 200,000 jobs, and we would only end up importing more from foreign countries with dubious records.

“Over the long term, we need to generate more secure, affordable, low carbon power in the U.K. to achieve greater energy independence. The more clean power we generate in the U.K., the less exposed consumers will be to gas prices set by international markets.”

Worth reading in full.

It comes as the first experiment in the National Grid rationing household power usage at peak time to ease pressure on energy infrastructure gets underway.

Households will be paid to ration their power usage at peak times as the National Grid scrambles to reduce pressure on Britain’s energy infrastructure.

From Friday up to 1.4m households will be paid if they cut their normal electricity consumption at certain two-hour periods during the day, as an experiment to see how households’ behavior might be changed.  

The move is a pilot scheme intended to pave the way for a broader overhaul of the country’s billing system as the U.K. ditches reliable but dirty fossil fuel plants.

Officials want to encourage people to charge cars and use appliances at different times during the day and night to reduce the pressure on the electricity grid and limit the amount of new capacity that needs to be built as demand for electricity grows.

Worth reading in full.

Subscribe
Notify of

To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

129 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Sinor
Sinor
4 years ago

There you have it ,the real plan from day one.Its what smart meters are all about IE peak demand pricing for power not the ,inflated,flat rate system we have today .
So when you come to try and recharge your electric wunderkar be careful what time it is and whether the wind is a blowing..

Lockdown Sceptic
4 years ago
Reply to  Sinor

Deep ‘Green’ Punishment: Power Prices Set To Double In Wind Power Obsessed Britain
https://stopthesethings.com/2022/02/08/deep-green-punishment-power-prices-set-to-double-in-wind-power-obsessed-britain/
Thanks to the UK’s love affair with intermittent wind power, Brit’s power bills will double this April when a legislated price cap is lifted; UK power prices are already amongst the highest in Europe. And there is much worse to come.
by stopthesethings

Let’s keep getting the message out

Tuesday 8th February 2pm to 3pm
 Yellow Boards By the Road 
A329 junction London Road & Oak Avenue 
Near Oakingham Belle pub
Wokingham RG40 1LH

Stand in the Park Sundays 10am  make friends, ignore the madness & keep sane 
Wokingham Howard Palmer Gardens Cockpit Path car park Sturges Rd RG40 2HD  
Henley Mills Meadows (at the bandstand) Henley-on-Thames RG9 1DS

Telegram Group 
http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell

stewart
4 years ago
Reply to  Sinor

The more clean power we generate in the U.K., the less exposed consumers will be to gas prices set by international markets.

THAT is what it’s about and the climate change agenda has always been about.

“International markets” is code for non-western governments we don’t like or can’t control, like Russia, Iran, and to a lesser extent, Saudi, Qatar, etc.

Western countries have been struggling for a long time to keep control of the world oil and gas supplies which they had in the decades after WWII.

The green agenda is a geo-political strategy to be less dependent on the oil and gas producing nations and to deprive them as much as possible of the wealth and power they are acquiring.

Rowan
Rowan
4 years ago
Reply to  stewart

The green agenda is a geo-political strategy to be less dependent on the oil and gas producing nations and to deprive them as much as possible of the wealth and power they are acquiring.

While driving yourself further into bankruptcy.

stewart
4 years ago
Reply to  Rowan

Absolutely, like most wars between nations.

At the end of the day, wars between nations are really wars between the elites of those nations, paid for in blood and money by the plebs.

Always has been, always will be.

Sinor
Sinor
4 years ago
Reply to  stewart

If we had been investing in modern base load nuclear over the last 20 years then this would have already started to happen .Strangely ,no influence surely, I am pretty certain that our “friends ” in the oil producing countries have been whispering in the ears of the elected .Also buying up so much of the UK that such a policy has real consequences .We have got the silly windmills but not the secure base load.Strange that when col/oil and gas fired power stations are not mothballed but destroyed with the govt approval.Nothing to see here ,move along.

huxleypiggles
4 years ago
Reply to  stewart

I don’t agree. We could be self-sufficient in energy if we had anybody with any intelligence running the shop. We have 300+ years of coal, decades of shale gas, North Sea oil and gas and nuclear if we develop it.

The last thing we need are polluting renewables.

Custerhaditcoming
Custerhaditcoming
4 years ago
Reply to  stewart

Clean power does not necessarily mean green power. Surely before we have this mad dash to build thousands of wind generators and solar farms we should be investigating how to make our power stations cleaner. We have some very bright engineers etc in the U.K.
Try telling the Chinese to stop building coal fired power stations. For me nuclear was always the best option, but that ship sailed decades ago.

John Dee
4 years ago

Not so sure that nuclear’s a dead duck. These RR modular nuke stations look interesting. Question is, will Carrie allow them?

Cristi.Neagu
4 years ago
Reply to  Sinor

If things keep going like this, you won’t have to watch out for when you charge your car. The demand will be so great and supply so low that people will be assigned car charging time slots. Which naturally means you can only charge your car enough to get to work. Forget about road trips. You want to go somewhere on vacation? You’ll have to use public transport, and you better wear a mask. Oh, would you look at that… Looks like you’re behind on your boosters. And what’s more, in the past month we have recorded 3 separate occasions when you expressed views online which may be construed as critical towards the established state science. I’m sorry, but we cannot approve your travel at this point in time.

Sinor
Sinor
4 years ago
Reply to  Cristi.Neagu

Thats the next part of the matrix coming soon with Digital ID.
I hate Gove et al

Custerhaditcoming
Custerhaditcoming
4 years ago
Reply to  Cristi.Neagu

A case of ‘ Be careful of what you wish for ‘ .

NickR
4 years ago
Reply to  Sinor

You might think so but the current smart meters are pretty dumb, they can bill by shorter periods but they can’t proactively switch you on/off. That said, they’re all gonna soon need changing as the mobile network they communicate on is being phased out so they all need replacing. Another white elephant.

A Heretic
A Heretic
4 years ago
Reply to  NickR

maybe they can’t switch you off (are you sure about that?) but they could start charging you insane amounts and force you to switch yourself off.

Custerhaditcoming
Custerhaditcoming
4 years ago
Reply to  A Heretic

This is precisely what TPTB want. It is called self disconnection. I think that people with Pre-paid key meters are well aware of this situation.

Sinor
Sinor
4 years ago
Reply to  NickR

Civil service foresight .They would last 2 minutes in the real world. You could not make it up lol.

Milo
Milo
4 years ago
Reply to  Sinor

2 minutes is being a bit on the generous side Sinor

MaL
MaL
4 years ago
Reply to  NickR

The traditional electrical grid is transitioning into the smart grid. New equipment is being installed to simplify the process of monitoring and managing the grid, making the system more transparent to use but also introducing new security problems. Smart meters are replacing the traditional electrical utility meters, offering new functionalities such as remote reading, automatic error reporting, and the possibility for remote shutoff.

http://www.syssec-project.eu/m/page-media/3/costache-ec2nd11.pdf

bowlsman
bowlsman
4 years ago
Reply to  NickR

I’ll be the last person on earth to have a smart meter, or dead. Whichever comes first.

RedhotScot
4 years ago
Reply to  Sinor

In exactly the same way as behavioural change was influenced by insisting people ‘switch’ suppliers to address rising energy costs, this is yet another sticking plaster that will crash and burn just like switching did.

If the grid can’t handle existing demand, how can it be expected to handle the convoys of electric cars we’re all going to be forced to drive in the not too distant future whilst running the electric pumps to our Heat Pumps 24/7?

pjar
4 years ago
Reply to  Sinor

Two weeks ago, wind power was contributing just 5.8% of our energy needs…

RedhotScot
4 years ago

But, But, all that ultra cheap wind power we give £10Bn in Taxpayer subsidies every year.

That’ll drive electricity prices down, won’t it?

Or perhaps this is a cunning plan to drive up gas, and gas derived electricity prices to make renewable energy look good……..

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

economically speaking the “power” only subsidises the title-owner of the windy site who in reality collects all the subsidy

snoozle
snoozle
4 years ago

This would have been quite a good move, if they made it a year or so earlier. How long does it take for new fields to come online? And note, they will “Fast Track” approval… and why so few fields? It’s only six months supply. They should be pushing much much harder. We should and could be energy independent if we wanted to be.

Smelly Melly
4 years ago

Shouldn’t all the left wing tree huggers give up their reliance on fossil fuel energy for the good of the planet?

Showers you how their tiny brain works when they listen and believe the ravings of a mentally handicapped, teenager who’s also got mental health issues (and virtually no science education). Its medieval blind faith mentality, when people use to believe that the mentally ill were messengers from god.

twinkytwonk
4 years ago
Reply to  Smelly Melly

i always used to tell the science undergrads who were mostly of the anti fossil fuel brigade that to do their bit they should get rid of their cars, turn off the heating at home and grow their own food. Rather unsurprisingly, no one wanted to do that.

stewart
4 years ago
Reply to  twinkytwonk

Tell them to use a notepad to write on and an old fashioned organiser to keep appointments and dates.

That’ll make their brains explode.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  stewart

Those were the days – but many of them can hardly write any longer or even read more than a garbled text message.. Reading books is so 20th Century!

Emerald Fox
4 years ago
Reply to  twinkytwonk

Like people who turn up to church in their new Volvos and Mercedes and pretend they are Christians. Sell your cars and give the money to the poor and needy? Not gonna happen!

lutherkehrt@gmail.com
lutherkehrt@gmail.com
4 years ago
Reply to  Emerald Fox

I think you’ll find that being a Christian, and owning a new car are not Biblically at odds.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  twinkytwonk

No, the elites want to get rid of your car, not theirs! This is the way it works!

The richest and largest landowners in the land have benefitted most from the wind farms and absurd destructive solar energy fields while we pay Green Levies on power supplies.

Gefion
Gefion
4 years ago
Reply to  twinkytwonk

In a local supermarket we met a “woke” neighbour encased in Goretex garments, having just been for a serious walk. He proudly showed us his shopping basket which had a variety of unwrapped items. He explained he’d be saving the planet by not using plastic bags. Obviously his awareness didn’t include waterproof clothing…

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  Smelly Melly

comment image

‘Nuff said

masksniffer22
4 years ago

Funny. I like how even their sartorial choices are genetically determined. Very based.

lutherkehrt@gmail.com
lutherkehrt@gmail.com
4 years ago

We can forgive the people of seven hundred years ago their misunderstandings of Christianity and of God’s actions, as the Church of Rome prevented them from being able to read God’s Word.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  Smelly Melly

Medieval is exactly what it is – we need to brush up our history to see what they might try and do to us.

Trabant
4 years ago

Time to get those Solar Panels installed on the roof methinks !

MizakeTheMizan
4 years ago
Reply to  Trabant

Just in the process of doing the same. Don’t bother with a system that feeds back into the grid, that’s no use when the lights go out, you need some storage capacity.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  MizakeTheMizan

Wait for the sun to come out before you take a bath – if you are lucky should be once a week!

Gefion
Gefion
4 years ago
Reply to  David Beaton

In Scotland not even that on occasions…

Rogerborg
4 years ago
Reply to  MizakeTheMizan

Speaking of which, I saw some shysters are planning to flog night-storage thermal sinks for domestic heating. The idea is a huge insulated tank stuck in your garage or other out-building full of high heat capacity material (higher than water?) and heated up overnight with “cheap” electricity (assuming that overnight demand remains low, which it won’t). Then pump your heating system water through it during the day.

Seems reasonable, right?

But… it’s effectively just a COP-1 electric heater. The only trick is that using “cheap” (not for long) night-time electricity.

So… why not just install a big storage battery instead, charge that up overnight, then use it on demand during the day for all your electricity needs, including heating? And you could feed rooftop PV into the battery during the day while you’re at it, to make that remotely useful too (installation dependent).

Like most eco-grifts, it doesn’t pass even the most cursory of examinations.

RedhotScot
4 years ago
Reply to  Rogerborg

I bought an 8Kw petrol generator instead. All that embodied energy in a transportable liquid. Amazing really.

psychedelia smith
4 years ago

And meanwhile 3% of the World’s energy is supplied by so called ‘renewables and it takes 150 tonnes of coal to manufacture one solitary wind turbine.

Who doesn’t want clean, reliable, cheap, abundant energy? But the fact is we are nowhere remotely near the technology to provide it so this current ‘green agenda’ is the biggest Ponzi scheme in human history.

If you have had a smart meter installed get rid of it now. These will be key to closing down your life while you continue to stuff your hard earned money into the trousers of our new Feudalists.

Mr Taxpayer
Mr Taxpayer
4 years ago

Unfortunately, once installed they can’t be removed. When I switched supplier last year I chose only from those that were NOT offering Smart meters. I’ve been saying for several years that they have the capabilty not just to measure but to ration as well.

HelenaHancart
HelenaHancart
4 years ago
Reply to  Mr Taxpayer

Apparently the smart meter can be switched to “dumb” because they still want you to have a smart meter!

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago

Facts die when the “Crazed Greenies” speak!

peyrole
peyrole
4 years ago

In my personal experience working at one of the then called Area Boards, 1982 was the year we first trialed multi-rate meters for residential customers with price signals to change demand. Co-ordinated across the land by what was then called The Electricity Council. It failed. In those days people had far more important things to think about.
Smart meters of course are only fundamentally different because they are designed to do something not considered reasonable in those days, switching off supply completely to a range of customers. That used to be done only in dire emergencies, not as part of every day activities. I am talking about miner’s strikes etc.
What has changed in 40 years is the mindsets of governments, electricity industry executives and sadly people who now apparently will put up with anything if it means they ‘feel’ good about themselves. Willing supplicants of the State.

Custerhaditcoming
Custerhaditcoming
4 years ago
Reply to  peyrole

i also worked in the old area boards and then the privatised supply industry. I agree with all of your comments but the ability to regulate demand went back long before 1982. There used to be equipment installed which I understand were called ripple relays. These were fitted to the cooker circuits in houses. They would trip out if demand was too high. We also had specialised heating systems installed in local authority housing also controlled externally. Two rate meters were used for operating electric heating in homes, and also meant that the whole demand was at the lower rate when in off peak periods, usually overnight. However these were preceded by the installation of two separate meters with a time switch which one of the meters was solely for the electric heating. I currently have a two rate meter installed which gives me 7 hours of off peak supply split between night and day. The day time low rate is very useful. We do need to be very careful with green energy as it can lead to unintended blackouts as happened a few years ago where I live. This was caused by a fault on the east side of… Read more »

peyrole
peyrole
4 years ago

Hi Custer, yes of course you are correct about earlier demand regulation. I was just comparing something which was a close ‘cousin’ of the smart meter. In those days because the supplier and distribution network were the same company you could use signalling through the wires.
E7 was interesting in that in non-gas areas the storage heaters really took off such that the distribution systems became overloaded at 2am in the morning. This is something I never read about when there is all the talk of encouraging EVs to be charged in ‘off peak’ periods that can easily become peak periods with subsequent change of pricing.
Frequency control of the network is not priced into ‘renewables’, they depend on free riding on the back of conventional generation providing system support. If it was none would be built.

Custerhaditcoming
Custerhaditcoming
4 years ago
Reply to  peyrole

And that maybe the problem in the future. If we continue with this run for green energy unchecked and more and more generators are mothballed or removed then where does the base generation come from. How are blackouts prevented if major faults occur. It won’t take much to have a situation where cascade tripping occurs and we could end up with a uk wide blackout which may take days or weeks to resolve.
I also think that if this rush for EV cars picks up substantially then it may not be the generators that are the problem, but simply the cables in the road or overhead. There are still an awful lot of legacy networks out there.
I think we are fast approaching a situation where other than peak demand, that day and night demand will be very similar. We are moving into a 24hr society. As you say pricing will become all encompassing and will also be used to manage our lives.
Green energy does have a part to play but at the moment not much. The supporting technology is not yet good enough.

RedhotScot
4 years ago

Apparently the solution lies in using all the ‘spare capacity’ available in the batteries installed in Electric Vehicles which will be plugged in when the power falls over.

Just suck the entire UK stock of EV’s dry of motive power whilst days/weeks are spent repairing the grid. Nor will there be much working from home done as there will be no electricity to power all those PC’s/modems/Zoom meetings.

Never mind, we can all huddle around the Smart Meter screen feverishly anticipating the twitch of an LED light.

More stimulating than the BBC though, which is something………

JohnK
4 years ago

I think you are right about the state of the local networks. Where I live, in the last two years the local DNO, which is SSE, has renewed the whole lot, including the local transformer, because they had many faults to do with dodgy buried cable, which had insulation failures from time to time, causing power cuts. What they went for was essentially like for like. I know the rating of the buried cable that went in along my street and that of the transformer, and they could have problems if lots of houses requested charge points to be connected, unless they went for remote curtailment of demand – or dig up the street again and install more cable, which they probably don’t want to do. The modern structure of the industry has it’s own problems, with contracts between individual customers and utility firms which are independent of the network operator (the DNO). The individual house meters belong to the utility lot, not the DNO (and any generation one like my solar PV one belongs to the house owner). Years ago, I actually had a remote controlled twin rate meter which used “teleswitch” operated via low frequency long-wave radio. It… Read more »

MaL
MaL
4 years ago
Reply to  peyrole

The people in charge don’t need you to have a smart meter to cut you off, they have a big shiny switch in the power station……..

peyrole
peyrole
4 years ago
Reply to  MaL

They used to have. But now everything is owned by different entities, so they need a ‘cleverer’ way of doing it. Of course in our near future ‘they’ won’t have to turn stuff off, ‘their’ problem will be that automatically it will turn itself off in lovely cascades across the nation. And then it will take weeks to get it all working again.

RTSC
RTSC
4 years ago

So now the PsyOps team gets to work on energy consumption behaviour.

Look out for the adverts telling the sheeple to “turn the lights off or granny will freeze in her home.”

snoozle
snoozle
4 years ago
Reply to  RTSC

Look into her eyes and tell her that you didn’t turn the lights off..

Cecil B
Cecil B
4 years ago
Reply to  snoozle

Wearing a mask will reduce your energy consumption

stewart
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B

So will three doses of Moderna

maggie may
4 years ago
Reply to  snoozle

Protect the National Grid…..

Backlash
Backlash
4 years ago
Reply to  RTSC

Eating meat is proven to make you colder. Our scientists say so

John Dee
4 years ago
Reply to  Backlash

Those cavemen out hunting mammoths in winter obviously didn’t read the Grauniad Science pages, or they’d have settled for hummus and pitta bread and stayed warm.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  RTSC

“Poisonous garbage” = your Government speaks!

Milo
Milo
4 years ago
Reply to  David Beaton

see the manic downticker is busy again today – downticking everyone for everything they write

John Dee
4 years ago
Reply to  Milo

Everyone should have a hobby. Some demand less skill than others.

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago

In 1948 treatment rationing was introduced to the UK so there’s a long history or terrible rationing ideas being foisted upon the public for the greater good (of the establishment).

Milo
Milo
4 years ago

do you think any of the proposed “rationing” of seemingly just about everything will apply to the likes of the “elite”? Will the Duchess of Cambridge be told that she cannot feed her children meat???

Hopeless - "TN,BN"
4 years ago

Good luck to National Grid, in changing day into night and vice versa. If I had an electric car, it’s unlikely that I’d be driving around in it all at night, and human nature being what it is (my name isn’t C. Whitty), I’d likely plug it in when I got home, eat supper and go to bed, to read by electric light, and perhaps after watching something on an electric/electronic gadget, which may also need charging. I have declined the offer of a smart meter on occasions now running into dozens, precisely because I don’t want to be controlled externally like this. I also saw the other day that some chump in a Government department is keen to change, sell or turn off the 2G and 3G networks which apparently many smart meters use to report back to the spies in the mother ship. The smart meter advertising is nothing but another falsehood. It implies that it will save you money by some magic means, rather than the reality, which is that you have to look at the thing and then run round turning stuff off, and panicking when the heating is running in midwinter. When all this nonsense… Read more »

Cecil B
Cecil B
4 years ago

You will not be allowed to enter or leave the country unless you have a smart meter

Trabant
4 years ago

I rarely use my smart meter except to show me real time power consumption so I can calibrate all the off-grid homebrew power management equipment I’m designing and building.

Hopeless - "TN,BN"
4 years ago
Reply to  Trabant

It seems that some of the “power users” of electricity don’t hold with smart or even dumb meters, and regard the power network as an asset in common, free for all. I believe these people are horticultural entrepreneurs, engaged in something called “Cannabis Farming”.

Custerhaditcoming
Custerhaditcoming
4 years ago

I finally was called to one of the said farms a few years ago. When I arrived I told the police I had never seen an operational one before so they gave me the grand tour. Must admit On exiting the building I felt distinctly strange. I prayed all the way home that I would not be stopped by plod.
Happy days of being an on call engineer for your local energy network provider.

Cecil B
Cecil B
4 years ago

Boris Johnson told Moscow that support to Europe and Nato “will remain unconditional and immovable”.

Is that the same as ‘irreversible’?

Hopeless - "TN,BN"
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B

Perhaps, but that’s until the Russian Bear decides to use tanks to “flatten the curve”, or in this case, “Ukraine”.

Aleajactaest
4 years ago

a very good education on all things “Ukraine”

The Bear is the very least of our problems.

https://therealslog.com/2022/02/07/everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-ukraine/

Hopeless - "TN,BN"
4 years ago
Reply to  Aleajactaest

Very interesting. Of course, Johnson was hopelessly inept as Foreign Secretary, and is no better with international affairs as PM. I quail at the very idea of him interfering in these matters, although I don’t think many abroad are taken in by the “bumbling toff” and “ersatz Churchill” schtick, but regard him as poorly as he is at home, and as a figure of fun.

Let’s hope he doesn’t develop a yen to behave like something out of Dr. Strangelove.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago

Yes – as I recall he was a massive disappointment and total disaster as FS – he didn’t appear to know his a*se from his elbow or his friends from his enemies.

But then he was probably deliberately briefed to make a fool of himself ( “plus ça change…”)

The Deep State is always at work.

Emerald Fox
4 years ago

Let’s hope Russia takes Austria and Germany at the same time.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago

No chance of that…Putin is laughing at our collective insanity and manic desperation to self-destruct.

John Dee
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B

Presumably, the support will be of the static variety, whereby he sends his best wishes.

DanClarke
DanClarke
4 years ago

Well we know who won’t be rationed

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  DanClarke

Not the Porker on back-door “Delivered Deli Delight” rations surely?!

DanClarke
DanClarke
4 years ago

“YOU will have nothing and WE will be happy”

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  DanClarke

Yes…. that’s more like it… I alway thought it was a misprint.

TheGreenAcres
4 years ago

Households will be paid to ration their power usage at peak times 

Oh look another conspiracy theory coming true. This is why they are giving out free ‘smart’ meters.

MrTea
MrTea
4 years ago
Reply to  TheGreenAcres

Anything with ‘smart’ in the title will involve some government BS designed to make your life worse.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  TheGreenAcres

The word “smart” is now obviously their code for “evil”!

masksniffer22
4 years ago

All explicitly stated values will be jettisoned the moment it’s politically expedient. Financial rules, human rights rules, aesthetic rules, judicial rules, logical rules, alliances, friendships, any and everything.

What’s worse is that the feeling of reason and rectitude flows effortlessly behind the decision.

Cecil B
Cecil B
4 years ago

A comet will appear in the sky to confirm these policies are sent from God

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B

It might just be Bezos’ Inter-galactic Space Ship burning up on “re-entry” – we can dream!

FrankFisher
4 years ago

COAL

just COAL

We need to keep saying COAL until these morons get the message…. Although there is a reason why the decommissioned coal fired power station using C4.

Cristi.Neagu
4 years ago
Reply to  FrankFisher

I’d much rather say NUCLEAR.

stewart
4 years ago
Reply to  Cristi.Neagu

They are building 2 new nuclear power plants in the UK.

Takes a long time though to build though. One hasn’t even started yet.

FrankFisher
4 years ago
Reply to  stewart

Small thorium would be the best way to go on that.

Trabant
4 years ago
Reply to  stewart

Rolls Royce have designed a rather splendid 150 Mwatt small footprint Nuclear plant which can be built relatively cheaply. Based on Nuclear Submarine technology I think.
These have been around for years and would be much better than the multi billion pound behemoths which take forever to get going.

stewart
4 years ago
Reply to  Trabant

It’s an interesting one because so much of what makes the current nuclear plants behemoths are all the safety measures. Which in turn is what really makes nuclear so appealing. Nuclear power is phenomenally safe.

I’m not sure what the safety would be like if you had many smaller ones popping up everywhere.

ImpObs
4 years ago
Reply to  stewart

There’s over 200 military ship/sub reactors in sevice around the world.

There’s not been a reactor accident since the 80’s, (1985 Russian K431 sub reactor explosion).

UK gov funding (£210M Nov 2021 – £18M Nov 2019) ammounts to little more than paid lip service to the Rolls Royce small modeular nuclear (SMRs) reactor plan. I doubt we’ll see them for the plebs, probably only deployed in “contuniuty of government” type situations.

In context of this thread, the shout should be for Coal (specially drax sat on a 300yr supply) exploration for new oil and gas, and Nuclear, both large scale and SMRs.

The only way the net-zero (with associated decomissining of domesic gas boilers and ICE vehicles) plans can work, is with massive depopulation….. let THAT sink in

MrTea
MrTea
4 years ago
Reply to  ImpObs

‘specially drax sat on a 300yr supply’

Do you have a reference for that?

ImpObs
4 years ago
Reply to  MrTea

Selby coalfield had reserves of 2,000 million tonnes

MrTea
MrTea
4 years ago
Reply to  ImpObs

‘The only way the net-zero (with associated decomissining of domesic gas boilers and ICE vehicles) plans can work, is with massive depopulation….. let THAT sink in’

That thought has been going through my mind as well.
Don’t forget your booster!

huxleypiggles
4 years ago
Reply to  ImpObs

Nail. Head.

JohnK
4 years ago
Reply to  ImpObs

What seems to be out of fashion is the concept of “carbon sequestration” to be used in tandem with coal used as a power station fuel – potentially using redundant oilfields as a method of long term storage. Could have developed that at places like Drax, rather than importing chip wood across the Atlantic and selling it as ‘renewable’.

Probably not financially viable as an add-on to an old station, but a brand new one aimed at something like 25 years service life might have made more sense, especially if built on top of a coalfield. Reminds me of what it was like the first time I went to a coal fired one years ago when I was a student. It was Cockenzie power station on the river Forth. It’s coal did not travel far, just from Monktonhall colliery a few miles away.

Sinor
Sinor
4 years ago
Reply to  stewart

We could site several of these small reactors together and call them a Neucfarm.which may just persuade some of the Greenies they are a good thing…I”ll get my coat …

John Dee
4 years ago
Reply to  Sinor

It would save them having to protest at lots of smaller, spread-out facilities.

John Dee
4 years ago
Reply to  stewart

Still be safer than these government labs that leak nasties from time to time.

RedhotScot
4 years ago
Reply to  Trabant

Thousands of them are needed in the UK. The first of 16 are due to be rolled out somewhere around 2030.

Meanwhile the Chinese are building more nuclear than the rest of the world put together. They will all be up and running just in time to replace the coal fired power stations everyone is ejaculating over as they are decommissioned.

By 2060 or 2070 the west will be floundering about rushing out nuclear whilst China becomes the wealthiest and most influential country on the planet.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  FrankFisher

The “Morons are the Message” as Marshall Mcluhan didn’t say.

Old Bill
4 years ago

Britain is an island, it has a very long coastline compared to its area, and tidal power is clean and will last till the end of the earth, but of course all the MP’s have shares in windmills, so better build some more eh?

RedhotScot
4 years ago
Reply to  Old Bill

Tidal power doesn’t work. It’s expensive and the sea destroys the daft schemes dropped into it.

Old Bill
4 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

No, of course it doesn’t – at least that is what they would like you to believe.
The idea of water being able to turn turbines is laughable isn’t it.

RedhotScot
4 years ago
Reply to  Old Bill

Fresh water turbines are an entirely different thing to salt water turbines. And how many rivers have a tidal run like the Severn which can serve a small community with energy, which needs to be stored.

How is it stored? In batteries?

Right, so we have to hand over lots of dosh to those nice Chinese who are the biggest owner of mineral resources in the world, to buy the batteries?

Have you any idea how expensive batteries are, the size they need to be, and the risks associated with them to run a small town for a week?

MaL
MaL
4 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

Ah…but the thing about tidal turbines is the tides are as predictable as the sun rising every morning – only the clouds don’t get in the way. There are new turbine designs being trialed now that look promising and with enough of them the power being generated will be 24/7 because the tides occur at different times in different places…no need to store the energy.

JohnK
4 years ago
Reply to  Old Bill

No shortage of projects aimed at tidal generation, from large ones like the Severn Barrage (Lavernock point to Brean Down), to the Swansea Lagoon. Quite a few opponents too, of course, given that there would be some effect on wildlife.

A Heretic
A Heretic
4 years ago

reliable but dirty fossil fuel plants.

yes, we must keep promoting the lie that plant food is dirty.

DanClarke
DanClarke
4 years ago

It will be like the ‘olden days’, watching the meter and sticking a coin in , instead the government is the coin

brachiopod
4 years ago

Privatisation of the integrated energy production and distribution system was the reason we are where we are today, not that it hasn’t happened nearly everywhere else.
When British Coal was being cut off at the knees by McGregor (Thatcher’s Beeching equivalent) it showed there was no intent to manage the geologically determined decline of the industry on which the energy needs of the country were then based, and use the interim period of decline to invest for the long term national interest. Instead we had asset-stripping, abandonment of ‘difficult’ reserves, and profit gouging for the benefit of, often, foreign Tory party shareholders, leaving investment to ‘the market’.
Instead of what might have been a properly integrated system that we control all aspects of (nuclear, wind, wave, solar) we are dependent on what are going to prove to be unreliable foreign suppliers and foreign generators acting solely in the interests of their shareholders.

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  brachiopod

delusional

Coal was killed by the NUM.

MaL
MaL
4 years ago

You could narrow that down a little further……isn’t he still honorary president?

MrTea
MrTea
4 years ago

Our ruling class have been subjecting us to a controlled demoition for decades, things just sped up quite a bit over the last two years.
Everything is being intentionally sabotaged from health care, to justice, to education , to immigration.
The people that rule us hate us and are working hard to smash us into the ground, God only knows what these sick minds have intended for the future.

MrTea
MrTea
4 years ago

‘Rishi Sunak has asked Kwasi Kwarteng’
Aren’t these characters from the muppet show?

Peter W
Peter W
4 years ago
Reply to  MrTea

Yes, sorry. They escaped from the Muppet lab. Oooops!

MrTea
MrTea
4 years ago

‘The combined reserves of all six sites are thought to be enough to power the whole U.K. for six months’

So next to nothing then.

RedhotScot
4 years ago
Reply to  MrTea

There is approximately 150 years worth of gas that can be fracked in England.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago

The “Insane Green Terror” has just begun! So what do we do?

RedhotScot
4 years ago
Reply to  David Beaton

Write to your MP. Write to your local papers. Engage with MSM comments sections (they have all gone 180º from climate alarmists to climate sceptics now), read sites like WUWT and notalotofpeopleknowthat and get well informed of the arguments you can present to friends and relatives.

The insane green terror is dying a death. You missed their rise over the last 20 years. Now they must put their money where their mouth is, and it’s not going well at all.

So many more people have been woken up to global events by covid. So many more by this energy crisis. More will be woken by spiralling food and consumer good costs as their production is affected by increased energy costs.

But what will really hit home is when people start losing their jobs when small businesses can’t survive massive fuel hikes following in quick succession after covid.

Conservative back benchers are railing against the green nonsense as their constituents bombard them with complaints. If Boris survives partygate he won’t survive a back bench rebellion when people have to choose between eating and heating, and it won’t just be the poor who will suffer that, it’ll be the middle class.

pjar
4 years ago

Six months, should anyone have missed it, is enough oil to last 180 days… that’s alright then.

lutherkehrt@gmail.com
lutherkehrt@gmail.com
4 years ago

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban, so I shall refrain from posting my thoughts about the political parties and their green lunacy.

JohnK
4 years ago

I must be in a cynical mood today! Another good reason not to use ‘smart meters’ for my power supply, perhaps? In the real world, those of us that use twin rate (“economy 7”) tariffs already minimise peak rate import as much as practical, so they’ll make no progress with that idea.

Incidentally, I think there are some utility firms (as distinct from District Network Operators (DNOs)) that offer deals using EV cars that can feed in excess to the grid at certain times of day. Some of us (like me) still have a ‘feed in tariff’ deal that allows export of solar PV during daylight hours as well, until the contract expires.

Variable pricing for most people will not be popular, you’d have thought. The more you use, the higher the unit price? Might work on a stock market, but not at home.

Peter W
Peter W
4 years ago

“From Friday up to 1.4m households will be paid if they cut their normal electricity consumption at certain two-hour periods during the day,…”
I always thought that was the reason I opted for Economy7 30 years ago!
Of course if they don’t see results they will simply start switching off Smart meters.

Newman20
Newman20
4 years ago

Tell the National Grid to bugger off. I’ll use power when I want.

It’s like when they have ‘switch the lights off’ hour or whatever it’s called. I just go around the house turning all of ours on.