| Energy bills 23:01 - Aug 24 with 49066 views | Hayesender |
Watching the news earlier, they were talking about the impact these energy bill rises will have on small businesses.
It got me thinking (dangerous I know) about the potential effect it could have on our club, and other clubs of similar and smaller size?
Not only the day to day running costs and matchday costs, but also the affect its gonna have on attendances.
Obviously when it comes down to heating, eating, mortgage, rent etc, days out with mates and family watching football, or any sporting event, are gonna have to take a back seat for many people.
Unless the government (lol) take action now, its gonna be a bleak winter for many people and businesses, and I fear for people's mental well being |  |
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| Energy bills on 10:38 - Aug 25 with 2719 views | slmrstid |
| Energy bills on 10:11 - Aug 25 by terryb |
On the football clubs front, the Isthmian league has given permission for it's clubs to kick off earlier on Saturday's to avoid using floodlights. Obviously this is for the winter rather than now. Perhaps some EFL clubs may follow suit?
It can't do anything about midweek matches though as part time players wouldn't be available prior to the evening. |
Not old enough to know for sure (sorry!) but am I right in thinking during the three-day week in the 70s midweek football games were played in the daytime to save floodlight use? |  | | |
| Energy bills on 10:47 - Aug 25 with 2685 views | CamberleyR |
| Energy bills on 10:38 - Aug 25 by slmrstid |
Not old enough to know for sure (sorry!) but am I right in thinking during the three-day week in the 70s midweek football games were played in the daytime to save floodlight use? |
That's correct and also as the three day week was mostly through January and February the Saturday games kicked off an hour or so earlier to save the floodlights being used. |  |
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| Energy bills on 10:59 - Aug 25 with 2631 views | CliveWilsonSaid |
| Energy bills on 08:18 - Aug 25 by Metallica_Hoop |
I 've been saying nuclear for years.
We need to build our own too, we figured it out in the 40's/50's no reason why we cannot now. |
Unfortunately that would mean someone having to be accountable for their actions. So never going to happen. |  |
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| Energy bills on 10:59 - Aug 25 with 2631 views | Lanhoop |
I guess the World Cup break will take some of the darker days out of the calendar this season but if you are lucky enough to have a Saturday afternoon match it might make sense to move kick-off's to 2pm in January and February? |  | | |
| Energy bills on 11:17 - Aug 25 with 2587 views | kernowhoop |
| Energy bills on 08:56 - Aug 25 by dmm |
I'm astonished that some believe using fossil fuels or building nuclear electricity solves the problems we face. Renewables are quicker, cheaper and are what the majority of people want.
Wind projects commissioned now can be up and running in around 18 months, while the most recent nuclear projects, announced in 2010, won’t produce any energy until 2026 at the earliest.
The cost of nuclear power is about twice as high per unit of electricity as onshore wind.
This government’s own polling shows support for onshore windfarms from four out of five people in the UK. A Survation poll last year found that people who live near existing wind farms are the most supportive of all.
And of course, renewable energy tackles the most important issue of all, the climate emergency. |
Yes, it is quicker to build a wind farm than a nuclear power station.
They are not 'like for like' though.
Wind on land produces electricity for roughly 30% of the time.
Wind at sea is better - it manages about 40%.
Trouble is, we want electricity 100% of the time. This means that for every megawatt of wind capacity, we need to have available (and also pay for) a megawatt of something else which will deliver when it is asked to.
Focusing heavily on wind and solar power and telling coal and gas plant to close (and also killing off further oil and gas exploration) was reckless politics by people who wanted to please the green lobby and who had no idea how an electricity system works. | | | |
| Energy bills on 11:34 - Aug 25 with 2528 views | dmm |
| Energy bills on 11:17 - Aug 25 by kernowhoop |
Yes, it is quicker to build a wind farm than a nuclear power station.
They are not 'like for like' though.
Wind on land produces electricity for roughly 30% of the time.
Wind at sea is better - it manages about 40%.
Trouble is, we want electricity 100% of the time. This means that for every megawatt of wind capacity, we need to have available (and also pay for) a megawatt of something else which will deliver when it is asked to.
Focusing heavily on wind and solar power and telling coal and gas plant to close (and also killing off further oil and gas exploration) was reckless politics by people who wanted to please the green lobby and who had no idea how an electricity system works. |
There are renewable electric storage solutions being developed all the time. They simply need investment to scale up - like the kind of investment fossil fuels continue to get from Government.
If you add in other renewable power sources like solar and wave getting much closer to finishing with fossil fuels and nuclear is doable. What is lacking is the political will. Parties are in the grip of fossil fuel companies owned by the mega rich who are the ones that call the shots in our world. |  | | |
| Energy bills on 11:37 - Aug 25 with 2514 views | Superhoop83 |
"Unless the government (lol) take action now, its gonna be a bleak winter for many people and businesses, and I fear for people's mental well being"
I agree, but the "government" are focusing all their attention on fighting the imagined "woke brigade" and pointing at boats in the channel.
This autumn and winter will be grim. |  |
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| Energy bills on 12:03 - Aug 25 with 2432 views | terryb |
| Energy bills on 10:38 - Aug 25 by slmrstid |
Not old enough to know for sure (sorry!) but am I right in thinking during the three-day week in the 70s midweek football games were played in the daytime to save floodlight use? |
From memory, you could use floodlights as long as you used your own generator, but couldn't take energy from the national grid.
I think I recall playing Norwich on a midweek afternoon (and winning), but used a generator to play at night against Plymouth in the League Cup (losing) in the quarter final (?). | | | |
| Energy bills on 12:03 - Aug 25 with 2436 views | kernowhoop |
| Energy bills on 11:34 - Aug 25 by dmm |
There are renewable electric storage solutions being developed all the time. They simply need investment to scale up - like the kind of investment fossil fuels continue to get from Government.
If you add in other renewable power sources like solar and wave getting much closer to finishing with fossil fuels and nuclear is doable. What is lacking is the political will. Parties are in the grip of fossil fuel companies owned by the mega rich who are the ones that call the shots in our world. |
Yes, storage 'being developed'. But, batteries, for example, can provide electricity for a period of hours. What happens when (not 'if') we have cold weather and little or no wind over northern Europe for days or weeks? I am old enough to remember the winter of 1962-63. The snow arrived at Christmas and the thaw came at the beginning of March (in early January, one of the few football matches to be played was on a 100% frozen pitch at Swindon. I watched Rangers lose 5-0)
I am not sure what you mean about subsidies for fossil fuels. Oil and gas have long suffered extra taxation unique to them; a proposed new coal mine was refused permission and coal-fired power stations have been told to close by 2025 (albeit one or two have been asked recently if they could possibly stay open this winter!!).
The green future cannot be built in the dark (or without fossil fuels!) and the government has behaved recklessly.
We must hope that we have a mild winter. Cold weather, high fuel prices and blackouts would be a toxic mix for which no political party has a remedy. | | | |
| Energy bills on 12:06 - Aug 25 with 2420 views | Rangersw12 |
I'm really worried about the cost of energy this winter as our fixed rate expires in Oct
Basically telling the kids heating will be set to 14c and they will have to wear jumpers and use blankets | | | |
| Energy bills on 12:09 - Aug 25 with 2399 views | Hayesender |
| Energy bills on 12:03 - Aug 25 by terryb |
From memory, you could use floodlights as long as you used your own generator, but couldn't take energy from the national grid.
I think I recall playing Norwich on a midweek afternoon (and winning), but used a generator to play at night against Plymouth in the League Cup (losing) in the quarter final (?). |
https://fb.watch/f74qEFqhrm/
Wonder if we've still got the generator? | |
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| Energy bills on 12:16 - Aug 25 with 2360 views | dmm |
| Energy bills on 12:03 - Aug 25 by kernowhoop |
Yes, storage 'being developed'. But, batteries, for example, can provide electricity for a period of hours. What happens when (not 'if') we have cold weather and little or no wind over northern Europe for days or weeks? I am old enough to remember the winter of 1962-63. The snow arrived at Christmas and the thaw came at the beginning of March (in early January, one of the few football matches to be played was on a 100% frozen pitch at Swindon. I watched Rangers lose 5-0)
I am not sure what you mean about subsidies for fossil fuels. Oil and gas have long suffered extra taxation unique to them; a proposed new coal mine was refused permission and coal-fired power stations have been told to close by 2025 (albeit one or two have been asked recently if they could possibly stay open this winter!!).
The green future cannot be built in the dark (or without fossil fuels!) and the government has behaved recklessly.
We must hope that we have a mild winter. Cold weather, high fuel prices and blackouts would be a toxic mix for which no political party has a remedy. |
Fossil Fuel subsidies according to the IMF amount to $11m a minute globally: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/06/fossil-fuel-industry-subsidi
Fossil Fuel subsidies in the UK: https://news.sky.com/story/climate-change-uk-government-oil-and-gas-subsidies-hi
Just imagine what could happen with renewables with that level of financial input. | | | |
| Energy bills on 12:37 - Aug 25 with 2321 views | derbyhoop |
There was a story about a distribution company whose main.products were high value fish and shellfish. 11 depits, 983 employees, 40 years in business, already absorbed £6m of Brexit export costs. But it was the energy hike that destroyed the UK business. 5.5% in Holland, 260% in UK.
Relocating to Rotterdam with loss of 900+ jobs to UK |  |
| "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the Earth all one's lifetime." (Mark Twain)
Find me on twitter @derbyhoop and now on Bluesky |
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| Energy bills on 12:37 - Aug 25 with 2321 views | CliveWilsonSaid |
| Energy bills on 12:06 - Aug 25 by Rangersw12 |
I'm really worried about the cost of energy this winter as our fixed rate expires in Oct
Basically telling the kids heating will be set to 14c and they will have to wear jumpers and use blankets |
I did similar last winter. The problem I find is with towels and clothes not drying. I need to have some heating on for that at least a couple of hours a day. | |
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| Energy bills on 12:53 - Aug 25 with 2270 views | Esox_Lucius |
You know that renewable's are the future when you see how much the government are trying to prevent them being built. @kernowhoop, your argument stands for wind power but there are two other renewable sources that would work with it; wave and solar. We always have waves on the coastling.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/25/solar-farm-plans-refused-hig |  |
| The grass is always greener. |
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| Energy bills on 12:59 - Aug 25 with 2252 views | kernowhoop |
I shall focus on the UK reference, rather than the global one. I wonder if you (in fact, the Sky News report) are confusing tax relief which most businesses receive for capital expenditure with subsidies? I note that the UK government was quoted in the Sky report and said that it does not give any subsidies to fossil fuels, and follows the IEA's approach to phasing them out.
The renewable energy businesses get similar tax relief and are also subsidised and they provide electricity for less than half the time that it is required.
If renewables had billions more, what would be achieved? I don't know. They are unlikely to make the wind blow when required, nor to make photo-voltaics work at night. More storage? Maybe, but the point is, at the moment it is only short-term. Even the long-established pumped storage scheme at Dinorwig, in north Wales, can deliver electricity for only five hours. You may be right and one day we may have much greater storage capacity. But, we have to make our way to the future with the resources and the technology that we have today. In the meantime, the government should not be playing fast and loose with security of supply.
I suspect that other subscribers to the board are bored with this ;-) so I shall pull out of the discussion. | | | |
| Energy bills on 13:05 - Aug 25 with 2230 views | R_from_afar |
| Energy bills on 12:03 - Aug 25 by kernowhoop |
Yes, storage 'being developed'. But, batteries, for example, can provide electricity for a period of hours. What happens when (not 'if') we have cold weather and little or no wind over northern Europe for days or weeks? I am old enough to remember the winter of 1962-63. The snow arrived at Christmas and the thaw came at the beginning of March (in early January, one of the few football matches to be played was on a 100% frozen pitch at Swindon. I watched Rangers lose 5-0)
I am not sure what you mean about subsidies for fossil fuels. Oil and gas have long suffered extra taxation unique to them; a proposed new coal mine was refused permission and coal-fired power stations have been told to close by 2025 (albeit one or two have been asked recently if they could possibly stay open this winter!!).
The green future cannot be built in the dark (or without fossil fuels!) and the government has behaved recklessly.
We must hope that we have a mild winter. Cold weather, high fuel prices and blackouts would be a toxic mix for which no political party has a remedy. |
Another, simple way of storing energy for when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining is to store water in one lake above another and let it descend and power a turbine. We have had this technology for decades, the Dinorwig pumped storage plant opened in 1984. It's our fastest responding power source.
There are solar power plants in operation *today* which provide round the clock power, though, by storing energy in molten salt.
Tidal plants can provide round the clock power.
We need to also ditch this glib approach to nuclear - and gas - which says oh they are always operational, they are not intermittent like some renewables. They *are* intermittent if your nuclear fuel or gas comes from overseas, you are relying on a supply chain which could break if there are trading issues, a war etc.
Also, nuclear is rarely subjected to the same level of intense scrutiny as renewables. Dig below the surface and you start to uncover some very inconvenient truths about nuclear:
- Plants are on average offline 2 days a month for maintenance and refuelling. Half of the French nuclear fleet is currently offline and being repaired, simultaneously, as we speak
- In this warming world, it is getting difficult to adequately cool nuclear reactors
- They need a lot of water too, Sizewell C has no identified source for the 2m litres of fresh water it needs per day. Not all of the cooling can be done with sea water
- The costs are insanely high. Our current - current - nuclear clean-up bill is £131bn
- We can't build them fast enough to help with supply issues or to counter climate change and global warming. My MP told me in 2013 that we only needed 20 new reactors in order to get 40% of our electricity. Well, his party is in government and is pro-nuclear but has not added a single reactor in that time. These plants take 10 years to build
- Small numbers of very large power plants are actually a bad idea because if one goes offline, you are left with a huge amount of energy to find from somewhere else, and nuclear plants can't back up other nuclear plants efficiently because reactors take time to get up and running, they are not a responsive power source.
Fracking is not going to help us against climate change and now, with water supply becoming an issue in many parts of the country, the huge volumes of water it requires will mean it's drinking water/water for farming *or* water for fracking, not both. Every degree of warming means sea levels will be 2.3 metres higher.
The problem stems from us losing control of our energy supply when we privatised it. How we could think handing critical national infrastructure (water too) over to private companies - with shareholders, many of them not even in the UK - is beyond me. It's insane and means we struggle to control prices and infrastructure is neglected.
We have also dropped the ball when it comes to insulating our housing stock and requiring developers to incorporate energy and water saving features in new buildings.
The green stuff is not the problem, it's the solution. One day, we have to move off fossil fuels because they will either run out, become unaffordable, or the countries supplying them will just keep them for their own use.
We could get all of our energy from renewables but it would be tough, for which reason, I think we have to use some nuclear, not that I think that is ideal on cost and security grounds, and a lot more renewable capacity. Some of that should be from tidal power, it has huge potential for the UK, can deliver a lot of power round the clock, is responsive and the plants have very long operational lives. The French Rance tidal power plant has been doing its thing since the 60s. Adding a lot more pumped storage plants would help give us back-up for the nuclear and renewables and also help with our drought problems.
Another huge positive from increasing our use of local renewable energy would be the security which comes from energy independence. |  |
| "Things had started becoming increasingly desperate at Loftus Road but QPR have been handed a massive lifeline and the place has absolutely erupted. it's carnage. It's bedlam. It's 1-1." |
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| Energy bills on 13:06 - Aug 25 with 2220 views | kensalriser |
| Energy bills on 07:53 - Aug 25 by Sakura |
The reason we are in this mess is because politicians don't understand physics.
Here is Joe Biden in 2020: "No more subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. No more drilling including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill period. It ends."
https://mobile.twitter.com/DanODonnellShow/status/1501202578033438720?ref_src=tw
And here is Greta in 2019 getting Gove and Miliband to say her comments on no more North Sea Oil developments or pressing on with Fracking she had instead “woken us up"
So Hayesender, the reason is that we and the rest of the Western world have been foolish enough to think we could stop developing our own fossil fuels and rely on imports from elsewhere especially Russia. And then also rely on wind and solar which to anyone who really understands what their talking about that was always going to lead where we are. Because we can't meet our energy needs that way. It isn't possible currently
Here is Germany literally laughing at Trump after he says the country could become totally dependent on Russian energy in 2018:
https://mobile.twitter.com/marcusgilmer/status/1044604107997237249
Nuclear energy is the answer. Anyone who pretends to take climate change seriously but doesn't support nuclear isn't a credible person. But here's Nick Clegg in 2010 opposing Nuclear power because it wouldn't come on line until 2021 or 2022
https://mobile.twitter.com/mlanetrain/status/1556381583585804291
The reason your energy bills are high are because of people like Clegg, Miliband and Gove. Because of Greta Thunberg. Because the Tories have pursued net zero
LythamR suggests it is to do with Brexit causing a weak pound vs the dollar. That is not what caused it. More complex reason around that but an easy proof of why that isn't true let's look at the Euro vs the Dollar. Currently 1 EUR is equal to 1 USD. For most of the last 10 years 1 EUR was equal to 1.2 USD
So the key reason your bills are so high this winter is because we pursued this suicidal Green agenda whilst not developing our own energy independence, using fracking, North Sea oil and Nuclear.
Add on to this the cost of lockdowns. And printing billions of pounds for healthy people to sit at home while we shut down the economy. That devalued our currency also
We need to get nuclear energy to the front of our energy policy but that takes time unfortunately so we are stuck paying for the errors of our politicians in the west
“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”
We are in the last part of that sadly |
What a massive pile of stinking ordure.
Renewables are the only solution. Fossil fuels are killing us and nuclear takes too long, is incredibly expensive and too high risk.
Energy bills are high mainly because Putin has started a war and is weaponising energy.
I do agree that we should be more self-sufficient in energy. One of the main reasons we are not is that lessons were not learnt from the 70s oil crisis. But green is the only future, the alternative is death. If you think Greta Thunberg is part of the problem you've got your head on backwards. |  |
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| Energy bills on 13:21 - Aug 25 with 2170 views | The_Beast1976 |
| Energy bills on 13:06 - Aug 25 by kensalriser |
What a massive pile of stinking ordure.
Renewables are the only solution. Fossil fuels are killing us and nuclear takes too long, is incredibly expensive and too high risk.
Energy bills are high mainly because Putin has started a war and is weaponising energy.
I do agree that we should be more self-sufficient in energy. One of the main reasons we are not is that lessons were not learnt from the 70s oil crisis. But green is the only future, the alternative is death. If you think Greta Thunberg is part of the problem you've got your head on backwards. |
"Energy bills are high mainly because Putin has started a war and is weaponising energy". Unfortunately, if you believe that you'll believe anything. Straight out of the MSM narrative/playbook given to them by their paymasters.
Lockdowns to deal with the Covid 'pandemic' (pandemic my @rse), spiralling energy costs due to the 'war' in Ukraine (war, my @rse). I wonder what's in store next to demolish the middle classes and bring about a brave new 'green' world which is centrally controlled by a few of the 'elite'.
I still remember Russian Bot's posts on here during the Covid 'pandemic'. Everything (s)he said would happen does seem to be happening doesn't it??!!. | | | |
| Energy bills on 13:21 - Aug 25 with 2178 views | GloryHunter |
For those who say that nuclear power is the solution, here are a couple of considerations:
1. A major enricher of uranium and a major supplier of nuclear fuel rods is .... RUSSIA! - https://theconversation.com/russias-energy-clout-doesnt-just-come-from-oil-and-g
2. According to the latest Private Eye, the decrepit state of France's 56 ageing nuclear reactors is so bad that they are having to use increasing quantities of gas for electricity generation. This is having more of an effect on wholesale gas prices (doubled in the last six weeks for 2023 -24 future contracts) than Putin's restriction of gas supplies. |  | | |
| Energy bills on 13:44 - Aug 25 with 2101 views | dolcelatte |
| Energy bills on 13:21 - Aug 25 by The_Beast1976 |
"Energy bills are high mainly because Putin has started a war and is weaponising energy". Unfortunately, if you believe that you'll believe anything. Straight out of the MSM narrative/playbook given to them by their paymasters.
Lockdowns to deal with the Covid 'pandemic' (pandemic my @rse), spiralling energy costs due to the 'war' in Ukraine (war, my @rse). I wonder what's in store next to demolish the middle classes and bring about a brave new 'green' world which is centrally controlled by a few of the 'elite'.
I still remember Russian Bot's posts on here during the Covid 'pandemic'. Everything (s)he said would happen does seem to be happening doesn't it??!!. |
Really? Don't seem to recall the Crypto King predicting the crash in price. |  |
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| Energy bills on 14:00 - Aug 25 with 2021 views | Sonofpugwash |
| Energy bills on 13:05 - Aug 25 by R_from_afar |
Another, simple way of storing energy for when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining is to store water in one lake above another and let it descend and power a turbine. We have had this technology for decades, the Dinorwig pumped storage plant opened in 1984. It's our fastest responding power source.
There are solar power plants in operation *today* which provide round the clock power, though, by storing energy in molten salt.
Tidal plants can provide round the clock power.
We need to also ditch this glib approach to nuclear - and gas - which says oh they are always operational, they are not intermittent like some renewables. They *are* intermittent if your nuclear fuel or gas comes from overseas, you are relying on a supply chain which could break if there are trading issues, a war etc.
Also, nuclear is rarely subjected to the same level of intense scrutiny as renewables. Dig below the surface and you start to uncover some very inconvenient truths about nuclear:
- Plants are on average offline 2 days a month for maintenance and refuelling. Half of the French nuclear fleet is currently offline and being repaired, simultaneously, as we speak
- In this warming world, it is getting difficult to adequately cool nuclear reactors
- They need a lot of water too, Sizewell C has no identified source for the 2m litres of fresh water it needs per day. Not all of the cooling can be done with sea water
- The costs are insanely high. Our current - current - nuclear clean-up bill is £131bn
- We can't build them fast enough to help with supply issues or to counter climate change and global warming. My MP told me in 2013 that we only needed 20 new reactors in order to get 40% of our electricity. Well, his party is in government and is pro-nuclear but has not added a single reactor in that time. These plants take 10 years to build
- Small numbers of very large power plants are actually a bad idea because if one goes offline, you are left with a huge amount of energy to find from somewhere else, and nuclear plants can't back up other nuclear plants efficiently because reactors take time to get up and running, they are not a responsive power source.
Fracking is not going to help us against climate change and now, with water supply becoming an issue in many parts of the country, the huge volumes of water it requires will mean it's drinking water/water for farming *or* water for fracking, not both. Every degree of warming means sea levels will be 2.3 metres higher.
The problem stems from us losing control of our energy supply when we privatised it. How we could think handing critical national infrastructure (water too) over to private companies - with shareholders, many of them not even in the UK - is beyond me. It's insane and means we struggle to control prices and infrastructure is neglected.
We have also dropped the ball when it comes to insulating our housing stock and requiring developers to incorporate energy and water saving features in new buildings.
The green stuff is not the problem, it's the solution. One day, we have to move off fossil fuels because they will either run out, become unaffordable, or the countries supplying them will just keep them for their own use.
We could get all of our energy from renewables but it would be tough, for which reason, I think we have to use some nuclear, not that I think that is ideal on cost and security grounds, and a lot more renewable capacity. Some of that should be from tidal power, it has huge potential for the UK, can deliver a lot of power round the clock, is responsive and the plants have very long operational lives. The French Rance tidal power plant has been doing its thing since the 60s. Adding a lot more pumped storage plants would help give us back-up for the nuclear and renewables and also help with our drought problems.
Another huge positive from increasing our use of local renewable energy would be the security which comes from energy independence. |
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/duped-the-great-hydro-electric-con-trick
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be- [Post edited 25 Aug 2022 14:05]
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| Energy bills on 14:01 - Aug 25 with 2022 views | CamberleyR |
| Energy bills on 13:05 - Aug 25 by R_from_afar |
Another, simple way of storing energy for when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining is to store water in one lake above another and let it descend and power a turbine. We have had this technology for decades, the Dinorwig pumped storage plant opened in 1984. It's our fastest responding power source.
There are solar power plants in operation *today* which provide round the clock power, though, by storing energy in molten salt.
Tidal plants can provide round the clock power.
We need to also ditch this glib approach to nuclear - and gas - which says oh they are always operational, they are not intermittent like some renewables. They *are* intermittent if your nuclear fuel or gas comes from overseas, you are relying on a supply chain which could break if there are trading issues, a war etc.
Also, nuclear is rarely subjected to the same level of intense scrutiny as renewables. Dig below the surface and you start to uncover some very inconvenient truths about nuclear:
- Plants are on average offline 2 days a month for maintenance and refuelling. Half of the French nuclear fleet is currently offline and being repaired, simultaneously, as we speak
- In this warming world, it is getting difficult to adequately cool nuclear reactors
- They need a lot of water too, Sizewell C has no identified source for the 2m litres of fresh water it needs per day. Not all of the cooling can be done with sea water
- The costs are insanely high. Our current - current - nuclear clean-up bill is £131bn
- We can't build them fast enough to help with supply issues or to counter climate change and global warming. My MP told me in 2013 that we only needed 20 new reactors in order to get 40% of our electricity. Well, his party is in government and is pro-nuclear but has not added a single reactor in that time. These plants take 10 years to build
- Small numbers of very large power plants are actually a bad idea because if one goes offline, you are left with a huge amount of energy to find from somewhere else, and nuclear plants can't back up other nuclear plants efficiently because reactors take time to get up and running, they are not a responsive power source.
Fracking is not going to help us against climate change and now, with water supply becoming an issue in many parts of the country, the huge volumes of water it requires will mean it's drinking water/water for farming *or* water for fracking, not both. Every degree of warming means sea levels will be 2.3 metres higher.
The problem stems from us losing control of our energy supply when we privatised it. How we could think handing critical national infrastructure (water too) over to private companies - with shareholders, many of them not even in the UK - is beyond me. It's insane and means we struggle to control prices and infrastructure is neglected.
We have also dropped the ball when it comes to insulating our housing stock and requiring developers to incorporate energy and water saving features in new buildings.
The green stuff is not the problem, it's the solution. One day, we have to move off fossil fuels because they will either run out, become unaffordable, or the countries supplying them will just keep them for their own use.
We could get all of our energy from renewables but it would be tough, for which reason, I think we have to use some nuclear, not that I think that is ideal on cost and security grounds, and a lot more renewable capacity. Some of that should be from tidal power, it has huge potential for the UK, can deliver a lot of power round the clock, is responsive and the plants have very long operational lives. The French Rance tidal power plant has been doing its thing since the 60s. Adding a lot more pumped storage plants would help give us back-up for the nuclear and renewables and also help with our drought problems.
Another huge positive from increasing our use of local renewable energy would be the security which comes from energy independence. |
"The problem stems from us losing control of our energy supply when we privatised it. How we could think handing critical national infrastructure (water too) over to private companies - with shareholders, many of them not even in the UK - is beyond me. It's insane and means we struggle to control prices and infrastructure is neglected."
Spot on RFA. Essential services such as these that we need to exist day to day should NEVER be in private hands run primarily for the benefit of shareholders over customers.
Don't get me started on all that old fanny that was spouted in the late 80s/early 90s about greater competition will mean lower bills. Never was a bigger lie sold to the British public. This has all led to the grotesque circus we find ourselves in now.
I'm a very laid back bloke usually and get angry about next to nothing normally but our energy and water being in private hands REALLY boils my piss. [Post edited 25 Aug 2022 16:37]
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| Energy bills on 14:28 - Aug 25 with 1944 views | Boston |
| Energy bills on 12:03 - Aug 25 by terryb |
From memory, you could use floodlights as long as you used your own generator, but couldn't take energy from the national grid.
I think I recall playing Norwich on a midweek afternoon (and winning), but used a generator to play at night against Plymouth in the League Cup (losing) in the quarter final (?). |
Y'ep. Poor crowd for the Norwich fixture. | |
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