Remember this stuff when casting your vote next May. UKIP is the only party with a sensible energy policy. Roundup of (lack of) energy: news by Benny Peiser at GWPF:
Written by Dr. Benny Peiser, GWPF on 28 October 2014
Emergency measures to prevent blackouts this winter have been unveiled by National Grid after Britain’s spare power capacity fell to just 4 per cent. –Emily Gosden, The Daily Telegraph, 27 October 2014
The capacity crunch has been predicted for about seven years. Everyone seems to have seen this coming – except the people in charge. –Andrew Orlowski, The Register, 10 June 2014
National Grid has warned that there has been a significant increase in the risk of electricity shortages and brownouts this winter after fires and faults knocked out a large chunk of Britain’s shrinking power station coverage. The grid operator admitted that in the event of Britain experiencing the coldest snap in 20 years – a 5 per cent chance – then electricity supplies would not be able to meet demand during two weeks in January. –Tim Webb, The Times, 27 October 2014
The UK government will set out Second World War-style measures to keep the lights on and avert power cuts as a “last resort”. The price to Britons will be high. Factories will be asked to “voluntarily” shut down to save energy at peak times for homes, while others will be paid to provide their own backup power should they have a spare generator or two lying around. –Andrew Orlowski, The Register, 10 June 2014
Big businesses are to be offered money to turn off their power to stop Britain suffering from a winter of electricity power cuts. It follows warnings that the number of power cuts has soared in recent years, amid fears that Seventies-style rationing will be needed to ensure supplies can be maintained. –Matt Chorley, Daily Mail, 26 October 2014
Advanced economies view interruptions to power supply as unacceptable. Therefore they typically operate with a great deal of spare capacity allowing them to absorb a substantial number of unexpected events – say 10. However, going into this winter, UK energy policy had reduced our ability to absorb unexpected events substantially. Unfortunately, the UK has now seen three unexpected events before the clock change. Another one or two could cause a serious security of supply event, and a probable surge in wholesale prices. The odds are still that UK will escape a security of supply crunch this winter. But the mere fact that a security of supply crisis is a material possibility is in itself a sign of huge policy failure in our view. –Peter Atherton, Liberum, 20 October 2014
Britain will struggle to “keep the lights on” unless the Government changes its green energy policies, the former environment secretary will warn this week. Owen Paterson will say that the Government’s plan to slash carbon emissions and rely more heavily on wind farms and other renewable energy sources is fatally flawed. He will argue that the 2008 Climate Change Act, which ties Britain into stringent targets to reduce the use of fossil fuels, should be suspended until other countries agree to take similar measures. If they refuse, the legislation should be scrapped altogether, he will say. Mr Paterson will deliver the lecture at the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a think tank set up by Lord Lawson of Blaby, a climate-change sceptic and former chancellor in Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet. – Christopher Hope, The Daily Telegraph, 12 October 2014
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
UK energy policy: throw money around like a drunken lottery winner.
‘Decc failed to get value for consumers, MPs say’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29467442
Minister Ed Davey: ‘To keep the lights on in British homes and businesses we needed to move quickly to secure new capacity and give investors confidence – fast.’
MPs said Decc’s own case showed no benefits to awarding contracts early.
Reblogged this on JunkScience.com and commented:
And our leaders want us to follow the UK’s example?
The EU had a grand vision where they would be a world leader in beating climate change by reducing emissions/converting to renewables; both the UK and Germany believed they could be the flagship countries of the EU grand vision. Unfortunately, the entire thing has become bogged down in messy reality.
Hope for a mild winter.
I think the warnings actually started in 2003, and Christopher Booker has been sounding off about it in the Telegraph since 2006.
Given Baroness Verma’s comment about renewables causing the hiatus in warming, surely the answer is to get rid of all wind turbines before winter.
As a former Brit, it pains me to see such incompetence in UK “leadership”. The only “leader” less competent than those with which you’ve been saddled is the narcissist-in-chief, aka Obama and his revolving-door army of (equally) intellectually dishonest parrots.
This, combined with the mediocre and/or unthinkingly complicit MSM (on both sides of the pond), some days makes me want to shout “Stop the world, I want to get off”!
No wonder the UN (and the EU which seems to “lead the way”) and their respective ever-expanding bureaucratic tentacles have become so powerful where they shouldn’t be – and powerless where they should.
The 2013 report by the Royal Academy of Engineering “GB electricity capacity margin”. Looks like we are at this stage right now, not 2015:
page 17: “Figure 3 illustrates a possible scenario for the end of the year 2015, using the capacity assumptions previously described. This figure shows that in the event of zero wind, two outages and maximum export through interconnectors, the available capacity would be not significantly higher than the top of the peak demand range, as shown by the position of the lower end of the interconnector range bar. This would represent a very thin margin.
We note that the reference scenario in Ofgem’s Electricity Capacity Assessment Report 2013 assumes, in addition to the plant closures and mothballing included in our figures, a further 0.8 GW of CCGT plant to be mothballed before winter 2014/15. Clearly this is an assumption with some uncertainty attached – however, this amount of additional mothballing, in combination with the three stress events, would be sufficient to cause available capacity to drop below the high end of the peak demand range.”
http://www.raeng.org.uk/publications/reports/gb-electricity-capacity-margin
So isn’t it the case that England and perhaps including all of GB are losing 25,000 elderly pro-coal votes each winter?
Hilary Ostrov (aka hro001) says: October 29, 2014 at 7:01 am
As a former Brit, it pains me to see such incompetence in UK “leadership”. The only “leader” less competent than those with which you’ve been saddled is the narcissist-in-chief, aka Obama and his revolving-door army of (equally) intellectually dishonest parrots.
Oh come on, Obama has promoted many leaders even less competent than he! It may be intellectually dishonest parrots, but I observe a total lack of personal integrity, of the whole lot in the US and everywhere else! OK skip Jordan!
The reason why the greenies imagine CO2-AGW is real is because for about 50 years, atmospheric and associated soft sciences have been teaching incorrect radiative physics. The proof is here: http://web.mit.edu/16.unified/www/FALL/thermodynamics/notes/node134.html
This MIT course module teaches that the ‘Stefan-Boltzmann’ equation predicts an energy flux; it does not – the result is the Emittance – the Potential energy flux to a sink at Absolute Zero. The next module teaches that Emittance (W/m^2) = Emissivity (dimensionless). These two appalling mistakes, the rule in US and, I suspect, UK Universities, have led to the fake IPCC modelling and claims.
Only the vector sum of Emittances gives the real, net IR energy flux. There is near zero net CO2-IR from the Earth’s surface. Add in control mechanisms in the atmosphere and net CO2-AGW is near zero. There is no problem, no need for the windmills etc. in a World awash with fossil fuels for at least a century!
The textbooks need correcting. Our trolls who busily push this false physics need to shut up. Students taught incorrect physics should sue their Universities for a return of their fees.
AlecM says:
October 29, 2014 at 9:09 am
“The reason why the greenies imagine CO2-AGW is real is because for about 50 years, atmospheric and associated soft sciences have been teaching incorrect radiative physics. The proof is here: http://web.mit.edu/16.unified/www/FALL/thermodynamics/notes/node134.html”
Ever since Carl’s nonsense!
“This MIT course module teaches that the ‘Stefan-Boltzmann’ equation predicts an energy flux; it does not – the result is the Emittance – the Potential energy flux to a sink at Absolute Zero. The next module teaches that Emittance (W/m^2) = Emissivity (dimensionless). These two appalling mistakes, the rule in US and, I suspect, UK Universities, have led to the fake IPCC modelling and claims.”
Alec, this is precisely correct! However, The S-B equation (the whole thing) correctly determines the maximum possible flux between 2 flat surfaces at 2 different temperatures. If you ever get more, it is time to ask someone to point out “where” you put the PI on the top, rather than on the bottom, “again Will”. Some folk never learn!
“The textbooks need correcting. Our trolls who busily push this false physics need to shut up. Students taught incorrect physics should sue their Universities for a return of their fees.”
Again agreed! This shit has been going on for way to long!
Rick says: ‘The EU had a grand vision where they would be a world leader in beating climate change’
Grand vision? We don’t need no stinkin’ grand vision !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stinking_badges
We’ve had a very warm 10 month period here in the UK – barring August, which was colder than normal. We’ve all got rather used to it being mild. The odds on a cold or very cold winter are starting to stack up meaning that very soon this ‘warm run’ could be about to be rudely interrupted, perhaps very rudely interrupted. In which case Davey is going to need several extra changes of underwear over the coming months.
Right from the first words they have got the solution wrong. It’s easy clowns.
VOTE UKIP and Leave the EU.
oldbrew says: Grand vision? We don’t need no stinkin’ grand vision !
Very true; we never needed it, it could never work even if was needed and it would have been disastrous if they ever tried to make it work. It has all been about politicians’ and activists abuse of power to fuel their own ego trip – a Green manifest destiny to lead the world back to a more harmonious path. All complete mythical rubbish, but it got some incompetent politicians drunk on the idea that they could be ‘men of destiny’.
Sorry, rant over. Does get me angry though; 2 years ago, the estimates were that around 20-30, 000 UK deaths were due to the governments energy mismanagement. That will never be admitted, nor will any more that occur until this situation can be put right.
LOL. Re-read my comment. Maybe several EXTRA changes of underwear; not wishing to cast aspersions on his personal hygiene!
[fixed]
Umm, SST don’t look good, the North is cooling quite quickly now. Hope you all got plenty of flashlight batteries, candles, oil for oil lamps, and plenty of wood for the fire.
E.M. Smith has a nice post on the NH cooling at http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/its-a-bit-cold-in-the-north-oceans/#comment-59717
Back to the 1960s-1970s weather or will it be worse? Climate models can’t say.
Anne Widdecombe takes another pop at the climate doom-mongers
http://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/ann-widdecombe/528569/Ann-Widdecombe-on-Climate-change-Ched-Evans-and-Fiona-Woolf
We’ve had a mild El Nino style fall in the Pacific North West US. If there is a mild winter any where in the world the Warmists cry “SEE!” .But if pensioners are burning their copies of Algore’s various screeds just to stay warm nothing is said..
And now those wit the smart meters can expect to be hacked,
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/30/smart_meter_hackable_for_free_electricity_say_security_reserachers/
Is there no end to the stupidity?
[reply] do you need to ask?