.
.
Andy Shaw has drafted this as a submission the the Govt consultation on energy. Suggestions for improvement welcome.
My submission to the government’s consultation Green Paper on Industrial Strategy.
Questions:
27. What are the most important steps the Government should take to limit energy costs over the long-term?
28. How can we move towards a position in which energy is supplied by competitive markets without the requirement for on-going subsidy?
My submission:
Theresa May’s foreword to the Green paper states “Last summer’s referendum was not simply a vote to leave the European Union, it was an instruction to the Government to change the way our country works – and the people for whom it works – forever.”
The Prime Minister’s spirit is most welcome. It could apply to energy policy, where a bold change in direction and a clear focus is required.
The current ‘trilemma’ of simultaneously finding policies that contribute to meeting climate change targets, guarantee security of supply and minimise energy costs is contradictory and…
View original post 3,044 more words
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
‘Investment in research and development to create new forms of battery storage coupled with a drive to reduce the cost of electricity will enable the transition.’
Will it? Battery storage on an industrial scale may not even be technically possible, regardless of the cost. And reducing the cost of electricity is bound to increase the demand unless some other (non-cost) restraining factors exist.
Links not working for me.
Batteries will only store what is generated, with some loss. They are chemical in nature and so work best in a narrow range of temperatures (and no government White or other colour paper will change that)..
‘If the real costs of the ‘decarbonisation’ project, £300,000,000,000, were widely known and their negligible effect on CO2 emissions was understood, the MPs expenses scandal would look like a tea party.’
Read it and weep – then pay your power bill.
Energy is work – if we go back to the Roman period where many had slaves, that literally meant exchanging food for work. The more food you had, the more slaves you could afford to keep. And in effect a slave owner was living in luxury because they had access to “X-people’s” worth of work.
Today we don’t have slaves but instead we have mechanical devices to do the work. But like Romans we exchange energy for work. And the more mechanical workers we employ the more luxurious our life.
What then does the price of energy mean? The price of a human today is relatively simple: it’s what you can pay them to work. If that is say £20,000 – and that buys the equivalent of 10 slaves-equivalent in mechanical workers/machines , then great. But if the price of energy comes down meaning we can employ 20 slaves-equivalent in mechanical workers then we’re twice as well off.
And at the end of the day, GDP is really a relationship of the average amount of energy we produce per day or “slave equivalent work” done by machines for us because of the energy we produce.
http://scottishsceptic.co.uk/2013/10/18/enerconics-the-relationship-between-energy-and-gdp/
UK government report positive on biomass
03/10/2017 [today]
http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2017/03/uk-government-report-positive-on-biomass.html
‘A report commissioned by the UK Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy…’ – well, there’s your problem
From the PEI story:
However biomass’s doubters remain undeterred. RSPB website pointed out the introduction to the report, stating it “openly admits that ‘bioenergy is not carbon neutral’ because of direct and indirect land use changes. And it goes on to admit that its own emissions calculation methodology is the reason that high-carbon bioenergy is being classified as low carbon and as eligible for subsidy. This is an astonishing admission in a Government-produced report, and suggests the need for urgent action to fix a broken bioenergy policy that could be failing to deliver emissions savings.”
I too am working on a response to questions 27 to 30. The problem with all these consultations is that the submissions never get to the Minister. The civil servants ensure that the Government response to the consultation ignores anything they don’t like. In other words, it is the civil servants who control the policy. Hence we have stupid policy because the civil servants are greenblob and do not understand anything technological.
Someone heard the voters…
Mounting Voter Fury Forces Canadian Renewables Retreat: Subsidies Slashed by $3.8bn
German Power Sector In Massive Trauma As Electricity Giant EON Set To Post Colossal €12.4 BILLION Loss!
By P Gosselin on 10. March 2017
The ‘Energiewende’ (transition to green energies) risks leading to a complete meltdown of Germany’s power generation sector.
– See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2017/03/10/german-power-sector-in-massive-trauma-as-electricity-giant-eon-set-to-post-colossal-e12-4-billion-loss/
The German ‘energy’ plan is a financial disaster.
“Cheap Reliable Energy is the Foundation for Economic Growth.”
A fact that has been known for centuries, but seems to be unknown to Ecoloons and Liberal Progressives. With cheap reliable energy all other, all other things are possible, even a clean environment and prosperity for the poor.
An attack on energy supplies to limit and make them expensive is a crime against humanity…pg
Gas power shortage sees Australia face blackout threat
03/09/2017
By Diarmaid Williams
International Digital Editor
A shortage of gas-fired power generation and gas supply has seen the Australian gas market operator issue a blackout warning.
The country faces a gas crunch from 2019, as a string of outages and electricity price spikes in Australia’s eastern states over the past year highlighted the need for gas-fired generation to shore up power supplies.
“We’re going to see security of both systems, gas and electricity, become more challenging,” Mike Cleary, chief operating officer of the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), told Reuters.
http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2017/03/gas-power-shortage-sees-australia-face-blackout-threat.html
– – –
Re ‘blackout threat’ – Australia is the world’s no.1 coal exporter 😐
Nice to see that you’re back again TB. 🙂
Questions:
“27. —?”
For each energy type, calculate the the average cost/kW charged for all suppliers (including any ‘standing charge’) on a ‘bulk kW’ basis, calculate a ‘stability factor’ (e.g. 10 % below average to reduce cost to the public/industry, 10 % above average to allow for inflation) then ‘tax the supplier’ that charges above this rate. Any revenue can be used to improve household/commercial energy efficiency and facilitate funding for energy diversity. That being said, what happened to the ‘road fund license fee’ and the state of our roads? Needless to say that a ‘ring fence’ is needed.
“28. —?”
Include any ‘subsidy’ with the calculation at ‘Q 27’ for the ‘supplier tax’.
Best regards, Ray.
suricat says: March 12, 2017 at 12:20 am
BTW, any reduction/increase in the ‘petroleum tax’ reflects ‘greatly’ upon inflation. We don’t want to go back to the ‘canal system’ for moving goods around the UK so take care how this inflationary tax is applied. We already have foreign freight companies that employ a ‘reserve tank’ so as to ‘top-up’ with fuel at continental rates to complete their UK tour before re-fuelling outside of the UK.
Best regards, Ray.
… and to keep from freezing to death.
Very good effort. What responsible caring government could possibly want to saddle its citizens with unreliable, expensive, environmentally destructive energy like wind or solar?
“What responsible caring government could possibly want to saddle its citizens…”
The only people the government’s energy department cares about are spivs like “Sir” Reg Sheffield, John Gummer, Chris Huhne, Ed Davey and similar human garbage.
Cheap reliable energy…
A glut of U.S. natural gas is turning into a world glut, hampering efforts by U.S. producers to export their way out of an oversupplied market.
Natural-gas futures have fallen 25% over the past 2 1/2 months.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/gas-glut-reverses-lucrative-2016-trade-1489492959
Just seen now: http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2017/03/edf-mulls-new-gas-fired-power-plant-in-uk-midlands.html
The main point is this at the end: ” flexible generation which can ramp up quickly when demand is high.” JIT (just in time).