So much delusional thinking and non-sequiturs here it's hard to know where to start. The big one is that the UKdecline started well before net zero was a thing, and has been exacerbated by Brexit (even Farage admits that). Your industrial base wasn't and isn't competitive, less so without EU access. Your financial services are still competitive but are data rather than energy intensive. Which makes the focus on per capita energy consumption nonsense - the key is GDP/kWh where you are street's ahead of the US. The US has half the data centres in world but hasn't been able to use this for global domination of IT or AI so the UK with focus has an opportunity there. But it needs fewer nonsensical articles like this to get that focus in the right place!
Actually I'm up for this debate. Current longest submarine electricity cable to UK is approx 740km.
And my idea isn't that far fetched even if you desire to belittle it. Iceland to UK is around 1400km. Yes in sometimes harsh conditions agreed.
But are you are aware of AAPowerLink? Which will be 4300km in some of the busiest & dense shipping lanes.
But what do I know being a relatively uneducated guy that likes to look in to stuff and further my knowledge.
But I've no doubt that some clever people with nice little suffice titles can solve the energy issues UK is experiencing. Oh, you won't because you cannot defeat puppet governments and globalist cabals. For that you need people with a whole different skill set.
Much obliged David, but isn't this the plan? To force down energy use by taxing it so heavily people use less, thus less needing to be generated to allow big fat state to meet it's pointless targets?
I vaguely remember somewhere some oik on the 'climate change' committee said that we have to force down use through social manipulation: what is taxation if not social manipulation?
I do wonder where it ends though. When unemployment is so high because no one can work who will pay the subsidy - heck, stuff that. How many will die from a lack of clean water?
Price has been used as the blunt instrument to reduce energy usage in the UK. It has been exceptionally successful in that it has hit both domestic and commercial/industrial given the impression that “we” are weaning ourselves of wasteful energy use. In reality, we exported most of our commercial/industrial energy intensive businesses, creating unemployment but with the “benefit” of reduction in energy use, CO2 production; we raised the price to such a level that the domestic market cannot afford to use unless two or more are working. However, this reduction has allowed the intermittent energy alternatives to appear to be useful and making a “difference”, however, had the UK kept pace with America or even just 80% the rolling blackouts would have been an established fact ten years ago.
Somewhere in the mix, everyone forgot that we are a modern economy that needs energy 24/7/365 and relying on intermittent sources means we are relegated to fourth world status, which maybe what the UniParty want, who knows, but when the lights go out as they surely will, it will be YOU the energy user who will be blamed and not the stupid Not Zero policies of the UniParty.
As I received some appreciation for the simple and absolute reality that CO2 is not, and never was the dominant control of Earth Climate, don't stop me now...
I offer another classic reality regarding the measured record of the Holocene, a video from Prof Stefenssen of the Danish Neils Bohr Institute from over a decade ago, who will talk to you even, "I work for my wife" :-). This takes some beating as a simple presentation of experimental reality of Holocene temperature variability in the Greenland ice core record.
Best video I have seen on the stark reality of climate change in Greenland and the effect of CO2as dominat control of climate it simply cannot be.
If you know the CO2 levels of the Holocene interglacial up until 1850 were c.280ppm versus today's 420ppm, this further shows how the Holocene data proves CO2 is not the dominant control of climate change in this current interglacial phase of the tenth 100,000 year period ice age cycle, as it wasn't in prior interglacials of my last reference.
Because it was 2-3 Degrees Kelvin warmer 4,000 years ago, and the oceans were 2 metres higher, when it was 2/3 todays level of CO2. No control there, then.
As anyone who casts even an eye across the well known data can ascertain for themselves. All except the MPs who prefer to lie about it to impose their fraudulent over subsidised and undeliverable solutions to a non problem in the name of their provable lie on the science fact. It has some benefits. It enriches the Ministers, advisors and crony energy company insiders, on the record, from the subsidy trough they created that is destroying your cheap plentiful energy developed economy, by their law, for their profit, at your expense. In the name of a UN treaty based in the provable lie that we must follow, designed to destroy the competitiveness of Western economies and the democracy of its governments by impoverishing its people by its UN creators. It's your money .
Those who govern are dangerous, overtly careless about the people they claim to act in the interests of, and are sort of people who you should not vote for. Thieves and liars, abusers of power. Sinecured lobby fodder at best. And that's the polite, honest and literal description. Brian
Yet it doesn't matter any more. The 'climate change' quangos are embedded deep in the system. They're forced on everything the civil service dos, and therefore everything the CS palms off on the quangrocracy.
The entire state machine is corrupted with this nonsense. Undoing it would take a decade or more of rooting out on weed of the Left at a time only for another to begin lawfare on the next attempt. Remember, May pushed this nonsense into *law*. The first step is undoing that, and that would be met with horrific opposition because so many subsidy grifters rely upon the green con for their mortgages.
It would be the work of decades to cure this cancer - that's why big fat state has pushed it so hard.
I think Britain needs to trade more with Canada for energy.
Saying that, the current energy situation in UK has less to do with supply and more to do with insane policies from successive idiotic nut zero driven governments.
Canadian electricity supply to the US is dominated by exports of hydro power from Ontario to New England. Total exports were 13.2TWh over the past year. US electricity consumption is ~4,200TWh/year, so it's a rounding error.
Much of Canada's gas and oil production is relatively landlocked in Alberta, so it would require costly pipelines to get it to an ocean export terminal, which is why it gets used in the US midcontinent instead. There is some oil offshore but this is limited and not a serious export prospect in useful volume. Uranium is much more internationally tradable, and used to import from Canada. However, with our use now much lower we no longer run the same processing facilities.
The link is clear. Your statement is wrong. Your figures are the percentage of overall imports. The thinking is still somewhat unclear. Where else would USA get electricity from? And 77TWh is only 2% of USA electricity consumption. Probably buying unwanted surplus is doing Canada a favour? How would the UK get electricity from Canada? We have plenty of gas under our feet. Our problem is stupid politicians who don't like fossil fuels as religion, for no provable reason. etc. But Canada is resource rich so there are areas to work with Canada on. So is Australia.
I corrected my comment when it's was pointed out to me.
I'm not saying electricity from Canada. Crude & gas can be shipped over sea. USA already sends LNG a nd lots to the UK. And also wood pellets for biomass generation.
But regarding electricity transmission it is possible. Canada to Greenland, Greenland to Iceland, Iceland to UK to allow for transmission loss. Same for gas. All possible today. It just takes will and investment of course.
We already get crude and gas this way. What does Canada add?
As for a cable? Really? What do you know about HVDC sub ocean cables cost and engineering? Especially in those environments. It may be possible ina science fiction story but makes no sense, does it? As you should know before making such statements, the costs for a short cable on the continental shelf are as much for a short power cord to Europe as it cost to build the same capacity power station in the UK. At the strike prices involved it only makes sense to meet the top few % of peak demand so interconnect is only ever a small part of supply.
As for Laying such an HVDC cable across the deep ocean trenches amongst the icebergs across deep ocean trenches and ridges, that is simply a daft engineering idea, with a ridiculous cost, in a very hostile environment when it fails. We need and can have a sovereign nuclear and gas solution on the Ground here, and to get our own gas out of the ground beneath our feet. Not extract or generate it in Canada 3,500 miles away and get through through a pipe or a cable across the abyssal deep. You really need to do your homework before saying whatever comes into your head wihout any idea of the engineering realites and cost. It need more tha will and investment, it needs understanding. Your suggestions show none. No engineering company in their right mind would have the will to invest in such a project when the alternatives are so much better. Show us the numbers and technology that support your claims in cost per unit energy delivered.. CEng, CPhys, MBA.
I'm going to bow to your credentials because I'm just a guy that looks at things my way. I'll wait for people like you with the knowledge to make a real difference. But you won't. I'll wait for you to tell me why.
As for getting gas & crude from existing methods shouldn't a country have redundancy and competitive pricing?
Again, I'll wait for the change brought about by people with the credentials.
There never was a climate emergency, because we knew that it had been warmer in the past with much lower CO2 levels, so CO2 could never be a significant control of climate, never mind dominant.
There is an Energy emergency, fraudulently imposed in its name, at huge and wholly wasted cost, already over £100Billion, and rising by over £20Billion every year. A total waste of money with no benefits for those made to pay the price of destroying our developed economy that cannot exist without cheap plentiful enrgy available on demand, for manufacturing, transport, heating. All rigged by knowingly fraudulent laws to enrich the lobbyists, politicians and academics in the subsidy and tax troughs.
I don't understand the desperation to declare a 'climate emergency'. It's simply a tax grift for councils to get more funding. Where is the evidence? Where is the proof? What is 'the emergency'? Who is at risk? What are the miigations put in place for it? Who is responsible when it is proven false?
You're entirely right, it's just a con. The entire green farce is nothing more than a tax scam.
Hello me. I did a version of the Vostok Temperature and CO2 record as such statements are better with data. If its not obvious now, I can't help you. Turn up the CO2 thermostat and the earth gets colder? Here is the data at ice age cycle periods, my mark up, and conclusions bottom right. Reference bottom left:
That's what your Government order you you to believe and the media and academic institutions to support. Even taught in schools and Universities, because the oipoliticians say its true. Big brother ow decides what science proves.
So you must pay £10's Billions pa to them and their cronies to stop it happening, while the people doing all the emitting carry on with the cheap, plentiful, clean enrgy, that happens to emit more of the gas we depend on for life, now down to a historically low, near extinction level, compared to the last 500Million years of recorded life on earth. More wpuld be better on every measure of cost and benefit.
Same thing seen in EPICA Dome C Data AND ALSO the rather handy explanation of past temperatures in the earlier part of the current short interglacial in Greenland from Neils Bohr Inst, Prof Stefenssen, 0ver 10 years ago. We only go back to the last interglacial in Greenland, because most of the ice was not here before that, as NASA have discovered.
GRIP Ice Core Peder Stefenssen Results and Implications Video:
POINT: The facts that show our fraudulent con-men at Westminster and their crony elites are enriching themselves from the fake renewables rackets based on a knowing lie that anyone with half an O Level in maths can check - renewables that can never replace fossil, only nuclear can do that as far as generation goes, because their enrgy sources are too weak, inadequate, and fatally intermittent, and humans can't scale sunshine and wind to replace fossil use for heating and transport - Engineering 101. The elctricity companies didn't need to build it for engineers to know it could not do the job claimed for it by politicians, the laws of nature AKA phsyics cannot be fooled by humans, but they were happy to build it and take the easy profits, at our expense, and stay quiet, counting their bonuses..
And these fraudulent rackets are all imposed by law in the name of the very obvious lie they made up about CO2 that you can see for yourselves, laws written by a ignorant zealot Eng Lit graduate PR manager from Friends of the Earth for equally delusional Ed Milliband. Now a Baroness deep in the renewables trough. Heavier than a Duck....
We have known for sure since 2000 that CO2 does not control the climate. It was fairly obvious before that, if you built INCLUSIVE models to establish what changes climate, instead of simply attributing all change to CO2 from human energy use by decree, while excluding any other probable cause, like natural cycles, and massive natural feedback controls that keep us stable in space. Such partial attribution is not science.
No real science has ever shown CO2 controls the climate. The sun heats, te Earth radiates a similar amount back to space, the balance is maintained by the dominant enrgy losses returned to space, of which CO2 has an insignificant effect as regards further change in that energy balance (compared to the cumulative effect than already exists).
It affects it a little but that is easily rebalanced by the larger energy loss response from increased radiation and oceanic evaporation, AKA Earth sweating, that becomes radiation lost to space on condensation. Massive controls that keep Earth in a comfy range.
Simples! The balance point is always changing as the various elements of the balance change, but not by much, over a very long time. Nicely balanced within a few degrees at 288 degrees Kelvin average, between the absolute zero of space and an unshielded fusion furnace. That's how it really works. etc. Go figure.
There are only one set of facts. The ones that the observations confirm. The rest are lies, doesn't matter who says them. I could go on...
Net effect of more CO2 is barely enough to notice. Nature controls the balance. Energy balance science 101. Talks available......
How long can Ed Minibrain and his physics / energy / economics incompetent net zero dementors hide constantly rising electricity bills behind the climate emergency hoax and its arrogant child, net zero?
They’ve closed the last coal fired power station - they’ve not invested in new CCGT or nuclear (most existing will reach EOL in the 2030’s and close), instead, they’re throwing more and more £billions at inept, low generation capacity factor renewables, inc wind, solar & biomass
They’re trying to force the masses into battery cars and heat pumps that will not only crash an already struggling grid and its distribution networks, but increase their electric bills even further
There’s only one reason electricity bills are increasing year on year - Net Zero nonsense
But if the state doesn't keep lying the scam falls apart and all those grifting from it lose out. I don't imagine the BBC would be very happy to see it's entire pension investment collapse, so it'll happily keep pushing out the lies.
My only hope is that labour become so unpopular that they will be unelectable for a generation. Whoever steps in will hopefully stand up for the people of the uk against this global socialism.
Hope is not going to cut it. Even if labour are to be voted out in 4 years time (unlikely due to the skewwing of voter base due to immigration) the next bunch of dross will be no different. This isn't just a UK issue agenda 2030 and then 2050 are global. And if we stay focused on UK the WEF have their fists up all the puppets that would make it to the leaders position.
Before the UK even begins to think about artificial intelligence it should start to use some non-artificial intelligence.
Infrastructure, energy, food and water underpin absolutely everything. Without them health, education, defence, environment, communications and law & order are compromised.
As witnessed in Ireland in recent days, take away the electricity and many things rapidly collapse across a wide area.
For the UK it doesn’t need an extreme weather event, outside interference either onshore or offshore is a distinct possibility. The vulnerability of this premise of always outbidding for supply across interconnectors will one day fail and it doesn’t matter what is in the fabled bottomless answers to everything NESO ‘toolbox’ we will lose supply.
You write “energy austerity is leading to stagnation & poverty”. I don’t think there is any question about it. Stagnation & poverty (& the destruction of our industrial base - what’s left of it) is already here.
Combined with employment rights & NI hikes this year is not going to be pretty.
Nice quote from Elon Musk. I’d say malice rather than stupidity. Why else the recent scorched earth decisions to order the exploratory fracking wells to be sealed up and our plutonium stocks to be buried? Labour is waging war against the people of the UK.
The fall in electricity consumption over recent decades in the UK and USA is in large part due to de-industrialisation. In the UK this was mainly due to our sky-high energy costs whereas in the USA it was mainly due to off-shoring by choice, which MAGA Trump now hopes to reverse.
The Telegraph reports today:
“The amount of electricity used by industry has tumbled since Labour won power after a series of factory shutdowns.
Industrial electricity consumption fell by 3.6pc in the three months from July to September, in what is thought to be one of the sharpest on declines on record. The fall is detailed in the latest government energy statistics published by Ed Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).
The data also shows that the UK’s overall electricity consumption has plummeted to a level last seen in the mid-1980s. Critics of Britain’s net zero policy, including new US energy secretary Chris Wright, have claimed that falling energy use will lead to worsening living standards.”
Yes, deindustrialisation is part of it, but considering the amount of electronic tech that everyone has I'm amazed energy consumption hasn't increased.
"According to a report released by Forbes back in 2017, data centers based in the United States alone utilized more than 90 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity that year. That much energy would require 34 massive coal-powered plants to generate at least 500 megawatts each to meet the power demands of said data centers. However, this figure pales compared to the amount of power needed to run data centers on a global scale, which amounts to 416 terawatts, or approximately 3% of all electricity generated on Earth."
David the US has an energy emergency with all its resources then I would politely suggest the title should be
The Great British Energy Catastrophe
because this is what it is and it doesn't have to be like this. Personally I was happy to see offshore wind and solar on buildings over car parks etc combined with efficient CCGT and nuclear as a way to reduce, not eliminate, our emissions. We had the means to do this in a constructive way over 10-15yr horizon and probably could have built a broad political consensus to deliver it along with UK so called green jobs as well exploiting our existing industrial capabilities in O&G. With Milibrain though we have a deranged Bond villain whose only interested in himself and getting a global job better than his brother. There maybe murmuring in the ranks of the Labour party but i just don't see Starmer doing anything about it as Labour is fragile and he wants to hold it altogether and not get the label your just as bad as the others.
So down we sink slowly into the abyss to an unrecoverable position.
Thank you David! To say that energy IS the economy is but a small exaggeration, though I confess that it's only in the last few years that I've twigged this by reading and thinking. I guess that it still eludes not only the electorate, but the UK's governing class, who would proudly display your last two figures as evidence of the UK's climate leadership. Sad to say, only blackouts will shift things.
As an aside, while we know that energy use per capita is the most meaningful measure of a nation's demand, I wonder if it will be used by those with an agenda to infer that rather than demand declining with the stalling economy, savings have been made by individuals, showing that "demand response" has a key role to play.
We are way off blackouts aside from a severe weather event. NESOs control engineers have all the tools to manage the grid and are adept to the emerging situation in creating solutions albeit expensive but the one resource thats unlimited is how much money they can chuck at it. Thus i just don't see the electorate waking up to what is happening anytime soon to stop or even check Milibrains madness.
We are only way off blackouts so long as we can assume that we have good access to imported electricity via interconnectors. The Norwegian government has just fallen because Norwegians don't like the price implications of exporting so much power over their interconnectors: they get to import the problems at the other ends of the lines as supply is bid to feed them.
How vulnerable are we if Norway decides to cut exports?
Norway->UK 1.4GW North Sea Link
Norway->Germany 1.4GW ->UK 1.4GW NeuConnect from 2028
Norway ->Denmark 1.6GW -> UK 1.4GW Viking Link
Norway ->Netherlands 0.7GW -> UK 1GW BritNed
So we have 4.9GW of supply that is at risk ex Norway. It's a risk anyway if they get a bad snow year which would see Norway become a net importer of electricity with annual production barely above 100TWh from hydro instead of the 140TWh they achieve in good years. Bad years tend to come along in pairs, too.
Not to mention the physical vulnerability of the interconnectors. We have seen how Nordstream was disabled (very likely by USA) and the cables being cut in the Baltic sea.
Well, I'm not entirely convinced about the need for a huge expansion of homegrown artificial intelligence and the vast amounts of energy it will consume, but it's definitely the case that homegrown genuine stupidity is putting the UK at serious risk of economic and social collapse. And I'm not convinced it is JUST stupidity either and neither, amazingly, is the Torygraph. Tin foil hat conspiracy theories about Net Zero have now gone mainstream:
"The furore has laid bare how dangerously exposed we are to energy imports – and exacerbates the urgent need for Britain to become energy self-sufficient – not least when our gas and electricity prices are among the highest in the world. Yet despite fracking leading to an energy (and economic) boom in the US, the energy firm Cuadrilla has announced it will soon start work on plugging the UK’s only two shale gas wells in Blackpool. And on Friday, we learned that more than 10 per cent of farmland in England is set to be diverted towards helping to achieve net zero and protecting wildlife by 2050. The decarbonisation project – which will see swathes of the countryside switched to solar farms – will inevitably put food security and our already fragile farming industry at risk but still the Miliband-led madness continues.
We’ve long feared net zero was a Trojan Horse for the destruction of our capitalist economy. In Labour’s hands, it’s well under way. And should we even get started on immigration? The latest projection from the Office for National Statistics suggests our population will grow to 72.5 million by 2032 – putting yet more strain on our creaking infrastructure. Yet have we heard anything substantive from Home Secretary Yvette Cooper about this? No.
Make no mistake, the Prime Minister and his cabinet pose a Keir and present danger to Britain."
I think the implications of that article may be lost even on the Torygraph, because it was a Conservative PM, Theresa May, who pushed through Net Zero as her 'parting legacy' to the UK and Boris Johnson and then Sunak, who recklessly pursued Net Zero goals when in office, under the pretence of protecting us from Johnson's absurdly characterised 'great tea cosy in the sky' (i.e. alleged planet warming CO2 emissions). If Net Zero is a trojan horse to take down the UK free market capitalist economy, then the Tories are as complicit as Labour.
Totally agree. As I keep banging on, the UK Uniparty (Con/Lab/LibDem/SNP) has been waging war on the people of the UK for many years at the behest of their horrible globalist overlords.
So much delusional thinking and non-sequiturs here it's hard to know where to start. The big one is that the UKdecline started well before net zero was a thing, and has been exacerbated by Brexit (even Farage admits that). Your industrial base wasn't and isn't competitive, less so without EU access. Your financial services are still competitive but are data rather than energy intensive. Which makes the focus on per capita energy consumption nonsense - the key is GDP/kWh where you are street's ahead of the US. The US has half the data centres in world but hasn't been able to use this for global domination of IT or AI so the UK with focus has an opportunity there. But it needs fewer nonsensical articles like this to get that focus in the right place!
Actually I'm up for this debate. Current longest submarine electricity cable to UK is approx 740km.
And my idea isn't that far fetched even if you desire to belittle it. Iceland to UK is around 1400km. Yes in sometimes harsh conditions agreed.
But are you are aware of AAPowerLink? Which will be 4300km in some of the busiest & dense shipping lanes.
But what do I know being a relatively uneducated guy that likes to look in to stuff and further my knowledge.
But I've no doubt that some clever people with nice little suffice titles can solve the energy issues UK is experiencing. Oh, you won't because you cannot defeat puppet governments and globalist cabals. For that you need people with a whole different skill set.
Much obliged David, but isn't this the plan? To force down energy use by taxing it so heavily people use less, thus less needing to be generated to allow big fat state to meet it's pointless targets?
I vaguely remember somewhere some oik on the 'climate change' committee said that we have to force down use through social manipulation: what is taxation if not social manipulation?
I do wonder where it ends though. When unemployment is so high because no one can work who will pay the subsidy - heck, stuff that. How many will die from a lack of clean water?
Price has been used as the blunt instrument to reduce energy usage in the UK. It has been exceptionally successful in that it has hit both domestic and commercial/industrial given the impression that “we” are weaning ourselves of wasteful energy use. In reality, we exported most of our commercial/industrial energy intensive businesses, creating unemployment but with the “benefit” of reduction in energy use, CO2 production; we raised the price to such a level that the domestic market cannot afford to use unless two or more are working. However, this reduction has allowed the intermittent energy alternatives to appear to be useful and making a “difference”, however, had the UK kept pace with America or even just 80% the rolling blackouts would have been an established fact ten years ago.
Somewhere in the mix, everyone forgot that we are a modern economy that needs energy 24/7/365 and relying on intermittent sources means we are relegated to fourth world status, which maybe what the UniParty want, who knows, but when the lights go out as they surely will, it will be YOU the energy user who will be blamed and not the stupid Not Zero policies of the UniParty.
As I received some appreciation for the simple and absolute reality that CO2 is not, and never was the dominant control of Earth Climate, don't stop me now...
I offer another classic reality regarding the measured record of the Holocene, a video from Prof Stefenssen of the Danish Neils Bohr Institute from over a decade ago, who will talk to you even, "I work for my wife" :-). This takes some beating as a simple presentation of experimental reality of Holocene temperature variability in the Greenland ice core record.
Best video I have seen on the stark reality of climate change in Greenland and the effect of CO2as dominat control of climate it simply cannot be.
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/607494244
If you know the CO2 levels of the Holocene interglacial up until 1850 were c.280ppm versus today's 420ppm, this further shows how the Holocene data proves CO2 is not the dominant control of climate change in this current interglacial phase of the tenth 100,000 year period ice age cycle, as it wasn't in prior interglacials of my last reference.
Because it was 2-3 Degrees Kelvin warmer 4,000 years ago, and the oceans were 2 metres higher, when it was 2/3 todays level of CO2. No control there, then.
As anyone who casts even an eye across the well known data can ascertain for themselves. All except the MPs who prefer to lie about it to impose their fraudulent over subsidised and undeliverable solutions to a non problem in the name of their provable lie on the science fact. It has some benefits. It enriches the Ministers, advisors and crony energy company insiders, on the record, from the subsidy trough they created that is destroying your cheap plentiful energy developed economy, by their law, for their profit, at your expense. In the name of a UN treaty based in the provable lie that we must follow, designed to destroy the competitiveness of Western economies and the democracy of its governments by impoverishing its people by its UN creators. It's your money .
Those who govern are dangerous, overtly careless about the people they claim to act in the interests of, and are sort of people who you should not vote for. Thieves and liars, abusers of power. Sinecured lobby fodder at best. And that's the polite, honest and literal description. Brian
The lesson.... be very careful who you vote for!
Yet it doesn't matter any more. The 'climate change' quangos are embedded deep in the system. They're forced on everything the civil service dos, and therefore everything the CS palms off on the quangrocracy.
The entire state machine is corrupted with this nonsense. Undoing it would take a decade or more of rooting out on weed of the Left at a time only for another to begin lawfare on the next attempt. Remember, May pushed this nonsense into *law*. The first step is undoing that, and that would be met with horrific opposition because so many subsidy grifters rely upon the green con for their mortgages.
It would be the work of decades to cure this cancer - that's why big fat state has pushed it so hard.
Yep... But thats what we thought in North America but its being changed now... dont give up.
Canada supplied (2022) USA with 93% of its electricity, 98% of gas, 61% of crude oil (2021) and 28% of uranium imports *edit*
https://connect2canada.com/2022/04/mapping-the-canada-u-s-energy-relationship-2/
I think Britain needs to trade more with Canada for energy.
Saying that, the current energy situation in UK has less to do with supply and more to do with insane policies from successive idiotic nut zero driven governments.
Canadian electricity supply to the US is dominated by exports of hydro power from Ontario to New England. Total exports were 13.2TWh over the past year. US electricity consumption is ~4,200TWh/year, so it's a rounding error.
Much of Canada's gas and oil production is relatively landlocked in Alberta, so it would require costly pipelines to get it to an ocean export terminal, which is why it gets used in the US midcontinent instead. There is some oil offshore but this is limited and not a serious export prospect in useful volume. Uranium is much more internationally tradable, and used to import from Canada. However, with our use now much lower we no longer run the same processing facilities.
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-t-z/united-kingdom#fuel-cycle-facilities-and-materials-front-end
Not it didn't. So wildly wrong. Did you even think before you made that up? Never mind check the data.
I have edited my comment and added imports. Do you dispute the data in the link and its source?
The link is clear. Your statement is wrong. Your figures are the percentage of overall imports. The thinking is still somewhat unclear. Where else would USA get electricity from? And 77TWh is only 2% of USA electricity consumption. Probably buying unwanted surplus is doing Canada a favour? How would the UK get electricity from Canada? We have plenty of gas under our feet. Our problem is stupid politicians who don't like fossil fuels as religion, for no provable reason. etc. But Canada is resource rich so there are areas to work with Canada on. So is Australia.
I corrected my comment when it's was pointed out to me.
I'm not saying electricity from Canada. Crude & gas can be shipped over sea. USA already sends LNG a nd lots to the UK. And also wood pellets for biomass generation.
But regarding electricity transmission it is possible. Canada to Greenland, Greenland to Iceland, Iceland to UK to allow for transmission loss. Same for gas. All possible today. It just takes will and investment of course.
We already get crude and gas this way. What does Canada add?
As for a cable? Really? What do you know about HVDC sub ocean cables cost and engineering? Especially in those environments. It may be possible ina science fiction story but makes no sense, does it? As you should know before making such statements, the costs for a short cable on the continental shelf are as much for a short power cord to Europe as it cost to build the same capacity power station in the UK. At the strike prices involved it only makes sense to meet the top few % of peak demand so interconnect is only ever a small part of supply.
As for Laying such an HVDC cable across the deep ocean trenches amongst the icebergs across deep ocean trenches and ridges, that is simply a daft engineering idea, with a ridiculous cost, in a very hostile environment when it fails. We need and can have a sovereign nuclear and gas solution on the Ground here, and to get our own gas out of the ground beneath our feet. Not extract or generate it in Canada 3,500 miles away and get through through a pipe or a cable across the abyssal deep. You really need to do your homework before saying whatever comes into your head wihout any idea of the engineering realites and cost. It need more tha will and investment, it needs understanding. Your suggestions show none. No engineering company in their right mind would have the will to invest in such a project when the alternatives are so much better. Show us the numbers and technology that support your claims in cost per unit energy delivered.. CEng, CPhys, MBA.
I'm going to bow to your credentials because I'm just a guy that looks at things my way. I'll wait for people like you with the knowledge to make a real difference. But you won't. I'll wait for you to tell me why.
As for getting gas & crude from existing methods shouldn't a country have redundancy and competitive pricing?
Again, I'll wait for the change brought about by people with the credentials.
I think it's important you are precise. Those percentages are of energy imports, not overall electricity, gas or crude.
But yes, the UK would do well to form strategic partnerships with Canada.
Edited.
There never was a climate emergency, because we knew that it had been warmer in the past with much lower CO2 levels, so CO2 could never be a significant control of climate, never mind dominant.
There is an Energy emergency, fraudulently imposed in its name, at huge and wholly wasted cost, already over £100Billion, and rising by over £20Billion every year. A total waste of money with no benefits for those made to pay the price of destroying our developed economy that cannot exist without cheap plentiful enrgy available on demand, for manufacturing, transport, heating. All rigged by knowingly fraudulent laws to enrich the lobbyists, politicians and academics in the subsidy and tax troughs.
More detail here (from me again)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYgLYK-FRIc&lc=UgywMZixsT4AlyhCq2x4AaABAg.9h2DXQiIl0S9h5839S5lAd
I don't understand the desperation to declare a 'climate emergency'. It's simply a tax grift for councils to get more funding. Where is the evidence? Where is the proof? What is 'the emergency'? Who is at risk? What are the miigations put in place for it? Who is responsible when it is proven false?
You're entirely right, it's just a con. The entire green farce is nothing more than a tax scam.
Hello me. I did a version of the Vostok Temperature and CO2 record as such statements are better with data. If its not obvious now, I can't help you. Turn up the CO2 thermostat and the earth gets colder? Here is the data at ice age cycle periods, my mark up, and conclusions bottom right. Reference bottom left:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ke41br3198fg3z11yflxc/2-Vostok-Temp-CO2-EDIT.jpg?rlkey=saf7vji1vei0wjmuqnla2luad&dl=0
That's what your Government order you you to believe and the media and academic institutions to support. Even taught in schools and Universities, because the oipoliticians say its true. Big brother ow decides what science proves.
So you must pay £10's Billions pa to them and their cronies to stop it happening, while the people doing all the emitting carry on with the cheap, plentiful, clean enrgy, that happens to emit more of the gas we depend on for life, now down to a historically low, near extinction level, compared to the last 500Million years of recorded life on earth. More wpuld be better on every measure of cost and benefit.
Same thing seen in EPICA Dome C Data AND ALSO the rather handy explanation of past temperatures in the earlier part of the current short interglacial in Greenland from Neils Bohr Inst, Prof Stefenssen, 0ver 10 years ago. We only go back to the last interglacial in Greenland, because most of the ice was not here before that, as NASA have discovered.
GRIP Ice Core Peder Stefenssen Results and Implications Video:
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/607494244
POINT: The facts that show our fraudulent con-men at Westminster and their crony elites are enriching themselves from the fake renewables rackets based on a knowing lie that anyone with half an O Level in maths can check - renewables that can never replace fossil, only nuclear can do that as far as generation goes, because their enrgy sources are too weak, inadequate, and fatally intermittent, and humans can't scale sunshine and wind to replace fossil use for heating and transport - Engineering 101. The elctricity companies didn't need to build it for engineers to know it could not do the job claimed for it by politicians, the laws of nature AKA phsyics cannot be fooled by humans, but they were happy to build it and take the easy profits, at our expense, and stay quiet, counting their bonuses..
And these fraudulent rackets are all imposed by law in the name of the very obvious lie they made up about CO2 that you can see for yourselves, laws written by a ignorant zealot Eng Lit graduate PR manager from Friends of the Earth for equally delusional Ed Milliband. Now a Baroness deep in the renewables trough. Heavier than a Duck....
We have known for sure since 2000 that CO2 does not control the climate. It was fairly obvious before that, if you built INCLUSIVE models to establish what changes climate, instead of simply attributing all change to CO2 from human energy use by decree, while excluding any other probable cause, like natural cycles, and massive natural feedback controls that keep us stable in space. Such partial attribution is not science.
No real science has ever shown CO2 controls the climate. The sun heats, te Earth radiates a similar amount back to space, the balance is maintained by the dominant enrgy losses returned to space, of which CO2 has an insignificant effect as regards further change in that energy balance (compared to the cumulative effect than already exists).
It affects it a little but that is easily rebalanced by the larger energy loss response from increased radiation and oceanic evaporation, AKA Earth sweating, that becomes radiation lost to space on condensation. Massive controls that keep Earth in a comfy range.
Simples! The balance point is always changing as the various elements of the balance change, but not by much, over a very long time. Nicely balanced within a few degrees at 288 degrees Kelvin average, between the absolute zero of space and an unshielded fusion furnace. That's how it really works. etc. Go figure.
There are only one set of facts. The ones that the observations confirm. The rest are lies, doesn't matter who says them. I could go on...
Net effect of more CO2 is barely enough to notice. Nature controls the balance. Energy balance science 101. Talks available......
How long can Ed Minibrain and his physics / energy / economics incompetent net zero dementors hide constantly rising electricity bills behind the climate emergency hoax and its arrogant child, net zero?
They’ve closed the last coal fired power station - they’ve not invested in new CCGT or nuclear (most existing will reach EOL in the 2030’s and close), instead, they’re throwing more and more £billions at inept, low generation capacity factor renewables, inc wind, solar & biomass
They’re trying to force the masses into battery cars and heat pumps that will not only crash an already struggling grid and its distribution networks, but increase their electric bills even further
There’s only one reason electricity bills are increasing year on year - Net Zero nonsense
But if the state doesn't keep lying the scam falls apart and all those grifting from it lose out. I don't imagine the BBC would be very happy to see it's entire pension investment collapse, so it'll happily keep pushing out the lies.
And now they are talking of dimming the sun. The wind isn't enough.
Dimming the sun won't help those solar panels.
My only hope is that labour become so unpopular that they will be unelectable for a generation. Whoever steps in will hopefully stand up for the people of the uk against this global socialism.
Hope is not going to cut it. Even if labour are to be voted out in 4 years time (unlikely due to the skewwing of voter base due to immigration) the next bunch of dross will be no different. This isn't just a UK issue agenda 2030 and then 2050 are global. And if we stay focused on UK the WEF have their fists up all the puppets that would make it to the leaders position.
Before the UK even begins to think about artificial intelligence it should start to use some non-artificial intelligence.
Infrastructure, energy, food and water underpin absolutely everything. Without them health, education, defence, environment, communications and law & order are compromised.
As witnessed in Ireland in recent days, take away the electricity and many things rapidly collapse across a wide area.
For the UK it doesn’t need an extreme weather event, outside interference either onshore or offshore is a distinct possibility. The vulnerability of this premise of always outbidding for supply across interconnectors will one day fail and it doesn’t matter what is in the fabled bottomless answers to everything NESO ‘toolbox’ we will lose supply.
Artificial Intelligence is here to replace Natural Stupidity, namely that in government (side of the house is irrelevant).
You write “energy austerity is leading to stagnation & poverty”. I don’t think there is any question about it. Stagnation & poverty (& the destruction of our industrial base - what’s left of it) is already here.
Combined with employment rights & NI hikes this year is not going to be pretty.
Nice quote from Elon Musk. I’d say malice rather than stupidity. Why else the recent scorched earth decisions to order the exploratory fracking wells to be sealed up and our plutonium stocks to be buried? Labour is waging war against the people of the UK.
The fall in electricity consumption over recent decades in the UK and USA is in large part due to de-industrialisation. In the UK this was mainly due to our sky-high energy costs whereas in the USA it was mainly due to off-shoring by choice, which MAGA Trump now hopes to reverse.
The Telegraph reports today:
“The amount of electricity used by industry has tumbled since Labour won power after a series of factory shutdowns.
Industrial electricity consumption fell by 3.6pc in the three months from July to September, in what is thought to be one of the sharpest on declines on record. The fall is detailed in the latest government energy statistics published by Ed Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).
The data also shows that the UK’s overall electricity consumption has plummeted to a level last seen in the mid-1980s. Critics of Britain’s net zero policy, including new US energy secretary Chris Wright, have claimed that falling energy use will lead to worsening living standards.”
Non-paywalled copy here: https://www.yahoo.com/news/industrial-decline-sparks-slump-uk-130000902.html.
Yes, deindustrialisation is part of it, but considering the amount of electronic tech that everyone has I'm amazed energy consumption hasn't increased.
"According to a report released by Forbes back in 2017, data centers based in the United States alone utilized more than 90 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity that year. That much energy would require 34 massive coal-powered plants to generate at least 500 megawatts each to meet the power demands of said data centers. However, this figure pales compared to the amount of power needed to run data centers on a global scale, which amounts to 416 terawatts, or approximately 3% of all electricity generated on Earth."
https://cc-techgroup.com/data-center-energy-consumption/
David the US has an energy emergency with all its resources then I would politely suggest the title should be
The Great British Energy Catastrophe
because this is what it is and it doesn't have to be like this. Personally I was happy to see offshore wind and solar on buildings over car parks etc combined with efficient CCGT and nuclear as a way to reduce, not eliminate, our emissions. We had the means to do this in a constructive way over 10-15yr horizon and probably could have built a broad political consensus to deliver it along with UK so called green jobs as well exploiting our existing industrial capabilities in O&G. With Milibrain though we have a deranged Bond villain whose only interested in himself and getting a global job better than his brother. There maybe murmuring in the ranks of the Labour party but i just don't see Starmer doing anything about it as Labour is fragile and he wants to hold it altogether and not get the label your just as bad as the others.
So down we sink slowly into the abyss to an unrecoverable position.
Thank you David! To say that energy IS the economy is but a small exaggeration, though I confess that it's only in the last few years that I've twigged this by reading and thinking. I guess that it still eludes not only the electorate, but the UK's governing class, who would proudly display your last two figures as evidence of the UK's climate leadership. Sad to say, only blackouts will shift things.
As an aside, while we know that energy use per capita is the most meaningful measure of a nation's demand, I wonder if it will be used by those with an agenda to infer that rather than demand declining with the stalling economy, savings have been made by individuals, showing that "demand response" has a key role to play.
We are way off blackouts aside from a severe weather event. NESOs control engineers have all the tools to manage the grid and are adept to the emerging situation in creating solutions albeit expensive but the one resource thats unlimited is how much money they can chuck at it. Thus i just don't see the electorate waking up to what is happening anytime soon to stop or even check Milibrains madness.
We are only way off blackouts so long as we can assume that we have good access to imported electricity via interconnectors. The Norwegian government has just fallen because Norwegians don't like the price implications of exporting so much power over their interconnectors: they get to import the problems at the other ends of the lines as supply is bid to feed them.
How vulnerable are we if Norway decides to cut exports?
Norway->UK 1.4GW North Sea Link
Norway->Germany 1.4GW ->UK 1.4GW NeuConnect from 2028
Norway ->Denmark 1.6GW -> UK 1.4GW Viking Link
Norway ->Netherlands 0.7GW -> UK 1GW BritNed
So we have 4.9GW of supply that is at risk ex Norway. It's a risk anyway if they get a bad snow year which would see Norway become a net importer of electricity with annual production barely above 100TWh from hydro instead of the 140TWh they achieve in good years. Bad years tend to come along in pairs, too.
Not to mention the physical vulnerability of the interconnectors. We have seen how Nordstream was disabled (very likely by USA) and the cables being cut in the Baltic sea.
Well, I'm not entirely convinced about the need for a huge expansion of homegrown artificial intelligence and the vast amounts of energy it will consume, but it's definitely the case that homegrown genuine stupidity is putting the UK at serious risk of economic and social collapse. And I'm not convinced it is JUST stupidity either and neither, amazingly, is the Torygraph. Tin foil hat conspiracy theories about Net Zero have now gone mainstream:
"The furore has laid bare how dangerously exposed we are to energy imports – and exacerbates the urgent need for Britain to become energy self-sufficient – not least when our gas and electricity prices are among the highest in the world. Yet despite fracking leading to an energy (and economic) boom in the US, the energy firm Cuadrilla has announced it will soon start work on plugging the UK’s only two shale gas wells in Blackpool. And on Friday, we learned that more than 10 per cent of farmland in England is set to be diverted towards helping to achieve net zero and protecting wildlife by 2050. The decarbonisation project – which will see swathes of the countryside switched to solar farms – will inevitably put food security and our already fragile farming industry at risk but still the Miliband-led madness continues.
We’ve long feared net zero was a Trojan Horse for the destruction of our capitalist economy. In Labour’s hands, it’s well under way. And should we even get started on immigration? The latest projection from the Office for National Statistics suggests our population will grow to 72.5 million by 2032 – putting yet more strain on our creaking infrastructure. Yet have we heard anything substantive from Home Secretary Yvette Cooper about this? No.
Make no mistake, the Prime Minister and his cabinet pose a Keir and present danger to Britain."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/31/labour-cabinet-keir-and-present-danger/
Keir Starmer and his cronies are literally a greater threat to the UK than even Hitler was. Energy is everything.
Non-paywalled copy here: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/labour-politicians-aren-t-just-191937547.html.
I think the implications of that article may be lost even on the Torygraph, because it was a Conservative PM, Theresa May, who pushed through Net Zero as her 'parting legacy' to the UK and Boris Johnson and then Sunak, who recklessly pursued Net Zero goals when in office, under the pretence of protecting us from Johnson's absurdly characterised 'great tea cosy in the sky' (i.e. alleged planet warming CO2 emissions). If Net Zero is a trojan horse to take down the UK free market capitalist economy, then the Tories are as complicit as Labour.
Totally agree. As I keep banging on, the UK Uniparty (Con/Lab/LibDem/SNP) has been waging war on the people of the UK for many years at the behest of their horrible globalist overlords.
Not forgetting that the massive peak in immigration was driven by Boris' relaxation of immigration rules for students and dependents etc.
Under Sunak we were getting over 250,000 a year from India alone. It was probably a quiet deal he did with Modi when visiting.