Energy Bills

[sidcow]

1 hour ago, CVByrne said:

I think the best solution is to cap energy prices at a level and then pay for that via debt which will be paid back by an energy levy over 10/20 years or whatever. It's basically removing the current energy shock and spreading that over next 10/20 years. This is what we do anyway during crisis for the economy, like recently we did with Covid. 

The levy is a % of your bill so more you spend on energy the more you pay in levy. Energy bills will still be very high but not outside of the bounds of historical (as per the Sky video posted a few days back). People will still try to use less energy which will help too. We just need a mild winter now as well to help everyone

And all the while making renewable energy cheaper by comparison and lowering payback times for investments in renewable energy.

[sidcow]

it still seems bonkers to me that one single nation can cause such global chaos that current pricing can increase by several multiples of what was being paid previously and it could take 20 plus years to repay it.  It's just crazy stuff.

[CVByrne]

Just now, sidcow said:

it still seems bonkers to me that one single nation can cause such global chaos that current pricing can increase by several multiples of what was being paid previously and it could take 20 plus years to repay it.  It's just crazy stuff.

It's mostly Germanys fault really. Why they and other countries turned away from Nuclear Power is because they could buy cheap gas from Russia. Yes Japan was hit by a Tsunami and had the Fukashima disaster. But are we really thinking that type of risk exists in Europe? Look at France and their successful Nuclear power plants. 

Renewable sources of energy including Nuclear power is the way forward and everyone has learnt their lessons. 

[blandy]

8 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

But are we really thinking that type of risk exists in Europe?

There are 2 nuclear power stations in Ukraine about which there has been ongoing extreme concern in the past 6 months Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia.

[CVByrne]

6 minutes ago, blandy said:

There are 2 nuclear power stations in Ukraine about which there has been ongoing extreme concern in the past 6 months Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia.

I meant Germany / France etc. Countries with Nucelar weapons such as UK / France are not under same threat of invasion as Ukraine. So extending our use of Nuclear power really doesn't run the risks Japan does (for natural disasters) nor Ukraine (no Nuclear weapons but Nuclear power).

[Genie]

30 minutes ago, sidcow said:

it still seems bonkers to me that one single nation can cause such global chaos that current pricing can increase by several multiples of what was being paid previously and it could take 20 plus years to repay it.  It's just crazy stuff.

and we don’t even buy that countries product which it’s now holding back. In theory we should be largely unaffected.

Russia is now selling its gas on the cheap to India and China. We can’t even buy our own gas from the North sea on the cheap.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Genie

[blandy]

8 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

I meant Germany / France etc. Countries with Nucelar weapons such as UK / France are not under same threat of invasion as Ukraine. So extending our use of Nuclear power really doesn't run the risks Japan does (for natural disasters) nor Ukraine (no Nuclear weapons but Nuclear power).

Sure. I agree, NATO nations are safer, but my point is that stuff we never expect to happen can and does happen, be that war in Europe or tsunami in Japan. Nuclear is IMO not the solution, or at least not the best solution because of the extraordinary danger it presents if anything goes wrong. The spent fuel, too is lethal for 10s of thousands of years

[Jareth]

2 hours ago, bickster said:

Gas isn't getting more scarce though. Russia has plenty of it, it's being forced to sell it cheaply to non-European countries, India et al will continue to buy from Russia as long as the price is cheap enough. They therefore will not require the more expensive gas they were buying from elsewhere, that gas will then be bought by those missing Russian gas but the market then takes a hell of a long time to adjust to that

The article had a few holes in it - but I assume they meant in the meantime there will be a greater scramble to purchase the more expensive non-Ruski gas, if consumers are going to keep merrily using it, because apparntly any cap freeze is a greenlight for the poor to start using wok burners. 

[blandy]

1 minute ago, Jareth said:

apparntly any cap freeze is a greenlight for the poor to start using wok burners.

That’s a completely flawed argument they make. People are struggling now and cutting back on energy usage and that’s before the predicted “help” which will see the cost per unit increase further (though not by as much as it would do with no “help”)

[Xann]

15 minutes ago, blandy said:

.., Zaporizhzhia.

The prevailing wind heads straight for the Russian border, over much of the most fiercely contested battlefront.

If it's going bang? That's a new and even more loony no win phase.

[Jareth]

17 minutes ago, blandy said:

That’s a completely flawed argument they make. People are struggling now and cutting back on energy usage and that’s before the predicted “help” which will see the cost per unit increase further (though not by as much as it would do with no “help”)

Tory 'thinkers' assume everyone is as comfortable as they are, their lack of empathy is inbuilt. Still it's one in the eye for them, I accessed their article by turning off Java. 

[sidcow]

1 hour ago, CVByrne said:

It's mostly Germanys fault really. Why they and other countries turned away from Nuclear Power is because they could buy cheap gas from Russia. Yes Japan was hit by a Tsunami and had the Fukashima disaster. But are we really thinking that type of risk exists in Europe? Look at France and their successful Nuclear power plants. 

Renewable sources of energy including Nuclear power is the way forward and everyone has learnt their lessons. 

I think Russia must share an incy wincy bit of the blame too. 

I don't see Nuclear as a solution at all. 

Horrendously expensive (the projected October price rises only just make the electricity cost the UK Government negotiated for Nuclear price competitive with the market), horrendously dirty with radioactive spoil and highly dangerous (there have already been nuclear incidents, some nearly catastrophic in this country). 

The answer is Solar and Wind (MASSIVELY cheaper than Nuclear and Gas and getting cheaper all the time) coupled with grid scale battery storage and roof top solar with house battery storage.  Plus community heating projects and community heat storage. 

The ridiculously expensive build cost of the 8 Nuclear sites plus the horrendous running costs, less the electricity price difference would easily pay for all this stuff but the Government are idiots and just can't think that long or even short term. 

They dithered for years about the Nuclear that they actually WANTED to build.  

Edited September 7, 2022 by sidcow

[Xann]

23 minutes ago, blandy said:

Nuclear is IMO not the solution, or at least not the best solution because of the extraordinary danger it presents if anything goes wrong. The spent fuel, too is lethal for 10s of thousands of years

YES.

Nuclear as anything but a stopgap is not the way to go.

Look at how feet have been dragged moving away from burning hydrocarbons.

Putin has exploited the situation created by the oil and gas industry's machinations over decades to keep us dependent on their products.

It's the oil words removed that have made us vulnerable to blackmail, whilst they went about destroying the planet.

We fought wars for these pricks too, and now they're rinsing us.

Nuclear comes in? Chortle, chortle, business as usual. More misdirection, more lobbyists, more bought politicians, more disinformation, more suppression of alternative solutions and more problem waste.

[CVByrne]

57 minutes ago, Genie said:

and we don’t even buy that countries product which it’s now holding back. In theory we should be largely unaffected.

Russia is now selling its gas on the cheap to India and China. We can’t even buy our own gas from the North sea on the cheap.

It's a global supply / demand issue. If Germany has to buy gas off a new supplier who normally supply UK then the price of the gas will go up as the demand has gone up. 

[Genie]

Just now, CVByrne said:

It's a global supply / demand issue. If Germany has to buy gas off a new supplier who normally supply UK then the price of the gas will go up as the demand has gone up. 

Yes I get it, it’s frustrating that we can’t even buy our own supply cheap. It’s all done on an international level. 

We cut our reliance on Russian gas but are still completely **** over by those that did not.

[sidcow]

4 minutes ago, Xann said:

YES.

Nuclear as anything but a stopgap is not the way to go.

Look at how feet have been dragged moving away from burning hydrocarbons.

Putin has exploited the situation created by the oil and gas industry's machinations over decades to keep us dependent on their products.

It's the oil words removed that have made us vulnerable to blackmail, whilst they went about destroying the planet.

We fought wars for these pricks too, and now they're rinsing us.

Nuclear comes in? Chortle, chortle, business as usual. More misdirection, more lobbyists, more bought politicians, more disinformation, more suppression of alternative solutions and more problem waste.

I think the difference is they just can't make Nuclear cheap, it's just impossible. So market forces will just dictate renewables as the way forwards. 

Solar panels are going to get cheaper and more efficient. More and more people will install them after this shit. 

Wind farms will get bigger and cheaper and more efficient.  Even if Government refuses to sanction more, those that exist can replace their existing turbines with bigger more powerful ones thereby increasing output and making it cheaper. 

Home batteries are going to get bigger capacity and cheaper.  You'll be able to store days of electricity in your garage soon. 

I just don't see any future where Nuclear will be able to compete with renewables. 

[CVByrne]

40 minutes ago, blandy said:

That’s a completely flawed argument they make. People are struggling now and cutting back on energy usage and that’s before the predicted “help” which will see the cost per unit increase further (though not by as much as it would do with no “help”)

Exactly this, we are capping the bills at a set price. We are capping the cost per unit of energy (gas/electricity) at a level higher than it currently is but in the top bound of historically % of income spend on energy (I think it was 8%). If we do that, yes energy price are high so people will still conserve energy not use more of it

[chrisp65]

1 hour ago, CVByrne said:

It's mostly Germanys fault really. Why they and other countries turned away from Nuclear Power is because they could buy cheap gas from Russia. Yes Japan was hit by a Tsunami and had the Fukashima disaster. But are we really thinking that type of risk exists in Europe? Look at France and their successful Nuclear power plants. 

Renewable sources of energy including Nuclear power is the way forward and everyone has learnt their lessons. 

Risk is very subjective.

When Chernobyl happened in 1986 we couldn’t have believed we were in too much risk here in the UK.

But radioactive fall out contaminated farm land here that meant some farmers weren’t allowed to sell produce from some farms until 2012.

Land thousands of miles from Chernobyl, contaminated to unsafe levels for 26 years.

We are constantly reassured that lessons are learned. There is always one more unforeseen variation on nuclear accidents.

The risk from nuclear, from nuclear designed and controlled and funded by foreign powers, when cheaper alternatives already exist, is pretty close to madness.

[CVByrne]

I just believe the short terms risk of Nuclear power plants vs the longer term risk of Climate change is the right trade off. The world will not get to where we need to, in the time we need to, on wind, solar and hydro power. 

Nuclear power is clean in terms of carbon. We can review the situation in 30+ years when we've massively reduced our carbon emissions

[chrisp65]

Just now, CVByrne said:

I just believe the short terms risk of Nuclear power plants vs the longer term risk of Climate change is the right trade off. The world will not get to where we need to, in the time we need to, on wind, solar and hydro power. 

Nuclear power is clean in terms of carbon. We can review the situation in 30+ years when we've massively reduced our carbon emissions

I’m not sure 30 years is a timescale lethal radioactivity works on.

Nuclear absolutely is not clean. It’s not clean, it’s not cheap. It’s not safe. It’s also not a short term solution, they are decades in the planning and take a generation to pay for. The actual useful life of a nuclear power station is less than the repayments. We haven’t worked out how to make the existing installations safe and now the idea is to locate one outside every town.

It’s insane. We absolutely cannot guarantee safety for all nuclear facilities for the lifespan of the radioactivity. If anyone suggests we can, they just don’t understand what they are guaranteeing. We already have the alternatives. I know its not popular with some on here, but the alternatives include reduced demand.