It would seem that successive governments have totally fucked up (Not unusual), their energy policies.
Green rules coming from the EU threaten to plunge Britain into 1970s-style blackouts in three years and lead to energy bills doubling.
Millions could be pushed into fuel poverty – having to choose between heating or eating – because Brussels diktats are closing power stations needlessly, the Government’s energy regulator warned yesterday.
The plants that remain in Britain will not be able to keep up with demand by winter 2015, a dire report from Ofgem predicted.
Each successive government has tried to out-green the last one, which unless this strategy is quickly reversed, will result in rolling blackouts.
Those born after the 1970’s will not realise what misery that caused at the time.
Imagine if you will, in the middle of winter, the electricity in your home is switched off for eight hours in the evening.
No lighting.
No electric cooker.
No kettle.
No central heating
No TV.
No power to sterilise your baby’s bottle.
No hot water for your shower.
No washing machine.
No internet shopping, facebook, E-mail, etc.
Just add all other devices that rely on electricity.
Personally I would relish the fact just to see a few of the new greens dying in their beds. I’m lucky in that I have a very large fireplace and will stockpile logs in the eventuality that blackouts are threatened.
I would also suggest buying a portable generator to power the central heating, and low powered electrical items.
And stock up with candles.
I've had a gas fire put in, and given how much I have insulated, it'll keep the living room hot, and the rest of the house, tolerable, but apart from that, when the electricity goes, we're in trouble.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course, that aint designed to run 24 hours a day seven days a week.
Hoping to move next year, and then we will have a gas range that functions without electricity, and a small woodburner if the gas goes as well.
*If you have an open fire, you need to fit a proper stove, open fires do little to actually warm the house
"If you have an open fire, you need to fit a proper stove, open fires do little to actually warm the house"
ReplyDeleteThey can. What you do is throw out the basket. Then build the fire on the hearth. This cuts out most of the up draught and allows the heat to permeate gently into the room rather than up the chimney.
I have a wood burning stove (its burning away right now!) that heats my house toasty warm, but I plan to get a new one fitted soon that will heat water too. You can boil a kettle, or even cook on the top of them too, if necessary. I plan to stay warm and well fed when the eco-loon's pigeons come home to roost.
ReplyDeleteAnother impact of power cuts is its effect upon the already-stretched NHS budgets.
ReplyDelete9 months after every major power cut comes the inevitable baby-boom:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7006061/After-the-big-freeze-the-baby-boom.html
I fail to understand this fixation with doing everything that the EU tells us to. Why can't we just ignore them like the French and just shrug when questioned muttering the phrase "Well, you know. These things - they take time..."
ReplyDelete"Just add all other devices that rely on electricity."
ReplyDeleteIt's not just the devices in your home - EVERYTHING is now dependent on electricity one way or another. Short term breaks may not be too serious, but consider things like the water supply, sewerage, even the gas distribution system. There is only so much that standby generators can cover (always assuming they can be kept fuelled). When we last had rota cuts the only telephones were landlines, and all exchanges had substantial wet lead acid batteries in dedicated rooms, plus generators in the larger buildings. Now they (and the multiplicity of street corner cabinets and mobile phone masts) rely on smaller sealed batteries, which have a habit of keeling over when asked to work after long periods of "float" duty. Repeated cuts will see these in a semi discharged state which they may not fully recover from.
Wood burners may not be the answer, either. Thanks to the same poxy EU laws, the price of any burnable timber is skyrocketing, and supplies won't be assured. I can see fights breaking out in woods all over the country. A thread at EU Referendum mentioned shrewd industry engineers installing diesel gensets, but a commenter pointed out that yet another EU Regulation will soon re-classify diesel as flammable, leading to potentially tighter restrictions on domestic storage.
A wonderful future the fucking Greens have mapped out for us...
And another thing - the financial aspect. Back when Margaret was battling the miners, cash was the usual method of payment, and many people were still paid that way (weekly). ATM's were few and far between, personal bank accounts weren't that common, and most shops still used manual or basic electric tills. If the lights went out everyday life could continue reasonably well.
ReplyDeleteEven if the disparate devices needed to operate our modern systems can individually cope with loss of power, how well will the mainframe computers deal with constant rebooting of all the remote terminals, etc?
You're quite right MD. Most people cannot comprehend how dependent we are on reliable electricity.
DeletePersonally I'd recommend a ground loop heating system and underfloor heating. Run the heat exchanger from a battery bank topped up by wind/solar/generator - that's heating and hot water sorted. Then you only need to look to cooking as problem. I'd get a two year supply of coal in if I had the space, alcohol stoves(yachting) as a back-up to my gas/paraffin back-up. Oh, and dear Santa, can I have a bore-hole for Christmas please?
ReplyDeleteThe issue, as others have said, is that it will effect everything. Transport, distribution, water, etc. although I think the first to be noticed will be the 'low priority' areas of entertainment - no 24hr dancing with celebrities to numb the masses, they won't be used to 10hrs of testcard anymore.
We were a majority homogeneous population too, just imagine what the cities will be like when/if fuel/food/water/entertainment runs short - the word riot just won't fit!
Move away to some rural area with a food production capacity and a population used to doing without the niceties such as piped gas and water.
Oh dear, I think I'm turning into a doom-saying survival type - does this mean I need to wear camo gear when I go the pub?
I shouldn't worry - there won't be any pubs left before long...
DeleteI drove some 50 miles today and passed 2 large wind farms. Not one turbine was rotating as there was no wind.I could also see that the large offshore turbines in the Solway were not moving either, so where was the electricity being generated? At our gas powered standby station of course. I think that anyone who advocates wind power should be directly coupled to a turbine and have to suffer the consequences .
ReplyDelete