England, Scotland & Wales about to be hit with massive increase in electricity prices

[oggbashan]

Some of the UK's Members of Parliament are unhappy because the government is likely to approve a massive increase in the number of electricity pylons for the National Grid.

That will make electricity supply more flexible because if the wind is blowing in the West and not in the East, wind-generated electricity could be transferred across the country. We already have a link, through the Channel Tunnel to France because our peak demands do not coincide. When France needs more power it can be sent from England and vice-versa.

An improved National Grid would also be more able to cope with downtime at nuclear and conventional power stations by enabling power to be switched around.

Pylons are not pretty; neither are on-shore wind farms. There will be more opposition to particular proposals even though most MPs accept that an upgrade to the National Grid is essential.

[trysail]

Originally Posted by oggbashan

Some of the UK's Members of Parliament are unhappy because the government is likely to approve a massive increase in the number of electricity pylons for the National Grid.

That will make electricity supply more flexible because if the wind is blowing in the West and not in the East, wind-generated electricity could be transferred across the country. We already have a link, through the Channel Tunnel to France because our peak demands do not coincide. When France needs more power it can be sent from England and vice-versa.

An improved National Grid would also be more able to cope with downtime at nuclear and conventional power stations by enabling power to be switched around.

Pylons are not pretty; neither are on-shore wind farms. There will be more opposition to particular proposals even though most MPs accept that an upgrade to the National Grid is essential.

Og-
The ability to wheel power from off-peak areas to peak areas will undoubtedly help. Larger issues, however, remain:

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/bl...ind-words.html

[oggbashan]

Originally Posted by trysail

Og-
The ability to wheel power from off-peak areas to peak areas will undoubtedly help. Larger issues, however, remain:

The issues are larger than the blog you linked to.

Much of Europe's fuel supplies come from regions and countries that are unstable politically. Producing power from our own resources, such as wind, tide and wave, even if expensive, provides a buffer against fluctuations in external supply and market volatilities.

[trysail]

Originally Posted by oggbashan

The issues are larger than the blog you linked to.

Much of Europe's fuel supplies come from regions and countries that are unstable politically. Producing power from our own resources, such as wind, tide and wave, even if expensive, provides a buffer against fluctuations in external supply and market volatilities.

A diverse source of supply is prudent. Tick the box that says, "All of the above."


"All of the above" includes nuclear, coal, natural gas, petroleum, solar, wind and tide from a wide geographic spread of producers.


I think it's fair to suggest that the cost of some of those sources is being intentionally hidden from public view.

[oggbashan]

Originally Posted by trysail

...I think it's fair to suggest that the cost of some of those sources is being intentionally hidden from public view.

Not in the UK. The figures are easily available and are used to justify the surcharge on power bills.

Years ago, when I was trading as a secondhand bookshop, my electricity bills had an 8% surcharge to help fund the change to environmentally-friendly power generation. That applied to all commercial power supplies.

Now it is being applied to domestic power supplies too.

There are some UK grants available towards the costs of reducing your power needs, such as home insulation, draught-proofing, installation of solar power for hot water and electricity - but the householder either has to be on means-tested benefits or else must pay for most of the cost themselves.

Modern houses are being built to be more energy-efficient with better insulation values and more use of natural light. We have a long way to go to meet the standards common in Scandanavian houses twenty years ago.

[trysail]

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/bl...tastrophe.html

In the UK, the Climate Change Act 2008 has set the country the challenging target of reducing emissions of CO2 and CO2 equivalents by 34% from 1990 levels by 2020, 50% by 2027, and 80% by 2050, though the 2027 target is subject to review in 2014. Coupled with rising demand and the already painful impact of higher energy prices, meeting this target will be challenging indeed, leaving some engineers to wonder what it will take to square this cirde.


The number of installations required to generate the electricity to replace fossil fuels depends on their capacity and availability. A 1,600 MW Areva-type nuclear reactor working at 80% availability generates 11 TWh/yr, so around 13 would need to be built to meet the 2020 target; an impossible task. A 3 MW wind turbine with 75 m blades on an 80 m mast onshore has achieved average availability of around 24%, while for offshore 30% future availability is claimed yielding 6.3 GWh/yr and 7.9 GWh/yr respectively. To meet the 2020 target would require 20,000 and 16,000 turbines respectively, an equally impossible task over nine years (six to be built every day). The 2027 target is even further out of reach.


more...
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/bl...tastrophe.html

[oggbashan]

At present I can see three offshore wind farms from my house totalling about 300 turbines. The nearest one will be expanded next year from 30 to 45 turbines, while to the East, out of sight, another 400 are being installed now.

[amicus]

To be both succinct and banal at the same time (try that) the Global Warming Hoax and the Green Energy Scam, is going to penalize the common man with higher prices for electricity and a lower standard of living. (Read Solyndra et al)

Ogg knows that, but he continues to be the apologist.

such a deal...

ami

[off2bed]

Originally Posted by oggbashan

The issues are larger than the blog you linked to.

Much of Europe's fuel supplies come from regions and countries that are unstable politically. Producing power from our own resources, such as wind, tide and wave, even if expensive, provides a buffer against fluctuations in external supply and market volatilities.

How politically stable is England?

[oggbashan]

Originally Posted by off2bed

How politically stable is England?

Probably more than the US. The political parties have difficulty finding issues that divide them because they are both centrist. Both are committed to the welfare state, the National Health Service and a mixed economy.

As for energy, shale deposits in England could produce natural gas for our needs for decades to come if the environmental concerns could be overcome. The scale of the deposits is potentially greater than the whole North Sea.

[off2bed]

Originally Posted by oggbashan

Probably more than the US. The political parties have difficulty finding issues that divide them because they are both centrist. Both are committed to the welfare state, the National Health Service and a mixed economy.

Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!!

Fool.

You'll soon run out of other people's money. Then you'll be Greece.

[oggbashan]

Originally Posted by off2bed

Fool.

You'll soon run out of other people's money. Then you'll be Greece.

Then why have we got a better credit rating than the US?

[amicus]

Heh, heh, Ogg, good one....Moody's was a wake-up call for the US; they have already discounted any possibility of recovery for you folks and the moochers are cashing in.

The money men will make a killing before the downfall...read it and weep, old sod.

ami

[trysail]

http://oilandglory.foreignpolicy.com...eaches_england



The shale gas bonanza -- along with its critics -- comes to England
By Steve LeVine
Thursday, September 22, 2011

The shakeup over shale gas -- a newly available fuel that has overturned assumptions about energy, climate-change and geopolitics -- has now stretched across the Atlantic to England. A drilling company backed by John Browne, the former CEO of BP, says it has discovered the gas equivalent of up to 35 billion barrels of oil. In oil, a find of 1 billion barrels is regarded as a supergiant.

Until now, the United States has been the epicenter of the shale gas disruption. This gas is locked into barely porous shale rock a mile and more beneath the surface of the Earth. Over the last few years, drillers have extracted the gas using a method called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking -- injecting a mixture of water, chemicals and sand at high pressure into the rock -- which has produced a bonanza of new supplies in the United States. Estimates are that it is sufficient to meet current U.S. consumption for a century.

Since gas emits just a third to a half the CO2 as coal, this gas glut -- to the degree it results in an accelerated shift away from coal-fired to gas-fired power plants -- could lower U.S. emissions of heat-trapping gases. As for geopolitics, the gas has already had the boomerang effect of casting doubt on Russia's economic and political leverage in Europe -- Russia supplies more than a quarter of Europe's gas, but the shale gas glut has challenged that market dominance.

All this impact has led to a search for shale gas elsewhere, especially in Europe and China.

Yet with the shale gas comes a backlash of local politics. In the U.S., drillers have been confronted with a furious protest movement of critics who say fracking contaminates drinking water supplies. In Europe, the protests have preceded any discoveries -- in the summer, for instance, France banned fracking.

Now, a U.K. company called Cuadrilla Resources says it has indications that a formation called the Bowland Shale is comparable in scale to the best U.S. finds, reports Guy Chazan at the Wall Street Journal. Cuadrilla's Dennis Carlton told Bloomberg's Ben Farey that the thickness of the gas-laden shale -- 3,000 feet in places -- is up to 10 times that of the ultra-rich Marcellus Shale that underlies New York and Pennsylvania. Cuadrilla's main investors include the hedge fund Riverstone Holdings, which is run by former BP CEO Browne.


That is just gas in place. What actually can be extracted will be much less. But the announcement caused much excitement in both directions -- from those enthused that the U.S. bonanza can be repeated on the other side of the Atlantic, and groups that wish to stop it.

As the company made its announcement in the Imperial Hotel in the city of Blackpool, a small protest was held out on the street by a group called Campaign Against Climate Change, the BBC reports. WWF, an environmental group, urged the U.K. government to call a moratorium on shale gas drilling, and instead to focus its efforts on development non-fossil fuel technologies. These critics are invigorated by two earthquakes that happened in the area in June, after which the company halted drilling.

That John Browne is the money behind this venture is ironic. In his long tenure, Browne rebranded BP into the green oil company, casting the company's name as meaning "Beyond Petroleum." His apparently successful into shale gas goes the other direction as far as critics are concerned.


http://oilandglory.foreignpolicy.com...eaches_england

[trysail]

It's a godsend for the U.K. if the estimates prove out. Only time will tell.


_____________________

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...-gas-find.html



Riverstone-Backed Cuadrilla Makes U.K.’s Largest Shale-Gas Find
By Ben Farey
September 21, 2011

Cuadrilla Resources Ltd., a private-equity backed shale-gas explorer in the U.K., said drilling results indicated its license area in northwest England may hold 200 trillion cubic feet of the fuel.

“We’ve got a very sizable resource in place,” Dennis Carlton, executive director of Cuadrilla Resources, said in a phone interview from Blackpool, England. “Without drilling individual units within the thick shale we don’t know what the recovery factor will be.”

Two exploration wells near the seaside resort of Blackpool found shale formations almost 10 times as thick as typical U.S. deposits, Carlton said. Hydraulic fracturing, a process that uses water, sand and chemicals to smash apart rocks and release trapped fuel, reversed declines in U.S. natural-gas output and made it the world’s largest producer.

As many as seven exploration wells may need to be drilled, fractured and tested before more information can be given about recoverable reserves, he said. Investors in Cuadrilla include Riverstone Holdings LLC, led by former BP Plc Chief Executive Officer John Browne, and AJ Lucas Group Ltd. (AJL)

“In the Marcellus, if you have a 300- to 400-foot interval, that’s on the high side,” he said, referring to one of the largest U.S. shale-gas basins. “We’ve got 3,000 foot of shale.”

The U.K.’s largest shale resource found to date is equivalent to 5.6 trillion cubic meters, or about three times Norway’s existing, proved reserves. Norway is the second-largest gas exporter to Europe and the biggest foreign supplier to Britain.

Recover Fraction
Cuadrilla is likely to be able to recover only a fraction of the gas trapped in the rocks. The U.K.’s technically recoverable shale resources are 20 trillion cubic feet, the U.S. department of Energy said in an April report.

The company has 1,200 square kilometers (300,000 acres) under license in northwest England, covering 80 to 90 percent of the shale in the area, he said.

“We’ve got the best of the best, at least in the Bowland basin,” he said.

North Sea gas production is declining and the U.K. is increasingly reliant on imports to meet Europe’s highest demand for natural gas.

Cuadrilla voluntarily halted fracking at its operations in June after “small tremors” were reported in the area, according to its website. The company will submit a report to the Department of Energy and Climate Change in October, Carlton said.

Carlton estimated a “mid-case” scenario of drilling 400 production wells from 40 well pads in the future. To date they have drilled two exploration wells and have historical data from three 10- to 15-year-old wells drilled by British Gas.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...-gas-find.html

[off2bed]

Originally Posted by oggbashan

Then why have we got a better credit rating than the US?

It's only a matter of time.

[amicus]

In the entire spectrum of the Global Warming, Green/Alternative Energy scenario, hard cold facts indicate the wind, solar, tidal and geothermal sources could supply at best fifteen percent of energy demands.

Think on that.

Without Nuclear and fossil fuel generation, you get electricity in your home for about four hours a day. Can you live with that.

Do you want to?

just askin'

ami

[amicus]

Trysail....Oil is at about $76.00 this morning...care to inform us about your $150.00 a barrel?

Amicus

[trysail]

Nobody can accurately and consistently predict the short term course of earnings, stock prices, interest rates or petroleum prices. I don't try.


When you see some buffoon forecast these things with an air of certainty, you can be assured of one thing: you're listening to either a fool or a charlatan ( a/k/a a salesperson ).

History would suggest that either petroleum is overpriced v. natural gas or that natural gas is underpriced v. petroleum.

WTI vs. Henry Hub natural gas:

[trysail]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-1...gas-bills.html



Cameron Says He’s Determined to Cut U.K. Electricity, Gas Bills
By Eddie Buckle
October 16, 2011

Prime Minister David Cameron said he’s determined to do all he can to bring down energy bills for Britons, as he prepares for a meeting today with gas and electricity suppliers and consumer groups.

“Energy bills have increased by more than 100 pounds ($158) for most people since this summer,” Cameron wrote in an article for the consumer website www.moneysavingexpert.com, according to his office. “These price rises couldn’t come at a worse time for consumers who are already feeling the pinch from rising petrol prices and the cost of the weekly shop.”

Today’s meeting, hosted by Cameron and Energy Secretary Chris Huhne, will include representatives of Electricite de France SA, Centrica Plc (CNA), SSE Plc, EON AG, RWE AG (RWE) and Iberdrola SA (IBE)’s Scottish Power. The six companies supply 99 percent of Britain’s electricity and natural gas. Ofgem, the U.K. energy regulator, will also be at the talks.

Ofgem said last week that “radical” changes are needed to create a simpler, more competitive market for retail energy customers. The regulator and the government are seeking to encourage new companies to enter the market to put pressure on the “big six,” as well as promote smarter energy use.

U.K. inflation probably accelerated in September to a three-year high. Consumer prices rose 4.9 percent from a year earlier, compared with 4.5 percent in August, according to the median of 35 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. The Office for National Statistics will publish the data at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow in London.

“Today we are bringing together the industry, consumer groups and Ofgem for an energy summit that will focus on getting people the help they need to reduce their bills in time for this winter,” Cameron wrote. “We are determined that everything that can be done will be done to help people bring their energy bills down.”


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-1...gas-bills.html

[koalabear]

I&M Electric has already been granted a 22% rate hike in the Midwest.

[vetteman]

Originally Posted by koalabear

I&M Electric has already been granted a 22% rate hike in the Midwest.

Wait until Obama starts shutting down coal mines.

[koalabear]

Originally Posted by vetteman

Wait until Obama starts shutting down coal mines.

Thank God for global warming this winter.

[vetteman]

Originally Posted by koalabear

Thank God for global warming this winter.

No need for heat.

[Karen Kraft]

Originally Posted by vetteman

Wait until Obama starts shutting down coal mines.

Disturbing as it may seem to most people, business could simply ignore all of the federal regulations that stand in their way. They would receive notices, warnings, citations, be "red-tagged," and so on, but just keep doing whatever they wish.

Imagine Boeing's new 787 plant being 0bama's Ruby Ridge / Waco. It would never happen. Why? Because the government doesn't really care about any of their stupid regulations. They only pass them at the insistence of special interest groups that contribute to their respective reelection campaigns. By the time they get done "investigating" in Congress, blaming the Department of Justice and the other federal agencies for the lack of enforcement, 787s will be sold by the score here and abroad.

Just say no to 0bama.

Simple as that.