-
I think the crux of the matter is whether the government removes the cap, and allows your energy company to charge you whatever they want. Alternative to this would be something like nationalising the suppliers, or subsidising them - some means of pumping money into the system anyway.
So yes - I'd very much recommend obtaining another source of energy, I have.
-
This is Brexit Britain, we can simply burn legal texts, EU regulations, inquiry reports, etc. to keep warm
-
A lot of electricity is generated through gas and all the suppliers are going to be charging at the price cap anyway because otherwise they'll go bust. So electric heating won't be any less expensive. I guess it'd only help if we literally run out of gas, not sure whether that's likely to happen or not.
Invest more into your portfolio of down jackets, rugs and camping stoves/gas IMO
Fireplace/wood-burner people can start collecting up free Metros, which I seem to recall was a topic of discussion on the forum in the past
-
I think we're likely to see gas restricted to businesses, with home-owners able to use it at certain times, if we run low enough (and we have barely any capacity storage).
Which may mean no electricity shortage - but would mean very high prices for electricity.
But! It might be really windy.
-
The odds of you seeing domestic supply interrupted is incredibly small but we might see a "Gas National Emergency" which would see industry being curtailed. There are barely any contracts any more that are classed as uninterruptable so a lot of industry can be shut down as needed. One of the big issues though is that the plan in the past was you shut down the gas generation and fire up the coal which is less and less of an option. The price will drive a lot of the demand down anyway, the three week subsidy of the fertiliser plants ends this week and would now require a subsidy double the cost to deliver the same benefit. Might be flat beer and less goods on the shelves sooner rather than later.
-
I think the issue there is that we don't have a clear view of the second and third order effects - for example, the fertiliser plant shuts down due to gas prices, which knocks out the supply of Co2, which we use to stun animals prior to killing them. We already have a problem there which is going result in 150,000 pigs being killed on the farm. What other issue are there? Well, beer - although apparently they made moves last time this happened to extract Co2 from stages in the brewing process where it was previously released.
Our nuclear reactors are cooled using Co2 - which they may make themselves, but wasn't something I knew before the fertiliser plant shut down.
Anyway - point is, I suspect we don't understand the impact of restricting gas from industry, and given the way our current rulers lurch from crisis to crisis with no planning and no learning it would not surprise me if they have to prioritise industry over consumer this winter due to something no-one has thought of, such as Winscale starting to cook-off.
-
What is the case for it getting worse?
Major energy shortages in China.
Drought in Taiwan screwed up chip production.
Rising fuel prices for agriculture.
Climate change having negative effects on crop yields.
Workers putting in less hours because of COVID protocol at factories and distribution hubs. -
I think we're likely to see gas restricted to businesses, with home-owners able to use it at certain times
I think the reverse. You can't turn off the gas network as air gets into the pipes and then to turn it back on again you have to visit every property. You can't switch it on and off at different times of the day. Big gas users, eg fertiliser and CO2 producers, can turn their gas off.
-
given the way our current rulers lurch from crisis to crisis with no planning
Good news is we don't have to rely on them to make decisions, it is all planned out by network operator and they have a very defined plan in what order things get restricted and shut down. They don't just turn bits off in a reactive way as balancing pressure is a major issue.
prioritise industry over consumer this winter due to something no-one has thought of, such as Winscale starting to cook-off
A bad scenario for the grid is a very cold snap lasting multiple days once the clocks have changed, as that will often see wind production plummet and gas having to come online and heating and lighting demand up very high from 4-7pm. In that case you are likely to see industry responding to shed electrical load, this is fairly common in winter the last few years, standby diesel generators get turned on to move large users off grid, assets turned off etc. It becomes a bigger issue if any other types of generation have to go off for a prolonged and unforeseen reason, last winter a large amount of french nuclear all had maintenance and caused major issues for imports.
-
It’s a good job we aren’t being encouraged to buy electric cars, where would the extra energy come from.
-
Petition to forbid private car use in area equal in size to London’s zones 1 and 2 has collected 50,000 backers
I know it's not really news, but it is a great idea
Howard
Dammit
rhb
frankenbike
deleted
PhilDAS
greentricky
hugo7
davidual
jellybaby
Light_EDDed
neu
villa-ru
Sumo-
Post a reply
About
In the news
Posted by
@Platini
The suggestion (from the chap I linked to) is that gas providers are now pricing at a point that they believe will stop people buying - because they can't or will struggle to meet existing commitments.