Global Warming on Free Republic
Posted on 10/06/2012 12:01:20 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
In its strongest ever warning, Ofgem said there may have to be “controlled disconnections” of homes and businesses in the middle of this decade because Britain has not done enough to make sure it has enough electricity.
The regulator's new analysis reveals the risk of power-cuts is almost 50 per cent in 2015 if a very cold winter causes high demand for electricity.
It predicts Britain will face power shortages because old coal and oil plants are being forced to shut down under the European Union’s environmental regulations. This will partly be replaced by wind farms, but they are less reliable and can only generate electricity in the right weather conditions.
Ofgem believes the lack of spare power generation “could lead to higher bills”, which are already at record high of £1,300 per year.
The report will be a blow to Ed Davey, the new Energy Secretary as sweeping reforms in the new Energy Bill will come too late to avoid the squeeze in 2015–the year of the next election.
Whitehall sources said there is very little the Government can now do to avoid the risk of black-outs in the middle of the decade.
It will take around three or four years to build any new gas plants and it would be very difficult to build more coal plants under European rules.
“It may be that we will sail through the danger period without any problems,” the source said. “But if things do start to go wrong, we may be in trouble.”
Alistair Buchanan, chief executive of Ofgem,said Britain's energy system is struggling under the pressure of the “unprecedented challenges” of a global financial crisis, tough environmental targets and the closure of ageing power stations.....
....."industrial demand will be disconnected first, then household demand if the former is not sufficient".....
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Thanks AGR.
Its coming to America unless obama loses.
I have seen this and have a standby generator installed as I no longer trust any govt agency.
Add the government "healthcare" to the mix and you might see a trend in what happens when the government runs "businesses". I was glad to hear Romney speak what had been reserved for Conservative pundits: The government doesn't run anything as cheaply or efficiently as the Private Sector...
Just in case you thought otherwise, perhaps it should be made clear that government doesn't run power generation in Britain...hasn't done since Thatcher privatised the industry in the 1980s.
I guess you have never heard of spinning reserve.
If hot weather is forecast these plants are started up and kept running at low power, perhaps not even on the grid, in case they are needed.
British winter preppers ping.
Global Warming on Free Republic
I lived in England for a while, I was cold the whole time I was there.
I’d like to see the whackjob-econuts tied to their windmill blades. Let them ride around and around for a day or two.....might joggle some sense into their brains.
sounds good to me. Have you seen the youtube videos of what happens when those things burn out and explode? And the eco-nuts are worried about pipelines!
Then, of course, there are the thousands of birds the turbines kill every year. Don’t even get me started again on what the EPA and the lefties are doing to our standard of living!
I didn't realize that she had done that and assumed that it was still similar to the days when many had to feed a box coins to get a period of electricity. Thanks for clarifying.
The idiocy of leftist policies is finally coming home to roost.
Less-well off people can still choose to have electricity “on the meter”, that still exists, but it’s a financial choice, rather than an imposition
It's true that electric power use peaks in the summer because of A/C, but the winter load is increasing. A major cold wave like we had in the DC area in early 1994 will cause a large number of heat exchangers to switch to resistive heating and the increased demand could cause blackouts with catastrophic results. In my apartment building in 1994 there were dozens of units that froze and then flooded simply because the heaters could not keep up.
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