Electric cars.

[dad_of_jon]

And for those worrying about using an EV to go to the local shops, these two have just driven from the magnetic North Pole to the South Pole in a Nissan Ariya (with modified suspension/tyres but standard powertrain/battery pack), with the help of a trailer with wind turbine and solar panels. He'd previously driven from the UK to Siberia in a Leaf.

https://poletopoleev.com/View attachment 93485

In my recent trip to Finland I saw plenty of ebikes in the snow, so that gives me more confidence I can use mine in reduced temps. It was down to -21.5 not counting wind chill but mainly around -7. Apart from the decreased range, but then in weather that cold i'm hardly likely to do anything but cycle to one of my fave pubs. Either 2 miles (JDW best 5.2% punk i've ever had served there) or Beerriff 8 miles or the pilot 7 miles. Assuming a 20% drop in capacity and 90% charge is good for 40 miles should have lots of leeway.

 

[MashBag]

And for those worrying about using an EV to go to the local shops, these two have just driven from the magnetic North Pole to the South Pole in a Nissan Ariya (with modified suspension/tyres but standard powertrain/battery pack), with the help of a trailer with wind turbine and solar panels. He'd previously driven from the UK to Siberia in a Leaf.

https://poletopoleev.com/View attachment 93485

I can see that being a bugger to park at Sainsbury's

 

[JockyBrewer]

This is all sensible.

I would point out the promise of long lasting led lighting ....

LED bulbs are now a reality in our daily lives. They offer the longest durability, between 30,000 and 50,000 working hours or more. They are made of very durable materials and are only sensitive to high temperatures.

This is a total misinterpretation of reality. the LED itself may well last 30,000 - 50,000 hours, however work out how long your lights are on a day divide that by 365 and that gives you how many years they should last. My figures give 10-12 years. I dont think so, I've tried various brands and get 2-5 years out of them because the electronics in the bulb fail not the light emitting diode. planned obsolescence. Yet you are or were being charged a premium on the promise of a 10 yr light bulb.

So it's not surprising at the lack of trust some people have with energy saving technologies.

I wish those who claim their product could last 10 years being subject to legal action for knowingly misdirecting the public with incorrect use of known data.

My experience has shown a big difference between makes of bulb.

I bought a dozen generic dimmable bulbs back in 2015 from LED Hut, and they nearly all died within 2 years. As you say it looked like the electronics died rather than the LEDs themselves.

I replaced them with Philips branded LED bulbs, shortly followed by every other bulb in the house in the next couple of years and not a single one out of now 30+ bulbs has failed in over 6 years.

 

[Bernie]

And for those worrying about using an EV to go to the local shops, these two have just driven from the magnetic North Pole to the South Pole in a Nissan Ariya (with modified suspension/tyres but standard powertrain/battery pack), with the help of a trailer with wind turbine and solar panels. He'd previously driven from the UK to Siberia in a Leaf.

https://poletopoleev.com/View attachment 93485

They had a magnet in the car to help with the traction.

 

[MattH1973]

But it's the current state of technology that is primarily pushing us in that direction - (our legal obligation to) net zero is relatively marginal in that, it just pushes some of the gas generation into other forms. But the mix advocated by the government advisors in the report I mentioned above (as I say, do read it if you're interested in this stuff even if it's far from perfect) seems an ambitious but doable place to aim for - 70% wind/solar, 20% nuclear/biomass/tidal, 8% storage, 2% gas in 2035.

And the fact is that the entire nuclear fleet of France saw availability in the real world drop as low as 35%, which is not just lower than offshore wind, it's barely more "reliable" than onshore wind.

The fact remains nuclear is just stupidly expensive compared to the alternatives, and that's before you get to how slow it is to build. Gordon Brown's government decided in principle to build new nuclear power stations in 2008, and Hinkley Point was named as one of 8 sites in 2010 - but it won't produce electricity until 2028 at the earliest. At that rate, any new nuclear wouldn't come on stream until 2041 - can we afford to wait that long? Not that any government is going to announce new nuclear sites a year before an election.

If government advisors are saying 15-20% nuclear and 2% gas is plausible for 2035 then let's have that as a starting point ....

Interesting posts - a few thoughts.
- I certainly agree that we need a secure energy supply, and that's more likely if we produce energy here.
- When you say "35% availability" for France do you a) mean 35% of nuclear capacity available or b) nuclear only generated 35% of what it would ordinarily need to generate to meet French demand. ? It strike me that b) would be a stronger argument against over dependence on nuclear then a). Following the disaster that was the quality of SAGE advice and modelling during the pandemic I am not really minded to trust panels of "experts" - the climate change committee has an agenda to hit net zero, and in my view is giving insufficient attention to maintaining our quality of life.
- I think the point on the cost of nuclear is key. it strikes me that the UK is now catastrophically bad at building infra from both a cost and timeline perspective - HS2 being the obvious example, where we seem to find projects orders of magnitude harder than similar projects even as close as France - put to one side whether it was a good idea or not, it is hugely concerning how problematic it was to implement. I think this is why so many people are sceptical about the energy transition - they doubt our ability as a country to manage it without major issues like huge power cuts. There is therefore a temptation to cling on to what we know.
- small point but our legal obligation to make an energy transition should be of only marginal relevance. Parliament is sovereign and it can repeal bad laws. However unlikely that may be, I get tired of politicians telling us we have to do something because it is the law - we elect them as lawmakers such that the law can be changed to carry out the public's wishes. They have a lot more to do to convince people about net zero - eg on cost - if renewables are now much cheaper than fossil then when will we actually see bills drop ? Annie singing "Tomorrow" comes to mind....

This point has been vastly overplayed, it's not relevant in most cases. A badly insulated house will be colder than a well insulated house and need more energy and a bigger more-expensive heating system to keep it warm. That's true regardless of whether it uses a gas boiler or heat pump, and the heat pump will still work out cheaper. If the insulation is that bad then current energy costs mean you have a strong incentive to improve it, the payback time is pretty short.

This is also interesting. I agree with you that the heat pump horror stories are likely overplayed, but i think it probably is right that some people have had bad experiences when the tech is immature. I have no doubt the tech will improve - but personally I am worried about my house. We have loft insulation and double glazing, but we have solid walls and no easy means to upgrade the radiators. I get mixed messages about whether a heat pump can work for me and I'd be interested what you think.

My worry is that. whilst it is true i use extra fossil fuels to heat a moderately insulated house, my worry is that the delta with a heat pump would be much higher - or in practice the house would just be too cold. I'm therefore cautious about this new technology. The approach of too much stick (ban this, tax that) and not enough carrot doesn't help as it just breeds resentment. Once the new products are proven to be better and cheaper the migration will happen naturally.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

My experience has shown a big difference between makes of bulb.

+1.

Particularly with compact fluorescents, which also showed two other factors at play. One was that the technology got a lot more reliable within a fairly short time as they got the hang of making them. The other was that these things either break quickly - within a few months - or go on forever, I think I still have the odd CFL hanging round the house in low-use areas. But if you have a population of bulbs where 10% break within months and 90% break after 11 years, the average is a 10-year lifespan. The question you need to ask is what the distribution is like.

FWIW I mostly use the B&Q own-brand LEDs and I've had one dimmable that was obviously faulty from the start, one that died after about a year, the rest (8+) are still going.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

- When you say "35% availability" for France do you a) mean 35% of nuclear capacity available or b) nuclear only generated 35% of what it would ordinarily need to generate to meet French demand. ? It strike me that b) would be a stronger argument against over dependence on nuclear then a).

It was a), but given that nuclear plants are treated as baseload that generally run if they are available, there's not much difference between a) and b).

Following the disaster that was the quality of SAGE advice and modelling during the pandemic I am not really minded to trust panels of "experts" - the climate change committee has an agenda to hit net zero, and in my view is giving insufficient attention to maintaining our quality of life.

But you obviously trust some people - what have they done to earn your trust? There's a shocking amount of misinformation out there, with some newspapers reliably unreliable on issues like this. Ignore those who say "my mate says", the people to listen to are the ones that show their working, at least then you can engage with actual data rather than trying to second-guess people's motivations or resorting to ad hominems.

I don't think you appreciate just how far the technology has come on, there's nothing stopping us from creating a reliable grid based on variable renewables from a technical POV, it's more about social and market factors, like capacity payments. And I could equally say that you give insufficient attention to the realities of importing gas from the Gulf (which just in the last few days has stopped taking the direct route through the Red Sea due to missile attacks), and the practicalities and costs of building new nuclear stations.

- I think the point on the cost of nuclear is key. it strikes me that the UK is now catastrophically bad at building infra from both a cost and timeline perspective - HS2 being the obvious example, where we seem to find projects orders of magnitude harder than similar projects even as close as France - put to one side whether it was a good idea or not, it is hugely concerning how problematic it was to implement.

Railways are a bit different, as France is so much less densely populated than the UK, it's easier to thread new routes through empty places. I would note that Hinkley Point is being built by a French company and is coming in at about the same cost/GW as the same design built in France. Nuclear is just blinking expensive. And of course that's a big point to consider, voters exercising their sovereign right not to have nuclear stations in their back yard, versus planning issues around windfarms out to sea.

- small point but our legal obligation to make an energy transition should be of only marginal relevance. Parliament is sovereign and it can repeal bad laws.

Which is why I mentioned it as a footnote, the main thing driving renewables is the huge reductions in cost over recent years, and the increased risks to imported energy. Renewables are about low cost and security of supply.

They have a lot more to do to convince people about net zero - eg on cost - if renewables are now much cheaper than fossil then when will we actually see bills drop ? Annie singing "Tomorrow" comes to mind....

Well this is why it's so important to eliminate high-cost forms of electricity like imported gas, at the moment our entire electricity supply is priced off the most expensive kWh. Unfortunately we have too much imported gas versus not enough renewables but for instance in Q2 of this year consumers got a rebate from the scheme that guarantees prices for new renewables of £16.82/MWh, whereas the most it has ever cost us was £10.97/MWh in Q2/3 of 2021. But it's buried in row 14 of tab 7b in Ofgem's Wholesale cost allowance methodology v1.18, Annex 2 of their latest update, so the fact that the "subsidy" mechanism has actually saved the average 2.7MWh/year consumer about £55 this year probably hasn't made it to your preferred media sources. Less Annie, more these guys.

We have loft insulation and double glazing, but we have solid walls and no easy means to upgrade the radiators. I get mixed messages about whether a heat pump can work for me and I'd be interested what you think.

Obviously I can't say anything meaningful over t'internet but in principle I think you should be fine, it sounds like you're somewhere in the C/D region of EPCs. You may be interested in the Electricification of Heat study which installed 742 heatpumps in a representative sample of British houses, from Scotland to southern England :

"The project has not identified any particular type or age of property that cannot have a successful heat pump installation. The suggestion that there are particular home archetypes in Britain that are “unsuitable” for heat pumps is not supported by project experience and data."

12% of properties were rejected on "technical grounds" - mostly for either being too big, too expensive (they had a £15k cost cap in some places) or too noisy (mostly an issue in small flats where storage heaters are probably a more cost-effective option anyway). 15% of the ones they did install needed insulation improvements - mostly just loft insulation, in a few cases things like new doors. 27 out of the 742 needed noiseproofing.

"The majority of homes where a heat pump was installed had an Energy Performance Certificate rating of C or D."

Broadly -if you have double glazing and loft insulation, you'll be in that range.

The radiator thing gets complicated but it's mostly based on the fact that many British houses have "small" radiators sized for the "high" temperature water from a gas boiler. But you can now get high-temperature heat pumps that deliver water at the same temperature as a gas boiler, so the problem largely disappears. Yes they add about 10% to the cost of an installation, but that's still a heck of a lot cheaper than £10k to replace all your radiators. And yes, they are about 10% less efficient in high-temperature mode (so eg a COP of 3.3 drops to 3.0) but according to monitoring of the EoH project, you hardly ever need to use them in high-temperature mode in the real world in the UK so it's rather academic.

Also it's worth noting that even on the coldest days, with average temperature during the day of -6C, the median systems were still operating at a COP of 2.44.

 

[JockyBrewer]

@Northern_Brewer thats an awesome amount of information, thanks!

Just one question - £10k to replace radiators? I’m assuming that includes replumbling the entire system?

 

[jof]

Very few people seem to know that you can get air-air heat pumps.
It's been around for years - it's air conditioning.
This is far cheaper to install if your current heating is ducted warm air as you only pay for the heat pump & not a whole load of new radiators, piping, hot water tank etc.
The downside is you will still need an immersion heater for hot water.

 

[Benfleet Brewery]

My experience has shown a big difference between makes of bulb.

I bought a dozen generic dimmable bulbs back in 2015 from LED Hut, and they nearly all died within 2 years. As you say it looked like the electronics died rather than the LEDs themselves.

I replaced them with Philips branded LED bulbs, shortly followed by every other bulb in the house in the next couple of years and not a single one out of now 30+ bulbs has failed in over 6 years.

I think you are right. There are a lot of poor quality ones out there giving the good ones a bad name. I had the same experience as you with the Lumilife lamps from LED hut so I ended up getting Megaman ones. The 12 Megaman 3w G9 lamps I fitted in 2016 are all still going strong today.

 

[MattH1973]

But you obviously trust some people - what have they done to earn your trust?

Which is why I mentioned it as a footnote, the main thing driving renewables is the huge reductions in cost over recent years, and the increased risks to imported energy. Renewables are about low cost and security of supply.

Well this is why it's so important to eliminate high-cost forms of electricity like imported gas, at the moment our entire electricity supply is priced off the most expensive kWh. Unfortunately we have too much imported gas versus not enough renewables but for instance in Q2 of this year consumers got a rebate from the scheme that guarantees prices for new renewables of £16.82/MWh, whereas the most it has ever cost us was £10.97/MWh in Q2/3 of 2021. But it's buried in row 14 of tab 7b in Ofgem's Wholesale cost allowance methodology v1.18, Annex 2 of their latest update, so the fact that the "subsidy" mechanism has actually saved the average 2.7MWh/year consumer about £55 this year probably hasn't made it to your preferred media sources. Less Annie, more these guys.

Yes - really good info, thanks. A few more thoughts and questions:

- I rarely trust assertions. What i do trust is evidence, particularly an actual track record of delivering cheap and secure energy in sufficient quantities. Whilst there are issues with gas prices since the Ukraine war, the long term record of fossil fuels in providing affordable and secure energy, leading to massive increases in quality of life since the industrial revolution, is very strong. Whilst I obviously agree that we shouldn't waste energy and pollute avoidably, this needs to be balanced against maintaining our quality of life. Sometimes the demand of the eco zealots - eg wanting to ban new north sea oil and gas, whilst accepting the inevitable consequence is even more imported gas in the short term - are too extreme for me. If people cannot maintain their quality of life - eg. heating, eating and travel - it will likely lead to chaotic outcomes (like extreme leaders and wars) that wont be good for the environment either.

- what i really dont understand about renewables is this (and I promise it is a sincere question). If they are so much cheaper then why is so much subsidy and incentivisation required to drive a transition ? Following on from that, is a question about the time horizon - i can see they may be cheaper since the utility bill spike caused by the Ukraine war - but would they be cheaper when gas prices return to historic levels ? And why are utility retail prices taking so long to come down then - according to ofgem - wholesale prices have long since dropped? Clear and transparent answers to these questions will be vital to convince the wider public on this.
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-data-and-research/data-portal/wholesale-market-indicators
I have a feeling the an answer may lie in your reference to row 14 in tab 7b above (!) but i'd be really grateful if you can explain in laymans terms.

To go back on topic - there's an analogy here with the electric car debate after Sunak pushed back the deadline. The zealots argued absurdly that this would make life more expensive for consumers because electric cars are (or perhaps, will soon be) cheaper than ICE equivalents. If that is true then the govt deadline wont really matter as the transition will surely happen naturally, driven by market forces.

 

[JockyBrewer]

Yes - really good info, thanks. A few more thoughts and questions:

- I rarely trust assertions. What i do trust is evidence, particularly an actual track record of delivering cheap and secure energy in sufficient quantities. Whilst there are issues with gas prices since the Ukraine war, the long term record of fossil fuels in providing affordable and secure energy, leading to massive increases in quality of life since the industrial revolution, is very strong. Whilst I obviously agree that we shouldn't waste energy and pollute avoidably, this needs to be balanced against maintaining our quality of life. Sometimes the demand of the eco zealots - eg wanting to ban new north sea oil and gas, whilst accepting the inevitable consequence is even more imported gas in the short term - are too extreme for me. If people cannot maintain their quality of life - eg. heating, eating and travel - it will likely lead to chaotic outcomes (like extreme leaders and wars) that wont be good for the environment either.

It will likely lead to chaotic outcomes if we don't transition quickly as we will end up with a sustained disrupted food supply. Flooding in lowland areas currently used for farming (e.g. East Anglia) as sea levels rise. Drought in other parts of the world causing crop failure. That's not even a future thing as places like Florida are already finding their agriculture disrupted.

4.7 million people are supposedly already in food poverty in the UK - how many more before things become 'chaotic'?

- what i really dont understand about renewables is this (and I promise it is a sincere question). If they are so much cheaper then why is so much subsidy and incentivisation required to drive a transition ?

It is actually happening. Although licenses are being granted for North Sea exploration, it's really as a last resort. Getting oil and gas out of there is way more expensive than putting wind farms in the same places... which is what is happening. The question is whether we should be relying upon cheap imported oil and gas? We've seen what happens when someone like Russia turns off the taps, what happens if a middle eastern country did the same?

Following on from that, is a question about the time horizon - i can see they may be cheaper since the utility bill spike caused by the Ukraine war - but would they be cheaper when gas prices return to historic levels ? And why are utility retail prices taking so long to come down then - according to ofgem - wholesale prices have long since dropped? Clear and transparent answers to these questions will be vital to convince the wider public on this.
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-data-and-research/data-portal/wholesale-market-indicators

Spot market prices have come down, but to secure an ongoing supply the energy suppliers buy contracts that last several years ahead. A bit like a fixed mortgage rate that's beneficial when prices rise during the contract, but you don't get an immediate benefit if they go down.

To go back on topic - there's an analogy here with the electric car debate after Sunak pushed back the deadline. The zealots argued absurdly that this would make life more expensive for consumers because electric cars are (or perhaps, will soon be) cheaper than ICE equivalents. If that is true then the govt deadline wont really matter as the transition will surely happen naturally, driven by market forces.

I don't think it'll matter now. People are buying electric cars because they work and they're cheap to charge at home. I doubt whether the transition would have happened anywhere near as soon without some level of government intervention though. Having certainty of a future event allows for companies to plan and invest over several years (e.g. in manufacturing electric vehicles or charging infrastructure).

 

[Rodcx500z]

gas out of there is way more expensive than putting wind farms in the same places... which is what is happening. The question is whether we should be relying upon cheap imported oil and gas? We've seen what happens when someone like Russia turns off the taps, what happens if a middle eastern country did the same?

The Yanks would bomb the cr-p out of them

 

[JockyBrewer]

The Yanks would bomb the cr-p out of them

The yanks have their own oil, and the ability to refine it.

People talk about extracting oil from the North Sea for energy security, but the UK doesn’t have the refineries to process it.

They can refine the sweet crude from the likes of Libya, but not the sour crude that makes up the majority of what the North Sea can produce.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

What i do trust is evidence, particularly an actual track record of delivering cheap and secure energy in sufficient quantities. Whilst there are issues with gas prices since the Ukraine war,

This is a bit like saying that whale oil had an actual track record of delivering cheap and secure energy for Victorian England, so we should continue using whale oil. Whilst there are issues with whales being hunted to extinction...mumble mumble carry on using whale oil.

Energy markets are always changing on a decade+ scale - the move from town gas to natural gas is perhaps the most recent example before the current one, as North Sea gas came onstream. These things take time, and money, but you end up with a better system - at least, as long as North Sea gas is flowing. But it's running out, we're now importing over half of our requirement, so it's time to look for a more secure replacement.

Ukraine is not the problem, it's more a symptom of how gas markets have changed. Previously gas was almost a waste product of oil extraction, and it was delivered point-to-point on long-term "take or pay" contracts - you had to pay for it whether there was demand for it or not. And if you wanted a level of protection against problems, you had to build underground storage.

But in the last 20 years a truly global market has developed thanks to the development of a spot market for LNG, and in our wisdom the UK decided that as we became more dependent on imports we would rely on the LNG market for emergencies rather than building underground gas storage locally. Which is fine until you have a crisis, as the spot LNG market responds to demand in a way that pipeline gas doesn't, and also all gas in the system is priced off the marginal therm.

So wholesale gas is currently about a quid per therm, but when we were exporting gas it was around 10p/therm (when you will have got your idea that gas "had a track record of cheap energy in sufficient quantities") but as we started importing increasing amounts it moved to about 40p/therm, and the first great crisis of the LNG era it went up to over 450p/therm.

- what i really dont understand about renewables is this (and I promise it is a sincere question). If they are so much cheaper then why is so much subsidy and incentivisation required to drive a transition ?

We're starting to get into questions that deserve a whole essay, but the short answer is that it's only quite recently that all that investment has started paying off so we're only just starting to see the benefits. So if you assumed 40p/therm gas as we had for much of the 2010s, that needs electricity at around £50-60/MWh to justify investment. Now look at the orange dots in the following graph, the auction prices for British renewables. You'll see that offshore wind hit £57.50 for the first time in allocation round 2 in 2017, but for instance one of those projects is Moray East which produced first electricity to the grid in June 2021 and did not reach full capacity of 950MW until the end of 2021. Another was Hornsea 2, the largest offshore wind farm in the world at the time, which did not reach full production until August last year.

It's probably no coincidence that the highest subsidy under the current system (£10.97/MWh on line 14 of tab 7b) came just before Moray East came on stream, and the highest rebate (£16.82/MWh) came after Hornsea 2 came on stream. Hopefully the round 3 and 4 windfarms will boost rebates further, it just takes time to build them.

You're also seeing real-world windfarms choosing to opt out of the subsidy system altogether (and as a result have been making bumper profits under recent prices, as they don't have to pay back a rebate), SSE's first was built in 2021 :
https://www.sse.com/news-and-views/...-energy-opens-gordonbush-extension-wind-farm/the first wind farm development to be built by SSE Renewables on a merchant basis, which means no subsidies or CfD support were used to finance the project.

Another element you don't hear so much about is the huge sums the Treasury (via the Crown Estates) has been taking out of the industry in seabed rent and licence fees. For instance BP are paying £462m per year for the Mona/Morgan area off North Wales, before a single turbine has gone in the water (and as an aside are talking about taking all 3GW outside the subsidy mechanism). So that's over £16/year per household that is going to the Treasury just for that one windfarm, that ultimately gets paid either by BP or the electricity consumer. Who do you think will win that battle?

Following on from that, is a question about the time horizon - i can see they may be cheaper since the utility bill spike caused by the Ukraine war - but would they be cheaper when gas prices return to historic levels ?

Gas prices are not returning to the 10p/therm of 20 years ago, and they're probably not coming back to the 40p/therm we saw through the 2010s - the globalisation of the gas market via LNG means there's now a single global gas market and the gas goes wherever the demand is highest. The commodities markets think that the UK will see prices around current levels or a bit higher, 80-110p/therm, for the next three years at least :
https://www.ice.com/products/910/UK-NBP-Natural-Gas-Futures/data?marketId=5508883
The recent reductions in the cost of renewables means that even without any carbon costs, gas-fired electricity would need gas to be down below 50p/therm at least to be competitive - and even then would need a hedging strategy that is unaffordably bulletproof to protect against a Ukraine-style spike. Given that they have to pay carbon costs in the real world, I'd guess they would need gas below 30p/therm maximum and I (and the futures markets!) just can't see that happening any time soon. Probably the only way to do it is via the capacity market which is what Eggborough are trying to do, but there's not too much confidence in the current iteration of the capacity market, it seems to have scared off Tees for one.

And why are utility retail prices taking so long to come down then - according to ofgem - wholesale prices have long since dropped? Clear and transparent answers to these questions will be vital to convince the wider public on this.

I have a feeling the an answer may lie in your reference to row 14 in tab 7b above (!) but i'd be really grateful if you can explain in laymans terms.

It's a really complicated area, that would need an essay or two to address in full. Some of the factors are as mentioned above, current gas prices are still double what they were pre-2020 and on the futures markets they look set to stay at that level for the foreseeable. Utility company balance sheets were generally a mess beforehand and were put under even more strain by having to buy gas at spot rates in the last 2 years. That meant a ton of them went bust and effectively consumers of the other companies are paying for them, whilst also seeing their (already considerable) interest bills on their debt cope base rates going from 0.1% to 5.25% since December 2021. And yes, there's a lot of capex associated with the energy transition - but the status quo of producing electricity from gas at £1/therm isn't financially sustainable either. You almost feel sorry for them. Not quite, but almost...

To go back on topic - there's an analogy here with the electric car debate after Sunak pushed back the deadline. The zealots argued absurdly that this would make life more expensive for consumers because electric cars are (or perhaps, will soon be) cheaper than ICE equivalents. If that is true then the govt deadline wont really matter as the transition will surely happen naturally, driven by market forces.

The main trouble is that something can be "cheap" and "unaffordable" at the same time, depending on the timescale, and this area tends to have a lot of "spend to save" decisions. So you might have a "project" (EV, solar panels etc) which might cost £6k and save you £2k/year over a 10 year lifespan. If we ignore finance costs for the time being, that looks dirt cheap - you make £14k profit over 10 years. But it's not much good if you don't have £6k to put up front. Now one answer might be for a company to come in and offer to pay the £6k for you, if you can split the savings 2:1 in their favour. That way you get £6,667 for free, they get £13,333 minus £6k = £7,333 less finance costs, everybody's happy. That's how capitalism works.

Except that's not really been working in the energy efficiency world. There's been some projects like that, but not nearly as many as there should have been, for various reasons. Partly because government has been unable to work out what it wants, because it's been distracted by Other Things and also just because things like insulation aren't very sexy. But that's the kind of social and market factor that I was referring to in my earlier post - but that's a whole other area, which again has been the subject of far more detailed analysis than you get on a homebrew forum!!!!

 

[Rodcx500z]

The yanks have their own oil, and the ability to refine it.

tongue in comment

 

[MattH1973]

It will likely lead to chaotic outcomes if we don't transition quickly as we will end up with a sustained disrupted food supply. Flooding in lowland areas currently used for farming (e.g. East Anglia) as sea levels rise. Drought in other parts of the world causing crop failure. That's not even a future thing as places like Florida are already finding their agriculture disrupted.

are you sure about this ? I hadn't seen any evidence of reduced crop yields and a quick google took me here:
https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-productionIt suggests agricultural production is higher than ever which I struggle to reconcile with your warning of disruption to food supplies. of course this "could" happen..... "could" is one of the favourite words of the "experts" when they are trying to bully and scare us into submission.....

Food prices have gone up alongside everything else as indicated by very high inflation levels worldwide. So I dont think it is possible to suggest food price rises are driven by shortages. They are driven by the economic disaster caused by...... you guessed it.... lockdowns.

This is a bit like saying that whale oil had an actual track record of delivering cheap and secure energy for Victorian England, so we should continue using whale oil. Whilst there are issues with whales being hunted to extinction...mumble mumble carry on using whale oil.

thanks for taking the time to answer my questions so clearly, I really appreciate it. You make a very convincing case, far better than the bullying and scaremongering we see from politicians and the main stream media. I think the comparison to whale oil is a little harsh..... my point is that the burden of proof lies with those who advocate disruptive transitions (and of course there are other costs like potentially decommissioning the gas network that will keep bills high for even longer) but we need more people to state the case in the way you do to meet that burden of proof. Thanks again.

 

[Bernie]

The question is whether we should be relying upon cheap imported oil and gas? We've seen what happens when someone like Russia turns off the taps, what happens if a middle eastern country did the same?

Russia didn't turn off the taps

 

[JockyBrewer]

Russia didn't turn off the taps

Same difference.

 

[Benfleet Brewery]