UK Gas and Electricity Crisis Looming
- Thread starter Backatcha Bandit
- Start date
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
Does the fact that Dale Vince, the owner of Ecotricity, is a nasty smug shit not bother you?
Dale Vince divorce ruling 'like cashing in old lottery ticket'
Eco chief Dale Vince plots a very unethical coup at his green rival
Ecotricity Reviews
The divorce thing looks like a throwaway remark admittedly ungenerous, although don't know what went on in the marriage.
Not sure about second story - Good Energy apparently linked to Shorrocks (the husband) who Private Eye have been banging on about with his plans for Tidal Scheme in Swansea which they reckon would be disastrous Private Eye Investigates Mark Shorrock's CV
Third link (can only see some because it's Facebook) again looks mixed. Some people saying crap place to work some saying really good. Doesn't look like I'd want to work there myself have to say.
On other hand he reminds me of someone 'charismatic' I met 30 years ago - also hippyish and struck me as totally untrustworthy.
I might have to look at a woodstove once I have worked out the relative costs of driving the truck to Norfolk. I have a lot of seasoned wood (oak, ash and poplar) and I think I can load at least a tonne for every trip, so £40 for fuel costs. The wood is free as a lot of my trees are coming to the end of their lives so I have been replacing them over the last decade. I can fell more than I need without having to apply for a felling license (which you need if felling more than 5 trees per quarter). I have a French stove with an oven and a cast iron firebox for cooking on, plus various rocket stoves . I think it would be possible but imagine the council would make a song and dance although I have a coupla friends who have converted to woodburning with the council paying for a stove and chimney relining so it depends. A lot of my town is under smokeless restrictions, but not where I live, so I am going to look at the possibilities. Only feasible with a sustainable supply of firewood though...as the actual costs of buying a load are eye-watering (as certain friends also discovered to their dismay). The urban stove owners I know mainly just use them for special occasions as £160 per load (which would last less than a month) is prohibitively spendy.
Otherwise, we are just going to have to wear a lot of woollies and use hot water bottles.
Otherwise, we are just going to have to wear a lot of woollies and use hot water bottles.
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
It all has to be kiln dried now - although not sure that's totally necessary since that's pretty energy intensive and it should I'd have thought be ok if wood's properly aged and dried (the stuff I get is <20% moisture which seems fine to me).
I've got ash dieback now so have some ash trees to come down too
I've got ash dieback now so have some ash trees to come down too
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
A lot of the problem is the Torys, who love a good market for their school chums to play in, tried to make a framework that would allow electricity to be traded like it’s a commodity. But it isn’t, given the lack of any meaningful storage technology (pumped storage like Dinorwic does other things and is tiny in comparison to usage) means that electricity has to be generated to match the real time demand. There are all kinds of markets on markets and special products to try and over on this. Then the big six energy companies are still vertically integrated. I.e they own big CCGT gas plants and sell to customers ( however much they try to disguise that with weird structures) which means the market is distorted even more. And of course two of them are mostly state owned still. Just not our state EDF being French and RWE German.
National Grid has to behave as if the transmission network wasn’t a natural monopoly so you get goverment pulling leavers at arms reach rather than planning a network.
Our electricity system is just another example of ideology over economics and supplying infrastructure.
National Grid has to behave as if the transmission network wasn’t a natural monopoly so you get goverment pulling leavers at arms reach rather than planning a network.
Our electricity system is just another example of ideology over economics and supplying infrastructure.
WouldBe
Dislicksick
I use those compressed sawdust bricketts that are <10% moisture.It all has to be kiln dried now - although not sure that's totally necessary since that's pretty energy intensive and it should I'd have thought be ok if wood's properly aged and dried (the stuff I get is <20% moisture which seems fine to me).
I've got ash dieback now so have some ash trees to come down too
I've got some fruit trees need to come down. They were supposed to be dwarf trees. The smallest is about 15' and the plum must be about 30' with a 10" diameter trunk.
Should last a while. 
WouldBe
Dislicksick
I suppose you need to look up the KWh of the briquettes and the wood you get and compare it that way.
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
Wife's buying s blanket.
It's not like we even bother p
Aye.
This is more "Just in time" delivery and capacity planning, letting the market dictate what's available and squeezing margins and reducing redundant capacity to maximize profits.
Which fundamentally is fucking stupid because throwing up a power plant or the cabling isn't something you do in a couple of weeks.
It's not like we even bother p
Aye.
This is more "Just in time" delivery and capacity planning, letting the market dictate what's available and squeezing margins and reducing redundant capacity to maximize profits.
Which fundamentally is fucking stupid because throwing up a power plant or the cabling isn't something you do in a couple of weeks.
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
I’m not sure any of this makes a difference. While it’s true that abolishing all the complicated market mechanisms and replacing with a single state-owned entity or similar would greatly simplify everything, it would just mean that the increase in prices would be felt by everyone. The fundamental problem is the use of imported gas to generate power to fill in the troughs of an increasing large proportion of patchy wind and solar, whilst also relying on that gas to directly heat 80% of homes because they’re too poorly insulated to rely on electric heating.
This is a failure of long-term energy planning by successive governments, and not something that would have been solved by state-ownership of power companies.
Did not need to read the rest
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Which one are you using? I'm seriously keen about getting one, but am aware of great disparities in price, and wondering what makes the difference...
maomao
普費斯
He's a cocksucker and OVO are shit. They totally fucked my bills up by making up info on their website telling me it was up to date based on my smart meter when in fact they only update it once or twice a year. Their customer services are absolute shit and they only backed down when I spammed all their Twitters with abuse and complaints for several days.
I was going to ask the same question.
The slow cooker we have will be getting a lot more use this year because of this advantage.Over the Winterval months I will using the slow cooker a lot. It is very kind on the leccy
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
A slow cooker uses about as much electricy as a microwave on full power for an hour.
I've got one of these:
GIONIEN Induction Hob, 60cm Built in Electric Cooktop, 4 Burners Cooker GIB464SC
£160 on Amazon,had it for a year or more ( I think memory ain't what I was ) and it's been fine, controls a bit fiddly. Check capacity of electric circuit draws a fair bit on full.Small 2 ring ones from Andrew James etc are shite.
I am or should I say have been refitting the kitchen over the last eighteen months when able. An induction hob is what we were thinking of replacing our four burner gas hob with.
I was looking at a Bosch model simply as it’s a plug and play and would hopefully make life/ hob conversion easier and more importantly replace the evil gas.
maomao
普費斯
That would depend on what setting the slow cooker was on and how long for. There are a wide range of estimates online for slow cooker usage but they seem to be arrived at by multiplying the energy usage by the amount of time. Surely slow cookers have thermostats and once heated up don't use full power throughout the cooking process.
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
We've recently had a smart meter installed, so perhaps I will measure it next time, although I'd have to turn the fridge off for 8 hours to be accurate.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
Tefal Everyday 1H. Didn't cost too much and it's really good so far (had it a couple of months) my previous one was a cheapo and it gave up after a couple of years. This has several settings for heating milk, stews, stir fry, deep fry and boiling water. I don't normally use them though.
One thing that surprised me somewhat although I'm not sure why is that they adjust heat by switching on and off rather than using a lower temperature. Doesn't make any difference normally but one of the things I've really liked over the summer was cooking when the sun shines so the solar panels provide all the electricity. If the hob lowered the temperature I'd be able to cook for free on cloudy days too.
Eta: just a single hob so pretty basic but perfect for me.
Before I've had to light the Rayburn just to cook of an evening. I had a wood delivery Aprilish and haven't used any of it. Will need it for heating in winter though.
MickiQ
In My Defence I was left Unsupervised
There isn't really true competition in the donestic energy market like there is in buying groceries or consumer goods. It's all smoke and mirrors made possible by clever accounting. Which means that there is loads of people taking a cut who don't actually produce any nor distribute leccy/gas but just add 'value' and provide 'services'
Going back to a monopolistic supplier preferably a state one but even a single private one would focus the profit in one place and allow more of that to be invested in new (preferably green) capacity.
Now that the whole edifice has turned out to be built on sand there will be some short term pain, folks will lose their jobs and other folks who thought they were going to get cheaper energy are going to faced with bigger bills they weren't expecting.
In the longer term though I'm not convinced that getting rid of a lot of these small 'providers' is a bad thing.
Certainly agree with the Govt for once in that there are better things to spend state cash on than bailing out these dodgy spiv outfits
Going back to a monopolistic supplier preferably a state one but even a single private one would focus the profit in one place and allow more of that to be invested in new (preferably green) capacity.
Now that the whole edifice has turned out to be built on sand there will be some short term pain, folks will lose their jobs and other folks who thought they were going to get cheaper energy are going to faced with bigger bills they weren't expecting.
In the longer term though I'm not convinced that getting rid of a lot of these small 'providers' is a bad thing.
Certainly agree with the Govt for once in that there are better things to spend state cash on than bailing out these dodgy spiv outfits
maomao
普費斯
Burying my head in the sand.
We actually got swapped (to Scottish power! In London!) when Yorkshire power went tits up months ago but was too distracted by other stuff. I really should sort it now.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Yeah, well you’ve got enough on I’d suggest. Watch the Martin Lewis video if you haven’t already.
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