Lady Elanore

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. Amanda - All's fair in Love and Car

ap0gee

It's a possibility, although AIUI the National Grid gets a significant quantity of schtook flung in their direction by the government if a blackout is allowed to occur. Seeing how close the UK supposedly got to running out of gas last Winter, I think they'll be taking steps to avoid it. I reckon the recent price hikes probably have more than a little to do with the Grid acting to protect supplies...

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Lady Elanore

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. Amanda - All's fair in Love and Car

ap0gee

Just buy lots of thick clothes and blankets and get a Primus stove, if you're bothered about that sort of thing. If it gets that cold this Winter, using energy for heating will be further down your list of priorities than light, cooking and hot water (all of which the Primus can provide within limits...)

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lozgti

Didn't think we had any supplies which was the reason why we have all been screwed left right and centre?

Anyway,everyone is having a new wooley pullover from dad for Christmas in my house

daiking

I'm more of a doom-monger than most but even I don't expect power cuts or oil/gas supply stoppages this winter. Its possible that these things will happen but it was always been possible.

However, given that my wife will be at home all winter with a very young child, I am seriously considering buying a portable gas heater for ‘emergency use’ in the hope we won’t need it.

Been checking out the calor gas website. Seem safe and recommended for home/office use so I guess the catalytic and normal gas types should be fine. New heater for about £80, £30 gas bottle deposit and £30 for 15kg of butane. £140 for peace of mind.

Portable Heaters

ap0gee

Well, we have very little domestic production of gas, however only a relatively small proportion of our imported gas comes from 'dodgy' places like Russia and the Middle East. Although a little out-of-date, this leaflet from the Propaganda Ministry gives a fairly accurate picture of the situation, not least describing the situation in terms of storage capacity, and the statutory obligations that the National Grid have upon them:

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/POSTpn230.pdf

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Lady Elanore

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. Amanda - All's fair in Love and Car

Octygone

Just be wary of gas heaters......some gas heaters will produce moisture and it could make your house damp.........not wringing wet but damp

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daiking

I'd heard about problems with condensation when used but for occasional or emergency use I think the risk is fair to negligible

Lady Elanore

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. Amanda - All's fair in Love and Car

jec

We have just moved house, (last Friday) we were with Atlantic for gas/electric but they do not supply our new house so have to wait up to 28 days whilst they put a request in and transfer the supply over, the new house is supplied by British Gas nooooooooooo

I am sat here feeling cold but I daren't put the heating on as BG are expensive, I had to wash and dry loads of bedding and clothes yesterday, god only knows what the bill will be, I hope Atlantic take over soon

slider

I have a friend that works in the energy supply business and he is convinced that the UK is starting to really struggle for generating capacity. As some of teh older nukes go off=line he reckons we will be in for trouble.

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The man with no sig thingy

BMW 118d M Sport
Past cars - OctaviaII 1.9TDI DSG, OctaviaI 1.9 TDi, Focus TD Est, Rover 418 TD, Montego TD, Cavalier D, Astra 1.3, Escort Mexico Mk1 (still to be beaten for fun), Viva 1.3, Simca 1100

cheezemonkhai

Yes which is why the government really needs to push a new generation of nuclear stations to provide us with baseline energy needs and have this topped up with hydro, wave, geothermal, biomass and wind power.

The time this would buy us would let us develop future renewables to come online in 20 years time.

Why they were happy to let EON buy British Energy and build plants, but not allow a British company to buy or merge with British Energy is beyond me. It seems a case of flog everything and keep nothing British at all costs.

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cheezemonkhai

That is so funny.

BG are not expensive, yes they put their fuel up 35%, but they only did it in one go. Most of the companies complaining about BG had already put their prices up 10-20% at least once or twice then once BG had done theirs they increased the prices by 10-20% or more again.

It's just that the other companies did it in small chunks so you didn't notice.

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Cars make CO2 and trees absorb CO2. By driving your car you're feeding a tree and helping the environment.

smstext

the media did the doom n gloom a couple of years ago and it never materialised. yes we might get the browning but this happens every so often during the year anyway. guessing with the price rises people will be a bit more careful this winter meaning that less than last year will be used and more to go round.

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ap0gee

Trouble with that is that the green light's been given, but no organisation has yet put forward plans for any new build. British Energy's still for sale, although frankly there are two reasons that there's little UK interest - firstly BE isn't a terribly attractive investment as all of their assets are only years away from decommissioning, and secondly most of the actual energy-producing companies in the UK are part of multi-nationals (with other companies such as Atlantic merely being brokers). What I would say, though, is that the sale of Westinghouse to Toshiba was extremely short-sighted...

Mind you, despite the current lack of progress on the nuclear new-build front, once energy shortages push prices up, I think a lot of companies will start to take an interest as the economics start to look better. At the moment, however, the fact the builders of any new stations will have to set aside money for decommissioning is putting them off. But sooner or later, the wheels will be put in motion. I just hope they start turning early enough to avoid major shortages (OK, major electricity imports from France - with the price hikes that will entail - is probably closer to the truth!)

Financial institutions are currently the majority shareholders in BE in addition to the Government. E.On and RWE are interesting suitors, as Germany has decided to go nuke-free, so I'm not sure of their reasoning. EdF would have pretty likely had they not been blown out, but British Gas (Centrica) will probably be the winner in my estimation. This will mean the plants stay under UK ownership, but then they've hardly got the pedigree as far as running nuke plants is concerned...

Oh, it's such a mess - well done Blair and Brown!!!

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cheezemonkhai

British Gas parent company Centrica wanted to buy BE but the Government said no.

Now they are having another go at selling it to the French for only a 50p markup on the current share price. FFS this this will have a licence to print money in a few years and we are selling it to a French company that has already said high prices are good as we make more.

What the f**k are GB and Co doing selling off the British Crown Jules (well dregs of) for next to nothing?

I would far rather Centrica owned BE and then hired in the skills needed while training up British people to do the work too.

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ap0gee

You're right, it was the government who wanted to sell to EdF, but the other shareholders who rejected the bid, and now the government's trying to get them to up their offer. The thing is, as far as manpower to support any new build goes, I don't think the energy companies will have much luck recruiting. I'm one of the youngest in my organisation (at 30), which has more than a little interest in the sector, and we can't get staff for love nor money. The difficulty is image (I was very anti-nuke at university), which puts people off the few nuclear-orientated undergrad courses that are available. I only ended up in the business by accident, and have more than enough on my plate helping tidy up our 'legacy' without having extra work on new build!

What people need to remember is that the tide had turned extremely strongly against nuclear as far as public opinion goes. The Magnox stations were plutonium factories to support the Cold War Effort that happened to produce more electricity than they used and sold the excess to the National Grid. While that was still in people's minds, there was support for them and the (non-breeding) PWR stations. But once Greenpeace and the CND got into the public psyche, that was it.

In a "it's funny because it's true" way, I liked the observation on Mock The Week about how sales of Organic food have slumped now people have less disposable income. It will take a similar shock to the system (i.e. the threat at least of regular blackouts) for the public to change their stance on nuclear. My personal opinion is that it's the only solution in the medium term; not because I'm pro-nuke in particular, but because despite what you might hear in the media, there really is nothing else viable out there that doesn't involve fossil fuels...

But back on-topic, I think we're going to be OK this Winter...

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daiking

and the gubbermint is currently kicking the nuclear industry in the balls despite all the **** they come out with.

cheezemonkhai

So we might run out of power... how about this:

Sell Northern Crock, why the f**k we wasted 50Bn on it in the first place I don't know and give 50Bn to build some new Nuclear stations to BE.

Oh look we have some new stations.

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Cars make CO2 and trees absorb CO2. By driving your car you're feeding a tree and helping the environment.

daiking

Sell? there's nothing of worth to sell, hence **** creek no paddle and no knight in shining armour. Beside that £50Bn is not real money, cold hard cash of the sort you'd need to bankroll a massive new build infrastructure programme. Its funny money on a balance sheet.

cheezemonkhai