Has UK enough generating power for electric cars , heat pumps and all other requirements

[m80]

Mum was one of nine.
Saved on the coal
(And they couldn’t afford SKY)

Dad was one of 13, 7 survived childhood. Or the going up chimneys who knows?

I know it's mixing threads, but for some, feasibly many, them days of 1st up best dressed are returning.
Not for thems affording leccy mo mo's mind, their greatest panic will be if smart meters ration their charging availability.

When I tell the grandkids I ad ter walk a mile to a red box to make a phone call they don't believe me.
"A letter grandad, what's that?"
"It's French son, and used correctly has far more chance of saving the planet than any of this more modern tech."

 

[Fastcar155]

Only time will tell

 

[st13phil]

For the benefit of those who still labour under the misapprehension that everything is fine and dandy in the UK's power generation and distribution infrastructure, here's a useful explainer as to why it isn't:

Capacity crunch: why the UK doesn’t have the power to solve the housing crisis

Our inadequate electricity network is stopping the building of thousands of new homes. And the necessary move to low-carbon heating and cars is only increasing demand

www.theguardian.com

It's almost as though our politicians, as they rush to burnish their "green, net-zero" credentials, haven't thought through the consequences of the legislation they've passed or the capacity to achieve what they've mandated

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

For the benefit of those who still labour under the misapprehension that everything is fine and dandy in the UK's power generation and distribution infrastructure, here's a useful explainer as to why it isn't:

Capacity crunch: why the UK doesn’t have the power to solve the housing crisis

Our inadequate electricity network is stopping the building of thousands of new homes. And the necessary move to low-carbon heating and cars is only increasing demand

www.theguardian.com

It's almost as though our politicians, as they rush to burnish their "green, net-zero" credentials, haven't thought through the consequences of the legislation they've passed or the capacity to achieve what they've mandated

Yes, there's a hotspot problem in Oxford and along the Thames Valley because of the new server farms. (see article) It's a problem when planning an enormous number of new homes out near Bicester.

What news of the other 99% of the country?

(The bits that aren't housing 12,000 international students plus as many relatives again, plus their visitors)

But good point: the sooner we get people charging their vehicles overnight, when The Grid is quiet, the better. And then there's local solar, of course. No sense in taking energy from the Grid when the sun's raining power onto your roof.

Thank heavens we're all consuming far less electricity than we did a quarter of a century ago. (Down more than 20% from 5,800 kWh in 2000 to 4,200 kWh in 2022.

 

[markjay]

For the benefit of those who still labour under the misapprehension that everything is fine and dandy in the UK's power generation and distribution infrastructure, here's a useful explainer as to why it isn't:

Capacity crunch: why the UK doesn’t have the power to solve the housing crisis

Our inadequate electricity network is stopping the building of thousands of new homes. And the necessary move to low-carbon heating and cars is only increasing demand

www.theguardian.com

It's almost as though our politicians, as they rush to burnish their "green, net-zero" credentials, haven't thought through the consequences of the legislation they've passed or the capacity to achieve what they've mandated

What the Guardian won't tell you, obviously, is that all those underfunded national infrastructures - insufficient electricity production, telecoms from the previous century, rail tracks that can support only half the speed of European trains, leaking water supply etc etc - are all the legacy of inflated government-owned industries that were starved of cash for infrastructure projects and spent all the money instead on the unions and employees, on the assumption that once privatised, the private sector will pick up the multi-billion pound bill for infrastructure catch-up. This is economic policy made-up by people lacking basic numeracy skills.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Thank heavens we're all consuming far less electricity than we did a quarter of a century ago. (Down more than 20% from 5,800 kWh in 2000 to 4,200 kWh in 2022.

Per capita numbers, of course.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

But good point: the sooner we get people charging their vehicles overnight, when The Grid is quiet, the better. And then there's local solar, of course. No sense in taking energy from the Grid when the sun's raining power onto your roof.

If I get reluctantly pressed I to service as Prime Minister tomorrow, then I will propose legislation that all new buildings and all new extensions must have solar panels covering at least 90% of their roof space in order to receive planning permission.

In addition, all new buildings would need parking at ground or underground level covering at least 75% of the footprint of the building. It surprises me that this stuff hasn’t been legislation for years.

 

[rf065]

What the Guardian won't tell you, obviously, is that all those underfunded national infrastructures - insufficient electricity production, telecoms from the previous century, rail tracks that can support only half the speed of European trains, leaking water supply etc etc - are all the legacy of inflated government-owned industries that were starved of cash for infrastructure projects and spent all the money instead on the unions and employees, on the assumption that once privatised, the private sector will pick up the multi-billion pound bill for infrastructure catch-up. This is economic policy made-up by people lacking basic numeracy skills.

You are correct that these nationalised industries were starved of money for infrastructure and this led to the sell off's (privatisation) to save the government from being forced to pick up the bill for the modernisation they all required, like changing all the phone lines from copper to fibre optic, gas mains from cast iron to plastic etc, etc, But to say that the money previously was spent on unions and employees is 100% incorrect, there was no money, the government spent as little as they could get away with,

 

[markjay]

You are correct that these nationalised industries were starved of money for infrastructure and this led to the sell off's (privatisation) to save the government from being forced to pick up the bill for the modernisation they all required, like changing all the phone lines from copper to fibre optic, gas mains from cast iron to plastic etc, etc, But to say that the money previously was spent on unions and employees is 100% incorrect, there was no money, the government spent as little as they could get away with,

I think that if you talk to people who worked for British Gas or British Telecom or the Electricity Board etc before privatisation, they will tell you that getting a job there was considered like winning the lottery, compared to similar jobs in the private sector.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

You are correct that these nationalised industries were starved of money for infrastructure and this led to the sell off's (privatisation) to save the government from being forced to pick up the bill for the modernisation they all required, like changing all the phone lines from copper to fibre optic, gas mains from cast iron to plastic etc, etc, But to say that the money previously was spent on unions and employees is 100% incorrect, there was no money, the government spent as little as they could get away with,

Ah yes, a relatively unskilled train driver is actually worth £80k a year plus generous pension, in a closed shop job not available to applicants from the general public.

Do you remember the good old days when you couldn't get a cooked breakfast in a cafe without falling over BT engineers reading the paper and having a fag or two between calls?

We didn't update Sir Joseph Bazalgette's 1860's sewage system fast enough because no politician wanted to spend the money and charge the public with the costs needed to update the 2,000 kms of tunnels that feed 130kms of railway sized sewage tunnels to cycle sewage and flood water through the system.

It's like the NHS, where the Government rations the public with £170 billion of money "thrown at a wall" every year in the expectation that people will either get better on their own, "just live with it," or just die and stop complaining.

 

[rf065]

I think that if you talk to people who worked for British Gas or British Telecom or the Electricity Board etc before privatisation, they will tell you that getting a job there was considered like winning the lottery, compared to similar jobs in the private sector.

I think your getting confused with the civil service, working with any of the utility companies was nothing like that, and I have 42 years experience of it.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I think your getting confused with the civil service, working with any of the utility companies was nothing like that, and I have 42 years experience of it.

Ah, so you’re the one who refused to charge your customers enough to modernise the water and sewage systems, the one who made telephone customers wait 3-6 months to install a landline, who kept hundreds of thousands of acres unused because you couldn’t be bothered to develop or sell on the unused land, and who couldn’t develop cellular fast enough so it had to be sold off piecemeal to private companies.

Why didn’t you say?

Still, to be fair, you can’t beat a solid final salary pension, can you? Worth far more than any private sector pension, by anyone’s reckoning.

 

[rf065]

Still, to be fair, you can’t beat a solid final salary pension, can you? Worth far more than any private sector pension, by anyone’s reckoning.

The pension schemes were pretty abysmal unless you were higher management, only after privatisation did the pension schemes gradually improve for ordinary workers.
Not sure where you getting all this stuff from but you're pretty uninformed.

Not sure where to start with the water/sewers because only in England are they run by private companies, not in Scotland.

 

[rf065]

Ah, so you’re the one who refused to charge your customers enough to modernise the water and sewage systems

I guess you're talking about the likes of Thames Water who paid £60 billion in dividends to shareholders and borrowed an obscene amount of money as well. Then said they had no money to pay back the loans or upgrade their infrastructure and would need to put water bills up by 40% or 50%?

Thats some step away from saying they refused to charge their customers enough, is it not?

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I guess you're talking about the likes of Thames Water who paid £60 billion in dividends to shareholders and borrowed an obscene amount of money as well. Then said they had no money to pay back the loans or upgrade their infrastructure and would need to put water bills up by 40% or 50%?

Thats some step away from saying they refused to charge their customers enough, is it not?

The water and sewage utilities didn't update Sir Joseph Bazalgette's 1860's sewage system fast enough because no politician wanted to spend the money and charge the public with the costs needed to update the 2,000 kms of tunnels that feed 130kms of railway sized sewage tunnels to cycle sewage and flood water through the system.

Sat on huge amounts of land and infrastructure, they wouldn't charge customers the cost of updating that whole system. The Tories were too busy "with other projects" in the 1950's, Labour couldn't get their heads around the costs in the 1960's and 1970's, and the Tories looked at the investment capital required with horror in the 1980's.

In essence exactly the same issues faced by gas, electricity, rail and British Airways. No capital expenditure, management teams that barely had any business education or financial skills, and accounting systems so rudimentary, the utility companies struggled to computerise them because they didn't really know how their very basic bookkeeping systems actually worked, or even what their fixed assets were.

 

[markjay]

I think that the issue that the things that we are proud about these days are mostly related to the expansion of our social services, at the expense of investment in infrastructure.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I think that the issue that the things that we are proud about these days are mostly related to the expansion of our social services, at the expense of investment in infrastructure.

Who are “we” in this quote?

Unclear whether this means “single mothers, the population of the North West, North East and depressed seaside towns, or sufferers of long term Covid and depression?” Or a combination of the lot?

 

[markjay]

Renewable power reaches record 30% of global electricity

Yet more growth in solar and wind last year, driven by countries like China and Brazil, marked a "milestone" in the world's switch to clean power, Ember said. There is now so much clean power that global fossil fuel power generation is about to fall, along with its emissions.

news.sky.com

Great news, but it won't help those remote areas in the UK where the electricity distribution infrastructure is poor......

 

[ChipChop]

Renewable power reaches record 30% of global electricity

Yet more growth in solar and wind last year, driven by countries like China and Brazil, marked a "milestone" in the world's switch to clean power, Ember said. There is now so much clean power that global fossil fuel power generation is about to fall, along with its emissions.

news.sky.com

I assume Chinas expansion in renewables is to create the illusion of the PRC in some way offsetting their ever expanding domestic coal industry. Sky's climate reporter oddly fails to mention that China has built 35 new airports in 2022 and plans to open 8 new airports every year for the forseeable future. Jet A-1 is a fossil fuel as far as i am aware. Not much of a turning point after all then. China continues to flourish while we are told to wear a hair shirt to avert something called climate change.

China sees progress in airport construction in 2022

China sees progress in airport construction in 2022-

english.news.cn

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Renewable power reaches record 30% of global electricity

Yet more growth in solar and wind last year, driven by countries like China and Brazil, marked a "milestone" in the world's switch to clean power, Ember said. There is now so much clean power that global fossil fuel power generation is about to fall, along with its emissions.

news.sky.com

Great news, but it won't help those remote areas in the UK where the electricity distribution infrastructure is poor......

Exactly. It may be "quite sunny" in the Sahara, but try selling that to a Glaswegian

Generation is one thing, delivery is something else.