Power cuts and a rant.

mellman01

Now I know people keep going on about the cost of power and how much profit the companies are making but to be honest if you are going to blame anyone for any cuts then most of the blame should go to the government and not the industry. The press talk of billions in profit but its not so clear cut, I worked at an old coal station for 10 years which closed last march so I've seen how the system works from the coal face end of things and the profits mostly got put back into keeping the plant up and running, the biggest problems are a total lack of government understanding of how the industry works coupled with their insane love of all things green thanks to captain Oxymoron David Cameron.
The real killer here are emissions, the EU has set reducing levels but only for the short term I.E several years in advance, the power producers can't/wont invest in anything other than renewables and flat pack Gas stations as the emission levels aren't cast in stone past 2017, this means that if you invest in a station that passes the currant emissions it could well not pass the unspecified newer lower ones that will come past 2017, so the power companies won't rightly invest billion of pounds on new plant that will mostly likely won't make the grade so were stuck with cheap to build flat pack gas stations as it takes years to get any return on an investment so they go for a cheap fix but in doing so they're relying on gas more and more, right now a lot of your energy is coming from coal as coal is cheap gas isn't, but sadly the coal stations are closing at a rapid rate of knots but the government won't back the industry if they build new plant that later fails the levels coming after 2017 so were stuck in a spiral of underinvestment and lack of political clarity action and support.
I know most will blame the companies but the hard cold reality is no one in their right mind would buy say a new car that might well need to be scrapped in 4 years time when the MOT emissions go down. Thats what you have here, the government won't support them and they don't seem worried about the coming cuts and have little understanding of how power is made and distributed, they also have no real idea of the incredibly costs building a new station entail. Trust me they have little grasp, I know as I have contacts inside the industry and their ignorance is scandalous.
And don't rely on green power, it will only work when the sun shines and the wind blows, and that wont be when we most need it I.E a dark still winters night with a temperature well below freezing outside.
My view is we should never have sold it all off, Mrs T asset stripped it and gave it away so now we have little control over any of it, after all you can make all the laws you like you can't expect or force a private company to generate at a loss, and don't listen to the guff about "mothballed and redundant plant" being brought back in an emergency its total politically inspired tosh, the reality is any plant thats now redundant
/closed is effectively scrap as they stopped spending money or repairs and upgrades as soon as they know its closing and so they just run it into the ground which makes perfect sense, so most if not all of it will be completely worn out so is only good for the scrap man..

mellman01

:roll:

tkachev

I agree it should never have been sold off.


Elizabeth

dreamdaisy

They were, end of. I was listening to someone from one of the smaller power companies who are raising their prices due to their increased costs in purchasing their reserves. Scotland's prices are going up by 7% whilst those in the south are rising by 10%. The reasoning? It's more difficult to supply power to the more densely populated south. :? He also denied that other companies will follow their lead by increasing prices - 'I am not aware of that ever happening,' he said. Twerp.

Our response when they increase prices is to turn the heating further down and switch off more lights. I think this household may be in for a romantic winter of candlelight. DD

numptynora

Mellman....what do you say about labours promise to cap price rises on energy companies? he says they lie about the profits they make (I think I've got that right)

marrianne

Its everything our COUNTRY has totally lost the way ,Where will it end ?...............Marrianne

numptynora

Goodness knows Marrianne, I wish we had a crystal ball then we could make plan

frogmorton

I can see a winter of power-cuts :?

Either national ones or as DD says inside our own homes :roll:

You make a lot of very valid points Mell and your post makes very worrying reading

Love

Toni xx

barbara12

Good rant Mell..I have all my candles and torches at the ready..mind you I do love candle light...makes me look younger... what a country this has become... :roll:

mellman01

Sorry for the lack of response I've been trying to write a reply but its taking longer than I imagined s its complex so I'll try and post it tomorrow God willing!. :roll:

Airwave!

There are many other factors to consider, our rush to use power, the demand from the high street for more, ever power hungry machines to sell, education that doesn't teach that money is not the only cost of electricity, our reliance on the government to supply, the design of our homes. Unfortunately the whole industry has become politicised and politicians want to change the world every five years, the power industry is just another facet of their meddling.

We have natural sources of fuel that have remained untapped, a small cut in the business tax for manufacturers of machines to harness and design new methods would be advantageous to all. We are really only at the start of using sun, tidal, wave, wind and geothermal energy.

No point in ranting at a small part of the equation, use your vote at the next election and do something thats right for Great Britain.

mellman01

Good points airwave well posted you have a finger on the pulse thats for sure!, now I've been writing a reply to me earlier post but twice I've done so and they took ages to write but then I tried putting them on here and I lost them both so I'll post a shorter one and hope it gets through but the issue is complex. Honestly this is an abridged version!:)
Right bottom line is I don't think there is much the government can do, dear old Ed has good intentions but if he forces the generators to sell power at a lower than commercial rate they could well just not bother dancing to his tune if it means they will be making a loss, you can't force them to generate regardless thats just not going to happen, if we still owned it he could but its private so he can't force them to do anything.
Now the biggest problem we face is emissions, the EU up and coming limits for 2015, 2017 2020 mean that even some of the older Gas CCGT's wont pass muster let alone the coal stations still running, also some of the nukes are coming off line around 2017-2020 so its not looking good at all.
To make maters worse the government wont help the generators cause by negotiating the limits which are fully set yet, its why Didcot A and other coal and oil stations closed this March the owners asked Osborne and Cameron for permission to seek extensions but were told to go away so its their lack of inaction that could well have done for us over the next few winters.
Now fuel is key here, right now a lot of your energy is actually coming from the old worn out cola stations because coal is cheap Gas isn't and the price of Gas is only set to rise over the winter months. Also the grid is worn out due to lack of underinvestment and most of the coal stations are up North where the coal fields were so it costs more to pump energy about due to increased degradation, it also causes faster erosion of the system as more heat due to resistance means more damage so its a self feeding pending disaster, and like the power industry guess who's footing the upgrading bill?, not the owners oh no you and I will so we are paying twice while they squirrel profits away in bonuses and share divies!.
The power station owners are playing the same game, all they have been building are cheap flat pack CCGT's so were becoming more reliant on Gas as each day passes and thats not a good thing as all our Gas is imported, we don't need fracking we have no choice if we want cheap and a reliant fuel source, as it is were sitting on 500 years worth of good quality coal but seeming Mrs T closed the fields down and sold of the power industry they import cheap Russian rocks and try and burn them which eats plant and produces shed loads of dust but hey its cheap so who cares?.
Renewables are unreliable as hell so will never be the serious contender unless we seriously adjust our consumption, even better would be to invent a way of storing power but so far no ones done that so were stuffed on that score!.
As airwave said home insulation and power saving technology are a really good option you get much more bang for your buck but even though the government are taxing the power we use with laughably labelled "green taxes" little has changed as house builders still build down to a cost rather than up to a standard and anyway the green taxes don't go on "green" projects such as new home insulation so most of it just goes into the taxation pot, its basically a con job, its these stealth taxes that are costing us all so much but the Government has been scamming us as always they've also been doing the same to the generators by enticing them to build wind farms with nice fat subsidise but now the farms are built their removing the payouts so their profits are dying a death as green doesn't make a profit simply because wind turbines produce so little power, also those built at sea have issues with corrosion and access as if its blowing a gail salt goes everywhere and you can't get on them to do repair work anyway, also the accident level is really high so again it costs more than normal generation.
Now that said there are still many more variables here but my post will go on forever so I'll be short with this last bit.
My view of what the future of generation in the UK could look like is this, I wonder if the Government is playing a game here, I think they secretly want nuclear, with Gas CCGT's powered by fracked gas and a little bit of renewables to keep the hippies happy, after all if we wanted to go all green we'd need 4 times the land mass we have so its an impossibility.
I also wonder if the nukes will be Chinese built and run ones, and I think they also hope the Chinese will be willing to take the high level waste back to China with them if the price is right, after all they have so much land, manpower and money they could take the small amount of waste produced here with no problems as China has a seriously bigger nuclear generation industry so their storage facilities wouldn't even notice it and they don't mess around if they want a waste store they build it unlike here its been 25 years and there's still no long term waste store.
And after all we only need a few tens of reactors to cover things and I think the plan is the new Gas stations will fill in for the peaks and troughs daily fluctuations bring, everyone's happy job done!, But how will they get this past the peasants I hear you cry!?, easy, the way things are going we will have power cuts and I think thats what they really want, make it tough for a few years and people will agree to anything if their desperate.
Now I know it sounds paranoid and I might be totally wrong but look up shock doctrine if you don't think it scans, Thatcher and Reagan were fans of it and applied it to the working population so they could control them easier. Right I'm off to go and put a purple tracksuit on and put tinfoil on me head David Ike style!!:)

Airwave!

True that the government don't have much to do with generating the power but they do underwrite the costs of building power stations and also format the government aid and the amount that is repaid to energy firms as a subsistence for generating the power in the way that they want.

daffy2

I don't think there's any secret to Westminster wanting nuclear, and it's being presented to the populace as the only realistic alternative. Hence the situation of a government minister stating at the opening of Sizewell B 'There will be no Sizewell C', - so what is now being proposed...hmm Sizewell C.
In the same way as fear is being used to overcome resistance to GM crops(you'll starve if we aren't allowed to go ahead) it is being used in the nuclear debate - you want light and heat you'll have to accept nuclear.
There is absolutely no effort made to limit the consumption of electricity, quite the reverse in fact with the promotion of electric vehicles, and as Airwave says the abysmal standard of new home design and building. One statistic that has stuck in my mind is that in the 10 years of Tony 'Kyoto' Blair's reign electricity demand increased by 20%. I imagine that much of that was probably totally unnecessary - halogen lights and power hungry gizmos spring to mind - so how about addressing the problem of increasing demand as well as trying to increase generating capacity?

Airwave!

Thats why the ministers are in China, trying to get them to build nuclear power stations over here. We could be dealing with the after affects of this for a long time and higher prices to make sure they get the right subsidy.

mellman01

Are you sure of underwriting the costs of new builds!?, I worked for 10 years in the industry driving a 500MW unit until I was retired due to ill health in 2011 and I've never heard it mentioned once, as far as I know you pay them for the privilege of generating and you pay for the sites construction as well its why so few new stations have or are being built there's no money in it the returns are so low its not viable, well if you consider you'll need to run the thing for 10 years before you break even, if it were the case the state underwrote stations construction costs then new nukes would have already been built here. And what about the waste stream?, no commercial company has ever paid for its own waste stream as its not quantifiable well not here anyway, the state has normally carried this can as it's a liability that's foe ever, it doesn't stop being radioactive or totally safe once its stuck in a store it has to be monitored and inspected this will happen for "eon's" pardon the pun!.
I'd like to see what Osbourne and co have in store for the new nukes waste, it will be the biggest stumbling block/elephant in the room by far, I wouldnt put it past him or Dave to try and stitch them up in some way or other, if they try that the Chinese will shove the bat right up their chuffers but knowing them they'll try it, as for the French building the stations that makes good sense their reactor designs are good unlike those used in the US, Sizwell B is the same PWR design as the 3 mile Island reactor so that says it all.

mellman01

I didn't think underwriting was real seems I'm right then otherwise we'd be paying for and building the new Hinckley reactor oh and we'd also own it if we did, actually this mess shows you the true cost of privatisation for this country, the french people own EDF and they have an advanced and functional nuclear program and build very safe and efficient reactors, we on the other hand have thanks to dear old Thatcher destroyed a once vibrant and world leading nuclear nationalised nuclear power industry, the UKAEA only exists on paper now and the sites are closed down and all the high tech equipment is in a land fill, the biggest shame is She also closed the two high flux test reactors at Harwell (Pluto and Dido) cutting off the only source for cancer and therapeutic medical isotopes to the NHS and when she did her government didn't have the guts to tell the IPU section at Harwell so many people died due to this callous act, how do I know this?, I worked producing cancer sources in the late 80's early 90's so I saw it first hand thats why I didn't rejoice with the deluded when she clocked out I saw first hand what she was capable off and I cant forgive her for what she did to those poor people.
Right back on topic, We have a dysfunctional and asset stripped power industry and the grids falling apart as well due to underinvestment and short term greed.
Oddly no ones mentioned the thorny issue of the waste stream?, I guess we'll be paying for that one way or the other they haven't mentioned it so its got to be bad news, its also sad we have embraced privatisation like we have, its cost us far more than if the power and nuclear power industry was still owned by us as it would have not been allowed to fall into the state of disrepair that it has, and if you think the prices rises are bad now then get use to a whole lot more of it as your total energy bills will be double in the next 10 to 20 years, but hey you got your shares to keep you warm, well if you burn the paperwork as they're worth feck all!.

mellman01

How odd as soon as I questions the mythical state underpinning it went totally silent on here how odd??.(I wasn't surprised though)
Anyway the good news is the French euro reactor design is what we will be getting, its a good design and safe as they can be, don't listen to the XXXX the Daily Mail is pumping out if it was as useless as they are saying then why do we have 2X2000MW importation power cables from them?, we rely on their abundance of spare capacity without it we'd be in a worse situation than we already are so the Mail is stirring the pot as usual by spreading lies and false truths.
But on a slightly different note, Immigration or in our case unhindered mass immigration is a serious issue for all our infrastructure, heres the maths, One French reactor will kick out around 2000MW the same as Didcot A coal station did, thats enough for just around 2odd million homes. Now net immigration is still at 500,000 or half a million a year, so that means we need to build one new 2000MW station every 4 or so years just to keep up with the power these new comers will require alone!, sooner or later we will need to get a grip or we will simply run out of infrastructure and space let alone power.

[Asterisked swearing replaced: House a Rule 1. Mod B]