If Only....

 

Graph From GridWatch

If only yesterday's energy output could (in Most Part) repeated. Wind was producing the bulk of our electricity. The eco-loons would be very proud. 

But unfortunately this is not reflected every day. As I've shown, there are times when the wind doesn't blow and it's bitterly cold. In winter, solar is next to insignificant.

Interesting that even as the wind was blowing, the European interconnectors were supplying a big chunk of electricity to us. In the evening the alsort-coloured block at the top of the graph supplying almost 20% of our electricity.

Again, I can only surmise that the UK market pays well for French Nuclear and German coal-fired electricity. Enough so that they can supply some of their precious energy to us. I doubt very much if it is gas-fired electricity they are supplying to us, given the privations being enforced across Europe to reduce electricity consumption. 

The Swiss being the most recent. Considering plans to restrict private use of electric cars to essential journeys only if the energy crisis worsens. 

Switzerland. A bastion of freedom and democracy. A land of lakes and mountains. You'd think they'd be be abundant in hydro power rather than relying on external energy resources.

So, given it's so bad in Europe all of these things are being considered, why are they supplying so much electricity to us? I'm sure the Swiss wouldn't be best pleased, nor the Germans or the French. After all, there have been many requests from European politicians to reduce energy consumption, from having cold showers, to switching the lights off on public buildings and monuments early.

The EU is already talking about mandatory targets for energy reductions at peak times across Europe. Citizens have already been asked to not use appliances between 4pm and 7pm in order to reduce peak load. I assume so that greener options like nuclear can produce the bulk of the power and gas turbine power plants don't have to be brought in to fill in the peak demand.

Over the past month, watching the Gridwatch graphs has been interesting. From the windless cold snap, to yesterday's high wind/low solar/high interconnector graph.

It just shows how messed up energy supply in the UK is. Renewables aren't the solution, not until the energy produced by renewable sources can be stored efficiently.

We really need to get a grip on tidal power. It's a regular, reliable, and free source of power. We have some of the fastest tidal races in Europe. Harness that and channel all the renewable production into storage and then you'd go a long way to reduce fossil fuel production. The capacity still needs to be there, because there will be periods where we can be without wind for weeks. But then tidal power could produce a lot of power and channelled into storage it could be a reliable source of energy.

The All-Electric Dream Turning into a Nightmare?

This article in the Daily Mail starkly illustrates the real-life problems facing electric car owners now that numbers are increasing on the road. 

Service stations with only a handful of chargers, where electric car owners have to queue to charge, broken chargers not allowing owners to charge; basically the charging infrastructure not keeping up with demand. 

Even the best charging network, provided by Tesla has had issues over the holiday period, with Tesla owners having to queue to use chargers. 

There's a reason that the number of chargers is low: the electricity supply to (usually isolated) service stations is limited. Only a certain number of chargers can be supported before new electricity supply cables have to be laid to the service station to supply the amount of current demanded by more chargers.

That then becomes prohibitively expensive. Tesla get round the issue by current-sharing. If one car hooks up to a charger, then you can usually supercharge fine. If two cars hook up to the same charging plinth, then the current to each car is reduced so the overall demand on the grid supply is shared and kept below the limit of the supply cables. 

That's why you find (or should find) more chargers in service stations in urban areas. The grid in built up areas should be able to cope with the demand without too much hassle. 

But this is yet more evidence that the push to electric is ideological. Had the push to electric been anything else, then the implications of a million electric vehicles on the road would have been investigated and the correct policies put in place to provide adequate charging infrastructure.

As it is, government policy is to set an end date for fossil-fuelled vehicles and then let the market sort out the infrastructure.

It's not good enough. The National Grid needs to be modified, planning laws need to be amended and so much more secondary changes need to be made to support electric vehicles, if they are to become a success.

The issue of grid supply to service stations is just one. Others are supplying charging infrastructure in historic preservation areas where there are planning restrictions. For instance how does one get permission to bolt a charger onto the wall of a listed building? How do you install on-street charging in preservation areas? In both instances how do you modify planning laws to allow it, or do you make preservation areas and historic buildings charge-free zones?

Even when the charging infrastructure starts to get better, it needs to be able to support electric cars in winter with vastly reduced range. Electric car drivers are now beginning to realise that battery range can be as much as halved in very cold weather. Meaning that drivers are forced to hook up to chargers more often and create more demand for chargers in winter. I doubt very much the charging infrastructure has even considered this effect. Instead just plonking chargers willy-nilly wherever they can be shoehorned in and grid capacity will allow. No consideration for range, no consideration for demand. Instead the market provides the solution for the cheapest cost, ensuring maximum profits.

No-one has yet cottoned onto the brand loyalty that could be gained by providing adequate numbers of reliable chargers for all, similar to the Tesla network, but without the limitations of having to own a Tesla. Of course the hurdles to this are many, with the risk of competitors undercutting you and providing just enough charging capacity at a lower cost. Although it appears that Tesla have now opened up their network to those who are able to use it. 

Over the past month I've been posting articles about the wider issue: that of the means used to generate the electricity we use. Even if we went all-electric tomorrow, the issue still remains that the bulk of our generating capacity is provided by gas-powered stations. Renewables are okay when the wind and solar are available, but when they are not (which is most of the time) gas has to come on stream to provide the shortfall. 

So at the moment electric cars are not as green as the hype suggests. They are still powered mostly by fossil fuels. It's just that you don't see any emissions from the car. They are moved away from the car to the power station. Just like industry has been closed in the UK and moved to India or China. We still require the materials, it's just that their manufacture (and therefore the emissions created by making the item) have been moved elsewhere.

We are far from Green, far from net-zero, far from the ideological perfection the disciples of Greta Thunberg demand. 

That's what you get if you blindly follow an ideology, a requirement, a target, without a plan or a convincing end-game, without thinking it through.

Why the Immigration System is Broken and an Insight into How and Why Government Reacts the Way It Does.

It's often said on the internet that the Government should look after homeless veterans as well as illegal immigrants, because immigrants get housed in hotels, whilst the homeless are left to freeze in shop doorways with no help from either local or National Government.

The reason is simple. It comes down to Funding and legal issues. 

For instance there isn't a statutory duty to house homeless people in this country. Funding isn't provided to councils to help the homeless. Instead that is done by charities, that may get grants from local or national government, but it's not a legal or statutory duty placed upon councils to do it.

When it comes to illegal immigrants, there IS a statutory or legal duty of care that national government has to follow. UN charters on "refugees" requires government to house and process anyone coming into the UK claiming asylum. The funding comes from the legal duty placed on government. They HAVE to house these immigrants whilst they process them, thanks to the various treaties and agreements we've signed. 

The problem is the processing of these people isn't funded at the same time or to a level able to cope with the numbers coming into the UK. So although legally we have to house them while we process them and the funding stems from that legal requirement, funding of the processing isn't covered. Hence the mismatch between the numbers coming into the country and the poor funding of the agencies required to process them. 

It may take years before we eventually kick them out. In that time, they could have left a hotel, shacked up with some girl, got her pregnant and had a kid. Which is what they actively seek to do. That's because once they have "family" i.e. a kid in the UK, then the Court of human rights kicks in and they then claim the right to stay because the human right to family life then becomes a legal priority.

The system is broken, because the funding doesn't track the need. 

When we sign treaties, we should always insist there is some requirement that if we are drawing funds for immigration from some source, the funding of secondary support should track the primary funding. If for instance the UN helps fund refugees, then they should also fund secondary support: the agencies tasked with investigating the asylum claims. 

We can't continue with the current system where we are expected to accept an infinite number of immigrants without secondary support funding tracking the numbers as well.

When you see injustices in local and national government, this is usually the cause. The disparity with what is mandated legally and what isn't. The disparity between NHS and social care is another example. The NHS is funded Nationally, whereas Social Care is funded by Local government. This is why Social care isn't funded to anywhere near the level that the NHS is.

The dear old NHS, the Gorgon that continues to gobble up ever increasing amounts of taxpayer money, but provides fewer and fewer services. Failing even as we commit billions in funds to it. A result massive levels of mismanagement and incompetence. The NHS joke is that incompetence managers are not fired, they are promoted. And this is why we have chaos in our health service. The managers that are in place are incompetent. They were incompetent lower managers, they were incompetent middle managers and they become incompetent senior managers. 

My local health authority lost 250,000 a month for six months, all because someone (wrongly) disputed an energy bill. That's 1.5 million pounds. Lost because someone thought a bill was wrong, flagged it up but never followed through because it wasn't their job. It was their job to flag it up, but not follow through with the process. And that's as inefficient as the NHS works. 

And this inability to match legislation to funding has been going on for decades. It's now crippling the country. We do need a great reset, but not the WEF one.