Winter Energy Requirements: Fossil Fuels for the Win.

It's been a while since I had a look at UK energy consumption. If you look along the bottom of this page, you'll see the live display.

What caught my eye today is that Gas meter, which was pegged about 50% over full scale. Yes, gas is producing so much of our immediate energy usage, it broke the meter!

Of course, sadly coal-fired energy production is no more. It will remain 0% until government changes policy and energy companies decide to invest in new coal-fired plant. Oh and the rail infrastructure is dragged out of retirement and the pits open back up, or the ports start accepting coal imports.

Yeah, not going to happen in the short term.

Anyway, here's the graph this morning, the orange bar is gas-fired energy production:

Yeah, the others don't come close. No wind, negligible solar. If we didn't have gas, we would be absolutely fucked.

Yesterday wasn't any better either:

Look at that thick wedge of orange compared to the rest. They don't match the gas-fired production even if they were all combined together.

What can I say, our energy policy is insane. We are relying chiefly on a single source of energy. Without gas, we wouldn't be able to supply the country's energy demand.

Our energy policy and energy security are abysmal. If the gas ran out, we have no alternative option that could cope.