Monday, 27 January 2025

UK Government Avoid Offending Everyone Except the Majority..

It seems that HMS Agincourt is to be renamed to avoid offending the French.

Is there no-one the Labour government won't bend over backwards to avoid offending?

Oh yeah, the pale stale white people that make up the majority of the country. The most heinous of which are the retired, with their pensions and their savings accounts. They need teaching a lesson.

Fuck Labour, Fuck the Civil service. Stop spunking my money on vanity projects to signal how virtuous you are. I don't care how soothed your conscience is, just get the fucking job done without costing me an arm and a leg.



Storm Herminia Brings... No Power.

 Here's an object lesson in what happens when there is too much wind, or the win is in the wrong place:


See that blue sliver over the huge orange band? That's yesterday's wind generation. Pathetic. 

Given that there WAS some wind, the Storm Herminia, you'd think that somewhere in the country there would be just enough wind (neither too much or too little) for a decent contribution to UK energy production.

But alas, no. There appears to be too much of the wrong type of wind to produce substantial amounts of energy. 

What was that the enviro-mentalists used to say? That somewhere in the country the wind will blow and there will be generation. Yeah, some generation, but not a substantial amount. 

Gas is still the major energy provider. Without it, we are scuppered. 

With the demise of coal-fired production, it would be wise to invest in an alternative heating source at the very least. We can live without lights, but we can't live without heat. 

The posh people have their wood-burners to fall back on, even though they might be illegal.

Those of us without recourse to remodelling the house to install a multi-fuel stove need an alternative. 

The cheap Chinese diesel heaters that are around for under £100 seem to be a good alternative. They can run of most oils including vegetable oil. So you can run one cheaply. All you need is a 12v car battery and some oil. And a hole to vent the exhaust out of, you don't want to die from carbon monoxide poisoning.

If the indications are energy production is going to falter, I'll be first in line for one..


Wednesday, 22 January 2025

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.