Liz Truss and the Conservative Party.

[yorksrob]

I heard it mentioned on the radio that the withdrawal of the free travel had been drawn up in DfT but not passed on to Ministers for approval.

That sounds about right. Even this loony Government wouldn't touch that policy with a barge pole.

 

[AM9]

Yes, but when such a high percentage of electricity is generated using gas then it does play into things.

I doubt that switching gas usage from one part of the day to another makes any difference, - it's the quantity of gas used that does. For safety reasons, gas pressure muust be maintained at a fairly constant level in the main, and the sheer volume of the main would be the same as any other normal winter. The reason why a gas shortage will if necessary be mitigated by power cuts is that turning of gas at the main can be dangerous and each stoppage could take days to reinstate. Electricity however can be removed and reinstated almost instantaneously.

 

[Yew]

It makes no sense to waste gas producing electricity, and if people are asked to reduce usage at peak times then we might make it.

Sadly I bet there will be people online getting upset and being asked to moderate their usage or wash clothes and dishes overnight, and I bet you'll even have some people deliberately running appliance to cause problems as some sort of protest.

Why are we immediately jumping to having people make sacrifices and changes, rather than holding those who've been sculpting energy policy over the last 40 years to account?

 

[takno]

Why are we immediately jumping to having people make sacrifices and changes, rather than holding those who've been sculpting energy policy over the last 40 years to account?

Primarily because holding them to account won't keep the lights on this winter, while sacrifices and changes might

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Why are we immediately jumping to having people make sacrifices and changes, rather than holding those who've been sculpting energy policy over the last 40 years to account?

Because if there's not enough gas, then there's no option other than for people to make sacrifices and changes?

If you want to hold people to account who made mistakes in our energy policy, then go ahead! But doing that is not going to change that, if there's not enough gas then we will need to make sacrifices.

 

[yorksrob]

Because if there's not enough gas, then there's no option other than for people to make sacrifices and changes?

If you want to hold people to account who made mistakes in our energy policy, then go ahead! But doing that is not going to change that, if there's not enough gas then we will need to make sacrifices.

True. You'd have to hold people to account for the last fifty years of energy policy.

 

[najaB]

I doubt that switching gas usage from one part of the day to another makes any difference, - it's the quantity of gas used that does. For safety reasons, gas pressure muust be maintained at a fairly constant level in the main, and the sheer volume of the main would be the same as any other normal winter.

True, but lowering the peak demand means that some gas power plants may not be required to be switched on at all, if wind and other renewables are enough to cover the load.

 

[jon0844]

Why are we immediately jumping to having people make sacrifices and changes, rather than holding those who've been sculpting energy policy over the last 40 years to account?

I get your point but we are where we are. People should have been encouraged to use less energy years and years ago, and given incentives to do so. Of course it seems there are people who want us to keep consuming fossil fuels and delay green energy.

Remember how upset some people made us get over getting rid of incandescent light bulbs and inefficient vacuum cleaners? That was just one example.

We are fortunate because we changed to LED bulbs at the start, and now have a smart heating system (every TRV being smart) so have the best opportunities. We didn't get a grant or anything but I was able to afford such things - although solar panels and batteries would be a major investment that I'd need to borrow to fund.

I feel for those who didn't have the opportunity to improve their home efficiency, or were convinced to hang on to inefficient appliances and lights as some sort of 'stick it to the EU' protest. Plus those renting who have landlords who haven't invested.

Yes all of this can be blamed on our Government for 12 years and probably before that. Even now there are huge amounts of money funding disinformation on green energy and EVs to keep us dependent on fuel that will only ever get more expensive (and profitable for the suppliers and those willing to go along with it).

 

[takno]

I get your point but we are where we are. People should have been encouraged to use less energy years and years ago, and given incentives to do so. Of course it seems there are people who want us to keep consuming fossil fuels and delay green energy.

Remember how upset some people made us get over getting rid of incandescent light bulbs and inefficient vacuum cleaners? That was just one example.

We are fortunate because we changed to LED bulbs at the start, and now have a smart heating system (every TRV being smart) so have the best opportunities. We didn't get a grant or anything but I was able to afford such things - although solar panels and batteries would be a major investment that I'd need to borrow to fund.

I feel for those who didn't have the opportunity to improve their home efficiency, or were convinced to hang on to inefficient appliances and lights as some sort of 'stick it to the EU' protest. Plus those renting who have landlords who haven't invested.

Yes all of this can be blamed on our Government for 12 years and probably before that. Even now there are huge amounts of money funding disinformation on green energy and EVs to keep us dependent on fuel that will only ever get more expensive (and profitable for the suppliers and those willing to go along with it).

I think most of the complaints were over the general ineffectiveness and unpleasant environmental impacts of the mercury in CFLs, and with vacuum cleaners which don't suck hard enough to clean properly, and therefore end up using just as much energy over the longer period they have to be used. LED lights don't suffer from nearly the same level of backlash. Like many ardent remainers, I'm sure I didn't make the well-informed decisions I did on appliances based on some kind of animus to the EU, and I'd humbly suggest that the attempt to tie the two issues together weakens your argument significantly.

I'm not really sure what your point is on EVs, since if anything they're worsening the energy crisis at the moment, but the key problem with energy policy hasn't been a failure to pursue green energy, but more a failure to either get on with nuclear or retain some baseload coal capacity, rather than assuming that gas was unlimited and clean enough to make a difference.

 

[Bald Rick]

Yes, but when such a high percentage of electricity is generated using gas then it does play into things.

Yes, a whopping 28% this week.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Considering this sh*tshow of a government, I’m surprised they aren’t just suggesting that people try ‘not being cold’ this winter, so they don’t need to put the heating on.

 

[SynthD]

vacuum cleaners which don't suck hard enough to clean properly, and therefore end up using just as much energy over the longer period they have to be used.

I’ve not heard that detail before. Is it true, or is it a bendy bananas type myth?

 

[takno]

I’ve not heard that detail before. Is it true, or is it a bendy bananas type myth?

European energy efficiency standards are the exact mix of sensible and absurd that you'd expect. Sometimes spending a lot longer doing something at a lower power will save energy overall, and sometimes it won't. With kettles it's fairly obviously pointless to restrict the wattage, while with Hoovers most people aren't actually getting all the dust up anyway - if you're just running the thing over the carpet as fast as you can then you probably will save energy with a lower wattage machine. Maybe you'll save even more because you decide the carpets are manky now and get rid of them, but that might affect the heat retention of the house. Basically there's too many variables to think that kind of standard is actually useful

 

[AM9]

True, but lowering the peak demand means that some gas power plants may not be required to be switched on at all, if wind and other renewables are enough to cover the load.

No, you were talking about peak gas, "this campaign would have focused more on modifying behaviour to shave the peak demand for gas" i.e. many consumers using gas at the same time of day. If a gas supply is in service, the whole system is pressurised to the required level. If people choose to heat their water in the late afternoon/evening, instead of in the small hours, there's still the same nominal demand per day and the system doesn't really make much difference. Cutting the demand for gas doesn't affect electricity demand (unless consumers decide that their single electric heater is cheaper to run heating one room than the gas central heating warming the whole house), - in which case that even could increase the electricity demand, calling for more generating resource to be brought online. Not everybody with a thermally leaky house has the resouce to fit thermostatic radiator valves or even have a zoned system, especially this coming winter, so an old 2kW fan heater could be pushed into service to heat a kitchen or small living room.

 

[najaB]

No, you were talking about peak gas, "this campaign would have focused more on modifying behaviour to shave the peak demand for gas"

Yes, peak demand for gas for all purposes - for domestic heating and for electricity generation.

 

[jon0844]

I think most of the complaints were over the general ineffectiveness and unpleasant environmental impacts of the mercury in CFLs, and with vacuum cleaners which don't suck hard enough to clean properly, and therefore end up using just as much energy over the longer period they have to be used. LED lights don't suffer from nearly the same level of backlash. Like many ardent remainers, I'm sure I didn't make the well-informed decisions I did on appliances based on some kind of animus to the EU, and I'd humbly suggest that the attempt to tie the two issues together weakens your argument significantly.

I'm not really sure what your point is on EVs, since if anything they're worsening the energy crisis at the moment, but the key problem with energy policy hasn't been a failure to pursue green energy, but more a failure to either get on with nuclear or retain some baseload coal capacity, rather than assuming that gas was unlimited and clean enough to make a difference.

No it doesn't. There were active campaigns to keep selling the old bulbs (and I said incandescent bulbs, not CFLs) and hoovers, with people actually buying up stocks to 'beat the ban'. And, no, old vacuum cleaners are not better. They were often based on 50+ year old designs, with manufacturers not bothering to update them because - well, why bother? Newer machines were far more efficient, and now people are using them I don't recall everyone saying in the last few years that they can't pick up dust and dirt. Can you? It was manufactured outrage, and a lot of people suspect the makers of the antiquated machines had their part to play in getting mugs to buy the outgoing stock, so it wasn't unsold.

And the point about EVs is that on social media, any time there's talk of electric vehicles, there are then loads of people who pile on by saying they're not the future, that the grid can't cope with charging (even though a car charging at 7 kilowatts is akin to an oven being on with a convector or immersion heater, and maybe a toaster/kettle etc. The grid can cope. With everyone having an EV? Well, maybe then there's an issue - but the grid will grow in time. You also have people who say it's cheaper to fill an ICE vehicle than an EV (they usually do a rail-like comparison that isn't like for like, such as comparing an Asda fuel station vs a BP high-speed charger on a motorway services where you are paying more for the faster charging, not the electricity).

I think the Government have willingly done lots of things to stop people feeling any need to cut energy usage, and there are many people who perhaps rightly don't think it's fair to have to turn off radiators and put on a jumper, but sadly that's the life for a lot of people now and for some time. I remember my grandparents only heating the rooms they were in, with those fuzzy snakes along the bottom of the door to keep the heat in. I remember freezing in a bedroom when staying over, as the bed sheets were piled on to keep me warm (but get out at night for the toilet and it was ice cold). That was however a generation that lived through the war, and now it seems we may have to adopt similar practices.

Should a first world country need to do this? No, but it is what it is. Maybe if we had more free-energy off-grid (like solar panels, batteries etc) then we could have some more freedom. That isn't going to come from this Government, and I am not sure Labour would do it either.

 

[johnnychips]

^ A really well-reasoned post @jon0844 . I can remember ‘Jack Frost’ on the windows, those snakes with buttons for eyes, hot-water bottles and electric blankets. But that was in the 1960s and 70s. It is sad that there have been no massive incentives to get older properties properly insulated.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

No it doesn't. There were active campaigns to keep selling the old bulbs (and I said incandescent bulbs, not CFLs) and hoovers, with people actually buying up stocks to 'beat the ban'.

To be fair, at the time that the bans on importing then selling incandescent bulbs were being brought in, there was an issue that a lot of low-energy bulbs simply weren't very good: The technology at the time hadn't quite matured enough, and that probably accounted for some of the opposition to the ban. I recall my sister at the time, who was very environmentally minded and certainly not a right-wing conspiracy-theorist, expressing frustration that the CFL bulbs she'd had to buy took ages to come on properly, and even then didn't seem nearly as bright as their notional incandescent equivalents. These days the technology has improved vastly and that's no longer a problem, but I think you could make a case that the ban on incandescent bulbs came in a few years too early.

 

[Falcon1200]

Sturgeon professes herself puzzled as to why Truss has not bothered to contact her yet. Cameron did so a day or two after she became Leader of the SNP, and both May and Johnson had the courtesy to do so as soon as they became PM. Guess she has too many semi and actual fascists in Italy to try to compare notes with rather than the elected leader of one of the home nations.

Given that during the Tory leadership campaign Nicola Sturgeon, to gain political advantage and take the mickey, reported details of a conversation between herself and Liz Truss, one can perhaps hardly blame Truss for not wanting to speak to Sturgeon!

(I only wish I could ignore Sturgeon too but living in Scotland I don't have that luxury.....)

 

[najaB]

Given that during the Tory leadership campaign Nicola Sturgeon, to gain political advantage and take the mickey, reported details of a conversation between herself and Liz Truss, one can perhaps hardly blame Truss for not wanting to speak to Sturgeon!

That may be true, but it's still not on for the PM to neglect to contact the FM for such a long time. There's no rule saying they have to like each other, but they do have to work together.

 

[birchesgreen]

That may be true, but it's still not on for the PM to neglect to contact the FM for such a long time. There's no rule saying they have to like each other, but they do have to work together.

No no how UNBRITISH! Working together? What are you, some kind of pinko foreigner? The way this country is run is by snubbing, sneering and betrayal. Its why everything works so well.

 

[simonw]

Have we now got our (gas?) storage systems working again? Seemed crazy to me to let such a facility go out of use.

The only large scale storage we had was the Rough field and that was found to be in poor condition with the wells at the end of their lives. It isn't simply a case of "getting it working again".

 

[Gloster]

The only large scale storage we had was the Rough field and that was found to be in poor condition with the wells at the end of their lives. It isn't simply a case of "getting it working again".

My understanding is that Centrica closed it in 2017 because it required costly maintenance and the government was not willing to provide any support. That it is being brought back into use now shows that it was a case of £s rather than the state of the facility. (But see my note in #838 as to how much I know about the subject: virtually nothing.)

 

[simonw]

My understanding is that Centrica closed it in 2017 because it required costly maintenance and the government was not willing to provide any support. That it is being brought back into use now shows that it was a case of £s rather than the state of the facility. (But see my note in #838 as to how much I know about the subject: virtually nothing.)

It's a bit more complicated than that but this is the Tory party thread not an energy one and so I was trying to avoid thread drift.

But basically the 40 plus years old well linings were not up to the job at the pressures the facility needed to operate at.

I can give a longer version of the history of Rough but this thread may not be the place for it.

 

[najaB]

My understanding is that Centrica closed it in 2017 because it required costly maintenance and the government was not willing to provide any support. That it is being brought back into use now shows that it was a case of £s rather than the state of the facility.

That more or less is the size of it. The facility needed expensive maintenance and upgrades that couldn't be justified on purely economic grounds. The government of the day wasn't prepared to make up the difference.

 

[py_megapixel]

Some of the advice I've read (especially on the <town>live sites) has been shocking.

Are you talking about the "This £25 Revolutionary Heating Device Is Slashing Gas Bills And Taking The Nation By Storm" sort of things? Because those aren't really advice at all, they're just paid adverts for borderline scams.

 

[Falcon1200]

There's no rule saying they have to like each other, but they do have to work together.

Ms Sturgeon has now told us she detests the Tories, not sure that's going to encourage working together.

The way this country is run is by snubbing, sneering and betrayal

Sneering at those who do not agree with her is a major part of Sturgeon's character.

 

[najaB]

Ms Sturgeon has now told us she detests the Tories, not sure that's going to encourage working together.

I don't think that was a secret to anybody.

Worth noting that there's a difference between saying that she detests Tory values and saying that she detests any particular Tory.

 

[Busaholic]

Are you talking about the "This £25 Revolutionary Heating Device Is Slashing Gas Bills And Taking The Nation By Storm" sort of things? Because those aren't really advice at all, they're just paid adverts for borderline scams.

A radio presenter and newspaper columnist who happens to be the sister of a recent Prime Minister (coincidence?) is advocating the use of a heat pad on the lap as an alternative to having heating on. So far as I can ascertain, it's not meant as a satirical comment. I assume that if you have a family that also desires some heat, you buy a few more heat pads and plug them in too. You will, of course, have sufficient rooms, power points and dosh to pay for it all in the first place.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Oct 2022 ==

I don't think that was a secret to anybody.

Worth noting that there's a difference between saying that she detests Tory values and saying that she detests any particular Tory.

The detestation will probably only extend to some current and former members of the SNP, including an ex-leader?

 

[Lost property]

Who would have known a Gov't Minister had so many talents, this one now being a long range weather forecaster, and, better still, Winter is going to be warm and sunny along with now only being Winter for a few days over Christmas !

Nadhim Zahawi claims UK winter blackouts are ‘extremely unlikely’

Cabinet minister says it is ‘only right we plan for every scenario’ after National Grid warning

www.theguardian.com