The 1970s were the time of Britain’s infamous “Winter of Discontent”. Striking garbage collectors and even grave diggers causing massive piles of garbage in London’s streets and unburied bodies in cemeteries. Just a few years earlier, striking coal miners forced the entire country into power rationing. Industries were forced into a three-day work week, television broadcasts ceased at 10.30pm, and rolling blackouts plunged households across the nation into darkness and freezing cold in the middle of winter.
Britain is set to endure another round of winters of discontent. Once again, a dearth of coal-fired power is the cause — except that this time, it’s not striking coal miners at fault, it’s the lunacy of “net zero”.
Britain has shut down its coal generating industry and switched to, mostly, wind. And that’s panning out about exactly as most of us could have predicted.
Households will be paid to ration their power usage at peak times as the National Grid scrambles to reduce pressure on Britain’s energy infrastructure.
From Friday up to 1.4m households will be paid if they cut their normal electricity consumption at certain two-hour periods during the day, as an experiment to see how households’ behavior might be changed.
Britain has switched its power generating capacity to expensive, unreliable “renewables”. At the same time, it’s forcing people to use even more electricity-consuming devices than ever before.
Demand for electricity is set to soar in coming decades as millions of people ditch their petrol and diesel cars for electric models and swap gas-fired boilers for electric heat pumps or hydrogen made from renewable electricity, as part of the Government’s push to cut carbon emissions.
This will happen at the same time as coal and gas-fired power stations make way for more and more wind and solar power, which are intermittent, requiring greater management of the grid to make sure demand always matches supply to prevent possible blackouts.
Telegraph
Does anyone, apart from the delusional Boris Johnson and his green cronies, have any doubt about exactly how this is going to pan out?
Power prices are soaring, even as supply becomes more unreliable. Hundreds of thousands of Britons are plunged into “energy poverty” every winter, forced to choose between heating or eating. Thousands, mostly old and poor, die every winter as a direct result.
If the standoff with Russia over Ukraine escalates, Britain, like most of Europe, will find itself very deep in the cold, cold doo-doo.
Analysts have warned that energy supplies will be stretched to the point where rationing will be needed if Russia cuts off its gas supply to Europe.
Analysts at US investment bank Stifel Chris Wheaton and David Round, said: “It’s not pretty. Energy rationing would be inevitable in this scenario, which would be disastrous for the European economy.
“Could we see quadruple-digit UK gas prices – over 1000p/therm in this event? Yes, we could, in our view.
“Demand for power would need to be reduced. This would require industry shut-ins, power rationing through rolling blackouts, to both reduce average demand and also shift and flatten power demand peaks.”
The Express
Thanks, green-left!
