Energy Lockdowns, Blackouts and Shortages

[Captain Lithuania]

12 minutes ago, joondalupjambo said:

First bomb dropped petrol immediately goes up within a day or two regardless of the fact that we had a lot in storage and fuel had apparently been pre-purchased.

Ceasefire now but ah sorry will take weeks for the fuel costs to drop back down.

Fuel watch eh, another stoater.  Sorry should not be so negative because that does let you see that if your drive 5 miles to a specific garage that petrol is 1p cheaper a litre there.

 

It’s depressing as anything. Sell the petrol they bought at a much lower price for the new high price, so they make their normal profit, plus an additional crisis profit, price drops, they continue selling at the crisis price. The world is a joke. 

[The Mighty Thor]

36 minutes ago, Captain Lithuania said:

It’s depressing as anything. Sell the petrol they bought at a much lower price for the new high price, so they make their normal profit, plus an additional crisis profit, price drops, they continue selling at the crisis price. The world is a joke. 

Hope Ed Milliband resigns likesy.

[Captain Lithuania]

26 minutes ago, The Mighty Thor said:

Hope Ed Milliband resigns likesy.

Are you getting me confused with somebody else?

[The Mighty Thor]

26 minutes ago, Captain Lithuania said:

Are you getting me confused with somebody else?

 

Didn't mean to quite you 👍

[Glasgowben]

9 hours ago, Dennis Denuto said:

Why would he? For understanding his brief and acting accordingly?

for being insane

[Watt-Zeefuik]

5 hours ago, scottishguy said:

Been doing that for decades at Cruachan power station.

And the news looks like it's expanding.

It's a good thing to do in any case but it makes renewables much more valuable. No rare earth minerals required.

The other thing likely coming is sodium ion cell storage. It's not nearly as dense or as portable as lithium iron batteries, but sodium as much, much easier to come by than lithium or cadmium, and if you've got, say, a disused coal power generator handy, you can put a giant battery of them and get a ton of storage. A fair bit of engineering and optimization yet to be done, but the technical constraints seem very solvable.

[joondalupjambo]

5 hours ago, Captain Lithuania said:

It’s depressing as anything. Sell the petrol they bought at a much lower price for the new high price, so they make their normal profit, plus an additional crisis profit, price drops, they continue selling at the crisis price. The world is a joke. 

And successive Government's say they are watching you, trying to keep us onside while along they gather in more fuel tax to help pay an ever increasing benefits budget.  

[Glasgowben]

15 hours ago, Dennis Denuto said:

Why would he? For understanding his brief and acting accordingly?

Ed Miliband ADMITS To KILLING British Energy To Force The Green AGENDA!

[Dennis Denuto]

39 minutes ago, Glasgowben said:

Ed Miliband ADMITS To KILLING British Energy To Force The Green AGENDA!

Again you are just showing he understands the issue better than you or the person that posted that do. 

[Cade]

The "Green Agenda" is domestically produced energy which does not rely on middle east bampots for supply of fossil fuels.

Being able to produce all of your own electricity is just basic common sense when it comes to national security.

The fact that it produces far less pollution than fossil fuel power plants is just a bonus.

 

Please do explain how green energy is a scam or a threat to our way of life.

Use short words if you need to.

 

[il Duce McTarkin]

53 minutes ago, Cade said:

 

Please do explain how green energy is a scam or a threat to our way of life.

Use short words if you need to.

 

 

Those 'patronising *******' classes seem to be finally paying off, Cade.

 

Edited April 8 by il Duce McTarkin

[moshy]

2 hours ago, Cade said:

The "Green Agenda" is domestically produced energy which does not rely on middle east bampots for supply of fossil fuels.

Being able to produce all of your own electricity is just basic common sense when it comes to national security.

The fact that it produces far less pollution than fossil fuel power plants is just a bonus.

 

Please do explain how green energy is a scam or a threat to our way of life.

Use short words if you need to.

 

Here's an explanation of why it's not Green Energy

 

The illegal trade in cutting down trees for their balsa wood which is then sold to China to be used in the making of wind turbines blades using coal fired power stations.

 

Said wind turbines are then shipped to the UK using diesel powered shipping.

 

Digging up ancient peat lands that store carbon to pour in thousands of tons of concrete for wind turbine bases.

 

Digging up said peat lands that are storing Caesium 137 which is radioactive fall out from Chernobyl without an Environmental Impact Assesment.

 

Oh and just to top it off the ECU have removed the right for people to email them with their objections as they were getting that many, I wonder why.

 

As other posters have said the sooner Milliband is emptied the better before he bankrupts the country.

 

 

[Cade]

Manufacturers are moving away from Balsa to PET foam, as Balsa is being used faster than it can be grown, as well as the perfectly justified illegal logging concerns.

 

Disturbing peat bogs can release carbon but that can be calculated and over the 25-30 year lifespan of the turbines, they'll save much more carbon than was released by the peat, typically double.

 

The C-137 is only in the very top few centimetres of the peat, which can be scraped off, processed and the Caesium removed and stored safely (more safely than just laying in the dirt, for example)

 

We need more power.
Fossil fuels are both running out and under the control of hostile nations (east and west) so we're stupid if we keep relying on a diminishing resource with no guaranteed supply.

Wind, solar, nuclear and hydro are the future. They are only viable options.

[FWJ]

I certainly think we should do what we can to stop having to rely on foreign sources of energy - especially from unstable regimes - but the problem is heating our houses.

It annoys me when there’s blurb about some new (for eg) windfarm saying it will “produce enough electricity to power a city the size of Edinburgh”.  Power, maybe - if the winds blowing at an optimal speed - but not heat.  What is it - 80% of domestic heating is gas?  How are we going to change that?  Will heat pumps (great-ish idea in new-builds) work in the thousands upon thousands of Victorian flats in the city?

Edited April 8 by FWJ

[Cade]

All the more reason to keep the gas for central heating boilers instead of burning it in power plants.

Gas boilers in new builds are banned already.

Replacing current gas boilers with electric/heatpump technology will be a long-term issue (could stop shovelling £25billion a year to Landlords by way of housing benefit and use that money to subsidise a boiler replacement scheme). There's already schemes to reduce the cost of installing a heat pump in place or your old gas boiler.

https://www.gov.uk/apply-boiler-upgrade-scheme

 

Edited April 8 by Cade

[Chairman of the Bored]

4 hours ago, il Duce McTarkin said:

 

Those 'patronising *******' classes seem to be finally paying off, Cade.

 

He’s the dux. 

[Taffin]

8 hours ago, FWJ said:

I certainly think we should do what we can to stop having to rely on foreign sources of energy - especially from unstable regimes - but the problem is heating our houses.

It annoys me when there’s blurb about some new (for eg) windfarm saying it will “produce enough electricity to power a city the size of Edinburgh”.  Power, maybe - if the winds blowing at an optimal speed - but not heat.  What is it - 80% of domestic heating is gas?  How are we going to change that?  Will heat pumps (great-ish idea in new-builds) work in the thousands upon thousands of Victorian flats in the city?

 

Electric?

 

I had electric in my last two flats and worked pretty well and I think it's come a fair distance since then.

 

Not sure if fancy it in my house though now tbh, but for flats I reckon it's a good solution.

[Glasgowben]

14 hours ago, Dennis Denuto said:

Again you are just showing he understands the issue better than you or the person that posted that do. 

He doesn't understand the issue at all.  He's a fool

[FWJ]

1 hour ago, Taffin said:

 

Electric?

 

I had electric in my last two flats and worked pretty well and I think it's come a fair distance since then.

 

Not sure if fancy it in my house though now tbh, but for flats I reckon it's a good solution.

Electric heating currently (pardon the pun) costs 4x as much as gas - that needs a huge turnaround.

Perhaps some kind of district heating might be the answer, but again retrofitting it to Scotland’s millions of old houses/flats will be extraordinarily expensive.

[Taffin]

4 minutes ago, FWJ said:

Electric heating currently (pardon the pun) costs 4x as much as gas - that needs a huge turnaround.

Perhaps some kind of district heating might be the answer, but again retrofitting it to Scotland’s millions of old houses/flats will be extraordinarily expensive.

 

Per unit but it can be far more efficient. It didn't cost me much more, if anything, to heat my last flat with electric Vs an older gas one due to under floor heating and food insulation despite the main living space being a double height room.

[FWJ]

5 minutes ago, Taffin said:

 

Per unit but it can be far more efficient. It didn't cost me much more, if anything, to heat my last flat with electric Vs an older gas one due to under floor heating and food insulation despite the main living space being a double height room.

Which goes back to my second paragraph - installing underfloor heating and good insulation will be - if even feasible - extraordinarily expensive.

[Taffin]

16 minutes ago, FWJ said:

Which goes back to my second paragraph - installing underfloor heating and good insulation will be - if even feasible - extraordinarily expensive.

 

Not really, no. 

 

Also everyone should be properly insulating their property properly anyway, otherwise all they're doing is accelerating the need to move away from gas by using more of it than they need.

 

People can come up with 101 reasons why they just want to burn copious amounts of gas forever, it's easy, cheap and convenient. I get it, but equally there are alternatives that aren't that expensive or hard to do, particularly in flats.

 

You can make small gains quite easily yourself. Our house is single brick (🤬🤬🤬) so would be a nightmare to do much about that but properly insulating the loft, eliminating drafts around doors etc has made a huge difference itself

Edited April 9 by Taffin

[FWJ]

So, for example, the thousands of Victorian tenement flats in Bruntsfield/ Marchmont / Morningside.  Individual electric heating or some kind of district heating?  And if it’s district heating, where will the plant  go?

 

I’m not trying to be deliberately contrary here, something needs done, but I can’t see all the insulation and retrofitting in the world isn’t going to equalise heating costs when electric heating is 4x as expensive.

[FWJ]

(As an aside - these huge new blocks of flats that are going up in Leith - do they have a ‘central’ heating system or is it all individual?  Anyone know?)

[Taffin]

24 minutes ago, FWJ said:

So, for example, the thousands of Victorian tenement flats in Bruntsfield/ Marchmont / Morningside.  Individual electric heating or some kind of district heating?  And if it’s district heating, where will the plant  go?

 

I’m not trying to be deliberately contrary here, something needs done, but I can’t see all the insulation and retrofitting in the world isn’t going to equalise heating costs when electric heating is 4x as expensive.

 

It's not 4x more expensive though, saying that is being contrary. The unit cost is 3-4x more. That doesn't mean your heating bill is 4x more though.

 

Electric heating would be absolutely fine in those places imo. I had gas when I lived in Sciennes but the electric set up I had in Cardiff and Leamington Spa would have sufficed too.

 

District heating is a cool concept. I like it. I don't know much about it, it's not been an option for the buildings I've looked at for work.

 

Edit: it's horses for courses imo. The more new builds and appropriate properties that use heat pumps, the more individual properties where it's appropriate use electric and everyone improves insulation the net gas usage reduction is huge and will go a longer way for those properties where the other solutions don't work. 

Edited April 9 by Taffin

[Taffin]

I'd also always say to someone the best heating system is the one you've got. Unless you want to change it for idealistic purposes if stick with what you have until it breaks. At that point consider all the options.

 

We're gas for now, when the boiler chucks it I'll probably look at heat pumps but fear that it won't be viable due to the walls but would probably look to change all the rads and have a bash at it anyway 😂

 

People are also bad for not doing the most basic stuff to help themselves out. I've had people wanting fancy app controlled heating etc or new systems because their house is cold but they've not bled the radiators in decades 🤦🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️

Edited April 9 by Taffin

[Dennis Denuto]

3 minutes ago, Taffin said:

I'd also always say to someone the best heating system is the one you've got. Unless you want to change it for idealistic purposes if stick with what you have until it breaks. At that point consider all the options.

 

We're gas for now, when the boiler chucks it I'll probably look at heat pumps but fear that it won't be viable due to the walls but would probably look to change all the rads and have a bash at it anyway 😂

Can you not get external insulation on the walls?

[Taffin]

6 minutes ago, Dennis Denuto said:

Can you not get external insulation on the walls?

 

Yes, that is one that does come with a big cost (£20k+), but also and maybe more importantly considerable risk of causing significant damp issues dependent on how lucky/unlucky you get with the installer.

 

We looked at it when the government where doing their sham Great British insulation drive or whatever it was. Waited 18 months for Octopus to quote and they then said they only did cavity wall and loft insulation despite external being in the government scope 😂😂 blessing in disguise as you'll find people who did get it through the scheme and it fecked their house

 

 

Edited April 9 by Taffin

[FWJ]

55 minutes ago, Taffin said:

 

It's not 4x more expensive though, saying that is being contrary. The unit cost is 3-4x more. That doesn't mean your heating bill is 4x more though.

 

Electric heating would be absolutely fine in those places imo. I had gas when I lived in Sciennes but the electric set up I had in Cardiff and Leamington Spa would have sufficed too.

 

District heating is a cool concept. I like it. I don't know much about it, it's not been an option for the buildings I've looked at for work.

 

Edit: it's horses for courses imo. The more new builds and appropriate properties that use heat pumps, the more individual properties where it's appropriate use electric and everyone improves insulation the net gas usage reduction is huge and will go a longer way for those properties where the other solutions don't work. 

Actually it’s ignorance.  I thought that if the unit cost of the energy was 4 (or 3-4) times greater then that would translate to 4x the cost to heat the same space.

[Taffin]

16 minutes ago, FWJ said:

Actually it’s ignorance.  I thought that if the unit cost of the energy was 4 (or 3-4) times greater then that would translate to 4x the cost to heat the same space.

 

It can do but it doesn't need to, don't get me wrong, some electric set ups are wholly unsuitable for the property, properly dog shit and cost people a fortune.

 

The ones I've had were not excellent by any means and one was very, very dated. Both would have been cheaper to run with gas but the difference was probably about 30% more cost per annum, which a not insignificant amount was just the higher standing charge 🤦🏻‍♂️ but it would have been significantly cheaper to install and maintain (I didn't install them so didn't see that benefit sadly). One was rented and one was a conversion so it was cheap and cheerful from the contractor before me, but new and I wouldn't have seen an ROI on ripping it out. Main issue in that flat was that the main room and bathroom ran off a thermostat with underfloor heating aided by electric wall radiators and it worked well but could get cold (as mentioned, near 30ft ceiling so I was heating the roof 😂😂) but the bedroom wasn't on that system and just had a wall radiator which struggled on its own.

 

All the wall radiators were undersized. That property would have benefited from gas, I'm certain of it...but it wasn't a disaster to not have it and could have been resolved with bigger and better wall radiators and the bedroom being on the same system as the other rooms. The underfloor heating at that entry price range is also now significantly more efficient than the one I had. My neighbour though, she didn't have the double height ceiling and instead had an upstairs and her set up was absolutely grand for that and her costs were probably much of a muchness with gas.

 

As I say, horses for courses but we probably will need to compromise a bit going forward but I'd always look at making my home thermally efficient in the first instance. There is far too many people just firing through gas as it's cheap and easy as the first recourse imo.

 

Yes, I'm oddly into energy efficiency, not my job anymore, well never really was, but I was seconded into a project that worked with commercial buildings where they were at risk of closure due to energy bills and advising them how to tackle it cost effectively.

Edited April 9 by Taffin

[moshy]

22 hours ago, Cade said:

Manufacturers are moving away from Balsa to PET foam, as Balsa is being used faster than it can be grown, as well as the perfectly justified illegal logging concerns.

 

Disturbing peat bogs can release carbon but that can be calculated and over the 25-30 year lifespan of the turbines, they'll save much more carbon than was released by the peat, typically double.

 

The C-137 is only in the very top few centimetres of the peat, which can be scraped off, processed and the Caesium removed and stored safely (more safely than just laying in the dirt, for example)

 

We need more power.
Fossil fuels are both running out and under the control of hostile nations (east and west) so we're stupid if we keep relying on a diminishing resource with no guaranteed supply.

Wind, solar, nuclear and hydro are the future. They are only viable options.

Wind is not Green energy then if they are replacing Balsa with thermoplastics and all the other points I listed, throw in the c02 created in making the concrete for the turbine bases which they just leave in the ground despite stating in their planning applications that the area will be reinstated to it's original state.

 

Leading edges of turbine blades breaking down over time and dumping fragments of material in the vicinity.

 

C-137 is up to a foot deep in the peat and is being dug up without the need for an EIA.

 

The whole thing is a money making racket for shareholders and those with their noses in the trough, predicted constraint payments of 10 Billion by 2030 for turning the turbines off because the grid can't cope.

 

Here's a novel thought, float the idea of sticking 250 metre high turbines with aviation lighting up on Arthur's Seat and turn Holyrood Park into a massive Solar Farm and BESS site and let's see how many people are in favour of that as that is what many small rural communities are having deal with.

 

 

[Cade]

We need more power

The options are wind, solar, hydro and nuclear

or

Fossil fuel burning power plants

 

Which of the two produce more pollution?

It's a simple answer.

[trotter]

On 31/03/2026 at 10:17, JackLadd said:

One solution would be Canada refuses to export any more crude oil to Trumpland. That's 4.5m barrels a day. They're self sufficient per their bs claims but not on crude oil.

Actually they are, it's just cheaper to buy in shitey crude, refine it and sell the better products at profit

[JackLadd]

53 minutes ago, trotter said:

Actually they are, it's just cheaper to buy in shitey crude, refine it and sell the better products at profit

 

4.5m barrels a day going elsewhere than Trumpistan will be fine then.

[Glasgowben]

Is Ed Milliband trying to be stupid on purpose?

[The Mighty Thor]

2 minutes ago, Glasgowben said:

Is Ed Milliband trying to be stupid on purpose?

There's a fair chance he'd still be second place if he was.

[Glasgowben]

23 minutes ago, The Mighty Thor said:

There's a fair chance he'd still be second place if he was.

he needs sectioned