Onshore Wind Farms

I'd have one in my garden if I had room. A wind turbine. I most definitely would not have a mini nuclear reactor.

I read recently that the UK government's energy review might include a proposal for people willing to live within sight of a wind turbine to get reduced, or free, electricity. I'm up for that; where do I sign up? Many people (mostly Conservative MPs) regard them as unsightly [UK transport secretary Grant Schapps yesterday: "eyesores"] but I actually think they are rather elegant. If a wind turbine were a sculpture, we'd all admire the beautiful lines with their slow, soothing rotation. There are a couple close to the A390 near me and when I see them as I drive through, it lifts my spirits. Could I have one with built-in calming music, please? And in pale green.

Ed Miliband, shadow climate change secretary yesterday described onshore wind as the "cheapest power available" but the government has had a moratorium on it since 2015.

Whereas the UK's nuclear reactor builds in recent decades have been disastrous in terms of cost overruns and poor price deals, and a full-scale conventional reactor takes years to build, the prospect for small modular reactors (SMRs) to provide power cheaper and sooner is apparently promising.

Our country's energy policy is frankly a mess. I am viscerally against nuclear power, because of the potential for catastrophe

but maybe SMRs (which presumably, being smaller, are potentially less catastrophic) could persuade me that the trade-off in terms of viability vs safety is worth it. One thing we should never be doing, in my opinion, is outsourcing our infrastructure ownership or operation to foreign companies. Not just Russia and China but France too. And new energy generation sources are now urgent.

I'm still not having one anywhere near me, though.

15,215 days to the end of oil

1,459,013,978,422 barrels of oil left when I started this post. 1,459,013,757,364 barrels left when I finished.

15,215 days is 42 years. And a few days. What then?

Coal has longer to go: 148,329 days

Apparently 1,748,707,614,456 Megawatts of solar energy struck the earth so far today. Grab a bit of that and we'll be fine.

Yep, I'm back on worldometers.info and browsing aimlessly.

At the start of this post, China's population was 1,439,323,776. According to https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/. There's a guy out there counting. Here comes another... Surprisingly, the Chinese rate of growth is declining; 20 million extra in 1990, 13 million in 1995, 8 million in 2005, just 5.5 million in 2020. The fertility rate (the number of children a woman has on average) was 6.3 in 1970 and is now 1.69. 1.7 is generally regarded as the benchmark for a stable population size.

The Lights are On

You'll remember the collapse of my electricity supplier, Utility Point. I am supposedly in the semi-automated process of transferring back to the regulator-selected supplier of last resort, EDF. Which possibly stands for Electricitique de la France, it being French-owned. After an initial flurry of emails from the two companies, silence. Or, as we say in France

I have no idea who is receiving my monthly direct debit and no idea, at the moment, where my electricity comes from. I have ceased to care, as long as The Lights Are On.

According to the BBC "Two more firms collapsed on Wednesday, but EDF's Philippe Commaret said it was already working on moving customers from failed company Utility Point." Yep that's me, we got in first. "Mr Commaret said the issue of whether Ofgem can force larger energy firms to step into that role is 'the big question at the moment across the industry'".

Why does life have to be so complicated? If you were starting a country from scratch (which I frequently do in computer games), you'd set up an electricity company to supply the needs of all your citizens and businesses. A company for gas. One for water. And so on. These utilities are too important to be subject to 'the market'. I understand the theory that promoting competition is the best way to keep prices low for consumers but not if it's at the expense of supply interruptions.

Get this, according to weownit.org.uk:

1. Scotland

Scottish Water was never privatised, it’s publicly owned and is the most trusted utility in the UK, delivering cleaner rivers, lower bills and more investment per head.

2. Ireland

Mail, rail, buses and water are all publicly owned in the republic of Ireland.

3. Switzerland

The railway in Switzerland is publicly owned - and it’s been named the best train company in Europe. 

4. Denmark

Denmark has the highest proportion of wind power in the world. Its transmission grid (like our National Grid) is fully publicly owned and most wind farms are cooperatively or community owned. 

5. The Netherlands

In the Netherlands, water, electricity and gas networks are all publicly owned - and it's illegal to privatise any of them.

6. Slovakia

Slovakia’s publicly owned railway provides free rail transport for children, students and pensioners.😇

7. Germany

The city of Munich in Germany is developing 100% municipal and 100% renewable energy by 2025 - they got tired of waiting for the private providers so they’re doing it directly.

In Germany too, 88% of all trips on local public transport (bus, tram and local trains) are provided by publicly-owned operators.

8. Greece

The Greek government is installing free wifi in 3000 public spaces including public squares, pedestrian zones, playgrounds, municipal libraries and museums.

9. France

The post office in France (La Poste) is publicly owned. Its services include banking, insurance, driving tests, fresh food delivery and home visits for older people.

10... and France again!

Water is also publicly owned in hundreds of French cities! One of these is Paris, where L’Eau de Paris (the publicly owned company) has cut bills and introduced still and sparkling water fountains throughout the city.

Now there's a thing; I'll be asking my local councillor for sparkling water fountains in St Austell.

And while we're on it, why do we give our utility supply to foreign owners? Especially the perfidious French. Get this:

• Malaysian company YTL Corporation Berhad owns all of Wessex Water
• Cheung Kong Group, a multinational registered in the Cayman Islands run by family of Li Ka Shing (Hong Kong’s richest person) owns 80% of Northumbrian Water
• Between Germany’s Deutsche Asset Management and US private equity company Corsair Capital, they own half of Yorkshire Water
• MTR, a Hong Kong company, holds a 30 per cent stake in South Western Railway, and has been awarded the London Crossrail franchise.

Since you ask, my French electricity is still on. And someone is taking my money.

News from the Front

Supplies report for St Austell on 29th September 2021

Petrol and diesel: ✅

The new Guinness Zero large advertising placard (Tesco) : ✅

Actual bottles/cans of Guinness Zero: ❌

CO_2: ✅ (based on a rum and raisin ice cream eaten in the cause of research)

Wind: ❌

Why wind? Apparently the immediate cause of the UK's current energy problems is a lack of wind. A few calm days and the UK has to fire up dirty coal power stations. In Monday's Times, respected (by me) columnist Edward Lucas wrote that "our current system depends too much on gas (vulnerable to supply shocks) and wind (vulnerable to the weather). This will get worse as we decommission our remaining coal and nuclear power plants." He goes on to propose investment in small nuclear reactors but surely we can find a way to generate more wind.

If the whole population of the UK were to be tasked to undertake a synchronized 'blow' - all of us blowing hard in the direction of the nearest wind farm - every day at 11:00 (just like people used to do to 'clap for the NHS') I'm pretty certain we could generate enough to power the country for the next 24 hours. With me? 1-2-3 blooooooooooooooooooow:

See Oh Two

I have an A level in Chemistry, so I know all about carbon dioxide. Including the fact that, when dining in Charlestown recently, there were no desserts as "we can't make ice because we have no CO₂". Apparently we (the country; maybe the world) are suffering from a severe lack of carbon dioxide. This is definitely news to the climate, which is suffering because we have too much of it.

CO₂ is used in nuclear power stations, fizzy drinks, growing plants in greenhouses, stunning animals before slaughter, packaging food (extending shelf life by preventing bacteria), winemaking, as a refrigerant and for removing caffeine from coffee.

It's most commonly made as a by product of fertilizer manufacture and the UK government has given CF Fertilizers millions of pounds to restart its production, which had ceased because of the rise in wholesale gas prices.

According to the Brewers Association, "carbon dioxide quality is essential to finished beer quality, contributing to sensory outcomes, beer foam, mouthfeel, and shelf stability."

So please get this sorted - I need my beer, decaf coffee, ice cream and other sensory outcomes.

Broken markets

The electricity market place has sustained a bit of a collapse. I have first hand experience of two of the suppliers which have recently gone bust.

I signed up to lookaftermybills, a super-comparison web site which finds the cheapest electricity supplier for you, makes the switch for you from your current supplier without you having to raise a finger and, every subsequent year, repeats the process. A great idea. In theory. My problem was that, after the first year, the switch from Utility Point to Green Energy, the companies identified by the site, did not go smoothly. In fact it did not actually happen at all. And involved me doing all the communication. In the end I gave up on the process and renewed my contract with Utility Point.

Subsequently there were numerous hikes of the electricity price until I received the news that Utility Point had gone bust. Unexpected but not surprised. Yesterday Green Energy followed suit.

The regulator Ofgem has a protocol in place which deals with situations such as this and I am now back with French-owned EDF, which was my supplier before I got involved with lookaftermybills. Full circle. But, if Ofgem anticipated this happening (which they must have done to have established the scheme) why did they allow it happen?

These companies - there were at one point 99 of them, which the government defines as "a competitive market" - don't actually make any electricity, they just trade in it as a commodity: buy wholesale, sell retail, pocket the margin. Like all such markets, prices are volatile and if wholesale prices go up steeply, as gas prices have done recently (these companies typically supply gas and electricity) then a company can be in trouble. A "competitive market" essentially means a race to the bottom in prices to the customer, to get your share of the market (28 million domestic customers), because price is the only relevant determinant for the customer. Electricity is not like pizza, where quality matters as well as price. It's inevitable that this will lead to company failures.

I know full well the arguments against state control of utilities, because I grew up at a time when "nationalised" became a dirty word but privatisation of an essential national function always seemed illogical to me and it's now unarguable that the consequences can be negative. It seems likely that the 99 companies will in time be reduced to a small number, thus rolling back the whole process.

I'm happy to be back with EDF. I don't like them, don't dislike them, but if it stops me having to think about "what next?" and perhaps costs me a few pounds a month more than I could find elsewhere, I'll live with that. Cheapest is not always best.