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Energy Prices

BarryZola

TS Member
Soon to be the biggest issue in the UK whenever they have a break from talking about Corona for five minutes.

As most will be aware, energy prices for most have gone up quite a bit lately. These prices by some estimates could double or even triple in the next year. The price cap that has limited these price increases to a certain degree is due to be lifted in the foreseeable future.

The main cause of this seems to be political instability involving Russia who control most of the gas supply into Europe. They appear to be using the supply of gas as a political tool, but of course they deny this. Many political analysts have believed for a little while that Russia may be on the brink of invading Ukraine.

What are your thoughts on this? Are you worried about how it could effect you? Do you not really care? Do you think that many governments in this country have failed by making us so reliant on foreign energy? Could we have spent money on Nuclear energy and Fracking instead of on projects like HS2 which will not be any help to the majority of people? One thing is for sure, these energy price rises will effect everyone as costs will increase for businesses which will then be passed on to the consumer.
 
This has been coming for years, not just because of the ruskies, we have dropped out of nuclear and hydrocarbon power, without replacing the lost production with renewables at anything like the same rate.
Wasn't denationalisation meant to solve all the pricing issues?
More nuclear power, greater focus on local hydro, we are a hilly, wet nation, we should use that free power, and big tidal barages could power millions of homes.
Personally, I have a small multifuel stove as well as central heating.
The stove is already cheaper to run than gas for background heating, and I burn local scrap byproduct wood bricks, but mainly smokeless coal, sadly imported from China...cos Maggie didn't like the miners.
 
New nuclear plants are coming online (I've been involved with Hinkley Point C) but they're only replacing old ones. We could do with more power supply but I'm not sure how new nuclear plants would go down. It's dealing with the waste that's the issue.
 
Another episode to come with the Conservatives at the helm.

Austerity, Brexit, Covid-19, Energy Prices.

With the energy prices, NI rise in 2022, falling living standards and life expectancy stalling... it's going to be an ordeal in 2022.

Chaos with Ed Miliband tbh.
 
New nuclear plants are coming online (I've been involved with Hinkley Point C) but they're only replacing old ones. We could do with more power supply but I'm not sure how new nuclear plants would go down. It's dealing with the waste that's the issue.
We've shut around a dozen, with seven still running, and another four in the long term pipeline.
But those we have are pretty much clapped out.
Wind and solar isn't going to be enough, and I know the issue of spent fuel storage is a forever problem, but I just can't see an alternative, unless we start boring the Earth's core heat pump.
 
Maggie shut the mines as it was cheaper to import coal not because she didn’t like miners, having said that Arther Scargill was a horrible little twit and easy to dislike.

Onto energy prices the reason they are rising is energy is now a globally traded commodity and as such good old supply and demand dictate prices.
The only way to prevent this would be to be self sufficient or have a surplus, various governments have failed us on this tbh, no investment in nuclear, clean fossil fuel plants and almost criminality nothing on what should be our guaranteed clean power supply of the future, tidal generators.
Tides are 100% guaranteed twice a day every day and in some places over 12 metres in different heights, imagine the power that could produce if invested in instead of investment in Danish wind farms.
 
Maggie shut mines because she hated trade unions and everything they stood for but she loved short term quick wins. That quick win strategy has carried on long after her destructive reign and has left us with the dog crap outdated economic model we still live with today.

Whether it's closing mines, cancelling infrastructure projects or Diesel gate, being "Green" has been used as an excuse for inaction. People don't like the thought of Nuclear Power, which of course is not a long term strategy, so successive governments have decided to do nothing and just carry on importanting fossil fuels instead. It's all highly predictable. Instead of building new nuclear power stations until we had a renewable solution we just did nothing instead. Every government of the last 4 decades is to blame for this mess.

Whilst we're being told to "look over there" and not to trust our European neighbours with anything, we've been perfectly cool entrusting something as trivial as energy to the Russians and the Saudis. This country is an embarrassment.
 
A big factor was nuclear power being wrapped up with the bomb.
A whole generation had a genuine worry that the world could well stop in the next few minutes.
Those people simply didn't want anything nuclear.
 
Maybe the insulate Britain lot should turn their attention to scrapping HS2 and putting the money towards tidal power and nuclear power. A message that most people could probably get behind.
 
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