The energy thread

[Jimbuna]

*On a personal note* I was informed this morning that my duel fuel (gas and electric) monthly payments will be decreasing from £188 per month to £!19 from July.

[Skybird]

https://www-focus-de.translate.goog/..._x_tr_pto=wapp


I say nothing. Anyone can guess what I would want to say.

[Jimbuna]

France out for revenge for previous wrongdoing

[Jimbuna]

Ofgem is lowering its energy price cap from the current £3,280 per year to £2,074 for the average household in England, Wales and Scotland, effective from July 1, it has announced.

Ofgem said the £1,206 reduction to the cap reflected recent falls in wholesale energy prices.

The lower cap will replace the Government’s Energy Price Guarantee (EPG), which currently limits the typical household energy bill to around £2,500.

The cut to the cap marks the first time consumers on default tariffs have seen their prices fall since the global gas crisis took hold more than 18 months ago, Ofgem said.

At its peak, the price cap reached £4,279 and, “whilst today’s level is lower than last quarter, it is still above the levels it was before the energy crisis took hold, meaning many households could still struggle to pay bills”, the regulator added.
https://www.independent.co.uk/busine...-b2345482.html

[Rockstar]

Sweden once again displays reason in a world of insanity.


Sweden abandons 100% renewable energy goal as EU reconsiders climate policies

By Shaun Polczer Jun 24, 2023 23

https://www.westernstandard.news/bus...98c97c6f5.html

They’re baaack!

More than 40 years after the country voted to phase out nuclear power, Sweden is now looking to build more nuclear reactors after its parliament formally abandoned its 100% renewable energy target to meet net-zero by 2045.

On Tuesday the country modified its net zero targets to 100% “fossil-free” which its right-leaning government creates the conditions for the return of nuclear power to the country’s energy mix.

“We need more electricity production, we need clean electricity and we need a stable energy system,” Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson said in parliament.

Observers said the decision implicitly acknowledges the low quality of unstable wind and solar, and is part of a general collapse of confidence in the renewable energy agenda pioneered in the Nordic countries and in Germany.

British lobby group Net Zero Watch, which describes the net zero roadmaps of Western nations as ‘utopian and unsustainable,’ welcomed the move. In recent weeks it blasted the Bank of England for spending £150,000 to measure the carbon footprint of plastic bank notes.

It says the net zero plans envisioned by the International Energy Agency (IEA) — which are the basis of Canada’s own net zero efforts — “are dangerously expensive and will result in painful reductions in living standards for all but the richest, as well as national weakness, societal instability and the eventual failure of the decarbonization effort.”

In that regard, Sweden came to the only logical conclusion, it said.

"Living close to Russia focuses the mind, and the Swedish people not only wish to join NATO, but also to ground their economy in an energy source, nuclear, that is physically sound and secure, unlike renewables which are neither,” said Dr. John Constable, NZW’s energy director.

“For the time being the UK government continues to live in a fantasy of their own making, but we are coming to the end of the green dream."

The UK has every reason to follow Sweden’s lead, but should go even further by increasing the use of natural gas, he added.


“Current UK climate policies are ill-informed and utopian and will almost certainly fail to deliver Net Zero emissions by 2050, or ever. It also runs a high risk of deep and irreversible societal damage,” he wrote.

Constable’s proposal envisages a gas to gas-nuclear system, unwinding the extreme costs of the failing renewables fleets, delivering immediate consumer relief and a rapid program of low-carbon combined cycle gas turbine construction on existing sites, leading to a new generation of nuclear employing small modular reactors in the UK.

It offers valuable lessons for Canada which released its own net zero roadmap based on IEA numbers this week, translating them into a 75% reduction in fossil fuels, including a 60% cut in natural gas and 83% less oil sands production.

“A small population in a large country such as Sweden can afford to reject fossil fuels, relying on nuclear and hydro and biomass, but the United Kingdom, and other substantial industrialized economies need to face the facts, and understand that only a gas to nuclear pathway is viable to remain industrialized and competitive,” NZW said.

Around 98% of electricity in Sweden is already generated from hydro, nuclear and wind.

[Rockstar]

14,000 panel, 5.2 MW community solar array in Nebraska destroyed by hail storm last night.

[em2nought]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

14,000 panel, 5.2 MW community solar array in Nebraska destroyed by hail storm last night.

My entire condominium complex had to replace the almost new metal roof about a year ago now due to a hail storm.

I bet those panels don't do too well in tornadoes or hurricanes either.

I'm hoping that trying to take NYCs pizza ovens leads to open revolt.

[Jimbuna]

Energy bills are likely to stay high for the foreseeable future, according to the boss of the company that owns British Gas.

Centrica chief executive Chris O'Shea said while he believes the worst of the energy crisis is over, risks remain.

A new price cap comes into effect this weekend which will see households with typical energy usage pay £2,074.

Mr O'Shea said prices have fallen from the rise caused by the Russian war, but are higher than the long-term average.

"I think the first act of the crisis is over," he said. "I think what we've got to remember is the energy prices had more than doubled before Russia invaded Ukraine.

"Now, prices are back down to pre-invasion levels but they're still two and a half times the long run average."

Gas and electricity bills will fall below the £2,500 level that was subsidised by the government under its Energy Price Guarantee scheme.

However, under the new price cap, which is set by the regulator Ofgem, households bills will remain £800 more expensive than two years ago.

Meanwhile, Cornwall Insight, a consultancy firm, estimates that changes in the price cap - which limits what companies can charge per unit of gas and electricity - will take energy bills for a typical consumer to £1,871 per year from October.

That is then forecast to rise to £1,900 from January.

[Jimbuna]

Just one word....'Disgusting'

Shell is still trading Russian gas more than a year after pledging to withdraw from the Russian energy market.

The company was involved in nearly an eighth of Russia's shipborne gas exports in 2022, according to analysis from campaign group Global Witness.

Oleg Ustenko, an adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, accused Shell of accepting "blood money".

Shell said the trades were the result of "long-term contractual commitments" and do not violate laws or sanctions.

As recently as 9 May, a vast tanker capable of carrying more than 160,000 cubic metres of gas compressed into liquid form - liquefied natural gas or LNG - pulled out of the port of Sabetta, on the Yamal peninsula in Russia's far north.

That cargo was purchased by Shell before heading onwards to its ultimate destination, Hong Kong.

It is one of eight LNG cargoes that Shell has bought from Yamal this year, according to data from the Kpler database analysed by Global Witness.

Last year Shell accounted for 12% of Russia's seaborne LNG trade, Global Witness calculates, and was among the top five traders of Russian-originated LNG that year.

In March 2022, in the weeks following the invasion of Ukraine, Shell apologised for buying a cargo of Russian oil, and said it intended to withdraw from Russian oil and gas.

It said that it would stop buying Russian oil, sell its service stations and other businesses in Russia,which it has done. It has also ended its joint ventures with the state energy giant Gazprom.

And it said it would start a "phased withdrawal from Russian petroleum products, pipeline gas and LNG". But it warned that it would be a "complex challenge".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66021325

[Skybird]

This June (which is a sunny summer month, just saying) Germany has imported more electrical power than ever before in its whole existence since WW2.



Well.

[Jimbuna]

One small step but nevertheless a step in the right direction.

Putin is hoping for a very cold winter.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

One small step but nevertheless a step in the right direction.

...??? You kidding me?



We run a hilariously expensive energy transition that in the end will not work without modernising the laws of physics, we get lied to about how sufficient renewables are and how many ways to store energy we already have, we switch off nuclear energy and have 2.5 higher CO2 emissions per head than the Swedes who like the French increase the number of nuclear powerplants and recently did an almost 180° on the Green Deal doctrine of the EU - so what do you mean that Germany did a step in the right direction? If anythig, the news shows that the German special way is increasingly leading into existentially dangerous troubles, and does not work as proclaimed. Our industry increasingly flees the country. And Scholz does not care and praises his miraculous economic.


Nothing to celebrate. Its June, sdolar panels prime month beside July and August. We should not import more power thna ever, but we should have imported less power than ever before if our scheme would be working.

[Jimbuna]

Best hope that the French will export you energy from their nuclear stations then

[mapuc]

A couple of hours yesterday I was paid for using electricity.
Denmark produced a lot more energy than we consumed, that's why the prize per kw/h was negative. this was only for about 3-4 hours or so.

Secondly The Danish government has increased the VAT tax on electricity so it now cost 87 Danish øre(Similar to cent)per kw/h.

Markus

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Best hope that the French will export you energy from their nuclear stations then

In fact they have just decided to build even more new powerplants than additonally was planned for - with a sharp eye on the German energy policy.

The latter is such that obviously all others around us do not think that we can become self-sufficient with our stupid ideas. They are right.