Apparently we have an “Energy Crisis”.
Since the above was posted, the situation has become significantly worse.
Wholesale natural gas in the UK has reached the shocking price of 350 pence a them. That is over four times the previous peak, and about eight times the norm for this time of year.
That price suggests that electricity produced from natural gas is costing about 35 pence a unit for fuel alone, and over 50 pence a unit delivered to the end user.
Surprised that this not receiving more attention.
Well, when it becomes clear that the political types are indeed talking through their hats, if not through something less appealing, then perhaps dispassionate engineering judgement will be respected.
"Ye canna change the laws of physics"
We should of course be building nuclear plant, experimenting with tidal lagoons and digging up the road and replacing ancient pipes and wires, as well as getting serious about the insulation or demolition of the solid wall housing stock. A service economy where we all cut each others hair or sell each other insurance on-line will only take us so far.
It is quite quaint to live in a museum but I suspect we will soon find out it is expensive and impractical, far more than is just beginning to become clear.
Mike
Well, wholesale demolition & replacement of a lot of old stock could potentially solve a lot of issues. I own & used to live in, a modest sized, but well built Victorian terrace, and although nice in some ways, there's more than just energy issues.
However, we can clearly see that the UK way of doing so would remove all these old streets, densely packed around the railway station & centre of town, and replace them with low density “luxury”, “executive”, 3 or 4 bed detached houses, vastly reducing population density & potential for low-everything travel, and bankrupting the town centre even more.
Hard to persuade Brits to live in efficient apartments, perhaps because our builders either make them tiny or lacking storage, and/or gouge the occupants.
Says he, in his leafy bungalow!
Britains housing stock is a significant problem. How many of the issues are due to the building regulations, both historic and current, and how many are due to short term cost savings by developers?
The British life goal of a 4 bedroom detatched house does not help either.
Written by the occupant of a roomy, well insulated, apartment with just two external surfaces
mapj1:
Well, when it becomes clear that the political types are indeed talking through their hats, if not through something less appealing, then perhaps dispassionate engineering judgement will be respected.
The current energy situation in the UK is not an engineering problem. It is a political and policy problem. Here is proof. Spot prices for fossil-fuel energy are what they are. But other countries in Europe are not suffering in the same way the UK is at the moment, which they would be if the spot price of gas were the decisive factor.
Let me give an example. I live in Germany. I pay a monthly charge for gas and electricity which is fixed in July of each year and reconciled the next July. The supplier sets the price once per year, in advance (not necessarily in July). That is the contract, and the way it is done, by law, all over the country. So no suddenly finding out you can't afford to heat your house over the winter.
If you rent, the charge for heating (and other costs) is fixed by your rental contract as a monthly charge to be paid with the rent, and it is reconciled once a year. The landlord has the same contract with the energy supplier as I do above.
Obviously all the costs eventually get passed on, but the cycle is very long. And booting someone out of accommodation, or turning their energy supply off, is not something a supplier or landlord can just do. There are legal processes involved with a long resolution time, more than a year, regarded as long enough for a renter to find alternative, cheaper accommodation, and the courts generally allow arrears to be paid off relatively slowly, adjusted to the income situation.
I am not saying the situation is perfect, or even good. I am just using this example to show that engineering/lack of engineering is not the decisive issue. It is not as if electrons or gas molecules behave differently this side of the English Channel/North Sea.
"We should of course be building nuclear plant,
You can only make that case if you ignore the externals, I think.
One of the externals with nuclear power is what is called in the insurance business “nuclear peril”; uncontrolled release of radiation. The one developed country in the world in which energy supply is well commercialised is the US, and there have been no new nuclear power plants built there for fifty years. The main reason is that they haven't been cost effective, not only because of the very high cost of building them (even though they had to be and were generally better built than other industrial plant because of the risks, the list of build failures is still large and worrying) but also because of insurance - and of course the larger nuclear peril is not insured because it is presumed the state will step in.
My home is not energy efficient in design, but my actual energy use is very modest.
No mains gas.
Electricity about £250 a year, reducing.
Logs £160 last year, probably less this year.
Paraffin, a large stock is kept for emergencies but normal consumption is about £30 worth a year.
A large stock of anthracite is kept for emergencies but use of same is negligible.
Propane, 3 or 4 cylinders each 19 kilos are kept in reserve but little is used.
alles is nicht so gut in Deutchland - nicht wahr ?
A german language article that points out that much as the UK consumer is preis protected, so the suppliers go to the wall, in Germany it is the heavy industrial users of gas (there are many) who now feel the squeeze first .
Mind you whoever decided not to pay for the Rough field to be refurbished as UK strategic storage and kept topped up should be feeling suitably stupid. Sadly I suspect not.
More generally in the UK when North sea gas was plentiful, and we did not import, we wasted the chance to get on top of how to do energy efficient buildings.
Mike.
As so very often is the case, this is a multi-faceted problem. The view that it’s caused by the politicians is a valid one sadly. We as engineers will again have to come to the rescue and then stay in the shadows while “the grownups” take credit for getting the country out of the mire; again.
The situation in Germany sounds a lot more appealing than that here in the UK. A bit of hysteresis can be a good thing sometimes. Giving a situation like fluctuating energy costs time to even out over a twelve month period, would seem to offer a certain amount of stability.
As far as knocking down our heritage housing stock goes (sorry if I’ve misunderstood) I’m not sure I agree. There has to be a better engineering answer than simply destroying something and rebuilding a more “energy efficient” version. If we’re talking about energy conservation we need to look at the embodied energy of the buildings we’re suggesting are demolished, the energy involved in removing, sorting and hopefully recycling the resultant waste. Then look at the cost of rebuilding and all the attendant energy needs offset against the saving made in fuel usage of the newly occupied home.
There are alternative answers to the problem. Real engineering answers that people like us have a duty to develop and champion. But it’s a fragile and complex situation.
I’ve just taken delivery of a backup generator, a ton of coal and a small battery inverter system to help ease the pain I see coming over the next few months. just a personal view though, but with four children in the household and the potential for them to return to homeschooling, I feel it needs to be done.
Nuclear was the best option. We now need to concentrate on renewables to power our lives combined with a serious reduction in power consumption achieved by better public transport infrastructure, far tougher energy conservation measures, localisation of services with the revival of town centres and village stores, re-building and re-thinking of the National Grid and oh yes, maybe a change of government to a party with the will to change things.
Good luck and stay warm,
Andy
We're about to take you to the IET registration website. Don't worry though, you'll be sent straight back to the community after completing the registration.
Continue to the IET registration site
