Monday, 11 November 2024
A variable mixture
Britain’s wind power falls to virtually zero as Miliband prepares to cut reliance on gas
Britain’s wind generation is set to plummet to virtually zero this week as Ed Miliband presses ahead with plans to increase the nation’s reliance on renewable energy.
Much of the UK has seen zero hours of sunshine this month, and the first part of this week will see already-light winds hit fresh lows in many areas, according to Met Office forecasters.
To my father's mind the noisy teachers of revolutionary doctrine were, to speak mildly, a variable mixture of the fool and the scoundrel.
George Eliot - Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879)
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8 comments:
It will, of course, get sorted when we start to have black-outs. That will be the canary in the coal mine. But the problem is that there's no immediate turning back, no quick fix to not having the means to generate power. It's massively expensive and complicated, and getting things back to how they were will be gruesome in the extreme.
Miliband got A Levels in sciences, but since then has done PPE and Economics degrees. But who is advising him? I would have thought that if you were a nerdy politician who got lucky and was given a cabinet position, your first task would be to get your top Civil Servants to call in a range of practical specialists, so that you could measure your ideals against reality - and drop them if necessary.
Which part of "One of the governments key tasks is to ensure the lights stay on" does the Labour Government choose not to pay attention to?
If the Labour Government could parade 5 years of socialist accomplishments(!) at the next general election they would still lose bigly if we had rolling blackouts or frequent power outages.
Sam - that's it, there is no quick fix once the blackouts start. There must be a good supply of loons prepared to offer advice and he seems unaware that they are loons, as they must be.
DJ - they seem to be unaware that if they occur, rolling blackouts will become part of Labour's reputation for decades. It could finish them unless they plan to go North Korean on us. Weird times indeed when this kind of thing isn't hopelessly implausible.
One wonders at what point the Civil Service will start to drop EM in it. I can't believe that there aren't people right now saying 'Minister, you can't do this, its not going to work, you are playing Russian Roulette with people's lives'. If there aren't people saying that right now (given the warning the Universe is giving us right now with the current weather pattern) then our problems just got exponentially larger, because it suggests that not only is the elected representative a bona fide loon/deranged ideologue, but the State apparatus is similarly afflicted, and there are no guardrails between the public and politically induced catastrophe.
At the very least I expect individual Civil Servants to start trying to put down markers ahead of the looming crisis - 'I told the Minister, but he wouldn't listen', because one suspects the self preservation instinct will trump ideological agreement at some point. Whether this will take the form of leaks to the press, or just getting their views documented internally, I couldn't say, but I'd be very surprised if behind the scenes people aren't trying to make sure a future Public Enquiry paints them in a good light.
Sobers - "At the very least I expect individual Civil Servants to start trying to put down markers ahead of the looming crisis"
In my experience that is what will be going on now, mildly sceptical positions will have been established already, complete with evidence such as saved emails, minutes of meetings, records of conversations, diaries etc. Ed will be carrying the can already, even if he doesn't know it yet.
A number of factors suggest the guardrails are there, if not as close as they should be. New costs, new pylons and grid infrastructure because wind isn't where people are, NIMBY protests about wind turbines and huge solar farms and the obvious issues such as grey cloudy days with no wind and hardly any solar. Even many of Ed's colleagues can see probably see it and see the danger to their careers.
Unless we really are governed by North Korean style thugs who just don't care.
Well, here goes,
Slowly silently now the Loon
Walks the night in his eco shoes
This way and that, he peers and sees
Money on the magic money tree
One by one the PVs catch
The solar beams on the silvery thatch
Crouched in the jobcentre like a log
Waits the prole for a great green job.
From the shadowy wood the Cuckoo calls
Ushering the realm of clouds befalls
A harvest mouse goes scampering by
Squeaks he 'the end of corn is nye'
And moveless turbines in the country breeze
Whilst pensioners in their houses freeze.
With apologies to Walter De La Mare
Tammly - excellent, it's an entertaining thing to do isn't it? Old Walter's poems seem to lend themselves to this kind of thing, it could even become a hobby. I like -
"Crouched in the jobcentre like a log
Waits the prole for a great green job."
I can post it if you are okay with that. Is the word 'nye' right?
Thanks AK, should be nigh. Post it anywhere.
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