Energy Prices

[Bairnardo]

Freeze the Cap
Fracking
Delink electricity from the cost of gas
Burn coal
Moving away from dependency on Russian gas (the UK isn't that dependent on it anyway) is a good idea, but continuing to buy what is available when it is available will still be a thing, especially so after the war.

I asked this before, unsure if it was answered or if no one knew.

Are any of the onshore gas formations comprised of gas suitable for grid usage?

I was fairly certain that in Ratcliffe/Central Scotlands case, the gas composition is such that he plans to use it to decrease shale imports from the US as feed for the Cracker at Grangemouth. Hes not looking to Frank for domestic gas IIRC

[strichener]

17 minutes ago, Michael W said:

I am not sure that it will. Demand for energy will remain, though possibly be tempered by reduced industrial/commercial demand owing to recession. Unless the underlying factors causing the price to be as high as it is are addressed, there is no real option to simply sell it cheaper as suppliers will go bust. 

There is always something different this time, until there isn't.  America with it's fixation on statistics has shown that during a recession energy prices reduce by between 30% and 40% and that the last three American recessions followed steep increases in energy prices.

[beefybake]

1 hour ago, Todd_is_God said:

But if / when the Tories do freeze it, it then becomes Tories = 2 years, Labour = 6 months and Labour then fall under "Not Enough Help"

The headlines right now are absolutely irrelevant to who people will vote for in the 2024 GE - Ultimately it will be what actually happens between now and the GE that matters, not what the Leader of the Opposition said in August 2022.

You're conveniently overlooking a political truism.  Opposition parties don't win elections.  Governments lose them.  People basically just get

tired of them, and want change.

There's been lots of years of the current flavour of Westminster government, and their time is pretty well up. 

I'd be surprised if anything that Truss/Rishak does on energy costs makes a blind bit of difference to the result of the next Westminster general election. 

[Dawson Park Boy]

33 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

I can tell you what we're doing.

While we can afford to cope with this rise, out of sheer principle I'm am not giving any energy company £3500 a year or anywhere near it.

We've decided to apply the principle of heating the person not the room.

So the central heating won't be going on at all and we've set the dial to the freeze option so it only comes on as an emergency to ward off freezing pipes in the central heating system. The hot water setting has been dropped to the minimum setting as well. We only need warm showers, we don't need piping hot ones.

We'll use a quick 10 minute blast of warm air heaters to get us warmed up and use woolly hats, fingerless gloves and woolly jumpers around the house. If the house gets too cold we'll take the dog out. I might even consider taking the laptop to a library or cafes and do stuff from there (unless they've all closed down). At night, I'll put the electric blanket on the bed for 15 minutes to remove the ice from the sheets and then full thermal pyjamas on. I've done all this before whilst caravanning so we know we can cope with pretty much anything providing the temperature doesn't drop to something ridiculous like -15 Celsius. The key is good quality woollen wear which gets incredibly warm and insulating and to avoid sitting around if possible.

Finally, I have 3 minor areas of poor insulation in the house which need fixing and I'll get onto that this month. I'll also be looking at LED lights although the current lights are a maximum of 14W and mostly 3W to 5W bulbs anyway.

When I cook our meals I'll probably put the veg in some water and into the oven with the rest of the food so we don't need to have a hob on as well.

I use two computers and they're usually both on at the same time. One of them will be switched off until I need it.

The kettle will only be getting filled with enough water to make 2 cups, we don't have a dishwasher and wouldn't use it if we did have one. The washing machine will only do full loads and we won't use a tumble dryer - the clothes will be outside.

I'm aiming to keep my winter bill to under £250 (it's £85 at the moment for summer usage at current rates) so I'll start with that lot and ease things if we have some spare credit.

Next April is going to be more problemmatic if we see another doubling. At that point I might need to come out of retirement for a year. So I'm dusting off my old coding skills as we speak.

For many people, this won't be a appealing set of things to do but for millions of people, even living like a caveman by doing all of the above won't be enough. That is very sobering

Fantastic.

Lots of great advice there.

I don’t think I’ll go quite as far as that but these are the sorts of things we all can do to mitigate this situation.

Thanks again.

[Gaz]

56 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

On LBC this morning, James O'Brien asked a simple question.

We've known for months that this hike was coming.

Why have Johnson, Sunak and Truss not sat down together in a room and discussed and agreed on a few ways to help people that they could then announce today?

IMO it's because Johnson cares about Johnson and is so upset at being ousted that he can't even look at Sunak, Truss doesn't want anyone other than herself to get the credit and is too distracted saying stuff so ridiculous that it requires a second and third reading to be sure she actually said it ('go and fight in Ukraine', 'I'm ready to press the nuclear button', 'the jury is out on Macron', 'You're all misinterpreting me') and Sunak can't get anyone to pick up the phone and talk to him because, like filling up his car with petrol, he has people to do that for him and hasn't a clue how to operate a phone himself.

So that's at least two people suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect who put themselves before their party or their country and a third person so out of touch that he doesn't know how to use a credit card.

This has nothing to do with one of them needing to be PM first because Truss was happy to announce unfunded tax cuts for the rich. This has everything to do with 3 idiots who want power for personal reason who don't appear to give the slightest f**k about anyone but themselves.

 

When did you become so sensible?

[Todd_is_God]

14 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

I asked this before, unsure if it was answered or if no one knew.

Are any of the onshore gas formations comprised of gas suitable for grid usage?

I was fairly certain that in Ratcliffe/Central Scotlands case, the gas composition is such that he plans to use it to decrease shale imports from the US as feed for the Cracker at Grangemouth. Hes not looking to Frank for domestic gas IIRC

Not sure tbh, but LT herself mentioned lifting the ban on fracking.

[Todd_is_God]

1 hour ago, strichener said:

I guarantee you the price cap will not reach £7k.  I note that you are posting near daily changes in the expected cap next year, which has nearly doubled since you started posting and yet somehow think that forecasts of longer term reductions in price are accurate.

There is going to be a very rapid recession hitting the western economies followed by a tanking of energy prices.  It is as sure as night follows day.

Well, yes - because daily changes in the wholesale price of gas are what drive cap projections. That is how the price cap works.

The information I'm looking at can be found here.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/auxilione_auxilione-price-cap-daily-20220825-activity-6968825649570488320-OBKC?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android

Do with it what you want / pretend it isn't possible. Makes no difference to me

[Bairnardo]

15 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Not sure tbh, but LT herself mentioned lifting the ban on fracking.

Aye, LT is a fucking idiot playing to the most ghoulish gallery imaginable though. It would hardly be a surprise for her to say something that appeals to people who are misinformed about the topic, in favour of an opportunistic vulture like Ratcliffe. 

[Left Back]

British gas have updated their website to give rough estimates of average energy bill by house size based on the new price cap.  Ignore the explanatory text at the bottom about what rates it's based on.  They clearly haven't updated that bit yet.

https://www.britishgas.co.uk/energy/guides/average-bill.html

[scottsdad]

1 hour ago, oaksoft said:

The kettle will only be getting filled with enough water to make 2 cups, we don't have a dishwasher and wouldn't use it if we did have one. The washing machine will only do full loads and we won't use a tumble dryer - the clothes will be outside.

Outside...in January?

[Florentine_Pogen]

14 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

Outside...in January?

Of course. Those frozen, rigid towels make for handy serving trays and / or chopping boards.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/aug/26/what-is-energy-price-cap-explained-mean-uk-cost

Edited August 26, 2022 by Florentine_Pogen

[HEY_SIDNEY]

8 minutes ago, Left Back said:

British gas have updated their website to give rough estimates of average energy bill by house size based on the new price cap.  Ignore the explanatory text at the bottom about what rates it's based on.  They clearly haven't updated that bit yet.

https://www.britishgas.co.uk/energy/guides/average-bill.html

So they havent updated the unit rate for each individual energy and the date in which they come in to effect? Could cause confusion
 

Edited August 26, 2022 by HEY_SIDNEY

[TxRover]

There is a certain fascination in watching this discussion from the outside, kind of like a rat watching a snake eating another rat. Not understanding the “cap” and such, caused me to dig around an bit and it’s pretty depressing to read how much influence previous Tory government actions have exacerbated this crisis. The Cameron “green crap” moves alone have cost households in D-G rated homes hundreds of pounds in savings alone. More shocking is the ignorance of most to the fact that the green efforts like the wind farms are actively reducing monthly bills as gas prices have skyrocketed.

Its a somewhat scary preview of what many areas of the US will face as rising demand for electricity collides with an inability to meet demand. Here in Texas, we faced several days with production and demand teetering on a knives edge due to high temperatures, and it’s only going to get worse. Already per kWh prices have nearly doubled from last year, and will be up almost 300% from three years ago when I renew my tariff in a few days.

That being said, it’s also educational to see the numbers the cap is based upon (2,900 kWh of electricity a year, and 12,000 kWh of gas), and how they vary from other locales. Here we would expect to use at least 10,000 kWh of electricity (our recent total for an extremely hot month was over 3,300 kWh) but be shocked over using anything close to 1,000 kWh of natural gas (of course, that’s because of the prevalence of forced air climate control, often with heat pumps instead of gas furnaces too).

For those predicting civil unrest and such, since UK household energy expenditures are now on track to more than double the long-term stable percentage of 8%, you can probably bet on it.

For those seeking tips, my conversion of the home to LED lighting only reduced electrical usage by over 20%, additional attic insulation was worth another 10-15%, changing to power strips with individually switched outlets helped a bit, and simply going around outside and recaulking the windows was worth another few points. On the minus side, a 1F drop in the cooling set point for the climate control was horrific, causing a near 10% increase in usage, but may not be directly comparable to a heating setpoint increase.

[Al B]

I think there's an element of holding the media to account on the way this is being reported also. They are full of outrage over this (as they should be), but then massively misleading people who don't understand and take things at face value.

If a cap was being introduced on taxi fares at £1 per mile, and the average household travelled 10 miles per week in a taxi there's no way they would be allowed to report it as  "Taxi Fare Price Cap set at £10 per week" because it's massively misleading, and it's also unlikely anyone would actually expect to get a taxi from Glasgow to Inverness and think they can't be charged more than a tenner.

From what I can see however, it's quite frightening the amount of people that, whilst obviously shocked at the price, think they can't be charged more than £3.5k a year because thats how the cap is being worded. There's going to be a lot of "I'm on a fixed rate and I've made sure I can afford my direct debit, so I can just leave my heating on 24/7" people that will be double-fucked when their bill is more than the sum of their direct debits.

 

Edited August 26, 2022 by Al B

[beefybake]

1 hour ago, scottsdad said:

Outside...in January?

Yes, I have for years.  Sometimes takes a few days, but they do dry. 

[Detournement]

4 hours ago, Todd_is_God said:

No I don't agree. As I said the other day, any Government which threatens to permanently lower the standard of living because we must defend the likes of Ukraine will find themselves out on their arses ASAP and replaced by one which won't.

There are only two parties which can be in power and both of them are subservient to capital. 

Our living standards are being reset. Read what Macron said yesterday. 

[Clown Job]

Starting to think that guy who decided to move upto the Highlands and live off the grid had the right idea 

[carpetmonster]

6 hours ago, TheScarf said:

A very bold move from the Tories to kill half of their voters this winter.  Truly the stupidest c***s in history.  As are their voters.

That did strike me a few weeks back, remembering when folks were theorizing that Trump managed to off enough Republican voters thru Covid for the Democrats to take both Georgia senate seats. 

[101]

1 hour ago, scottsdad said:

Outside...in January?

Just do washing on a windy day, it doesn't need to be that warm. Although if you have weans that need school uniform etc washed regularly it's probably not ideal in which case clothes horse in the room you are using and therefore heating the most would be cheaper than a tumble dryer.

[Thane of Cawdor]

1 hour ago, Al B said:

I think there's an element of holding the media to account on the way this is being reported also. They are full of outrage over this (as they should be), but then massively misleading people who don't understand and take things at face value.

If a cap was being introduced on taxi fares at £1 per mile, and the average household travelled 10 miles per week in a taxi there's no way they would be allowed to report it as  "Taxi Fare Price Cap set at £10 per week" because it's massively misleading, and it's also unlikely anyone would actually expect to get a taxi from Glasgow to Inverness and think they can't be charged more than a tenner.

From what I can see however, it's quite frightening the amount of people that, whilst obviously shocked at the price, think they can't be charged more than £3.5k a year because thats how the cap is being worded. There's going to be a lot of "I'm on a fixed rate and I've made sure I can afford my direct debit, so I can just leave my heating on 24/7" people that will be double-fucked when their bill is more than the sum of their direct debits.

 

Unbelievably, this was actually a thing for some Powergen customers back in the day. Always seemed too good to be true and, unfortunately, that turned out to be the case and the tariff was withdrawn. But the welfare benefits system was more responsive to certain people's needs. We had Heating Additions payable over and above the basic entitlement relating to e.g. illness and disability, reliance on expensive fuels such as oil, and hard to heat housing.

If we are proposing to prioritise the most vulnerable households for maximum targeted support, we would have to base that on both household and housing characteristics and I can't really see that happening,

 

https://www.theguardian.com › utilities.moneysupplement