It is that time of year again.

Sliver said:
I know Fracking is controversial, but it seems to me that if it became widespread, then our Gas bills would plummet. Trouble is, the ground water pollution. :(
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Gas is sold on the international markets and regardless if we had loads fracked...we wouldn't see benefits of it given the fracking would be done by foreign owned companies. This rubbish about cheaper bills if we allowed fracking is just a myth that is used to try and force fracking on us. Gas "therms" are sold to the highest bidder so kiss goodbye to any cheap stuff going our way.
 
They don't make much profit per person, people need to use less and get on the government and denounce green peace and other hippie nonsense.
Campaigning against every single power station raises the costs by millions in. Planning and legal fees and well as just getting them off the land/securing the land.
Things that cant have natural competion and vital should never off been privatised, but then again. Unless the unions backs are broken again, i doubt public would be any better at all.

Uk homes are horriable in effecient. We see anything other than brick is bad, yet brick is expensive in man hours and is a crap building material for energy/noise etc.
 
SSE Are the biggest rip-off going for there energy. There only operating coal stations at the moment except Medway (And i bet thats sat on standby). Coal prices have not moved and will only get cheaper as our stocks get higher for the remaining coal stations which have low emissions systems fitted. Gas power stations are mainly mothballed right now or sat on standby but i can see blackouts this winter plus stupid costs which won't be justified.

SSE Have just finished afew big upgrades on there Gas turbines for when they are operational again and these are costly at 50 million+ Per turbine. So i guess profit can't be too good right now
 
In scotland the gas turbine plants are only running 60% due tot he cost of gas - the coal plants are being wound down due to EU emmission laws
 
subbytna said:
In scotland the gas turbine plants are only running 60% due tot he cost of gas - the coal plants are being wound down due to EU emmission laws
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More Nuclear plants with further safeguards and security. It is the obvious choice for most countries. We have the advantage of being an island which benefits us through having a country-perimeter coastline ripe for the tidal-generators. That is a sound investment, unless someone knows something about the Oceans boiling off or the Moon disappearing any-time soon?
 
subbytna said:
Gas is sold on the international markets and regardless if we had loads fracked...we wouldn't see benefits of it given the fracking would be done by foreign owned companies. This rubbish about cheaper bills if we allowed fracking is just a myth that is used to try and force fracking on us. Gas "therms" are sold to the highest bidder so kiss goodbye to any cheap stuff going our way.
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lol !
 
Pointless "environmental" exercises must take some of the blame. Home solar, for example. It's massively subsidised and it reduces the efficiency of the national grid (because it isn't controllable by the grid), so it increases costs twice over and those costs get passed to customers. In exchange for those costs, we get...a guaranteed high-interest savings scheme for people with £10K+ spare. It's a bad tax for a bad reason.

With some exceptions (e.g. geothermal in Iceland), "green" energy isn't really viable on a large scale. It's expensive and it destabilises the national grid (which adds more expense) and it often isn't very "green" anyway (because it requires less efficient use of fossil fuels to offset the instability it causes and because it has environmental impacts of its own and because it results in more pollution elsewhere due to offsetting).

It's a good idea in principle, but it's not working at all well.

Build the bloody nuke stations now, because there's a big gap and it needs to be filled.
 
RedvGreen said:
More Nuclear plants with further safeguards and security. It is the obvious choice for most countries. We have the advantage of being an island which benefits us through having a country-perimeter coastline ripe for the tidal-generators. That is a sound investment, unless someone knows something about the Oceans boiling off or the Moon disappearing any-time soon?
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Someone might steal the moon. I've seen it happen in a movie.
 
Narj said:
I'd prefer "none" to "minimal" as regards pollutants hitting the water table. Accidents will always happen, no matter how careful the contractors are.
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Interesting point; there is more environmental issues with petrol station spills than shale gas wells in the US WRT water table quality... Ban all petrol stations?
 
subbytna said:
Gas is sold on the international markets and regardless if we had loads fracked...we wouldn't see benefits of it given the fracking would be done by foreign owned companies. This rubbish about cheaper bills if we allowed fracking is just a myth that is used to try and force fracking on us. Gas "therms" are sold to the highest bidder so kiss goodbye to any cheap stuff going our way.
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You do know all the companies currently chasing shale gas in the UK are small independent UK owned companies right? Some may be partially owned by foreign investors somewhere down the chain but the majority are majority owned by UK funds/shareholders...

Sliver said:
lol !
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Any more useful discussion? :p

RedvGreen said:
More Nuclear plants with further safeguards and security. It is the obvious choice for most countries. We have the advantage of being an island which benefits us through having a country-perimeter coastline ripe for the tidal-generators. That is a sound investment, unless someone knows something about the Oceans boiling off or the Moon disappearing any-time soon?
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Except nuclear has it's problems; it's exorbitantly expensive and we don't have our own supply of nuclear material, it's mined in other nations and brought here. It's also fairly rare...
 
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Amp34 said:
Interesting point; there is more environmental issues with petrol station spills than shale gas wells in the US WRT water table quality... Ban all petrol stations?
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I'm going to guess that there are many more petrol stations than shale gas wells in the US so that isn't surprising. Fracking just makes me a bit nervous - I have mental images of a major collapse and most of the surrounding area collapsing into a big hole. :p

I don't really agree with "Hey, it's been polluted a bit already anyhow, so a bit more won't hurt", either.
 
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I had to laugh at the muppet in work work today who had an outstanding conspiracy theory.
It goes along the lines off this; government secretly supports the increase in amenities bills. Old people die from lack of heating as they can't afford to pay for it. So lots of houses go on the market which the government can tax. Lots of people get in herititance which they can tax. And they have to pay out less on pensoons and health care.
Not sure if insane or brilliant
 
A few minor points.

1. Price rises are planned months in advance, ergo Ed Miliband has no bearing on this.

2. Fracking will not really impact much on the price of gas iirc, as it will be sold across the EU (with UK production not being sufficient to reduce the EU gas consumption prices significantly) - gas will be sold at the market rate (EU or potentially further prices) not at a loss to reduce domestic energy prices.

3. The profit for the energy industry remains around the 5% mark.

Personally, I'd increase overall taxes on mid to high earners (myself included) to subsidise the cost of energy to those on lower incomes to alleviate fuel poverty.

Either that or renationalise the energy industry.
 
elmarko said:
A few minor points.

1. Price rises are planned months in advance, ergo Ed Miliband has no bearing on this.

2. Fracking will not really impact much on the price of gas iirc, as it will be sold across the EU (with UK production not being sufficient to reduce the EU gas consumption prices significantly) - gas will be sold at the market rate (EU or potentially further prices) not at a loss to reduce domestic energy prices.

3. The profit for the energy industry remains around the 5% mark.

Personally, I'd increase overall taxes on mid to high earners (myself included) to subsidise the cost of energy to those on lower incomes to alleviate fuel poverty.

Either that or renationalise the energy industry.
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Good luck with the first one, how will you pay for the second one?
 
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