Don't Pay UK

Chris Wilson said:
What became of the UK's gasometers? There were several in Stockport, most big towns had them. I haven't seen one in years, do we not store gas in low pressure bulk any more?
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I think they went out when natural gas replaced the town gas made from coal.

The land where the Nantwich gas works stood is being redeveloped for housing and an hotel. They dug down several metres and replaced all the soil however there was an interesting and memorable pong from the old coal tars remaining in the ground after several decades. It quite took me back.
 
Efour said:
You need a Labour government to magic everything back to normal.....
or some kind of "great reset"
or both
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What happened to that great V shaped recovery Rishi and co said over a year ago? That they created with this mess.
 
Everyone should just refuse to pay the bills until they get the final reminder :)

most companies would likely struggle for cash
 
V F said:
What happened to that great V shaped recovery Rishi and co said over a year ago? That they created with this mess.
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The UK did quite well recovering with businesses working and low unemployment. This is a different problem with the world recovering from a low point in energy use and availability and demand of oil and gas.
 
Doobedoo said:
Do we have a lack of oil? Gas? Electricity?
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The UK specifically might not have a shortage or be expecting a shortage but other countries buying from the same energy market certainly seem to be expecting shortages, so we have to compete.

If we weren't paying the going rate, then we perhaps would be facing shortages ourselves, as the available supply would be getting sold to someone else.
 
McPhee said:
Th
2. Heavily tax or ban gas exports. This would work in the short term, causing a crash in gas prices in the UK. But long-term it would see producers question planned investment in the UK. And it would also make mainland Europe's problems a lot worse, significantly damaging our relationship with our biggest trade partners.
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That boat sailed a long time ago and we have spent the last 6 years damaging our relationship with our biggest trade partners and are continuing to do so. So this would be a perfect policy for the new PM. Although it does smack a bit like communism so they wont do it for that reason alone.
 
Greebo said:
That boat sailed a long time ago and we have spent the last 6 years damaging our relationship with our biggest trade partners and are continuing to do so. So this would be a perfect policy for the new PM. Although it does smack a bit like communism so they wont do it for that reason alone.
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It'd be palatable enough if you slapped a nationalistic soundbite on it though "British Gas For British People" and played up "sticking it to those EU fat cats", that'd probably buy the Tories another election
 
Caracus2k said:
International problem primarily caused by *GLOBAL* cartels like OPEC+

...Who were caught out by demand dropping massively during COVID causing the prices of some fuels to collapse (particularly for petroleum) so they reacted, as expected, by vastly cutting back the supply.

Go forward and demand picks up and so does the price and they have no incentive to extract fossil fuels quicker and pay for the investment and wages to do so when they can just charge more for what they are already extracting in their cartels.


OPEC+ countries control 90% odd of proven oil reserves.


The only 'fault' of the UK govement in this regard is going along with the Green agenda for renewables, which has put up domestic energy bills a lot and not giving the go ahead for more domestic fracking.

Something which has been very unpopular with many of the very same people now moaning about paying nearly £2 a litre for petrol with gas and electric prices also soaring.

Oh also Russia invading the Ukraine hasn't helped with Russia being an OPEC+ member.

And for the last time it capitalism doesn't require cartels artificially setting prices that don't reflect their real world costs which is more akin to socialism where a goverment sets prices for things that don't reflect the underlying inputs to provide said things!


A properly functioning capitalist system would break up such monopolies.

And bear in mind that a lot of OPEC members are state run organisations or orgs with heavy state involvement!

Conversely you can't have a properly functioning socialist system as they lack markets, which are the only reliable way of turning the massive amout of information out there into prices for goods and services that reflect the inputs to provide then vs the demand for said goods and services.
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It was reported this morning on radio 4 that the OPEC+ countries are producing oil at the levels they were pre pandemic and that there is very little slack in the system for them to increase production any higher. There was a mention that they might be able to increase by 100,000 barrels of oil per day but that would make very little difference in the price of oil that people would hardly notice it.

Another point made this morning was that the price of oil has dropped 22p in the last 8 weeks but retail price of fuel has only dropped 9p so somebody in the middle is making a very nice tidy extra 11p per litre profit.
 
Kenai said:
The UK specifically might not have a shortage or be expecting a shortage but other countries buying from the same energy market certainly seem to be expecting shortages, so we have to compete.

If we weren't paying the going rate, then we perhaps would be facing shortages ourselves, as the available supply would be getting sold to someone else.
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So someone will have no supply at all?
 
Werewolf said:
Most were decommissioned as from memory they were relatively low capacity and mainly meant to maintain local pressure rather than long term storage, I think many of them were stood empty for years/decades.
The fact they were also a fairly major explosion hazard, heavily contaminated by various chemicals and getting hard to maintain and very costly (or impossible with modern safety regs) to replace where they were may also have paid a part in them disappearing.

Basically they weren't needed for the modern gas network, and were an active safety hazard in/near residential areas.
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This. They were there to regulate pressure at local level and werent needed in the modern system. They were decommissioned (I used to work for a firm doing this work) and the land sold off to developers.
 
Doobedoo said:
So someone will have no supply at all?
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Not zero supply at all no, but a shortage isn't defined as 'no supply at all', it means not enough supply.

There are countries in Europe drawing up plans to potentially ration gas usage over winter.

They're not doing that because there's a massive abundance of gas and we're all just being hoodwinked by the big bad energy companies.
 
Kenai said:
Not zero supply at all no, but a shortage isn't defined as 'no supply at all', it means not enough supply.

There are countries in Europe drawing up plans to potentially ration gas usage over winter.

They're not doing that because there's a massive abundance of gas and we're all just being hoodwinked by the big bad energy companies.
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So that’s a different matter. Ok so we are not being told to ration, we’re fine as long as we pay more than others.

But some can’t pay more. Some can barely pay for what they had, some are not going to be able to pay for the increase in gas, petrol, mortgage/rent, food and the predicted 15% inflation. So some are seriously considering not paying at all.
 
End of the day the industry side of it will magically find a solution if enough people do substantially protest albeit that likely will be with short term cuts and platitudes with no intention of long term changes and/or recouping it in the longer term when they hope people have forgotten about it.

I find a lot of the mentality on this issue in this thread, on various sides of the argument, curiously entrenched in quite rigid perspectives.
 
If everyone didn't spend money on certain services, like petrol, or going to a particular superstore, for 1 day, it would put a dent in the business spreadsheet.

The mere threat that people can all get together and do something at the same time is what the big boys fear.
 
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