Just seen on France 24 an article that points out most clearly that LAST years gas supply dispute between Russia and Ukraine has still not been resolved and Ukrainian is still cut off from the Russian gas supply because of unpaid bills and political issues.
As it stands huge amounts of natural gas is supplied to WESTERN Europe each year and the EU is very concerned that (A) Ukraine may 'tap' into the gas supply to reroute it to its own people thus stopping the flow to the west and (B) Russia may cut off the gas supply if the Ukranians keep refusing to pay AND if the west keeps supporting Ukraine against Russia.
A back up source of heating is recommended.
Footnote, I am also advised that Britain is now almost entirely dependant on RUSSIAN diesel fuel and apart from the fact that in a dispute between the Russians and us they are likely to also turn off the diesel supplies.
Note that 99% of all UK road haulage is reliant on diesel as is 70% of Britains Rail Freight movements. Plus most of our military !!!
We do have a small reserve of Diesel for military and essential services, we don't have a reserve for the general public
A back up source of fuel is recommended.
also ALL agricultural vehicles run on diesel too(as my dear lady just pointed out!)
I find it amazing that 'we' are in a position where 'all our eggs are in one basket', seemingly. I have no doubt that 'we' were sleepwalked into this position by politicians. It is about time that their terms of engagement were re-written to include some personal responsibility and accountability just like the rest of us.
With regards to backups and alternatives - on a personal level we have no gas line here just oil or lpg or elec. We opted for lpg for heating and that is delivered by a diesel powered vehicle. Our personal transport is diesel powered. So we have a problem. Extra gas supplies are a little cumbersome and highly visible and extra diesel supplies could become a problem because our local authority now says that diesel is included as part of the petroleum regulations therefore one is limited by the amount one could legally/safely hold as a reserve.
I appreciate that a multifuel stove of some description could come into the equation here but our personal circumstances rule this out.
Greymatter is getting stressed -again.
I read some place that none of the remaining UK oil refineries still produces diesel, can anyone help confirm this?
Cancel the above I found a website that shows all 7 UK refineries still make lots of diesel !!!!!!
http://www.ukpia.com/industry_informatio...copy1.aspx
Having given the subject a bit more thought it would seem that the main problem would be the Russian supply of domestic gas and this would have encouraged the fracking fraternity to get mobilised to possibly reduce our dependency on this supply line. There is enough raw product floating around with regards to gasoline and diesel and the price does seem to be falling at the moment and we do have a few refineries dotted around the landscape.
Greymatter slightly less stressed!
Problem is the UK is fully of narrow minded nimbies, they don't want fracking, they don't want nuclear, they don't want solar array farms, they don't want wind farms, they don't want coal fired power stations,they don't want tidal, they don't want pylons in view of their homes but they DO want cheap reliable energy supplies.
The big shareholders and fcity financiers have done a superb job of portraying farmers and land owners who build wind or solar farms are being evil money grubbing parasites for making profits from generating power, but Esso, Shell, Exxon, BP, Eon, EDF, SSSE etc who also make huge profits from generating electricity are good guys whilst making trillions each year.
We NEED to be self reliant on energy and preferably food as well if we are not to be blackmailed by other countries.
"We NEED to be self reliant on energy and preferably food as well if we are not to be blackmailed by other countries".
I will have to agree with you wholeheartedly on that point. I would take it a little further by saying that each family unit/household should be given some kind of financial incentive to become less reliant on grid supplies for power consumption and to explore the possibilities available for off grid energy conversion and storage. Solar panels, mini wind turbines and low voltage appliances to name but a few.
In any event it is a thorny subject but it needs to tackled - sooner rather than later.
(19 October 2014, 13:04)iaaems Wrote: [ -> ]"We NEED to be self reliant on energy and preferably food as well if we are not to be blackmailed by other countries".
I will have to agree with you wholeheartedly on that point. I would take it a little further by saying that each family unit/household should be given some kind of financial incentive to become less reliant on grid supplies for power consumption and to explore the possibilities available for off grid energy conversion and storage. Solar panels, mini wind turbines and low voltage appliances to name but a few.
In any event it is a thorny subject but it needs to tackled - sooner rather than later.
We already have that incentive via the Feed In Tariff, many companies will install free solar panels for you, you use the electricity, they keep the FIT.
The Feed In Tariff is ok as far as it goes. I have a neighbour who has committed himself to this arrangement and he seemed happy with the whole thing until there was a power cut and he was cut off just like everyone else. His panels were producing energy that he could not use. Upon investigation he found out that with some extra wiring and some control gadgets he could get round this problem and guarantee his supply during daylight hours - however the cost apparently was prohibitive in his case.
The point I was trying to make was "explore the possibilities available for off grid energy conversion and storage". This I should have made more obvious perhaps. To have each dwelling independent of any supply grid 247 would seem to be a logical step to take - not an easy one I agree and I have no doubt that certain folks who like to think they run everything around here would disagree wholeheartedly. I am not too concerned about what they might think.
Many domestic PV systems are purposely designed ONLY to feed into the local grid, usually and unfortunately many terms and conditions from Installer companies prohibit the alteration of PV systems to switch to supplying the house if the grid fails, its something (in part) to do with preventing linesmen getting electrocuted whilst repairing cables that are supposed to be turned off but an errant domestic setup feeds 400 v back down the line. I believe HMG has also recently cut the feed in tariff allowance and there is strong pressure ( god knows why) to scrap it.
As I said before the big city bankers / investors / speculators have done a superb bit of PR in painting small scale generators like Farmers who host turbines or PV arrays into bogeymen, whilst ensuring the megabucks they rake in from the big companies goes unchallenged, but lets be honest here the average Brit is easily conned by the snake oil salesmen running the country.