Is the Govt preparing for energy shortages?

[OpSecRadio]

I took my wife to her Stroke Survivors Group yesterday. They quite often invite speakers to the meeting. Yesterday's speaker was from Rotherham council, giving a talk about energy conservation in the home with a view to keeping warm and reducing bills etc. Quite an interesting talk but one thing he said stood out for me.

Apparently Central Government has issued a directive to all local councils that when building any public/council buildings from now they should not choose gas/electrcity as the primary heating source but must look at alternatives like Ground or Air Heat Pumps, Solar Thermal, Solar PV, Bio Mass Boilers etc.

It looks as if they are preparing for a drop in the supply of gas/electricity, or a massive price hike because none of these alternatives suggested are cheap options.

[Barneyboy]

well russia has most of the gas and we no how reliable they are,maybe they no some thing but dont want to worry us

[OpSecRadio]

Could be why the Government scientists have just declared that gas extraction by Fracking is now safe and it has now got the go ahead from the Govt - making us less reliant on gas from other countries. Most other scientists don't agree that it's safe though and it wastes massive amounts of fresh water.

[Barneyboy]

(13 December 2012, 10:37)gary5wift Wrote: Could be why the Government scientists have just declared that gas extraction by Fracking is now safe and it has now got the go ahead from the Govt - making us less reliant on gas from other countries. Most other scientists don't agree that it's safe though and it wastes massive amounts of fresh water.

yeah just read that in the papers, think this is one to watch me thinks good post pal

[Metroyeti]

If anyones on benefits phone yourelectric/gas supplier and you can get a cold weatherpayment of up to £130 , must be done this month

[BDG]

Gas and electricity are going to become very expensive - while we prattled on not deciding on nuclear but building windmills, our power stations got old. We left building more nuclear too long and now their will be a gap between a lot of nuclear going offline and new coming online.

Gas - well, I think we may have 10-15 years of reliable supply left unless we find more and cut back on what we are using now.



That is a graph of how much gas we have used, how much we know we have and a hopeful estimate at how much we might have, I added the red lines. The top red line is how much we might have, the middle red line how much we have used and the bottom red line is used to indicate how fast we are using gas - as we have around 7 billion cubic meters left, I drew a line 7 billion c/m lower than the gas we have used.

We have used 7 billion cubic meters in the last 10 years.

Any new building is going to be using up the gas that will run out in little over a decade - thus meaning that new heating systems will have to be retrofitted at a much greater expense than if they were put in at construction.

Some renewables can be expensive, but I really really do not know why shallow (as opposed to deep geological heat) ground source pumps are not mandatory on all new builds.

Plan on how you are going to heat your home in the future. I expect a lot of people will be going over to solid fuel - if you plan on wood, you are going to need to buy some woodland.

[Highlander]

Well if the council speaker is right, then thats a good idea,... I have no idea why they have taken so long to come up with this,... if every house built had a small wind turbine for that houses needs, then we would never need massive wind farms,..... and if every house had just two or three solar panels, we would reduce our carbon foot print in line with what they claim they want,... and if built in the the house plans, then it wouldnt cost a lot at all, very minimum effort with lots of common sense

[BDG]

(13 December 2012, 22:05)Highlander Wrote: Well if the council speaker is right, then thats a good idea,... I have no idea why they have taken so long to come up with this,... if every house built had a small wind turbine for that houses needs, then we would never need massive wind farms,..... and if every house had just two or three solar panels, we would reduce our carbon foot print in line with what they claim they want,... and if built in the the house plans, then it wouldnt cost a lot at all, very minimum effort with lots of common sense

Common sense? What's that then?