Naive question

BUFF

wittynamegoeshere said:

 Do you think that every country is facing a 3x rise in heating prices this winter?

Why is this happening?

Obviously everyone is seeing a rise, but the degree we're seeing is just ridiculous.

a lot of them, yes, or a restriction on supply. 
It's happening because global demand for the available supply has pushed the global price up.
The alternatives are to give some kind of support (i.e. what the UK govt. is doing), nationalise the supply (France taking full control of EDF) but that comes with it's own issues & pricetag even if that is kicked down the road or do nothing at all. 

macman

The only way countries like France have kept the retail price down is by subsidising it. If the consumer doesn't pay directly, they will pay via higher income and sales taxes. 

pete365

To my mind no one (government, this forum, etc.) has successfully explained why when 50% of the gas the UK uses comes from UK gas reserves that are licenced by the UK government for extraction (it is our gas) that it has to be sold to household energy suppliers at the international rate. I understand that the other 50% would have to be sourced at the international rate. It seems stupid not to cap or even reduce UK gas for use in the UK. This could be done for a short term period during the crisis. Not doing it hands a weapon to Putin. It would be very interesting to know what other North sea gas countries are doing for their people during this time. It is our gas we do not need to be a slave to international prices.

Sea_Shell

macman said:

The only way countries like France have kept the retail price down is by subsidising it. If the consumer doesn't pay directly, they will pay via higher income and sales taxes. 

I wonder how/when France's chickens are going to come home to roost? 🤔

Danny16

one of the other issues UK has is that we decimated our gas and oil storage over the past 2-3 decades

another problem i believe it was in 2018 ? more red tape was introduced which stopped onshore wind farms, the reasoning for this is because wind farms are a "ghastly sight" and "ruins the countries views" - I find these arguments ludicrous because what you'd rather a big dirty coal/gas/oil plant instead? like they're a work of art to gaze at.

At the start of this crisis we had the opportunity as a county to remove that red tape and increase onshore wind (on average 12-24 months to build on shore and I feel I am being generous here (welcome to be proven wrong here), onshore is cheaper than offshore and there were 150+? projects ready to go before the crisis. This would have atleast mitigated some customer bills the very least.

Offshore takes 3-5years to complete. Meaning all this talk of offshore wind its it being kicked down the road again.

Also the way our energy grid works means our "green" energy is actually a load of twoddle and bollox because "green" energy prices should not be affected by gas/oil/coal supplies yet those on green tariffs have also had huge increases in their bills. (again if im wrong please correct me I may have been ill-informed at some point)

We could also transition heavy industry machinery to use hydrogen instead of fossil fuels, and the transport industry (logistics HGVs etc) there are so many solutions to all the problems at hand.

We as a species have created this issue by not transsitioning from fossil fuels a long time ago. Which has been advised over and over again by multiple expert/bodies/agencies yet we have an industry that has huge swaths of ££$£$£$£$£$ to lobby governemtns to keep pushing oil/gas. 

Look what happened to US during the latest COP disaster, Biden approved 100's of new drilling sites/license across US as theyre telling the world "climate change is bad" 

It is a sad sight to see, seas have literally been on fire, record temperatures smashed twice in 3 years, europe literally burning and we all still act so ignorant to it.

Would be lovely to see some constructive collectivism.

Corporate structures and Laws go against consumers and side with business - this is the status quo and this is where both parties would like it too remain. At the expense of our futres and childrens futures and great grandchildrens futures. Those I feel sorry for our clear ignorance.

BUFF

pete365 said:

To my mind no one (government, this forum, etc.) has successfully explained why when 50% of the gas the UK uses comes from UK gas reserves that are licenced by the UK government for extraction (it is our gas) that it has to be sold to household energy suppliers at the international rate. I understand that the other 50% would have to be sourced at the international rate. It seems stupid not to cap or even reduce UK gas for use in the UK. This could be done for a short term period during the crisis. Not doing it hands a weapon to Putin. It would be very interesting to know what other North sea gas countries are doing for their people during this time. It is our gas we do not need to be a slave to international prices.

because otherwise they would sell it on the international market at a higher price than they could get in the UK.
If you force them to sell at a low price or high taxation etc. they will minimise their operations here.

&, as has been mentioned, we didn't do ourselves any favours strategically by running down our storage capacity ...

Danny16 said:

another problem i believe it was in 2018 ? more red tape was introduced which stopped onshore wind farms,

Not in Scotland which already had a significantly higher amount. Still applying & building.

Evan3020

We used to have those massive gasometers or whatever they were called for people of a certain age but i think that was for gas made from coal? I may have made that up.

BUFF

No, you are right enough although iirc some were transitioned to natural gas.
We still have the bones of a few as listed buildings. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/temple-gasometers

Sea_Shell

Evan3020 said:

We used to have those massive gasometers or whatever they were called for people of a certain age but i think that was for gas made from coal? I may have made that up.

Ours is now a Lidl.

FreeBear

Danny16 said: We could also transition heavy industry machinery to use hydrogen instead of fossil fuels, and the transport industry (logistics HGVs etc) there are so many solutions to all the problems at hand.

Some 95% of hydrogen production comes from processing natural gas. Very little comes from electrolysis using renewable electricity. Until that changes, there is little to be gained by transitioning to hydrogen - Indeed, before that happens, there needs to be a huge investment in distribution infrastructure and also at the point of use.