Funny really, how OFGEM, (“the watchdog looking out for the consumer” or “the consumers’ voice”), has never pushed the energy companies to lower prices to the expected and realistically achievable level during periods of low wholesale prices, such as we have experienced in the past 6 – 9 months, yet are always quick off the mark to prime consumers to be ready for huge rises in the future.

By mentioning 60% rises now, they have given the energy companies a gift, as we’re now all going to be expecting such rises, even if the wholesale prices don’t rise particularly high.

Wonder how many OFGEM people were, or will be, well-paid employees of the energy companies. They might as well be working for them as they seem to do an awful lot of marketing on their behalf already.

Strange also, how the government’s strong words about eradicating “fuel poverty” simply evaporate when they need the extra VAT because they’ve wasted on our money on other “aspirations”, such as ending “child poverty”. I hear tonight that 1 in 5, (or 20%) of local households are in fuel poverty now, just a year before the government’s target of 0% was meant to be achieved by 2010.

Pointless words from pointless regulators on large salaries which keep them “insulated” from any fuel poverty.

Pointless words from pointless government ministers on large salaries which keep them “insulated” from any fuel poverty.

Nice to see that they’ve got THEIR insulation sorted out – how very green of them, contrasting very nicely with our blue caused by the cold this winter.

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the council should be helping to sort out the housing in this county with more grants for insulation, solar hot water and log burners

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the market will determine the right price

we need less government intervention and then prices will be better,

supply and demand knows best, governments need to take a hike and stay out of this

god save the qween

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Rodney Nosnail, more and more countries around the world are using greater and greater amounts of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, squeezing supplies.

Not only are we consumers aware of the dangerous effects on the climate of burning these same fuels; we are also increasingly reminded of the fact that these fuels are finite.

As demand increases and their supply is squeezed, peaks and goes into decline, the prices of oil and gas will inevitably rise.

Do you dispute this, Rodney?

If not, why are you blaming the messenger, OFGEN?

Surely it is healthier for us all to deal with reality rather than an illusion.

The current reality is of disturbing and undeniable changes in the world’s climate and the approaching reality is a) ‘peak oil’ and b) ‘peak gas’.

a) For the latest on peak oil, see this article (Daily Telegraph, ‘Era of cheap, easy oil is over, warns study’ Daily Telegraph, October 8th 2009).

b) Gas supplies from the North Sea, the UK’s main supplier, peaked in 2000 and since then have gone into decline.

To mitigate this situation, in my view, we need to come together as communities and demand massive government investment in home-insulation for all who need it, prioritising those in fuel poverty, energy conservation and renewable energy.

The ‘feed-in tariffs’ for renewables which come into force in April 2010 will make it much more attractive financially for individual consumers, families, schools, hospitals and businesses to install renewable energy systems and then sell the energy to the grid.

Creative, innovative, community-led brain-storming on dealing with climate change and peak oil at a local level is the thinking behind the Transition Towns movement, which is being launched in Shrewsbury on Tuesday, October 27th at 7pm in Shirehall.

http://transitiontownshrewsbury.org.uk/

I imagine that most people going to that meeting understand that infinite, infinitely cheap, consequence-free energy from fossil fuels is just a comforting illusion, that OFGEN’s conclusions are unsurprising and that continuing as we are now is obviously unsustainable.

As you dispute this, could you say why, Rodney?

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Huw Peach said:
To mitigate this situation, in my view, we need to come together as communities and demand massive government investment in home-insulation for all who need it, prioritising those in fuel poverty, energy conservation and renewable energy.

Yes Huw, because we are all aware the Government has loads of money to invest at the moment! Do you not read any “non green” news?

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Ah Huw, there’s no denial on my part, but as a working class person on less than average earnings and with little job security, I don’t have the middle-class luxury of pontificating to the people who struggle to pay their bills about what the ideal should be; I don’t have the free cash to argue for “feed-in” systems that would require me to “feed-in” money big time to acquire the infrastructure in the first place.

I do have the nouse to understand, however, that no matter how much those people with minds and positions more superior than mine, argue to government and local government for grants and prioritising of less-well off people, (such as myself), to bring us out of fuel poverty, the situation will always remain words, not actions.

I don’t have the wherewithal to explain that, yes, I’ve seen us at peak oil and peak gas for many years now, but having been brought up on the simple supply and demand curve, I am still not intelligent enough to relate this increasing scarcity to a fall to $48 for a barrel of oil over the spring and summer, even though, as you rightly say, we’re running out of it, so logically, it should always be rising ever further.

I don’t have the logical faculties of the professional class that allow me to understand why, while gas is running out, (which I agree it must be), it recently hit its lowest wholesale price for many months, instead of shooting up high, high, high as a less clever person such as myself would expect for an increasingly rare and valuable commodity.

I don’t have the fiscal or regulatory knowledge to understand how it is that even as prices on the wholesale markets are low, I have to pay more and more, while seeing less action, (as opposed to words and meetings), from government or even transistion groups that is genuinely practical.

My main beef is not that I want to use more fossil fuels – I don’t – but why anyone pretends that OFGEN is there to protect the consumer from unregulated, money-greedy power companies who have us over a barrel. You state that I am blaming the “messenger” – OFGEN. I am, but you don’t seem to have twigged that OFGEN is not meant to be a messenger for the power companies, it’s meant to regulate their activities to achieve balance between greed and need. You seem to be saying that as long as OFGEN does encourage rises of 60% in our bills, the World will be OK because it will all go back to the treasury who will invest it in lovely green projects.

Sorry, Huw, I may be thick, but I’m obviously more inclined than you to believe that it will end up in the pockets of shareholders as distributed profit rather than being recycled into green energy schemes.

If OFGEN had said that future bills will rise between 14 and 25%, then we could all reasonably expect a 25% rise as the power companies accept that figure as carte blanche to charge us; but OFGEN weren’t happy with that, they stated 14 to 60% and those of us who live in the real World just know that 60% will be the figure that the companies will apply.

In fact, unless I do manage to come over to the meeting on 27th October and stand around absorbing the warmth for all the other people there, (but I won’t, because I’m scheduled to do some overtime to pay my bills), the warmest thing that I’m going to experience this winter is all the hot air of politicos as they explain to us cold, poor people why fuel poverty has not been eradicated as promised and the hand-wringing, (generating heat through friction), of pontificators telling us that there’s no need to worry about the cold because from next spring, industry, hospitals, schools and, (obviously richer than me), families and individuals will be able to build their own green generating plants and sell the power back to the grid. Ah lovely, so we’re all going to be warm and OK in winter 2010.

Keep that green flag flying!

And you may wish to confirm that, if it’s fossil fuels that cost us dear and green that doesn’t, we should expect to see a subsequent fall in our fuel bills as all that lovely green energy starts to flood into the system.

I know that your heart is in the right place, Huw, and I myself would prefer it if we were not pumping out pollution from fossil fuels, but all this petitioning, campaigning and cajoling for the brave new green World has been going on for years but as we’re “governed” by ditherers, lobbyists, interest groups and people who can put the cost of keeping warm onto expenses, nothing of real note has happened. I know you’ll say that the April 2010 feed-in policy change will be the next seismic shift, but in truth, those of us who are actually living with cold at the moment know that it will be of no practical use to any of us at all – we still won’t be able to afford fuel, whether it’s red, blue or green and we certainly won’t be looking through the solar panel or windmill brochures.

(Small PS for you: Recent experience with Warm Front, the outfit set up to help us use energy more efficiently. I have an old, inefficient boiler in my caravan. I applied for a Warm Front grant. The bloke eventually arrived and agreed that the boiler was well past its best, but said that the rules are that if the boiler is actually still working, they cannot replace it. So, in short, government has paid a private company to go around looking at boilers – nothing more. Irony is, if I had had a more modern boiler that had broken down, then it would have been replaced there and then. I’m not a scrounger, so I didn’t “fix” my boiler to ensure that it broke so I’d get a new one, I just keep it turned off most of the time because I cannot afford to keep warm.

That’s the type of stupidity you get from middle-class people and lobbyists living in warmth and comfort as they think up ever more wasteful schemes to eradicate fuel poverty. No real-World experience, no real-World results. What a nonsense.)

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Jon, I am well aware of the tight state of the country’s finances.

That’s why locally in Shrewsbury I am against an expensive (£100m) North West Relief Road and for inexpensive, sustainable non-road methods of reducing congestion.

That’s why nationally I am against spending billions on the Trident system, and why I feel we need to bring our troops out of Afghanistan.

Our scarce resources should be targeted at creating employment in sustainable industries like wind, other renewables, green waste systems, green transport etc etc, so that more people are contributing to the state’s coffers and so that useful work is being done.

More jobs can be created in green technologies than in (dirty) coal or (prohibitely expensive) nuclear.

Government could be stimulating a green industrial revolution here in this country with investment in these industries.

And creating jobs at the same time.

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bbest way to get more homes insulatied is ironically though to have higher energy prices, this will force home owners to see sense and invest in spreading foam through their walls / loft which will pay for itself within a year or two, i do think the old and ill should get it free though, but the market can deliver this for us so the government need not get involved really

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we get so badly stung as were all de minimus users, so why dont we get together in whole streets and such so we can bulk buy power at business prices ??? like a co-op for power, they do it with foods, so why not ?? anyone interested …?

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Wayne, what about whole streets getting together to create renewable energy projects, and making money in the process from the government’s feed-in tarriffs?

See what happened in Dardesheim in Germany:

http://www.wind-works.org/articles/DardesheimGermanysRenewableEnergyCity.html

Germany has had feed-in tarriffs for much longer, thus their headstart on the UK.

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Huw, Rodney put many points across, many that all of us living in the real world agree with..Would you care to respond to them, or just pick on one line like you have ?

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Having lived under a totalitarian regime in the Middle East until I managed to escape and settle in Europe, I have to say that I’m always a little suspicious of anyone who keeps a database of peoples’ comments to arguments made on 30th December 2008, Hugh. These type of regimes / people tend to see black and white, never grey. And they don’t like dissent. And dissent is defined as disagreement of even a small part of their views.

In any case, I think the point being made all those months ago had to do with waste disposal and how someone had an opinion that it was a tax scam – which it is, as the money raised is not being spent on the things that you yourself have told us above that it’s not being spent on, (see, I agree with you) – as well as encouraging criminals to fly-tip to avoid paying the tax and therefore creating more misery for those of us poor people who happen to live in caravans in the countryside, far from the comfortable, leafy, middle-class suburbs of Shrewsbury.

Your line seems to go: you think that climate-change denier speaks sense? Then you support him FULLY, ergo you are an enemy of the climate change lobby. It was a different topic to today’s topic and he did speak sense. As did others, some of whom I agreed with, some not. Because, not uniquely, I am able to react like that – seeing sense or logicality in arguments even if I don’t agree with them.

It must be very frustrating for you to encounter someone like me who AGREES with your statement that we need to cut down our consumption of fossil fuels, but DISAGREES with your assertion that from April 10th, we’ll all be fine and dandy, as fuel bills will drop because the feed-in scheme starts and the grid will suddenly change from coal to wind.

It means that you are caught in a loop – am I for you or am I against you?

Or, maybe, when you get out of that loop, you’ll see that I’m in a real-world situation, trying to draw realistic compromises in all arguments that will enable some real progress to be made, rather than hammering through a point of view which has demurrers and which, therefore, will never acquire maximum support. When you want to reach an objective, Huw, you need to bring along as many people as possible. You, in all cases that I recall, (because I don’t keep a database), seem to do your best to alienate everyone who may not agree 100% with you, thereby destroying any possibility that you may be able to convince them to meet even half way.

That also, I imagine, is why your short answer above refers to a two-line comment that I made in December 2008, but fails to address any of the comments that I made above. I confess that I’m surprised; I can’t believe that you really can’t find the words, it’s not normally a problem for you to find words, sentences, paragraphs even, as you bulldoze viewpoint after viewpoint through these columns with no acceptance that other people may be correct, that other people may be scraping a living and be opposed to your wish for a government that is not trustworthy to sting them big-time for cash so that you can then put your hand out for a solar panel grant or a windmill subsidy, a subsidy so arranged that it still doesn’t permit lower-paid folk to indulge themselves the luxury of greenwash. It seems to me that you hold little regard for how your free-spending opinions will affect those of us who cannot easily afford to pay to live from day to day; consequently, you give the impression of being quite happy to subsidise your own energy consumption, eventually lowering your household bills, at the expense of working folk who have to pay the tax to allow you to do so.

So here’s an idea for you: if you’re so frustrated at the pace of change, don’t wait for tax-payer funded grants to be paid out to you to make these changes, just go and spend your own money on what are, in the end, financial benefits for you through lowered energy bills, rather than any real benefit which may have a marginal effect of GLOBAL CO2 output. Yes, go and pay for your own green infrastructure rather than demanding “redistribution of poverty” from the wage packets of low-paid workers on a marginal tax rate of 96%.

So, are you with me or against me, Hugh. Or are you starting to understand that the longer you attempt to factionalise the argument, the longer you keep talking about “us and them”, (accepters and deniers, in your language), the longer it will take to come up with the solution because in the real world, because, as you need to learn, it’s better to talk about “all of us together”.

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Well Huw,

Seems like we’ve got the answer to global warming at last. (As you’ve yet again managed to bring that subject onto the agenda !)

Just make fuel so damned expensive so no-one (except of course the rich /wealthy) can afford to use it.

So there we are – problem solved.

No fuel usage en-masse, no CO2 release en-masse.

Is this the “real great plan” – To ” fuel starve” the poorer section of population out of existence?
- A bit extreme maybe- but it does make you think doesn’t it!

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Rodney (#23).

Following on from my statement above:

“fuel starving the poorer section of the population”

I wonder if this is really where this country is going – you may have hit the nail on the head so to speak where you said:

“And they don’t like dissent. And dissent is defined as disagreement of even a small part of their views”.

Maybe we should be careful what we say on these columns – when in the future ….. ?

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Huw, (No. 18), you really are starting to frighten me a bit.

You maintain a database of all dissenters and then issue a statement that only Government can do beneficial things for people, like giving things away for free, (after they’ve fleeced poorly-paid people at a marginal rate of 96% to pay for them, mind).

You really are bringing back memories of my earlier years, enduring surveillance, “benign” dictatorship and monopoly on all acts of “kindness”.

By the way, the answer to your question in No 24. is” because they know that weak regulators such as OFGEN will act as their propaganda voice, priming the population for a big rise in prices, ensuring that tax-payers pay for “investment”, (or profit, as it’s more commonly referred to) and shareholders reap, (said profit).”

All helped along by people such as yourself shouting loudly that it is government’s job to do so, thereby allowing private companies to avoid their (moral) obligations.

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askeric last time we spoke you were praising a book by David McKay called ‘Sustainable Energy: Without Hot Air’.

You seemed quite enthusiastic about it.

Have you lost your enthusiasm for it?

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Faced with a crisis as enormous as climate change, I would say that it is up to families, communities, towns, counties, politicians and the government, locally, regionally, nationally and internationally to do something about it.

Faced with a crisis as enormous as climate change, Ken Adams, Rodney, Lucy W and Big Matty would say they don’t think it’s happening, and it’s up to individuals if they really feel that strongly.

This, in my book, is completely irresponsible denial.

300,000 people are dying as a result of climate change ‘in the real world’ every year according to the UN.

To the people above, these people are not real.

They are Unpeople.

Faced with a crisis of the magnitude of peak oil and peak gas, I would say that it is up to families, communities, towns, counties, politicians and the government, locally, regionally, nationally and internationally to ‘get real’, understand the facts, look ahead and do something about it, ensuring that the most vulnerable and socially deprived are targeted for special help.

Faced with a crisis as enormous as peak oil, Ken Adams, Rodney, Lucy W and Big Matty would say they don’t think it’s happening, and it’s up to individuals if they really feel that strongly.

Noam Chomsky has written about ‘necessary illusions’ which the public need to be fed with to keep the unjust status quo going.

The first step to stepping into the real world is to get real about the true situation.

It also helps in convincing others if you use your real name.

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I’ve always wondered how all those ex-Stasi agents occupied their time after the fall of the old regime in East Germany. Now I know – they’re maintaining cross-indexed records of everyone who comments on here, on behalf of the Green Party!!

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Suellen Fowler (#30)

If you use your microwave instead of gas- you are actually making it worse!

* When you burn gas – YOU get all the heat to cook by but ….

* When the electricity companies burn it (gas) to produce the electricity to power your microwave – then well over HALF that energy is wasted !
Yes – I’m afraid that electricty generation is a VERY inefficient process !

Hence the argument for combined heat and power in the home –

You burn fuel in your own home to provide heat to generate electricity -and the “waste” heat normally chucked away by the generating station YOU get to keep to warm your house!

(Now you know why power stations like Ironbridge have those huge “curly” cooling towers – they are there to get rid of all the waste heat – ie lost in the process of generating electricity!!

So .. if we all used gas instead of expensive and inefficient to produce electricity … ?

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Huw (#38)

(In Reference to your comment in #38:
“Askeric dotcom asked me again and again in this debate about the North West Relief Road what my job was: http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/06/02/decision-due-on-100m-relief-road/ #6, #9, #16, followed up by Rob, Telford in #21)”

IF you WONT answer a simple question that relates to the discussion, then you CAN expect to be asked AGAIN !

Huw -

I’m getting tired of you.

You seem to delight in dragging up references from your data base that (in this case) has no bearing on the discussion.

I’m also NOT happy about YOU DELIBERATELY keeping records of what I (and others feel the same I suspect) are saying on these forums.

In my company – I’m registered with the data protection act – becuase we keep records of our customers details etc. We have to abide by strict standards of how we keep and use data.

Although this isn’t a platform that relates to my companies data records and their keeping – I think it’s a very relevant comment

I dont suppose you are registered are you? – yet you are obviously keeping records that relate to me personally?

What I (and others i’ll wager) say on these columns are a personal point of view based upon our experience “at the time”.

We aren;t then going on to keep meticulous records of what went on.

I beginning to find it – as someone else (rodney nosnail in #28) has said VERY concerning that you see the need to do this.

By all means refer to, and store publicly available facts and figures on your favourite subject – but –

I asking you politely – Don’t keep records about me !

Now I’ve asked you not to !

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Hi Rodney nosnail.

In reply to your comment in #40 about what has been spent on improving the quality of climate change efforts ….

For the record, some of what I’ve done is:

(As a thinking engineer (electrical, electronics, IT and communication)) –

* 25 odd years ago I installed my own central heating with advanced timing, flow and temperature controls. (Zoned heating and precise hot water tmeperature control etc)
British Gas et al at the time offered me a solutions NOWHERE NEAR this level for control !! -Thats why I did it myself.

* I updated this heating system about 4 years ago to current boiler standards.

* The heating system uses a 7 day digital control – so it only comes on each day when needed – and on Sat and Sun is programmed to come on much later in the morning.

* 25 odd years ago – 250mm of loft insulation fitted – and recently increased

* 20 odd years ago I installed Double glazing
both in windows AND doors.

* Ive used low energy light bulbs for as long as they’ve been avaialble – However- I DON’T find them particlularly reliable – and they are NOT as good as incandescent bulbs particularly when “instant” light is required (e.g going to the bathroom at night)

* We don’t leave anything “on” that’s not neccessary

* I don’t make unecessary car journeys – AND for those of you that read the book without hot air (see withouthotair.com) will see that the car is one the biggest “personal” uses of energy on a day to day basis.
(compare that to how much you save EVEN over a year by changing to low energy light bulbs – they are a drop in the ocean !!
.. Just drive your car for a few minutes LESS each day saves FAR more energy!! – now you might guess where the name “withouthot air comes from!!)

* I Always read my gas and electricity meters regularly – I know EXACTLY how much energy we use from day to day.
** And this is useful info for those of you that pay an “average”" cost per month – as I have ALWAYS argued successfully (armed with accurate usage data) with the energy companies over any proposal to increase a monthly payment.

I could go on and on and on however..

Slightly zany extras, but read on !

* I drove my Morris Marina car for 10,000′s miles in the 80′s without the radiator cooling fan blades fitted – this did reduce petrol consumption noticeably in those days
(all cars these days have electric fans that only rotate when cooling is needed)

A friend (sadly no longer with us) and I experimented well over 15 years ago with running diesel engines on vegetable oil. The results were incredible !

As I say I could go on and on …

There IS so much that can be done – and we DON’T need to be patronised by energy companies, the carbon trust, governments et al to do it either.

You CAN do it yourself !

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The best way I have found to ‘drop a tonne’ of carbon, Rodney, is to avoid flying.

In this thread you spoke about creating a ‘society where everybody plays their role and accepts their responsibilities.’

http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/04/11/benefits-system-not-working-for-me/ #10.

What have you done to save energy, Rodney?

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Huw.

This post is about the threatened energy prices rises.
Please try and keep to the subject.

Also – read my post number 39.

I have asked you not to keep and use data base entries that relate to me. – You are clearly doing this in your post #44

I won’t ask you again.

If you insist on continiung to do this – I can’t stop you, but I will refuse to answer anymore of your posts that do relate to me.

The choice is yours.

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Huw’s answer to what he spent his own money on to save energy is …. he didn’t spend any money on a plane ticket! That’s it, he did not spend any money on a flight.

I didn’t spend any money on a flight last week Huw, so it looks like I’m becoming a climate-change accepter after all. You must be very pleased with me. In fact, I didn’t fly the week before, either, so maybe I am double good.

No more from me on this topic because I’m fed up waiting for an answer from Huw as to what changes he has made to his home with his own money to save energy.

He keeps coming back to tell us how to live our lives but so far, no answer to the questions.

I’ve come around to the conclusion that he’s a prevaricator and one of those people who, when you get fed up of his lack of answers and goes away, sees this as a sign that he’s won the argument.

Good at spouting theory, bad at ….

Good at telling us to how to live, bad at ….

Good at demanding public money, not so good at ….

Evasive, uninterested in compromise, unwilling to concede logic in, or even accept, opposing arguments.

In short, not worth continuing to have a one-sided dialogue with, so I’m leaving this topic string to allow him to bask in self-admiration at his virtuous, “better than any of you”, lifestyle.

See you folks, I’m off to “drop a tonne of carbon” – a nice tree next to my caravan is about to become firewood.

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Huw

Ref your post #48 ..

What ARE you on about?

All we wanted to know was – what have YOU done to reduce energy consumption in your home?

You don’t ACTUALLY say you’ve done anything!
(however – you do say “we have done this” (in response to the Marches Energy Agency) and will continue to do so – but …. who’s “we”?)

Thanks for saying I’m a practical experienced sort of person of a “similar vintage”

Thing is Huw – I – like most other “practical / expereinced engineering types” can’t stand politicians and others who go on and on and on about things such as energy conservation etc – becuase –
When you start to dig deeper – in most cases you find they actually have NO real knowledge or experience of what it is they are talking about. –
And I’m afraid that energy conservation and it’s effects on the climate is no exception. – That’s why the book I reffered you to is called “without hot air” !!

If you go and talk to any REAL engineer /practical type – who are tasked to “make things work” – they will tell you the same, becuase an engineer can’t make something that “nearly” works – it HAS to be Right!!

You would soon complain if you car continually broke down, or your TV kept failing, or your micriwave /cooker etc didn;t work properly – so you see .. US engineering /practical types are used to dealing with facts /figures, and then getting it right!

And you will also find -if you look – that thinking people like us aren’t denying that there is a problem with energy usage /generation / effects upon the climate – it’s just we won’t put up with being lectured / patronised about it by politicians and others who know nothing about it.

And finally – what has Tony Blair and WMD got to do with energy prices?

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