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UK Politics VI - Will Britain Steir to Karmer Waters?
- Thread starter Arakhor
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- uk politics
Why have Britain’s energy costs soared and what does it mean for Labour?
Claims that power plants are gaming the system to charge huge sums to switch on in the UK’s cold weather
www.theguardian.com
Hey, whaddya know, private sector price gouging. Now, what did the French do about this . . .
Mega Tsunami
Emperor
I was too busy hiding under my bedclothes to comment.
Nut Zero is even worse than I thought when it comes to leccy prices. (Three/Four times more than Americans!).
And to think they want us to convert to heat pumps.
(Just to be clear – Net Zero good; Nut Zero bad. And arguably Nut Zero can be traced back to Boris (well Mrs Boris to be more precise) – it’s just that Milliband is making it a whole lot worse).
Telegraph:
Britain now has the highest industrial energy prices in the world, has fallen out of the world’s top 10 manufacturers, increasingly risks power rationing, and is spending over £3 billion a year to import electricity from Europe. A generation of flawed energy policies have wreaked havoc on consumers and the problem is getting worse, contrary to Ed Miliband’s belief that prioritising wind and solar over new nuclear and gas is the answer.
Britain’s prices are nearly 50 per cent above the International Energy Agency median for industrial electricity and 80 per cent above the median for domestic users. Our businesses pay almost four times as much as Americans for power and our consumers three times. This is hugely concerning when Labour’s net zero plans will see Britain using much more electricity for cars and household heating, irrespective of it being far more expensive than gas.
The UK faces a fate worse than blackout
To keep the lights on, industry and consumers will continue to pay ever-higher prices for energy
The UK faces a fate worse than blackout
To keep the lights on, industry and consumers will continue to pay ever-higher prices for energy
www.telegraph.co.uk
Mega Tsunami
Emperor
More bad news:
British industry faces ‘extinction’ because of net zero, says Sir Jim Ratcliffe
Ineos boss’s warning comes after closure of Scottish manufacturing site with loss of 80 jobs
British industry faces ‘extinction’ because of net zero, says Sir Jim Ratcliffe
Ineos boss’s warning comes after closure of Scottish manufacturing site with loss of 80 jobs
Telegraph said:Sir Jim Ratcliffe has warned that Britain’s multibillion-pound chemicals industry is facing “extinction” because of soaring energy costs and the shift to net zero.
Ineos last week shut down a synthetic ethanol centre at Grangemouth in Falkirk, Scotland, resulting in the loss of 80 direct roles and an estimated 500 indirect jobs in the wider economy.
Sir Jim, the owner of Manchester United and one of Britain’s richest men, said: “De-industrialising Britain achieves nothing for the environment. It merely shifts production and emissions elsewhere.
“The UK, and particularly the North, needs high quality manufacturing and the associated manufacturing jobs. We are witnessing the extinction of one of our major industries as chemical manufacture has the life squeezed out of it.”
The Grangemouth ethanol facility had an annual production capacity of 180,000 tonnes. Its output was used in the production of pharmaceuticals.
Ineos has said that high energy costs in Britain meant it was losing money on the Grangemouth plant. Energy costs in the UK have doubled in the last five years and are now five times higher than in the US, the company said.
The business added that the UK’s carbon taxes had “forced the closure” of its plant, which was “essential for the manufacture of many pharmaceutical drugs”.
Ineos has warned that the country’s current emissions trading scheme, where greenhouse gas producers can trade allowances on how much pollution they emit, was damaging the domestic market. Importers are not hit with the same costs.
The chemicals giant is calling on the Government to secure competitive pricing for natural gas, a revamped emissions trading regime and trade policy that supports UK manufacturing.
The company’s emissions at Grangemouth have fallen by almost 50pc over the last 20 years, Ineos said, with an aim of achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
But it warned the lack of carbon reduction schemes in other countries meant the cost of purifying ethanol in the UK was equivalent to a 10pc price increase.
Ten large chemicals plants have closed in Britain in the last five years. Ineos’s facility at Grangemouth was one of only two synthetic ethanol centres remaining in Europe.
In December, Brian Gilvary, Ineos Energy’s chairman, warned the UK was too “negative” for future energy investments.
Writing in The Telegraph, Mr Gilvary said the country’s “current tax regime, its over-regulation and the negative political attitude towards oil and gas are barriers that would deter any investor now.
“The US, by contrast, has long been an attractive market for energy investment – with a stable fiscal regime, supported by governments that understand the importance of affordable energy security.”
A government spokesman said the “disappointing news from Ineos” was “another example of the failure of Scotland’s two governments to have a credible industrial strategy”.
“That is why the UK Government is developing an industrial strategy that works for Scotland and the whole of the UK, but that comes after over a decade where Scotland’s industries had no joined-up plan for growth.”
British industry faces ‘extinction’ because of net zero, says Sir Jim Ratcliffe
Ineos boss’s warning comes after closure of Scottish manufacturing site with loss of 80 jobs
EnglishEdward
Deity
A while back the current government nodded through the closure of the last iron ore smelting works in the
UK, and agreed to give its owner Tata a massive subsidy £500M to introduce a green arc electric smelter.
I have doubts whether the replacement smelter will ever be built.
But if it is built, it would, with the most expensive electricity in the European region, almost certainly lose money.
Meanwhile I am waiting to see whether Sir Keir Starmer is going to sign an agreement for the UK taxpayer
to give Mauritius £90 Million a year for 99 years, so that the USA can keep its base in the Indian ocean.
UK, and agreed to give its owner Tata a massive subsidy £500M to introduce a green arc electric smelter.
Tata Steel: UK government confirms £500m subsidy
Ministers say they have reached an "improved deal" to safeguard the future of Tata's Port Talbot plant.
www.bbc.co.uk
I have doubts whether the replacement smelter will ever be built.
But if it is built, it would, with the most expensive electricity in the European region, almost certainly lose money.
Meanwhile I am waiting to see whether Sir Keir Starmer is going to sign an agreement for the UK taxpayer
to give Mauritius £90 Million a year for 99 years, so that the USA can keep its base in the Indian ocean.
Senethro
Overlord
Honestly, kind of getting why Sunak might have wanted out early.
This reminds me of a corruption scandal ages ago in which a senator claimed that ‘they’ who'd paid him a cash bribe were the corrupt ones.
If he was any economist at all he should've known that this was going to blow up in someone's face.
EnglishEdward
Deity
One domino falls:
Tulip Siddiq resigns as Treasury minister
The Labour MP had referred herself to the prime minister's standards adviser after being named in an anti-corruption investigation in Bangladesh.
www.bbc.co.uk
Mega Tsunami
Emperor
It has taken Siddiq three years to own up as to how she acquired her flat. She lied back then threatening law suites for racial discrimination against a Bangladeshi writing for the Mail. Now she admits it wasn’t her parents who gave it to her. They have 'lost the documents'. And now Bangladesh has cited her for corruption along with her aunt.
After freebie-gate, Haigh-gate and others, we now hear the anti-corruption minister has stepped down after allegations of, err, Corruption. You, as they say, couldn’t make it up. What was Starmer thinking – a thief to catch a thief?
I have banged on and on here in the past about Labour’s hypocritical holier-than-thou virtue signalling. Well let’s hope that is now consigned to the bin where it belongs.
No more going on (you would imagine) about sleaze, crashing the economy, black holes etc. when they are as bad as the opposition. (None, of which, btw, does the markets any favours at all).
As one writer put it:
Like the inhabitants of Manor Farm at the end of George Orwell’s fairy story, voters will look from Labour to the Tories, from the Tories to Labour, and from Labour to Tories again, and conclude it is already impossible to tell which is which.
After freebie-gate, Haigh-gate and others, we now hear the anti-corruption minister has stepped down after allegations of, err, Corruption. You, as they say, couldn’t make it up. What was Starmer thinking – a thief to catch a thief?
I have banged on and on here in the past about Labour’s hypocritical holier-than-thou virtue signalling. Well let’s hope that is now consigned to the bin where it belongs.
No more going on (you would imagine) about sleaze, crashing the economy, black holes etc. when they are as bad as the opposition. (None, of which, btw, does the markets any favours at all).
As one writer put it:
Like the inhabitants of Manor Farm at the end of George Orwell’s fairy story, voters will look from Labour to the Tories, from the Tories to Labour, and from Labour to Tories again, and conclude it is already impossible to tell which is which.
Starmer's Labour, perhaps. There was a chance at a better Labour, and the Telegraph's writers in unison pretty much agreed it was worth siding with the Tories and general establishment on tearing that version of Labour down. Yourself included, I'd imagine
Why have Britain’s energy costs soared and what does it mean for Labour?
Claims that power plants are gaming the system to charge huge sums to switch on in the UK’s cold weather
Hey, whaddya know, private sector price gouging. Now, what did the French do about this . . .
Bought out our energy companies so they can gouge us directly?
Doesn't industry get different prices to us plebs?
You of all folks should know better than to indulge in poor generalisations
There are other ways to tackle the cost of living crisis - just ask France and Spain
From rent caps to free public transport, here are the French and Spanish policies our government should be looking at
neweconomics.org
You of all folks should know better than to indulge in poor generalisations
There are other ways to tackle the cost of living crisis - just ask France and Spain
From rent caps to free public transport, here are the French and Spanish policies our government should be looking at
Not what I was referring to. EDF is one of the UK's biggest power generators. Wholly owned by... the French State.
I think they are making us pay back reparations for the 100 year war.
I know what you're referring to. I don't think much of conspiracy theories. For adherents of free-market capitalism, if they are squeezing us, it's because they did capitalism better than us, after all.
What I linked is what I was referring to, when I asked the question originally. The French did what they normally do, and the government actually did something about the problem. It's fascinating how well that works for them. We should try it, instead of being constant bootlickers to the state (which never seems to achieve anything).
RAF bases are hotspots of ‘forever chemical’ groundwater pollution, MoD documents show
RAF bases are hotspots of toxic “forever chemical” pollution in water, analysis of Ministry of Defence documents has revealed.
Moreover, some of the highest concentrations of these chemicals in British drinking water sources are near RAF bases.
For context, the maximum allowable level for drinking water in England is 100ng/l, above which water may pose health risks.
RAF Waddington, which lies in a drinking water supply area, has groundwater contamination at more than five times the maximum allowable drinking water levels.
At RAF Coningsby, PFOS levels were recorded at 3,550ng/l. The report said that other PFAS compounds may bio-transform and oxidise into PFOS and other PFAS, potentially escalating contamination in surface and groundwater to a maximum level of 164,317ng/l.
Harry Watts, a 74-year-old RAF veteran who has leukaemia, said they were told in regiment lectures that they were safer than civilians because they used their own drinking water supply. But he now fears the water was contaminated because the aquifer sits below the fire training ground, where large amounts of firefighting foam was used for decades.
RAF bases are hotspots of toxic “forever chemical” pollution in water, analysis of Ministry of Defence documents has revealed.
Moreover, some of the highest concentrations of these chemicals in British drinking water sources are near RAF bases.
For context, the maximum allowable level for drinking water in England is 100ng/l, above which water may pose health risks.
RAF Waddington, which lies in a drinking water supply area, has groundwater contamination at more than five times the maximum allowable drinking water levels.
At RAF Coningsby, PFOS levels were recorded at 3,550ng/l. The report said that other PFAS compounds may bio-transform and oxidise into PFOS and other PFAS, potentially escalating contamination in surface and groundwater to a maximum level of 164,317ng/l.
Harry Watts, a 74-year-old RAF veteran who has leukaemia, said they were told in regiment lectures that they were safer than civilians because they used their own drinking water supply. But he now fears the water was contaminated because the aquifer sits below the fire training ground, where large amounts of firefighting foam was used for decades.
