Reply to: Things can only get better

[Paddy]

It's going to be £6-8000 after the next rise, likely much more. Many people simply won't be able to pay it, many energy intensive businesses are going to become non-viable.

This government needs to pull its thumb out of its backside and actually start doing something to protect the future of this country. I agree 100%, we should have been building nuclear like crazy, starting 15 years ago. US rates for electricity average about 8p kwh, from April we'll be paying 28p and businesses probably more (no cap). Beyond the enforced £200 loan, which we'll probably have to pay back when bills are even higher, I haven't heard anything resembling a plan from this government at all.

I went on a tour of the first low-energy reactor in Dorset during 1961. As a kid I was expecting the UK to be all nuclear within 20 years. What a f*****g waste of technical skills because of clueless politicians.

[mattster]

Average energy cost around £5000, you need to earn double that before-tax to pay for that.

UK's big mistake was to drop nuclear power.

It's going to be £6-8000 after the next rise, likely much more. Many people simply won't be able to pay it, many energy intensive businesses are going to become non-viable.

This government needs to pull its thumb out of its backside and actually start doing something to protect the future of this country. I agree 100%, we should have been building nuclear like crazy, starting 15 years ago. US rates for electricity average about 8p kwh, from April we'll be paying 28p and businesses probably more (no cap). Beyond the enforced £200 loan, which we'll probably have to pay back when bills are even higher, I haven't heard anything resembling a plan from this government at all.

[jamesbrown]

Good point, well made. NASA are not private sector. Private sector has got involved now that they know how to make a profit.
Boeing and Airbus? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38131611

NASA is not commercialising space flight, but they certainly make ample use of commercial infrastructure, such as SpaceX. How do you think US astronauts get to the ISS? Of course gov't can have a role in nudging businesses in a particular direction, even supporting businesses under certain circumstances (look at the pandemic FFS), but that is a million miles away from nationalisation of private enterprise and it actually working. The idea that gov't takes an inherently longer term view than business is simply wrong; businesses can take a very long term view if there is the incentive to do so.

[jamesbrown]

Is that why we still have Tory rule, that becomes more corrupt by the day?

We still have Tory rule because people weren't stupid enough to vote for Corbyn or Miliband. There's a decent chance that the public will vote for Starmer because, on the whole, UK voters, but more specifically English voters, are small c conservative, not raging lefties or righties.

[Paddy]

Average energy cost around £5000, you need to earn double that before-tax to pay for that.

UK's big mistake was to drop nuclear power.

[WTFH]

Sure it is, that literally happens all the time in the private sector. How long do you think it takes to design a new aeroplane or car or to bring commercial spaceflight to fruition?

Good point, well made. NASA are not private sector. Private sector has got involved now that they know how to make a profit.
Boeing and Airbus? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38131611

[WTFH]

It's governments that are short-termist because they are literally gone in a few years.... at least in a democracy.

Is that why we still have Tory rule, that becomes more corrupt by the day?

[jamesbrown]

And long term solutions that require outlay over years before seeing a return are not a credible solution to anything in the private sector.

Sure it is, that literally happens all the time in the private sector. How long do you think it takes to design a new aeroplane or car or to bring commercial spaceflight to fruition? It's governments that are short-termist because they are literally gone in a few years.... at least in a democracy.

[d000hg]

I don't suppose there are any countries, in this day and age, that could shut themselves off from the world, and only have a free market economy within their own borders, and be self-sufficient.

I think several have the natural resources (mining, farmland) and developed industry that they could if they needed to. USA did use to I think, to a large extent and China has crazy raw material resources.

But that's more down to the fact they are so vast.

[d000hg]

Combine this with the Climate Catastrophe and we face the worst times since the dinosaurs.

Were the dinosaurs a big problem for humans?

[WTFH]

But fracking is equally pointless (as a price control) for exactly the same reason. Unless we are going to nationalise these companies and consume all the gas ourselves, then they are selling into a global market. I don't care how much frackin' gas you can extract, it's a drop in the global ocean and therefore irrelevant as a price control. There is no short-term solution to this. The long-term solution is to diversify and reduce dependence on oil/gas produced by Russia, sure, but by OPEC too. Nationalising producers is not a credible solution, whether in the form of existing North Sea supplies or new fracked supplies.

And long term solutions that require outlay over years before seeing a return are not a credible solution to anything in the private sector.

[jamesbrown]

Oh, I realise exactly what I'm saying.
And it's less absurd than the suggestions of those who say "we should start fracking, we should drill for more oil & gas" - they say "we", but they mean get government investment up front, then sell off to the highest bidder as soon as possible.
China owns the debt for the nuclear power plants that the UK is getting French firms to build and the subsidies come from us.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/h...llion-uk-homes

But fracking is equally pointless (as a price control) for exactly the same reason. Unless we are going to nationalise these companies and consume all the gas ourselves, then they are selling into a global market. I don't care how much frackin' gas you can extract, it's a drop in the global ocean and therefore irrelevant as a price control. There is no short-term solution to this. The long-term solution is to diversify and reduce dependence on oil/gas produced by Russia, sure, but by OPEC too. Nationalising producers is not a credible solution, whether in the form of existing North Sea supplies or new fracked supplies.

[saptastic]

is fracking too politically incorrect? or better to rely on Russia ?

[_V_]

So we got our revised (Shell) energy direct debit today: £365. That's over £4000 a year, with another 50% rise predicted for October to over £6000 - and worth noting that that prediction was pre-war. What it might end up now is, of course, anyone's guess. Quick straw poll of family and a few friends and we seem to be on the lower side - brother has £492 pm with cheapest fixed price deal of £982 p.m.(!) I know this is old news already, but nothing that the government has said or done reassures me that they have any grasp of just how big a shock these price rises are going to be for a lot of people. I'm annoyed by it but can pay it, many won't be so fortunate. What is going to happen at the start of next winter when the average energy cost is around £5000 a year?? It is completely nuts and uncharted territory.
Now have a year to work out how to save some energy - I wish I had taken notice of historic meter readings, since I can't seem to get them now PurePlanet are bust. I don't even know my split between electric/gas.

Nothing a 40% rate increase per year won't solve. Calm down, you're an IT Contractor, not some oik.

[OwlHoot]

Oh no we are are not. The oil and gas field were sold off to private companies when the the oil and gas price was low. ..

Oh no, the Gordon Brown cunning strategy again - Sell when the price is at a minimum!