Flashback 2011: ‘Era of Constant Electricity at Home is Ending, says UK power chief’ — ‘Families would have to get used to only using power when it was available’

The Daily Telegraph – March 2, 2011: ‘Era of Constant Electricity at Home is Ending, says UK power chief’

Excerpt: ‘The days of permanently available electricity may be coming to an end, the head of the power network said yesterday. Families would have to get used to only using power when it was available, rather than constantly, said Steve Holliday, chief executive of National Grid. Mr Holliday was challenged over how the country would “keep the lights on” when it relied more on wind turbines as supplies of gas dwindled. Electricity provided by wind farms will increase six-fold by 2020 but critics complain they only generate on windy days.

“We are going to change our own behaviour and consume it when it is available and available cheaply.”

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1975: Holdren Says Real Threat to USA Is Cheap Energy: ‘The U.S.is threatened far more by the hazards of too much energy, too soon, than by the hazards of too little energy, too late.’

 

 

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7 Responses

  1. Ok so let’s push this logic further.

    As gas supplies dwindle, that means also, oil/petroleum supplies dwindle too. That means, automobiles will no longer be able to run on gasoline or diesel. That means we are talking about electric cars; forget about hydrogen fuel cells, that technology has been around and been continuously in development since the 1830’s and is still not ready and probably never will be, there are too many problems with it, and that’s with the science, the engineering is a another big headache. So does this mean that not only will “lights will not be kept on” but also when we people can travel in our autos or on trains will be controlled. Are people going to be kept hostage in their homes until there is some wind? And then, will there be enough wind? What happens when there is not enough wind? Regions will be selected in a round-robin way when they can travel, shop, cook, or even keep warm? Ah, yes keeping warm, how does one do that, wait for the wind or sun in the middle of winter to keep warm?

    Has any of these morons done these calculations?
    – Calculate the peak power requirements during the peak hour, during the peak day of the year? Have you done that math to understand whether or not it is even feasible with wind, solar and what ever green solution, will work? And I might add, when I say peak power, I mean not just what is used at home, I mean also what is used in ALL of society including, your automobile, trains, industry and everything else. Well do the math, it doesn’t work. So….
    – Who is going to make the decision for whom will get this power when it is available? Its bad enough now that we have classes in society, but I can just see a new kind of poor arising, the power (that is energy) poor. And with that new Energy Poor, people are going to die.

    Green energy is not enough, in fact, it doesn’t even work very well. It is too mechanical, look at the failure rate of wind mills, even solar is not only expensive, its total economic cost and safety is atrocious. Solar cells life span is not very good, solar cell costs are too expensive and always will be, and the worst thing about solar cells is the disposal, they have things like arsenic in them, they are toxic and carcinogenic, worse than of any fossil fuel. And don’t think solar energy is not mechanical, you need motors to constant rotate the solar sells to keep them pointed towards the sun, or if your using solar farms, do really think there is enough land available for all the energy needed? And energy storage?

    So explain how are you going ship, fly, train and truck all the goods and wares around the world with wind and solar?

    What a lot of nonsense. With this kind of thinking, we won’t have to worry about over populating the planet, the morons in charge will cull the population through the love of the green energy, people will freeze to death, starve from hunger, and die from lack of medical attention all because of politics and stupidity.

    There are solutions but of course the morons in the Green Energy movement consider it evil; hydro-electric power, thorium reactors (and yes if need be other nuclear power tech. too).

    What a horrible world this is going to turn into. We are heading back to the Stone Age, our homes will become our caves, we will be clothed in vegetable material, freeze during winter, eat only berries and insects, horses and waggons will come back for our transport, use candles for our light sources and the Internet along with all our other electric equipment will only function when the elites take pity on the rest, whereas, the Green Elites in their Green Zones will have all the power they need (for they are the decision makers and so must have everything they need or should I say desire).

    Ladies and gentlemen, the world does not need to learn to do with less energy, that is a lie. The future is about MORE energy, we need to learn how to make more energy, a lot more. We need science to development not more ways to harness but to create energy, a FANTASTIC amount of more energy. The future, is not about living like energy misers, it is about making every single person energy independent. It is about fantastic break throughs, that will enable each person to have so much energy at their finger tips that they can do anything and travel anywhere. Imagine individual personal vehicles that can transport you anywhere on Earth, or how about even to the Moon! You will not be able to do that with solar or wind power, there is no wind in space, and as for solar power you can forget that too. Green Energy, is Stone Age Energy, we need Future Energy, our future is to break the shackles of this Earth, the future is the Space Age.

    The only way we can get to the Space Age, is that we have to pass through the Nuclear Age! No Nuclear Age….then we go back to banging magical rocks and rubbing voodoo sticks, and we stay here in our caves on Earth. Yes more energy, more powerful energy, is more dangerous. What do you expect, its energy! But to respect and learn to handle more energy we need to take up the risks and obligations with learning about more powerful energy sources, but with knowledge comes wisdom. Wisdom and a readiness for using more dangerous and powerful sources of energy will not come through using more benign sources of energy, it will only come with our gradual understanding and human development by working with more dangerous forms of energy. And yes that means we will make mistakes, but it is only through these mistakes and our continual exposure to these dangers that we will learn. We can not learn anything from playing it always safe. We must learn, we must take risks, that is what it means to be human. These risks and questions must be done and studied now and can be mitigated, while we are not in any desperate need. If we wait later, when we are desperate, that is, when we finally see that Green Energy is not a solution but it is really social/economic suicide, we will be forced to go the nuclear path desperately, and that will be a heavy price.

    The question is not about where we will be in 20 or 30 years as Mr. Holliday has so inanely illustrated. The question we all must be asking, where do we want our grand-children, our descendents, where do we want humanity to be in 100 and 500 years from now! Our concerns for energy is not just about us now, it is also about all those who will come in the future. 150 years ago, the great cities of the world like London and New York built great underground tunnels, they built them for removing the waste that was literally killing the people on their streets. But they built these tunnels that wasn’t just for those living alive at that time, they built them with the expectation that their cities will grow and become metropolises, and so they did. They built these great feats of engineering, to last 100 years! And so they have, and even more.

    And so it is with energy. Green Energy is not the energy of the future. Nuclear Energy and even more powerful forms of energy, antimatter or even vacuum energy, will have to come. If energy was so plentiful that it cost literally nothing, it would be like today sending an email to anywhere in the world, virtually costless, what would energy conservation even matter? If a family lives by a plentiful river, does one care how much water they use? Even if there are 1 million families by the river, is the solution, to conserve water, when it wasn’t a problem before? How about finding more water. The solution is not about making do more with less. The solution is finding more to do more with it.

    The solution of our energy needs is not tightening the belt, it is putting science to work and harnessing the great resources of energy; nuclear, antimatter, vacuum and others. Green Energy, was for the Stone Age…..Nuclear and Sub-Nuclear Energy is for the Future and Space Age.

    So the question I ask you all, what future do you wish for Mankind, the Stone Age or Space Age? If you are for the Space Age, then you are, whether you like or not, you support the Nuclear Energy. If you are for Green Energy, then, whether you like or not, the future for you is, magic rocks, voodoo sticks and vegetable clothes, that is, the Stone Age. Its as simple as that.

  2. And to think David Cameron is campaigning in the coming election to make the British economy strong. Well, if he is serious, he need only repeal the Climate Change Act.

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