You can’t outsmart The Grid, boy. Don’t even try…
Lawrence Solomon, in the NP:
Wind-based power systems are necessary to meet the government’s targets, (Steve Holiday, CEO of the UK’s National Grid) has explained, but they will require lifestyle changes.
Not that these required lifestyle changes will be enforced by the wind-based power systems per se:
Under the so-called “smart grid” that the UK is developing, the government-regulated utility will be able to decide when and where power should be delivered, to ensure that it meets the highest social purpose. Governments may, for example, decide that the needs of key industries take precedence over others, or that the needs of industry trump that of residential consumers. Governments would also be able to price power prohibitively if it is used for non-essential purposes.
(emph. mine)
Hmm. I guess this is another downside to gun control.
The energy equivalent of “medical” death panels. Energy is no longer a commodity to be freely traded in the market but life blood of civilization to be rationed and prioritized by the omnipotent state. Unregulated human chattel couldn’t possibly handle such things. Lights out in the UK without as much as a wimper!
Again……finally a use for that Y2K generator.
And on a more serious note, the current nuclear reactor meltdown occurring in Japan will likely set back nuclear power yet another generation. Thank God for shale gas.
Liberals can starve while freezing in the dark right now, no need to wait for the rest of us….
Howie, try not to get in a panic about how the media misrepresents everything nuclear. What’s going on in Japan is far from a meltdown. All the reactors shut down. It’s the decay heat that’s causing the problem, and that’s 1/1000th of the reactor’s nominal power rating.
I’m not in a panic in any way, but the anti-nuke lobby will add this to 3 mile island and chernobyl to keep the public in fear. The bottom line is that nuclear power will continue to face an uphill battle to gain acceptance as an alternate and economical energy source.
ALL YOUR ERGS ARE BELONG TO US!
It’s all hypothetical at this point, John Chittick (11:06), but yes, you’re entirely right that if it ever gets to the point where the definition of “non-essential power usage” is entirely politically juried (which is the inherent threat in the very nature of the proposed scenario) we’ll find ourselves’s in a highly contentious, almost Kafka-esque realm wherein free people will be subject to enormous political interference about what constitutes “*non-essential* power usage.”
The push for utterly non-viable power sources over cheap, plentiful, readily-available and useful ones is already entirely political in and of itself. In the dream-world advocated by Steve Holiday et al, would TV viewing (for example) be considered “essential”? Almost certainly not. Would non-prescribed blogging be considered essential in the save-the-planet view of those who might wish to enforce these “wind-powered” grid capabilities? Probably not.
Those who wish to *enforce* the use of wind power, etc., have a leftist, redistributionist political agenda; they’d *love* to be the ones who get to decide who gets power, in the electrical sense, and who doesn’t. If they were ever granted this privilege – and you know they want it – it would be an unprecedented power grab – no pun intended – with far-reaching consequences. Better, and more effective, to stop them now.
Let the peasants shiver in the dark. The future will be interesting. Governments never learn because the same mindset always takes over. The one that deems themselves mini gods, with the rest of humanity as servants to their brilliance.
Bowing is mandatory!
Howie, I agree with you entirely.
For anyone who wants to know the plant status at Fukushima, go here:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/index-e.html
and just click through the latest two reports. There are two reactor complexes at Fukushima.
In short, all reactors were fully shut down. One worker received a radiation dose of 106 mSv (the permissible limit for 1 year is 100 mSv) and unlikely to have any effect. Two workers were injured by falls at the time of the quake (broken bones). The takeway from this is that nuclear plants are built so strongly that they are still standing when everything else has been knocked flat.
A socialist gument knows that to maintain power, the peons must be kept economically crippled and dependant on the gument, they must be kept ignorant and incapable of rational and/or creative thought and they must be intimidated by brutality. England is divided and poor and half the people are not English, do not speak English and have a century of hatred for the English bottled up inside their heads and hearts. The gument can do whatever it wants – England’s population will never challage their gument for anything because they are so divided. We should heed the sorry state of England and avoid the same mistakes.
Is Tory the new socialist party??
Hasse – What is the meaning of your question??
The smart grid will allow the government to direct the resources to more vital customers (political elite, contributers, cronys, etc.) while non-vital customers (voters, heavy industry, commercial services, etc.) will have to get along as best as they can without a reliable source of power. Sounds smart to me! A lot better than exploiting currently available technologies and resources until viable technonogies are avalable to replace them (BTW wind and Solar, though great for Government Grants, are on a par with rainbow power and unicorn farts as viable technologies).
As for exposure, I got more than 200 mSv in a few hours working a job. I depends on what level you are certified to work.
I am sure the Libyn government considered the use of the internet non-essential at various times recently.
It funny how such banality can imply such a bad thing
How come they never worry about non-essential legislation? Think of the energy expended researching and trying to force a population to obey.
Maybe the best use of a Smart meter is the lights go off in Parliament when the cost rises.
Wow. How Ayn Rand.
By the way, I’m not seeing the movie queued up at any of the local cinemas.
I like how I would have to pay for electricty, but the government would decide if I ‘need’ the power. That’s really cool.
Oh wait, did I say cool? I meant ‘knee-jerk statist doucherocketry’.
I wrote to my MPP Kathleen Wynne about Ontario’s huge debt and the incredible waste of money with Ontario Hydro and the wind and solar farms. I noted that the Liberal government has killed Ontario with massive debts, high taxes and its ever growing bureaucracies and public employees.
Her reply says it all about about where the elitist Liberal focus is:
“While I appreciate your views, I do stand by the belief that the money collected in taxes is needed to provide for the ever-increasing number of people in this country who deserve and demand a certain standard of living from all levels of government.”
Didn’t we used to work hard and look after our own standard of living with our own money and effort?
Gee sound like the UK imediately after WWII, where steel among other things was rationed and only given to companies that produced exports (generating hard cash)
the peons must be kept economically crippled and dependant on the gument, they must be kept ignorant and incapable of rational and/or creative thought and they must be intimidated by brutality. England is divided and poor ”
wow jema, just like under the british monarchy for more than 1,000 years.
p.s., conservatist = monarchist.
Yeah…
“Not showing up to protest……”
It is doubtful whether Britain can recover. The critical mass needed to shove the pendulum back is not really there. It’s too small, and too old. The youth are rioting about their entitlements. The “new citizens” are organizing for their own petty agenda….meanwhile Britian’s Acilles heel, the working class Brit, has gone to the pub or the soccer match….and the spark has emmigrated….
sasquatch, the UK (and Europe) is gone.
I’m doubtful the critical mass exists to prevent the destruction of North America, witness Kathleen Wynne’s statement above that government exists to redistribute wealth.
Electricity rationing 101:
Essential use-
government
schools
libraries
hospitals
highrise elevators
seniors homes
phone/internet
street lighting
flower shops
makeup salons
Non essential use:
churches, mosques
hockey arenas (especially NHL)
theatres
sports stadiums
bars
restaurants
smoke belching factories(steel mills, welding shops)
general commercial operations
I know, it stops making sense after a while….
Neo-AGW Progre$$ Warming, er “warning” Report: R-I-$-K.
QOTD: Is a LizardMay Green? Or,Red? Red-Green?
A: A watermelon.
P.S. Don’t forget the “pot”:
“They also called for the bank to issue “green ISAs” through which individual investors could put their savings into low-carbon projects.”
But, don’t be afraid of R-I-$-K, its’: “a small pot of government funding,”
…-
“Green investment bank ‘must operate commercially'”
“Green economy is at risk if the bank cannot attract private sector investors, a cross-party committee of MPs have warned”
“Offshore wind farms could be supported by the green investment bank – but it must not be downgraded to a fund, say ministers. Photograph: Murdo Macleod”
“The government is putting the UK’s fledgling green economy at risk by downgrading the “green investment bank” to a mere fund, MPs have warned in a scathing report on the plans.
If the bank is to succeed in directing billions of needed investment into green projects such as renewable energy, it must be allowed to operate commercially and attract private sector investors, an influential cross-party committee of MPs said, putting them at loggerheads with officials who want to water down the proposals for the £2bn bank. They also called for the bank to issue “green ISAs” through which individual investors could put their savings into low-carbon projects.
“If the government is serious about being the ‘greenest ever’, the chancellor must ensure the green investment bank can do what it says on the tin and raise extra capital like a real bank,” said Joan Walley, chair of the environmental audit committee, which published its report on Friday. “The UK desperately needs a game-changing injection of private sector investment if we are going to meet our climate change targets and move to a green economy.”
The green investment bank was supposed to be structured as a normal investment bank, with the ability to raise money and loans, and to issue bonds and other investment products, including green ISAs, promised by the chancellor, George Osborne.
But objections to the plans from within the Treasury, which believes the bank could swell the deficit because it would appear as a liability on the government’s balance sheet, mean the plans are likely to be watered down and the bank will be restricted instead to dispensing a small pot of government funding, with £1bn coming from general funds and £1bn to £2bn more from the sales of public assets. Green ISAs have also been dropped.
The government appears divided on the issue,”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/11/greeen-investment-bank
EBD nails it @ 2:19am. Worth repeating:
“Those who wish to *enforce* the use of wind power, etc., have a leftist, redistributionist political agenda; they’d *love* to be the ones who get to decide who gets power, in the electrical sense, and who doesn’t. If they were ever granted this privilege – and you know they want it – it would be an unprecedented power grab – no pun intended – with far-reaching consequences. Better, and more effective, to stop them now.”
I do agree ron in kelowna (you who called the AGW hoax before Climategate gushed from the sewers of hoppinhagen). Knowledge is power and the leftists must be stopped by taxpayers: right now.
“wow jema, just like under the british monarchy for more than 1,000 years.”
I don’t know why I am responding beagle, but you really are clueless aren’t you?
For the thousand years preceding 1940 the Average Englishman was freer and had a higher standard of living than just about anyone on the planet. The demise of England over the last 50 years is a perfect illustration of the effects of socialism on a society. Socialism only leads to the destruction of a society.
Oak Lake, Manitoba, April 29th, 1929 – the day fascist environMENTALism was hatched. Literally.
After making $Billion$ for himself in the oil, gas and power generating industries, Maurice Strong had a convenient change of heart.
He infiltrated the United Nations and commandeered the environmental movement. And now his fingerprints are showing up all over the world – smart meters, carbon dioxide taxes, green investor fiascoes, Gore-ish millionaires, terrified children, gasoline at $5 a gallon, …
Google ‘Maurice Strong’
Thank-you minuteman – the beagle has probably never read about Limited Monarchy and the Magna Carta.
The supreme irony in this is that those of us who, all along, have warned about the poor economics and unreliability of wind generation, will be forced to construct our own personal wind turbines (and batteries) when the redistributionistas gain control of the grid.
And then the bastardi will commandeer our personal infrastructure for more “deserving users”.
stalin must be drooling in his grave
Boudicae @ 8.25
How right you are, of course no one in the UK understands that because no one knows John Galt …
oh errr
Where fiction becomes fact.
Scary
felis corpulentis
The Bastardi (Strong, etc) have their host of Castrati to sing for them….(Gore, Suzuki, Hansen)