Energy prices.

[bricol]

That's not true, French public pay less for their juice because their government have intervened and helped keep prices down.

Exactly - from French news website:

Educational efforts needed

For the moment, a tariff shield protects the French. According to the Vie Publique website, it should help limit the price increase to 38 euros per year for private customers and 60 euros per year for professionals.

“Without the measures, the regulated electricity tariff would have risen by 330 euros per year for private customers and 540 euros per year for a professional customer, according to the Energy Regulation Commission,” the website states.

The cost of electricity in France has increased sharply, and nearly one in two 18 to 34-year-olds struggle to pay their bills according to the government information service, Médiateur national de l’énergie.

 

[R Kraft]

The powers that be over here are working to destroy fossil fuel energy production, to force people to green energy that doesn't currently exist.
There are over 15 thousand wind turbines that have been broken or abandoned, and places with 50ft stacks of abandoned blades.
When the turbines are abandoned the bases are left behind as multi hundreds of cubic yard plugs of concrete and steel.
Using the land for agriculture becomes impossible.
This site admittedly does not like the things, so they do not look for sunshine and rainbows.

Permanent Legacy: Wind Industry Plans to Abandon Millions of 500 Tonne Concrete Wind Turbine Bases

Decommissioning wind turbines at the end of their economic lifespan (which is around 10 to 15 years, not the 25 years touted by the wind industry) is one of those phenomenally expensive exercises t…

stopthesethings.com

 

[fizzy]

All that lack of investment in nuclear has caused, is; not as much nuclear as we might have had.

Lots more nuclear wouldn't solve all the issues were having, or have stopped them happening. It would have also resulted in other knock on consequences too, like, probably, higher energy costs over the past decades. The current energy cost situation and its potential solutions are complex with lots of factors/causes!

I don't understand. If we had loads more nuclear we wouldn't need expensive Russian gas. How wouldn't it help?

 

[Mr Fro]

Oh for a 100,000 litre tank

Wife is finishing up a construction project that has a 40,000 litre diesel tank which they'll be filling at ~ £1.70/litre.

They'll need it filled every 2 weeks the rate they use it!

 

[fizzy]

Wife is finishing up a construction project that has a 40,000 litre diesel tank which they'll be filling at ~ £1.70/litre.

They'll need it filled every 2 weeks the rate they use it!

Because of the ban on red I assume?

 

[Mr Fro]

Because of the ban on red I assume?

Dunno. She might have said but I probably tuned out by that point.

 

[500e]

They wont be paying £1.70 either
They will be buying on spot market or bulk price, but still scary

 

[Mr Fro]

They wont be paying £1.70 either
They will be buying on spot market or bulk price, but still scary

I think that £1.70 was based on the "small" order of 5k litres to get things up and running or something.

 

[fizzy]

They wont be paying £1.70 either
They will be buying on spot market or bulk price, but still scary

Not so sure. I know haulage companies with their own tanks only get it a few pennies cheaper than Tesco sell it for.

 

[Gareth J]

PopThe French government can afford to do this as they have so much nuclear. We can't as we use gas and renewables. Nuclear electricity has not been affected by Putin!

Nuclear hasn't been affected by Putin, but it doesn't need to be. It's expensive all the time anyway. Had we had a majority nuclear over the past decades, we would have had far higher bills through those decades than we had done.

 

[fizzy]

Nuclear hasn't been affected by Putin, but it doesn't need to be. It's expensive all the time anyway. Had we had a majority nuclear over the past decades, we would have had far higher bills through those decades than we had done.

France does very well out of nuclear and as a result puts out far less CO2 than Britain or Germany who have gone down the renewables route.

 

[bricol]

France does very well out of nuclear and as a result puts out far less CO2 than Britain or Germany who have gone down the renewables route.

I dunno where you get your figures from . . . but the ones I find:

Comparing emissions on both sides of the Channel​

France and the United Kingdom share many characteristics. They have similar populations, comparable levels of development and their territorial greenhouse-gas emissions are similar – 7 tCO₂ per inhabitant for the United Kingdom and 6.7 tCO₂ per inhabitant for France in 2017.

In my mind, that's not "far less" . . .

 

[fizzy]

I dunno where you get your figures from . . . but the ones I find:

Comparing emissions on both sides of the Channel​

France and the United Kingdom share many characteristics. They have similar populations, comparable levels of development and their territorial greenhouse-gas emissions are similar – 7 tCO₂ per inhabitant for the United Kingdom and 6.7 tCO₂ per inhabitant for France in 2017.

In my mind, that's not "far less" . . .

Live 24/7 CO₂ emissions of electricity consumption

Electricity Maps is a live 24/7 visualization of where your electricity comes from and how much CO2 was emitted to produce it.

app.electricitymap.org

 

[fizzy]

Also

G. B. National Grid status

www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk

and

French National Grid status

www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk

Note in Winter France gets about 80% of it's electricity from nuclear - currently running at 69% - compared to Britain's 16% or so.

 

[fizzy]

C’mon. Eventually, the renewable route will be better - unless someone, somewhere, makes a commercial breakthrough with nuclear fusion (but not in my lifetime!).

No nasty radioactive waste to look after (very carefully and very expensively) and no future almost astronomical decommissioning costs like for nuclear plants, when their useful lifetime expires. No potential widespread contamination in the event of an accident, either.

France did very well by adopting a better nuclear fleet thirty years, or more, ago. Many of them won’t last so much longer - then we shall see what the replacement costs might be! All the time, meanwhile, renewables will either use free energy or sustainable supplies of fuel.

If only... The Swansea tidal lagoon had been started. The Severn Bore tidal barrage had been accepted. Serious efforts to improve insulation for existing, and future, housing stocks were taken. If only…

Other tidal systems might well have been ‘in the pipe-line’ by now. All new housing stock would be better than most of it is currently. Etc, etc.

And, yes, I do accept the problems of silting up behind the barages, change of habitat, etc. need addressing.

I’m looking forward to the local 350MW solar farm being constructed locally. But there are dissenters, of course. Compromise is needed, too.

Did you realise Britain is one of the worst places in the World to have solar power?
A lot worse than even Canada.
People always forget how far North we are. London is further North than any proper city in Canada.

Global Solar Atlas

The Global Solar Atlas provides a summary of solar power potential and solar resources globally. It is provided by the World Bank Group as a free service to governments, developers and the general public, and allows users to quickly obtain data and carry out a simple electricity output...

globalsolaratlas.info

Despite what some people claim I do NOT get my data from the tabloid press!

 

[fizzy]

I used to be a big fan of tidal power - until I realised the damage done to the marine environment outweighs any benefits.
They are now talking of giant underwater turbines. What will they do to seals and dolphins I wonder?
And IF there was a way of storing the excess energy I would be all in favour of wind power - but there isn't despite what people think or claim.

 

[knighty]

Did you realise Britain is one of the worst places in the World to have solar power?

guess that also means we're one of the worst places to grow food so we should give up on that too?

just because somewhere else's solar is more efficient than ours doesen't mean we shouldn't bother with it

 

[fizzy]

guess that also means we're one of the worst places to grow food so we should give up on that too?

just because somewhere else's solar is more efficient than ours doesen't mean we shouldn't bother with it

Why do you think our leccy is so expensive?
If renewables were so brilliant why are we so reliant on gas?
Is it REALLY a good idea to cover prime arable land with solar panels?
In countries like Portugal or parts of Spain they work very well - and they cover areas of arid scrub where there is nothing growing. And yet there are more solar farms in Wales than Spain

 

[500e]

And there is a lot of problems with solar in Spain a lot people have gone bancrupt

 

[fizzy]

And there is a lot of problems with solar in Spain a lot people have gone bancrupt

Exactly that is my point. If it isn't that viable in Spain how on Earth can it be in the UK with our terrible weather?
Nearly all houses in Spain and Portugal have solar hot water but very few have pv panels.