Gov response to PO when disruptions become common

[SILVERHARP2]

Was thinking how gov.s may act when shortages become common. I am assuming there won't be a sophisticated energy rationing system with special debit card for instance

But here are things I was thinking they might to

-ban motorway driving at weekends maybe even all driving on Sundays
-All sunday commerce banned.
-gas supply turned off 9pm-6am
-All motorways become toll roads & restricted commuting to cities.


Will they go down this route or will it be left to the market ?

[GD]

-All motorways become toll roads & restricted commuting to cities.

C-charge plan for the M25

Drivers face congestion charging on the M25 under a plan that could see tolls for peak-time travel on motorways nationwide.

[mikepepler]

-gas supply turned off 9pm-6am

I don't think you can do that for domestic customers, there's a risk of getting air in the pipes and having explosions. Much simpler to cut the power off, as most central heating needs elec to run as well - then you save the gas going into the CCGTs as well.

[Vortex]

I strongly suspect it will NOT be a Peak Oil message... it will be a Global Warming message.

I can just imagine Blair waving his hands earnestly to a backdrop of melting glaciers, New Orleans etc whilst introducing the Global Warming Measures.

He is scared of the inner cities, so it will fall on the shoulders of the middle classes.

- Increased taxes on big cars?
- Road/fuel taxes aimed at well-off commuters (rebates for the poor?)
- Airline taxes on business travel ... but not much on holiday travel?
- Increased taxes on large houses especially if only with a few occupants?
- Increased use of road tolls?
- Taxes on businesses and their energy efficiency?

You get the general idea ... the trouble makers won't be touched ... but the well-behaved, middle-classes & their businesses will get stung.

Each measure will also include a stealth tax of course .... why miss the opportunity?

The tricky one will be natural gas ... how the heck will they reduce demand without raising prices so high that old people start freezing to death?

I suppose that they will have to target the big users i.e. industry.
If you work for a glass works or for a foundry then I suggest you consider a career change!

The general economy will also suffer.

[mobbsey]

They sorted out a plan at the IEA in March 2005 how to deal with all this. The actual outcome is secret, but the discussions are online at:
http://www.iea.org/textbase/work/2005/o ... ations.htm


P.

[Vortex]

They sorted out a plan at the IEA in March 2005 how to deal with all this. The actual outcome is secret, but the discussions are online at:
http://www.iea.org/textbase/work/2005/o ... ations.htm


P.

That event seems to be dealing with oil & petrol shortages.

I wonder what the plan (if any!) is for a GAS shortage?

[SILVERHARP2]

I have this vision of a sort of wartime economy with alot of regs on what you can and cant do wrt energy consupmtion. However you seem to be going for the "stick" being of a financial vareity and maybe under the guise of climate change. From a confidence issue I guess this is better as long as they can get away with it.

[Pippa]

.......and I have got a feeling that it might be all the above and more as peak debt starts to bite the hand that fed it in the first place (i.e the ever changing face of government which has manipulated money supply though central banking) and people have less and less disposable income, prices inflate and supplies are disrupted constantly, that it will be, as it has been til now, the see sawing effects of demand and supply that will run the show; only this time without the blessing of its "master".

The only effective way of making sure most of the money and control ends up in the hands of the few (whether you think that's government or really big business) is to make sure that the modern banking system works as it does and I personally don't think it can for much longer.

The real problems will start when the system starts to crack and can no longer transfer wealth.

It seems to me that no matter how many signs that all is not well appear before then (take my area where BOTH local hospitals, the one serving Bedford and surrounding area and Huntingdon and surrounding area are scheduled to shut because of no money - you will need to go to Luton, Northampton or Cambridge for treatment, everyone is saying "THEY can't possibly shut the hospitals" but I say "OK, how are they going to keep them open?") the big CRUNCH will come when the government can't make the figures stack up. The figures are getting so huge, 5.4bn was collected last year in stamp duty alone, what if that goes down 10%, what about the revenue collected from volume of north sea oil, what if that goes down by 10% etc etc. All of a sudden the government will face huge (actually already is) deficits which it will need to make up either by more tax (not easy) or by more stealth tax (though inflation by central banking).

Woops, we're circling the plug hole and all of a sudden its anyone's guess what happens next, dictatorship, censorship, hardship, I dunno, all of the above and a whole lot more.......

[Vortex]

the one serving Bedford and surrounding area and Huntingdon and surrounding area are scheduled to shut because of no money -

What do you mean "no money"? I though that Blair had pumped in BILLIONS to improve the NHS? I don't understand ... where did the money go?

The NHS consumes ?76 BN per year (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... itas14.xml)... roughly about ?2000 per working person.

I'd rather keep my ?2000 and spend it on BUPA ... I'd have ?1000 left over!

Perhaps we should have spent it on giving away eco-light bulbs?
That would be a LOT of light bulbs at say 25p each trade price.

Anyway as a first step let's fire about 1000 NHS managers and get a measly ?100M (just 0.13%!) of the ?76BN back.

That's say 400 million eco bulbs. That's about 6 bulbs per person which should be enough to cover home and public places.

Say on average 50 million of those bulbs are turned on at any one time, and that we save say 50 watts per bulb replaced, then we are saving 2500 megawatts day-in-day out i.e. 2 nuclear power stationso or 1 huge coal power station (Eggsborough) or 2.5 million homes power equivalent.

And that measly 0.13 percent is just for this year ... what shall we invest the ?100M saved by firing those managers on next year?

Note: For the caring souls here: we would of course retrain the redundant NHS managers to become light bulb fitters. On a salary befitting their skill level. This might reduce the number of light bulbs available from 400 to say 200 million after salary deductions ... i.e. 3 bulbs per man, woman and child. That should still be enough to make a BIG difference.

[mikepepler]

Some stories of the impacts of the prices rises we have already seen here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/6064688.stm

I got pneumonia last winter and have had it twice since. When I first became ill, my doctor told me to 'go home and keep warm'. When he found out what my situation was, he intervened, it's only because he got involved that the council allowed me to get central heating.

I feel the weather getting colder and it scares me. I haven't put the heating on yet but I will do soon. I am in debt to British Gas. I owe them nearly ?900, I'm trying so hard to pay this off but it makes me afraid to put any heating on.

For the first time in my life, I was just beginning to gather a little nest-egg for myself but if my electricity bills continue increasing, this will be gone in a matter of months.

For the first time in my life, I'm on a fixed income. My pension went up by 2.7% this year but so too did the council tax, the electricity, gas etc. When I worked out my finances, I'm actually ?2.26 poorer a week.

I'm not so worried about winter. I have invested in a wood burner. There are things everywhere that can be used as fuel in a wood burner. I find things when I'm out in the street and in the park. This brings my central heating bill down to a minimum. I recommend this to others.

How long before trees start going missing from the parks...?

My husband Keith [pictured] has had MS since the late 1980s. I too have health complications, this means neither of us are able to work.
...
Because neither of us are 60 yet, we don't qualify for government support. It doesn't make any sense to me. If we were aged 60 but fully fit and working, we would be entitled to ?200 per month for our electricity. We are physically disabled, we spend more time in our home than most 60 year olds I know, but still, we don't qualify for any kind of support.

My partner and I now do our own meter readings on a daily basis. We have also started randomly turning things off in an attempt to see if there is one appliance that is costing us so much. I have been pro-active in my preparations for the winter months. The roof has been insulated, all drafts covered over and the windows are all double glazed.

Our electricity usage has changed enormously over the past few years. For financial as well as environmental reasons we are using far less than ever before. It makes me very angry that we are using less but paying more.

I'm a single person living in my first mortgaged flat with my son. I am shocked by the price of electricity. I pay a certain amount to my supplier every month by direct debit but I have noticed this is not covering my usage. I have suddenly found myself in debt. It's very worrying and I don't know what to do.
...
To be honest, I push it to one side. They haven't asked me for the money so I'm not dealing with it at the moment. I know it's there, and it's growing, but I'm trying not to let it get to me. Everyone struggles. I don't think I will be able to manage living alone for much more than a year.

It's hard enough for first time buyers, the cost of living is already so high - I hadn't even thought about electricity. If things continue, I will have no other option but to move to another area or to get a tenant in. I'm determined not to get into debt, I'll never get a credit card to pay this off so if the worst comes to the worst, I will have to sell my flat. I really hope it doesn't come to that.

And what if everyone wants to sell their flat at the same time?

[Vortex]

It's like a rising tide ... first the lower layers such as Zimbabwe, South Africa, Thailand drown under rising energy costs.

Then the disenfranchised in the Western world suffer, as your post shows: the old, the sick.

It's the turn of the Western lower middle classes next.

[mikepepler]

...and of course the key to understanding and coping with the price rises is being aware of Peak Oil. I notice that one of the people said: "It makes me very angry that we are using less but paying more." This is similar to the situation Tracy and I are in - yet we are pleased to only be paying a little bit more than 2 years ago, due to the reductions in consumption we have made. I suspect we will be seeing a lot more angry people in the next few years, unless the general public hear about Peak Oil and accept what it means.

[Andy Hunt]

Scary innit - we can sit here chatting about it all in theory, but there it is happening in actual reality, in glorious technicolour.

Trees going missing from parks indeed. This mention of woodburners is getting more and more common . . .

TPTB must be counting their lucky stars with this warm weather. If it had been cold, I bet we would already be seeing gas supply problems. Let's see what happens when the cold actually does arrive - could be this weekend, from the forecasts. Then we will know the true state of affairs.

[Vortex]

... but the crazy thing is that whilst we can TALK and INFORM about Peak Oil, Peak Gas etc ... the lights will STILL go out, the economy will STILL fade away.

The knowledge helps us individually I suppose ... we can move away from the cities, become a bit more self-sufficient ... but at the end of the day our nice cosy society is going to start running down ...

(Sorry, no, we can't make much of a difference however "activist" we become ... we will all be spectators - or victims - as the world's economies slide under the waves. I just hope that I get onto a lifeboat and find a safe desert island)

Even the window cleaner who does my office knows that we are stuffed. It has been a bit cold today so we discussed heating prices for a moment ... and he then said that it was odd that within a few days everything we take for granted could come to a grinding halt if gas or fuel supplies failed.

The knowledge of impending doom is not necessarily helpful ... perhaps we should abandon worrying about it and grab a cheap EasyJet flight to somewhere warm ...

[Andy Hunt]

The knowledge of impending doom is not necessarily helpful ... perhaps we should abandon worrying about it and grab a cheap EasyJet flight to somewhere warm ...

. . . like the future?