UK Gas and Electricity Crisis Looming

Post by **clv101** » 20 Sep 2005, 22:00

Long range forecasts are rubbish. Look at this from last year, it turned out to be the 6th warmest in 77 years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3738824.stm

skeptik · Post by **skeptik** » 20 Sep 2005, 22:58

clv101 wrote:Long range forecasts are rubbish. Look at this from last year, it turned out to be the 6th warmest in 77 years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3738824.stm

Agreed. I dont think its possible to forecast anything to do with the atmosphere to any useful precision out beyond about 5 days - and that includes the average global temperature at the end of the century.

If a weather forcaster ever manages to predict the temperature over my house to within a degree one month from now on a regular basis, I'll start taking climate modeling and prediction seriously too. I'm not holding my breath though. Too much chaos in the system to allow for precise prediction.

Bandidoz · Post by **Bandidoz** » 20 Sep 2005, 23:26

But you're not comparing like with like.

Climate change models look at long term macro-scale trends, whereas weather forecasts tend to be very localised in terms of time and area.

An electrical engineering analogy could be this : Increasing the temperature of a P-N junction will increase the RMS thermal noise, but trying to pin down the instantaneous voltage at any point in time is pretty much impossible. It simply doesn't follow that because of the latter the former isn't valid.

skeptik · Post by **skeptik** » 20 Sep 2005, 23:51

Bandidoz wrote:But you're not comparing like with like.

Climate change models look at long term macro-scale trends, whereas weather forecasts tend to be very localised in terms of time and area.

'Climate' and 'weather' are both descriptors of the same system, just on arbitrarily different time scales. Climate can be thought of asiweather averaged over a long time scale. I dont trust computer models to model either weather or climate. Weather modelling we know is shite because we only have to wait a few days to find out. Call me back at the end of the century and let me know how your climate models turned out. I imagine they'll be as accurate at any weather forcast for next week.

Two problems. the atmosphere is not deterministic like a cuckoo clock and I dont think climatologists have a handle on all the factors involved or the subtlty of the interelationships involved. A climate model is just somebodies biased opinion about how the atmosphere works (fudged around with 'adjustments' till it more or less corresponds with reality) implimented on a computer because working out with a pencil and paper would take too long. People seem to be hypnotised into taking them seriously by the big expensive boxes flashing lights and flashy animated output. GIGO.

Take your pick - where do you think Rita will be at the end of the week? Its a bit like playing pin the tail on the donkey...

Post by **clv101** » 21 Sep 2005, 07:20

As Bandidoz says weather models over a period of days are completely different to climate models over a few decades. Highlighting the <50% accuracy of long range weather models over much more than a week is not a valid argument to doubt the models predicting climate change.

In the same way that being hopeless at forecasting my personal high street spending patterns over the next week bears no relationship to forecasting total UK high street spending over the next few years.

skeptik · Post by **skeptik** » 21 Sep 2005, 10:14

clv101 wrote:As Bandidoz says weather models over a period of days are completely different to climate models over a few decades.

The only difference I see is the time scale. You're still looking at the same only partially predictable system. Unfortunately we have two arbitrary words in our language 'weather' and 'climate' which are both fuzzy at the edges. Where does one end and the other begin? The weather models and climate models have to form a seamless continuum in the same way that the timescales in reality (division into consideration by days and decades is arbitrary) form a seamless continuum otherwise there is a problem.

Considering the billions that have been spent on weather and climate modelling neither are impressive, which is not surprising really considering the complexity of the system and the ammount of chaos inherrent in it.

When a climatologist starts talking about global temperature at the end of the 21st century I give him as much credence as I give an economist talking about the probable level of the stock market at the end of the 21st century. Not a lot. Especially as the first might in part be reliant on the second. And there we have the situation of a science - climatology - relying on the input of the tealeaf readings of a cult of voodoo priests, economists. Unfortunate, to say the least.

Climate change? I'm all for it. Its been going for five and a half billion years and its not going to stop now, no matter how much some people might want it to. Jolly useful it's been too. We wouldn/t be here without it.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 21144.htm

ok rant over.

DamianB · Post by **DamianB** » 22 Sep 2005, 17:41

I have split off the remainder of this topic into "CO2 levels".

fishertrop · Post by **fishertrop** » 27 Sep 2005, 14:56

Britain set to run out of fuel warns CBI boss
http://business.scotsman.com/management ... 1998912005

"If we have a cold winter, we are going to throw the switch, businesses will shut down, people will lose their jobs" - Sir Digby Jones,

Many of the UK's current generation of electricity generators are gas-fired, and their output would be curtailed by any shortfall in gas supplies. Because domestic electricity users are always given priority over commercial customers, there is no realistic chance of even the worst winter affecting households.

Totally_Baffled · Post by **Totally_Baffled** » 27 Sep 2005, 15:29

fishertrop wrote:Britain set to run out of fuel warns CBI boss
http://business.scotsman.com/management ... 1998912005

"If we have a cold winter, we are going to throw the switch, businesses will shut down, people will lose their jobs" - Sir Digby Jones,

Many of the UK's current generation of electricity generators are gas-fired, and their output would be curtailed by any shortfall in gas supplies. Because domestic electricity users are always given priority over commercial customers, there is no realistic chance of even the worst winter affecting households.

*rant mode on*

I hope it happens and we get a complete farce throughout the winter where work places are severly disrupted but nobody loses there life from freezing to death at home(maximum effect without anyone getting harmed).

Imagine the media reaction, the government will look a complete bunch of w******! After all there is enough material out there warning of the problem!

Maybe then the governent will get its finger of its collective arse and draft a more robust energy policy!!

*rant mode off*

TB

skeptik · Post by **skeptik** » 27 Sep 2005, 17:14

Totally_Baffled wrote:
I hope it happens and we get a complete farce throughout the winter where work places are severly disrupted but nobody loses there life from freezing to death at home(maximum effect without anyone getting
TB

That is most likely. Two things. Turning the supply off to a single large industrial user is much easier than cutting off a large number of domestic users. With the latter you are much more likely to end up with air in the supply pipes, people accidentally turning on gas appliances while the gas is off - much more dangerous. Greater risk of explosion.

Secondly, dead pensioners are politically more damaging than shut down businesses and laid off workers. The relatives get very upset, which makes for great footage on the six oclock news but will send the Govts ratings down to Hades.

Totally_Baffled · Post by **Totally_Baffled** » 27 Sep 2005, 20:02

skeptik wrote:
Totally_Baffled wrote:
I hope it happens and we get a complete farce throughout the winter where work places are severly disrupted but nobody loses there life from freezing to death at home(maximum effect without anyone getting
TB
That is most likely. Two things. Turning the supply off to a single large industrial user is much easier than cutting off a large number of domestic users. With the latter you are much more likely to end up with air in the supply pipes, people accidentally turning on gas appliances while the gas is off - much more dangerous. Greater risk of explosion.

Secondly, dead pensioners are politically more damaging than shut down businesses and laid off workers. The relatives get very upset, which makes for great footage on the six oclock news but will send the Govts ratings down to Hades.

I think also you could avoid the lay offs. You could compensate the firms effected as it will only be for this winter and possibly next.

From 2007 the norwegian field comes on line which is worth 20% of UK demand

From 2008 the LNG terminal at Milford Haven comes on line worth 33% of domestic demand.

Beyond 2010 we face shortfalls again, looks like the pressure will be on to complete the northern european natural gas pipeline from Russia or get cracking on those new Nukes (Blair mentioned again today, looks like a decision will be made in this parliment)

Only other option is clean coal (is there such a thing!?

)

Obviously we should be chasing that 20% of electricity from renewables and more aggressive conservation/efficiency targets with MORE URGENCY!!!
TB

fishertrop · Post by **fishertrop** » 17 Oct 2005, 21:09

Like night follows day surely a UK gas crisis must be followed by calls for more gas market deregulation, because THATS THE ANSWER...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4348306.stm

British companies are to lobby the EU in an attempt to speed up deregulation of Europe's gas market, amid concerns over rocketing energy costs.

DamianB · Post by **DamianB** » 26 Oct 2005, 15:26

Comforting words from Lord Browne of BP:

Lord Browne cast doubt yesterday on predictions by some forecasters, including the CBI, that Britain faces a winter fuel shortage. ?Depending on the temperature you choose, you can predict any outcome,? he said. ?As far as we can see, it looks sort of all right.? Lord Browne is expecting crude prices to remain strong in the short term, but the BP chief is more sanguine about energy prices further out. The company?s medium term price forecast is $40 per barrel compared with current levels of $60 and he points to the high levels of industry investment in new oil and gas reserves.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/artic ... 61,00.html

fishertrop · Post by **fishertrop** » 01 Nov 2005, 21:00

'Devastating' winter ahead, says chemicals giant
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/ ... 323808.ece

"Following this, we expect the UK to be short of gas leading to a gas deficit emergency. This will have consequences such as 'three day weeks', wide-scale power cuts, loss of essential services such as water and sewerage and further business closure," Ineos said in written evidence to the Trade and Industry Select Committee Inquiry into security of gas supply.

snow hope · Post by **snow hope** » 02 Nov 2005, 12:09

"According to forecasters, including the Meteorological Office, there is a 67 per cent chance this winter will be among the coldest on record."

This is completely wrong. The Met Office have forecast a 67% (2/3) chance of the winter being colder than average (a 30 year average). And the average for the last 10 years has been pretty mild.

That article seems way OTT to me.