Energy to go up 64% in October

[ToastedWaffle]

And 4% in January.

Fuck sake!
I dont even have an AIBU, this is just fucking ridiculous.

A shower costs 73p.
What is it 4 hr wash with a 500kw electric model.
😂😂

@IrishNinja There are essentially no nations that have invested smartly in energy infrastructure outside of a few outlier cases like Norway with its hydro for a population totalling half of Greater London. The entire planet is still run on 85% fossil fuels, and all the good deposits are used up now. That basically means we either pay more (a LOT more) for getting at the crud left behind, or we accept degrowth of the economy as the pie shrinks.

That shrinking pie will naturally make the share that the fat cats take right now in the elite rarified atmospheres of the Masters of the Universe segment of society a great deal more scrutinised. I foresee guillotines.

Drax is cancelling the mothballing of two coal plants because of the need for energy at all cost to keep the lights on. In less than 12 months, we've gone from the heady days of COP26 where Boris Johnson proclaimed we'd moved to save the world, to basically everyone scrambling for more of the dirtiest fossil fuels about. I guess climate change can wait while we get on with burning the furniture. Look at Germany. They invested solely in either Russian gas or wind and solar. Solar in Germany is the dumbest thing, and their wind, like ours, is subject to the whims of the atmosphere. That leaves Russian gas, and... oh dear.

It's rare to say it, but I'm so glad I don't live in Germany right now.

My screen name is actually a German ecologist's, the one who gave rise to the concept of Liebig's law of minimum, which states that the resource most limited is what holds things back like a weakest link. For Germany right now, that'd be gas, despite everything else they have going for them.

Sadly, our entire civ has been built on the assumption this state of affairs carries on indefinitely and without interruption, much like Just In Time manufacture (which we all horribly butchered from Toyota's original protocols to make industries that have zero resilience).

Interesting times ahead, my friends.

We both shower everyday and our total gas and electric is under £2 a day this time of year. So a shower can't cost that much!

That depends on the type of shower, duration and your tariff.

I have an electric, but since I also have a gas boiler, I just use that and unplugged the electric one. Got cheaper showering and better pressure to boot.

Great point about JIT.
The wife and I were discussing how vulnerable supply and logistics is atm.

@Hrpuffnstuff1 Kaizen and various other Japanese initiatives to improve production efficiency really did change the game in a way not seen since Ford's construction line. The problem rises from applying the model incorrectly, so that now every business tries to run things like some super slimmed down global construction line which has zero recourse if even one component is late by days or even hours.

It's great for the employer and the customer's bottom line so long as reality doesn't kick the door in. Say, by introducing a deadly viral plague and making people shut all borders.

Turns out war bad too.

Well.
War may escalate yet.

Germans Face ‘Enormous Wave’ of Energy Price Hikes, Uniper Says

€5000 extra on their annual energy bill. Average salary is €32k. Fun.

A quarter of your electricity bill is made up of ESG obligations.

That's a very specific statistic there.

fullfact.org/economy/green-levies/

From that:
Green levies represent a proportion of environmental and social obligation costs, which account for less than 8% of an average energy bill’s costs under the current price cap. They did make up 25% of the 2021 average electricity bill.

A 10,000 watt electric shower will use 10 units in an hour. So about £2.80 at current rates, £4 on the next increase - for an hour of showering.

I am sure people can do the maths on what their combined house daily showers could cost

A few years ago I visited the iron dam that spans from Romania across the Danube to Serbia. Built as a joint project between Romania and what was then Yugoslavia. I believe it generates around 15% of Romania’s electricity and slightly more for Serbia.
Great piece of engineering and if they can do it to the Danube is it possible we could do the same with the Thames? I know we already have some hydro but it is limited to Scotland and wales. Or if the Thames isn’t suitable surely there are other rivers after all we have a pretty good canal system still in place.
I know it won’t solve the problem overnight and would be pretty costly but could it be worth the investment?

We can only go on what the smart meter figures showed in a 24 hour period which is what we did. Then the app for standing charge

the app shows spikes when the microwave, kettle are on its useful

All possible hydro spots have already been tapped globally. It’s also horrifically bad environmentally.

@cakeorwine yeah, I couldn't find anything more recent than 2021.

Insulating isnt the main issue, we already cant afford hot water to bathe and wash, and can no longer afford to heat or cook food.....................

So I guess if you wanted to spend 73p on a shower you could stand under the water for 11 minutes. I was thinking the poster meant some kind of 'standard' 4 minute shower or something!

According to Mumsnet, it costs 85p to vacuum a room for an hr.

If you vacuum a room for an hr every day, you'll need a new carpet after a month.😂

All possible hydro spots have already been tapped globally

This is not true.

And yes, hydro, along with all other forms of mass power generation can be environmentally damaging.

It's not as if they are bothered anyway. The government's of the UK seem to be more interested in just building more new houses rather than fix the ones standing. Totally sensible idea, remove more green areas in the UK for more housing, increasing flooding, increase our bills more for council tax. Makes sense..

What needs to happen for the prices to go down or is this just the price now?

A 10,000 watt electric shower will use 10 units in an hour.

Only if it's on full power (maximum temperature). Mine is never anywhere near full power, especially in summer. On half power for a 5-min shower it's about 0.4 kWh (about 11 p)

What needs to happen for the prices to go down

The wholesale gas price would have to fall. The UK government was warned about the likely consequences of shifting electricity generation to gas-fired power stations but, typically, ignored the warnings.

Currently, however, there is the additional impact of the multiple bankruptcies among providers last year. When a supplier when bust, all of its customers' credit balances disappeared. But the suppliers that took over these customers were legally obliged to honour their credit balances. So bills have gone up in part to cover this deficit.

The majority of mass hydropower already exists. Outside of China, there aren’t any places you can tap that won’t affect things like irrigation. Look at Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam right now where power AND water will cease to be plentiful soon.

China also has plenty of internal criticism over the Yangtze projects, which are truly massive. This affects the nations downstream and they themselves also have water imbalances between the drier parts of the country that grow most food, and the wetter areas that have more dense populations.

I wouldn’t hold out any hope on hydro dealing with anything here, and yes, the damage and decline hydro experiences is a big factor too.