From Watts Up With That?

First published JoNova; Imagine needing government permission to turn up your winter heating when you catch Covid, or pleading with bureaucrats to allow you to heat more rooms in your house. But don’t call it energy rationing.

Turn on your heat pump when wind is blowing, Government pleads

…

By Nick Gutteridge,
POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
4 September 2023 • 9:04pm

…

The Government insisted it was “in no way asking people to ration electricity” and that consumers will benefit in the form of cheaper bills.

In official guidance, ministers have said the switch to smart appliances like heating systems, fridges and car chargers is key to delivering net zero.

“They enable consumers to shift their electricity usage to times when it is less costly for the energy system,” the document states.

…

The Energy Bill includes powers for ministers to “mandate that electric heating appliances and EV chargepoints must have smart functionality, prohibiting the sale of non-smart devices in Great Britain”.

…

Craig Mackinlay, the MP for South Thanet and head of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, has tabled an amendment to scrap the entire section on smart appliances from the legislation.

He said the Government was “admitting a shortage of electricity with its plans to limit supply to households and businesses through smart appliances, peak pricing penalties and reliance on irregular renewables”.

…Read more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/09/04/brits-urged-turn-on-heat-pumps-wind-is-blowing-net-zero/

Can there be any remaining doubt that claims renewables are cheaper and better than the alternatives are total nonsense?

Even if reducing CO2 emissions is important to you, there are better zero emissions alternatives to useless renewables.

Places with access to nuclear energy don’t have to ration energy. If anything, such places serve as a nexus of industry, business which take advantage of cheap energy surpluses.

Take the Welsh island of Anglesey. They used to have a nuclear power plant, Wylfa nuclear power station, which supported local industry. As far as I know nobody supplied by that plant was asked to ration energy. Instead, the nuclear plant supported Anglesey Aluminium, which employed 540 people. The Aluminium smelter was mothballed in 2016, shortly after the last reactor was shut down in 2015. I’m not sure how many people the power plant employed, but that’s a lot of jobs for a small rural community to lose.

There is some talk of replacing the nuclear reactor, but so far it’s all talk.

I once visited Anglesey, spent a week in a vacation unit. When I visited the nuclear power plant was still operating, you could see the bustle of industry. Good memories, everyone I met was nice – one of the friendliest places in Britain.

There is no doubt all of Britain could radically reduce emissions and keep energy bills under control, by transitioning to nuclear power. Suggestions nuclear is too expensive or impractical are absurd. France managed a transition to over 70% nuclear energy in the 1970s. OK it might have taken a little longer than a decade, but not much.

I believe British engineering would be up for the job, but if there is a shortage of key skills, I’m sure France would do a deal, lend Britain some of their top nuclear engineers, so Britain could copy France’s 1970s energy transition.

Meanwhile the people of Anglesey, of everywhere in Britain, make the best of it, with an increasingly detached government telling them on top of all the eye watering heating bills, ULEZ charges and hardship they’ve endured, Net Zero now means the government wants you to surrender control of your home appliances to politicians, powers which politicians assure us will never, of course, be used.

Don’t call it energy rationing.

Correction (EW): h/t CampsieFellow – Anglesey, not Anglesea

Update (EW): Smart meters could communicate with smart appliances via your household electrical wiring, which bypasses any need for you to configure your smart devices to your WIFI. Before WIFI became ubiquitous in homes, a common alternative to physically wiring up your house with ethernet cables were powerline network adapters, special network adapters which turned your household electrical wiring into a data network. I suspect this is how smart meters will be instantly connected to any smart appliances you purchase, to allow your power company or Whitehall bureaucrats to impose limits on your use of your own appliances.