Great Britain faces rising risk of winter blackouts, system operator warns

Posted: 23rd July 2021

Please click the link to read the full article.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/22/great-britain-faces-risk-of-winter-blackouts-system-operator-warns

I thought I’d flag this (it’s been coming for a number of weeks if you follow energy developments, ever since advanced nuclear closures).

It’s been on the cards as Britain has closed generating capacity without sufficient replacement capacity, and especially storage and smarter demand management. And as demand was already depressed prior to Covid by pre-Brexit shut-down of manufacturing sector, there is little large-scale interruptible supply to shut-down to guarantee domestic supply.

If we get a long Winter cold spell, with little wind, then you can bet the right-wing anti-environmentalists will already have their stall ready to set-out when it happens to blame ‘the greens’.

And the green side better be ready because, just like Texas, irrespective of evidence, that’s the line the right-wing media and this government will likely push.

Pro-nuclear & pro-gas elements, already pushing from within government in advance of COP Glasgow conference, will seize the agenda for their own warped plans.

So, I thought I’d just say this now… just in case.
I’ve been working-up a few things since June—I hope everyone else thinks a little about this too.

“I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, Sir, I think it’s clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under.”
                         (Thomas Rainsborough, 1647)

Paul Mobbs, Mobbs’ Environmental Investigations
3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN, England tel./fax (+44/0)1295 261864