ST,

The installation has not been completed yet. I'll let you know when it is all up and running and you can come over and have a look.

E7 is limited by your supply rating and the hours available. Not quite what your talking about i.e. a very fixed limit, but a fixed limit at a lower price all the same.
I think this is part of the problem, and dislike, of E7. Most people can't or won't use it effectively. Thing is it is cheap power, cheap installations and can be made to work effectively. By fitting some set back timers I now have a system that is charged enough for the day ahead when 7AM comes and the full price starts. Before I fitted the timer I had a fully charged system several hours earlier, this lead to wasted heat (as I was still asleep). Purely out of interest I keep a daily log (as well as my 6 second data collection) and the last 2 days I have used 15 kWh a day, most of that will be for heating and DHW heating at the cheaper rate. It can be done with little capital expense and more importantly it can also save energy. I think most people on it do not use it effectively, my neighbours don't, but they are the only ones I have data on.

There is no imminent shortage of gas or coal, there is a potential shortage of generation capacity but that has been governments dragging their feet for the last 20 years. I think we will be going down the gas generation route out of necessity rather than design as it is the only capacity we can build quickly and within a known price. Shame as I would rather have seen that cash spent on RE projects, mainly off shore wind and a tidal barrage or 3. A tidal barrage would take too long to make (probably longer than a new greenfield nuclear) and offshore wind cannot be built fast enough because of the supply chain restrictions (the world just cannot make enough at the moment).
But what could happen is that we could cut domestic usage by 20% quiet easily without hardly any expense, but I can't see it happening as we have had the two big technology change that has saved maybe 5% and that is the change from CRT to LED TV's and computer monitors and lower energy lighting. We can't repeat those two. The rest is down to behaviour rather than technology.

I think the last estimates for gas from the USSR was that there was about 150 years worth at current EU usage. UK coal there is enough for 300 to 400 years (and it is the price back stop so useful to keep prices under control).
Energy security is a totally different problem and not sure how the UK can deal with that, though we are by no means deeply in debt to the rest of the world. Think the last time I looked we imported about 20% of our primary energy overall (though not looked for a while).

There are already laws to force energy usage change, they are just at the inter governmental level. Trouble is when they push them down to provider level there is outrage (what all these conversations have been about). Imagine what would happen if it was done at the consumer level. It would certainly bring a government down, though probably not cause mass rioting in the UK (because we are a wealthy privileged nation).
This is one reason I would rather see energy start to rise in price now, it is better than the alternative which is not having any power some of the time. That really hurts people.

There will always be a skewed distribution of wealth and income. Tackling that would be a better solution for the whole economy. But when I suggested that there were already mechanism to help the worse off you did not like that solution, preferring to to bang on how it is the energy companies ripping us off and how a government should intervene with legislation to limit prices. Do you really think the problem is just the cost of energy and fixing that will solve everything?

ST,

estimates are always a dodgy thing the rely upon. The reality of the situation is noteworthy extraction stopped in the 80's and there is probably no realistic expectation of it starting up again. Add to that that coal generation through coal is been phased out then I wonder about the relevance of your comment about it. As to

Posted By: SteamyTeaI think the last estimates for gas from the USSR was that there was about 150 years worth at current EU usage.

The key phrase is 'at current EU usage'. I doubt anybody is under the illusion that usage is going to increase so I doubt it will last half of that time.

Both of these are fossil fuels which we should be trying to stop using unless we can find a way of real compensation to keep a balance.

You have hit the nail on the head with your paragraph except for the last sentence though. What we need is for politicians to treat us like intelligent people who are capable of grasping complex arguments rather than all the spin and flannel they give us at the moment.

As to the last sentence, if higher prices are going to lead to lower energy usage then why o why are you not on the most expensive tariff you can find. Do as I say....... and all that

Jonti

Could be out of date, think it was about 7 years ago I last looked at it, before the scandal of over reporting for quotas was exposed.
Quick Google found this, though no idea of the providence and it is world reserves:
http://www.rwe.cz/en/deposits-of-natural-gas

Using the BP Statistical Review spreadsheet the UK has 0.2 trillion cubic metres of natural gas and we consume (2001-2012 mean) 83.3 MTOE each year.

Converting those figures should give us 21 years worth of gas (though possible that I have done a conversion error).

Though I note that natural gas usage in the UK has declined since 2001

2001 86.7
2002 85.6
2003 85.8
2004 87.7
2005 85.5
2006 81.1
2007 81.9
2008 89.4
2009 82.1
2010 89.3
2011 74.5
2012 70.5

Does not work like that. There may be a minimum that the country will use, I have no idea what it is, but say it is 50% of the last 10 years mean, it is still a consumption of 41.65 MTOE. The rest is just weather, substitution and economy variations.

If you plot gas prices against consumption it shows that as prices go up, consumption goes down. What it does not show is what is filling the gap, but you can look at the spreadsheet just as easily as me.

Not normally, if sales drop then it is normal to either:
Cut production
Cut Prices

Generally price cutting comes first as that is cheapest. We do get some odd things happening every now and again, the oil price spike a few years back was caused by the traders not realising the refining capacity was limited, the price on the production side went up to compensate but it had nowhere to go, so was stored in ships all over the world until it could get refined. Then the price slumped as refining capacity came back on line.
These kind of things happen when you allow speculators into the market place, best left to oil traders. Sometimes people with a vested interest can do a better job.

Another cold fusion one, thought they had abandoned all that since the Fleischmann–Pons experiment fiasco.
But then that was big oil discrediting them wasn't it

Ah! Mention of fusion reminds me to post Tom Murphy's blog on Galactic Scale Energy.

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/

Enjoy!

Mike

Perhaps I'm being cynical, but I suspect Cameron finds it politically convenient to blame climate change for flooding rather than lack of investment in flood defenses. Once the flooding is over he'll keep quiet and let the Moncktons and Lawsons do the anti scientific talking ;)

Or there is no conspiracy and it is just the way things work out under our democracy.

Posted By: SteamyTeaWhat it does not show is what is filling the gap, but you can look at the spreadsheet just as easily as me.

Household electricity fell even more during the period, iirc.

According to Mr Google, our per cap energy usage is down by 20% since 2003.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=uk+energy+consumption&oq=uk+energy+consumption&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.6080j0j4&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8

F

Posted By: MikelAh! Mention of fusion reminds me to post Tom Murphy's blog on Galactic Scale Energy.

Indeed, an excellent article. However, it's worth pointing out that it's an argument against persistent long-term growth, not against fusion (cold, tepid, warm or hot) as such. A fusion-powered society with stable population and stable energy consumption could be quite nice, at least for a billion years or so.

Posted By: SteamyTeajust the way things work out under our democracy

which is therefore such a precious

Posted By: Mikelstupidity

that any alternative is heresy.