Member Info for romaron

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Simplification for the great unwashed. The difficulty is getting your head around the 40% electricity and heat. How much is coal and gas produced? China and India have the figures.

Pretty difficult existence without fossil fuels.

Possibly the best explanation of subsidies and the misrepresentation made by passing externalities to the fossil fuel industry that I have read/viewed lately - It is a fresh look in simple language and short (13:50 minutes). If you don't want the preamble then start at 3:00 minutes.

*the subsidies are almost non-existent and mainly in the form of tax credits which is how industry works. Not something you'll ever get environmental activists mention. They feed off misinformation like the 9X cheaper shibboleth. Repeat a lie often enough and a lot of people will believe it. Ask Trump or Bannon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpcjHqXYrFs

Succinctly and accurately put 3df. I'll use that wording.

A further manipulation put forward by the anti-fossil brigade is that the oil we produce is then exported. It totally ignores how world trade and economics work. We export and import food and cars for instance. Saudi Arabia even imports sand. It ignores the impact of refining and how the oil is returned in manufactured goods, cement, fertilizer and plastic. We are net importers of oil. The public are led to believe it is only for transport without realising that most imports come by sea and it'll be goodbye to foreign travel if JSO got their way. I doubt individually we can do much but if everybody rebuffs some of the more outlandish claims stuff will start to get through.

Agree Dumbly - Norway have let us take the bad press whilst they become richer and escape reprobation.

I don't even like the taste of whale meat!

There is to be an Investor Presentation by Waldorf Production at 2pm on Monday 4th September. They have a 29.50% interest in Kraken. I'll try to listen and you can register for the event on their website if you're free. I have been intrigued by their CFO Aaditya Chintalapati for some time. Not easy to understand but impressive CV.

Sculptor Capital were involved in the setting up of Waldorf and LTHs will remember that in our darkest days they lent us money with Kraken production as security. The people backing them aren't philanthropists and certainly not day-traders. I would describe them as "smart money".

*my memory is playing tricks. I think there was a mysterious Norwegian investor involved in the early stages who wasn't necessarily an oil man. More into real estate. He doesn't show on the list of directors but he did hold a large chunk of shares. Probably irrelevant but niggling me.

I got an email from Alistair Strathern the Labour candidate for Mid Bedfordshire.

"Ronald, my campaign to turn Mid Bedfordshire red is well underway. I’m reaching out to ask, can you join the team and help me this weekend?

People in the constituency are looking away from the Tories and deciding which party to vote for. Will you help me make sure they’re choosing Labour?

Mid Bedfordshire is a rural constituency, so if you’re able to bring a car, you’ll help us to speak to lots more voters.

Conversations with voters make winning campaigns. Let’s have as many as possible with the voters of Mid Bedfordshire. Sign up to help out today:

Mid Bedfordshire - Action Day - Saturday 2nd September - 10:30am till 7.30pm

So they're not anti-motorist when trying to get elected.

I can remember sitting in a room around 2011 where the Mitsubishi rep was being interrogated by plumbers and installers who found their heat pump claims weren't performing to their claimed COP ratings (about 4 from memory). It was early stages but customer satisfaction was very low or non-existent. I'm sure it is far better now and we know that insulation is very important and the average UK house is leaky with poor thermal insulation. It is getting better but we cannot compete on the electricity going into the heat pump.

They [ASHP] haven't been as successful as in Norway and Sweden (cheap hydro electricity) or France where nuclear has become cheaper almost by default. The whole renewable industry is impossibly opaque with subsidies everywhere and you have to have the investigative skills of a Sherlock and the mathematical skills of a quant to even get close.

I had a breakthrough moment regarding the higher rating of the O&G industry in Norway. Their renewable electricity and take up of EVs have their part to play. With cheap electricity they can adopt EVs faster (very generous subsidies) than anywhere else but the real clincher is that they can pretend that they don't consume much fossil fuel and can also promote how clean it is compared to other producing countries. The fact that practically every household has a back-up wood burner is ignored. They also have the smugness that is so Scandinavian when in fact if it wasn't for the O&G they'd still be fisherman or farming reindeers.

They know a good thing when they see it and the UK is helpfully turning a European O&G duopoly into a monopoly. It certainly proves the old saying about farmers and I think it applies to Norway - "if you want to find a mug in the countryside; take one with you." They have danced rings around us. They see us taking the condemnation as we exit the North Sea whilst they take the profits and expand.

I was reading a press release from Net Zero Watch regarding removing consumer protection that is seen to be holding back the take up of heat pumps (bit like removing the brakes on a car to save weight and increase mileage) but that wasn't what got my attention.

This bit did: "Mr Montford points to a recent study of heat pump economics, which shows that, even in a well-insulated property, most heat pump installations do not give lower bills, let alone justifying the substantial capital costs. This is because electricity is four times the price of gas."

At the beginning of this year we were told by Keir Starmer at Davos in January that "in the UK renewables are 9X cheaper than oil and gas".

Many of you are better at maths than me so if electricity is now 4X the price of gas is that a move of 13X. Or am I getting myself in a muddle between the definition of electricity and the definition of renewables?

In a Headline Report published by the group in 2019 and re-emphasised earlier this year, a “progressive” target for 2030 was set of a daily per person allowance of 44g of meat (enough for two small meatballs), a daily limit of 2,500 calories, (less than the ration in the Second World War), one short haul flight every three years, eight new clothing items a year and private cars available for only one in five people. This “pioneering piece of thought leadership” was said to seek a “radical, and rapid, shift in consumption patterns”. Source - Chris Morrison in today's Daily Sceptic

*The current Chairman of C40 is a certain Sadiq Khan from London

Zac Goldsmith?

"Britain is no longer a Christian country, say frontline clergy" from a Times survey and on most media today.

Kinda explains the increase of new cults and religions. People need things to believe in. Even Father Christmas had a role to play. GK Chesterton said it better: "When men stop believing in God they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything."

I'm resistant because I wear Bacofoil under my cap. My mate Jesus has started hanging around Lidl because of the greater number of potential recruits driven there by the cost-of-living crisis. I asked him his view on renewables this morning and he said he was being met with a lot of scepticism because it doesn't really affect him. He was actually disappointed that his offer to the supermarket to supply the loaves and fishes contract wasn't taken up. They doubt he'll deliver on his promises. An example of companies changing religion too?

I can remember when we were mocked for going after heavy oil. We have plenty more in Bressay and Bentley. I don't think people will willingly give up travel or foreign imports which almost exclusively come by sea.

I had to change my diesel to petrol (courtesy of Mr. Khan) and I immediately noticed that I need to visit the petrol station more frequently. There will be a different response when peoples' freedoms are impinged and costs become more apparent. We have sleep-walked into this situation led by shamans.

hi zippy - i am a little out of my depth here as the acronyms and various parties involved are legion; it's a busy trough. basically they received£456k from shdf and £821k from enfield council. it was spent on 10 properties. semi-detached two storey. solid walls, single glazing & no floor or roof insulation. similar to the house i grew up in.

they received - external wall insulation, mechanical ventilation & heat recovery, triple glazing and new doors, solar panels, and ashp.

the only breakdown i have is this:

design 2%

monitoring 2%

preliminaries, safety, scaffolding 15%

fabric preparation 7%

external walls 16%

windows and doors 10%

loft and roof work 6%

mechanical and electrical 30%

risk, overheads and profit 13%

i don't think any were shared semis.

i asked the presenter today if any money was left and he said no. i'll have it officially as the first foi avoided the question and i sent another on 20 august. i would argue that i knew more about the business than him and he even suggested that i should set up a forum/action group to assist the council in these straitened times. the thing is it is only £1.25 mio and this is a council whose debt is past the £1bio so it probably gets lost as a rounding error.

i do have some contacts but presently i am just cogitating. i have a councillor and a journalist interested but i want weightier interest. we'll be in september soon and things will liven up. this could be dry ammo and reserved for when it will be most useful. i don't want to go off half-****ed.

Typo - Sadiq and Kier.

I was name checked at the meeting. I think to check if I was there. It was a shambles. I got a verbal answer to my two FOI's. All the money has been spent. Retrofit is £127.7k per property. Naturally it is being carried out in all other London boroughs. It is sadly what councils do. Turns our taxes/rates into projects with fancy titles and confuse us with terms like subsidies and grants which changes our money into benificence akin to a lottery win for those lucky enough to receive it (I wouldn't say no). This one has the usual suspects (Sadiq Khan) and is part of the Mayor's refit Accelerator - Homes Innovation Partnership. It recognises that earlier stages will have higher capital costs because of the innovation involved and the lower number of properties. On a quick check even scaffolding is now "innovative" (using drones?) because at £19.16K per property it is a wee bit over budget. A relative who works for a company doing similar work in the area estimated it should be about £1.8k.

I doubt I'll be invited again and frankly life is too short. People there were shocked at my revelations but were totally confused as they have been fed a separate narrative. Most support came from women who demand costs and the men pretend they understand it. It was a waste of my morning.

I told them that they lived in La la land and this from some of their propaganda is so ludicrous that they expect this to happen:

"It is hoped that by upgrading all housing stock to an average Energy Performance Certificate rating of B – the second most efficient rating – by 2030, boroughs will drive a “dramatic decarbonisation of London property and make vital progress on the capital’s path towards net zero”.

Using figures from this debacle and before the reduced capital costs kick in the starting figure to achieve this aim is £483 billion before inflation. I wonder where Sadiq and Khan will get the money from?

I think my Council Tax is going up!

The decent moderation of today will be the least of human things tomorrow. At the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the opinion of good sense and of the good medium was certainly that people ought not to burn too large a number of heretics; extreme and unreasonable opinion obviously demanded that they should burn none at all. -Maurice Maeterlinck, poet, dramatist, and Nobel laureate (29 Aug 1862-1949)

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As in most things climate change has elements of a religion and the excesses they encourage. It is also very easy to change sides or use the argument of one against another. Trump does it all the time. There is advantage to be gained by taking a counter view and making outrageous claims that fit a narrative but isn't backed by data or facts. There are anti-vaxxers out there convinced of their beliefs but when I got my jab I just took a leap in the dark and expected any adverse reaction to be absent or minimal. Most people did the same but the old, sick and weak were always most at risk anyway.

Unless it affects your pocket most people will tolerate the extremes and get on with their lives. That is changing as regards climate (or what used to be called 'weather'). We have basked in clement temperatures this summer and have no idea what winter will be like. I'll make a prediction - it will get cold and you'll need the heating on. People understand that the government can't pay our energy bills forever and we now face a future of companies leaving these shores and selling us the same thing they were producing here but at a higher cost and with increased emissions.

Just getting in the mood as I'm going to a meeting with Enfield Council. They, along with other boroughs declared a "Climate Emergency" in 2019. The arrogance of them. What is an emergency is that Enfield is now in the top ten most-indebted English councils.

*Sadiq Khan on TV defending ULEZ which starts today. Naturally he started with "health CRISIS". I think cash CRISIS might be a better choice of words or searching for a new money tree.

Exactly Dumbly. You can get an awful lot of barrels for $100mio. They're cheap because there are still companies voting with their feet to get out of the North Sea.

GK Chesterton explained it better - “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” Some in government get it. There are obviously entrenched opinions within both main parties but people are coming around to the fact that renewables and replaceables aren't the same thing. I suspect that closer to the election renewable energy may not be the vote winner the media thinks it is. Old people go out to vote - youngsters don't and Sadiq Khan has been doing an excellent job for us.

I'm involved in EnCaf which is the Enfield Climate Action Forum and it really isn't a lot different to JSO. My second FOI on retrofit and wasting resources is creating some waves. They obfuscate but I'll keep digging and then go public if I get the result I expect.

One example of the knots they tie themselves into is a plan to have a massive waste incinerator that produces electricity and heat for homes. Naturally objectors have sprung up and it will require digging up major roads for a minimum of 3 years and that is only 7 miles. Trade and traffic movement will slow to a trickle. I reckon you'll be able to trace its route by the pineapple plants growing along it in January. They really haven't a clue.

I'm not comfortable with the timing. Finances sorted but who are they telling? An unwanted opportunistic approach or something bigger coming and this part of it needed tidying up?

Pelle - it's a Bank Holiday here on Monday.

Afterthought: Is the timing of this germane? Message boards tend to look for knee-jerk reactions and the algos too. Isn't there supposed to be a meeting between Government and the banks today about funding in the O&G industry? Bear this in mind when they start to leak and manage the news. This could be a statement by EnQuest or a signal to or from either Govt or the banks. Why today? It isn't to bury the news because it is fairly innocuous but it will mean something to those closer to actual decision making.

Agreed KO. Could also be a reason for no Director buy's. As usual (not just EnQuest speak) it is for "general corporate purposes" which I take to mean that a deal is part of the reason for the raise. The 7% RB settlement is a bit of a smokescreen imo. In a thin market in late August I'm not surprised by the NO reaction to the announcement. This coming Autumn looks interesting.