Lets hope it gets warmer soon!

Without reaching for a tinfoil hat, my view is that big media, and big government have got vested interests in pushing the agenda of AGW. Look at the BBC running "How bad is this spring" stories. All designed to engineer a climate (see what I did there ?) where it's easier to get Joe Soap to accept higher prices and more taxes.

As others have suggested. If the lights do go out, it's a pound to a penny we'll hear arguments that we need *more* renewables.

Think more of tickets to a sold out event. They may have a face value of x, but sell for many times that on an open market.

And spot prices are not the price paid for every therm of gas. So far as I am aware, a lot of gas (and, indeed, other things) is actually on some form of long-term contract with its own price mechanism (fixed or variable according to some mechanism or other) or comes from delivery of gas that was traded as a future. The spot market only handles a modest proportion of the gas actually sold/bought.

There again, I am not a market person and know little of the detail - so if I am wrong, please correct!

the point is that there always is an element of bad luck, but when designing systems you should be looking at worst cases. Airliner design assumes the aircraft will at some point be smacked around by up to 3-4g turbulence, that one or more engines will fail. That U/C hydraulics will fail, that the aircraft may have to be evacuated in a hurry, possibly on water..

Then its not news when one of these things happens its news when all four engines fail..

a cold snap in late march AND a failed pipeline should be 'standard operating procedure' stuff.

speaking to the outer circle and some of the inner circle last night,. that is the big issue at the back of all their minds.

Stage one is to increase polling at every election - but its a small party and the party machine as such doesn't exist. In fact its being assembled hastily.

There is no doubt in my mind that what's at the top - the core 15-20 experienced people - are quality. Whats at grass roots level is a bunch of geriatrics with passion, and there isn't the money to organise professionals, so its a little ad hoc. Money will; come as the number of elected people rises. The MEPS are well served for example with full time staff paid for by the EU - it has to be good for something - and if they happen to use their skills to raise the profile of the party nationally, well it's one way to do it.

I suspect if the current roll continues, and Cameron fails to respond., more Tories will defect as well.

All we could get out of Nigel vis a vis Rupert Murdoch was 'he doesnt like windmills'..but the fact of the dinner was in itself a sign that various people with their own axes to grind are possibly thinking of supporting the party, ..and of course that is a tow edged sword. With support come implied strings. And the potential for corruption.

Nigel is a wise owl tho. He has issued orders to his staff to never be left alone with any attractive females whatsoever, ever. So no possible 'nigel groped me' smears will be credible.

What is needed right now if you believe in the party, is donations and membership and help at whatever level. The boys are very approachable at this point in time.

But interests is massively on the rise. The hall last night was packed to about three times H&S capacity..fortunately no one was there to point that out. And according to the party official I spoke to 'it would be a rank impossibility for them to all be UKIP members, we haven't got that many in this town'

Its all a bit strange.

No they don't.

Supply and demand.

And if they don't manage to make enough on 5 books a day, they go out of business.

Total cost of supplying a services breaks onto fixed overheads and cost of purchase of what you sell.

If there is less to sell you must cover the costs of what you sell by raising the unit price.

That of course is the dilemma for nuclear power. You pay £14bn or so for a power station up front, using borrowed money. It has to be run and maintained. It cost millions a year to keep going and service the debt whether or not it produces electricity at all. The cost of fuel is relative peanuts - even fully processed ready to bang in fuel rods are less than 15% of the total costs.

That means that there is no point in ever switching it off, *unless the market price of electricity drops below 15% of the normal price*. which is why the nukes run flat out all the time. Sometimes they make money, sometimes they lose money, BUT they would lose MORE money if they were NOT running.

There is quite simply no way to calculate a 'fixed cost price' that accurately reflects reality without knowing how much electricity you will be able to supply over a year.

Its similar for hydroelectricity.

Gas is exactly the reverse. It doesn't cost much to slap in a jet engine and a boiler coupled to a gas and steam turbine. But gas is these days very expensive. That is why if you look at gridwatch, the kit that gets shut down at night when demand is low, is the gas.

once the spot price of electricity falls below the cost of the gas used to make it, its not worth keeping it running.

You have to get to grips with this way of looking at accounting to make sense of the grid mess and the energy markets. Its no use saying that the UK has 200 years of coal left, or 50 trillion cubic meters of shale gas if the cost of extracting it in cash or energy terms exceeds the market value of it.

Juts like my electricity bill. I have what amounts to a forward contract with EDF for broadly 'mostly nuclear' electricity that is protected against price rises.

Those go to customers who believe in renewable energy.

Airline safety was learned over decades and paid for in blood. People need to die before anything gets done. Unfortunately what we get from the current lot in power is a knee jerk panic like closing the whole rail network for a single de-railment that killed few, yet totally ignoring 1000s who die on the roads. So, a few OAPs freezing to death in their homes wil be brushed off. Until a major hospital suffers a major power blackout and the backup doesn't work cos somebody's knicked the copper, nothing will get done.

MBQ

How much of it is a genuine technical problem, and how much of it is Enronn ing?

Your sig was off the bottom of the screen. Just for a moment I thought he'd joined the group.

Oh Come on! Like Karl Marx, his 'partner' probably has to tie his shoelaces.

Would you let him anywhere near your plumbing with a pipe wrench?

Its a handy way to sum up politicians.

- would you buy a used car from this man?

- would you trust him with your children?

- would you lend him a tenner down the pub?

- would you let him fix your plumbing?

- would you employ him, and if so in what capacity?

and similar.. With Miliband, the only one I'd say yes to is the children. But then I haven't any.

The man is a complete pill.