Much like here in Pensacola (upon which I will post later), this winter has been a surprise to most of Europe and a truly unwelcome one at that. The  relatively benign and temperate winters of the past couple of years have again, as these things tend to cycle, given way to a blast of winter reality and arctic chill enveloping the continent, and the British Isles find themselves swept by colder, fiercer winter blasts rolling in off the North Atlantic and Irish Sea.

They had a ripper come through last month - Storm Darragh -  with tremendous winds and biting cold. Besides literally blowing people brave enough to be out in it around the streets, and thrashing fences, trees and roofs, it tore up a brand-new solar field and ripped blades from stationary wind turbines, none of which obviously, were operational at the time considering the adverse conditions.

When you've bet your country's entire energy profile on such flimsy, unreliable things, a rational person might think there could possibly be a problem in such circumstances. 

Lo and behold, there was a few days later when the trunk lines from Europe that deliver their excess generated power as backup electricity to keep the fraudulent British Green scheme of renewables running were 'unavailable' because it was cold on the continent, too.

...The UK now depends on additional power generation being available from the continent via trunk lines instead of maintaining its homegrown energy security. The government, both the former Tory and now Labour, act as if the British are not an island and nothing can happen to interrupt the flow of that power when the UK needs it.

But, oh, my gosh - look what happened just a week ago. There was a low power warning, why?

Because there was no power available from the continent for what England was going to need at their usage rate.

OOPSIES

The winter's not getting any warmer and still has a good bit to run, in the northern latitudes especially. Two weeks ago I told you how, in the midst of yet another round of uber-cvhilly weather, the UK grid had been on the brink of a complete blackout. Only the last-minute authorization of pay-whatever-it-costs engagement of idle and much reviled natural gas power plants pulled the country back from the brink of disaster.

...£5500MWh was, at one point, the going rate to keep the country from completely going dark. Generator operators could name their price; they did, and desperate grid managers had to bite. Literally, the call went out to 'supply at ANY COST."

...Offered to 'fire up their plants for more than 50 times the market price.' How awful they are.

Until a rational brain kicks in and asks why you are in that situation in the first place, where you are forced to say yes.

This was just the UK last night. Europe is in very much the same boat, except they're not an island.

But they do rely on natural gas for their emergency power, and it's already been a surprisingly chilly winter.

Two plants made £12M in three hours of basically saving the country.

They've also drawn down the gas stores for the country to what, in classic British understatement, translates to HOLY CRAP, WE COULD BE SCREWED!

Perfect storm reduces UK winter gas storage to ‘concerningly low’ levels

The UK’s gas storage is under pressure this winter as the UK battles both extreme cold and high gas prices. The ongoing colder-than-usual conditions in the UK combined with the end of Russian gas pipeline supplies through Ukraine on 31 December 2024 has meant that gas inventory levels across the UK are down. As of the 9th of January 2025, UK storage sites are 26% lower than last year’s inventory at the same time, leaving them around half full. This means the UK has less than a week of gas demand in store. 

Gas storage was already lower than usual heading into December as a result of the early onset of winter. Combined with stubbornly high gas prices, this has meant that it has been more difficult to top up storage over Christmas. 

The situation is echoed across Europe. By 7 January 2025, despite many countries mandating minimum storage levels ahead of winter, European storage was at 69% capacity, down from 84% at the same time the previous year. The UK’s total gas storage capacity is around 10 per cent or less than in France, Germany, or the Netherlands. 

As energy demand spikes due to the freezing weather, the UK has seen a particular strain on its gas storage. Despite being full ahead of winter, current gas inventory at Rough, the country’s largest gas storage site, which is operated by Centrica, is 20% lower than at the same time last year. Rough has played a crucial role so far this winter by supplying almost 420 million cubic meters (mcm) of gas since early November, enough to heat three million homes every day. 

Remember when they had a thriving North Sea fossil fuel industry and pumped their own natural gas?

GOOD TIMES, GOOD TIMES

What lie has the cult sold the British government who have, in turn, mandated that the British public lose their very standard of living and impoverish themselves to follow?

That renewables are CHEAP AND RELIABLE. 

Renewables are by their very nature unreliable, and nothing about them as a baseline source of electricity is cheap.

Households with heat pumps face higher energy bills in colder months than those with gas boilers, analysis shows.

Another Net Zero lie exposed. A heat pump will leave you poorer and colder. pic.twitter.com/jWjOdw0Wwr

— Net Zero Watch (@NetZeroWatch) January 23, 2025

It seems the Labour Party is coming to this conclusion reluctantly but at long last. They are not outright admitting it, but as far as the push to actively codify the mandates, suddenly the rabid cultists are developing - dare I say it? 

COLD FEET

A landmark bill that would make the UK’s climate and environment targets legally binding seems doomed after government whips ordered Labour MPs to oppose it following a breakdown in negotiations.

Supporters of the climate and nature bill, introduced by the Liberal Democrat MP Roz Savage, say Labour insisted on the removal of clauses that would require the UK to meet the targets it agreed to at Cop and other international summits.

Wait a minute - I thought this was their dream scenario? As soon as they were in power, Great Britain goes Green?

It seems the end of fossil fuels, as the UK knows it, might have been a premature speculation on the Green Dreamers' part. Their fevered imaginings and what the weather actually does in and to the UK are two entirely different things.

So Ed tells us that if we switch to home grown renewable energy we won’t be beholden to other countries for our gas supplies is utter nonsense.

We could extract our own gas to use in our own network and sell off excess then strangely we won’t be beholden to other countries.

— Norm (@NormanSufrin) January 10, 2025

Another inconvenient wrinkle emerging that is bolloxing up the transition is that the supposition underpinning the fantasy - whatever we don't have, we can get from Europe - is under severe pressure at the moment.

You see, the wind isn't blowing on the continent either right now, so Europeans are filling their own power gaps and paying exorbitant prices for electricity. Sending juice to keep the lights on in the UK is kind of a low priority.

Britain faces bidding war with Europe to keep lights on amid wind power slump

‘Dunkelflaute’ to expose UK’s over-reliance on the Continent’s energy exports

Britain is at risk of entering a bidding war with Europe for electricity, as countries race to lock in supplies after a sharp drop in wind power.

Cold temperatures combined with calm weather have increased energy pressures across Europe, as dwindling domestic generation has led to traders competing to buy electricity.

The UK is typically able to rely on inter-connector cables linking it to France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Norway when in need of bolstering energy supplies.

However, those countries have also been hit by the same still and gloomy weather in recent weeks, meaning they have less spare power to export.

Which means what for Britain? IF they can get what they need - or any portion of it - hoo dawg, are they ever going to pay for it.

...“It is likely that in order to maximise imports and generation from our gas power stations National Energy System Operator (Neso) will have to pay high prices.

“There is even the chance of a bidding war between Neso and its European counterparts if the markets are all very tight at the same time.”

All of this eventually goes back to the British power consumer and even those pensioners from whom Labour has stripped their pittance of a winter utility stipend. Labour is not only killing off their elderly, they're killing the country.

Britain’s net zero plan is to nearly double the demand for electricity (for heating, transport and artificial intelligence) and switch off most of the supply (gas and much of nuclear). If you think that does not add up, you are right. Perhaps Ed (Miliwatt-hour) Miliband is deliberately showing Keir (Starter-Motor) Starmer how barmy the plan is because this week the policy came unstuck – perhaps for good – in six different ways.

...Third, Starmer may have nervously checked the wind speeds and noticed that on the calm morning of “Dunkelflaute” Wednesday this week just 1 per cent of our electricity came from wind power, even less from solar and a whopping 10 per cent had to be imported at exorbitant cost to prevent the lights going out. How’s that for “energy security”? Norwegians are increasingly fed up with having to supply our power so this is not, to coin a phrase, sustainable. 

Fourth, Miliwatt-hour’s deputy, Torsten (Alarm) Bell MP, told a massive inexactitude from the despatch box: “Unless we deliver secure, home-grown renewable energy through cheap renewable generation, there is no energy security ahead”. Cheap? The owners of gas turbines and even diesel generators are licking their lips at the panicky price spikes that now come regularly when the wind fails. The wind business nowadays expects £85 a megawatt hour for power from offshore wind, well above the price of getting it from gas – and then we must add billions to our bills for expanding, backing up and balancing the increasingly stretched and unstable grid that comes with wind. Unreliables are not cheaper than reliables however often Bell and Miliwatt claim they are.

...Britain’s experiment in virtue-signalling to the world that we are leaders in net zero ambitions has been a risible farce. We have achieved: the highest electricity prices of any developed country; falling electricity usage; the loss of major industries; a worrying dependence on energy imports; a dangerous risk of blackouts; an impending net reduction in nuclear power; net zero impact on global emissions; and net zero influence. Even Rachel (From Complaints) Reeves appears now to realise that growth means abandoning net zero.

Years of misguided cultish intransigence has the English over a barrel, a very cold and expensive barrel that, to their utter disrepute, the blind allegiance of the believers still will not allow them to break free of and execute that desperately needly 180°.

Granted, even if they changed their minds tomorrow, it won't save them from what's hitting today.

Its name is Storm Éowyn and just what the power doctor ordered - a 'bomb' cyclone.

...Gusts over 90 mph were recorded in Northern Ireland and parts of northern Wales Friday morning as Storm Éowyn shifted toward the United Kingdom. Many trains and other public transport options were locked down in the northern U.K. and there were initial reports of some wind damage to trees and buildings. 

"Storm Éowyn is now bringing very strong winds to parts of the U.K. There is potential for gusts of 100 mph in exposed locations within the Red Warning area," Chief U.K. Meteorologist Jason Kelly said in a statement Friday. "Anyone in these Red and Amber warning areas should listen to advice from local responders and keep up to date with weather warnings for their area."

It's a self-induced mess, and then along comes Mother Nature.