ENERGY MATTERS

[Tizer]

`Electric car sales soar, but chip shortage hits market' LINK
Every time the news media report electric car sales they use words like `soar', `rocket' etc. Yes, they are a lot more than last year but a lot more than very little is still very little! There are about 370,000 electric cars on UK roads but the total number of all cars is about 33 million.

[Stanley]

And from the few accounts I have read, they are not trouble free!

[plaques]

This explanation is being offered up as a reason for NOT reducing the VAT on fuel bills.

But a Treasury source told the BBC that rising energy bills would lead to a net reduction in VAT - not an increase.
The source claimed that with extra money spent on energy bills, where VAT is relatively lower at 5%, people would be spending less money on other goods which carry higher rates of VAT and therefore there would be a net reduction in the amount raised.

I would have thought it was pretty obvious that the extra money paid for fuel could not be spent again on other goods whether they were carrying a higher rate of VAT or not. Therefore the total amount of VAT would be down. BUT, they have chosen to ignore the fact that if fuel is £100 more expensive they would gain an extra £5 in tax. By cancelling the VAT on the increased cost the 5% element could be spent on stuff with a higher rate VAT in effect this bit would enjoy higher taxation. Of course people may be daft enough to spend it on food or to reduce their fuel bills by this low 5% in which case it is totally lost to VAT.
Having promised that Brexit would allow the UK to reduce VAT where fit it is becoming obvious that there is no intention to carry out these promises. Who would have thought that!

[Whyperion]

If , say , the amount of VAT on domestic energy is 5percent, its about £200 a month typical energy bill at present , So VAT element is £10. Such people are suffering effectively from heat or eat, and food is zero rated. Indeed total VAT income is down, but it is a little extra economic direct spend, and I thought the implied original idea was to reduce the VAT burden on consumers.

Reading Plaques logic it is so that if people spend more on present energy £100 of which increases £5 of VAT, If that £100 comes out of the food budget, that is more VAT to the Treasury, if it comes out of the clothing budget then there is a £15 loss of VAT to treasury. The £100 in theory stays in the economy (actually goes generally to the Russians for gas).

The obvious for the treasury is to make the supply VAT Exempt - then the VAT on costs to the company becomes un recoverable and is part of the costs of the business. This would (for capital investing businesses) probably increase the business costs and hence the unit cost of energy would rise, but the tories could correctly claim they had removed VAT from consumers energy bills.

[Tripps]

My monthly payment has just risen by about 70%. If the 5% VAT was removed, it would still be about 65% greater.

In real terms that's not really a very significant difference. The new figure of £118 per month without 5% VAT would be reduced to about £112 per month.

[Stanley]

I don't understand why, where they are taxed in this country, companies that are profiting from the global increase shouldn't be taxed on the windfall and that money used to take the pressure off the hardest hit consumers.
Then there is the matter of the green levies. They should be taken off fuel and put on general taxation which would result in a much fairer distribution of the load.

[Whyperion]

I am not certain where the 'Green Levy' gets spent. The argument is indeed it is a hidden taxation, no different in reality to the rate of VAT on consumers (I presume business pays a Green Levy too, and this would not be a recoverable expense like most VAT is recoverable for traders. By not including in it general taxation, you reduce the headline rate of taxation ( which may be politically good ), and allow people to have a greater income and choose what they spend that income on.

[Stanley]

Quite simple actually. A government will always prefer a 'Salt Tax' to a progressive tax because it lessens the load on the wealthy who have the loudest voice in how society is run. Some of us believe that taxes should be levied on those most able to afford it. VAT is another salt tax.....

[plaques]

The green Levy (tax) is a government tax to provide grants to firms who are investing in plant and systems designed to add biofuels to the existing fossil fuels so reducing the overall green house gasses.

For the first scheme year (30 November 2021 to 31 March 2022) - 0.484p per meter per day, equivalent to 59p per meter over the period
The collection target being .... £12,075,000

For the second scheme year (1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023) - 0.576p per meter per day, equivalent to £2.10 per meter over the period
The collection target now being... £39,900,000

It is worth mentioning that in the UK there are 28.1 million households of course not all of these will be burning fossil fuels but those who are are currently being taxed 59p for the year which will rise to £2.10.

The total maximum levy for the full period of the scheme has been calculated as £209,692,472.

The removal of the green levy is more of a gesture compared with the projected increase of 50% to your fuel bill.

[Stanley]

Thanks for those figures Ken, I did not know them and you are right, set against the ridiculous rise in energy prices they are a pinprick.
I wish someone would explain to me how we managed to move from being a major energy player, the envy of the world at one time, to the position we are in now, relying on imports, no storage capacity and seemingly no coherent energy policy in place. Successive governments have been asleep at the wheel and forever kicking major decisions on funding the future of the UK down the road.
I'm pretty certain that whatever decisions the government makes will, like the value of the Green Levy, be a pinprick compared with what will be demanded of the public.
(Can we be consoled by the fact we have one and a half aircraft carriers but no planes, or our commitment to maintaining a nuclear capability. Makes you proud to be British doesn't it.)

[Tizer]

I agree with the claim at the basis of this article that: `...this and previous administrations are partly to blame for higher bills because they failed to ensure Britain's homes are adequately insulated.' Before spending billions on hydrogen boilers and air source pumps etc we should be directing our money and attention at stopping the massive losses of heat from our buildings. Otherwise it's like opening the tap further because the bath is leaking...
`Energy bills: Fix insulation to tackle cost of heating, PM told' LINK

The builders and developers should share part of the blame. They've had decades to improve the insulation of the houses they've been building but we're still way behind other European countries. They've also made matters worse by reducing the size of rooms in new houses. When we fitted insulation to the inside of external facing walls in our old village house it made a tremendous difference. But our bedrooms, lounge and kitchen were all at least 12' by 12' so the foam panels made little difference to the space available. But most new houses have tiny rooms and owners don't want, or can't, lose the space. The alternative is to fit foam panels on the outside of external walls but then you can run into opposition from the council planners if it changes the appearance of the house. It's easy too for politicians to talk about fitting panels but whether it's inside or outside there are all sorts of practical difficulties to overcome - fitting around windows and doors, extending the roof and gable ends etc. It becomes very expensive. When we did ours we couldn't get any funding from the government and had to find the money ourselves but at least it meant we could use our own local builder who we trusted and who did an excellent job.

[Stanley]

Since installing foam insulation inside the house means stripping the walls completely it would be a big upset. Best time to do it would be when I die and the house is refurbished.

[Tizer]

Also, any houses with solid ground floors that weren't built with full modern insulation on top of the floor will need a thick layer of foam insulation too, plus a new floor laid over it, and all the extras like raising skirting boards adjusting doors and doorways (internal and external). It also makes all your windows, electric sockets, switches etc lower than they were before the change. The loft insulation, even where it meets the present thickness standard, might still not be good enough we could find ourselves having to put foam and boards under the roof itself to meet what will be the required energy standard for the whole house. The government isn't warning us about all this, possibly because they don't want to frighten us - or have their advisors not told them? Perhaps the advisors don't know? But if I know, they should know!
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Thank goodness the BBC is doing a two-part article about the `US wood chip for Drax' scam.
`The controversy of wood pellets as a green energy source' LINK
I've been against this all along. Two main reasons. 1. As it says in the article, burning wood chip produces more CO2 than burning coal, especially if it's faster-growing conifer full of resin. 2. Simply saying wood is renewable is misleading. Once cut down a forest can't be immediately renewed. It takes conifers 60 years and deciduous 100 years to grow to maturity and reach the same level of CO2 absorption that the forest presently has. And that's assuming the land is not given over to some other use such as building houses. Also, newly planted trees may fail for all the reasons outlined by people like Merlin Sheldrake (destruction of the mycorrhizal network, for example).

[Stanley]

I have often wondered how Drax and the biomass market have got away with it. Far from being only thinnings and commercially useless timber that is chipped and exported from N America, it has been known for a long time that prime timber is harvested.

[Stanley]

Thanks to 'Old Sparky' in Private Eye for reporting on the latest position in nuclear power. (Usually very reliable reporting.)
He reports that (French company) EDF are asking for an even better deal before they will take on the next nuke at Sizewell in Suffolk. However there are one or two matters that need addressing.
Last month one of the only working examples of EDF's EPR design at Taishan in China suffered damaged fuel rods and a radio-active gas leak. This led to a shut down and the French nuclear authorities reckon this is a design flaw. They have halted work on the only EPR design in France at Flamanville (Contract running nine years late) and are recommending that Finand delays its almost completed EPR at Olkiluoto which is 12 years late.
Both Hinkley and Sizewell are EPR designs and have been sold to us on the basis that successful versions are already running which is patently untrue after the Taishan accident. It is unclear who pays for rectification of 'design problems' as the full contract has never been published.
Old Sparky says his fiver is on Hinkley never getting completed and a tenner on Sizewell never starting.
In view of the current energy problems, why hasn't this news been in the national press?

[Tizer]

People are too busy watching the Tory government reach critical mass.

[Big Kev]

https://www.itv.com/news/central/2022-0 ... ter-veolia

Veolia UK’s strategic development manager for hazardous waste, Mike Crarer, told us that by 2040 estimates suggest there will be as many as 350,000 tonnes of used batteries in the UK alone which need to be dealt with

[Stanley]

Did you see reports of UK waste clothing being dumped in African deserts?

[Tizer]

I think it was the Atacama Desert in Chile but it's bad wherever it's being dumped. But what about this type of dumping?...
`Elon Musk SpaceX rocket on collision course with moon' LINK
Note this: `"Over the decades there have been maybe 50 large objects that we've totally lost track of. This may have happened a bunch of times before, we just didn't notice. This would be the first confirmed case," Prof McDowell says.'
And this which I don't recall hearing about before: `In 2009 Prof McDowell and other astronomers performed an experiment in which a similar-sized rocket was crashed into the Moon. Sensors gathered evidence of the collision so they could study the crater.' Homo sapiens is evolving into Homo flytipper.

[Stanley]

You're right Peter....

We've buggered Earth up, now we are starting on space. We're the Universe's equivalent of black mould on old cheese, spreading inexorably. That's a nice thought isn't it.

[Tizer]

Black mould on old cheese, spreading inexorably, might be how aliens from outer space would sum us up in their report back to HQ! By the way, did you listen to Michael Rosen's recent `Word of Mouth' episode titled `It's language, Jim, but not as we know it'? (Rosen has bounced back well from his near-death Covid experience.)

[Big Kev]

Word on the street is the manufacture of SMRs may be a step closer in coming to RR in Barlick. There's a garbled article in the Lancashire Live website but it points to the experienced workforce already in the town and potential retooling to make the bits.

[Stanley]

What is an SMR?

[Big Kev]

Small Modular Reactor.
https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/ ... ctors.aspx

[Stanley]

Ah right, yes I knew about them and am all in favour of manufacturing them instead of huge white elephants. As Old Sparky pointed out his money is still on Hinkley never getting finished and Sizewell being a non starter.