Mastodawn

Dan Sloane Mar 15

@paulk @harld unfortunately, in the UK at least, electricity prices are still tied to gas prices so unless you have solar and battery and a new enough house to use a heat pump, it does affect us. Hopefully those prices will be decoupled in future.

kΔ Mar 15

@dans @paulk @harld The gas that is a mere 4.1% of our supply at this time while (mostly) Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 powers y’all with wind? Also 10.5% being imported from the EU for all the Brexit fans 🤭. Of course it does vary but still, there is often a lot of wind.

Juggling With Eggs Mar 15

@kDelta @dans @paulk @harld

Despite meeting a fraction of our energy demands, gas sets the price 85% of the time I read this week. We have to drive out our reliance on that final amount - which is why rightwing parties funded directly or indirectly by fossil fuel interests constantly tell us we have to use every ‘cubic centimetre of gas left in the North Sea’…but we don’t actually domestically even use what we extract from there.

Dan Sloane Mar 15

@JugglingWithEggs @kDelta @paulk @harld There's also a lot of us with combi boilers, so unable / not yet financially viable to switch to electricity only. When I looked at it when the old boiler died, not having a storage tank or space for one ruled out switching to ASHP. Apparently cooking on a gas hob is better too for some unexplained reason. 🤷‍♂️

kΔ Mar 15

@dans @JugglingWithEggs @paulk @harld It is true though, I have a gas boiler and cooker. I don't own my place so no choice for me! 😬 So my bills will indeed creep up on that side.

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)Mar 16

@dans @JugglingWithEggs @kDelta @paulk @harld

Cooking on gas is better than traditional electric hobs (including ceramic ones) because turning down the gas reduces the heat going into the pan immediately. You'll notice this if something starts to boil over: turn down the heat on gas and it stops, turn down the heat on an electric hob and you need to remove the pan while the hob cools.

Induction hobs have the same useful property as gas (and are efficient and don't fill the house with combustion byproducts) but they're not compatible with all pans and so switching can be expensive. You can get little mats that convert non-ferrous pans to work with them, but I've heard conflicting reports on how well they work.

@paulk The claim is untrue at face value, at least for the consumer, since the markets are linked. But there is a point here that the less we depend on fossil energy, the less the oil prices matter to the consumer.

@veronica And that latter point is exactly 'the' point.

@paulk Yeah, I assumed so too, but I work with this so I get the distinction. I suspect most people read "expensive" in the context of what they pay. Regardless, the less we rely on millions of years old goo, the better.

@veronica Seriously. Because at one point that goo will run out and then...

@paulk Yeah, I hate living in a world where everything gets evaluated against short term economic gain and everything else seems to be irrelevant when all is said and done. It will be the downfall of our era. At the very least, I hope future generations can make better choices. Ours seems not to be able to in any way that really matters.

@veronica I severely dislike the fact that we live in the era of Homo Shareholder which has to be pleased with pofits and bonuses without any consideration of the future of even their own offspring...

@paulk 💯

Thankfully, the company I work for is publicly owned, so the shareholder profit goes back to the people in our area, and our municipal budgets.

Edit: The government adds a 45% tax on the natural resource usage, in addition to the 22% corporate tax, so a good deal also goes to the big tax bucket.

@veronica Taxes and breathing, the two things you can't live without, it seems. Still, your employer sounds like a good place. Congratulations on moving there.

@paulk The previous energy company I worked at was state owned, so the same applied there. Otherwise I may not have lasted in this industry. 😅

@veronica You chose well!

Glad you did and persisted, or novelWriter might not have existed. (I currently have 8 projects active in there.)

@paulk You may say you're paying for it indirectly over your electricity bill. 😁

@veronica 🤣 !!!

Max - Poliverso 🇪🇺🇮🇹Mar 15

@veronica @paulk

I think the claim is true.

The final price paid by most of us is an average of all energy prices and it raises up as an effect of oil price raise.

However, the price of solar and wind energy don't increase.

@max That's pretty much what I said though. Except that your last sentence isn't true. The price increases, the production cost is less affected.

@paulk

@max For the record, my political opinion is that it should be as you say. Electricity should be sold reasonably close to cost, and regulated as such, not traded on exchanges where the goal is to maximise profit. Energy is a common good and an essential resource.

@paulk

Max - Poliverso 🇪🇺🇮🇹Mar 15

@veronica @paulk

Do you think that people having solar panels on their roof will pay something more this month to convert solar radiation hitting their panels into electricity?

@max Moving the goal post doesn't make your claim about "the price of solar and wind energy don't increase" any more correct. The price is the price. If you don't pay it, then that has nothing to do with what we're talking about.