Can German and French Greed deliver us from evil?

EDF did much around the Olympics to con the British public they were somehow British with a particularly gratuitous commercial campaign.

Electricité de France, for which the letters EDF of course stands is very much a creature of the French State while E.ON another Continental Energy company that has Britain by the gonads comes from Germany.

Hopefully the 10;8% energy price rises imposed by EDF yesterday will begin to make these realities clearer to the broader public and hopefully bring a change in their ill-informed attitude of nonchalence and/or indifference to the EU.

Such a "sea change" or even "turning of the worm" is badly needed to render no longer acceptable the sort of political games, whereby the leading figures of our establishment have sold out our democracy and independence, for either material gain, position and imagined prestige or more perverted objectives of which we are only now being made aware.

Such an attitude of disdain towards the peoples concerns about the evil EU was on display yesterday in Parliament when the Coalition Government tried to extend earlier debate to prevent this attempt to remove usfrom the EU to proceed:

Oil proves Osborne incompetent on economy - EU/Olympics for all politicos

Osborne's incompetence in attempting to intitailly destroy one of the few productive sectors of our economy in his ealiest days was pointed up by The Guardian in March 2011, linked here. This blog of course was on this case from the start reminding readers on 23rd February of this year as follows:

George Osborne's policies have already resulted in a real slow-down in exploration activity in the British sector of the North Sea. Brilliantly mistimed and breathtakingly ignorant as it was when first announced his extra tax decisions appear ever more mistaken as the threat from Iran in the Straits of Hormuz pushes the oil markets to daily higher prices.

Osborne's stubborn pride, crass ignorance and almost complete ministerial incompetence, in charge of Britain's economy during this period of grave crisis cannot surely be allowed to continue any longer, given the proof of all that knowledgeable oil industry experts have been maintaining for many months, as evidenced by this report from The Scotsman, this morning, which after the good news concludes:

“These statistics always sound very exciting because we’re operating from a low base of activity. We have some way to go before we are back to the levels seen in 2009 and 2010.”

The lamentable reports on the Olympics provide another insight into the total inability of politicians from any party, once put in office, to run anything, presumably compounded by the elitist ignorant university trained hierarchies of an almost entirely blinkered and back-scratching civil service power structure.

Yet all that shrinks into complete insignificance viewing the farce of the media show in a railway shed yesterday of the PM and his Deputy. What should have been urgently concerning these two public school pratts cannot be better summarised, I believe, than by this contribution, last evening from The Slog, linked here. A quote on Britain:

Future observers and historians will look back at this euromess, and probably have three main reactions: first, they will wonder why the populace allowed gravy-train bureaucrats and hubris-blinded politicians to continue the pointless pavane for so long;  and second, they will gasp at the smug inaction of Camerlot in failing to spot when an imponderable outcome became an impossible nightmare for the British.

My reply to John Redwood today - UK energy pricing

Martin Cole

Posted April 13, 2012 at 6:34 am | Permalink

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Who can but applaud your closing sentence “The government is trying to abate the high prices for the largest users of energy through subsidy, but energy cost remains an obstacle to successful competitive manufacturing in the UK. it needs instead to trigger more energy developments, and to pursue a policy of cheaper energy instead of interfering with the market in a way designed to raise prices.”
Crucially our energy industries, other than in internationally priced oil products, remain under the control of foreign state controlled monopoly suppliers, mostly French and German, whose priority quite clearly is through energy pricing, to render UK exports uncompetitive with their own in world markets.
The French and German governments, as for all others on the Continent, see the protection and advancement of their deomestic industry as their first priority, taking care of which requires close attention at home, not whizzing around the world on a combined domestic political PR come champagne sales drive jolly, with docile UK industrialists in tow.
Recovering price control over our own power utilities is now probably a priority even ahead of removing ourselves from the crippled EU itself!

George Osborne - an extra menace to Britain's oil supplies!

George Osborne's policies have already resulted in a real slow-down in exploration activity in the British sector of the North Sea. Brilliantly mistimed and breathtakingly ignorant as it was when first announced his extra tax decisions appear ever more mistaken as the threat from Iran in the Straits of Hormuz pushes the oil markets to daily higher prices.

IP Dinner week in London has exacerbated these concerns, according to a report this evening from Reuters, linked here, where reading between the lines of the report, it appears that the stubborness of ministers and their civil servants in interpreting the exact requirements for the decommissioning of old fields is likely to so add to oil industry costs, such that new developments could once again be further discouraged!

Yet more useless wind turbines anyone?

Straits of Hormuz - EU allocation of Britain's energy

I thought it timely to repeat a posting, linked here, on a possible closure of the Striats of Hormuz, from this blog, first posted in May 2008, even more worrying today:

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Thursday, May 29, 2008

Freezing in the Dark

In a few months time, in the midst of the next bleak mid-winter, British families could well be freezing in the dark, all thanks to the promise breaking and deepest treachery of their Government and its manifesto promise breaking back bench MPs and Peers joined by the equally treacherous Liberal/Democrats. Why? Start by reading this report on the growing crisis over Iran's nuclear weapons programme.


Now study this map of the narrow entrance to the Arabian Gulf at Quoin Island through which must pass nearly the entire oil exports of the Arabian/Persian Gulf. Note how it is dominated by Iran and remember that test firing of torpedoes recently occurred.

Now read these provisions of the new EU Lisbon Treaty due to come into force on 1st January next year, without the promised British referendum.

TEU Article 5:

2. Under the principle of conferral, the Union shall act only within the limits of the competences conferred upon it by the Member States in the Treaties to attain the objectives set out therein.

Competences not conferred upon the Union in the Treaties remain with the Member States.

TFEU
TITLE XXI
ENERGY
Article 194
1. In the context of the establishment and functioning of the internal market and with regard for
the need to preserve and improve the environment, Union policy on energy shall aim, in a spirit of solidarity between Member States, to:
(a) ensure the functioning of the energy market;
(b) ensure security of energy supply in the Union;

Now read my post below!

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Crippling Britain's industry and consumers in the decades ahead!

The German holding one of the key positions in rendering British industry uncompetitive in the decades ahead, Volker Beckers, profile here, appeared on Jeff Randall Live on Sky News last night.

Joined by a platitude spouting no-mark, who apparently heads the national grid, they informed the nation that cheaper energy than that available today was an impossibility for Britain. Such is the supreme confidence of this man, who appears to have been recently working hardest at dropping any trace of a German accent, (presumably to make his message of despair for the British more palayable,) that the treacherous EU placeman as Britain's Energy Supremo,Chris Huhne, will avoid any charges for the perversion of the course of justice, and remain in place to destroy the last remaining chances of Britain acquiring a competitive energy industry way into the foreseeable future.

I had hoped to provide a vido link to parts of Randall's interview, but nothing is yet available, should it posted on Sky News later, I will put a link here.

EU manipulation of Britain's energy prices!

The BBC has just issued this report on Britains excessive energy prices, and soaring profits for the energy companies from £15 per customer to £125 p.a..

This blog has been on that case for years, for one example, read this January 2009 posting on gas price and supply manipulation.

If the regulators really wished to control matters, rather than merely act as a curtain, shielding their political leaders from accountability, for their treason over the EU, they should ask themselves and those they regulate, for the exact corporate ownership lines and contracts between the companies that sell gas in the UK market, the physical capabilities of the Bacton interconnector facility, the actual physical flows, full ownership details and the direction of travel of the volumes actually passing through Bacton.

Most crucially of all, the exact end company ownership and participation in the contracts and spot deals that go towards framing the wholesale gas contract prices, which forms the underpinning basis for the prices, which all the gas suppliers are subsequently permitted to apply to the UK market.

A thorough understanding, must also first be gained, of what eventually became of all the low-priced, fixed price, gas supplies that the oil companies negotiated with the old monopoly buyer, the Gas Council and the political and financial imperatives driving those who allowed that system to end.

One basic essential fact, has to be at the forefront of legislators and regulators minds regarding natural gas, that is that a true free market cannot ever exist. The term "wholesale" surely gives that fact away! Every market participant only benefits from higher prices. That truth itself arises from the fact that natural gas is not a product that can ever be handled, let alone easily or cheaply.

The natural industry requires huge investment, complicated pipeline networks and a sense of decency in the Boardrooms. Methane (the main component of natural gas), it is a fact, when transported by sea has to be cooled to minus 260° a hugely expensive undertaking. I once worked for a natural gas transmission company in the USA, serving the US East Coast with gas from Oklahoma and Texas by pipelines, we were rightly regulated to the nth degree even to the point of the shareholders' dividends!

All involved in the supposed European Wholesale Gas Market, depend upon higher prices for their higher profits. It is therefore not a true market, it is an expensive and clever sham. That is the flaw, as was well known by the politicians when the Gas Council monopoly buying status was terminated. All the rest is sleight of hand, to allow the utility companies to price gouge their UK customers.

How many gas suppliers in Britain now have their trading profits remitted to HMRC for taxation?  In the answer to that last question lies the prospect of potential treason rather than incompetence or stupidity, which has become the politician's normal excuse for such outrages!

Chris Huhne's EU Pension Dilemma and Energy Treason!

Chris Huhne, Britains Energy Secretary, former MEP, like his party leader Nick Clegg, will lose his EU pension were he to do the unthinkable and put Britain's interests before those of the EU. This is costing the country very dear in in the energy field, as I have been blogging, both here, and soon on Orphans of Liberty since the past weekend.

Try to watch a replay of the Sky News interview with John Redwood MP immediately before the speech, who seems to have been doing some remarkably clear thinking on the topic of Britain's energy disaster over the past few days!

Incredibly Huhne, was sufficiently open about his own agenda, by mentioning the danger to Common Purpose at the conclusion of his conference speech!

Is Germany saddling its EU economic enemies with excess energy costs?

(Later edit - added 0740 GMT 20/9/11, the video I sought, as mentioned in the first paragraph of this posting, was by Volker Beckers of RWEnpower , and is now included at the end of this posting. Many thanks to AK Haart for finding it for me)

There exists a YouTube video which shows a German executive of E.ON addressing a UK audience and confirming that offshore wind energy production costs are some three times those of available alternatives. I will add it at the end of this post when and if I can re-locate it. Meantime consider the incredible figures set out by another E.ON operative in the following video:



The tragic accident this week that took the lives of four Welsh miners also provides food for further thought on energy costs, when considering the frequent broadcast comments that locals had no knowledge of the mining operations underway at the location where the deadly and tragic accident occurred. Yet Britain's coal resources were nationalised for the supposed benefit of the nation many years ago. If coal-mining is again economically viable in Wales, why is it not being undertaken by the successor to the NCB, to ease both the nation's energy costs and unemployment in South Wales.

Further signs of a conspiracy, involving the energy costs for our country, hit me last week, when I saw the huge two page advertisements by the Norwegian State Oil Company, Statoil, extolling the benefits for Britain of Norways neighbouring deposits of natural gas, see more here. Nobody should need to point out such obvious benefits in a sane world, are they necessary because Britain's rulers, now completely contolled from the near continent, wish to deprive our manufacturers of the benefits of competitively priced energy from which we may never recover?

Where does the blame lie for all of this treachery? Dubious decisions and actions that will lumber the nation with excess energy costs for decades ahead are this moment being made by this Coalition Government, thus making any manufacturing recovery nigh on impossible, to the main benefit of the German's and the French, whose energy companies control Britain's energy costs through their economic and possibly political imperatives. No blame can attach to their national leaders and politicians, they are doing their utmost to secure the jobs, futures and livliehoods of their own citizens!

The traitors are those in Britain who have ceded such powers to foreigners, presumably in stupidity or for their own personal advancement or the power gains of the foul and corrupt political parties to which they owe their allegiance.

Britain must seize this moment of crisis within the Eurozone to take back the responsibilities for determining its own future by quitting the EU. Gerhard Schroeder, senior figure of the next German controlling party, the SPD, has already made clear that an EU with no say for Britain, is Germany's planned course, as I posted and linked yesterday on this blog. Those politicians not  NOW seeking an exit from the EU, for the UK, are blind to the future of generations of our citizens yet unborn

Securing UK Energy supplies - The Bacton Interconnector and Huhne vs Redwood.

My first post today, considers how the world might best begin to address a potential energy supply shortage and urges that the IEA, rather than the EU, be involved in running any such programme. Assuming that can be achieved, how then may the corrupt EU be kept from any inolvement in allocating supplies within the 27 countries of the EU, its sticky-fingered and morally unprincipled officials could almost certainly be relied upon to establish the basic principle as one of self-enrichment for themselves likely resulting in supply priority for the wealthiest?

The Lisbon Treaty, among its many other deep and disgraceful flaws, states the following on energy:

An important policy in relation to energy is that a new part on energy is added to the TFEU with one article (Title XXI with article 194 in the consolidated TFEU, title XX with article 176A in the Lisbon Treaty). The article is relatively short, it reads:

"1.In the context of the establishment and functioning of the internal market and with regard for the need to preserve and improve the environment, Union policy on energy shall aim, in a spirit of solidarity between Member States, to:
(a) ensure the functioning of the energy market;
(b) ensure security of energy supply in the Union;
(c) promote energy efficiency and energy saving and the development of new and renewable forms of energy; and
(d) promote the interconnection of energy networks.

2. Without prejudice to the application of other provisions of the Treaties, the European Parliament and the Council, acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, shall establish the measures necessary to achieve the objectives in paragraph 1. Such measures shall be adopted after consultation of the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.

Clearly, with such ludicrous and practically meaningless verbiage, the potential for many months of pointless bickering and all the usual EU failures must quickly appear.

Britain's interface with the Continent, in so far as natural gas is concerned, is via the Bacton Interconnector, read here. To ensure there is no misunderstanding as to Britain's views on where energy sovereignty starts and ends, I suggest the government moves immediately to place the British end of that facility, immediately under its control by use of a strong military presence.

Replacement of the former EU MEP and EU quisling Chris Huhne as Energy Secretary, by a robust Conservative such as John Redwood should ideally be carried out concurrently!