It's not often that the National Grid, who happen to amongst other things keep tabs on the gas industry makes headlines. The news that some of the UK's largest energy suppliers held back gas in storage tanks as the 'free market' ran into a serious if not acute gas shortage will not surprise many of the less than dispassionate observers of the expensive farce that passes itself off as the alleged energy 'free market' in the UK. Thanks to the failure to develop a sensible storage capacity of gas and the failure to develop serious serious alternative sustainable energy supplies the UK came within six hours of running out of gas on March 22nd this year.
National Grid, which leases out storage space in it's Isle of Grain Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal, to Centrica (who own British Gas), BP and other large energy suppliers, noted that the terminal was 40% full on March 22nd. It also noted that the South Hook planet (here in Wales) was 52% full; at a time when a combination of pipelines problems and demand (due to the cold weather) led to a spike in gas prices (which reached 150 pence a therm). National Grid owns and operates the gas storage facility but leases out storage to a number of third party users (including Sonatrach (Algeria) and GDF (France). The implication is that these large energy suppliers were holding back stocks of gas during a time of crisis so that they could profit for the high price for gas.
If nothing else this should make it abundantly clear that the ideologically driven and pretty much unregulated 'free market' for energy has failed abysmally. We need, like Scotland and other countries to develop clean, safe and secure renewable energy supplies. I have come to the stark conclusion that the 'Big 6 energy cartel members have proved entirely focused on driving up profits and have neglected the safety of supply. They should play no part in developing, administering and overseeing any sustainable energy supplies as they will only endeavour to extract as much profit as they can from the process.
Showing posts with label Not for distributable profit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Not for distributable profit. Show all posts
Monday, 27 May 2013
Sunday, 3 February 2013
THE SYSTEM NEVER FAILS ONLY INDIVIDUALS...
We live in interesting times, public transport wise at least, with the distinct possibility that the rail franchise system operating system, rather than the trains themselves, is ceasing to operate. The UK Transport secretary has instructed preparations be made for Directly Operated Railways, which is a government owned company, to undertake the minimum preparatory measures necessary to operate train services in the event of a failure to agree the terms of an interim agreement with the existing Franchise operator for the Great Western rail franchise.
This announcement follows the news that the competition to run the Great Western rail franchise between south Wales and London is being scrapped. This follows advice from the Chair of Eurostar Richard Brown who has been investigating the collapse of the West Coast Main Line franchise deal. Back in March (2012) FirstGroup, National Express, Stagecoach, and Arriva (part of Deutsche Bahn) were all short-listed for the Great Western franchise.
The UK Transport Secretary (Patrick McLoughlin) is looking to negotiate an interim franchise of at least two years with current operator FirstGroup. In a Parliamentary statement, the UK Transport Secretary announced that he would begin "a more fundamental review of the franchise proposition, recognising that this is a large and complex franchise which will need to manage service delivery whilst the route is electrified and new rolling stock is introduced."
A parliamentary report into the collapse of the West Coast Main line franchise deal, was not unanimous, several committee members markedly choose not to blame government ministers. The report which scrutinised the scrapping of the £5 billion pound franchise revealed that the decision cost around £50 million pounds of public money.
The Department for Transport has chosen to blame human error for the fiasco and admitting that "Independent experts concluded the collapse of the West Coast franchise programme was caused by a number of failures including inadequate planning and weak governance structure, but not systematic failings in the department.” Despite this the DfT has chosen resume the competition for the Essex Thameside (15 years), Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise (7 years), while suspending the completion for the Great Western franchise.
The collapse of the West Coast Main Line franchise deal which MPs said was the result of "irresponsible decisions" and "major failures" on the part of the DfT and the civil service people may wonder whether the rail franchise system is fit for purpose. Interestingly enough back in July 2009, the then New Labour government stepped in to run a failing private rail franchise - the East Coast Rail Service - which was a polite way to effectively nationalise it, because National Express was in difficulty. National Express also ran the Stanstead Express, East Anglia and c2c - but walked away from running the East Coast Service (which it operated as standalone company, NXEC) yet got to carry on running those bits of the network it could squeeze a profit from?
All of this nonsense is carried on at our expense. Clearly the rail franchise system is no longer working as envisaged when the railways were broken up privatised. It’s time to do something different and to run our railways on a not-for-distributable-profit basis, so that profits would be ring fenced for reinvestment in rail services rather than pumping up the profits and the dividends.
This announcement follows the news that the competition to run the Great Western rail franchise between south Wales and London is being scrapped. This follows advice from the Chair of Eurostar Richard Brown who has been investigating the collapse of the West Coast Main Line franchise deal. Back in March (2012) FirstGroup, National Express, Stagecoach, and Arriva (part of Deutsche Bahn) were all short-listed for the Great Western franchise.
The UK Transport Secretary (Patrick McLoughlin) is looking to negotiate an interim franchise of at least two years with current operator FirstGroup. In a Parliamentary statement, the UK Transport Secretary announced that he would begin "a more fundamental review of the franchise proposition, recognising that this is a large and complex franchise which will need to manage service delivery whilst the route is electrified and new rolling stock is introduced."
A parliamentary report into the collapse of the West Coast Main line franchise deal, was not unanimous, several committee members markedly choose not to blame government ministers. The report which scrutinised the scrapping of the £5 billion pound franchise revealed that the decision cost around £50 million pounds of public money.
The Department for Transport has chosen to blame human error for the fiasco and admitting that "Independent experts concluded the collapse of the West Coast franchise programme was caused by a number of failures including inadequate planning and weak governance structure, but not systematic failings in the department.” Despite this the DfT has chosen resume the competition for the Essex Thameside (15 years), Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise (7 years), while suspending the completion for the Great Western franchise.
The collapse of the West Coast Main Line franchise deal which MPs said was the result of "irresponsible decisions" and "major failures" on the part of the DfT and the civil service people may wonder whether the rail franchise system is fit for purpose. Interestingly enough back in July 2009, the then New Labour government stepped in to run a failing private rail franchise - the East Coast Rail Service - which was a polite way to effectively nationalise it, because National Express was in difficulty. National Express also ran the Stanstead Express, East Anglia and c2c - but walked away from running the East Coast Service (which it operated as standalone company, NXEC) yet got to carry on running those bits of the network it could squeeze a profit from?
All of this nonsense is carried on at our expense. Clearly the rail franchise system is no longer working as envisaged when the railways were broken up privatised. It’s time to do something different and to run our railways on a not-for-distributable-profit basis, so that profits would be ring fenced for reinvestment in rail services rather than pumping up the profits and the dividends.
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