On Dec 8, 1:32*pm, Jules Richardson
wrote:
Ouch - 20 seems insane.

It is horrific and likely to be where we get to within about 10yrs.
We have a lot of wind farms to pay for remember... plus their backup
generating plant (!), plus if we DO move to electric cars and we DO
see 200dpb oil then we will need a significant upgrade to the
electrical distribution infrastructure as people move off oil etc.
True electric rechargeable cars would be a nightmare because the grid
is simply not designer for such - including the diversity assumed at
the consumer end re N houses to N 400A supply.

The uncertainty is gas, although LNG has removed a potential
catastrophe there we are still reliant on European & Russian
pipelines. We have too many gas fired power plants due to cheap north
sea gas, we needed nuclear a long time ago - CANDU systems are a world
away from Chernobyl.

For some "overseas comparison", ours averages out to around 6.75 cents/
kWH each month - so around 4.5p. I'm not yet awake enough this morning to
try and tweak that as a proportion of average income, which would
probably paint a fairer picture :-)

Very cheap hence the "electric baseboard heating" in both USA (&
Canada), plus countries have an installed "base" of houses with far
superior levels of insulation to the UK although somewhat negated by
colder temperatures and larger dwellings.