A canine friend can keep you warm this winter
SIR – May I recommend the smooth fox terrier as the green solution to winter weather worries?
If one is popped under the duvet for 10 minutes before bedtime, everything becomes super-cosy without the need to draw on electricity. The only downside is that, with three of the mutts and a wife who likes to retire early, I am frequently exiled to another (unwarmed) bed.
Tim Wright
Rampisham, Dorset
SIR – According to the National Grid, at 2.30pm on Sunday the electricity demand was 39.6 gigawatts and the generation was 33.3 gigawatts.
The demand was balanced by transfers from the EU. Just over 60 per cent of generation was supplied by fossil fuels, 18.7 per cent by nuclear and biomass, and 5.2 per cent by renewables. Coal generated 3.3 per cent and wind 3.1. The cost of generation was 42p per kwh.
I am not a Luddite. I installed 18 solar panels (mostly Chinesemanufactured) in August that have produced between 1.2 and 38 kwh per day, and my electricity supplier will pay a “generous” 3.5p per kwh for any excess electricity supplied to the grid.
I am aware that wind produced 20.9 gigawatts on one day in November; however, on Sunday it produced 1.21 gigawatts. Wind is an unreliable source of generation. Politicians of all parties need to stop gaslighting the public and acknowledge that our electricity supply and demand are at a critical juncture. Britain will need gas to balance the demand for at least a decade, otherwise the lights will go out.
Colin Seymour
Skegness, Lincolnshire
SIR – I wonder if Ambrose Evanspritchard is being a little hasty in his dismissal of the Cumbrian coal mine as economic and diplomatic idiocy (Business, December 9).
As late as November 2021, Oxford Energy Society estimated that 79.8 per cent of UK steel was produced using the blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace method, which uses coking coal to produce coke.
In any case, there are alternative uses for such coal deposits, underground coal gasification being one example. Opinions vary as to how significant the environmental impacts are, and the various options should be subject to meticulous, unbiased analysis.
It is interesting to note that the drive for developing these technologies further was undermined by the availability of cheap gas and electricity – hardly the situation we find ourselves in today and unlikely to change for some time to come.
Nigel Mckie
Helston, Cornwall
SIR – Is it too much to hope that the cold weather and high fuel costs will send people back to work, to luxuriate in the warmth that the boss is paying for?
Janet Harris
Adelaide, Australia