[ROCKMAN]

d - Set me straight if this isn't correct but over the years I've seen many stories as to how poorly Brit homes are insulated. If so that's could be the silver lining to a bad situation. Even if it meant the govt/utilities paying for it there would seem to be a very quick and relatively cheap approach to decreasing the ff footprint. Or were all those stories just exaggerations?

[dolanbaker]

RM, The UK has some of the oldest housing in the world and until the 1970s none of them had any insulation of any kind. Since then almost all have had various retrofits of differing levels of insulation but many are still at what would be considered to be minimum levels required to make the houses saleable.

Very few houses have been built that exceed the insulation standards of the day, this means that many houses build in the 1990s still have the minimum that was required then. Government sponsored insulation of housing would go a long way to reducing the energy demands in the country.

This also applies to housing in Ireland which is even worse than the UK in this respect.

[ROCKMAN]

"Britain signed a deal with France's EDF to build a 16-billion pound nuclear plant, the first European country to offer state guarantees in order to fund a nuclear project.
The Hinkley Point C project in southwest England, the first new nuclear plant in Europe since the Fukushima disaster, is expected to start producing power from 2023. The government will guarantee it a price of up to 92.50 pounds per megawatt-hour of electricity for 35 years, more than twice the current market rate, EDF and the British government said on Monday."

Twice the current market rate? Might be a good deal in...10 years. I also wonder if they'll put the back up generators in the basement to save money.

[Shaved Monkey]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')alnutrition cases in English hospitals almost double in five years


The shocking impact of recession and austerity on England’s poorest people has come to light again in figures showing the number of malnutrition cases treated at NHS hospitals has nearly doubled since the economic downturn.

Primary and secondary diagnoses of malnutrition – caused by lack of food or very poor diet – rose from 3,161 in 2008/09 to 5,499 last year, according to figures released by the health minister Norman Lamb.

While the data does not include information on the circumstances of each diagnosis, the rise coincides with a dramatic increase in the cost of living, and a spike in demand for charity food hand-outs.

The figures, broken down by region, reveal the heaviest burden of hunger is being felt in rural areas.

[americandream]

A combination of all 3.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shaved Monkey', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')alnutrition cases in English hospitals almost double in five years


The shocking impact of recession and austerity on England’s poorest people has come to light again in figures showing the number of malnutrition cases treated at NHS hospitals has nearly doubled since the economic downturn.

Primary and secondary diagnoses of malnutrition – caused by lack of food or very poor diet – rose from 3,161 in 2008/09 to 5,499 last year, according to figures released by the health minister Norman Lamb.

While the data does not include information on the circumstances of each diagnosis, the rise coincides with a dramatic increase in the cost of living, and a spike in demand for charity food hand-outs.

The figures, broken down by region, reveal the heaviest burden of hunger is being felt in rural areas.

[ROCKMAN]

Who is getting what piece of the British energy “pie”? Sounds like British O&G has been a fat cash cow for the govt:

Oil & Gas UK has hit back at a UK parliamentary committee that called on the country's government to "reduce the proportion of overall energy subsidies that support fossil fuels", arguing that the industry is not at all a beneficiary of subsidies since it is subject to the highest rates of corporate taxes that the country imposes. In a report into energy subsidies published Monday, the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee warned the government not to weaken its commitment to eliminate fuel poverty as it prepares to make changes to green levies that fund energy efficiency improvements for the UK's poorest households. But the committee also recommended the government should "reduce the proportion of overall energy subsidies that support fossil fuels in order to reinforce the need to cut the emissions causing climate change".

Commenting on her committee's recommendation, Joan Walley said the government must set a target to reduce subsidies to harmful fossil fuels." Wednesday saw the UK's oil and gas industry blast the parliamentary committee's comments via trade body Oil & Gas UK. Pointing out that production of offshore oil and gas in the UK is subject to the country's highest corporate taxes, ranging from 62 to 81 percent, Oil & Gas UK CEO Malcolm Webb said in a statement: "It is disingenuous and misleading of politicians to suggest that the offshore oil and gas industry has been a recipient of subsidies. The truth is that over the past 40 years more than $492 billion of private capital has been invested and a further $295 billion paid in operating expenses in order to produce over 41 billion barrels of oil and gas for the UK, on which over $508 billion of production taxes have been paid to the Exchequer. The Exchequer has further benefited (this year alone by approximately $8.2 billion from the Income Tax and National Insurance Contributions paid by the 450,000 people in the UK for whom this industry provides employment.