Shortages, Freight, Shipping and the Medium Term

[Scotty]

I spend half my day dealing with businesses in NI. None of them have a problem with the protocol. They have the best of both worlds and they know it.

What negative effect on everyday life is he referring to?

[JONJO THE MISER]

A certain food product I always buy in M&S has gone from 2.30 to 2.90, won't be buying it any longer.
I noticed last week there was a load of reduced stuff in the store going off that day, way more than usual.

[isha]

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-gas ... ce=twitter

90% of petrol stations ran dry in major UK cities

[CelticRambler]

[isha]

Can you drive a lorry?

[schmittel]

Can you drive a lorry?

[isha]

[CelticRambler]

Can you drive a lorry?

Stop the thread, I wanna get off!

[isha]

Stop the thread, I wanna get off!

Here's a funny thing though, when I was a small girl my BURNING ambition above all else was to be a truck driver. That, or a tap dancer. I can do neither now, unfortunately. I would be in big demand - imagine, a tap dancing trucker! - I really missed my calling

[schmittel]

Here's a funny thing though, when I was a small girl my BURNING ambition above all else was to be a truck driver. That, or a tap dancer. I can do neither now, unfortunately. I would be in big demand - imagine, a tap dancing trucker! - I really missed my calling

Joking aside I think therein lies the problem - the age profile of lorry drivers. A few years ago, little boys, (and yes it was predominantly little boys), would dream of growing up to be a truck driver.

Nowadays they'd rather be influencers.

[490808]

Just had a call from the UK from the company that provides at home care for my mother. They have always had staff shortages, covid made that much worse, covid also increased the load on the system as more people needed care at home, then Boris decided that all care workers had to vaccinated (from November) and now there are genuine fuel shortages in some areas. The result they can't provide the care they have contracted to do fully.

[CelticRambler]

Joking aside I think therein lies the problem - the age profile of lorry drivers. A few years ago, little boys, (and yes it was predominantly little boys), would dream of growing up to be a truck driver.

Nowadays they'd rather be influencers.

Well, it's a bit more than that. Yeah, sure, there are lads (and a lot of lasses) who'd rather set themselves up as influencers and be burnt out after five years than have a "proper" job; but there's also something of a paradox between regulating an industry sufficiently to protect those who work in it and killing off that industry because of regulations that make it unattractive.

There's been a lot said and written about the long and unsociable hours expected of truck drivers, but that confounds several different categories of driver. You have the local parcel delivery guys, who are frequently under huge pressure to make all their stops (parcel delivered or not) within a certain time and for very little money; they've generally got the worst conditions. Then you have those who are employed by one company to do regular rounds of shops, offices, hospitals, farms, bins, etc; for the most part, they have as good and as steady a job as anyone working at a desk.

And then you have the long(er) distance hauliers, where you have a wide variety of characters, and where the one-size-fits-all regulations are as much of a disincentive to some as a protection to others. For many of these drivers, what they most want is to drive, and limits on hours per week or obligatory breaks at defined times make their experience worse rather than better. This article (in French) describes one such Frenchman who's emigrated to Canada precisely because he could drive longer distances without enforced stops than he could in Europe. I understand his attitude, because I despise the French 35-hour working week and how it curtails my professional energy. In the last five years, the "best" contracts I had were the ones in England where I could work 110 hours in a week, day and night, with nobody getting hauled before a tribunal because of it. Which is how I now find myself in the peculiar position of potentially subcontracting my service to someone who'll do it for 160€/day while I do a few stints in England at 400€/day. Or not - other than the money, there's precious little that'd interest me in England these days; easier to bully my potential employers in France into compacting my 35hours/week into three or four consecutive days.

But working within the rules still allows for a pretty good life for anyone footloose who wants to travel. As I mentioned elsewhere, I regularly meet young lads (almost all from Eastern Europe) parked up in exactly the same scenic, non-touristy places I'm using to break my journeys. The conversations I have with them would be almost identical to those I have with people who roll up in a campervan, the only difference being that I'm usually the only one in a campervan that's still employed. The others are mostly retired, so in a way I have more in common with the Polish guys.

[490808]

I had a tonne of coal delivered recently and was chatting to the driver as I've seen him every year for the past 4 and joked with him that he's still working as a lorry driver. He reckons that his company (working for pallet network) loose about one driver a month and they haven't had any new drivers in years. Over the last few years he's gone from 15 drops a day to 30 which of course is more incentive for him and other drivers to leave.

Edit> Said parcel network ment Pallet Network.

[isha]

Speaking of coal....

India is on the verge of mass power shortages, with the country's power plants running dangerously low on coal.

According to Reuters and The Financial Times, which cited government sources, more than half of India's coal plants will run out of energy by the end of the week.

So, how has the world's second-most populous country reached this point?

Here is a summary of the factors that have led to India's coal shortage.

What are the current stock levels?
As of September 29, 16 of India's 135 coal-fired power plants had zero coal stocks, according to the Central Electricity Authority (CEA).

More than half of the plants had stocks that would last fewer than three days, while over 80 per cent had less than a week's stock left.

Coal accounts for more than 70 per cent of India's electricity output, and utilities account for about 75 per cent of India's coal consumption.

More at link
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-05/ ... /100516332

[Scotty]

Received the following from one of my Chinese suppliers today...

Dear My friend ,

I’m sorry to inform you that the delivery time will delay because of the government’s policy. Recently, a new policy of electricity restrictions was released. It’s aims at energy saving and emission reduction.

According to it, our factory will shut down for few days a month. Thus, we had to put off the original delivery date.

Hope you could understand. If you had any more order, please order to us earlier. The lead time takes 50-60 days.

China has 49 nuclear power stations already, 17 more under construction, and a further 100 planned. It's hard to believe they're short on power!

[Peregrinus]

The fact that they have 49 in operation but 117 planned but yet to come on stream might suggest, in fact, that they don't yet have the electricity generation capacity that they need.

[Scotty]

The fact that they have 49 in operation but 117 planned but yet to come on stream might suggest, in fact, that they don't yet have the electricity generation capacity that they need.

Indeed, the 117 they have planned are to be completed by 2035. They then intend doubling this again by 2060. Amazingly, their 49 nuclear plants only produce 5% of their energy. Hydro 18% and pretty much the rest by coal (that's a lot of smog!!). 7100 TWh in total.

Irelands total power consumption in 2019 was 31 TWh. We import much of this from the UK (and yes, some of it does come from nuclear) and we'll soon be importing from France too.

[isha]

If you divide 1,400,000,000 by 5,000,000 you get 280 (Pop China/Pop Ireland)
Multiply 31 x 280 you get 8680. Which means we use more energy per capita than China. Which would make sense I think because they have a fairly large population of rural people who have not that many modern conveniences. But it also helps illustrate how massive China's population is. And how much it takes to fuel modern living.

[dawg]

Received the following from one of my Chinese suppliers today...



China has 49 nuclear power stations already, 17 more under construction, and a further 100 planned. It's hard to believe they're short on power!

Mr Musk confirms China short on generating capacity

[Scotty]

If you divide 1,400,000,000 by 5,000,000 you get 280 (Pop China/Pop Ireland)
Multiply 31 x 280 you get 8680. Which means we use more energy per capita than China.

Take the data centres off our total and I wonder how we'd compare?

[isha]

Take the data centres off our total and I wonder how we'd compare?

True.
Comparable to data centres, I have heard though that there are massive bitcoin mining centres in China, some of them in remote places literally plugged right into hydro electric power stations - as far as I know bitcoin mining takes huge energy and China are more into that game than us. Although supposedly they are cracking down on it. Still they do 75% of global bitcoin mining.
I took a day or two to read up on what is bitcoin mining a while ago - It was a bit mind boggling and for goodness sake how it can be portrayed as green tech is beyond me. This is an article about China, energy and bitcoin mining.

https://time.com/6051991/why-china-is-c ... countries/

[dawg]

... I have heard though that there are massive bitcoin mining centres in China, some of them in remote places literally plugged right into hydro electric power stations - as far as I know bitcoin mining takes huge energy and China are more into that game than us. Although supposedly they are cracking down on it. Still they do 75% of global bitcoin mining.
I took a day or two to read up on what is bitcoin mining a while ago - It was a bit mind boggling and for goodness sake how it can be portrayed as green tech is beyond me. This is an article about China, energy and bitcoin mining.

https://time.com/6051991/why-china-is-c ... countries/

I guess thats what Mr Musk was referring to above. He has a gift for understatement

[Scotty]

ffs, the Brits are warning the public not to panic buy again. Did they not learn anything last week??

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2021/1 ... ort-chaos/

[JONJO THE MISER]

China is now importing electricity from North Korea.
There are rolling blackouts across the country, with some factories only allowed to habe the lights on 10 days a month.

[Del.Monte]

They have electricity in North Korea? I learn something new every day.