The Edinburgh Evening News is reporting that the UK government has developed its plans for dealing with the energy crisis this winter, and it is reminiscent of the rationing from World War II. It has been known for quite a while that rationing was likely, but the plans for how to implement it have been finalized.

Britons should prepare to lose electricity to their home for as little as 9 hours a week (in 3 hour time blocks) to as much as 45 hours a week (15 three hour time blocks). In the worst case the grid could shut down entirely, providing electricity to only emergency services and other vital industries. It will all depend upon how severe the natural gas shortage is.

The priority will be ensuring that gas is available for heating, with electricity being a lower priority.

The UK government has plans in place which reveal the exact times your house could suffer an electricity blackout this winter. This comes as a result of National Grid warnings of a potential energy crisis that could cripple the country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been accused of sabotaging the Nord Stream pipeline which would subsequently restrict gas supplies to Europe. It is reported that Russia would use this to punish the West for its support of Ukraine. Despite the fact that the UK does not rely on Russian energy supply, it does import sizable amounts of electricity and gas from European countries that do.

National Grid had initially warned blackouts may have to be used, especially during cold nights in January and February 2023, as a matter of conserving the gas of electricity generators. A possible plan, which will include three-hour intervals of no power at UK homes in the winter, has now been released.

Due to the warnings issued by energy officials, the government has revealed plans in place to conserve energy this winter. It is called ‘The Electricity Supply Emergency Code’ which involves a number of rolling blackouts in the country.

The exact amount of disruption caused by natural gas shortages can’t be predicted at this stage, but any level of disruption that includes rolling blackouts is sure to be politically and economically painful. High gas prices, while painful to Britons, have been a fact of life in Europe for a long time. While here in the US high gasoline prices are politically devastating, in Europe they pack less political punch. Not none, but less. But disruptions to electricity supply are another thing again.

John Pettigrew, this week, said electricity and gas may be switched off on “those deepest, darkest evenings in January and February” if energy supplies from Europe prove insufficient due to the disruption of the war in Ukraine….

Mr Pettigrew said January and February are the months when blackouts are most likely, particularly in a cold snap. He said the situation could be even worse if wind speeds happen to be low, cutting the effectiveness of power turbines while energy imports were restricted.

The National Grid assured Britons that it was not changing its “base case” that there would be sufficient gas and power to meet demand in Britain this winter, but due to the consequences of Russia’s war in Ukraine, rolling blackouts are a possibility for the first time since the 1970s amid the coal miners’ strike and the oil crisis.

Modern life is literally impossible without electricity, and rolling blackouts will be a stark reminder of how the societal elites have grossly mismanaged the economy and world affairs. Only so much of the blame can be assigned to Vladimir Putin, give how prominent green energy has been in the plans of Western countries.

If governments have been laser focused on changing the way the grid supplies electricity to consumers, massive failures of the grid can’t be entirely blamed on Putin. They will try, but they will fail. If the disruptions go on for any length of time the mood will turn from shared sacrifice to peasants with pitchforks, and it’s hard to argue that the politicians who have put the populace in this position don’t deserve the blame.

The first stage – Level One – involves UK homes suffering a three-hour electricity blackout three times a week although some load blocks of houses will be ‘lights out’ on four occasions. Most of the cuts will take place at the beginning of the week. For example, Block A households will undergo electricity blackouts on Mondays from 12:30am to 3:30am, on Wednesdays from 3:30pm to 6:30pm and on Sundays from 12:30am to 3:30am.

Even though Level Two will see the number of blackouts double, the National Grid aims to keep them close together. UK homes will be without power six times a week, which amounts to 18 hours of blackouts.

Level Three will see the number of blackouts surge even further, with the number of three-hour cuts increasing by three. This means UK households will suffer 27 hours of power cuts each week.

If the power situation worsens to such a worrying degree, there are further crisis levels in place that could see houses spend more time without power than with it. From Level Five seeing 15 lots of three-hour blackouts per week (45 hours) to Level 18 which will see a complete and utter shutdown or “disconnection” of the UK’s power grid. In this case, protected sites such as hospitals, food manufacturers, oil refineries, ports, essential water and sewage services, major airports and digital telecommunication services will all remain unaffected.

Western governments have engaged in a form of magical thinking in recent years, pretending that converting from fossil fuels to renewable energy was going to be easy and painless. Instead we have seen energy production become more fragile, the grid itself become more brittle, and everything become vastly more expensive. All pain, no gain.

Rather than investing heavily in the most environmentally sound energy source–nuclear power–governments have been pouring money into less reliable energy sources such as wind and solar. Smart people have been shouting from the rooftops for decades that increasing nuclear power generation is both environmentally and economically smart, activists and politicians have pursued the unicorn fart solutions. And here we are.

Natural gas is actually a great fuel, and a good choice for peaking power. But relying on it for base load generation turns out to be risky. The price can be volatile and supplies as well. And throughout Europe there is growing reluctance to extract the fuel. One of the issues that took down Liz Truss was her support for fracking–an obvious near term solution to the energy crisis that still outraged citizens. She unbanned it, but it is now banned again.

There is a natural gas field in The Netherlands that could replace Russian gas if necessary, but the Dutch government insists that they will not increase production and close the field entirely in 2024 due to earthquakes caused by the pumping of the gas.

How long will the Europeans endure the pain of these energy cuts? It’s impossible to say. But one thing is clear: this can’t go on forever. The reality is that Western governments have been living in a fantasy world where there are no real trade-offs. We can turn our backs on things we know work and bet our futures on pie in the sky alternatives. Political upheaval is already gaining steam throughout the continent, and it is going to be a long, cold winter in Europe both for citizens literally and politicians figuratively.

Now that the Ukraine war has caused a shock to the system the piper is demanding his payment, and the costs are going to be a lot steeper for everybody than expected.