Contingencies

Like back in 2017 when sudden snow cancelled my flight to St Petersburg and I got stuck in Docklands, Britain again seems surprised by the occurrence of “winter” with hundreds of flights cancelled, trains delayed, and schools closed. Being dependent on unreliable wind energy for a large share of its electricity supply, National Grid is now warming up its “coal contingency units” as electricity prices are spiking and thousands of old people are at risk of dying from energy poverty. Meanwhile, in France, chronic underinvestment in its ageing fleet of nuclear reactors has meant unusually low capacity factors this winter, turning the country from a net exporter to a net importer of electricity, leading to further fossil backsliding. All in all, I guess, the owl of Minerva really does not fly until dusk.

As for flying, I was scheduled to fly down to Stockholm with SK2023 later today, but SAS cancelled my flight so, instead, I got to spend a surprise hotel night in Umeå before getting up at 4 am to check in manually at the airport (due to problems with the travel agent booking) for the very first flight of the day. At least I was treated to some very nice aircraft spotting as I boarded Auisle Viking in a balmy -13 degrees.