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Today just about everybody gets poorer – politicalbetting.com
Today just about everybody gets poorer – politicalbetting.com
Above are just six the latest front pages which focus on what looks set to be a hugely difficult period for the government as the cost of a lot of things goes up sharply and, of course, take home drops because of the rise in National Insurance levels.
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That's where the value lies. Blue Meanies ain't dead yet, at least in England.
Zelenskyy fires 2 senior members of national security on the ground.
Andriy Naumov- former head SBU main dept of internal security
Serhiy Kryvoruchko-former head of SBU in Kherson Oblast
"I do not have time to deal with all the traitors but they will gradually all be punished"
https://twitter.com/OlgaNYC1211/status/1509731870677868547?t=C0XWMkhKWaNnoMnOgu0s4Q&s=19
Who'd have thought it?
There are, of course, big external factors but that's not the whole story. Boris Johnson is a spendthrift and we have witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of a high tax high spend Conservative Government.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/01/russians-fled-chernobyl-with-radiation-sickness-says-ukraine-as-iaea-investigates
The thing about war is people will believe any old bullshit. Remember when people thought they knew that Bin Laden lived in a vast underground supervillain's lair? Apparently western intelligence knew all the details of this, except for where he was.
https://twitter.com/shockproofbeats/status/1509472667065274370?t=hvXUOeZySSZbD1YvgbH8_Q&s=19
They are fighting a defensive war. They are under siege and the enemy has made multiple attempts to kill him. No other country has seriously come to their rescue. They have been left alone to fight one of the worlds biggest armies.
There is pressure to concede to the enemy in 'peace' talks. Factionalism and paranoia is inevitable.
It isn't even worth seriously questioning, in my view.
To suggest that Zelensky is an authoritarian is to peddle a Russian talking point.
We are moving into the realms of North Korean levels of deference.
1. I think most of the seats up for grabs are in strong Labour areas so less scope for big gains.
2. There is some mitigation in the budget especially for core Tory vote.
3. The polls have, thus far, tightened a little.
4. Local by-election results generally not brilliant for Labour for several weeks now.
5. A suggestion in the Grauniad last week that Labour pessimistic in Sunderland!
Overall I'd expect a mixed night if the polls were tomorrow. Today's headlines are bad but who lnows what they'll be in a few weeks. As ever the big trick for the parties is to manage expectations - not clear that the header today has done that very well for the reds.
It is hard to see how the sanctions on Russia, and the net zero/green stuff, can survive. They will last for a while, because of the political consensus on these issues. But the costs are largely borne by low income households.
In response [to his maintaining his ties with Putin and Russia], Schröder’s entire office staff resigned and he has been stripped of honorary citizenship of his home city of Hanover — a punishment it last meted out, posthumously, to Adolf Hitler.
https://www.ft.com/content/b445d9b7-7c35-4f64-8bb5-d76a5393212f
It's not just about the climate, it's about becoming more energy independent.
And right now, the best way to lower medium term energy prices is probably to commit to a big green energy source like... oohhh... tidal*.
* I am not as optimistic as one poster (who may be slightly conflicted) on the cost of tidal in the UK. But I suspect it will be both more reliable and cheaper than Hinckley Point C.
Obviously one of the aims of Russian propoganda is to undermine Zelensky and western support for him.
Indeed the high gas prices are seen as an opportunity to speed up the transition as it makes green energy more cost effective and the payback quicker.
We will simply see measures to mitigate for the poorest in society to make it look like they are doing something.
As far as the ambassadors go, they were I believe sacked for ineffectiveness. That's simply an executive decision.
Who knows about the intelligence officers - though given the last decade or so if Ukraine history, it's almost certainly that Russia does have assets in such departments.
Of course the Russians are the bad guys here and the Ukrainians on the side of right but that does not mean we should simply ignore any concerns we have with Zelenskyy and his govt.
Calling it out is not being a shill for Putin
We're getting closer to the holy grail of fusion reactors: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60312633
In the meantime we build towards greener and more sustainable, less climate impacting, energy.
And a word to my Green friends: there is no more naturally occurring form of energy in the universe than nuclear fission and fusion. And they are incredibly energy efficient. It's by far the most energy efficient source that there is: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nuclear-power-most-reliable-energy-source-and-its-not-even-close
You just have to do your damnedest to make sure it doesn't leak.
But sanctions are about reducing Russia's capacity to sustain extended warfare, and are as much part of the solution as they are the problem.
And it illustrates just how vulnerable we all are to energy price shocks - something renewables are pretty well immune to.
Has he actually had them arrested, or just dismissed? If the latter, maybe again we should remember most of the senior officers of the Russian Army and intelligence service are currently mysteriously absent from their posts.
If of course he's arrested them for telling him facts about the current Russian position he doesn't like, that's altogether different.
Ukraine is a post Soviet society, with a lot of corrupt oligarchs. I support Ukrainian aspiration to join the EU and become a full liberal democracy with open honest economy, but quite a long way still to go before that goal.
Meanwhile, wind is currently accounting for 24% of energy generation right now. We could expand that and burn significantly less gas.
Kherson should have been untakeable given there are only two bridges across a massive river to het to it
It's unclear exactly why the generals were sacked, but the were said to have 'violated their oaths' , and named as 'traitors'.
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3445232-zelensky-says-two-generals-who-turned-out-to-be-traitors-stripped-of-their-rank.html
I don't think we'll know much more until they face trial - or don't.
Zelensky appears to have happily devolved the management of fighting to the defence ministry and the armed forces, so doesn't thus far appear to be a nascent autocrat - and has referred several times to the responsibility of his successors - so I'm inclined for now to give him the benefit of the doubt.
And I don't think Ukraine would tolerate an autocrat anyway.
But it is an entirely legitimate concern.
Authoritarian is what we see in Russia - these people would have mysteriously fallen out of a window or accidentally stabbed themselves 40 times while shaving etc instead.
Sustaining fusion is the problem.
Lagoons, tidal waves, and nuclear projects are expensive and long-term, so a government has to splurge out billions with no payback in the current electoral cycle. That money could be used to make life easier for voters. The opposition, if elected next time, receive the pay-back.
I don't remember calls for the government to give the electorate bribes in 1973. It was blamed on the Arabs not whoever was in power at the time. The Green agenda will cause problems in the future but they will accept no blame. It's for your own good, you see.
Short-termism was always the real problem, and there's no obvious solution. Fusion will be the future. If the Sun can do it, we will eventually. But it's radioactive, innit. All that nasty helium! It's a chemical, you know.
The test of whether the experience of war has turned Zelenskyy into an authoritarian will come when the war ends, or enters a quieter, chronic phase. It's a test I expect him, and wider Ukrainian society, to pass.
Do we risk ending up with it being lawful for the NHS to perform massive drug, counselling and surgery led changes to a person physically, while at the same time making it doubtful whether a parent or a religious gathering can pray that some bloke will fancy some nice girl rather than some nice boy?
Also remember that in most forms of proposed fusion reactor (aside from aneutronic ones), the high-energy neutrons released means that the rector itself becomes radioactive over time.
A fusion reactor may well be much 'safer' if it goes wrong than a fission one. Maybe. We cannot say how much safer until we have finalised designs. They are certainly not 'entirely safe'.
Sadly, we need to get storage sorted.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/31/boris-johnson-ditches-plans-for-ban-on-lgbt-conversion-practices
'ITV News UK editor Paul Brand tweeted that the prime minister had “changed his mind” after seeing the reaction to the earlier announcement. In a move unlikely to end the controversy, Brand said the legislation would cover “only gay conversion therapy, not trans”.'
And we used to complain about Mr Blair basing his policy on focus grouping ...
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/29/2088926/-Ukraine-update-How-did-Kherson-fall-so-quickly-Betrayal-looks-like-a-good-bet
If it was incompetence then the incompetence is so large the people responsible needed to be removed.
Now, sure, there isn't the risk of a meltdown, but there are a lot of moderately scary containment problems with fusion, and the issue of neutron radiation damage to... well.. everything nearby.
Fission reactors are relative safe in getting them to orbit, as if they get destroyed on launch, all you get is some 'clean' uranium of plutonium scattered about - and you can protect those bits. The problem is after the reactor has been used, when the whole darned thing is a mess of nasty decay products, and the satellite itself mildly glows green (*)
Just read up on Kosmos 954:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954
I'm for using fission reactors on deep-space missions or on Mars, or the Moon. I think having them working in orbit is a no-no.
(*) Not really.
Both LibDem to Green, and Green to LibDem are likely to remain legal, but the jury is still out on whether conversion to Reform will be banned.
I wonder if we're underestimating this.
Build large amounts of extra wind turbines, and we would then start to generate a surplus that could be stored.
Errr... come to mention it...
Storage is key. Because that enables you to overbuild wind, solar, and tidal, knowing that excess power can be safely stored somewhere.
I've always been a big fan of CAES.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-60417156
And that's a big issue with any power source dependent on massive containment structures, because funnelling those neutrons away from structural elements is an extremely difficult challenge.
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1509754185427959808
In this second video you can see four missiles being fired - with the second two leading to the big explosion and fire.
https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1509751226392584192
Edit: And these are thought to be the helicopters responsible. https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1509764935567519756
There are loads of these videos. So many cameras in a modern war. https://twitter.com/L_Team10/status/1509761638454505481
Fail to plan = plan to fail. However, I'm not sure that we can 'store' enough electricity, other than in giant, and I mean giant, batteries. Is it possible? Quite willing to be convinced, or to be pointed to somewhere which can convince me.
I can't see any reason not to have them in orbit, especially medium or high orbit. A meltdown 1000 miles up isn't going to be risky down here? I expect we will eventually build nuclear power stations on the moon etc. too.
Fusion is an incredible energy source which may yet get us to the stars.
But if you were the only 1 out of 4 not to quit wouldn’t you look bad? And if 2 were quitting wouldn’t you want to make a stand and join them?
That's why they wanted to ditch the whole thing to begin with, so they wouldn't have to write the hole hypocritical mess.
https://twitter.com/RavetsU/status/1509783977699201033?s=20&t=x0VbWneGr-NTBgyLGyk0Fw
Cui bono?
The large scale and continuing protests in Kherson and other towns in the oblast do seem to show which way the people jumped.
But you wouldn't want it to be a regular occurance.
Measuring deaths per trillion Kilowatt-hour nuclear fission (even including Fukushima and the worst possible estimate for Chernobyl) has a historical mortality rate of 90 deaths per trillion kWh.
Wind power by contrast had a death tally of 150 deaths per trillion kWh.
Tidal power for what its worth had a death tally of 1400 per trillion kWh, while coal was 100,000 (!)
Problems with dealing with uranium fuel in fission reactors make them orders of magnitude more problematic than fusion reactors from a safety point of view.
The situation in Ukraine is a bit like having Wayne Couzens in your house raping and killing your family for a month whilst the police decide whether they can risk 'provoking' the perpetrator by intervening. Obviously you would start to go a bit mad after 4 weeks.
What would really get on your nerves in this situation is someone two thousand miles away, in a completely safe country, start to question your decision making - implying that actually, both sides have flaws - and that you yourself are not 'beyond criticism'.
If the person in the 'safe' country making the criticisms was a supporter of the Green Party policy on defence - this would be a major aggravating factor, in my view.
You can't totally rule out a false flag but when Putin does this kind of thing he doesn't appear to be particularly subtle, you'd think he'd go for a home for disabled kittens or something rather than a useful military target.
Nuclear fusion = the holy grail. Think of the sun.
Nuclear fission = 93% (but this is capacity and thermal efficiency is closer to 40%)
Geothermal = hotly (ho ho) contested figures ranging from 90% to 20%
Hydropower - 40%
Natural gas = 40% but it rapes the earth (my viewpoint). It's a finite source.
Coal 30% (ditto)
Wind 30%
Solar 20% (but constantly improving and some new almost paint-on panels for windows are coming)
The remarkable thing is how they can each do the job- we don't have a better material for holding loads up than wood by many metrics. But our approach and attitude needs to be different in each case.
Oh, and in Gordon's words, hardly anyone in the steel business ever seems to be happy.
But you're not going to see large amounts of storage on the grid until there is demand for it. There is no point in time-shifting wind energy from a windy day to a calm day at the moment, because all the wind energy can be used on the windy day, and we have other sources of supply for the calm day - so storing some of the energy to use on the calm day would introduce inefficiencies and extra cost.
But we are planning and making preparations, and so I am confident that we will be able to install the storage when it is required.
We're also likely to see lots of people with batteries at home to store electricity. A battery the same size as the battery in your car (when you have an electric car) will store enough electricity for about a week's worth of electricity usage, for the average home.
You don't need one large battery if you can have millions of batteries in people's homes. But you'd probably have some large battery facilities too.
Simply, what are the wind deaths? I mean you have to assume things about the manufacturing risks (and the costs associate with component risks), in which case are you making the same assumptions about nuclear plants, nuclear fuel, the mining of uranium, and its enrichment.
I don't mind wind power but it's not the greatest thing if you're being authentic about green life.
- 80% of people believe the Govt is not doing enough on energy bills
- 67% believe Rishi Sunak is "out of touch"
All the numbers and the key quotes from the morning round here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/04/01/boris-johnson-news-partygate-fines-iran-debt-ukraine-energy/