The most astonishing figure of the day is German producer prices. Up more than five per cent on the month. Up more than thirty five per cent on the year!
Anybody remember what happened the last time the Germans had rampant inflation....?
Wheelbarrow sales went through the roof. But that was before contactless.
We can only imagine the atmosphere at what remains of the Bundesbank. Inflationary control was their iron rule.
They refused point blank to cut rates when Ken Clark went cap in hand to them during the EMS crisis.
Do you mean Norman Lamont?
Lamont was chancellor, indeed, but I think I remember the Bundesbank guy saying it was Clark who actually appeared before him in person.
Clark become chancellor later in the parliament, and very good he was, too.
Why would it be the Home Secretary? Unless it was a personal touch but it seems a bit unlikely.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Rooftops, especially if they're not South-facing, may not always be the best option though.
But surely it comes down to personal choice? If a firm like Amazon wants to install solar then that should be their choice and they should be able to do so.
If a farmer wants to install solar, then that should be their choice, and why should they be denied that choice while Amazon get to choose to do so?
Good points.
Because we a country not a simple collection of individuals, and it is quite appropriate that the country has a say in land usage which will preserve its security, and meet its objectives.
In the UK's case, two particular current pressures are limited land and food security, plus of course recreation resources, so it is reasonable to have some general principles of land use and let free markets work within that regulation. AFAIK every country in the world has some form of control on land use.
why should they be denied that choice while Amazon get to choose to do so?
Because a warehouse roof is not the same as an agricultural field. Two different contexts.
On the South Facing roofs point, most eg warehouse roods or airfields are essentially flat these days, so you can technically point them wherever you want. Or indeed make them sun-seeking for maximum output if the numbers work taking into account the extra gubbins required, and the energy need.
My solar panels face East (70%) and West (30%). I'm in the process of adjusting that to be E 30%, S 40%, W 30% for better performance throughout the year - which will require a new veranda.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Sheep are quite happy to wonder in and around solar panels.
Wondering "WTF? Give me some proper pasture, not a place that has been engineered by computers to absorb as much of the grass-growing sunlight as it possible...."
The sheep are probably glad of the shade on hot days.
As is the grass- it grows best around 20 degrees, and exposure to full summer sun takes it way beyond that.
Light is far from the only limiting factor for photosynthesis- otherwise houseplants wouldn't be happy.
The people who don't like solar farms are those who either a) want to discredit solar power full stop, or b) think it spoils the view from the kitchen of Ye Olde Farmhouse or on their country walks.
And whilst I'm not full-on Libertarian "do what you like with your land", you need better arguments than that.
Again: I look at a fairfew of these things. What you claim may happen in foreign parts, not here. They are all at ground level and fenced like Colditz.
This report has some good pictures, including outbuildings and fences required:
The most astonishing figure of the day is German producer prices. Up more than five per cent on the month. Up more than thirty five per cent on the year!
Anybody remember what happened the last time the Germans had rampant inflation....?
Wheelbarrow sales went through the roof. But that was before contactless.
We can only imagine the atmosphere at what remains of the Bundesbank. Inflationary control was their iron rule.
They refused point blank to cut rates when Ken Clark went cap in hand to them during the EMS crisis.
Do you mean Norman Lamont?
Lamont was chancellor, indeed, but I think I remember the Bundesbank guy saying it was Clark who actually appeared before him in person.
Clark become chancellor later in the parliament, and very good he was, too.
Ken Clarke became Chancellor in a government with no economic policy at all after the ERM debacle.
What the Rishi move is really all about. Further evidence of how shit he is at politics and how good Liz is (if not at anything else).
Agrivoltaics (sheepies n crops co existing with panels) is a complete red herring, because it doesn't happen here. Possibly great in theory, say in countries where crops benefit from shade over noon, but depends on panels being at head height. They are all at ground level here.
So yes, objected to by contemptible NIMBY scum objecting to "views", not the farmer with the land.
NIMBY fuckwits really are a pox upon this country.
You are lovely when you are angry.
The thing is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. your unlimited immigration stance tends to increase the value of your house. You can't take your "assume maximum bad faith" stance against others, and claim immunity yourself.
Parasite.
Oh and by the way, unlimited development everywhere on balance increases the value of my house as people flee to the comparative protection of the national parks, so I would scarcely be against it for that reason. And secondly there *is* development even here, and near me, and in 30 years do you know how many proposals I have objected to or petitioned against? Guess.
The most astonishing figure of the day is German producer prices. Up more than five per cent on the month. Up more than thirty five per cent on the year!
Anybody remember what happened the last time the Germans had rampant inflation....?
Wheelbarrow sales went through the roof. But that was before contactless.
We can only imagine the atmosphere at what remains of the Bundesbank. Inflationary control was their iron rule.
They refused point blank to cut rates when Ken Clark went cap in hand to them during the EMS crisis.
Do you mean Norman Lamont?
Lamont was chancellor, indeed, but I think I remember the Bundesbank guy saying it was Clark who actually appeared before him in person.
Clark become chancellor later in the parliament, and very good he was, too.
Ken Clarke became Chancellor in a government with no economic policy at all after the ERM debacle.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Sheep are quite happy to wonder in and around solar panels.
Wondering "WTF? Give me some proper pasture, not a place that has been engineered by computers to absorb as much of the grass-growing sunlight as it possible...."
The sheep are probably glad of the shade on hot days.
As is the grass- it grows best around 20 degrees, and exposure to full summer sun takes it way beyond that.
Light is far from the only limiting factor for photosynthesis- otherwise houseplants wouldn't be happy.
The people who don't like solar farms are those who either a) want to discredit solar power full stop, or b) think it spoils the view from the kitchen of Ye Olde Farmhouse or on their country walks.
And whilst I'm not full-on Libertarian "do what you like with your land", you need better arguments than that.
Again: I look at a fairfew of these things. What you claim may happen in foreign parts, not here. They are all at ground level and fenced like Colditz.
In which case, a fairly obvious solution presents itself. (Guessing, putting the panels low down is done to reduce the visual blight.)
Cheaper. Why put a heavy windcatching thing on stilts if you don't have to?
But you can't retrofit this, so why are new applications not subject to a sheep may safely graze clause?
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Sheep are quite happy to wonder in and around solar panels.
Wondering "WTF? Give me some proper pasture, not a place that has been engineered by computers to absorb as much of the grass-growing sunlight as it possible...."
The sheep are probably glad of the shade on hot days.
As is the grass- it grows best around 20 degrees, and exposure to full summer sun takes it way beyond that.
Light is far from the only limiting factor for photosynthesis- otherwise houseplants wouldn't be happy.
The people who don't like solar farms are those who either a) want to discredit solar power full stop, or b) think it spoils the view from the kitchen of Ye Olde Farmhouse or on their country walks.
And whilst I'm not full-on Libertarian "do what you like with your land", you need better arguments than that.
Again: I look at a fairfew of these things. What you claim may happen in foreign parts, not here. They are all at ground level and fenced like Colditz.
Not sure how intensively grazed though - one case study speaks of "more than 20 geese" (so probably <25) on a 4 hectare site. Anecdotally, there are solar panels on a farm near us, which are at ground level and grazed by sheep, but I don't know how many sheep or what impact the panels have on that (observed on a walk a few weeks back).
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Sheep are quite happy to wonder in and around solar panels.
Wondering "WTF? Give me some proper pasture, not a place that has been engineered by computers to absorb as much of the grass-growing sunlight as it possible...."
The sheep are probably glad of the shade on hot days.
As is the grass- it grows best around 20 degrees, and exposure to full summer sun takes it way beyond that.
Light is far from the only limiting factor for photosynthesis- otherwise houseplants wouldn't be happy.
The people who don't like solar farms are those who either a) want to discredit solar power full stop, or b) think it spoils the view from the kitchen of Ye Olde Farmhouse or on their country walks.
And whilst I'm not full-on Libertarian "do what you like with your land", you need better arguments than that.
Again: I look at a fairfew of these things. What you claim may happen in foreign parts, not here. They are all at ground level and fenced like Colditz.
This report has some good pictures, including outbuildings and fences required:
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Rooftops, especially if they're not South-facing, may not always be the best option though.
But surely it comes down to personal choice? If a firm like Amazon wants to install solar then that should be their choice and they should be able to do so.
If a farmer wants to install solar, then that should be their choice, and why should they be denied that choice while Amazon get to choose to do so?
Good points.
Because we a country not a simple collection of individuals, and it is quite appropriate that the country has a say in land usage which will preserve its security, and meet its objectives.
In the UK's case, two particular current pressures are limited land and food security, plus of course recreation resources, so it is reasonable to have some general principles of land use and let free markets work within that regulation. AFAIK every country in the world has some form of control on land use.
why should they be denied that choice while Amazon get to choose to do so?
Because a warehouse roof is not the same as an agricultural field. Two different contexts.
On the South Facing roofs point, most eg warehouse roods or airfields are essentially flat these days, so you can technically point them wherever you want. Or indeed make them sun-seeking for maximum output if the numbers work taking into account the extra gubbins required, and the energy need.
My solar panels face East (70%) and West (30%). I'm in the process of adjusting that to be E 30%, S 40%, W 30% for better performance throughout the year - which will require a new veranda.
If limited land and food security were seriously the issue and not the excuse they really are surely we'd be looking to abolish bio fuels? And reduce the proportion of bio fuels put into Unleaded etc rather than doubling it?
Funny how the NIMBY scum object to electricity being provided instead of food security but don't object to bio fuels being provided instead of food security.
“The approaching tsunami of addictive AI-created content will overwhelm us”
“”Move 37”, as it became known, marked a key moment in machine learning, because it really was a point where the system went beyond what humans could devise.”
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Sheep are quite happy to wonder in and around solar panels.
Absolutely correct, however the shade does reduce the grass growth and therefore the number of sheep. It's a hybrid model a little parallel to hybrid open forest / pasture agricultural systems being explored for the last few years.
There is some interesting stuff about solar panels in drier fields, and whether they can actually help improve the quality of the pasture.
One interesting thing in the news - has anyone else noted the extensive use of linear woodlands (where the forces hide) on the steppe in Ukraine, presumably to abate the wind and help the agriculture?
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Sheep are quite happy to wonder in and around solar panels.
Wondering "WTF? Give me some proper pasture, not a place that has been engineered by computers to absorb as much of the grass-growing sunlight as it possible...."
The sheep are probably glad of the shade on hot days.
As is the grass- it grows best around 20 degrees, and exposure to full summer sun takes it way beyond that.
Light is far from the only limiting factor for photosynthesis- otherwise houseplants wouldn't be happy.
The people who don't like solar farms are those who either a) want to discredit solar power full stop, or b) think it spoils the view from the kitchen of Ye Olde Farmhouse or on their country walks.
And whilst I'm not full-on Libertarian "do what you like with your land", you need better arguments than that.
Again: I look at a fairfew of these things. What you claim may happen in foreign parts, not here. They are all at ground level and fenced like Colditz.
This report has some good pictures, including outbuildings and fences required:
It does. it also supports the thesis that these fields are not in practice grazed and could only in theory be with a lot of retrofitting. The faarmers currently can't be arsed, for a reason.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Sheep are quite happy to wonder in and around solar panels.
Wondering "WTF? Give me some proper pasture, not a place that has been engineered by computers to absorb as much of the grass-growing sunlight as it possible...."
The sheep are probably glad of the shade on hot days.
As is the grass- it grows best around 20 degrees, and exposure to full summer sun takes it way beyond that.
Light is far from the only limiting factor for photosynthesis- otherwise houseplants wouldn't be happy.
The people who don't like solar farms are those who either a) want to discredit solar power full stop, or b) think it spoils the view from the kitchen of Ye Olde Farmhouse or on their country walks.
And whilst I'm not full-on Libertarian "do what you like with your land", you need better arguments than that.
Again: I look at a fairfew of these things. What you claim may happen in foreign parts, not here. They are all at ground level and fenced like Colditz.
In which case, a fairly obvious solution presents itself. (Guessing, putting the panels low down is done to reduce the visual blight.)
Or to reduce the cost of structures.
It's also quite common to use highish hedges to hide the panels.
Outside PB and Twitter no one cares about Brexit. It’s the major issue for about 5-10% of the population - and that is falling
It really is a harvest of misery to care passionately about something - Rejoin - that is vanishingly unlikely in the lifetime of anyone here
Don’t do it
On the contrary.
Polling for Rejoin is very strong. No major party in England will be proposing it in their manifesto for GE 2024, but it cannot be ignored forever.
Sooner or later the fly encrusted unflushable turd of Brexit will be dealt with.
It's funny though as didn't you and other Remoaners used to say that Brexit polled badly because only the unprompted polling mattered? And that forced choice polls weren't significant, the fact that people weren't listing Brexit as an unprompted issue showed it didn't matter?
How is Rejoin polling presently as an issue on unprompted polls?
Video from 2018 of US Embassy staff discussing impact of Brexit and the government’s approach to it. Wish I could be arsed to transcribe the choice lines from it. Worth a watch anyway.
Brexit is never going away, because it will continue to be shit. And an ever increasing percentage of the population will know it’s shit. And there will be political consequences for that. Might take 5 years, might be 10. But they’re coming.
More significantly- look at the age profile of Leave/Remain in 2016 and Good Idea/Bad Idea, and Stay Out/Rejoin now.
Leaving was the idea, mainly, of the retired. Those who were born and grew up in the 1950's, for whom Europe was always a dangerous innovation and a diminution of Britain's proper place in the world. They weren't keen on the EEC in 1975 either, and any explanation of why the UK voted out in 2016 has to take account of that. It's not people become more Eurosceptical as they age, it's that one specific generation have frankly never been keen on the whole shebang.
Whilst wishing them all long and happy lives, that generation (who was it who recently suggested John Lydon as their mascot?) will not be with us forever, and are already beginning to go to that place where there are no Euroreferenda. And unless Brexit goes so brilliantly that minds are changed then the attitude of the UK towards integration with our near neighbours will look rather different in 2026 to 2016, end even more so in 2036. (Hint: so far, hardly anyone's mind is being changed, and what net drift there is is towards the UK having dropped a clanger.)
This isn't about whether continued Brexit, Brapprochment or Brejoin are objectively the right things for the country to do. It's just the numbers of people with different instincts. And that may change, though it's not obvious how, and saying "like what we voted for you, ungrateful children-of-unmarried-parents" won't help, I'm sure.
Though the way that some are triggered by the idea that maybe we're making a mistake that could be reversed in future... sometimes there's a bit of more generalised raging at the dying of the light going on. After all, who wants their entry in the history books to be a massive cockup?
The correlation between Good idea/bad idea and Stay Out/Rejoin is rather weaker than you seem to be assuming.
This looks like the most recent poll on Rejoin/Stay Out. Deltapoll, Mail on Sunday, end of last month;
There is a slice of "we're out, it's a mistake, but it's too late." But that slice is smaller than I thought. And I wouldn't want to do a Euroreferendum on those numbers.
But- to return to my main point- look at that age profile.
Really dislike 65+ as a category. It's simply out of date. Far too large a cohort as a percentage of the population. If you're 65 you're as close to a 35 yo as a 95 yo. .
Not in attitude and interests.
In some ways yes. In others no. You're far closer in terms of computer literacy, being on social media, and music tastes. 65 isn't that old.
Leon is a classic Boomer. Old but clinging to the tastes of his youth.
The most astonishing figure of the day is German producer prices. Up more than five per cent on the month. Up more than thirty five per cent on the year!
Anybody remember what happened the last time the Germans had rampant inflation....?
Wheelbarrow sales went through the roof. But that was before contactless.
We can only imagine the atmosphere at what remains of the Bundesbank. Inflationary control was their iron rule.
They refused point blank to cut rates when Ken Clark went cap in hand to them during the EMS crisis.
Do you mean Norman Lamont?
Lamont was chancellor, indeed, but I think I remember the Bundesbank guy saying it was Clark who actually appeared before him in person.
Clark become chancellor later in the parliament, and very good he was, too.
Why would it be the Home Secretary? Unless it was a personal touch but it seems a bit unlikely.
Yes indeed, but Clark was passionately pro-Europe, and maybe wanted to take a personal hand in trying to rescue the EMS or at least underpin the European project to some extent.
Or maybe I misremembered.
Many who experienced the EMS crisis thought it had put paid to the notion of the euro for good, but along it came anyway.
Still,for me, the whole project has massive flaws, as the ECB's predicament now illustrates. I imagine they'll get through it though, they always do.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Rooftops, especially if they're not South-facing, may not always be the best option though.
But surely it comes down to personal choice? If a firm like Amazon wants to install solar then that should be their choice and they should be able to do so.
If a farmer wants to install solar, then that should be their choice, and why should they be denied that choice while Amazon get to choose to do so?
I'd imagine it is farmers who have been lobbying Rishi and Liz to support agriculture so they do not need to plant solar panels.
Absolutely not. Remember this is pitched at the tory membership only. It's nimbies
Actually short sighted of them, because at least solar is low profile and once a farm is installed, that's that land safe for 40 years
You think farmers in rural constituencies (where the hustings started) are not Conservative members? That they are not worried about the loss of CAP subsidies and the impact of trade deals increasing competition from Australia and in future America? They are not complaining about solar panels, they are complaining (or even threatening) that they may be forced into them if traditional agriculture dies.
That particular scheme sounds under-considered by the promoter.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Sheep are quite happy to wonder in and around solar panels.
Wondering "WTF? Give me some proper pasture, not a place that has been engineered by computers to absorb as much of the grass-growing sunlight as it possible...."
The sheep are probably glad of the shade on hot days.
As is the grass- it grows best around 20 degrees, and exposure to full summer sun takes it way beyond that.
Light is far from the only limiting factor for photosynthesis- otherwise houseplants wouldn't be happy.
The people who don't like solar farms are those who either a) want to discredit solar power full stop, or b) think it spoils the view from the kitchen of Ye Olde Farmhouse or on their country walks.
And whilst I'm not full-on Libertarian "do what you like with your land", you need better arguments than that.
Again: I look at a fairfew of these things. What you claim may happen in foreign parts, not here. They are all at ground level and fenced like Colditz.
In which case, a fairly obvious solution presents itself. (Guessing, putting the panels low down is done to reduce the visual blight.)
Or to reduce the cost of structures.
It's also quite common to use highish hedges to hide the panels.
What the Rishi move is really all about. Further evidence of how shit he is at politics and how good Liz is (if not at anything else).
Agrivoltaics (sheepies n crops co existing with panels) is a complete red herring, because it doesn't happen here. Possibly great in theory, say in countries where crops benefit from shade over noon, but depends on panels being at head height. They are all at ground level here.
So yes, objected to by contemptible NIMBY scum objecting to "views", not the farmer with the land.
NIMBY fuckwits really are a pox upon this country.
Morning all. Just in reports of explosions around Zaporizhzhia, no other details yet. Ukraine's energy people sayuig Russia are planning to disconnect the NPP from the Ukraine grid today, some concern over the spent fuel rods.
The Russians are playing with fire here, both figuratively and literally.
There’s nothing more likely to result in a Western escalation, than a nuclear ‘accident’ at Zaporizhzhia.
If Putin wants to see NATO countries send their armies into Ukraine, he’s going the right way about it.
The theory on the Telegraph Ukraine podcast yesterday was that Putin likes to provoke these crises so that he can gain leverage/kudos for ending them. They drew a parallel with the grain blockade, where there is now a deal allowing a limited quantity of Ukrainian grain exports.
So the idea would be that Putin provokes a nuclear crisis, but then agrees to resolve it in return for something - perhaps a ceasefire on the current front lines, or some limit on Western arms supplies, or just so that he can look good on Russian State TV.
The danger is that there is a miscalculation, a mistake, and a disaster happens.
I tend to think that it's a rather charitable interpretation of Putin's motivation and decision-making, similar to the analysis before the February invasion that saw the military buildup as a means to extract diplomatic concessions. But, well, fingers crossed, eh?
A nuclear "accident" in Ukraine renders large chunks of Ukraine economically unusable for decades. Putin would love that.
Putin needs to be told that a Russian engineered/black flag release of radiation in Ukraine will be treated as a nuclear attack on NATO every bit as much as if ICBM's had been launched at Poland, Germany, Western Europe. The radiation would predictably be affecting those countries as much as Ukraine. Every sanction up to nuclear retaliation will be available in that situation.
In reality all Biden would do is tighten sanctions and at most do an air strike and even that unlikely.
Unless a NATO nation is involved whatever happens in Ukraine we just continue supplying weapons and imposing sanctions and not much more
Poland is a NATO nation. Chunks of it will get irradiated.
Poland says it has suffered the consequences of an armed attack. Who is going to argue?
The Western leaders who are not going to go to World War 3 with a nuclear missile armed Russia because a bit of radiation drifts into Eastern Poland. I am sorry, that is just realpolitik reality
Sorry, young HY, but I think you are one of those Conservative appeasers, followers of Chamberlain. I think a pseudo Churchill Conservative, like your hero Johnson, would disown you.
We didn't go to war with Germany when they took over Austria or Czechoslovakia did we, only when Hitler invaded Poland. Hitler also didn't have nuclear weapons unlike Putin
Just what I was saying, young HY. Our Conservative Government did not go to war at the right time, while Hitler was relatively weak..... They went in for appeasement, as you want to do now.
On the second point, Putin does not have a Luftwaffe..... This was for everyday use, as it were, and absolutely terrifying. You probably do not remember.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Rooftops, especially if they're not South-facing, may not always be the best option though.
But surely it comes down to personal choice? If a firm like Amazon wants to install solar then that should be their choice and they should be able to do so.
If a farmer wants to install solar, then that should be their choice, and why should they be denied that choice while Amazon get to choose to do so?
I'd imagine it is farmers who have been lobbying Rishi and Liz to support agriculture so they do not need to plant solar panels.
Absolutely not. Remember this is pitched at the tory membership only. It's nimbies
Actually short sighted of them, because at least solar is low profile and once a farm is installed, that's that land safe for 40 years
You think farmers in rural constituencies (where the hustings started) are not Conservative members? That they are not worried about the loss of CAP subsidies and the impact of trade deals increasing competition from Australia and in future America? They are not complaining about solar panels, they are complaining (or even threatening) that they may be forced into them if traditional agriculture dies.
There is zero chance of a trade deal between Truss and Biden anyway
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Rooftops, especially if they're not South-facing, may not always be the best option though.
But surely it comes down to personal choice? If a firm like Amazon wants to install solar then that should be their choice and they should be able to do so.
If a farmer wants to install solar, then that should be their choice, and why should they be denied that choice while Amazon get to choose to do so?
Good points.
Because we a country not a simple collection of individuals, and it is quite appropriate that the country has a say in land usage which will preserve its security, and meet its objectives.
In the UK's case, two particular current pressures are limited land and food security, plus of course recreation resources, so it is reasonable to have some general principles of land use and let free markets work within that regulation. AFAIK every country in the world has some form of control on land use.
why should they be denied that choice while Amazon get to choose to do so?
Because a warehouse roof is not the same as an agricultural field. Two different contexts.
On the South Facing roofs point, most eg warehouse roods or airfields are essentially flat these days, so you can technically point them wherever you want. Or indeed make them sun-seeking for maximum output if the numbers work taking into account the extra gubbins required, and the energy need.
My solar panels face East (70%) and West (30%). I'm in the process of adjusting that to be E 30%, S 40%, W 30% for better performance throughout the year - which will require a new veranda.
If limited land and food security were seriously the issue and not the excuse they really are surely we'd be looking to abolish bio fuels? And reduce the proportion of bio fuels put into Unleaded etc rather than doubling it?
Funny how the NIMBY scum object to electricity being provided instead of food security but don't object to bio fuels being provided instead of food security.
First rule of debating: if you say scum, you lose.
Pleased I have seen through your little immigration/house price inflation scam. Can't see your name now without getting a MARRS "Pump up the value" earworm.
The other day I said you could put solar panels on warehouses, factories, industrial estates, etc. You don't need to put them on farmland.
You don't "need" to put anything, anywhere.
If farmers want to put solar panels on their land, they should have that prerogative.
If warehouses which are glorified tin cans can't support the weight of a solar panel and their owners don't want to install them, that should be their prerogative.
Why should a farmer be denied the right to choose to install solar panels, if they want to do so? And if the answer is food security, should we be banning bio fuels too?
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Sheep are quite happy to wonder in and around solar panels.
Wondering "WTF? Give me some proper pasture, not a place that has been engineered by computers to absorb as much of the grass-growing sunlight as it possible...."
The sheep are probably glad of the shade on hot days.
As is the grass- it grows best around 20 degrees, and exposure to full summer sun takes it way beyond that.
Light is far from the only limiting factor for photosynthesis- otherwise houseplants wouldn't be happy.
The people who don't like solar farms are those who either a) want to discredit solar power full stop, or b) think it spoils the view from the kitchen of Ye Olde Farmhouse or on their country walks.
And whilst I'm not full-on Libertarian "do what you like with your land", you need better arguments than that.
Again: I look at a fairfew of these things. What you claim may happen in foreign parts, not here. They are all at ground level and fenced like Colditz.
In which case, a fairly obvious solution presents itself. (Guessing, putting the panels low down is done to reduce the visual blight.)
Or to reduce the cost of structures.
It's also quite common to use highish hedges to hide the panels.
Or use a belt of trees?
Only on the northern boundary. Anything else will block sunlight, especially in winter and if conifers.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
Well that's lucky. What will come first, the end of the world or the end of the England second innings? Could be tight.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time in the future.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the logistics sector.
We may not need to use farmland at all.
That is very sensible. Although I would question how much of the pre existing roofing of warehousing is suitable for solar panels. They do weigh a fair bit and some of the warehousing I have seen put up over the last few decades looks decidedly flimsy.
Very fair comment.
From what I see, portal frame buildings are likely to be the least suitable, and perhaps old and small ones - our 7000 sqft gym, for example, is in a medium height former warehouse (ceiling 6-9m). But if a roof is carrying aircon, water, and heating, then it bears a look.
There is also surrounding land, and surrounding car parks.
I think there are various unaddressed opportunities - perhaps airfields is one of the most obvious. Heathrow is 2 square miles, for example.
I agree. I think there is huge scope here.
I also come back to my long term gripe. Why do we not insist that every new house built in the UK has solar panels fitted as standard at the time of building. Economies of scale would make it much cheaper, there would also not be the hassle of retrofitting and if you are paying £200K for a new house then to be honest the difference between £199K and £202K is bugger all when you are going for a mortgage.
I do understand that certain properties might not be suitable and also that there is a debate about what sort of solar panelling is used but all of that applies to retrofitting as well.
So my first environmental action when I become dictator for life: All suitable new build developments must include solar panels.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Rooftops, especially if they're not South-facing, may not always be the best option though.
But surely it comes down to personal choice? If a firm like Amazon wants to install solar then that should be their choice and they should be able to do so.
If a farmer wants to install solar, then that should be their choice, and why should they be denied that choice while Amazon get to choose to do so?
Good points.
Because we a country not a simple collection of individuals, and it is quite appropriate that the country has a say in land usage which will preserve its security, and meet its objectives.
In the UK's case, two particular current pressures are limited land and food security, plus of course recreation resources, so it is reasonable to have some general principles of land use and let free markets work within that regulation. AFAIK every country in the world has some form of control on land use.
why should they be denied that choice while Amazon get to choose to do so?
Because a warehouse roof is not the same as an agricultural field. Two different contexts.
On the South Facing roofs point, most eg warehouse roods or airfields are essentially flat these days, so you can technically point them wherever you want. Or indeed make them sun-seeking for maximum output if the numbers work taking into account the extra gubbins required, and the energy need.
My solar panels face East (70%) and West (30%). I'm in the process of adjusting that to be E 30%, S 40%, W 30% for better performance throughout the year - which will require a new veranda.
If limited land and food security were seriously the issue and not the excuse they really are surely we'd be looking to abolish bio fuels? And reduce the proportion of bio fuels put into Unleaded etc rather than doubling it?
Funny how the NIMBY scum object to electricity being provided instead of food security but don't object to bio fuels being provided instead of food security.
I thought that most biofuels were imports - woodchips from Poland for electricity generation and palm oil from Indonesia for road fuel. Perfect for the NIMBYs.
Morning all. Just in reports of explosions around Zaporizhzhia, no other details yet. Ukraine's energy people sayuig Russia are planning to disconnect the NPP from the Ukraine grid today, some concern over the spent fuel rods.
The Russians are playing with fire here, both figuratively and literally.
There’s nothing more likely to result in a Western escalation, than a nuclear ‘accident’ at Zaporizhzhia.
If Putin wants to see NATO countries send their armies into Ukraine, he’s going the right way about it.
The theory on the Telegraph Ukraine podcast yesterday was that Putin likes to provoke these crises so that he can gain leverage/kudos for ending them. They drew a parallel with the grain blockade, where there is now a deal allowing a limited quantity of Ukrainian grain exports.
So the idea would be that Putin provokes a nuclear crisis, but then agrees to resolve it in return for something - perhaps a ceasefire on the current front lines, or some limit on Western arms supplies, or just so that he can look good on Russian State TV.
The danger is that there is a miscalculation, a mistake, and a disaster happens.
I tend to think that it's a rather charitable interpretation of Putin's motivation and decision-making, similar to the analysis before the February invasion that saw the military buildup as a means to extract diplomatic concessions. But, well, fingers crossed, eh?
A nuclear "accident" in Ukraine renders large chunks of Ukraine economically unusable for decades. Putin would love that.
Putin needs to be told that a Russian engineered/black flag release of radiation in Ukraine will be treated as a nuclear attack on NATO every bit as much as if ICBM's had been launched at Poland, Germany, Western Europe. The radiation would predictably be affecting those countries as much as Ukraine. Every sanction up to nuclear retaliation will be available in that situation.
In reality all Biden would do is tighten sanctions and at most do an air strike and even that unlikely.
Unless a NATO nation is involved whatever happens in Ukraine we just continue supplying weapons and imposing sanctions and not much more
Poland is a NATO nation. Chunks of it will get irradiated.
Poland says it has suffered the consequences of an armed attack. Who is going to argue?
The Western leaders who are not going to go to World War 3 with a nuclear missile armed Russia because a bit of radiation drifts into Eastern Poland. I am sorry, that is just realpolitik reality
Sorry, young HY, but I think you are one of those Conservative appeasers, followers of Chamberlain. I think a pseudo Churchill Conservative, like your hero Johnson, would disown you.
We didn't go to war with Germany when they took over Austria or Czechoslovakia did we, only when Hitler invaded Poland. Hitler also didn't have nuclear weapons unlike Putin
Just what I was saying, young HY. Our Conservative Government did not go to war at the right time, while Hitler was relatively weak..... They went in for appeasement, as you want to do now.
On the second point, Putin does not have a Luftwaffe..... This was for everyday use, as it were, and absolutely terrifying. You probably do not remember.
They had red lines as we do now, Hitler went too far and tried to conquer and occupy all of Europe rather than staying in the German sphere. Putin has not started marching across Europe yet beyond Ukraine.
The Luftwaffe could not destroy millions with 1 bomb as Putin could with a nuclear missile
Outside PB and Twitter no one cares about Brexit. It’s the major issue for about 5-10% of the population - and that is falling
It really is a harvest of misery to care passionately about something - Rejoin - that is vanishingly unlikely in the lifetime of anyone here
Don’t do it
On the contrary.
Polling for Rejoin is very strong. No major party in England will be proposing it in their manifesto for GE 2024, but it cannot be ignored forever.
Sooner or later the fly encrusted unflushable turd of Brexit will be dealt with.
It's funny though as didn't you and other Remoaners used to say that Brexit polled badly because only the unprompted polling mattered? And that forced choice polls weren't significant, the fact that people weren't listing Brexit as an unprompted issue showed it didn't matter?
How is Rejoin polling presently as an issue on unprompted polls?
The issue of the EU was nowhere for years so the argument around unprompted polls isn’t really salient . Regardless I don’t think there’s a great deal of appetite to revisit the issue for the timebeing . I think it would need a huge majority for re-join in polling and a party to make this a cornerstone of their election platform . So I think it’s for future generations to make those decisions . It’s a shame though that the Tories have embarked on a conscious effort to destroy EU UK relations , this just pisses off Remainers . Brexit could be less of an issue if Labour was in charge as they would try and mend those relations .
Video from 2018 of US Embassy staff discussing impact of Brexit and the government’s approach to it. Wish I could be arsed to transcribe the choice lines from it. Worth a watch anyway.
Brexit is never going away, because it will continue to be shit. And an ever increasing percentage of the population will know it’s shit. And there will be political consequences for that. Might take 5 years, might be 10. But they’re coming.
More significantly- look at the age profile of Leave/Remain in 2016 and Good Idea/Bad Idea, and Stay Out/Rejoin now.
Leaving was the idea, mainly, of the retired. Those who were born and grew up in the 1950's, for whom Europe was always a dangerous innovation and a diminution of Britain's proper place in the world. They weren't keen on the EEC in 1975 either, and any explanation of why the UK voted out in 2016 has to take account of that. It's not people become more Eurosceptical as they age, it's that one specific generation have frankly never been keen on the whole shebang.
Whilst wishing them all long and happy lives, that generation (who was it who recently suggested John Lydon as their mascot?) will not be with us forever, and are already beginning to go to that place where there are no Euroreferenda. And unless Brexit goes so brilliantly that minds are changed then the attitude of the UK towards integration with our near neighbours will look rather different in 2026 to 2016, end even more so in 2036. (Hint: so far, hardly anyone's mind is being changed, and what net drift there is is towards the UK having dropped a clanger.)
This isn't about whether continued Brexit, Brapprochment or Brejoin are objectively the right things for the country to do. It's just the numbers of people with different instincts. And that may change, though it's not obvious how, and saying "like what we voted for you, ungrateful children-of-unmarried-parents" won't help, I'm sure.
Though the way that some are triggered by the idea that maybe we're making a mistake that could be reversed in future... sometimes there's a bit of more generalised raging at the dying of the light going on. After all, who wants their entry in the history books to be a massive cockup?
The correlation between Good idea/bad idea and Stay Out/Rejoin is rather weaker than you seem to be assuming.
This looks like the most recent poll on Rejoin/Stay Out. Deltapoll, Mail on Sunday, end of last month;
There is a slice of "we're out, it's a mistake, but it's too late." But that slice is smaller than I thought. And I wouldn't want to do a Euroreferendum on those numbers.
But- to return to my main point- look at that age profile.
They will grow up. And in 20 years time they will have forgotten the before time - and the next cohort will never have known it.
It's easy to say in an opinion poll now "rejoin" - is the question doesn't specify that the rejoin terms of membership would be very different to the previous terms of membership, the question is worthless.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
Well that's lucky. What will come first, the end of the world or the end of the England second innings? Could be tight.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time in the future.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the logistics sector.
We may not need to use farmland at all.
That is very sensible. Although I would question how much of the pre existing roofing of warehousing is suitable for solar panels. They do weigh a fair bit and some of the warehousing I have seen put up over the last few decades looks decidedly flimsy.
Very fair comment.
From what I see, portal frame buildings are likely to be the least suitable, and perhaps old and small ones - our 7000 sqft gym, for example, is in a medium height former warehouse (ceiling 6-9m). But if a roof is carrying aircon, water, and heating, then it bears a look.
There is also surrounding land, and surrounding car parks.
I think there are various unaddressed opportunities - perhaps airfields is one of the most obvious. Heathrow is 2 square miles, for example.
I agree. I think there is huge scope here.
I also come back to my long term gripe. Why do we not insist that every new house built in the UK has solar panels fitted as standard at the time of building. Economies of scale would make it much cheaper, there would also not be the hassle of retrofitting and if you are paying £200K for a new house then to be honest the difference between £199K and £202K is bugger all when you are going for a mortgage.
I do understand that certain properties might not be suitable and also that there is a debate about what sort of solar panelling is used but all of that applies to retrofitting as well.
So my first environmental action when I become dictator for life: All suitable new build developments must include solar panels.
I'm surprised they aren't standard - adding solar panels is the easiest way to game that BREEAM score and maximise a buildings EPC rating....
Outside PB and Twitter no one cares about Brexit. It’s the major issue for about 5-10% of the population - and that is falling
It really is a harvest of misery to care passionately about something - Rejoin - that is vanishingly unlikely in the lifetime of anyone here
Don’t do it
On the contrary.
Polling for Rejoin is very strong. No major party in England will be proposing it in their manifesto for GE 2024, but it cannot be ignored forever.
Sooner or later the fly encrusted unflushable turd of Brexit will be dealt with.
It's funny though as didn't you and other Remoaners used to say that Brexit polled badly because only the unprompted polling mattered? And that forced choice polls weren't significant, the fact that people weren't listing Brexit as an unprompted issue showed it didn't matter?
How is Rejoin polling presently as an issue on unprompted polls?
YouGov has data where people can select 3 issues from a long list. “Britain leaving the EU” is at 21% there. Issues around Europe was at 18% in IpsosMORI’s Jan 2022 poll. I can’t find anything that teases out rejoin, however.
The other day I said you could put solar panels on warehouses, factories, industrial estates, etc. You don't need to put them on farmland.
You don't "need" to put anything, anywhere.
If farmers want to put solar panels on their land, they should have that prerogative.
If warehouses which are glorified tin cans can't support the weight of a solar panel and their owners don't want to install them, that should be their prerogative.
Why should a farmer be denied the right to choose to install solar panels, if they want to do so? And if the answer is food security, should we be banning bio fuels too?
If farmers want to install them they should be allowed to do so. Stupid if politicians are saying they can't.
Video from 2018 of US Embassy staff discussing impact of Brexit and the government’s approach to it. Wish I could be arsed to transcribe the choice lines from it. Worth a watch anyway.
Brexit is never going away, because it will continue to be shit. And an ever increasing percentage of the population will know it’s shit. And there will be political consequences for that. Might take 5 years, might be 10. But they’re coming.
More significantly- look at the age profile of Leave/Remain in 2016 and Good Idea/Bad Idea, and Stay Out/Rejoin now.
Leaving was the idea, mainly, of the retired. Those who were born and grew up in the 1950's, for whom Europe was always a dangerous innovation and a diminution of Britain's proper place in the world. They weren't keen on the EEC in 1975 either, and any explanation of why the UK voted out in 2016 has to take account of that. It's not people become more Eurosceptical as they age, it's that one specific generation have frankly never been keen on the whole shebang.
Whilst wishing them all long and happy lives, that generation (who was it who recently suggested John Lydon as their mascot?) will not be with us forever, and are already beginning to go to that place where there are no Euroreferenda. And unless Brexit goes so brilliantly that minds are changed then the attitude of the UK towards integration with our near neighbours will look rather different in 2026 to 2016, end even more so in 2036. (Hint: so far, hardly anyone's mind is being changed, and what net drift there is is towards the UK having dropped a clanger.)
This isn't about whether continued Brexit, Brapprochment or Brejoin are objectively the right things for the country to do. It's just the numbers of people with different instincts. And that may change, though it's not obvious how, and saying "like what we voted for you, ungrateful children-of-unmarried-parents" won't help, I'm sure.
Though the way that some are triggered by the idea that maybe we're making a mistake that could be reversed in future... sometimes there's a bit of more generalised raging at the dying of the light going on. After all, who wants their entry in the history books to be a massive cockup?
The correlation between Good idea/bad idea and Stay Out/Rejoin is rather weaker than you seem to be assuming.
This looks like the most recent poll on Rejoin/Stay Out. Deltapoll, Mail on Sunday, end of last month;
There is a slice of "we're out, it's a mistake, but it's too late." But that slice is smaller than I thought. And I wouldn't want to do a Euroreferendum on those numbers.
But- to return to my main point- look at that age profile.
They will grow up. And in 20 years time they will have forgotten the before time - and the next cohort will never have known it.
It's easy to say in an opinion poll now "rejoin" - is the question doesn't specify that the rejoin terms of membership would be very different to the previous terms of membership, the question is worthless.
I don't think that the terms of rejoining are going to be important. The terms of Brexit weren't important in the 2016 referendum. It will be an identity question again.
I don't know which way it will go. It could be that the next generation will find the idea of joining the EU as fanciful as joining the US. Or they might see joining the EU as symbolic of embracing a more optimistic future.
The question is not going to turn on the minutiae of the terms of accession.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Sheep are quite happy to wonder in and around solar panels.
Wondering "WTF? Give me some proper pasture, not a place that has been engineered by computers to absorb as much of the grass-growing sunlight as it possible...."
The sheep are probably glad of the shade on hot days.
As is the grass- it grows best around 20 degrees, and exposure to full summer sun takes it way beyond that.
Light is far from the only limiting factor for photosynthesis- otherwise houseplants wouldn't be happy.
The people who don't like solar farms are those who either a) want to discredit solar power full stop, or b) think it spoils the view from the kitchen of Ye Olde Farmhouse or on their country walks.
And whilst I'm not full-on Libertarian "do what you like with your land", you need better arguments than that.
Again: I look at a fairfew of these things. What you claim may happen in foreign parts, not here. They are all at ground level and fenced like Colditz.
You mean, they're meant to be fenced but in reality the sheep get through them all the time?
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
Well that's lucky. What will come first, the end of the world or the end of the England second innings? Could be tight.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time in the future.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the logistics sector.
We may not need to use farmland at all.
That is very sensible. Although I would question how much of the pre existing roofing of warehousing is suitable for solar panels. They do weigh a fair bit and some of the warehousing I have seen put up over the last few decades looks decidedly flimsy.
Very fair comment.
From what I see, portal frame buildings are likely to be the least suitable, and perhaps old and small ones - our 7000 sqft gym, for example, is in a medium height former warehouse (ceiling 6-9m). But if a roof is carrying aircon, water, and heating, then it bears a look.
There is also surrounding land, and surrounding car parks.
I think there are various unaddressed opportunities - perhaps airfields is one of the most obvious. Heathrow is 2 square miles, for example.
I agree. I think there is huge scope here.
I also come back to my long term gripe. Why do we not insist that every new house built in the UK has solar panels fitted as standard at the time of building. Economies of scale would make it much cheaper, there would also not be the hassle of retrofitting and if you are paying £200K for a new house then to be honest the difference between £199K and £202K is bugger all when you are going for a mortgage.
I do understand that certain properties might not be suitable and also that there is a debate about what sort of solar panelling is used but all of that applies to retrofitting as well.
So my first environmental action when I become dictator for life: All suitable new build developments must include solar panels.
I'm surprised they aren't standard - adding solar panels is the easiest way to game that BREEAM score and maximise a buildings EPC rating....
As far as I can tell it's quite common for new houses to have a pointless pair of solar panels, rather than filling the roof with them, presumably because it's the minimum required to tick a box.
Outside PB and Twitter no one cares about Brexit. It’s the major issue for about 5-10% of the population - and that is falling
It really is a harvest of misery to care passionately about something - Rejoin - that is vanishingly unlikely in the lifetime of anyone here
Don’t do it
On the contrary.
Polling for Rejoin is very strong. No major party in England will be proposing it in their manifesto for GE 2024, but it cannot be ignored forever.
Sooner or later the fly encrusted unflushable turd of Brexit will be dealt with.
This is a silly metaphor because it doesn't capture the reality that the absence of the EU is the normal state rather than vice versa.
Unreconciled Remainers have this idea that Brexit is some great edifice that needs continuing support from true believers in order to persist, but in reality it's simply the state of not being in the EU. It doesn't need to be believed in, propped up or justified. It just is.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Sheep are quite happy to wonder in and around solar panels.
Wondering "WTF? Give me some proper pasture, not a place that has been engineered by computers to absorb as much of the grass-growing sunlight as it possible...."
The sheep are probably glad of the shade on hot days.
As is the grass- it grows best around 20 degrees, and exposure to full summer sun takes it way beyond that.
Light is far from the only limiting factor for photosynthesis- otherwise houseplants wouldn't be happy.
The people who don't like solar farms are those who either a) want to discredit solar power full stop, or b) think it spoils the view from the kitchen of Ye Olde Farmhouse or on their country walks.
And whilst I'm not full-on Libertarian "do what you like with your land", you need better arguments than that.
Again: I look at a fairfew of these things. What you claim may happen in foreign parts, not here. They are all at ground level and fenced like Colditz.
You mean, they're meant to be fenced but in reality the sheep get through them all the time?
Yes, but only in the TV series.
Must be difficult getting the sheep to line up in neat rows for Appel every morning and evening.
Outside PB and Twitter no one cares about Brexit. It’s the major issue for about 5-10% of the population - and that is falling
It really is a harvest of misery to care passionately about something - Rejoin - that is vanishingly unlikely in the lifetime of anyone here
Don’t do it
On the contrary.
Polling for Rejoin is very strong. No major party in England will be proposing it in their manifesto for GE 2024, but it cannot be ignored forever.
Sooner or later the fly encrusted unflushable turd of Brexit will be dealt with.
It's funny though as didn't you and other Remoaners used to say that Brexit polled badly because only the unprompted polling mattered? And that forced choice polls weren't significant, the fact that people weren't listing Brexit as an unprompted issue showed it didn't matter?
How is Rejoin polling presently as an issue on unprompted polls?
I don’t think that I have ever said that about polling. Do you have a reference?
"Brexit" will be seen to be behind every bad thing that happens in this country for the foreseeable future. Not fair of course, but that is the reality of politics. Brexit already has a bad name and it is only going to get worse. It will be seen as symbolic of the old contempt for the young and working age. A sore that will fester and supparate, further toxifying generational conflict.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Sheep are quite happy to wonder in and around solar panels.
Wondering "WTF? Give me some proper pasture, not a place that has been engineered by computers to absorb as much of the grass-growing sunlight as it possible...."
The sheep are probably glad of the shade on hot days.
As is the grass- it grows best around 20 degrees, and exposure to full summer sun takes it way beyond that.
Light is far from the only limiting factor for photosynthesis- otherwise houseplants wouldn't be happy.
The people who don't like solar farms are those who either a) want to discredit solar power full stop, or b) think it spoils the view from the kitchen of Ye Olde Farmhouse or on their country walks.
And whilst I'm not full-on Libertarian "do what you like with your land", you need better arguments than that.
Again: I look at a fairfew of these things. What you claim may happen in foreign parts, not here. They are all at ground level and fenced like Colditz.
You mean, they're meant to be fenced but in reality the sheep get through them all the time?
Yes, but only in the TV series.
Must be difficult getting the sheep to line up in neat rows for Appel every morning and evening.
Outside PB and Twitter no one cares about Brexit. It’s the major issue for about 5-10% of the population - and that is falling
It really is a harvest of misery to care passionately about something - Rejoin - that is vanishingly unlikely in the lifetime of anyone here
Don’t do it
If that’s the case then stop going on about it then. Or send Scott a private message. Because you’re the only people who spend all this time on this board about it. Suggesting that Rejoiners are in some way mentally unwell is very crude.
The undeniable fact, hidden behind faux concern for others mental health is that you are actually quite worried. You’ve openly stated on here that you fear a Starmer Govt could take us into the SM at least. And if only 5%-10% (evidence beyond Primrose Hill dinner parties?) of the population care then the other 90%-95% won’t mind rejoining.
You keep saying “Rejoice, we have a Brexited”. Why do you need to tell us that? It’s been a shitshow. In 20 years time when you are in a nursing home, plastic beaker of Scotch in hand, letching over a care worker newly arrived from Ukraine as a result of both our countries EU accession you will finally overcome this monomania.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
Well that's lucky. What will come first, the end of the world or the end of the England second innings? Could be tight.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time in the future.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the logistics sector.
We may not need to use farmland at all.
That is very sensible. Although I would question how much of the pre existing roofing of warehousing is suitable for solar panels. They do weigh a fair bit and some of the warehousing I have seen put up over the last few decades looks decidedly flimsy.
Very fair comment.
From what I see, portal frame buildings are likely to be the least suitable, and perhaps old and small ones - our 7000 sqft gym, for example, is in a medium height former warehouse (ceiling 6-9m). But if a roof is carrying aircon, water, and heating, then it bears a look.
There is also surrounding land, and surrounding car parks.
I think there are various unaddressed opportunities - perhaps airfields is one of the most obvious. Heathrow is 2 square miles, for example.
I agree. I think there is huge scope here.
I also come back to my long term gripe. Why do we not insist that every new house built in the UK has solar panels fitted as standard at the time of building. Economies of scale would make it much cheaper, there would also not be the hassle of retrofitting and if you are paying £200K for a new house then to be honest the difference between £199K and £202K is bugger all when you are going for a mortgage.
I do understand that certain properties might not be suitable and also that there is a debate about what sort of solar panelling is used but all of that applies to retrofitting as well.
So my first environmental action when I become dictator for life: All suitable new build developments must include solar panels.
I've never explored the reasons why that was not done.
Suspect it is because in the UK we prefer to set a hands-off goal, and leave the regulated to find the most effective route to meet it in all the circumstances.
Here, for example, the Energy Performance is regulated via Building Regs and the as-designed SAP modelling, and extra solar for a whole estate could pick up a cost to be met by the developer for upgrading the local Electricity Grid (which happens even to individual householders who only have a right to install 3.68 kWp of solar if, eg, they want to install 10 kWp) which would make super-insulating a more cost effective option for that development.
Such costs can be *very* substantial, of the order of 6 or 7 figures (ie 000s or 0000s per house) for a moderately sized estate.
Video from 2018 of US Embassy staff discussing impact of Brexit and the government’s approach to it. Wish I could be arsed to transcribe the choice lines from it. Worth a watch anyway.
Brexit is never going away, because it will continue to be shit. And an ever increasing percentage of the population will know it’s shit. And there will be political consequences for that. Might take 5 years, might be 10. But they’re coming.
More significantly- look at the age profile of Leave/Remain in 2016 and Good Idea/Bad Idea, and Stay Out/Rejoin now.
Leaving was the idea, mainly, of the retired. Those who were born and grew up in the 1950's, for whom Europe was always a dangerous innovation and a diminution of Britain's proper place in the world. They weren't keen on the EEC in 1975 either, and any explanation of why the UK voted out in 2016 has to take account of that. It's not people become more Eurosceptical as they age, it's that one specific generation have frankly never been keen on the whole shebang.
Whilst wishing them all long and happy lives, that generation (who was it who recently suggested John Lydon as their mascot?) will not be with us forever, and are already beginning to go to that place where there are no Euroreferenda. And unless Brexit goes so brilliantly that minds are changed then the attitude of the UK towards integration with our near neighbours will look rather different in 2026 to 2016, end even more so in 2036. (Hint: so far, hardly anyone's mind is being changed, and what net drift there is is towards the UK having dropped a clanger.)
This isn't about whether continued Brexit, Brapprochment or Brejoin are objectively the right things for the country to do. It's just the numbers of people with different instincts. And that may change, though it's not obvious how, and saying "like what we voted for you, ungrateful children-of-unmarried-parents" won't help, I'm sure.
Though the way that some are triggered by the idea that maybe we're making a mistake that could be reversed in future... sometimes there's a bit of more generalised raging at the dying of the light going on. After all, who wants their entry in the history books to be a massive cockup?
The correlation between Good idea/bad idea and Stay Out/Rejoin is rather weaker than you seem to be assuming.
This looks like the most recent poll on Rejoin/Stay Out. Deltapoll, Mail on Sunday, end of last month;
There is a slice of "we're out, it's a mistake, but it's too late." But that slice is smaller than I thought. And I wouldn't want to do a Euroreferendum on those numbers.
But- to return to my main point- look at that age profile.
They will grow up. And in 20 years time they will have forgotten the before time - and the next cohort will never have known it.
It's easy to say in an opinion poll now "rejoin" - is the question doesn't specify that the rejoin terms of membership would be very different to the previous terms of membership, the question is worthless.
I don't think that the terms of rejoining are going to be important. The terms of Brexit weren't important in the 2016 referendum. It will be an identity question again.
I don't know which way it will go. It could be that the next generation will find the idea of joining the EU as fanciful as joining the US. Or they might see joining the EU as symbolic of embracing a more optimistic future.
The question is not going to turn on the minutiae of the terms of accession.
Genuinely bizarre to me that after its performance and that of its members across 2021 and 2022, anyone could see the eu as symbolic of an optimistic future. I know people do. Just find it hard to see why.
Morning all. Just in reports of explosions around Zaporizhzhia, no other details yet. Ukraine's energy people sayuig Russia are planning to disconnect the NPP from the Ukraine grid today, some concern over the spent fuel rods.
The Russians are playing with fire here, both figuratively and literally.
There’s nothing more likely to result in a Western escalation, than a nuclear ‘accident’ at Zaporizhzhia.
If Putin wants to see NATO countries send their armies into Ukraine, he’s going the right way about it.
The theory on the Telegraph Ukraine podcast yesterday was that Putin likes to provoke these crises so that he can gain leverage/kudos for ending them. They drew a parallel with the grain blockade, where there is now a deal allowing a limited quantity of Ukrainian grain exports.
So the idea would be that Putin provokes a nuclear crisis, but then agrees to resolve it in return for something - perhaps a ceasefire on the current front lines, or some limit on Western arms supplies, or just so that he can look good on Russian State TV.
The danger is that there is a miscalculation, a mistake, and a disaster happens.
I tend to think that it's a rather charitable interpretation of Putin's motivation and decision-making, similar to the analysis before the February invasion that saw the military buildup as a means to extract diplomatic concessions. But, well, fingers crossed, eh?
A nuclear "accident" in Ukraine renders large chunks of Ukraine economically unusable for decades. Putin would love that.
Putin needs to be told that a Russian engineered/black flag release of radiation in Ukraine will be treated as a nuclear attack on NATO every bit as much as if ICBM's had been launched at Poland, Germany, Western Europe. The radiation would predictably be affecting those countries as much as Ukraine. Every sanction up to nuclear retaliation will be available in that situation.
In reality all Biden would do is tighten sanctions and at most do an air strike and even that unlikely.
Unless a NATO nation is involved whatever happens in Ukraine we just continue supplying weapons and imposing sanctions and not much more
Poland is a NATO nation. Chunks of it will get irradiated.
Poland says it has suffered the consequences of an armed attack. Who is going to argue?
The Western leaders who are not going to go to World War 3 with a nuclear missile armed Russia because a bit of radiation drifts into Eastern Poland. I am sorry, that is just realpolitik reality
Sorry, young HY, but I think you are one of those Conservative appeasers, followers of Chamberlain. I think a pseudo Churchill Conservative, like your hero Johnson, would disown you.
We didn't go to war with Germany when they took over Austria or Czechoslovakia did we, only when Hitler invaded Poland. Hitler also didn't have nuclear weapons unlike Putin
Yes, and the Sudetenland was just a border dispute...
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
Well that's lucky. What will come first, the end of the world or the end of the England second innings? Could be tight.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time in the future.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the logistics sector.
We may not need to use farmland at all.
That is very sensible. Although I would question how much of the pre existing roofing of warehousing is suitable for solar panels. They do weigh a fair bit and some of the warehousing I have seen put up over the last few decades looks decidedly flimsy.
Very fair comment.
From what I see, portal frame buildings are likely to be the least suitable, and perhaps old and small ones - our 7000 sqft gym, for example, is in a medium height former warehouse (ceiling 6-9m). But if a roof is carrying aircon, water, and heating, then it bears a look.
There is also surrounding land, and surrounding car parks.
I think there are various unaddressed opportunities - perhaps airfields is one of the most obvious. Heathrow is 2 square miles, for example.
I agree. I think there is huge scope here.
I also come back to my long term gripe. Why do we not insist that every new house built in the UK has solar panels fitted as standard at the time of building. Economies of scale would make it much cheaper, there would also not be the hassle of retrofitting and if you are paying £200K for a new house then to be honest the difference between £199K and £202K is bugger all when you are going for a mortgage.
I do understand that certain properties might not be suitable and also that there is a debate about what sort of solar panelling is used but all of that applies to retrofitting as well.
So my first environmental action when I become dictator for life: All suitable new build developments must include solar panels.
I've never explored the reasons why that was not done.
Suspect it is because in the UK we prefer to set a hands-off goal, and leave the regulated to find the most effective route to meet it in all the circumstances.
Here, for example, the Energy Performance is regulated via Building Regs and the as-designed SAP modelling, and extra solar for a whole estate could pick up a cost to be met by the developer for upgrading the local Electricity Grid (which happens even to individual householders who only have a right to install 3.68 kWp of solar if, eg, they want to install 10 kWp) which would make super-insulating a more cost effective option for that development.
Such costs can be *very* substantial, of the order of 6 or 7 figures (ie 000s or 0000s per house) for a moderately sized estate.
I asked my surveyor for my current house what the value would have been without panels. Absolubtely no difference he amazingly came back with.
“The approaching tsunami of addictive AI-created content will overwhelm us”
“”Move 37”, as it became known, marked a key moment in machine learning, because it really was a point where the system went beyond what humans could devise.”
Thanks. Don't understand much of that. But Move 37 he hasn't understood at all. It didn't go beyond what a human could devise at all. In fact. It's the kind of move beginners play instinctively. It had merely been "coached out" of the consideration of the top class player. Shoulder hits that central were a no no. But when it was played, Lee Sidol was astonished. But not uncomprehending. He saw instantly that is was the correct move. Just one he had been trained since a toddler simply not to consider. Compare the re-emergence of the ramp shot in cricket. Played by kids. Now by pros too.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
Well that's lucky. What will come first, the end of the world or the end of the England second innings? Could be tight.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time in the future.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the logistics sector.
We may not need to use farmland at all.
That is very sensible. Although I would question how much of the pre existing roofing of warehousing is suitable for solar panels. They do weigh a fair bit and some of the warehousing I have seen put up over the last few decades looks decidedly flimsy.
Very fair comment.
From what I see, portal frame buildings are likely to be the least suitable, and perhaps old and small ones - our 7000 sqft gym, for example, is in a medium height former warehouse (ceiling 6-9m). But if a roof is carrying aircon, water, and heating, then it bears a look.
There is also surrounding land, and surrounding car parks.
I think there are various unaddressed opportunities - perhaps airfields is one of the most obvious. Heathrow is 2 square miles, for example.
I agree. I think there is huge scope here.
I also come back to my long term gripe. Why do we not insist that every new house built in the UK has solar panels fitted as standard at the time of building. Economies of scale would make it much cheaper, there would also not be the hassle of retrofitting and if you are paying £200K for a new house then to be honest the difference between £199K and £202K is bugger all when you are going for a mortgage.
I do understand that certain properties might not be suitable and also that there is a debate about what sort of solar panelling is used but all of that applies to retrofitting as well.
So my first environmental action when I become dictator for life: All suitable new build developments must include solar panels.
I've never explored the reasons why that was not done.
Suspect it is because in the UK we prefer to set a hands-off goal, and leave the regulated to find the most effective route to meet it in all the circumstances.
Here, for example, the Energy Performance is regulated via Building Regs and the as-designed SAP modelling, and extra solar for a whole estate could pick up a cost to be met by the developer for upgrading the local Electricity Grid (which happens even to individual householders who only have a right to install 3.68 kWp of solar if, eg, they want to install 10 kWp) which would make super-insulating a more cost effective option for that development.
Such costs can be *very* substantial, of the order of 6 or 7 figures (ie 000s or 0000s per house) for a moderately sized estate.
I’ve got the solar man round next week to size up installing in-roof solar (and battery) on the annexe that’s going up next year. What’s ridiculous is it requires another planning application (with another fee to the council ) to be allowed to do it, even though the annexe is already approved. All the same, it makes economic sense as it means on the slopes with panels there will be minimal roof tiling to pay for, and the scaffolding will be up anyway. And importantly gives a degree of redundancy against grid outages, which happen several times a year in a good year round here.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
Well that's lucky. What will come first, the end of the world or the end of the England second innings? Could be tight.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time in the future.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the logistics sector.
We may not need to use farmland at all.
That is very sensible. Although I would question how much of the pre existing roofing of warehousing is suitable for solar panels. They do weigh a fair bit and some of the warehousing I have seen put up over the last few decades looks decidedly flimsy.
Very fair comment.
From what I see, portal frame buildings are likely to be the least suitable, and perhaps old and small ones - our 7000 sqft gym, for example, is in a medium height former warehouse (ceiling 6-9m). But if a roof is carrying aircon, water, and heating, then it bears a look.
There is also surrounding land, and surrounding car parks.
I think there are various unaddressed opportunities - perhaps airfields is one of the most obvious. Heathrow is 2 square miles, for example.
I agree. I think there is huge scope here.
I also come back to my long term gripe. Why do we not insist that every new house built in the UK has solar panels fitted as standard at the time of building. Economies of scale would make it much cheaper, there would also not be the hassle of retrofitting and if you are paying £200K for a new house then to be honest the difference between £199K and £202K is bugger all when you are going for a mortgage.
I do understand that certain properties might not be suitable and also that there is a debate about what sort of solar panelling is used but all of that applies to retrofitting as well.
So my first environmental action when I become dictator for life: All suitable new build developments must include solar panels.
I've never explored the reasons why that was not done.
Suspect it is because in the UK we prefer to set a hands-off goal, and leave the regulated to find the most effective route to meet it in all the circumstances.
Here, for example, the Energy Performance is regulated via Building Regs and the as-designed SAP modelling, and extra solar for a whole estate could pick up a cost to be met by the developer for upgrading the local Electricity Grid (which happens even to individual householders who only have a right to install 3.68 kWp of solar if, eg, they want to install 10 kWp) which would make super-insulating a more cost effective option for that development.
Such costs can be *very* substantial, of the order of 6 or 7 figures (ie 000s or 0000s per house) for a moderately sized estate.
I asked my surveyor for my current house what the value would have been without panels. Absolubtely no difference he amazingly came back with.
I suspect that has now changed.
Houses with rentaroof solar used to be devalued, as the paperwork for the extra contract was extra buggeration.
Houses with early solar (ie 2012 ish - 40p per unit or so) used to give around here an approx 1% extra yield for a similar purchase price due to the Feed in Tariff, but I think that ship has now sailed.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Sheep are quite happy to wonder in and around solar panels.
They can philosophise pretty much anywhere. In practice they are rigorously excluded to stop them banging in to and damaging things, and anyway you can't have your insolation and eat it. You get grass or electric, not both.
Morning all. Just in reports of explosions around Zaporizhzhia, no other details yet. Ukraine's energy people sayuig Russia are planning to disconnect the NPP from the Ukraine grid today, some concern over the spent fuel rods.
The Russians are playing with fire here, both figuratively and literally.
There’s nothing more likely to result in a Western escalation, than a nuclear ‘accident’ at Zaporizhzhia.
If Putin wants to see NATO countries send their armies into Ukraine, he’s going the right way about it.
The theory on the Telegraph Ukraine podcast yesterday was that Putin likes to provoke these crises so that he can gain leverage/kudos for ending them. They drew a parallel with the grain blockade, where there is now a deal allowing a limited quantity of Ukrainian grain exports.
So the idea would be that Putin provokes a nuclear crisis, but then agrees to resolve it in return for something - perhaps a ceasefire on the current front lines, or some limit on Western arms supplies, or just so that he can look good on Russian State TV.
The danger is that there is a miscalculation, a mistake, and a disaster happens.
I tend to think that it's a rather charitable interpretation of Putin's motivation and decision-making, similar to the analysis before the February invasion that saw the military buildup as a means to extract diplomatic concessions. But, well, fingers crossed, eh?
A nuclear "accident" in Ukraine renders large chunks of Ukraine economically unusable for decades. Putin would love that.
Putin needs to be told that a Russian engineered/black flag release of radiation in Ukraine will be treated as a nuclear attack on NATO every bit as much as if ICBM's had been launched at Poland, Germany, Western Europe. The radiation would predictably be affecting those countries as much as Ukraine. Every sanction up to nuclear retaliation will be available in that situation.
In reality all Biden would do is tighten sanctions and at most do an air strike and even that unlikely.
Unless a NATO nation is involved whatever happens in Ukraine we just continue supplying weapons and imposing sanctions and not much more
Poland is a NATO nation. Chunks of it will get irradiated.
Poland says it has suffered the consequences of an armed attack. Who is going to argue?
The Western leaders who are not going to go to World War 3 with a nuclear missile armed Russia because a bit of radiation drifts into Eastern Poland. I am sorry, that is just realpolitik reality
Sorry, young HY, but I think you are one of those Conservative appeasers, followers of Chamberlain. I think a pseudo Churchill Conservative, like your hero Johnson, would disown you.
We didn't go to war with Germany when they took over Austria or Czechoslovakia did we, only when Hitler invaded Poland. Hitler also didn't have nuclear weapons unlike Putin
Just what I was saying, young HY. Our Conservative Government did not go to war at the right time, while Hitler was relatively weak..... They went in for appeasement, as you want to do now.
On the second point, Putin does not have a Luftwaffe..... This was for everyday use, as it were, and absolutely terrifying. You probably do not remember.
They had red lines as we do now, Hitler went too far and tried to conquer and occupy all of Europe rather than staying in the German sphere. Putin has not started marching across Europe yet beyond Ukraine.
The Luftwaffe could not destroy millions with 1 bomb as Putin could with a nuclear missile
But the Luftwaffe had millions of bombs. It was pretty terrifying if you were sitting under them.
But our Conservative Government did not have red lines that were credible. That is why Hitler was surprised when we declared war when he invaded Poland.
And the present government that we have is not credible in any way, shape or form.
Unreconciled Remainers have this idea that Brexit is some great edifice that needs continuing support from true believers in order to persist
Brexiteers are the ones shitting themselves that Brexit dies with BoZo
The chances of us re-joining the EU (or most EU countries allowing us to do so) is nil in the short to medium term. Thus, strictly speaking, Brexit will not die.
Other policies, not strictly Brexit dependent, now that is a different story.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
Well that's lucky. What will come first, the end of the world or the end of the England second innings? Could be tight.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time in the future.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the logistics sector.
We may not need to use farmland at all.
That is very sensible. Although I would question how much of the pre existing roofing of warehousing is suitable for solar panels. They do weigh a fair bit and some of the warehousing I have seen put up over the last few decades looks decidedly flimsy.
Very fair comment.
From what I see, portal frame buildings are likely to be the least suitable, and perhaps old and small ones - our 7000 sqft gym, for example, is in a medium height former warehouse (ceiling 6-9m). But if a roof is carrying aircon, water, and heating, then it bears a look.
There is also surrounding land, and surrounding car parks.
I think there are various unaddressed opportunities - perhaps airfields is one of the most obvious. Heathrow is 2 square miles, for example.
I agree. I think there is huge scope here.
I also come back to my long term gripe. Why do we not insist that every new house built in the UK has solar panels fitted as standard at the time of building. Economies of scale would make it much cheaper, there would also not be the hassle of retrofitting and if you are paying £200K for a new house then to be honest the difference between £199K and £202K is bugger all when you are going for a mortgage.
I do understand that certain properties might not be suitable and also that there is a debate about what sort of solar panelling is used but all of that applies to retrofitting as well.
So my first environmental action when I become dictator for life: All suitable new build developments must include solar panels.
I've never explored the reasons why that was not done.
Suspect it is because in the UK we prefer to set a hands-off goal, and leave the regulated to find the most effective route to meet it in all the circumstances.
Here, for example, the Energy Performance is regulated via Building Regs and the as-designed SAP modelling, and extra solar for a whole estate could pick up a cost to be met by the developer for upgrading the local Electricity Grid (which happens even to individual householders who only have a right to install 3.68 kWp of solar if, eg, they want to install 10 kWp) which would make super-insulating a more cost effective option for that development.
Such costs can be *very* substantial, of the order of 6 or 7 figures (ie 000s or 0000s per house) for a moderately sized estate.
I asked my surveyor for my current house what the value would have been without panels. Absolubtely no difference he amazingly came back with.
That's because the market is low information, and full of ignorami who just look at kitchens and bathrooms, in the first 90 seconds. Same reason that almost no one thinks about insulation until they get huge heating bills.
There are still people trying to sell rental investments to landlords where they have tarted-up a class E EPC house (which is legal to rent out for a year or two longer) with some new kitchen and bathroom and superficial renovation.
That is going to have to be an EPC C by 2030, or maybe 2025, 2026 or 2028 depending when the music stops, and a level D earlier. And all the money spent on the tart-up will be wasted, because it will need to be partially gutted and done from the fabric. No idea if anyone is still stupid enough to buy these.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
Well that's lucky. What will come first, the end of the world or the end of the England second innings? Could be tight.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time in the future.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the logistics sector.
We may not need to use farmland at all.
That is very sensible. Although I would question how much of the pre existing roofing of warehousing is suitable for solar panels. They do weigh a fair bit and some of the warehousing I have seen put up over the last few decades looks decidedly flimsy.
Very fair comment.
From what I see, portal frame buildings are likely to be the least suitable, and perhaps old and small ones - our 7000 sqft gym, for example, is in a medium height former warehouse (ceiling 6-9m). But if a roof is carrying aircon, water, and heating, then it bears a look.
There is also surrounding land, and surrounding car parks.
I think there are various unaddressed opportunities - perhaps airfields is one of the most obvious. Heathrow is 2 square miles, for example.
I agree. I think there is huge scope here.
I also come back to my long term gripe. Why do we not insist that every new house built in the UK has solar panels fitted as standard at the time of building. Economies of scale would make it much cheaper, there would also not be the hassle of retrofitting and if you are paying £200K for a new house then to be honest the difference between £199K and £202K is bugger all when you are going for a mortgage.
I do understand that certain properties might not be suitable and also that there is a debate about what sort of solar panelling is used but all of that applies to retrofitting as well.
So my first environmental action when I become dictator for life: All suitable new build developments must include solar panels.
I've never explored the reasons why that was not done.
Suspect it is because in the UK we prefer to set a hands-off goal, and leave the regulated to find the most effective route to meet it in all the circumstances.
Here, for example, the Energy Performance is regulated via Building Regs and the as-designed SAP modelling, and extra solar for a whole estate could pick up a cost to be met by the developer for upgrading the local Electricity Grid (which happens even to individual householders who only have a right to install 3.68 kWp of solar if, eg, they want to install 10 kWp) which would make super-insulating a more cost effective option for that development.
Such costs can be *very* substantial, of the order of 6 or 7 figures (ie 000s or 0000s per house) for a moderately sized estate.
I asked my surveyor for my current house what the value would have been without panels. Absolubtely no difference he amazingly came back with.
That's because the market is low information, and full of ignorami who just look at kitchens and bathrooms, in the first 90 seconds. Same reason that almost no one thinks about insulation until they get huge heating bills.
There are still people trying to sell rental investments to landlords where they have tarted-up a class E EPC house (which is an offence to rent out) with some new kitchen and bathroom and superficial renovation.
That is going to have to be an EPC C by 2030, or maybe 2026 or 2028. And all the money spent on the tart-up will be wasted, because it will need to be gutted and done from the fabric. No idea if anyone is still stupid enough to buy these.
The other amazing thing about how UK housing is sold is the eternal focus on #s of bedrooms rather than what's actually important - sq feet. It's led to a fetish for tiny rooms.
Morning all. Just in reports of explosions around Zaporizhzhia, no other details yet. Ukraine's energy people sayuig Russia are planning to disconnect the NPP from the Ukraine grid today, some concern over the spent fuel rods.
The Russians are playing with fire here, both figuratively and literally.
There’s nothing more likely to result in a Western escalation, than a nuclear ‘accident’ at Zaporizhzhia.
If Putin wants to see NATO countries send their armies into Ukraine, he’s going the right way about it.
The theory on the Telegraph Ukraine podcast yesterday was that Putin likes to provoke these crises so that he can gain leverage/kudos for ending them. They drew a parallel with the grain blockade, where there is now a deal allowing a limited quantity of Ukrainian grain exports.
So the idea would be that Putin provokes a nuclear crisis, but then agrees to resolve it in return for something - perhaps a ceasefire on the current front lines, or some limit on Western arms supplies, or just so that he can look good on Russian State TV.
The danger is that there is a miscalculation, a mistake, and a disaster happens.
I tend to think that it's a rather charitable interpretation of Putin's motivation and decision-making, similar to the analysis before the February invasion that saw the military buildup as a means to extract diplomatic concessions. But, well, fingers crossed, eh?
A nuclear "accident" in Ukraine renders large chunks of Ukraine economically unusable for decades. Putin would love that.
Putin needs to be told that a Russian engineered/black flag release of radiation in Ukraine will be treated as a nuclear attack on NATO every bit as much as if ICBM's had been launched at Poland, Germany, Western Europe. The radiation would predictably be affecting those countries as much as Ukraine. Every sanction up to nuclear retaliation will be available in that situation.
In reality all Biden would do is tighten sanctions and at most do an air strike and even that unlikely.
Unless a NATO nation is involved whatever happens in Ukraine we just continue supplying weapons and imposing sanctions and not much more
Poland is a NATO nation. Chunks of it will get irradiated.
Poland says it has suffered the consequences of an armed attack. Who is going to argue?
The Western leaders who are not going to go to World War 3 with a nuclear missile armed Russia because a bit of radiation drifts into Eastern Poland. I am sorry, that is just realpolitik reality
Sorry, young HY, but I think you are one of those Conservative appeasers, followers of Chamberlain. I think a pseudo Churchill Conservative, like your hero Johnson, would disown you.
We didn't go to war with Germany when they took over Austria or Czechoslovakia did we, only when Hitler invaded Poland. Hitler also didn't have nuclear weapons unlike Putin
Just what I was saying, young HY. Our Conservative Government did not go to war at the right time, while Hitler was relatively weak..... They went in for appeasement, as you want to do now.
On the second point, Putin does not have a Luftwaffe..... This was for everyday use, as it were, and absolutely terrifying. You probably do not remember.
They had red lines as we do now, Hitler went too far and tried to conquer and occupy all of Europe rather than staying in the German sphere. Putin has not started marching across Europe yet beyond Ukraine.
The Luftwaffe could not destroy millions with 1 bomb as Putin could with a nuclear missile
But the Luftwaffe had millions of bombs. It was pretty terrifying if you were sitting under them.
But our Conservative Government did not have red lines that were credible. That is why Hitler was surprised when we declared war when he invaded Poland.
And the present government that we have is not credible in any way, shape or form.
If you look at the diaries of those around Hitler, he knew that invading Poland would kick of a general war. And he didn't care - in fact he wanted it.
Mr. Driver, to be fair, Remain could have done a much, much better job. Whether you're on one side or the other, the failure of the pro-EU campaign is and was pretty obvious. It was astonishingly bad, and they really should've won.
A little more time on economic benefits and a little less back of the queue/Little England tittering would've done it.
Outside PB and Twitter no one cares about Brexit. It’s the major issue for about 5-10% of the population - and that is falling
It really is a harvest of misery to care passionately about something - Rejoin - that is vanishingly unlikely in the lifetime of anyone here
Don’t do it
On the contrary.
Polling for Rejoin is very strong. No major party in England will be proposing it in their manifesto for GE 2024, but it cannot be ignored forever.
Sooner or later the fly encrusted unflushable turd of Brexit will be dealt with.
Only because the vast majority of people are assuming that Rejoin on the previous terms would be possible, which it wouldn't.
Until we restart accession negotiations we won't know the terms.
But I agree with you, we had an excellent deal tailored to our politics that would be hard to match.
We will end up like all the other rich western countries outside the EU - Switzerland, Norway, Iceland. We will be in constant negotiation about our status vis a vis them, but we will never contemplate joining again
The EU’s position in UK life will be like the USA to Canada. A giant neighbour that we have to pay attention to, often in an irritating way, but Canada still cherishes its independence and would never consider becoming another US state
the vast majority of people are assuming that Rejoin on the previous terms would be possible, which it wouldn't.
Are you not sick and tired of people talking Britain down like this?
It's not talking Britain down to recognise that if we are going to be members, we will have to be full members. Not least because if we're going to be members we should want to be full members.
Mr. Driver, to be fair, Remain could have done a much, much better job. Whether you're on one side or the other, the failure of the pro-EU campaign is and was pretty obvious. It was astonishingly bad, and they really should've won.
A little more time on economic benefits and a little less back of the queue/Little England tittering would've done it.
Unfortunately I can't tell what this is in reply to.
Robert Colvile @rcolvile I see Rishi has joined Liz in highlighting the scourge of solar panels on our precious farmland. We have 23 million acres of farmland. Even if we quintuple solar output (the govt's target), it would take up roughly 1/200th of it. Also you can usually still farm on the land!
More evidence that ageing Tory membership don't want to deal with the future.
I think this fails the Occam's Razor test - at least for a long time.
Colvile is proposing 175 square miles of solar farms on farmland. It fails the "necessary" test.
We should not even be touching that - with the impact on food production, recreation etc - until we have used all suitable available large roofs, car parks etc - which are situated in conirbations where the electricity is actually needed.
Amazon have just installed 20,000 sqm of solar panels on top of their Tilbury warehouse. That alone is 2 Hectares, and they have 20 fulfilment centres, just for one example.
In the UK we have something like 16 sqm of space in warehouses over 100k sqft, which will be divided by perhaps 1.x to get the roof area. That's just in the warehousing sector.
Sheep are quite happy to wonder in and around solar panels.
Wondering "WTF? Give me some proper pasture, not a place that has been engineered by computers to absorb as much of the grass-growing sunlight as it possible...."
The sheep are probably glad of the shade on hot days.
As is the grass- it grows best around 20 degrees, and exposure to full summer sun takes it way beyond that.
Light is far from the only limiting factor for photosynthesis- otherwise houseplants wouldn't be happy.
The people who don't like solar farms are those who either a) want to discredit solar power full stop, or b) think it spoils the view from the kitchen of Ye Olde Farmhouse or on their country walks.
And whilst I'm not full-on Libertarian "do what you like with your land", you need better arguments than that.
Again: I look at a fairfew of these things. What you claim may happen in foreign parts, not here. They are all at ground level and fenced like Colditz.
You mean, they're meant to be fenced but in reality the sheep get through them all the time?
Yes, but only in the TV series.
Must be difficult getting the sheep to line up in neat rows for Appel every morning and evening.
Completely OT. The only arguable agricultural connection was a cast member called Richard Heffer.
A little more time on economic benefits and a little less back of the queue/Little England tittering would've done it.
No, it wouldn't.
The millions of people who voted for Nigel Fucking Farage and his racist posters didn't care about that
A few million voted for Farage, granted. But millions of others were persuadable by a competent Remain campaign. But they had nothing to sell, so they were always struggling.
Mr. Driver, to be fair, Remain could have done a much, much better job. Whether you're on one side or the other, the failure of the pro-EU campaign is and was pretty obvious. It was astonishingly bad, and they really should've won.
A little more time on economic benefits and a little less back of the queue/Little England tittering would've done it.
or even a few less lies and anti-immigration racism would've done it...
the vast majority of people are assuming that Rejoin on the previous terms would be possible, which it wouldn't.
Are you not sick and tired of people talking Britain down like this?
It's not talking Britain down to recognise that if we are going to be members, we will have to be full members. Not least because if we're going to be members we should want to be full members.
If being in the Euro had been a requirement of continued EU membership then I would have voted Leave not Remain. At that point our economic policy would be decided in Berlin, Frankfurt and Brussels effectively not Westminster
Unreconciled Remainers have this idea that Brexit is some great edifice that needs continuing support from true believers in order to persist
Brexiteers are the ones shitting themselves that Brexit dies with BoZo
Please explain how it “dies” after Boris?
Honestly. It’s just bonkers
Brexit certainly does not depend upon Boris. There is no appetite on our side to reopen the battles of 1960 to 1975, and 2005 - 16, and no appetite on the EU side to have us rejoin.
Comments
Because we a country not a simple collection of individuals, and it is quite appropriate that the country has a say in land usage which will preserve its security, and meet its objectives.
In the UK's case, two particular current pressures are limited land and food security, plus of course recreation resources, so it is reasonable to have some general principles of land use and let free markets work within that regulation. AFAIK every country in the world has some form of control on land use.
why should they be denied that choice while Amazon get to choose to do so?
Because a warehouse roof is not the same as an agricultural field. Two different contexts.
On the South Facing roofs point, most eg warehouse roods or airfields are essentially flat these days, so you can technically point them wherever you want. Or indeed make them sun-seeking for maximum output if the numbers work taking into account the extra gubbins required, and the energy need.
South facing roofs maximise output for the summer, but E/W facing (for example) give a far better performace in the shoulder (Spring / Autumn) months. You design it for the need, and the circumstances. You can explore that using the PVGIS package.
https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/pvgis-photovoltaic-geographical-information-system_en
My solar panels face East (70%) and West (30%). I'm in the process of adjusting that to be E 30%, S 40%, W 30% for better performance throughout the year - which will require a new veranda.
https://solargrazing.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Solar-Sheep-REPORT.pdf
The thing is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. your unlimited immigration stance tends to increase the value of your house. You can't take your "assume maximum bad faith" stance against others, and claim immunity yourself.
Parasite.
Oh and by the way, unlimited development everywhere on balance increases the value of my house as people flee to the comparative protection of the national parks, so I would scarcely be against it for that reason. And secondly there *is* development even here, and near me, and in 30 years do you know how many proposals I have objected to or petitioned against? Guess.
It really is a harvest of misery to care passionately about something - Rejoin - that is vanishingly unlikely in the lifetime of anyone here
Don’t do it
But you can't retrofit this, so why are new applications not subject to a sheep may safely graze clause?
And you collectively shit yourselves, for 2 entire threads
Of course I did. In other news you are a tragic fuck and I am having a large glass of Picpoul at City airport
Polling for Rejoin is very strong. No major party in England will be proposing it in their manifesto for GE 2024, but it cannot be ignored forever.
Sooner or later the fly encrusted unflushable turd of Brexit will be dealt with.
https://www.bre.co.uk/filelibrary/nsc/Documents Library/NSC Publications/NSC_-Guid_Agricultural-good-practice-for-SFs_0914.pdf
Not sure how intensively grazed though - one case study speaks of "more than 20 geese" (so probably <25) on a 4 hectare site. Anecdotally, there are solar panels on a farm near us, which are at ground level and grazed by sheep, but I don't know how many sheep or what impact the panels have on that (observed on a walk a few weeks back).
Especially when compared to the massive amount of land taken up by coniferous woodland, under which little sodding else grows if it's too intensive.
Funny how the NIMBY scum object to electricity being provided instead of food security but don't object to bio fuels being provided instead of food security.
“The approaching tsunami of addictive AI-created content will overwhelm us”
“”Move 37”, as it became known, marked a key moment in machine learning, because it really was a point where the system went beyond what humans could devise.”
https://socialwarming.substack.com/p/the-approaching-tsunami-of-addictive
There is some interesting stuff about solar panels in drier fields, and whether they can actually help improve the quality of the pasture.
One interesting thing in the news - has anyone else noted the extensive use of linear woodlands (where the forces hide) on the steppe in Ukraine, presumably to abate the wind and help the agriculture?
It's also quite common to use highish hedges to hide the panels.
How is Rejoin polling presently as an issue on unprompted polls?
Or maybe I misremembered.
Many who experienced the EMS crisis thought it had put paid to the notion of the euro for good, but along it came anyway.
Still,for me, the whole project has massive flaws, as the ECB's predicament now illustrates. I imagine they'll get through it though, they always do.
On the second point, Putin does not have a Luftwaffe..... This was for everyday use, as it were, and absolutely terrifying. You probably do not remember.
Pleased I have seen through your little immigration/house price inflation scam. Can't see your name now without getting a MARRS "Pump up the value" earworm.
If farmers want to put solar panels on their land, they should have that prerogative.
If warehouses which are glorified tin cans can't support the weight of a solar panel and their owners don't want to install them, that should be their prerogative.
Why should a farmer be denied the right to choose to install solar panels, if they want to do so? And if the answer is food security, should we be banning bio fuels too?
I also come back to my long term gripe. Why do we not insist that every new house built in the UK has solar panels fitted as standard at the time of building. Economies of scale would make it much cheaper, there would also not be the hassle of retrofitting and if you are paying £200K for a new house then to be honest the difference between £199K and £202K is bugger all when you are going for a mortgage.
I do understand that certain properties might not be suitable and also that there is a debate about what sort of solar panelling is used but all of that applies to retrofitting as well.
So my first environmental action when I become dictator for life: All suitable new build developments must include solar panels.
The Luftwaffe could not destroy millions with 1 bomb as Putin could with a nuclear missile
It's easy to say in an opinion poll now "rejoin" - is the question doesn't specify that the rejoin terms of membership would be very different to the previous terms of membership, the question is worthless.
Big trouble.
Another 12 days like this and it'll end up looking like Glasgow.
I don't know which way it will go. It could be that the next generation will find the idea of joining the EU as fanciful as joining the US. Or they might see joining the EU as symbolic of embracing a more optimistic future.
The question is not going to turn on the minutiae of the terms of accession.
Unreconciled Remainers have this idea that Brexit is some great edifice that needs continuing support from true believers in order to persist, but in reality it's simply the state of not being in the EU. It doesn't need to be believed in, propped up or justified. It just is.
"Brexit" will be seen to be behind every bad thing that happens in this country for the foreseeable future. Not fair of course, but that is the reality of politics. Brexit already has a bad name and it is only going to get worse. It will be seen as symbolic of the old contempt for the young and working age. A sore that will fester and supparate, further toxifying generational conflict.
The undeniable fact, hidden behind faux concern for others mental health is that you are actually quite worried. You’ve openly stated on here that you fear a Starmer Govt could take us into the SM at least. And if only 5%-10% (evidence beyond Primrose Hill dinner parties?) of the population care then the other 90%-95% won’t mind rejoining.
You keep saying “Rejoice, we have a Brexited”. Why do you need to tell us that? It’s been a shitshow. In 20 years time when you are in a nursing home, plastic beaker of Scotch in hand, letching over a care worker newly arrived from Ukraine as a result of both our countries EU accession you will finally overcome this monomania.
Suspect it is because in the UK we prefer to set a hands-off goal, and leave the regulated to find the most effective route to meet it in all the circumstances.
Here, for example, the Energy Performance is regulated via Building Regs and the as-designed SAP modelling, and extra solar for a whole estate could pick up a cost to be met by the developer for upgrading the local Electricity Grid (which happens even to individual householders who only have a right to install 3.68 kWp of solar if, eg, they want to install 10 kWp) which would make super-insulating a more cost effective option for that development.
Such costs can be *very* substantial, of the order of 6 or 7 figures (ie 000s or 0000s per house) for a moderately sized estate.
But Move 37 he hasn't understood at all.
It didn't go beyond what a human could devise at all. In fact. It's the kind of move beginners play instinctively. It had merely been "coached out" of the consideration of the top class player. Shoulder hits that central were a no no.
But when it was played, Lee Sidol was astonished. But not uncomprehending. He saw instantly that is was the correct move. Just one he had been trained since a toddler simply not to consider.
Compare the re-emergence of the ramp shot in cricket. Played by kids. Now by pros too.
Houses with rentaroof solar used to be devalued, as the paperwork for the extra contract was extra buggeration.
Houses with early solar (ie 2012 ish - 40p per unit or so) used to give around here an approx 1% extra yield for a similar purchase price due to the Feed in Tariff, but I think that ship has now sailed.
https://twitter.com/MarkRid89403375/status/1560595940431450112
He's impressed selectors with his experience of line, if not length.
They call it agrivoltaics:
https://www.nrdc.org/stories/made-shade-promise-farming-solar-panels
Honestly. It’s just bonkers
But our Conservative Government did not have red lines that were credible. That is why Hitler was surprised when we declared war when he invaded Poland.
And the present government that we have is not credible in any way, shape or form.
Other policies, not strictly Brexit dependent, now that is a different story.
There are still people trying to sell rental investments to landlords where they have tarted-up a class E EPC house (which is legal to rent out for a year or two longer) with some new kitchen and bathroom and superficial renovation.
That is going to have to be an EPC C by 2030, or maybe 2025, 2026 or 2028 depending when the music stops, and a level D earlier. And all the money spent on the tart-up will be wasted, because it will need to be partially gutted and done from the fabric. No idea if anyone is still stupid enough to buy these.
But I agree with you, we had an excellent deal tailored to our politics that would be hard to match.
'Proper' is a constantly moving target.
A little more time on economic benefits and a little less back of the queue/Little England tittering would've done it.
The EU’s position in UK life will be like the USA to Canada. A giant neighbour that we have to pay attention to, often in an irritating way, but Canada still cherishes its independence and would never consider becoming another US state
The EU is a procedure-bound organisation that very rarely changes its spots. I think we would be able to tell quite closely.
The millions of people who voted for Nigel Fucking Farage and his racist posters didn't care about that
The only arguable agricultural connection was a cast member called Richard Heffer.
A deeper hole than ever. Some bowling this.