I should clear up, whenever I write Ngozi Fulani, keep in mind this could also mean Ngozi Headley; Ngozi Headley-Fulani; Marlene Headley; Marlene Fulani; Mary Headley; Mary Fulani; Mary Headley-Fulani; or Sister Ngozi. For avoidance of any doubt, this is all the same person.
The charity sector seems riddled with this kind of stuff. The captain Tom mob had a lot of allegations thrown at them - no idea how it turned out.
I was Santa last night for a local Lions club on a charity collection in the snow. Lions commit 90% of all donations back into the local community and the remainding 10% to overseas appeals. All raised by people in their spare time. I worry about people who work in the charity sector. Why not work in another job and give up your free time to help out?
I think a review of charities is long overdue.
I think the issue is that there are different types of charities. There are charities that basically just raise funds and distribute them to deserving people. There are small local groups doing important but small-scale things and relying on volunteers to keep things going. And then there are large scale organisations doing complex tasks, often on behalf of the public sector. The latter simply can't operate on a volunteer basis. If you don't think those types of organisations should be charities, then you are arguing for their activities to be carried out by the government or by a profit making firm instead, or for their activities to cease altogether.
'Charity' is almost as broad and varied an umbrella term as 'business' - but crucially most people don't see it that way. Some are wonderful, altruistic things, some are tax dodges, some are well-intentioned money pits, some are actively harmful to society. Some effectively run large parts of nations; others pick up services that ought to be provided by government.
I should clear up, whenever I write Ngozi Fulani, keep in mind this could also mean Ngozi Headley; Ngozi Headley-Fulani; Marlene Headley; Marlene Fulani; Mary Headley; Mary Fulani; Mary Headley-Fulani; or Sister Ngozi. For avoidance of any doubt, this is all the same person.
The charity sector seems riddled with this kind of stuff. The captain Tom mob had a lot of allegations thrown at them - no idea how it turned out.
I was Santa last night for a local Lions club on a charity collection in the snow. Lions commit 90% of all donations back into the local community and the remainding 10% to overseas appeals. All raised by people in their spare time. I worry about people who work in the charity sector. Why not work in another job and give up your free time to help out?
I think a review of charities is long overdue.
I think the issue is that there are different types of charities. There are charities that basically just raise funds and distribute them to deserving people. There are small local groups doing important but small-scale things and relying on volunteers to keep things going. And then there are large scale organisations doing complex tasks, often on behalf of the public sector. The latter simply can't operate on a volunteer basis. If you don't think those types of organisations should be charities, then you are arguing for their activities to be carried out by the government or by a profit making firm instead, or for their activities to cease altogether.
If the entire awareness-raising sector vanished overnight, I am not sure who would be worse off for it (other than those milking it from the inside).
On topic: The Tories made a mess of Brexit; Labour will put it right.
Off topic 1: Last night I had a dream involving Look North presenter Amy Garcia. Which was nice.
Off topic 2: Traveling by train today. Wish me luck!
I am driving up to the Lake District today. Having a coffee now. Have also twisted my back so getting out of the car is agony. Still, the motorway is clear and the snow much less. The big question is whether I go my usual route - which involves a lovely drive over the fells - or up to Penrith, onto the A66 and down the coast road. I do have blankets in the car and a loaf of bread if I get stuck.
On topic: The Tories made a mess of Brexit; Labour will put it right.
Off topic 1: Last night I had a dream involving Look North presenter Amy Garcia. Which was nice.
Off topic 2: Traveling by train today. Wish me luck!
I am driving up to the Lake District today. Having a coffee now. Have also twisted my back so getting out of the car is agony. Still, the motorway is clear and the snow much less. The big question is whether I go my usual route - which involves a lovely drive over the fells - or up to Penrith, onto the A66 and down the coast road. I do have blankets in the car and a loaf of bread if I get stuck.
Hard to say as it's a long diversion and it's not that bad in the Sedbergh / the Dales - it's nowt like down south.
I should clear up, whenever I write Ngozi Fulani, keep in mind this could also mean Ngozi Headley; Ngozi Headley-Fulani; Marlene Headley; Marlene Fulani; Mary Headley; Mary Fulani; Mary Headley-Fulani; or Sister Ngozi. For avoidance of any doubt, this is all the same person.
A lot of charities are, frankly, scams largely designed to enrich those setting them up and their income mostly consists of government grants. There really should be a crackdown on many of these.
Fascinating from Starmer fans on Brexit this morning: he should shut up about his real agenda until he's safely elected and then claim a free mandate and show his hand.
This is precisely what I've been warning about for months.
I think the Starmer approach (if there is indeed a hidden agenda) has a million more times integrity than the great big bullshit Brexit Lies peddled by the Leave campaign....
The Brexit numbers are dwindling fast...soon enough this batshit Brexit ideology will be held only by a small number of crackpots who secretly fox hunt, and look to deploy their hunting rifles to plan a putsch to overthrow Parliament and restore the Empire to 1939 borders....and so deliver the purist form of Brexit...
Most are great, from the Wellcome Foundation to Oxford University to Great Snoring Duck Pond Society they contribute massively to society.
Recently a sort of person/ group has discovered two things:
That starting a charity is a great way to attract respectable attention. (The BBC is a total sucker for it).
That it can operate without being any actual use. ("Raising awareness"!!).
That very few ask hard questions, including the Charity Commission.
That it is a general licence to ask the entire nation for money, including the money needed to pay both Rabbit and his friends and relations to 'administer'.
What the charity sector needs is
1) @Cyclefree 2) A chainsaw 3) Some actual fucking charity.
About 3 - it is standard practise in a number of Charity Shop chains to send paid staff home at no notice because enough volunteers have turned up. That is, your shift gets cancelled with zero notice. Even as a NeonFascistImperialistOppressor (tm), who relaxes by selling OTC Grandparent Default Swaps, I think this crosses a line.
I’ve previously mentioned the charming charity that does no charity. Apart from keeping the owners in a certain style.
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
Watch Labour's polling crash if it ever gets traction that "Starmer would give up our pound".
The problem before wasn't the message, but was the messenger - and a Blair still who walked on water then.
If I were the ERG I'd introduce legislation to rename it the Pound Spitfire just to be on the safe side.
Nobody knows what sterling means anyway. Might be short for Easterling meaning the Hanseatic League, their currency being less debased than ours. If that is right it is virtually a euro anyway if you think about it.
We should change the pound sign too, from the quisling, continental florid 'L' to something more comfortingly British. Maybe change it to a stylised poppy?
"Pound quisling" would be an utterly genius way for the gammon underground to refer to the euro if we do adopt it.
Rename the pound National Heirloom Sterling and it is safe forever.
On topic: The Tories made a mess of Brexit; Labour will put it right.
Off topic 1: Last night I had a dream involving Look North presenter Amy Garcia. Which was nice.
Off topic 2: Traveling by train today. Wish me luck!
I am driving up to the Lake District today. Having a coffee now. Have also twisted my back so getting out of the car is agony. Still, the motorway is clear and the snow much less. The big question is whether I go my usual route - which involves a lovely drive over the fells - or up to Penrith, onto the A66 and down the coast road. I do have blankets in the car and a loaf of bread if I get stuck.
Many years ago I drove from Newcastle to Lytham for a meeting after a heavy snow fall. I took the A69, but deviated off onto the hill route. About 10 miles in I found a road closed sign. About 20 miles in I passed a plough going the other way.
Got to Lytham to find the meeting was cancelled. "Nobody from Newcastle could make it..."
Fascinating from Starmer fans on Brexit this morning: he should shut up about his real agenda until he's safely elected and then claim a free mandate and show his hand.
This is precisely what I've been warning about for months.
You are placing an agenda on Starmer which I don't believe actually exists (unless what I've heard from Baroness Chapman is a bunch of lies).
@elonmusk I strongly disagree. Forcing your pronouns upon others when they didn’t ask, and implicitly ostracizing those who don’t, is neither good nor kind to anyone.
As for Fauci, he lied to Congress and funded gain-of-function research that killed millions of people. Not awesome imo.
I like Elon Musk, he is someone who sees problems and handles them. That is a lot better than the vast majority of people today.
He's clearly at a state of wealth whereby he doesn't care for money anymore. Good on him to sort twitter out.
Yes, media may say his "wealth" has halved. But this is an information space, and he understands this. Over the next 10 years this world will move forward to that. In some ways, despite the short or even medium term hit, he has made a major investment that I believe will pay off in the longer term as paradigms change and hard AI hits eventually.
The overpayment was just one of those things, there was no way to know the entire tech market would dump shortly after he made his offer.
Musk is kind of complicated because he's a huge bullshitter but also he sometimes delivers. Hopefully the problem he's currently working on is that Trumpists and antivaxxers are tribally aligned against electric cars.
Musk has two problems:
Firstly, as you say, the people who buy his solar products or his electric cars are exactly the people who dislike his rhetoric on this. This is probably good news for other electric car makers.
Secondly, his businesses (whether Twitter or Tesla or SpaceX) are dependent on him hiring very smart people. And those smart people are in a lot of demand. Does he find it harder to recruit and keep the right people?
Separately, I have a friend on Twitter who is a money manager and has been a fairly long time Tesla bear. Since Musk took over, he's seen a dramatic decrease in the number of people seeing his Tweets: https://twitter.com/AlbertBridgeCap/status/1601990554526654466
I feel the very long product development times are slowly strangling Tesla. The Model S launched ten years ago and has one very minor cosmetic update since then. Meanwhile BMW have done two and a half generations of 5 Series.
Their competitive advantages that compensated for the stale (and poorly built) products were the charging network and range but the Tier 1 OEMs (particularly VAG) are constantly whittling those margins away.
Even though I know nothing about the world of wankers with six giant monitors covered in graphs I don't blame him for being pessimistic about Tesla.
Maybe EiT is on to something. Dark Elon has turned into an alt-right shitlord to make wannabe alt-right shitlords buy Teslas.
There are several reasons that I don't own a Tesla, including not trusting a dickhead to care about quality control. You are right on the Tesla ranges looking very tired. Tesla is the Model T of the modern era, a breakthrough commercially but overtaken by the rest of the world.
Tesla's biggest selling point was its novelty and difference, bolstered by the feeling that you could splash out on a luxury item while "saving the world". Rather like the Toyota Prius (albeit less luxury) when it first came out. It's just not a novelty anymore.
Compounding this is Musk's trashing of his reputation among the very same affluent left-liberal Twitterati he had build up as his customer base. People who find him distasteful will now steer clear of Teslas, especially in the polarised US.
It's a very social media-age phenomenon, the clash between culture warfare and consumer behaviour. Two European examples I can think of with exactly the same dynamics: Dyson - until 2016 the archetypal middle class John Lewis shopping vacuum cleaner choice. Now soft-boycotted by its previous core base seemingly in favour of Henrys. But in his case the business has diversified internationally and in product terms so it's not dependent on that demographic anymore. And Nutella: ultimate middle class holiday family spread now shunned by almost everyone in its former consumer group because of the palm oil.
Actually Nutella and palm oil is a fascinating dilemma. A company with long term, well established investments in a core commodity which it's under pressure to ditch but if it did it would be consigning thousands of low paid workers in poor countries to unemployment. A kind of veg oil version of closing the coalmines.
For now Tesla should be fine. There's a capacity shortage for EVs and batteries; if they can continue controlling a significant slice of battery manufacturing, they'll sell everything they can produce for the next few years.
I've never understood why EVs are seen as better for the environment given that the main energy source for many is whatever fossil fuel is being used by the electricity generators.
Firstly, efficiency. It would be more efficient to burn the oil in a power station, charge the car and drive it, then fill the equivalent car with petrol. This is because power stations can get very high thermal efficiencies - size helps - and loses on the way are surprisingly low.
Even in the US, quite a bit of electricity is coming from renewable sources, which further moves the position.
IIRC this meant that a Tesla (say) was at worst, better than a very small compact ICE.
As the grid goes “Greener”, the cars follow, as it were
I would suggest reading up on the “well to wheels” calculations. Some excellent work has been done on studying the true C02 emissions/equivalence by the American EPA.
Granted Richard Burgon isn't the greatest MP but he isn't wrong here.
@RichardBurgon · 3m Nurses are now earning £5,000 a year less in real terms than when the Tories came to power.
There are now 47,000 nursing vacancies in the NHS.
The NHS crisis can't be resolved without paying nurses properly.
Agree, but where does the money come from, without contributing to inflation?
From the rest of us - wealth tax, income tax, windfall tax, borrowing, we can debate, but clearly a situation where we can't get either an ambulance or reasonable care within hours is not acceptable, and more important than most of the things we spend money on. We pay the Government to prioritise, and at present they seem to be prioritising doing nothing very much for fear it might make MPs rebel. That, I suggest, is not a priority for most people.
Ask "most people" whether nurses should be paid more. They all say yes. Then show them the current pay scale, remembering to explain the DB pension scheme which adds circa 40% on to the said pay scale. Then see if their view changes.
Secondly, when people clamour for higher nurses pay, why the focus on nurses? What about doctors, porters and admin staff? Why just nurses? I don't know for sure but I'm guessing that nurses total less than half of the NHS staffing.
Isn't this just an emotive way of building a narrative to alter the balance between the public sector vs the private sector in favour of the former? Isn't this the real agenda?
There are 47,000 nursing vacancies. Many of them will be being filled on a shift by shift basis (because the Hospital has no choice but to pay whatever is demanded) by contract staff charging far more than the cost of an salaried staff member.
So we are currently not paying nurses enough for them to work AND the NHS is probably paying billions to agencies in a desperate attempt to avoid not having to close wards down at short notice.
So it's not a question of what the general public may think - it's a question of what level of pay is required to ensure nursing staffing levels return to sustainable levels - because the total cost will be far less than you think.
There's a kind of frugal virtue signalling going on here, and has been for ages.
The pay scales and changes in the public sector are easily available and easily understood. Squeezing those looks like it is being careful with public money. Unfortunately, the cost of filling gaps with agency staff is usually hidden, unless someone wants to FOI the numbers to tell a story. So the government ends up paying more for less. Agency staff may be no better or worse than permanent staff, but they can't have the institutional memory.
This sort of thing ought to be well understood by people on the right. It's the same process you got in Soviet food markets. Either try to pay the official price and not get enough food, or go to the tolerated-on-the-margins free markets and pay the economic price for things.
Staff, like other things, cost what they cost. Try to get away with paying less and the supply eventually dries up.
The NHS is rife with false economy, derived from failure to invest (usually in people). It is not efficient for people to use A&E for primary healthcare, but that is where so many people have to end up.
I've mentioned on here that I've been dealing a lot with my dad being in and out of hospital a lot - but again, costly inefficiency at play because he originally got two minutes with a consultant who he's not seen before or since, who sent him home with a treatment which, while ostensibly fine, a more careful consideration of his history would have shown to be inappropriate (so back we come, blue lights, overnights, more paramedic doctor and nurse time etc.).
Isn't the big problem the one with which the NHS began in 1948 - the nosense of the GP Contract. They remain a privileged group operating privately within the state set up. They are riddled with restrictive practices and much of the work which occupies a lot of their highly paid time would be better done by the practice nurse or farmacist. Sadly there is little problem of change because the entire organisation has become deified to the point where even the most reasonable criticism is not allowed.
I should clear up, whenever I write Ngozi Fulani, keep in mind this could also mean Ngozi Headley; Ngozi Headley-Fulani; Marlene Headley; Marlene Fulani; Mary Headley; Mary Fulani; Mary Headley-Fulani; or Sister Ngozi. For avoidance of any doubt, this is all the same person.
Not bothering with the thread, since it's evidently victim-blaming. The point isn't that Fulani is or isn't a wonderful person. It's that she was subjected to aggressive questioning about her background by a trusted adviser to the Palace. It was seen by two witnesses, not denied by Hussey, and confirmed by the Palace. Fulani could be an axe-murderess and it wouldn't change anything.
I was chatting yesterday to a high-flying banker, born in Britain of Egyptian descent. He says it's routine for people to ask him where he "really" comes from, even when he identifies where he was born and grew up (Liverpool), though not to the same persistent extent as Hussey. He rolls his eyes and says you get used to it, but it's not great.
Really Nick. That is a daft approach you are taking.
It is possible for both the following statements to be true:-
1. Lady Hussey was rude and wrong to question this lady in the way she did. 2. The charity run by this lady has some serious questions to answer about its accounts, its claims for grants, what it spends its money on, whether the founders are personally enriching themselves and what actual charitable activities it is carrying out.
The thread is long and complicated but there are some issues of substance there which need resolving.
Nick's approach which seems to assume that anyone who is treated impolitely or in a racist manner is somehow beyond reproach and should not be challenged is facile and stupid.
Someone changing their name and using multiple identities is a red flag and one which should not be ignored. This charity was being given taxpayers' money - quite a lot of it - and we are entitled to know that everything is above board, regardless of whether the founder was treated rudely at a Buckingham Palace reception.
Accusations of racism - however well-founded they may be - do not and should not give you a free pass.
3 boys (11, 10 and 8 ) have died in the tragedy of the lake in the Midlands and a 6 year old boy remains critical
Heartfelt sympathy to all the families and friends
This is simply tragic and just before Christmas
Time to teach the rules about ice and freezing water again.
IIRC, after one rail crash, it was pointed out that for about 0.1% of the cost of a completely useless change in the signalling system (which would be replaced again before the upgrade was finished), you could do a campaign in schools etc to reduce trespassing on tracks. And save many more lives a year…
Most are great, from the Wellcome Foundation to Oxford University to Great Snoring Duck Pond Society they contribute massively to society.
Recently a sort of person/ group has discovered two things:
That starting a charity is a great way to attract respectable attention. (The BBC is a total sucker for it).
That it can operate without being any actual use. ("Raising awareness"!!).
That very few ask hard questions, including the Charity Commission.
That it is a general licence to ask the entire nation for money, including the money needed to pay both Rabbit and his friends and relations to 'administer'.
What the charity sector needs is
1) @Cyclefree 2) A chainsaw 3) Some actual fucking charity.
About 3 - it is standard practise in a number of Charity Shop chains to send paid staff home at no notice because enough volunteers have turned up. That is, your shift gets cancelled with zero notice. Even as a NeonFascistImperialistOppressor (tm), who relaxes by selling OTC Grandparent Default Swaps, I think this crosses a line.
I’ve previously mentioned the charming charity that does no charity. Apart from keeping the owners in a certain style.
The number of stories I've heard about large Charity 1 running a spoiler marketing campaign to spoil charity 2's campaign is infinite.
I actually refuse to do work for charities because they argue their charitable aims means they deserve a discount only for me to discover their tricks in week 1 followed be me walking away in disgust.
Microsoft has taken a £1.5bn stake in the London Stock Exchange Group in a stunning approach by the big tech giant for one of the world's oldest financial institutions.
On topic: The Tories made a mess of Brexit; Labour will put it right.
Off topic 1: Last night I had a dream involving Look North presenter Amy Garcia. Which was nice.
Off topic 2: Traveling by train today. Wish me luck!
I am driving up to the Lake District today. Having a coffee now. Have also twisted my back so getting out of the car is agony. Still, the motorway is clear and the snow much less. The big question is whether I go my usual route - which involves a lovely drive over the fells - or up to Penrith, onto the A66 and down the coast road. I do have blankets in the car and a loaf of bread if I get stuck.
Go via teebay services imho. The sourdough bread toast is usually exceptional
Most are great, from the Wellcome Foundation to Oxford University to Great Snoring Duck Pond Society they contribute massively to society.
Recently a sort of person/ group has discovered two things:
That starting a charity is a great way to attract respectable attention. (The BBC is a total sucker for it).
That it can operate without being any actual use. ("Raising awareness"!!).
That very few ask hard questions, including the Charity Commission.
That it is a general licence to ask the entire nation for money, including the money needed to pay both Rabbit and his friends and relations to 'administer'.
What the charity sector needs is
1) @Cyclefree 2) A chainsaw 3) Some actual fucking charity.
About 3 - it is standard practise in a number of Charity Shop chains to send paid staff home at no notice because enough volunteers have turned up. That is, your shift gets cancelled with zero notice. Even as a NeonFascistImperialistOppressor (tm), who relaxes by selling OTC Grandparent Default Swaps, I think this crosses a line.
I’ve previously mentioned the charming charity that does no charity. Apart from keeping the owners in a certain style.
I am a Chair of Trustees of a charity. It is my volunteering contribution and takes up more time than I thought. But I have learnt a lot and find it very worthwhile. The legal and financial obligations are pretty onerous, rightly so.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
Fascinating from Starmer fans on Brexit this morning: he should shut up about his real agenda until he's safely elected and then claim a free mandate and show his hand.
This is precisely what I've been warning about for months.
You are placing an agenda on Starmer which I don't believe actually exists (unless what I've heard from Baroness Chapman is a bunch of lies).
Absolutely. Especially the bits about the sheer faff of taking the country back in whist it's a controversial issue. But when SKS talks about Making Brexit Work, I can't help thinking of the Emcee in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe;
"it really gives one hope for the future of all lifekind. Except, of course," he waved at the blitzing turmoil above and around them, "that we know it hasn't got one..."
This is all fanciful. We are not going to rejoin for decades. No PM will give up Sterling
I don't think that "saving the British pound" is quite the killer punch you believe it to be, at least with voters under 60. It didn't do much for William Hague's as I recall and that was 20 years ago.
It did enough to persuade Blair that he couldn't join the euro without a referendum, and to persuade him not to call such a referendum because he would lose it.
Hague's save-the-pound was the most stupid campaign in election history
Nah. The Remain campaign beats it by a country mile.
FFS, it got beaten by the side of a bus.
Indeed, but by a stonking great lie on the side of a bus. It might as well have said: "Vote leave for lots, and lots of free, no strings attached cash in unmarked notes, delivered through your letterbox every day for the rest of your life".
On topic: The Tories made a mess of Brexit; Labour will put it right.
Off topic 1: Last night I had a dream involving Look North presenter Amy Garcia. Which was nice.
Off topic 2: Traveling by train today. Wish me luck!
I am driving up to the Lake District today. Having a coffee now. Have also twisted my back so getting out of the car is agony. Still, the motorway is clear and the snow much less. The big question is whether I go my usual route - which involves a lovely drive over the fells - or up to Penrith, onto the A66 and down the coast road. I do have blankets in the car and a loaf of bread if I get stuck.
Go via teebay services imho. The sourdough bread toast is usually exceptional
I know it well. Though Shap is one of the places to avoid in winter.
I normally get off at junction 35, stop at Beethams Nurseries, buy plants and use their excellent cafe. The A590 and then the A595 are the way to go. The road between Gawthwaite and Grizebeck over the fells and then down to the Duddon Estuary is one of the most beautiful stretches of road in England. It lifts my heart whenever I am on it, no matter what time of year or the weather.
I should clear up, whenever I write Ngozi Fulani, keep in mind this could also mean Ngozi Headley; Ngozi Headley-Fulani; Marlene Headley; Marlene Fulani; Mary Headley; Mary Fulani; Mary Headley-Fulani; or Sister Ngozi. For avoidance of any doubt, this is all the same person.
Not bothering with the thread, since it's evidently victim-blaming. The point isn't that Fulani is or isn't a wonderful person. It's that she was subjected to aggressive questioning about her background by a trusted adviser to the Palace. It was seen by two witnesses, not denied by Hussey, and confirmed by the Palace. Fulani could be an axe-murderess and it wouldn't change anything.
I was chatting yesterday to a high-flying banker, born in Britain of Egyptian descent. He says it's routine for people to ask him where he "really" comes from, even when he identifies where he was born and grew up (Liverpool), though not to the same persistent extent as Hussey. He rolls his eyes and says you get used to it, but it's not great.
Really Nick. That is a daft approach you are taking.
It is possible for both the following statements to be true:-
1. Lady Hussey was rude and wrong to question this lady in the way she did. 2. The charity run by this lady has some serious questions to answer about its accounts, its claims for grants, what it spends its money on, whether the founders are personally enriching themselves and what actual charitable activities it is carrying out.
The thread is long and complicated but there are some issues of substance there which need resolving.
Nick's approach which seems to assume that anyone who is treated impolitely or in a racist manner is somehow beyond reproach and should not be challenged is facile and stupid.
Someone changing their name and using multiple identities is a red flag and one which should not be ignored. This charity was being given taxpayers' money - quite a lot of it - and we are entitled to know that everything is above board, regardless of whether the founder was treated rudely at a Buckingham Palace reception.
Accusations of racism - however well-founded they may be - do not and should not give you a free pass.
Of course, it's entirely possible that someone fearing that they might be subject to investigation might feel it would be helpful if they could contrive to become a high-profile victim of racism. They might even feel it would render them largely invulnerable.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
There is a reason that the rush to build net zero generating sources resembles a gold rush. It is my understanding that, at the moment, the major limitation in adding wind power is the infrastructure to actually install it - it is being made, installed and hooked up to the grid at the capacity of the supply chain.
See also the nuclear power stations that various governments in the U.K. have been trying to build.
Personally, I think we need about 30-40 new nuclear power stations. But I like nukes…
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
None of this is a surprise and, as you say, most of the solution is well-known, it's simply a matter of spending the money and taking the time to rebuild our entire energy infrastructure. No biggie. It's a solvable problem.
I don't see why you think it's something that is new or difficult? We've known for ages that wind is a large part of the solution but that wind alone cannot be all of the solution.
@elonmusk I strongly disagree. Forcing your pronouns upon others when they didn’t ask, and implicitly ostracizing those who don’t, is neither good nor kind to anyone.
As for Fauci, he lied to Congress and funded gain-of-function research that killed millions of people. Not awesome imo.
I like Elon Musk, he is someone who sees problems and handles them. That is a lot better than the vast majority of people today.
He's clearly at a state of wealth whereby he doesn't care for money anymore. Good on him to sort twitter out.
Yes, media may say his "wealth" has halved. But this is an information space, and he understands this. Over the next 10 years this world will move forward to that. In some ways, despite the short or even medium term hit, he has made a major investment that I believe will pay off in the longer term as paradigms change and hard AI hits eventually.
The overpayment was just one of those things, there was no way to know the entire tech market would dump shortly after he made his offer.
Musk is kind of complicated because he's a huge bullshitter but also he sometimes delivers. Hopefully the problem he's currently working on is that Trumpists and antivaxxers are tribally aligned against electric cars.
Musk has two problems:
Firstly, as you say, the people who buy his solar products or his electric cars are exactly the people who dislike his rhetoric on this. This is probably good news for other electric car makers.
Secondly, his businesses (whether Twitter or Tesla or SpaceX) are dependent on him hiring very smart people. And those smart people are in a lot of demand. Does he find it harder to recruit and keep the right people?
Separately, I have a friend on Twitter who is a money manager and has been a fairly long time Tesla bear. Since Musk took over, he's seen a dramatic decrease in the number of people seeing his Tweets: https://twitter.com/AlbertBridgeCap/status/1601990554526654466
I feel the very long product development times are slowly strangling Tesla. The Model S launched ten years ago and has one very minor cosmetic update since then. Meanwhile BMW have done two and a half generations of 5 Series.
Their competitive advantages that compensated for the stale (and poorly built) products were the charging network and range but the Tier 1 OEMs (particularly VAG) are constantly whittling those margins away.
Even though I know nothing about the world of wankers with six giant monitors covered in graphs I don't blame him for being pessimistic about Tesla.
Maybe EiT is on to something. Dark Elon has turned into an alt-right shitlord to make wannabe alt-right shitlords buy Teslas.
There are several reasons that I don't own a Tesla, including not trusting a dickhead to care about quality control. You are right on the Tesla ranges looking very tired. Tesla is the Model T of the modern era, a breakthrough commercially but overtaken by the rest of the world.
Tesla's biggest selling point was its novelty and difference, bolstered by the feeling that you could splash out on a luxury item while "saving the world". Rather like the Toyota Prius (albeit less luxury) when it first came out. It's just not a novelty anymore.
Compounding this is Musk's trashing of his reputation among the very same affluent left-liberal Twitterati he had build up as his customer base. People who find him distasteful will now steer clear of Teslas, especially in the polarised US.
It's a very social media-age phenomenon, the clash between culture warfare and consumer behaviour. Two European examples I can think of with exactly the same dynamics: Dyson - until 2016 the archetypal middle class John Lewis shopping vacuum cleaner choice. Now soft-boycotted by its previous core base seemingly in favour of Henrys. But in his case the business has diversified internationally and in product terms so it's not dependent on that demographic anymore. And Nutella: ultimate middle class holiday family spread now shunned by almost everyone in its former consumer group because of the palm oil.
Actually Nutella and palm oil is a fascinating dilemma. A company with long term, well established investments in a core commodity which it's under pressure to ditch but if it did it would be consigning thousands of low paid workers in poor countries to unemployment. A kind of veg oil version of closing the coalmines.
For now Tesla should be fine. There's a capacity shortage for EVs and batteries; if they can continue controlling a significant slice of battery manufacturing, they'll sell everything they can produce for the next few years.
I've never understood why EVs are seen as better for the environment given that the main energy source for many is whatever fossil fuel is being used by the electricity generators.
Firstly, efficiency. It would be more efficient to burn the oil in a power station, charge the car and drive it, then fill the equivalent car with petrol. This is because power stations can get very high thermal efficiencies - size helps - and loses on the way are surprisingly low.
Even in the US, quite a bit of electricity is coming from renewable sources, which further moves the position.
IIRC this meant that a Tesla (say) was at worst, better than a very small compact ICE.
As the grid goes “Greener”, the cars follow, as it were
I would suggest reading up on the “well to wheels” calculations. Some excellent work has been done on studying the true C02 emissions/equivalence by the American EPA.
The main reason we use a small EV to do local drives has nothing to do with climate change and everything to do with tailpipe emissions. Even if EVs had zero net impact on CO2 emissions they would be well worth it for the health benefits of clean air in cities. The childhood asthma levels around here are massively elevated compared with equivalent rural areas, and the culprit is air pollution.
Microsoft has taken a £1.5bn stake in the London Stock Exchange Group in a stunning approach by the big tech giant for one of the world's oldest financial institutions.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
There is a reason that the rush to build net zero generating sources resembles a gold rush. It is my understanding that, at the moment, the major limitation in adding wind power is the infrastructure to actually install it - it is being made, installed and hooked up to the grid at the capacity of the supply chain.
See also the nuclear power stations that various governments in the U.K. have been trying to build.
Personally, I think we need about 30-40 new nuclear power stations. But I like nukes…
I understand that solar panel installations are fully booked until next Summer, no doubt because of hugh demand over the number of installers and general logistics
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
There is a reason that the rush to build net zero generating sources resembles a gold rush. It is my understanding that, at the moment, the major limitation in adding wind power is the infrastructure to actually install it - it is being made, installed and hooked up to the grid at the capacity of the supply chain.
See also the nuclear power stations that various governments in the U.K. have been trying to build.
Personally, I think we need about 30-40 new nuclear power stations. But I like nukes…
I don't have a problem with nukes except for the fact I am in the Hinkley Point 30km blast zone, so I would much prefer that I am also in the 30km Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon blast zone.
Fascinating from Starmer fans on Brexit this morning: he should shut up about his real agenda until he's safely elected and then claim a free mandate and show his hand.
This is precisely what I've been warning about for months.
You are placing an agenda on Starmer which I don't believe actually exists (unless what I've heard from Baroness Chapman is a bunch of lies).
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
There is a reason that the rush to build net zero generating sources resembles a gold rush. It is my understanding that, at the moment, the major limitation in adding wind power is the infrastructure to actually install it - it is being made, installed and hooked up to the grid at the capacity of the supply chain.
See also the nuclear power stations that various governments in the U.K. have been trying to build.
Personally, I think we need about 30-40 new nuclear power stations. But I like nukes…
On a day like today we could use some nukes. All these new interconnectors are serving us well, though. Currently importing 10% of our needs.
Fascinating from Starmer fans on Brexit this morning: he should shut up about his real agenda until he's safely elected and then claim a free mandate and show his hand.
This is precisely what I've been warning about for months.
I think the Starmer approach (if there is indeed a hidden agenda) has a million more times integrity than the great big bullshit Brexit Lies peddled by the Leave campaign....
The Brexit numbers are dwindling fast...soon enough this batshit Brexit ideology will be held only by a small number of crackpots who secretly fox hunt, and look to deploy their hunting rifles to plan a putsch to overthrow Parliament and restore the Empire to 1939 borders....and so deliver the purist form of Brexit...
Kate Morley, author of the handy https://grid.iamkate.com/ website has now put in the calculated wholesale MWH current cost of electricity. An eye watering £1395/MWH at the moment.
Fascinating from Starmer fans on Brexit this morning: he should shut up about his real agenda until he's safely elected and then claim a free mandate and show his hand.
This is precisely what I've been warning about for months.
He's learned the tactic from the multiple mendacities of the Leave campaigns and their client governments.
Not bothering with the thread, since it's evidently victim-blaming. The point isn't that Fulani is or isn't a wonderful person. It's that she was subjected to aggressive questioning about her background by a trusted adviser to the Palace. It was seen by two witnesses, not denied by Hussey, and confirmed by the Palace. Fulani could be an axe-murderess and it wouldn't change anything.
I was chatting yesterday to a high-flying banker, born in Britain of Egyptian descent. He says it's routine for people to ask him where he "really" comes from, even when he identifies where he was born and grew up (Liverpool), though not to the same persistent extent as Hussey. He rolls his eyes and says you get used to it, but it's not great.
Really Nick. That is a daft approach you are taking.
It is possible for both the following statements to be true:-
1. Lady Hussey was rude and wrong to question this lady in the way she did. 2. The charity run by this lady has some serious questions to answer about its accounts, its claims for grants, what it spends its money on, whether the founders are personally enriching themselves and what actual charitable activities it is carrying out.
The thread is long and complicated but there are some issues of substance there which need resolving.
Nick's approach which seems to assume that anyone who is treated impolitely or in a racist manner is somehow beyond reproach and should not be challenged is facile and stupid.
Someone changing their name and using multiple identities is a red flag and one which should not be ignored. This charity was being given taxpayers' money - quite a lot of it - and we are entitled to know that everything is above board, regardless of whether the founder was treated rudely at a Buckingham Palace reception.
Accusations of racism - however well-founded they may be - do not and should not give you a free pass.
No, I'm not saying that this or any other organisation should be given a free pass, merely objecting to the implication that tweeting about Fulani's real or imagined faults is an excuse for Hussey (I really don't believe that the tweeter would do it if the incident hadn't happened, or why didn't they do it before?). If there are reasons to investigate the charity, the way to trigger that is to report concerns to the Charity Commission. As I've never heard of the charity before and have no standing to assess whether it's well-run, I'm not bothering with the tweets myself.
In short, my responses would be:
1. Yes. 2. Perhaps. Don't ask Twitter to judge - report it to the proper authority.
Microsoft has taken a £1.5bn stake in the London Stock Exchange Group in a stunning approach by the big tech giant for one of the world's oldest financial institutions.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
There is a reason that the rush to build net zero generating sources resembles a gold rush. It is my understanding that, at the moment, the major limitation in adding wind power is the infrastructure to actually install it - it is being made, installed and hooked up to the grid at the capacity of the supply chain.
See also the nuclear power stations that various governments in the U.K. have been trying to build.
Personally, I think we need about 30-40 new nuclear power stations. But I like nukes…
On a day like today we could use some nukes. All these new interconnectors are serving us well, though. Currently importing 10% of our needs.
The more interconnectors, the better. After all, the wind is always blowing somewhere.
I should clear up, whenever I write Ngozi Fulani, keep in mind this could also mean Ngozi Headley; Ngozi Headley-Fulani; Marlene Headley; Marlene Fulani; Mary Headley; Mary Fulani; Mary Headley-Fulani; or Sister Ngozi. For avoidance of any doubt, this is all the same person.
The charity sector seems riddled with this kind of stuff. The captain Tom mob had a lot of allegations thrown at them - no idea how it turned out.
I was Santa last night for a local Lions club on a charity collection in the snow. Lions commit 90% of all donations back into the local community and the remainding 10% to overseas appeals. All raised by people in their spare time. I worry about people who work in the charity sector. Why not work in another job and give up your free time to help out?
I think a review of charities is long overdue.
I think the issue is that there are different types of charities. There are charities that basically just raise funds and distribute them to deserving people. There are small local groups doing important but small-scale things and relying on volunteers to keep things going. And then there are large scale organisations doing complex tasks, often on behalf of the public sector. The latter simply can't operate on a volunteer basis. If you don't think those types of organisations should be charities, then you are arguing for their activities to be carried out by the government or by a profit making firm instead, or for their activities to cease altogether.
If the entire awareness-raising sector vanished overnight, I am not sure who would be worse off for it (other than those milking it from the inside).
I take it you don't like the RBL's poppy then?
Utterly loathe every single thing about it, from the dreadful poem which started the whole thing to the present day.
@elonmusk I strongly disagree. Forcing your pronouns upon others when they didn’t ask, and implicitly ostracizing those who don’t, is neither good nor kind to anyone.
As for Fauci, he lied to Congress and funded gain-of-function research that killed millions of people. Not awesome imo.
I like Elon Musk, he is someone who sees problems and handles them. That is a lot better than the vast majority of people today.
He's clearly at a state of wealth whereby he doesn't care for money anymore. Good on him to sort twitter out.
Yes, media may say his "wealth" has halved. But this is an information space, and he understands this. Over the next 10 years this world will move forward to that. In some ways, despite the short or even medium term hit, he has made a major investment that I believe will pay off in the longer term as paradigms change and hard AI hits eventually.
The overpayment was just one of those things, there was no way to know the entire tech market would dump shortly after he made his offer.
Musk is kind of complicated because he's a huge bullshitter but also he sometimes delivers. Hopefully the problem he's currently working on is that Trumpists and antivaxxers are tribally aligned against electric cars.
Musk has two problems:
Firstly, as you say, the people who buy his solar products or his electric cars are exactly the people who dislike his rhetoric on this. This is probably good news for other electric car makers.
Secondly, his businesses (whether Twitter or Tesla or SpaceX) are dependent on him hiring very smart people. And those smart people are in a lot of demand. Does he find it harder to recruit and keep the right people?
Separately, I have a friend on Twitter who is a money manager and has been a fairly long time Tesla bear. Since Musk took over, he's seen a dramatic decrease in the number of people seeing his Tweets: https://twitter.com/AlbertBridgeCap/status/1601990554526654466
I feel the very long product development times are slowly strangling Tesla. The Model S launched ten years ago and has one very minor cosmetic update since then. Meanwhile BMW have done two and a half generations of 5 Series.
Their competitive advantages that compensated for the stale (and poorly built) products were the charging network and range but the Tier 1 OEMs (particularly VAG) are constantly whittling those margins away.
Even though I know nothing about the world of wankers with six giant monitors covered in graphs I don't blame him for being pessimistic about Tesla.
Maybe EiT is on to something. Dark Elon has turned into an alt-right shitlord to make wannabe alt-right shitlords buy Teslas.
There are several reasons that I don't own a Tesla, including not trusting a dickhead to care about quality control. You are right on the Tesla ranges looking very tired. Tesla is the Model T of the modern era, a breakthrough commercially but overtaken by the rest of the world.
Tesla's biggest selling point was its novelty and difference, bolstered by the feeling that you could splash out on a luxury item while "saving the world". Rather like the Toyota Prius (albeit less luxury) when it first came out. It's just not a novelty anymore.
Compounding this is Musk's trashing of his reputation among the very same affluent left-liberal Twitterati he had build up as his customer base. People who find him distasteful will now steer clear of Teslas, especially in the polarised US.
It's a very social media-age phenomenon, the clash between culture warfare and consumer behaviour. Two European examples I can think of with exactly the same dynamics: Dyson - until 2016 the archetypal middle class John Lewis shopping vacuum cleaner choice. Now soft-boycotted by its previous core base seemingly in favour of Henrys. But in his case the business has diversified internationally and in product terms so it's not dependent on that demographic anymore. And Nutella: ultimate middle class holiday family spread now shunned by almost everyone in its former consumer group because of the palm oil.
Actually Nutella and palm oil is a fascinating dilemma. A company with long term, well established investments in a core commodity which it's under pressure to ditch but if it did it would be consigning thousands of low paid workers in poor countries to unemployment. A kind of veg oil version of closing the coalmines.
For now Tesla should be fine. There's a capacity shortage for EVs and batteries; if they can continue controlling a significant slice of battery manufacturing, they'll sell everything they can produce for the next few years.
I've never understood why EVs are seen as better for the environment given that the main energy source for many is whatever fossil fuel is being used by the electricity generators.
Even if the electricity used to charge an EV were 100% generated by fossil fuel power stations, it would still be more environmentally friendly to drive an EV than a conventional car. That's because power stations are more efficient at extracting energy from fossil fuels than car engines are, and electricity transmission losses are relatively small.
But of course a significant proportion are our electricity does come from non-fossil fuel sources, especially at night when many EVs are charged, which swings the equation even more in their favour.
They are also more efficient in terms of energy expended going from A to B.
Sure: but efficiency numbers need to include quite a lot of transitions when energy will be lost:
(1) At the power station when electricity is generated (2) In the transmission network (3) In the charging process (4) In the battery itself (5) In the electrical motor converting it into motive power
55% * 95% * 95% * 95% * 85% is suddenly not a million miles from a petrol engine's efficiency.
55% * 95% * 95% * 95% * 85% = 40% which is indeed not a million miles away for the 20% to 35% (according to Wikipedia) achieved by a petrol engine, but still better. And that would be for a 100% fossil-fuel powered grid.
I'm being quite generous with my losses, and my assumed efficiency of electrical generation!
That said: given growing wind resources, it probably isn't of any great import.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
None of this is a surprise and, as you say, most of the solution is well-known, it's simply a matter of spending the money and taking the time to rebuild our entire energy infrastructure. No biggie. It's a solvable problem.
I don't see why you think it's something that is new or difficult? We've known for ages that wind is a large part of the solution but that wind alone cannot be all of the solution.
It is not new but it is only difficult if an unrealistic time limit is applied without the accompanying technology and adequate alternative sources are able to come In stream
On topic: The Tories made a mess of Brexit; Labour will put it right.
Off topic 1: Last night I had a dream involving Look North presenter Amy Garcia. Which was nice.
Off topic 2: Traveling by train today. Wish me luck!
I am driving up to the Lake District today. Having a coffee now. Have also twisted my back so getting out of the car is agony. Still, the motorway is clear and the snow much less. The big question is whether I go my usual route - which involves a lovely drive over the fells - or up to Penrith, onto the A66 and down the coast road. I do have blankets in the car and a loaf of bread if I get stuck.
Go via teebay services imho. The sourdough bread toast is usually exceptional
I know it well. Though Shap is one of the places to avoid in winter.
I normally get off at junction 35, stop at Beethams Nurseries, buy plants and use their excellent cafe. The A590 and then the A595 are the way to go. The road between Gawthwaite and Grizebeck over the fells and then down to the Duddon Estuary is one of the most beautiful stretches of road in England. It lifts my heart whenever I am on it, no matter what time of year or the weather.
I'm not a Declinist on the whole, but I do think Tebay has got less good (also be prepared to wait a good twenty minutes for your espresso).
Still a tradition for us to stop there when we head up to see me mam in Scotland though.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
There is a reason that the rush to build net zero generating sources resembles a gold rush. It is my understanding that, at the moment, the major limitation in adding wind power is the infrastructure to actually install it - it is being made, installed and hooked up to the grid at the capacity of the supply chain.
See also the nuclear power stations that various governments in the U.K. have been trying to build.
Personally, I think we need about 30-40 new nuclear power stations. But I like nukes…
I understand that solar panel installations are fully booked until next Summer, no doubt because of hugh demand over the number of installers and general logistics
I was rung up by a solar installer last week who I'd previously got a quote from, asking if we were interested in getting something installed in the new year. So it sounds like demand and supply are patchy.
Off to Moscow now to catch up with my cop stabbing mate for a few days. I'll be back on the 20th to report on Bashkortostan polling sub-samples from the beating heart of the SMO.
If I get locked up (not impossible) then trade Leon to get me back. XAXAXA! YRA!
3 boys (11, 10 and 8 ) have died in the tragedy of the lake in the Midlands and a 6 year old boy remains critical
Heartfelt sympathy to all the families and friends
This is simply tragic and just before Christmas
I don't think Christmas comes into the equation. The notion of losing a child, particularly in tragic circumstances, at any time of the year is inconsolably heart-breaking.
Kate Morley, author of the handy https://grid.iamkate.com/ website has now put in the calculated wholesale MWH current cost of electricity. An eye watering £1395/MWH at the moment.
Which is why Octopus will be paying us to use less this evening.
Not bothering with the thread, since it's evidently victim-blaming. The point isn't that Fulani is or isn't a wonderful person. It's that she was subjected to aggressive questioning about her background by a trusted adviser to the Palace. It was seen by two witnesses, not denied by Hussey, and confirmed by the Palace. Fulani could be an axe-murderess and it wouldn't change anything.
I was chatting yesterday to a high-flying banker, born in Britain of Egyptian descent. He says it's routine for people to ask him where he "really" comes from, even when he identifies where he was born and grew up (Liverpool), though not to the same persistent extent as Hussey. He rolls his eyes and says you get used to it, but it's not great.
Really Nick. That is a daft approach you are taking.
It is possible for both the following statements to be true:-
1. Lady Hussey was rude and wrong to question this lady in the way she did. 2. The charity run by this lady has some serious questions to answer about its accounts, its claims for grants, what it spends its money on, whether the founders are personally enriching themselves and what actual charitable activities it is carrying out.
The thread is long and complicated but there are some issues of substance there which need resolving.
Nick's approach which seems to assume that anyone who is treated impolitely or in a racist manner is somehow beyond reproach and should not be challenged is facile and stupid.
Someone changing their name and using multiple identities is a red flag and one which should not be ignored. This charity was being given taxpayers' money - quite a lot of it - and we are entitled to know that everything is above board, regardless of whether the founder was treated rudely at a Buckingham Palace reception.
Accusations of racism - however well-founded they may be - do not and should not give you a free pass.
No, I'm not saying that this or any other organisation should be given a free pass, merely objecting to the implication that tweeting about Fulani's real or imagined faults is an excuse for Hussey (I really don't believe that the tweeter would do it if the incident hadn't happened, or why didn't they do it before?). If there are reasons to investigate the charity, the way to trigger that is to report concerns to the Charity Commission. As I've never heard of the charity before and have no standing to assess whether it's well-run, I'm not bothering with the tweets myself.
In short, my responses would be:
1. Yes. 2. Perhaps. Don't ask Twitter to judge - report it to the proper authority.
Fascinating from Starmer fans on Brexit this morning: he should shut up about his real agenda until he's safely elected and then claim a free mandate and show his hand.
This is precisely what I've been warning about for months.
There are a few bits of Realpolitik to understand: 1. The Most Fervent of Brexit voters largely have no clue what the EU was or how it worked. They are - fundamentally - too stupid to make an empowered decision on this 2. They are the key swing voters - will they vote REFUK or Con or Lab? Lab need their votes, or at the very least to see them not vote Con 3. So don't wind them up about Brexit. Nobody likes to admit they were wrong, and many many voters are still prickly about it even as project shit comes raining down on their parade
Starmer isn't lying. He is being selective about which future positions he wants to talk about. Whilst votes are there to be had he will tread the narrow path between not enraging the ignorant whilst not completely pissing off the informed.
Once in power they have full access to the books and can do as every new goovernment does, find out New News which Changes their position. Whilst blaming the previous government. And the final realpolitik is that:
4. Brexit voters will be happy to accept the "see that shit raining on your parade? Thats what the Tories hid from you about Brexit" line. As they were to accept the "Labour almost bankrupted us" line from Osborne.
Retired Navy SEAL made famous after coming out as trans announces detransition: 'Destroyed my life'
"A retired Navy SEAL who became famous nearly 10 years ago after coming out as transgender announced he is detransitioning and called on Americans to "wake up" about how transgender health services are hurting children.
"Everything you see on CNN with my face, do not even believe a word of it," Chris Beck, formerly known as Kristin Beck, told conservative influencer Robby Starbuck in an interview published earlier this month. "Everything that happened to me for the last 10 years destroyed my life. I destroyed my life. I'm not a victim. I did this to myself, but I had help."
"I take full responsibility," he continued. "I went on CNN and everything else, and that’s why I’m here right now. I’m trying to correct that."
Beck gained notoriety in 2013 when he spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper about transitioning to a woman.
DETRANSITIONING WOMAN LEFT 'HEARTBROKEN' AFTER IRREVERSIBLE SURGERY: 'I WAS MANIPULATED'
"I was used … I was very naive, I was in a really bad way and I got taken advantage of. I got propagandized. I got used badly by a lot of people who had knowledge way beyond me. They knew what they were doing. I didn’t," he said during the interview."
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
There is a reason that the rush to build net zero generating sources resembles a gold rush. It is my understanding that, at the moment, the major limitation in adding wind power is the infrastructure to actually install it - it is being made, installed and hooked up to the grid at the capacity of the supply chain.
See also the nuclear power stations that various governments in the U.K. have been trying to build.
Personally, I think we need about 30-40 new nuclear power stations. But I like nukes…
@elonmusk I strongly disagree. Forcing your pronouns upon others when they didn’t ask, and implicitly ostracizing those who don’t, is neither good nor kind to anyone.
As for Fauci, he lied to Congress and funded gain-of-function research that killed millions of people. Not awesome imo.
I like Elon Musk, he is someone who sees problems and handles them. That is a lot better than the vast majority of people today.
He's clearly at a state of wealth whereby he doesn't care for money anymore. Good on him to sort twitter out.
Yes, media may say his "wealth" has halved. But this is an information space, and he understands this. Over the next 10 years this world will move forward to that. In some ways, despite the short or even medium term hit, he has made a major investment that I believe will pay off in the longer term as paradigms change and hard AI hits eventually.
The overpayment was just one of those things, there was no way to know the entire tech market would dump shortly after he made his offer.
Musk is kind of complicated because he's a huge bullshitter but also he sometimes delivers. Hopefully the problem he's currently working on is that Trumpists and antivaxxers are tribally aligned against electric cars.
Musk has two problems:
Firstly, as you say, the people who buy his solar products or his electric cars are exactly the people who dislike his rhetoric on this. This is probably good news for other electric car makers.
Secondly, his businesses (whether Twitter or Tesla or SpaceX) are dependent on him hiring very smart people. And those smart people are in a lot of demand. Does he find it harder to recruit and keep the right people?
Separately, I have a friend on Twitter who is a money manager and has been a fairly long time Tesla bear. Since Musk took over, he's seen a dramatic decrease in the number of people seeing his Tweets: https://twitter.com/AlbertBridgeCap/status/1601990554526654466
I feel the very long product development times are slowly strangling Tesla. The Model S launched ten years ago and has one very minor cosmetic update since then. Meanwhile BMW have done two and a half generations of 5 Series.
Their competitive advantages that compensated for the stale (and poorly built) products were the charging network and range but the Tier 1 OEMs (particularly VAG) are constantly whittling those margins away.
Even though I know nothing about the world of wankers with six giant monitors covered in graphs I don't blame him for being pessimistic about Tesla.
Maybe EiT is on to something. Dark Elon has turned into an alt-right shitlord to make wannabe alt-right shitlords buy Teslas.
There are several reasons that I don't own a Tesla, including not trusting a dickhead to care about quality control. You are right on the Tesla ranges looking very tired. Tesla is the Model T of the modern era, a breakthrough commercially but overtaken by the rest of the world.
Tesla's biggest selling point was its novelty and difference, bolstered by the feeling that you could splash out on a luxury item while "saving the world". Rather like the Toyota Prius (albeit less luxury) when it first came out. It's just not a novelty anymore.
Compounding this is Musk's trashing of his reputation among the very same affluent left-liberal Twitterati he had build up as his customer base. People who find him distasteful will now steer clear of Teslas, especially in the polarised US.
It's a very social media-age phenomenon, the clash between culture warfare and consumer behaviour. Two European examples I can think of with exactly the same dynamics: Dyson - until 2016 the archetypal middle class John Lewis shopping vacuum cleaner choice. Now soft-boycotted by its previous core base seemingly in favour of Henrys. But in his case the business has diversified internationally and in product terms so it's not dependent on that demographic anymore. And Nutella: ultimate middle class holiday family spread now shunned by almost everyone in its former consumer group because of the palm oil.
Actually Nutella and palm oil is a fascinating dilemma. A company with long term, well established investments in a core commodity which it's under pressure to ditch but if it did it would be consigning thousands of low paid workers in poor countries to unemployment. A kind of veg oil version of closing the coalmines.
For now Tesla should be fine. There's a capacity shortage for EVs and batteries; if they can continue controlling a significant slice of battery manufacturing, they'll sell everything they can produce for the next few years.
I've never understood why EVs are seen as better for the environment given that the main energy source for many is whatever fossil fuel is being used by the electricity generators.
Firstly, efficiency. It would be more efficient to burn the oil in a power station, charge the car and drive it, then fill the equivalent car with petrol. This is because power stations can get very high thermal efficiencies - size helps - and loses on the way are surprisingly low.
Even in the US, quite a bit of electricity is coming from renewable sources, which further moves the position.
IIRC this meant that a Tesla (say) was at worst, better than a very small compact ICE.
As the grid goes “Greener”, the cars follow, as it were
I would suggest reading up on the “well to wheels” calculations. Some excellent work has been done on studying the true C02 emissions/equivalence by the American EPA.
The main reason we use a small EV to do local drives has nothing to do with climate change and everything to do with tailpipe emissions. Even if EVs had zero net impact on CO2 emissions they would be well worth it for the health benefits of clean air in cities. The childhood asthma levels around here are massively elevated compared with equivalent rural areas, and the culprit is air pollution.
1) The efficiency is worth it alone, to reduce dependence on oil. Which is generally produced in countries which are not nice. The Saudis can go back to farming sand. 2) The tailpipe emissions are worth it, just by themselves. Here’s a funny - EVs need air cooling. So they suck in huge amounts of air. Which they filter. Yes, the air they expel is purer than the air coming in. When people bang on about tire particulates, they neglect the fact that the car behind you will be hoovering them up… 3) Saving the planet is a bonus
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
@elonmusk I strongly disagree. Forcing your pronouns upon others when they didn’t ask, and implicitly ostracizing those who don’t, is neither good nor kind to anyone.
As for Fauci, he lied to Congress and funded gain-of-function research that killed millions of people. Not awesome imo.
I like Elon Musk, he is someone who sees problems and handles them. That is a lot better than the vast majority of people today.
He's clearly at a state of wealth whereby he doesn't care for money anymore. Good on him to sort twitter out.
Yes, media may say his "wealth" has halved. But this is an information space, and he understands this. Over the next 10 years this world will move forward to that. In some ways, despite the short or even medium term hit, he has made a major investment that I believe will pay off in the longer term as paradigms change and hard AI hits eventually.
The overpayment was just one of those things, there was no way to know the entire tech market would dump shortly after he made his offer.
Musk is kind of complicated because he's a huge bullshitter but also he sometimes delivers. Hopefully the problem he's currently working on is that Trumpists and antivaxxers are tribally aligned against electric cars.
Musk has two problems:
Firstly, as you say, the people who buy his solar products or his electric cars are exactly the people who dislike his rhetoric on this. This is probably good news for other electric car makers.
Secondly, his businesses (whether Twitter or Tesla or SpaceX) are dependent on him hiring very smart people. And those smart people are in a lot of demand. Does he find it harder to recruit and keep the right people?
Separately, I have a friend on Twitter who is a money manager and has been a fairly long time Tesla bear. Since Musk took over, he's seen a dramatic decrease in the number of people seeing his Tweets: https://twitter.com/AlbertBridgeCap/status/1601990554526654466
I feel the very long product development times are slowly strangling Tesla. The Model S launched ten years ago and has one very minor cosmetic update since then. Meanwhile BMW have done two and a half generations of 5 Series.
Their competitive advantages that compensated for the stale (and poorly built) products were the charging network and range but the Tier 1 OEMs (particularly VAG) are constantly whittling those margins away.
Even though I know nothing about the world of wankers with six giant monitors covered in graphs I don't blame him for being pessimistic about Tesla.
Maybe EiT is on to something. Dark Elon has turned into an alt-right shitlord to make wannabe alt-right shitlords buy Teslas.
There are several reasons that I don't own a Tesla, including not trusting a dickhead to care about quality control. You are right on the Tesla ranges looking very tired. Tesla is the Model T of the modern era, a breakthrough commercially but overtaken by the rest of the world.
Tesla's biggest selling point was its novelty and difference, bolstered by the feeling that you could splash out on a luxury item while "saving the world". Rather like the Toyota Prius (albeit less luxury) when it first came out. It's just not a novelty anymore.
Compounding this is Musk's trashing of his reputation among the very same affluent left-liberal Twitterati he had build up as his customer base. People who find him distasteful will now steer clear of Teslas, especially in the polarised US.
It's a very social media-age phenomenon, the clash between culture warfare and consumer behaviour. Two European examples I can think of with exactly the same dynamics: Dyson - until 2016 the archetypal middle class John Lewis shopping vacuum cleaner choice. Now soft-boycotted by its previous core base seemingly in favour of Henrys. But in his case the business has diversified internationally and in product terms so it's not dependent on that demographic anymore. And Nutella: ultimate middle class holiday family spread now shunned by almost everyone in its former consumer group because of the palm oil.
Actually Nutella and palm oil is a fascinating dilemma. A company with long term, well established investments in a core commodity which it's under pressure to ditch but if it did it would be consigning thousands of low paid workers in poor countries to unemployment. A kind of veg oil version of closing the coalmines.
For now Tesla should be fine. There's a capacity shortage for EVs and batteries; if they can continue controlling a significant slice of battery manufacturing, they'll sell everything they can produce for the next few years.
I've never understood why EVs are seen as better for the environment given that the main energy source for many is whatever fossil fuel is being used by the electricity generators.
Even if the electricity used to charge an EV were 100% generated by fossil fuel power stations, it would still be more environmentally friendly to drive an EV than a conventional car. That's because power stations are more efficient at extracting energy from fossil fuels than car engines are, and electricity transmission losses are relatively small.
But of course a significant proportion are our electricity does come from non-fossil fuel sources, especially at night when many EVs are charged, which swings the equation even more in their favour.
They are also more efficient in terms of energy expended going from A to B.
Sure: but efficiency numbers need to include quite a lot of transitions when energy will be lost:
(1) At the power station when electricity is generated (2) In the transmission network (3) In the charging process (4) In the battery itself (5) In the electrical motor converting it into motive power
55% * 95% * 95% * 95% * 85% is suddenly not a million miles from a petrol engine's efficiency.
55% * 95% * 95% * 95% * 85% = 40% which is indeed not a million miles away for the 20% to 35% (according to Wikipedia) achieved by a petrol engine, but still better. And that would be for a 100% fossil-fuel powered grid.
What do you make of the fusion result ?
It's interesting that the improvements in the target and laser focussing have yielded the improvements that they have, but while the achievement of Q > 1 sounds a big deal, it's really just another increment. Remember, Q refers to the ratio of energy released by fusion to the energy supplied by the lasers. Not the energy used by the lasers, which is considerably more due to the losses incurred in converting electrical energy to light energy.
Remember too that the energy released is thermal energy, and further losses would be incurred in converting that is useful energy. And then you have to think about how on earth you go about operating an inertial confinement device on a continuous basis. Currently each target is meticulously set up up before being zapped.
On the whole, I see tokamaks as being more promising than inertial confinement devices for continuous energy production, but even they have a long, long way to go yet.
There are half a dozen commercial companies developing laser designs. The technologies are very different from the decades old NIF, which was originally designed to help model nuclear weapons without needing to test them.
The FLF concept (assuming it can be made to work), is fundamentally simpler.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
Our reliance on fossil fuels *has already ended*. It is now the back-up option, rather than the primary means of power generation.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
None of this is a surprise and, as you say, most of the solution is well-known, it's simply a matter of spending the money and taking the time to rebuild our entire energy infrastructure. No biggie. It's a solvable problem.
I don't see why you think it's something that is new or difficult? We've known for ages that wind is a large part of the solution but that wind alone cannot be all of the solution.
It is not new but it is only difficult if an unrealistic time limit is applied without the accompanying technology and adequate alternative sources are able to come In stream
If something is urgent enough then it is worth overcoming a degree of difficulty to get it done quickly. This happens all the time with all sorts of things.
From the look of things the transition to a zero carbon electricity grid is going to be a lot like many other technological transitions. Frustratingly slow at first and then surprisingly fast in the middle.
In terms of net zero there are bigger problems than electricity.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
Our reliance on fossil fuels *has already ended*. It is now the back-up option, rather than the primary means of power generation.
The problem is the back up option is very much integral to our supply and likely to be so for a long time
Kate Morley, author of the handy https://grid.iamkate.com/ website has now put in the calculated wholesale MWH current cost of electricity. An eye watering £1395/MWH at the moment.
Which is why Octopus will be paying us to use less this evening.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
Our reliance on fossil fuels *has already ended*. It is now the back-up option, rather than the primary means of power generation.
The problem is the back up option is very much integral to our supply and likely to be so for a long time
That depends on our partners - we have insufficient power generation in the UK anyway. So its all about how many interconnectors there are and how they are generating power.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Not bothering with the thread, since it's evidently victim-blaming. The point isn't that Fulani is or isn't a wonderful person. It's that she was subjected to aggressive questioning about her background by a trusted adviser to the Palace. It was seen by two witnesses, not denied by Hussey, and confirmed by the Palace. Fulani could be an axe-murderess and it wouldn't change anything.
I was chatting yesterday to a high-flying banker, born in Britain of Egyptian descent. He says it's routine for people to ask him where he "really" comes from, even when he identifies where he was born and grew up (Liverpool), though not to the same persistent extent as Hussey. He rolls his eyes and says you get used to it, but it's not great.
Really Nick. That is a daft approach you are taking.
It is possible for both the following statements to be true:-
1. Lady Hussey was rude and wrong to question this lady in the way she did. 2. The charity run by this lady has some serious questions to answer about its accounts, its claims for grants, what it spends its money on, whether the founders are personally enriching themselves and what actual charitable activities it is carrying out.
The thread is long and complicated but there are some issues of substance there which need resolving.
Nick's approach which seems to assume that anyone who is treated impolitely or in a racist manner is somehow beyond reproach and should not be challenged is facile and stupid.
Someone changing their name and using multiple identities is a red flag and one which should not be ignored. This charity was being given taxpayers' money - quite a lot of it - and we are entitled to know that everything is above board, regardless of whether the founder was treated rudely at a Buckingham Palace reception.
Accusations of racism - however well-founded they may be - do not and should not give you a free pass.
No, I'm not saying that this or any other organisation should be given a free pass, merely objecting to the implication that tweeting about Fulani's real or imagined faults is an excuse for Hussey (I really don't believe that the tweeter would do it if the incident hadn't happened, or why didn't they do it before?). If there are reasons to investigate the charity, the way to trigger that is to report concerns to the Charity Commission. As I've never heard of the charity before and have no standing to assess whether it's well-run, I'm not bothering with the tweets myself.
In short, my responses would be:
1. Yes. 2. Perhaps. Don't ask Twitter to judge - report it to the proper authority.
But it goes to the truth of the Hussey allegations. It looks to me as if what she did to Hussey is about what the police used to do to gay men in public toilets. Evidence of her geeral character is relevant to assessing this possibility.
Kate Morley, author of the handy https://grid.iamkate.com/ website has now put in the calculated wholesale MWH current cost of electricity. An eye watering £1395/MWH at the moment.
Which is why Octopus will be paying us to use less this evening.
Good time for a barbecue tonight, then.
I'll be making a curry, which only requires (gas) hob use. The (electric) oven will remain switched off.
Retired Navy SEAL made famous after coming out as trans announces detransition: 'Destroyed my life'
"A retired Navy SEAL who became famous nearly 10 years ago after coming out as transgender announced he is detransitioning and called on Americans to "wake up" about how transgender health services are hurting children.
"Everything you see on CNN with my face, do not even believe a word of it," Chris Beck, formerly known as Kristin Beck, told conservative influencer Robby Starbuck in an interview published earlier this month. "Everything that happened to me for the last 10 years destroyed my life. I destroyed my life. I'm not a victim. I did this to myself, but I had help."
"I take full responsibility," he continued. "I went on CNN and everything else, and that’s why I’m here right now. I’m trying to correct that."
Beck gained notoriety in 2013 when he spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper about transitioning to a woman.
DETRANSITIONING WOMAN LEFT 'HEARTBROKEN' AFTER IRREVERSIBLE SURGERY: 'I WAS MANIPULATED'
"I was used … I was very naive, I was in a really bad way and I got taken advantage of. I got propagandized. I got used badly by a lot of people who had knowledge way beyond me. They knew what they were doing. I didn’t," he said during the interview."
Gender reassignment is for life, not just for Christmas.
Tbh, the former Navy Seal was mature enough to make his own mind up. Puberty blockers for pre-pubescent children, now that is a different can of beans.
It would be more efficient to burn the oil in a power station, charge the car and drive it, then fill the equivalent car with petrol. This is because power stations can get very high thermal efficiencies - size helps - and loses on the way are surprisingly low.
Whoah there, I don't think that's true at all.
The average efficiency of an oil fired power plant is about 38%, although there are a few that get to around 40%.
Let's go with 40%.
Between 5-10% of electricity is lost in transmission and distribution. But let's go with 5%.
Around 15% will be lost in charging the electrical vehicle.
Your vehicle will lose around 5% of battery capacity (or maybe a little more) per charge when idle as it needs to keep the battery at an optimal temperature.
Furthermore, those electrical motors are only about 85% efficient at taking that battery power and putting it into motive power.
40% * 95% * 85% * 95% * 85% is 26%... which is going to be below the efficiency of most petrol driving motors.
Now if one thinks that some of the electrons* will come from wind, and some from nuclear, and most from gas** then electric vehicles start to look pretty good from a GHG perspective.
* Yes, yes, I know ** CCGTs are much more efficient than oil fired plants.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Quite so. If the planet had no moon, the thought of a resource as green as wind and sun, as certain as death and taxes, and predictable to within seconds for decades in advance, would be utopian sci fi.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
Our reliance on fossil fuels *has already ended*. It is now the back-up option, rather than the primary means of power generation.
The problem is the back up option is very much integral to our supply and likely to be so for a long time
Let's be grateful that we weren't more reliant on gas and coal, given the price of those commodities has jumped dramatically in the last year for some reason.
Kate Morley, author of the handy https://grid.iamkate.com/ website has now put in the calculated wholesale MWH current cost of electricity. An eye watering £1395/MWH at the moment.
From Gridwatch, it looks like France is also struggling somewhat. While they are exporting electricity to us, they are importing from everywhere else and running their gas-powered plants at full tilt. They seem to be having major issues with their nukes.
Not bothering with the thread, since it's evidently victim-blaming. The point isn't that Fulani is or isn't a wonderful person. It's that she was subjected to aggressive questioning about her background by a trusted adviser to the Palace. It was seen by two witnesses, not denied by Hussey, and confirmed by the Palace. Fulani could be an axe-murderess and it wouldn't change anything.
I was chatting yesterday to a high-flying banker, born in Britain of Egyptian descent. He says it's routine for people to ask him where he "really" comes from, even when he identifies where he was born and grew up (Liverpool), though not to the same persistent extent as Hussey. He rolls his eyes and says you get used to it, but it's not great.
Really Nick. That is a daft approach you are taking.
It is possible for both the following statements to be true:-
1. Lady Hussey was rude and wrong to question this lady in the way she did. 2. The charity run by this lady has some serious questions to answer about its accounts, its claims for grants, what it spends its money on, whether the founders are personally enriching themselves and what actual charitable activities it is carrying out.
The thread is long and complicated but there are some issues of substance there which need resolving.
Nick's approach which seems to assume that anyone who is treated impolitely or in a racist manner is somehow beyond reproach and should not be challenged is facile and stupid.
Someone changing their name and using multiple identities is a red flag and one which should not be ignored. This charity was being given taxpayers' money - quite a lot of it - and we are entitled to know that everything is above board, regardless of whether the founder was treated rudely at a Buckingham Palace reception.
Accusations of racism - however well-founded they may be - do not and should not give you a free pass.
No, I'm not saying that this or any other organisation should be given a free pass, merely objecting to the implication that tweeting about Fulani's real or imagined faults is an excuse for Hussey (I really don't believe that the tweeter would do it if the incident hadn't happened, or why didn't they do it before?). If there are reasons to investigate the charity, the way to trigger that is to report concerns to the Charity Commission. As I've never heard of the charity before and have no standing to assess whether it's well-run, I'm not bothering with the tweets myself.
In short, my responses would be:
1. Yes. 2. Perhaps. Don't ask Twitter to judge - report it to the proper authority.
But in fact your response was "it's evidently victim-blaming".
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
Tides are seriously sloshing 4 hours out of every 6, and the 4 hour window moves as you move round the country. So for an island this is not such a big deal.
It would be more efficient to burn the oil in a power station, charge the car and drive it, then fill the equivalent car with petrol. This is because power stations can get very high thermal efficiencies - size helps - and loses on the way are surprisingly low.
Whoah there, I don't think that's true at all.
The average efficiency of an oil fired power plant is about 38%, although there are a few that get to around 40%.
Let's go with 40%.
Between 5-10% of electricity is lost in transmission and distribution. But let's go with 5%.
Around 15% will be lost in charging the electrical vehicle.
Your vehicle will lose around 5% of battery capacity (or maybe a little more) per charge when idle as it needs to keep the battery at an optimal temperature.
Furthermore, those electrical motors are only about 85% efficient at taking that battery power and putting it into motive power.
40% * 95% * 85% * 95% * 85% is 26%... which is going to be below the efficiency of most petrol driving motors.
Now if one thinks that some of the electrons* will come from wind, and some from nuclear, and most from gas** then electric vehicles start to look pretty good from a GHG perspective.
* Yes, yes, I know ** CCGTs are much more efficient than oil fired plants.
As ever, depends on the numbers you pick - most calculations I have seen give a higher efficiency than that for the electricity supply chain - with a total efficiency (at the vehicle) in the 30%+ range
I think your number for grid loses is a bit high for example.
Kate Morley, author of the handy https://grid.iamkate.com/ website has now put in the calculated wholesale MWH current cost of electricity. An eye watering £1395/MWH at the moment.
From Gridwatch, it looks like France is also struggling somewhat. While they are exporting electricity to us, they are importing from everywhere else and running their gas-powered plants at full tilt. They seem to be having major issues with their nukes.
The classic “take a big machine off line for maintenance and discover….”, as I understand it.
Retired Navy SEAL made famous after coming out as trans announces detransition: 'Destroyed my life'
"A retired Navy SEAL who became famous nearly 10 years ago after coming out as transgender announced he is detransitioning and called on Americans to "wake up" about how transgender health services are hurting children.
"Everything you see on CNN with my face, do not even believe a word of it," Chris Beck, formerly known as Kristin Beck, told conservative influencer Robby Starbuck in an interview published earlier this month. "Everything that happened to me for the last 10 years destroyed my life. I destroyed my life. I'm not a victim. I did this to myself, but I had help."
"I take full responsibility," he continued. "I went on CNN and everything else, and that’s why I’m here right now. I’m trying to correct that."
Beck gained notoriety in 2013 when he spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper about transitioning to a woman.
DETRANSITIONING WOMAN LEFT 'HEARTBROKEN' AFTER IRREVERSIBLE SURGERY: 'I WAS MANIPULATED'
"I was used … I was very naive, I was in a really bad way and I got taken advantage of. I got propagandized. I got used badly by a lot of people who had knowledge way beyond me. They knew what they were doing. I didn’t," he said during the interview."
Gender reassignment is for life, not just for Christmas.
Tbh, the former Navy Seal was mature enough to make his own mind up. Puberty blockers for pre-pubescent children, now that is a different can of beans.
Well... he had psychologists telling him he was trans, and the trans lobby here wants it to be a criminal offence for other psychologists to say Hang on a moment, are you quite sure about this?
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
I was once (about 8 years ago) consulting for Western Power. They loved nuclear which is "switch off and onable" and hated solar and wind. On sunfree, windfree days they were short of power, and during the opposite situation, too much electrical production crashes the grid. One of the big issues is "the grid is the grid" with little already- available option for external storage via batteries and transformers.
Living in the Hinkley Point C blast zone, I'd rather take my chances on the wind, sun and tidal power, truth be told.
Fascinating from Starmer fans on Brexit this morning: he should shut up about his real agenda until he's safely elected and then claim a free mandate and show his hand.
This is precisely what I've been warning about for months.
I am pretty sure Starmer doesn't have an agenda, hidden or otherwise, on Brexit. He has a very transparent agenda on getting himself elected. He possibly knows Brexit is a pile of shit; he surely knows almost all his party thinks it's a pile of shit; he certainly isn't going to say it. He seems clear we are stuck with Brexit, the TCA and the NIP. He realises regulatory divergence as a competitive advantage is a nonsense. On the whole he seems to be the most realistic politician about Brexit, although he is struggling somewhat with its many and large contradictions.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
I was once (about 8 years ago) consulting for Western Power. They loved nuclear which is "switch off and onable" and hated solar and wind. On sunfree, windfree days they were short of power, and during the opposite situation, too much electrical production crashes the grid. One of the big issues is "the grid is the grid" with little already- available option for external storage via batteries and transformers.
Living in the Hinkley Point C blast zone, I'd rather take my chances on the wind, sun and tidal power, truth be told.
I lived in the "blast zone" of Hartlepool for 15 years and it never worried me...
Retired Navy SEAL made famous after coming out as trans announces detransition: 'Destroyed my life'
"A retired Navy SEAL who became famous nearly 10 years ago after coming out as transgender announced he is detransitioning and called on Americans to "wake up" about how transgender health services are hurting children.
"Everything you see on CNN with my face, do not even believe a word of it," Chris Beck, formerly known as Kristin Beck, told conservative influencer Robby Starbuck in an interview published earlier this month. "Everything that happened to me for the last 10 years destroyed my life. I destroyed my life. I'm not a victim. I did this to myself, but I had help."
"I take full responsibility," he continued. "I went on CNN and everything else, and that’s why I’m here right now. I’m trying to correct that."
Beck gained notoriety in 2013 when he spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper about transitioning to a woman.
DETRANSITIONING WOMAN LEFT 'HEARTBROKEN' AFTER IRREVERSIBLE SURGERY: 'I WAS MANIPULATED'
"I was used … I was very naive, I was in a really bad way and I got taken advantage of. I got propagandized. I got used badly by a lot of people who had knowledge way beyond me. They knew what they were doing. I didn’t," he said during the interview."
Gender reassignment is for life, not just for Christmas.
Tbh, the former Navy Seal was mature enough to make his own mind up. Puberty blockers for pre-pubescent children, now that is a different can of beans.
Well... he had psychologists telling him he was trans, and the trans lobby here wants it to be a criminal offence for other psychologists to say Hang on a moment, are you quite sure about this?
He was a big boy (later a big girl) and no one simultaneously held a gun to his head and a knife to his nuts. His/ her choice. I smell litigation.
It would be more efficient to burn the oil in a power station, charge the car and drive it, then fill the equivalent car with petrol. This is because power stations can get very high thermal efficiencies - size helps - and loses on the way are surprisingly low.
Whoah there, I don't think that's true at all.
The average efficiency of an oil fired power plant is about 38%, although there are a few that get to around 40%.
Let's go with 40%.
Between 5-10% of electricity is lost in transmission and distribution. But let's go with 5%.
Around 15% will be lost in charging the electrical vehicle.
Your vehicle will lose around 5% of battery capacity (or maybe a little more) per charge when idle as it needs to keep the battery at an optimal temperature.
Furthermore, those electrical motors are only about 85% efficient at taking that battery power and putting it into motive power.
40% * 95% * 85% * 95% * 85% is 26%... which is going to be below the efficiency of most petrol driving motors.
Now if one thinks that some of the electrons* will come from wind, and some from nuclear, and most from gas** then electric vehicles start to look pretty good from a GHG perspective.
* Yes, yes, I know ** CCGTs are much more efficient than oil fired plants.
As ever, depends on the numbers you pick - most calculations I have seen give a higher efficiency than that for the electricity supply chain - with a total efficiency (at the vehicle) in the 30%+ range
I think your number for grid loses is a bit high for example.
I'm using 5% for the transmission and distribution network! That's very generous. National Grid says: "about 1.7% of the electricity transferred over the transmission network is lost, and a further 5-8% is lost over the distribution networks" - https://www.nationalgrideso.com/electricity-transmission/document/144711/download
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
Tides are seriously sloshing 4 hours out of every 6, and the 4 hour window moves as you move round the country. So for an island this is not such a big deal.
Plus most tidal schemes have some inherent storage - very few plans are just turbines in the stream.
Even the old tidal mills, back in water mill times, used storage ponds
Kate Morley, author of the handy https://grid.iamkate.com/ website has now put in the calculated wholesale MWH current cost of electricity. An eye watering £1395/MWH at the moment.
From Gridwatch, it looks like France is also struggling somewhat. While they are exporting electricity to us, they are importing from everywhere else and running their gas-powered plants at full tilt. They seem to be having major issues with their nukes.
They are having major problems with their nukes. French nuclear uptime right now is somewhere in the 60s, and total nuclear power generation has dropped something like 30% in the last 15 years.
Basically, old nuclear power plants aren't very reliable.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
I was once (about 8 years ago) consulting for Western Power. They loved nuclear which is "switch off and onable" and hated solar and wind. On sunfree, windfree days they were short of power, and during the opposite situation, too much electrical production crashes the grid. One of the big issues is "the grid is the grid" with little already- available option for external storage via batteries and transformers.
Living in the Hinkley Point C blast zone, I'd rather take my chances on the wind, sun and tidal power, truth be told.
I've never really understood the argument that wind and solar is not switch off and onable. All they need to do is unplug the turbine or panels. The only difference is the generation capacity is less under our control because it's dependent on wind and sun. Otherwise it's what we do with CCGT: when we need gas generation we turn them on, when we don't we turn them off. So there is always a load of spare capacity in the system.
Nuclear I didn't think was very easy to turn off and on though. It's more long term baseload.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
Tides are seriously sloshing 4 hours out of every 6, and the 4 hour window moves as you move round the country. So for an island this is not such a big deal.
Plus most tidal schemes have some inherent storage - very few plans are just turbines in the stream.
Even the old tidal mills, back in water mill times, used storage ponds
I seem to remember reading somewhere that tidal plants, even in the UK, wouldn't be able to make much more than a minor contribution to our total power generation requirements, but I don't have any figures to hand. I'd be interested to see some details about the potential capacity of tidal generation.
OT: The problem for Starmer is that the Tories do not "own Brexit 100%". A large part of the reason that Brexit attracted the support that it did was because Labour (under Corbyn) did not sufficiently oppose it. Labour may not be equally to blame for it, but they certainly share a massive responsibility for their acquiescence in the Brexit referendum debacle.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
Tidal generates around 14 hours every 24. You know exactly when and what it will generate. Look at a tide table to know what it produces in 200 years time.
It compares OK with nuclear down times.
The great benefit tidal has is that, because of the shifting time of high tide around the coast of England and Wales, that 14 hours varies. So with say 10 tidal lagoons, dotted around the coast, you have a guaranteed baseload across any 24 hour period.
Which compares extremely well with nuclear down times.
The people that try to put down tidal simply don't have the arguments.
It is an absolute no-brainer for the UK. Unless you are the nuclear industry, in which case it kills your economics for future plants stone dead. If you want the reasons for tidal getting trashed, look no further than nuclear for the source of the "arguments" made against tidal.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
Tides are seriously sloshing 4 hours out of every 6, and the 4 hour window moves as you move round the country. So for an island this is not such a big deal.
That is my understanding. The only time the turbines would not be moving will be at slack water which, as you point out, will be offset against other ones where slack water is earlier/later. It is also entirely predictable, unlike wind and solar.
Not bothering with the thread, since it's evidently victim-blaming. The point isn't that Fulani is or isn't a wonderful person. It's that she was subjected to aggressive questioning about her background by a trusted adviser to the Palace. It was seen by two witnesses, not denied by Hussey, and confirmed by the Palace. Fulani could be an axe-murderess and it wouldn't change anything.
I was chatting yesterday to a high-flying banker, born in Britain of Egyptian descent. He says it's routine for people to ask him where he "really" comes from, even when he identifies where he was born and grew up (Liverpool), though not to the same persistent extent as Hussey. He rolls his eyes and says you get used to it, but it's not great.
Really Nick. That is a daft approach you are taking.
It is possible for both the following statements to be true:-
1. Lady Hussey was rude and wrong to question this lady in the way she did. 2. The charity run by this lady has some serious questions to answer about its accounts, its claims for grants, what it spends its money on, whether the founders are personally enriching themselves and what actual charitable activities it is carrying out.
The thread is long and complicated but there are some issues of substance there which need resolving.
Nick's approach which seems to assume that anyone who is treated impolitely or in a racist manner is somehow beyond reproach and should not be challenged is facile and stupid.
Someone changing their name and using multiple identities is a red flag and one which should not be ignored. This charity was being given taxpayers' money - quite a lot of it - and we are entitled to know that everything is above board, regardless of whether the founder was treated rudely at a Buckingham Palace reception.
Accusations of racism - however well-founded they may be - do not and should not give you a free pass.
No, I'm not saying that this or any other organisation should be given a free pass, merely objecting to the implication that tweeting about Fulani's real or imagined faults is an excuse for Hussey (I really don't believe that the tweeter would do it if the incident hadn't happened, or why didn't they do it before?). If there are reasons to investigate the charity, the way to trigger that is to report concerns to the Charity Commission. As I've never heard of the charity before and have no standing to assess whether it's well-run, I'm not bothering with the tweets myself.
In short, my responses would be:
1. Yes. 2. Perhaps. Don't ask Twitter to judge - report it to the proper authority.
But it goes to the truth of the Hussey allegations. It looks to me as if what she did to Hussey is about what the police used to do to gay men in public toilets. Evidence of her geeral character is relevant to assessing this possibility.
A Leonine ability to persist with the same hobby horses through different identities.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
Tides are seriously sloshing 4 hours out of every 6, and the 4 hour window moves as you move round the country. So for an island this is not such a big deal.
Plus most tidal schemes have some inherent storage - very few plans are just turbines in the stream.
Even the old tidal mills, back in water mill times, used storage ponds
I seem to remember reading somewhere that tidal plants, even in the UK, wouldn't be able to make much more than a minor contribution to our total power generation requirements, but I don't have any figures to hand. I'd be interested to see some details about the potential capacity of tidal generation.
"However, the UK – which features the second-strongest tides in the world after Canada, and is a densely populated island of nearly 70 million people – could be an “exception”, Hogan adds. A 2021 study from academics at Edinburgh University found that tidal stream alone has the potential to deliver 11% of the UK’s current annual electricity demand, which is the same as the combined contribution of solar and biomass over the past year.
Industry group the British Hydropower Association adds that tidal range projects under development – all of which are currently stalled – would deliver 10GW of new capacity by 2030 if they were to receive permission and adequate funding. These projects are situated across Great Britain, including in Swansea Bay, Merseyside, the North Somerset Coast and the North Wales Coast. "
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
Tides are seriously sloshing 4 hours out of every 6, and the 4 hour window moves as you move round the country. So for an island this is not such a big deal.
Plus most tidal schemes have some inherent storage - very few plans are just turbines in the stream.
Even the old tidal mills, back in water mill times, used storage ponds
I think the lack of grid level storage using hydrogen is also a temporary thing because of the cost of producing the stuff at the moment, but given the billions being invested in hydrogen by the oil and gas and chems groups I would expect that cost to come down significantly.
For hydrogen as electricity source to be financially viable the total cost of the original power, then the production of hydrogen, and finally the "burning" of the hydrogen to produce electricity has to be competitive with the fully loaded cost of other more expensive sources like nuclear or pumped storage. It would then also need to be as profitable as other uses of hydrogen.
I'm guessing the economics are not quite there yet. Often the case that a technology is used little or not at all until an inflection point comes where it makes financial sense, and then it rockets.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
Tides are seriously sloshing 4 hours out of every 6, and the 4 hour window moves as you move round the country. So for an island this is not such a big deal.
Plus most tidal schemes have some inherent storage - very few plans are just turbines in the stream.
Even the old tidal mills, back in water mill times, used storage ponds
I seem to remember reading somewhere that tidal plants, even in the UK, wouldn't be able to make much more than a minor contribution to our total power generation requirements, but I don't have any figures to hand. I'd be interested to see some details about the potential capacity of tidal generation.
Wrong. Epically wrong.
There are at least a dozen locations where the tidal range would support a tidal lagoon in England and Wales. The output of the Cardiff lagoon alone would power 1.8 million homes.
There aren't 1.8 million homes in Wales.
The proposed Cardiff lagoon has almost identical output to Hinckley C. At about a third of the capital cost. And it would last twice as long. Minimum. Probably multiples of that.
No waste. No carbon. No risk of the land being uninhabitable for millenia.
A lagoon on the north Somerset coast has certain challenges, but could produce 2 or 3 times the output of Cardiff.
Not bothering with the thread, since it's evidently victim-blaming. The point isn't that Fulani is or isn't a wonderful person. It's that she was subjected to aggressive questioning about her background by a trusted adviser to the Palace. It was seen by two witnesses, not denied by Hussey, and confirmed by the Palace. Fulani could be an axe-murderess and it wouldn't change anything.
I was chatting yesterday to a high-flying banker, born in Britain of Egyptian descent. He says it's routine for people to ask him where he "really" comes from, even when he identifies where he was born and grew up (Liverpool), though not to the same persistent extent as Hussey. He rolls his eyes and says you get used to it, but it's not great.
Really Nick. That is a daft approach you are taking.
It is possible for both the following statements to be true:-
1. Lady Hussey was rude and wrong to question this lady in the way she did. 2. The charity run by this lady has some serious questions to answer about its accounts, its claims for grants, what it spends its money on, whether the founders are personally enriching themselves and what actual charitable activities it is carrying out.
The thread is long and complicated but there are some issues of substance there which need resolving.
Nick's approach which seems to assume that anyone who is treated impolitely or in a racist manner is somehow beyond reproach and should not be challenged is facile and stupid.
Someone changing their name and using multiple identities is a red flag and one which should not be ignored. This charity was being given taxpayers' money - quite a lot of it - and we are entitled to know that everything is above board, regardless of whether the founder was treated rudely at a Buckingham Palace reception.
Accusations of racism - however well-founded they may be - do not and should not give you a free pass.
No, I'm not saying that this or any other organisation should be given a free pass, merely objecting to the implication that tweeting about Fulani's real or imagined faults is an excuse for Hussey (I really don't believe that the tweeter would do it if the incident hadn't happened, or why didn't they do it before?). If there are reasons to investigate the charity, the way to trigger that is to report concerns to the Charity Commission. As I've never heard of the charity before and have no standing to assess whether it's well-run, I'm not bothering with the tweets myself.
In short, my responses would be:
1. Yes. 2. Perhaps. Don't ask Twitter to judge - report it to the proper authority.
But it goes to the truth of the Hussey allegations. It looks to me as if what she did to Hussey is about what the police used to do to gay men in public toilets. Evidence of her geeral character is relevant to assessing this possibility.
A Leonine ability to persist with the same hobby horses through different identities.
I don't understand your point, but astrology has never really done it for me.
Take a step back. "Who are you? Who were your parents? From what country?" are hardwired into human discourse, they are what everybody asks everybody else on first meeting in the Odyssey. They are still quite acceptable issues: I know from a superficial and recent acquaintance with the site the racial backgrounds of posters who for instance live in a Scandi country but are "really from" elsewhere. There's a qualified and understandable exception to this rule in the case of ethnic minorities, but to argue that anything beyond stupidity and tactlessness is involved requires arguing that Lady Hussey is not stupid and tactless. Looking at her, that is a paradox too far for me.
So turn the knob up to 11 on a scale of 1 to 10 on your Marshall outrage amp if you want, but it doesn't leave you much in the tank to respond to the KKK with.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
Tides are seriously sloshing 4 hours out of every 6, and the 4 hour window moves as you move round the country. So for an island this is not such a big deal.
Plus most tidal schemes have some inherent storage - very few plans are just turbines in the stream.
Even the old tidal mills, back in water mill times, used storage ponds
I seem to remember reading somewhere that tidal plants, even in the UK, wouldn't be able to make much more than a minor contribution to our total power generation requirements, but I don't have any figures to hand. I'd be interested to see some details about the potential capacity of tidal generation.
Wrong. Epically wrong.
There are at least a dozen locations where the tidal range would support a tidal lagoon in England and Wales. The output of the Cardiff lagoon alone would power 1.8 million homes.
There aren't 1.8 million homes in Wales.
The proposed Cardiff lagoon has almost identical output to Hinckley C. At about a third of the capital cost. And it would last twice as long. Minimum. Probably multiples of that.
No waste. No carbon. No risk of the land being uninhabitable for millenia.
A lagoon on the north Somerset coast has certain challenges, but could produce 2 or 3 times the output of Cardiff.
It is a scandal it has not been done already. The basic tech required has been around for decades
So I think we're lights off and heating off at 5-7pm tonight, we've got a battery powered floor lamp that's nicely charged and I think we'll keep the TV on.
That would be fine if we had our own house in order, but we don't. How much Russian and Qatari money has been going to the Tory and Labour parties via domestic vehicles, what about Baroness Mone allegedly defrauding the state for hundreds of millions.
I am not posting as much recently but I have to say that it is time for those who think wind farms and solar are going to resolve our energy requirements going forward need to address the problem that we are facing , not only in the UK, but across Europe when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not heat the panels
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
I'd be interested to know why it seems to be so difficult / problematic to build tidal power stations.
Political will and nimbyism?
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tidal is problematic because it (like wind and solar) has significant periods when it is not generating. Unlike wind and solar, at least one knows in advance exactly when they will be.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
Tides are seriously sloshing 4 hours out of every 6, and the 4 hour window moves as you move round the country. So for an island this is not such a big deal.
Plus most tidal schemes have some inherent storage - very few plans are just turbines in the stream.
Even the old tidal mills, back in water mill times, used storage ponds
I seem to remember reading somewhere that tidal plants, even in the UK, wouldn't be able to make much more than a minor contribution to our total power generation requirements, but I don't have any figures to hand. I'd be interested to see some details about the potential capacity of tidal generation.
Wrong. Epically wrong.
There are at least a dozen locations where the tidal range would support a tidal lagoon in England and Wales. The output of the Cardiff lagoon alone would power 1.8 million homes.
There aren't 1.8 million homes in Wales.
The proposed Cardiff lagoon has almost identical output to Hinckley C. At about a third of the capital cost. And it would last twice as long. Minimum. Probably multiples of that.
No waste. No carbon. No risk of the land being uninhabitable for millenia.
A lagoon on the north Somerset coast has certain challenges, but could produce 2 or 3 times the output of Cardiff.
It is a scandal it has not been done already. The basic tech required has been around for decades
Centuries surely? Don't need to know anything that Faraday didn't. Earliest commercial hydroelectric plant 1882 apparently.
Our politicians, especially Mr Johnson, are undoubtedly morally beyond reproach. Oh, and our system of government is so superior that we would never have her-today-gone-tomorrow PMs. Our democracy is also so very superior, or so an hereditary peer told me only the other day, who was also backed up by a bishop and leading advocate of first-past-the-post MP in a very safe seat.
Retired Navy SEAL made famous after coming out as trans announces detransition: 'Destroyed my life'
"A retired Navy SEAL who became famous nearly 10 years ago after coming out as transgender announced he is detransitioning and called on Americans to "wake up" about how transgender health services are hurting children.
"Everything you see on CNN with my face, do not even believe a word of it," Chris Beck, formerly known as Kristin Beck, told conservative influencer Robby Starbuck in an interview published earlier this month. "Everything that happened to me for the last 10 years destroyed my life. I destroyed my life. I'm not a victim. I did this to myself, but I had help."
"I take full responsibility," he continued. "I went on CNN and everything else, and that’s why I’m here right now. I’m trying to correct that."
Beck gained notoriety in 2013 when he spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper about transitioning to a woman.
DETRANSITIONING WOMAN LEFT 'HEARTBROKEN' AFTER IRREVERSIBLE SURGERY: 'I WAS MANIPULATED'
"I was used … I was very naive, I was in a really bad way and I got taken advantage of. I got propagandized. I got used badly by a lot of people who had knowledge way beyond me. They knew what they were doing. I didn’t," he said during the interview."
Gender reassignment is for life, not just for Christmas.
Tbh, the former Navy Seal was mature enough to make his own mind up. Puberty blockers for pre-pubescent children, now that is a different can of beans.
Well... he had psychologists telling him he was trans, and the trans lobby here wants it to be a criminal offence for other psychologists to say Hang on a moment, are you quite sure about this?
He was a big boy (later a big girl) and no one simultaneously held a gun to his head and a knife to his nuts. His/ her choice. I smell litigation.
My point about puberty blockers stands.
I smell fee for service medicine too.
The legal question will be one of consent. If consented properly and freely, then it is an open and shut case.
Regretting bad decisions is part of human existence, which brings us back to the header...
Granted Richard Burgon isn't the greatest MP but he isn't wrong here.
@RichardBurgon · 3m Nurses are now earning £5,000 a year less in real terms than when the Tories came to power.
There are now 47,000 nursing vacancies in the NHS.
The NHS crisis can't be resolved without paying nurses properly.
Agree, but where does the money come from, without contributing to inflation?
From the rest of us - wealth tax, income tax, windfall tax, borrowing, we can debate, but clearly a situation where we can't get either an ambulance or reasonable care within hours is not acceptable, and more important than most of the things we spend money on. We pay the Government to prioritise, and at present they seem to be prioritising doing nothing very much for fear it might make MPs rebel. That, I suggest, is not a priority for most people.
Ask "most people" whether nurses should be paid more. They all say yes. Then show them the current pay scale, remembering to explain the DB pension scheme which adds circa 40% on to the said pay scale. Then see if their view changes.
Secondly, when people clamour for higher nurses pay, why the focus on nurses? What about doctors, porters and admin staff? Why just nurses? I don't know for sure but I'm guessing that nurses total less than half of the NHS staffing.
Isn't this just an emotive way of building a narrative to alter the balance between the public sector vs the private sector in favour of the former? Isn't this the real agenda?
There are 47,000 nursing vacancies. Many of them will be being filled on a shift by shift basis (because the Hospital has no choice but to pay whatever is demanded) by contract staff charging far more than the cost of an salaried staff member.
So we are currently not paying nurses enough for them to work AND the NHS is probably paying billions to agencies in a desperate attempt to avoid not having to close wards down at short notice.
So it's not a question of what the general public may think - it's a question of what level of pay is required to ensure nursing staffing levels return to sustainable levels - because the total cost will be far less than you think.
Also, concentrating on pay misses the fact that this is a complex system that the NHS is compelled to engage with by its very nature, of which pay is just one lever. Pay does make a difference, because money can smooth over a lot of small difficulties, but you can’t solve every problem by throwing £ at individual members of staff:
At the boundary, increasing pay may tempt some existing trained nurses back into nursing from other jobs, but the supply of trained nurses that exist in the UK at the current time is finite: If there aren’t enough nurses then you cannot fill the vacancies unless you import nursing staff from abroad, which carries it’s own costs. (I note in passing that the government decided to cancel bursaries for nursing courses.)
How much stress your staff are under & whether they are able to cope is not strongly linked to pay: Many staff worked incredibly hard during the pandemic under extremely difficult conditions & are completely burnt out. In many cases they were already working at 110% of sustainable output before the pandemic, as evidenced by the high rate of people leaving the nursing profession.
You can extend similar arguments to teaching. It’s not /just/ pay (although more pay will help). It’s also the stress the staff are under & the relentless workload because the government seems to be happy to pile on more work without actually employing sufficient people to do the work, expecting the existing staff to cope. What actually happens is that, at the margins, staff begin to quit because they can’t cope with the increased stress. This puts more work on the rest of the system & ultimately it either sheds workload somehow, or the work that is being done declines precipitously in quality.
The government has refused to engage with these issues in any kind of serious fashion & you’re seeing it across the board in the services sector - police, NHS, teachers all seem to be utterly exhausted whilst the quality of service they provide has fallen through the floor. Individual pay may be part of the problem, but personally I believe what’s driving this collapse is a refusal to match services adequately to the load put upon them, often by the government itself, leading to a self feeding downward spiral as staff quit for greener pastures elsewhere.
We’re now in a very difficult position & much of it is self-inflicted, even if the final trigger was an external stressor (Covid-19).
Very interesting comments.
BTW it was the UKG which cancelled byursaries in England with knock on effects for budgets for the devolved admins, but nevertheless bursaries for nursing still exist in Scotland - no idea about NI or Wales.
The court system is falling apart, with court dates delayed multiple years. It‘s completely unsustainable & having knock on effects on the rest of the criminal justice system (probably the wider economy too) yet the government doesn’t appear to care.
New tough laws will help no doubt. Somehow.
Its peanuts to put more money in there and it'd have a big effect.
Comments
Generalising about charities is dangerous.
The Brexit numbers are dwindling fast...soon enough this batshit Brexit ideology will be held only by a small number of crackpots who secretly fox hunt, and look to deploy their hunting rifles to plan a putsch to overthrow Parliament and restore the Empire to 1939 borders....and so deliver the purist form of Brexit...
1) @Cyclefree
2) A chainsaw
3) Some actual fucking charity.
About 3 - it is standard practise in a number of Charity Shop chains to send paid staff home at no notice because enough volunteers have turned up. That is, your shift gets cancelled with zero notice. Even as a NeonFascistImperialistOppressor (tm), who relaxes by selling OTC Grandparent Default Swaps, I think this crosses a line.
I’ve previously mentioned the charming charity that does no charity. Apart from keeping the owners in a certain style.
Rename the pound National Heirloom Sterling and it is safe forever.
Got to Lytham to find the meeting was cancelled. "Nobody from Newcastle could make it..."
Heartfelt sympathy to all the families and friends
This is simply tragic and just before Christmas
Even in the US, quite a bit of electricity is coming from renewable sources, which further moves the position.
IIRC this meant that a Tesla (say) was at worst, better than a very small compact ICE.
As the grid goes “Greener”, the cars follow, as it were
I would suggest reading up on the “well to wheels” calculations. Some excellent work has been done on studying the true C02 emissions/equivalence by the American EPA.
It is possible for both the following statements to be true:-
1. Lady Hussey was rude and wrong to question this lady in the way she did.
2. The charity run by this lady has some serious questions to answer about its accounts, its claims for grants, what it spends its money on, whether the founders are personally enriching themselves and what actual charitable activities it is carrying out.
The thread is long and complicated but there are some issues of substance there which need resolving.
Nick's approach which seems to assume that anyone who is treated impolitely or in a racist manner is somehow beyond reproach and should not be challenged is facile and stupid.
Someone changing their name and using multiple identities is a red flag and one which should not be ignored. This charity was being given taxpayers' money - quite a lot of it - and we are entitled to know that everything is above board, regardless of whether the founder was treated rudely at a Buckingham Palace reception.
Accusations of racism - however well-founded they may be - do not and should not give you a free pass.
IIRC, after one rail crash, it was pointed out that for about 0.1% of the cost of a completely useless change in the signalling system (which would be replaced again before the upgrade was finished), you could do a campaign in schools etc to reduce trespassing on tracks. And save many more lives a year…
I actually refuse to do work for charities because they argue their charitable aims means they deserve a discount only for me to discover their tricks in week 1 followed be me walking away in disgust.
The investment, part of a 10-year deal which will see the bourse using Microsoft's internet "cloud" technology, gives the US company a 4pc stake in one of Britain's most storied financial services companies.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2022/12/12/microsoft-takes-15bn-stake-london-stock-exchange/ (£££)
I understand Germany is rapidly using their gas storage and it is predicted that by march Germany will have no gas
It seems we are readying our coal fired stations, as is Europe, and it looks as if fossil fuel is the only option possibly for years to come
In the campaign to net zero has anyone even started to understand just how we generate enough clean energy when all our cars will be EVs
I believe we need to invest not only in nuclear but also tidal, as well as wind and solar, and accept our reliance on fossil fuels will not end anytime soon
"it really gives one hope for the future of all lifekind. Except, of course," he waved at the blitzing turmoil above and around them, "that we know it hasn't got one..."
I normally get off at junction 35, stop at Beethams Nurseries, buy plants and use their excellent cafe. The A590 and then the A595 are the way to go. The road between Gawthwaite and Grizebeck over the fells and then down to the Duddon Estuary is one of the most beautiful stretches of road in England. It lifts my heart whenever I am on it, no matter what time of year or the weather.
See also the nuclear power stations that various governments in the U.K. have been trying to build.
Personally, I think we need about 30-40 new nuclear power stations. But I like nukes…
I don't see why you think it's something that is new or difficult? We've known for ages that wind is a large part of the solution but that wind alone cannot be all of the solution.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63939426
On a day like today we could use some nukes. All these new interconnectors are serving us well, though. Currently importing 10% of our needs.
An eye watering £1395/MWH at the moment.
In short, my responses would be:
1. Yes.
2. Perhaps. Don't ask Twitter to judge - report it to the proper authority.
That said: given growing wind resources, it probably isn't of any great import.
Still a tradition for us to stop there when we head up to see me mam in Scotland though.
If I get locked up (not impossible) then trade Leon to get me back. XAXAXA! YRA!
https://www.nationalgrideso.com/electricity-explained/electricity-and-me/great-britains-monthly-electricity-stats
1. The Most Fervent of Brexit voters largely have no clue what the EU was or how it worked. They are - fundamentally - too stupid to make an empowered decision on this
2. They are the key swing voters - will they vote REFUK or Con or Lab? Lab need their votes, or at the very least to see them not vote Con
3. So don't wind them up about Brexit. Nobody likes to admit they were wrong, and many many voters are still prickly about it even as project shit comes raining down on their parade
Starmer isn't lying. He is being selective about which future positions he wants to talk about. Whilst votes are there to be had he will tread the narrow path between not enraging the ignorant whilst not completely pissing off the informed.
Once in power they have full access to the books and can do as every new goovernment does, find out New News which Changes their position. Whilst blaming the previous government. And the final realpolitik is that:
4. Brexit voters will be happy to accept the "see that shit raining on your parade? Thats what the Tories hid from you about Brexit" line. As they were to accept the "Labour almost bankrupted us" line from Osborne.
Retired Navy SEAL made famous after coming out as trans announces detransition: 'Destroyed my life'
"A retired Navy SEAL who became famous nearly 10 years ago after coming out as transgender announced he is detransitioning and called on Americans to "wake up" about how transgender health services are hurting children.
"Everything you see on CNN with my face, do not even believe a word of it," Chris Beck, formerly known as Kristin Beck, told conservative influencer Robby Starbuck in an interview published earlier this month. "Everything that happened to me for the last 10 years destroyed my life. I destroyed my life. I'm not a victim. I did this to myself, but I had help."
"I take full responsibility," he continued. "I went on CNN and everything else, and that’s why I’m here right now. I’m trying to correct that."
Beck gained notoriety in 2013 when he spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper about transitioning to a woman.
DETRANSITIONING WOMAN LEFT 'HEARTBROKEN' AFTER IRREVERSIBLE SURGERY: 'I WAS MANIPULATED'
"I was used … I was very naive, I was in a really bad way and I got taken advantage of. I got propagandized. I got used badly by a lot of people who had knowledge way beyond me. They knew what they were doing. I didn’t," he said during the interview."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/retired-navy-seal-made-famous-190017506.html
See also the nuclear power stations that various governments in the U.K. have been trying to build.
Personally, I think we need about 30-40 new nuclear power stations. But I like nukes… 1) The efficiency is worth it alone, to reduce dependence on oil. Which is generally produced in countries which are not nice. The Saudis can go back to farming sand.
2) The tailpipe emissions are worth it, just by themselves. Here’s a funny - EVs need air cooling. So they suck in huge amounts of air. Which they filter. Yes, the air they expel is purer than the air coming in. When people bang on about tire particulates, they neglect the fact that the car behind you will be hoovering them up…
3) Saving the planet is a bonus
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2020.0053
There are half a dozen commercial companies developing laser designs. The technologies are very different from the decades old NIF, which was originally designed to help model nuclear weapons without needing to test them.
The FLF concept (assuming it can be made to work), is fundamentally simpler.
He'll get away with it if he gets a comfortable majority. If he gets a bare majority or needs a coalition, he'll regret not having rolled the pitch.
From the look of things the transition to a zero carbon electricity grid is going to be a lot like many other technological transitions. Frustratingly slow at first and then surprisingly fast in the middle.
In terms of net zero there are bigger problems than electricity.
Mrs May's Government, I believe ( @MarqueeMark could correct me or enhance my assumption) binned the Swansea Bay Tidal project. I suspect the gas and petroleum lobbies remain powerful too. I also guess that geographical detail, and ecology play their part. Nonetheless I believe large scale tidal projects are a fraction of the cost of Hinkley Point or Sizewell, so once again, political will and nimbyism.
Tbh, the former Navy Seal was mature enough to make his own mind up. Puberty blockers for pre-pubescent children, now that is a different can of beans.
The average efficiency of an oil fired power plant is about 38%, although there are a few that get to around 40%.
Let's go with 40%.
Between 5-10% of electricity is lost in transmission and distribution. But let's go with 5%.
Around 15% will be lost in charging the electrical vehicle.
Your vehicle will lose around 5% of battery capacity (or maybe a little more) per charge when idle as it needs to keep the battery at an optimal temperature.
Furthermore, those electrical motors are only about 85% efficient at taking that battery power and putting it into motive power.
40% * 95% * 85% * 95% * 85% is 26%... which is going to be below the efficiency of most petrol driving motors.
Now if one thinks that some of the electrons* will come from wind, and some from nuclear, and most from gas** then electric vehicles start to look pretty good from a GHG perspective.
* Yes, yes, I know
** CCGTs are much more efficient than oil fired plants.
Nuclear is theoretically very reliable, but experience suggests that it is more reliable in theory than practice, with pretty much no commercial plants reaching predicted levels of uptime.
I think your number for grid loses is a bit high for example.
Living in the Hinkley Point C blast zone, I'd rather take my chances on the wind, sun and tidal power, truth be told.
My point about puberty blockers stands.
Even the old tidal mills, back in water mill times, used storage ponds
Basically, old nuclear power plants aren't very reliable.
Nuclear I didn't think was very easy to turn off and on though. It's more long term baseload.
It compares OK with nuclear down times.
The great benefit tidal has is that, because of the shifting time of high tide around the coast of England and Wales, that 14 hours varies. So with say 10 tidal lagoons, dotted around the coast, you have a guaranteed baseload across any 24 hour period.
Which compares extremely well with nuclear down times.
The people that try to put down tidal simply don't have the arguments.
It is an absolute no-brainer for the UK. Unless you are the nuclear industry, in which case it kills your economics for future plants stone dead. If you want the reasons for tidal getting trashed, look no further than nuclear for the source of the "arguments" made against tidal.
Industry group the British Hydropower Association adds that tidal range projects under development – all of which are currently stalled – would deliver 10GW of new capacity by 2030 if they were to receive permission and adequate funding. These projects are situated across Great Britain, including in Swansea Bay, Merseyside, the North Somerset Coast and the North Wales Coast. "
https://www.energymonitor.ai/tech/renewables/the-mystery-of-the-uks-untapped-tidal-power
That's tidal stream (tidal current) vs tidal range, i.e. tide rising/falling. La Rance in Brittany is tidal range.
For hydrogen as electricity source to be financially viable the total cost of the original power, then the production of hydrogen, and finally the "burning" of the hydrogen to produce electricity has to be competitive with the fully loaded cost of other more expensive sources like nuclear or pumped storage. It would then also need to be as profitable as other uses of hydrogen.
I'm guessing the economics are not quite there yet. Often the case that a technology is used little or not at all until an inflection point comes where it makes financial sense, and then it rockets.
There are at least a dozen locations where the tidal range would support a tidal lagoon in England and Wales. The output of the Cardiff lagoon alone would power 1.8 million homes.
There aren't 1.8 million homes in Wales.
The proposed Cardiff lagoon has almost identical output to Hinckley C. At about a third of the capital cost. And it would last twice as long. Minimum. Probably multiples of that.
No waste. No carbon. No risk of the land being uninhabitable for millenia.
A lagoon on the north Somerset coast has certain challenges, but could produce 2 or 3 times the output of Cardiff.
EFTA+ or EEA seem to be to be the best idea, and why we haven't persued it I've no idea.
Upholds the referendum (out the EU) but listens to the 48%.
On another matter, and maybe its been discussed but whats this massive fraud going on in the EU at the moment?
Take a step back. "Who are you? Who were your parents? From what country?" are hardwired into human discourse, they are what everybody asks everybody else on first meeting in the Odyssey. They are still quite acceptable issues: I know from a superficial and recent acquaintance with the site the racial backgrounds of posters who for instance live in a Scandi country but are "really from" elsewhere. There's a qualified and understandable exception to this rule in the case of ethnic minorities, but to argue that anything beyond stupidity and tactlessness is involved requires arguing that Lady Hussey is not stupid and tactless. Looking at her, that is a paradox too far for me.
So turn the knob up to 11 on a scale of 1 to 10 on your Marshall outrage amp if you want, but it doesn't leave you much in the tank to respond to the KKK with.
"EU corruption charges 'very very worrisome', says foreign policy chief"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63941509
How many votes in rejoining THAT corrupt cabal?
The legal question will be one of consent. If consented properly and freely, then it is an open and shut case.
Regretting bad decisions is part of human existence, which brings us back to the header...
Its peanuts to put more money in there and it'd have a big effect.