The pieces on supermarket sales basically strip out inflation. "Like for like"
No they don't. They have a value sales figure and a volume sales figure. The value sales figure includes inflation, and the volume is independent of price changes.
Well the headline figures/story should adjust for inflation for food sales. Every time someone comes bleating on about pay on the airwaves it's always "blah blah real terms cut over last 10 years".
I would have thought it was in Western interests to see the current Russian regime (which has funded plenty of extremists on both sides of the political spectrum) fall.
I think we'd be uncertain about it - not really in our interest to have Russia fall into warring factions, or to end up controlled by even more erratic types. The idea that stirring regime change will produce an agreeable pro-Western regime is probably illusory at this point.
Neither is it in our interests to see Russia continue what it is doing, and taking over Ukraine and (at least) the Baltic states, interfering more in our internal politics, and poisoning people on our shores with radiological and nerve agents.
Yes, we cannot be sure what would replace Putin. But that does not mean that the potential fall of Putin should stop us from doing it. We cannot appease evil for fear of what lurks behind that evil.
It depends on what you mean by "doing it". There's a difference between rejecting appeasement and actively seeking regime change. The West is energetically and successfully helping Ukraine defend itself, with some debate about how far to push that. We would certainly intervene directly if NATO members were attacked. Actively seeking to overthrow Putin as part of our policy would, however, be a different ballgame and quite likely to lead to an even more nationalist successor. It's unlikely that the US (or British) leadership see that as desirable.
But of a strawman there, Nick.
The aim is to defeat completely the invasion of a sovereign state. What happens to Putin is beyond our control, and other than his perhaps facing an international criminal court sometime in the future, isn't really a factor we should worry about too much.
That is manifestly not the aim. If "the West" wanted to defeat completely the invasion of a sovereign state then they would have done so.
I heard (same podcast) that the US is now spending something like 6-8% (can't remember exactly) of it's GDP on defence which, looking at recent numbers (around 3%) suggests I misheard or misunderstood. It is high, however, and there is a non-trivial proportion of that spending going to aid Ukraine. But evidently not too much.
Defeat the invasion whilst keeping the risk of geographical escalation and direct Russia/NATO military conflict to a minimum - is the objective.
Thanks General. That's quite some access to Theatre-level planning ops.
It's also wrong for most values of "defeat the invasion".
But please keep us informed, although I presume the red phone will be on silent during the snooker.
Hardly needs a seat in the Ops Room to discern the big picture objective.
But ok, you seem put out. Happy to leave the detail to real soldiers.
OK soz let's take baby steps.
Define "defeat the invasion".
That means back to the borders before it commenced.
Ah I see. What if it was realised that that was not possible without as you note the risk of geographical escalation and direct Russia/NATO military conflict.
Would it remain an aim or would the aim switch to something more pragmatic?
Oh and which year are we talking about for "before it commenced"?
Now we're talking.
So that is the Objective. Defeat the invasion = no Russia territory gain for the SMO = back to the borders before Feb 22 when it started. While keeping the escalation risk to an acceptable minimum.
That's where we are atm.
But if - as you postulate - things change such that it becomes clear this isn't realistic then the objective will change. The risk caveat won't change - that trumps all - so what will change is the other bit. The 'no Russia territory gain' will be dropped.
That's how I see it anyway.
It seems like the US aim is to force the Russians back to the "borders" of February last year, so that is probably where this war ends, one way or another.
Just seen the Sunak broadcast. Can't put my finger on the specifics wrong with it, but my overall impression was of a spoof, as if he'd joined the cast of Brass Eye or Not the Nine O'clock News. The music maybe, or that he just looks so fake. An empty suit.
Perhaps this is something where @Roger can contribute, but I found the camera angle from one side, showing Sunak speaking straight ahead to one of the other cameras, particularly weird. What was that all about?
Trying to show he's not two-dimensional?
I've seen that approach elsewhere, in '"this is very serious" type interviews etc, but - like you - I don't really get it.
Some of the figures quoted are probably worst case scenarios, but would you for example want to be a bank which had recently made long term loans for building coal fired power stations ?
Given that coal fired power stations are going up everywhere (except the UK), yes, absolutely. Germany has also recently said it's going to build a lot more gas capacity.
It isn't in any way a realistic scenario that there will be a collapse in the value of these assets, given that they are rendered more necessary not less, by the insistence in the UK on heavily subsidising intermittent, unreliable sources of renewable power, that depend on fossil fuels for back up generation.
The only thing that strikes me as 'dirty' in the above article is the attempt to blackmail Governments and financial institutions into damaging companies who are doing legal and frankly vital work to bring us reliable and inexpensive fuel. People working for these sorts of pressure groups should perhaps be a little more wary that Governments might take their doom-mongering seriously and question whether such grotesque self-harm is actually worthwhile at all, either economically or environmentally.
That's not really true.
Yes, new (more efficient coal) plants are being built, but lots are getting retired too.
Overall coal capacity is basically flat,
There's a good spreadsheet here that tracks total generating capacity by country.
Worldwide, 11.4GW of coal plants were retired in 1H2022, while 13.8GW started.
The US dominated retirements, closing 7.6GW of plants in 1H22.
The political climate has also changed somewhat in the last year. Compare this article:
QCells was my one energy investment disaster when I was a fund manager
That was when the US was happy to offshore all its manufacturing to China, though, wasn't it ? That has changed under Biden, and I'm not sure that change would be substantially reversed under a Republican administration.
Fossil fuel industries don't have a great deal of headroom to improve their economics. That is manifestly not the case for renewables.
In the right conditions (Saudi Arabia, for example), solar is already the cheapest energy on the planet, by a considerable way. But there's still much room for development.
The pieces on supermarket sales basically strip out inflation. "Like for like"
No they don't. They have a value sales figure and a volume sales figure. The value sales figure includes inflation, and the volume is independent of price changes.
Well the headline figures/story should adjust for inflation for food sales. Every time someone comes bleating on about pay on the airwaves it's always "blah blah real terms cut over last 10 years".
Well, we're back to the same old issue of media by press release, where the media doesn't have the time, or the know-how, to do much more than regurgitate press releases, and so a company like Tesco with a competent media team is able to get a positive spin on bad news out there as the story.
Of course the story should correct for inflation, but are you really surprised that it doesn't do so?
Outside the tourist areas everyone wears masks 95% of the time. Mad
On the upside: new delivery services and zoom calls mean you can get any pills you want after a quick video consultation with a medic: they are then biked instantly to your hotel
Morning all - O/T piece in the Graun, which nevertheless seems to say something profound, or at least deep, about modern life and social media (though I don't know what @JosiasJessop or @Malmesbury will think).
People have been making those simulations for years. Every documentary on every shipwreck seems to have them.
There's a lot of amateur work on 3D digital modelling out there - to a certain extent it has taken over from physical model building, with people competing to get every rivet right.
Some of the figures quoted are probably worst case scenarios, but would you for example want to be a bank which had recently made long term loans for building coal fired power stations ?
Given that coal fired power stations are going up everywhere (except the UK), yes, absolutely. Germany has also recently said it's going to build a lot more gas capacity.
It isn't in any way a realistic scenario that there will be a collapse in the value of these assets, given that they are rendered more necessary not less, by the insistence in the UK on heavily subsidising intermittent, unreliable sources of renewable power, that depend on fossil fuels for back up generation.
The only thing that strikes me as 'dirty' in the above article is the attempt to blackmail Governments and financial institutions into damaging companies who are doing legal and frankly vital work to bring us reliable and inexpensive fuel. People working for these sorts of pressure groups should perhaps be a little more wary that Governments might take their doom-mongering seriously and question whether such grotesque self-harm is actually worthwhile at all, either economically or environmentally.
That's not really true.
Yes, new (more efficient coal) plants are being built, but lots are getting retired too.
Overall coal capacity is basically flat,
There's a good spreadsheet here that tracks total generating capacity by country.
Worldwide, 11.4GW of coal plants were retired in 1H2022, while 13.8GW started.
The US dominated retirements, closing 7.6GW of plants in 1H22.
The political climate has also changed somewhat in the last year. Compare this article:
QCells was my one energy investment disaster when I was a fund manager
That was when the US was happy to offshore all its manufacturing to China, though, wasn't it ? That has changed under Biden, and I'm not sure that change would be substantially reversed under a Republican administration.
Fossil fuel industries don't have a great deal of headroom to improve their economics. That is manifestly not the case for renewables.
In the right conditions (Saudi Arabia, for example), solar is already the cheapest energy on the planet, by a considerable way. But there's still much room for development.
Never mind Britain: Germany looks for US to lead the way on battle tanks to Ukraine https://www.politico.eu/article/britain-germany-us-battle-tanks-ukraine-war/ Britain’s moves toward supplying Ukraine with battle tanks are a headache for Olaf Scholz — but it’s still unlikely that the German chancellor will overcome his reluctance to sending heavy German armor without taking his lead from Washington.
Scholz’s spokesperson said Wednesday that plans by London to deliver British-made Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine won’t change the position of the German government, which has so far rejected growing calls for Berlin to hand powerful German Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv.
Warsaw has proposed that the German-made Leopards could be delivered via a broader alliance of European countries. “A company of Leopard tanks for Ukraine will be transferred as part of international coalition building. Such a decision is already [taken] in Poland,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said in a tweet. The big obstacle to these transfers is that Berlin needs to give the green light for re-export of German-made weapons.??
… Speaking on the condition of anonymity, two German officials said that Scholz’s position depended heavily on U.S. President Joe Biden, with whom the chancellor already closely coordinated when issuing a joint statement last week announcing the joint delivery of German and American infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine.
I'm the US is carefully coordinating exactly what is given to Ukraine at what time. As I said at the beginning, it is in Western interests to arm Ukraine just enough to maintain a stalemate with Russia, no more and no less, and that is precisely what is happening. German tanks will go to Ukraine when and only when the US says so.
I would have thought it was in Western interests to see the current Russian regime (which has funded plenty of extremists on both sides of the political spectrum) fall.
Yes, and the safest way to achieve this is to keep Russia bogged down in a steady war of attrition. Go in too hard, and the risk of nuclear war starts to rise.
As pointed out in the article quoted above, the pattern has been the same throughout, with supplying arms by Germany
- Its impossible - No one has asked for this - We are considering it - We are still considering it - No one has asked for this - Oh, all right then.
Complete with accounts of how, from inside the German Governement, that after supplying something is agreed, it is repeatedly put on hold by Sholtz.
Biden has been trying to keep NATO united by not simply bulldozing Sholtz.
The highlighted quote from the article is "two German officials said that Scholz’s position depended heavily on U.S. President Joe Biden". I don't see how that can be interpreted any other way than Germany is waiting for instructions from the US. It doesn't imply to me that Germany is being awkward in any way.
Is correct. Germany has consistently indicated that it won't deliver MBTs without US involvement. That may be disppointing, but I haven't seen any evidence whatsoever except in the imagination of Malmesbury that Biden wanted to send tanks but didn't in order to not "bulldoze Sholtz" (or Scholz as he is called by anyone with a little bit of knowledge of Germany).
That's probably current. It doesn't though really address the point that Germany is also blocking other European allies sending Leopards to Ukraine.
The pattern of delays inside the German government was described (and complained about) by a number of German politicians.
Remember the surprise at Biden's comments about not breaking NATO by unilaterally making decisions?
I would have thought it was in Western interests to see the current Russian regime (which has funded plenty of extremists on both sides of the political spectrum) fall.
I think we'd be uncertain about it - not really in our interest to have Russia fall into warring factions, or to end up controlled by even more erratic types. The idea that stirring regime change will produce an agreeable pro-Western regime is probably illusory at this point.
Neither is it in our interests to see Russia continue what it is doing, and taking over Ukraine and (at least) the Baltic states, interfering more in our internal politics, and poisoning people on our shores with radiological and nerve agents.
Yes, we cannot be sure what would replace Putin. But that does not mean that the potential fall of Putin should stop us from doing it. We cannot appease evil for fear of what lurks behind that evil.
It depends on what you mean by "doing it". There's a difference between rejecting appeasement and actively seeking regime change. The West is energetically and successfully helping Ukraine defend itself, with some debate about how far to push that. We would certainly intervene directly if NATO members were attacked. Actively seeking to overthrow Putin as part of our policy would, however, be a different ballgame and quite likely to lead to an even more nationalist successor. It's unlikely that the US (or British) leadership see that as desirable.
But of a strawman there, Nick.
The aim is to defeat completely the invasion of a sovereign state. What happens to Putin is beyond our control, and other than his perhaps facing an international criminal court sometime in the future, isn't really a factor we should worry about too much.
That is manifestly not the aim. If "the West" wanted to defeat completely the invasion of a sovereign state then they would have done so.
I heard (same podcast) that the US is now spending something like 6-8% (can't remember exactly) of it's GDP on defence which, looking at recent numbers (around 3%) suggests I misheard or misunderstood. It is high, however, and there is a non-trivial proportion of that spending going to aid Ukraine. But evidently not too much.
Defeat the invasion whilst keeping the risk of geographical escalation and direct Russia/NATO military conflict to a minimum - is the objective.
Thanks General. That's quite some access to Theatre-level planning ops.
It's also wrong for most values of "defeat the invasion".
But please keep us informed, although I presume the red phone will be on silent during the snooker.
Hardly needs a seat in the Ops Room to discern the big picture objective.
But ok, you seem put out. Happy to leave the detail to real soldiers.
OK soz let's take baby steps.
Define "defeat the invasion".
That means back to the borders before it commenced.
Ah I see. What if it was realised that that was not possible without as you note the risk of geographical escalation and direct Russia/NATO military conflict.
Would it remain an aim or would the aim switch to something more pragmatic?
Oh and which year are we talking about for "before it commenced"?
Now we're talking.
So that is the Objective. Defeat the invasion = no Russia territory gain for the SMO = back to the borders before Feb 22 when it started. While keeping the escalation risk to an acceptable minimum.
That's where we are atm.
But if - as you postulate - things change such that it becomes clear this isn't realistic then the objective will change. The risk caveat won't change - that trumps all - so what will change is the other bit. The 'no Russia territory gain' will be dropped.
That's how I see it anyway.
I am not 100% sure that is where we are atm. I think we might have crossed that point - coming up for a year since the invasion (and nine since 2014). I think we are trying to manage the element which you rightly imo point out trumps all which is spillage, and which means by design the US (because that's all that matters) is stopping short of decisive aid and always has.
I think, especially on PB, there is a huge I need Russia to lose and lose badly and because I need that to happen it will happen element. And then, as you know my bete noire, posting 30-second video clips off YouTube showing a platoon in a contact (or even footage from a video game).
What caused the computer problems that grounded all US domestic flights today?
1. Russian action? 2. US action? 3. Third party action? 4. Terrible coincidence as in a French farce, or similar to the "perfect storm" that a supplier told me today was the reason why it might take a fortnight for him to deliver something to me, not the usual 2-3 days? (The one thing in favour of "perfect storm" talk is that it's not quite so annoying as when someone says "going forward".)
At least 9 times out of 10 I'd expect this to be a snafu. Someone accidentally found a single point of failure that shouldn't exist, or they botched an upgrade, or one of many possible things went wrong.
I don't know if you'd classify that as a terrible coincidence. Depends how many things went wrong at once. It might only have been one.
It appears to have been a database corruption, which for some reason also affected the backup system and couldn’t easily be rolled back. In other words they had no actual redundancy, and it’s a wonder how it’s never crashed before!
It does sound like the classic - a corrupted file/data that is only revealed when you need to restore. So it has been steadily put into the sequence of x backups, until all of them you have are bad.
Some of the figures quoted are probably worst case scenarios, but would you for example want to be a bank which had recently made long term loans for building coal fired power stations ?
Given that coal fired power stations are going up everywhere (except the UK), yes, absolutely. Germany has also recently said it's going to build a lot more gas capacity.
It isn't in any way a realistic scenario that there will be a collapse in the value of these assets, given that they are rendered more necessary not less, by the insistence in the UK on heavily subsidising intermittent, unreliable sources of renewable power, that depend on fossil fuels for back up generation.
The only thing that strikes me as 'dirty' in the above article is the attempt to blackmail Governments and financial institutions into damaging companies who are doing legal and frankly vital work to bring us reliable and inexpensive fuel. People working for these sorts of pressure groups should perhaps be a little more wary that Governments might take their doom-mongering seriously and question whether such grotesque self-harm is actually worthwhile at all, either economically or environmentally.
That's not really true.
Yes, new (more efficient coal) plants are being built, but lots are getting retired too.
Overall coal capacity is basically flat,
There's a good spreadsheet here that tracks total generating capacity by country.
Worldwide, 11.4GW of coal plants were retired in 1H2022, while 13.8GW started.
The US dominated retirements, closing 7.6GW of plants in 1H22.
The political climate has also changed somewhat in the last year. Compare this article:
QCells was my one energy investment disaster when I was a fund manager
That was when the US was happy to offshore all its manufacturing to China, though, wasn't it ? That has changed under Biden, and I'm not sure that change would be substantially reversed under a Republican administration.
Fossil fuel industries don't have a great deal of headroom to improve their economics. That is manifestly not the case for renewables.
In the right conditions (Saudi Arabia, for example), solar is already the cheapest energy on the planet, by a considerable way. But there's still much room for development.
Both solar and batteries are improving - lower cost and better capability - in a fairly steady, incremental way.
The "Game changing" technology things may or may not happen, but there is years of a few percent cheaper, few percent better baked in.
I would have thought it was in Western interests to see the current Russian regime (which has funded plenty of extremists on both sides of the political spectrum) fall.
I think we'd be uncertain about it - not really in our interest to have Russia fall into warring factions, or to end up controlled by even more erratic types. The idea that stirring regime change will produce an agreeable pro-Western regime is probably illusory at this point.
Neither is it in our interests to see Russia continue what it is doing, and taking over Ukraine and (at least) the Baltic states, interfering more in our internal politics, and poisoning people on our shores with radiological and nerve agents.
Yes, we cannot be sure what would replace Putin. But that does not mean that the potential fall of Putin should stop us from doing it. We cannot appease evil for fear of what lurks behind that evil.
It depends on what you mean by "doing it". There's a difference between rejecting appeasement and actively seeking regime change. The West is energetically and successfully helping Ukraine defend itself, with some debate about how far to push that. We would certainly intervene directly if NATO members were attacked. Actively seeking to overthrow Putin as part of our policy would, however, be a different ballgame and quite likely to lead to an even more nationalist successor. It's unlikely that the US (or British) leadership see that as desirable.
But of a strawman there, Nick.
The aim is to defeat completely the invasion of a sovereign state. What happens to Putin is beyond our control, and other than his perhaps facing an international criminal court sometime in the future, isn't really a factor we should worry about too much.
That is manifestly not the aim. If "the West" wanted to defeat completely the invasion of a sovereign state then they would have done so.
I heard (same podcast) that the US is now spending something like 6-8% (can't remember exactly) of it's GDP on defence which, looking at recent numbers (around 3%) suggests I misheard or misunderstood. It is high, however, and there is a non-trivial proportion of that spending going to aid Ukraine. But evidently not too much.
Defeat the invasion whilst keeping the risk of geographical escalation and direct Russia/NATO military conflict to a minimum - is the objective.
Thanks General. That's quite some access to Theatre-level planning ops.
It's also wrong for most values of "defeat the invasion".
But please keep us informed, although I presume the red phone will be on silent during the snooker.
Hardly needs a seat in the Ops Room to discern the big picture objective.
But ok, you seem put out. Happy to leave the detail to real soldiers.
OK soz let's take baby steps.
Define "defeat the invasion".
That means back to the borders before it commenced.
Ah I see. What if it was realised that that was not possible without as you note the risk of geographical escalation and direct Russia/NATO military conflict.
Would it remain an aim or would the aim switch to something more pragmatic?
Oh and which year are we talking about for "before it commenced"?
Now we're talking.
So that is the Objective. Defeat the invasion = no Russia territory gain for the SMO = back to the borders before Feb 22 when it started. While keeping the escalation risk to an acceptable minimum.
That's where we are atm.
But if - as you postulate - things change such that it becomes clear this isn't realistic then the objective will change. The risk caveat won't change - that trumps all - so what will change is the other bit. The 'no Russia territory gain' will be dropped.
That's how I see it anyway.
I am not 100% sure that is where we are atm. I think we might have crossed that point - coming up for a year since the invasion (and nine since 2014). I think we are trying to manage the element which you rightly imo point out trumps all which is spillage, and which means by design the US (because that's all that matters) is stopping short of decisive aid and always has.
I think, especially on PB, there is a huge I need Russia to lose and lose badly and because I need that to happen it will happen element. And then, as you know my bete noire, posting 30-second video clips off YouTube showing a platoon in a contact (or even footage from a video game).
I try to be a bit more pragmatic.
Define decisive aid - it seems to be a moveable feast.
We are in a situation where, apparently, the NATO feeds of surveillance data are being sent directly to the Ukrainians - see the documentary about the AWACS flights where this was talked about, by those involved.
Or such is the volume of Western artillery being provided, that Ukraine is now prioritising getting more 105mm and 155mm artillery rounds, rather than the legacy Soviet calibres.
I would have thought it was in Western interests to see the current Russian regime (which has funded plenty of extremists on both sides of the political spectrum) fall.
I think we'd be uncertain about it - not really in our interest to have Russia fall into warring factions, or to end up controlled by even more erratic types. The idea that stirring regime change will produce an agreeable pro-Western regime is probably illusory at this point.
Neither is it in our interests to see Russia continue what it is doing, and taking over Ukraine and (at least) the Baltic states, interfering more in our internal politics, and poisoning people on our shores with radiological and nerve agents.
Yes, we cannot be sure what would replace Putin. But that does not mean that the potential fall of Putin should stop us from doing it. We cannot appease evil for fear of what lurks behind that evil.
It depends on what you mean by "doing it". There's a difference between rejecting appeasement and actively seeking regime change. The West is energetically and successfully helping Ukraine defend itself, with some debate about how far to push that. We would certainly intervene directly if NATO members were attacked. Actively seeking to overthrow Putin as part of our policy would, however, be a different ballgame and quite likely to lead to an even more nationalist successor. It's unlikely that the US (or British) leadership see that as desirable.
But of a strawman there, Nick.
The aim is to defeat completely the invasion of a sovereign state. What happens to Putin is beyond our control, and other than his perhaps facing an international criminal court sometime in the future, isn't really a factor we should worry about too much.
That is manifestly not the aim. If "the West" wanted to defeat completely the invasion of a sovereign state then they would have done so.
I heard (same podcast) that the US is now spending something like 6-8% (can't remember exactly) of it's GDP on defence which, looking at recent numbers (around 3%) suggests I misheard or misunderstood. It is high, however, and there is a non-trivial proportion of that spending going to aid Ukraine. But evidently not too much.
Defeat the invasion whilst keeping the risk of geographical escalation and direct Russia/NATO military conflict to a minimum - is the objective.
Thanks General. That's quite some access to Theatre-level planning ops.
It's also wrong for most values of "defeat the invasion".
But please keep us informed, although I presume the red phone will be on silent during the snooker.
Hardly needs a seat in the Ops Room to discern the big picture objective.
But ok, you seem put out. Happy to leave the detail to real soldiers.
OK soz let's take baby steps.
Define "defeat the invasion".
That means back to the borders before it commenced.
Ah I see. What if it was realised that that was not possible without as you note the risk of geographical escalation and direct Russia/NATO military conflict.
Would it remain an aim or would the aim switch to something more pragmatic?
Oh and which year are we talking about for "before it commenced"?
Now we're talking.
So that is the Objective. Defeat the invasion = no Russia territory gain for the SMO = back to the borders before Feb 22 when it started. While keeping the escalation risk to an acceptable minimum.
That's where we are atm.
But if - as you postulate - things change such that it becomes clear this isn't realistic then the objective will change. The risk caveat won't change - that trumps all - so what will change is the other bit. The 'no Russia territory gain' will be dropped.
That's how I see it anyway.
I am not 100% sure that is where we are atm. I think we might have crossed that point - coming up for a year since the invasion (and nine since 2014). I think we are trying to manage the element which you rightly imo point out trumps all which is spillage, and which means by design the US (because that's all that matters) is stopping short of decisive aid and always has.
I think, especially on PB, there is a huge I need Russia to lose and lose badly and because I need that to happen it will happen element. And then, as you know my bete noire, posting 30-second video clips off YouTube showing a platoon in a contact (or even footage from a video game).
I try to be a bit more pragmatic.
I'd say that's still as we speak the objective. By which I mean the US objective (agreed that "the West" means the US here).
Putin's route to denying the objective is dig in deep and hope America loses its appetite for the whole thing - eg the politics changes over there.
Just seen the Sunak broadcast. Can't put my finger on the specifics wrong with it, but my overall impression was of a spoof, as if he'd joined the cast of Brass Eye or Not the Nine O'clock News. The music maybe, or that he just looks so fake. An empty suit.
I think his presentation skills whilst superficially impressive unfortunately give off an air of insincerity. Blair and Cameron had similar presentation styles and each could fall foul of this at times, but managed the landing better for the most part and made it work.
Some of the figures quoted are probably worst case scenarios, but would you for example want to be a bank which had recently made long term loans for building coal fired power stations ?
Given that coal fired power stations are going up everywhere (except the UK), yes, absolutely. Germany has also recently said it's going to build a lot more gas capacity.
It isn't in any way a realistic scenario that there will be a collapse in the value of these assets, given that they are rendered more necessary not less, by the insistence in the UK on heavily subsidising intermittent, unreliable sources of renewable power, that depend on fossil fuels for back up generation.
The only thing that strikes me as 'dirty' in the above article is the attempt to blackmail Governments and financial institutions into damaging companies who are doing legal and frankly vital work to bring us reliable and inexpensive fuel. People working for these sorts of pressure groups should perhaps be a little more wary that Governments might take their doom-mongering seriously and question whether such grotesque self-harm is actually worthwhile at all, either economically or environmentally.
That's not really true.
Yes, new (more efficient coal) plants are being built, but lots are getting retired too.
Overall coal capacity is basically flat,
There's a good spreadsheet here that tracks total generating capacity by country.
Worldwide, 11.4GW of coal plants were retired in 1H2022, while 13.8GW started.
The US dominated retirements, closing 7.6GW of plants in 1H22.
The political climate has also changed somewhat in the last year. Compare this article:
QCells was my one energy investment disaster when I was a fund manager
That was when the US was happy to offshore all its manufacturing to China, though, wasn't it ? That has changed under Biden, and I'm not sure that change would be substantially reversed under a Republican administration.
Fossil fuel industries don't have a great deal of headroom to improve their economics. That is manifestly not the case for renewables.
In the right conditions (Saudi Arabia, for example), solar is already the cheapest energy on the planet, by a considerable way. But there's still much room for development.
Both solar and batteries are improving - lower cost and better capability - in a fairly steady, incremental way.
The "Game changing" technology things may or may not happen, but there is years of a few percent cheaper, few percent better baked in.
Of course technology is improving, but I don't think batteries are a serious option for balancing wind. They can only store power for a short while, are full of chemicals, and use scarce minerals.
Pumped hydro should just happen now. I don't think the proposed projects can meet the need but it's a start.
And attention should be switched away from wind and solar and on to tidal. May's decision on tidal should be reversed in the current circumstances. In KSA they have hot hot sun and lots of barren surface. In the UK we have lots and lots of tides. It isn't hard to decide what we should be investing in.
I think I can speak for everyone when I say that there has been far too little attention paid to the Nazis recently and it's definitely time for a(nother) groundbreaking series on them.
Rishi is a much more natural communicator in person rather than in doing set pieces to camera.
I just watched it. Like the socially awkward CEO asked to give a motivational new year piece to camera to the staff on the office intranet.
I think that's important.
It might be awkward, but he's a competent CEO.
Boris was a charismatic CEO but incompetent, lazy and venal.
Truss was awkward and an ideological CEO - that didn't listen - and so also incompetent.
May was awkward and a competent CEO, but crap with people interpersonal.
Starmer will be boring and an administratively competent CEO but not an inspirational one or one that provides much vision
Cameron wasn't awkward or charismatic- just a fair communicator - and was an administratively competent CEO but relied on others for vision that he then took up
My point is (perhaps with the exception of Boris and Truss) is that you see CEOs like this all the time in the private sector.
Some of the figures quoted are probably worst case scenarios, but would you for example want to be a bank which had recently made long term loans for building coal fired power stations ?
Given that coal fired power stations are going up everywhere (except the UK), yes, absolutely. Germany has also recently said it's going to build a lot more gas capacity.
It isn't in any way a realistic scenario that there will be a collapse in the value of these assets, given that they are rendered more necessary not less, by the insistence in the UK on heavily subsidising intermittent, unreliable sources of renewable power, that depend on fossil fuels for back up generation.
The only thing that strikes me as 'dirty' in the above article is the attempt to blackmail Governments and financial institutions into damaging companies who are doing legal and frankly vital work to bring us reliable and inexpensive fuel. People working for these sorts of pressure groups should perhaps be a little more wary that Governments might take their doom-mongering seriously and question whether such grotesque self-harm is actually worthwhile at all, either economically or environmentally.
That's not really true.
Yes, new (more efficient coal) plants are being built, but lots are getting retired too.
Overall coal capacity is basically flat,
There's a good spreadsheet here that tracks total generating capacity by country.
Worldwide, 11.4GW of coal plants were retired in 1H2022, while 13.8GW started.
The US dominated retirements, closing 7.6GW of plants in 1H22.
The political climate has also changed somewhat in the last year. Compare this article:
QCells was my one energy investment disaster when I was a fund manager
That was when the US was happy to offshore all its manufacturing to China, though, wasn't it ? That has changed under Biden, and I'm not sure that change would be substantially reversed under a Republican administration.
Fossil fuel industries don't have a great deal of headroom to improve their economics. That is manifestly not the case for renewables.
In the right conditions (Saudi Arabia, for example), solar is already the cheapest energy on the planet, by a considerable way. But there's still much room for development.
Both solar and batteries are improving - lower cost and better capability - in a fairly steady, incremental way.
The "Game changing" technology things may or may not happen, but there is years of a few percent cheaper, few percent better baked in.
Of course technology is improving, but I don't think batteries are a serious option for balancing wind. They can only store power for a short while, are full of chemicals, and use scarce minerals.
Pumped hydro should just happen now. I don't think the proposed projects can meet the need but it's a start.
And attention should be switched away from wind and solar and on to tidal. May's decision on tidal should be reversed in the current circumstances. In KSA they have hot hot sun and lots of barren surface. In the UK we have lots and lots of tides. It isn't hard to decide what we should be investing in.
The first problem with pumped hydro is that the number of sites for it are limited. Especially when you factor in that people like mountains untouched.
The second problem is cost - pumped storage projects are full on mega projects. Dinorwig would cost something like £2 billion to build today.
Tidal has the adavtange of more locations, but again you are into the mega project stuff.
The advantage batteries have, is that they scale from zero. So you are already seeing larger and larger grid stability projects, around the world. The government quietly changed the planning rules - a few MWh of storage is exempt from a full power station style planning enquiry.
So while there are technical advantages to other forms of storage, batteries will quietly increase in usage, while the politics of infrastructure delay the others.
Especially since the charging sites for electric vehicles will, increasingly have storage as part of their systems. Locally small, but when you add up for the whole country, it will be significant.
The advantage batteries have, is that they scale from zero. So you are already seeing larger and larger grid stability projects, around the world. The government quietly changed the planning rules - a few MWh of storage is exempt from a full power station style planning enquiry.
Rishi is a much more natural communicator in person rather than in doing set pieces to camera.
I just watched it. Like the socially awkward CEO asked to give a motivational new year piece to camera to the staff on the office intranet.
I think that's important.
It might be awkward, but he's a competent CEO.
Boris was a charismatic CEO but incompetent, lazy and venal.
Truss was awkward and an ideological CEO - that didn't listen - and so also incompetent.
May was awkward and a competent CEO, but crap with people interpersonal.
Starmer will be boring and an administratively competent CEO but not an inspirational one or one that provides much vision
Cameron wasn't awkward or charismatic- just a fair communicator - and was an administratively competent CEO but relied on others for vision that he then took up
My point is (perhaps with the exception of Boris and Truss) is that you see CEOs like this all the time in the private sector.
I think you find all of the above as CEOs
The only difference, is that modern politics emphasises presentational skills over ability. In organisational senior manaement, the emphasis in on internal politics. No-one cares that much if the CEO isn't that good at public speaking.
Rishi is a much more natural communicator in person rather than in doing set pieces to camera.
I just watched it. Like the socially awkward CEO asked to give a motivational new year piece to camera to the staff on the office intranet.
I think that's important.
It might be awkward, but he's a competent CEO.
Boris was a charismatic CEO but incompetent, lazy and venal.
Truss was awkward and an ideological CEO - that didn't listen - and so also incompetent.
May was awkward and a competent CEO, but crap with people interpersonal.
Starmer will be boring and an administratively competent CEO but not an inspirational one or one that provides much vision
Cameron wasn't awkward or charismatic- just a fair communicator - and was an administratively competent CEO but relied on others for vision that he then took up
My point is (perhaps with the exception of Boris and Truss) is that you see CEOs like this all the time in the private sector.
Indeed (and I suspect some incompetent bullshitters like Johnson make it to the top, as well). But politics isn't like running a company.
Cameron was a better communicator than you give him credit for. I met him personally as part of a group of senior LibDem councillors, and he was charming and persuasive. It was in judgement that he was lacking, compansated for by an unfortunate excess of self-confidence.
Sunak's real problem is political; the events of last year have denuded both him and the party of political capital and left them riven with both personal and political divisions. It would take a superhero to turn things around, and I don't see any telephone box in the vicinity.
The advantage batteries have, is that they scale from zero. So you are already seeing larger and larger grid stability projects, around the world. The government quietly changed the planning rules - a few MWh of storage is exempt from a full power station style planning enquiry.
The virtual power plant is basically just lots of distributed batteries...
The Tesla project in California is interesting - you can sell electricity from your Tesla storage battery back to the grid. Literally run your own storage operation.
With the added bonus of creating extremely distributed infrastructure.
I think we will see a lot of storage used for vehicle charging doing stuff like this, as well.
Comments
I've seen that approach elsewhere, in '"this is very serious" type interviews etc, but - like you - I don't really get it.
That has changed under Biden, and I'm not sure that change would be substantially reversed under a Republican administration.
And US policy also drives EU policy.
Germany’s Scholz Backs Joint EU Funding to Counter US Aid
Scholz’s SPD supports strong EU response to US climate act SPD lawmakers call for more joint EU financing of green tech
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-11/germany-s-scholz-backs-joint-eu-funding-to-counter-us-green-plan?leadSource=uverify wall
Fossil fuel industries don't have a great deal of headroom to improve their economics. That is manifestly not the case for renewables.
In the right conditions (Saudi Arabia, for example), solar is already the cheapest energy on the planet, by a considerable way. But there's still much room for development.
Of course the story should correct for inflation, but are you really surprised that it doesn't do so?
There's a lot of amateur work on 3D digital modelling out there - to a certain extent it has taken over from physical model building, with people competing to get every rivet right.
https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/environment/2022/01/24/inside-dubais-vast-solar-project-leading-clean-energy-drive/
Remember the surprise at Biden's comments about not breaking NATO by unilaterally making decisions?
I think, especially on PB, there is a huge I need Russia to lose and lose badly and because I need that to happen it will happen element. And then, as you know my bete noire, posting 30-second video clips off YouTube showing a platoon in a contact (or even footage from a video game).
I try to be a bit more pragmatic.
It does sound like the classic - a corrupted file/data that is only revealed when you need to restore. So it has been steadily put into the sequence of x backups, until all of them you have are bad.
The "Game changing" technology things may or may not happen, but there is years of a few percent cheaper, few percent better baked in.
We are in a situation where, apparently, the NATO feeds of surveillance data are being sent directly to the Ukrainians - see the documentary about the AWACS flights where this was talked about, by those involved.
Or such is the volume of Western artillery being provided, that Ukraine is now prioritising getting more 105mm and 155mm artillery rounds, rather than the legacy Soviet calibres.
Putin's route to denying the objective is dig in deep and hope America loses its appetite for the whole thing - eg the politics changes over there.
Pumped hydro should just happen now. I don't think the proposed projects can meet the need but it's a start.
And attention should be switched away from wind and solar and on to tidal. May's decision on tidal should be reversed in the current circumstances. In KSA they have hot hot sun and lots of barren surface. In the UK we have lots and lots of tides. It isn't hard to decide what we should be investing in.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001gx19
Snark aside, will I be listening? Course I will, first episode anyway.
It might be awkward, but he's a competent CEO.
Boris was a charismatic CEO but incompetent, lazy and venal.
Truss was awkward and an ideological CEO - that didn't listen - and so also incompetent.
May was awkward and a competent CEO, but crap with people interpersonal.
Starmer will be boring and an administratively competent CEO but not an inspirational one or one that provides much vision
Cameron wasn't awkward or charismatic- just a fair communicator - and was an administratively competent CEO but relied on others for vision that he then took up
My point is (perhaps with the exception of Boris and Truss) is that you see CEOs like this all the time in the private sector.
The second problem is cost - pumped storage projects are full on mega projects. Dinorwig would cost something like £2 billion to build today.
Tidal has the adavtange of more locations, but again you are into the mega project stuff.
The advantage batteries have, is that they scale from zero. So you are already seeing larger and larger grid stability projects, around the world. The government quietly changed the planning rules - a few MWh of storage is exempt from a full power station style planning enquiry.
So while there are technical advantages to other forms of storage, batteries will quietly increase in usage, while the politics of infrastructure delay the others.
Especially since the charging sites for electric vehicles will, increasingly have storage as part of their systems. Locally small, but when you add up for the whole country, it will be significant.
The virtual power plant is basically just lots of distributed batteries...
The only difference, is that modern politics emphasises presentational skills over ability. In organisational senior manaement, the emphasis in on internal politics. No-one cares that much if the CEO isn't that good at public speaking.
Cameron was a better communicator than you give him credit for. I met him personally as part of a group of senior LibDem councillors, and he was charming and persuasive. It was in judgement that he was lacking, compansated for by an unfortunate excess of self-confidence.
Sunak's real problem is political; the events of last year have denuded both him and the party of political capital and left them riven with both personal and political divisions. It would take a superhero to turn things around, and I don't see any telephone box in the vicinity.
With the added bonus of creating extremely distributed infrastructure.
I think we will see a lot of storage used for vehicle charging doing stuff like this, as well.